Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #67： The Self-Love Delusion

00:00:00.440 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about the self-love delusion. 0.99

00:00:06.640 Important topic in the church today, but before we get started, I want to let you know Veronica is not with me again this week, and that's okay.

00:00:13.640 She just got back from a five-day trip to California with two of the kids. One of them was left with me.

00:00:18.980 And this topic, I think, is too poignant and preachy and passionate for me to make it more of a conversation.

00:00:26.900 I think there's some really important parts here theologically that I want to dive into,

00:00:30.200 and I think it'd be best if we did it as a solo show.

00:00:33.340 So Veronica will be back next week on the podcast.

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00:00:58.360 So over the past several years, I've noticed this growing trend of self-love and self-care,

00:01:05.900 which again, I think are two different things.

00:01:07.520 But this self-love movement, and it's a long celebrated idea in the culture,

00:01:11.940 but now it's even become a celebrated idea in the church.

00:01:15.240 I've actually seen churches do entire sermon series on self-love and how to do it

00:01:22.080 and how to love yourself better.

00:01:23.980 If you just Google around, you actually see those sermon series that they do exist.

00:01:29.620 And, you know, I basically think that those sermon series are psychologically driven infotainment

00:01:36.340 to accommodate the desires of the congregation in many ways.

00:01:40.640 I don't think that these are generally scripturally mature, biblically mature sermon series

00:01:45.360 that are edifying the body of Christ to do the work of the ministry in the world.

00:01:51.200 Most of the passages in those scripture that they use in scripture in those messages are taken way out of context and extended into territory that's beyond its intended purpose for that specific verse.

00:02:03.760 And so, for example, I'll give you I'll give you one of them.

00:02:05.880 They're going to use love your neighbor as yourself.

00:02:08.340 Right. This is, you know, just the the the golden rule.

00:02:12.760 Right. Treat others as you want to be treated.

00:02:14.540 This kind of idea of this passage of scripture is very abused in this self-love movement.

00:02:21.560 And they say things like, we treat others the same way we treat ourselves.

00:02:26.300 And if I'm uncertain about my worth, how am I going to treat other people as if they are worthy?

00:02:32.840 If I don't love myself, how can it be possible for me to love others?

00:02:36.820 This is kind of the logic that they use there.

00:02:40.080 And it actually sounds appealing to the untrained mind.

00:02:44.540 But that is not how the Bible instructs us or explains or defines us to express love to each other.

00:02:53.960 And I want to make two points here.

00:02:55.600 So first, this is just a pretty obvious point.

00:02:58.480 If Jesus tells us to love others like we love ourselves and you happen to hate yourself, then is Jesus telling you to go hate people?

00:03:10.060 That can't be right, right?

00:03:11.360 So that's just one point.

00:03:12.520 Just kind of let that float in your head for a second.

00:03:14.540 Secondly, if you're, you know, if you call yourself a Christian, and you're probably one of those people if you listen to the show, you call yourself a Christian and you don't love people, the Bible says you're not a Christian.

00:03:26.540 And I know that's a harsh statement, but I'm going to read you the scripture that would validate what I just said.

00:03:30.820 It's 1 John 4, verse 8.

00:03:32.780 It says, he who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

00:03:37.840 Did you hear that?

00:03:39.140 It says that if you don't love people, you don't know God.

00:03:43.420 And so if you don't know God, you're not a Christian.

00:03:45.780 That's really what's going on here in that verse.

00:03:49.620 So if you don't love people, it's not because you don't love yourself.

00:03:52.760 That's what I want to make clear.

00:03:53.860 If you don't love people, it's not because you don't love yourself.

00:03:55.840 If you don't love people, it's because you don't know God.

00:03:58.740 And that's the real root of this problem.

00:04:01.600 So the truth is, we all love ourselves.

00:04:03.900 We really do.

00:04:05.100 We love ourselves.

00:04:06.460 It's why we feed ourselves when we're hungry.

00:04:08.300 It's why we go to sleep when we're tired.

00:04:10.540 It's why we come out of the sun when it's starting to burn our skin and we'll go sit in the shade.

00:04:15.220 It's why we drink water when we're thirsty.

00:04:17.740 It's because we love ourselves.

00:04:19.960 We don't need to practice loving ourselves.

00:04:23.080 It comes with the system.

00:04:24.280 We're born loving ourselves.

00:04:26.920 It's natural to love ourselves.

00:04:28.500 What's not natural, what I would say supernatural, is to love others and to care about others.

00:04:36.200 That's what we do need to learn.

00:04:37.880 And so today we're going to view what I think is the bankruptcy of this self-love doctrine in the church and self-love movement in the culture,

00:04:45.820 and also separating some of the valid points in terms of, you know, some of the sinful or emotional and mental insecurities that come,

00:04:54.900 you know, the lies of our physical body, some of these other things that we need to discuss in conjunction with this conversation.

00:05:01.960 Now, I understand why the self-love doctrine is attractive. I really get it.

00:05:06.720 And I'm empathetic with those that actually have bought into this idea.

00:05:12.040 It's a way of sounding emotionally and, I would say, just emotionally wise while really just serving yourself.

00:05:21.440 That's what it is.

00:05:23.120 If you call it what it is, which is selfishness, then nobody's going to buy it, especially in the church.

00:05:29.900 Because that's just kind of a red flag word of selfishness, right?

00:05:33.040 Nobody wants to be selfish.

00:05:34.500 But Satan is good at his job.

00:05:36.400 We've got to remember that like we have an enemy who's really good at what he does.

00:05:40.580 And in order to create a counterfeit doctrine, the doctrine needs to look like a real doctrine.

00:05:45.260 And so it's not all bad and all untrue inside the self-love doctrine.

00:05:50.480 It's just like the root of it's wrong.

00:05:52.880 And then the kind of peripheral stuff around it actually has some common ground in scripture.

00:05:58.440 And so you've got to be really discerning to kind of catch what's happening here.

00:06:02.740 And so my simple take is that self-love is really just sanitized selfishness.

00:06:09.580 It's kind of washed up and cleaned up and looks better than what it really is.

00:06:15.840 Allie Stuckey, she has a podcast called Relatable.

00:06:18.580 She's a friend, and she did a podcast on this in 2018, and I appreciated what she had to say.

00:06:24.400 She wrote, or I should say she said, self-love prioritizes your comfort, your health, your happiness, your safety above the needs of others without revealing how self-centered those desires truly are.

00:06:38.020 See, self-love in this capacity can almost sound like virtuous or moral, like they've done a good job at marketing this idea and catering it to our flesh.

00:06:50.260 But again, you know, this is the root of these popular ideas that you can't love others until you love yourself or you be you or be true to yourself.

00:06:58.460 You're perfect just the way that you are.

00:07:00.860 Or the most damaging of them all, I think, in the church is, you know, I love myself because God made me this way.

00:07:07.660 So I want to talk about that.

00:07:08.680 If you're struggling with, say, depression or anxiety or addiction or homosexual attraction or, you know, just any of these long-term issues, anger or bluntness, you know, and you've bought into the lie that God made me this way, you're being deceived.

00:07:31.020 I want you to catch that.

00:07:32.500 If you bought into those lies that God made me this way in this, like, I'm just going to, this is my cross to bear, you know,

00:07:38.140 I'm just going to have to struggle with this thing and this problem that I have here.

00:07:42.120 No, God did not make you that way.

00:07:44.880 God made you, but God did not make you that way.

00:07:48.300 Sin made you that way.

00:07:50.820 If you were born perfect, then you wouldn't need to be born again.

00:07:53.880 you can't use the natural state that you're born into which is a state of sin that we know from

00:08:00.680 scripture telling us as an excuse to remain in that state we can't do that in other words you

00:08:06.000 really can't say i'm gonna stay this way because i was born this way that's a really bad argument

00:08:10.920 we're all born this way we're all born depraved and loving and having a loving to sins and having

00:08:19.160 an affection for sin. And again, this is why we need to be born again. None of us are born perfect,

00:08:26.440 and that's why we need to be born again. We need to be regenerated. We need to be transformed. We

00:08:31.200 need to be created a new creation. This is important theology. So self-love is really

00:08:37.680 this kind of self-prioritized introspection, or I would even say prioritization of self. That's

00:08:45.500 really what this movement is about. And it's a philosophy that seeks freedom from all negative

00:08:51.220 thoughts about yourself. And this is kind of, you know, this is kind of the removal of shame.

00:09:01.240 I should say this is actually fueling the removal of shame and guilt in our culture. This is why

00:09:06.880 Brene Brown, you know, is so popular and Deepak Chopra and these kind of weird mystical focuses

00:09:14.780 on psychological help, man's solution to the human problem

00:09:18.760 is this removal of shame and guilt.

00:09:21.700 This is a big thing in culture today.

00:09:23.880 Without Christ, they know that they have things to be forgiven for,

00:09:27.680 but they don't have someone to be forgiven by.

00:09:30.280 Let me tell you that again.

00:09:31.080 In culture, without Christ, everybody can feel the shame

00:09:35.040 and the guilt of the conscience weighing down on their sin.

00:09:39.680 They understand that.

00:09:40.520 And they know that they have things to be forgiven for,

00:09:42.820 but they don't have someone to be forgiven by.

00:09:45.380 And that is a problem.

00:09:48.080 This is why the need of the gospel is so important today.

00:09:52.660 They can feel the weight of their shame and their sin or their guilt,

00:09:56.340 which is a good thing.

00:09:57.420 This is why, you know, pain, right?

00:09:58.800 I love the fact that my body has sensory for pain

00:10:02.420 because if I put my hand on the stove, it hurts,

00:10:06.740 and it warns me to pull my hand away from that.

00:10:08.420 If not, I would melt my hand.

00:10:09.880 And that point is true in the same way that guilt and shame are the spiritual triggers or emotional, mental triggers to understanding that the behavior you're doing is not aligned with God's conscience that he made for us.

00:10:25.960 And I would call that's kind of the built-in system.

00:10:28.780 It's different than the Holy Spirit.

00:10:31.020 So, you know, instead of coming to Christ, which is the only way to remove shame and guilt, they self-medicate.

00:10:37.940 They create a way to mask their shame and guilt of their behavior.

00:10:43.420 And basically, it's really creating a way to love and accept what God does not love and accept.

00:10:48.180 And this is, again, another portion of the self-love doctrine.

00:10:52.300 It's to look inwardly and figure out a way to love what you see.

00:10:57.820 And, you know, so anyways, how can I figure out how to love myself, even though I don't love myself?

00:11:06.480 That's really the question that these people are really struggling with.

00:11:11.080 My thought is this, is that you don't love yourself because in the culture you're outside of Christ.

00:11:17.500 And if you're inside of Christ, you need to recognize that the only reason that you're lovable is because you're inside of Christ.

00:11:27.020 Outside of Christ, none of us are lovable.

00:11:30.000 And I'm going to break that down here in a few minutes, so don't get hung up on that statement without clarity here in a second.

00:11:35.800 But the main thing is that I want you to jump into that love who you are, you be you camp that is so prominent in the church today that it's kind of evolving in this progressive church idea.

00:11:47.140 This is, I would say, Satan's counterfeit to God's be holy as I am holy.

00:11:53.340 You be you is Satan's counterfeit to God's be holy as I am holy.

00:11:58.360 And when you come to Christ, you don't get to stay the same.

00:12:01.360 You just don't.

00:12:01.920 I would say that actually God calls us to die so that we could die in the flesh so that we could be reborn in the spirit so that he can live.

00:12:09.340 And this is actually the core concept behind what Paul says in Galatians 2.20.

00:12:13.200 I'm going to read it for you right now.

00:12:14.240 He says, I have been crucified with Christ.

00:12:17.580 It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

00:12:20.680 And the life of which I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

00:12:27.340 so yeah this is a uh a very different perspective than what we currently have in the church and so

00:12:35.240 let's look at what the bible says regarding self-love i want to talk about this again

00:12:39.420 the value that we do have as human beings we'll get to that as well um and determine how we as

00:12:44.320 christians can have a proper view of self what what is the central doctrine to give us self-worth

00:12:52.420 and self-value. We'll look at that as well. But first, I want to mention that the Bible never

00:12:57.680 mentions self-love or self-care. Okay, it mentions self-denial. It mentions suffering, hospitality,

00:13:03.520 loving others, thinking of others greater than yourself, preferring others above yourself,

00:13:07.360 self-sacrifice, and selflessness. But it does not mention self-love or self-care. So that's just,

00:13:12.400 let's just get that off the table right now. And I'll go into my points now. So number one,

00:13:19.200 The Bible calls for self-denial, not self-love, and that's just a clear theme of Scripture.

00:13:25.200 I'm going to read you two passages, red-letter stuff of Jesus here, Luke 14, 25 through 27.

00:13:30.720 It says,

00:13:30.940 Now great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said to them,

00:13:35.360 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

00:13:45.100 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple.

00:13:49.540 Now, one thing I want to point out, that's the New King James translation.

00:13:53.820 This idea of hating your father and mother, that word, biblically speaking, if you understand the Greek, that means love less.

00:14:02.200 Nothing can be prioritized over your relationship with Christ, even your own life, even your own desire.

00:14:09.660 Jesus is saying, I want it all.

00:14:12.060 All of it needs to become into submission to me.

00:14:14.980 And that's what he's saying there.

00:14:16.160 But let's read on to Matthew 16, 24 through 25.

00:14:19.380 Then Jesus said to his disciples,

00:14:20.540 If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

00:14:27.700 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it.

00:14:31.560 But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

00:14:35.440 Now, one thing I want to clarify is Jesus isn't calling us to self-hate.

00:14:38.940 He's calling us to self-denial.

00:14:40.200 That's an important clarification point.

00:14:41.820 Remember that I said that.

00:14:43.720 Okay, Jesus isn't calling us to self-hate.

00:14:45.300 He's calling us to self-denial.

00:14:46.340 And what that means is the first and initial act of Christianity 0.85

00:14:50.300 is the opposite of self-love and self-preservation, if you will.

00:14:55.720 It's actually, if you love yourself, you really can't accept Christ

00:15:00.600 because self-love is the prevention of the recognition that you need Christ.

00:15:05.740 Because if you're worth loving without Christ, why do you need Christ? 0.69

00:15:10.120 Now, I've watched Christians gorge themselves on the biblical truth of our human worth, right?

00:15:18.100 Being created in God's image. That's a true fact. That's in Genesis 1.26. 0.80

00:15:22.300 But the problem is that these Christians are refusing to swallow the balancing truth of that argument, 0.95

00:15:28.300 that our own sin has robbed us of our loveliness. 0.57

00:15:33.140 So we do have this intrinsic value, but we have actually lost our loveliness in our sin and have lost actually our ability to be lovable.

00:15:45.060 And I'm going to break this down.

00:15:48.640 We have to remember that saved by grace means that God didn't have to save us.

00:15:56.600 Saved by grace means that God didn't have to save you or me.

00:16:00.440 We don't deserve salvation.

00:16:03.140 It's not owed to us. 0.72

00:16:04.300 We actually deserve hell.

00:16:06.360 And that's actually what makes the gospel so incredible.

00:16:08.880 But if we have a just God who's just reigning on justice without mercy, without grace,

00:16:15.480 then what we get for what we've done is hell.

00:16:20.040 And so we have to kind of have this perspective of who we are

00:16:23.660 and that saved by grace means that God didn't have to save you.

00:16:27.460 And it kind of creates a lowered view of self in terms of,

00:16:31.740 Man, outside of Christ, I'm nothing.

00:16:34.380 And that's a really good place to start this conversation that we're having today.

00:16:40.500 Romans 5.8 says,

00:16:41.420 But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

00:16:51.840 So while we were still bankrupt, he died for us.

00:16:55.180 And that's kind of, again, amplifying or bringing to light this idea that we weren't worth, like, the deal.

00:17:04.020 Like, this is a bad deal for Christ, but actually that's what makes it so gracious.

00:17:08.520 It's so amazing is that he didn't have to die for us, but he did.

00:17:11.700 We're getting what we don't deserve.

00:17:13.980 That's amazing.

00:17:17.180 Outside of Christ, we shouldn't look inward and really love what we see.

00:17:21.540 That's an important statement to hear.

00:17:23.840 And I know it's offensive even to some people in the culture and in the church today.

00:17:28.620 Outside of Christ, we shouldn't look inward and love what we see.

00:17:32.400 Now, I'm not saying to hate ourselves either.

00:17:34.420 I'm saying to recognize that without Christ, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, is what it says in Ephesians 2.5.

00:17:41.420 Our hearts are wicked.

00:17:42.980 Our flesh is deceitful.

00:17:44.700 Without Christ, Romans tells us that we are enemies of God, sinners, hostile toward God in Colossians, separated from God in Ephesians.

00:17:52.260 That is our state of being outside of Christ, and it's important to have a starting point there to recognize and not have too high a view of self here, which, again, is kind of a peripheral issue that we're talking about in the self-love conversation.

00:18:08.100 Self-love really is a philosophy that promises that if you look inward and you can just find a way to love what you see, you're going to have peace or you can finally have rest, and that's just not true.

00:18:19.820 the only thing in us worth loving is Christ. The only thing in us worth loving is Christ.

00:18:26.560 Hear that statement. Okay, we have too high a view of ourselves.

00:18:33.480 We often think, you know, oh man, I'm pretty lovable. I'm actually a pretty good person.

00:18:38.900 You know, it was kind of a good deal that, you know, I was worth dying for, basically. You know,

00:18:43.220 you might not say those words, but you kind of think that if you just really search out your

00:18:46.400 heart. I don't sin that much, right? Now, if we're going to be logical, just, and fair, you're not

00:18:51.780 worth dying for. And that's just a plain and simple statement. You're an enemy of God outside of

00:18:56.340 Christ. And that's, again, what makes the gospel so amazing. We really do need to start this

00:19:04.260 conversation with being sober about the idea of us being lovable outside of Christ. And what that

00:19:11.840 tells us is that the only thing that makes us lovable is the fact that Christ dwells in us

00:19:16.940 And we'll, again, break this down a little bit more.

00:19:18.860 But in Christ, we are.

00:19:20.660 We're redeemed.

00:19:22.820 Our bodies become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

00:19:27.040 The parts of our bodies become valuable for God's work.

00:19:30.700 In Christ, we're saved.

00:19:32.800 But because Christ did the saving and we didn't do it ourselves,

00:19:37.960 we're not to love ourselves.

00:19:39.440 We're to love Christ.

00:19:41.540 That's kind of a key point there.

00:19:44.020 Charles Spurgeon once said,

00:19:45.000 So that was my first point really is that the Bible calls for self-denial instead of self-love

00:20:03.260 and really just having this proper view of self outside of Christ

00:20:07.340 and then the proper view of self inside of Christ that we have shifted the value proposition there.

00:20:12.300 Now, the second thing I want to talk about is the cross is an altar and not a massage table.

00:20:17.600 That's a funny statement, I know.

00:20:20.180 The cross is an altar and not a massage table.

00:20:24.200 And we've got to realize what an altar is.

00:20:26.140 An altar is a bloody place.

00:20:28.340 Look back to the Old Testament around the word altar and look how much blood is on that.

00:20:33.680 It's about death.

00:20:35.340 That's what the altar is.

00:20:36.800 Do you want to do an altar call at your church?

00:20:38.620 Recognize what that means.

00:20:39.580 It means you're coming forward to die in the flesh so that you can become alive in the spirit.

00:20:45.700 That's an altar call.

00:20:47.040 That's what a real altar call is about.

00:20:49.340 And what is a cross?

00:20:51.320 I'm just going to ask you that question.

00:20:52.300 Just think about it for a second.

00:20:53.280 What is a cross? 0.92

00:20:55.660 Well, it's the instrument designed to kill your flesh.

00:20:59.840 And so Christ is telling you to pick up that flesh-killing device and carry it with you daily.

00:21:04.500 That's what Christ is telling you to do.

00:21:06.200 A little bit different than the self-love message, right? 0.99

00:21:08.340 Kill off your selfish, fleshly desires. 0.98

00:21:12.080 That's what Jesus is telling you. 1.00

00:21:13.320 Pick up that cross and kill off the fleshly, selfish desires. 0.99

00:21:17.840 Don't cater to them or nurture them. 1.00

00:21:20.600 Kill them off. 1.00

00:21:22.320 Galatians 5, 16 through 21 magnifies this idea of the spirit and the flesh. 0.99

00:21:29.620 It says, I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

00:21:34.020 For the flesh lusts, or wars, against the spirit, and the spirit wars against the flesh.

00:21:40.720 And these two are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

00:21:45.120 Verse 18, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

00:21:48.620 Now the works of the flesh are evident.

00:21:51.740 And here they are, colon.

00:21:53.840 Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, 0.89

00:21:59.380 outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries,

00:22:06.120 and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in times past, that those who

00:22:10.980 practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Okay, Paul included selfish ambitions

00:22:18.400 in the same category as sorcery and adultery and murder. That should wake us up about how serious

00:22:27.340 God categorizes selfish ambitions

00:22:31.520 in terms of if they're right or wrong.

00:22:35.880 We should be at the very least careful

00:22:38.480 about catering and nurturing selfish ambitions in the church.

00:22:42.880 And he actually says in the end of this verse,

00:22:45.180 you guys heard me say it, 1.00

00:22:46.160 he said those who practice such things

00:22:47.840 will not inherit the kingdom of God.

00:22:49.840 Holy smokes.

00:22:52.860 Practicing self-love or selfish ambitions

00:22:56.380 could potentially, if done improperly, lead to not inheriting the kingdom of God?

00:23:06.860 I mean, wow, we could obviously break that down deeper,

00:23:09.540 but that should at least cause you to yield and go, whoa, let's think about this some more.

00:23:15.960 Basically, we need to be careful about building up the self-love doctrines in the church.

00:23:19.520 The second purpose of a cross is that it's an altar.

00:23:23.240 Okay, it's an altar that Jesus calls us to carry with us every single day.

00:23:28.460 Again, Mark 10, 45 says,

00:23:30.020 For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve,

00:23:34.300 and to give his life as a ransom for many.

00:23:37.580 And how did he give his life?

00:23:38.380 Well, he did it on the altar, which was the cross.

00:23:41.580 And ultimately, Christ made the cross a necessary part of the Christian life.

00:23:48.620 No man can escape it, not even Christ.

00:23:51.500 And so you got to get used to carrying that cross around.

00:23:55.860 And let's just thank God that Jesus didn't adopt the self-love doctrine, right?

00:24:00.460 Praise Jesus for, you know, going forward and doing the will of the Lord and not doing your own will in that moment, right?

00:24:06.180 Because the flesh even says, man, the flesh is against this, but the spirit is willing.

00:24:12.940 Okay, that he didn't prioritize himself or his needs above others.

00:24:16.320 Thank God for that.

00:24:17.700 Let's also thank God for the Apostle Paul, who did not adopt the self-love doctrine.

00:24:21.580 He labored in lashes and stonings and imprisonments and shipwrecks and snakebites and sleeplessness and persecutions.

00:24:28.160 I don't think there's a lot of self-love going on and self-care going on in this idea of Paul's theology or in Jesus's life.

00:24:36.300 I just can't see that in the scriptures. 0.90

00:24:38.040 Now, the self-love doctrine, really what it does is it sets up Christians for failure and what I would think is unmet expectations. 0.84

00:24:45.680 because following Jesus is about self-denial. 0.71

00:24:49.040 So when it's supposed to feel good and then it actually doesn't feel good,

00:24:51.880 it really does set us up for failure.

00:24:53.920 If the culture, you know, or the pastor at your church

00:24:56.460 tells you that you need to prioritize yourself before your children

00:24:58.580 because you can't take your children if you don't prioritize yourself

00:25:01.280 because, you know, you need to really think carefully about this.

00:25:06.160 And this is what I would tell you to say to him.

00:25:07.820 And I'm just going to read you what I wrote here.

00:25:09.440 This is your response to somebody that says this idea.

00:25:12.400 You go this, well, you know what, pastor?

00:25:15.400 Instead, I'm just going to be faithful and thick and thin because God is my strength.

00:25:19.880 And when I'm weak, he's strong.

00:25:21.620 His strength is made perfect actually in my weakness.

00:25:24.300 He's going to sustain me.

00:25:25.900 Blessed are those who suffer.

00:25:27.100 Like the Apostle Paul or any great saint, I don't need to worry about caring for myself

00:25:30.920 because God's going to care for my needs.

00:25:32.760 I need to worry about being faithful.

00:25:35.780 That's what you get to say to people that say this message.

00:25:38.400 That's the biblical response in this matter.

00:25:41.020 Now, God doesn't want us to simply achieve a heightened understanding or acceptance of self.

00:25:47.740 He desires sanctification. That is the will of God.

00:25:50.740 He desires regeneration and transformation.

00:25:52.600 He desires to allow us to pick up that cross and allow it to do its deadly work in our lives

00:25:57.540 so that it shaves off the flat spots in our life and it makes us more like him. 0.94

00:26:01.460 That's what he desires.

00:26:03.540 And remember, as I said earlier, we don't need to be taught how to love our bodies and love ourselves.

00:26:09.000 That's a natural thing.

00:26:10.940 What we need is to be taught about the supernatural, what it means to love others.

00:26:15.020 That's an important factor.

00:26:16.380 Ephesians 5, 28 through 29 tells us this truth.

00:26:18.980 It says, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.

00:26:24.460 He who loves his wife loves himself.

00:26:26.580 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church.

00:26:35.420 Okay?

00:26:35.720 No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

00:26:40.580 It's right there, verse 29 in Ephesians.

00:26:43.480 No one ever hated his own flesh, okay?

00:26:48.600 The kingdom of self is heavily defended territory.

00:26:52.840 Self-love is blinding to us.

00:26:55.340 Now you think, but there are people that hate their own bodies.

00:26:57.400 No, like this is, they actually love their own bodies.

00:27:01.420 they have a wrong perspective of identity they have a harmful and broken and sinful perspective

00:27:10.520 of uh of who they are and they're inflicting sin upon their body um but in reality most of those

00:27:19.280 people still go to sleep at night because they're tired and they eat because they're hungry and it's

00:27:24.440 still that loving for your body still comes through even for those people that hate their

00:27:28.540 bodies or hate themselves according to their own perspective. So 2 Timothy gives some insight to

00:27:35.140 this idea of loving self. And I think it's a really important doctrine because it talks about

00:27:39.620 the last days of the church and what's coming. And it tells us what the world will be like when

00:27:44.520 Jesus is getting prepared to come back. It's 2 Timothy 3, 1 through 5. But it says,

00:27:49.720 but understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty.

00:27:53.640 for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient

00:27:59.800 to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control,

00:28:04.920 brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather

00:28:09.760 than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such

00:28:15.100 people. What is that amazing statement at the end? Having an appearance of godliness but denying its

00:28:19.680 power. You just go, wow, how can all this have an appearance of godliness? Well, we can see it in

00:28:24.000 the church today. It's a form of godliness without the power. But the first thing, the first sinful

00:28:29.060 behavior on that list in 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy is lovers of self. Isn't that amazing? Lovers of

00:28:37.280 self. It's amazing that churches can bring sermon series on the first attribute of what the world

00:28:43.560 will be like as we come to the end and the world's so fallen away from Christ that they're going to

00:28:48.100 be acting this way, we create sermon series on lovers of self. This is amazing. Now, does self

00:28:54.520 denial mean that we deny our, like, caring for ourselves completely? This is an important question

00:29:03.060 to ask. There's wisdom in the scriptures about enjoying the fruits of our labor. There's wisdom

00:29:10.780 in resting on the Sabbath. God loves us to rest, and God loves us to take part in the work that

00:29:16.440 we've done and enjoy the fruits of our labor. There's wisdom in enjoying our children and

00:29:20.340 enjoying our spouse and enjoying our friendships and relationship. He wants us to have those things,

00:29:24.960 the fruits of the Spirit. Jeez, those are, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

00:29:28.560 fruitfulness, you know, self-control. I might have missed one there. We know that we are God's

00:29:34.600 children also. We know that we're fearfully and wonderfully made. We know that we've been

00:29:38.720 stitched together in our mother's womb. We know that we've been chosen. We know that we're highly

00:29:42.800 favored. We know that we're made in God's image. So please don't confuse self-denial with self-hate

00:29:48.580 or self-deprecating doctrines. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying to go

00:29:52.340 hate yourself, and you know, that's not what I'm saying here. I'm talking about let's be careful

00:29:57.440 to not elevate self above who we really are and what the Bible really tells us about ourselves.

00:30:04.760 And so self-confidence, self-esteem, self-made, self-worth, these are all unbiblical ideas.

00:30:11.140 You do not want self-made, self-confident children.

00:30:17.080 That's not what you want as a family, as a parent.

00:30:20.940 We don't need to worry about manufacturing self-esteem because Jesus is our esteem.

00:30:29.360 Do you understand that?

00:30:30.740 We don't need to worry about manufacturing self-confidence because Jesus is our confidence.

00:30:36.080 Like that's the perspective that we need to have.

00:30:38.080 We don't need to worry about manufacturing self-worth because Jesus is our worth.

00:30:43.760 Okay, we have the same worth.

00:30:45.860 We are Christ's body.

00:30:47.460 We're God's children because of Christ.

00:30:51.320 See, in Christ, you know, we're his children.

00:30:54.320 It says 1 John 3, 1.

00:30:56.140 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

00:31:02.040 Well, the only reason we're children of God is because we're in Christ.

00:31:05.060 And so that we get our status of God's family through Christ.

00:31:11.460 He is our worth and our confidence and our esteem and our maker.

00:31:18.920 Like it's there that we find our value deeply and richly in him.

00:31:25.920 And so if you have a harmful and depressed view of yourself, you have an incorrect view of who you are in Christ.

00:31:35.060 You know, when you recognize who you are in Christ, you're going to see that he made you and he sees you.

00:31:42.620 You're going to understand how he sees you and you're going to understand how he sees others.

00:31:48.520 And you're going to not think highly of yourself, but you're not going to also think evil of yourself.

00:31:54.480 And you're not going to not love yourself because you're going to recognize how amazing it is that we had a God who didn't owe us anything.

00:32:01.280 and we actually deserved hell

00:32:02.620 and he came down and died on a cross

00:32:04.120 and resurrected for us

00:32:05.620 and became the mediator of the covenant with us

00:32:08.920 and fulfilled the old covenant

00:32:09.900 and ultimately restored our relationship with God.

00:32:15.080 And now we can have a relationship with the Father

00:32:16.880 that we couldn't have before

00:32:17.940 and we actually have eternal life because of it.

00:32:19.840 This is amazing.

00:32:21.560 Understanding the gospel,

00:32:22.500 pour yourself over the gospel of John

00:32:24.060 and see if you can't cry.

00:32:26.160 You don't deserve what we have.

00:32:28.180 It's amazing that we have the gospel

00:32:30.340 And so we need to have that perspective.

00:32:32.660 We don't need to worry about loving ourselves

00:32:34.940 because we have a God who loves us and dwells in us.

00:32:39.100 See, we simply need to be faithful

00:32:40.520 in a devotional relationship with Christ

00:32:43.140 and his love is going to overflow in us

00:32:45.120 and through us to others.

00:32:46.740 And when we do that, we will have self-love.

00:32:49.240 We will have self-care.

00:32:50.500 We will love others and we will be in joy

00:32:52.780 and we will have the fruits of the Spirit

00:32:54.400 overflowing in our life.

00:32:56.080 so that's my perspective guys and i hope you guys hear my heart in that

00:33:02.040 because it's a very difficult decision or discussion to discern

00:33:06.640 but hopefully that was helpful for you i want to share a couple resources that we can talk about

00:33:14.160 as we close here not necessarily resources that are connected to this but i do think that they

00:33:18.120 are partially connected as you guys know the last couple weeks we've been doing what's called real

00:33:24.040 Christianity resources, and I try to pick some that might help support the conversation that

00:33:27.740 we're having today. We partnered with a couple publishers, and one of them is Banner of Truth,

00:33:32.240 and Banner of Truth writes some of them. They have published some of the best works. What they do is

00:33:35.900 they publish old books that have been out of press or out of print, and they find these manuscripts,

00:33:42.340 and they redo them, and they bring them to light, and so one of them is J.C. Ryle's Holiness, and

00:33:47.280 this will absolutely give you a correct position and posture of who God is and who you are in

00:33:53.440 Christ. And this is a great book. I mean, this is a classic. J.C. Ryle wrote another one, which I

00:33:58.040 really love, called Prepared to Stand Alone. And you can obviously understand what that's going to

00:34:02.760 be like. But J.C. Ryle is kind of similar to me. I think he's like an 1800 versions of me. I should

00:34:06.740 say I'm a 2000s version of him. But I really appreciate his work. He's kind of like my

00:34:12.440 spiritual animal. But check it out. You guys can go to banneroftruth.org and just check out any of

00:34:19.860 their books, if you use the code realchristianity at checkout, all one word, you're going to get 30%

00:34:24.480 off. And it's actually cheaper than you would find them on Amazon. On that note, we are getting

00:34:31.120 ready to close out here. Guys, just want to remind you, if you wanted to support our ministry,

00:34:35.240 it would be a blessing to us. We are going towards the end of the year. I need to fund

00:34:38.900 2020. Wow, that's crazy to say that. And you guys can always do that at relearnchurch.org

00:34:44.820 forward slash donate. You can always do just a $5 monthly donation, a one-time gift. Anything

00:34:49.420 helps. It really is a blessing to our ministry. So on that note, guys, thank you for this episode,

00:34:53.880 and we will see you next week.

Dale Partridge - October 16, 2019

Real Christianity #67： The Self-Love Delusion

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