Sunday March 20, 2011 | Greg Boyd
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Most of us grew up wanting to be a superstar of some kind, whether it was an athlete, performer, or war hero. However, as we grow older, we recognize that we might be more ordinary than we thought. Yet, God wants us to know exactly how significant we are.
Think back a ways to when you were a kid. Do you remember what dreams you had of growing up? Do you remember in what ways you wanted to be a superstar? This is part of our wiring and how we were created, because God created us to be his images in this world. We were meant to shine and be significant. However, in this fallen world, we find that this purpose to shine has been warped to something called the lie of acquired significance. This lie says that we have to do something or achieve something in order to be significant, and this goes directly against what God says our significance is.
This goes back to the Garden with Adam and Eve, where the serpent deceives them into thinking that if they do something, eating from the tree, then they will be wise and, in turn, become significant compared with God. Ever since, we’ve been trying to fill the void of how to be significant in this world. We dream as children of how we’ll be significant, and by the time we reach adulthood, most of us come to the realization that we won’t do anything that is considered significant in the world’s eyes. Our “lucky break” doesn’t happen.
This realization is the crap of insignificance that happens in our lives. We feel that we don’t matter because our dreams as a child were never fulfilled. We feel like we didn’t make a difference and that we don’t matter. Where we once thought we would be a beautiful dancer, now we are a 34 year old check out clerk with a grouchy boss. Where we once thought we would get a great job and travel the world, we now are living paycheck to paycheck with no thoughts on how to get out. The crap of insignificance is a feeling of emptiness, lost opportunity, and apathy about life.
However, God’s good news says that we are significant, and it’s not something that we can acquire or achieve. It’s the truth that we already have more significance, meaning, and worth than we can possibly comprehend. It’s the truth that we’ve had that significance before we ever became Christians. While the coin was still lost, it was significant to God. It’s so significant, that he searches high and low for it, and rejoices when it is found. It’s the truth that we were meant to be superstars in a radically unique way when we receive God’s grace and reflect God’s love. This is real significance, as it is not something we achieve, but something given to us by God. Everything else falls short of this significance.
In this parable, the necklace represent something more than monetary value. It was a gift to the woman, of deep personal meaning. It represented all of her hopes and dreams, and she had to find it. We are God’s coin. We are deeply personal to God, and he has to find us. We are that significant to him. The coin does nothing to earn this significance, and neither do we. We simply are significant to God.
God does want us to get out of bondage to sin, but whether we succeed or fail, our significance doesn’t change. He wants us to get out of bondage so that we can realize who we really are and shine in that reality, but whether we succeed or fail, our significance doesn’t change. Don’t try to be a superstar, simply be the one that God already created you to be. Imagine Jesus telling you exactly who you are, and make that the benchmark of significance in your life.
(During the sermon, Greg mentioned a handout that includes a list of “I Am” statements. The list is available in the PDF version of the [Crap] Happens booklet and also as an individual download. Find both of those on our [Crap] Happens series page.)