With The Perrys - It’s Giving Self-Righteous

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Have you ever thought you were a better Christian than other Christians? We can all be self-righteous at times, but it’s bad theology. We can’t compare our spiritual maturity to that of other Christ followers, who are also flawed human beings – we must compare ourselves to Christ. In this episode, the Perrys walk us through the theology that moves us to have more gracious, less judgmental spiritual walks. Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Go tell it on the mountain over all the hills and everywhere go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ. Is it Lord or born? Born. Born. Oh. Hey, remember when, uh... Go tell it on the mountain. When we first.

Sing that at my funeral. Well, you're not going to be there. But can y'all sing it in my funeral? Wow. Why would you keep saying this? You're definitely dying first. Whoa. You're definitely dying first.

I know I'm going to be a widow. I've already made peace with that. Let's not talk about this. Do you want to know why? My mama would be hearing this. Do you want to know why? Make her sad. Do you want to know why?

I thought you fried chicken a lot. No. Statistically, men die sooner than women. So that's stats. Who knows the plans of the Lord? Correct. But two, I've told you that. I have a strong feeling that God is going to make me live.

And I say make me, because it's not, it's not by my choice. Make me live a long time. Oh, I can't wait until you get to heaven. I can show you around. I'm like, I'm like, look, Paul be over here all the time. Come on. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, he's still hanged with Timothy.

Like, he's still like, he's still like his mentor. How, like, how, like, how, it's a hunch. It's a very strong, like, it's one of those, like, how I felt like, we would have a baby first. I felt like we would move to Atlanta. It's one of those I feel like I really think it's going to happen and I feel away about it. Because it's like, Lord, one, that means you just signing me up to suffer for a long time. Two, I'm going to have to see everybody die.

You know what I'm saying? All my friends, my family, like all the things. And then three, four, it's like, I need to start training my kids now to love me. Because what y'all not going to do is put me in one of those homes where they beat you. That's what you're not going to do. You like you more when Daddy was here. No, we don't took you on. Plus trips. We didn't took y'all to Disney World. We didn't fed you, put clothes on your back,

give you iPads, give you food and snacks and cookies and high sea pouches. You better take care of me. I don't care how crazy I get. Well, what's sound like trauma? It's fear. Today we're talking about nothing, nothing, nothing has to do with that. To not be self-righteous. Yeah. We've had this conversation privately. All the time. A bunch of times. Yeah. Yeah. But I have so much to say with this.

I don't even know what it began. Let me start by asking, tell me about a time when you thought that you were a better Christian than other Christians, where it was given like. Well, I'm trying to sound self-righteous. I've never done that ever in my life. I've never done that. But I felt like I was a better Christian than other Christians. where you was being self-righteous?

A better Christian than other Christians. You want me to tell the story that it trigger your stories? Yeah. Okay. Because I do have moments of pride. I can tell you moments when I was filling myself. Okay. Better than other Christians?

I don't know. I had a long season of self-righteousness. I can believe it. Go. And it's because, well, one, I do think that newer Christians, that just seems to be a part of it, like you're figuring out life with Christ. Thank you.

It did trigger something to me. Go ahead. Okay. But let me just say, I think new believers, young believers, self-righteousness, it kind of is a pathway towards maturity. Yeah. I've just, I've always seen it. I've seen it in myself.

I've seen it where you, you're so zealous and so excited about the Lord and realizing that, oh, I was in the world. I was in darkness. That was dumb. That was foolish that you start to walk. this energy of pride that maturity can like get out of you. Yeah, yeah. I think for me it had to be early days.

You know, when I first became a Christian, like I really felt like 98% of the world was sinful. And I felt like I was part of the 2%. Yeah, I did. I remember one of my first poetry events. Yeah, it was me in this group that I was in, spoken word group that I was in, we walked in the event and they were playing secular music.

But they said they was Christians. And I was so offended. I was like, how dare y'all play usher before we miss it? And I was just so. Usher is crazy. I'm pretty sure they were not playing confessions. They was, let it burn. They was playing that.

And I was like, I could have talking about hell. I know, but the amount of judgment I had in my heart. Yeah. I was like, it's no way y'all righteous. And it wasn't even a church. Yeah. It was a venue that church people were like hosting in. And I just like, I'm not performing unless they turn that music down.

Turn that music off. And I was just like really mad. So I had that, you know, levels of that when I first became a Christian. Yeah, for sure. Did you pray for him? No. That be the sign. Yeah, yeah.

That be the sign of so righteousness is that you, your name. not move to compassion through prayer. Yeah. That's good. Just judgment through comparison. Yep. For me, I had a long season because I was going to a ministry in L.A. That was just really arrogant and graceless.

And we thought that our church had real Christians, real disciples. We actually, we did the text. We evangelized. We obeyed the Bible. We applied it. We didn't listen to second music. We even watched certain movies. We didn't get tattoos.

We didn't like, we didn't even hug. in that church. We only gave fist bumps. You know what I'm saying? But it created this environment of self-righteousness because there was no grace. Yeah. And not even grace. There was no concept

of liberty. So there are some issues that are a matter of conscience, right? So if someone decides to go, if someone listens to a song that isn't perverse or isn't blasphemous but isn't Christian, like because it's not Christian,

at all, you think they're not Christian at all. As if you have the ability to read the motives of the heart, right? And so I lived in that world, and I think it made me extremely arrogant and mean, but it also made me more prone to shame and self-condemnation. Because the same degree of grace that I wasn't given was the same degree of grace I gave myself, which was none. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, I really wrestled with feeling like, does God love me?

Does God care about me? Does God see me? Like I remember they told me like if you on Facebook for more than an hour, you know what I'm saying? That's like you've made Facebook an idol. I remember feeling like if I didn't talk to every single person I met about Jesus, then I was walking in a spirit of fear. Like everything had like like I remember I would be talking to you.

There were sometimes we was friends, you would call me and I would be like, oh, I'm talking to Preston too long. I'm making my idol. No, like because they always used to over-emphasize. You got to guard your heart. you got to guard your heart. It's the well-sbring a lot. And so I would limit how long I talk to you even to guard my heart where I couldn't

just talk to my friend for a long time. Like that's, that's a really insane way to live. Yeah, that's crazy. And if you think about it, a lot of, I'm going to say cults. I'll say cultish. It's cultish. Coltish churches, the underlying root of that is self-righteousness. It's like that's the reason why a lot of these churches be moving like they have the

absolute truth and nobody in the world has more truth than their church. It's because their leaders move with this self-righteousness that says, we know God more than the rest of the world. And that's what self-righteousness is. I do think that... And it's bad theology. It's super bad theology. You know why it's bad theology?

Because there is a such thing as the universal church or the invisible church, which means that God has saved people all over the world, some of which you will not be able to see or discern, right? you're not in Asia, you're not in Korea, you're not in Puerto Rico, you're not in Russia, you're not in Soweto, you're not in Rwanda. And so for you to think that your little section of the world is a better Christian as if you can compare what y'all are doing to what they're doing over there. But not only that, that's-

Because they probably tapped in more than you are. But not only that, I think self-righteousness and self-righteous people and organizations and institutions, they have a very, they don't understand how their view of God is so small. Yes, explain them Because it's like God is one He's too vast For you to think that you know

I'm better than other people He's too deep It's like you saying You're saying I know more of the ocean than you And it's like no The ocean is deep The ocean is vast

Like only 10% of the ocean Is explored Right by human beings Right so 90% of the ocean Is not explored by by creation And so like for you to like For you to think that you've seen parts of the ocean that other people haven't seen is just unrealistic. And maybe you have,

maybe you have and do know things about God that other people don't. Doesn't mean they know. But do you know what Jesus knows? No. And that's the problem, is that you shouldn't even be comparing your maturity to another believer's maturity. You should be comparing you to Christ. When you compare you to Christ, you will always be on the short end of the stick. I do think that when we compare ourselves to other flawed human beings, that's when we start to feel good about ourselves. I think if we're honest, right, I think the self-righteous person struggles with two things. I think they struggle with insecurity and I think they struggle with pride. And I think some people might say, man, how can you struggle with insecurity and pride? But they're like

Sami's twins. Really, you can't get one without the other. They exist with one another. They exist with one another. I think the self-righteous person, I think that they are frustrated and that they are insecure that they cannot measure up to God's standards. And so there's a deep feeling of shame there. But instead of like looking towards humility and being humble and said, God, I can't meet your standard, but you accept me anyways, what pride leads them to do is to compare themselves to other flawed human beings to feel good about themselves. And so the self-righteous person is extremely insecure while at the same time the self-righteous person is extremely prideful. Right. And I think the challenge though with self-righteous people is I think the truth with self-righteous people is that

they just don't understand grace right they don't understand grace for themselves and that's why they can't understand grace for one of like other people it's like and so I think the way you love self-righteous people is by being gracious to them yeah and it's it's hard but that's how you love self-righteous people you just got to be gracious and I think we all have self-righteousness in us and so I don't even want to make it seem as if we're talking out there when we need to just be talking about us and everybody else. That's good, though. Can I say this one right quick?

Because we all had a form of self-righteousness. And still do. And still do. Because all self-righteousness is, is this feeling that you can be righteous by yourself. Right. On your own. And so, like, we all try to obtain some righteousness on all.

I think some people just live in it a little more than others. Because here's the snare. Even this conversation could be self-righteous. Mm-hmm. Right. And so it's like self-righteous, they do this, they do this, which can make it seem as if we don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I think that's why as Christians, we have to be aware of even how our legitimate righteous judgment can also be coming from an unrighteous place. Yeah, true. And so even podcast and content can be a form of self-righteousness, even though what you're exposing or speaking to is biblical and true. And so I think even being mindful of that, it just recenters you and refocuses you to be humble. What I was going to say is I think a part of self-righteousness is really just immaturity and maybe some level of unbelief as it relates to certain doctrines, right? So justification by faith. I've been made like righteous

and made right with God, not because of my mind. own works but because Christ's kindness right God's love that's one too um regeneration like god is the one who does the work is doing the work in me and so I can't like it all of those doctrines eliminates boasting eliminates ego eliminates pride because you realize oh I'm only here by virtue of grace in every way I'm only succeeding in Christ if you want to call it that by virtue of grace period yeah so yeah i think i think reminding yourself that like like none of us are here without jesus like like we're all a product of what he did for us um it has always sustained me and i think it should sustain other people why why do you think some people struggle with self-righteousness more than

others like why like why do you think like is it just the insecurity is it just the prize or is it, you know, like, I think the people who struggle with it the most are people who are actually gifted to see. So when you do see things as they are, when you do have some type of discernment or some type of understanding of what is right and what is wrong,

then because you see it, you might be more irritated by it, right? And so it's like I know like in the early days in my walk, I remember somebody was praying for me and they said God doesn't see God doesn't show you things so you can judge. God shows you things so you can intercede. And so that's what I mean. Being in the position of someone who does see straight through oftentimes and can, you know, make distinctions between what is good and evil oftentimes. It benefits my teaching. But the shadow side of that is that it can hard in my mind.

heart and make me feel like because you got that going on or because I saw that flaw or da da da da da da da da da. Like you start to like get irritated when people stuff instead of becoming an intercessor because of people's stuff. And so I think people who are teachers of the Bible have to guard themselves from self-righteousness. I think people who have prophetic or discerning gifts have to guard themselves from that I think people who have a truth teller about them have to guard themselves from that. Whereas like even your whole sermon becomes a rebuke as if people also aren't freed or delivered from worldliness through exhortation too yeah another thing that can play into self-righteousness is i think that some people are just trying to do two things

either feel good about themselves because it's something to it's something it's something i think it feeds people i think even with these heresy you know hunter pages i think for the people who flock to these pages i think that they're trying to feel good about themselves and it i think i think that i think I think you feel good about yourself when you realize, when you're like listening to people who are doing the Christian faith good. I think it just, I think it gives us a certain amount of confidence in our own walk. And I also think that the person who deals with self-righteousness, I think it's a way for them to like prove that spiritual maturity. In what way? I think that's, I think that there's some type, because I'll tell them myself.

I remember when I first started writing Christian blogs. And my first Christian blogs were calling out particular false teachers. I remember. You remember. And I remember, you know, that was like our first year marriage. And I had a very low view of myself because I felt like I was failing as a husband. And so I felt like writing about people who were doing Christianity worse than I was, was like giving me confidence that I was a mature Christian.

That's deep. And so I think that sometimes. I think people try to prove their spiritual maturity by calling out what's wrong instead of exalting Jesus. It's like you're not as good at explaining the deity of Christ and the nature of God and the gospel. You're way better at calling out other people who do it. And so this is the reason why you have so many platforms we know what they're against, but we don't really know what they're for. Right. And so like you don't get as much praise when you explain the gospel, then you get calling out people.

And I think that's what kind of like encourages self-righteousness in a lot of ways because we get praise for it. And we get a whole bunch of critical people following our pages for it. And so it just continues this cycle of self-righteousness. Yeah, I think we need to be careful because the enemy is crafty. And he wants to take a good thing and a good heart and a good motive and twisted just a little bit. So I think when it comes to the pages that are exposing teaching or teachers, I think the good thing is people just want to know what's right. Yeah. People want to guard themselves from what's wrong.

The way the enemy twists it is that you become obsessive or entertained by a constant diet of criticism and slander. Yeah. Which makes you a person who was always looking for planks, but not trained or having the self-awareness in the human. ability to know what planks you also have. Yeah. Okay. And I think it also positions you as Christians who are always, who move with fear, I feel like a lot of the content is making people hyper vigilant and not also cultivating

joy. Like what, like, not should we like stop listening to this person or stop doing this or that opens that door. That's cool. But what should we do? What should we be enjoying? Like, give me avenues by which to experience beauty and create. and goodness and sound like that's also the Christian life like go outside and look at the

stars and like think about the goodness of God like I don't I don't want like you can't wear those beads and you can't listen to day because like I get it I'd be I be going in on stuff but balance yeah we need balance unless we become hard-hearted people and not not even like realizing it yeah and but also too I think the one thing that we have to remember you know is like when we when we explain the beauty of God and if we do a good job of just explaining the gospel in this context, I think then instead of rebuking all the time, we just start to see people fall in line. Explain. Because lifting up the name of God, one, it shows people who are in error that we're just consistently correcting the true God, right?

Because like what if you spent more time explaining the gospel than you did correcting people? like like you like you you you're talking about what's wrong but you haven't properly given people a framework for what's right and so like what if you consistently give people a framework for what is right and when the when you feel laid by the lord to call out something that's wrong do it I mean I think God gives room for that right but I doubt that God is making you do it every single week it's like like you can't you can't you can't tell me that's self-righteous is not in the play because God wants to be explained more than he want people to be called out. You know what I'm saying? And so I just think that we have to just, you know, be careful with that. Where is that text about all of scripture is breathed out by God?

Profitable for teaching. It's in Timothy. It might be 2 Timothy 3. Yep. Second Timothy 316. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable. for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training. Yeah.

Which means that the Word of God is not just a resource or a means by which to rebuke. The Word of God is also a resource and a means by which to teach and to train. Yeah. Okay. And so if I am only reproving and not also training, if I am only reproving and not also exhorting, then I'm actually like I'm using this word only as a weapon and not also as a bomb and not also as an instruction manual. Yeah, that's cool. And so I think the problem with self-righteousness is it's narrow.

It's narrow-minded. Yeah. It's not comprehensive enough or generous enough to actually see that like, no, like we want to cultivate goodness too. Like we want to train people as holistic disciples. I don't want to just, like, rebuking you all the time doesn't actually train you to be a disciple. Yeah. Right. You had Jesus taking them to weddings.

You had Jesus praying to say, watch and pray, right? Like, you had Jesus, like, come live with me. Let's go out to dinner. Like, they did life with him and that trained him how to be holistic disciples, not just critical thinkers. Yeah. Or not critical thinkers. But you get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like, the word of God is useful for more than what we're giving it credit for. Yeah, yeah. I think we have to be honest, you know, because I think it's impossible for, I think we all deal with self-righteousness, right? Yes. I think our self-righteousness doesn't always play out judgmental, right? Like in a judgmental way.

And what other ways? Because I think that, you know, when I try to, any way that I try to be God or to do what only God can do, whether that's love you, I'm trying to do something that only a righteous God can do. What do you mean? It's like I think self-righteousness is trying to be righteous like yourself. Right. Like, and so like trying to love you, you know, in my own attempt and not asking the Lord

to help me is a form of self-righteousness. Okay. Trying to love my children is a form of self-righteousness apart from the Holy Spirit, right? Like trying to like be a pastor without the Holy Spirit help is a form of me trying to be righteous, me trying to obtain some righteousness. of, yeah, and so I think that all of humanity, we have this, we have this, this innate, like, like, default to try to be God ourselves, to try to do things that only God can do, right? And so if we're honest with, if we're honest with one another, we all deal with self-righteousness, right?

Even the person who, who makes videos about people who doing things wrong because they're self-righteous. And so, like, if we look at Jesus and if we gaze upon Jesus, we see that, no, we all fall short. And truth be told. Which is the reason why we should have more grace for one another. The presence of self-righteousness in the human heart is also the catalyst to why false religions even exist. Yeah.

Because they are all rooted in self-righteousness. Yes. Right? So you have Hebrew Israelites who are made righteous by ethnicity and by keeping the law. You have Mormons that are made righteous by what, like all. false religions are rooted in self-righteousness. Yeah. And that is because grace is a divine idea.

Yeah. So it makes sense that religions that were born from the devil and not from the Lord would actually be bent in the direction of trying to obtain salvation apart from Christ. Yeah. Because that is a miraculous, like grace, we don't come up with stuff like that because we're arrogant. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

And the reason we don't come up with stuff like that is because we want to boast about ourselves. But the way the gospel is set up, God has removed every avenue of boasting by giving us grace. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like when you get the glory, all you can say is you did it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And so like even when I used to do street evangelism videos and I used to talk to atheists, like I had to consistently remind myself, you know, I was them. I remember I told one atheist that it's like, yo, I was you at one point. I thought that I could be righteous on my own. And so That's the atheist problem. The atheist's biggest problem is they are offended that you're saying that I cannot be righteous without this invisible God.

But if we're honest, as Christians, we move like that all the time. Explain. We move like we can do things apart from God. Right? And so we say that we love and we serve God with our mouths, but a lot of times our heart moves like an atheist. We move like we don't really need God like that. And so we all struggle with it. And I think like what made me stop, what made us stop being self-righteousness is that God

what helps us. What helps us, what helps us make, what helps us stop being, you know, self-righteous is a holy and a righteous God coming into our lives and showing us grace, showing us love, showing us mercy, showing that we cannot be righteous on our own, but he was righteous on our behalf. And when we accept him, we're made righteous. I can hear, because if I heard this podcast 10 years ago, I would have a conception of grace that would mishear what you're saying,

where I would feel like, I feel like y'all throwing grace out because y'all are trying to give people license to be loose or to be, to be, yeah, like, it's a liberty, da, da, da, da. But it's like, no, the Bible says, like, it is a fearful thing that will fall into the hands of the living God. Like, the Bible says to be perfect as God is perfect. The Bible says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. and y'all keep throwing out grace when grace also in Titus teaches us to say no to ungodliness okay so how when you use grace

how are you not using grace as a cop out to not be faithful does that make sense what I'm saying yeah yeah no I think because I would hear you being like yeah God shows us grace like yeah we know that but great you still need to be holy yeah yeah yeah yeah I think just having a proper theology of sin like when you have a proper theology of sin right and when you know that Christ came to do a couple of things. He came to justify us and he came to sanctify us. Right. And so when the Christian is saved, right? The Christian is taken out of a position and put in a new location,

taken out of a place of darkness and placed in the position of right. And so therefore we are made righteous through Jesus' blood, right? Because of what he did, not what we did. So one, there's no need for us to boast. This is the reason why Ephesians 2A says there was a reason. saved by grace through faith it is a gift at least any man can boast right but in this place of sanctity in this place of justification there's a thing called sanctification which means a continued process of being conformed into the image of jesus christ which means that every single day every single

hour every single minute god is is is is transforming us and so therefore there's going to be sinful moments. There's going to be, you know, mistakes. There's going to be like, this is the reason why it tells us to come to the throne of grace in our time of need. Like what? If we're perfect, there's no need to come to a throne. There's no need to run to a savior. But we're not perfect. We're not perfect. And so we there has to be a prop, like when you, when you understand sin and how much your sinful nature is still very much in play, then you see the next. You see the next. need for grace. And so grace is not a like grace isn't just a cop out to say, okay, you can get out a jail card. Get out of jail card. No, it is saying this is something that that that that we consistently need

because we're consistently being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. And so I do think that that self-righteousness come into play when we don't have a proper theology of our sin, when we don't have a proper theology of justification and we don't have a proper theology of sanctification. Some people move like they've already received their glorified bodies. And so this is the reason why when we throw our grace, you think we give it a cop out. It's like, no, the same grace I'm saying that they need, you need to. Right. And it's a possibility that you think it's a cop out because you don't see your sin as much as you see others.

Yeah. You don't see your sin. Which what self-righteousness does? Self-righteousness puts blinders on our own sin and it puts being lights when everybody else is. that's what self-righteousness does and it's just like no like Jesus is saying no if you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal savior you have been made righteous it is not what you do and don't do it's a position in the same way if I don't act like a husband today it doesn't I'm still a husband that's a position that God gave me it doesn't make me not a husband right God is God is still going

judge me as a because that's my position right but but but but when I when I feel as a husband God is saying because I gave you that position, there's grace when you fail. That's grace when you fail. And it's true repentance. You just can't be out of sleeping with jicks. Yeah, because I think there's a difference between a believer who is being sanctified and there is evidence of maturity and growing. Yes. There's a, and so that's like, okay, like you got your issues, but you're fighting your flesh.

You're putting stuff to death. like to try to always go in on that person you're probably going to put like loads of burdens on them that's actually not love that's different than the person all the old testament is filled with yeah that's that's different than the person who confesses christ but lives in a pattern of unrepentant sin right and so when you talk about the grace that's at work in sanctification is saying like no in authentic christianity there is a pursuing there is a fighting there is a growing but still either way we need to be gracious in the way we communicate truth to people. Absolutely.

That's that's, and I think that we have to be gracious for the self-righteous person, right? Because I think the self-righteous person in their defense, they're just trying in their best to be faithful without all the theology. What do you mean? And so like, for example, right, it was this young believer who came up to me after event. And she said that she had a problem.

And she came to me very humble. She said she had a problem with continuing to listen to. to me after our first podcast that we ever did when I confessed that I was in porn. That's fair. She said because what I heard was you were still teaching while you were struggling with porn. Yeah. And she came to me very humble, but she didn't understand what, like, she was just, she was

a new believer. I think the problem is a lot of self-righteous people get saved and they get so used to calling people out. They actually don't grow in spiritual maturity, but they just continue to grow and grow and grow. in criticism and being critical. And so what I had the teacher was, it's like, man, like, yeah, I had a season where I struggled, but because I belonged to Jesus, because Jesus has made me righteous, and it's his job to sanctify me. It's his job.

It's the Holy Spirit job to correct me. And the Holy Spirit just didn't save me. The Holy Spirit is saving me. And so what he did was he allowed certain circumstances to happen in my life to reveal to my sin. I repented of my sin, confessed to my sin, and I'm able to move on, right? And so I had to explain to her what real Christian repentance look like and how, like, when we struggle with sin, it doesn't mean that we have to stop all ministry, right? The Bible says for those who, for those who are in Christ, they cannot continue in sin.

And so I didn't continue in it, right? It was the Holy Spirit job to correct me and to rebuke me and to also to like nourish me and to love me and to nurse me back to spiritual health. And so she just didn't understand it. And so I think that it's our job to just teach a proper theology of God and his saving power and what the Holy Spirit's job is in the role of the believer. And I think when we do that, I think then you'll start to see people struggle with self-righteous is less and less and less.

I think something that's also helped me is, you know how Isaiah 6, Isaiah's before the throne of God, And by seeing God, he sees himself. And he says, I'm a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And he says, woe is me. Like, I'm ruined. And it's like, in him seeing himself, he recognizes that he deserves judgment. And I've heard R.C. Sproles say once, he was like, if God showed us all of our sin, all at once, we would be crushed.

So in God's patience, he actually reveals. the degrees of sin over time. Yeah. So that's why the closer you get to God, the more you see yourself. Yeah. That's helped me be patient with people because it means that there are levels of pride in me that I haven't even seen yet. Yeah.

Because God is being patient. That's so good. That's so good, but that's also scary. Yes. That's also scary. And I think that, man, that's so good. And I think that if we. spend more time teaching people that I think we'll see such a healthy church.

But also, too, if we spend more time just asking God to reveal all the things in my heart that it's not like you. Yeah. I think that we will move in a way that won't excuse sin, but we will move in a way that will allow people to flourish in the church and we'll have grace for one another. But that's a scary thing to even think of like, man, because I think a lot of times I beat myself up for the stuff that I see. But the fact that I don't see it all. Not all at once. That's like, like, because he's a father, right? And so there's stuff we see in our kids.

We don't address every single thing at once because we know they can't handle it. The weight, that hit me hard. I ain't going to lie. The burden would be too heavy. It would be too heavy. So we revealed them to them like gradually as like, like, You know what I'm saying? And I think that's what the, because God also knows that our vision of him plays a part in our ability to handle what he shows us about ourselves. Say that again. Say it again. It came out too good.

I don't remember. Say it again. Say it again. Do it again. I think our vision of him gives us the ability to handle what he shows us about ourselves. Yeah. Because what would happen to the person who saw all of their sin all at once and did not actually believe that God loved. them they might leave the faith yeah and so i think god is like as he grows us and sanctifies us then he's

like oh like you can handle more you can handle more because now you know what to do with it yeah some of us don't know what to do with our sin so all we do is turn to shame as if shame could save us and so god has to continue to show us his love and community through his word so as he continues to reveal the degrees of sin that we still have in our hearts we trust him to handle it more yeah And I'm going to read this because one of the things that has set me free in certain degrees from self-condemnation and self-righteousness is just finally starting to believe not only that God loves me, but he likes me. There was so long that I thought God just tolerated me. Yeah. But it's like, no, he likes me.

You like me. Yeah. You made me. You love me. Like you are for. me. So Romans 8, I feel like, I feel like every Christian needs to just memorize it. I'm going to just read it for us. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him

graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Child tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Verse 37. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. If we could really take in the way God loves us, we would not be so arrogant nor would we be so broken. Yes. We would be secure.

And I'm like we would be so overwhelmed with the love of God. And I think that is what God is doing in the sanctification. process is that he is actually revealing to us the degree to which he loves us and is for us. And so how is that vision of God's love showing up the way I love people? Am I helping people believe Romans 8 in how I show up as a Christian? That's good.

That's good. That's good. That's real good. And I'm going to just take it there. I think we've had this conversation before. But we talked about how like what I hear us saying over and over is that self-righteousness, the underlying, one of the main underlying causes of self-righteousness is shame. Like, we feel shame for ourselves, and I've seen this a lot in reformed spaces.

Oh, for sure. Reform spaces, they have a high emphasis on theology. They feel like they have a right view of theology a lot of the times. And I think, you know, they shun places where you talk about, oh, I'm favored by God and prosperity teaching. but I think that the reformed church can learn a lot from other churches. Because I do think that they move in a way, it almost seems as if some, not all reform spaces, but some reform spaces is like,

if it wasn't for Jesus, God wouldn't have nothing to do with me. Like God doesn't like me, right? And it's like, it's like the, almost as if like the father is saying, um, how you doing today, son? I'm dealing with your, dealing with our like filthy creation just because I love you. And it's just like, no, like, because of what Christ has done for us on the cross, right, removing the penalty of sin away from us, like, God actually, like, he's in right fellowship with us now. Like, he is in community with us now. He could commune with us now. And so I do think that sometimes, like, even, like, some of the spaces that we're in, it can cultivate at the same time, a deep level of shame, while at the same time, a deep high of self, like a deep thing of self-righteousness. when we don't see no like God actually died so that he can like see us again right so that he can

see us that's that's what propitiation is it is it is the penalty of God being removed from us so God's everlasting and consistent love can be shunned like like shun towards us you know what I'm saying and so I do think that if people understood them all God doesn't just love me and die from me but no he likes me he likes my company he cares about me he sees me he made you you and he's made everybody right and so there's a such thing called common grace where there are things that even sinners do that show forth the glory of god you can have somebody who is all up in some sin but that singing voice god gave them that that's beautiful yeah you can have somebody that's all up in some sin in business that shrewd business mind god gave them that and so i've i've started

to make the decision of always asking you the question, what is beautiful here that I can affirm and cultivate? Not just what is wrong that I could call out and rebuke. You get what I'm saying? Because there's something about the kindness of God that he has given sinners good gifts. Yeah. Doesn't make sense what I'm saying. So it means that as you move through the world, it kind of tempers the way you deal with people

when you see that they have, they got problems, but they also have beauty. Yeah. So how can I show up alongside somebody that's true? struggling and call attention to the beautiful thing that God has given, just as much as I call attention to the thing that God wants to remove. When we talk about God liking us or when we talk about God enjoying us, I'm saying God reigns on the just and the unjust. He is good to sinners. He's good to them. And the gifts that they walk in is evidence of his goodness. And so even the way we show up with other people needs to affirm the fact that God is good to people who don't even

love him. And so am I good to people that do not love him? And what does it look like to be good? And one of the ways to be good is to identify the evidences of God's goodness in their life and affirm it. We can even move that in the church. Like we can affirm that there's good things in other churches that that doesn't only like, it's like belongs to our church, right? Because I do think that if we learn from one another and be more humble and we're and we're more willing to learn from other others in different spaces not just unbelievers but believers too i think that we can grow as a church i think that i was trying to make i got it we're making two different points but they were both good yeah yeah i did i did think you said learn affirm that's okay though i think a very practical application

is praying more than you criticize so probably last year, a year and a half ago, I was on social media. And, you know, we're seeing all these people with these sermons that are crazy with just people moving in ways that are rightfully problematic. Like, it's just wrong. It's unbiblical. Like, it's just not right. And I remember I was, like, scrolling and just feeling angry at the stuff.

And I felt convicted by the Lord. And he said, you haven't prayed for any of them once. you haven't prayed once you've had a lot of conversation you you you and your people have shared all types of criticisms about the people but you haven't at one point brought them to my throne and i started so i made a list on my phone of all the social media people that were irritating me the most and i started to pray for them and what happened is that as i pray for them it didn't change the un the righteous anger that i had towards what they were doing but it gave me a patience and a compassion for them that superseded the irritation.

Yeah. And so I think that's a very practical exercise is that before running to rebuke, before running to critique, before running to expose, intercede first and see what happened. I was just challenged with that lately because, as you know, people in the public have been trying to have me and a guy who, a personal social media who calls out people a lot, have a conversation and I was flirting with the idea of having a conversation with him and I was like I don't even pray for this dude I don't even I like I don't you know I see his videos and I was like man let me have a conversation but let me pray about it and when I brought it to you the other day we was

like pray about it and when I went to the Lord like I haven't even prayed about him you know I've even prayed about it you know him and obviously we disagree with some stuff you know theology and all of the stuff. But it was just like, now let me spend some time praying for him because God might even give me wisdom of how to deal with him directly. And I think that

sometimes we just wound people with self-righteousness because God needs to give us wisdom. God needs to give us insight. God needs to give us the words to say to people in these conversations. So I think we need to just pray. Because it's easy, I've got to say this,

It's easy for our confrontation to be misplaced anger. Yeah. If I'm mad at you or mad at somebody, I can couch it in religious anger or religious language. Yeah, yeah. We're really underneath that. I'm just hurt. Yeah. If I deal with the hurt, then I can actually come to you, like, fairly.

Yeah. And I do think, I do think that we use theology to beat people up. Like, because it's easy to hide behind the things of God. we just want to get our anger out yeah you want to get your lick back want to get our lick back and so we just use the theology to beat people up and it's like no like you really need to go pray yeah bless those yeah yeah who curse you yeah that that's it's easy to to is that's that's hard it takes the holy spirit to do that so but yeah that's it cool pray about it all right all right