May 6, 2007 message by Pastor Rich Doebler
Last January a young guy in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap stood inside the subway station in Washington D.C. playing Mozart and Schubert on his violin—a rare Stradivari worth over $3 million. Over the next 45 minutes, as more than 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly noticing him, 27 people stopped long enough to put $32 in his open case.
Just three days before, this same young man, Joshua Bell, had sold out Boston Symphony Hall with ordinary seats going for $100. Fame and recognition are so fickle! Turns out you can be talented, famous, successful—and still be invisible. [Gene Weingarten, "Pearls Before Breakfast," The Washington Post (4-10-07)] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw]
A lot of people feel invisible at times—the feeling that people look right through them—like they don't even exist. Feeling invisible is feeling as though you don't amount to anything—that you're missing the party. "I would have been the life of the party, but I wasn't even invited!" It's the feeling that you're on the sidelines, in the shadows—overlooked, ignored, small and unimportant.
Last week we talked about loneliness, which can hinder us from experiencing love. Loneliness has to do with lacking relationships. This week I'm looking at feeling invisible. I'm defining "invisible" as the feeling of lacking significance.
If people make you feel insignificant or invisible—understand this: You're not invisible to God! He sees you! You are his special creation. He made you. He loves you.
Eph 1:3-5,11 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ...11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
It's in our nature to want to be noticed. Human beings were made for relationships. We don't want to be ignored. We want to matter to someone. And so we spend our lives searching for significance. Trying to be noticed. One person says she has "attention deficit disorder"—because she has a deficit in the amount of attention she wants from others.
Robert S. McGee (The Search for Significance) writes about people addicted to approval. They can't feel good about themselves unless certain others approve of them.
Why do we long for approval? Why do we want to be noticed? I believe it's a distortion of something good—a God-given desire to find meaning and purpose. God has wired us with an intrinsic need to find a reason for life, but that need gets twisted: We crave attention when God wants us to seek his purpose. He wants us fulfilled—not by the approval of others—but by his approval when we answer his call.
We think we can gain recognition and fulfillment in a career or some special accomplishment, but God wants us to be fulfilled in our relationship with him. We try to get out of the shadows so we won't be overlooked or ignored, but God wants us to let his light shine in our hearts.
Jesus talked about those who tried to gain the approval of others: "Everything they do is done for men to see..." (Matt 23:5); "...They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets." (Luke 20:46) Don't be like them, Jesus said.
Jesus said, "10 ...when you are invited [to a feast], take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:10-11)
We have to be careful about false humility, though. Because we can become proud about our humility. Like the guy who got a medal for his humility—but then they had to take it away because he wore it. We can twist this principle until we're doing the opposite of what Jesus intended.
When our kids were small, they would fight about who got to sit next to the window in the car. Finally, I had had enough of the bickering and the fighting and decided to use the Bible to straighten them out. "Do you know," I said, "That Jesus wants us to give up the favorite spot for someone else? In fact, he said that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. So if you grab the window seat before your brother or your sister, you're actually last, not first." So they stopped arguing about who got the window seat...but then they argued about who got to be last. "I get the window seat on the way home—you can have it first."
God put us here on earth for a reason. And if we try to satisfy that longing with the attention of people instead of the approval of God, we'll be left feeling unfulfilled, empty, insignificant.
The truth is, if we have God, we can survive even if we feel ignored by others. However, if we have the praise and recognition of people but miss God, we will be left with a sad emptiness. We can feel invisible and insignificant despite the attention of people. We can gain the whole world and lose our soul.
So how do we overcome feelings of being invisible and insignificant?
1. Discover why God put you here. Discover what God has in mind for you. Discover your reason for being.
The amazing thing about Paul's letter to the Ephesians—it says God had his eye on you long before you were born. He had a plan and a purpose in mind for you before the foundation of the world.
Do you know what your purpose is? Do you know why God created you? Do you know why before the creation of the universe God said, "Let us make man in our own image"? In fact, you can put your own name in that verse: "Let us make _____ in our own image."
Do you know why God made you? First, God wanted to have a relationship with you. Second, God wanted you to represent him, to do good to others in his name.
God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing. (Eph 2:10, CEV)
Long before the world was even created, God had a plan for you! He wrote you into the blueprints.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. 15 You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! 16 You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book! 17,18 How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can't even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me... (Psalms 139:14-17, TLB)
2. Realize that God notices you.
People want the world to notice them; they don't want to be invisible to others. But the truth is, with God's attention, you can get along without the world's attention. You are never more noticed than when God notices you!
Remember when you were a kid on the playground? Two kids were picking their teams. If you were like me, you knew they weren't going to pick you first. You're okay with that, but whatever else happened, you certainly hoped they wouldn't pick you last.
I thought of that when I heard about the NFL draft last weekend. Brady Quinn, QB for Notre Dame, was supposed to be selected very high in the draft. But the big news for the weekend was all about how he wasn't chosen until number 22. Here was a guy who probably had been chosen first all his life, and he wasn't chosen until number 22! I cheered for all the lesser known guys who got picked ahead of the big name.
God chose you number one! He wants you on his first-string team! The Scripture says that he had you in mind from the beginning—even before the world was made he designed you and had a plan for you. He made you for a reason.
3. Remember God's choice makes you significant.
God does not choose...predestine...or adopt people who are invisible or insignificant! Eph 1:8 says he lavished his grace on us. He does not lavish his grace on no account people. He does not make his will and purpose known to people who do not matter. No! To the contrary, he loved the world so much that he gave his Son (John 3:16).
So how do we get in on God's plan? How do we get his attention? How do we find his love? Here's how NOT to find his love:
- Not by working our fingers to the bone, trying to earn his love by serving him. He loved us before we were born.
- Not by beating ourselves up, punishing ourselves so we can purge out all our sin and wickedness. He paid the price that we could never pay.
- Not by some religious quest, climbing a mountain to find a certain guru or holy man. He sent his Son looking for us—to seek and to save the lost. He is waiting for us to turn to him.
- Not by grasping for significance, trying to impress God to get his attention. You can't find significance by grasping for significance!
Conventional wisdom for finding significance is to make a splash—become a sports star, win an Oscar, write a best-selling novel, discover the cure for cancer. People think the way to be noticed is to wear flashy clothes, jewel-studded braces, orange hair, or bling-bling. People try to get attention by streaking through a stadium, jumping a ravine on a motorcycle, or driving a hot car.
God's way to significance is the opposite! Instead of fighting to be noticed, the way the world does, real significance and eternal purpose is found the opposite way. God's way seems upside-down. God's kingdom has been called the upside-down kingdom—where the way up is down...you reach the top by being humble... by going last you come in first...the way to find your life is to lose it.
One time James and John came to Jesus as asked if one could sit at his left and the other at his right when he came into his glory. They wanted a place of honor. The other disciples were quite upset when they heard about it, so Jesus taught them: "...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all." (Mark 10:43-44)—upside-down message.
James 4:10 "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up"—the upside-down message.
Rick Warren (Purpose-Driven Life), began his book with this line: "It's not about you."—it's the upside-down message! He continues:
The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That's because we typically begin at the wrong starting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose. (p 17)
It's the upside-down message. Most people think they have to build themselves up to be noticed. They think they have to gain fame or accumulate stuff to be significant. But the Bible says we begin life as significant people because we have been designed, planned, and created by God. We don't have to conquer the world to be noticed; we just need to surrender to God.
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." (Luke 9:24)
It's when you lose yourself that you find yourself. Or, to put it another way, in an upside-down sort of way: It's when you become invisible that God's purposes can be seen in you. Transparent people allow God's glory to be seen through them.
2 Cor 4:6-7 For God...made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
You may feel unnoticed by others. But God sees you! So you can find your significance and your purpose in God—not in your deeds or accomplishments; not in your possessions; not in your family status or your position.
Our purpose, our reason for living must be rooted in Jesus and in his call on our lives. Like the rest of the upside-down gospel, the thing that makes us most visible to God is our invisibility—when we surrender to him in humility and repentance. When we give him our heart and life for his purpose.