Overcoming Self Centeredness - Part 2 — K.P. Yohannan

One time he said, we are all worms. You know what worms? Little crawling worms. But I do believe I am the glow worm. All of us are worms, but I am better. I glow. I have a dear friend and his name is Dr. Mains.

And he was telling me a story one time. He and his family went on a vacation in a large van they had. And so his wife Karen and their three boys and daughter, so they were going on. And they had this, the youngest little kid.

And his name is Jeremy. And he was just getting out of diapers. You know, that means, you know, little kids, they put diapers on when they make poo poo and pee pee. If you know those words, poo poo and pee pee.

Okay, now you got two English words. And the diapers protect them. So this boy, he didn't want to wear diapers. So they argued back and forth. So while they were going for this vacation, David said, Jeremy, you have to wear diapers.

No, no, no, no, I don't want diapers. I want diapers. You know, I'm a big boy now. He said, fine, but you're sure you will not make poo poo or pee pee? No, I'm a big boy. All right. They were driving along.

All of a sudden, something begins to stink. So David was driving. So he turned and said, Jeremy. Instantly, Jeremy said, Dad, Joel did it in my pants. Joel is his older brother. He's stinking. But without even taking a second to think or to pause, he said, he did it in my pants.

Isaiah’s Vision From Condemning the World to Confessing His Own Unworthiness

Now, when you pause and you read the book of Isaiah from chapter one to five, you find a brilliant man, a prophet who should know well, who should know what is right and wrong. He was not just some illiterate, uninformed individual.

No, he is a very well-informed, brilliant individual. But those five chapters, chapter one, two, three, four and five, you will find him talking. When you read, you are surprised by his harsh words. He's very black and white, very brutal.

And he's pronouncing such dominations and painting the picture of doom and gloom and hopelessness. And by the way, he was not lying about any of those stuff he was talking about. He was actually a brilliant reporter.

He was stating facts. But then, when you come to chapter six, something happens. A paradigm shift takes place. Something changes immediately. The chapter begins by saying, I saw the Lord. And the next thing, woe to me, I am undone.

I'm hopeless. I've been talking how bad the whole world is, but that's luxury that's incredibly beautiful compared to my condition. I am wicked. I'm lost. I'm the one in trouble. And then you find God says, all right, I can fix that problem if you let me.

And God says, okay, fire from me that, if you allow, will burn away, will remove, and he heals, and his life changes. So again, that brings back to us the same dilemma that you face, I face, when you go to church, when you go to worship, when we deal with our family members or wherever, we don't realize that your worst enemy is not somebody else.

The Inner Enemy of Self-Centeredness

Please listen to me. Why I'm saying this to you, because after all the years of your learning Bible and singing and praying and worship and everything else and knowledge of everything, finally you realize really you are rotten to the core.

You get angry and upset and restless and greedy and lustful and looking for power and position and money and first place and everything else about you, you know it is not dying. It is not giving away.

Anything that is within you, you're just holding on to it. Praise and a father can talk about children in Mumbai and slums and all these different things for you. It is another piece of information to hear.

It is not opportunity to say, what did he say? You mean I can't do something about it? But all of a sudden you say, oh I can't because I got a bank loan, I had to pay for the car I got, or I had to spend money to educate my children, or this and that.

Reordering Possessions Around the Needs of the Lost

And all of a sudden, your money, your circumstances, all that you have, that becomes much more significant. Not realizing I got two children, but there are 20 million on the streets dying and no one cares.

And Jesus cares about them so much that I'd rather buy two pair of clothes for my children instead of five. I'd rather have less of this. I'd rather use a motorbike for the next five years and don't want to get into debt to buy something that really is not critical.

No, no, no, I don't need a 35-inch television. No, I can live with a 12-inch television. But the reason you do that is not because it's going to make you spiritual. No, it's irrelevant. But you make the decision because you realize that you can embrace the difficulty, the inconveniences, and say no to self, dying to self, putting the self on the side, putting Christ and His interest first, and saying, how can I yield, give more, and experience?

You, oh God. And see, now I'll say this to you. Time is running away. I need to close. Please listen to me. I am not after anything from you. Your money, or whatever, it's not an issue here. But I am one of those people deeply, deeply convinced, and often hurt deeply because of the absolute shallowness of Christianity.

The Christianity that costs us nothing. All we have is forgiveness of sin and going to heaven, and Christ's call to die and give up all never seems to be part of our thinking. Because yourself, the last battle, the greatest of all battles you have to fight, it is not with your wife and children, your boss, or your friends.

No, it is the war is within you, and you have to overcome that. It's been 30, 32, 33 years ago of the few life-changing experiences that the Lord allowed me to go through. We all have, you know that.

It's nothing minus any specialty. But my circumstance was such that I was living with fairly, you know, luxurious circumstances, and anything I wanted, I had it. And then God began to convict my heart.

God’s Conviction About Luxury and Eternity

Must be 35 years ago now, something like that. What are you doing with your life? 100 years from now, what does this all mean? The very pen, the fountain pen you write with, who's going to use this? Could there happen to be a fountain pen that acquired from Europe that cost at that time 600 US dollars?

So you're talking about a fountain pen that it's like you're buying a car or something. But the pen I use is a very, very good pen. So what are you doing with this land and house and property and money and clothes and all this?

What is this? Didn't I call you to love me more than life itself and be mine for the sake of a lost world? Well, logic dictates. All right, I got the message, Jesus. I hear you well. So now tell me what you want me to do.

All right, go ahead. I'm writing. Okay, you want me to sell my house, give up my cars, give up my pen and my resources. What do you want me to do? But the logic didn't work. That's my logic. I tried my best to hear from him saying, do this, do this, do this, do this.

He didn't. But the strange response I had that I could hear him say to me in my heart, it was loud and clear. My son, you raised this dragon and you must slay it. I'm going to kill it. You raised this dragon, this wild animal, and you must kill it.

I can't do it. And that was the beginning of a process of my wife and I sitting down and looking at everything we had. No, no, there was no guilt and condemnation. God coming down and saying, I'm going to shoot you right now unless you do this.

No, nothing like that. It was a daily decision-making process to give up, to sell, to walk away and embrace life once again. Not to make me a better person, although I'm a million times certain I'm a better person.

But it was for him offering. But I couldn't do it because myself was too strong. I want to be this. I need the status quo. I want to be approved. I want to be known. I am this. I am that. When somebody come to my house and see the thousands of books in my private library, wow, they will think something significant and took a decision to pull all this down and pack it and send it away and walk away from it.

Choosing Humility Through Confession and Forgiveness

It was never a dictation, a command. Rather, it was a choice. It's easy for you now to misunderstand. All right, you want us to sponsor some children? Yeah, I want you to. Sure. But that is not even on my mind at this time.

Then you say, then what is it you are asking me to do? Well, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you asked someone forgiveness for something you said to them which is not true? Exaggeration, adding more stuff, or holding back information?

No, no, no. You never lied. But you could have said more so that that individual could make a better decision, but you didn't. When you learned that, did you go and say, look, I'm so sorry. I know you cannot prove me I have done anything wrong, but my heart condemns me and I realize I did wrong.

Forgive me. When was the last time you asked anyone? You say, for what? Asking forgiveness for? Oh, okay. You are perfect and holy. Tell me how you do it. I'd like to find out. Oh, you mean asking your seven-year-old son to forgive you?

No, that doesn't work with our culture. What do you mean? I have to stoop down to those people working in the garden and doing their dirty work, and I had to go back and tell them, by the way, I'm so sorry I got mad at you, or I was not kind.

It is not often the problem we are not telling lies or speaking something that is not real. No, our problem is we speak the truth, but the problem you only know if you spoke out of this constrained, painful, caring, loving heart, or you said it because that activity, that stuff they did or didn't do actually offends you, not offends God.

That's our problem. So maybe now you are getting close to the core of the problem we are talking about. Okay, Jesus tells his disciples, your ambition is amazing, but the problem is it's my father's decision who is going to sit on the right and the left, but all of a sudden other disciples, they began to get mad at these two disciples.

The problem is they are just like them. All of them are in the same boat, and by the way, we are too in the same boat. Jesus died on the cross to set us free from the kingdom of Satan, set us free from eternal, timeless hell and domination, and he did it with a fraction of a second.

It is finished, and the moment someone says, yes, oh Lord, it is done, but God has looked like an eternal problem to deliver us, set us free, set us free from ourselves. If he could violate himself and his Godhead and his nature, he could do it, but he said I can't violate who I am, and therefore I stand outside the door and keep knocking, saying that if you want to come after me, give up, die to self.

It is painful, it is humiliation, it is admitting, it is giving up material things, it is being alone, it is exchanging all the stuff and money and dreams for whatever he calls us to do, but please I pray that you will decide to become someone who will be the doer, the one who do it of the word, but that involves seeing the real enemy, the roadblock, the hindrance, not someone, something and the devil, it is you, within you, and may the words of Paul be our experience, I am myself, my ego, I experience this perpetual dying of self on the cross so that I live, but not in my strength, but his strength, Galatians chapter 220.

Prayer for Deliverance From Self and Superficial Christianity

And Lord, I speak your peace upon your people. How often we put up a fight, defending ourselves, making a thousand excuses, blaming our circumstances and others, even, without even thinking about it, just like Adam and Eve, our great, great, great, great, great, our parents.

How in the end they blamed you, O God, for their problem, and we do the same, yet we don't realize it. Even when we come to worship or to meetings in your name, O Lord, how often we are filled with our self, putting up walls around us, waiting for someone to break it down and do something to make us feel God near us, and we so easily forget we are the ones that must break down the barriers and walk out and be childlike, with a tender heart and a broken heart.

Teach us your ways, O Lord, help us to come to the place that we are sick, we are sick to the stomach of fawniness and lack of godliness, that we'll become actually sick with superficiality, that just as I say, O God, somehow we will see you and realize how rotten we are on the inside, not that we end up with so much introspection and self-rejection, but rather, God, for you to change us, to give us life abundant, this wholesome life that you taught about.

God, we are the hindrance, not you, so ask today, give us better understanding of who we are, realize the enemy that is within us, and then cooperate with you that through the cross, we will learn what it means to put to death our self, that once again, Christ Jesus our Lord will truly be the Lord on the throne of our life.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.