We live in a self-centered and narcissistic society. And yet Jesus calls us to a life of unselfish love. In this message, Pastor Clark turns our attention to Jesus, who gave us the ultimate example of selflessness and surrender. Looking to Jesus, we can become more like Him!

<p>We live in a self-centered and narcissistic society. And yet Jesus calls us to a life of unselfish love. In this message, Pastor Clark turns our attention to Jesus, who gave us the ultimate example of selflessness and surrender. Looking to Jesus, we can become more like Him!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Not What I Want

I don't have to tell you that we're living in a world where people are self-centered, where people are looking for what's in it for me.

We know that as we look around the world we're in, we don't need scientists to tell us that, We don't need sociologists or psychologists to tell us that, and yet they do.

Her research has been in the field of human psychology, and particularly how self-seeking and self-centered our societies have been.

Surveying past generations and surveying current generations, she has compiled statistics about what is happening, and she wrote a book entitled Generation Me.

She's written a number of books, 1 of them called Generation Me and 1 of them called the Narcissism Epidemic.

And could I just have you unplug and plug that back in briefly?

I think it's resized unfortunately for us.

Generation Me, a twinge conducted extensive research on the subject of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.

Have you ever heard of all these different acronyms that the doctors tend to use?

And NPD is a disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration.

Here, let me try this real quickly and see if we can maybe get this to work.

Well, you're just gonna have to live with my slides running off the edge of the screen, evidently.

So, these extensive research showed that people are having a disorder today that actually is self-centeredness.

It's interesting that psychology would define this.

I think the Bible defines it actually pretty well, doesn't it?

If you remember the fall of Lucifer, he had an eye problem.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will put my throne above the stars of the north.

According to Twinge, narcissistic personality disorder originated with the assumption that if you have a high self-image, then you are more likely to help people and less likely to hurt people.

Now, this is what psychologists and humanistic psychology has brought to our society.

They said, well we just need to help people feel good about themselves and then they'll be good people.

You understand, there's a thought process out there that says, you know what, there's good in man that just needs to be developed.

You just need to develop the good in man, and then we'll have a better society, we'll have peace, we'll have all the answers to society's ills.

But I'm sorry to tell you, friends, this morning, that psychology doesn't solve humanity's ills.

And this self-image deception that said, we just need to make young people feel good about themselves, led to this way of approaching discipline where we don't tell anyone they're ever wrong, right?

We don't discipline, we don't tell people they've done something wrong or they need to do something better.

In fact, everyone gets a ribbon, everyone gets a trophy.

In her book she talks about 1 mother who was shocked when her daughter got a fourth place ribbon.

But we have a society where everyone gets a ribbon, everyone gets a trophy, we can show up and not do our work, sit on the bench and still we get the same size trophy as anyone else.

And what this leads to, unfortunately, is a sense of entitlement.

Recognition and success become divorced from effort and accomplishment.

We treat from a very young age, it doesn't matter, you're always still a winner.

Why do people take guns and shoot up their workplace when they lose their job?

Well, narcissistic personality disorder is part of the problem.

They think their job is their entitlement no matter what their performance may be.

They can't comprehend that they don't deserve that job.

They aren't entitled to that job, irrespective of their performance.

Very, very interesting research that's been being done.

Unfortunately, instead of making the world a better place, in actuality, people who are Narcissistic tend to be more aggressive and less likely to help others.

Twenge says Generation me It's the world we're living in today Generation me What's in it for me?

You know, I think the Bible tells us a lot about narcissism, but thankfully, the Bible also tells us about an unselfish God, a God who is the antithesis of narcissism.

The Bible story begins here in Genesis chapter 3, and we won't take much time here, we're short on time, but I just want us to take a moment here to think about what happened here in Genesis chapter 3.

You know the story, how the serpent deceived the woman and he deceived her by appealing to her selfish desires.

You will be like gods, knowing both good and evil, right?

And so in her selfishness, in her self-seeking, in seeking to elevate herself, in putting herself above God's Word and what God had asked of her, and even seeking to be equal with God, she took of that fruit and she ate it.

And then she took that fruit to Adam, and Adam, why did he choose to eat the fruit?

It was because he was afraid of what he might lose.

He was afraid if he didn't eat the fruit, he might lose Eve.

He was afraid that he might not have what he wanted.

And once again, just like the devil fell through selfishness and self-seeking, He caused the fall of our first parents through selfishness and self-seeking.

And this is the origin, the genesis of selfishness and self-seeking right there in the very Garden of Eden.

And yet we read down, we skip down a few verses to verse chapter 3, verse 15, and Jesus, God is making this promise of a Messiah that would come.

And He's speaking to the serpent when He says, "'I will put enmity or hatred between you and the woman, "'between your seed and her seed.

"'It, the seed of the woman, shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." The Bible here is predicting, God is here predicting the time when there would be a wonder of wonders, a time when the God of heaven would allow his heel to be crushed by the serpent.

God could have stayed safely in heaven's palaces, worshiped by the adoring angels, and yet right here in the very beginning of selfishness among humanity, God promises a demonstration to the world of unselfishness, of God allowing Himself, God Himself coming as the seat of the woman and allowing Himself to be crucified.

That 1 verse, friends, summarizes the gospel.

That 1 verse, it summarizes the Incarnation, it summarizes the Calvary's cross, And it summarizes the contrast between the serpent's selfishness and a God's unselfish love.

Oh, this wasn't just an afterthought, friends.

God, who knows all things, knew what decision mankind would take, and in the councils of heaven before this event took place, before that fruit was ever plucked by the serpent and handed to Eve, God had already decided that should his new creation sin, there would be a plan put in place for their salvation.

The Bible calls it the book of Revelation.

And by the way, friends, the book of Revelation is full of the gospel.

We're going to be studying, unlocking prophecy.

We're going to be studying the books of Daniel and Revelation, and you are going to see Jesus.

The very first verses of Revelation tell us that.

It's called a revelation of Jesus Christ.

And there's a blessing there in that first chapter, those who read it.

And here we find that in the book of Revelation it refers to Jesus, not just as the coming King, but it refers to Jesus as the Lamb, slain from when?

From the foundation of the world, friends.

But you see, Jesus had already decided, there had already been a decision made in heaven that should man sin, Jesus would be sent as the Messiah.

That God would give his only beloved Son, His only begotten Son, who He loved to save, to redeem, to rescue us from our sins.

And so we find here at the fall of man a contrast between humanity's narcissism, beginning right there in the Garden of Eden, banished from the Garden after the fall.

And on the other hand, the glorious, unselfish love of a Savior who would come, who would experience the non-fatal crushing of his heel in order that he might deliver a fatal blow to the head of the serpent.

The good news, friends, is the devil is a defeated foe, and Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jesus would come in the face of their selfishness as they are quibbling over whose fault this whole fall was anyway as Adam was pointing at Eve and Eve was pointing at the serpent and at God.

God demonstrates His unselfish love, His agape love, unselfish, self-sacrificing love.

This, friends, is God's character, agape love.

Now, we talk about that sometimes, but 1 Corinthians gives us the most complete definition of what agape means.

Do you understand the difference between agape and the other words for love in the New Testament?

In English we just say love, and that's sort of difficult because I can stand up and talk about love and it doesn't really mean a whole lot to us because we have 1 word which covers a whole spectrum of things.

Whereas in the Greek it was much more defined.

We have eros which is more of the physical attraction that we sometimes call love.

We had phileo, which is a brotherly love like we have for our friends or even our family, phileo.

Not What I Want

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