[0:00] Okay, today I'm going to talk about repenting from victim mentality.! Repenting from victim mentality.! I'm going to start off with a verse from John chapter 7.
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[1:01] You know, they were searched and they were immediately held accountable. And they had no excuses.
[1:12] That's what being around Jesus is like. And I just thought about that. Like, what is it to have a church where, you know, Jesus says he's here with us for his body. He lives and dwells in the temple through the Holy Spirit.
[1:27] So it should be like that, you know. I don't know if any of you who've read Chronicles of Narnia, I love all the scenes with Aslan because it's exactly like this.
[1:37] I think C.S. Lewis just nails it. Just this, he immediately calls you to account. If you start complaining about other people, he more or less is like, what's that to you? You know.
[1:48] And there's immediately just this sense of, oh, it's Aslan. My mouth is shut. And yeah, I am accountable.
[1:59] And I've been distracted by a bunch of other things that are preventing me to see that I'm accountable. And then you talk to me and now I see it. And that's what it should be like in Christ's church.
[2:12] You know. He sent the ministry of the Holy Spirit for the upbuilding. We speak the truth of love to the building up of the church that we might grow up into Jesus in all things. And part of that is being held accountable.
[2:23] And there's, I don't know if this is the best term for it, but I think the opposite of being held accountable is having a victim mentality. Holding on to this thing that disperses my accountability among a bunch of other people.
[2:36] And that's all I want to talk about today. So victim mentality. Repenting from victim mentality. First, what is victim mentality? So I'll look at two sources.
[2:48] I'm going to look at Grok, which is an AI thing through Twitter. For those of you who like AI, I enjoy it. I did not write my sermon in AI, but I did get a definition for this.
[3:00] And then the Bible. Okay, so we're going to major on the Bible, but we're going to minor on this definition. We're going to start off with this one because it's really good. So Grok. Grok. I asked Grok, what is victim mentality? Grok says victim mentality is, the definition of victim mentality is, a psychological mindset where an individual consistently perceives themselves as the victim of circumstances.
[3:22] As a victim of other people's actions. As a victim of external events. Often feeling powerless to change their situation. It involves a persistent belief that one is unfairly treated, targeted, or unable to influence their life outcomes.
[3:41] Leading to a cycle of self-pity, blame, and avoidance of personal responsibility. This is awesome. I love it. It's great. Sounds good.
[3:52] We'll see if the Bible corroborates this, but, you know, sounds good so far. Key characteristics. These are some indicators. This is characteristics that typify someone who has a victim mentality.
[4:03] Number one, external blame. They often point fingers at others or outside events for their problems. Like saying, everyone's out to get me, instead of looking at their own actions. Number two, a sense of powerlessness.
[4:15] They feel like they have no control over what happens to them as if they're stuck and they can't make things better. Self-pity. They focus a lot on their struggles.
[4:26] Sometimes making them seem worse than they are, which keeps them feeling like a victim. Avoidance of responsibility. Number four, they avoid owning up to their mistakes and prefer to say someone or something else caused their issues.
[4:42] Defensiveness. Defensiveness. When someone gives them feedback, they might take it personally. Get upset or see it as an attack instead of a chance to grow. Number six, entitlement.
[4:54] They may think they deserve extra sympathy or help from others because of their hardships. Number seven, pessimism. They tend to expect the worst, like thinking things will always go wrong or people will let them down.
[5:08] Number eight, repetition of negative patterns. They often end up in situations where they feel mistreated or taken advantage of as their mindset keeps pulling them into these cycles.
[5:24] So all these characteristics, external blame, sense of powerlessness, self-pity, avoidance of responsibility, defensiveness, entitlement, pessimism. Man, it happens a lot. But everywhere they go, somehow they're done wrong and it ain't their fault.
[5:41] Okay? That's what someone who has a victim mentality acts like. So if none of these are familiar to you, you need to go and have like a humility check.
[5:56] Like this is convicting to me categorically on every single one of these. And it should be convicting to us because this is baked into our Adamic, sinful nature, which we'll read about when we get to the Bible's definitions.
[6:10] So that's what Grok says. Okay? Set that aside. People make things up. You know, what does the Bible have to say? Maybe that's all wrong. All right? So now we're going to pivot to the Bible, see what the Bible has to say about victim mentality.
[6:22] I think there's two stories. I want to read two stories. I think they're a good example of this. The first is Adam and Eve. Genesis chapter 3, verses 9 through 13.
[6:34] The context for this is God had commanded Adam to not eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He forms Eve after this. And you know the story.
[6:45] They fall into sin. They eat it. They eat the apple. Okay? And so now they're in a state of sin. And God's following up on it. This is the context for this. Verse 9.
[6:56] But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, Adam is hiding, by the way. He'd made fig leaves for himself and he was covering himself up because he realized he was naked.
[7:07] Him and his wife gloom. And they're hiding from God. All right? And Adam said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And God said, who told you that you were naked?
[7:19] Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?
[7:34] And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So, do any of these sound familiar? External blame. It's God.
[7:45] You gave me this woman. Each other. You know. The devil. The devil made me do it. Technically, those are all true. See, that's the problem with this mentality is it takes facts, true things, and warps them to defend you from your ownership of your own sin.
[8:07] Sense of powerlessness. She gave me the fruit and I ate. I mean, what's it supposed to do? She gave it to me, you know. The serpent deceived me and I ate. I just, I couldn't help it, you know. I'm a woman, right?
[8:20] I know that's offensive, but this is, this is, this is the narratives we run, you know. I mean, Paul says it. He says, hey, listen, the reason women are not to hold a role of authority in the church is because Eve was deceived and the man wasn't deceived.
[8:36] He did it knowingly, okay? He's more culpable. That's a fact. She's alluding to this right off the very beginning. Does it absolve her of her moral agency? No. No. She's accountable.
[8:48] Anyway, self-pity. Avoidance of responsibility. They're immediately hiding, okay? They're trying to hide from God. They don't want to, you know, they don't want to have this conversation that's about to happen. Defensiveness.
[9:01] God just asked, did you do it? You realize that they didn't even, they didn't just say yes. They gave a case. They started off with a case. Yeah, the woman you gave me, you know, she gave it to me and I ate it.
[9:12] The serpent deceived me and I ate it. He just said, did you do it? Accountability just says yes. You know, they didn't do that. Blame shifting, hiding. Defensiveness.
[9:23] Entitlement. They're garnering sympathy. You gave me this, you know, woman. You know how possible she is. Give me fruit, you know, like, it's just immediately. It's the devil. He's the deceiver.
[9:34] Like, who could stand in the presence of the deceiver like that? Of course I've got to see, you know, entitlement. So I think these characteristics are pretty clear.
[9:44] They're here. Pessimism. You know, they have a sense of foreboding, driven by their guilt. They're hiding from God. Something bad's going to happen. Guilt makes that happen. You have a pessimistic outlook always.
[9:55] You probably are loaded down with guilt. It clouds everything. Okay? Repetition of negative patterns. You see they had one sin, and then they started stacking them all. Okay?
[10:07] They didn't stop the sinning. It's blaming people. It's hiding. It's trying self-righteously to make some garments for yourself and clothe yourself. You know, they're just, they're immediately in a cycle.
[10:20] You know? So anyway, I think those are all the Grok attributes, I guess, and they seem pretty substantial. You know, they're substantiated by this. So seems to shake out here.
[10:33] There's two more, though, that jumped out to me here. I think this is where we start to see how Christian the Bible is. The world doesn't think about certain things that God does.
[10:48] You see they did some other things, too. They started making self-righteous sacrifices. They immediately started trying to deal with their sin and their guilt with their own effort. They make fig leaves, try to cover themselves.
[11:02] That's not in the Grok definition, but I think it fits. Okay? That fits with how we are. When we're locked in a cycle of victimhood, you can see it play out like that.
[11:14] We'll talk about that more later. And then no conviction of sin. You see, there is no conviction of sin. They were sorry. They were admitting it. No. There's no conviction of sin. They hated the consequences.
[11:25] They got caught. They didn't hate the sin. They hated that they got caught, and they were trying to get out somehow of the consequences by blaming other people, throwing other people under the bus.
[11:38] All right. It's example number one. Example number two. Jesus' parable of the minas or the minas.
[11:49] I don't know how to pronounce it, but I'll call it minas. Luke 19, verses 12 through 27. He said, This is Jesus speaking. A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.
[12:05] Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas and said to them, Engage in business until I come. But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We do not want this man to reign over us.
[12:16] When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him that he might know what they had gained by doing business. The first came before him, saying, Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.
[12:29] And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful in very little. You shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, your mina has made five minas.
[12:40] And he said to him, And you are to be over five cities. And then another came, saying, Lord, here is your mina, which I have laid away in a handkerchief.
[12:50] For I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit and you reap what you did not sow. And the master said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant.
[13:04] You knew that I was a severe man taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank and at my coming I might have collected it with interest? And he said to those who stood by, Take the mina from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.
[13:18] And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas. You can see this kind of humanistic, humanistic, like, fairness mentality creeping here. It's just like, what? You're going to give this to the one who has the most?
[13:31] It's just like, I mean, share, you know? It's not the way the Lord works. I tell you, why? Why does he do that? I tell you that everyone who has, more will be given.
[13:42] Okay? But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. Whew, man.
[13:53] That is a brutal story. There's a lot to say about that principle. I'm just going to say this as an aside. God is not like we are. He's not a humanist.
[14:05] He doesn't have this weird sense of fairness. He has, the economy in his kingdom is faithfulness. If you are faithful with little, you will get more. And if you are faithful with that, you will get more.
[14:16] You know who God gives stuff to? People who've been faithful with much. He has no quals not giving you anything if you're not faithful with it. Okay?
[14:27] So, setting that aside, just, you know, this principle is all over scripture. I think it bears mentioning. Okay, but anyway, back to the attributes of, of, the grok attributes of victim mentality.
[14:40] We have them here. External blame. Servant blames his master for his failure. It's because you're such a hard guy. Like, who could invest with a guy like you? Sense of powerlessness.
[14:53] Sense of powerlessness. He won't accept that he has the ability to go grow that investment. You know? It's magic. I don't know all this, you know, investment stuff. It's too risky, you know? I'm just gonna. Self-pity.
[15:06] He tries to elicit sympathy for his disobedience. Avoids responsibility. He blames his master. Again, blame shifting. He doesn't own his own sinful fear of failure. He blames his master.
[15:18] You're just too scary, you know? Entitlement. Tries to get sympathy by accusing his master of being too hard. Pessimism. He just assumes from the outset it's not gonna go well for him, okay? So you have it all there.
[15:30] Every single one of those things. And then you have the two extra, the Bible ones, right? Self-righteous sacrifices. Right? I did the thing. I hid the talent. He thought that was his bare minimum.
[15:42] He's being a good boy. I did what you said. I took care of it. Like, don't you, aren't you gonna accept me? At least I didn't lose it, right? No. And no conviction of sin.
[15:54] Zero ownership. Okay? Blaming his master. So there it is. So anyway, I think the Grok, the Grok list is a pretty good list. It misses some stuff because it's not, it doesn't have a sense of the need for atonement.
[16:08] It doesn't have the sense of the need for conviction and repentance. You know, the rest of the Grok overview of it, you know, had, you know, I think the worldly, there's a lot of worldly tools that are good at diagnosing problems, but they have horrible solutions.
[16:21] Its solution is horrible. You know, just like counseling and therapy for, you know, how you've grown up and how, you know, your parents messed you up and stuff. And sure, all that stuff happens, but the Bible has a much more foundational problem assessment.
[16:34] Sinner. You need salvation. It's a big problem. It's so big, Jesus had to come down from heaven and he had to fix it for you. Okay. It's a big one.
[16:45] So, anyway, I'm going to take a little time here and just walk through a few other attributes. These are things that stood out to me just reading the Bible, just kind of meditating on this.
[16:57] So, what does victim mentality look like in the Bible from these stories? It's lack of repentance. You can just say as simple as that. Victim mentality, a pervasive victim mindset, it just means you haven't repented.
[17:12] Okay. That's all it means. Lack of repentance. It's an indication that you are not accepting responsibility for your own sin. And you have a really complicated set of behaviors that take that responsibility that the Holy Spirit is trying to give you and you're farming it out.
[17:31] You're putting it on your circumstances and people and, you know, all that kind of stuff we just talked about. It means you haven't repented. Okay. In other words, I'm going to call this victim mentality unrepentance.
[17:44] They're synonyms, but the victim mentality is just a helpful way of thinking about it. Okay. Because we know we can say, oh, yeah, I totally do that. You say, I don't think you've repented.
[17:57] I've repented from all known sin. What are you talking about? You say, you're living in a victim mentality. It's like, well, yeah, but you know, makes sense. My circumstances are really hard. You would too, right? No.
[18:09] No, they're the same thing. Okay. We're going to talk about why in a little bit. So, some evidences of victim mentality. It's not going to, doing all of the proof text for this would take way too long, so I'm just going to burn through these.
[18:21] If you think these, if you have a problem with any of these, I encourage you to search it out in the scriptures and see if it's true. Okay. And I do have proof text for some of these, but I have 18 evidences of victim mentality unrepentance.
[18:35] Okay. Number one, this is the easy one. You avoid responsibility for sin. It's somebody else's fault. Yeah, yeah, it's sin, but so and so. My wife made me do it.
[18:47] I was stressed out at work. I was tired. Whatever. You know. Number two, blame shifting, which is basically the outworking of not taking responsibility for sin. It's, I'm not taking responsibility for sin and this is what I do about it.
[19:00] Okay. It's blaming God, blaming others, blaming circumstances. God did not make you sin. Okay. The Bible is very clear about this.
[19:11] Is there a mystery there? God's sovereign? Yes. But the Bible, there are mysterious things that are not plain and then there are plain things that are plain and this is one of the plain things that are plain. God cannot be tempted with evil nor does he tempt anyone but each man is led astray when he's tempted.
[19:29] Okay. It's you. Can't shift the blame on God. God didn't make you sin. Other people didn't make you sin either. What if they're super bad other people? What if they're extremely provocative?
[19:40] They can't make you sin. They can't. It's impossible. No one can make you sin. You are the only one who makes you sin according to the Bible. Blaming circumstances.
[19:53] Life's too hard. Have you seen how much I got on my plate? Surely it's reasonable that I can blow out. Look at the Son of God.
[20:04] Okay. Tempted in every way like we are says in the news yet without sin. Okay. I'm going to move through these a little quicker.
[20:15] Easily offended. What is that? What do you mean easily offended? How is that a sign of victim mentality? Some of these are like directly victim mentality things and other things are like things you do when you have victim mentality that might not be that obvious.
[20:29] I think getting offended is one of them. On two points. One is you get offended at people for not helping you with your responsibilities because you're avoiding it. Okay. You don't want to do that hard thing and so you want other people to help you do it and you get mad at them when they don't.
[20:46] Even though it's totally illegal. It's yours. God gave you to do that thing. Okay. Getting offended at people who point out your sin because you already have a case that you're not a sinner. How dare you say otherwise?
[20:59] How dare you say otherwise? I'm offended at you. Okay. Because you have a victim mentality. Number four. Makes excuses for other people's sins because you're making excuses for your own.
[21:13] It clouds everything. Avoids calling people to repent because you're avoiding it too. Okay. Divisive gossiping.
[21:24] I think this is an interesting one that occurred to me because this is me. I've done this. And the specific reason I think how these are connected is victims feel they have a right to gossip because they've been done wrong.
[21:37] That person doesn't deserve a direct, loving, frank confrontation because they've done me wrong. So I now have a license to go say all kinds of things about them behind their back.
[21:50] Victim mentality. Taking up offenses for others. This is where you agree with another sinner's controversy with God or other people because you have your own controversy going on.
[22:04] Okay. So you're primed and ready to take up an offense as soon as you hear about it. This especially shows up. This is very interesting in church discipline situations.
[22:14] You know, if you have any help in this church, we would plan to have a larger church. And it was very interesting to see in a few instances of church discipline, this flares up immediately.
[22:27] And it's interesting to see the people who get super offended by faithful practice of Matthew 18's church discipline. And they immediately take an underdog position and assume that that person's being wronged.
[22:43] And they're not. It's telling. It's telling about what that person's lifestyle, what their relationship with the Lord is like. They got a backlog of justification for why they're not in the wrong.
[22:55] And so when they see someone held to an account for being in the wrong, it's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. That's terrifying because they think it might happen to me. If I go on in unrepentance, what might happen to me?
[23:09] Anyway, that's an interesting one. Can't handle being misunderstood. Because you're justifying yourself rather than resting in Christ's justification. If Jesus is my righteousness, I don't need it for being denied.
[23:23] Okay? But if I got this victim mentality narrative, I just got this whole case I've been building for why I'm right. If you, if you, if you're accusing me of something and it seems to be because you don't understand me, it's just, I can't handle that.
[23:38] You have to understand my case, right? It's a beautiful case. I've been working on it for years. Okay. Rescue mentality because you're waiting for someone to rescue you, not taking responsibility for your own actions so it just bleeds over into other areas of your life.
[23:57] Unwillingness to call people to take responsibility for themselves because if you're a victim, everyone else is too. Right? You already talked about controversies. complaining because you have a case against, you have a case against God that your circumstances are just too hard to not sin.
[24:13] So it comes out in complaining. Okay. Ministry mindset. This is kind of interesting one. I was just thinking about this doesn't seem to be obvious. Why would a ministry mindset just getting your sense of identity through service and ministry work, why would this be connected to this victim mentality?
[24:37] It's a way of sacrificing. You know, you're trying to pay God off. Yeah, you got this controversy over here with God, between you and God, but man, I just, I can't accept that that's what God says in my life, so I'm going to try to pay for it by doing a whole bunch of work for the Lord.
[24:53] This is where the ministry mindset comes in. Doom and gloom outlook on life. You don't believe God is good. Escapism, because life is too hard. Life is too hard, I have to have a pressure relief off.
[25:04] I got to escape into something. Envy and jealousy of others, gifts, family, spouse, circumstances, et cetera, because you feel like God did you wrong with your lot in life. If you just had what they had, then I could be joyful in the Lord, but I can't.
[25:24] Insecurity, because you feel abandoned by God, no confidence. It's a long list. I didn't know where I was going through, but those are things that came to mind. I think there's a lot more.
[25:35] This is like a tangled web. This is just, our victim mentality is so baked into our hard code, we got it right from our dad, Adam. Okay? He had it, and all of his kids have it. Okay?
[25:46] So none of us are above this, but we need to know about it. We need to have a category for what it looks like so that we can repent from it. We can put it off. Okay? So, what does that look like?
[25:56] What does repentance look like? These are just a few things. Repentance is a big deal. Last stuff you said about repentance, I want to point out a few things. Number one, it starts with conviction by the Holy Spirit.
[26:07] Jesus says in John 16, 8, and when he, referring to the Holy Spirit, comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Conviction, it's a synonym for being convinced.
[26:20] You're convinced of something. You weren't convinced of something before. And then the Holy Spirit had a conversation with you about some stuff and all of a sudden, I'm convinced now. I thought everyone else was the problem and then I had a talk with Aslan and now I realize I'm the problem.
[26:38] It's me. There's no one else. I'm the only one responsible for my sin, full stop. Conviction. That's what conviction is. And it's essential. If you don't have conviction, then you can't have repentance. Okay?
[26:50] Everything else is just religious games. Okay? Just playing with God. Going through motions, confessing sin. This is why confessing sin isn't even necessarily repentance. Okay? Have you owned it?
[27:01] Because you can confess sin. Yeah, I looked at porn, but man, my wife, she just, she's been cold and distant. You know, what are you going to do? That's not, that's not conviction.
[27:14] So, so, what does this conviction lead into? It produces a heart and mindset change that results in change behavior. Matthew 3, 18 through 10, John the Baptist said, therefore, bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father or I'm a Christian, I go to a good church, you know, apply this, rework this in today's language with, you know, Christians here.
[27:41] For I say to you that from these stones, God is able to raise up children in Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. It's, it's futile to try to pay God off with sacrifices.
[27:55] He wants repentance and true conviction results in heart change that results in life change. It's, it's, it's to the extent where he says bear fruit, real actions, change, things that happen and change in your life.
[28:11] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, which is the heart thing. Okay. So real heart change produces fruit. And then this is an interesting one.
[28:27] It doesn't stay just a me God thing, right? Repentance. It turns into a ministry of exhorting others to repent. And this is the, this is the kicker here.
[28:39] And it doesn't commiserate with their sin anymore. Okay. It says, wait a minute, that sin was killing me. And I had to be brought to a place of accountability in order to be right with God.
[28:53] And now I see their sin is killing them and they have to be brought to a place of accountability to be made right with God. So I'm not going to commiserate with their sin anymore.
[29:05] I'm not going to have long conversations with other people about, oh, how hard their life is and all the different reasons why they're, they needed to sin and they needed to stay stuck where they are because it's poisonous.
[29:18] It keeps them stuck. And God had mercy on me through his word and through the faithful ministry of people who didn't care what I thought about them and were willing to make me mad. You know what? I'm a really hard person to confront.
[29:29] Okay. You pay for it. My wife has paid for confronting me with sin before. So someone loved me so much that they paid for it because they love me. Guess what? You start being willing to pay for it too for other people.
[29:45] Okay. Wait a minute. Okay. Yeah. I think a good example. Oh, there we go.
[29:55] There we go. My notes mixed up. A good example of this is Paul. Paul was a reviler. He's a persecutor of the church. Acts 26, 20. You know, he gets radically converted in Acts 26, 20 towards the end of his, you know, ministry in Acts.
[30:10] He gives his testimony of what his ministry looked like after that. And he said, they went declaring, you know, through all the world, I'm just going to summarize that part. What was he declaring?
[30:21] That men should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. See, Paul wasn't some Gnostic guy who's just like, oh, it's all in the heart, man.
[30:34] You know, the outside, clean the inside of the cup, the outside, take care of itself. Yes, it actually will. That's why you can say, repent, turn to God and perform deeds in keeping with repentance because out of the heart flow all kinds of things that are evident to everybody.
[30:51] You shouldn't be scared of that. And that was his ministry then. Paul wasn't ashamed of this ministry. I mean, he paid for it dearly. He lost the approval of so many people, but he loved them faithfully just like Jesus loved them.
[31:08] You know, the world hates you. When he said, the world can't hate you, but it hates me because I tell them that their deeds are evil. When we repent, we go right on Jesus.
[31:20] We get to be part of Jesus' ministry on the earth. And it's a wonderful thing. You know, not everyone will hear it, but guess what? When people do, it's amazing. You get a new friend.
[31:31] You get a brother and sister in the Lord. It's wonderful. Last is, repentance is essential for salvation. You can't get around it.
[31:44] Luke 13, 3 says, Jesus is speaking to people. No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Acts 2, 38, Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[32:03] It's essential. Faith and repentance, they're two sides of the same coin. Okay, they go together. So, let's take it to heart. I want to share one example of repentance from the Bible.
[32:15] So we have a couple examples of this victim mentality. I want to share an example of the opposite of that. Real repentance. What's it look like in practice? The story of David after Bathsheba, after he falls into sin with Bathsheba, I think is an awesome one.
[32:29] I'm not going to read the whole thing. If you want to read it later, it's 2 Samuel 11 and 12. It would take too long to read it here. But I am going to read Psalm 51, pieces of Psalm 51, which is his prayer to God. When you get insight into his heart.
[32:41] I think it's just awesome. Psalm 51, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
[32:51] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
[33:09] Ownership. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.
[33:22] Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. I think I'm going to bounce around and just read a few of the verses throughout this because I'm kind of running down on time here. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
[33:34] Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn to you. For you will not delight in sacrifice or I will give it. You will not be pleased with the burnt offering.
[33:45] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
[33:56] Then bowls will be offered on your altar. See the complete contrast between this and those other examples before. A deep conviction of sin, okay? He was cut to the heart and he owned it and he started off with that.
[34:08] It's just me. No one else made me. It wasn't, I was real lonely because, you know, all my whatever hundred wives, I don't know how many wives he had. He has no excuses, but like, he could have made an excuse out of anything because we are sinful.
[34:19] We can make an excuse out of anything. I was just walking around my roof and just, whoa, there she was, naked, washing. How could I not? You know? He didn't do any of that kind of stuff.
[34:31] Before God, I sinned, Lord. He says, I've sinned against you and you only. You see, he owns that this is really a him God thing, okay? Deep conviction of sin.
[34:44] He blames self instead of blaming others. He has this sense of power to repent from his own sin instead of a sense of self-justifying powerlessness. He owns it.
[34:55] He comes boldly before the throne of grace. He has godly sorrow instead of self-pity. He accepts responsibility instead of avoiding it. He's open to correction instead of defensiveness.
[35:06] He has zero entitlement. He's not a Debbie Downer. He has optimism in the forgiveness and restoration of God after repentance, you know? This isn't some woe is me sort of self-flagellating repentance.
[35:20] He's talking about when God restores him, what he's going to do and how joyful it's going to be. He's totally confident. And then for the biblical categories, he knows that acceptable sacrifices can only follow after true repentance.
[35:35] He makes no attempt to go atone for his sin with sacrifices at all. He knows he's got something to do first. He's got to get right. Then he can offer sacrifices.
[35:49] You see, when we have a victim mentality, we flip those. We try to out-sacrifice my guilty conscience. That's bad. That's disorder. That's backwards. We've got to get right with God.
[36:01] God doesn't care about all that stuff. You know who he cares about? A broken and contrite heart. A right relationship with him through the one sacrifice that he made perfectly for all time, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[36:12] He doesn't need your works because he finished them already. All of our works are entering into the finished work of Jesus that's prepared ahead of time for us to walk in.
[36:23] We deny that truth when we get into ministry mindset. We've got to ask ourselves, we're obsessed with ministry stuff. Why? A lot of ministry stuff's good, but why?
[36:35] Why? Eagerness to restore sinners in the same way is the last one. You see, he not only is getting right with God, he knows after I'm restored, I'm going to teach people about you and then sinners will return to you.
[36:52] I'll teach transgressors your ways. It's a ministry. That's why if we're abdicating a responsibility to call people in our fitness and says something about our walk with God, full stop, okay? It's not fun to do this thing.
[37:06] Nobody said it was fun, but it's salvation. It's good. Jesus did it, Paul did it, and when we're right with God, take it on. We stop commiserating with people. It's like a doctor who knows their patient has cancer and is just like entering into their pity party with them about their cancer and prescribing them payments.
[37:31] It's wicked. They deal with the cancer, okay? And then they'll get healed. No one likes to hear they got cancer, okay? That's not a fun conversation ever. No doctor's like it.
[37:42] Why do they do it? It's their job, it's their responsibility, and they actually love people. That's what we need to be like. Okay, so, that's what repentance looks like. It's the complete opposite of victim mentality.
[37:54] What David did after sinning grievously with Bathsheba and murdering her husband and covering it up, okay? Like, it's a great example. Repentance, it applies to any sin no matter what.
[38:09] This is the opposite of victim mentality. This is what true repentance looks like. So, I have some specific applications of this for Christchurch.
[38:19] Just praying through our church, looking at my own life. I'm on the roster for some of this stuff, okay? So, I would encourage you, don't think about other people. Think about yourself.
[38:32] Resist the temptation to be like, oh yeah! Be, Lord Jesus, I want to have a conversation with you right now. What about me? Okay? So, those are the hardest things to hear and our minds are pre-programmed to avoid that.
[38:47] Okay? We're programmed to think about other people. We're predisposed, like we've been evading our whole life. We've been evading our responsibility our whole life. We're really good at it. And so, we need to ask God for humility.
[38:58] Lord, talk to me. Okay, so, here's some things. Number one, take responsibility for your own sin. God is not responsible for your sin. Others are not responsible for your sin. you are.
[39:11] Read James 1, verse 13 through 17. Read 1 Corinthians 10, 13. No temptation has overtaken you, such is not common to man. But God is faithful and will, with the temptation, make a way of escape so you can bear it.
[39:28] Is that true? Yes or no? If it's true, you have zero room to stand on by saying God's responsible for your sin or other people responsible.
[39:39] Okay? You gotta own it. Number two, take responsibility for mission and discipleship and instead of expecting other people like leaders, other more sure people, oh, they're more mature than me, they'll take care of that, to do it for you.
[39:52] No. God has given you a mina that he's going to give, call you to account for and no one else in the entire world. Okay? Don't avoid the responsibility of that.
[40:04] Don't get irritated at other people because they're not helping you with the thing that he told you to do. Okay? That's not partnership. That's, anyway, that's just passing the buck. Number three, own your responsibility for your family, your children, your spouse, your parents.
[40:18] Don't farm it out to other people. It's the same thing. They're one of your means. Okay? Get help, get partnership, get prayer, get counsel, but own the responsibility yourself. The Bible's very clear about this in divine order.
[40:30] We have lots of verses we could talk about that for a long time. Next one, own your responsibility to the church. Speak the truth in love. Submit to authority. Receive and give frank correction instead of passive-aggressively gossiping.
[40:42] Like, we need to own this stuff. Next one, own your finances instead of harboring a poverty mentality and depending on others. Like, the question is, is God your provider or not?
[40:53] Okay? Does he own the cattle on a thousand hills or whatever or not? If he does, let's take that promise to the bank. Okay? Own hospitality.
[41:04] Who cares if other people aren't doing it? Are you doing it? Are you opening wide your heart to other people and basically kind of have an amnesia with respect to how other people are doing about it?
[41:15] It's one of the words of the year, hospitality. We're trying to grow in that this year. Forget about what other people are doing. Just do it yourself. Right? Family. Sorry, family, not hospitality. Thank you. My wife gave me the look.
[41:27] Ruthlessly kill excuses. Discontentment is an excuse. It's from not getting your desires met. Okay? James 4 is really clear about this. Have you learned the secret of contentment like Paul?
[41:38] Paul had Jesus in a prison and he was a happy, happy man. Why is that not the case for you? Same Jesus, same Savior. Loneliness and self-pity.
[41:50] Same thing. Contentment with Jesus. Paul was not lonely in his prison. He had the Lord Jesus. Okay? He was overflowing. Somehow, he figured out how to just be an overflowing well of blessing to Christians all over the world alone in prison.
[42:06] That's God's will for you. God's got you in a lonely season of life. Guess what? He wants you to overflow through your relationship with Jesus. Lack of obedience. I got too much on my plate to obey God.
[42:17] Maybe in your own strength, yes. Maybe God's loaded you up so you would not trust yourself but God. Okay? Unwillingness to receive correction. We've already talked about that. Lack of prayer and Bible reading.
[42:28] I think this is just a Christian practical. It seems like one of the first things to go and the excuse is my life's just too busy. I have too much on my plate. No, you don't. Never forever for the rest of your life you don't.
[42:40] Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added to you. One thing is needful, Jesus said, to sit at my feet and hear my word. We always, as a born again believer in Jesus, have time to sit alone with Jesus and pray to our Father through Jesus to fellowship with the Holy Spirit to read his word and be edified so that we can edify other people.
[43:03] We always do 100% of the time and he'll protect it. You know what he said about Mary? One thing is needful and it will not be taken from her. God will never take away your time to pray and spend time with him and his word.
[43:18] Okay? So forget about it. Stop letting that be an excuse. Stop escaping. Jesus says, in this world you will have trouble. Our life is going to be hard. But take heart. I've overcome the world.
[43:30] Okay? Yes, if you're following Jesus you're going to have a hard life. Like, praise the Lord. Jesus had a hard life. And when he comes back we're going to have experiential physical rest from our labors.
[43:46] We can have spiritual rest now with a hard life through his rest. Stop envying and comparing yourself with other people. Who cares what God gave them? Okay?
[43:58] Stop using that as an excuse for your own discontentment. It's wicked. Okay? Put off insecurity. Don't be an insecure person.
[44:09] It's almost like this like almost like a virtue to be kind of like insecure. No. Does Jesus Christ the Lord of heaven and earth live inside of you or not?
[44:21] It's a yes or no question. If he is he's the same yesterday and today and forever and everything's under his feet. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to him.
[44:33] He commands you to go there forth and make disciples. He commands you to speak the truth in love. It's his. It's his power and his glory. In fact he is glorified more when we have people who are weak.
[44:49] That's why he picked him. That's why he picked us. Cease from your own works instead of being a ministry Martha. Have you entered God's rest such that you can relax and enjoy people or is everyone a ministry project to you?
[45:02] I think this is key. We're talking about building family. This ministry mindset you can get into it for so long we don't even realize why we can't enjoy people and why people don't enjoy being around us. That's me.
[45:13] I've made people feel so uncomfortable for so long in my life because I've treated everyone like a problem to solve and it destroys fellowship. Okay. It's evidence of self-righteous sacrificing.
[45:25] I'm trying to I'm trying to please Jesus through all my ministry stuff and I just can't relax because I'm not at rest in the finished work of Jesus. You know encourage people to take responsibility for themselves.
[45:38] This is related to the call to repentance. They call it take responsibility for ourselves. If you're taking responsibility for yourself you encourage people to take responsibility for themselves.
[45:49] You can't repent for them. You can't rescue them. Some of the rescuing mindset comes from. It's so crazy how these things actually show us what we think about ourselves.
[46:02] Rescuers are people who feel like they need to be rescued. They're not taking responsibility for their life. So we need to fight against that. We need to take responsibility for ourselves. Last point.
[46:14] Jesus became a victim for us. We still feel like we're a victim. We need to remember that there's only one. Jesus became a victim for us and we deserve to be a victim but he came a victim for us.
[46:32] Romans 5.6 says, while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. In 1 Corinthians 15.57 says, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[46:48] We're still tempted to harbor a victim mentality. Think of Jesus being made a victim for you. They ought to shut our mouths. Okay? They ought to shut us up. We need to shut up in a good way.
[46:59] We need to shut the narrative down that we're somehow victims of other people and of God because on the day of judgment that's all going to go away in an instant.
[47:12] Don't wait till then. Let's get right with God today. Let's repent of this defensiveness and let the Lord bring us to accountability and ownership. Okay?
[47:22] Anyway, that's all I had. that's all I had.