Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / How Can I Kill My Selfishness?

Transcript

How Can I Kill My Selfishness? · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:04
  Well, it's the polar opposite of Christ, and it's the polar opposite of
• 0:09
  the Holy life. Selfishness. Selfishness, Spurgeon once said, is as foreign
• 0:16
  to Christianity as darkness to light. The darkness of self centeredness is the opposite
• 0:24
  of Christ, his gospel, and it undermines every aim in the Christian life.
• 0:29
  Self defeating selfishness is still in us. We want to shed it,
• 0:33
  we must fight it. And that leads to today's email, Pastor John,
• 0:37
  I need your help in overcoming my selfishness. I'm a seventeen year old male.
• 0:42
  People around me, people I love, and people who love me,
• 0:46
  especially my girlfriend, keep saying that I am selfish. I want to become
• 0:50
  self less. The problem keeps coming back when I think I'm doing a good
• 0:54
  job being selfless. I'm sure I'm unwilling and just don't want to admit it.
• 1:00
  How can I learn to become a selfless young man? Well, not
• 1:07
  knowing you personally makes it a little bit awkward to give specific counsel, So
• 1:12
  I think the first thing I really should say is that it would be probably
• 1:18
  wise for you to seek out a mature Christian outside that circle that you're talking
• 1:26
  about. Perhaps your pastor or youth leader, and share with them some of
• 1:32
  the specifics of what people are saying that puzzle you, and get their insight
• 1:38
  into your heart as they know you personally. Keep in mind that the apostle
• 1:46
  Paul said, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and
• 1:49
  admonishing one another in all wisdom. That's what you want. You want someone
• 1:55
  who's rich in biblical wisdom, who is full of the Word of Christ,
• 2:01
  who can admonish you close at hand. That's what I can't do. I
• 2:07
  have to speak from a distance in generalities. You need somebody who knows you,
• 2:12
  full of biblical wisdom, full of courage to speak the truth. So
• 2:16
  that's my first counsel. But let me try to say some general things that
• 2:22
  I hope might help. Selfishness is a many headed monster. It is,
• 2:30
  in a sense, the most destructive disease of the human soul. Absolutely nobody
• 2:38
  on this planet except for Jesus, escapes the disease of selfishness. The heads
• 2:45
  of this monster are infinitely diverse, and I know that the word infinitely it's
• 2:51
  an over statement, I know that. But the point is the variety of
• 2:55
  manifestations of selfishness are endless in this life. You cut off one head and
• 3:04
  another grows up. You know, you might be a couch potato that is
• 3:08
  always expecting others to serve you your pizza. Or you might be endlessly serving
• 3:16
  couch potatoes, deeply desiring that they make much of you for your service.
• 3:23
  You might be the most prayerful person in your group, and you may have
• 3:29
  never confessed personal sin in your public prayers in that group and ask for forgiveness
• 3:35
  because you don't want to reveal that part about yourself. You may call continual
• 3:39
  attention to the injustices of the world and how others are being mistreated. But
• 3:46
  others can tell by looking at you that there's a good deal of virtue signaling
• 3:52
  going on there. As you show how discerning you are and how morally upright
• 3:58
  you are that you can bought such injustices. There is no end of the
• 4:03
  subtleties of selfishness in all of us, not just a seventeen year old struggling
• 4:12
  with his own heart. We must fight this monster on two fronts. Both
• 4:17
  are biblical, and the second is dominant, should be dominant. Let's say
• 4:23
  the first is but their votes right, good, necessary, The first is
• 4:28
  face the monster, stare it down, own it, be broken hearted by
• 4:34
  it, hate it, declare war on it, kill it. That's what
• 4:40
  Paul meant in Colossians three to five when he said put to death. Therefore
• 4:45
  what is earthly in you? And one of the things he mentions is evil
• 4:50
  desire like selfishness. That would include praying against it, spotting its first signs
• 4:59
  and existing them, claiming your new position of acceptance and justification in Christ and
• 5:06
  saying, I am a new creation. This ugly monster is not who I
• 5:12
  am. That's not my true identity, and then renouncing the temptation as alien
• 5:18
  to your soul, which is which it is. It is alien to your
• 5:23
  soul in Christ Jesus. Now that's the first front, that direct, assailing,
• 5:29
  negative killing fight that we must take up every day, because that's what
• 5:33
  the Bible says we should do. The second front that we fight on is
• 5:40
  filling our minds and hearts with so much of Christ that the selfish impulses are
• 5:49
  defeated by being suffocated. They don't have room in your heart. They can't
• 5:57
  breathe there, there's too much. They die, not mainly because of a
• 6:02
  direct attack, but because something has taken their place, namely humble, thankful
• 6:12
  love for Christ. So the analogy is a jar full of toxic fumes.
• 6:20
  Now, what would be the best way to get those fumes out of the
• 6:26
  jar? And you could attack them directly by attaching a vacuum and sucking them
• 6:31
  out, or more simply, more effectively, you could pour fresh, clean
• 6:40
  water into the jar and force all the toxic fumes out by replacing them.
• 6:48
  This is how sins are overcome most effectively. Our soul is the jar,
• 6:56
  selfishness is the toxic fume fumes, and Christ is the water that pushes it
• 7:04
  out. Specifically, Christ experienced in our knowledge of Christ, in our love
• 7:11
  for Christ, in our trust in Christ, the experienced Christ present reigning ruling,
• 7:17
  taking up residence in our lives fully in fellowship. In other words,
• 7:24
  the best way to fight selfishness is not to think about selfishness, but to
• 7:30
  think about Christ, and specifically to think about what a great savior he is,
• 7:38
  what a great counselor he is a great friend, a great lord,
• 7:45
  sustainer, champion. If our lives, our minds, our hearts are overflowing
• 7:54
  with wonder at the greatness and the beauty and the worth of Christrist and the
• 8:01
  immeasurable value of what He's done for us. It is not likely that we
• 8:07
  will be perceived as selfish. Selfish people are preoccupied with themselves and not with
• 8:16
  Christ. They have a longing that they be recognized, made much of focused
• 8:24
  on instead of Christ being recognized, made much of focused on. This is
• 8:31
  a matter of authentic, heartfelt emotion. You can't produce this like a show.
• 8:41
  The goal is to feel, truly feel the preciousness of Christ. That's
• 8:48
  the goal. It has to be real. This is what Paul meant when
• 8:52
  he said I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ,
• 8:58
  Jesus my Lord. That's the key. That was not a show for
• 9:03
  Paul. He wasn't putting on airs. He was expressing the deepest affections of
• 9:11
  his heart. I love Jesus Christ more than anything. So the strategy for
• 9:18
  overcoming selfishness is Hebrews three one, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of
• 9:26
  our confession. Or Hebrews twelve three, consider him who endured for sinners such
• 9:35
  hostility against himself. This is the work of a lifetime, not the work
• 9:41
  of a moment. Every day, focusing our mind's attention and our heart's affection
• 9:48
  on Christ and the kind of person he is, and the greatness of the
• 9:54
  work that he has done. I think Jesus had the danger of selfishness in
• 10:03
  mind when he told his disciples, who had just experienced great victories over Satan,
• 10:11
  that they should not rejoice in this, but that their names are written
• 10:16
  in heaven Luke ten twenty. In other words, it's more effective in overcoming
• 10:24
  sin that we be amazed that we're saved than that we're successful, even successful
• 10:35
  by God's power. You would think ministry success is a good thing to rejoice
• 10:41
  in, but Jesus says it's even more important to rejoice that you know Christ.
• 10:50
  Rejoice that you have a relationship with Jesus, that you spend time with
• 10:56
  him now and you will spend eternity with him later. And let me say
• 11:01
  one more thing quickly before we stop. Since Jesus said to love our neighbor
• 11:05
  as we love ourselves, it's clear that Jesus acknowledges there is a proper self
• 11:11
  love. This is no self esteem. This is doing what will bring infinite
• 11:18
  and eternal joy to your own soul. That's self love doing what will bring
• 11:24
  infinite and eternal joy to your own soul. And that's what Jesus offers us.
• 11:30
  And then Jesus makes our desire for our own eternal happiness the measure of
• 11:37
  our desire for other people's happiness, which is very radical. Love your neighbor
• 11:45
  as you love yourself. Are you pursuing your own happiness? Yes, you
• 11:50
  are. You are, then make that the measure of your pursuit of other
• 11:58
  people's happiness, other people's good. So I would simply add this to your
• 12:03
  strategy against selfishness. Whenever you pursue something for yourself, which you will,
• 12:09
  you must, you eat, you sleep, you get exercise. Whenever you
• 12:13
  pursue something for yourself, ask this, do I have an effective desire in
• 12:22
  my heart that others would share with me in this temporal or eternal good and
• 12:30
  happiness. It's not selfish to seek your own happiness if part of essential to
• 12:39
  your own happiness is the sincere desire to include others in it. The best
• 12:48
  way to fight selfishness is not to think about selfishness, but to think about
• 12:52
  Christ, and specifically to think about what a great savior he is, what
• 12:56
  a great counselor. He is a great friend, Lord's say, staying or
• 13:00
  champion, so moving. Thank you Pastor John for this reminder to look again
• 13:05
  to Christ and to see that He broke us free from our selfishness by his
• 13:11
  selfless blood. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor
• 13:16
  John, type out your question and email it to me at ask Pastor John
• 13:20
  at Desiring Good dot org. Well, in each generation, God seems to
• 13:26
  raise influential leaders in the church, men who leave behind a lasting gospel impact
• 13:31
  on the church. I'd put Pastor John in that category. So what happens
• 13:35
  when such voices begin to pass away like we saw this spring? Natasha,
• 13:39
  a listener, wants to know next time she expresses her fear for the future
• 13:43
  of the modern church when trusted voices are gone the sobering question. I'm your
• 13:48
  host, Tony Rinky. We'll see you on Monday.