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The Obsessed Christian: Finding Balance, Total Submission, and Living Without a Scoreboard
79 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to the Grove Hill Church podcast, where we delve into the sermon slices from our church services. In this episode, our hosts Ridley Barron and Dan Sanchez reflect on the sermon series on Philippians, focusing on the theme of going all-in on Christianity. They discuss the concept of being obsessed with one's faith and the degrees of commitment to Christianity. From the pitfalls of obsession to the qualities of a truly committed Christian, they delve into the importance of submission, self-inspection, and living out positive affirmations of faith. Join us as we explore the hidden scoreboard of faith, the pursuit of godliness, and the meaning of true commitment to the Christian life.
Timestamps:
00:01 Discussion about sermon and personal reflection.
05:03 Some get aggressive defending faith on social media.
07:33 Christians struggling with self-judgment and submission.
10:55 Practical application of loving God and others.
14:01 Mature Christian marked by faithfulness, patience, trials.
18:12 Encouragement to be fully committed to God.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast, where we're doing another sermon slice. I'm joined with Ridley Barron to react to his sermon that he started this week on Philippians. And it was a fantastic sermon with a lot of great points.
Going All-In: Obsession or Faith?
00:00:16
Speaker
It was like a smorgasbord of different topics to dive into, but there was one in particular that he finished with.
00:00:23
Speaker
Uh that you finish with that. I just wanted to dive into and i've been waiting for for this moment for a while because it's something near and dear to my heart I tend to be one of those people that has an obsessive Personality like it's hard for me to just kind of like go half in like if i'm going in i'm going all in I don't I don't like to just like Go pick a few steps in and kind of reevaluate when I get scuba certified i'm like, oh, yeah But what does it become? What does it look like to be a dive master?
00:00:48
Speaker
beyond just getting scuba certified. Now, I'm not a dive master, but I instantly go there when it comes to starting something.
Comfort Zones and Christian Life
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. And naturally, with my own faith, there's been many times where I'm like, what does it look like to go all in as a Christian? Because at the end of the sermon, you talked about how so many of us are essentially kind of dying in our comfort zone. Or like Keith Green sang a song called A Sleep in the Light, like a long time ago. Yes. I remember that one.
00:01:14
Speaker
very convicting. Um, and I'm like, how, what does it look like for Christians to go all lens? We have a good picture of what it looks like for Christians, uh, or not Christians, but people to be obsessed with their, with their jobs and to go all into work or maybe a hobby, maybe their sports team, maybe their kids, baseball games. You know, you see those parents that are like pushing them into the most competitive ways and they're hoping they get a scholarship and become in the big leagues or something. We know what this looks like.
00:01:41
Speaker
yet I don't think I haven't seen too many obsessive Christians.
The Right Level of Devotion
00:01:48
Speaker
So to kind of kick it off, Ridley, I want to know, what do you see as an appropriate amount of obsession when it comes to Christianity? Can you be too obsessed with going all in on the faith or are there degrees to which you're like, oh, that's a good place to be? That's a great conversation.
00:02:06
Speaker
And on the surface, the first thing I would respond, my gut would be, you know, yeah, we see some of those crazy kooks out there who kind of bring embarrassment to the name of Jesus because they're doing goofy things or saying things that are just way off into left field, sometimes way beyond the fence in left field.
00:02:23
Speaker
And you think, okay, that's what it looks like to be too obsessed with Jesus. But I would argue that that's not really obsession. That's something entirely different.
Total Submission to God
00:02:32
Speaker
So when you get to this question of obsession with Christ, it comes to the phrase that we use a lot, and it seems to be popping up more and more, even in my own personal walk, total submission.
00:02:45
Speaker
So what does total submission look like? Well, Romans 12, one and two uses this really clear language where it says, make yourselves living sacrifices. So ask yourself the question, when it comes to me being a living sacrifice, is it possible to be too dead? Well, the answer is no. When Jesus said, take up your cross daily and follow me, there's not a point where you can say, well, I'm close enough to being dead.
00:03:13
Speaker
I'm close enough to being a sacrifice. Well, no, you're either a sacrifice or you're not. There's no middle ground there. And so when we start to look at measurements of how submitted are we, how surrendered are we, how sold out for Jesus are we, I think the question comes back in how much of Ridley still comes to the surface versus how much of God is coming to the surface.
Unhealthy Obsessions in Faith
00:03:41
Speaker
interesting you say that it's like we when you think of like obsessive christians you think of like some of the wackos out there you know like the people that are standing up on a box and they're not even with zero tact they're just yelling at people and i think there's like a famous church that like is famous for protesting things and doing it in the most obnoxious way and most of us are like we're not with them we're not with them i can't remember what church that is and i don't even know if i want to but
00:04:06
Speaker
Yes. There's those people out there. I think it's Oklahoma called Westwood Baptist, and yes, that's a great example because those are the kinds of people, man, they're all fired up and ready to go. They're the kind who will tell you a little charge hell with a water pistol. It's all great and wonderful. Particularly, who are you running off in the process? Who are you turning off to Jesus because it's not really obsession. It's like kookamania. It's a Greek word, kookamania.
00:04:35
Speaker
Oh man. It's funny because you could probably become obsessed with the faith in a bunch of different ways. There's probably different categories for obsession, all of which can be unhealthy if not balanced out with the other parts of the faith. We all know those
Balancing Grace and Justice
00:04:49
Speaker
people that are so obsessed with theology, they lose track of what it means to be a human being sometimes. They have no heart.
00:04:58
Speaker
All they do is find reason for why you're wrong, and you're like, okay, thanks. And we've all seen those people who get into these great apologetic arguments on social media, and they're just, again, they're like a bull in a china shop. They're going to run over anybody who stands in their way. There's no compassion. There's no grace. Look, more power to them for wanting to defend the faith, but our God has never needed defending so much that he says you need to wipe out people who stand in your way.
00:05:27
Speaker
I think there's a point where, yeah, you can in some areas, theology is one of them. I think another one that kind of is on the fringe is we are so obsessed for what Christ can do for us. Yes. What's in it for me that we lose sight of, that's never what Christianity was about in the first place.
00:05:49
Speaker
I mean, you can almost take any attribute of God and do it like compassion. Great. It's great to have compassion, but what if you're like obsessed with compassion? Well, then you never have justice. You're literally the softy that always excuses people's sin, maybe even your own sin. Right. Which is actually probably one of the more common things that I see today is like an overdose on what people are calling empathy. I really like to reframe it as compassion because I think empathy has problems with it sometimes. Yeah, I agree. You know, and this is one of the things too, this is an area where I have
00:06:19
Speaker
experience personal growth myself and feel like God's still kind of showing me some things. But one of the tools I think Satan loves to do for us is he pushes us to obsessive polarizing ideas and thoughts. On one end, you've got some of the fundamentalist evangelical churches who push all the way to the end of
00:06:37
Speaker
There is no grace for anybody. We're hardline legalists. If you don't do it right, you're a failure, those kinds of things. But then you got the other side who says, oh, but God is love and God accepts everyone and God loves everyone. So for me, what I'm learning is that the scripture teaches us that our God is not an either or he's a both and.
Practical Submission and Self-Inspection
00:06:58
Speaker
There is obviously this deep, deep well of compassion. Otherwise, Jesus would have never been sent for us.
00:07:03
Speaker
But there's also this element of justice where God says, unless you accept my son, you've written your own death warrant. And so as Christians, I really try to encourage us. I'll just put it in practical terms. There's a long way between the Westwood Baptist of Oklahoma that's doing what it's doing and the local United Methodist Church that's saying, everybody's welcome and nobody's asked to change anything about their lives. There's a big difference between those two in Christianity.
00:07:34
Speaker
So even becoming obsessed with your own sin and becoming submissive, I've seen some Christians take to the nth degree becomes like self-flagellation, right? Where you're always... You fast a little bit too much.
00:07:49
Speaker
You're always beating yourself somehow and it's like woe is me and you're you're beating yourself up emotionally sometimes physically I'm like Because sometimes I can go there too I mean I've actually I've had some seasons and trying to trying to rid myself of evil and being too hard on myself
00:08:05
Speaker
But also at the same time, I'm like, okay, so what is, what is this dying to self look like? Does it look like just kind of, essentially, it probably looks like a lot of little deaths, like, should I do this? Or should I do that? It's like, well, what would, I don't know, I don't want to make it simple as like, what would Jesus do, but essentially trying to align my choices to what would bring God glory.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah. You know, Paul loved to use athletic examples and one of the ones he used that, and I hate to steal it from you because you were using it in a negative sense, but in a positive sense, Paul talks about beating his body into submission, you know, training your body daily to do. And, uh, this morning and staff, we were talking about this first and second Timothy chapter two, verse 15, where it says, be diligent to present yourself to God as one who is approved. Well, the process of working that out isn't about trying harder.
00:08:56
Speaker
It's about surrendering more. It's not about, I gotta go harder, go faster, work longer, read more. It's not about those things. It's about taking your desires, your passions, your emotions, your history, your feeling, I mean everything, and daily putting those things under the authority and lordship of Christ Jesus so that he can use those things for his glory.
Maturity in Faith Beyond Checklists
00:09:22
Speaker
Ma'am. Okay. But what does this actually look like? That's what I'm always trying to get it to is like, yes, but what does it look like? Because every time I go down and try to do that, I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. And I'm going to run a hundred miles and be like, no, no, no. How about we just start with 10 feet? Let's walk a little bit and then recalibrate, walk a little bit and recalibrate. And maybe that's what this is.
00:09:43
Speaker
Like maturity in Christ comes from just continually, like we said in the previous episode, just not giving up and continually trying and falling and stumbling, but continually seeking after God, reading the word, trying to resisting sin, listening less, getting accountability, doing these little things, practice them all the time. Right. And I think it does come back to, um, you've got to, and this is the importance of quiet time in meditation.
00:10:12
Speaker
You've got to get to the place where David was, where David said, search me and try me, oh God, and see if there'd be any wicked way about me. That involves daily self-inspection, okay? All right, today, let me start by throwing this area of my life out there on the table and saying, okay, God, what needs to be changed about me? How am I as a husband? How am I as a son, as a father, as a brother, as a church member? How am I as a human being?
00:10:43
Speaker
The question that was asked of Jesus by the lawyer was this. What's the most important commandment? And Jesus says, well, there's two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And so in practical terms, how does that get carried out as Ridley walks around the streets of Chapel Hill every day? If I'm really loving God, how am I going to treat people differently? If I'm really loving people, what am I going to do to serve them and to point them towards Christ? How am I going to have patience with them?
00:11:11
Speaker
How am I gonna be understanding with them? So there's a lot of little divine hints all the way through scripture about what a truly submitted life looks like. Even another example where the lawyer came to Jesus and he said, what must I do to inherit the kingdom? And he says to him, go and sell everything you have. Well, God doesn't say that to all of us. He doesn't even say it to most of us.
00:11:40
Speaker
because not all of us have the same problems that that lawyer had. That lawyer clearly had a problem with materialism. So sitting Dan and Ridley side by side on a couch and saying, have some time of self inspection, submission for you is going to look different than submission for me because I don't have the same struggles that you have, but I've got struggles that you don't have.
00:12:03
Speaker
And so, again, going back to Paul's analogy, these are the areas that I have to beat into submission for me because that's the problem I deal with.
00:12:12
Speaker
Oftentimes in Christianity, we focus on the things not to do. What about the things, and those are things, there are certainly lots of things not to do that glorify God by not doing them, but what about the things to do? Is there a certain couple people, even in Grove Hill, or maybe just in your life, that you're like, wow, that person exemplifies being all in for Jesus? Yeah, absolutely. Immediately, there are people in my church that come to mind who I go,
00:12:41
Speaker
They love others well. They serve others well. They seek for ways to be intentional in relationships with other people. They are such an encouragement. Even when they're in down seasons, they find a way to encourage others with their lives. And I think it's interesting going back to Jesus when he said the two commandments that were the greatest, you notice that both of those were positive affirmations, not negative.
00:13:05
Speaker
He didn't say, go and don't do this and go and don't do that. Instead, he lifted up two very positive examples and said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And both of those are not about what you abstain from, they're more about what you commit yourself to.
Faithfulness Without Keeping Score
00:13:21
Speaker
And I think that's a great point. There are people in our church, man, who give of themselves, who give of their wealth, who go out of their way to make sure others are
00:13:33
Speaker
exalted and lifted up towards Christ. And those people stand out. I mean, especially in this world, this day and age, where everybody tends to want to look out for themselves. Absolutely does.
00:13:45
Speaker
I, one time when I was building this website called just disciple.com, I've mentioned we were trying to rank for all these Christian keywords. And we wanted to build this like way to measure maturity in Christ, almost as if I could make a survey for it and kind of give you a rough answer for like your year. And we wrestled and we struggled and we wondered like, well, what are the marks of a mature Christian? Is it
00:14:08
Speaker
Bible reading scripture knowledge theology Good works combination of all these things. How do you wait it? I realized it was it was a lot less to do with how strong you were in all of those things any of those things But really how faithful you were in following Jesus with your everyday life over a long period of time And if you go through trials that they tend to significantly increase your your maturity
00:14:37
Speaker
Um, if you've gone through some hard seasons through those times, that's where the testing comes from. Um, but it can be really be just that simple. Like, can you stay in, can you stay in the game and not give up and, and do those things relatively well? It's patience and just playing it out. Yeah, it really is. And you know, the thing we have to be careful about too, and I know this is, this is human nature, especially
00:15:01
Speaker
Western Christianity as human nature. We love to have checklists so that we can rank ourselves against other people, and even sometimes rank ourselves as to where we were versus where we are now. And let's be honest, it makes it easier, right? It's much easier if you can say, hey, today on Bible reading, I'm a scale of four to one to 10, I'm a four, where I used to be a two, and that makes us feel better.
00:15:27
Speaker
Unfortunately, Christianity just doesn't boil down to checklists that way. It really is a condition of your heart because today, your party may be reading the word. Tomorrow, Jesus may compel you to put down the word and go serve somebody instead. And there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't change your submission. In fact, it elevates your submission.
00:15:55
Speaker
And that's kind of a good conclusion because in all these other things where obsession is easy to measure, it's because there's a clear scoreboard with your career. It's your salary or how much you're getting paid or money you're making, you know, with, with the sports, it's how many points you're putting up on that board with your hobby. There's always a way to measure how big or how, how great you are at the thing, which is why we probably gravitate towards these things is it's easier to.
00:16:20
Speaker
Well, it's easier to push ourselves up when we know we're getting good at it. Yeah. The way of faith? The scoreboard's kind of hidden. And honestly, if you're trying to think about it as a scoreboard, you're thinking about it wrong, right? Because you want to think about how to be the lowest, the least of these, right? It's a totally different way. And maybe that's the whole point is if you're being obsessed with Christianity, you got to start with the fact that there is no scoreboard.
00:16:48
Speaker
That's good. And I love that you use the word that the scoreboard is kind of hidden because the verse that I was thinking of as you were making that sentence was the verse in Hebrews about our faith. What is the definition of faith? It's the reality of things we can't see. It is hoping in something we can't possibly put our eyes on.
00:17:06
Speaker
We know it's there. The promise is there. It's sure, but we are not going to physically see it yet. Well, that scoreboard is part of that promise. You know, God knows where we are. He knows the condition of our heart. We press on towards the high calling that Christ has for us, not looking at mile markers along the way, but instead keeping our eyes on that enterprise that we just really can't even see.
00:17:29
Speaker
So we have to have confidence in knowing that day by day, just steady, maybe not always consistent because we're human, but still steady, obedience to God's word leads us to the prize that we were really hoping for. There you go. I find it's the glory, in Proverbs it says, the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to seek it out. That's right.
00:17:56
Speaker
We don't need a scoreboard, but it is our glory to figure out how we are to live our utmost for his highest in such a way that we know we do die. Not that we're seeking rounds, because we're all just going to throw it back at a speed anyway, because we don't deserve any of it.
00:18:13
Speaker
I'm going to mess up this quote, but I think to me this quote is an encouragement to all of us because you're asking this question. How do we know if we are fully sold out? D.L. Moody, somewhere along the way, made this comment that the world has yet to see what the life of a man can make a difference when he's completely 100% sold out to God. In other words, none of us have ever gotten to that place where we are totally sold out. So if you're struggling and you're going, why don't feel like I'm there yet? Well, nobody has gotten there yet.
00:18:41
Speaker
We're pushing on towards that high calling.
Positive Obsession and Support in Faith
00:18:45
Speaker
It's kind of like, it's interesting to me to watch sports. I love watching all kinds of sports. And then just when you think nobody will ever break the record, somebody comes along and breaks the record. Why? Because we're all pushing each other a little harder, a little faster, a little stronger. And in Christianity, that's really what it should be about. I should be Dan Sanchez's biggest fan and supporter. Because when Dan breaks the record, then it gives me something to shoot for.
00:19:14
Speaker
So there you go. Let's be obsessed, but in a way that's almost obsessive for each other and ourselves, resisting sin, uh, walking in joy and faithfulness and godliness for the long haul without keeping track. This is this, I was going to say this is the game, but I'm like, this isn't game. This is the life. Right. All right. Good combo, man.
00:19:36
Speaker
So thanks for listening to the Grove Hill podcast, where we try to impact the life of every person with the whole gospel by any means necessary, including the show. Go ahead and share it with somebody and stay tuned for the next episode.