EP24: Why Being Self-Made Is a Threat to Your Spiritual Health

Welcome back to another episode of the Grace Church Members

Podcast. My name is Chris Rivers and I'm

really glad that you're here with us today.

We have in the room Scott Musingo, Schofield Foster, our

downtown campus pastor, and Haley Baranowski, a key

volunteer leader at our downtown campus.

Welcome all. Hey Chris, good to see you.

Good afternoon having. Us.

Great. So today we're going to

introduce the topic of being selfmade and the threat it poses

to our spiritual health. Schofield, why don't you just

kick us off? What is selfmade?

Yeah, well, this is the tagline we had for the study is what

does it mean to be a creature in a selfcreated world?

So we live in a world now that has really just embraced the

idea that it's up to us. It's on us.

It's on you. And there's lots of what?

Freedom in that? It sounds like an autonomy and

independence, but what if it's not?

What if it's actually slavery to having to be the God of your own

world? And so self-made really is

anything that represents us having the pressure on ourselves

to sustain and create our identity, our future life,

right? That it's it's really something

that's now on our shoulders, which starts off like an

invitation and it ends up feeling a lot like a curse.

And so, yeah, there's so many different applications all over

the place, but I think really it's about what does it mean to

be a creature living in a selfcreated world?

OK. So you said study, so give us a

little bit of background. Yeah, on thanks for asking

engagement in this topic. Yes.

So the origin for me on all this is about a year and a half ago I

started thinking, you know what, what are some of the

distinctives of what it means to be a Christian today?

And I think that's important for the church that as the church

that should be, we should have thoughts on that not, you know,

comprehensive or perfect ones. But.

And so as I started asking questions, what would be key

conversations that we would be having with new members at our

church or that our current members need to articulate

around? And so over a period of months,

I was thinking about that. Haley and Blake and I've been

teaching some studies downtown, and we come across this book

called The Rise and The Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl

Truman. And he also wrote an abbreviated

version for any normal people that aren't wanting to nerd out

on a really dense book. But some of you need to nerd out

on it called A Strange New World.

That's the abbreviated version of the rise and the traffic mine

itself. And we started reading that over

a handful of months and we thought, I thought, at least

this is it. These are some of the issues

around identity, sexuality, you know, performance, performance,

mentality and a culture that's so oriented around how we

perform ourselves out in public. That really is the counter to

like, what does it mean to be a Christian, to be a creature for

God, to be the center instead of ourselves?

And so over a handful of months, we started writing and thinking

and putting together a study for the members of our downtown

campus. And so this past summer, that's

what we did. We we did six sessions on it,

and it was a really timely work. It created a lot of resonance.

We had a lot of good discussion. So, Haley, how did you get

involved in this group with Blake in Schofield?

That's a unique couple guys right there.

We really didn't give her a choice.

Yeah. So I've been going to downtown

for seven years, which is the extent of my time in Greenville.

So I feel like I've really kind of grown up as an adult

downtown, which has been fun, but since.

Since I remember, as long as I can remember, I've loved to

write. And so even when I was younger

that was an outlet that I loved. I'm a big journal or so

interacting with the Lord through words was something that

was comfortable to me and I think helped me learn and then

kind of reflect back what I had been learning.

So over the my time at downtown, I've I've written for Grace in a

variety of ways and loved that and hopefully it's been helpful.

And then as I've served in different areas, that's lended

itself to an opportunity to teach so.

Because you've worked with our high school students quite a

bit. Yes, I served in Forge and

Infusion over my time downtown and last summer we did a study

in the book of Ephesians and that was my first exposure to

teaching anything in a smaller study studying.

And so it was so fun. We had a great time and.

What do you do when you're not volunteering?

Relentless hours at her downtown campus.

Not that many with her spare time.

Yeah, that's right. Good job.

I work for Brio Primary Care, so I'm the manager of operations

there. Not medical at all, but landed

in healthcare. I love it.

It's a wonderful company. I love business.

I do see business as a form of ministry, which has been such a

privilege to be at a company that feels the same way.

So I've loved having that as my. Day job.

Yeah, and a future podcast episode on how business is

ministry. So we're working, we're working

on that. Well, tell us how, what's what's

your connection to this? Then study.

Yeah, Cisco Field introduced us to this book last fall, so fall

of 2022. We started reading together and

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, and I told them I

probably would not have finished it had we not been reading it

together. It is a dense book, but it was

so good and it really. It changed my perspective on a

lot of things I'd say. First of all, it did.

It gave me some compassion for people that I that I may not

have felt compassionate towards without reading the book.

I think people who disagree with me on things that feel very

fundamental, I think I I other them in a lot of ways.

And the way that this book laid out just a cultural and

historical progression of our thinking helped me understand

how we have arrived at really a lot of different conclusions in

a way that I think will make me. Better and more articulate and

and probably more respectful in conversations down the road.

So can't speak highly enough of the book it was it was great for

me But in terms of emotional connection to the study too as

we were kind of developing it through the spring.

I was excited already and I think we could tell that it was

going to be relevant and hopefully would resonate with

people downtown. But one of the things that I.

I've just grown, I think, an understanding with my even my

own relationship with the Lord over the past couple of years.

It's just kind of having an image to hold on to, whether I'm

learning things personally or trying to communicate things to

a larger audience. And so as we were preparing,

particularly for the first session, I was really praying

for an image. We landed on a couple last

summer as we were working through Ephesians that were

really helpful that I, I knew, connected with me, but I didn't

expect people to communicate back to us.

And they did. So I think that that kind of

solidified in my mind the importance of having that as a

part of your communication because I'm I can tend to be a

little logical and academic sometimes.

So it's helpful to remember that things land with people and and

they resonate different ways. So was praying for an image as

we were preparing and as I was thinking and and working on

particularly talk one, I really feel like I'm going to have to

credit the Holy Spirit because there was no other reason this

would have come to my mind but as I was thinking about.

The idea of being self-made and how convincing it sounds, it was

becoming more and more important to me as we prepared to share

that we communicated well that this is not a very clear

dichotomy. This is not black and white

where you see the things that are of Jesus and you see the

things that are anti Jesus and it's very clear to you.

It's going to feel blurry, it's going to feel intertwined

because being self-made feels really good and it sounds really

good. And so as I was thinking through

that and some verses at Schofield head.

Given us the think through I just I thought of the myth of

the Sirens. I took Latin and Greek growing

up so I have more myths in my mind probably than I should.

But as and I go to Google and I'm starting to refresh my

memory on on the image of the Sirens and that myth.

The Sirens were these mythic figures who were very appealing,

very seductive, very attractive, and they lived on an island.

And as sailors would sail by, the Sirens would sing a song,

and the song was irresistible, so sailors, they heard it.

They would steer their ships in the direction of the song.

They would crash on the island. The sirens would ultimately sing

them to death. They would never escape.

It was irresistible. And that that was the thing that

kept me coming back to the idea of Selfmade.

But as I was reading, and again, we have to credit the way the

Holy Spirit uses the Internet. But I was looking through just

different mythological figures, interactions with the sirens,

and there were two stories that stuck out and what I was reading

of the characters that survived sailing by the sirens.

And one of them was Odysseus, One of them was Orpheus.

And as Odysseus, as the story goes, as he's on his grand

journey and Homer's Odyssey, he is coming up on the sirens and

it seems to be that he was competitive and he was

determined to beat them. And so he told his crew, he's

like, OK, as we approach them, I I want y'all to stuff your ears

with beeswax because if you hear this song, we're going.

So he had them do that, but he wanted to be competitive.

He wanted to hear the song and still win.

And so he told his crew to leave his ears unplugged so that he

could hear the song, but to tie him to the mast of the ship.

And as they approached the song, he said, even if I beg you, as

we're getting closer to this island, if I hear that song and

I beg you to let me go to steer the ship that way, I want you to

tie me tighter. So we had Odysseus.

And then, as I'm skimming later down the article, Orpheus was

this other mythological figure who was.

On a ship with a group of people called the Argonauts.

And as they were sailing, Orifice was a defined poet.

And so as they approached the song, the Argonauts, you know,

of course, I'm sure they're nervous.

They're they're preparing to die because no one can resist the

sirens, but because they had Orpheus on board, it goes that.

They heard the song of the sirens and Orpheus played on his

instrument, song that was louder and more beautiful than the song

of the sirens. And as I was reading that night,

truly I felt like the Lord put in my mind.

Tie yourself to the mass and sing a better song.

And that immediately, I mean, I was crying in my apartment, just

getting ready for the summer and praying that the Lord would make

those things true for us. That as we hear the song of

self-made that is truly intended to sing us to death.

That we would take those two strategies, you know, as

fictional or whatever they may be.

That the image resonates. And it works because the only

way that I think we're going to survive this is that we tie

ourself to something like a mass that is stronger and more true

and more real than we are, and that our lives sing a better

song because the song of self-made, it's a good one.

I mean, it makes you want to follow it and it makes you want

to go that direction because it feels good.

It satisfies. Desires of our hearts.

I mean, we want to be selfcreated, we want to exercise

our autonomy. But if our lives don't sing a

better song to a culture and a church that might want to go

that direction, and I don't think we have a chance of

surviving it. So that will stick with me for a

long time. That kind of proved to be our

image for the summer and we explored that in a lot of

different ways as we went through our six weeks.

So tie yourself to the mast and sing a better song.

So as we think about the dangers.

But then we think about the deception.

OK, let's begin to pull that apart.

What is self-made look like and what are what are these?

Let's talk about these songs. Let's talk about the songs that

are really like lullabies. They're so beautiful and they

just smooth you well and the the biblical sourcing for that that

I think of is Ephesians Chapter 4 where it talks about this need

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

we have for the church to be built up by the leaders of the

church so the church can do the work of Christ.

And it says then as what happens as each part of the body's

doing, the parts that it's called to do, will no longer be

tossed back and forth by every wind and wave of new teaching

and lies that are so clever that they sound like the truth.

So you have these lies that are so clever that they're not

obviously lies. They're actually partial truths

have truths that lure us away from God and to trusting

ourselves. And the contrast is the church

should be instead speaking the truth and love and being built

up in every way more and more like Christ.

And so I just want to mention that passage because I think

it's the same image of these lies that are so clever that

they're they sound like truth. When I think about the the

different ways that that looks, I think about a conversation

that I had with a dad, this was probably four years ago who

called me because his, his daughter, he'd found out on her

device, had a secret app that he didn't know was there.

She was using it for communication with her friends,

and he found on there that she was expressing questions about

her sexuality, questions about her gender.

And he had heard me talk on a couple topics like that.

And so he called me and he was in a panic and understandably

so. As a dad.

It's scary and you're, you're, you love your daughter, you're

scared. And I've never forget saying,

you know, I just have no idea how to relate with her on this

issue. And I think God gave me the

grace just to pause him right there and say, hey, actually,

that's not true, I said. Because what you're watching her

do is struggle to believe that God is God and that God is good.

And so she's choosing to make herself.

She's choosing to go her own way and find identity, find

satisfaction. And by the way, that's exactly

what you struggle with every day.

Sure, you might not pick gender or sexuality.

You might pick your career or your own form of sexual, you

know, struggles could apply to this.

But that's the thing we try to make clear with our members

downtown is this is not about us trying to understand some

brokenness out there. We all are infected with this

core temptation to rely on ourselves, to trust ourselves,

to define ourselves, to determine our own worth.

And that's really what it means to be selfmade.

And so one of the things we're trying to do is get in tune with

that reality, not so that we can point out somewhere else and

judge somebody whose expression looks different than ours, but

resonate with that and say, no, actually, I got to believe that

God is God, God is good. And it's actually good news that

I don't have to be. I don't have to be.

I can receive the reality of my creatureliness and trust him

instead. So one of the things that the

book introduces this topic with, that we read this, this rise and

triumph among ourselves, is that it starts with the reality that

now, in our society, in today's world, when someone hears the

phrase I am a man trapped in a woman's body, we all know what

we're talking about. That's not something that's

unfamiliar. And intuitively we know that in

front of someone else. That's something that we should

look to be sensitive to, and affirm and even celebrate.

So part of what the book's trying to help us understand is

how did we get to a place in our thinking as a culture where

that's the intuitive response and that's the concept that the

book calls the social imaginary. These are not things that we're

all, you know, arguing over, but they're intuitions that come

from values in our culture that we've all adopted, and they're

actually informing the way that we think and feel.

And I think I would say is this is that the church has not been

immune to this. The core inside pieces that

contribute to some of these responses are actually the same.

Yeah, talk a little bit more about that.

Where do you see those and how do you see those fleshing out?

Yeah. So I think one of the topics

that we talk about in the series is this idea of main character

syndrome. So it's a term that the culture

is we've created as a culture, and it comes from the idea of

actually walking down the street, like think a big urban

center, you're wearing your air pods and your favorite song

comes on. And main character syndrome

means that when that song comes on in your ears, all of a sudden

the streets around you have been transformed into a movie set.

And this is your scene in the movie about you.

And so now I'm walking the street, right.

And this. And now what is everybody around

me become everybody around me is the supporting cast, right.

And so the idea is that really, what if we actually are kind of

living our whole lives that way, whether it's social media,

whether it's what we are expecting out of work, whether

it's what we're expecting out of our marriages, out of our kids?

What if we're viewing life as a place where we're supposed to

perform ourselves out in public so that we can get affirmation

and attention And you go, yeah, that that sounds possible.

That might be mean, you know. Yeah.

So then it would reason that when we come to the scriptures,

you don't turn that off. Right.

You just take the scriptures and you apply it through those same

lenses and then you begin to read the scriptures thinking

that God is talking just to me and He wants my best life Now.

I mean, I recognize that there's some areas of my life that are

broken and messed up, but but if I could just have a better

version of Scott, better version of Haley of Chris Schofield, if

I could just if God could help me have a better version of

myself then. We'd be better off.

And that must be what God's trying must be.

The point of all this. And instead of saying actually

the point of all this is that there is a God and I'm not him,

and he's amazing and he's inviting me to be caught up and

not my story, but his story and I do have a meaningful role to

play. There's significance, right?

There's dignity. There's value.

Those are not bad things. But when we try to get those out

of making ourselves the center, think about the consequences of

that. If we live in a main character

culture, you know what else we live in.

We live in an incredibly anxious culture, right.

Because when life is a big performance and I'm supposed to,

you know, do tricks with how good I am or, you know, at how I

look here and there, well, that's a lot of pressure to

sustain your own significance. What if your significance isn't

dependent on your performance? That'd be actually maybe gospel.

And and we go into the scriptures and we read and we

get lost in who God is and what he's doing.

There is a story that matters. There's value there.

But it is ironic that we would even take the scriptures, take

the church, take God is somehow coop those things into being

about for me. Well, and this really gets to

your point earlier about it's not just black and white good

guys and bad guys that it's really, really commingled.

Just keep keep talking, share what you what you have on your

mind right now. I can see your wheels turning.

They are turning. I think I got increasingly

passionate about the idea as we went further and further

throughout the study because I think I.

Grew up with this idea that good and evil and truth and lies were

were black and white and they were very easy to distinguish

between and if you were in church and you are faithful to

the scriptures and you were in a consistent walk of prayer with

the Lord that it would be either or it would be very easy to

tell. And as we read and prepared and

moved through the study and and as I've encountered other things

in my life as well. I just don't think that's always

the case. I think the lies sound a lot

like truth a lot of the time, like Ephesians 4 says.

And can we discern by being in scripture, by being in prayer?

Yes, absolutely. But I think we have to

acknowledge that the lies they work because they sound really

good and if the devil has strategies to make the Church

fail. Then he's not going to make them

obvious all the time. He's not going to make them

sound like something you don't want.

He's going to make them sound like something you do.

So I felt just more and more burdened for us and for the

people who are studying with us that we would realize how

dangerous this could be because it's everywhere in our culture.

It's it's in the air that we breathe.

It's the water we swim in it. It is a part of kind of our.

Collective subconscious. Now we're not even asking

whether it's true or just assuming that it is.

And so the lies they get really intertwined with things that can

sound really godly. So something to be aware of.

I'd love to give an example if I could.

Yeah. Before you do, because I want to

dig deep into a few different examples, I just want to put a

pin on maybe one of the ways to subtle ways this reaches into

the church is that the way I think about it and I and I think

about it with literally like us in this room.

And how we're trying to minister and serve, Really, that's all

that means, right? The minister means to serve.

Like, are we doing that out of the grace that God has given us,

or are we doing it out of our gifts?

Because if we're doing it out of grace, then our identity is

secure and our dependency is on God to be able to do that.

But if we're doing it just out of gifts, then what?

Are we dependent on? The affirmation of other people.

And then you're no different than the performance mentality

in some ways, the main main character syndrome.

Because I'm only as good as my last sermon, or my last

counseling session or my last podcast, and I need people to

tell me how good I'm doing. Because I'm trusting to my

gifts, because I'm creating myself.

And I don't know if we want to make this whole podcast about

me, Scott and all my struggles, but.

It does sound familiar, and otherwise I think this happens

in the church and in Christianity, and I think the

world knows it. Yeah, and that's by the world.

I mean nonbelievers, people that are not that are disillusioned

with church, disillusioned with God.

When we as Christians coap God into just another way for us to

get attention or to self actualize or perform.

It's not attractive, right? And nor is it something that

really different, yeah, than what the world's doing.

Yeah, it just, it's it's just a bunch of rules to get to the

same point. So why would they even bother

with all that? So yeah, tell us, walk us

through some cultural examples that'll really bring this into

into life. So one of the ones that I think

is interesting and I see it with young students in our church,

but I've seen it. I mean, it's all over the place.

It's just what is truth and where does truth come from?

So think about like old school Disney classics like Pocahontas,

which is what the main theme could be, is you just have to

listen to your heart and it's amazing and and there's this

truth there that you know, we have a contents.

We were created with feelings. God feels.

But what happens when our feelings inside become truth?

Like you've heard of the phrase your truth, How does that

interact with the truth? So it's specifically our

feelings. So what's the relationship

between our truth or sorry the truth and our feelings?

And one of the things that we learned about in the book is the

reality that we have gone through.

We've we're now living in what's called an inward turn, meaning

not outward to N word, where when we're looking for truth, we

look inward. It's based on what we feel our

experiences instead of the idea that there's a truth that's true

regardless of my feelings, regardless of my situation, that

is actually stronger and more sure that I can count on.

And I think that's interesting. I think even as Christians, a

lot of what we expect the experience of God to be is a lot

based on our feelings. And don't get me wrong, feelings

are good, but what role does the scriptures and God speaking

through others and things that are timeless and transcendent?

That aren't new, that are quite old about who God is and what

he's done. How does that actually need to

be determinative for how we're living, where our peace comes

from, how we live our lives, what we make our decisions

around? And so one of the sessions we

actually did with selfmade was this question of the

relationship between our truth and and feelings.

So I mean what would Haley, any thoughts you had from from that

particular session? Yes, I thought it was.

Fun because we we kind of zoned in on John 18, just the section

where Jesus and Pilot are interacting.

And I just thought it was so interesting that what Pilot

asked Jesus is what is truth, And it doesn't seem like he

stuck around to hear the answer. I don't want to malign his

character centuries later, but he asks what is truth?

And that's the end of the conversation.

So we took some time. And I think are probably

continuing to, as we've we've passed the study, to ask what is

truth and then even ask further, have we ever asked ourselves

what is truth or where does truth come from for us?

Because I think there's a great chance that we have a truth

construct that's developed from probably a lot of different ways

and we've never evaluated, is it solid?

Is it, does it hold up? Does it hold up when my feelings

change? Does it hold up when my

circumstances don't match that? And are we even engaged enough

in our own walk of faith and our own emotions and thoughts to

evaluate whether whether it can hold water?

So we looked at, is truth tradition?

Is that what we base, what we think is real on what we've

always heard, what we've seen practiced is truth, emotion, And

where does it come from, and have we ever asked?

We looked at Isaiah 44, which is one of my favorites right now.

But there's this beautiful, just kind of poetic prophecy as

Isaiah is writing to the people and.

He's talking to them about their idolatry and it's language.

I think that can feel really outdated when you just read it

at first glance, because it talks a lot about wood and fire

and farming and things that are probably a little more removed

from us. But what he's basically

describing as he's trying to call the people back to the Lord

is he's saying you've taken a gift from the Lord.

In this case it's wood. You have used half of your

supply of wood to. Make fire and sustain your life

and make sure you have food and you've taken the other half of

your wood and you've built a God and you're bowing down to it.

And at the end of that section in verse 20 by the 44, he says

this person that he's talking about using kind of as an image

for the people, never stops to ask themself is the idol I'm

holding in my handle lie. And so we've used that as kind

of a theme for. The study this summer and moving

forward to, Is the idol that we're holding in our hand a lie?

And have we ever stopped to ask and do we care where the answer

is? Because there's a chance that

the idol of self-made this song that we're hearing that we might

be buying into it, may it may actually be an idol for us.

And is there a chance it's a lie?

And have we ever asked? There's a lot of attention now

around just that concept of deconstruction, right?

People seem to be really freaked out that everybody's

deconstructing their faith in all these kids that grew up in

the church and did great things and etcetera, etcetera.

But it just strikes me, I was thinking about this and then

listening to you when you talk about having a a construct that

wasn't really thoughtfully put together in the 1st place, that

may not even be real. So then deconstruction might not

be a bad thing if you have to tear it down to build up the

real thing. Yeah.

To to sing that better song. So let's let's talk about how

how do we hear, how do we hear that better song.

What are we going to do to help lead our church to to listen

well for that better song. So we've got we we've got to

know what we're what the danger is.

You know what the sirens, what they sound like.

But then, you know, how do we sing a better song?

Yeah, one of the things we did with each session is we would

take things like so we know we just talked about the

relationship between truth and feelings.

Or main character syndrome. Other topics were the

relationship between love and affirmation.

What is love if not affirmation? You know, we talked about sex

and the tide that our culture's made between sex and happiness.

And what we try to do is every time and say there is truth

here. Some of the messages, like like

we said, these are lies that are so clever, they sound like the

truth. Because there's there's truth

here, right? Sex is a big deal.

God created it and it is. It is made for happiness.

There's there's truth there. Feelings are good.

Affirmation is a need. But what?

How is that actually just a half truth?

And what is the God? We called it the God word

alternative or the God word solution that meets this need.

So I think part of it, Scott, answer your question is we have

to validate that feelings are a real part of when we speak

human. But they're not the only way to

find truth, and they can't leave all the time.

Say that again. So feelings are a real part of

being human, but they're not the only way to find truth, and they

can't always be determinative for our lives.

So I think. And that just takes repetition

and experience. So where is truth outside of me?

The scriptures, right. God's people speaking into my

life, the Holy Spirit working in and through the local church,

this aggregate experience of hearing God, and then how is

that interacting with my life? And and so we're building a

foundation of learning how to discern truth in our life.

And that has to happen in community.

And that's rigorous and built into it is deconstruction.

It is bringing into question my assumptions.

Not letting you know my feelings be trusted all the time.

And then I was add this key detail, acting on truth, even in

spite of our feelings at times. Because when we do that, we're

we're writing a new like pathway into our brain that says OK, I

have to go elsewhere and make decisions based off something

else besides just me or just my preferences or just what I want

to like. And so when I read something in

the Bible that I don't like. Well then, what do I do with

that? Right?

Right. Do I go with what I prefer or

what God says? And I think that is a real

danger because it's what I call insight.

And like, we know that okay, knowledge by itself, it puffs

up, makes us proud. Not a good thing, right?

So everybody wants to avoid knowledge, but what we settle

for is insight. So it's like, that's a good

word. I need to think about that.

That's awesome. I've never heard that before.

I'm gonna write that down. I'm gonna journal that.

But no change is taking place. So it's like I'm going to

challenge my feelings with that thought.

But that's just step one. And what you're saying is you've

got to actually take some action.

And it feels like in that action is where God meets us and begins

to bring life change and and and so you take a step, you take

action and then you evaluate and then you take another step and

then you evaluate and take another step.

And if you do that for a long time, then you actually have

life change. You see wisdom.

I was going to say another word the Bible uses for that is

wisdom. Yeah, wisdom.

Difference between insight and wisdom and knowledge might be

good, but until it's applied, that's exactly right.

Whereas you know, so knowledge applied over time or insight

utilized or you know insight applied is what we're going for.

And it's worth saying on a podcast, because in a podcast

culture, insight might feel like the, you know, the end goal, the

end goal. That's right.

And it's not. Yeah.

And Chris is so good at every time we end one of these things,

he's like, hey, hopefully what we said was helpful, but you got

to do this with other people. And I'm, I'm kind of butchering

what you say and you'll say it here in a little bit.

But I would love to hear. Haley, you talk about

compassion. You mentioned that earlier in

your intro. You said that you have become a

more compassionate person through this study.

Tell us a little bit about that. I think and I'll just expand on

what I mentioned earlier I think.

As we were reading, and again, I can't recommend the book enough.

It's a beautiful summary of a lot of philosophy and history

and art and current events and politics, and it kind of makes

the case for we were always headed in this direction.

So the idea of selfcreation, it might feel shocking to us and it

might feel new and it might feel like, how are we even having

these discussions? But if you walk back hundreds of

years of history, we were pushing in this direction the

whole time, and this is just the logical conclusion of our

centuries of thought. So the Internet may have sped it

up a little bit, but really this is not that shocking.

And I think understanding that on everything from the way we

think about careers to the way we think about.

Communities and our interdependence, or lack

thereof, the way we think about sex, gender, church,

institutions at large, all of that makes a lot of sense when

you just follow the history and you follow the logic.

And if you take out God or the truth of the Bible, then it's

very reasonable, and I think I had.

Thought that people who came to different conclusions than I had

on any of those given issues that it didn't make sense to me

because I couldn't understand how they got there.

And now having read this and studied some of these ideas, I

may still disagree because my truth comes from a different

place. But I understand how they got

there, even if we collectively as a society can't verbalize how

we got here. That's why I think.

Beautiful thing that we have authors and thinkers like this

to help guide us there, but it does make sense.

It is reasonable when you walk through all the changes and the

turns and the thinking and the principles that we valued over

time. We were going to end up here at

some point. So it does make a lot of sense.

And is there a conversation around being made in God's

image? And so we're we're trying to

find the same things in life. Like we we we all long for

significance, we long for security, we long for joy.

We long for happiness. And and so, like, we're we're

all the same because we're all created in God's image, the bear

God's image. Like, I like to talk about

generosity. Like we're all created to be

generous people. Like nobody disagrees with that.

But the question is, is why and how do you get there?

And so, without transcendent truth, without a transcendent

creator, then what do you have? You.

You have yourself. Right.

Well, and one of the arguments that that Carl Truman really

surfaces is that we, you take people that are, you know, like

Frederick Nietzsche, who talks about the reality that if we

kill God, if we live like God's not gone, then you got to go all

the way, Right. And so his whole point is that a

lot of the ways that we've gotten to, to how we're living

and thinking in our society is just a natural conclusion of

saying, well, God's either God or he's not.

And if he's not, then it's totally up to us.

Which you could say, again, it's completely freeing or completely

terrifying. But his point is there's a lot

of modern people that are pretending like you can still

use a God, stamp on life and gut them of really being God

altogether. And so I think some of the

compassion that you're saying, like Haley, is that we all do,

that it's just a matter of degree.

And honestly, if we would have more intellectual integrity, you

know, we'd stop faking some of the in between kinds.

And a lot of the people. And that's, I would say, a word

for people in church. Because a lot of times we

accessorize our life with a little God, A little church.

Instead of being like, hey, what?

Because either he's God and he's king and he's everything, or

he's crazy and he's nothing when we're talking about Jesus.

Yeah, and so much, so easy to do here in the South where going to

church is not frowned upon. It's rejoiced in, you know, it's

like, oh, it's cool thing to do. That's a good church.

That's a cool church. There's great people there.

You know, it's fun and and so I think we're inoculated to some

of that thinking just because of the role that church and that

could be religion, could play, could play in our life.

Here's an interesting example that I understand could be

somewhat controversial for somebody, but I don't really

care. So that that one of the things

that we saw is. How common this thinking has

seeped in and is not a political orientation or a or a, you know,

a personality struggle. It's actually a common sickness

that we all have. So you take two different kind

of you could say maybe extremes. So you have like the perspective

that is L, GB, TQ, plus experience, expression, you

know, celebration where you know who I am in my sexuality.

That's that's something that I'm supposed to determine and

perform and express in the world.

And if you're going to actually not be, you know.

Hateful that you're going to love and embrace that With me,

that's one side of the perspective.

On the other side you have someone who's saying, hey,

actually that's that's horrible. And don't tread on me like this

whole idea of this is my world, my land, my rights, my life,

which you could caricaturize, right?

Those are extremes. In some ways you could say, but

as being very different. Very much so.

Opposed to one another. But I think if you peel back

some of the layers, what you really have is something that's

quite in common. And that is, hey, I decide this

is my life, my world. And so get on board and think

about that for a second. How easy that is for us to say

and hear and think about because we're, well, we're American in

that part of the deal. But what if that's not true?

What if your life's not your own?

What if the purpose of your life is not you?

And life itself, the good life doesn't consist of you getting

what you want in your terms. What if there's more life, more

freedom to be found in actually surrendering to a good God and

his purposes for his creation? So I say that because however

that hits you, I don't think that it's unique to certain

camps or personalities or even ages.

I think it's a common sickness that we've all embraced.

It does level the playing field and then you have to go back to

maybe the gospel is the third way, maybe it's a different way.

And the idea of it being real simple going back to your what

you were expressing earlier which is just being fully

devoted to God, being all in surrender, loving God, heart,

soul, mind, strength, love your neighbor as yourself, all the

other commandments wrapped up in the those two things.

And it's like, if we could just figure out what that looks like,

so much of everything else would take care of itself.

So maybe that's the song, right? That's the song.

But we say that it becomes very familiar, very Christianese.

But if we could just stop and think, what does it mean to love

God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength

and with all my mind and all my mind.

Everything that I have and all my all myself and all my gifts

and everything we would at least have to go through him before we

just planted on this idea of I am in a self created world and

it's up to me to determine my destiny.

Yeah, we talked a little bit this summer just about that

idea, that question you asked earlier, what does it mean to

sing a better song? And we didn't get in a ton of

detail about it. I think that's a whole a whole

other summer but. Kind of two thoughts on that and

and Scarefield kept guiding us back to this story and I think

it it's helpful moving forward because it just it gives a

picture of what I think we're going for and that's just the

story of John the Baptist and as you think about think about

significance, dignity, role in the Kingdom and his role was

huge. It was very important.

He was prophesied centuries before he was born, but as he,

you know, comes into his own, he's living out the call of God.

When Jesus arrives, he was fine that his followers left him and

went to Jesus, that he understood his role and that his

goal was to lose followers. He was drawing them to himself

to pass them right along to Jesus when he came and when his

public ministry started. You think about, I think how

he's described in John Three that he took joy in Jesus

success and I've just loved that wording and trying to think

about what is singing a better song.

Is it that I can take joy in Jesus success and that living a

quiet life, That's something else we've been talking about as

well. Whatever that looks like size

scale, where you live, what you do, who you're interacting with.

Can my something I've been thinking about personally as

well? It can my legacy be lost in the

legacy of Jesus so that whatever is remembered of me is not of

me. It is that people came to Jesus

because they knew me. And to me that is singing a

better song. And it's not necessarily

detailed, it's not prescriptive. But I think we've got to ask,

can we take joy in the success of Jesus?

Even if that doesn't bring credit or desire or success to

us? Can we take joy in his success?

And then the other thing, I think is just worth considering

for us. And it might be just a little

bit of a reversal of thinking. Again, it's not prescriptive,

but. I think we've got to ask when we

ask the question are are we singing a better song?

Do our lives actually reflect what we say we believe, if we

believe that Jesus offers a life that is abundant, that the

spirit is springs of eternal life, that are coming out of us?

Does my life look like that to somebody who is hearing the same

song of selfcreation that I am? And maybe they haven't decided

whether. Jesus is the story that they

want to believe. He's the He's the king that they

want to follow. Does my life make a case for

him? Not that he needs me to prove

his truth or his worth, but if I say I believe this, that his

presence lives inside me, then have I ever even asked myself,

does my life sing the song that he promised?

He said, You know you're going to have a divine presence inside

of you, that you you get to walk in abundance.

You get to walk in freedom. And does my life say that to

somebody who might be looking and you might not have decided

what song they want to follow yet?

Well, I love that you share the statement, the story about John

the Baptist, because the famous statement that he shares is what

he must increase, I must decrease.

I mean that is just such a simple but profound statement.

No doubt. I think that the fact that, like

she said, he's filled with joy. I just think we're filled with a

lot of things. I don't know if it's joy.

And I think a lot of it's because we are trying to live

like self creators and we're we're, you know, reaping the

benefits of that choice, right, reaping the consequences of

that. And I'll just say for myself,

like learning to turn over the keys to my life to Jesus and

like you said, like stopping the whole performance for

significance and just beginning down that journey, I would think

that would be like a great invitation for all of us.

And I do think John story. You know, and I mean Jesus the

story, right? The one who was enthroned and

was entitled to all glory emptied himself so that he could

invite us into this life with him and all those core desires

we have, He's ready to meet them if we'll stop trying to be him.

So I think it's it's a journey we're going to have to keep

thinking about how it applies not just to the world, but like

to us, to our church. Well this has been a great

interview. I've.

I have so many notes here. I mean the big theme that I've

gotten is just like be suspicious of yourself.

I feel like I just need to be suspicious of myself.

Sing a better song, live a quiet life, act in truth despite how

you feel. I I took note of that and then

just take joy in Jesus. So I mean thank you very much.

I feel like this is going to be an episode I'll probably going

to hit replay on a couple times. But we're grateful that you

joined us and we want to thank you for doing that.

And before we end, we, we do want to pray together.

But like Schofield said earlier, acting on truth is important.

So with that being said, listening to a podcast episode,

it can be an individual experience, which we believe is

only enhanced by talking through it and applying it to life.

So and we believe like this happens to me sometimes.

I listen to a podcast and I don't always.

Talk about it with someone. So we want to encourage you to

share this episode with someone, discuss out applies to you,

share any takeaways that they receive you receive, and

approach their feedback with a posture to learn and apply.

And I I think this is a great way for us to move towards this

discipleship issue. So if you have questions you

want access to additional resources, be sure to check out

our podcast page. We'll have Haley and Schofield's

contact information there if you want to connect with them

offline. That we're just so grateful for

you guys and we just want to thank you.

So, Haley, would you just pray for us, close us out, and then

we can wrap this up? Love to Father, thanks so much

for who you are. We just want to worship you and

praise you for the God that you are.

The truth that you have offered us, that's outside of ourselves.

And we're just so honored that you have wanted to partner with

us in your story of redemption, that you could have accomplished

it on your own, but you invited us to be a part of it, or to

pray that we would never take that for granted and that we

would walk in that with zeal and excitement and surrender,

knowing that you have given us a place of significance when you

didn't even need us. So, Lord, I pray that as we

think on these things, as we learn more about the darkness

that is specific to our time word, the idea of selfcreation

and how tempting it sounds. I pray that we would find you to

be better. That we would believe what you

said. That in your presence is

fullness of joy. That we would seek you out and

that we would keep coming back to you even when we don't want

to. That when it doesn't feel like

you're kind or it doesn't feel like you are loving, or that you

are attentive to us. Or that we would have the faith

in the eternal eyes. To come back to you.

To seek your prayer to be a part of your church, and to

ultimately tie ourselves to the mast of of you as our Savior and

to your word as our truth, and to sing a better song.

One that shows that life, abundant, really is available

and only found in you, and that selfcreation won't pay off like

we think it will. Words, I pray you, just give us

grace and strength to do that. You know that we're weak and

that we're just dust. You made us that way.

You know that we're that way, Lord.

So we ask you to strengthen us, to keep us tied to you, that we

would be tethered to you for the rest of our lives, that we've

decided to follow you, and that we're not going to turn back, no

matter how difficult it is or how much we want to go another

way. So, Lord, I just ask you to be

as faithful to us in the future. You have been in the past.

We know you will give us grace to keep seeking you Tuesday.

Amen. Thank you.