Ever since the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of nine people, there has been much in the news about the death of professional basketball player Kobe Bryant.

The eight other people who died in the crash, including Kobe’s daughter, were not celebrities like Kobe was. They were a baseball coach, his wife and daughter, the helicopter pilot, a basketball coach and a mother and a daughter who played on the same team as Kobe’s daughter. A celebrity was involved but what was really going on were parents and kids on their way to a girls’ basketball game.

Right before he got on the helicopter that Sunday morning, Kobe and his daughter went to church, something he did regularly. The world, in a way, worshipped him for his basketball skill, but that morning Kobe was a man with a longing to worship the Lord and a dad who wanted his daughter to be in worship as well.

True worship teaches us of the equality of us all. We all equally need to meet with God. We are all sinners who must humbly bow in submission before the Almighty.

Revelation 7:8 gives us a picture of an incredible worship service that is to come. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” It doesn’t describe celebrities and sports superstars as being in a different section from everyone else. All people with faith in Jesus, the Lamb of God, will be recognized as equal at that point. They will be declaring together that Christ is the One worthy of all glory and praise.

During the brief moment we call this life, things like winning basketball championships, getting applause, and having a lot of money, seems like they matter a great deal. But when we look at things from an eternal perspective, we see that those things have limited importance. What matters is being in a right relationship with God by faith in Christ. What matters is loving God and loving people.

We are all equally needy and equally valuable. “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). No matter how many awards a person has won, they still need God’s forgiveness. And no matter how little recognition they have received from the world, they are still dearly loved by God and of great importance to Him. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

We have value and worth not because of what we can do or how many people know us or applaud for us. We have value because God loves us. For most of us, it won’t be breaking news around the world when we die. But it doesn’t matter if the crowd knows us. What matters is, through Christ, we can know God, and God graciously knows us.