"Christian' Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy"

Today I'm beginning a 3-part series entitled, "Christian' Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy." The topics for these next few sermons come from a book by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend about finding relief from false assumptions about what it means to be a Christian.

In two weeks, we will explore the false assumption that, if I'm a Christian, then no matter what may have happened to me, I should just "leave the past behind." Next week, we'll look at the false assumption that, as a Christian, whatever might be happening in my life - no matter how painful or difficult it might be - "I just need to give it to the Lord!" Ever hear anyone use that line? "Just give it to the Lord!" That really does drive me crazy! But that's next week. This morning, I want to look at the dangerously false assumption that, if l'm really a Christian, then "it's selfish to have my needs met!"

Now there are a lot of "false assumptions" around about what it means to be a Christian. Things that nearly everyone assumes are true but which, really - upon examination and reflection - don't make any sense! And most o these false notions have been perpetuated..by Christians! That really drives me crazy!

Hardly anyone here is oblivious to the - hear me clearly, now -false assumption, for example, that one cannot be both gay and Christianl Excuse me! People have bled and cried and lived and died to prove that isn`t true, amen?! But that's hardly the only "false assumption" floating around in the world.

There are lots of other "false assumptions" about being a Christian. Things like, "Christians shouldn't get angry!" Now that just hacks me off! Christians are supposed to be "nice." Translation: we should be doormats. Christians should "seem spiritual." Now what does thul mean?

I don't know about you, but as a Christian, a lot of the false assumptions people make about Christians and Christianity really do drive me crazy! So I decided to give this series of messages to vent my irritation and clear up some of these ridiculous notions. I needed to give us all a chance to correct some faulty thinking needed to...I wanted to...and I'm going to...because, really, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!

"It's all about me." Have you heard this latest "catch phrase" like "yada, yada, yada" and "Don't So there!"? "It's all about me" is one of those catchy little asides that actually says a lot about us as a society. And it certainly doesn't seem to be very compatible with Christianity! It seems hard to imagine Jesus, walking among the crowds on a hillside, saying, "Could you people back off a little? I'm tired, I'm hungry and, really it's all about me."

And yet...I want to assert this morning that "it's all about me" might be one of the best things a Christian could believe! [Say it with me, won't you? "It's all about me."] Let me explain.

Imagine Sarah. Exhausted and lonely one Monday afternoon, Sarah reached over and switched on the radio in her car. It had been a very rough weekend. She had spent hours on Saturday trying to finish an important report for work. Her kids, visiting for the weekend, put up a fight over every instruction or request she made of them. And her partner, with whom she'd been having problems, had not said a caring word to her all weekend. It made her think of an old joke where the comedian says, "Ask me how my day was." "O K., how was your day?" "Don't ask!"

Maybe listening to the radio on the way home would help. She flipped up and down the dial until an announcement caught her ear. It happened to be a Christian radio station and the preacher was just beginning his message. "Help When You're Down." Sarah listened closely.

"...so you're down, troubled, lonely, you're under crushing pressure. You wonder sometimes if things will ever change for you."

"Is he reading my mind?" she thought. He was describing her feelings at that very moment. He understood.

"My friend, there's an answer for you from the Word of God. The answer is to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking of others. Just as our Lord thought not of himself, but emptied himself for others, we will find joy in self-sacrifice and service. Cancel your little personal pity party. Repent of your self-absorption, and find peace in sharing."

Sarah's heart dropped. "Peace in sharing? I've been sharing myself all weekend, and I'm in pieces, not at peace." She had no sooner formed those words in her mind, than she immediately felt guilty. After all, the preacher was quoting the Bible. "I guess he's right," she told herself sadly. "I'm just being selfish."

All the time sincere, well-intentioned Christians listen to messages similar to the one Sarah heard. That message - "Stop thinking of your own needs" - is taught by sincere, well-intentioned Christian teachers who only want to help people obey Christ. The problem is that it's not a biblical message. It sounds true, but it's not an accurate interpretation of the Scriptures.

Many of us have been taught a self-annihilation doctrine for so long that it makes sense to us Atter all, isn't self-centeredness the core and cause of sinfulness? Aren't we supposed to deny ourselves and give sacrificially to God and others? After all, it was Jesus - as we heard read this morning - who summarized the entire Law and the Prophets under two simple commands: "Love the Lord your God...and love your neighbor as yourself." Our love for others shows that we belong to God We are to give from our fullness wholeheartedly as Jesus did.

So we hear supposedly self-denying passages like this in the Bible and we hear tidy little maxims, "Joy J.O.Y. Jesus...others... then you." And we conclude that the Christian life is a life of ignoring and even hating our own needs, focusing instead on the needs of others.

Yet to believe this is to confuse selfishness with stewardship. This "drive you crazy" assumption - "it's selfish to have my needs met" - fails to distinguish between selfishness and a God-given responsibility to get one's own needs met. It's like someone saying, "I saw you last night at the gas station, filling your car's tank. I had no idea you were so self-centered. You need to pray about spending more time filling others' tanks with that gas." Obviously, that's ridiculous. If we don't fill our own tank with gas, we won't get very far.

The Bible actually values our needs, which are God-given and intended to push us to grow and draw us closer to God.

In an old T.V. commercial for aspirin, a doting mother helps her grown daughter make dinner Mom's eager helpfulness gets annoying, and her daughter's resentment builds. Finally, the younger woman blows up. "Mother, please!" she says "l'd rather do it myself."

We're all inclined to want to do it ourselves. Asking for help and support can be inconvenient and uncomfortable. Independence and self-reliance are traits the world has taught us to value perhaps no where more than here in the Mid-West!

But there's a problem. You see, God built dependency into all of us. We all need God. and we all need each other. In the language of his day, seventeenth-century English poet John Donne wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...."

God intended us to be incomplete in and of ourselves. Dependency is built by God into the very fabric of creation. Without the warmth of the sun, the earth would quickly become a frozen tomb. Without food and shelter from the elements, animals would die. Deprived of light, soil and water, plants would shrivel.

Even God reaches out for relationships, though it's difficult to imagine an all-powerful God with needs. In essence, though, God is a relational being. God is love, Scripture says, and love always has an object.

Jesus experienced and expressed relational needs. He needed God. Jesus "often withdrew to quiet places and prayed." He used the expression, "Abba" - which is almost like saying "daddy" - when addressing his Parent in heaven, indicating an especially close, intimate relationship with God.

But even Jesus needed more than God - he needed friends, too. Though the primary purpose of Jesus going to the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and crucifixion was to pray to God his secondary purpose was to have a select few of his disciples share - nearby - in his time of agony. With Peter, James. and John he shared his pain: "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death... Stay here and keep watch" In his darkest night of the soul, Jesus reached out to his friends.

Jesus is always our best example of what is good and right and necessary. Reading the Gospels will show that Jesus took responsibility to get his needs met. In the stories of his ministry, we find him not only depending on Friends but getting other kinds of needs met as well. When he was tired, he rested. When he was hungry, he ate. When he had had enough of the crowds, he went off by himself. He relaxed and laughed over dinners and wine with others and he let others do things for him sometimes.

Jesus once confronted a Pharisee named Simon about this issue. A prostitute, overcome with God's grace, washed Jesus' feet with her tears, and Jesus said to Simon, "I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - for she loved much. But one who has been forgiven little loves little." Having found forgiveness, the woman was able to love much, whereas Simon the Pharisee was blind to his own neediness and was therefore unable genuinely to love.

A man named Raymond, suffering from severe depression, finally reluctantly went to see a therapist. Raymond was a Christian who believed that his depression was simply his own spiritual failing and that he should just "buck up" and keep going; he had a lot of work to do at church and this business of addressing his "needs" was just nonsense to him.

"This subject of needs just isn't valid," Raymond told the doctor. "We are to minister to the world and get our minds off this nonsense."

"So it's important to minister to the world," the therapist asked.

"Absolutely. We are to give comfort, encouragement, and hope to others in the name of Jesus"

"I certainly have no problem with that," the doctor said. "But do you also get comfort, encouragement and hope?"

"That's selfish," Raymond replied. "God doesn't want me concentrating on myself."

"Then God's using you to hurt people."

"What?"

"If your need for comfort, encouragement, and hope is selfish, then others' need for that is selfish, too. If it ain't O.K. for you to have it, it ain't O.K. for you to give it."

Like Raymond, some of us need to rethink our theology The assumption "It's selfish to have my needs met" makes people crazy not only because it hurts people, but because it isn't true. Nothing, the Bible says, is further from the truth. Having our needs met frees us to meet the needs of others - without resentment. Having a "full stomach" spiritually and emotionally allows us to give cheerfully. To give a cup of cold water to those who need it, we need to have drunk from it ourselves. If we are to forgive, we need to have been forgiven. In order to love God and our neighbors as ourselves...we must love ourselves!

The phrase for today is, "It's all about me." [Say it with me again. "It's all about me.] Today each of us needs to realize this for ourselves: Christianity is all about me. It's about me recognizing my need for God and for other people. It's about me admitting that I can't supply all my own needs and that, until I am willing to be humble enough to ask for help, I am and will remain an empty vessel serving no one. It's all about me taking responsibility for getting my physical, emotional, psychological, relational and spiritual needs met so that I can truly serve God and follow Christ the way I want to do and the way I am called to do. No doubt about it: it's all about me. Amen.

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