I Feel Unappreciated — How Should I Respond?

00:00:00.000 | (music)

00:00:04.000 | How should we respond when we are unappreciated?

00:00:08.000 | It's a question that we all face. We all want to excel. We all want

00:00:12.000 | to be noticed. We all want to be thanked.

00:00:16.000 | We all want our efforts to be valued. It's only natural.

00:00:20.000 | And instead of telling us to get used to not being appreciated, to get

00:00:24.000 | used to being unappreciated, God actually gives us some

00:00:28.000 | incredible promises that we are being appreciated in

00:00:32.000 | ways we may have never, ever expected. Here's

00:00:36.000 | Pastor John preaching way back in 1991 to explain.

00:00:40.000 | Let me close with two illustrations of how this

00:00:44.000 | works out in situations. Two kinds of situations. First,

00:00:48.000 | the hurt that you experience

00:00:52.000 | when the good you do is not noticed or appreciated.

00:00:56.000 | The hurt that you experience when the good that you do is not noticed

00:01:00.000 | or appreciated. Parents who never say

00:01:04.000 | or said, "Good job."

00:01:08.000 | No matter how hard the kid tried, never said it.

00:01:12.000 | "Good job." It's the black hole

00:01:16.000 | of parenthood. Children who never

00:01:20.000 | thank mom for thousands of meals

00:01:24.000 | and rides and launderings never say a word.

00:01:28.000 | How does a mom survive?

00:01:32.000 | Husbands and wives who long ago stopped saying to each other

00:01:36.000 | eyeball to eyeball, "I love you.

00:01:40.000 | I'm so glad I married you.

00:01:44.000 | Thanks for all you do." Just a black

00:01:48.000 | hole. Nobody notices.

00:01:52.000 | Nobody says anything. You know what the answer

00:01:56.000 | to that is? God. God is the answer.

00:02:00.000 | Listen to this. Matthew 6, 4, Jesus says,

00:02:04.000 | "Your father who sees in secret

00:02:08.000 | will reward you." It's a God issue.

00:02:12.000 | It's a God issue. It's a God issue. It's a God

00:02:16.000 | issue. That's the way you'll survive when every

00:02:20.000 | effort of love disappears in a black hole.

00:02:24.000 | It's a God issue that will keep you smiling. It's a God issue

00:02:28.000 | that will keep you hopeful and happy and resourceful and flowing and

00:02:32.000 | flowing and flowing to the day you die when nobody says thank you.

00:02:36.000 | It's a God issue. You can bring more glory

00:02:40.000 | to your God by pressing on in thankless

00:02:44.000 | love than you can by any other means.

00:02:48.000 | It's a God issue. That's why I said mindful of God

00:02:52.000 | in verse 19 is the most important phrase in the book. Conscious of

00:02:56.000 | God. Are we conscious of God? So often

00:03:00.000 | I find myself not even thinking about God when I get angry

00:03:04.000 | at somebody. Of course I'm going to get angry. I've got

00:03:08.000 | no resources. It's me and them and justice to be done. God's

00:03:12.000 | gone. He's out of the world. And I'm

00:03:16.000 | just pleading with you to figure God back into the equation this morning

00:03:20.000 | and to figure him first on this illustration as the one who

00:03:24.000 | sees in secret and rewards you.

00:03:28.000 | Mark this now. We're sinners, okay? No problem.

00:03:32.000 | We're sinners. We do lots of bad things. They will be covered in the cross.

00:03:36.000 | But we do lots of good things. The Bible says God is not so unjust

00:03:40.000 | as to overlook your good deeds. Hebrews chapter 6.

00:03:44.000 | You do good things. Everybody in this room does good things if you're a believer.

00:03:48.000 | God writes down every one of them in

00:03:52.000 | his book. Every single one

00:03:56.000 | is kept in a book. It doesn't matter if nobody else

00:04:00.000 | in the world, children, spouses, parents,

00:04:04.000 | grandparents, colleagues, friends, roommates

00:04:08.000 | never say a word. God writes it down. And therefore you

00:04:12.000 | can go to your room, get down on your knees and say,

00:04:16.000 | "Father, of all the audiences in the world that I would like

00:04:20.000 | to have, you're the most important.

00:04:24.000 | And I want to thank you that you noticed and that

00:04:28.000 | you approved. And I love you and I need

00:04:32.000 | you and I trust you.

00:04:36.000 | And would you grant me the grace now to be free

00:04:40.000 | from self-pity and move on

00:04:44.000 | and love?" God is the answer, folks. God

00:04:48.000 | is the answer. One last illustration. Namely, the hurt that you

00:04:52.000 | experience, not so much when you are ignored

00:04:56.000 | or the good that you do disappears into a black hole,

00:05:00.000 | but when the good that you do comes back in your face.

00:05:04.000 | It's twisted. It's persecuted.

00:05:08.000 | Someone lies about you at work and you lose your job

00:05:12.000 | and it's totally unjust.

00:05:16.000 | Totally unjust. Or you confide in someone and

00:05:20.000 | bare your soul and

00:05:24.000 | they turn it against you. They reject you.

00:05:28.000 | Or for the first time in your life,

00:05:32.000 | prayerfully, meekly, you sit down in front

00:05:36.000 | of an abortion mill

00:05:40.000 | in Fargo and you get thrown in the Bismarck State

00:05:44.000 | Penitentiary for nine months as a Bethel College student.

00:05:48.000 | That's where Karen Sorensen is. Or David Buck.

00:05:52.000 | He's in jail right now in Wichita.

00:05:56.000 | How do you survive and go on

00:06:00.000 | loving people when your deep judicial sense says

00:06:04.000 | "No! It isn't right! This can't be tolerated.

00:06:08.000 | It's not fair." And the answer

00:06:12.000 | is God. Romans 12

00:06:16.000 | "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves,

00:06:20.000 | but give place to wrath,

00:06:24.000 | for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine,

00:06:28.000 | I will repay,' says the Lord. If your enemy

00:06:32.000 | is hungry, you feed him, and if your enemy is thirsty, you give him drink."

00:06:36.000 | Don't you swear at him. Don't you kick him.

00:06:40.000 | Don't you write nasty letters about him. You love him. Bless him.

00:06:44.000 | Pray for him. And I will be the avenger.

00:06:48.000 | It's a God issue. Do you trust God? Do you trust God with the justice

00:06:52.000 | of your life? You do what Jesus did.

00:06:56.000 | He handed over to him who judges justly. Nothing escapes God's notice.

00:07:00.000 | Nothing falls from his memory. He settles accounts with

00:07:04.000 | absolute justice, and so we can lay it down. So here's what it all boils down to

00:07:08.000 | and I close. Remember God.

00:07:12.000 | I just can't say it any more simply. Remember God.

00:07:16.000 | Remember God. Be conscious

00:07:20.000 | of God. Trust God. God will reward

00:07:24.000 | you for all the right things that you have done when nobody else knows

00:07:28.000 | them, and God will avenge you for all the wrong that has

00:07:32.000 | been done to you when nobody else knows them.

00:07:36.000 | So that now, if you believe this God, if he's real to you, if you are conscious

00:07:40.000 | of him, if you bank on him, then you can be done with self-pity.

00:07:44.000 | And I just invite you, I plead with you, leave the yoke and the burden

00:07:48.000 | of life-ruining self-pity on these benches when you

00:07:52.000 | walk out this morning. Self-pity ruins

00:07:56.000 | life. You can't see anything. You can't see beauty.

00:08:00.000 | You can't see people. You can't do anything wholesome or feel

00:08:04.000 | large feelings. Nothing noble comes out of your life. You're just

00:08:08.000 | groveling down there, getting right, getting even. So just

00:08:12.000 | leave that on the bench when you leave, because God will reward you

00:08:16.000 | for everything you've ever done good when nobody else has noticed.

00:08:20.000 | And it's going to be good. You'll wonder at that day, "Why did I ever feel sorry

00:08:24.000 | for myself?" And the second is, God sees

00:08:28.000 | every wrong that's ever been done to you, and he will either

00:08:32.000 | forgive that by crushing

00:08:36.000 | his son for it, in which case you surely wouldn't want to

00:08:40.000 | take it into your own hands and say, "I can do better than Jesus did when he bled

00:08:44.000 | for that sin. I can vindicate myself better than Jesus vindicated

00:08:48.000 | me by dying." You would never want to say that. Or, if

00:08:52.000 | the person does not believe, he will put them in hell, and they

00:08:56.000 | will burn forever and ever and ever

00:09:00.000 | for the sin against you. And you would not want to

00:09:04.000 | take that into your hand either. It's going to be settled,

00:09:08.000 | folks, and you can lay on the bench as you leave this morning

00:09:12.000 | the yoke of self-pity and the yoke of bitterness and

00:09:16.000 | vengeance and walk out of here free men and free women and

00:09:20.000 | free children. So, so good. I love that clip from

00:09:24.000 | John Piper's sermon on August 25th, 1991, a sermon

00:09:28.000 | titled, "He trusted to him who judges justly."

00:09:32.000 | "He trusted to him who judges justly." You can find that entire

00:09:36.000 | sermon right now at Zyringa.org. Well, do you have a favorite

00:09:40.000 | sermon clip from Pastor John's pulpit ministry? I'm sure you

00:09:44.000 | do. Most of you do. Send it to me. I want to hear it. Give me the

00:09:48.000 | sermon title. Give me the timestamps from the audio of when the clip begins and ends.

00:09:52.000 | Tell me why it's impacted you. And give me your name and the closest city

00:09:56.000 | to you. Email me all of that information at askpastorjohn@zyringa.org.

00:10:00.000 | It's an email address. Askpastorjohn@zyringa.org.

00:10:04.000 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line for me. It'll be easier for me to

00:10:08.000 | find. We are always interested to hear your

00:10:12.000 | favorite clips from the pulpit ministry of John Piper. Maybe we can share

00:10:16.000 | here with the whole audience. Well, do each of my

00:10:20.000 | sins cost me an eternal reward?

00:10:24.000 | Are we caught in a race to outweigh our sins by our good deeds

00:10:28.000 | in order to preserve any level of rewards in

00:10:32.000 | heaven that we will enjoy in eternity? That's a really

00:10:36.000 | good question. It's the next question on the table up on Friday.

00:10:40.000 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

00:10:42.000 | [no audio]

00:10:46.000 | [no audio]

00:10:50.000 | you

I Feel Unappreciated — How Should I Respond?

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