Tim Keller - Human Being: Recovering Who We Are?

every night we react we are talking about one of the things that everyone needs in order just to live life no matter what your beliefs are no matter who you are we're all together seeking these things that's in other words I'm I'm trying to find some issues around which we can all unite in this room so we've been looking at things like satisfaction and yes and resilience in the face of suffering which tomorrow night and identity and meaning in life and so on and we're talking about things that everybody has to have in order to live and you actually have to work have to have working theories of how to get those things because their lifelong pursuits and though I'm trying I will try to be fair to all views I am here to make a case for the idea that Christianity has unequaled resources to offer you and everyone in this room is after these things Christianity is arguably unequaled resources for these things now tonight we are talking and we've already had a great introduction to it the subject of identity if you if you if you go to mr. Google and you say what is the most important question you can ask by the way every room every week I've been doing this for a few weeks just to see and every week it takes you to different sites but they all have to do with identity they always are the most important question you can ask is who are you really or what do you really want to be who do you really want to be so the questions are all around identity of course every human being has got to in order to live have a stable solid identity a sense of self and a sense of worth but this the quest for identity is at the very core of our culture so let's look at that tonight what I'm gonna do tonight as I always have is I'm going to start reading a text from the book of Mark I'm going to then talk about the issues that the text raises and then come back to the text at the end to show what Christianity offers for that particular issue and so I'm going to read from a couple of parts from mark chapter 14 and what you can do is you could if you want to you could read along there's a mark Gospels on the on the chair or you could just listen and I'm just reading snatches from mark chapter 14 Peter declared even if all fall away I will not truly I say to you jesus answered today yes tonight before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times but Peter insisted emphatically even I have to die for you you know I have to die for you I will never disown you and all the others said the same that's verses 29 to 31 now down further in the chapter verse 66 after Peter after Jesus's arrest and Peter is following along to see what happens to Jesus while Peter was below in the courtyard one of the servant girls of the high priest came by when she saw Peter warming himself she looked closely at him you also were with that Nazarene Jesus she said but he denied it I don't know or understand what you're talking about he said and went out into the entryway when the servant girl saw him there she said again to those standing around this fellow was one of them again he denied it after a little while though standing near said to Peter surely you are one of them for you or a Galilean he began to call down curses and he swore to them I don't know this man that you're talking about immediately the rooster crowed the second time and then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him before the rooster crows you will disown me three times and he broke down and wept now it's a very famous account and Peter has often been seen as the most prominent of the Twelve Apostles and by the way that was Peters view - that was his opinion that he was the most prominent because when Jesus says a me before what I read Jesus had said basically begins to talk about his arrest he cites a a scripture from the Hebrew Bible where the shepherd will be struck and the Sheep scattered and he says you're all going to scatter when I am arrested and that's when Peter says even if all the rest he doesn't just say no we will be faithful to you he says even if all the rest fall away I will never even if everybody else abandons you I will never abandon you it's Peters way of saying I'm the bravest of all and of course what turned out was he was actually the biggest coward of all in some ways in some ways even more out of touch with who he is than Judas was because Judas knew what he was doing but Peter looked into his heart at that moment and saw nothing but bravery and afterwards it turned out he was so out of touch with him who he was that it turns out he was the biggest coward what was going on there this is a case study an identity this is a case study actually an identity failure and we'll get back to it after we do a little bit of discussion about what what we mean by identity let's ask two questions what are the two kinds of identities right now two ways of forming identity that are ascendant in the world and what's the problem with the one we have in Oxford or in the West which is the modern identity what are the two kinds of identity and what's the problem with the modern identity now at this point I'm following slavishly the great work the Magisterial work by Charles Taylor the Canadian philosopher wrote a book in 1989 called sources of the self the making of modern identity and it's a great book and Charles Taylor points out the fact that maybe a thousand years ago everywhere in the world identity was formed in whatever culture in what he would call a traditional way but over the last thousand years in the West we've developed another kind of identity that he would call the modern identity now in the non-western part of the world and Penny plenty of you are from non-western cultures and countries the traditional mode is still out there it's still the main way culture the cultures of non-western civilizations people they should be forming their identity it's not an option in the West we have a modern identity and I want to keep you all from being pawns of your culture because generally speaking the culture never tells you there is more than one way to form an identity it just basically imposes it on you it acts as if it's the only possible way and you become a pawn of the culture where let's make them let's make what our culture's are doing to us a little more visible so that we can be free agents rather just pawns so what are the two forms that's what is traditional and modern identity in brief and very brief because it's a thick book and your ghost traditional identity is basically outside in the truth capital T is outside it may be God it may be your family may be community may be a combination of those things some moral absolutes some moral truth so you find truth capital T outside of you outside is truth inside are feelings so you find the truth outside and then you bring the truth inside and you realign your feelings in line with the truth so by the way if the truth is thou shalt not commit adultery if you think that's a moral absolute and yet your feelings are I'd like to commit adultery you you suppress your feelings for the truth that's the traditional identity you go outside to find the truth you come in and realign your feelings in line with the truth and then self esteem is bestowed upon you by the community or by your family as they see you sacrificing yourself interests for the greater truth self esteem is something bestowed upon you by your community your family as they see you sacrificing your self interest for the higher truth the modern identity is exactly the opposite it is inside out truth is inside you that's where you find the truth capital T outside is nothing but various people's feelings socially constructed so you first start it's inside out means you go into yourself and you find the truth you don't let anybody tell you what is right or wrong you determine that you don't let anybody tell you who you are you determine that and you go in and you find you deepest feelings your deepest desires and then you come out to the world and you tell them to align with you you look at the world and you see it all you see is a series of culturally constructed feeling people's preferences and prejudices and feelings and so you find the truth insight and you come out and you tell society to accommodate you it's exactly the opposite and self-esteem in the modern identity is what you bestow on yourself only you can validate yourself and as you see yourself bravely becoming who you want to be and taking hold of who you want to be and not letting anybody tell you who you are you bestow self-esteem on yourself you say I am finally becoming an authentic person I'm getting a strong identity you are your own validator you don't let anybody else tell you that you're an important or if I have a person now those are the two approaches it's that it's both the the traditional approach and the modern approach just for one second just for a second can you see the difference in the West I don't want to give you the impression that the modern identity even say and I'm old enough to know even 50 years ago the modern identity wasn't as strong so you can watch the 1964 movie Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews and it's actually all about a man who aspires to a great career he wants to walk with Giants and he's neglecting his family and he sacrifices his career in order in the end in order to be with his children and to give himself to his family and the most recent I won't go the most recent Mary Poppins actually is exactly the opposite the old Mary Poppins 1964 was an outside in traditional the truth is out there feelings are in here you align with the truth out there you sublimate your your self-interest for the higher truth and the new Mary Poppins is an absolutely modern approach where you actually find who you really are and you express that and that's what happens it's just the the best the latest JK Rowling movie fantastic beasts do you know what an obscure eeeh Liz an obscure you is a is a young wizard or witch that because they're suppressing their magic they're not being true to who they are they're not expressing their true selves it creates an obscure ile creates an obscurest which is basically a giant parasitic dark matter blob that goes around eating things and it's all because this is what happens when you don't express your true self you see this is the kind of thing that a popular movie probably wouldn't brought out even say fifty years ago but that's the modern identity here's my favorite one of course the movie frozen now there's a signature song by Elsa let it go now if you are a parent or a grandparent or if you're a woman you know what I'm talking about if you have no idea what I'm talking about you're a young single man and you probably need to get some help after this to explain this but in this in the movie she transitions from a traditional to modern identity right before your very eyes so she starts off by saying you know don't let them see don't feel you know don't let that be the good girl you always wanted meant to be I got it wrong what's it's dark wait a minute don't let them in don't let I got it I got it okay don't let them in don't let them see be the good girl you always have to be conceal don't feel don't let them know see though that's a caricature a wholly negative depiction of the traditional identity where what you do is you you actually do suppress things because this is who you're supposed to be when it comes to what your family wants and that's what you suppress it yes so she says you know conceal don't feel don't let them know and then before your very eyes she moves to a modern identity where she says it's time to see what I can do test the limits and break through no right no wrong no rules for me I'm free let it go and if you don't get by the way if you don't get the point that she's moving from a traditional to a modern identity before your very eyes she does this great costume change just to make sure you you know how it comes the heritage it's unbelievable you know where did she get those shoes it's amazing they just show up but it's fascinating because what you actually see is a thousand years of Western civilization before your very eyes right there and of course it's it's it's shedding the traditional to the modern which of course is the thing that liberates are there any problems with the modern identity yes and I got to start by saying this we could easily critique the traditional identity my mother's father was born and raised in Italy a small town in Italy and he emigrated to the United States in 1918 ninety eight and three the reason he did that might be me doing that the reason he did was because of the he was looking for a civilization that was more individualistic that really allowed he was looking for a modern society why because his family had always made pottery in this little small Italian village and his father he said I don't know that I want to make pots and the father said look the only way you can ever leave this village is you can be a priest you could be a soldier or you can make pots he says what if I wanted to move to another town and do something else well they would say no you can't be in this town you're that you're of a family that's from that town we wouldn't hire you you can't even live here we won't even rent to you you're not from this town you're from that town and what if I want to do something different in this town nobody would hire you because you're a Clemente and you make pots and so he came to the United States and when you see the traditional identity was that stratified and that's stultifying you start to say well okay we can obviously critique the traditional identity but for you in Oxford that is not an option for you even if you're from a part of the world that has a traditional identity when you get here the the only option that your culture has given you is if there is no other option is the modern identity and there's several severe problems with it severe problems enough I hope that you'll see neither traditional or the modern identity is really the way forward but here's the four quick problems that are widely seen I'm again I'm getting a lot of this from Charles Taylor but there's plenty of other people who will talk about it number one the modern identity is incoherent because it's it's based on the idea that you can look into yourself and see your deepest feelings and deepest desires and figure out who you are the reality is your deepest desires and your deepest feelings contradict they do and if you have this grid that says no no I have I do know that there's some contradiction but I wanted I didn't know what my deepest feelings are well your deepest feelings contradict to a Francis buffered has a great line in his book where where he says this is it's a great place where Francis buffer says you are a being he's talking to all human beings he says you are a being who's once make no sense they don't harmonize whose desires deep down are discordantly arranged so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to possess things at the very same time you are equipped in the end you will realize for farce or even tragedy much more than you are for happy endings so the modern identity is just actually there's no way for you to it you're not allowed to bring any truth from the outside you have to look inside that don't let anybody tell you what is right around for you but there's no way to adjudicate you're very deeply contradictory feelings number one it's incoherent number two it's incredibly fragile Charles Taylor makes the case it's an unbelievably fragile identity and it's because you won't let anybody from you won't give the right to anybody outside the right to tell you who you are and whether you're doing a good job at who you are you won't let your family you won't let you won't let the community you won't let the church you won't let anybody tell you who you are Taylor says the fact is the human beings can't do that because we are irreducibly relational people we desperately need something from the outside he said nobody can say well you know everybody else in the whole world thinks I'm a monster but I think I'm fine that is mental illness if you really can say that he said I don't think people can say that you've got to have something from the outside so if you actually insist on the fiction of the modern self which is only you can decide who's right around for you you don't let anybody tell you who you are you will find that you are not sufficient you are not a sufficient validator and so you know what this means it means you're your insatiable for affirmation you're going to be constantly needing constant affirmation all the time yeah a traditional identity was stall to fiying but if your parents and your grandparents said you're a good boy you're a good girl you're a good son you're a good daughter then that case closed but see you would have you're not letting in modern people you're not letting anybody have that kind of power over you okay talk about that there's some reasons why you don't do that but the fact is if you hold the power to yourself you will never be happy you will always be needing constant affirmation and these are here's some of the problems with that number one that means it's the reason why people actually meltdown when you disagree with them because it's not about their opinion it's about their very identity it's the reason why at a place like Oxford the quality of your work will become the measure of your worth your work your academic work what people think of you it's not just work it's not just scholarship it's you which means if you you you're not even gonna be able to interrogate it you're not gonna be able to even look in a way at the things at your own scholarship and even judge how how bad it is because if it's really bad you don't have a self left because that is you and more than anything else what this means then is there's really more fragility there's more anxiety there's more depression and there's actually more self-hating than has ever been it's rather ironic in a place we're always telling people how wonderful they are and how great they are and how you've got to love yourself and how incredibly important that we have we have some what we're so invested in in raising people's self-esteem and there's never been a culture in which there's people with lower self named Freddy de Bourgh who's a an academic the reason I'm reading this is because those of you in the Academy will realize he's using all the right academic language to explain this freddy deeb o'er is an American academic he teaches English and creative writing at Brooklyn College he lives in Brooklyn he's he would call himself a very secular person but he you can probably find this blog post somewhere though you never know how long things stay up and he did this not too long ago he called it you can't fake it and this is what he said I have been increasingly preoccupied by a basic question why is everybody I know such a wreck we have this vast intellectual architecture telling us that physical attractiveness hierarchies are cruel and gendered and unfair and that's correct but we still care so much about being hot and we judge each other about it and our papers and humanities seminars are entirely inadequate to ending that condition we've got a political critique of the ways and the notions of yeah we have a political critique of the ways that notions of human Worth are dictated by traditional inequalities of race and sex in class and we have a set of political concepts like self-care that are designed to fight the negative effects of that we've got a self-help culture that constantly counsels us and tells us that we are wonderful that every one of us every one of you are a ray of brilliant unique light that alone can shine the way in the dark world we've got a woke world of marketing that sells products by selling you to yourself like the gym around the corner that says come to our gym and join the body acceptance movement we got our social media tools to craft perfect idealized visions of ourselves curated to the millimeter so we can present exactly what we want to present with digital precision and none of it works I see people who are the most outwardly secure and confident people who never betray a hint of doubt or guilt or remorse who project cool at all times who are popular getting plaudits and positive affirmation at all times who are academically and professionally successful they've got money and respect and yet the flow of life reveals that inside they're hating themselves none of that stuff matters none of it could get at this core self-hatred I see within my friends and the people I know and I'm beginning to wonder is this the human condition I'm beginning to wonder the human condition well Charles Taylor would say yes and no it's been aggravated tremendously by the modern identity but the most so it's the most I say sing coherent it's fragile gotta be quick here it's fragmenting now I'll be brief on this but the fact is as Charles Taylor says that the modern identity has led to the erosion of communities families and institutions of all sort because we've turned all our relationships to be transactional there's a there's a great book interesting book by Jennifer señor she's American journalist and she wrote a book on parenting and it's called all joy and no fun the paradox of modern parenting and she actually is very honest about confronting the fact that why people in her generation she's a 20-something 30-something why people her generation actually are putting not having so many children as former generations and why those of us who have children are just struggling and she's very honest she says our culture says you must never sacrifice your happiness and fulfillment for somebody else you must never let anybody do that which makes all and she's this is her words all relationships are transactional their consumer relationships you're in the relationship as long as it's benefitting you at at an appropriate cost and as soon as the cost is exceeding the benefit you get out and she says the last relationship as she can see in Western culture where you can't divorce the person you can't walk away is that you can't divorce your kids and she says as a result people with a modern identity who get into parenting find it incredibly difficult and she says she doesn't really see she said people will probably still continue to have chill but she doesn't really see you know how in the world there's going to be a rapprochement between the modern identity and parenting but the most important thing is do you see how the modern dented E is fragmenting it really erodes social connections of all sorts and lastly it's incoherent it's fragile it's obviously fragmenting but also in the end it's an illusion it's almost disingenuous basically it's telling you to do something that you not only can't do but you're not doing it says please don't bring an outside truth inside to you you decide what is right right or wrong for you but that's not what's what's happening even here even in the modern a thought experiment to get across the idea if centuries ago there was some anglo-saxon guy walking through oxen Ford is that what they would have called it I don't know the old Englishman some anglo-saxon guy walking around this area and he looks into his heart and he sees two things one of them is aggression anger when when people cross him he lashes out okay the other is sexual desires because he's a creature of his culture he looks at and he says aggression that's me because of course success meant being a warrior it's a warrior culture ashaming on her culture so he sees aggression he says that's me but what but in those days whatever his sexual desire is he would never see that as his identity the aggression is his identity not whatever the sexual desire is would never be seen as an identity today a modern guy walking through Oxford if you look in your heart and you see aggression what do you do with that you said that's not me I need therapy I need anger management that's not me but if you see any sexual desire of any kind you say that's key to my identity now here I want to know which is the ancient anglo-saxon or the modern guy you know walking through Oxford who is more liberated who is really deciding who they are or who is a pawn of the culture it's equal you essentially are taking a moral grid from outside that your cultures giving you the old moral grid was aggression good most sexual desires you have to you would really have to really suppress and channel the modern moral grid is aggression terrible but you need to fulfill your sexual desires okay that's not you finding yourself that's you being dictated to there's a great it's an academic book called identity and social change it's edited by Joseph Davis at the University of Virginia and there's an article in there that's fascinating about psychotherapy and it says when a psychotherapist says don't let anybody tell you who you are and don't let anybody validate you but you yourself at that very point that therapist is actually doing exactly to that young man or woman what they just said you shouldn't let anybody do you were imposing a white Western individualistic approach to reality identity on that person and saying don't let anybody don't let any other culture don't let anybody took that identity is formed in any other way you're doing exactly what you just told the person not to let anybody do to you so you see the conundrum the disingenuous Ness of it all so it's a problem and I try to show you that the the traditional there's plenty of ways to the reason I didn't go to traditional is it's not really an option for most of you on the other hand you don't want to go back to traditional is there a third way is there another way and the answer is yeah let's go back to Peter for a second you know Peter looked into his heart and saw bravery but then he went out and there was nothing but cowardice and how could he have been so wrong and Richard baulkham of us emeritus professor of New Testament at st. Andrews in his commentary at mark he asked the question which is pretty interesting Peter is really a coward he's scared to death he's really trying to get people he's denying his lord the third time it says he called down curses who was he calling down curses on so Richard Bachman says well he obviously wasn't calling down curses on the interrogators but he was he was really trying that wouldn't have mollified them at all was he calling down curses on himself and baulkham being a far better student of Greek than me looks at the grammar and says on it he doubts that he even doubts that it that would have been very helpful by the way too called white why should he call down curse on himself Balkan believes that he was calling down curses on Jesus that he was basically making this case I couldn't be a follower of Jesus because look and he curses Jesus in public which in a shame and on her culture would prove that he could never been a follower of Jesus whatever however you read it his failure is astounding in its epic why and at this point I'm gonna make this suggestion Peter can stand in for us he in some ways he's a representative of either a traditional or modern identity because what do they both have in common as different as they are they've got one thing in common you know what it is they're based on your performance basically you had to perform and you have to live up your parents standards in a traditional society or as we said in a modern society you decide who you want to be and then you've got to be brilliant you've got to be beautiful you've got to be I mean it's it's far more crushing than traditional but to still the point is in both cases it's up to you the quality of your performance is the measure of your worth and where was where was Peter getting his self-worth where was he getting his identity where was he getting his self-esteem his self-worth was based not on Jesus love for him but on his love for Jesus the quality of his love for Jesus the bravery the faithfulness in some ways therefore I am NOT calling you if you if you think that I'm gonna say well don't do traditional don't do modern get religious Peter was quite religious he knew Jesus extremely well he was he was right up front he was always on the front front row he knew Jesus personally he read is you know I mean listen to all of his teaching he had learned it all and yet he completely missed because he still didn't understand why Jesus came the death and resurrection he completely the way we could say now he didn't and the gospel at all and what is the gospel when Harold Abraham's in that movie charit sapphire whether he ever said this and I'm sure he didn't but of course he was a from Cambridge and he was running the 1921 Olympics and in that great movie it's a great movie when his girlfriend is saying why are you working so hard to win in the hundred yard dash and get the gold medal he said when that gun goes off I've got ten seconds to justify my existence I'd like to suggest to you that everybody in this room to some degree another is trying to justify his or her existence you're trying to say my life matters my life is worth it I you know I'm a I'm a person my life is worthwhile otherwise you commit suicide so everybody's trying to justify their existence the core of the biblical message of good news is that Christianity is the only way you can get an identity that is received not achieved it's the only identity I know that's not based on your performance but on Jesus Christ performance it's radically different it's not subject to ups and downs of your performance at all second Corinthians 5:21 a very enigmatic statement it says God made him Jesus God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him what's that being God made Jesus sin does that mean it doesn't say God made Jesus sinful no no when he was on the cross it didn't mean he became angry and greedy and proud and and he didn't say it doesn't say he made him sinful it said it made him sin what's that mean he treated him as we deserve to be treated treated him as if he owed the same debt to justice that we owe so what does that mean that when you believe in Jesus Christ it says God made him sin that knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him does this mean that becoming a Christian means you clean up your life and you become a perfectly righteous virtuous person eventually I would certainly hope that you would become a virtuous righteous person please don't think I'm not saying that but what it says at the moment you become a Christian it means Justin's Jesus was not sinful but treated as if he'd done everything we have done it means the moment you say father accept me not on the basis of my good works or performance but on the basis of Jesus good works in performance accept me not for my sake or for his sake for that minute God sees you as a beautiful thing God treats you as if you've done everything Jesus has done just as he's treated Jesus as if he'd done everything you had done Jesus lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died in our place and that gives you a radically radically different identity and here's the reason why modern people are right to say don't let any human being be your ultimate validator if you if you give the right to your parents of the they're the ultimate validator of who you are and your identity and your self-esteem if they don't like you if they if they disagree with you then you're toast identity wise it's it that's the problem with that if on the other hand you give it to your loved one to your spouse and if she or he thinks you're wonderful then you're wonderful okay what are you gonna do when that person who is by the way imperfect what are you what do you do when that person lashes out at you I mean that person is imperfect how can you do the hacky to give anybody that kind of power and what're you gonna do when they're dead what are you gonna do when you see them in the coffin and your heart is broken and they can't help you you see the modern the modern identity is not wrong to say don't give that to any human being outside of yourself but it's wrong to say that you should have it because I have to tell you if you are your own validator listen your parents we're bit would be better than you you know why because you see yourself all the way to the bottom you know you're always imperfect you know that's the reason why you're always filled with when you become the ultimate validator in the in the modern identity structures the reason why we always are angry at ourselves and we always feel so people on the outside at least can't see all the way down to the bottom we can see down the bottom we're terrible validators well what do you want who should be your validator the Bible says when our hearts condemn us God is greater than our hearts put it this way there's a line I won't tell you where afterwards you can come up and tell me the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards Kathy knows there's a couple of ministers who I just you know adored literally adored two of my we were remembering them recently and at various places they made offhanded comments at one point one minister said i've never preached on that text but that's exactly how i would preach it another minister said man I cannot imagine getting off an airplane and speaking like that in other words they gave me compliments and I'm a preacher I'm a speaker and these are people that I literally adored and look when somebody who I like praises me that's nice when somebody I adore adores me that's heaven the praise of the praiseworthy you or you will never be you will never be you'll never have that deep solid identity until the person who you adore most in the world and in the universe looks at you with love and of course the only person that you can trust who can't die is not imperfect and of course the person who whose opinion should matter more than anyone else is God if you can through the gospel and the truth of the gospel come to deep conviction that the only person the only set of eyes in the universe whose opinion matters sees you as an absolute beauty sees you is more precious than all do all the jewels that lie beneath the earth that's a solid identity just say one last thing and some of you gonna ask me questions about I'm glad you do I got to give you time to ask questions so here we go this identity even when you receive Christ as your Savior even when you say father adopt me into your family make me a son and daughter give me the new name all these there's so much in the New Testament about how Christian salvation is about an identity change nevertheless it's something you takes you all the rest of your life to live into when jesus said to Simon Simon your name's not Simon I named you Peter it took him the rest of his life it's it's such an adventure the rest of his life to find out what that meant and to live into his new Christian identity and so it just doesn't happen overnight by any means police don't think there's a switch that just you just switch there's a place interesting place in Luke chapter 10 20 where Jesus sends his disciples out to heal people and to do miracles and they and and and they cast out demons but don't ask me about that oh go ahead ask me about that oh go ahead they cast out demons and they come back and Jesus said how did they go and they said Wow Lord I mean they said that and something else in greek but that's my paraphrase it said Wow Lord even the demons are subject to our name in other words while we power we had a great day and Jesus says rejoice not that the demons are subject to your name but rejoice that your names are written in heaven and see the idea that your names are already written in heaven is the idea that you're already saved by grace you don't wait to the end of your life hoping and maybe if you live a good enough life God will take you to heaven you're already there your are guaranteed you're alright your names are written in heaven and Jesus is actually saying don't live out of the old identity don't say hey I'm okay because I had a successful day stop that he says you're gonna be up and down tomorrow you may have a unsuccessful day he says rejoice not don't rejoice so much in this or that performance or rejoice that your names are it in heaven I think I need to end because I think that maybe God saying you know give them some chance to ask some questions so I'm gonna ask Abbey and Johnny come up do that great so let's kick off with this question um so based on what you've said about identity and self valuing your set of things and things like that are you saying that self care and self hot self help are bad oh the question is it our self is self help bad uh it careful I'll try not necessarily it depends on autonomous self is bad health is bad in other words the idea that I can do this all by myself yes that's bad there's for you to be looking out for yourself and saying the best thing I could do for myself is actually to get relationship with God is that self help by some definitions yes so I think it depends on what it means but I would another I wouldn't just say all self up is trash that an awful lot frankly if you read the book of Proverbs and then you read a lot of modern self-help sometimes it's just being wise about how you live and you can find it in the book of Proverbs sue so as long as we speak very broadly no I'm not trashing self-help but there are certain forms in which you're basically saying you and you alone can help yourself and you shouldn't you you have what it takes to solve your problems that kind of self-help ISM I would know I'm obviously denying that but in thank you the next question is you spoke about how our desires conflict internally but you didn't give any examples could you unpack this a bit more well you know yeah I'll tell you the best example you can even see it in a lot of movies you might have a desire for a particular career you might have a desire for a particular love romance or you know spouse and this happens all the time you realize that if I get the spouse most certainly that's going to mean a problem for my career if I pursue the career to the max that's certainly gonna mean I probably never marry this person or be with this person I would right now here's what the culture is doing the culture is telling women that you must choose the career over the over the love partner the culture at this point is not telling that to men but you said you see what I mean by saying the culture is actually quite dictatorial the fact is that I would say those two desires are probably equal and they conflict and for you to say well my true self would be the career my true self would be the love no they're both true so I mean obviously especially if you've been here the other two nights what you need to do is you need to have a higher love than either your career or the spouse the it's the love of God has to be the source of significance if your career or the romantic partner is the source of your significance and software that's really going to be it's just going to be it's just going to tear you to pieces you need a higher love than both of them but I would say they're equal and without God in the mix I think you're gonna have a lot of trouble making that decisions that's my best example of I mean the other one of course is I absolutely love ice cream and I also would like to live a long life and not be overweight it was the first example was better right but there those are probably equally actually that's not true that I think the career versus love is probably a good example of the conflict I'll be careful great this is a slightly longer question but it's worth reading so it says I find I need approval from my parents peers classmates somehow that approval gives me self a filming but it also makes me do certain things just for approval it makes me yearn for approval so I'm frustrated when I don't get it can Jesus Christ change this it seems to me that my professional success and approval from peers isn't linked to Christ oh that read the last professional success it seems to me that my professional success and approval from peers isn't linked to Christ it's not linked tonight by the way those of you who are from non-western cultures you actually are struggling with both a traditional and modern identity I know that about 4045 percent of my congregation or my former congregation and Redeemer in New York City was a Korean and Chinese and so I know that Chinese Americans and Asian aamir and Korean Americans actually whenever I would give a talk like this they would actually say thanks a lot I've got I got you know double trouble because I do find myself I can tell my heart is just more tied to my parents approval than my white friends my white friends can kind of say oh my mother is unhappy with me and just sort of shrug it off I can't but then partly in order to please parents you're also just as career-oriented as the Anglo white folks are and all I can say is yes Jesus Christ is a solution for both in fact let me just talk briefly about that we haven't talked about the parent thing if unless unless Christ is a you have to it takes time to live into this of course but unless Christ's love and who I am in Christ is a is a more fundamental death defining factor for me or another way to put it unless Christ love is more emotionally valuable and definitional to me than my parents love I'm either going to over adulate my parents I'm gonna I'm gonna try too hard to please them sometimes doing things that really aren't right or good but only the FIR prove Oh or I'm going to be too angry at them an awful lot of I found that my half my congregation who was Asian probably struggled with too much being beholden to their parents approval a lot of my Anglo white members were too angry at their parents for having let them down furious at them for having abandoned them or neglected them or whatever and I said even they are still ruining your life because they are still they you're treating them as if they should have been your salvation but they're not if Christ as your Savior or not your parents then you won't over be over it bitter toward them or over solicitous and over dependent on them so if you're over depend on your parents or over angry at your parents is because Christ actually hasn't gotten the first place in your life to the degree you live in to that two degree you experience his love you will find your ability to say no to your parents sometimes and take their disapproval or forgive your parents is enhanced thank you next question is this Tim your answer to the problems of the traditional and modern identities was to find identity in Christianity my question is that is there not something intrinsically individual about identity about the identity which makes it special if your identity is the same as to two billion other people does the identity lose that which makes it special yes I got at the wrote the robotic argument against Christianity I'm glad you asked that question because there's no way within the space of the time I could explain the complexity of Christian identity first of all here's two things to do one is all identity is layered so for example I just gave this illustration is at the postgraduate meeting yesterday I had I have a I know two people in New York I know a guy who is an Irish immigrant and he's Catholic and he's a plumber a you know a handyman and he moved to Ireland I moved to the Queens in New York City and he raised his family there and the most important thing about his identity's being Irish he loves being Irish she talks about it he gets back all the time Catholic is part of being Irish so of course his job is his job his vocation is really not a big part of his identity is whatever made money so I could raise my family his son however is the first person in his family to go to college his son is a lawyer and that being it his son's identity is much more defined by the fact that I'm a professional I'm successful and I'm a lawyer he's Irish second he likes it but he's you know he's not nearly as it's not nearly as dominant part of his identity and being Catholic is even he's not really much of a religious churchgoer at all so you see the difference in other words Irish is down here fundamental here it's up further here the vocation is most fundamental when you become a Christian becoming a Christian does not a face is does not destroy any of the other aspects your identity if you are African and you become a Christian you don't become a remade European if you will be cut if you're Chinese you become a Christian you're a Chinese Christian and you're not like an America you're like an anglo-american Christian and what it does is it goes to the bottom of the deck and greatly enough what it does for me for example the fact I'm a Christian first on a white man second keeps me from racism and nationalism not fully I'm sure not from the bigot and bigotry and the prejudices but the more I live into my my identity the more my whiteness and my American is is somewhat relativized because Christianity becomes the bottom but I don't become Chinese you know in other words the point is I'm not something else so the first thing you need to realize is here we go again the Christian identity reorders your identity it doesn't it doesn't wipe wipe all those other features out here's the second thing the Bible tells you not only does your identity entail being in Christ but it also depends on calling that the Bible says that when the Holy Spirit comes in your life you get various gifts and callings there are certain things there are certain good deeds that only that God once is preparing for you there's a place in Ephesians where it says guys prepared good works for you to walk in and that means there's certain hands that only you can hold because of who you are and what you've been through there are certain deeds that only you can do and when when Jesus tells Abraham I'm pardon me when God tells Abraham you're Abraham because your father the multitude when Jesus says to Simon you're Peter because you're going to be a rock that's getting at the fact that not only are you one person in Christ but you've got particular mission and calling in the world so when you put together the fact that Christianity reorders it doesn't wipe out the other faith features of your identity but it reorders them and then it gives you a mission in life then frankly every Christian is as unique as a thumbprint or a fingerprint you're as unique as a snowflake in many ways there's nobody like you at all thank you I've actually got a question if you get the microphone you know there's like two people with microphones that's it yeah so you've spoken quite a bit about how other formulations of identity are perhaps not adequate and how you're becoming a Christian then means that your Christian identity is first and then all the other identities kind of stacked in their right order could you unpack a bit more about what that actually means to have a Christian identity what are the implications for someone's life be a little more specific like implications for what sort of things so this is why you shouldn't be honest you asked me a question either so practically what might it mean day to day is it the kind of you talk about national identity or is a similar type of thing yes only reason I asked you to be that you haven't helped me no or it's it's very very as a big question and I was hoping that you and narrow it down but there we go I like you anyway yeah I think a lot look look it it means it means everything for example it means how you take criticism in my case I'm an oldest child I've never liked criticism of course that doesn't work my wife's an oldest child and she has no problem with it at all so all right forget that theory the fact is I've always had a problem with criticism and it probably it probably I the idea that I'm displeasing people is something that I bothers me too much my identity in Christ is my absolute salvation on that it just means in the innocent okay now in the end whose opinion matters whose opinion matters the good thing about putting the the old way I used to do it was the only way I could get away from not being really down on myself because this person criticized me was to actually in my head denigrate that person say I still think that all performance based identities tend to be exclusive and they tend to they tend toward demonization so the way I was able to say that person doesn't know what he's talking about or what she's talking about and I start to consider the source so I would actually overcome my devastation of their criticism by in my mind caricaturing them running them down in other words I had I had to push them down instead I say you know I may be right I may be wrong the criticism may be right may be wrong but five billion years from now Jesus Christ is gonna love me exactly the way he loves me now my the ups and downs of my performance if I had a bad day on Tuesday I'm not loved less by Jesus that's my identity it's very different so that's just one example I also do know that it I wouldn't make a case and say it does tend to bring the racial barriers down the Bible talks a lot about the fact that in Christ racial barriers things that divide people in the world should not divide Christians and I made an allusion to the fact that and mentioned this also at the post-grad the other day was well I'm Everett years ago when I met with a single woman poor woman in Soweto she was a Christian woman African woman obviously and I I recognized a spiritual superior I recognized a person who's in a sense her spirituality or trust in God was a you know higher than mine because of my new identity my old identity would have been I'm a white man from America she's a poor woman in a in a very poor part of the of Africa and I could have might have felt pity but I could never have felt any kind of admiration my Christian identity demoted my racial identity it's still there but it keeps me from making it into an idol and I was able to get back past it and say and to listen to what it was like to be poor and listen to what was like to be an African poor African woman and it has spilled over in the way in which I treat all poor people and all African or African Americans so those are - I just felt very personally and there's an infinite number of those kinds of examples I could but I won't keep on going great we've got time for two more questions this one says hasn't religion led many people to suppress who they really are in very unhealthy ways leading to depression and even suicide how can you say that suppressing these deep parts of ourselves is actually good for us you are assuming in that question that well okay now start this way a lot of the desires you have right now will not feel the same way in Christ in other words it's difficult to be to be - it's difficult to imagine what it's like on the inside of a a strong Christian commitment well I can just tell you this all the things that seem like I had the lid I couldn't live without them suddenly become just things so for example if we just said this if how much money I make and there's a lot of men like this - hopefully unfortunately more and more women - but an awful lot of men say I make a lot of money that's why I know I'm important that it's almost a this is my masculinity this is my identity look at all the money I make I have two homes I've got this and I've got that in other words the money is actually your identity it's an identity factor in Christ it just becomes money not immediately not all the right away not the minute after you've asked for God to come into your life you don't have any gonna say oh my goodness like you know my workaholism is over it doesn't happen like that but the fact is that the money which had become something I had to have in order to be happy now became optional it became optional that's true of every single one of your desires so the desires right now you can't imagine living without indulging it every one of the desires become something that no longer basically controls you you're in control of it none of those things are things you absolutely have to have and that's that's so I'm speaking from the inside saying it's not that easy from the outside to imagine that but I think that's that's your answer it's it's not in the end about suppression it's about reordering of desires maybe last night I said the ancient way was to suppress desires the modern ways to indulge desires the Christian Way is to reorder them so the things that seem like they were uncontrollable become controllable because they are ordered under the love of Christ so thank you and then just one last question which is that you say that God sees us as objects of beauty because of Jesus's sacrifice but how can you accept an identity based on someone else's act or identity what's a gift yeah I mean I get if you say how be careful I would rather talk to you and find out what's behind the question but I'll give it so if I'm going in the wrong direction whoever asked that question please forgive me because I'm not able to quite tell where it's coming from so I'll just take a guess and I may guess wrong but when somebody says how can you basically take credit for what somebody else has done it does sound like what you're really saying is I'm sorry I want to perform I don't I don't want anybody to love me except for what I have done and I would say you you you might be captive to the modern identity I'm trying to show you a way out I try to show you all the problems with basing your identity on your performance the fragility of it the fragmenting of it and all that if you say I just refuse to even think about or even conceive of the idea of being loved not on the basis of my performance with somebody else's then yes you you won't you won't pick up Christianity you just won't go there but it's it's an invitation it's a gift and and I can say as millions and millions of people can testify to it there's nothing intrinsically wrong with doing it because all gifts are like that if you're the kind of person who would say I never take a gift I want to earn it then you'd be totally consistent to say I don't want to be a Christian but my guess is that you do know what it's like to take gifts and to be really grateful for them and to really feel loved by the person even though you didn't deserve it I think if you can understand that then you can understand the gospel put in thank you Tim that's what we have time for so let's give Tim another round of applause [Applause] you

Channel: OICCU

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Id: 1IR0IAgRA70

Length: 60min 38sec (3638 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019