Self Nullification

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Oh, are you in for it today, folks? This is Rodney hosting. I do have Sam here with me, but Sam just gave his daughter away a couple days ago. Congratulations, Sam. I know that was a great night and time for you, your family, and everybody. So just congratulations. Well, thanks. It was.

It was a very, very emotional, rewarding, exciting time, but very tiring. Hence, Rodney's sitting in his chair. Rodney's hosting, and you're going to do an amazing job, Rodney. So we'll be here for you, but you got it.

Take it away. Here we go. Here's Rodney. Yeah. And typical masculine journey fashion, the man who came up with the topic is not here tonight, but at least he told us at the same time he told us about the topic that he wasn't going to be here. So I gave him at least that much that he was at least forthright right away. Yeah. And then his explanation didn't provide total clarity of the topic.

It was kind of new to all of us. I know it was clear in his head. I'm sure it was clear in his head, but right now, my head's kind of mud anyway. It's kind of like, I think I got most of it. But did he provide partial clarity? I was being generous. Yes.

Yes, you were. And that's where I know I ended up finding something on it. And then now, Andy will have a clip here a little bit later that we can definitely do to kind of help everybody understand this topic. So Andy, why don't you tell us what the topic actually is. Well, Sam kind of gave a clue there. So it has to do... As Sam always does.

It's the topic of self-nullification. But Robby's kind of one of his descriptions of that is like how we are from dust. So Sam said his head was like mud. There you go. Wet dust. Just waiting on the sun. Exactly.

Unbearably hot sun here. It was the sweat mixed with dust, right? Exactly. Yeah, that was my day today.

So yeah, so it's self-nullification. And one of the things that I had looked up and started reading about, trying to figure out, well, okay, Robby, what is it that you have for us? And basically talking about submission and surrender and all your thoughts and desires, basically to God. So not being selfish anymore, which I find very hard to do, but that's the trajectory we're going to go with today's show and try to make sure that we aren't presenting ourselves as being selfish, which I'm finding very hard to do right now because all I'm thinking of is, Robby, what did you do to us? So we're going to start off with a clip here from Talladega Nights because we like to start with our little laugh tracks.

At least even with Robby's not here, we throw in a laugh track because he always likes to start that way. But in Talladega Nights, you've got a man who's very prideful, very American, all about himself. And so someone comes into his life and basically disrupts everything. So Ricky Bobby is a NASCAR driver that, if you ain't first, you're last is his slogan. And he's got this Formula One driver that pops in at the bar. And this is the scene where he first meets John Gerard, who comes as nemesis. And Robby thinks he's all that and is going to show Mr. Gerard a lesson. And what you hear in the middle of this, when you hear a little bit of fisticuffs after he says, welcome to America, is he throws a punch at him and then John Gerard puts him in a lock that has his arm in a very awkward position where he can easily break it. And then there's this long discussion about, do I just say I like crepes or not, which is cut out here because it would take forever, but it's hilarious to listen to. And then finally, Ricky says, I'm not going to say it.

And you'll see the result of that. I think what you are hearing is my accent. I am French. You say French? Oui.

Oui. No, we are not French. We're American because you're in America.

Okay. Greatest country on the planet. Ricky Bobby, I have come here to defeat you. Oh, well, there's strikes two and three right there. Did you hear what you just said?

Well, welcome to America, amigo. You are faster, Ricky Bobby. But I am faster. All right, you let go of me, you Formula One jazz nutjob. Like the frightened baby chipmunk.

You are scared by anything that is different. I will let you go, Ricky. But first, I want you to say I love crepes. Don't you say it, Ricky.

These colors don't run. I'm not going to say it. Good.

Hey, look, Frenchie, I thought about it. So why don't you go ahead and break my arm? Why do you want me to break your arm so badly? You don't understand. You don't understand because you don't understand liberty.

You don't understand freedom. So you put a crack in my arm like the crack in the Liberty Bell. You hear me? It's just between you and me, OK?

I mean, forget all these other guys, but he did give you a pretty decent out. It's your call. What do you think? Don't say it.

Yeah, I'm not going to say it. No, break it, Pepe Le Pew. As you wish. Oh, we actually did it. So that's what happens to us when we get selfish and prideful and we just won't give in. We don't give in to God and we get what we asked for.

Well, you get what you asked for, and that's where Jean Girard gave him what he asked for. You want your arm broke? OK, fine. I'll break it.

Here you go. Yeah, there's a scripture somewhere, right, that says pride happens before the fall. Just a little before.

Yeah, just a little before, right, and that one is just a couple seconds before. That was in the Old Testament. It was in there.

Proverbs. OK, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I knew it was in there.

I just didn't know where it was. That was for your benefit because last time I made a reference to a scripture in the New Testament. I appreciate you hurting my feelings, Andy.

Thank you. No, I was very mean to you that day. So, yeah, that was well deserved.

That was well deserved. But, yeah, definitely pride has a way of knocking us down a peg, right? You know, but the self-nolification is, you know, God working in your heart to where you don't have to get knocked down a peg unless I'm misunderstanding it. I think that's where we're at with our understanding. And if you want to, Andy, why don't you set up your next clip so we can get the definition out there so we can all kind of maybe come together on this term.

Yeah, there's not much set up to it. It's some rabbis talking about self-nolification. And I think this is where Robby got it is more from the Hebrew background. And they do a good job, I think, of explaining their, you know, just their ideas of what self-nolification is. My name is Jean Girard. And I am a... That's not it. Yeah. Rabbi Taub, chassidus always stresses bitol, self-nolification.

Isn't it bad for your self-esteem to constantly look down on yourself as a nothing? So I'll tell you something that I saw very recently. There was an article, a feature article in a magazine called the Chisidisha Deher, which I recommend to everybody to bring it into your homes. It's just an incredible magazine. And they did an article about the encounter with Chabad, which was a program that would bring college students from campus to Crown Heights and give them a Shabbaton experience, an immersive experience. Anyways, one of the facsimiles there in that article was somebody wrote the program for the entire Shabbos, like, similar to like the program that we have for the retreat.

But it was one page, it was handwritten, and it was all the schedule for the day for everything they were doing, along with the topics, the names of the topics of the lectures. One of the lectures was called bitol hayesh, which is a Hasidic term in Hebrew. And then in English, it said the quest for nothingness. And the rabbi circled, he made no other notations on the entire page, but he circled the word nothingness and put a question mark, like that's what you describe self nullification as the quest for nothingness.

Now, the rabbi didn't say what the proper definition is. But I would say something like this, getting rid of the ego or the false sense of self is to make room for the true self. It's not a quest for nothingness. It's a quest to become one with the everything with the all, or to put it succinctly in one more sentence, self nullification is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

Yeah, I really liked that. Because it identifies with us what he stated there was getting rid of the false self and embracing the true self. And we talk about it, that a lot in the masculine journey. I think John Eldred speaks about that quite a bit. And the self to me is I'm going out here and I'm trying to get life for myself and my self identified way of what's comfortable to me and what my background and history, you know, kind of pushes me towards, instead of saying, Okay, I found this wonderful person, God, and I'm going to allow him, he knows me best, I'm going to allow him to come in and give me more direction and take up his life that he has for me and I walk it out that way.

And I think that second part they talk about is also very key. It's not thinking as myself as less of a person, right? It's about thinking about myself less often, right? That the world doesn't revolve around me, right? That, you know, having things in the proper perspective, as well as, you know, sitting inside that false self, that false identity, to where God can help you find your true identity. And I think it's actually thinking more of yourself. Because when you put it in proper context that you are God's child, now you're, you know, in his family, before time began, he chose you to know him. And what better thing is there than that?

I mean, that really exalts you as a person and where you should be to where you should want to give things over to God. Yeah, it's the difference between the two words, sun, right? I don't want to be the S-U-N that the world revolves around, you know, that the planets revolve around, but to be the S-O-N, right? And to live in that. Very well done, Sam.

Thank you. I think that one of the issues is that we need to go back and realize that all of our problems stem from the one who would not do self-nullification. Satan had the pride that elevated himself, where he wanted to be above God. And then we can see what happened after that. So what happened, Harold? We had a break. Yeah, yeah, Sam's over here.

I got nothing. So we've got boot camp coming up the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. Great time for you to go prepare yourself and your mind to go into the Thanksgiving season. So go to radiomasculinejourney.org to register, please. What if one weekend wasn't up to you that you could go and God would orchestrate it all? Masculine Journey Boot Camp, basic training designed to give men permission to be how God made them. Passionate warriors for the kingdom based on John Eldridge's Wild at Heart. Experience four days purpose for God to come after and perhaps reawaken dreams and desires He uniquely placed in your masculine heart. Fall Boot Camp coming up November 18th through the 21st. Go to masculinejourney.org and register today. Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. Not because of who I am, but because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, but because of who you are. I am a flower quickly fading.

Okay, so this is Andy bringing you back, since I guess the new rule is, is if you've submitted the bump, you've got to open the second part of the show. I picked that clip, though. I've always liked that song. It's not about who you are, it's about who He is. Really, that's what we're talking about here. Again, it even gets to the end of the song that says, I'm a flower quickly fading. It's that whole thing of, we are created in the image of God, but we are dust that is deteriorating. We get our identity from Him, and that brings value to our lives through that. But you get the self out of the way, you nullify the self, and you become what He's created you to be.

Yeah, I'm not very far down the flower path, but I am definitely fading. Danny, what you got for us? Well, to think that Ricky Bobby inspired something spiritually kind of scares me just a little bit. In Philippians 2, which is in the New Testament for Sam and Andy, it says, Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. It's talking about Jesus, and here is God in the flesh who had no reputation.

Matter of fact, He was slandered, but He took on that form and walked it out as an example to us. It doesn't get any better example of that than, it's not about me, because in our Christian culture, we've taken it to be, oh, I've got to be a lowly worm-like thing, and that's not the heart of God toward us. The heart of it is that what happens to me really doesn't matter in a sense, because my Heavenly Father is going to look after me if I just walk in obedience to Him as a child.

Yeah, and since you brought that up being a worm, when I was looking up the self-nullification and looking for definitions and things of that nature, the one site that I came to is kind of explain some of this, and it went into some things that I couldn't comprehend. Just honestly, just some stuff in there. It's like, I don't know where they're going with some of this, but definitely for the Scripture part, when they said in Genesis 18, 27, I am but dust and ashes. So it's like, that's all we are. You know, and I think where Robby, I think, wanted to go when he first sent this out was something about the kleppa, which is your shell, your outer shell, which is, hey, we're just dust. That's what we're made from, and that's what we shall return to, right? And then also, you talk about the worm.

Psalm 22, 7 is, I am a worm and not a man. It's just trying to figure out where we are, so the worms are going to eat our flesh off of us, things of that nature. We're a part of the world. We didn't create anything. We didn't come up with this. We didn't make the world. Everything that we do in the world takes things that God has given to us, and we redo them in a way that makes a car, that gives us air conditioning, which we all are really enjoying to this wonderful hot day.

But things of that nature, we take things that He created, and we use them in very creative ways, because He gave us the ability to create from Him. Dr. Darrell Bock You're talking about Kleppa, right? It's weird how when you say a Hebrew word, I get it and retain it. When Robby does, it just washes right away. Darrell Bock Maybe it's Rabbi Rodney now. Dr. Darrell Bock It might be, though. It's not. It's not.

And Robby's, I do retain it-ish. But no, this world says your identity is the outer shell. How you look, what shape you are if you're overweight, underweight, whatever it is, your height, all those things, right? The world is all focused on the outer shell. But your identity is not found there.

The world says it is. But in truth, the identity is found internally in that relationship with God. And those are the things that matter at the end of the day. And I think that that's where once this is all gone and we're all worm food and that kind of thing, we still have our identity in God. Right? That remains forever.

And maybe that's where Robby wanted to go on some of it. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. We'll find out next week. Dr. Darrell Bock Oh, yeah. Dr. Darrell Bock When he corrects us. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

If we come in and we're kind of down on the air next week, you know we've been corrected. Dr. Darrell Bock By the rabbi. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah.

Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah. So, again, that's who can reach into us, right? This is actually a great setup, Sam, is Jesus. And the next clip is a scene from the chosen when he reaches Simon.

So we all know about Simon becoming Peter and becoming the rock, but before then, he was a mess. And in the chosen, basically what's happening here is you have both Simon and Andrew out fishing because they're in dire straits because they're behind on their taxes, and Matthew's actually the tax collector. And then you have Zebedee with James and John that said, okay, we'll go out and fish with you because he explained where their situation was, how dire it was.

Okay, we'll help you. We'll go out all night and fish with you. They come rowing into shore, and you get this look on Andrew's face like, okay, is that who I think it is? And then finally, Jesus turns around and looks at him. He's like, oh, it's him, it's him. And what Jesus is doing is teaching some of his students there on the shore, and then he wants to use their boat. And this is the scene where they're actually going to tell him to cast out to the side of the boat, and this is where they bring in this huge haul, doesn't even break the net, and actually they have a boat full of fish.

And then that's when Simon breaks down. So that's where we're going to pick this clip up and let you listen to a man that goes from, nah, I don't have time for you, Jesus, to, um, you get to hear it. Yeah. Yes, yes, of course.

Please, please, stand on my boat. Thank you. I need to go. I'm sorry, no time for this today. Stay a few moments longer. I have something for you.

For me? I'm in a hurry? Yes, I know. Just allow me a few moments, please. Simon, trust me, as I have trusted you, this man is the Messiah.

These parables I tell you make sense to some, not to others. Be patient. That is all for today. I have some business to attend to with my new friend. Put that down for a catch.

A little farther out. I don't have a quarrel with you, teacher, but we've been doing this all night. Nothing. All right. That's your word. My brother and the baptizer, you are the lamb of God, yes? I am. Depart from me. I am a sinful man. You don't know who I am and the things I've done. Don't be afraid, Simon. I'm sorry. We've waited for you for so long, we believe, but my faith, I'm sorry. Lift up your head, fisherman.

Anything you ask, I will do. Follow me. And that's what we're asked to do, is follow him.

That's some self-nullification right there. I tell you, we're never perfect at it. We can't maintain it every second of our lives, but those moments that we do have, that we do surrender, are those some of the best moments you've ever had in your life? Is when you can actually say in that moment, right now, I'm not trusting myself, Lord, I'm trusting you.

Yeah, I think in the past, I mean, similar stories to what we've talked about before on the show, but you know, I don't have any specifics right now, but I know that there was a lot of time. To me, this is a pretty simple concept and it's pretty important to the gospel of you think, you control your life, you feel like you're controlling your life and you're trying to provide direction and it's because it's the false self trying to get in. I know what's best for me. I'm the master of my ship. You don't think about it like this, but you're actually walking out of orphan spirit. I can do all this thing, you know, all this stuff by myself and there's a lot of disappointment. You weren't made to do that, that you were not made to be satisfied for your own merit and your own effort. You were made to partner with, you know, God, the Father, the Son. You were made to partner with them and to actually, you know, follow that plan that they have for your life and so much of our problem is the self getting into the way. When I mentioned the topic of Robby, I had always heard it as dying to self.

And it's not something easy to do. You know, it talks about in the New Testament, one of the epistles, about, you know, that we're buried with Christ and that, you know, we actually do die to ourselves. Now, a lot of times our spirit dies or our spirit, we die in a way that we are – you're identified with him, but we don't let that flesh die and we continually allow it to get in the way of our walk with him and, you know, therefore not really walking in self-nullification. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, that was Paul. Paul's the one that stated that. Yeah, Galatians 6.

Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, anyway, in case you're wondering. No, it's – you're right. You know, you think about – Paul talks about the old self that has to die, right? And it's a daily thing because it keeps wanting to rise up, right? And so this old identity, this old way of seeing myself, this old way the world dictates who they say I am, keeps wanting to get in the way of who God says I am, right?

And so you're exactly right, Andy. It's right there that, you know, we need to do that so that we can be in a place where we can be self-nullifying. Dr. Darrell Bock I think part of the issue, and I'll speak for myself, the issue is that I don't say no to me and yes to the Holy Spirit when he's trying to tell me what I need to do and where I need to go. And if I listen to him instead of me, I'll be more often to get it right. Andy King So I think our homework assignment is for us to go back and pray and ask God, okay God, where am I being selfish? And ask also, where do I self-nullify? Where do I actually depend on you? Where are things where I'm succeeding? Because again, success breeds that confidence and success to go out and try to do more. So listeners, we'd ask you to do that. And please consider going to boot camp. This is the Truth Network.