St. John Studies

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

Hard to say isn’t it?

So far Pastor Idleman has discussed how we just can’t see ourselves in an honest way.  We can’t accept that identity that is really us.  We hide from it.  He has discussed how we can’t even face reality.  We deny that it exists.  Now he discusses in Chapter 7 how we project our sins, we place blame for our problems on others who indeed may be innocent.

What is he wanting us to say to ourselves when we look into the mirror?

I am a sinner.

What is he wanting us to say when we deny we are a sinner?

I am a sinner.

Now, what is he wanting us to do when we project our sin off on others?

Take responsibility and say,

I am a sinner.

It is just so hard to admit our failings and it is so common for Christians to put up the perfect façade. I was in a meeting at church with a “elder” woman of the church.  I refuse to call her elderly, even though most would call her that.  She is a brilliant woman, so knowledgeable about the Bible and so knowledgeable about life.  I can’t remember how the subject came up but the leader of the meeting was discussing a topic and she interrupted.  She had some things to confess to the group.  She talked about her health a little and a recent weight loss.  The weight loss was the segway that tied her comments in to the group.  We did not know she was going to stray away into confession.  She talked about how satan had taken her weight loss and used it to inflate her ego.  Soon, she said, she was spending too much money on clothing she did not need, racking up debts that could not be paid, for vanity.  She started getting emotional.  She felt awful that this had hurt her family’s budget.  She felt awful that she fell prey to satan’s temptations.

What were the rest of the people in the group doing?

Feeling uncomfortable, you know having that tight feeling across your shoulders.  Eye contact going everywhere except to this woman.  No one saying anything.  Just quiet…… What was she saying to her fellow Christians?

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

How did her fellow Christians handle her confession……not well.

She looked hard in the mirror and saw herself for what she was.  She did not deny reality; she accepted it.  She did not project her vanity problem onto her husband, her parents, her friends etc.  She took ownership.

I will never forget what she did.  I will never forget how poorly we responded.

In Chapter 7, Pastor Idleman takes us this week into the wonderful world of projection.

I should not say “wonderful world” because being stuck in sin and not growing beyond it;  that’s not “wonderful”.

Remember the whole point of his book AHA is to shake us up from our way of life, to make us deal with the things we are doing wrong.

Here is a definition of projection:

“Projection is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses. Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them. For example, a spouse may be angry at their significant other for not listening, when in fact it is the angry spouse who does not listen. Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.”

We could also throw in other terms  to explain projection, terms like responsibility.

Have you ever been around someone who just cannot take responsibility for their actions.  Responsibility gets spread around all over the place.  Here is a “real life” example I just experienced today.  I have an online class that I teach for my college and sometimes I get what I call “excuse” emails.  I don’t call them “reason” emails because students do not provide reasons for their struggles; “excuse” emails throw responsibility all over the place.  The email is full of excuses.

This online student is not doing well in my class.  She does not really say that.  She does not say it is “all my fault.”  It is because I am not putting in the time I need for study.  I don’t stay up with assignments because I don’t ever look at the due date page.  When the reading gets hard, she does not admit to being a lazy reader.  She gives up and does not put forth the effort to dig out the meaning.  For many days I never even log on to the class website.

Here is what she says:  “I went to a poor high school and my teachers did not know what they were doing.  They did not challenge me with the reading assignments they gave me and they let me be lazy.  My Dad and Mom never emphasized education so reading and learning was never something that was important in my life.  Besides that, I have a four-year old child who had surgery and her special needs keep me from finding quiet time to study.”

Ok, it is her teachers, her parents and her child.  What can I say to her when she asks me for advice about how to do better in class?

You are projecting all of your problems in my class onto everyone but yourself and you are responsible for your grade, not your teachers of the past, your parents and your child.

I don’t tell her this.  This is not what she wants to hear.  She does not want a teacher to be brutally honest with her.

After all, she is not being brutally honest with me.

Guess who is getting a large measure of the blame for her poor performance in the conversational area of her family and friends?

Me.

He got that degree.

 He almost lost his family.

Pastor Idleman spends chapter 6 discussing denial and the man in “Almost” a few posts ago had become a master of that.

Convinced that he needed more education, he enrolled in a Ph.D program at great sacrifice to his family.  Not only was the program expensive but it was several hundred miles away from his home.  He would have to uproot his wife and child in the summers to go to summer school and eventually he would have to move to the University to live there 4 days of every week.

To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words on page 107, “When I went to college I started studying, and I guess that was about the time I stopped going to church.”   To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words, “I started falling in love with the idea that I would have Dr. in front of my name and that’s when I stopped going to church.”  To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words, “My marriage was falling apart and it was about the same time I started going back to church.” Whoa…… That third sentence is not even close to what Idleman says on page 107 but that is what happened to the guy.

As his marriage was going “down the tubes”, he started going to church.

When his wife told him she had left him, he faced all the horrible things he had done.  He cried out to God in confession, he admitted his wrongs and asked for help and guidance from our Lord and Savior.

He almost lost his wife and child.

Almost.

God saw something in this family.  God did not want satan to tear hearts and people apart so He sent help.

That church had a pastor that worked with this couple and child.

That church had members who supported this family in troubled times.

“Christians” who were acquaintances now became close friends; friends who would grab your hand and pray with you.

A marriage counselor was an excellent resource and even though she did not let her employer know it, she was s strong Christian and she let us know it.  She was not just a marriage counselor, she was a Christian marriage counselor.

Some of you may be familiar with the Emmaus Walk.  Well this couple went on the Emmaus Walk at just the right time in their lives.  God’s timing.  Tears were shed.

You get the picture.

Once this guy admitted his sin, God sent His resources.

It is what Pastor Idleman calls “the moment of truth”.   “You come to the place where you stop disagreeing with truth and you honestly say ‘here I am’ “.

Almost holds out hope.

God won’t give up on you if you get honest with Him. I did.

Of course it was me in this story and I am thankful for God’s grace.

It all started with me getting down on my knees and saying to Him “here I am.”

Pastor Kyle Idleman is best-known nationally as the author of the book Not a Fan.

Here we are in Chapter 6 and I finally get around to looking at the back of his book AHA.

Did you know that from page 221 to 217 he has listed chapter study questions?

I include a question from time to time with my comments but you may want to look at his.

Anything that will make you think more about what he is saying in his book is good.

I hope this post helps you even thought it is “not a post.”

Dave Ramey is an American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker. His show and writings strongly focus on encouraging people to get out of debt.  I have listened to his radio show for many years and I must admit that I enjoy it.

Of course, I listen to other people who have called in to his show.  Most often they seek his advice about some financial matter, sometimes it is because they have painted themselves into a corner.

Well, get ready when you call in with a problem because Dave is going to share his unvarnished advice with you and he pulls no punches.

When I read Pastor Idleman’s words in Chapter 6 about financial reality, I thought of Dave.

The chapter is about denial and Idleman reports that the number one common example of denial is the person who spends the money and then does not want to open the bill.  That stuff drives Dave Ramsey crazy.  First of all, he preaches that if you can’t afford it, you don’t need it.  And if you have bought it and you are now heavily in debt, you had better be ready because when you call Dave, he is going to tell you to sell the nice car(s) and drive junkers, take an extra job or two, cancel the credit cards and go cash only and practice austerity until the debt is gone.  By practice austerity he means months and maybe years [it depends on the amount of debt] of not eating out, no vacations etc.  Essentially only expenditure for necessities [housing, basic transportation, running water, electricity and heat].

How’s that sit with you?

See why he is so unpopular?

Also, do you see why he has followers?

The followers focus on the feeling of freedom of being debt free.  You may have heard some of his success stories call up his radio show.  They call up to report that they have done “the plan” and now they are debt free!!!!!  Usually it is a family and they scream it over the phone.  Guess what, they sound happy.

Like Pastor Idleman says,  they have dealt with the humiliation,  they have dealt with the embarrassment, they have dealt with the pain and they realize it was all essential.

They have opened the bills and they have taken ownership

Denial of sin is very much like this.  We have done the sin but we don’t want to open the bill.  We don’t want to take ownership.  We want to go on with life as it is, acting like everything is ok.  It’s not.  Like a person heavily in debt, the Mercedes, the luxury motor home, the mansion, the exotic trips look great but they are not real.  In reality they are financed by a lending institution.  The creditor knows it.

Dave is so popular because he breaks down financial sin to a black and white world.  He is always saying that his “wisdom” is not “rocket science.”  It’s not.  It is just cold, hard truth.  Dave is so unpopular because he tells callers cold, hard truth.  They don’t want to hear it.

They would rather live in a word of denial.

Pastor Idleman uses the story of David to illustrate how denial can cause great sin.

We all know the story of King David’s downfall.  The glimpse of Bathsheba bathing on the roof is just step A.  Before long after learning her identity and the identity of her spouse, David was ready to take step B.  He would invite Bathsheba to his quarters for an ill-advised meeting.  Step C would be making advances to her despite the loyalty he was being paid by her spouse Uriah, one of David’s most trusted soldiers.  Step D is sexual union with Bathsheba…..

It goes on and on as David digs a deeper hole, a deeper level of sinning until he has not only committed adultery but also has multiple lies to his credit and he has conspired to commit murder; his whole character is compromised.  His reign as King is called into question.

And he lives the life of a man who tries very hard to cover it all up from his adoring public.

You know the story.  David is not only a King, David is not only a man leading a double life, but he is also a man of God.  That man of God part is the sticky part because David knows he has done horrendous sin.  He knows that God knows.  All the cover up in this world did not matter to him because he knows God sees through all of it.  God knows David’s sin.

It is killing him.

It did not happen all at once. It did not happen over night.  Satan got David to commit the first little sin, the glimpse.  That was the set-up.  David could not get that view out of his mind.  Oh, if he could have, the story would turn out differently.  The great Martin Luther said we can’t keep birds from flying over our heads but we can keep them from nesting in our hair.  That’s David’s problem.  He did glimpse Bathsheba but he did not let it go.  He let her image “nest in his hair” and he was ready to go on to step B.  He did not stop with step A.  After A, he felt the need to go on to B which was bad, but it was not horrible.  So how about C?  He found out that he could do that….eventually he was at XY and Z.

He was in a mess and he knew his Lord knew it.

Denial works like that.  Once we can find a way to deny that one sin is not so bad, we can move on to justifying another, until we are in a mess.  To use a recurring theme of the book, we are in “the distant country” and living a life that is far from the life our Lord wants us to live.

Where is the hope in all of this?

First of all, there is hope in the Christian who recognizes that birds do fly over our heads and a wary Christian does not let them nest in their hair.

Secondly, let’s look at what David does, even after he gets to step Z.

Psalm 51.

He confesses.  Not one of those “go through the motions confessions”, he pours out his heart to God.

Pastor Idleman includes Psalm 51 in Chapter 6 and he admonishes us to read it, read it closely.

Then he implores us to pray it….because we all can relate to King David, can’t we?

He always loved school, in fact this was his one place where he excelled.

He always loved books, and had an endless curiosity about learning new things.

Becoming a teacher was a thrill of a lifetime, with a father a teacher, and aunts who were teachers; it seemed like the perfect profession to follow in his father’s footsteps.  He married a teacher and this new partner was a excellent fit; both he and his wife were frequently commiserating about the challenges of getting young minds fired up about learning.

New jobs arrived and a move to a new location, where additional education was encouraged.

Then the baby came.

But education for him was still number one.  When the job suggested further training, he jumped at the chance to return to school, that place where he excelled. One additional degree was completed and whew that was over.

Not really.

Now he saw a chance to go further, all the way to a terminal degree.

That love of school was stronger than anything. About this time, the association with a church was getting weaker and weaker.  He had been taught to go to church but it was done more as a duty than anything, a habit , the idea was that it was good to be “religious.”  Now with the pursuit of an additional degree, things had to be put aside–church…..and eventually family.

His wife knew that he was going in the wrong direction.

He knew he was going in the wrong direction but he was not listening to others.  He was not listening to that very small voice that said “you need to give up on this.  Your family is more important than this additional education.” He ignored that voice.  He said to himself, “This is important.”  “This is what I have to do.”  “I want this.”  The voice said, “This is not necessary.”  “You don’t really have to do this.”  “This is something you want.”   Then the conclusion….”You’re being selfish.”

All this fits Chapter 6. Pastor Idleman says that people in denial disagree with the voice.  They argue their position in their own mind, justifying their actions and they convince themselves that they are right.  People in denial defend their actions.  When others say to the denier that things are not right, the denier gets defensive and may even avoid people or places where their acts are questioned.  People in denial distract others from the reality that they are experiencing.  They may point to successes or accomplishments, never pointing to the costs that are incurred for those successes or accomplishments. He got that terminal degree.

He almost lost his family.

Almost is a word that holds out hope.

His story continues later in the week; later in Chapter 6.

This week in Chapter 6 Pastor Idleman is addressing the common human problem of denying the problem.

I say “the problem” because many of us can just say “fill in the blank.”  We all have a laundry list of problems don’t we?

In particular, in the context of his book AHA I think he is writing about the sins of our lives that we refuse to call sins.  We just deny they exist. They do exist. What about a new type of denial?

From an author I have been teaching in Sunday School we get the sentence: “The most fulfilling challenge God’s children can experience in this life is the challenge of becoming more like Jesus Christ” [from Warren Wiersbe, Being a Child of God.

You might be asking right now, how is that relevant?

The answer is when you live a life that has un-named sin, you are denying yourself growth.

You cannot grow beyond the sin.  You are stuck in sin.  You are denying God’s plan for your life.

You may be thinking I have sinned my whole life.  I have a habit of sin. You are not alone. But what if you called that thing that you are doing what it really is?  It is wrong.  It is SIN.  I am not proud of it.  In fact I hate myself when I do it.  I try to hide it from others.  It is embarrassing to call myself a Christian and still have this SIN hanging around my neck. Do you think these thoughts are unique?

Think again.  They’re not.

What if you just called SIN out?  What if you said to God, “take this away from me.  I can’t do this alone.  I can’t rid myself of this dark stain on my soul.”

It may not happen over night.  A lightening flash may not hit you from heaven.  Your body may not tingle all over.  But………

Gradually, gradually… you will desire to sin less as the Holy Spirit begins the work that you cannot accomplish with your flesh.

You have called out sin but you have also called out God in you–your most powerful change agent. Will you have relapses?  Yes you will.  Will you have days when you feel like a failure?  Yes those days will come. Will you succeed?

Yes you will, because God wants this for you and you are accepting His blessing for His glory and you will experience His power to change you.

Eventually your love for God will be more powerful that the urge to sin.

You are not denying God’s plan for your life; you are accepting it.  NO MORE DENIAL! 

You are accepting the challenge of becoming more like Jesus Christ.

The title of Chapter 6 is “Denial–If I Ignore It, Maybe It Will Go Away.”

You might ask, why is Pastor Idleman going here?

Denial is such a common pop psychology term.  It is not unusual to hear it on the news, expressed on talk shows and presented in tv dramas.  Some cable tv shows spend a lot of time presenting people who are struggling with denial–mainly drug addicts.

What is denial?

Kendra Cherry, “Psychology Expert” on the About Education Website posted in 2015 states that “denial is probably one of the best known defense mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth (i.e. “He’s in denial.”). Denial is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred.

Denial functions to protect the ego from things that the individual cannot cope with. While this may save us from anxiety or pain, denial also requires a substantial investment of energy. Because of this, other defenses are also used to keep these unacceptable feelings from consciousness.

In many cases, there might be overwhelming evidence that something is true, yet the person will continue to deny its existence or truth because it is too uncomfortable to face.

Denial can involve a flat out rejection of the existence of a fact or reality. In other cases, it might involve admitting that something is true, but minimizing its importance.

Addiction is one of the best-known examples of denial. People who are suffering from a substance abuse problem will often flat-out deny that their behavior is problematic. In other cases, they might admit that they do use drugs or alcohol, but will claim that this substance abuse is not a problem.”

There is an endless list of denial behaviors other than a drugs or alcohol.  Some people deny that the climate is changing.  Currently some parents are denying that vaccinations protect their children from communicable diseases.  I had an aunt [deceased] who told me that she smoked her whole life but denied that tobacco was going to kill her.  This woman was a Masters-level psychologist, a member of Mensa.  Yet she died of tobacco-related cancer.

Why is Pastor Idleman going here?

Denial works well for us sinners….very well.

This week we will explore how denial can keep us from being the Christians God wants us to be.

Ok, Pastor Idleman has asked some things of us already.

He has told us that we have to be honest with ourselves, brutally honest.

He has told us why it is important to be that way.  He has told us what happens when we are not honest.  He has even asked us to do an assignment, going to the bathroom, looking into a mirror and asking questions of ourselves and providing honest answers.

Now we come to the end of the chapter and he asks one more thing.

Find a person to confess to.

That makes sense but…….

Immediately the mind starts racing.  I have to find someone I trust with all my sin junk?  I have to drag all my dirty secrets out of the dark and into the light?  Yes that’s what he’s asking. The first instinct is to say no.  Why?  We as Christians are good at hiding our faults.  We have talked about that in previous posts.  That is one of the things that people who are not Christians hate about us. Idleman is asking us to go against our instincts.

He wants us to find an earthly confessor.

Why can’t I just confess to God and that is good enough?

I pose a question to you.  Do you really want to change?

In Matthew 18:22 Jesus was asked by the disciples how many times they needed to forgive someone.  Jesus says “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”  God will forgive you over and over again. Jesus took the punishment we deserve upon Himself when He died on the cross.  Jesus died for my sins so then when I confess them, God forgives them.  Pastor Idleman tells us that and the Bible tells us that…but I ask you,  do you want to be stuck? Stuck in what I call the sin cycle.  1. Better behavior  2. Sin  3. Guilt  4. Repent 1. Better behavior 2. Sin  3. Guilt 4. Repent….etc.  You are going nowhere.

Who should we find to confess to?  Just anybody.  No.

1.a Christian who shares your convictions

2.someone who will be honest themselves

3.someone who is trustworthy

4.someone who has freely received the grace of Jesus and freely gives it

You might be saying now “I don’t have a friend or family member like that!”  Follow Idleman’s 4 guidelines.  Find that kind of person.  Don’t rush this.  It is too important. We’re talking accountability here and it will be hard.  Idleman says “When we take what we have kept in the dark and drag it kicking and screaming into the light, we find that it loses much of its power over us.” Don’t just do this with anyone.  Find the right person, the person you can trust.

Why is this so important?

At the end of Chapter 5 Idleman tells us in his quote from the book Coping With Stress.  “people who tend to keep secrets have more physical and mental complaints, on average, than people who do not…[including] greater anxiety, depression and bodily symptoms such as back pain and headaches…The initial embarrassment of confessing is frequently outweighed by the relief that comes with the verbalization of the darker aspects of the self.”

If this is not enough, he concludes with Proverbs 28:13 “Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

And I am tired of being stuck.