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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Hey everyone, and welcome to Christ
Community Chapel and our weekend service.
My name is Jamie,
I'm a pastor here at the church,
and it is my privilege to welcome you
not only to our weekend service,
but the first week of what
we are calling our Summer of More.
And I mean looking around this room,
this is amazing,
but we have so many amazing
things planned for you guys as we are
doing some renovations in our sanctuary
to make room for more people.
We are in the middle of our Proverbs
series, more wisdom for more life.
And tonight we're going
to be talking about reputation,
which is something
I think that probably hits all of us.
I think all of us, at some point,
some moment in our life, we've asked
a question about who we are
and how we can know
that we are good enough. And that's what
we're going to be talking about.
And so if you want to join me,
our church Bibles,
the passage is on page 514,
so it's easy for you to find,
but we're going to be in Proverbs
22:1 and 2.
They see this.
A good name is to be chosen
rather than great riches
and favor is better than silver or gold.
The rich and poor meet together;
and the Lord
is the maker of them all and all.
I'm going to hold out my outline so you can follow
along with where we're going.
The three points.
The first one
is going to be the value of a name.
Then the second point is
what makes a name good.
And then the third point
is the cost of a good name.
So the value of a name,
what makes a name good,
and the cost of a good name.
And so the value of a name.
Actually, just this week
I ended up having a conversation
with my kids
about the meanings of their name.
And I know you might be asking yourself
this is suspect.
Pastor is preaching a message
on having a good name, and he happens
to have a conversation with his kids
that he references in his sermon.
But I promise you,
it was completely honest.
We were watching the new animated movie
David and my youngest daughter
turns to me after it
and she says, daddy, did you name brother?
And my son's name is Jonathan.
She says, did you name brother after
Jonathan, who was the friend of David?
I said, yeah, I did.
I named him after Jonathan because I love
Jonathan, the friend of David.
And by naming our son that I wanted
some of who
Jonathan is to be part of his character.
And so we had a conversation with my kids
about the meanings of all of their names,
and they soaked it up.
They were locked in
because I think even as kids,
they are interested in who they are.
And somehow in that conversation,
they had a clearer picture
of who I dreamed that they might be.
You know, more important
even than the name that were given,
I think, is the name that we earn.
And that's really what a reputation is.
A reputation is the name that we earn.
And I think
it might even be more important
because when I named my son Jonathan,
that was an aspirational name.
That is something I wanted for him.
But as he grows up into a man, he's
going to have his own reputation
that he makes,
and that's going to be more true of him.
And I think that's a little bit of what
Shakespeare was alluding to when he said
a rose by any other name
would still smell as sweet.
So it doesn't matter what you say it
is, it's what it really is that matters.
It's substance.
And that's what a reputation is.
A reputation is who we really are.
And reputations are so significant.
They drive so much of our life
not only at a large existential level,
but also just
in the everyday facets of our life.
And so I'll share this brief way
that you can also get to know
me a little bit better.
I'm a part of Team Subaru.
Hey, I have a blue Subaru Forester,
and my unique brand of Subaru Forester
happens to have a two by four roof
rack that I built myself
because I'm incredibly cheap.
And so if you've ever been driving
and have been cut off by a blue Subaru
Forester with two by fours on top of it,
that was probably me.
It's going to be really hard
to convince you that there's
another one of those out there.
So I chose to get that
because I live in Northeast Ohio.
Like I would imagine
a number of you guys do.
And we have this thing called winter.
And Subaru's have a reputation
for being incredibly reliable vehicles,
but also being great in the snow, great
driving
through mixed conditions
and things like that.
And so that drove the choice
of what I buy.
Reputations drive so many of our choices,
almost all of them.
I would bet.
That's why one of the first things we look
at when we buy something is the brand.
Because a brand says
something about that product,
and if we're not sure about a product,
what do we do?
We look to the reviews for that product
and what our reviews,
if not the reputation of that product
in the eyes of people who have bought it.
And so reputations drive
so much of our lives.
They are so important.
And so it should not be a surprise
when Proverbs says to you and I that
your reputation is so valuable
that it is
the most important thing in your life.
That's what it means in verse one
when it says, A good name is to be chosen
rather than great riches
and favor is better than silver or gold,
because gold and silver and great
riches are the most
valuable things
that really we can imagine.
And this is saying that a good name,
a reputation is more valuable than them.
It should be chosen over them.
And I think that even deeper, more
than just it being really valuable,
I think that riches and gold and silver
represent the things that we work for.
Is anyone in this room has a job, knows
that you have a job to get a paycheck,
and if the paycheck stops coming
in, then you find another place
to work to give you one.
So when this says it's to be chosen over
great riches, it's saying
that it's to be chosen over anything else
in our life that we could work for.
And so this is asking us a question.
It's saying,
what are we working for in our life?
What are we trying to build our life on?
And it's suggesting that the answer to
that question should be a good name.
And that leads to the question then
so what makes a name good?
And that is my second point.
And so another way of asking this question
what makes a name good is saying
who or where do we turn to know
if our name or our life is good?
Because remember, a reputation.
A name is who we are.
Who do we turn to to
look back at us and say, well done, good.
And I think that
there are a couple of places
we can turn and get a little bit mixed up
on this, and I want to start there.
The first is we can turn to other people,
we can look to them.
And I think that this is exhausting
because it's a life of performance.
It is a life of trying to curate
your image so you look just the right way.
It's adapting and reacting to other people
based upon their opinions,
and it is turning over the wheel to them
and wherever they lead you, you follow.
And I admit, this
is going to be a bit of a weird segue,
but that reminded me of my honeymoon.
And on my honeymoon, my wife and I,
we got to spend some time riding jet skis,
and what I would tell you,
I learned 16 years ago, is that I hate
riding on the back of a jet ski,
because when you're riding on the back
of a jet ski and not driving it,
you are constantly reacting to the person
who's driving.
You are shifting your weight
as they make a turn.
You're trying to anticipate
even where they are turning,
and you know that
if you don't get it right,
you are likely to get thrown off
of this thing and into the lake.
I think that chasing the approval
and favor
the reputation of other people is a lot
like that.
You are constantly living your life,
looking at what they want,
trying to react to it,
trying to anticipate it, and know that one
small false move
can lead to losing everything.
I think chasing a good name
in the reputation of other people,
it doesn't work.
And so maybe some of us will say, yeah,
I learned that lesson.
I stopped caring
what other people think a long time ago.
I just do what I think is right.
And here's what I tell you.
Trying to find your name
and your reputation in yourself.
I don't think that that works.
Either, because I think
that you're still performing.
You are just performing for yourself.
You have become the judge.
I think anybody who spent any time alone
with their own thoughts knows just how
harsh a critic that we can be of ourselves
when we are honest.
Most of us know that we don't measure up
to our own standards.
Most of us wish that we were
somebody different than we are.
Psychologists will say that the two
most important desires
in a person's
life are to be known and to be loved.
Now that leads
to one of our deepest fears,
because we sense that
if somebody really knew me,
if they knew everything, if they knew
every thought that I've had, every desire
that I've had
and they could never love me.
And the problem with being your own judge
is that no one knows you quite like you.
And so as we move
from chasing our approval in others
to trying to find it in ourself,
we trade an exhausting voice
of performance for a crushing voice
of trying to be our own judge.
Neither of those work.
So we're left to wonder where do we turn?
Proverbs 22 does not leave us hanging.
It points us in the right direction.
And so the second verse says this the rich
and the poor meet together.
The Lord is the maker of them all.
So all of us, wherever you are at, rich,
poor, it does not matter your status.
We all stand in the same place
longing for a good name.
And where does it direct us to turn?
It's not to others, it's not to ourselves.
It's to the God who made us,
the one who made us and knows us best.
If that is where we should turn.
It's not that we should never care
about what other people think of us.
And it's not that we should never reflect
on what we think about ourselves.
But neither of those two things are stable
enough to build a life on.
Neither of those two are able to be
the foundation that we crave and need.
Only the Lord who made us
is able to be that.
And so I want to talk about
building a life for a little bit.
I have renovated approximately.
I don't know, 1.7 homes in my life.
I'm in the midst of it.
If you can't tell,
that's the fraction there.
My kids have lived on subfloor
for the majority of their lives,
and I have learned a
thing or two about building.
My wife has
learned a lot of patience along the way,
but I've learned a couple of things.
And so I think most homes are built
at three layers.
You have the finishing of a home,
and that's the stuff
on the surface that you can see.
It's the paint on the walls.
It's the choice of whether you have carpet
or hardwood floor.
It's the light fixtures,
it's all the stuff you see.
And I think that that can be thought
of as our reputation to others.
It's what people see in our life
when they look at us.
But you go beneath the surface
a little bit
and you have the framing of the house.
You have the two by fours in the wall,
you have the joists in the floor.
See, I know what I'm talking about.
You have subfloor, you have electrical,
plumbing and things like that.
It's below the surface.
It's harder to see and it holds it all up.
And that's like the way that we see
ourselves.
That's our relationship
and our reputation with ourselves.
But beneath
all of that is the most important level.
And that's the foundation of a home.
It's what it's built on, and that is our
reputation and our relationship with God.
It's what God would say about us
if asked whether our life is good or not.
And so it's not that paying attention to
the finishing is wrong or bad.
It's not that caring
about the structural integrity
of the framing of a house is bad,
but I would say that
if the foundation is cracked and broken,
if it is busted and sinking
and maybe was never built correctly
in the first place,
no amount of nails in the framing
and no number of coats of paint
on the wall can stop the cracks
from coming back again and again.
As the house is sinking,
they're just going to show back up.
And I would even say that to worry
about the color of paint
on the walls in a sinking
house is just insanity.
And yet I think that that's
what a lot of us, myself
very much included, have a tendency to do.
That's what it's like trying to find
a name in other people instead of God.
But if we turn to him,
I think that we can have the kind of life
that we are made for.
So that leads to a question
what makes God look at people
like you and I and say, good.
And so my third point,
the cost of a good name.
You know that question what makes God
look at somebody and say, well done.
What makes God look at somebody
and say that their life is good?
I think is
one of the most important questions
that a person can ask themselves.
And we are going to look at a conversation
that Jesus has
with a crowd of people
when somebody asks him a similar question.
And so in John six,
if you want to look it up later,
Jesus has just fed the 5000.
He has gone over
to the other side of the lake.
The crowd that was with him
there, they have followed him around
and somebody asks Jesus this question.
They say, what must
we be doing to be doing the work of God?
What must
we be doing to be doing the work of God?
I think another way of saying that is,
what do we need to be doing to have favor
with God?
What kind of life do
we need to be living in order for God
to look at us and say,
well done, this is good.
And I think that Jesus response
is noteworthy
as much for what he doesn't say
as what he does.
And so first, what he doesn't say.
Jesus doesn't give a long list
of instructions and rules and regulations
for how you and I can earn
a good name with God.
He doesn't say, do this, do this, do this,
don't do this,
never do that, always do this.
And don't even think about doing that.
That's that's not what he says
in a beautifully simple way.
Jesus says one sentence.
He says, this is the work of God
that you would believe
in, the one
he sent the work of God for you.
And I is to believe in the one he sent.
The only thing that would cause God
to look as someone like you and I and say,
well done, is that we would believe
in the one he sent.
And so I think that there are two costs
that we can draw
out, two costs of a good name
that we can see,
one of them is paid by God,
and the other is paid by us.
The one that is paid by God is Jesus life.
The cost of a good name is Jesus life
because he is the one that was sent.
He is the one who was sent to live
a perfect life that we failed to live
and can never hope to live.
He is the one who is sent to give his life
on a cross, to die
the death that we deserved.
He's the one who came back and invites us
to follow him into new life.
See, the hope of the gospel
is not a reputation improvement plan.
The hope of the gospel is a reputation
exchange.
It's that God would look at people
like you and I
and he would say,
I will take your sinful reputation
and give it to another, and I will give
his perfect reputation to you.
And I want to look at a verse
in second Corinthians 521.
It's going to come up on the screen
and I want to read it with you.
It says, for our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God.
This says, for our sake or for our good,
he made him to be sin who knew no sin.
So though Jesus was perfect, he took
all of our broken reputation on himself.
And then it says
that in him we might become
the righteousness of God, and we become
that as his perfect reputation
and righteousness
is counted towards us,
the cost of a good name
in the eyes of God
is the life of Jesus poured out for us.
But how can we take hold of that?
That's my second cost.
It's the one that's paid for by us.
The cost is belief.
Jesus says you believe
in the one that he sent.
It's trust.
And I think that trust and belief,
they always show up through choice.
You and I, we will choose the thing
that we put our trust
into over everything else.
And so Jesus is saying that
we should believe in the one whom he sent.
We should put our trust
in the one whom he sent,
and we should choose
the one whom he sent above all others.
And this is where we come
back to the Proverbs verse.
Because Proverbs talks a lot about choice,
it says that a great name is to be chosen
rather than great riches.
And it says that favor
is better than silver or gold.
We should choose it.
And sometimes
we are asked to choose it over
other things that look good,
like great riches and gold and silver.
And Jesus says, yeah,
but I'm still worth more.
And sometimes we have to let go of good
things are things
that seem good in order
to take hold of the best thing,
and a story
that I'll share really quickly.
I've got an awesome tree in my backyard
that's great for climbing.
My kids found it almost immediately
when we bought our house
and they started climbing it.
And when they were younger
especially, they would climb up the tree.
And I don't know if you're a parent
if you've experienced this as well,
but sometimes they would climb up and
they would not be able to get back down.
And so they would be stuck
and they would call out and they say,
daddy, will you come
and help me get down from the tree?
And I'd walk out
and I would have my arms up in the air.
And I say, I'm here.
You can jump down and I'll catch you.
And then there would be a silence
and a pause, and they'd say, daddy,
I'm too scared.
I can't, I can't let go.
And I say, if you trust me, you'll let go.
You can trust me. I will catch you.
Sometimes, in order to show that we trust,
we have to let go of something,
even if it seems like it's the thing
that's keeping us safe.
And that's what Proverbs 22 is saying
when it says that a good name
is to be chosen
rather than great riches, because Jesus
is the greatest value of all.
And if we trust him with our lives, if
we trust him with all of our reputations,
then we can build the kind of life
we were made for.
And I want to walk you through
how we can do that practically.
Those three layers foundation, framing,
and finishing the way that God sees
us, the way that we see ourselves
and the way that others see us.
I want to show you
how we can step into trusting Jesus
with our reputation at each one of those,
and what that leads to,
so how we can trust
Jesus in our reputation with God.
It means that we can believe
that he is enough, that he is the one
and the only one
that can give us a good name.
And here's where that leads to.
It leads to a life
where we know where we stand with God.
We don't have to wonder.
We can rest that Jesus has said
it is finished and it is done
and paid for forever.
And then the way that we see ourselves,
our reputation with ourselves,
the framing of our life, if we trust Jesus
in our reputation with ourselves, here's
what that looks like.
It looks like stopping
listening to the voices
that tell us who we are from others,
stopping listening to the voices
that tell us who we are from ourself,
and starting to listen to what God says
about us.
At the beginning of John, it'll say
that those who believe in him
have the right to become children of God.
What God says about us
is that we are his children.
If you are in Jesus, then God calls you
son and God calls you daughter.
God calls you beloved.
And that can begin to write a new story
of how you see yourself
and lastly, your reputation with others.
When you and I trust Jesus
with our reputation of others,
I think that it brings freedom
and it brings purpose to our life,
because we begin to want a reputation
that points
not to ourself, but to God.
Even our reputation is set free
from being egotistical in the gospel.
How amazing is that? Our life.
We want to point towards him.
Every time that we jump off the branch,
we let go from that
and Jesus catches us
is like a five star review
to Jesus goodness and faithfulness
to catch us every time that we trust him
with our finances, with our marriage,
with our singleness,
with the career
that didn't go the way that we hoped
it would go, with a family
that is broken and we don't know how it's
going to be put back together.
Every time that we trust him with the
thing that feels like we can't get rid of,
we become a
review to the world of Jesus goodness.
And so Proverbs 22,
it says to you and I that there's
nothing more important in our life
than our name, but the only way
that we can know that we are good
enough is in Jesus and in him.
We can have the kind of
life we are made for with ourselves,
with others, and ultimately with God.
But it comes down to the choice
what will we choose?
Will we choose to trust
Jesus as the foundation of our life?
And I want to invite you to consider that.
And maybe if you've never, maybe
you consider that for the first time.
Maybe if you've been walking with Jesus
for a while,
you consider it for the thousandth.
Where in your life is he inviting you
to take a leap and to trust him?
Here's what I can promise you.
He tells us that it is always worth it.
So if you would pray with me,
father, I thank you for your goodness.
To never leave us, to never forsake us.
God to be with us.
Every time
any person has ever leapt to you,
calling out for you to rescue them, God,
you have caught them every single time.
You alone are the way
that we can have the name with you
that we long for in our lives.
Can I pray that wherever we are tonight
we would have the courage to say, God,
I want to choose you for my life
because you're worth it.
Amen.