Self-Centered
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good Morning everyone, I am in SD at my in laws. We are visiting family so I am coming in from the man cave of W32 Motorsports.
So I have a much different set up but this is one of the wonderful things about being a virtual church, I can come at you from anywhere.
I hope you all are having a good weekend.
God had put on my heart to share a little bit about Memorial Day weekend.
Educating the civilian sector about the military is a passion of mine because I am a Veteran.
What it means to be a Veteran is someone who has served in the military. I know not all people know these things.
Anyways the reason we celebrate Memorial Day in the US is not for the Veteran that survive but we use it as a time to remember those who we have lost. It is a sad time for the Veteran Community to take the time to remember those who have died while serving.
What I mean by the Veteran Community is not just the Veteran who has served, but also the families that have experinced lost.
So please don’t take the Veteran or your service member this weekend. Take the time to remember those that have died while serving.
Things you can do is clean graves, placing flags at the tombstones and paying your respects to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Let us Pray
Main Body
Main Body
Lets take a sip of coffee and get into God’s Word today.
We are talking a break from our series in Romans. We will be discussing God’s view on being self-centered.
My wife the other day shared on Instagram a graphic that was share by Shane Pruitt
It said Self-Help, Self Love, Self Transformation, Self Empowerment.
All focuses on self. Actually, you’ll be the best version of your “self” when you get your eyes off of “self” and on to God.
Then it stated God’s help, God’s love, God’s transformation, God’s empowerment.
When I read that I was like that makes a lot of sense. With this piquing my interest, I thought I would see what Bibles says about this.
Like I have mentioned in pervious sermons we should be going back to the Bible. Seeing what insights we can gain from it. Ensuring we are studying the context, sentence structures, and content. We should be examining what the Bibles holds for us.
Just like anything else we should not take it for face value because there could be more to these catchy graphics or memes. Also I do see a lot of miss quoted or miss used scripture. Sometimes we can all be guilty of this. However, for these reasons we go back to scripture is because it is the source of truth.
If we are rooted in scripture we have are are better equipped to not miss quote or miss use scripture. We can tell if something is truth or a lie.
We believe at Oaks, scripture is God breathed or God inspired. Lets look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.
In Timothy he is establishing that human authors wrote the Bible but they where inspired by God to write it.
Then in 2 Peter 1:20-21
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
In this passage Peter talks about how scripture wasn’t inspired by the mankind but by the Holy Spirit that spoke for God to them.
God was the one ensuing everything was correct and presented how it should be in the Bible.
This is important because God is infallible. He does not make mistakes. Mankind on the other hand is. We make mistakes all the time. If scripture is not God inspired then it would be full of mistakes which is not a characteristic of God. Hence, scripture is inspired by God and free of error.
Some will say that the Bible is not inspired by God. Or it is make believe and used to guide us through made up stories.
If we look at it from that angle then where do you draw the line?
Do we cut out Exodus or Genesis, does Romans truly mean what it does? Does the Gospel save us? As you can see this becomes a slipper slope and human error comes in when we do this.
The talk away from this is we should go back to our Bible as the source of truth to confirm and expand upon things. We should be rooted in scripture and referring to it.
Today we are looking at mankind being self-centered or self-absorbed.
This of course is a sin in God’s eyes and makes sense that people are self-centered because the true nature of mankind is sinful.
In today’s culture we are 100% self-centered. I know for myself I cannot go a day without seeing it first hand. I know you all cannot go a day without not seeing it either.
For example, I am apart of a Facebook Group message for my 20 year High School Reunion. I know 20 years have passed since I graduated High School, time does fly. Take aways from this is time is short.
Anyways the chat is pretty active, with people talking to each other. Which is always cool to see. However, the other day someone posted hey can you just direct message each other and not blow up this chat.
In that moment that showed me how self-centered people are because that person can silence the notification or leave the chat completely. But this person could not be bothered to take maybe a minute to do these things. They had to tell the whole group to knock it off and to quiet the chat.
I know the same could be said with people on the chat why couldn’t they be quiet or not message each other. However, the point of the chat is for us to connect and communicate on the regular. It was clearly outline, so people willing opt into this knowing that a head of time.
Another example of this, is not reaching out to people when we are busy.
When we know people are in need or they are struggling. We have a tendency not to check in because we don’t know what to say. However, most of the time people feel that cannot be bothered to check in with people because we are so busy with work or activities.
Know I am not pointing fingers at everyone at home because I am in the same boat with you all. I am very guilty of not taking time to check in with others when they are in need.
My wife on the other hand who is my better half is not. She is always doing her best to check in with people daily.
We even see it in our children. They just act without thinking about how it might affect others. They are hyper-focused on themselves.
The same with culture being self centered mindset. The culture is using “self” for just about everything. Like the graphic my wife shared, it is all about “self” and that mankind is capable of great things without God.
This of course is far from the truth. We need God because the absence of God leads to evil and wickedness.
We see this in 1 John 2:15-17
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.
John talks about do not love the world and the things in the world. This leads to lust of the flesh, lust with our eyes, and boastful pride. These are all sins and lead to a true death.
Which today’s culture is telling us that “self” is key. Self-help, self-empowerment, self-love, self-transformation. John tells us not to love things that our of this world.
That we should shift our focus on God the Father.
I want you all at home to keep that in mind, as we shift our focus on scripture about David and Bathsheba.
God put it on my heart to share this scripture because it is an example of where self-centered behavior can lead you too.
Lets turn on Bibles to 2 Samuel 11:2-5
Now at evening time David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So David sent servants and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers and had her brought, and when she came to him, he slept with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. But the woman conceived; so she sent word and informed David, and said, “I am pregnant.”
There is a lot to unpack within this passage.
We see King David at first find a beautiful woman. Which of course is not a sin, unless he was lusting after her.
Then he decides to inquire about her. He is curious about her and wants to know more. This of course is not sinful in nature, unless their lust in your heart.
Then David finds out Bathsheda is married. We see this in 2 Samuel 11:3
So David sent servants and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
Now at this point David should not have pursued the woman. She is a married woman.
We see in Proverbs 6:29
So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
Whoever touches her will not go unpunished.
“who goes in” was a common term used for sex.
Then we see that those who touches his neighbor’s wife will not go unpunished by God.
We see in 1 Corinthians 7:2
But because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.
Paul is highlighting that wives should sleep with their husbands that they are married to. The same goes for husbands they should sleep with their wives they are married too.
The Bible also outlines you should not pre marital sex. We see this in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
Paul is outlining to abstain from sex before marriage. The Greek for abstain, is apecho which means to be far off or be distant from sexual immorality.
The Greek for “sexual immorality” is porneia meaning fornication or sex.
We see this again in Deuteronomy 22:13-19
“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, and he charges her with shameful behavior and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her to have evidence of virginity,’ then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful behavior, saying, “I did not find your daughter to have evidence of virginity.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city. “Then the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her all his days.
There is a lot to absorb in this scripture. However, it outlines that there should be no pre-marital sex. The scripture shares that a woman should be a virgin before being married.
If they can prover she is not then the possible husband can divorce. However, if they cannot prove it then the soon to be husband must marry and they must pay the family for defaming the person.
The Bible tells us that adultery and pre-marital sex is a sin. That we should distance ourselves from it. Knowing this David should not have pursued Bathsheba.
However, then we see David still pursuing Bathsheba. In 2 Samuel 11:4
Then David sent messengers and had her brought, and when she came to him, he slept with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house.
Now we see David’s clear intent with his actions. He sends messengers to have Bathsheba come to him.
This also confirms that David was lusting after Bathsheba. He was also being self-centered.
David did not care about how his actions affected others.
David knew Bathsheba’s was married and did not care about her husband. This is clearly seen with the pursuit.
Then we see in the passage that David sleeps with Bathsheba. Which in this case David is sinning against God. David sins by committing adultery and having pre-martial sex.
We see in Proverbs 6:32
One who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense;
He who would destroy himself commits it.
The Bible outlines that those who commit adultery are sense less.
Lets look at the Hebrew, not Greek this time. Looking at “lacking sense,” which is ha-ser meaning lacking in sense.
Looking at “destroy” in Hebrew is sht meaning to ruin, destroy, or annihilate.
Those that commit adultery destroy themselves in the process.
We also see David being self-centered with his actions because they just don’t affect him, but also Bathsheba’s husband too.
Lets look at 2 Samuel 11:5
But the woman conceived; so she sent word and informed David, and said, “I am pregnant.”
David’s actions get Bathsheba pregnant, which is evidence of David’s sin to the world.
Lets continuing reading 2 Samuel 11:6-9
Then David sent word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked about Joab’s well-being and that of the people, and the condition of the war. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the king’s house, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.
Now we see David attempting to cover up his sin. He is attempting to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, Bathsheba.
However, Uriah is being an honorable solider. This is because his men are on campaign. We see this in 2 Samuel 11:11
And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Should I then go to my house to eat and drink and to sleep with my wife? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing.”
David attempts a few more times to get Uriah to sleep with his wife. Which he does not.
David decides to shift his tactics because he knew he would be found out with Bathsheba being pregnant and Uriah not sleeping with her.
So in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. He had written in the letter the following: “Station Uriah on the front line of the fiercest battle and pull back from him, so that he may be struck and killed.” So it was as Joab kept watch on the city, that he stationed Uriah at the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city went out and fought against Joab, and some of the people among David’s servants fell; and Uriah the Hittite also died.
David decided to send Uriah to the front lines and pull the lines back so he could be killed.
We see that David being self-centered lead to him committing adultery and covering up his sin by killing Uriah.
You are probably asking yourself what to do with this information.
You are probably thinking I won’t commit adultery due to being self-centered or cover it up with a murder.
I used this as an example because David was someone who was after God’s heart. Someone who had favor with God. Which in the end he committed several sins due to being self-centered.
If King David can sur come to being so self-centered, then we all can.
Knowing that we are able to fall into being self-centered helps with preventing this.
Furthermore the Bible tells us in Philippians 2:3
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves;
We should not do anything for our selfish desires.
We need to approach things with a humble heart.
Which we are seeing a re occuring theme of being humble to prevent being self-centered.
Lets us take sometime to pray
