GYC 2009: unASHAMED

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Alan & Nicole Parker: Love Me, Love Me Not

Nicole Parker

I Love Me, I Love Me Not, Part 1: Why Self-esteem Will Never Satisfy

I Love Me, I Love Me Not, Part 2: Discovering Your Worth in God’s Eyes

Healing the Hurting Heart, Part 1

Healing the Hurting Heart, Part 2

I Love Me, I Love Me Not: Summary and Question-and-answer Session

Alan Parker

Overcoming Addictions

All right, we are going to go ahead and get started here.

I know some people might have been turned away by the sign on the back door saying it was full.

Some of you may not have heard, but I was saying earlier, If you have a question you'd like to turn in, I want to hear your questions.

I realize sometimes when you've been through difficult situations, it's hard to see how general principles apply to your specific situation.

So it's fine if you want to write a specific question and say this is something that I'm wondering about or someone I know is dealing with or how do I help a person who, anything like that.

There are a bunch of pieces of paper on that table where the projector is.

You're welcome to take 1, write out your question, bring it up here.

I have some questions that people have asked me or that I know are very common questions.

And I'm going to start out with giving you a brief overview of what we've been talking about up to this point in the seminar.

Some of you I know were here for part of the sessions yesterday, only made it to 1 or 2.

So I'm gonna summarize what I talked about yesterday, and that may help jog your mind on something you go, that's what I wanted to know about.

So please feel free to turn in a question on your own piece of paper, 1 from over there, borrow a pen from somebody.

I wanna know what it is that you want and I can help hopefully show you how the Bible applies to your specific situation I don't have the answers here.

I want to make that really plain, but God has the answers He understands your situation and I guarantee the answers are in his word So we can't always eliminate all the pain from a situation, but God will help us to understand what our sinful responses are and deliver us from those so that no matter what happens, the things that happen to us can draw us closer to Christ.

Our Father in heaven, we just plead for your Holy Spirit to be with us.

I know that you have called each 1 of us out of darkness into your marvelous light and you want us to walk in the light.

You've told us the path of the just is as a shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day.

And Lord, we want our lives to shine more and more as we grow closer and closer to you.

We're changed more and more into your image.

We're here today because we wanna know how your word applies to that process of transformation.

And I pray that you will guide, that you will speak through my voice, that you will give me the wisdom that I need to reach out to every soul here, because all of us, Lord, long to be changed to be like you.

All right, how many of you were here for the first session yesterday?

All right, how many were here for the second 1?

I will give you a quick summary then that probably you'll be able to handle that and it'll help jog your memory maybe on the things that weren't clear in what I shared yesterday.

To start out with, the first presentation that I did yesterday was about the difference between worldly self-esteem and godly self-worth.

Now sometimes when somebody comes up to you and says, The problem is you need to have better self-esteem.

They may not understand that that's the word that I've used for something that's bad.

You know, maybe they mean that you need to base your understanding of your worth on the love of God for you.

But that's the godly method of building your understanding of your worth.

God wants you to know you are infinitely loved, infinitely lovable, infinitely valuable and worthwhile.

Every human being hungers for security and significance, to be loved and to be worth something.

This is our universal need, because God has created us in his image.

He wants to love and to be loved in return.

He wants to bring other people, other created beings, He wants to bring us created beings up into his image.

And we as human beings have that longing too.

We want to make a difference in the world.

We want to make the world a better place.

And if we know we're not doing it, we're inherently dissatisfied with our lives and we dislike ourselves.

Because we realize I'm not doing what I was created to do on some level of consciousness.

So God wants us to understand our worth is not based on anything we do or on anything we don't do.

The fact that you do everything right will not make God love you anymore.

Unlike your parents, who may or may not have reflected that to you, God is not influenced by, she does everything I like, now I love her, now I want to have him in my life because he doesn't hurt me anymore.

God loves us with this everlasting love based on 2 things.

We were created in the image of God and we were redeemed by the blood of Christ.

These are the 2 things that are the measures of your worth and when you struggle with feeling that you are unloved or insignificant, that you can't be secure, that you can't be worthwhile, these are the things you can go back to, the rock-solid foundation that the Bible has given to you, showing that you are loved, you are worthwhile.

That's not something that you can wrap your mind around in a quick 10 minute reading of Genesis chapter 2.

If you want a quick fix, microwave, now I'm happy, happy, joy, joy, You may find something like that.

When you go, there are lots of churches that will help you just during their song service to suddenly go from feeling unloved and unlovable to feeling wonderful.

Boy, I feel great, I feel so close to God.

But you haven't dealt with the sin issues that were standing between you and God.

The person next to you comes to that sing-song service.

They're having a violent relationship with somebody at work.

They come there feeling, I don't feel in touch with God.

And within 10 or 15 minutes, Wow, they may feel in touch with God.

That doesn't mean they're in touch with God.

And the feelings are gonna go up and down with the tide.

So when you feel close to God, it doesn't mean you're close to God.

And when you feel far from God, it doesn't mean he's far from you.

The word of God says, depend on what I say.

You can't fix that in a quick feel-good session.

The Bible is not designed for feel-good sessions.

It's designed for deep heart introspection saying I need to compare what's going on in my life to the Word of God.

And when I compare that, I see I am woefully inadequate to be what God wants me to be.

But that's okay, because that's the story of redemption.

You're not reflecting my image anymore, but I can still fix it.

The purpose of life on this earth is for us to image God.

He created Adam and Eve and Eden for the purpose of growing infinitely through all eternity, more and more into his image of love.

He can't stop loving you because love is who he is.

And so he will love you, whether you do what he wants or not.

And he will seek to transform you because that's what he does.

So it doesn't matter how bad you are, how much you've messed up, how messed up your childhood is and it wasn't even your fault.

God can still take those things and turn them into tools for good.

The fact that Adam and Eve fell is not just going to be something that God says, well, we'll cover it over somehow and we can still make the universe a happy place.

Actually, because of the fall into sin, the universe will see the love of God and his character revealed in a way they never could have before.

So not just in spite of sin, but actually because of sin, God's love will be revealed to the universe in a deeper way.

Series

Alan & Nicole Parker: Love Me, Love Me Not

I Love Me, I Love Me Not: Summary and Question-and-answer Session

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

For Women Only: Living a Life of Significance

3. Startlingly Clean in a Grimy World

1h

Biblically Correct: How to be Male in the 21st Century

4. Addicted to Purity in a Pornographic World, Part 2

1h

Eric Walsh: Rumbles in the Mind

The Addiction Culture

1h 23m

By Beholding: The Mind-Shaping Influences of Media and Entertainment

Sex, Lies and Videotapes

49m

The War for Your Mind

01 The Real Cost of Social Media

49m

Morning Devotional

Laughing Out Loud

1h 1m

Mark Howard: White Out? Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

The Inspiration of Herman Who? Part II

58m

Holy Sexuality

6. Q&A Session

44m

Abused: Bruised but Not Broken

Q&A Part 1

1h 1m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Law, the Sabbath and Worship in the End-time Crisis

06-Danger Signals, Part 2

1h 10m

Overcoming Escapism: The Life and Death Battle For Your Mind

Overcoming Escapism- Part 2

50m

Breakout Session

Homosexuality and the Church with Michael Carducci Part 1

48m

Sound Doctrine