Identity Theft – Stolen by “Success”
Our identity can be Stolen by “Success” when our image of success is…
…Driven by Performance – Look what I have done
…Focused on Possessions – Look what I’ve got
Our identity will be Successfully Secure when our image of success is…
…Centered on Christ – Look at Him and what He is doing and has done
Slide
Have you ever played the game of Life?
We have an updated version of the game of Life called “Twists and Turns” that we enjoy playing. It has an electronic debit card type of thing that keeps track of your score.
Anyway, the point of the game is to earn the most life points. Life points come in the form of more money, bigger houses, more cars, getting married, having kids, as well as other experiences of life.
It’s a fun game that my family enjoys playing, but it’s unfortunate that there are people who actually believe that is how life really works. Try to get more money, bigger homes, more cars, and have more life experiences so that you will win the game of real life.
In fact that seems to be what people perceive as the successful life, the American Dream if you will.
If I can just have a healthy family and own my home and a couple of cars and have a good paying job, I will win the game of real life, I will be successful.
Now none of those things are bad things. Who doesn’t want to be healthy and owning a home is good stewardship and we all want to earn a decent living.
But when we find our identity in our worldly success, we are building on very shaky ground as the current economy shows.
Doesn’t always seem so successful
But even beyond building on shaky ground, the fact of the matter is that even when you have all those things, there are plenty of times the “successful” life doesn’t seem so successful. You can have all those things and still be empty inside.
You don’t have to look any further than Hollywood to see that and many of us don’t have to look any further than our own neighborhoods or even, our own families.
What is sold as the successful life of the American Dream has often times turned into what some might consider more of a nightmare.
CME
When I worked at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as an interest rate futures broker, I came in contact with many people whose whole view of success was how much they made and how much they had.
Now not everyone was that way, but there were quite a few whether they admitted it or not. This was how they measured success.
If I made more than you, I was more successful than you. If the boat I bought was bigger, I was more successful than someone with a smaller boat.
But so many times, as they accumulated money and stuff and had an outwardly beautiful wife and kids, the successful life they were striving for, seemed to crumble around them as the desire for more led to affairs and broken marriages, to drug use, to power struggles and a continual lack of contentment.
Promise of Successful life = Empty promises
What the successful life that is measured in money and stuff promised turned out to be just empty promises for those who pursued it as their goal. Their identity was tied to that image, but ultimately, their identity, the identity they have been created to have, was being stolen by the lure of success.
Slide
This morning we are continuing our series, Identity Theft, and we will be finishing this series up talking about how our identity can be Stolen by Success.
I would ask that you turn with me to Luke 18:18-30.
Slide
We are going to look at a man who is the picture of success as the world sees it and from this we are going to learn some things we might look for so we can avoid having our identity stolen by success.
Luke 18:18-30
18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ’Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’"
21 "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
26 Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
27 Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
28 Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"
29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."
The first principle I want you to see is that
Our identity can be Stolen by Success when our image of Success is…
Driven by Performance
Slide
Luke 18:18-21
Notice the first thing out of this ruler’s mouth.
He asks “what must I DO to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18)
There is a fundamental problem in the question.
Let me ask you, what do you do to get an inheritance from your parents?
Nothing.
You get an inheritance as a result of your relationship with them. Not as a result of earning it. It is because you are their son or daughter or close relative. It is about relationship, not performance.
Now this is a guy who has probably been DOING his whole life, performing. He has probably learned how to look good to others by what he does.
When we are driven by performance, we learn how to look good doing what we do because ultimately the focus is about us. How do people see me? Do they like me? Do they think I am good?
Now looking prideful is not beneficial to us, so we want people to know how good we are without having to tell them. That is called false humility. We appear humble but try to orchestrate things so people will know how good we are.
I think there is a level of false humility in this guy. He doesn’t want to let others know how good he thinks he is. I believe he thinks I will let this teacher who everyone reveres tell me and everyone that He thinks I am good.
Jerusalem Idol
I don’t know if you watch American Idol or not, but I am a fan. I like to watch these guys and gals sing and rearrange songs. So many of them have a talent that I will never have, singing.
Well if there was a show called Jerusalem Idol about being good and this guy were on it, and they had the judging panel like on American Idol, I think we might hear
Randy Jackson say to this guy something like, “Dawg, your goodness is the Bomb.”
Paula Abdul might say, “you know, I was just, that was…for me… I got to tell you…You’re good.”
And Simon Cowell might be heard saying, “I must say as I sit here and listen to these other judges talk about your goodness, I must agree. Very good.”
This guy, according to the world’s standards of goodness is good, and he knows it.
He has kept many of the commandments since he was a boy.
He is all about performing. People will like me if they see how I perform, if I am good, and then I will be successful at life and even eternal life.
This is the America’s religion,
Do good, be good, and Success in all things is yours. Perform well and you will be liked.
Jesus’ Response
Notice how Jesus responds to this guy right off. I believe He sees that this guy’s heart is proud and immediately gets to the heart of the issue concerning who is good and who is not.
Jesus tells him "No one is good-except God alone.” (Luke 18:19)
And then He starts listing the commandments, but notice, that Jesus skips the first 4, ones that have anything to do with our relationship with God and lists the next 5 which have a lot of outward actions that people can see.
The rich ruler says, "All these I have kept since I was a boy," (Luke 18:21)
Well done, everyone says, I think we have someone who is going to be in the finals of Jerusalem Idol!
That is everyone, except Jesus.
That is because performance Driven Success is a thief.
It focuses you on the external, the things people can see and it gets you striving for more of the things people can see and what you are really worshipping is a false idol.
It is the false idol of apparent success, you are ultimately seeking your own glory.
If our image of success is driven by performance, our identity is being stolen.
But we also find that
Our identity can be Stolen by Success when our image of Success is…
Focused on Possessions
Slide
Luke 18:22-25
Jesus not only confronts this man’s false image of success being driven by performance, he challenges his image that is also focused on possessions.
It is the game of life of life philosophy of “He with the most toys wins!”
We all suffer from this to some extent.
This is certainly the philosophy of this young ruler.
He is a man of great wealth we are told. Not just rich, but a man of great wealth.
He is the Bill Gates, the Oprah Winfrey, the Warren Buffet of Jerusalem in terms of wealth.
He has great wealth.
But we see Jesus go to the heart of this issue as well.
Luke 18:22-23
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.
Heart issues, not money issue
Now we need to understand that this is not really a money issue.
This is a heart issue.
This man’s heart was caught up in doing good and having a lot which represented to him a successful life. His trust was in his stuff versus in the Lord.
You could have monetary riches and still have your heart focused on Christ or you could be as poor as dirt and still have your focus on money or possessions, on what you don’t have, or how your life would be better if you just had more stuff.
Money in this case is just something that reveals his heart.
When we are finding or striving to find our identity in our possessions, our identity is being stolen by an illusion of what success is being sold to us as.
As I was preparing for this message, I saw this great quote that I want to share with you. It reads “Failure is to succeed at something that doesn’t really matter.”
When we succeed at something that doesn’t really matter, that doesn’t leave a lasting mark in eternity, even though we may get accolades and awards for it, the reality is that you can’t take it with you.
Ex. Floppy disks, 3 ½ in disks - obsolete
Jesus says in
Luke 9:25 - What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
Success in the world without success for eternity is really no success at all.
It will mean failure eternally and it means failure internally as well.
Even though we may be outwardly successful, we can face inner failure. I saw this all the time at the CME.
And I believe this rich ruler who had outward acts of performance and all kinds of possessions, was still struggling with inner failure, struggling with who he really was.
I think that is one of the reasons he came to Jesus.
“Maybe if he tells me I am good, I will feel better.”
“Maybe if he affirms me, I will feel filled inside.”
In Mark’s account of this story, when Jesus was about to tell this man to sell everything and follow him, it says
Mark 10:21 - Jesus looked at him and loved him.
I believe that we sometimes think that God tells us to do hard things just because he is God.
Like some Drill sergeant who says jump and we are supposed to say, “How high?”
God is not like that.
He loves us and wants the very best for us.
The very best is not found in stuff though or accomplishments.
It is found in following Him
Mark 10:21-22
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
Following Him is the key to real success.
Our identity can only be Successfully Secure when our image of success is…
Centered on Christ
Slide
Luke 18:26-30
When we are centered on Christ in our life, and we understand who we are in Him and recognize that we have nothing apart from him, that is when we end up finding a successful life, both in this life and in the life to come.
Jesus says in
Matthew 10:39
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
When we are searching to find our identity apart from Christ, we lose in this life and the next.
When we center ourselves on Christ, when we find our identity in Him, that is when we succeed in this life and the next.
It is amazing that when we strive to do good and seek to gather things that we think are important, our possessions, we find it doesn’t bring the success we thought or hoped for, but when we stop are focus on the externals, and instead focus on our internal relationship with Christ, we end up doing good and storing up treasure that is truly valuable, treasure in heaven.
The good we couldn’t seem to do enough of and the treasure we couldn’t get enough of, are seemingly more and abundant when we find ourselves in Christ and live out our identity in Him.
I think that is because before our purpose was to earn God’s favor. Look at me. The acts that we did and the things we gathered were so people would look at us.
Now we recognize that God has saved us, He has transformed us, and there is nothing we can do to earn anything from God. The good we do, we do not to earn anything, but as a response to what God has done in us, and as a fulfillment of the purpose He has created us for.
Ephesians 2:10 - For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
When we find ourselves in Christ, we find that we don’t stop doing good or working hard. Our purpose in doing good and working hard changes from glorifying ourselves to glorifying Him and that changes everything.
Conclusion
I have lived on both sides of success.
I have had worldly success, I tried to do good, I made money, could do a lot of things, but while we could do good things and a lot of things that were enjoyable, it never satisfied for long. That is because that performance based, possession focused life was not centered on Christ, it was centered on me.
Since becoming a Christian and pursing God’s call into full time ministry, I may not be as financially successful or have as many possessions, but I experience a success that is much sweeter than the temporary pleasures
of trying hard and being good or
of having a lot but feeling empty.
I experience the fulfillment of walking with God and experiencing His work in my life and not only that, but I have also experienced the blessing of being allowed to be part of God’s work in other people’s lives.
There are still times in my life when I sense myself falling back into seeking my identity in worldly success.
It is then I have to keep my eyes fixed up on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
I am not sure where you are this morning.
Have you been living life driven to perform, focused on possessions?
While those things will provide temporary happiness, I guarantee it will leave you feeling empty.
Center your life on Christ, find your identity in Him.
Don’t let your identity be stolen by the apparent success that the world chases after.
Instead, find the full life available when you trust Christ as your Savior and live your life centered on Him.
If you have never received Jesus as your Savior, we will have people available at the front to talk with you and pray with you or for any other need you may have.
Right now, I want to pray and ask God to help our eyes to be fixed on Him and that we might each day find ourselves in Him.
Pray.
Be the Center – Closing song
