The Search for Significance

elizabeth elliott is one of the most influential christian women of our day she is a well-known speaker author host a daily radio program called gateway to joy and is a former missionary to ecuador she is a mother a grandmother and a wife to laura's grin her life speaks to the faithfulness of god we are very blessed to have her at our conference today thank you thank you so much thank you ever so much it is a very great privilege for my husband and me to be here and i'm glad that his name was mentioned i do of course my husband tells me that you can't hear up in the balcony you can't hear any place i'm assuming this is a microphone i've never seen anything like it before what am i to do i have to keep talking okay i just wanted to say that i was glad that my husband's name was mentioned i go by my pen name in public because of course if people recognize me at all it is usually by the name under which i've been writing for about 40 years and publishers would take a very dim view of my changing my name as many times as i have so i am mrs lars grin and i'm elizabeth graham but i'm also known as elizabeth elliot and two of the books which i want to mention this morning one is almost my most recent book it's called keep a quiet heart and this is a book collection of short pieces from my newsletter i have what i call the elizabeth elliott newsletter that comes out every other month and it's just four pages and it's not has nothing to do with news really that's a poor name for it it's things that i've been thinking about and that god has been teaching me so if you're interested in having what i call a fairly personal letter you can sign up for my newsletter at the book table and here comes my husband lars grinn and we're having still having this one well that one i'm going to get it on this hand anyway keep a quiet heart is a collection of short pieces taken from newsletters over the past years and the book which is most relevant very relevant to the things that i will be talking about today is discipline the glad surrender now i'm sure you don't think you know you need this book yourself but you know somebody else that does what i yank this whole thing apart you have to say something okay i have to keep talking he says is this any better are there people are there people still having trouble hearing if if you're having trouble hearing put your hand up it looks as though everybody can hear this happen to be my fault because i said why she likes a regular microphone like this rather than lapel and it was a podium mic what i didn't realize it's down here attached so the distance between this and when she speaks that's why you don't pick it up and that's what we needed here and if if she drops a voice while she's speaking just somebody pick up a hand and you know she won't say thank you i see that hand she'll she'll know that she's supposed to pick her voice up and you can't begin to talk until i get back up there so tell him the story okay he says i can't begin my talk until he gets back up there because i can't do it without him he gives me time signals so you can be sure i'm not going to go overtime he gives me a half time signal and then he gives me ten and five and three and two so i have to stop when he tells me but i'm very grateful for the privileges that the lord gives us in traveling together when mars and i were married he had he was still finishing up his hospital chaplaincy training here in georgia am i in georgia yes i have to stop it don't know where i was yesterday let alone where i am today but yes he lived at millageville but he wasn't an inmate he was learning and not too long after he finished that course he decided that i needed some help with my travels i had been traveling for many years by myself and speaking and it never crossed my mind to carry a book with me so of course my books were not nearly as known as they are today and so i'm very grateful it has become very much of a full-time job for both of us lars are you ready now my talk this morning is on the search for significance the search for significance do you want to make a mark in the world who have been the people that you would consider most significant in your life are they famous people are they uh well known are they good looking people are they rich people are they humble hidden types of people i would say that people who have made the deepest influence in my life are for the most part unknown but god knows exactly what he's doing in his assignments i love the verse in psalm 16 5 it says lord you have assigned me my portion and my cup and have made my lot secure lord you have assigned me my portion are you contented with god's portion do you feel as though he's left something out he's overlooked you he hasn't given you the gifts that you thought you ought to have i think it's very difficult to find contented women today we are so tempted to listen to what the world is telling us about what we ought to have or do or go to or see or watch or listen or read do you have a quiet heart are you prepared to listen to what god has to say now my second husband had a certain distinction he happened to be a phd from cambridge england but he was a very ordinary down-to-earth humble kind of a man and he just laughed when people thought that a phd meant something particular because he said it only tells you one thing it doesn't tell you anything at all about how smart a person is it just tells you how long they went to school and he was always telling his students he was a professor at gordon conwell seminary in massachusetts and he used to say to his students i am not a scholar i am a pointer and an explainer he said my job is to point to things and say do you see this do you know what it means and he was i think i can say without fear of contradiction probably the most popular professor at that seminary he was of course a scholar but he didn't want to be called a scholar he didn't try to be a scholar he had a lot of things in his head but he had a very simple and down-to-earth way of explaining them and of course recently we've all had the opportunity to consider the significance of princess diana and mother teresa i don't think we need to say anymore there's a vast gulf fixed between those two women wasn't there you have an ambition that has never been fulfilled do you long for distinction do you feel that your life is meaningless that it really is not very significant you think oh well i'm just a nobody and nobody's ever going to notice me and god hasn't given me anything very important to do well you know that's really a slap in god's face because god has assigned you your portion and your cup and he has made your lot secure whether you recognize it or not but when jesus defined discipleship he was speaking to multitudes remember and he gave the conditions for discipleship and they're mentioned in three of the gospels certainly nothing like what the world would consider distinction significance in mark 8 27 to 35 we read the people ate and were satisfied after this after the disciples picked up seven basketballs or broken pieces that were left over and about four thousand men were present and as you have already guessed i have lost my place here mark 8 27 is where we should be jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around caesarea philippi on the way he asked them who do people say that i am they replied some say john the baptist others say elijah and still others one of the prophets but what about you he asked who do you say i am peter answered you are the christ jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him he then began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders chief priests and teachers of the law and that he must be killed and after three days rise again he spoke plainly about this and peter took him aside and began to rebuke him but when jesus turned and looked at his disciples he rebuked peter get behind me satan he said you do not have in mind the things of god but the things of men you do not have in mind the things of god but the things of men what is your definition of significance are you thinking as god thinks or are you thinking as men think then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples now this is a message that you wouldn't think jesus would give to a huge crowd there may be people here this morning who are not christians or who are wondering what the world christianity is all about or very likely you were dragged here by some neighbor of yours who said well you got to come and listen to this lady but jesus did not hesitate to give the same message to the crowds that he gave to the small group of disciples he said if anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me three conditions of discipleship for whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it what kind of meaning are you looking for in your life i'll give you three points one at a time the first one is a deeper love if you love god you'll do what he says and jesus says in john 14 if you love me do what i say we often sing about how much we love jesus we write poetry about it we pray about it we talk about it singing writing poems praying and talking about jesus are not the most important proof of our love in fact i do believe that there's only one valid proof of our love for jesus christ that is obedience if you love me do what i say so here are three extremely difficult commands which if we wish to follow jesus we must obey give up your right to yourself love always means sacrifice and all of us who are married know that love means one thing before you come down the aisle to the altar it begins to mean different things after that much more difficult things at times because when you were walking down the aisle all you could see was that face of that wonderful man the most handsome man in the whole world and i do see that there are some men in the audience so you were standing there looking at the most beautiful woman in the world and thinking this is the most marvelous marriage that ever took place in the history of the human race and something happens between then and about 24 hours later something probably appears that you didn't know about that prize package he turns out to be a surprise package and not very long ago my husband and i went to a very fancy wedding and we were both asked to speak briefly to the bride and groom at the reception and what i said to the young man was you married this lady because you love her but from tomorrow morning on you must love her because you married her and that is a permanent commitment so if you want to come after jesus and you don't have to if you don't want to jesus is not coercing us he does not invade the freedom of our will to choose to follow him to love him to obey him he gave us the freedom to choose and remember back in the garden of eden the choice was made against the will of god it was in effect eve saying my will be done god is trying to cheat me out of the best thing in the whole world and satan of course planted that notion in her mind and she believed satan rather than god and so she went to her husband and suggested that why not go ahead and eat the fruit even though god said that they would die because satan says you won't die and so they were declaring their independence it was a declaration of independence wasn't it we don't need you god we know how to work things out better by ourselves so jesus makes it crystal clear unmistakable that if we are to be his disciples we must deny ourselves and that's a scary word today isn't it because psychiatrists are telling us we don't want to be in denial you know we get all twitchy thinking oh my i want to be in denial but jesus puts it bluntly give up your right to yourself and the world is telling you you've got to learn to love yourself you've got to work on your self-image you've got to build your self-esteem you've got to self-actualize yourself and go on and on and on and i like what the german philosopher good just said only god knows who i am and may god preserve me from ever finding out i don't want to know who i am i just want to give up all my rights to myself and take up the cross which is the second condition and follow so the word for this first talk on the search for significance is deny give up your right to yourself it means accepting something far deeper and far more significant than anything that the world has to offer a deeper love is set is sacrificial you mothers know that loving your children means sacrifice loving your husband means sacrifice you singles do you love god enough to say yes lord i will accept my singleness whether you're single because you're a widow because you're divorced or because nobody has ever asked you to marry him or two or three people have asked you to marry him it wasn't the right person whatever the reason lord you have assigned me my portion and my cup and that is for today ladies only this one thursday you don't know what god has up to sleeve for next next week some of you wives maybe widows next week some of you widows maybe wives some of you singles may be married but that's not our business is it give up your right to yourself trust god believe that he really does know what he's doing he knows far better than you and i know what brings true joy the world has its own definitions of joy but jesus christ says i have said these things to you that my joy may be in you he said it's my peace that i give to you not as the world giveth the world's only notion of peace is getting away on a canoe on some lake in some quiet place or going to some fancy island physical setting of peace quietness perhaps but i don't think very many people want quietness we have to live on the ocean and we see people coming down to sit on our beautiful red rocks down there in front of our house and guess what they bring along they've got walkmans in or they bring along a boom box peace i give to you jesus said not as the world giveth my peace and we are going to find the peace of christ as we learn to give up our right to ourselves i know it's true i'm an old woman and i'm ashamed to think how long it's taken me to learn such basic lessons lessons that i knew by heart but hadn't really put into practice and of course i'm still working i don't suppose that i have arrived not for a moment but i want to read you ephesians 1 verses 3 to 10. paul almost gets carried away here there in every one of his letters he writes such peons of praise it's just as if he's almost stumbling over his words pouring them out onto the paper he says here 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 are you still searching for significance for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight in love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through jesus christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the one he loves in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of christ of god's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding and he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven on earth together under one head even christ he is the king of the universe and we are his subjects he says to us with such mercy such kindness such unspeakable love do you want to be my disciple then you must give up your right to yourself are you prepared to do that are you ready i love that hymn loved with everlasting love led by grace that love to know spirit breathing from above thou has taught me it is so oh this full and perfect peace oh this transport all divine in a love which cannot cease i'm his and he is mine and those of you who listen to gateway to joy have heard me say you are loved with an everlasting love that's what the bible says and underneath are the everlasting arms god knows what will give us the true significance it is a deeper love i'm sure that most of you could quote john 3 16 but i wonder how many of you can quote from memory first john 3 16. it says this is how we know what love is that christ laid down his life for us and we in our turn let's lay down our lives for each other are you laying down your life for other people when i think of the many people who have deeply influenced my own life and i have been tremendously blessed and having many i think of an old hunchbacked poor almost totally deaf widow who worked in my mother in my parents home i had already gone to college by then and my mother began writing letters about this dear mrs kershaw and dear mrs kershaw had only one agenda as far as we could see when she came to our house every day her radiant smile was always there didn't make any difference what the weather was like if it was pouring rain she'd say oh it's a nice day it gives folks a chance to do what they want she was from south jersey and so am i but i've tried to get rid of that accent [Music] but that lady had no agenda except what can i do for these people how can i lay down my life and i'm sure she would have not put it in those terms but that was obviously the significance of her life she loved the howard family and she was prepared to lay down her life for them whatever it might cost she had a one child a good for nothing son who paid virtually no attention to that dear lady but she was absolutely the most loving cheerful peaceful person i ever met in my life significant to me and to my four brothers and my sister not to mention to my mother my father great significance what are you searching for what kind of distinction second thing is a greater glory are you looking for a greater intellectual glory a greater physical beauty some kind of athletic achievement perhaps or business achievement intellectual achievement look at what god has to say about the conditions that he has given to us the the promises that he's given us with paul outlined in that first chapter of ephesians going on from where we left off at verse 10 paul says 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 and i dare say that there are a few people here today who can't really believe that god has worked out everything in your life in conformity with his will couldn't possibly be the will of god i get many letters from people telling me long sad stories and then at the bottom they challenge me now elizabeth elliott are you going to tell me that this had something to do with the will of god well i didn't write this you know the apostle paul wrote this and of course he was divinely inspired we were chosen we were predestined according to the plan does god make mistakes in his plans does god overlook some very important matter in your life so that things have fallen apart and god's not paying any attention do you think this time lord you really blew it he works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will now what is his will paul goes right on to tell us in order that we who were the first to hope in christ might be for the praise of his glory that we might be for the praise of his glory what kind of significance are you looking for is there anything you can imagine that would top that mrs kershaw lived for the praise of his glory it was evident in the way she washed dishes in the way she made cookies the way she went out in the backyard and picked up the old rotten apples with the worms in them and she would come back and spend hours peeling those apples digging out the worms cutting out the cores and making gallons of applesauce for us dear mrs kershaw for the praise of his glory a greater glory of far greater glory than this world can ever offer think of the funeral of princess diana think of mother teresa's purpose in being in calcutta when malcolm muggeridge interviewed her for a film that he did on her he asked her the question which i'm sure she must have been asked hundreds of times why do you do this go around in the terrible places of calcutta and pick up the dying and take them back to your convent why do you do that and our answer was very simple she said we just want to do for them what we would do for jesus christ if we could see him and jesus said in matthew 25 40 and as much as you've done it for one of the least of these my brothers you have done it for me and he will not forget and i could tell you story after story of transformed marriages because women have decided to follow matthew 25 40 and start treating their husbands as though he were jesus christ in as much as you've done it for one of the least of these my brothers and your husband is his brother you've done it for me said jesus it's a very deeply convicting principle and i am convicted practically daily by the fact that i don't treat my husband always by any means always as i would want to treat jesus christ but it will bring a greater peace a greater glory think of that little mary and i always think of mary as being little scholars tell us that she probably was between 13 and 15 years of age because that was the age at which a jewish girl would be married and we know that she was already engaged to joseph when the angel came with his piece of news that she was to become the mother of the son of god what was her response well from a little book that has taught me so much more about mary than i had ever dreamed simply because this person meditated deeply on what she did and who she was and this person said she was at most 14 perhaps she was younger the whole world trembled on the word of a child on a child's consent to what was she asked to consent first of all the descent of the holy spirit to surrender her littleness to the infinite love and as a result to become the mother of christ it was so tremendous and yet so passive you remember what you said don't you behold the handmaiden of the lord let it happen as you say or be it unto me according to thy word is your attitude to jesus christ anything you say lord here i am all of me for you forever do anything you want with me that's what mary was saying in effect wasn't it behold the handmaiden of the lord let it happen as you say have you ever stopped to wonder whether the angel had to make many stops in nazareth before he found one girl that would say behold the handmaiden of the lord perhaps he did he might have had to go from house to house to house well i'm sure that somebody's going to come back and say yes but god sent him on the message and so god would have known which house to go to but god might have wanted him to go to those houses in order that those girls might be convicted perhaps later on but they should have said yes mary was not asked to do anything herself but to let something be done to her she was not asked to renounce anything but to receive an incredible gift she was not asked to lead a special kind of life to retire to the temple and live as a nun perhaps or to cultivate suitable virtues or claim special privileges she was simply to remain in the world to go forward with her marriage to joseph to live the life of an artisan's wife just what she had planned to do when she had no idea that anything out of the ordinary would ever happen it almost seemed as if god's becoming man and being born of a woman were ordinary do you think of yourself as an ordinary person does it bug you at times do you wish god had given you a different portion and cup are we willing to be hidden unknown unrecognized unsung ordinary i feel quite sure that mrs kershaw is going to be far up in a higher place in heaven than any place that i will ever be assigned god has given me enormous privileges staggering privileges frightening privileges and i pray every day that the lord will make me a doer not merely a talker and a writer but i'm pierced to the heart with these principles god is asking us are you content with my lot are you searching for some kind of significance that i have not appointed will you say yes lord i was speaking in massachusetts one day i have no idea on what subject but i happen to mention matthew 25 40 which i mentioned a minute ago and i applied it to our treatment of our husbands because that is probably the most crucial place for us married women in asking ourselves is this the way i treat jesus christ is this the way i want to treat jesus christ and so i pointed that pointed that out that we need to examine our treatment of our husbands and you husbands need to examine your treatment of your wives it is christ in that person that god sees do i see christ in my husband well someone will say but my husband's not a christian my husband's an alcoholic and on my way down here yesterday we were flying from boston i was reading radio mail and i kept a record of the number of letters that were about terrible marriages there were 45 and it goes without saying that it's christians that listen mostly to my radio program i mean who else would listen to it nobody would listen to it for two days in a row i wouldn't think as i say things that are absolutely diametrically opposed everything else that the world is telling them i was once accused of being very victorian and i said well it's much older than that i've got my principles that i'm seeking faithfully to profound out of that book not from queen victoria by longshot but one woman in there went out in a rage because she and her husband had had 33 absolutely miserable years in marriage and had finally come to the conclusion that there was absolutely no point in carrying on with this it was nothing but a charade and so they had already decided that they would get a divorce so when she went out of there she got into her car and she was roaring down the highway just in a frenzy thinking that stuff elizabeth elliott is dishing out it does not apply to me it is ridiculous it is absurd it is impossible and it's outrageous but before she got home she said to herself i'm going to try it and she walked into the living room and they already sat as usual she said always looking like a mummy sitting on the sofa watching the tv and she said i hated that scene but she said this time i said excuse me honey but could i speak to you for a minute for the first time in 33 years he turned off the tv to listen well then she said i didn't know what to say what do you say if it's jesus sitting on the sofa what do you say well she didn't say what she intended to say she said please forgive me and she began to list her offenses against her husband and her husband had the grace to stop her halfway through the list and say wait a minute honey he said i've got a few things to confess of my own did i tell you that that marriage was turned around they didn't get a divorce i heard from her two years later she she wrote to tell me that she wrote several letters telling me that they were in love in a way that they had never been in love even during their engagement now that can happen you know and i don't care what a wonderful marriage you may have and there are probably some women here who say my husband's the most wonderful man in the world but every now and then there's some little thing that he does that you don't like what is your response most of us could probably think of one of one or two tiny suggestions that we would like to make to our husbands and an interviewer asked me just last week he said well since you've had three husbands he said would you tell us one thing that you would like to have said to each of them one thing that you would say to all three of them something like honey would you please he said would you fill out the rest of the sentence well i'm not recommending that you try that we must give up our right to ourselves and this is going to lead as my friend whose marriage was turned around testified to a more lasting joy and you note takers this is point three number one a deeper love number two a lasting joy no number two excuse me a greater glory a number three a more lasting joy paul is carried away ephesians 1 with the glory and the wonder and the joy of sacrifice are you searching for significance or are you prepared to receive god's apportioned lot and to say thank you lord i will be contented godliness with contentment is great gain how many of us can honestly say i am contented with the lot that god has given me with the house or the lack of the house with the children or the lack of children with the husband or the lack of a husband are you contented and the apostle paul verses 15 through 21 says for this reason ever since i heard about your faith in the lord jesus and your love for all the saints i have not stopped giving thanks for you remembering you in my prayers i keep asking that the god of our lord jesus christ the glorious father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better you want to know him better do what he says verse 18 i pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe that power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority power and dominion and every title that can be given not only in the present age but also in the one to come jesus significance according to most of the people when he was walking here on earth was that he was an itinerant rabbi one of many significant to a point but not outstandingly significant and of course the other rabbis began to hate him because they saw that he was pretty stiff competition but in that passage i just read paul refers to faith love thanks wisdom revelation hope inheritance power and strength and every title that can be given not only in the present age but also the one to come you had probably certainly you've heard and perhaps many of you have sung in handel's messiah i love worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing seven things that the world craves but there is only one who is worthy not i not you but the lamb worthy is the lamb with slain and if you stop and think what it is that the world is desperate for i think it's covered in those seven things power riches wisdom strength honor glory blessing is there anything else my husband and i take a walk every day we often stop in at the little corner store because we have to make xerox copies and there's the same man in there every day playing those games those machines whatever they are just convinced that one of these days he's going to hit it big the search for significance there's a verse in the old testament that i learned when i was back in college and it has meant a great deal to me ever since it's in second chronicles and it says when the song of the lord began when the burnt offering began the song of the lord began also isn't that beautiful the burnt offering is a sacrifice when the burnt offering began the song of the lord began also and that woman went home making a sacrifice giving up her right to herself and all the reasons why she thought her marriage was miserable because of course it was her husband's fault it wasn't hers she gave up her right to herself she gave up her right to be right and that's one thing we need to do and it's painful isn't it but i know i was right okay give up your right to be right and take up the cross and follow but she learned through that sacrifice through the laying down of her right that it was possible to have a deeper love a greater glory and a much more lasting joy ugobasi wrote a sermon in which these words occur i think the words were actually put into poetry by someone who heard the sermon but i have these four lines right over my typewriter of my study measure thy life by loss and not by gain not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth for love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice and he that suffereth most hath most to give measure thy life by loss and not by gain not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth for love's strength standeth in love sacrifice and he that suffereth most hath most to give our sinless savior laid down his life for us the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and those who own sheep have told me that they are terribly stupid stupid and wayward and foolish if one sheep goes over a cliff the whole flock will go over the cliff and it's not for nothing that god chose to call us sheep we are stupid we are wayward we are foolish and we are certainly prone to follow the people who go over the cliff what the world is telling us comes at us with dismaying and unavoidable and loud frequency every day isn't it and the commercials and the sign boards that we see on the tv and the radio and all the videos that are pouring in and there's not a day goes by that it seems that somebody doesn't send us a tape that we have to listen to or a video that we have to watch and we can absolve ourselves a responsibility for the latter because we don't have a vcr but it it's not easy is it to turn a deaf ear to what the world is saying what kind of significance are you searching for the truest sign will be our willingness to fulfill the three conditions of discipleship giving up our right to ourselves and taking up the cross and following if someone has hurt you and you think they ought to apologize will you give up your right to receive an apology and just forgive that person in your heart may god help us to do these things please him god bless you

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Length: 47min 50sec (2870 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 06 2020