Our Biggest Problem

They are together become unprofitable. Unprofitable has the idea of rotten fruit. It speaks of something that’s permanently bad and so it’s useless.

There is none that doeth good. No. Not one.

There’s many people signalling that they’re doing good or saying that they’re doing good but when you look at the results, it’s hard to find much change for the good.

Paul’s talking about people not doing it God’s way but their own way, according to their own ideas and beliefs.

 

Romans 3:13,

Their throat is an open sepulchre (or an open grave that reveals the rotting remains inside); with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:  

(An asp is a small and very venomous snake that’s an ambush predator, often hiding and striking quickly very often causing death. What a fitting example of the speech of the unrighteous.)

 

We speak lies. Little white lies, big lies and deception. We’re full of it! We twist the things we hear for a greater effect and we leave out vital pieces of a story. We think that what we say puts us on a pedestal in front of people so they see us the way we want them to see us. We all do this to a greater or lesser extent.

 

Romans 3:14-18,

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: 

Destruction and misery are in their ways: 

And the way of peace have they not known: 

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

 

How easy it is for us to sprout cursing and bitterness and even bloodshed when we don’t agree with something or someone. How often we pull down others to make our own position look better. We do it so often we barely even think about it.

 

This is Paul’s long description of this spiritual problem called sin.

What does spiritual mean?

Spiritual means of the spirit or the inner man? We’re talking about the mind and the soul, not the body.

When we talk about the mind, we’re talking about our inner man, part of the real us. The world, or natural man, doesn’t talk about the spirit or about sin or the fear of God, but they do talk about the mind and the inner man without realising they’re talking about something spiritual.

 

The Bible says sin is a spiritual problem but the world talks about people having problems in their mind, their understanding, and having problems with depression, fear, loneliness, anger, pride, and inadequacy.

These’re the reasons people go to therapists.

The world’s exchanged what the Bible calls spiritual for therapist talk that really can’t solve the problem.

They call it scientific because it’s under the guise of science and the belief is that we can solve this mind problem through talk with maybe a few mind altering drugs thrown in.

 

The Bible also prescribes talk as the answer, only it uses different talk, different words. The world actually understands that our greatest problem is not a physical problem, but, of course, they ignore and deny that the solution’s in the scripture.

The Bible clearly says there’s something wrong with us and that’s not what we want to hear when we go to a therapist who’ll almost never say that there’s something wrong with us. It’s always some sort of external problem that affects us.

But the Bible says that there’s something wrong in our soul. We’re ungodly. We’re unrighteous. We’re ignorant. We’re foolish. We’re lacking wisdom and we were born with the problem and that hurts! The truth often does.

The world says, there’s nothing wrong with us! The world will even exchange this spiritual problem by talking about us being mentally unhealthy. We’re sick because of something that’s happened to us. It’s not actually us.

We caught some sort of non-physical disease and we can fix it through communication and by changing the way we think about ourself.

It’s technically doing the same thing the Bible’s trying to do but by using different communication, different doctrines and different teachings.

 

When doctors do diagnostic tests on us medically, like blood tests or x-rays or blood pressure tests, these’re physical.

But when the diagnosis and the treatment only happens by talking to us, trying to get us to think a certain way, then that’s spiritual.

 

We’re talking here about our biggest spiritual problem and we’ll see how faith in Jesus Christ can solve that problem.

However, the biggest spiritual problem is so big that even believers struggle with it.

And so we need to understand the problem before we can treat it.

 

People talk a lot today about depression and there is a hormonal and physical side to it, but there’s also thoughts and thinking.

Fear, loneliness, anger, pride, inadequacy, failure, and all the emotional effects they bring fall under inner man problems.

The way I think is a spiritual issue that centres in the mind.

We ask what’s life is about? What should we live for? What’s the point? What’s the meaning of what I’m doing? How should I make this or that decision?

These questions are not physical but spiritual.

We can have enough food, clothing and shelter and not be in any physical pain and yet still have these problems.

They come from somewhere and if we’re alive and able to think they’re there.

We’re a soul, a spirit and these are soulish and spiritual questions.

As we said, this is not only a problem for the unbeliever, but also for the believer.

 

Look at Romans 6:16,

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 

 

Much of what Paul writes in his epistles are written to believers who’re filled with correct doctrine. He writes to get our minds to think a certain way. Why? Because even believers have spiritual problems.

We can’t be thinking, well, I’m a Christian. Christ died for my sins so I’m all good.

We face these same dilemmas if we’re honest with ourselves. Paul himself did. Just read Romans 7:15-25.

Paul’s talking to believers in this verse (Romans 6:16). Is he saying here that there’s none righteous, No. Not one, that we’re all sinners? No, he’s past that. He’s talking to believers who trust that Christ died for their sins.

He’s talking to people who know that it’s not their works that saved them, but it’s the work of Jesus Christ imputed to them by faith. They already know about their justification and salvation.

They’re already in Christ.

He’s talking now about how we should live.

Shall we continue in sin or not? How should I think about my life and where should I go and how should I walk?

He says, don’t you know!

See, there’s something that we know, or we should know. We know that whom we yield ourselves servants to obey we become servants to whom we obey.

Now, again, that word obey is one of those words people don’t like to talk about today, especially in marriage ceremonies.

Obey is not a word we use and yet obedience is actually part of the solution to this big spiritual problem.

If we’re a Christian and don’t like the word obey, we’re not appreciating how God wants to change our mind to solve our biggest spiritual problem, which is us not wanting to obey.

Oh yes, we’ll take salvation but I’m not going to obey anything! We’re just looking for the goodies. But how do we even get saved without submitting to Christ by faith? The obedience of faith.

We’re defining our biggest spiritual problem which exists internally and it’s about what we think.

 

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul’s again talking to believers, this time in Corinth and they’re having a problem.

1 Corinthians 3:1,

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 

 

The Corinthians were sinning and Paul, for the first chapters in 1 Corinthians deals with their thinking, their mind, because he knows that’s where the problem is and that’s where the problem can be solved.

He says to them that he needs to deal with their spirit because there’s an issue there with their understanding, their knowledge.

He says he can’t speak to them on a spiritual level but instead on a carnal, earthly level as babies in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:2,

I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 

 

He says they need to understand certain things. This’s not how it works with our physical problems.

It doesn’t matter what we’re thinking in our physical problems. We can exercise or take some medicine or have bandages and dressings applied but it doesn’t matter what’s going through our head when we take those measures.

They’re going to fix our physical problem but the spiritual problems require things to be put into our spirit.

We do that primarily through communication, listening, talking and thinking through the Word of God, which is God’s words communicated to us.

The next verse, 1 Corinthians 3:3 says,

For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 

 

Envying, strife and divisions are not physical problems. They’re spiritual problems and they’re causing these Corinthians to walk through life just like the rest of mankind in the world.

 

Envying, strife and divisions are words that’re often used in religious conversation, but people don’t often define them. The Bible, in Ephesians 2:2 calls it the course of this world or worldliness.

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 

 

Then there’s the big one, selfishness!

Doing what I want is selfishness. It’s devotion to self and what I enjoy. Living to please myself.

You might say I wouldn’t call it selfishness. It’s just my life.

No one who’s selfish calls themselves selfish.

Selfishness is the opposite to godliness, which the Bible talks a lot about, which is devotion to God and His enjoyments or living a life pleasing to God, which many Christians understand but struggle to actually do.

 

The biggest spiritual problem that overwhelms all the rest is selfishness.

Here I am in this world and there’s only one me. No one else is like me. I have one life to live. It’s my life and the thought that it’s all about and for me is the biggest spiritual problem.

All sin comes from selfishness.

As we’ll see in the Bible it’s described in various differing terms.

 

Look at James chapter one, verse thirteen.

James 1:13-15,

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 

 

Notice the selfishness in this verse. It’s not just people defining what’s a sin.

If we understand this principle of selfishness, we’ll know what is sin, whether we use that word or not.

This verse shows us that God doesn’t try to persuade us to do wrong or to sin. He wants us to operate in the way He intended our body and our mind to operate.

So when a man’s tempted with sin, verse fourteen says, he’s drawn away of his own lust.

No one’s doing this to us especially God. It’s our own lust that draws us away and entices us.

 

Jesus is a perfect example of this because he wasn’t a sinner. He was God, manifest in the flesh, but He was tempted.

But he didn’t have the enticing, sinful selfishness that you and I have.

So when He was tempted with something that would hurt him or hurt others, He says no! He knew what was true.

You and I being ignorant about what’s true and not knowing spiritual realities, think that life is about us.

We’re tempted in whatever bubbles up inside of us. It’s our own lust that tempts us.

When lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.

This is how sin works in us. It doesn’t come from God or float down from the sky. This is sin in us and this’s the big spiritual problem.

 

If we ask people what’s the biggest problem they have, it’ll often be their jobs or the things of this world, or most commonly other people. People are the problem and by that they mean other people. I’m the good one, it’s other people that’re the problem. We all get that, but James, chapter one says it’s our own lust. It’s selfishness that’s at the heart of the problem.

 

Every sin comes from that selfishness.

Jesus said in Luke 6:45 that it’s what comes out of the mouth that corrupts the man because,

… for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Then He says in Matthew 15:11,

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

 

What we truly are in the inner man will eventually come out of our mouths in words.

Without the knowledge of God, we love ourself.

Even Christians teach this now. When Jesus said in Mark 12:31 to love your neighbour as you love yourself, many Christians say see, you’ve got to love yourself first.

That’s extreme selfishness.

The whole idea of loving your neighbour combats selfishness. Jesus is saying, just as selfish as you are is how you ought to love that neighbour. That’s what he’s saying.

But today it’s, “Make sure you love yourself first” and that’s not the instruction Jesus is giving there and it’s a misleading and damaging concept and it’ll swerve us away from the knowledge of the truth and therefore away from the answer.

 

Our biggest spiritual problem that people seek therapy for comes from selfishness and that’s not in a therapist’s instruction manual.

In fact if you front most therapists claiming you’re guilty and there’s something wrong with you, the advice is likely to be no, nothing’s wrong with you. It’s these outside influences that’re the problem. You need to think better of yourself.

But, that’s selfishness even though that’s the popular cure today for even thinking you have a problem. But that doesn’t solve your actual problem. It feeds it. It actually makes it okay to have that problem.

 

Look at Romans 1:21

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations (or empty and foolish), and their foolish heart was darkened.

 

Paul here is carrying on from Romans 1:20 where he states that men are without excuse.

He’s trying to explain the real issue of sin which’ll lead to Romans three, which says, there’s none righteous. We’re all sinners. We all come short of the glory of God.

Paul’s stating that when man knew God and walked in the beauty He created, before there was any question of evolution because man knew the beauty and excellence of creation, they glorified him not as God.

Why didn’t they glorify God?

They had their own life to live. Selfish! They had something else that they thought deserved glory besides God.

So they’re glorifying something else, namely the things that they make, the inventions of their hands, their own achievements, but they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful.

 

Now, what’s behind ingratitude? What’s behind us not being thankful when we’re given things. The answer is because we think we deserve it!

If we’re owed something, there’s no reason to be grateful when it’s paid! We just receive it and say, finally, things are made right.

But thankfulness comes from a heart that knows we don’t deserve it. Even if we need it, but we realise we don’t deserve it we’re thankful to the one who provided it. That’s gratitude.

 

God provides life and sets us in His incredible creation that provides everything our body needs to live. He gives us a purpose, even though most people are ignorant of it. We’re born ignorant of it, but we can learn and we can know about that purpose.

 

Paul says here in this verse that men are without excuse because they can know God but even when they knew God, they weren’t thankful resulting in them becoming vain in their imaginations with foolish, darkened hearts.

They gave themselves over to futile philosophies and speculations about other gods, and as a result man lost the capacity to see and think clearly. It’s the old saying “there’s none so blind as those that will not to see”. Those who don’t want to see lose the capacity to see.

 

Romans 1:22,

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

 

See the selfishness there? It’s not wrong for men to become wise. God actually says, seek wisdom. He wants us to be wise.

But they professed themselves to be wise. If we have to tell other people how smart we are, there’s a problem and we’re probably not that wise.

They profess themselves to be wise but they actually become fools. There’s a self-centred need to appear wise even if they’re not.

 

Romans 1:28,

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 

 

Because of men’s refusal to retain God in their knowledge in any form, either as Creator, Sustainer, Deliverer or Saviour, God gave them over to a debased mind to commit a catalogue of other forms of wickedness.

This verse gives an insight into why evolution has such an appeal for natural man. It’s got nothing to do with their intellects but everything to do with their wills.

They don’t want to retain God in their knowledge and they’ll do anything to erase Him.

It’s not that the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that they’re forced to accept it; it’s because they want some explanation for the origin of everything that eliminates God completely. They know that if there is a God, then they’re responsible to Him and they can’t abide that. Here we have extreme selfishness.

 

Romans 1:29 and the first part of the verse,

Being filled with all unrighteousness,

 

God calls it unrighteousness. They call it lifestyle choices, so it’s not right or wrong.

To them rights aren’t given by God or by the government, they just declare them themselves. It’s a “self” choice. I want it to be this way therefore it is.

 

The rest of Romans 1:29 and down to Romans 1:31 gives this dark list of sins which characterise man in his rejection and failure to retain God in his knowledge. Notice that he’s full of them, not just an occasional dabbler in them.

He’s trained in sins which are not fitting for a human being,

fornication (or sexual immorality, adultery, and other forms of illicit sex), wickedness (or active evil practices), covetousness (greed, the incessant desire for more), maliciousness (the desire for harm on others; venomous hatred), full of envy (this is worse than just wanting what someone else has as in jealousy. It’s a sense of “if I can’t have it nobody can), murder ( the premeditated and unlawful killing of another, either in anger or in the commission of some other crime), debate, (contention, strife and wrangling), deceit (deceiving by trickery or treachery), malignity (of bad character, depraved of heart, malicious and full of craftiness) whisperers (secret slanderers, gossips) Backbiters (open slanderers, those who bad-mouth others) haters of God (or hateful to God), despiteful (uplifted with pride, either heaps insulting language on others or does them some shameful act of wrong) proud (haughty and arrogant), boasters (an empty pretender who parades self), inventors of evil things (devisers of mischief and inventing new forms of wickedness), disobedient to parents (rebellious to parental authority), Without understanding (lacking moral and spiritual discernment and understanding, without conscience and foolish), covenant breakers (breaking promises, treaties, agreements, and contracts whenever it serves their purposes), without natural affection (acting in total disregard of natural ties and the obligations that go with them), implacable (uncompromising, unforgiving, unrelenting and unyielding), unmerciful (cruel, vindictive, without pity): 

 

Do you see selfishness all over this?

There’s a hundred different words to describe it, but it all comes from us thinking we’re more important than anything else in the world. Selfishness.

If we could just get rid of our own selfishness we’d be perfect but all of us, even believers, struggle with our sin and our selfishness.

 

The only cure to this is God and godliness. Truth. It’s all over the scripture.

Look at Titus 2:11 where Paul states,

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 

 

The next verses, Titus 2:12-13 teaches us that we should deny ungodliness and we read,

Titus 2:12,

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 

 

Godliness is devotion to pleasing God while ungodliness is pleasing ourself.

Grace teach us that. It tells us we should live soberly, which has little to do with drinking alcohol but much to do with our mind.

The grace of God enters our heart and mind through faith. Where does faith come from?

Hearing the words of God, Romans 10:17.

So we have the Bible, God’s Word. We hear what it says and faith comes at that point and we believe that Word.

And then grace, that information, that doctrine, that belief goes into our heart and mind and now there’s something in there that wasn’t there before.

And now we have a choice to either serve what we’ve always served or serve this other thing that we now believe.

Faith is the beginning of the solution to our biggest spiritual problem.

The grace that comes through faith teaches us to think properly. An unsaved person can’t think this way and a lot of Christians can’t.

If we don’t know the Word of God, we don’t have the strength and faith to understand His will and we can’t think the way God would have us think.

Grace teaches us God’s wisdom and the knowledge of God so that we can live soberly and right and we can know how to please God.

God’s purpose for Paul, and by extension us, is in 1 Corinthians 1:17,

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 

 

The gospel, the cross of Christ, is what we preach.

Why is the cross so significant? We understand that Jesus paid the sin debt in our place but it’s more than that.

It affects our life. In fact, we’re dead if we trust Christ. The cross is an instrument of death. If we’re crucified with Christ on the cross, as Galatians 2:20 tells us we are, we’re  dead.

When we realise that our selfishness, is the problem the only answer is death.

But if I die, if I died with Christ then I’m not alive anymore. That sinful and selfish old man is dead, crucified even though my body is still currently functioning according to this world.

How does this happen?

Well, Christ Jesus died for you and me and we died with Him when we first believed. Then, through His resurrection, we also were resurrected to live again, eternally, since the old sinful man is now dead. This is all done by faith, by believing. It’s a spiritual transformation. Something happened to the inner man that did not affect the outer man, the body. We’re resurrected into Christs body as a member of His body. We are the Body of Christ. It’s only by understanding the depth and reality of the spirit and it’s relationship to our earthly body that we can begin to understand this great mystery and incredible miracle.

 

Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 1:18,

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 

 

Paul’s talking about knowing Christ and Him crucified as being the power of God and through that power solving our biggest spiritual problem of selfishness, of sin, and it’s foolishness in the extreme to those who knowingly reject the preaching of it. They can’t see it.

 

Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 1:19, quoting from Isaiah 29:14,

For it is written, I (God) will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

 

What is that understanding of the prudent and the wisdom of the worldly wise that God’s condemning here?

Remember, God says, pursue wisdom, seek wisdom. So why is He despising the wisdom of the world?

 

Verse 20 (1 Corinthians 1:20),

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

 

You dispute with someone because you think they’re wrong, which means the disputer thinks that they’re right.

You have someone here, and this is each one of us, before we knew the gospel, who thought they were right and God was wrong, so they dispute with God.

The Christian believer’s wrong. But they’re right.

That’s the dispute of this world. Selfishness. They declared themselves to be wise but they became foolish.

 

In verse 21, (1 Corinthians 1:21)

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom (that’s their own worldly wisdom) knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 

 

Their own wisdom kept them from believing God. Why? Because they knew what was best, they knew all truth.

The experts claim they’re the wise ones. Those religious people and their belief in their so called God are ignorant.

 

When we listen to people’s arguments against God they often sound like they’re accusing God of doing something wrong.

If God’s so loving, why did he allow this? They’re blaming God for something.

Most attacks against God is declaring their own righteousness over and against God.

Of course that’s the epitome of selfishness. They think they’re smarter and more moral and ethical than God.

And we’ve all been there, even in our Christian life when we say I don’t understand why God’s doing this.

That’s actually the point where we start to learn. No one can learn anything until they first recognise that they don’t know it yet.

Going into to any class and saying, “I already know everything you’re teaching in this class” ensures you learn nothing.

We need to want to learn and we put aside ourself so we can learn from someone else.

So if God knows that every person is going to be inadequate in themselves and He’s the only perfect, adequate one, and He wants to educate and communicate and dispense His Word and truth to us, we have to say, I’m willing to listen. I want to hear. I will believe. Speak to me. That’s hearing the word of God, which brings faith which enables grace to be received and as a result of that grace, godliness!

 

Drop down to verse 27.

1 Corinthians 1:27-31,

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 

And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 

That no flesh should glory in his presence. 

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 

 

God doesn’t use the most glorious people. He uses the foolish and the base and He makes us wise, righteous, sanctified, and redeemed in Christ Jesus and confounds the wisdom of the world.

That worldly wisdom is to seek glory and achievement and be the best person you can be, and don’t consider other people. Climb on top of others to be at the top of the mountain. Be the best. That’s the wisdom of the world.

 

We say, well what’s wrong with being the best? Nothing! But if the goal leads into thinking that we’re better, we’re the best and we’re all there is to it, this’s a problem.

Jesus taught in Matthew 19:30 that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. If we’re really going to succeed, we actually have to serve.

 

The wisdom of the world is the opposite. Trample over everyone I need to to do what’s good for me. That’s the selfishness that breeds all sorts of sin.

That’s why the love of money is the root of all evil. There’s nothing wrong with money but the love of it causes it to be an obsession at the expense of anything else.

 

Selfishness first manifested in the Garden of Eden where God provided everything that Eve ever needed, but she wanted more.

The world says. It’s all about me. But it’s not all about me.

But Jesus died for me and saved me so I’m very special.

No! He did that to show His glory. Remember verse twenty one? That no flesh should glory in His presence?

If we want to know the glory of God, we’ve got to recognise it’s not us that’s going to be shining brighter than the sun, it’s God.

We’re not the pinnacle of God’s creation that He’s going to put on display for eternity for everyone else to look up to.

We’re the privileged receivers of His glory.

 

The Bible uses the word foolishness which is defined as the rejection of God’s wisdom. Thinking we know better than God.

Philippians 2:3

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 

 

Strife and vainglory are two different words that describe selfish activity. Why do we strive with other people? Because I’m right and you’re wrong.

Now the Bible talks about a good way of striving.

We can strive for truth, for what’s right, but striving because we just want to be right is selfish. Vainglory. It’s glorifying ourself.

But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.

The world’s wisdom is to have a high opinion about yourself. But God says we need to have a lower more real opinion about ourself and who and what we really are. Directly opposite.

Look at Ephesians 4:17,

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 

 

Believers can walk that way. We can be selfish. He’s saying, don’t do that.

What’s wrong with their mind? It’s vain. What’s vain about it? It’s all about themselves and it’s empty. It can be seen as good from the worlds point of view but if it’s not what pleases God, it’s selfish.

The next verse (Ephesians 4:18) explains the result of this walk of the other gentiles,

Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 

 

These are unbelievers Paul’s talking about.

He says, don’t act like those who don’t know the truth and think they know better than God.

In Ephesians 3:16-17 Paul prays,

That he (God) would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 

 

So there is a teaching of Christ and faith that’ll dwell in our inner man, our heart, that will give us understanding about how to walk through this life.

We need to increase the knowledge of God and the wisdom of God to be able to understand things. Sometimes the choices we make don’t require God’s wisdom like what shirt will I wear today or should I spend all my wage or should I save some.

However if we make a stupid choice, we’re going to have to face the consequences.

It’s the same thing in the more important matters of life and the things that God wants us to do in His will.

Faith is us hearing God’s words and believing them. We’re actually receiving the truth of God and admitting we’re wrong.

 

The Old Testament says in  Proverbs 9:10,

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. 

 

What is fearing God? Well, it’s not about being scared of God, even though there’s an element of that in His power, but it has to do with us reverencing and respecting what He says. That’s the beginning of wisdom. It’s not what we think, it’s what He says. That’s godly fear, and that’s faith and we have a book that tells us God’s Word, the truth.

 

2 Timothy 2:15 says,

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

Study to show ourself approved unto God, not approved of other people.

You see the lack of selfishness in that. There’s godliness being communicated here and the antidote to selfishness.

Look at the next verse (2 Timothy 2:16),

But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

 

So if we want to prevent selfishness, we shun profane and vain babblings. We increase in the knowledge of the word of truth, rightly divided.

We serve the Lord, not other people and we don’t subvert or corrupt the hearers.

That means we’re not doing things for ourself, but for other people’s benefit with the knowledge of God’s Word. That’s what God wants.

1 Timothy 2:3-4,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

 

The truth is realising that without God, my life is completely empty and without purpose. Without God, all there is is myself.

And so we have in Galatians 5:19-21, the works of the flesh which are manifest or made clear and they all speak of selfishness, our thinking without the knowledge of God.

But in Galatians 5:22-23 we see the opposite, the fruit of the Spirit,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 

Love and charity is toward other people and toward God.

Joy comes from God.

Peace comes from God through our understanding that it’s not all about me. It’s about helping other people know the things of God.

We think we can’t have peace unless we have more stuff. But we can have peace with far less.

There’s nothing wrong with having the things, the material possessions, what’s wrong is the mindset of selfishness, self-centredness that’s so often behind the desire for ever more possessions.

This verse speaks of long suffering or patience, not being easily provoked and slowness to avenge wrongs. These’re traits that don’t come from the selfish mind which wants to react according to our hurt feelings and emotions.

 

Gentleness comes from considering the other person. Niceties and politeness and good manners are actually charitable and consider other people, something increasingly rare in today’s world. I’ll do, act, wear and say whatever I want to. People question why we have to use polite manners and chivalry and all the rest. Because it’s charitable to say please and thank you and consider others through polite manners, otherwise, it’s all about ourself.

 

Meekness is taking the offenses of other people and not letting them shape who we are.

 

Temperance is self-control or mastering our desires our passions, and sensual appetites. The opposite is to be out of control, reacting to and partaking of every emotion or feeling of the self.

 

All of the works of the flesh are selfish while the fruit of the spirit is a result of the opposite.

 

First Corinthians 13:1-13 speaks about charity.

It says very clearly it seeks not her own, charity doesn’t seek herself. It’s a lack of selfishness.

Pride is the opposite of charity being very clearly selfish.

Pride elevates self, while charity seeks the good of others.

Pride leads to destruction, rebellion, and separation from God. It’s marked by self-sufficiency, arrogance, and a refusal to submit to God.

Proverbs 16:18 warns,

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. 

 

James 4:6 says,

…God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 

 

This shows pride as a barrier to divine grace.

Pride is defined as an inordinate self-esteem, thinking of ourself in the wrong way, thinking ourself higher or better or superior than others and it’s what the world tries to promote.

Pride is supreme selfishness and that’s why God hates it.

 

All of our failure, inadequacy, feelings of being unsuccessful or loneliness can come from the wrong idea that we deserve something.

 

Now look at 1 Timothy 6:3-5 where Paul describes false teachers who say different things than what the Lord Jesus Christ said.

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. 

 

Wow. Paul just unleashed a bomb on these people.

If any therapist, any psychotherapist, any doctor, any friend or any pastor says anything that encourages you to love yourself more than serving God, or even to love others more than loving and serving God, then that person is proud, knowing nothing and destitute of the truth.

People encouraging selfishness and everything contrary to godliness is at the heart of the problem according to the Word of God.

And what does the next verse (1 Timothy 6:6) say?

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 

 

Paul says withdraw yourself from selfishness. It’s a cancer.

While the Bible doesn’t use the term “cancer,” the analogy is fits.

Cancer spreads silently and destructively, much like selfishness in the heart which destroys healthy relationships, erodes trust, and isolates individuals.

Cancer’s often hidden beneath the surface, just as selfishness can masquerade as good intentions.

We must be very wary of anyone who says it’s okay to love ourselves and that we should love ourselves first.

 

If we think it’s still about us, it’s not. We’re simply the receiver of God’s grace.

God wants to give us the blessings of knowledge, wisdom and truth that’ll cure our selfishness. It’s the spiritual medicine.

Where are our spiritual blessings? In heavenly places.

We often think God, it’s better if you give it to us now because I really need them right now. Well, what we really need is faith. We just don’t have the best idea about what God should do. Maybe we should trust that God is the righteous judge of the earth. He’s our Savior and those blessings are only found in Him, not in us or this world.

 

The solution is not a therapist. It’s the scripture, the truth of God. The bad news is we all have this problem. The good news, is the gospel that Jesus Christ, can save us.