Sermon Tone Analysis

Know Yourself

Receive the Gospel

Connect in Community

Walk with God

Know Yourself

Serve your God

Commit to this Church

A part of being a disciple of Jesus is knowing yourself!

This aspect of being a disciple of Jesus may be the most helpful session in the class b/c I believe it’s the most neglected.

Most discipleship paradigms don’t include something like this.

I think in many ways...

“Knowing self” is the missing piece of discipleship.

I’ve been a Christian for about 25 years and throughout my journey I’ve experienced several break through moments that had to do with knowing myself.

One of those was about 8 years ago.

I started receiving counseling with a retired pastor who works with screwed up dudes like me… Jim Cofield… he wrote a book called Relational Soul…

Jim helped me to know myself.

B/c what I was doing… is what many Christians do is…

(Note the WB: Pic)

I received the gospel… connected in community… learned how to walk with God… and then I got on to serving in ministry.

I didn’t even know Knowing Myself mattered.

I thought, “What’s in the past is past… and all that matters is serving Jesus.”

But then I began to experience struggles/problems in ministry.

These were things that weren’t solved by just knowing more of the right doctrine or engaging spiritual disciplines.

These were things that had to do with me/my story.

One of my personal issued had to do with a void in my life from growing up with a father who was a functional alcoholic.

Now I love my father very much, I respect him, he’s a man of God now!

But, there was hole in my soul as a young man and I was hungry for significance b/c I didn’t get that from Dad.

I was totally unaware of this…

Remember I skipped this step… and so I went into ministry looking for significance.

That led me to become a workaholic damaging my marriage and my ability to father my kids well at the time.

I knew the right doctrines that I should be a good dad/husband… I practiced walking with God… but I was stuck b/c I didn’t realize the expression of my sin (working too much/false signIficance) were related to my story.

See…

When we become disciples, we aren’t empty vessels that just get filled up with right doctrine and right practice.

No, we all have a story!

We come with baggage.

And our story has shaped our life to this point and continues to shape our life for good and bad!

It plays a role in our discipleship.

It’s something we need to think about and reflect on along the way.

So the big idea in this session is just to introduce us to this step of knowing yourself… That this is a part of following Jesus.

It comes into play.

Some of you may struggle with this step b/c the idea of knowing self is over done in our “self-help” age.

But, it’s important.

In fact, Christians throughout history spoke about this… long before “self-help” was even a term.

For example…

“Lord Jesus, Let me know myself and know you.”

Augustine, 4th century

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.”

John Calvin, 16th century (Institutes of the Christian Religion—the very first sentence!)

So what about scripture… do we have any hints in the Bible that it’s important to know oneself?

Well, there aren’t self-help guides in the Bible b/c the Bible isn’t about us it’s about God.

But we can see the writers of scripture engaging their hearts/doing some self reflection.

Have you noticed how often the first person singular (I) is used in scripture?

The Bible is filled with human story it isn’t just doctrinal statements and commands on how to live… there’s a lot human texture in the Bible.

Stories of people who know themselves and share that in their writings.

Let’s just briefly look at Psalm 73… I included most of the Psalm in the NLT version with a few comments in parenthesis.

1 Truly God is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure.

2 But as for me, I almost lost my footing.

My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.

(notice the 1st person)

3 For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.

(this is his journal entry/his struggle) 4 They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong….

8 They scoff and speak only evil; in their pride they seek to crush others.

9 They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut throughout the earth.

10 And so the people are dismayed and confused, drinking in all their words.

11 “What does God know?” they ask.

“Does the Most High even know what’s happening?”

12 Look at these wicked people (Asaph sharing his heart again)— enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

13 Did I keep my heart pure for nothing?

Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?

(he’s questioning his own commitment to God/if it’s worth it)

14 I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain.

15 If I had really spoken this way to others, I would have been a traitor to your people (so this is what he was feeling/his journal entry).

16 So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.

But what a difficult task it is! 17 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked (he goes on speaking about how God will take care of the wicked/he closes with another confession)…

21 Then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside.

22 I was so foolish and ignorant— I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

23 Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?

I desire you more than anything on earth.

26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.

(Psalm 73, NLT)

We get Asaph’s journal entry.

He’s reflecting on where he was… he was struggling with seeing injustice in the world.

He took time to know his own heart and worked it out.

BTW, you see personal emotional expression all throughout the psalms.

A few more examples… Paul, an early church leader gave some instructions to the Elders/Leaders of the church in Ephesus as he was leaving them… he said,

It wasn’t enough for them to know their doctrine or pray more… they also needed to pay attention to themselves in addition to all the flock.

He said something similar to Timothy,

Thee’s instructions on how to think about yourself!

So there’s a few passages of scripture that help us just get a quick introduction to this idea… that a part of this walk with God is knowing self.

Paul urges leaders to know themselves… Asaph had done enough reflection to express what he was feeling how he was reacting to things… some of us don’t know how to do that… I think I’m still learning.

Okay, let’s get practical—

How do we know ourselves?

What does that look like?

3 area’s of knowledge you need to know yourself:

1 Know the story of humanity.

2 Know your story.

3 Know how the gospel reinterprets your story!