Identity John Ortberg

Transcription

1 Menlo Park Presbyterian Church 950 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA Series: /soul-o-lo-gy/ June 10, 2012 Genesis 2:7; Ecclesiastes 6:7; Psalm 107:9 Identity John Ortberg Okay, we're launching a new series this weekend, and I want to start here. Somebody gave me an ad the other day, and I couldn't believe it. It's a full-page ad in the newspaper of a university I don't want to name, so we'll just call it University X. The ad is headlined, "Genius Egg Donor Wanted." Not smart genius egg donor. "Great compensation." The ad goes on to say, "We are a couple seeking high-achiever egg donor to help build our family. As an example of our ideal egg donor, it could be a 21-year-old University X student with an A grade point average and near-perfect SAT scores " So they're allowing a little slack in the SAT. " having won several awards in high school and university." By the way, does anybody want to guess what university newspaper that ad was in? I don't want to say it by name, but it is near this campus. It's not Menlo College. The school's team nickname sounds like a bird but is actually a color. So apparently they're not all that bright at this particular school. The parents go on to say, "We hope our child will be a top student, as each of us was, and able to go to University X or another top university." Now I'm not sure I'd want to be a kid in that family. Can you imagine parents putting pressure on their kids to perform academically and get into a prestigious school so the kids actually get anxious about school and learning, which should be a joy, becomes stressful and competitive? Can you imagine that actually going on in our world? My biggest concern in sharing this is I know after the message someone is going to come up to me and ask, "Now where do we get those genius eggs again?" I heard the most amazing description of Menlo Park the other day. A new person noted how it was kind of like a small town. A lot of people know each other, but everybody wants everybody else to know how smart they are. This new guy said, "It's Mayberry with a high IQ," only Opie is taking amphetamines to raise his SAT score so he doesn't have to go to a junior college in Mount Pilot. By the way, there is a front-page newspaper story in The New York Times today. Up to 40 percent of students in high-achieving high schools are taking amphetamines to try and get more focused and raise their SAT scores. Today, The New York Times. We live in Mayberry with a high IQ, only Sheriff Taylor just got suspended by the mayor because he and Helen Crump have issues. Aunt Bee has retired to the V, but nobody goes to visit her there and she feels all alone. It's Mayberry with a high IQ, but Goober sold the gas station to a couple from Mexico. They work 14 or 16 hours a day, and they still can't afford to live in Mayberry. They're not sure they'll ever be really embraced there. It's Mayberry with a high IQ, but we all keep asking, "Am I smart enough? Am I pretty enough? Are my kids achieving enough? Am I doing okay?" - 1 -

2 We all have this strange vulnerability. You all know what I'm talking about. Your boss does a job review and talks about 19 areas of strength and one area that is a growth opportunity. What is it you remember? A researcher named Brene Brown says, "We are the most in debt, obese, addicted, medicated adult cohort in U.S. History." Why? I want to tell you the really deep reason. It is because of this tiny, fragile, vulnerable, precious thing about you called your soul. You are not just a self; you are a soul. The Bible said in words that would change the world, "The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." You're a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, which means you were not made to be self-sufficient. Over and over the biblical writers talk about this soul-driven neediness of human beings. They say, "All the toil of man is for his mouth " For our appetites, for our wants. " yet his soul is not satisfied." I'm actually going to talk about soul satisfaction next week. The soul is a needy little creature. The purpose of this need is to drive us to God, for God "has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul he has filled with what is good." I know in our day the word soul does not get used much. People wonder, Isn't it kind of an old-fashioned concept? Isn't the word kind of outdated? Hasn't neuroscience proved there is no such thing? Why should we spend a whole series on the soul? I want to tell you why. Your soul is the deepest thing about you, and if you don't recognize it, acknowledge it, and care for it, you will waste your one and only life trying to succeed in Mayberry with a high IQ. These are the words of Jesus. They will be really, really core to this series. "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" You have a soul, and Jesus says, "It is the kind of thing that can get lost." "For what can a man give in return for his soul?" So for the rest of today I want to talk about why a healthy, God-rooted soul matters to you more than anything else in the world. I want to give you reasons why I would preach a whole series on building a healthy soul. 1. The Bible says it's my job. That's what those of us who are pastors are charged to do. It's what the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews says. He writes to people at a church, "Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over your souls as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you." Sometimes it just gets translated, " they keep watch over you," but the writer actually says, " keep watch over your souls " In fact, one of the ancient titles for my job, for a pastor, was called a curate. Some of you have heard that word. It's from the expression "the cure of souls." The soul is the kind of thing that can get sick from sin and needs to be cured, and my job is to watch over your souls. That's a scary thing to me because I know something about the state of my own soul. The Bible says I will be accountable to God for watching over the condition of your soul. So everybody, stop sinning. We all clear on that now? It's kind of a scary deal. By the way, if you look at this verse, my job is to watch over your soul. What's your job? Well it says your job is to follow them (leaders, me) "so that their work will be a joy." Your job is to make my job a joy. How is your job going? It's what the Bible says. Of course beyond that in a community our job is ultimately to watch each other's souls. At the heart of love is to care for the soul of another person. Not primarily their success, not primarily their body even for their soul. So we're going to do this series because the Bible says it's the job in the church to watch over the soul

3 2. Your life is under the direction of your soul. These are brilliant words from Dallas Willard: "What is running your life at any given moment is your soul. Not external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings, but your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything going on in the various dimensions of the self. The soul is the life center of human beings." Now we have to talk for a moment about what the soul is. I mentioned this a few months ago. We'll review this through the series because it is so critical. It's part of an ancient conversation. We live in a day where we know a lot about the parts of our bodies but very little about the parts of our personhood, which is the concern of the Bible and the ancient world. So here are the critical parts of the person: A. The will. Now the will is your capacity to choose. At its simplest, you can say, "Yes," and you can say, "No." Sometimes this is referred to as spirit. Now of course spirit has a wide range of meanings, but it's helpful at its core to think of the spirit as a kind of personal power. Not like electricity or magnetic power, it's the power of a person to choose. This is sometimes referred to in the Bible as heart, and when the word heart is used it's emphasizing how central your will is to your personhood. The will is what makes you a person and not a thing. That's why when your will gets violated or overridden or overwhelmed, you feel a loss of dignity. You feel violated as a person. That's part of why sometimes work or things like politics that involve power can be so difficult to preserve the dignity of personhood. That's the will. It's precious. It's very important, but it's also limited in its power. I would like to think my will is running the show of my life, but from diet, to anger, to money, to sex, to my mouth We have all kinds of expressions about this. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Now that's a "will" word, the word intention. I want to choose to do good things, but I often find my will ain't running the show. B. The mind. In the ancient world generally mind referred to both my thoughts but also my feelings because they're very tightly connected. Now again I'd like to think my mind is running the show, that my behavior is always reasonable and always logical, but of course it's not. I'll give you a little picture of how the mind works because it's so complex. On Friday I was running an errand, and I had to use my credit card to pay for something. I looked in my wallet, and I noticed my credit card was gone. I remembered I had given it to my son some days earlier, and I hadn't gotten it back. I was just kind of irritated, just kind of grousing in my spirit. How come that kid can't remember to give me my credit card back? I need it. I texted him, "Do you have my credit card?" He texted back, "Yes." Then I remembered this is all in my mind I forget stuff a lot. I'm terrible on details. I don't really appreciate it when I don't mean to do something bad and somebody gets all judgmental with me over that. Then I remembered I had given him the credit card to run an errand we agreed on needed to get run, and he was actually doing it at that moment. So there was no way he could have given the credit card back to me. So I changed the tone of my next text. I texted him again, and I just said, "I miss my card." True story. He texted me back, "I will help you to forget it." - 3 -

4 Memories, values, the conscience, what my values are and how I feel about those, the experience of guilt, humor, joy All of that is in the mind. Of course we must live out of the flow of the thoughts and the feelings of our minds. It's tremendously important, but it doesn't always operate logically. C. The body. My body is my little kingdom. The body is terribly important to you because, when you think about it, it's the place in all this universe of created matter, it's the one little blob of matter where my tiny little will has the chance to be in charge. I can just say to my hands or my feet or my mouth, "Do these things," and they do them. The body is your little kingdom. If you had a will and a mind but you didn't have a body, your existence would be much different. So the body is tremendously important. My body is also full of all kinds of appetites and all kinds of habits. Now God intended for my body to serve my mind and my will, but because of sin, because everything is all wrong, often instead of my body obeying my will, my intentions, my will gets enslaved to my body. So for instance, addictions. An addiction is when the will has become enslaved to the appetites of the body. D. The soul. There is an ancient conversation about the nature of the soul. In general, thinkers in the ancient world would look at how a living creature, a living being has a variety of functions. It can take in nourishment, can grow, and can reproduce. Then with animals you add to that they can perceive and they can move. Then with people they can reason abstractly and they have moral will. So all these different functions, but they all come together to form one single being, creature, life. Ancient thinkers thought this capacity to integrate different functions into one whole life is called soul. Soul is the capacity to integrate different functions into a single being. That's what the ancient world thought about it. There were different notions about it one direction or another, but that's the core idea. Every language has a word for soul because there is something innate in human beings that knows, "I have one. I am one." The soul is the deepest part of you, and it is the whole person. This is so true that the word soul, in both Old Testament, New Testament, and elsewhere in the ancient world, is often simply a synonym for the person. Even in our day it's interesting how our language reflects soul. On an airplane or ship records, there will sometimes be the question, "How many souls on board?" Most people have no idea where this comes from, but it's in the ancient world. For example, Acts 27, verse 37. Paul is on a ship, and Luke says, "Altogether there were 276 souls on board." Your soul is what integrates your will (your intentions), your mind (your thoughts and feelings, your values, your conscience), and your body (your face, body language, actions) into a single life. A soul was made (It's happy. It's healthy) when there is harmony between my will, my mind (what I think and feel and value), my body (what I actually do), and God's intent for all creation. I'm connected with God and other people in life. That's a healthy soul. Sin always causes the disintegration of the soul. We talk about the drive to be an integrated person or for wholeness. This is all about the soul, and sin is the great enemy of the soul. I choose to harbor judgmental thoughts about you, but I can't let you know that so I learn to twist my face into a smile to deceive you even though I haven't said a word. Now my mind and my body are disintegrated. I have a proud heart. I have greedy hands. I have lustful eyes. I am everlastingly obsessed with myself. My will gets enslaved to my appetites that can never be satisfied

5 Then through denial (that's another huge topic) the will causes the mind to misperceive reality. Denial is the will hampering the mind at really deep levels I'm usually not even aware of. Because of that I'm full of spiritual blindness. I don't even know my own self. Now this is the ruined soul, and Jesus makes this amazing statement: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" Now most people have no idea what Jesus is saying here. I used to think what this meant was, "It doesn't do any good to have a lot of money and a lot of sex and a lot of pleasure and all that stuff if you end up going to hell." That is not what Jesus is saying. That might end up happening, but that's not his point. His point is to diagnose precisely a specific and very real human problem, human condition. For the ruined soul that is, where the will and the mind and the body are disintegrated, out of sync with one another, disconnected from God, and living at odds with the way God made life in the universe to run acquiring the whole world could not produce or even sustain satisfaction, let alone meaning and goodness. You don't have to believe the Bible to believe this. Just look at the world. Look at Howard Hughes. Look at Amy Winehouse. Look at me. Look at you. That is why we must do this series. We live on the planet of lost souls. That is the human problem, and it is not even getting addressed. It is not some superficial thing that only relates to getting the right afterlife if you affirm the right doctrines; it has to do with the depth of the human condition, which Jesus identified like nobody else ever has. 3. The neglected soul doesn't go away; it goes awry. We're going to learn about the soul together because you're not likely to learn about it anywhere else. Our world has replaced the word soul with the word self, and they're not the same thing. It's very interesting. Psychologist (kind of my background) comes from the New Testament Greek word psuche, which actually meant soul. That's why we're calling this series /soul-o-lo-gy/, the study of the soul. That ought to be what psychology is about, apart from what anything thinks about religion. But psychology has focused on the self, and self carries a totally different connotation than soul. Think of the difference between being selfish and being soul-ish. We live in a world that revolves around the self. It's become our basic category. Really interesting. The Journal of the American Medical Association cited a study not too long ago. In the twentieth century, people who lived in each generation were three times more likely to experience depression than folks in the generation before them through the whole of the twentieth century. Through all of the rise of the mental health profession, people are three times more likely every generation. Why? Well a guy named Martin Sullivan, brilliant psychologist, not religious, no religious ax to grin His theory is it's because we have replaced church, faith, and community with a tiny little unit that cannot bear the weight of meaning. That's the self. We're all about the self. We revolve our lives around ourselves. He actually named this narcissistic, me-first, self-esteem-worshipping self after one of the fifty states in the USA. Anybody want to guess which state he named it after? It ain't Idaho. It's not Illinois where I grew up. It would be the "California self." All of our language reflects this. If you're empty, you need to fulfill yourself. If you're stressed, learn how to take care of yourself. If you're on a job interview, you have to believe in yourself. If you're at the tattoo parlor, you must learn to express yourself. If someone dares to criticize you, you have to love yourself. If - 5 -

6 you're not getting your own way, you have to stand up for yourself. What should you do on a date? You ought to be yourself. What if yourself is a train wreck? What do you do then? See the world soul reminds us we were not made for ourselves; the soul always exists before God. The soul lives in a context as opposed to the self that's just become the center of a non-moral, purely physical universe. That's why the two words are not interchangeable. So soul is needed for deep art, poetry, and music. Imagine singing, "It is well with myself," or "Then sings myself, my Savior God to thee," or "Jesus, lover of myself." It doesn't do it. Even Biblical translations reflect the loss of soul. The old King James Bible, if you go through it, uses the English word soul 533 times. The New King James Bible came along a few centuries later. The word soul is in it 369 times. In the New International Version, later yet, the word soul occurs 136 times. In the Living Bible, the word soul is in there only 88 times. For a variety of reasons, some of which have to do with misunderstandings of science, we're losing the word soul. But the soul doesn't go away. It cries out through 1,000 symptoms. The soul must know it matters. There is a wonderful line in a song O Holy Night. We usually sing it at Christmastime. O holy night, the stars are brightly shining It is the night of our dear Savior's birth Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth The soul felt not its guilt, but its worth. Nobody but Jesus. Behind all of our self-preoccupation and all of our "Mayberry with a high IQ" lives is a soul need. Your soul must feel its worth. You will drive yourself and other people crazy until it does. A practical word on care of the soul here. A couple of weeks ago I went to the ocean, and I spent most of the day alone. It's a strange thing I don't fully understand. I have a lot of people in my life who love me and who will tell me that, but when I am alone, and for me it often takes a few hours, all the obligations and expectations and need to perform kind of melt from my mind. I am reminded when I'm alone God loves me. There is something about life, including mine, that is infinitely deeper than all the expectations and roles and performance stuff. It changes my body. I can feel it. My soul feels its worth. You are only able to live in a way that really helps and loves and is free with other people when your soul feels its worth. This comes all the time in the Scriptures. "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God." 4. Unhealthy souls grow rushed, weary, and shallow, and souls can only find rest in God. We see this all over in the Bible. "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul." Do you see this language? Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." That's what you need. In the Bible you never see the words soul and hurry in the same verse. The psalmist never says, "Get the lead out, O my soul." A really practical word around the care of the soul here. Are you getting enough sleep? I know you love sleep because some of you are getting it right now. Sleep itself can be an act of trust in God. I know when my will and my mind and my body are doing nothing, God, you're running the universe

7 There are two ways you can live. One will exhaust your soul, to live like Atlas. Do you remember the old story of Atlas in Greek mythology? What did he carry on his shoulders? The weight of the world. You just look at people walking down the street. You look at their faces, and they will tell you they are carrying the weight of the world. That is mostly about outcomes. I am bearing the weight of outcomes, and what's at stake is the worth of, I think, myself (really my soul). There is another way. Dallas Willard talks a lot about letting go of outcomes. I don't have to carry the burden of outcomes. I remember one time when Dallas was speaking at our church. Usually when somebody gives a talk, when the talk is over their mind is filled with these thoughts: I wonder how the talk went? If it went well, I can feel pretty good about myself. If it went badly, I'm going to feel pretty badly about myself. I wonder what everybody thought? How is this talk going? Do you think it's going okay? Now I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Don't do that. Don't tell me. Dallas finished doing this talk. He talks a lot about letting go of outcomes. We're walking out to the parking lot, and he's just shuffling along singing this old hymn. I realize in his body, to the depth of his soul, he just talks to try to help people. Then he lets it go. It was like watching a kid with helium balloons. So here is the picture this week as you go through this week. Now these are the outcomes of stuff you can't control. You do a presentation. You give a talk. What does everybody think? You don't have to carry that burden. Once it's done, it's done. How is my career going? Aging. A spouse. A child. I do the best in the moment, asking God for his help, and then let it go. That's how the soul was meant to live. Now you practice that this weekend, this week. In each moment I'm with God, and then I let it go. There is a wonderful book on this, and the author writes, "The soul that rests in God is light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child " Gosh, these words are so fabulous." responding to every moment of grace like a floating balloon." See this is the invitation of Jesus: " and you will find rest for your souls." We're going to learn about this. We're going to do this together. We're going to launch next week into soul satisfaction and just take off from there. 5. Your soul can be all right when everything in your world is all wrong. These marvelous words from Peter to a little flock: "Though you have not seen him [Jesus], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Again, that's not simply talking about where you're going to go after you die; that word salvation means healing or deliverance at the deepest level of who you are in the care of God through the presence of Jesus. Sooner or later, your world will fall apart. What will matter then is the soul you have constructed. I'm going to ask Debbie to come out right now. A lot of you will know or be able to guess the song she is going to sing about the soul and know the story behind it. I'll tell you a little bit I didn't know. It's a song that was written by Horatio Spafford a long time ago after he had lost several children in a shipwreck. What I didn't know was how much he had lost before that. He invested most of what he had in real estate. He lived in Chicago and lost it in Have you ever heard of the Great Chicago Fire? It destroyed his home. They had no insurance. Lost his money. Lost their son to scarlet fever. Then he put his wife and their four remaining daughters on a boat to go to England. He had to stay behind for business. There was a shipwreck, and his wife ended up sending him a telegram with just the words, - 7 -

8 "Saved alone. What shall I do?" All four of their daughters were lost. He gets on a ship, and when he gets to about the same place in the ocean where his daughters were all drowned, he writes these words: When peace like a river attends my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, you have taught me to say It is well with my soul. Would you bow your heads for a moment? This is a soul moment for God and you. Where does your soul need to be healed? From sin? From regret? From a loss too deep for words? Jesus is still in the soulhealing business. Let him speak to your soul right now. [Song] When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul It is well, it is well with my soul And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight The clouds be rolled back as a scroll The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul It is well, it is well with my soul It is well with my soul It is well, it is well with my soul [End song] - 8 -