Individualitis; Stop Paying Attention to Yourself!

Mobilise 2013 - Main Meeting 5 - Andrew Wilson from Mobilise on Vimeo.

First, Andrew Wilson makes a great point about individualitis. The suffix, -itis, indicates the inflammation of something. Hence, tendinitis is an inflammation of a tendon or appendicitis is the inflammation of the appendix. Individualitis is the figurative inflammation, or undue attention given to, the individual over and against a corporate body.

Andrew Wilson is right that we tend to focus too heavily on ourselves. Children are naturally like this. Maturity is the growth away from thinking the world revolves around us to understanding how we can be useful to a group of people. Our culture is filled with immature people. With that observation, I’m going to be perfectly immature and talk about his message as though it were all about me.

First, he lists a group of people and says that Nehemiah isn’t mentioned. Nehemiah isn’t any more important than anyone else in the list. The problem I see with this is that Nehemiah’s name is still the name of the book. It’s wonderful, on the other hand that people can be involved with each other to create something beyond any of them. Wilson mentions the builder of the Dung Gate as the least one of these. My issue with this is I wish I had something as significant as a Dung Gate to build. Some of us aren’t even as important as the guy that built the Dung Gate.

Second, when you live in a society filled with individualists and you are trying to be a corporatist – I say “corporatist” because there are so few of them that there really isn’t a word for it – you will be marginalized. Individualists compete against one another to achieve the places of great importance. If you don’t compete, but really try to work with other people, you will be used by them to advance their importance. So the only way to be useful to God is to compete for the position to be useful. Now some of you might balk at what I’m saying so far. If so, you are being idealistic rather than realistic.

I keep bringing up Desiring God because some of their recent articles fit with what I’m saying. I love Desiring God ministries and appreciate all they do. Nevertheless, here’s an article talking about Self-Preoccupation. The message fits with Andrew Wilson’s teaching above. This is often what I think people would accuse me of. Jon Bloom has three very practical things to do in the process of not being self-preoccupied.

1.  “Deny yourself by getting your eyes off yourself.”

This presupposes that I’m paying attention to my own eyes. There must be a point at which we remain self-aware. I understand the concept, but Paul also instructs Timothy to keep a watch on himself and promote himself 1 Tim 4:11-16. Where is the line to be drawn? If you are having trouble bringing Paul’s admonition to Timothy to bear because of undue competition in the world, then the admonition to follow Matthew 16:24-25 is inappropriate.

2.  “Look to Jesus and all that God promises to do for you through him.”
God is all in all. In a desire for God, we must desire to serve him in all things. While God gives us gifts by virtue of the Holy Spirit who is in all believers, he doesn’t promise to use every last one of us. Paul indicates that it is the general ideal in passages such as 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 (most people miss the fact that 1 Corinthians 13 is in the middle of the larger discourse regarding using gifts in the Body of Christ, but that’s another issue altogether). So we can look at what Jesus has done for us, but we cannot expect that he will absolutely use every last one of us for his glory. How many people have been martyred for their faith without so much as a testimony? I assure you that they are out there and that most of us haven’t heard anything about them. How were they used? I know that’s an extreme example, but there is a difference between what is ideally prescribed and what is practically ordained.

Which leads to the last point:

3.  Serve others.

Except as I have already stated, there is no promise that we will be able to do this despite our desire to do it. I know of many ministers who are grateful for the ministries that they are able to do and all the people that they are able to minister to. But I know of many individuals who have no hope for ministry because of some physical or mental condition, for example. Speaking for myself, I know of no one who can say that I ministered to them. But if God doesn’t want me to minister, then I’ll just have to live with the frustration of having wanted to.

Failure in Ministry

I don’t mean to pick on Desiring God. There’s another article I’d like to respond to entitled Fighting the Tyranny of Ministry Success written by Ben Stuart.

I largely agree with what Ben wrote here. Read the article for the details. So Ben organizes a ministry event and only one guy shows up. He confesses that he resented that God didn’t bless his ministry and that he didn’t even love the one guy that showed up.

Largely, Ben has in mind the sinful effects of the celebrity church culture. However, the pattern of sin of self-glorification that he addresses is applicable to more than just celebrity envy. And I have to think that this is one thing that I would or have been thought to be guilty of. Indeed, I wonder if I really am guilty of such things.

But here I am presuming to do ministry by writing a blog anonymously. So how much do I really want to be glorified?

On the one hand you can say that ministry is held back by some unconfessed sin. There are biblical examples of this. Whether sin holds your ministry back or not, you need to repent of your sin. So on the other hand, there are plenty of examples of people who ministered most effectively while harboring great sin. Who of us is perfect? What minster out there is not yet still being sanctified? We all minister with some sin in our lives. We all minister with some sin that we don’t know about yet or haven’t been sanctified of. Paul seemed to indicate that even he struggled with sin. The big thing biblically is that we rely on God’s grace rather than our ability to keep from sinning. Also, God can use even the greatest sinners to minister in his name. Even king Saul prophesied.

So in Ben Stuart’s solution, his first suggestion is that we repent. We should indeed repent! However, our effectiveness may not necessarily be tied to our repentance for the reasons I just gave.

Ben’s second point is to love the sheep that you have been given. That’s good. But what if we haven’t been given sheep? What if we are a sheep? To what extent is Ben’s advice here applicable to the idea that in the Body of Christ we each should have a ministry toward one another? I can’t point to anyone who would say that I ministered to them. It’s not because I haven’t tried. I know a man from my church who is an itinerate evangelist. I subscribe to his tweets where he is grateful for the people who respond to the gospel when he preaches it and the churches and individuals who invite him to come and preach. He can be grateful for the people with whom he partners in ministry and the people to whom he ministers. I don’t have anyone I can thank for partnering with me. I don’t have anyone I can thank God for being able to minister to.

Maybe you think that’s a little extreme. Surly I have someone I minister to. However, I’m socially awkward. I’ll write a post on that later. Suffice it to say that people aren’t lining up to minister alongside me or to be ministered to by me.

Ben Stuart has organized an event where only one person showed up. I’ve organized events where no one showed up. I volunteered to take over running a recurring event that was doing well. We had sound teaching and music, focused prayer and fellowship. As soon as I took it over, people stopped coming altogether. Not only can I not love someone who isn’t there, but I can’t follow Ben’s final piece of advice.

Ben said finally to enjoy the peace that comes from knowing that we are doing work that pleases God. Gifts should be exercised according to how they build up the church (1 Cor 14:26). If what we do doesn’t build up the church, we shouldn’t do it (1 Cor 14:28). Try as we might, some of us simply can’t do anything to contribute to building up the church. Some people build up the church with everything they do. So how can we who can’t seem to do anything worthwhile enjoy the peace of knowing that we are doing work that pleases God? Doesn’t that contradict the premise of Ben’s article?

Now Ben Stuart is a godly man, I’m sure. He had a bad experience that taught him a lesson of sorts. Nevertheless, I’m sure he’s successful now. Here he is writing for Desiring God, a great ministry, and serving as the director of a Bible ministry on the campus of a major US university. I know this because the short list of credentials are posted with his article. He has the satisfaction of knowing that he is ministering to the glory of Christ although he once had a difficult moment.

There are plenty of people who don’t seem to have even had a difficult moment who issue similar messages to those of us who are failing in the proverbial pews to be effective ministers of Christ. It’s little comfort to be admonished by someone who has never been there or who has not experienced sustained failure. So I appreciate the moment of ministerial dryness that Ben Stuart has had, but I need to hear what I should think about a life of perpetual failure to accomplish much at all in ministry.

Pretense

n. 1. The act of pretending; a false appearance or action intended to deceive. 2. A false or studied show; an affectation: a pretense of nonchalance. 3. A professed but feigned reason or excuse; a pretext: under false pretenses. 4. Something imagined or pretended. 5. Mere show without reality; outward appearance. 6. A right asserted with or without foundation; a claim. See Synonyms at claim. 7. The quality or state of being pretentious; ostentation. [Middle English, from Old French pretensse, from Medieval Latin *praetnsa, from Late Latin, feminine ofpraetnsus, alteration of Latin praetentus, past participle of praetendere, to pretend, assert; seepretend.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

We all do it to some degree. For crying out loud, I'm blogging anonymously.

Incidentally, the reason I created this blog anonymously is to actually drop any pretense without adversely affecting my family, church, physician, counselor, etc. This gives you, the occasional reader, the opportunity to see what kinds of thoughts might be ailing that poor soul sitting a couple of pews over from you so that you might better minister to him or her.

But the most pretentious time of the week for most of us is Sunday morning (and Sunday evening and Wednesday evening for Baptists).

Now there actually is a good reason for this. We all sin. If we were to let everyone else in on all our little private sins, we wouldn't be able to trust each other. The problem is that we take it too far. We come to church and put on our best churchly face. Where is Galatians 6 in the way we conduct ourselves at church? Let's take a look at this:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. (Galatians 6:1-5, ESV)

How do you catch someone and restore them in any transgression unless there is a lack of pretense? But there is a limit. That's why we must keep watch on ourselves so that we are not tempted. This is the way we bear one another's burdens and it links us to the work of Christ on the cross through sacrificial love.

The next sentence brings up another aspect of pretense: self-deceit. It was enough of a problem then for Paul to address it and it is certainly a problem for us today in the Western Church. Western culture, in particular, breeds an exceptional form of pretentiousness. We think we are better than everyone else and we think we deserve more of whatever we covet than everyone else. And this makes its way into our churches. We think our opinions are superior. We might not say it or always act on it, but it's in the back of our heads. We are willing to compete for our superiority.

The thing is that while the Bible tells us we are not to think to highly of ourselves, it never tells us not to think too little of ourselves. Nevertheless, I have heard people say that it is sinful to think too low of yourself. There is no scriptural basis for that. The reason they say it is in part because many people who put themselves down do it because they really think too much of themselves and are being passive-aggressive. Also, it's because the culture, rather than the Bible, tells us that thinking highly of ourselves is a good thing. It's called self-esteem.

But what do you do if you really think lowly of yourself? You might realize that you have spiritual gifts to offer people, but you also recognize that you lack some ability to use those gifts effectively. You realize that you can't use those gifts unless you compete against others who are exhibiting their gifts pretentiously. If you tell someone about your gifts, then you either must be pretentious in order to use your gifts by competing successfully against others or you must expect to lose against others who are exhibiting their gifts pretentiously. If you don't tell someone about your gifts, then you are being pretentious. So it's a catch-22.

What is honest in this situation is that you realize that you cannot minister effectively without being pretentious. So I say with Isaiah, "I am a man of unclean lips."

Sluggishness

So I'm responding to a post on Desiring God entitled "Lay Aside the Weight of Sluggishness" by Jon Bloom.

I like Desiring God and support their message. This post was probably aimed at normal Christians, but I have to respond to some of what was written there.

The passage used as a basis is Hebrews 6:11-12:

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

The illustration given is a runner who is being sluggish:

Sluggishness in a runner signals danger to a coach. Something isn’t right. Something is causing ambivalence, draining confidence. The runner is losing heart. Half-hearted running is a forerunner to quitting.
That’s when a caring coach intervenes.

 That's assuming that a caring coach is present. One of my beefs is that I can't seem to get wise counsel from anyone. I don't have a coach. When I get sluggish, who is there to exhort me on? I've asked for help and some have tried, but they always stop short of giving me what I need.

So perhaps I need blog posts from Desiring God to serve as my life coach since no living person will do it.

When we feel like this we typically want an arm around the shoulder and a gentle word of understanding and commiseration. What we typically need are loving reproofs, like these:

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” (Hebrews 3:12)
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (Hebrews 4:1)
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27)

So perhaps I just need the Bible. I hold the authority of the Bible in high regard. As far as I'm concerned it is the source of information from God by which all other information should be judged. But do we not all need help applying it effectively?

So what does Jon Bloom give us as a list to go by?

1. Identify the doubt. Sluggishness has a cause. What is sapping your faith?
2. Repent. Unbelief is a sin. Seek to actively turn from it.
3. Target that unbelief with biblical truth. Stop whatever else you may be doing for devotional reading and focus on and pray through texts that deal directly with this issue. Lay aside your other book reading and read things that address this doubt.
4. Don’t go it alone. Humble yourself and share your struggle with trusted counselors God has given you. Our great Coach often speaks through assistant coaches (Hebrews 3:13).

So let's go through the list.

1. Identify the doubt.

What doubt this is Jon doesn't say. If I had a doubt, it's that God really wants to use me. I've tried to minister to people. In fact a couple of people have mentioned that I minister in ways that I don't know about. They have told me what those ways are and I suspect that they are just saying that hoping that it's true because they can't really think of anything specific to mention.

2. Repent.

I haven't been convinced that my particular doubt is a sin. God uses people. God uses some people more than others. Some people have the greater honor. Some people are so pitiful that they have to be hidden (1 Cor 12:23b). I often wonder at passages like this if Paul is giving us an ideal that is rarely followed by churches today or if we are to assume that this is the way churches really function. If this is an ideal only, then it must be true that many people simply aren't used the way that Paul indicates that they are to function within the Body of Christ.

So what am I to repent of? How am I supposed to change? Do I simply decide to believe that God will use me and he suddenly will? I used to believe this and he didn't. so I must conclude that not everyone is seen as worth using in the Body of Christ by those who determine such things. Show me a pastor, deacon, or elder who actually organizes the work of the church according to 1 Cor 12, and I will repent. Otherwise, there is nothing to repent of.

3. Target that unbelief with biblical truth.

I just tried that. I think my doubt is biblically and practically justified.

4. Don't go it alone.

Find me someone who will give me wise counsel and follow through with it and I won't go it alone. If you can't, do it yourself. I've tried and people back away. I really wish people wouldn't ask socially awkward people like myself to go find someone on our own. That's like asking a 2-year-old who got lost at Disneyland to go find his own parents. No. The parents go looking for the 2-year-old. I've asked people to help. I've even had some people offer. However, no one will stick with me.

I know. Depressing, isn't it?