Stop Believing In Yourself, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

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 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. 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. We live in an age of plurality here. All viewpoints 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. I'd say we want to follow a real king. Reluctantly, God said, OK, choose one.

And they do. They choose Saul. Now, I've 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.

OK, 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 are righteous, but some of them are 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. It seems right to you. A lot of you came out of religious backgrounds.

It 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.

You have to 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 a 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 somewhat deceitful. God says, no, it's the most deceitful thing you'll ever face, your heart.

Why would it be like that? And 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. And the reason is, your heart deceives you. And that's just the way it works.

No matter how logical it seems or illogical, it seems to us, you run into it all the time. 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? Seem right to man? Just seemed like a good idea.

I couldn't believe you went there. 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, 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. Look, 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 your 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 repaying, 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, just completely destroy us. And the last thing I want to say, maybe the most important part is found in Matthew chapter 16. Matthew 16 and verse 24. Not only to believe in ourselves as the basis of the fall, believing in themselves got Israel in all kinds of trouble and believing in ourselves is easy, but it will destroy us. But what I want to say in Matthew 16 is this. Jesus says, Jesus taught the exact opposite of believing in ourselves.

He taught exactly the opposite. Jesus is speaking to his disciples in verse 24, and that's us. He says, let me set up a condition here. If anyone wants to come after me, how many of us want to? You see, if you're already saved, you're one of his disciples, do you want to come after me? Yeah, I want to.

We all do. But I'm telling you, if anyone wants to come after me, there's some conditions here. One, he must deny himself. Two, take up his cross.

Three, follow me. He must deny himself. Wait, that's not exactly the same as fulfilling myself. Yeah, you have to deny yourself.

You see, this is against our nature. I don't want to deny myself. You see, I want to lift myself up. I want to believe in myself. He says, no, you need to deny yourself.

That's an amazing statement. In other words, he's saying, don't follow your heart. Don't follow a desperately wicked heart and say you want to follow me.

Some of us do, by the way. We think we're following Christ because we go through a couple of things that we're willing to tolerate. You see, someone would say, are you a follower of Christ? You go, oh, yeah, I'm a follower. I've read the Bible a couple of times in a year.

I've gone to church on third of the Sundays. That means I'm a follower, right? Wrong, that's not following him at all. But that's as much as I want to follow. You see, I want to follow, but just about that much. And please understand this. I don't want to be a fanatic. By the way, I've read the entire Bible on more than one occasion. There's no such thing as a Christian fanatic.

There's no such thing. No, I don't want to be a fanatic. What's that mean? I don't want to really follow him all the time. That's a fanatic. I mean, on Monday, you want to follow him?

Saturday night, you want to follow him? Yeah, I don't want to do that. You see, that's our flesh speaking. He said, you need to deny yourself, and then he says you need to take up your cross. And please understand, they all knew what this meant.

Not only am I going to have to deny myself, he said, are you willing to humiliate yourself for me? Because that's what it means to take up your cross. When the Romans crucified you, the vertical pole was always in the ground, and they had a cross member. You always had to carry the cross member to where the vertical pole was before they crucified you.

And normally what they do, they strip you bare naked, then put a sign around your neck, and then they'll walk you through the center of town. That's humiliation. That's about as humiliating as something could be. Jesus said, are you willing to take up the cross? Are you willing to be humiliated for me? Are you willing to deny yourself for me? He said, after you do those two things, now follow me. See, I can't follow him if I don't deny myself and I don't take up the cross. I'm not following.

I could say I'm following, but I'm not at all. That's what Jesus says. The other thing to think about is Jesus said, isn't that exactly what I did for you? Did the Son of God deny himself? Yes. He emptied himself of his divine prerogatives out of Philippians. Did he take up the cross? Was he humiliated for you and me?

Yes. And in his case, he had no reason to be, other than his love for us. He said, I'm just asking you to do what I did for you. And then he says, now you can follow me. Now, the next verse, he says, let me explain something. He said, for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.

What? Yeah, whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake, he'll find it.

Wow. That sounds strange. How do I find my life by losing it? Gee, I don't quite understand that. And if I lose my life, guess what I find? I find my life. In other words, what Jesus is saying is, when you really believe in me rather than believing in you, you're really going to have life the way it's intended for you. That's what you're going to get. You see, and that's the life of Jesus said, I've come to give you life and to give it to you abundantly.

That's the life of joy and peace and hope, purpose and meaning. He said, that's what you have to do. He said, but you're going to have to lose your life in order to find it. In other words, you have to stop believing in you and start believing in me. He goes on and he explains it, and he uses salvation as the illustration.

Again, an explanatory fore or gar. He says, for what will it profit, he said, a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? He said, you can believe in yourself.

You can try that. You can believe in whatever you want. You could gain the whole world in your belief system, but I can tell you this.

You're going to lose your soul. By the way, that is the axiom of all religion. They believe it.

I believe it. I know how to do this. I know what we need to do in order to save ourselves. Jesus said, you'll lose your life. I don't care how much of the world you gain.

You're going to lose everything. That's amazing to me. In 1 Corinthians 1, 18, Jesus said, or Paul wrote this. He said, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

Do you ever talk to a religious person about the gospel and the cross? It's always the same. That's folly. No, no, you have to belong to our organization. You have to do what you're told.

And it's only when you do it, you earn it, and then you get to go. They think it's folly, but it's not. You see, the whole thing about not believing yourself and believing in God is paradoxical. That's why it's a problem. It's paradoxical. Webster says a paradox is a tenet contrary to a received opinion, or it's a statement that is seemingly contradictory to common sense, and yet it's true. That's what I'm trying to say. This is all paradoxical, every bit of it. For you and I to be all that we can be, we need to believe in something other than ourselves.

We need to believe in something stronger and bigger than us. It's the only way you got saved. When you got saved, you realized I can't do anything to save myself, Lord.

I can receive your gift because you've done all the work. Now what Jesus is telling us after you're saved, how are you going to live your life? He said the same way. I'm going to live my life the same way.

It's always paradoxical. The Bible says if you want to be exalted, you have to be humbled. Is that what our culture says?

No way. I can climb right over you people and get to the top. You want to be exalted, go and get it. You see, that's what our world says. He said, now you need to be humbled. If you want to be first, you have to be last. Does that make sense to you?

You want to be first, you have to be last? If I want to be strong, he says, yeah, you have to be weak. Remember Paul's thorn in the flesh? He said to the Lord three times, you get rid of it, and God says, you don't understand, Paul.

It's a little different than you think. Whenever you're weak, Paul, I'm strong. Whenever you're strong, Paul, you're strong. So I'm going to keep you weak. And Paul said, OK, I'll be happy with that. But see, it's counterintuitive.

It's paradoxical. Who doesn't like to receive things? Who wouldn't want to receive as much as we can? We love that.

What's the Bible say? How do you do it? By giving. You have to give to receive. That's not the way. No, we say you receive by accruing.

You hold it for yourself, you grab all that you can and you make sure no one else gets it. God said, no, it's exactly the opposite. You give as much as you can and then you'll receive it. It's all paradoxical. I love Rocky Balboa's speech, but it's just simply not true. I don't need to believe in me. I need to believe in him. You see, if the Apostle Paul were going to give you and I a speech about how to motivate us to live, Paul would give a much shorter one, but he would have said this. He would say, you can do all things through him who strengthens you. You see, you need to believe in him rather than in you.

Let's pray. Father, this is a difficult notion for us. We live in a culture that never stops beating the drum, that it's our self-love that should motivate us. We need to believe in ourselves. We need to have confidence in us, but that's not what the Word of God says. The Word of God says we need to have confidence in him and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And everything's there for us.

The things we want in life, meaning and purpose and joy and peace and hope, they're all there for us, but we have to defer and put our faith in him. It makes sense, Father, because we're the creature. You're the creator. You have created us this way, but the fall has changed us. And instead of believing in you, we decide to believe in us.

The consequences of our bad decisions are everywhere around us. Father, I pray that each of us challenge ourselves in the heart and say, look, do I really do this? I want to come after Christ. I want to follow Christ. But do I deny myself and do I take up the cross?

And do I make my decisions based on what God says rather than on the basis of what I feel? Father, I pray that we learn this lesson for our good and your glory. In Christ's name, amen. 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, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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