Mark Batterson - Stop Lying To Yourself
When I was 22, newly married, Laura and I went to grad school. I had already taken a ton of theology undergrad, so I decided to carb load on psychology. Now listen, if all truth is God's truth and every ology is a branch of theology, so I love dendrology, the study of trees. I love otolaryngology, the study of the nose, ear, and throat. Theology, the study of fish. Give me some neurology. Give me some microbiology. I don't claim expertise in any of these subject matters, but I love 'em! And I think theology and psychology are almost like two sides of a coin.
And so, it was in a, kind of a survey of psychological systems that I was introduced to all of these fascinating theories. William Glasser in positive addiction, Of course Viktor Frankl, logotherapy. I dipped my toe in CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy; NLP, neurolinguistic programming. And I was intrigued by all of them. But if you said, "Mark, what were your, who was your favorite"? A toss up, okay? Carl Jung Alfred Adler, it was Carl Jung who said, "The world will ask you who you are. And if you don't know, the world will tell you". He said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate".
And I learned one thing from Jung. He said that, "The most important problems are insolvable". Which sounds totally depressing! Until I read what he said and it made sense. He said, "Some problems can never be solved. They can only be outgrown". Do we need to grow? And outgrow some of those problems? By the way, Jung had a sign over the door of his home. It said, "Bidden or not, God is here". Now Adler said, "It's easier to fight for one's principles than it is to live up to them". That hurts. He said, "The only normal person is the one you don't know very well". Just turn your neighbor and say, "You're normal".
I think. It was Adler who proposed this theory of compensation, which you know I love, that disadvantages are actually well disguised advantages, because they force us to cultivate what he called compensatory skills. I think the Bible says it this way, that God's power is made perfect in weakness. But there's one concept coined by Adler that I wanna, I want it to be a frame for us today. And he called it the life lie. Now, I'm gonna put a couple of definitions on the screen. If you go to the NCC app, you'll find this in your message notes. But let's jump right in. The life lie is our guiding fiction. For better or for worse, you are the narrator of your story.
Now, the life lie is a false belief that we build our lives around. It's a false narrative we tell ourselves about ourselves. The life lie is a form of self-sabotage, and it's the excuse we give ourselves to evade responsibility. And if you aren't careful, here's what's gonna happen, okay? Title of the message, stop lying to yourself. And here's the bottom line. False beliefs turn into false narratives, which turn into false identities, which turn into false realities. And it's time for some truth. You can meet me under a broom tree, about a day's journey from Be'er Sheva, but it's gonna take us a couple minutes to get there, okay?
Lemme give you an example of a life lie. Moses is a classic example. God calls him to deliver his people Israel. And Moses does what we do, right? He gives God an excuse as to why he can't possibly do it. We are so good at telling God what He can't do. We are so aware of our weaknesses that it's hard to even see our strengths in the middle of it. And so, what Moses does is he says to God, you remember this? "I cannot talk. I'm not good with words, I'm not a skilled speaker". This is how Moses sees himself. This is his self-perception. Newsflash, we know that Moses was bilingual! Do you know what rare rare that was back in the day?
And then, we also know that Acts 7:22, looking back says this about Moses. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was powerful in speech. So, which is it? "I can't talk. I'm powerful in speech". Reminds me of the old equation, one criticism plus a thousand compliments equals one criticism. The negativity bias infects and effects everything, including who we see looking back at us in the mirror. The life lies skews our self image. So, this is crazy. Are you ready? Moses thought he was bad at something he was good at. Of course, I'm sure no one in this room would struggle with the same thing or everybody does.
Now, I don't know where that life lie came from, but it's the excuse that Moses gave to evade responsibility. 'Cause most of us, we don't say "Here am I, send me". "There they are, send them". Like, we're good at identifying other people's strengths, 'cause we're jealous of them. But it's a little bit harder to discover our own strengths. So, here's the question. What's your life lie? Where are you lying to yourself? What do you see as a weakness that's actually a strength? I want to tell you today that Jesus came to set the captive free, and the truth will set you free, indeed. I mean, wide angle lens, some of the most common lies, and don't listen to this trying to identify your friend's life lie. Okay?
This is about me, myself, and I. So one of those life lies... Where'd you go on me? Where'd you go? I don't know where you went. Oh, here we go! It's too little too late. We missed the train. We feel like we're a day late, dollar short. Listen to me, it's not over until God says it's over. Jesus said to a man who is four days dead, "Lazarus come forth". It is never too late to be who you might have been. Don't you believe that lie. Moses was put out the pasture at 40, didn't find his destiny until 80. I find a little bit of hope in that, anybody else? Now, here's another life lie. Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth. The problem with that is it's not true. Because truth is not relative. Truth is a person, and His name is Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
Now, another lie is I'm too much of this, not enough of that. I am like a personality assessment connoisseur. I have taken every assessment under the sun, because it gives me self-awareness. But here is one of the great dangers. Please, hear me. Don't use your personality to pigeonhole yourself or others. Don't use your personality as a crutch. Because the anointing, don't be surprised if the anointing of God wants to use you outside your personality, outside your history. And then, here's just one more common life lie. I'm damaged goods. I made too many mistakes, too many hurts, habits, and hangups.
Listen, go check out Celebrate Recovery on Thursday nights, and what you'll discover... Listen, Paul said, "I am the worst of sinners". And this is the guy that wrote half of the New Testament. So let's, I rest my case. This is where we need the Holy Spirit's help. And this is gonna take some intercession and introspection. I feel like I don't have time to do it, but I'm gonna do it. And then, we're gonna see where we end up. I just think it's really, really important as house of prayer continues to push the envelope, as we become even more spirit filled, as the gifts of the spirit are activate, as we operate in a spirit led kind of way, this is not gonna go unnoticed. So I feel like we need to up our spiritual warfare game. 'Cause it's real up in here.
And so, I wanna reverse engineer the life lie all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Can we do that? Because I think you need to connect the dots. Before original sin, there was the original lie. And we'll talk about what that lie is, but it is critical when it comes to spiritual growth and spiritual warfare. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. The good news is, we have the divine power to demolish strongholds, to overthrow every argument, to overcome every pretension, to overcome every presumption that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
So the apostle Paul says, "Do not be unaware of His schemes". So here's the good news. We've got game film going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. None of His tactics should take us by surprise. But I wanna be careful not to give the enemy more credit than he deserves. Can I let you in on a little secret? Even when I write books, my editors sometimes give me a little issue. 'Cause anytime there's even a pronoun for God, I want it capitalized. I'm gonna cap it! I never cap the enemy's name. Isn't that funny? Like it's just a little thing. But I'm not gonna give him more credit than he deserves. And so just to set the record straight, Satan is a fallen angel who is a created being. That means he's not omniscient. He's not omnipotent, not even close.
And he may play mind games with you, but he can't read your mind. He doesn't know your future, but we know his! And he can't control your actions. By the way, right here, be careful. Because this isn't where I wanna go, but Adam and Eve, immediately after they eat from the forbidden fruit, and I'm getting ahead of myself, they start playing the shame game and the blame game. What does Adam do? He blames it on Eve, and in a very passive aggressive way, blames it on God. He says, "The woman you put here" Right. "Made me do it". Guys, don't go there. Eve makes the equal and opposite mistake. What does she say? The devil made me do it. No, he didn't. I think we've gotta find this place between under spiritualizing and over spiritualizing. But he's given a couple of names. He's the accuser of the brethren.
So what he's gonna do is remind you of everything you've done wrong over and over and over again, so that all of your energy is spent on guilt. By the way, big difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is feeling guilt over confessed sin, unconfessed sin. And the Holy Spirit does it as a gift. It's like pain. There's something wrong that needs to be made right. Condemnation is a whole different deal. It's feeling guilt over confessed sin that's already forgiven and forgotten. And when we confess it to God again, he's like, "Why are you reminding me? No, no, no, let's get over it. Let's get on with what I've called you to". But he's also called the father of lies.
So lying is his native tongue. But in my experience, it's not usually boldfaced lies. It's half truths. And so what he does, this is the original lie, "Did God really say..." So he begins to call into question God's word. "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Liar, liar, pants on fire! What in the world? God did not say that". You can see the kodaks of cognitive bias like coming into existence as he catastrophizes and like, "Oh, it's so hard, you can't eat". No, no, no. There are 391,000 species of plants, more than half of them are edible. I did the math. That means that Adam and Eve could have eaten from a different plant every day for 535 years.
It was only one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God said no. But what do we do? The enemy wants us to focus on the forbidden fruit. Sex outside of marriage? Oh, that's exotic. No, it's not. Tell you what's intimate, sex within marriage. It's not the forbidden fruit. It leaves a bad aftertaste, I promise you. And we could fill in the gap with a hundred things. The enemy is a liar. And the way that we fight spiritual battles is with truth! With promises! Lord, help us in Jesus' name.
All right, where were we? Can I give one more example? We're gonna get to that broom tree outside of Be'er Sheva. But I really think if you're willing to do the work, that this life lie idea could really change the game. So in first century Israel, those with disabilities used to congregate around the pool of Bethesda. There was a man who hadn't walked in 38 years. And Jesus asked the question, "Do you want to get well"? Which is seems almost a little insulting, right? Like, are you kidding? No. Because He knew human nature. There's some of us that don't wanna get well. We're very comfortable with our issue, with our problem, with our dysfunction. Until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change... We're stuck!
So Jesus is putting the ball in His court! And when Jesus asked, you would think he would say yes. But that's not what he says. What happens is the life lie. Here it is, John 5:7. "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me". See, you have to understand there was a false belief in first century Judaism that the water, like the movement of the water wasn't caused by wind, but by angels. And the first one in the water was the winner winner chicken dinner. But do you see how this false belief kept him from his healing? And Jesus just cuts through the smoke and mirrors. Get up! Take your mat and walk.
You don't have to wait for the stirring of water. You don't have to wear your lucky hat. You don't have to rally cap. You don't have to like put on your miracle pants. I don't know where that came from. No, no, no, the power of the Lord is present to heal and save and deliver! In Jesus' name. Is there a lie that's keeping you from your healing? Is there a lie that's keeping you from reconciliation? Do not let the lie of the enemy become your label. Don't let anybody label you who didn't make you!
All right. Elisha, he's sitting under a broom tree about a day's journey from Be'er Sheva And he has just won the Super Bowl of prophets, defeated the 450 prophets of Baal. You would think he would be riding a high right about now. But the Wicked Witch of the West, Queen Jezebel, cancels Elijah, issues a death threat. Elijah is running for his life. That's where we pick it up. First Kings, 19:3, "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Be'er Sheva in Judah, he left his servants there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness".
Now, we'll come back to that verse in a minute. Let me stop there. There's an old acronym called HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Elijah's all four. In fact, I'll even, for the ultra marathons, I don't see Jeffrey Kreafle, but he does some ultra marathons. Lemme put a map up. Because Elijah runs, do we have the map? Elijah runs... We might have the map. Yes! Elijah runs from Mount Carmel to Jezreel, it's 19 miles, and he beats a chariot. So... Chariots of fire, right? Then it's about a hundred miles from Jezreel down to Be'er Sheva. Anybody ever run a hundred miles? And then, it's 200 miles from Be'er Sheva down to Mount Horeb, right? Like, I mean, at this point, I just, why? I just pulled out the running man.
Pastor Nina, thank you. You taught me that about 15 years ago. I might need a refresher course, okay? Elijah is physically and emotionally exhausted. And I want you to notice the prescription. I want you to put up First Kings, 19:5 and notice what it says. All at once, Elijah is touched by an angel, Roma Downey. I'm just gauging the age of our audience, and we are such a young church, three people got it. And the angel, notice what the angel says. This is so critical. "Get up and pray! Get up and worship. Get up and get into God's word".
I mean, spiritual disciplines, come on. Let's cultivate them. They're the key to spiritual growth. But that's not what the angel says. He says get up and eat, and looked around, and there was some bread baked over hot coals in a jar of water. Hallelujah! This is the God who bakes bread for us out in the middle of nowhere. This is the God who makes breakfast on the beach for his disciples. I'm just saying that, okay, for the first three centuries of the church, humankind was seen as a trichotomy, body, mind, spirit. And this is important, because they overlap. And I think sometimes we think that the spiritual is the solution to every issue. But I'm here to tell you that this is a two-way street. That sometimes there are psychosomatic illnesses that are caused by things in our mind.
And then, you know, I'm just coming off a six week protocol. No sugar, no carbs, no dairy. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done. Lost 17 pounds, but that wasn't even the point. The point was I needed to reset my microbiome. And here's what I discovered. Sugar was causing mental fog. It wasn't a spiritual issue. It was my diet! Listen, now, I wanna be careful too, 'cause I think there are some people that rather pop a pill than just diet or exercise. So I think what we have to realize is that we have problems that can start in one dimension, and they leak into the others. And what we need to do is reset. And I'll say this, like, God didn't create us like with these categorical divisions. He said, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit". He said, "As a man thinketh, so is he".
Like all of these things are so critically important. We are fearfully and wonderfully made! And so, what we have to do is identify the different parts of us. And so, can I just really practically give just one, one little hack? Can I give you one challenge? And it's gonna be so simple that this is an all play. And I'll even tell you where it came from. During revival, a woman caught me after one of our services and she had just had Bell's palsy. And I've known many people who have had Bell's. It paralyzes some of the facial muscles, the 42 facial muscles that allow you to smile. And she said something to me that just impacted me. She said, "I'm trying to get my smile back". And I was convicted, because I have full use of all 42 facial muscles, and I'm not sure I'm smiling as much as I could or should.
So wouldn't you know it? The next week, I hop on a plane and to go somewhere and plane and rush hour traffic, most likely place to lose my salvation. I don't, yeah. So I'm like, I roll into national airport. I'm like, "Woo! I'm gonna smile all day"! Some of you remember my story about the flight attendant last year when I wasn't smiling. I'm still trying to make up for that. And so, it was crazy! Can I tell you, the airport was so friendly that day. Everybody's in a good mood! Why is everybody smiling? Why is everybody so happy? Because they're just mirroring back what they're seeing on my face. Study after study has shown that your face tells your body how to feel. Your face tells your brain how to feel.
And again, it's two way. But guess what? Your face also tells other people how to feel. A smile has a physiological and a sociological effect. It actually lowers blood pressure. It increases immunity. It makes you more attractive. And you know what I discovered over the last couple of weeks? It sets up divine appointments. I think because I was smiling when I sat down next to Deacon who had lost his dad, who was walking with the help of a cane, who was so anxious being on that flight that when I prayed for him, the smile opened the door. And I prayed for him. And he said, "God put you in the seat next to me".
And then I met Jolly, a flight attendant. Maybe you're here this morning, Jolly, 'cause I invited you to church. You base out of Atlanta, but... And then I met Colette, and I watched her be wheeled on to the airplane. So I'm like, "Hey, let me grab your luggage". Put it up, and then I took it down. And it was so easy! I carried it out for her to the wheelchair. But you would think I had done some huge thing. No, it was a little thing. Do you know how many divine appointments? 'Cause I wore a smile on my face! This next week, what if we just wear a smile on our face? It's one of the best way to steward the 42 muscles, facial muscles in the face. Can I get an amen right there?
"If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, then your face will really show it, if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" It's a one song Sunday, don't worry church! Let me double back and double down, we're talking about life lies, and specifically, the lies that we're telling to ourselves. But when we see it in others, it helps us identify it in ourselves. So here are the two lies. Elijah, we're right back to that broom tree, sat under it and prayed. "I've had enough Lord, take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors". This sounds to me like a generational curse. We don't know anything about his family of origin, don't know what kind of issues or problems or dysfunction, but there is some kind of epigenetic issue happening here.
But there's a second lie that Elijah tells himself. I work hard on this. Elijah. Verse 14. I take it out in the 11 o'clock service, evidently. You lost an hour of sleep, I give you some grace. "I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. I am the only one left". So interesting to me, because it's true. He has been zealous for the Lord. But it's half true, 'cause he ain't the only one. You know what happens when we're going through hard times, when we're going through hard things, we think we're the only one wrestling with this secret sin. We think we're the only one that's carrying this baggage. Listen to me, in a church this size, there are hundreds of people who have experienced similar pain and suffering. Similar abuse, similar accusations, similar addictions.
There are hundreds of people who are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. You are not alone. The enemy wants to kind of separate you over here. You know what? Those of you that have experienced church hurt, I'm so proud that you're here. Because it would be so easy, just like, "Nah, I, no, no, no. No, I can't go there". And it probably took some courage to come back. But you know what? There's a power when we have a second family called a church. And I just feel like I empathize with you. It breaks my heart if you've experienced hurt. But there does come a moment where you don't get over it, per se.
And I know this from experience. I have emotional and physical scars. You get through it. You get to the other side, but then you get on with the life that God wants you to live! The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. And so, what does God do? The Lord said to him, "Go back the way you came". Some of you need to go back to an alter you built. You need to go back to a divine... You need to go back to a decision you made. You need to go back to a vow that you made. You need to go back to that place and renew the vow and rebuild the altar. And then God says, I want you to anoint, "Haziel anoint Jehu and anoint Elisha to succeed as prophet".
Do you see what God's doing here? He repurposes his life. Elijah, you're not gonna get better if you just focus on your circumstances. You're not gonna get better if you just focus on, I gotta fix me, I gotta fix this circumstance. No, no, no, why don't we focus on some other... Do you know the best way to get over your problems is help other people with their problems, the best way to tap your potential is help other people tap their potential? I love the opening line of "The Purpose Driven Life," "It's not about you".
And so, there's something happening here. Success is succession. Discipleship is growing fruit on other people's trees. Legacy is not what you accomplish, legacy is what others accomplish because of you. If Elijah gives up, there is no Elisha. There's no mantle. Elisha does twice as many miracles, 28 miracles, Elijah does 14. That's not a credit to Elisha, it's a credit to Elijah. Let me close. Three stories, and I'll make 'em quick. Last weekend, I was at Convoy of Hope Summit in California. And we have a long history with Convoy. Pastor Joel, you helped lead the charge on those. But we did one in '97 where the security and exchange commission is kitty cornered to Ebenezer's, when it was a parking lot.
I remember we gave 50,000 pounds of groceries to 5,000 people. We were a church of less than a hundred people. But I remember hearing, "Do things twice your size". And it was one of those turning point moments for us that we're gonna be about our city. A church that stays within its four walls isn't a church at all. And so, let's be about not just building a church, but blessing our city. What year was the second one at RFK? 10,000 people, a hundred thousand pounds of groceries, right around 2008, right around 2008. And then we do that, and then God bursts this vision for a DC Dream Center. And so, Convoy is part of our core conviction that God's gonna bless us in proportion how we give to missions and care for the poor in our city.
So I'm at Convoy, and Dick Foth, my spiritual father, interviews the founder of Convoy, Hal Donaldson. When Hal was nine years old, his parents were hit by a drunk driver. His dad was instantly killed. His mother was so severely injured, months in the hospital, they had to pop into a foster home. And Hal said that from that moment on, that they were sentenced to a life of poverty. They lived off of food stamps and just struggled to like make ends meet. When Hal was... And he called them hard years. That's the phrase he used. And it just, it resonated, 'cause some of you are in the middle of hard years. As a teenager, he writes a letter to a college president, and that college president actually picks up a phone and calls this teenage kid.
That college president was named Dick Foth. Hal ends up at Bethany, studies journalism, goes to India to work with the Buntains, but he has this opportunity to interview Mother Theresa. And so, he's peppering Mother Theresa with questions for a story. Then, Mother Theresa asks him a question and says, "Hal, what are you doing for the poor"? That question changes his life. He goes home, he buys some groceries, he puts them in the back of his pickup truck. Didn't have much money, but he delivered them to families in need. That's how Convoy started.
Now, hundreds of trucks, dozens of warehouses responded to 86 disasters last year. Feed 570,000 kids in 38 countries every day, empowering women, training farmers, doing the whole nine yards. I mean, 600 channeled, 636 million with only an 8.4% overhead, which is amazing for a nonprofit, into kingdom causes. Why? Hal could have believed a lie. You're sentenced to a life of poverty. No, what if you could leverage that and lift millions out of poverty? What if you could take the enemy's lie, What the enemy intended for evil, but God intended for good and use it for His... God wants to recycle and redeem it. And in moments like this, woo!
I always wanna be careful. Listen, when the Bible says, He works all things together for good, it doesn't mean all things are good. Bad things happen to good people. There is evil in this world. But if God is for us, who can be against us? So we don't let the enemy tell us our story. No, no, no. We let God rewrite the story by giving the author and perfecter of our faith full editorial control. God, you write the story.
Second story, next night, crazy! Hal interviews Kelsey Grammer, the actor. "Frazier," but also "Jesus Revolution," powerful movie that released a year ago. Kelsey said that 50 years ago, his sister was murdered, and he has lived with grief every day since. Then, his dad was murdered. Then two brothers were killed in a shark attack. And he said, "I gave up on God, but God didn't give up on me". He said, "There was this moment". He said, "Jesus sat down next to me". And said to him, "I got this. It's mine". Here's what Kelsey said, "I held on to a limping faith".
Some of you are in great spirits, great shape, hitting on all cylinders. Your faith is on fire. But you know what? Some of you have a limping faith like Jacob, and we honor you, we bless you, and we're gonna walk this thing together. We're gonna pace it out, we're gonna walk it together. Kelsey cited couple of things that are worth sharing. He quoted Winston Churchill, "If you're going through hell, keep going". He cited W.H. Auden, the English poet, "Stagger onward rejoicing". That became his drumbeat. And then he cited the Doobie Brothers. "You'll always have a chance to give up, so why do it now"? And that kept him going. And then the last night, okay, it was a pretty amazing weekend, I'm not gonna lie.
The next night, Alton Brown, Food Network, "Cutthroat Kitchen," "Iron Chef," and Simon Majumdar from the Food Network cooked dinner for us. I think I have a picture, just 'cause I like making you hungry. Man, that was so good. That meal was so good. But the most powerful thing about it was Simon shared his backstory. Now at this point, he's a significant investor of time and money with Convoy, like he's all in on Convoy. But he shared his backstory. He said, "Sometimes, the world can conspire against you".
He lost his mom to leukemia, his business was failing, and he was suffering from severe depression. He said, "I went out to the balcony in my four story apartment, I put one leg over the ledge". He said, "I was prepared to end it all". He said, "That's when the neighbors in the apartment beneath me started cooking. They opened their windows, and I smelled the most amazing Lebanese food I've ever smelled. And suddenly," he said, "I was more hungry than suicidal".
He goes inside, he opens up his his notebook, and he sees what he had written many years before, these words: "Go everywhere, eat everywhere". He quits his job the next day, he moves from London to LA, ends up on on the Food Network. And he says, "I am absolute proof that when you're in your darkest moments, you can have some of the most amazing things happen to you". Can I just, before we close, can I vision cast for a second? The day will come that we have a sit down restaurant right over here on the east side of the capital turnaround. We will have a marketplace. This will be a place where you can work, and eat, and play, and pray.
And you say, "Mark, why would a church do that"? Well, why would a church turn a crack house into a coffee house? Because Jesus did much of his ministry around a table. Listen to Simon's tableology. Simon said to me, "Breaking bread is the most powerful thing in the world. It's the great universal. You can be of different faith, different political belief, but you can't sit at a table and say to someone, I hate you, but can you pass the potatoes"? You are not here by accident, you are here by divine appointment. You're in person, you're online. You are seen, heard, and loved by God. And you're asking yourself, "What do I do now? What do I do next"? The short answer, surrender your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Time, talent, treasure, past, present, future, heart, soul, mind, and strength, give it to Jesus and see what He does. In Jesus' name. Amen.