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The Holy Work - Respecting Yourself to Respect Others - #010 · Providence Voice

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Holy Work.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we are gonna talk about respect.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna be like, huh, what?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are we talking about respect for?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna um talk about respecting ourselves.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: But first, I need you to do something that sounds a little bit strange, but I want you to find a mirror.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening to me on your phone, walk around your house and get a mirror, or go to your bathroom and look at the mirror on the wall, or just find a mirror.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can put me on pause until you find one, and then we will get started.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But you need a mirror to start this.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now you have a mirror, and I want you to look in the mirror.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to really take a look at yourself.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at your eyes and your nose and your mouth and your cheeks and your hair, and just look at the image looking back at you, and really study that image.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I know some of you are gonna be saying, Wow, my hair has gotten really gray.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Huh, I need to color it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or, man, my cheeks are looking a little chubby, I need to lose some weight.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or wow, look at those wrinkles around my eyes, or my laugh lines.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I've really aged.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or man, she's not very pretty.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we always look in the mirror, we see the bad things.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope that when you've looked in the mirror, you've gone and seen, wow, look at those eyes.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: They just sparkle and there's so much life in them.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or look at the smile that I see smiling back at me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: That person's full of joy.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that some of you could have said some things like that.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that's why we're talking about respect today.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We uh cannot respect others until we actually have respect for ourselves, and that's so important.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We need to remember that we have been created by God and that he creates good things, and we are part of those good things.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to read Matthew real quick to you to you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's not necessarily talking about how God created good things, we'll talk about that in a minute, but we're talking about respecting ourselves so that we can respect others.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes, like I was mentioning, when we first look in the mirror and are critical of ourselves, we are also critical of others.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we always look for the wrong in others.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Matthew 7, 3, it says, Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: How can you say to your brother, Let me take out that speck from your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we all have faults, we all have issues, but we also have to focus on ourselves first and try and get ourselves cleared up with all of our issues before we can work on the other issues that people have.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, we are supposed to hold each other accountable, we are supposed to help lead people back on the right path so that they are not in sin for different things, but we also have to make sure we are doing that with love and support.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are not supposed to be walking around being the judge and jury.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's God's job.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to love and respect each other, and in order to do that, we have to respect ourselves first.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um so another part of Matthew, it's Matthew 22, 37 through 39.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first and the greatest commandment.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can't love God without loving our neighbors, and we can't love others without loving ourselves first.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to find the good in people when you can't find the good in yourself.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about really focusing on yourself and the value of you because you are so valuable.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: God has created you in his image, he knows the numbers of hairs on your head, he knows the path that he has created for you, and he knows that you are uh worth a ton.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that your worth is priceless.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one of you.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're a twin, you're specific to you.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your twin is very close, but not you.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know, if nothing else, God has created you for a specific purpose in the world, and you may not know what it is yet, but he has laid a plan for your life, and you just have to be following him on a daily basis, getting into his word, reading his word, meditating, and making sure you're listening to what his plans are and follow him.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not so easy, and sometimes you don't understand that just opening a door is going to lead where you need to go, but you have to trust God that he is going to have good things planned for you, and he's doing it for good and never bad.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: We may have rocky roads that we have to go on in order to get to the path where he wants us to be, but he's always gonna be beside us walking that path.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we just have to trust God.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we also are gonna read Matthew 5.17.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Matthew's just full of all kinds of good things that we have to read that talk about this.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so Matthew 5.17, do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we have been created for something, and God's not done with us yet.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: There is something that he has come to fulfill, and he wants to make sure that we practice what he has come to fulfill, that we are following the law of God, that we are making sure that we are precious in his sight, that we are focusing on the value we have so that we can then pour into others.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Philippians 2, 3 and 4 also discusses how we are supposed to treat each other.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to the interests of your own, but each of you to the interest of the others.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as man.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, we are supposed to value ourselves, but we're not supposed to value ourselves above others.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to love others as ourselves.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to be humble and contrite.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: We need to see our value as God sees us, but we never need to be narcissistic.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We never need to put down others and see that others are any less than we are.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are all children of Christ.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what color of our skin, no matter what color of our eyes or our hair, no matter our background, whether we're wealthy or we're poor, God has chosen each one of us to be their children.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to humbly love each other as God has loved us.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is something that is far from being religious.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: But when I talked about looking at yourself in the mirror, I thought about the song from Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror, and I want to read this little section to you.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so this just some backstory on this song.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he's talking about how we want to make a change and we see things that are wrong in the world, and sometimes we just ignore it and go on.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And why do we even pretend to see what's going on?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we disregard things that are happening in the world.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it says, I'm starting with the man in the mirror.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking him to change his ways.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And no message could have been any clearer.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make the change.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this is obviously not biblical.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is Michael Jackson, but he has a good point here.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we want the world to change, and I hear people saying all the time, man, the world's just horrible.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's going all over the place, it's just there's nothing good about it anymore.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that is true in some part, but there are some good in things, and we need to focus on changing the world a little bit at a time, and it starts with us.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: God put us here for a reason, and if we see a change, then make the change.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we see that there is a need, meet the need.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: It takes one person to make a change, to make a difference, and then it will catch on.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But unless we step out and do something about something we need to see a change happen, then nothing's gonna happen.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: If everybody says, Oh yeah, it's so sad there's poverty in the world, or yeah, it's so sad that person they don't have a car right now, or man, if only they could find a job.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Tough luck.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what God wants us to do.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying we have to go provide for everybody that is in a situation that they don't have a car, they don't have a job or whatever, but if we have the means, maybe God is asking us to help.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just that God wants us to talk to someone and encourage them.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's free.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's that we need to just step out and reconcile with someone it's been too long and we have to forgive them.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to forgive, the song even says, when you forgive someone, you set yourself free.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that is true.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's true freedom in forgiveness because we are acting like Christ.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Christ forgave us.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is the ultimate gift he's given us.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: He forgave us and he forgives us daily for our sins that are against others, are against him.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: If we are not fully walking in our faith, we have something to be forgiven of.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to forgive others.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's right ourselves, let's respect ourselves so that we can then respect others and pour into others.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to close by praying for us today, because this is not easy, especially if you've had some hard things in your life where people have looked down on you and have not poured into you and you don't have a lot of self-worth.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just want you to see today that you are valued and you are loved.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to pray for you.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our Heavenly Father, we just praise you for being the example of true love and compassion.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you respect each and every one of us.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: You have created us and you know us the depths of our hearts.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know us more than anyone, and we can't hide anything from you.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how far we try to run from you, you are there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are there to pick us up, to lift us up from all of our ashes, and to help us to become a better person.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: God, right now I just pray for that person who's listening who, when they looked in the mirror, they just criticized and and critiqued.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you will show them once they look in the mirror again, all the things that you see that are good, that you love about them, that you value from them, and that they see their worth is all from you.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that they will focus on you and your Holy Spirit and welcome the Holy Spirit into their lives to build them up and not tear them down.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that they will get rid of the negative thoughts in their heads and the negative influences that they may have and create boundaries in their lives so that they can walk more in faith with you and see the value of themselves so that they can respect others.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we just thank you for the gift of your Son.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.