Am I Being Honest With Myself?

Intro

I wonder how many of us live a pretty decent life but still find ourselves complaining a lot? You don’t have to raise your hands, I know the answer, it’s probably most of us in the room. I know I’ll still catch myself doing it at times. Which is why you’ve heard me push a lot for us to have a biblical perspective. To picture things through God's eyes, that’s a habit I’ve really tried to build into my life. Bc most of the time my complaints are about little things. But at the time, in my head, it’s the end of the world. It’s not like I don’t know where my next meal is coming from and I can’t feed my kids. Or if I express my faith then my family and I may be burned in cages. Those are real problems some people face. Most, if not all of us, are not dealing with life issues of that magnitude. Or maybe there is no issue at all, like have you ever thought about something someone might do and now you’re mad at them when they actually haven’t even done anything yet. But yet, we can lie to ourselves and make ourselves think that the issue is bigger than it is. Well that battle in our minds can really affect the way we make decisions.

And with it being the beginning of a new year, we thought it would be a great time to take a few weeks to talk about making better decisions. Knowing that's the topic on most people's minds this time a year, making our new year's resolutions. New year, new me, 2023. Hey I made mine too. I didn’t start on the 1st though, bc it was a Sunday. I did start Monday. I didn’t listen to that little voice in my head telling me that it was still a “holiday”. Bc I know what I would’ve told myself on Tuesday, “It’s the 3rd and a Tuesday, might as well just wait until next week and start fresh.” Then the next thing you know I’m not starting it at all. And it’s that easy that our inner salesman can sell us on an idea against what we really want to do. And so in a very real sense, we better learn to fight that battle if we want to make wise decisions.

So over these next few weeks we are going to tackle 5 questions on how to go about making better and wiser decisions. We are actually pulling these questions from a book by Andy Stanley titled Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets. Our campus pastors have gone through this book and thought it had some great wisdom. If you want to check the book out I would encourage you to do so. The questions are great in leading us to making wise decisions. Which the bible talks a lot about. Now we may not take the same approach as him or do the questions in the same order. Like last week JP kinda low key started the series. He went ahead with the 2nd question on “your legacy” or “your story”. Which coincidentally, or was it, is our theme for White Knoll this year.

“Story”. It’s God’s story, and we’re a part of that. He wrote our stories and our stories are not over yet. Which is why we have the banner up front and the wall in the back. “Your story isn’t over.” We want to share those stories. There are 6 of them up there now, last week we had 6 baptisms which is awesome and we want to celebrate that. And we hope to celebrate more throughout the year. But that board isn’t just for baptisms, it’s God stories in general. How He’s moved in our life, how He has used us in our neighbors lives, or in the community around us. As a group of believers we hope to have plenty of those stories to share. Stories are a good gauge on how we are modeling Christ. A few months ago, just in conversation, our lead pastor John Reeves, when talking about himself, mentioned how if he doesn’t have stories to tell then he probably isn’t modeling Christ well. That has stuck with me. It’s just such a healthy way to gauge if I’m walking in the spirit, am I getting out of my own way and allowing Christ to lead me. Bc the story He has for you is a story worth telling. That’s a story you’ll want to write down and slap on the wall.

Now there are always going to be excuses to keep you from doing what you should, but they’re just that, excuses. We can always find a way to trip ourselves up, get in our own way, and keep ourselves from getting where we want to be. Which is why the 1st question we have to confront is, Am I being honest with myself?

We have to get this one if we are going to move forward to making wise decisions. If we can’t accurately view ourselves or our circumstances, then we can’t accurately fix ourselves or our circumstances. One of Andy’s quotes, “The easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror. You can’t lead yourself well if you can’t be honest with yourself.”

Scripture would actually tell us that this battle is the battle between our flesh and our spirit. The apostle Paul talks about his struggle with it in his letter to the Romans. Which many consider to be the greatest letter ever written. Let's look at it…

Romans 7:14-17

So this is from Paul's letter to the churches in Rome. He really hits a variety of subjects and one is the question of the old covenant law. Kinda how he did in his letter to the galatians, if you remember in the fall we talked about the law vs grace, which we are under now. Here he is coming from a little bit different angle. He’s confronting is the law good or is it sin? And right above this he establishes that the law is NOT sin, that it IS good. That it exposed our sin. And here he is talking about his own battle with sin, which I think all of us can relate to.

Romans 7:14-17 14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

So in the last verse, he isn’t trying to escape responsibility, he is identifying his source of sin. It’s his sinful nature. His flesh. So let's get past our normal way of seeing sin as just an action, it’s deeper than that. The action is a product of the sin that lives in us. Paul is saying that the sin is consuming him to the point that even though he knows and wants to do what is right, he still does what he hates. So he is identifying the enemy that we are all at battle with. If we don’t know who or what we are fighting then it’s going to be really hard to put up a fight. Ultimately it’s our sinful nature.

Dishonest with ourselves

How does scripture tell us to fight? By putting on the armor of God. Ephesians 6: 11-12 11 Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. 12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. We better know what we are fighting and how to fight it if we are going to have a chance. Believe me, the enemy does not want us knowing that we are even in a fight. And then down to verse 18, what does he tell us to do, 18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. So we fight it by first and foremost going to prayer. Pray without ceasing. Doesn’t have to be long drawn out prayers. You don’t even have to close your eyes. It’s just that constant conversation in our daily walks with Christ. And you start by asking good questions. Good questions will help you make good decisions.

The 1st question you have to ask is, am I being honest with myself? Like the quote earlier, “The easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror. You can’t lead yourself well if you can’t be honest with yourself.” You can’t treat it like one of those mirrors from the fair or the mall. Stand a certain way and you look tall or skinny. It’s not reality. You have to be able to tell yourself the truth even if it makes you feel bad about yourself. We don’t chase emotions, that’s not walking in the spirit. A lot of times, something that’s going to make me happy right now is not what’s going to ultimately make me happy. Like with my new years resolution. I’m doing like the other 75% of our population and committing to eating better and exercising more. Now what I’ll tell myself I want to do is anything but exercise and eat healthy. But ultimately I do want that. I know how good I’ll feel, how productive I’ll be, the energy that I’ll have. But I could easily come up with reasons not to workout just this one day. Skip this one meal and eat what you really want. Then that turns into 2. A couple weeks go by and I haven’t gotten anywhere and then I’m mad at myself. Bc i got in my own way. I was justifying reasons not to do what I ultimately wanted to do. I’ve said it before, justifying is just-a-lying to yourself. We rarely have to talk ourselves into a good idea. So am I being honest with myself, or am I selling myself a future regret?

Throughout the bible there are plenty of examples of people going against their better judgment. The prophet Jeremiah dealt with this quite a bit when dealing with Kings who didn’t want to listen. When they knew, not only from Jeremiah telling them, but from past experiences too. In Jeremiah’s day, Babylon was thriving under King Nebuchadnezzer. And as the story goes, King Nebuchadnezzer had a collection of Kings. He would conquer a city, capture their king, have them blinded and chained. And during special occasions he would bring them out and parade them around all chained together in gold chains. Well Jeremiah dealt with a few of those kings in Judea. He would tell them to invite King Nebuchadnezzer in. They wouldn’t listen. The last one being a guy named Zedekiah. Whose nephew and brother were already a part of the collection. Well he wouldn’t listen either. So Jeremiah goes to the streets to convince everyone. They lock him up. Then here comes King Nebuchadnezzer. He eventually catches Zedekiah and the last thing he would see, before being added to the collection of kings, would be his family being slaughtered. 2 Chronicles 36:12 But Zedekiah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and he refused to humble himself when the prophet Jeremiah spoke to him directly from the Lord. They were getting in their own way. It wasn't God’s plan. And we see that in the famous Jeremiah verse, Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. We all know that verse. Well that's Jeremiah prophesying to the Israelites being held captive in Babylon. God’s telling them to trust and have faith bc He has a plan for the nation of Israel. And to the ones who didn’t listen and didn’t go to Babylon, He says that I will destroy you. I don’t see anybody putting that verse on their arm.

They were constantly deceiving themselves. The Kings, the Israelites, we do it. What was I thinking? Why do we do that? Well he has a take on that too. As to why we are so good at selling ourselves a bad idea. In Jeremiah 17:9 -The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it? So follow your heart…Do what makes you happy…, those are dangerous statements. This is Jeremiah quoting God, and He says the heart is deceitful. Not dishonest but deceitful. Dishonest isn’t as hard to see. It’s not trying to hide. Deceitful though, someone being deceitful is hard to see and it’s usually not noticed until after the fact. That’s the human heart. How many times have you wanted to buy something, and then convinced yourself that you needed it? Bc we know that a need is bigger than a want and we can justify that. But if you’re asking good questions, am I being honest with myself? Do I really need this?

Others are affected

Because as many of us know, selling yourself on a regret can be scarring. It can have lasting effects. And often it’s going to affect more than just us. It may start out simple or seemingly innocent, but it can quickly get out of hand and consume us. It’s so important to know what we are fighting against. Not innocence, deceitfulness.

It’s good to have a plan, and we should. I love routine. But what did Mike Tyson say, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That’s where your training kicks in, your muscle memory. You have to build that. For me, it has to start with taking it to God and being honest with myself. For instance, I know that one of my weaknesses, like many men, is lust. And unfortunately like many people I was introduced to porn at an early age. I never felt like I struggled with it. I never really saw anything wrong with having it in my life, until I did. Until I quit lying to myself. I didn’t see the lasting effects it could have on me.

Bc now, the simplest thing of that I can be riding down the road, listening to His Radio, and then a video I remember watching from when I was a teenager will pop into my head along with the feelings that came from it and everything. I was following the plan; I wasn’t anywhere I wasn’t supposed to be, I was even listening to christian radio. My flesh has just punched me in the mouth. Except it doesn’t feel like a punch. In one sense I like it, but in another I know it’s not ok. So over time I have built the habit, the muscle memory, of going straight to prayer. Bc I know if I give into sexual sin, that would affect much more than just me. So I go to prayer to see what it really is. What that really is, is an attack on my family. Giving into it could affect my wife, my kids, our church. And one of the key things that has helped me in these fights was getting over myself. I had to stop lying to myself and acknowledge how God provides a way out everytime. You just have to listen and choose it. But it first took me acknowledging that, yeah it’s me. I’m getting in my own way. Otherwise, we lean on our own strength to change a heart that, for us, is beyond cure. You can’t reason with it, otherwise you end up justifying; watching just a little bit, one more drink, inviting them in, asking them out, sending that text you know you shouldn’t.

He said it’s beyond cure, who can understand it? Let’s go back to Paul in his letter to the Romans.

Romans 7:21-25

21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

It’s Christ who can give us a new heart. It’s Christ who can help us fight our flesh. It’s Christ who showed us how to fight when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. He shut him down by reciting scripture.

So commiting your life to Christ doesn’t mean that we will escape temptations. What it does mean is that we can have victory over it “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Bc this battle isn’t going anywhere. And these temptations show up in every aspect of our lives, whether they seem sinister or not.

Which is why Christ calls us to die to ourselves and live for Him. We aren’t just pushing our buggy down the aisle of life, and grabbing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of Jesus for when I need Him. No, Christ is calling for every bit of us.

Too often we can section our life off into different compartments. Life.Church has a great video out on this. It’s that we’ll have our professional life over here, family life over here, spiritual life, private life, social life, and whatever else. But one doesn’t spill into the other. And then in turn we look like hypocrites bc we act differently based on the compartment we are in. We don’t live out what we say we believe. And then we justify it by cherry picking scripture. That’s a sermon for another day but it’s still the same thing. That would be justifying what our flesh wants and just lying to ourselves.

And really this is calling our integrity into question, bc that’s not integrity. We are under grace but Christ is still calling us to a holy life. Where he is the center of everything. We don’t want to live compartmental lives, we want to live integrated lives where Christ directs everything.

Closing

Bc those temptations, they are in everything. If we are going to make better decisions and have less regrets we have to have integrity and be honest with ourselves. Like for me, do I really want this pizza or do I want my abs to show? There’s a way you can have both, but not if you do it out of order. And I know that once I’ve committed to something, and then I don’t put the work in, when the time comes for me to be in a certain position and I’m not there bc I didn’t do what I needed to do. That’s a deep sadness. I chased temporary happiness that didn’t get me what I actually wanted. Now I’m disappointed in myself. I let myself down. Now my confidence has been affected bc I can’t trust myself. So do I get real with myself and fix it? Or do I keep covering it up and send myself towards depression?

Or maybe you like someone and you hook up with them outside of marriage bc you thought you loved them and now you have this false connection that's blinding you from the reality of who they actually are and how yall don’t work. Many of us have probably been through this. Then we just lie to ourselves and justify it until it all blows up. And our dishonesty with ourselves now impacts more than just us.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” Robert Jastrow, Agnostic, American astronomer and planetary physicist, and NASA scientist

As believers we do this too. We constantly try to live our lives on our own accord. Only to later realize that scripture has had our answers all along. Teaching us how to live our lives. Showing us that we are actually in a battle with our sinful nature. And it's true intentions are to steal, kill, and destroy.

In the video I mentioned earlier, the pastor talked about how the fastest way to raise rebellious kids is to claim one thing and live something different in the home. To claim Christ, but have our actions say something else.

If we can’t do this for us, then let's at least do it for them. They need to know these questions and how to fight this battle too. Bc like us, they have that same sinful nature. I know babies are cute and all, we have one now. But like Voddie Baucham says, “that ain’t a baby, that’s a viper in a diaper.” And I know that all too well.

So lets do this together. One of the reasons we meet is that we’ll walk through this life together; discipling one another, having fellowship with one another, and strengthening one another. It’s going to take work, but we’ll walk through this together.

Next week JP will be back to tackle a couple more of these questions as we look to make better decisions this year. Maybe a little more up lifting after I beat everyone up.

Before we leave, I do want to challenge us to a couple things this week.

The first is prayer. To pray the Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

And then to truly question ourselves, am I being honest with myself? Look at yourself in the mirror. Call your name out. What is it you’re most defensive about? What is it that you’re hiding? It’s between you and God. But if you ever need to talk, know that we are here. Let me pray for us.