Uncomplicate Your Worth | Jud Wilhite

Well, what an amazing time of worship, man, that was so awesome. We want to give a huge shout out to all the men and women that are joining us in prison facilities with our partnership with God Behind Bars and the Pando app. Yes, we are so glad that you're here with us today. Well, now is the perfect time to pull out your Central Church app, download it if you haven't already, and under our experience tab, you can follow along with our teaching notes. Pastor Judd, as he continues in our series, Uncomplicated. All right, all right. Welcome everybody. Great to have you here with us today. I want to say a special shout out to our Central family locations. I want to welcome Central Summerlin, Central Aliante, Kingman, and Sunrise Mountain. Let's give it up for them. We love you guys. Glad you're with us today. Hey, who are my clean freaks? Cross our locations. If I have some clean freaks, yeah, let it be known. All right, all right. You know, it's exhausting being a clean freak, isn't it? Like no matter how hard we work, because I'm one of you, no matter how hard we try, things are just always getting dirty. It's like all of life is coming against us all the time. Soon as you get the backyard cleaned up, boom, a breeze blows through that's like 700 miles an hour and there's leaves everywhere and you get everything dusted off and it does the sludge rain all over everything. It's just constant never ending. And I had this moment recently where I walked in from the backyard. I'd been cleaning.

Come on, somebody. And I walked into the kitchen, which was clean, and I walked around the kitchen island and kind of took care of some things and then I walked into the living room and I sat down on the couch. And when I sat down on the couch, I just put my leg up, you know, like you do, like just kind of sitting there. And all of a sudden I smelled something that wasn't great. And I looked down and there was a huge blob of dog poo right there on my shoe. I had stepped in the poo outside and then I had tracked it inside. And so I took my shoe off as a clean freak, thoroughly grossed out now, right? I took my shoe off and I'm thinking, I'm going to clean this. And I stand up only to realize I had left tracks every step I took. There was poo all over the dining room and then the living room and around the kitchen island. I mean, I have a small, we have a small little French bulldog. How does she produce that much mess? I spread it all over everywhere and then I had to spend the next half hour down on my hands and knees, scrubbing it all up, saying her name in very bitter tones under my breath, my dog's name, getting it all cleaned up. But that's the thing. Like that mess just followed me everywhere I went. And I'll tell you that story because we're going to talk about uncomplicating our worth today. And to do that, I think we need to talk about shame and guilt. Two of the primary things that we often carry around with us. I don't know what kind of shame or guilt you may feel. Maybe it was from something in the past. Maybe it was something you said or did. Maybe it was a relationship that went wrong. Maybe, you know, just the worst part of you came out in a season in your life.

But we all know what it is to carry not only guilt for things we've done wrong, but also shame, which kind of gets at this deeper thing. Like I'm unlovable. I'm not worthy. I'll never be good enough. It starts showing up in our life. Like God can't use me. God will never forgive me. God is for you, but I'm not sure he's for me, right? Shame starts showing up in all kinds of ways because what happens is when you've stepped in it in your past, then you carry it around with you and you don't realize you're tracking it all over the kitchen. Come on, somebody. You brought all that past junk and stuff in and it's following you. And here's why it's so important. Look, I came out of addiction a lifetime ago, 30 something years ago, and by the grace of God, right? And I only tell you that if you're new here, just so you know, I'm no better than anybody else. I'm just another guy that God has redeemed. And you're in a room full and a church full of people where God has redeemed those people, right? But one of my biggest struggles in life has been feeling like I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. I'll never measure up. And then God somehow opened all these doors for me through education and experience and years to be a pastor. And that's messed with my head for decades. Like I'm really not good enough to be a pastor. You guys know that, right?

Like I'm really, God, I'm really not qualified, you know, to do all that. What am I doing? And by the grace of God and by his kindness and his mercy, he has helped me over the years grow into myself. my true identity as a follower of Jesus. And I wanna encourage you, because some of you right now, you're carrying shame and guilt around as a follower of Jesus, and it's become a limiting belief in your life. It's holding you back from how God wants to use you, from what God can do through you, from the ways God can move in your life. It's affecting how you're parenting your kids. Look, if you believe you're nobody, that's gonna affect how you parent your kids. If you believe you can never change, you can never be forgiven, that's gonna affect how you relate to a loved one in your life, or in a marriage relationship. It follows us around. We track the shame and guilt through our lives. And the good news today is, Jesus wants to come in and clean all those tracks up, and help us stand again in our true identity, and in our true worth. And so I wanna talk about uncomplicating your worth, letting go of that shame and that guilt, and receiving who the Bible says you are,

and living in it and walking in it today. John chapter 14, somebody's excited already. I received that, thank you, that's good. We're off to a good start. John chapter 14, Jesus is in what's known as his final discourse. He's walking along with his disciples. This is right before he's arrested, and then goes through a trial, and ultimately is crucified. And he's talking with them. And in John 14 verse 18, look at what he says. If you'll say the red word out loud here with me. But Jesus says this. He says, no, I will not abandon you as orphans. I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will what? Live. Jesus is saying, listen, I'm not gonna abandon you. He's kinda prepping his disciples. Things are about to go crazy, right? He knows he's gonna be arrested. He knows he's gonna be crucified. But he's like, I'm not gonna abandon you, because I'm gonna live, you're going to live. Because I'm going ahead, you can follow. And so for us in our lives today, these words are equally relevant.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can walk in newness of life. In fact, Jesus doesn't just wanna forgive your past. He wants to literally give you a new life that you can walk in in your life. And so to uncomplicate your worth, my first challenge is you gotta receive your true identity. You gotta receive your true identity. Now my daughter, she's trying to keep her parents connected. And so she made a playlist recently of the most current modern worship songs. I think she's just real concerned that we're gonna age out in every way. And so she put this whole thing together and it's like new worship songs for, you know, she didn't put for old people, but that was the, right, that's the implication. Here's the new worship songs, right? So we pull it up in the car and we start playing the new worship songs, the current worship songs, you know, the stuff the kids are listening to. And I'm like, we start playing it and I'm like, ♪ Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. ♪ I'm like, that song's like 30 years old, huh? There's any old believers in here, you know what I'm talking about. I'm like, wow, man, I played that song on acoustic guitar and my wife sang it to college students

back when the Cowboys were winning Super Bowls. You know, like a long time ago, right? And then I, so I'm like, that's not new. She just doesn't, they've just not heard it, right? It's new to them, right? This is ancient, right? Then we get to the next song and it's like, this is the air I breathe. I'm like, that song's like 30 years old. You know, I'm waiting for a shout to the Lord to start coming out. I'm like, you know, anyway, I'm listening to these playlists and my daughter just doesn't know. She thinks these are the coolest songs ever. They're brand new, all the fresh groups are doing them. I'm like, great, man. If you live long enough, you become cool again. That's what I'm realizing. You just gotta stay around. It's like, it's all coming back. I mean, we sang the doxology in worship now with modern-like music, but it's wild. So the old is new again, right? And that's cool. But here's the thing, like, playlists are these organization of songs that we listen to again and again. And the truth is we all have them in our heads. We have our own playlist. When I was a kid growing up, we had cassette tapes.

We didn't use playlists, right? We made mix tapes, you know, where you took a blank tape and then you took like a tape with music on it and you queued a song up and you hit play on that song and you record it onto the blank tape. You recorded one song, then you stopped everything and you took the cassette out and then you dug through all your other cassettes. You got the cassette you wanted. You fast forward and rewind, fast forward, rewind, finally get the song queued up. Then you finally like, boom, you hit record on this tape. You put the second song on, then you take that cassette tape out and you look around and you find the next song and then you get it all queued. I mean, this could be a whole weekend project, right? It was a big deal. He said, why do you go through all that trouble? Because then you walk up to junior high and you find that girl you like and you're like, hey, yo, I made you a mixtape. That's it at all, man, that was it, it was game on. The thing is, we don't have mixtapes anymore, we have playlists, but those playlists represent these songs in a certain order. Do you know research says that about 90% of our thoughts today are the same thoughts we had yesterday? I blew some young man's mind just now.

Like, we play the same thoughts again and again, but here's the challenge, when shame and guilt have a stronghold in your life, when you're tracking the mess around everywhere you go, that means a huge portion of that 90% of thoughts that you're having today that were the same as yesterday are self-defeating, self-limiting, not God-honoring kinds of thoughts. They sound like this. You'll never amount to anything. You're never gonna succeed. You're nobody. You'll never be enough. You're too big. You're too little. You're too weird. You're no good. You're dumb. You're just like your mother. You're just like your father. You're never gonna break through. Nobody's ever gonna listen to you. Nobody's ever gonna love you. Things will never change. And these songs, these phrases, they play over and over and over, and the past becomes a prison that keeps you from moving into the future God has for you. You keep tracking in the mess, and God is challenging us through Scripture

to realize we can walk in a different identity. We have a different playlist, if you will. We just have to receive it. Look at what he says in John 14, 27. Jesus says, I am leaving you with a gift. What? Peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. He says, I'm giving you the gift of peace, and the world can't give it. Now, a lot of people try to get peace from the world, right? Try to get peace through accomplishment. Try to get to peace through success. You try to get to peace through relationships and through love and through all these different things, but Jesus says, this is a peace that only I can give. I can give you true peace, and it's from the inside out, and we receive it as a gift based on his love and what he has done for us. We gotta get a new playlist going in our hearts and in our minds that is aligned with the identity that God has given us. One of my favorite verses is this, Romans 9, 25, God speaking. He says, I'll call nobodies and make them what? Somebodies. I'll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they called out your nobody, they're calling you God's living children. God is in the business of calling nobodies

and making them somebodies. You have a new playlist, and that playlist says you are loved, you are empowered, you are forgiven, you are free in Jesus Christ, you are called and chosen, you are redeemed, restored, you're made new. You're not the sum total of what others have said about you. You're not the sum total of what your enemies have said about you. Look, you're not even the sum total of what you've said about yourself. Your opinion is no longer primary. Thank you very much. You are who God says you are. And when you read through the New Testament of the Bible, God calls us so many powerful things. In fact, here's a partial list of the things the New Testament says that you are. It says that you are literally Jesus' followers. You are Jesus' friends. You are children of God. You are children of light. You are members of God's family. You are holy and blameless, standing before God without a single fault. You are God's people. You're the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the branches that bear fruit. You're God's field, you're his building. You're living stones in God's temple.

You're holy priests. Look, you're a holy priest, you're a holy nation, you're a chosen people. You're God's workers, Christ's ambassadors, you're true ministers of God, united with Christ. You are part of his body, living by the Spirit right now. You're God's masterpiece. You're called the faithful ones. You are meant for better things, receiving a kingdom that is unshakable. You are looking forward to a home that is yet to come. You are heirs to God, of God's glory. You are set free from slavery to sin. You are truly free. And here's the thing, if you wanna change your choices in your life, you gotta change the voices that are playing on the playlist in your head. Remember who God says you are. And hold your head held high and walk in it. That's God's mixtape, that's his playlist. And he spent time on it and communicated it through his word in so many ways. And Jesus came and lived and died and rose again so that we could walk in it and experience it. So you gotta receive your true identity. Secondly then, you gotta walk in your true value. Gotta walk in your true value. Now my wife loves flea markets, thrift stores. Who am I thrifting?

Any thrifting people? Golly. She's all about it. And we have very different experiences. So I'll go with her because I love her, right? And we go in these places and everywhere she sees jewels, I see junk, right? She sees treasure, I see trash. But recently, it finally paid. Like usually she'll come home and she'll be like, oh my gosh, Judd, I got this thing. One time she came home, I got this lamp, got it for $10 and I looked it up online and it's worth $1,000, wow. And I literally said, are you gonna sell it? She said, no. And I said, so I just lost $10. That's what that was all about. That didn't go well, by the way. But she's been on me for a while. We've been talking about how like our bedroom furniture has in our bedroom has been around for years and years and years forever. And like the bedside table, she's like, I wanna replace these tables and maybe we should get a different bed. And we've been like going back and forth. Oh, a couple of years we've been talking about this, right? And I've just been like stall, delay, deny, shock jive. And then she came home recently and she goes,

Judd, look at what I found. And they were these nasty looking lamps, $15. And I'm like, great, good for you. Then she took them out in the backyard, she painted them black. And then she went upstairs and she put them on each side of our bed, okay. And she goes, come look, come look at these lamps. And I walked in and I said, yeah, they look great. And she goes, I think they make our bedside table I'm like, yes. She goes, in fact, I think everything works now because of these lamps. The bedside tables are just perfect. The bed is great. We don't need anything else. We got these two lamps. I'm thinking, I'm doing the math, 15 bucks, 30 bucks. Oh my gosh, you're telling me for 30 bucks, I got a whole bedroom suite. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I got a whole bedroom suite right here. All of a sudden I'm like, you go thrifting, honey.

Get it done. She's all about it. But like, the thing is, she says, she says like when she goes thrifting, she looks things up online. Any of you thrifters do this? She gets her phone out and she's like, how much is that worth? She wants to know two things. Who made it, right? If it's art or whatever. And then how much, you know, are people paying for it? Not like how much are they asking for it, but how much are people actually willing to pay for this item? Because that determines value. Value is fundamentally determined by what somebody's willing to pay for it, right? And what's interesting is when you think about our value as human beings, it's set ultimately by who created us, right? And by how much that individual being was willing to pay. God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, we are made in His image. He created us. Male and female, Genesis says, we're created to follow Him, know Him, worship Him. We are His creation. And He paid the price of His son, Jesus Christ, who would go to the cross and die for us,

which tells us our value is enormous. We can not only receive that new identity, we can walk in that new identity. Look at what Jesus says to His followers in John 14, beginning of verse 15. He says, if you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another, what? Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive Him because it isn't looking for Him and doesn't recognize Him. But you know Him because He lives with you now and later will be in you. Jesus is saying, listen, part of your new identity is the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. He uses this word, He calls Him the advocate. The word in the original language is the word paraclete. It's literally what the word is, paraclete. It's multifaceted. It can mean helper, comforter, encourager, teacher, defender, guide, right? This is who the Holy Spirit is. The literal translation. is this, one who comes alongside. Jesus says, even though I may be going away in body, the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within you. He's gonna come alongside you. He's gonna walk with you and sustain you. In fact, one of my favorite explanations

of the word paraclete comes from this ancient cultural practice of the day, when some families would keep an attorney on retainer in case they got in any kind of trouble. And so this attorney then would defend and represent members of this family in different situations that could have been potentially overwhelming. And so they would be called on to lend expertise and support, literally to plead a case before the authorities. Jesus is saying, I'm sending the Holy Spirit, your advocate, your defender, who's gonna come alongside you, and he will defend you and plead your case for you. Right, he will stand with you. I did a little search of all the things the Bible says the Holy Spirit does in our lives, and here's what it says. It says, the Holy Spirit empowers you to love. The Holy Spirit reveals the deep things of God. He enables you to declare Jesus is Lord. He distributes gifts to those who believe. He unifies the church. He brings freedom. He gives you access to the Father. He strengthens you with power in your inner being. He makes you righteous and holy. He sets you apart as a child of God, and he builds you into the person you're meant to be.

He empowers you to speak the good news to others. He gives you the energy to accomplish things that matter. He helps you understand and recall the teachings of Jesus. He leads and directs you in serving God. The Holy Spirit has said to comfort you, to fill you with joy, to fill you with hope, to give you discernment, to compel you to act. He pours the love of God into your heart. He helps you in your weakness. He prays for you when you don't know how to pray. He pleads your case before God. He's your advocate, your helper, your defense attorney, a down payment on heaven, and the presence of power of God living within you. That's who the Holy Spirit is. And so when it comes to our identity, when it comes to dealing with shame and guilt and all this stuff that we carry around, first we have to realize we gotta let go of some of that old way of thinking and allow God and who he says we are to get planted into our hearts. We have to receive that new identity. And then we walk in it. How do we walk in it? We lean on God's spirit to help us and to guide us. How do we do that? Well, Ephesians chapter five, this beautiful passage in the New Testament, the apostle Paul tells us how we can be filled

with God's spirit. See, I think the summary of the biblical teaching is this. When you become a follower of Jesus, when you first believe, maybe you pray a prayer, maybe you raise your hand, maybe a friend leads you in a prayer, maybe you're alone at night on your own and you get on your knees or you just sort of mentally connect with God and pray for the first time, when you believe and receive him into your life, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within you. And the Bible says we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. And that sealing is like once and forever. And I believe once you're sealed, you're sealed. Right? But the interesting thing is you can be sealed, but you still have to be filled every day. Some of you right now are sealed with the Holy Spirit because you believe, but you're exhausted and you're worn out and you're dry spiritually and you're tired. And it's not just because you're chasing your kids every day. That may be part of it, but it's also because you're not exposing yourself regularly to things that will fill you each day with God's spirit. He's there, he's available, he's within you, but you gotta be filled. And so Ephesians 5, 18, look at this.

Paul says this, he says, be what? Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Why do we have to be filled? Because we leak. Hello. Singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts and give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and further submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. He's basically giving us a roadmap for how to be filled with the Spirit. And let's bring it up. The first thing he says, if you wanna be filled with the Spirit, he says, sing together. Sing together. We read it. He says, sing. Why do we come to church and lift our voices? Why do we gather and sing? Somebody's like, oh, I don't know, I'm not really a singer, you know, I just like stand there and just kinda look around. You know, and these people, they like raise their hand, that's weird. It's weird. Yeah, bro, but you go to a Raiders game and you got your hands up in the air

and you're clapping the whole game. It's not that weird. Come on. on somebody, you know, you watch a game on TV and you got your fists in the air, you're swinging, clapping, saying some other things. Why do we come together and sing? Because when we sing and when we lift our hands, you know what we're doing? We're being filled with God's spirit. We may already have his spirit, but it's we're being filled up with the things of God. It's it gives us the strength to keep going and to push through. Can I tell you how many times? I can't count the times I've come into church exhausted and worn out and tired and just through singing and just lifting my voice and I don't have a great singing voice. It's kind of like mumbling. Right. But you get filled even in that moment, right? Let the great people around us sing. By the way, if you're ever wondering, why is it kind of loud at Central? Why is the music loud? So you can sing and not have to worry about everybody around you hearing you. You're welcome. Next time somebody's like, oh man, it's too loud. Just think you can belt it out and nobody around you knows. They don't look at you like, hey, whoa, that was way off. You're like, you're not only, you're not even in the same octave here is the whole thing. We sing together. That's why we do worship nights. I'm so excited. This Wednesday night at our Henderson location, 7 p.m., we're going to have an amazing night of worship and we'll sing till we're exhausted. But it's a way that we get filled with God's Spirit. It keeps us going. Another thing that we read in Ephesians about being filled

with the Spirit is, I'll put it this way, just replace your playlist. He says, he says, make music in your heart to the Lord and I think what he's getting at is literally like focus your thoughts. Control your thoughts. Think about who God says you are. Think about what God is doing in your life, who he says you are and let that playlist, that new playlist take root in your life and just let it play again and again and again. And then thirdly, he says, give thanks. You know, just giving thanks to God, waking up in the morning, thanking him for all that he's done in your life, going through your day, pausing to thank him. It's one of the ways we're filled with the Spirit. Then he says, we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. What does that mean? We have a serving attitude towards each other. We're willing to come in and say, how can I help you? How can I serve you? And so just by having that attitude, you're making room for God's Spirit to fill you. So Paul says in Ephesians 5, sing together, replace your playlist, like focus your thoughts in your life and begin to serve one another, submit to one another, give thanks and God will show up in that in a powerful way. Every day we face a choice. What will we believe about ourselves? And how will this affect our own life? See, if you believe something deeply enough, you will live in such a way to prove that you were right. Right? For instance, every time you feel like you're all alone in your problems, rather than just bottling it up and trying to deal with it all in your own strength and power, remember that God is with you. Walk in that new identity of who God says you are. He's under you, above you, ahead of you, behind you. He's all around you. When you feel condemned by your past

or you feel worthless because you keep getting tripped up in the same sin patterns, in the same habits, remember, as the Bible says, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Listen, when you feel overwhelmed with the size of your problems or if with your own lack of strength, remember the promise that God will send His Spirit, that He will be strong when you feel weak, that when you feel like there isn't enough to go around, money, time, energy, resources, whatever, remember that God is enough and He can bless and work in your life. You can walk in your new identity. And so every week we face a choice. Are we going to keep tracking it in? The past, the sin, the shame, the guilt, or are we going to start walking in the new identity of who God says we are? You go to work tomorrow and you act like you're somebody that's loved and chosen and valued and empowered and equipped, that has a mission and a purpose. You're going to interact with people differently. You're going to see your situation differently. When you start hearing all those voices in your mind telling you you're nothing, you remind those voices, you speak God's Word back to it and you remind them that you are actually loved and empowered by a God who is good and moving and working in your life. Push back on it. Walk in your new identity and let God move in that as you do. You have a new playlist. We have a new playlist, play it every day, because Jesus doesn't just forgive your past, he gives you a new life. You just have to walk in it. Walk in it. And we wanna help you do that.

We have an amazing opportunity coming up in just a few weeks called Rooted. And Rooted is gonna be this incredible experience where we as a church are gonna go on a journey and experience together. We get to know some people, we have some fun, but we also experience more about God and who he is and who he says we are. And I'm so excited about it. It's gonna run primarily on Wednesday nights, beginning September 16th, starting at 6.30 p.m. across our different locations. We will have some alternative times for people. There'll be some online options as well. But I wanna encourage you, after our experience is over, go out to the lobby at your location, ask somebody about Rooted. There'll be people around. We'd love to answer questions, maybe help you get signed up. I really encourage you, if you've got the margin and the ability, step in in this season and let God show up and lead you and work in your life as you do. Maybe you're here today and maybe you've never crossed that line of faith and I wanna give you that opportunity. So would all of you bow your heads and close your eyes. And if God's tapping you on the shoulder, if he's calling you to come home to him, I'd love to lead you in a simple prayer

just to open your heart to him today. And you just repeat after me, either out loud or just in your own heart and mind. And just say, dear God, I thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus into the world. I believe he died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me for my sins. Give me the gift of eternal life. Help me face the challenges I'm up against. God, I surrender my life to you in Christ's name. And friends, with every head bowed and every eye closed, if that's your prayer today, if it's your commitment, I wanna ask you to just slip your hand in the air. Whatever location you may be at, if you're watching online, just slip your hand in the air. Acknowledge you're gonna trust him. You're gonna follow him in your life today. God, I pray for each person reaching out to you. I pray that you remind them they have a new identity. Fill them with your spirit. Give them all the good gifts that come from walking with you and knowing you. And God, we pray that they'll just experience you every day going forward in more and more powerful ways. We thank you for them and we commit them to you now in Christ's name, amen. Amen, let's put our hands together for those who made spiritual commitments

in their life today. If you made a spiritual commitment across our locations, I wanna encourage you, just go out to our new to central area. Let them know you made a spiritual commitment. We'd love to put some resources in your hands that'll be helpful to you as you follow God in your life. Well, would all of you stand together with me? Let's give it up for all of our location pastors. It'll be closing out those experiences.