"The Biggest Jerk I Know" by Dan'L. Preached 11/1/2020 at Faith Bible Church, Mapleton, MN

[DanL]

The Biggest Jerk I Know

I have a friend named Kenny. I love Kenny. I first met him on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. He was raised in a poor Puerto Rican neighborhood in Philadelphia by parents who were not Christians and, through some amazing work of the Lord, is now a professor at Bethany Global University in Minneapolis where he teaches young people to become missionaries. He’s a pastor, is soon to have a PhD in theology, he does a podcast called Theology For the Rest of Us, and has been all over the world sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s an amazing, wonderful guy.

So, one day, I’m on a mission trip in Guatemala. Kenny is the group leader and we’re at an orphanage talking about the Bible and Jesus. The topic comes up of how often and badly we fail at being the kind of people we want to be and God made us to be and Kenny says, “Oh yeah, I’m the biggest jerk I know.”

I laughed, but if you think about it, aren’t you too?

Cuz although other people may treat you badly, we can’t actually see inside their heads and know why they are treating us like that. (Except for my wife. My wife can see inside my head.) But when I treat someone badly, if I really and truly look inside myself and figure out why I did that, the answer is usually something that’s very hard to look at. It’s true. I am the biggest jerk I know. Sometimes –most times-- I’m a jerk when I’m not even trying to be a jerk. There are even times I don’t even know I’ve been a jerk until days or weeks or months afterwards.

And I’m not the Lone Ranger on this one, folks. Paul, the guy who planted an estimated 20 churches, who travelled over 10,000 miles on foot and on ships over the course of 12 years, who wrote 13 books of the Bible, who was given 39 lashes five times by the Jewish leaders, beaten with rods three times, stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked three times, who was hungry and thirsty countless times, who shivered in the cold without enough clothing to keep him warm, who spent years in prison, and who was eventually beheaded for the cause of Christ wrote this about himself: Romans 7:15-24

15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. c For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

That is known as Paul’s ‘Wretched Man Lament” and they make T-shirts with verse 24 on it. I have considered buying one of those shirts.

But see, we’re all like that. And deep inside, it’s because we want what we want. It’s pride. It’s the root of the same sin Adam and Eve fell for. The apple looks shiny and delicious and hey, I deserve it. I deserve to have what I want. I want to be in charge. I want to decide. In the end, and at the very root of all of it, it’s rebellion against God because I want to be my own god. 

Anybody ever read “The Purpose-Driven Life?” Number one best-seller. At the point it was on the Best-seller list, there was only one book that had ever sold more copies—and that was the Bible.

First words in “Purpose Driven Life”  --- “It’s not about you.”

That’s earth-shattering stuff. What do you mean it’s not about me? Of course it’s about me. It’s totally about me. 

No, no it’s not. Matthew 16:25

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Those same words are also in Mark 8:35 and Luke 9:24 and they are in red letters.

It’s not about me. 

Phillipians 2:3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Others as BETTER than myself? That can’t be right. 

Oh, brothers and sisters, it’s right –and it’s completely opposite of the way the world works. 

And that’s the thing about this Christianity thing. It is 180% out of alignment with our “natural” tendencies. It’s upside down and backward and totally in opposition to the ways of the world, because it’s about love. 

And here’s the verse at the center of the sermon:

Ephesians 5:21 -- And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

SUBMIT to one another? You mean be a doormat? You mean just give in and let anyone tell me what to do?

It doesn’t mean be a doormat. It doesn’t mean we Christians are a bunch of gullible fools…

As with anything in the Bible, you don’t build an entire aspect of your theology on one verse. This submission thing is not a one-verse deal, though. It’s also in Genesis 16:9, Hebrews 13:17, Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 2:13, 1 Corinthians 16:16, 1 Peter 5:5, Romans 8:7, Hebrews 12:9, Romans 10:3, 2 Chronicles 30:8…we could go on, but let’s look at this one in James 4:7

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Do you get it? Do you see what’s going on there? 

Submitting yourself to God and doing things His way instead of our way is resistance against the devil, the enemy of our souls. The REAL enemy isn’t other people, it’s the devil.

And God’s way is love. 

Let’s go back to Phillipians 2:3 and fill it in with the verses around it: Phillipians 2:1-5: 

1Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

3Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

There it is. Yes, we are to look out for our own interests to some degree, but our mission and purpose, our reason for being is loving God and loving others. We were made to love and to be loved.

I LOVE Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Now, where that verse says “long ago” I read that to mean since the beginning. If God is eternal and omniscient and omnipotent, and we know He is, He planned all of this from the moment He spoke all of this into being. 

And so, since God is all of those things, since He is totally and absolutely in control, we can believe, we can be assured that no matter what we do, if we do it His way, it’s all going to work out just fine. 

What that means is that our love is to be fearless, reckless, self-abandoned, relentless, unconditional, bold, zealous, and all-consuming.

Because that’s how God loves us. 

Here, let me show you a genius example of submission in love. This is absolute genius and I saw it on Facebook, so I’m sure it’s totally Biblical. You know how a couple will spend hours and hours trying to decide where to go out to eat? There’s all this dancing around with, “I don’t know honey, where do you want to eat? No, I don’t want Chinese. Yeah, maybe Mexican would be okay… I dunno… and before you know it, you’ve spent an hour trying to figure out where to eat and you end up going through the McDonalds drive-thru and your BOTH crabby because your hangry and neither one of you is getting what you wanted because you didn’t want to be a jerk about it…. 

Watch and learn, husbands and boyfriends:

MALE: Hey, honey, GUESS where I am taking you out to eat?

FEMALE: I don’t know.

MALE: (with obvious enthusiasm for how happy she’s going to be) Just guess. Go ahead, go ahead and guess!

FEMALE: RED LOBSTER?!!?! 

MALE: Right!!

FEMALE! Oh Honey, that’s wonderful!! (hugs male)

And then, gentlemen, you take her to Red Lobster or wherever she said and you enjoy it and bask in how much she is enjoying it and you leave a nice tip and never once, never once do you let the devil whisper in your ear that your first thought was to be a cheapskate and get some tacos and potato Ole’s from Taco Johns. Do not let your selfish wants stop you from being the loving, caring, deeply in love with your wife/significant other that God made you to be. 

And you know what? As you see how much she enjoys it and loves you, THAT’s far, far better than the heartburn and animosity you would have generated in insisting that you get your way. You have your choice. You can build and grow love, or you can insist on having your way or you can have it your way and stomp love out.

Yes, if we let our inner jerk rule our lives, we will often get our way. 

And we will be intensely unhappy.

And we will hurt other people. 

And in the big scheme of things, this is a better way.

Let me give you another example:

Not all that long ago, before the whole pandemic thing hit, me and Steve Langworthy and someone else were standing near the entryway after church and talking. This guy walks in. None of us knew him or had ever seen him before. He told us his car had run out or gas or was about to run out of gas and he’s looking for a couple of bucks to just get him home.

Now, I’m all set to ask this guy a bunch of questions to make sure he isn’t scamming us and Steve reaches in his pocket, gets out his wallet, and whips out I think 20 bucks. 

“Sure,” says Steve, “Is this enough?”

The guy is hugely appreciative and I’m standing there thinking what a jerk I am. 

Steve was the real Christian in that scenario. What happens to Steve’s twenty bucks is between that guy and the Holy Spirit.  Steve didn’t count the cost, he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t say we should call some social service agency to try and get the twenty bucks, and he didn’t offer to pray that God would send the guy twenty bucks from someone else’s pocket.

THAT’s reckless love. THAT’s being a Christian. THAT is submitting to God. That’s why I’m a member of this church --because we have lots of people like Steve in this church. 

We even see that in our church constitution. It talks about being in submission to one another. It used to be on a sign up here by the altar. 

It’s why our church constitution will be run, not by majority rule, but by consensus. That’s another hard word. The dictionary definition of consensus is “a general agreement.” That’s all. It’s simple but it’s hard. No one in their right mind thinks that seven people on a board are always going to agree on everything, but the idea, the concept behind it, is that submission thing. 

Look, in most cases, the stuff we disagree about doesn’t really matter from an eternal or spiritual standpoint. I’ve seen people argue for endless amounts of time on the color of the carpet in the sanctuary.  

I was taught that God will answer with one of three possibilities to prayer: Yes, No, or Wait.

Well, brothers and sisters, I believe there’s a possibility God has a fourth answer to prayer. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lord, do you want us to have beige carpet in the sanctuary or the brown with blue flowers?

And, if a voice had thundered from heaven, I imagine it would have said, “IT DOESN’T MATTER! I CAN USE EITHER FOR MY GLORY. COULD YOU PLEASE MOVE ON TO SOMETHING THAT’S ACTUALLY IMPORTANT?”

But God does not yell at us. Thank you, LORD, because if you did we’d all be deaf by now.

So, the way consensus should work is that the board discusses it, consults the Bible, prays about it, and if there is still one or more members who disagree, they willingly and whole-heartedly submit and support the rest of the board. That’s why the board doesn’t work so well when we get down to very small numbers. 

In my opinion, that’s one of the ways we got ourselves into the situation we are in now. 

And there’s where I share fault. I am sorry, LORD, that I wasn’t more involved. I’m sorry I was selfish and wasn’t helping when I should have been. I see that now. Please forgive me and help me to be better.

I read an excellent book not long ago called “Bo’s Café.” It’s about a guy in a Hawaiian shirt (yes, that’s relevant plot detail) who sets out to recklessly, shamelessly, obnoxiously love another human being and save his soul. It’s an excellent book. I highly recommend it.

The point of the book is that this whole loving our neighbor thing is hard. It’s not easy and you will put yourself at risk if you do it. You could get hurt, but you could also learn something. But by stepping out of the boat and taking that risk, you bring God glory. And that is hugely, hugely worth it.

And, as long as I have mentioned stepping out of the boat, let’s talk about the apostle Peter. 

I love Peter. I absolutely identify with impulsive, stupid, can’t shut-up Peter. I am so much like Peter.

I say that with a crystal-clear picture of Mr. Impulsive himself, the Apostle Peter, in my head. It’s a windy night on the Sea of Galilee with a boat-load of apostles staring into the dark looking at what they at first thought was a ghost, but the ghost claimed to be Jesus: 

 

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Matthew 14:27-29. (NIV)

 

At this point, I absolutely cannot resist pointing out that Jesus called Peter with one word: “Come.”

 

And Peter did NOT respond with, “Are you sure? Can I get some kind of sign, Lord?”

 

Nope, he was over the side and out of that boat walking straight for Jesus!

 Now, whenever this story is told, we all rush to the part where Peter took his eyes off Jesus and he started to sink and Jesus had to reach down and catch him, but the point here is that Peter got out of the boat and walked on water!

 

Nobody else got out of the boat and went for a stroll across the waves.

 Only Peter.

 

In my head, the rest of the apostles are hanging over the edge of the boat, mouths hanging open not knowing what to think.

 And, if you read the account carefully, it doesn’t say Jesus carried Peter back to the boat after he pulled him out of the waves. Verse 32 says:

 “And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.”

 

They climbed into the boat. What that means is that Peter walked back to the boat with Jesus!

 

Peter IMPULSIVELY got out of that boat because he loved and trusted Jesus. He didn’t stop and think about it. He just did it. 

Did he take a risk? Absolutely! Did he fail? He started to, but he called out to Jesus and Jesus was THERE! 

And here’s the deal, Jesus chose stupid, can’t-shut-his-mouth, impulsive Peter as the one on whom he would build his church. He chose Peter, whom he named “Rock” as the one who would, after he had been the biggest jerk he could be and denied Jesus three times, as the one who would feed His sheep.

And this leads me to one of my favorite little topics. In his book, “Redefined: Discovering and Celebrating What God Really Thinks of You” by my friend and brother in Christ Kenny Ortiz (which you should immediately go out and purchase at full retail price which I say because I am sending a copy of this sermon to my beloved brother Kenny Ortiz that’s O-R-T-I-Z) Kenny quotes St. Augustine of Hippo as saying something to the effect of “Love God and do whatever the --- you want.”  St. Augustine, who lived from 350-430 AD (yes, that’s over 1600 years ago) did not actually use those exact words, but Kenny does accurately convey St. Auggy’s meaning and intent in that quote. 

Now, having put that into practice in my own life for a time, and finding that the world, my flesh, and the devil can and will deceive me and make whatever the  ---- I want to do something other than God’s will, I would recommend that we slightly modify the quote to something like, “Love God and do whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to do.” 

And, having put that into practice in my own life also, I can tell you that doing that is glorious indeed! YES!! Impulsively obeying God is a wonderful thing. If, when it comes to loving our neighbor and each other and doing God’s will, we immediately say “Okay God, I’m out of the boat and coming to you.” 

Yes, it might be scary, you might get your shoes wet, you might even start to sink, but Jesus is right there with you! Acts of submission and trust and faith like that are wonderful and glorious! I encourage you to join me in doing them! 

And as we come to the end of this we should not close without talking about the greatest example of submission in all the Bible. And that’s Jesus not only willingly being crucified for us, but doing so knowing all that it would entail. 

He knew and He did it anyway.

In a garden on the Mount of Olives, He prayed:

“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Luke 22:42 NLT) 

43Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. 44He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

I cannot imagine what it took for Him to pray those words, knowing all that would took place.

And I cannot imagine, when He was nailed to that cross after having been beaten and spit on and mocked and tortured to look down from that cross in utter agony and beg His Father in heaven to forgive them. 

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:34

If anyone had the right to be angry, if anyone in all the universe had the right to ask God to pour out his wrath on anyone, it was this Jesus who was without sin, who went to the cross to die for us. The Pharisees knew what they were doing. They were killing an innocent man because they were afraid of losing their wealth and position and power. They were engaged in murder for entirely political purposes.

But Jesus was right. They didn’t know He was who He said He was. They had convinced themselves that He couldn’t really be the Son of God. They didn’t really know what they were doing. 

But Jesus did know what we know now. He knew that it would all be worth it when He rose from the grave. By submitting Himself to God’s plan, all the world could be reconciled to the Father –and that submission would change the world more than any other person or event in all the world. 

Even to this day, that one submissive act, that one man who was fully God and fully man, is still changing the world. 

And He has invited us to participate in that plan of mercy and grace and love and salvation with Him. 

All to His glory! 

AMEN and HALLELUJAH!!

 

 

 

[SisterWells]

Lol, that was a lot to read  and I must admit that I read it as somewhat of a challenge to Josheb the book sounds interesting

    

13 hours ago, DanL said:

 

And, having put that into practice in my own life also, I can tell you that doing that is glorious indeed...

Yes, it might be scary, you might get your shoes wet, you might even start to sink, but Jesus is right there with you! Acts of submission and trust and faith like that are wonderful and glorious! I encourage you to join me in doing them! 

 

Yes, doing what God would have us do can be scary at times. I love Peter and his testimony. He is a ROCK and upon that rock Jesus says He will build His church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it! 

Edited November 12, 2020 by SisterWells

[Omegaman 3.0]

25 minutes ago, SisterWells said:

Lol, that was a lot to read  and I must admit that I read it ALL as somewhat of a challenge to Josheb

I thought along the same path sister, but in the end, I elected to pass!

[Debp]

1 hour ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

I thought along the same path sister, but in the end, I elected to pass!

I passed on the super long post, too.   Not reading long posts currently.   Eyes like that better!

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

I thought along the same path sister, but in the end, I elected to pass!

"A truly wise person uses few words" Proverbs 17:27 

[Omegaman 3.0]

39 minutes ago, JohnR7 said:

"A truly wise person uses few words" Proverbs 17:27 

Yeah, but this is a sermon. As a friend of mine said, sermonettes make Christianettes!!

[JohnR7]

1 minute ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

Yeah, but this is a sermon.

I try to keep my posts brief. I tend to have a short attention span so I skip over long posts. 

[Not me]

@DanL  

Yes the truth that we are our own worst enemy is a great truth.....

Be encouraged in the truth....

A fellow believer, Not me 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Not me

[SisterWells]

30 minutes ago, Josheb said:

The problem is the author is not the biggest jerk I know and had he met me he'd have to retitle his message . 

Yeah 

Edited November 12, 2020 by SisterWells

[Starise]

I'm often multitasking when I read a post. I will file ideas away and investigate as I can. If the post is too long I'll start to speed read it. On even longer posts I skip over parts of it to get a core idea. If the post rambles and moves around too much they lost me.

This one lost me.