Lovers of Self

Introduction

A few years ago, among all the other possibilities of words that could have been chosen, the word of the year was selfie. And the reason was actually quite simple. Oxford, as they were doing their research, they tracked the use of words from month to month. And what they found was over the course of 12 months, listen carefully to this number, the word selfie had grown in use by 17,000 percent that year. I like to think in dollar amounts, it’s just my nature. But if you took a hundred dollars and you increased it by 17,000 percent, this is really simple math, it would be 17,000. 100, 17,000. That’s the increase in the use of this word. And that’s why it was word of the year. And the reality is selfie epidemic really highlights a growing problem in our culture.

And so if you’ll indulge me for just a moment this morning, I want to talk just a little bit about that and this idea before we lead into some scriptural concepts that I think can help us deal with this idea. One person said more often than that than not, those addicted to taking and posting selfies are suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, OCD, or depression, all of which can significantly interfere with your daily function. David Veal, who is a doctor, says selfie addiction is a mental health issue with an extremely high suicide rate. Lots of problems tied into this symptom, essentially, is what it is, of a much bigger problem. And the average age of selfie taking is dropping rapidly. Actually, yesterday, I wish I would have had this picture and put it up here.

Someone on my newsfeed posted their little daughter sitting in a car asleep, taking a selfie ever. She’s so proficient at it that she could even do it while she was asleep now. That’s where we are as a culture, with the ability to focus so much on self. Now, listen to me carefully. What I’m not saying this morning is that selfies are all bad and that social media is always wrong all the time or anything like that, but really that we just see what’s happening in culture around us and kind of learn from what’s taking place sociologically with what this means for us as a people. And what tends to happen is not just that these things stay out there, that’s not how life works. we are human and we are people, and so the sociological influences, the flow of culture around us also influences people that are in buildings like this morning, or who are gathering with other people worshiping the Lord.

They as well are affected by the things that are happening in culture, sometimes in ways they’re not even aware of. And so we live in this world that is very confused, that is very focused on self. This picture well describes the society we live in, and this has no political leaning whatsoever with what I want to do with this morning. It just happened to illustrate the point really well. You have this person who is a person of high regard, someone who is known well. And when she is in the room, notice what everyone is doing. The piece I got this from was excellent. The writer made this point. He said, It looks like someone across the room has entered. And everyone has turned to look at this other person, and even Hillary’s waving at them as they’re coming in.

That’s what society is like now. We’ve turned our back on real life for the fake, for the self. There’s actually even deeper things that are going on here. For it’s, for instance, they’re in a group, right? It’s a group of people, and yet they’re still so focused on self. Right? They’re turning around, getting pictures of themselves with Hillary in the background because it’s about them. It’s not about everyone else around them. And this is only one segment of society here, obviously, but this is something that affects many of us. You go to any kind of event, I’ve been to golf tournaments or baseball games or whatever, and everyone is so wrapped up in what they’re getting and so often missing what’s happening around them. And that’s exactly what this picture illustrates for us.

These very severe problems that often we don’t even recognize in our society. We think they’re normal. We think it’s normal to be individual for everything to be about self. But throughout the history of mankind, things have been so group oriented. Families are group-oriented, societies are group-oriented, and we live in the most individualistic society that has ever existed, where everything seems to be about self and what I’m doing and what I want. And so unfortunately, there are some issues that come with this. Immense problems that come from not just selfies themselves, but the reason they’re being taken, social media, and there’s some good things about some of this, and I don’t want to neglect that completely. I want us to understand maybe some of the deeper seated things that we don’t think about so often.

Social media and the use of internet in general, studies, many studies have revealed that there are sleep and productivity issues related to them. In fact, if you look at a screen within an hour and a half of going to bed, you’re doing yourself harm. We maybe even know that. I know that, and yet I still do it. it’s just we have to learn to control ourselves. It’s hard. Even when we understand some of these things, yet we still fall prey to them and realize it affects our sleep, or it affects our productivity. bullying as a result of social media and the internet is just widespread. We have 24 hour access to people’s lives on their profiles and messaging, and there’s all kinds of harmful things that take place when very immature people have that kind of control and access.

And it doesn’t stop with the young people, immature people can be older too, and we can see plenty of that. we just look at some of the political heated discussions on social media feed, which hopefully you’re trying to avoid. but some of that can even be bullying and it can be intimidating unnecessarily. Depression, a huge problem, people living in fear. We have access to every imaginable horrible thing that’s going on the face of the planet at all times. And somehow we think we can live a peaceable life. We’re all the time being pushed in and expected to help every problem that exists on the planet, and yet we are not capable. There is no way that we can actually accomplish this. We never will, and that’s not God’s plan to save the planet or to save every problem here.

In fact, we’re trying to live for a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness and holiness dwells. That’s but it puts us in such depression, a feeling of hopelessness when we see all of these different things and we can’t possibly participate in all of them, just making you aware of reality. And then how it becomes so focused on me and what I should be doing and how I should be a part of that. And again, help if you can help. But what I want us to over to understand is sometimes we’re so overwhelmed by just the mass quantity of things that are happening all the time that we’re just missing what’s even right in front of us. And then there is the search in the midst of all of this for the next dopamine rush, the person who loves your post or you likes your post or comments on your post, and so our phones are here, and we’re looking for that next ding to come.

And so it’s this kind of even biochemical thing that’s happening to us because of the subculture that we live in, and now we’ve been conditioned, and young people, you have been conditioned to this, and maybe don’t even realize it to have those devices dinging and buzzing all the time. And what it’s doing is it’s taking us out of the real world into this fake world that is not going to help us in the end if we aren’t careful. Marriage and parenting issues. And this is not only caused by pornography, that is a big problem, and it’s a big issue, but it is the addictive nature of screens themselves. And I’ll just say right now, I’ve got this problem, right? I mean, many of us do. We have this phone and we just keep pulling it out and we keep looking at it.

And our spouse is getting frustrated, or maybe our friends are getting frustrated because instead of actually engaging with them, we’re looking at a screen. Anyone else have that issue? I mean, this is the world that we’re living in now, and we have to recognize some of the difficulties that come along with that. And maybe the most scary of all of this is just the prevalence now of selfie deaths to go back to the selfie aspect of this. There is this very disturbing picture. 2017, a student in India is pictured drowning in the background while all of his friends are snapping a selfie of themselves. Complete obliviousness to what’s happening behind them. Earlier this year, three people died in an eight-week span in the Grand Canyon taking selfies.

This drive to promote self and to do me and to be who I am is literally walking people off the edges of cliffs. And so I want us to see that the problem here. The average number of deaths at the Grand Canyon, by the way, is like 12 per year. And they had three in eight weeks. And so this is where it’s all bringing us when we’re unaware. When we don’t admit the reality of what’s happening. And so really to get out of this or to have a hope to thrive in this kind of situation, which I want to come to the end of this and talk some about that, we have to be intentional about doing the very thing Paul criticizes in 2 Timothy 3.

And so I want us to just read that text carefully, the one that was on the screen at the very beginning, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, and realize this is not something that we read, and it just kind of happens that we avoid it. No, it’s going to take some intentionality, especially in our world where everything is wrapped up in what I want and what I need and the things that I want to do. We have to be intentional about avoiding this very first thing he says. But understand this that in the last days, that’s now, the last days are the days that came after Christ until Christ returns. In those last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self.

People will be lovers of self. And I’ll tell you, this is uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable to think through, it’s uncomfortable to talk about, because all we have to do is look in the mirror if we’re not taking a selfie, and we can think about the fact that we do this. Don’t we?

And we see we’re going to have to be deliberate about getting out of this way of thinking. And what’s really happening, the sad part about all of this is that people really work hard to feel loved, to feel appreciated. They desperately want someone to click that like button or that love button of their face wherever it is they are or whatever it is they’re doing. They just need that affirmation. Because the reality is it’s it is pride, but it’s mixed with a healthy dose of insecurity, that the needing of affirmation of people around them to validate who they are. And of course, we present our greatest self on the internet. And so if someone doesn’t like who we are on the internet, that’s maybe the worst thing ever, because that is the very best of who we are.

And yet someone is criticizing that, which is what leads to all these heated discussions, because you’re criticizing my very best self because you disagree with me. And so we fall prey to this idea of being a lover of self. And Paul warns us about this. What I want to do with the time left this morning is talk about this idea of being a lover of self. And I want to go really kind of back and forth between 2 Timothy 3 and some of the basic concepts there, but also maybe spend a little bit more time in Romans 1, the second part. Because in there, I think it shows a path of thought. It shows how we end up, where we end up. And so often it is these symptoms, kind of the superficial things that we notice that are actually the result of much deeper problems that we need to get to.

And so that’s where I want to head as we go through talking about some of this idea of what it means to be a lover of self. So just be aware that if you have a marker or put your finger there, or whatever, we’re going to be flipping back and forth, but actually mostly spending our time in Romans chapter 1. I think really the idea, and of course, this is in Paul’s mind because he’s thinking this way, and he ends up writing it in Romans 1. He’s writing these people in the world they live in, that this is the kind of thought that produces the indulgences, and we’ll get to those indulgences at the end, that everyone sees around them, and we see in our world that people have passions and lusts and desires that they want to fulfill.

1. Self-Centered: Everything Is About Me

Why is it they feel the right and the authority to then go and satisfy every passion and desire? How do they get to a point where they can think that’s okay? And I think maybe we don’t deal with the source of the problem enough. We spend so much time talking about you know the sexual immorality and all the you know the drug taking and the drinking and all of these indulgences. We spend so much time on that we’re missing sometimes the source of the actual problem. And so that’s where I want to begin. A lover of self really begins with this idea that everything is about me. It’s very self-centered. And so in Romans chapter 1, as he’s talking about those who suppress the truth, the wrath of God is gonna be revealed against these people, they live in ungodliness and unrighteousness.

Well, how do they get there? You know, God has revealed himself. We can just go outside, and I would suggest this at times really. Go outside and we can look around and we can appreciate the greatness of what God has given us. And he said they’re without excuse. They can go out and they can see all of that. And people in ancient times, they believed in God. They really weren’t atheists for the most part. They believed in some kind of God. So they believe in deity, they believe in intelligence of some sort, and they are witness to this. They see it. That’s not the problem. But here’s the problem, verse 21. For although they knew God, they did not honor him. Children, this is why honor your father and mother is so important, because it leads to so many other things if we don’t do it.

This is the source. They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. The problem at the source is in gratitude. Taking day to day for granted, not appreciating what God is and who God is and what he has done for us. The problem in the very beginning, the source, the impetus of everything that comes after is really the lack of gratitude. The unwillingness to give thanks to the basic things of life. And here’s what happens. They become futile, that’s worthless, in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. It seems so simple.

And you notice again, if you pick up later in verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God gave them up. That’s where it leads to all these other issues. They don’t acknowledge God, they don’t honor God, they’re ungrateful, they don’t give thanks to him. And by the way, as Paul has already mentioned in Ephesians 6 1, relays this to parents, young people, you need to understand this is the source of so many problems with young children. They don’t appreciate the value of respecting and honoring their parents, and so then it leads to all kinds of other problems. And I will say, on a smaller level, but then those become big problems when we then attach them to the authority of God.

And now we haven’t learned the authority of our parents, and now we don’t appreciate the authority of God. Which is why maybe later on in the list, he includes along with murderers and other people who are slanderers and haters, disobedient to parents. It is important that we see the connection between things like gratitude and then where this brings us in the end with our own passions and desires and the desire to fulfill self-will. But the beginning of all of this is the self-centeredness of man. When we fail to appreciate the glory and the majesty of God and who he is, inevitably, it is inevitable that we will then elevate ourselves. That’s what happens. It’s a process, and he describes it very well in that short text in 21 through 24 of Romans 1.

The process looks like this.

When you go to this path of feudal thinking, then you have a darkened heart. And when you have a darkened heart, you don’t realize what the light is. You think that which is good is evil, and you think that which is evil is good. It’s this process that begins. Then you start worshiping the creation rather than the creator. That’s where he goes next. And then when you’ve worshiped the creation rather than the creator, then you believe whatever it is that you want and you desire is good. That’s really the path we’re on right now. As we’re working through this text, and we’re talking about this idea of being a lover of self. It begins with the self-centeredness. Which is why, parents, it’s important that we teach our children everything is not about you.

2. Self-Seeking: Worshiping the Creation Rather Than the Creator

You are not the center of the world. And at every tear and at every whine, we don’t drop down and serve you and make sure everything is taken care of in your life. And unfortunately, the world we live in tends to allow children to run the home so often, which is an extremely negative thing because of what we’re talking about right here. They begin to have this worthless thinking, which turns into self-seeking. Now, let me explain this a little bit more because this is a really vague sort of statement. When I talk about self-seeking, I’m really just following along this path that we already looked at. It’s not just seeking personal desire. We’re actually going to come back to that a little bit in a few minutes.

That’s part of it. But really, it’s more about this worship of self that I already referenced. It’s about the idea of personal enlightenment. Right? I’m going to go find myself. And when I find myself, then I will know the depths of truths. Right? No, you find the depths of truths, and then you learn who you are. It’s actually the other way around. But when we go in this path and we’re very self-centered, and now we do this whole seeking of self thing. It really ends up with what goes on next in the text. They exchange the glory of the immortal God. It’s also overlapped. It’s actually hard to separate. When we neglect to go outside and look and think, wow, this is amazing. There is no part of anything that I could ever do that could accomplish a single iota of what God has accomplished, even in the dirt pile right in front of me.

And I need to appreciate God on who He is. If I don’t do that, then I’m going to go down this path where now I start creating images resembling humans and birds and animals, and to start worshiping those things. Which is exactly what was going on in places like Egypt. Paul’s doing a little bit of rhetoric here. Even the pagans he’s writing to would have seen the negativity of worshiping animals at this point. So he’s he’s playing on that a little bit with them. But the whole point is once you start worshiping the creation, which is the wording here, and we get in verse 25, you’ve neglected to see the greater part. What is reality? The creator himself, they exchanged through this other exchange, okay? They’ve already exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the images resembling mortal man.

That’s verse 23. Verse 25 is really just kind of continuing to talk about that. They exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the creator. When we’re self-centered and we’re self-seeking, our minds become so warped and our hearts become so darkened that we start worshiping the world. Do we not see that at all today? I believe as much as anybody else that we ought to be good stewards of what we’ve been given, whatever it is. But I’ll tell you this: you’re not going to find salvation through saving the world. One day the entire world is going to be burned up with all of its elements, and it’s all going to be gone. And all that’s going to matter at that point is the new heaven and new earth, and if we’re there or not.

3. Self-Indulgence: The Last Thing on the Path

And so whether it’s through saving trees or saving animals or whatever it is, and those things are good things, and we value them because it’s part of the ecosystem that God created for us. But there is not going to be any deliverance or salvation through taking that path. That’s what happens when men begin to worship themselves. We need to understand that. They think they have the answers. Claiming to be wise, they become fools, and their foolish hearts are darkened because they’re worshiping the creation. They’re worshiping the things they have done and what they imagine they influence rather than seeing the glory of the immortal God. And then this leads ultimately to the self-indulgence. If you follow the language here in Romans 1, you’ll see the causality of how things are happening.

And it’s just as I explained it earlier the ingratitude, the futile thinking, then the darkened hearts, then worshiping creation, and then the indulgence of desire. That’s the last thing on the path, which is a little bit scary if we recognize where things are. And what’s going on in this text, even as Paul is explaining it. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, there’s a lot of preaching that tends to focus on homosexuality and indulging the flesh and these kinds of things. And yes, Paul deals with that here, but what I really want us to understand is that is really just the symptom. That’s the symptom of everything else we’ve been talking about. That’s where this ultimately goes when we begin this process of being self centered and worshiping self, creating those images, exchanging the truth for the lie, and then worshiping the creation.

Of course, it’s going to go there. Because as the ancient Greeks did, we begin to worship the human body rather than the creator of the human body. We begin to worship the mind and what we create rather than the creator of the mind. And so everything becomes focused on what do I want. And what I really want us to tie all this into, just as a brief connection, is Genesis 3. When Eve is standing there before the tree, and Satan is tempting her. Eve saw that the tree was good to eat. And it was a delight to the eyes. And it was desirable to make one wise. You know what all that is? That’s the self-centeredness. That’s the self-seeking. That’s the desire to be like God.

To honor self. Because that’s how Satan caught her, right? You can be like God, knowing good and evil. All of that happens first. And then the very last thing she took and she ate. That’s the end. That’s where the self-indulgence comes in. And so if we’re dealing with problems of self-indulgence, yes, stop. You know, stop the drinking and stop the drugs and stop the poor internet use and stop all of these things that are horrible and indulgences and all this, yes, but actually what needs to happen is the thinking that then brings that about. That this world is not about me. It’s not about self, it’s about God. And so that’s where we find the reverse of that. Those who are lovers of God, not the lovers of pleasures rather than the lovers of God.

4. Reverse the Process: God Centered, Truth Seeking, Self-Controlled

That’s a later verse where we just read in 2 Timothy chapter 3. That whole list, by the way, is actually people who are lovers of self. Everything about it. They’re proud, they’re arrogant, they’re haughty, they love pleasures rather than loving God. Everything about that ties into this idea of loving self. And so if we want to reverse this whole process, what we have to do is this very thing. Be God centered. Think this is about him. It’s about what he has done, and it’s about his glory and what can be accomplished according to his will. We need to be the kind of people who, rather than our seeking self, are seeking truth. Rather than guided by our own self-will, we are truth guided. We’re looking for answers in Scripture.

We’re looking for what Scripture can tell us about what the world should be rather than being guided by the world about what life should be. Horrible error. One perfect example of that is the idea of what the world thinks about what love is. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes love is hard and difficult. And sometimes if you love someone, you have to say things they don’t want to hear, things that hurt their feelings. It is not this butterflies and rainbows idea that our world has that no one ever has conflict and there’s always peace, and we never can say anything to anybody. That’s not love. That’s what the world portrays as love, because it can’t handle reality. But when we look at Scripture, what we see is that is not at all the way God tells us to handle things.

And then all over the place in the New Testament, we are told to be self-controlled. Again, it is the last piece of the puzzle. But what self-control tells us is, and this is where the self-seeking is actually self-rule. You go back to that second point of the lovers of self. It’s actually this idea that I rule, that I arraign, I say what happens. But self-control is actually admitting just the opposite. That’s why it’s so important. It says the Lord rules. And although I may be tempted in some of these areas, I’m not going to do them because he is in control, not me. This is His will, and this is my will. And although I’m tempted here, I have to do my very best to begin bringing my will to His.

5. Express Gratitude Daily

That’s what self-control is about. And the more and more that we accomplish that, the more we’re working our way back up as truth seekers. Truth seekers are willing to admit when they’ve been wrong. It’s not about self. What matters is God. What matters is what’s actually real. And so they’re God centered. And so these things work back and forth, up and down this column as we’re shaping ourselves, recreating ourselves after the image of Christ. So let’s talk about some tips that will help us thrive in this world of selfishness. The first thing I think that we need to understand as God’s people is that we should be expressing gratitude daily. Just make it a part of every single day. You know, you leave a little bit late for work and you can’t go get your Starbucks, it’s gonna be okay.

Right? We find something else to be thankful for. You know, and maybe some of those things, even though they’re not wrong in it of themselves, we realize we’re kind of becoming dependent on things that we shouldn’t be dependent on to make us feel good in life. Maybe some reconsideration about what matters most and beginning to realize I need to be thankful. This is all over the New Testament. It’s hidden by some of the language, it’s actually the language of grace, and I’ll spend some more time on that some other time. But it’s really the idea that we return grace to God. That he has shown grace to us, and the word, the Greek word grace is the word chorus, but to give thanks is you caristato.

It’s the returning of grace to God. It is living our life in response. Walk worthily of the one who has called you, giving thanks. That’s the idea. We live each day thankful. Sometimes maybe we just got to walk outside. This is what I was saying earlier, and just look around and think, man, this is amazing. Isn’t that great when you take a trip? Maybe you go to Colorado or you go out west or you go to the Northeast. I lived in the Northeast, and you look around and man, it’s amazing. I loved it when my kids got to see that. Because it just shows the power and the glory of God and how we can appreciate even just the variety of things he has done in the world, from beaches and from oceans and waters to mountains and to snow.

Just the beauty of what God has created and how perfectly aligned everything is for life. And just appreciating that on a daily basis.

6. Avoid Such People and Find Wisdom in Scripture

If we’re going to thrive, if we’re going to do well in this society, Paul says this. He says, avoid such people. It’s a command. It’s not the sort of thing that people like to hear or like to be told, because in our world, the idea of love is that you accept everything. And that you just deal with everything. And you offer kind of cheap forgiveness, and we never really deal with issues. But on this list of people, lovers of self is at the front. As he gets to the bottom of this list, he says, you avoid self centered, self seeking, self indulgent people. Avoid such people. And I think there’s probably many reasons for this. One of them is they can wrap you up in their own self.

The fact that they love themselves, and we get connected to somebody like that, and it wraps us into that kind of thinking. We become like the people we spend our time around. And that’s a very dangerous thing when we just start spending all of our time around someone who is so wrapped up in themselves. Avoid such people, he says. That are dangerous. They can do great harm, just as the men he lists as the text continues. And then here in 2 Timothy 3, find wisdom in Scripture. I’ll just use the example of what I just put up there. You’d find people who won’t listen to this, 2 Timothy 3 5. Will think that’s a bad thing to avoid. Well, we ought to minister to them.

We ought to teach them the gospel. Okay, yes, I get that there’s situations in which we do that, but you know what? The Bible says avoid such people. I get in your wisdom, you may think sometimes that’s the best thing, but the Bible says avoid. And so rather than gathering our wisdom from ourselves and from the people around us. We’ve got to learn to do the very thing that Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 in verse 15. And that is to stay in the word of God, which makes you wise for salvation. That’s where true wisdom comes from. I don’t think sacrifice will ever be a word of the year. Not in my lifetime. But that’s really what God has called us to. And that’s what the text of Scripture calls us to.

Conclusion

I think of places like Galatians 2 20, you know, he talks about I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And I love the fact that Greek term I is the word ego. You know what Paul’s saying? I crucified my ego. I got rid of self. I was no longer a lover of self. That’s what Jesus called us to as well. Deny yourself. You hear the language there. Take up your cross and follow me daily. That is the opposite of being this lover of self. Get rid of the ego, get rid of the pride, and pride is really the source that stands behind all of this in one word. And so I’m not saying that social media or selfies are all that are just terrible all the time, but I do think we should think about this.

When we are in the midst, if we are caught up in all that, I don’t think we’re thinking about being more like Jesus very often. Or about the exalted nature of God, or about becoming a servant, or about surrendering all to Jesus, which we’re about to sing. And we’re so caught up in all those pictures and what’s going on in the virtual world around us. We have to be very careful that we aren’t just getting caught up in the flow of society, which is all about self. And that we aren’t avoiding what is the most important thing, and that is becoming a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Can we help you do that this morning? Will you give your life to Jesus Christ? Tell him you will surrender everything.

It’s all about Him and about His will. Will you do that this morning? And maybe you’ve done that in the past. Maybe you’re sitting here as one who years ago you did that, but you’re just thinking, I’m just not living that anymore. You can go home and you can pray to God. You can find close confidants to confess that to you. If you need to come to the front, you can do that as well. I know the elders stand ready to help you with that, and the people in this congregation want to help you as well. That is the most important thing. Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come as we sing together?