The Real Problem (from stumbling towards heaven)
We’ve been talking for the last several weeks about building relationships. What’s the real problem in our relationships? If you boil it all down, it’s this... Self-Centeredness. It’s at the root...behind every conflict...behind every argument...behind every relational strain....behind all of that is self-centeredness. James 4:1-2 (NCV) says this: “Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you. You want things, but you do not have them...... So you argue and fight...”.
Now listen: If you want to have great relationships with your friends...with your husband or your wife...if you’re a single person and you want to get married...you want to have great relationships....it starts inside you...it doesn’t start with your spouse...it doesn’t start with your girlfriend...it doesn’t start with your child or your boss...it starts inside you. You need a major realignment of your own motivations. A major realignment of your motivations has to take place if you’re going to have good, healthy, and satisfying relationships.
Can you do good things for the wrong reason? Absolutely. Can you even do good things with a selfish motivation? Absolutely. Folks, self-centeredness stains everything we do! Even when we’re doing good stuff, we’re patting ourselves on the back...telling ourselves what a great servant we are. You can’t even be humble without getting proud about it! Every area of our lives are stained with self-centeredness. It is not my nature to think of you, and none of you were staying up late this week worrying about my problems....because you were thinking about your own needs....it’s human nature to think only of ourselves and it’s unnatural for us to think of other people. It’s my nature to be selfish and self-centered and it’s yours too, and if you don’t think it is, you’re only kidding yourself, because you think about you more than you think about anything else in the world. “How do I look? How do I talk? What’s my image? Did I do the right thing? Am I cool? Do people like me?” You think about yourself all the time.
And even with people you supposedly love, you still think about yourself first...that’s why you have arguments with them...living with people you love. The root of every problem is self-centeredness. You see, secretly, we think we’re pretty good if our outward behavior conforms to accepted standards...and we do the right thing and even put on a smiley face and appear like we’re doing it...but that’s not enough because God looks at your heart.
Jesus told the Pharisees, “You know, you guys look great on the outside, but inside you’re a mess! Outwardly, you’ve got this white-washed appearance that looks so great, but inside you’re like a tomb full of dead carcasses that are rotting...you stink!” He told the Pharisees, “You know what you guys do? You wash the bowl and the cup on the outside, but the inside’s still filthy!” What good would a dishwasher be that only washes the outside of the dish? It’d be worthless....and you may be able to clean up your behavior so you look respectable in society, but inside there’s still a core of self-centeredness that stains everything you do and everything that I do. Look at what Jesus said in Mat 15:18 (NIV): “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' It’s not outward behavior that makes you unclean...it’s the stuff that comes out of your heart, and the Bible says that the heart of the problem is a problem of the heart...that’s our root problem.
The problem isn’t your tongue...you may have a sarcastic tongue...sharp tongue...an angry tongue...a filthy tongue...a defensive tongue...a boasting tongue...but all that is doing is revealing what’s in your heart. A judgmental tongue is evidence of a guilty heart. An overactive tongue is evidence of an unsettled heart...a boasting tongue is evidence of an insecure heart...a bitter tongue is an evidence of a resentful heart....a biting tongue is evidence of an angry heart....what’s inside your heart is given away by what you say. Your mouth betrays what you’re really like.
But you say, “When I said that, I just said it in anger...that’s not really me...” Oh, yes it is...it is exactly you, because in your anger, the mask and the layers are pulled away and your real heart is revealed in your anger. And what’s really inside of you comes out when you get ticked. Have you ever noticed how quickly your mood can change when somebody challenges your selfishness? When somebody says, “Drop what you’re doing and take out the trash”...how quickly your mood can change...because what’s in the heart is going to come out....it’s like a toothpaste tube...when you put pressure on it, what’s inside is going to come out.The Bible is very specific about how selfishness expresses itself. In Galatians 5:19-21 (NCV) it lists 15 works of selfish ...and here’s a few of them. It says this: “The wrong things the sinful self does are clear: being sexually unfaithful (did you know that infidelity is the ultimate expression of self-centeredness? “I don’t care what happens to anybody else...I’m doing what pleases me)...hating, making trouble, being jealous, being angry, being selfish, making people angry with each other, causing divisions among people, feeling envy, being drunk...and doing other things like these.” These are all expressions of self-centeredness.
Self-centeredness is so very destructive! It destroys homes...we see that with the rising divorce rate. How many homes have been destroyed by self-centeredness? It destroys little children...it destroys marriages...it destroys friendships that have gone on for 20 or 30 years and somebody does a self-centered act and BAM! It’s over. Self-centeredness destroys churches...it destroys community...and it can even destroy nations. And folks, we are seeing the decline of a great nation right now that is consumed with self-centeredness. Today’s attitude is, “What’s in it for me? I couldn’t care less what happens to anybody else...what’s in it for me?”
OK.... Randi, this is different.. haha.. but I think this will be my last one like this.. this one hits home to close.. haha..
love you all.. enjoy the day...
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