Stop Believing In Yourself, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. In order to have the kind of life that I think that we should have, the whole point of it is that we have to believe there's something much, much bigger and stronger than us to put our faith in. And this self-esteem culture in which we live has become a culture of futilities.

You can look at every marker out there. All the things I said, suicide rates and other, it's all escalating because that's the wrong message to believe in us. We need to believe in something greater and stronger than us. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Who would have thought that when the original Rocky movie came out, how many more Rocky movies that there would be? The one I was reading about this week is Rocky Balboa, 2006. What I want to read is that Rocky is giving this inspirational speech to a son, and he says this. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows.

It's a very mean and nasty place. And he says, I don't care how tough you are, it'll beat you to your knees and it'll keep you there permanently if you let it. You mean nobody is going to hit as hard as life hits. But it ain't about how hard you're hit. It's about how hard you get hit and keep moving forward.

How much can you take and keep moving forward? That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. He says you're going to be you've got to be willing to take the hits and not, he says, point fingers at others saying that you didn't get what you wanted because of him or her or somebody else.

Cowards do that. That ain't you. You're better than that. I'm always going to love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son.

You're my blood. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't going to have a life. That's pretty inspiring. Right. I mean, wow.

Got his son going as only Rocky Balboa could do it. And he's telling them, what a speech, what a motivator. And in a way, I'd say I love that speech. Except it's a lie. It's not true.

The last line that I. Until you start believing in yourself. You ain't going to have a life. That's a lie. But that's the pep talk of our age. Everywhere.

Any form of media. That's what they'll tell you. You need to believe in yourself. That's the most important thing. You need to believe in yourself.

You see, in our day and age, I'd say, here's the problem. If you don't believe in yourself, you're going to suffer the worst infirmity that can happen to any human being. You're going to have low self-esteem. There's nothing worse than that.

That's the mantra of our age. There's nothing worse than that. You've got poor grades in grammar school, low self-esteem. That's why you've got poor grades. The high school dropout rate. Low self-esteem.

Teen pregnancies. That's low self-esteem. Alcohol and drug abuse. That's low self-esteem.

Divorce. Low self-esteem. Child abuse. Low self-esteem. The overcrowding, overflowing prisons filled with people with low self-esteem.

Suicides. It's all about low self-esteem. You see, you have to understand, just like Rocky was trying to tell his son, if you believe you're a winner, then you're a winner. That's the mantra of the age. You hear that in every possible way. Sitcoms, movies, the media, over and over again, you're told this as you grow up.

We're the really first generation that ever heard it, but we hear it all the time. I believe the self-esteem movement has the right motivation. We want people to feel better about themselves, but it has the wrong message. I'm saying that we should all feel good about ourselves. That's not what I'm talking about, but I want you to know, we should feel good about ourselves, but that doesn't come through us. That doesn't happen through us. In order to have the kind of life that I think that we should have, the whole point of it is that we have to believe there's something much, much bigger and stronger than us to put our faith in. And this self-esteem culture in which we live has become a culture of futilities.

You can look at every marker out there. All the things I said, suicide rates and other, it's all escalating, because that's the wrong message to believe in us. We need to believe in something greater and stronger than us. I want to start in Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3.

There will be no excuse for not finding it. The first thing I want to say this morning is this. To believe in ourselves is the basis of the fall. To believe in ourselves is the basis of the fall of man. Verse 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? I don't know what God said, but he just wants to test her. Did God say he can't eat any of the trees of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, you shall not eat from it or touch it or you'll die. Okay, now she took that a little further. God never said didn't touch it, but I'm sure Adam made it clear to Eve.

Don't go near that tree. But I want you to understand something. Before that happened, Adam and Eve had an Edenic life, as wonderful a life as you could have, the life we were all created for. God put them in Eden.

They had no needs or wants. God came and walked with them in the garden. He was the creator. They were the creature.

You couldn't get better than this. Satan comes now on the basis of this one commandment, to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he brings the temptation to Eve. And he says to her now in verse 4, he said, the serpent said to the woman, you surely shall not die, for God knows that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God. You'll know the difference of good and evil.

Wow. There is the temptation, the hook. You will be like God.

What's that mean? You'll be able to decide for yourself what you want. You see, it won't be God telling you. You'll be like God.

You'll know the difference of good and evil. You don't have to believe in God. You can believe in you.

You see, that's it. You can believe in you then, because you'll be just like him. Now, if you remember, Lucifer's own fall came exactly the same way.

In Ezekiel 28, Lucifer was the anointed cherub that covered. He was the most magnificent creature God ever created. He found a mirror somewhere in heaven, looked in it and said, there's no one like me.

I'm really great. And when he did it in Isaiah 14, it says that five times he said, you know what? I'm going to make my own choices. I'm going to choose to believe in me, not him.

So five times he says, I will sit on the holy mountain. I will make the rule. I'm going to see sounds just like man. I'll be the captain of my own ship. I'll decide what I want to believe. It says when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was the light to the eyes.

Don't miss this. And the tree was desirable to make one wise. She took from its fruit and ate. And she gave it also to her husband. And he ate.

Wow. The three elements here of the fall. It looked good.

It was the light to the eyes, but the most important one. It'll make me wise. Like who? Like him. I don't have to believe in him. I can believe in me. You see, I'll believe in me. I'll decide my fate. I'll make my own decisions. That's what I'll do.

I'll be able to do this. It'll make me wise. And that's the real temptation that you run into. And we have faced that ever since. The mantra has never stopped. The history of man is man believing in man. I believe in me.

That's the most important thing. And no more than anywhere in the world we live now. Our world is just filled with this idea. The culture in America is just filled with this idea. You need to believe in you. I mean, if we had a song for it, the Whitney Houston song, the greatest love of all is me.

The greatest love I could ever have is for me. That's our culture. And it says it over and over and over again. You need to believe in you.

But it's always been a problem. Turn with me now to Judges 21, 25, the last verse in the book of Judges. Abraham has been called out. He's been given to Abraham a covenant. He has Isaac. Isaac has Jacob.

Jacob has 12 sons. They become the 12 tribes of Israel. God then decides that he's going to put the 12 tribes of Israel into the promised land. It's going to be great. He says, I'll put you in. I'll do all the work. It'll be a land flowing with milk and honey.

It's going to be wonderful for you. They get into the land flowing with milk and honey. God does it all for them. And then problems begin, one problem after another. And the problems, in order to try to solve their problems, God sends judges to them. He sends one judge after another, guys like Samson and Gideon. He sends judges to them and says, look, I've got to straighten you out. There's something so wrong here. And verse 25 of Judges tells us what's wrong.

In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's America. That's us. Everyone does what's right in our own eyes. We live in an age of plurality here. All points of view in America are equal. What's good for you is good for you, but it might not be good for me. What's true for you might be true for you, but it's not true for me. I decide, you see, and that's America. We all do what's right in our own eyes. And of course, as a country now, we're beginning to reap what we sow as a nation. But the idea is I do what's right in my own eyes.

That's the way this thing works for me. And it's an interesting thought when you think about it, that it says in those days, there was no king in Israel. Now remember, after this time passed, guess what Israel asked God for? I want a king.

God says, no, no, no, no. You have to understand something. I'm your king. You're like, that's a stupid king. I don't want you to be king.

I can't even see you. I mean, all the pagans, they got kings. They got crowns.

They got courts. We want to see a king, someone who's a king. That's who we want to follow, a real king. Reluctantly, God said, OK, choose one.

And they do. They choose Saul. Now, you heard me before. And if you're younger, I'm sorry.

But if you're a little bit older, you'd understand this. The more I've studied the scripture, I'm still with this. But if you remember the old sitcom, the Beverly Hillbillies, I believe Saul is Jethro Bodine, big, strapped, handsome man.

But if you watch the series, there's not a whole lot else there. And that was Saul. But see, what happened was they decided they wanted to follow a king. Now, please understand, David was a great king. Solomon was a great king.

But then they split. Judah and Benjamin stayed in Judah, and the other 10 were called Israel. Every king that Israel ever had was evil, every single one. And in Judah, some of them were righteous, but some of them were evil. If you look at the history of men leading men, men deciding, all of the kings of the earth, how well has that turned out? Whether you call them kings or dictators, whatever you call them, any time man leads man, it doesn't work out very well at all.

Man has no real capacity to do this. But everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. Now, believing is the basis of the fall, and yourselves is the basis of the fall.

And also, Israel ran into a lot of trouble with this the whole way through their history. But I want to move to a third point, Proverbs chapter 14. I want to talk about, why are we driven to this?

What's so tempting about this? You know, of all the different things in your Christianity, this one basic point might be the most difficult for you and for me. This is a difficult issue, to believe in God rather than to believe in me.

I mean, it's just part of who I am. Solomon's writing this, and in chapter 14 and verse 12 of Proverbs, he says this. He said, there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. There is a way that seems right to a man.

He said, yes, and it ends in death. You see, because of our fallen nature, believing in myself seems right. It just seems right. It's the way to go.

He said, yes, I know. There's a way that seems right to a man, but I'm telling you, it ends in death. It doesn't work that way. Think of what man did even approaching God, man invented from the Tower of Babylon, religion. Seemed right to you. A lot of you came out of religious backgrounds.

Seems right, doesn't it? Religion. You just join a religion. You go when they tell you to go. You do what they tell you to do. You stand up, sit down, bow, whatever it is. You go through the motions. You go through the religion. And it seems right that God's going to be so impressed with your religion, he'll just say, come on in. But it ends in death.

Doesn't work. Seems right. Think of how incurably religious man is. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, they all think it's right. It seems right.

It does. But it ends in death. He said, that's its problem. Now, when you think about it a little bit more, the issue seems to be, why is this? Why does it seem right to us but ends up in death? Turn to Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse 9. Jeremiah 17 and verse 9. Jeremiah says in 17, 9, he starts out with our heart. Now, understand, when the Hebrew says heart, he means our soul, where our mind, emotions, and will are, the inner part of us, the decision-making part, all that. That's what he means heart. He doesn't mean the organ. He says the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? That's my heart.

That's your heart. What's God say about it? It's more deceitful than anything else. Wouldn't you want to say, well, it's a little naive. It's not deceitful. God says, no, it's the most deceitful thing you'll ever face, your heart.

Why would it be like that? He said, because it's desperately sick. That's the next phrase that he uses, your heart. And here's the question. Who does your heart deceive?

You. You see, your heart deceives you. It's as natural as anything could be. There's a way that seems right to a man.

It ends in death. You see, and the reason is your heart deceives you. And that's just the way it works.

No matter how logical it seems or illogical, I mean, it seems to us, you run into it all the time. I mean, just you were all teenagers. And many of you have teenagers. And do you ever just notice how teenagers can do almost unbelievably stupid things? I mean, they have a capacity for things like that.

And a parent always says the same thing. Why? Why did you do that? Why did you go there?

Why? It seemed right to me. It seemed like a good idea.

I couldn't believe you went there. It just seemed, I mean, the other kids were saying it seemed right to them too. I mean, that's being a teenager. But we all do it even as adults. There's a way that seems right. But my heart is desperately wicked. You see, and a sidebar of that is even as adults, don't we often say, well, you know, I've got this really important decision to make. I'm just going to go with my gut. Please don't. I'm just going to go with my gut. I mean, we have said things that are unbelievably stupid.

I've heard people that have said, I'm committing adultery on my spouse and I know it's of the Lord because the Lord wants me happy and this makes me happy. I'm just doing a God thing here. Really? Yeah.

How did someone get that deceived? Their heart? That's just the way your heart works?

Yeah, this is fine for me. I think I'm going to do this. I'm just going to go with my gut on this thing. Be careful about that. You can't trust your gut.

It's deceitful. And there is a way, you see, in my own heart that my flesh is going to respond. And what you end up finding is how God says I should respond to life and how my flesh instinctively wants to are diametrically opposed to each other.

They're very, very different things. I mean, just think. The whole self-esteem idea in America is, you need to look out for number one and you're number one. And then Paul writes, or God tells us in Philippians, you and I need to consider everybody else as more important than we are. Everybody. Now, be honest. Do you do that?

Really? There might be some people out there as important as you, but there are a lot of people out there that aren't even close to important as you are. Christians would never say things like, do you know who I am?

Yes, a safe sinner. What else do you have? You have nothing else. But see, that's our instincts.

This seems counter instinctive to me. I've got to consider everybody else as more important than me. I know some of you people aren't more important than me.

You see, so how could I consider that? You see, somebody says terrible things to me. Everybody's taught me since I'm little, stand up for yourself and say terrible things back. God says, say no unkind word. Somebody does you dirt and here's your thought.

How do I get them back? Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, right? God said, hey, wait a minute. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

I'll do the repent, not you. See how this works. This is hard for us. Our instincts keep telling us. And the reason is, believing in ourselves is easy, but it will destroy us.

It will just completely destroy us. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, where you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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