Self Self Self

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. I want to make sure that if you're a lady and you're close to Worcester, Massachusetts, you're invited to our Bethlehem Bible Church Women's Conference 2011.

Bethlehem Bible Church Women's Conference 2011, every year it is in May, and this year is no exception, May 20th through 21st, 2011, Friday night, 7 to 9, all morning, Saturday morning. Husbands, let your wife go and let her attend.

That's 15 bucks for ladies. Reflections of a True Heart by Donna Shannon. She is the wife of an elder at Grace Church, John MacArthur Church. My friend Bill Shannon is a faithful elder there, and the topics include principles on adorning ourselves, controlling our thoughts, biblical femininity, easy for me to say, taking our cue from the Word, not the world.

That's Bethlehem Bible Church Women's Conference, Donna Shannon, flying her out here because we like Donna and her ministry and her Lord, and so that's May 20th and 21st. Register bbcchurch .org. Well, today we have an interesting topic, and that is the topic of self.

The Biblical View of Self and the Problem of Self-Esteem

How do we look at ourself? How do we see ourselves biblically? I loved this old, it's really old, it's probably 12 years old now, 14 years old, Tyson deemed fit to fight again, Associated Press, Las Vegas.

Mike Tyson was extremely depressed at the time he bit Evander Holyfield's ear and is unlikely to commit such an act again, a medical panel says in a report that finds he is, quote, fit, end quote, to return to the ring.

The report by a team of doctors who exhausted the former heavyweight champion last month that examined last month portrays him as lacking in self-esteem and depressed to the point that he took antidepressant drugs in the months following the Holyfield fight.

One doctor speculated that Tyson, who said he never lost consciousness in the ring but did several times after beatings as a child, may have residual attention deficit disorder. Tyson told the doctors he was not suicidal but had feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and helplessness all my life.

I have no self-esteem but the biggest ego in the world, Tyson said. The report recommends that Tyson undergo psychotherapy, reminds me of Ramon's song, and that he has problems with depression and self-esteem and can be treated without further medication.

Well, what about self? Is that how we analyze ourself? If you're having a hard time, what is your view of self? I am okay. You're okay. How about this? This is an old survey but still very interesting.

A survey of the Christian Booksellers Association. 40 disagreed with this statement. The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately weak. 40%. Now this is not some kind of, you know, we're at the House of Blues and ask some people the question or, you know, Lollapalooza or something.

This is CBA, Christian Booksellers Association. Heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17 .9, 40 disagreed, 35 disagreed with this statement. There is no one righteous, no one who seeks after God, there is no one who does good.

Some people said I laugh at my own jokes. I'm not laughing at any joke. That's a Bible verse. Romans chapter 3, yikes, 61 disagreed with babies are born sinful and under the wrath of God from birth.

Psalm. Well, maybe Nibor was right. There's a God without wrath that brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross. Well today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, you can, first of all, write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com and secondly, you can pull up old shows.

We've done about 500 of them, so if you want to pull up an old show, we would love to have you listen. Today we're going to look at five key passages regarding salvation and the view of self. If you grasp these five passages, you're going to pretty much understand self.

I don't have to smash psychology, although that's always fun to do. I don't have to smash self-esteem, although that just was fun to do. I want to make sure that you see these passages and then I think you'll get it.

I think you will run from self-actualization, self-esteem, self, etc. I think you'll realize, you know what? I have a bad problem and it is myself. Passage number one. There are many more passages, but I just picked out five, yawn, five passages.

You know, I used to have a cough button at the studio. I wonder if I had a yawn button or maybe some theological erudition button. Passage number one for salvation and the view of self. John 12. Now there were certain Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast.

These therefore came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Peter came and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip came and they told Jesus. Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, death and resurrection.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life, now we're coming to the punchline, this is what you make bold.

He who loves his life loses it and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. What if you were to tell somebody, Christian booksellers association, whoever hates his life, that's a good thing in this world.

You're supposed to hate your life in this world. Man, people would go ballistic. Can you imagine? Jesus said, he who loves his life loses it and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.

Verse 26, if anyone serves me, let him follow me and where I am, there shall my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. These issues are not of self-actualization, self-gratification, self-affirming, no.

It's a very similar passage. I guess this is another passage. I didn't really want to go to another passage yet, but it's very similar. It's a cross-reference, at least theological cross-reference. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

That's Luke 23 and chapter 9. Verse 23, chapter 9, for whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

Similarly to Luke 17, whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it and whoever loses his life shall preserve it. Matthew 16, whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.

So those kind of passages, maybe five key sets of passages regarding salvation and the view of self. I want to go back to John 12, 25 again. He who loves his life loses it and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.

Hates his life. Just quickly, let me tell you about my testimony. My testimony was indicative of that very thing. Hating my old life of sin, lust, licentiousness, alcohol misuse, drug use, and the list goes on and on and on.

Idolatry, worshipping things I ought not to worship, worshipping the creation instead of the creator. That was a life that I didn't need to love anymore. I used to love it and God gave me the eyes to see and he made me alive so I would hate that life.

I don't want that kind of life. I want to hate that kind of lifestyle and that is exactly what we need. We need to be told by Jesus and his apostolic messengers that the message of life is not look to yourself.

C .S. Lewis was right. In a culture that is in love with itself, Lewis said, look for yourself and you will find in the long run, if you look to yourself, only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay.

Poverty of Spirit and Boasting Only in the Cross

The second kind of passage that will help you understand the biblical view of self is found in Matthew 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs, by the way the text is in the original, theirs and theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven.

These people that are poor in spirit, they are beggar in their spirit. They're not full in their spirit. They're not full of themselves. They're not adequate for anything. They are not sufficient for anything.

They are not able to do anything of their own. They don't have self-esteem. They don't have a problem saying, I'm spiritually bankrupt. These kind of people who recognize their bankruptcy spiritually, their conscience of their bankruptcy, they are blessed.

They don't necessarily, it doesn't really mean happy, or not necessarily blissful. It can mean many things, but it mainly means to be approved by God. These kind of people are approved by God. It also can have a slight tinge of envied.

Other people see you and they say, you know what, those people worship this great God, Jesus Christ, and he, that person, or she, that person, and they serve a great God. I wish I was them. Sometimes in the neighborhood there are people and they'd say, well, you know what, I wish I had a mom like that.

I wish I had a dad like that. It's the same kind of thing. I wish I had a God like that. I wish I had the God. It is the God. Blaise Pascal said, the need to escape explains why many people are miserable when they are not preoccupied with work or amusements or vice.

They're afraid to be alone, lest they get a glimpse of their own emptiness. When a man is left with nothing but himself to face, he falls usually into boredom, melancholy, or despair. That's exactly right.

But a man who is approved by God, a man who has been enlightened by God, a man who has been born again by God, a man who has been made alive again by God through the finished work of Christ Jesus, the great substituent atonement, the great high priest who made sacrifice for our sins.

When the God of the universe is working in a man and quickens them, then that person says, you know what, I'm poor in spirit. I have nothing to offer. I have nothing to bring to the table. If I'm going to make it to heaven, I am not going to make it in heaven for any reason except the grace of God.

That's the only reason I'm going to make it. I don't have sufficiency. I can't do it. Spurgeon said, poverty of spirit is an absence of self-esteem. Where that kind of spirit is found, it is sweet poverty for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So that's passage number two. When it comes to viewing yourself, you should say to yourself, I don't love myself like I used to. God has given me different motivations that now I don't want to boast in myself except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

That's Galatians 6 .14. You say in Matthew 5, blessed are the poor in spirit, that poor in spirit person says, I'm not okay. I'm not healthy. I'm not righteous. I do have guilt. I do understand that I deserve hell.

Horatius Bonar said, in all unbelief there are two things, a good opinion of self and a bad opinion of God. So long as these things exist, it is impossible for an inquirer to find rest. His good opinion of himself makes him think it is quite possible to win God's favor by his own religious performances.

The object of the Holy Spirit's work in convincing of sin, convicting of sin, is to alter the sinner's opinion of himself and so to reduce his estimate of his own character that he shall think of himself as God does.

And so, I'm not okay. You're not okay. We want to be people who recognize they're sick so that we know we need a physician. If you're not sick, if you think you're healthy, you don't need a physician.

But we need a physician because we have been told by God and we have recognized by the Spirit's enablement that we are sick and we are very thankful that Jesus did not come to call the righteous but sinners.

I ask you a question, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? Answer, Psalm 24. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully.

We're No Compromise Radio. Minister, you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Nocompromiseradio .com also has all our old podcasts, all 500 of them or so. And what's 500 times 24 and a half minutes?

That would be how long it would take you. 250 hours, that's, let's see, you'd listen to No Compromise for two weeks straight, non-stop morning, noon, and night. We have been getting some visitors to the church recently and they don't know what I look like.

And so when they find out what I look like, does the voice match the face? When I was a kid, you know, any kind of radio personality, the face doesn't match the voice because people get so used to the voice.

But anyway, MacArthur and Sproul and Begg, I've met all those guys and so their face does match the voice because the first time I heard them probably was, they were mixed together. How do we view ourself?

Again, I've done shows in self-esteem where I can just whack self-esteem because it's so obviously stupid. So it's so obviously unbiblical. Second Timothy chapter three says, you know, last days, you want to know what they're like.

People are going to be lovers of themselves. But to have a biblical worldview and to have a biblical view of self, number one, we've looked at passages that talk about deny self or hate self. Number two, blessed are the poor in spirit, realizing that they have nothing in and of themselves to contribute.

That's why we need grace. We need sovereign grace. We need sovereign distinguishing grace. Passage number three, a great passage, Luke 18, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a, what, tax gatherer.

Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, to himself, to himself, to himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust adulterers, or even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week, that's more than he needed to, I pay tithes of all that I get.

But the tax gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, was beating his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's a good view of self right there.

I'm the sinner, I'm not a sinner, I'm not comparing myself to anybody else, I don't turn on Jerry Springer to say, look at these other freaks, I must be pretty normal. That's why people watch, by the way, this parading of people applauding and clapping and celebrating for heinous things that should not even be done, let alone uttered in private.

And Romans chapter one says, this is a bad deal. Here, this tax gatherer, this tax collector, beating his breath, continually ashamed of himself, downcast, self-accusation, you want a self-word, self-actualization, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Self-accusation, he is near despair, he realizes he is not a sinner, he is the sinner. This is like David before God, against thee and thee only, Psalm 51, have I done evil, sinned in your sight. He had a high self-esteem?

No, he had a low self-esteem. The Pharisee had high self-esteem. He was affirming himself, patting himself on the back, nurturing himself. He thought he was pretty good. I like Top Lady's song, Rock of Ages, remember that?

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Sadly, unbelievers in general have such self-esteem, their self-esteem is so high, they don't think they need Jesus. They don't think they need Jesus.

One man said, Lord, I see it now. Not only what have I done is wrong, but I am wrong. I like this that somebody said, another quote, before you can say thy kingdom come, you need to be able to say, my kingdom go.

That's interesting on No Compromise Radio. Before you can say thy kingdom come, you have to be willing to say, my kingdom go. Proper view of self, proper view of how God relates to self. Passage number four.

The Woman with the Hemorrhage and Faith That Reaches Out

And he went off with him, a great multitude was following him and pressing in on him, and a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, this is interesting, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse, after hearing about Jesus, came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak, for she thought, if I just touch his garments I shall get well.

And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Instant healing, instant hemorrhaging that stopped, and now she has health and vitality.

And immediately Jesus perceiving in himself that power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? He knew what was the scoop. He's getting her to reach out and express herself, and his disciple said to him, you see the multitude pressing in on you and you say, who touched me?

He looked around to see the woman who had done this, but the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told the whole truth. Fear and trembling, she knows she's in the presence of some supernatural God, fell down, prostrate before Jesus.

She knew she was a sinner, and she knew he was the holy God. He said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. Daughter, maybe Jesus was even younger than this woman.

But he says like a compassionate father, like a dad who loves his children, like the creator, go in peace, daughter. Faith has healed you. It's made you well. Go in peace. Shalom. Physical blessings, spiritual blessings.

We don't have any inkling of, gee, what a good boy am I is here. And then passage number five, Philippians chapter three, Philippians chapter three, we're looking at self, just some passages about self so we can understand things properly.

Counting All Things as Loss to Gain Christ

Philippians chapter three, I don't have enough time, so I'm looking at my notes going, oh, I'm never going to make it. So here we go. Here we go. Paul says, but whatever things were gained to me, these things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Can you imagine? The things that I used to think were gain using accounting terminology that I thought were significant, that were profit to me, I think, I regard, I consider with deliberate judgment as a completed evaluation with present effects, Hawthorne, page 135.

I say to myself, those things are no longer my credit side, they're my debit side. I thought these were achievements and now I think they were failures. I used to put up these trophies in my room and now I have to take them down.

Can you imagine? That doesn't sound like self-esteem. That doesn't sound like a self kind of deal where they want you to self-actualize, that you want to go into the shrink and think good thoughts about yourself, high thoughts about yourself.

And Paul, by the way, actually had some things that were gained to him. Gain in the community, gain religiously in terms of at least other people. Remember, he had confidence in his flesh. Chapter three, verse five, circumcised on the eighth day.

That's the right day to be circumcised. That was the prescribed day. He is of the nation of Israel. He is descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He's been a Jew from the cradle. He's of the tribe of Benjamin, that great tribe, small tribe, but great meaning people came out of it were great.

Hebrew of the Hebrews, his parents were Hebrew. He was a Pharisee by choice, by training, by conviction. I'm going to go get myself a coffee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to the righteousness, which is in the law found blameless.

He had righteousness. Today, you might say he had Christian parents. He went to church. He was a church member. He went to communion regularly. He was baptized. He kept the rules externally. He studied the Bible.

He gave. He said, I counted these things loss. I counted those things. They're damaging to me. They're disadvantage to me. Why? Because if you rely on those to get to heaven, they're no longer something that's good.

They are something that will forfeit salvation for you. These things were all my gains, plural, were counted as loss, singular. I put them all in one big bonfire and lit it saying, I don't have anything to offer God.

I have sins to offer to God. That's all I have. If God's going to save me, it's going to have to be by Jesus' perfect work. More than that, flipping 3 -8, I count all things to be loss. Not just his pedigree, not just his spiritual background, not just what had happened, but everything.

I continue to count them as loss. My parents, relationships, friends, spouse, money, fame, prestige, power, influence, because when it comes to Jesus Christ and knowing him in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

It's worth it all to gain Christ, where my whole identity in my past, I see nothing except I was a wretch. So we looked at five passages today, five sets of passages, to make sure we think biblically about our Savior.

He's the one to be praised. He's the one to be honored. He's the one to be looked at as the risen, substantiating lamb who was slain for our sins. My name is Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. You don't want to believe in self-esteem.

You want to believe in Christ Jesus.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.