BETTER DECISIONS, FEWER REGRETS, PART 2 | January 10 | North Point Community Church

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so um here's a disturbing thought to get things kicked off today the easiest person the easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror the easiest person to sit to deceive is the person in the mirror and um it shouldn't be this way and we'll talk about why it's this way in a minute it shouldn't be this way but for the moment i just i just want you to let this sink in um actually i would like to kind of rub it in you think about it you have talked yourself into um to the point of today's message you have deceived yourself into you have sold yourself on every bad decision you have ever made worse you are the mastermind i mean you thought this stuff up you are the mastermind behind behind most of your most regrettable decisions whether they were financial relational professional i'm academic you were there for all of them just to make it worse you've probably done more to undermine your own success and your own progress than any other individual on the planet now granted there were outside pressures and there were other voices people promising you stuff trying to sell you stuff but in the end you decided and the reason i know so much about you is well i know so much about me because i'm equally guilty like you uh there's a sales associate that lives in my head and his voice his voice sounds a lot like my voice and and although his logic is completely flawed and his sales pitches are immature at best i fall for him anyway so what's up with that and what's wrong with me and what's wrong with you and what's wrong with us and to the point of today's message what can we do about it so today is part two of our series better decisions fewer regrets and as you may know i recently published a book under this title and for that reason i was a bit you know hesitant to turn this into um message content or into a series less people think i'm just trying to sell books um but in fact in fact this series is designed to provide you with the content of the book so you don't have to read the book better decisions fewer regrets now the big idea of this series is the often overlooked relationship between good questions good questions and good decisions good questions and good decisions good questions actually set us up for good or better decisions and there's a sense in which our decisions are really never any better than the questions that we ask or actually don't think to ask and i'm convinced i'm absolutely convinced that if you will ask if you will ask and if you will answer honestly and then act on your answer to the five questions in this series you will in fact make better decisions and you will live with fewer regrets your life will be better and the people who look to you depend on you their lives will be better as well because and this is so important let's face it we aren't the only people impacted by our decisions and we aren't the only people impacted by our regrets either and parents grandparents if you will teach your kids and if you will teach your grandkids to ask these five questions i promise their lives will be better as well now last time we were together when we kicked this whole thing off i suggested that you memorize the saying from the book of proverbs so if you memorized it i would like you to raise your hand if you did well that's great about you know about looks like maybe 10 15 of you did now the reason for the homework assignment is that this simple saying from the book of proverbs actually reminds us to consider what's coming not just what's right in front of us um ultimate not just the immediate outcome of our decisions and here's the verse in case you missed the first part or in case you haven't committed it to memory yet and this is a verse as i said last time i memorized early on and i taught my kids early on here's what the writer of proverbs says the prudent see danger and when they see danger they do the appropriate thing they take refuge but the simple or the naive they just keep going they just ignore what they see and they pay the penalty when when deciding what to do prudent people are wise people take into consideration the long-term results of whatever options they're considering but simple people naive people not so much they they fall for the amateur sales pitches of the salesperson in their head they they opt for now over later so here's the thing the five questions we're going to discuss in this series will bring you into conflict with the sales associate that lives in your head and you need to know that ahead of time because the salesman in your head wants you to act fast and want you to act now to focus on the immediate rather than the ultimate and this verse is a reminder to look beyond the moment and not to look away from potential danger associated with an option you find yourself selling yourself on these five questions will slow you down and they're going to create the perspective you need to see danger coming to connect the dots so let's jump in the first of our five questions question number one i call it the integrity question the integrity question and to introduce to introduce this question we need to drop back to my opening somewhat disturbing observation that the easiest person to deceive the easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror which means which means the most difficult person to lead is the person in the mirror as well you cannot lead yourself well as long as you are deceiving or lying to yourself have you ever tried to lead a liar it's pretty much impossible to lead a liar in a professional setting in the marketplace at work you have to fire a liar so today i'm going to challenge you to fire the dishonest version of you and hire a new you and honest you a you that tells you the truth even when it makes you feel bad about you now you know from experience that dishonesty erodes credibility right i mean and in a similar way and this is kind of odd to think about in a similar way when we are dishonest with ourselves it erodes credibility within ourselves and i know that sounds strange but think about it this way when we lie out loud then i'm not calling you a liar but you know occasionally we all kind of stretch the truth but when we lie out loud what do we do immediately on the inside in our heads and our hearts we justify the lie and who do we justify the lie to to ourselves we have to otherwise we're at odds with ourselves something that a sane people can't do for very long so what we do is we create a narrative that justifies our lie or our half truth and then this is the crazy part we choose to believe it which really is crazy i mean why would you why would we believe a narrative we basically just made up well the non-technical non-clinical answer to that question is this you are a sucker for you you can convince yourself of just about anything and so can i i mean as my aa friends my n a friends and my one c a friend has taught me rigorous honesty rigorous honesty is the first rule of recovery rigorous honesty with ourselves and others is the first rule of recovery rigorous means extremely thorough exhaustive sometimes exhausting meticulous rigorous honesty with ourselves and others that's the first step to getting better and making progress to make better decisions to avoid unnecessary regret you've got to tell yourself the truth you have to tell yourself the truth even if it makes you feel bad about your self now what i'm going to say next i realize runs contrary to the grain of our culture but as you know i'm not really here to be liked and so let me just put it out there there are worse things there are worse things than feeling bad about yourself for starters denying something bad about yourself refusing to acknowledge what's bad about ourselves is bad for ourselves so to make the best decision you have to be honest with yourself even if it makes you feel bad about yourself or to put it another way you will never get you will never get where you need to be until you acknowledge where you actually are besides besides if you aren't honest about why you're choosing what you're choosing think about this you'll have a difficult time taking responsibility for the outcome of that decision and we have an adjective for people who refuse to take responsibility for the outcomes of their decisions don't we we call them ear responsible do you want to be irresponsible if we're dishonest with ourselves when we're making a decision we will be dishonest with ourselves about where to lay the blame for the outcome of our bad decisions in this way this is important in this way dishonesty leads to irresponsibility and you know what you've seen that play out in the lives of other people now the fact that everything i've said so far is pretty much obvious you probably didn't write any of that down it doesn't make any of this easy and it doesn't make it easy to get this right in fact your first step may be being honest with yourself about the fact that you're not always honest with yourself but whatever the case to decide your way into a better future and that's what this whole series is about to decide your way into a better future you've got to develop the habit of telling yourself the truth specifically the uncomfortable truth about why you choose what you choose to do and that leads us at last to the first of our five questions and the first question to ask anytime you're making a big decision is the integrity question and the question is simply this am i being honest with myself am i being honest with myself now you may not owe it to anyone else but you owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself about the decisions and the choices that you make why you do what you do if you want to justify your decisions to other people that's fine i guess but there's no win there is no win in justifying your decisions to yourself besides justifying you know what justifying is justifying is really just a lying and why would we just a lie to ourselves so just tell yourself the truth now it actually helps to ask this question out loud in fact all five of these questions it helps if you ask them out loud but this one in particular and it actually helps to ask this question twice but on the second round you should add a word and some of you already know what that word is am i being honest with myself really am i being honest with myself really and the reason we have to add really is because we are so prone to deceive ourselves why am i doing this really why am i avoiding him really why do i keep postponing that really why do i keep making excuses really why did i say yes really why did i choose to wear this really why did i choose to purchase or lease that really why did i move in really why am i moving out really why won't i get help really here's the thing you may not be good at selling anything to anybody else but when it comes to selling yourself on a bad idea you're amazing me too our greatest regrets are associated with things opportunities and people we sold ourselves on i mean just think back to your last bad relationship decision uh you were in love or you were in lust or something whatever it was you were in it and your mama tried to warn you your best friend tried to warn you but you assured them you knew exactly what you were doing and then looking back you wonder what was i doing what was i thinking which is the problem you weren't thinking you were selling you were selling yourself and the same is true for your most recent bad purchasing decision once you had it in your or once you had it in your hand or once you had your heart set on it on whatever it was it was pretty much over it was like something took over and the next thing you know you're handing your credit card to someone you don't even know to buy something you couldn't or perhaps shouldn't even afford and why because you sold yourself so here's a little tip in fact if you don't remember anything else from our time together today i want you to remember this as soon as soon as you start selling yourself on anything you should hit pause the moment you begin selling yourself you should hit pause and here's why because we rarely have to sell ourselves on a good idea when it comes to good ideas or good decisions we usually just know so let's just stop with all that just just tell yourself the unfiltered truth be honest with yourself i mean come on it's not going to hurt well you may hurt your own feelings momentarily but in the end you're going to be better off we all are right i mean lights will come on and granted lights can be terrifying just ask the roaches and the rats right but light is a disinfectant and truth is as well they go hand in hand so bring your narratives and bring your justifications and bring your excuses into the light and just tell yourself the truth you're going to make better decisions now if everything were equal if we were kind of wired to decide what's best for us this would be really easy in fact if that were the case we'd be pretty much done here just tell yourself the truth i'll see you next time right but things aren't equal and as it turns out choosing what's best choosing what's best isn't what's natural now naturalist you may be a naturalist or materialist they have an explanation you may have an explanation for why it's so difficult for us to tell ourselves the truth uh christians have a different explanation but everybody pretty much agrees that we come into the world with a with a natural propensity on selling ourselves what we want to do rather than what we ought to do and this is not a recent observation in fact this is kind of interesting the 17th 17th century english philosopher and statesman francis bacon you probably studied about francis bacon in school he made the following observation this is a little bit long but this is from the 17th century here's what he said in that 17th century way of writing he says the human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion in other words once we kind of come to what we want to do draws all things else to support and agree with it in other words once we've kind of made up our mind what we want to do we become a magnet for anything that supports what we've decided we want to do and then he says this and though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side yet he says yet it yet these it either neglects or despises or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects that's just a fancy 17th century way of describing what we call confirmation bias that we are naturally open or we naturally open ourselves up to anything that confirms what we already think and what we already want to do and we instinctively i love the way he says it we instinctively set aside or reject anything to the contrary again just think back to your last bad relationship decision you were warned and it wasn't that you wouldn't listen it was more like you couldn't listen i mean think back to that recent bad purchasing decision it's so clear now but in the moment francis was correct the human understanding the human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion i've already made up my mind draws everything else or all things else to support and agree with it and though he says and though there be though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side in other words even though there's plenty of arguments to the contrary yet these are minds either neglects or despises or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects that's been going on for a long time and this is helpful in terms of an observation but it doesn't really tell us why this is the case nor does nor does francis tell us what to do about it but almost 2500 years before francis bacon wrote these words a judean court advisor turned prophet made a similar observation but fortunately for us he added a bit of helpful explanation and the context for his observation i think it's both fascinating and instructive so here's the back story around 600 bc around 600 bc jeremiah who's the author of the old testament book jeremiah served as a pretty much a professional coach or like a court advisor to a series of judean kings whose careers honestly would have gone much smoother and whose lives would have lasted much longer had they listened or taken jeremiah's advice but of course the advantage of being a king is that you don't have to take anyone's advice now ancient judah was essentially like the bottom half of what we consider the holy land so that's where this story takes place jeremiah actually began his coaching career with young king jehoiakim king jehoiakim was a pretty much a teenager at the time and at the time he became king the judah was actually paying an annual tribute or a financial tribute to babylon who in return would then provide military support and then pretty much allow judah to run her own affairs so after three years of paying this tribute king jehoiakim decides you know what enough of that and he quit making payments and then worse than that he changed banks meaning he declared loyalty to babylon's arch rival egypt and when jeremiah his advisor heard about joha kim's decision he begged him he begged him to reverse course this wasn't just a bad decision this was a dangerous decision as well because the mighty king nebuchadnezzar was already in a really foul military mood after being defeated by the egyptian army just a few months earlier so jeremiah rightly assumed that nebuchadnezzar would well nebuchadnezzar would love to find a place to vent his frustration and a vassal state that had just sworn loyalty to his enemy egypt well judah would be the perfect target and not only was jehoiakim's decision foolish and dangerous jeremiah assured him that well this decision is actually in direct opposition to god's will for the people and for the nation as well but jehoiakim not impressed he's the king besides joha kim had long since abandoned the ways of judaism he was a merciless tyrant whose sexual appetites led him far outside the moral prohibitions outlined in the jewish law so he did what kings do he just ignored jeremiah and sure enough king nebuchadnezzar did exactly what jeremiah predicted he would do he came looking for his tribute nebuchadnezzar and his armies laid siege to the city of jerusalem for three months and then his army entered the city put jehoiakim in chains and then marched him back to the city of babylon and added him to his king collection now i've mentioned this before but it's so fascinating king nebuchadnezzar collected kings some people collect coins some people will collect baseball cards king nebuchadnezzar collected kings whenever he conquered a territory he would capture the king alive take the king back to babylon and add him to his king collection and then on special occasions when he wanted to show off how powerful he was he would bring all of these kings out like show and tell and parade them around the courtroom in golden chains and each king would walk with his hand on the shoulder of the king in front of him because in addition to being chained king nebuchadnezzar had all of these kings blinded now back to our story before leaving jerusalem king nebuchadnezzar crowned jehoiakim's son jehoiah chen to be the next king he was a whopping 18 years old and then three months later and i'm going to skip a bunch of history here three months later nebuchadnezzar changes his mind he comes back to jerusalem and he adds jehoiachin to his king collection as well which at this point you're thinking nobody's probably really anxious to be the next king of judah right but every king needs every kingdom needs a king so nebuchadnezzar appoints jehoiakin's uncle zedekiah to be the next king of judah he was 21 years old but what zedekiah didn't know in fact what nobody knew is that he would be the last king of judah because like the kings before him he would not listen to sound advice in fact one of the jewish historians said this about him he did evil he did evil in the eyes of the lord his god and he did not humble himself before jeremiah the prophet he just wouldn't listen once his mind was made up much like most of us once his mind was made up he could not hear he could not hear neither could he embrace the wise counsel of the prophet he did exactly he did exactly what king jehoiachim had just done he refused to pay tribute to babylon and once again jeremiah pleads with zedekiah to change his mind this was not going to end well for the king it's not going to end well for his family it's not going to end well for the nation but again kings will be kings and when jeremiah realized that akai wasn't listening he did something really interesting he took his message to the streets of jerusalem encouraging the citizens he said to the citizens nebuchadnezzar is going to show up and when he shows up the best thing to do is to throw open the gates and allow him into the city well when zedekiah found out what jeremiah was doing as he marched through town you know warning people and giving people this advice he had jeremiah thrown into a dry cistern just to shut him up because he was scaring the children actually he was scaring the entire population and they should have been scared because sure enough just as he predicted again nebuchadnezzar himself shows up at the gates of jerusalem surrounds the city and waits and waits and waits in an effort to starve the inhabitants into submission when king zedekiah realized his mistake what do you think he did he went looking for jeremiah and he begged jeremiah to ask god to deliver the city and jeremiah assured him king zedekiah is too late for that the fate of the city has been sealed their only hope was to throw open the gates and beg king nebuchadnezzar for mercy but zedekiah knew there would be no mercy for him or his family so he snuck out of the city at night with his bodyguard and his children yet another really bad decision he was eventually captured and then he was forced to watch as his children were butchered one by one by nebuchadnezzar's soldiers and that would be the last thing king zedekiah would ever see he was blinded chained and marched back to babylon to join nebuchadnezzar's king collection so the next time somebody tells you the bible is boring you just tell them the story of king zedekiah right now here's the thing when you hear a story like that or when you read a story like that or maybe when you watch something like that play out in real life you can't help but think what were they thinking how could anybody be so clueless so deceived and fortunately for us jeremiah who was there for this entire adventure this entire tragedy watched the whole thing play out he answers that question for us he explains why we're so prone toward self-deception why we're so good at selling ourselves on a bad idea or bad options here's what he writes the heart is deceitful above all things your heart my heart his heart her heart even those precious children of yours their hearts the heart is deceitful above all things now jeremiah chose his adjective carefully there's a difference between being dishonest and being deceitful right dishonest is well dishonest is a lot easier to spot than deceitful i'm dishonest is just straight up not honest but deceitful deceitful usually includes a mix of truth and half truth and untruth deceitful is difficult to detect you've met you've met dishonest people who just weren't shrewd enough or smart enough to deceive you they were just too obvious but deceitful people they're the dangerous ones and our hearts are deceitful our hearts are dangerous it's why we're so convinced and at times so convincing we don't we don't merely lie to ourselves we deceive ourselves and here's how it works or appears the way i think it works um once your heart once your heart or my heart gets wrapped around something that we want i think our hearts send a message to our brain and says hey brain i want this go figure out a way to justify it and our brains are really smart that's why we call them brains right and our brains know that whereas it's difficult to justify a want it is not difficult to justify a need so the first thing the brain does is it upgrades the messaging to something far more sophisticated than a want the brain says you need this and back to what francis bacon said and what jeremiah said once we're convinced once we're convinced we need something it is so easy to sell ourselves right before long we have a list of justifications for buying it drinking it asking it out inviting it in but the reasons we used to sell ourselves let's be honest the reasons we used to sell ourselves are not really reasons they're justifications and in most instances if we're honest if we slow down and think about it we know but we fall for it anyway we're so easily deceived by our own hearts the heart is deceitful above all things but he wasn't finished and he says our hearts are beyond cure there's no cure this is a permanent condition you don't outgrow it we don't outmature it we can't fix it we're doomed okay we're not doomed but a permanent condition requires constant supervision right a proactive response and then jeremiah wraps this up by saying something or describing something i guess we've all experienced he says this the heart is deceitful the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it and that's a good question because i certainly don't i don't even understand the decisions i make even though i know everything i'm sharing with you and have known it for quite some time who can understand who can understand it apparently nobody does nobody can which explains why we've all said at some point along the way i don't understand i don't understand why i did what i did which is just another way of saying i don't understand why i decided what i decided i don't understand why i chose what i chose and this explains why we do the very thing we advise other people not to do it's why the person in the mirror is so hard to lead they just won't tell you the truth unless unless you force them to you got to pin them down you got to look them in the eye and you have to ask are you being honest with yourself are you being honest with yourself really and the sooner you embrace and the sooner you embrace this disturbing fact about yourself and i hate to be the bearer of bad news but the sooner you embrace this fact about yourself the sooner you'll be open to information and advice that conflicts with where your heart is taking you the more suspicious and cautious you'll be when that salesperson inside of you starts selling you so this week this week before you decide i want to encourage you to have sort of a heart to heart with yourself and i think you should do it in the mirror i do and you should ask yourself out loud and you should use your name andy are you being honest with yourself are you being honest with yourself really and then just tell yourself the truth even even if you don't plan to act on it because you owe it to yourself to know you owe it to yourself to know even if it points you in a direction you don't intend to go and this is where the conflict is because we think and this this is pretty much true that if we are honest with ourselves we're going to feel like we need to hold ourselves accountable to do what we know we ought to do and that's absolutely true but i'm giving you permission not to do that just begin with being honest with yourself it won't hurt to know but here's something you do know what you don't know what you won't know what you refuse to know can certainly hurt you so just be honest with yourself most people aren't don't be most people so i would love to challenge you to make a decision today i would love for you to make this decision i will not lie to myself i will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel bad about myself i will not lie to myself even if the truth even if what i discover makes me feel bad about myself because there are worse things than feeling bad about myself and that is deceiving myself about something about myself that i need to change so would you ask yourself am i telling myself the truth or am i selling myself a regret am i telling myself the truth or am i selling myself a regret am i being honest with myself really so as we wrap up i'd like to get this kicked off for some of you not all of you perhaps but some of you and i'd like to just ask a few questions and most of these questions maybe none of these questions will intersect with your current circumstances but perhaps a couple of them will and if nothing else here's an example of the kinds of things we should ask ourselves so you ready why do you continue to go out with him really why do you continue to go out with her really why did you file for divorce really why are you taking that job really why are you quitting your job really why did you move in really what's the real reason what's the real reason you don't call your kids what's the real reason you don't call your mom your dad your brother your sister why won't you tell her why won't you tell him the truth about what's going on really it's brutal isn't it it's terrifying it's clarifying and ultimately it's liberating and it's empowering so be honest with yourself it doesn't come naturally that's what jeremiah says but most things that are good for us they don't do they jeremiah was right the heart is deceitful above all things and it is beyond cure this is a permanent condition but now you know and now you know what to do about it and to prudent when they see danger when they see trouble coming they do something and trouble is always just one bad decision away so would you decide i will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel bad about myself i will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel bad about myself i will tell myself the truth really and we'll pick up the discussion right there next time as we talk about question two but before you go three questions to get the conversation started or maybe keep the conversation going and i'd love for you to begin the conversation right now with whoever you're watching with question number one if a sales associate and a retail establishment said to you the kinds of things you say to yourself when selling yourself how would you respond now you can have fun with this question if you were in a retail outlet a retail store and the sales associate began trying to sell you on a product and use the same pitches that you use on yourself how would you respond what if they said something like this hey if you get home and you change your mind just donate it hey i see that you already have one of these but this one's newer hey your wife she'll never know in fact she's really not all that dialed in your husband doesn't have to know everything does he i mean if somebody used that as a sales pitch you would leave the store but these are the kinds of things we tell ourselves all the time right question number two where do you struggle most telling yourself the truth now you may not want to admit this with whoever you're watching with but at some point you have to admit it to yourself what are your go-to justifications and number three jesus says that knowing the truth will set us free we've all heard that but acknowledging what's true can be terrifying this is why we deceive ourselves right is it possible this is big is it possible that the fear of what you discover about yourself by being honest with yourself is an obstacle to the freedom that you ultimately desire and the freedom your heavenly father ultimately wants for you in other words is it possible that you are holding on to a lie a comfortable perhaps comforting lie that is holding you back from what god is inviting you into truth really will set you free so this week would you face up to that terrifying but liberating truth because on the other side of being honest with yourself that's where the peace is ultimately found i'd love to pray for us as we close heavenly father for the person who is right in the middle of making a big decision and they know in their heart they have sold themselves on an option they may regret later give them the courage to embrace what we talked about today give us all eyes to see and ears to hear and the courage to respond in jesus name amen thanks for joining us we'll see you next time i've carried i wasn't creating to bury it alone [Applause] [Music] i'm laying it down [Applause] [Music] again and again and again and [Music] you again my condition you had a plan from the start your son for redemption [Applause] [Music] for that kind of [Music] is [Music] my again and again [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] just as i am you call me [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] me [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: North Point Community Church

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Id: LhpxCTRbZS8

Length: 40min 41sec (2441 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2021