- [Kyle Strobel] Yes.
I think this is one of the most
disconcerting phenomenas we see in our
culture today, and we constantly see it
infiltrating the church as well.
You know, one of the problems is there,
well, there's a lot of books and things
like that, that go directly under the kind
of banner of self-help.
The problem is there's quite a lot that
don't that are still just self-help.
So, if you went into a bookstore and went
to a Christian living section, sadly,
what you'd find is a lot of books on
self-help that have just been kind
of redone with Christian veneer.
They've been kind of dressed up in
Christian garb.
But at the end of the day,
they're just self-help.
And even more disconcerting is this is
even true of kind of serious academic
books where at the end of the day what we
find is something just like Aristotle.
Right? We can habituate practices.
We habituate these things.
We develop habits.
Suddenly, we are transforming ourselves
into people of character.
See, at the end of the day,
that's not what sanctification is about.
That's not primarily what growth in
godliness is about.
And unfortunately, we see this popping up
in all sorts of different areas
in the church, whether it's spiritual
practices, whether it's
spiritual disciplines,
whether it's liturgy.
All of these things can be used as forms
of self-help if we're not careful.
So that question is, well,
then what does it mean to be careful
about these things?
Well, I think first and foremost,
we need to constantly re-more these
questions to what does it mean to be holy
as God is holy.
In other words, how do we understand
doctrine of sanctification but then also,
what is the nature of grace, and what's
the nature of receiving and sharing
in that grace?
In the Protestant tradition,
we talked about means of grace,
not really spiritual disciplines.
See, the problem with spiritual discipline
language is people are getting to think,
"Oh, I know what a discipline is.
If I do his, I'll better myself.
I'll become a different kind of person."
That's not being holy as God is holy.
Means of grace are means of kind of
receiving and sharing in God's life.
But then the second problem is that, that
word "self" right at the beginning
of self-help that the word...
The second we give ourself to self-help,
we are capitulating to a culture that
assumes that self is centered, and now I
just give myself to things
to better myself, to identify myself.
We really need to hear Jesus here,
that if you try to save your life,
you lose it.
But if you lose it for my sake,
you'll find it.
We need to heed what Paul says in
Colossians 3:3, "Your life is hidden
with Christ in God."
If you want to discover yourself,
you discover yourself in Christ.
You don't somehow create a self.
You don't establish a self.
You discover it in him.
You need to be open to laying yourself
down so, not for the sake of just laying
itself down, but so that you can receive
your true identity in him.
- [Jamin Goggin] Yeah.
I think, Kyle, as a pastor, what
comes up for me is the sense for people
that oftentimes God is viewed simply as
another resource to kind of have the life
that I have already determined is
meaningful, and valuable, and successful.
And sadly, I think oftentimes that maybe
have even heard the gospel presented that
way where we hear a lot about Jesus and
what he's done. But the end of the sermon
kind of lands with, "And here are some
things you can do to kind of address these
areas of your life that we all know you
want to do better in so that you can feel
maybe more okay with
yourself in your life."
And a language that's become, I think,
really common, in the maybe more pastoral
circles I run in, is the language
of human flourishing.
And I think it's really good language if
it's understood properly.
But I think it's language that
actually does touch on something that many
of my people in my church and many of the
churches I interact with do kind
of understand, namely that kind of on this
trajectory of becoming a more kind
of thriving self.
And where human flourishing concerns me is
if it's anchored in this notion of kind
of self-actualization that I have certain
capacities, and strengths, and abilities.
And if I can just kind of home in on those
and kind of my will can meet those with
the right amount of ferv, and
effort, and engagement I can kind
of construct a life and a self that I can
feel okay with.
And God is really just a resource to help
me get there and maybe he's the
best resource, maybe his principles are
the best principles.
But that's all he really has provided me
is another way to actualize myself.
The Scripture presents this radical other
notion about human flourishing that
actually human flourishing isn't grounded
in self-actualization but in abiding.
Right? It's not the actualized self that
is flourishing but the abiding self
that is flourishing.
It moves us into all these other
categories of dependence, and
trust, and reliance.
The passage that surfaces for me right
away as we talk about this is John 15
that "Abide in me, and I in you,
for apart from me, you can do nothing."
Of course, in the Greek,
it's what's called double negation, right,
where Jesus is kind of literally inferring
you can do nothing, really nothing.
It's one of those rare cases where Greek
is actually helpful to bring up in talking
about a passage.
Jesus is making this emphatic point that
if you abide in me you will flourish.
You'll bear much fruit.
But apart from me, you can do nothing,
really nothing.
There's this whole other philosophy of
life that says flourishing actually comes
from a deep dependence, and trust in me
that power is really known in weakness,
that strength that we have found in places
where you recognize apart from me you
can do nothing.
And so, as Kyle said, there is a place,
of course, in the Christian life, we're
talking about practices.
But I think the point he makes is the
important one.
These are means of grace.
In other words, they are means by which we
commune with Christ and come to know what
it means to truly abide in him.
There are means by which we draw near to
him and the truth of our frailty, and our
weakness, and our failure, and we ask for
his help by the work of the Holy Spirit
in our lives.
