Laying Down Our Insecurity Blanket

This Week: Laying Down Our Insecurity Blanket

Download the Small Group Discussion Guide for this sermon HERE.

Sermon in a Sentence: Freed from guilt and shame, as His masterpiece we find our worth, our confidence, and our belonging in Christ.

Sermon Notes:

• Insecurity is more common than you might think.
  • Maxwell Maltz, author of PsychoCybernetics, estimates that 95 percent of people in our society have a strong sense of inadequacy.
  • Most insecurity is rooted in a form of fear:
    • What if they don’t like me? What if I’m not good enough? What if I can’t handle it? What if I fail? 
    • That leads to some of these kinds of inner turmoil: Lack of self-confidence; Powerful fear of disapproval or rejection; a sense of inferiority
    • What we need is a right perspective on our identity.

• Five Powerful “First Person” Declarations to Combat Your Insecurities and Reframe Your Identity:
• I am a masterpiece of his design. 
  • For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Psalm 139:13-14 CSB
  • For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 NLT
• My worth is found in His great love for me.
  • For some of us, we make it all about the numbers: How much do we weigh? What’s our IQ? What score did we get on the ACT? What’s your GPA? How fast can your car go? How many friends do we have on Facebook? How many “likes” or “favorites” do our social media posts get? How much money do we make?
  • When our identity is wrapped up in numbers, somebody always has a higher set than us and our self worth plummets.
  • The answer? His Love is Enough.
    • You did not choose me, but I chose you… John 15:16 CSB
    • …the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him… Psalm 103:17 NLT
    • I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38 NLT
• As His child, my self-confidence is rooted in God-confidence.
  • Our insecurities are often rooted in a fear of failure. Maybe this comes from past experiences when things didn’t work out as planned and we were left feeling the pain of great loss or embarrassment. But even in those moments, we find our rest in Him because we know that as one of His children, our supposed failures are not the end of the story. The promise we can stand on is that… “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 CSB
  • We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 CSB
• I’ve been accepted into His circle of belonging.
  • You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. Ephesians 2:19 MSG
• Shame has no place in my life as a Child of God.
  • Like Adam and Eve, we’ve all done things that we’re not proud of—things that might legitimately cause us to feel shame. Some of us live our lives under the weight of these feelings brought on by our own past mistakes.
  • But like the woman caught in the act of adultery, Jesus looks at you and says, “Neither do I condemn you…”John 8:11 CSB
  • So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Romans 8:1-2 NLT
  • We have this confidence, that…In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:14 CSB

• DANGER: If those promises are not satisfying to us — if we need other people’s approval to feel validated; if we find criticism or rejection debilitating; if we see a pattern of regularly disobeying Christ because we’re trying to escape or demand attention, or if we are caught in addictive sins through which we seek relief from our fears — then our insecurity is telling us we have an idol problem. We make idols and gods of other people or success or good looks when we look for our satisfaction in anyone or anything else but God.
• Those false gods need to be knocked down, that sin-weight must be laid aside. Avoiding it is not going free us from it. God wants us to examine it, even though we fear doing so. But we must not listen to our fears, for they keep us from seeing the truth. 

• Four Things God Says to You:

1. I will not condemn you, for I was condemned for you. 2 Corinthians 5:21
2. Come to me, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28-30
3. I will love you forever and unfailingly. Psalm 33:22
4. I will make you more secure than you have ever dreamed. Psalm 27:5; Psalm 40:2