November 21, 2023 • 33 mins
Pastors Eric and Dan offer a critique of the self esteem movement that has infiltrated the church. They tackle common verses used to justify self-esteem and self-esteem concepts that are claimed to be biblical.
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All
right, welcome back to another podcastfrom Faith Baptist Church in Visalia.
My name is Eric Noorthoek, I'm one of thepastors here at Faith Baptist Church, and
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we've got Dan Castaneda, the other pastorhere, and we're talking about self esteem.
Thanks And you look bothways And so we need our self
esteem theme song, Alter Ego.
Just to see who's watchingyou today It's the true alter
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ego Alter, A L T A R, Alter.
Alter, yeah, that's right, yeah.
So we've been talking aboutself esteem the last few weeks.
At least the last podcast, we wetalked about self esteem and we need
to pick up where we left off here.
Yeah.
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And before we jump into
that, I'm going to, that was rude, Dan.
You just interrupted a man right now.
I
expect that at this point with you.
I, in fact, I'd never know quitewhat to expect with you, but Hey,
I just want to read this.
Yeah.
One of the greatest needs we all have isto feel a sense of self worth deep down.
We need to know what,that we're important.
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And our lives matter.
We want to know that we havesomething great to offer.
So often people base their selfworth on things that don't last
looks, achievement, possessions.
They feel important if they drive thefastest car or own the latest gadget.
The problem is that all ofthose things can change.
Some people find theirvalue in other people.
However, if you find your value inhow others make you feel and they hurt
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you, it disappoint you very likelyyou'll turn it on yourself and think
there must be something wrong with me.
No, the only problem is thatyou're, you're getting your self
worth from the wrong places.
Where should we get our value?
Where should we find our self worth?
Our value should come solely from the factthat we are children of the most high God.
We should know that we are importantbecause God says we are important.
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The value God places on you is permanent.
Nothing you can do, nothing anyone elsecan do will ever be able to change that.
I encourage you to check your heart today.
Make sure you aren't finding your worthin anything other than the love of Christ.
Find rest and peace today in him.
Knowing that your worth isforever established in heaven.
The Lord has chosen you tobe his treasured possession.
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Deuteronomy 14 to guess who said that?
I don't know.
Joel Osteen.
Joel Osteen.
I mean, it sounds good.
It does.
It sounds good.
What's wrong with that?
You know, that, that sounds really good.
And that's the message that,I mean, that's Joel Osteen
right there.
I know.
He even threw in the word Christ.
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Right.
He even threw
in the word
Christ.
And he threw in a scripture.
Right.
But it's really the gospel of selfesteem and this, I think that's
what's most interesting about.
This whole self esteem movement is, youknow, it began in secular psychology
you know, but it's really found, it'sreally found a home in the church.
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It has.
And it's, it's surprising because it isthe, the absolute contradiction to what
centuries of Christians have been sayingyou know, a biblical view of, of man.
There's no place for that kind of talk.
And so we need to break this downbecause when we, we read something like
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that, I mean, it sounds really good.
It does.
So we need to find out, well,what is wrong with that?
What does the Bible say aboutman and and,, what is wrong
with his statement there.
And so we, we've got to lookat what the scripture says,
you know, I was
just looking at that.
I wanted to look at acouple different people.
I looked at Joel Osteen, I looked atJoyce Myers, and I had a quote from T.
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D.
Jakes, who's way out there.
I mean, he doesn't even talkabout God in his stuff at all.
And Joyce Myers at least talksabout God, and she throws some
scriptures in, and Joel Osteen does.
But again, what it does is it, it, it,God becomes your self esteem meter.
You know, he becomes a place whereyou go for self esteem and instead
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of worshiping God and nowherein scripture do you see this.
You always see God exalted.
Our eyes as believers are to be onGod because the reality is is that
mankind already loves themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, but we're to take, we're to take oureyes off ourselves and put them on God.
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And worship God.
And you never see any of the, all ofthis is anti, antithetic to scripture.
Yes, as, as believers you could say thereis intrinsic value in belonging to, to
God and you have the promises of God.
But we don't.
Go there to find our self worth,because anything that we have always
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comes from God, and God alone.
And so again, you'retaking the eyes off of God.
The alter ego.
You're taking your eyes off ofGod, and you're putting it on self.
If you're saying that God is my...
It is the one that'sgoing to provide my self
worth.
Right.
You're, you're basically sayingthat the entire goal of God is to
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make you feel good about yourself.
Yes.
And yeah, like you're saying, thereis intrinsic worth in a person.
Believer or unbeliever.
There is, everybody'screated in the image of God.
There's no doubt about that.
The, the problem is that thatvalue or that intrinsic worth
was not meant to exalt self.
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It was meant to exalt God.
That's the point.
Yes.
And and so you don't see anywherein scripture, like you were saying,
where you have any exaltation of one'sself ever looked on as a good thing.
That's right.
It's always looked on
as evil.
You worship the Lord your Godwith all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.
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You, you're not looking to worshipyourself with those things.
You always worship God.
I was thinking of the...
You know, the song that wasreally popular worship song there
for a long time by Michael W.
Smith, you know, like arose trampled on the ground.
Yeah, you took, you know, you took thefall and thought of me above all, above
all, you know, I remember singing that.
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Oh man, that's such a cool song.
But later on, later on, when Icame to my senses, I'm like, wait a
minute, this is really exalting man.
And saying that, that Jesus.
died specifically for my exaltation.
Yeah John 17 one you know, I, we'regoing to look at this this Sunday.
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But there's in John 17 one, you havethe entire purpose of Christ's ministry
identified there in in his prayer andhis high priestly prayer and, . It says
when Jesus had spoken these words, helifted his eyes to heaven and father and
said, father, the hour has come glorifyyour son and the son may glorify you.
That is the purpose of all.
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Human existence, all of creation, everysingle thing that's ever been created,
man or animal or plant the entireearth was created to accomplish what
Jesus prays right there in verse one.
And there's no place forexalting anything else.
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That's right.
It is all about Christ.
That's right.
And the entire purpose of thechurch is to exalt Christ.
And so, he did not come...
And then die and thought of usabove all if he did that he would
be committing a horrendous idolatry.
Yes, he would.
He would be exalting us abovehimself as the greatest thing.
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And Jesus wouldn't have been doingthat, you know, everything he did
was for the glory of the Father.
Yeah.
And, and his, his death.
Yes.
I mean, there's a sensein which, yes, we benefit.
And, and specifically he diesfor the elect, but that's.
That wasn't above all, thatwasn't above all, only the glory
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of the Father is above all.
That was, that was for the purposeof exalting Christ above all.
Yes.
That's why he died.
Yes.
He died so that Christwould be exalted as God.
So in essence, the triuneGod, Father, Son, and Spirit
would be exalted above all.
Yes.
That's the purpose.
Yes.
And so, yeah, I mean, that song is...
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Not a good song.
But it sounds great, right?
It sounds great.
But, but again, when you reallythink about it and you break it
down, it makes me the center of God's
universe.
Right.
You know anyway, and that, and that,that kind of leads us into in this
article by Jay Adams that you introducedme to which I find, to be really good.
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Where did you get this from?
It's actually
in the I think it's either inthe journal No, it's not in the
Journal of Biblical Counseling.
I had it in my stuff from
Astros.
It says Chapel Library, but it's calledthe Biblical View of Self Esteem.
And he, he goes through here andhe, looks at the verses used to To
synchronize , Christian and, selfesteem movement through scripture use
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it to use to support these things.
And he, you know, I, I kind of call thislike a drop the mic kind of article,
you know, he just blasts it away.
Like there's no place for itin, in a biblical worldview.
And so, and he says that rightin the beginning of this article,
he says any, any methodology.
That tries to to use any othersystem but scripture itself to, to
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propagate anything is, is faulty.
It is the scripture that we go to and,so it is the, he says the scriptures
that are used by those within the,the, the self esteem movement that
have infiltrated the church, they, thescriptures are ransacked, the verses
are twisted in order to give some sortof biblical credence to the theory.
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But the Bible is not used, is usednot to discover what God has to say or
what to believe rather, the viewpointwas already bought and brought to the
Bible when the biblical search began.
Yes.
And for all of you students outthere, that's called eisegesis.
Yes.
Yeah.
That is not how you study the
Bible.
No, no.
And that's exactly what you do with this.
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I like what he says, a pagansystem is adopted and then the
Bible is said to support it.
Yeah.
Because that's what it is.
It's a pagan system.
Of thinking about man.
Yeah.
And then they, they takescriptures and they say, well,
does scripture support this?
Yeah.
I mean, if you're going to go tothe scripture and wholeheartedly
buy into the self esteem movement,
you can buy into the self esteem movementand be a Christian, I know there's people
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who do that because they're deceived.
But you go to the scriptureto prove then the self esteem.
Right.
You know, that it's in the Bible.
You're gonna find versesthat you think do that.
Like with anything.
Yes.
I mean, what do you, what do you want?
You can, you can, you cando that with the Bible.
You can make it say what you want.
But you gotta twist scripture to do it.
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And this is, this is what he's saying.
He says that the penchant forfinding the latest psychological
ideas in the scripture is dangerous.
Because the extra biblical viewis given biblical authority.
In other words, the psychologicalideas have higher authority
than the scripture themselves.
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And so, it is givenbiblical authority, really.
It is, it is the Bible.
Yes.
You know, because the smartguy from Harvard said it.
That's right.
So and then, and thenGod is misrepresented.
Any, any system that proposes to solvehuman problems apart from the Bible
and the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Is is condemned by scripture itself.
That's
right.
There's, there's nothing there.
So but this is what's going on.
Christians are attemptingto integrate this system.
So, so I think along with that, youknow, we start with Matthew 22, which is
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where, you know, I, I think I've heardthis argument, you know, before, where,
you know, in order to love others orlove God, you have to love yourself.
And, you know, the passage is set inthe context he says, master, which is
the greatest commandment in the law.
So someone comes up to Jesustrying to trap him, right?
He says, thou shalt, and Jesus saidunto him, thou shalt love the Lord
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thy God with all thy heart, withall thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first andgreatest commandment.
And the second is like unto it,thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself on these two commandmentshang all the law and the prophets.
And that's Matthew 22, 36 through 40.
And so what you, what you get out ofthat and the way that's twisted is that,
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is that these self esteem Christianpsychologists will say, well, that just
shows that you have to love yourselfbefore you can love God or others.
Well,
it says, love your neighbor as thoushalt love thy neighbor as thyself
to use the King James translation.
Yes.
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Isn't that what it's saying?
It says love your neighboras you love yourself.
That's right.
That's
right.
So self
esteem.
That's right.
That's what they try and, that's whatthey try and get at, but the passage
isn't talking about loving yourself.
It's presuming that you alreadydo, which is what God does.
Because humans naturally dolove themselves in deeply.
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Right,
that's the point, right?
Yeah.
If I'm hungry, what do I do?
You eat food.
If I'm thirsty, what do I do?
You get a drink, right?
If I'm sleepy, I take a nap.
Yeah.
That's old people.
Right.
There's nothing like a good nap on a
Sunday, you know?
Right, right.
You're gonna make sure thatyou have what you need.
Yes.
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Yes.
So, the problem...
It's never that you don't love yourself.
That's right.
It's that you don't love your neighbor.
That's right.
That's, that's the point of the passage.
Yes.
You, you are born loving yourselfand not loving your neighbor,
and Jesus gives a commandmentthat is absolutely diametrically
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opposed to everything in you.
Which is to love yourself.
That's right.
What about the person thatsays they hate themselves?
Cause sometimes you get peoplethat go, well I just hate myself.
Well, you do have people thatsay that they, that they hate
themselves, but generally they'restill eating, sleeping, or whatever.
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There's still this basic carethat they have for themselves.
I think Adams makes a good casewhere he talks about suicide being
the ultimate end of self love.
Yes.
You know, the, the self pitything is really, just really,
really good disguised self love.
It's very deceptive.
Yeah.
It's
deceptive.
Yeah..
It's saying in essence of whatAdams says, and I agree with it,
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it's saying that I am too good tohave these kinds of circumstances.
Right.
In my life and surround me.
I don't deserve any of this.
Yeah, I deserve
something better.
I deserve something better.
I don't deserve this mistreatment.
Yes.
I don't deserve the way that,you know, my life has been.
Yes.
And, and so I hate, I hate my life.
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Right.
And then that's, you know, I, Ithought that was an interesting
point as, as you think about that.
Suicide is the ultimateexpression of self love.
Yes.
It's the end of
it.
Yeah, because you're notthinking of anybody else.
Right, you're not thinking aboutthe family you're leaving behind.
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You're not thinking about, you know,what it's doing to everybody around you.
You're just thinking about you.
Yes.
And how much you want to, you know,how much you're just not worthy of, or
all of these things aren't, this life,these people aren't worthy of you.
Yes.
And you need to, in the end, in the end,
yeah, and that's not, you know,again, that's not to, to make light
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of those situations because people dofind themselves in those situations.
But the reality is, and I think Adamshas nailed that, you know, on the
head here is that the reality is, isthat it is the ultimate expression of,
of self love, especially as we, youknow, understand the human condition.
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Romans 14, 7 8, if none of us livesto himself, no man dies to himself, or
whether we live, we live unto the Lord,or whether we die, we die unto the Lord.
And so suicide is a refusalto live and die unto the Lord.
Wow.
It is, a refusal to trust in theLord, accept the circumstances
that he's given you . Yes.
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And it is a choosing instead of.
You living and dying under yourself.
Yes.
That's just fascinating to me.
That
is a really, that's areally fascinating thought.
It's definitely a biblical thought.
It's just no wonder that suicides are, Imean I haven't looked at the statistics,
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but it's a major topic in our day.
It is.
Well, this is what the self esteemmovement, and it's, it's, it's interesting
because if this is true, then themore we push self esteem, the more we
should expect self harm and suicide.
To be.
Yeah.
It has to be the end goal because,because you are the end goal.
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And nothing else.
You live 100 percent for you and youalone in the self esteem movement.
And you don't care about anybodyelse, including God, ultimately.
Wow.
Walter Trobisch wrote that self loveis the prerequisite and the criterion
for our conduct towards our neighbors.
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And so what he's saying is thatJesus commanded us to love ourselves.
But we cannot love our neighbors unlesswe first learn to love ourselves.
Or God.
That's the criteria.
Or God.
Or God.
I mean, that's just fascinating.
, if you don't love yourself, youcan't obey this commandment.
And it takes that, thatlittle addition there.
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It says, love your neighbor as yourself.
And it, it just like itlifts it way up and beyond.
Yes.
As the greatest goal above everything, it
literally becomes thegreatest commandment.
Love, love the Lord.
Your God is no longer the firstcommandment because you can't do
that unless you love yourself.
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So love yourself actuallybecomes, and again, love yourself
is not a commandment here.
It's a statement of fact.
Yeah.
And so you're taking loveyourself and you're elevating it.
To the commandment above love theLord your God, if you're going to,
if you're going to interpret itthat way, because you're saying you
cannot, I've heard people say this.
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You can't love God or othersuntil you love yourself.
Right.
What?
So that becomes thehighest commandment then.
So if I love myself first,then I can love God.
Right.
And then I can love my neighbor thatjust turns the whole thing on its
head.
It flips it upside down.
And again, it makes you God.
Yes, it does.
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It makes you the highest the highest goal.
Everything else is, is, youknow, is, is subsidiary.
It's secondary.
Yes.
And I really like, you know, it'sclear when you read the text,
there's only two commandments there.
Yeah.
The first commandment is lovethe Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, withall your mind and strength.
And the second commandmentis like unto it.
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Love your neighbor as you already love
yourself, right?
It's not saying love God loveyour neighbor love yourself.
That's right.
So that's that's what they do Theymake three commandments out of two.
Yes, and then that one commandment becomesthe greatest commandment ultimately
Yeah, yeah, because you can't dothe other two until you do that one.
I like what Adam says in this articleHe says trovish has the temerity
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to say this the finding of modernpsychology that man must acquire love
for himself sheds new light on thecommand which Jesus emphasizes as
ranking in importance next to loving God.
In other words, Trovish thinks thatuntil modern psychologists unearthed
the truth elsewhere, this importantbiblical command and this very important
new aspect lay buried and was notadequately understood for nearly 2,
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000 years the church was in the dark.
So the church has had itwrong for 2, 000 years.
2, 000 years.
Thank you.
Thank you for the self esteemmovement to bring this to light.
Thank you for
modern psychology for interpretingthe Bible for us and showing us
what it should have said all along.
Is
that, you know, theearly saints had no idea.
I mean, what, they were, they weregoing off like being martyred and
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you know, for, for the faith and all.
What, what were they thinking?
I know.
They had no self
esteem.
They had no self esteem.
Like if they had had self esteem,they would never have gone
through that much suffering and,
so I think that Matthew 22 passageis pretty clear that that is not
a verse that speaks of self love.
Some will take the parable of thegood Samaritan that Jesus tells.
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And they'll use it as a, as a way topropagate or foster self interest.
You know, it's about self.
You need to love yourself beforeyou can love your neighbor.
I think in this, he says that the,he meant do the same thing for others
that you would do for yourself.
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That's what he's saying in there, hegoes, but that couldn't be right for
several reasons because the criteria forloving others are the 10 commandments
that Jesus was summarizing in the two.
Love the Lord your God with all yourheart, with all your soul, with all
your strength, with all your mindand your neighbor as yourself, right?
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And so again, the focus comes off of self.
I don't just do things for youso that you will do them for me.
That's, that's not anexpression of, of, of true love.
That's just me manipulating worth.
Yeah.
And the reality is that my whole lifeshould be predicated on loving the Lord,
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my God, with all my heart, soul, mind, andstrength, and then my neighbor as myself.
It's a self sacrificing for my neighbor,self sacrificing for God first.
Followed by a self sacrificing for myneighbor because I understand who God is
and what God has done for me in Christ.
I can then self sacrifice for my neighbor.
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Yeah.
Right.
The natural intensity and fervencyof your love for self, you need
to put toward your neighbor.
Yes.
But not out of self love.
Not out of self love.
Because that's what, I think that's whatthey would, they would take that passage
to show is that you do these thingsbecause you want people to do them back
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to you.
Right.
No, it's saying you don't have aproblem doing these things for yourself.
That's right.
Your problem is not self love.
You need to turn that intensityand fervency toward loving each
other for the sake of Christ.
That's right.
Yes.
And then there's thisidea of infinite worth.
Are we...
Are we of infinite worth?
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I mean, that sounds really nice.
Like, are we of, Dan, are you of infinite
worth?
You know, I was thinking about thistoday when I was reading that and
I was like, there's only one personwho is infinite and it's not me.
So if I'm going to talk about infiniteworth, I cannot talk about humanity.
You have to talk about God because Godis the only one who is infinite and he
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is the only one who is of infinite worth.
Finite creatures can'tclaim infinite worth.
Yeah, that is, that is very true.
But this is a, a an idea that's that'staught in any, you know, it's preached.
It sounds good.
Yeah.
That, that, you know,we're of infinite value or.
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infinite worth but this is, you know,there's this kind of language, the
human being is a glorious, dignifiedcreature with infinite value.
God wants us to see ourselvesas his gift to the world.
We are something beautifulthat God has done.
We are something exquisitethat he has planned.
I mean, that sounds kind of likewhat Joel Osteen was saying.
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And that really, reallypuffs up man, doesn't it?
It really does.
And I, we're just, we're beautiful,we're, we're exquisite, we're, we're
the, the pinnacle of, you know,the greatest thing God could ever
do was to make, was to create me.
That's, that's right.
I thought it
was interesting that he says that theseguys like to use Romans 6, 1 through
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13 in Colossians 3, 1 through 10.
As advocating this, this infiniteworth based on the things that
Christ has accomplished andhow we benefit from those.
And then he says, well, that justgoes to show, I mean, the people that
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advocate this would say, well, thatjust goes to show the infinite worth
and infinite value of the, of a person.
He said one, adam's quote quotesone zealous, what he calls a
zealous advocate of the system.
Our self image as Christians, therefore,must be of ourselves as persons who
have decisively rejected the old wayof living, which is called the old man,
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and have permanently adopted a new wayof living, which is called the new man.
And that's what they would say is that,well, that's where we get our self worth.
It's from this infinite self worth comesfrom the fact that we have rejected the
old way of living and now we're livingAccording to the new man, but again, the
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focus is on me in that it's not on ChristChrist is the one who accomplished all
that right that's in in this entireArgument or this entire discussion?
What is missed is thecentrality of Christ?
Yeah, he's The reason the purpose.
Yes, it's not about man man was createdI I don't remember we said it in this one
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or the other last podcast we did but manwas created For the purpose of exalting
Christ and bringing glory to God Yes,what you know, the chief end of man is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
That's you know, that's the WestminsterCatechism number one, and it's true.
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And and they knew that beforethe psychologists came along.
And, and told us.
You know, well, the chief end ofman is for him to glorify himself
by enjoying himself forever.
You know?
Yes.
I mean, that's the entire self
esteem movement.
It is.
It is.
I like what he says.
All that, he's talking aboutRomans 6 and Colossians 3.
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All that is wonderfully clear.
But what is also clear is that Pauldoes not tell us this to make us feel
good about ourselves or to give usstrokes or to raise our self esteem.
His purpose is to urge us tobecome an everyday living.
We already are counted tobe in Christ, in Christ.
Right.
In other words, he wants us tosee that in ourselves, we fall
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short of what we are in Christ.
Right.
It is Christ who is ofinfinite value, not man.
That's right.
Any value we have comes becausewe're creating an image of God.
And then because we're united to Christ,we receive what we do not deserve.
It is, it is only because of Christ.
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And the thing is, there's nobiblical precedence for the kind
of language where we, you know, wespeak of, or they say things like,
man, you're of infinite worth.
You don't see thatanywhere in the scripture.
No.
And if that were a trueconcept, you would see that.
You would.
Like, that seems like it's apretty big deal for the Bible to
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have left out if it was all about,you know, our infinite worth.
But all
the scripture does ever is elevateGod, elevate Christ, never, never man.
Yeah.
In all that it does,it never elevates man.
And so to claim that, again, isa twisting of the scripture and
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taking, taking something that'sGod centered, Christ centered, and
you are making it you centered.
Yeah.
I, I, that's, that's right.
It's, it twists everything.
I, I love this Matthew 6, 26,it says are you not much better?
Than the, speaking of thesparrows, Matthew 10 31, are you
more valued than the sparrows?
Luke 12 7 says the same thing.
(29:27):
And then you know, in, in those passagesJesus says that two sparrows are sold
for a cent and five for two cents.
And so man is said tobe of more value than.
Many sparrows and this means that if manysparrows means let's say 500 sparrows and
you're worth two dollars and fifty cents
Maybe five maybe five.
(29:49):
So how many sparrows
are you worth then?
Yeah
a thousand sparrows.
Okay,
so you're five bucks.
You're five bucks I think that'sthat's just hilarious because yeah,
you know, we're compared to thevalue We're worth more than sparrows.
Well, how much more?
Well, it doesn't say infinite
value.
No, it does not say infinite value.
So,
the point is that the bird That,that man's value to God, man's value
(30:15):
to God is not the point in that.
No.
It is, it has to do with God's providence.
Yes.
God's care.
It's all about God's value.
Yes.
It's all about His ability to care.
And if He's going to carefor the sparrows, you're
worth more than a sparrow.
Yes.
At least 2.
50 more.
That's right.
So don't worry, I'll take care of you.
Yes.
(30:35):
You know, it's an argumentfrom the lesser to the greater.
But it's all about God, right?
It's all about Him.
It is.
And that's, that's the point of it all.
Man's, I like what he says here.
Man's value to God is not in question.
It's because God obviously has value.
He created man in His own image, but,but yet God is the one who did that.
(31:01):
And God is the one who cares for manout of his grace and out of his mercy,
even unsaved and unregenerate man.
He causes his rain to fall on therighteous and the unrighteous.
He brings the rain and it seasons sothat the people on the earth can eat.
And that is all a result of his grace andhis mercy, not the infinite value of man.
(31:24):
Everything just focuses on God,and God alone, and never man.
Man is never the central focus of the
scriptures.
Yeah, it's all about theinfinite value of God.
And that's what the Bible teaches.
That's what the Bible clearly teaches.
That's the language of scripture.
It is God centered and Christ centered.
Never man centered.
Yes.
(31:44):
And any man centeredness is, is in termsof fallenness of man in his inability to
measure up to the infinite worth of God.
And and, and Jesus doesn't comeand restore our infinite worth.
Jesus is our infinite worth.
That's right.
That's right.
So, I mean, there's
a big difference.
(32:04):
There is a big difference.
And there's a lot of people thatwould claim that there's a lot of
evangelicals that would say, well,Jesus came to restore our worth.
Yeah.
No, he didn't.
He did not.
He, like you said, heis our infinite worth.
And it is only because of him that wecan even enter into the presence of God.
Yeah, I think that's a,that's a good place to stop.
(32:26):
And we'll continue this.
Again, I think there's more to say.
I think we need to look at a biblicalview of man, you know, what does the Bible
teach about man and man's responsibility?
Yes.
What does it mean that he'screated in the image of God?
If it doesn't mean that we have infiniteworth all of these are important.
(32:47):
And then I want to discuss also what.
Is self-esteem because there issomething the Bible says about
self-esteem that we need to know.
And it relates to our conscience andin what the world calls self-esteem.
The Bible has a category for.
And I think that, that that'll bewhere we'll wrap up this discussion.
(33:10):
You know, either next time or,or after that, we'll see how many
podcasts we can extract out of this.
Yes.
But all right.
Great discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Again, this is a ministry of FaithBaptist Church in Visalia, and if
you're looking for a good church, youshould come visit us Sunday School at 9.
(33:31):
30 on Sundays, and then 10.
30 is the main service, and then 6 o'clockon Sundays we have our evening service.
And we have lots of great discussionin the evening, so if you can
make it to that, I think you'llfind it really enjoyable, but
alright, well, until next time.
All
right, welcome back to another podcastfrom Faith Baptist Church in Visalia.
My name is Eric Noorthoek, I'm one of thepastors here at Faith Baptist Church, and
(00:27):
we've got Dan Castaneda, the other pastorhere, and we're talking about self esteem.
Thanks And you look bothways And so we need our self
esteem theme song, Alter Ego.
Just to see who's watchingyou today It's the true alter
(00:53):
ego Alter, A L T A R, Alter.
Alter, yeah, that's right, yeah.
So we've been talking aboutself esteem the last few weeks.
At least the last podcast, we wetalked about self esteem and we need
to pick up where we left off here.
Yeah.
(01:14):
And before we jump into
that, I'm going to, that was rude, Dan.
You just interrupted a man right now.
I
expect that at this point with you.
I, in fact, I'd never know quitewhat to expect with you, but Hey,
I just want to read this.
Yeah.
One of the greatest needs we all have isto feel a sense of self worth deep down.
We need to know what,that we're important.
(01:36):
And our lives matter.
We want to know that we havesomething great to offer.
So often people base their selfworth on things that don't last
looks, achievement, possessions.
They feel important if they drive thefastest car or own the latest gadget.
The problem is that all ofthose things can change.
Some people find theirvalue in other people.
However, if you find your value inhow others make you feel and they hurt
(01:59):
you, it disappoint you very likelyyou'll turn it on yourself and think
there must be something wrong with me.
No, the only problem is thatyou're, you're getting your self
worth from the wrong places.
Where should we get our value?
Where should we find our self worth?
Our value should come solely from the factthat we are children of the most high God.
We should know that we are importantbecause God says we are important.
(02:22):
The value God places on you is permanent.
Nothing you can do, nothing anyone elsecan do will ever be able to change that.
I encourage you to check your heart today.
Make sure you aren't finding your worthin anything other than the love of Christ.
Find rest and peace today in him.
Knowing that your worth isforever established in heaven.
The Lord has chosen you tobe his treasured possession.
(02:43):
Deuteronomy 14 to guess who said that?
I don't know.
Joel Osteen.
Joel Osteen.
I mean, it sounds good.
It does.
It sounds good.
What's wrong with that?
You know, that, that sounds really good.
And that's the message that,I mean, that's Joel Osteen
right there.
I know.
He even threw in the word Christ.
(03:05):
Right.
He even threw
in the word
Christ.
And he threw in a scripture.
Right.
But it's really the gospel of selfesteem and this, I think that's
what's most interesting about.
This whole self esteem movement is, youknow, it began in secular psychology
you know, but it's really found, it'sreally found a home in the church.
(03:27):
It has.
And it's, it's surprising because it isthe, the absolute contradiction to what
centuries of Christians have been sayingyou know, a biblical view of, of man.
There's no place for that kind of talk.
And so we need to break this downbecause when we, we read something like
(03:48):
that, I mean, it sounds really good.
It does.
So we need to find out, well,what is wrong with that?
What does the Bible say aboutman and and,, what is wrong
with his statement there.
And so we, we've got to lookat what the scripture says,
you know, I was
just looking at that.
I wanted to look at acouple different people.
I looked at Joel Osteen, I looked atJoyce Myers, and I had a quote from T.
(04:12):
D.
Jakes, who's way out there.
I mean, he doesn't even talkabout God in his stuff at all.
And Joyce Myers at least talksabout God, and she throws some
scriptures in, and Joel Osteen does.
But again, what it does is it, it, it,God becomes your self esteem meter.
You know, he becomes a place whereyou go for self esteem and instead
(04:34):
of worshiping God and nowherein scripture do you see this.
You always see God exalted.
Our eyes as believers are to be onGod because the reality is is that
mankind already loves themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, but we're to take, we're to take oureyes off ourselves and put them on God.
(04:58):
And worship God.
And you never see any of the, all ofthis is anti, antithetic to scripture.
Yes, as, as believers you could say thereis intrinsic value in belonging to, to
God and you have the promises of God.
But we don't.
Go there to find our self worth,because anything that we have always
(05:21):
comes from God, and God alone.
And so again, you'retaking the eyes off of God.
The alter ego.
You're taking your eyes off ofGod, and you're putting it on self.
If you're saying that God is my...
It is the one that'sgoing to provide my self
worth.
Right.
You're, you're basically sayingthat the entire goal of God is to
(05:44):
make you feel good about yourself.
Yes.
And yeah, like you're saying, thereis intrinsic worth in a person.
Believer or unbeliever.
There is, everybody'screated in the image of God.
There's no doubt about that.
The, the problem is that thatvalue or that intrinsic worth
was not meant to exalt self.
(06:06):
It was meant to exalt God.
That's the point.
Yes.
And and so you don't see anywherein scripture, like you were saying,
where you have any exaltation of one'sself ever looked on as a good thing.
That's right.
It's always looked on
as evil.
You worship the Lord your Godwith all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.
(06:27):
You, you're not looking to worshipyourself with those things.
You always worship God.
I was thinking of the...
You know, the song that wasreally popular worship song there
for a long time by Michael W.
Smith, you know, like arose trampled on the ground.
Yeah, you took, you know, you took thefall and thought of me above all, above
all, you know, I remember singing that.
(06:47):
Oh man, that's such a cool song.
But later on, later on, when Icame to my senses, I'm like, wait a
minute, this is really exalting man.
And saying that, that Jesus.
died specifically for my exaltation.
Yeah John 17 one you know, I, we'regoing to look at this this Sunday.
(07:10):
But there's in John 17 one, you havethe entire purpose of Christ's ministry
identified there in in his prayer andhis high priestly prayer and, . It says
when Jesus had spoken these words, helifted his eyes to heaven and father and
said, father, the hour has come glorifyyour son and the son may glorify you.
That is the purpose of all.
(07:33):
Human existence, all of creation, everysingle thing that's ever been created,
man or animal or plant the entireearth was created to accomplish what
Jesus prays right there in verse one.
And there's no place forexalting anything else.
(07:54):
That's right.
It is all about Christ.
That's right.
And the entire purpose of thechurch is to exalt Christ.
And so, he did not come...
And then die and thought of usabove all if he did that he would
be committing a horrendous idolatry.
Yes, he would.
He would be exalting us abovehimself as the greatest thing.
(08:17):
And Jesus wouldn't have been doingthat, you know, everything he did
was for the glory of the Father.
Yeah.
And, and his, his death.
Yes.
I mean, there's a sensein which, yes, we benefit.
And, and specifically he diesfor the elect, but that's.
That wasn't above all, thatwasn't above all, only the glory
(08:38):
of the Father is above all.
That was, that was for the purposeof exalting Christ above all.
Yes.
That's why he died.
Yes.
He died so that Christwould be exalted as God.
So in essence, the triuneGod, Father, Son, and Spirit
would be exalted above all.
Yes.
That's the purpose.
Yes.
And so, yeah, I mean, that song is...
(09:02):
Not a good song.
But it sounds great, right?
It sounds great.
But, but again, when you reallythink about it and you break it
down, it makes me the center of God's
universe.
Right.
You know anyway, and that, and that,that kind of leads us into in this
article by Jay Adams that you introducedme to which I find, to be really good.
(09:24):
Where did you get this from?
It's actually
in the I think it's either inthe journal No, it's not in the
Journal of Biblical Counseling.
I had it in my stuff from
Astros.
It says Chapel Library, but it's calledthe Biblical View of Self Esteem.
And he, he goes through here andhe, looks at the verses used to To
synchronize , Christian and, selfesteem movement through scripture use
(09:47):
it to use to support these things.
And he, you know, I, I kind of call thislike a drop the mic kind of article,
you know, he just blasts it away.
Like there's no place for itin, in a biblical worldview.
And so, and he says that rightin the beginning of this article,
he says any, any methodology.
That tries to to use any othersystem but scripture itself to, to
(10:12):
propagate anything is, is faulty.
It is the scripture that we go to and,so it is the, he says the scriptures
that are used by those within the,the, the self esteem movement that
have infiltrated the church, they, thescriptures are ransacked, the verses
are twisted in order to give some sortof biblical credence to the theory.
(10:34):
But the Bible is not used, is usednot to discover what God has to say or
what to believe rather, the viewpointwas already bought and brought to the
Bible when the biblical search began.
Yes.
And for all of you students outthere, that's called eisegesis.
Yes.
Yeah.
That is not how you study the
Bible.
No, no.
And that's exactly what you do with this.
(10:55):
I like what he says, a pagansystem is adopted and then the
Bible is said to support it.
Yeah.
Because that's what it is.
It's a pagan system.
Of thinking about man.
Yeah.
And then they, they takescriptures and they say, well,
does scripture support this?
Yeah.
I mean, if you're going to go tothe scripture and wholeheartedly
buy into the self esteem movement,
you can buy into the self esteem movementand be a Christian, I know there's people
(11:18):
who do that because they're deceived.
But you go to the scriptureto prove then the self esteem.
Right.
You know, that it's in the Bible.
You're gonna find versesthat you think do that.
Like with anything.
Yes.
I mean, what do you, what do you want?
You can, you can, you cando that with the Bible.
You can make it say what you want.
But you gotta twist scripture to do it.
(11:38):
And this is, this is what he's saying.
He says that the penchant forfinding the latest psychological
ideas in the scripture is dangerous.
Because the extra biblical viewis given biblical authority.
In other words, the psychologicalideas have higher authority
than the scripture themselves.
(11:58):
And so, it is givenbiblical authority, really.
It is, it is the Bible.
Yes.
You know, because the smartguy from Harvard said it.
That's right.
So and then, and thenGod is misrepresented.
Any, any system that proposes to solvehuman problems apart from the Bible
and the power of the Holy Spirit.
(12:19):
Is is condemned by scripture itself.
That's
right.
There's, there's nothing there.
So but this is what's going on.
Christians are attemptingto integrate this system.
So, so I think along with that, youknow, we start with Matthew 22, which is
(12:39):
where, you know, I, I think I've heardthis argument, you know, before, where,
you know, in order to love others orlove God, you have to love yourself.
And, you know, the passage is set inthe context he says, master, which is
the greatest commandment in the law.
So someone comes up to Jesustrying to trap him, right?
He says, thou shalt, and Jesus saidunto him, thou shalt love the Lord
(13:01):
thy God with all thy heart, withall thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first andgreatest commandment.
And the second is like unto it,thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself on these two commandmentshang all the law and the prophets.
And that's Matthew 22, 36 through 40.
And so what you, what you get out ofthat and the way that's twisted is that,
(13:24):
is that these self esteem Christianpsychologists will say, well, that just
shows that you have to love yourselfbefore you can love God or others.
Well,
it says, love your neighbor as thoushalt love thy neighbor as thyself
to use the King James translation.
Yes.
(13:45):
Isn't that what it's saying?
It says love your neighboras you love yourself.
That's right.
That's
right.
So self
esteem.
That's right.
That's what they try and, that's whatthey try and get at, but the passage
isn't talking about loving yourself.
It's presuming that you alreadydo, which is what God does.
Because humans naturally dolove themselves in deeply.
(14:06):
Right,
that's the point, right?
Yeah.
If I'm hungry, what do I do?
You eat food.
If I'm thirsty, what do I do?
You get a drink, right?
If I'm sleepy, I take a nap.
Yeah.
That's old people.
Right.
There's nothing like a good nap on a
Sunday, you know?
Right, right.
You're gonna make sure thatyou have what you need.
Yes.
(14:26):
Yes.
So, the problem...
It's never that you don't love yourself.
That's right.
It's that you don't love your neighbor.
That's right.
That's, that's the point of the passage.
Yes.
You, you are born loving yourselfand not loving your neighbor,
and Jesus gives a commandmentthat is absolutely diametrically
(14:51):
opposed to everything in you.
Which is to love yourself.
That's right.
What about the person thatsays they hate themselves?
Cause sometimes you get peoplethat go, well I just hate myself.
Well, you do have people thatsay that they, that they hate
themselves, but generally they'restill eating, sleeping, or whatever.
(15:13):
There's still this basic carethat they have for themselves.
I think Adams makes a good casewhere he talks about suicide being
the ultimate end of self love.
Yes.
You know, the, the self pitything is really, just really,
really good disguised self love.
It's very deceptive.
Yeah.
It's
deceptive.
Yeah..
It's saying in essence of whatAdams says, and I agree with it,
(15:36):
it's saying that I am too good tohave these kinds of circumstances.
Right.
In my life and surround me.
I don't deserve any of this.
Yeah, I deserve
something better.
I deserve something better.
I don't deserve this mistreatment.
Yes.
I don't deserve the way that,you know, my life has been.
Yes.
And, and so I hate, I hate my life.
(15:58):
Right.
And then that's, you know, I, Ithought that was an interesting
point as, as you think about that.
Suicide is the ultimateexpression of self love.
Yes.
It's the end of
it.
Yeah, because you're notthinking of anybody else.
Right, you're not thinking aboutthe family you're leaving behind.
(16:18):
You're not thinking about, you know,what it's doing to everybody around you.
You're just thinking about you.
Yes.
And how much you want to, you know,how much you're just not worthy of, or
all of these things aren't, this life,these people aren't worthy of you.
Yes.
And you need to, in the end, in the end,
yeah, and that's not, you know,again, that's not to, to make light
(16:40):
of those situations because people dofind themselves in those situations.
But the reality is, and I think Adamshas nailed that, you know, on the
head here is that the reality is, isthat it is the ultimate expression of,
of self love, especially as we, youknow, understand the human condition.
(17:02):
Romans 14, 7 8, if none of us livesto himself, no man dies to himself, or
whether we live, we live unto the Lord,or whether we die, we die unto the Lord.
And so suicide is a refusalto live and die unto the Lord.
Wow.
It is, a refusal to trust in theLord, accept the circumstances
that he's given you . Yes.
(17:24):
And it is a choosing instead of.
You living and dying under yourself.
Yes.
That's just fascinating to me.
That
is a really, that's areally fascinating thought.
It's definitely a biblical thought.
It's just no wonder that suicides are, Imean I haven't looked at the statistics,
(17:45):
but it's a major topic in our day.
It is.
Well, this is what the self esteemmovement, and it's, it's, it's interesting
because if this is true, then themore we push self esteem, the more we
should expect self harm and suicide.
To be.
Yeah.
It has to be the end goal because,because you are the end goal.
(18:08):
And nothing else.
You live 100 percent for you and youalone in the self esteem movement.
And you don't care about anybodyelse, including God, ultimately.
Wow.
Walter Trobisch wrote that self loveis the prerequisite and the criterion
for our conduct towards our neighbors.
(18:30):
And so what he's saying is thatJesus commanded us to love ourselves.
But we cannot love our neighbors unlesswe first learn to love ourselves.
Or God.
That's the criteria.
Or God.
Or God.
I mean, that's just fascinating.
, if you don't love yourself, youcan't obey this commandment.
And it takes that, thatlittle addition there.
(18:52):
It says, love your neighbor as yourself.
And it, it just like itlifts it way up and beyond.
Yes.
As the greatest goal above everything, it
literally becomes thegreatest commandment.
Love, love the Lord.
Your God is no longer the firstcommandment because you can't do
that unless you love yourself.
(19:12):
So love yourself actuallybecomes, and again, love yourself
is not a commandment here.
It's a statement of fact.
Yeah.
And so you're taking loveyourself and you're elevating it.
To the commandment above love theLord your God, if you're going to,
if you're going to interpret itthat way, because you're saying you
cannot, I've heard people say this.
(19:33):
You can't love God or othersuntil you love yourself.
Right.
What?
So that becomes thehighest commandment then.
So if I love myself first,then I can love God.
Right.
And then I can love my neighbor thatjust turns the whole thing on its
head.
It flips it upside down.
And again, it makes you God.
Yes, it does.
(19:53):
It makes you the highest the highest goal.
Everything else is, is, youknow, is, is subsidiary.
It's secondary.
Yes.
And I really like, you know, it'sclear when you read the text,
there's only two commandments there.
Yeah.
The first commandment is lovethe Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, withall your mind and strength.
And the second commandmentis like unto it.
(20:15):
Love your neighbor as you already love
yourself, right?
It's not saying love God loveyour neighbor love yourself.
That's right.
So that's that's what they do Theymake three commandments out of two.
Yes, and then that one commandment becomesthe greatest commandment ultimately
Yeah, yeah, because you can't dothe other two until you do that one.
I like what Adam says in this articleHe says trovish has the temerity
(20:38):
to say this the finding of modernpsychology that man must acquire love
for himself sheds new light on thecommand which Jesus emphasizes as
ranking in importance next to loving God.
In other words, Trovish thinks thatuntil modern psychologists unearthed
the truth elsewhere, this importantbiblical command and this very important
new aspect lay buried and was notadequately understood for nearly 2,
(21:01):
000 years the church was in the dark.
So the church has had itwrong for 2, 000 years.
2, 000 years.
Thank you.
Thank you for the self esteemmovement to bring this to light.
Thank you for
modern psychology for interpretingthe Bible for us and showing us
what it should have said all along.
Is
that, you know, theearly saints had no idea.
I mean, what, they were, they weregoing off like being martyred and
(21:24):
you know, for, for the faith and all.
What, what were they thinking?
I know.
They had no self
esteem.
They had no self esteem.
Like if they had had self esteem,they would never have gone
through that much suffering and,
so I think that Matthew 22 passageis pretty clear that that is not
a verse that speaks of self love.
Some will take the parable of thegood Samaritan that Jesus tells.
(21:46):
And they'll use it as a, as a way topropagate or foster self interest.
You know, it's about self.
You need to love yourself beforeyou can love your neighbor.
I think in this, he says that the,he meant do the same thing for others
that you would do for yourself.
(22:06):
That's what he's saying in there, hegoes, but that couldn't be right for
several reasons because the criteria forloving others are the 10 commandments
that Jesus was summarizing in the two.
Love the Lord your God with all yourheart, with all your soul, with all
your strength, with all your mindand your neighbor as yourself, right?
(22:27):
And so again, the focus comes off of self.
I don't just do things for youso that you will do them for me.
That's, that's not anexpression of, of, of true love.
That's just me manipulating worth.
Yeah.
And the reality is that my whole lifeshould be predicated on loving the Lord,
(22:51):
my God, with all my heart, soul, mind, andstrength, and then my neighbor as myself.
It's a self sacrificing for my neighbor,self sacrificing for God first.
Followed by a self sacrificing for myneighbor because I understand who God is
and what God has done for me in Christ.
I can then self sacrifice for my neighbor.
(23:12):
Yeah.
Right.
The natural intensity and fervencyof your love for self, you need
to put toward your neighbor.
Yes.
But not out of self love.
Not out of self love.
Because that's what, I think that's whatthey would, they would take that passage
to show is that you do these thingsbecause you want people to do them back
(23:33):
to you.
Right.
No, it's saying you don't have aproblem doing these things for yourself.
That's right.
Your problem is not self love.
You need to turn that intensityand fervency toward loving each
other for the sake of Christ.
That's right.
Yes.
And then there's thisidea of infinite worth.
Are we...
Are we of infinite worth?
(23:54):
I mean, that sounds really nice.
Like, are we of, Dan, are you of infinite
worth?
You know, I was thinking about thistoday when I was reading that and
I was like, there's only one personwho is infinite and it's not me.
So if I'm going to talk about infiniteworth, I cannot talk about humanity.
You have to talk about God because Godis the only one who is infinite and he
(24:17):
is the only one who is of infinite worth.
Finite creatures can'tclaim infinite worth.
Yeah, that is, that is very true.
But this is a, a an idea that's that'staught in any, you know, it's preached.
It sounds good.
Yeah.
That, that, you know,we're of infinite value or.
(24:39):
infinite worth but this is, you know,there's this kind of language, the
human being is a glorious, dignifiedcreature with infinite value.
God wants us to see ourselvesas his gift to the world.
We are something beautifulthat God has done.
We are something exquisitethat he has planned.
I mean, that sounds kind of likewhat Joel Osteen was saying.
(24:59):
And that really, reallypuffs up man, doesn't it?
It really does.
And I, we're just, we're beautiful,we're, we're exquisite, we're, we're
the, the pinnacle of, you know,the greatest thing God could ever
do was to make, was to create me.
That's, that's right.
I thought it
was interesting that he says that theseguys like to use Romans 6, 1 through
(25:24):
13 in Colossians 3, 1 through 10.
As advocating this, this infiniteworth based on the things that
Christ has accomplished andhow we benefit from those.
And then he says, well, that justgoes to show, I mean, the people that
(25:44):
advocate this would say, well, thatjust goes to show the infinite worth
and infinite value of the, of a person.
He said one, adam's quote quotesone zealous, what he calls a
zealous advocate of the system.
Our self image as Christians, therefore,must be of ourselves as persons who
have decisively rejected the old wayof living, which is called the old man,
(26:07):
and have permanently adopted a new wayof living, which is called the new man.
And that's what they would say is that,well, that's where we get our self worth.
It's from this infinite self worth comesfrom the fact that we have rejected the
old way of living and now we're livingAccording to the new man, but again, the
(26:29):
focus is on me in that it's not on ChristChrist is the one who accomplished all
that right that's in in this entireArgument or this entire discussion?
What is missed is thecentrality of Christ?
Yeah, he's The reason the purpose.
Yes, it's not about man man was createdI I don't remember we said it in this one
(26:54):
or the other last podcast we did but manwas created For the purpose of exalting
Christ and bringing glory to God Yes,what you know, the chief end of man is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
That's you know, that's the WestminsterCatechism number one, and it's true.
(27:17):
And and they knew that beforethe psychologists came along.
And, and told us.
You know, well, the chief end ofman is for him to glorify himself
by enjoying himself forever.
You know?
Yes.
I mean, that's the entire self
esteem movement.
It is.
It is.
I like what he says.
All that, he's talking aboutRomans 6 and Colossians 3.
(27:38):
All that is wonderfully clear.
But what is also clear is that Pauldoes not tell us this to make us feel
good about ourselves or to give usstrokes or to raise our self esteem.
His purpose is to urge us tobecome an everyday living.
We already are counted tobe in Christ, in Christ.
Right.
In other words, he wants us tosee that in ourselves, we fall
(28:01):
short of what we are in Christ.
Right.
It is Christ who is ofinfinite value, not man.
That's right.
Any value we have comes becausewe're creating an image of God.
And then because we're united to Christ,we receive what we do not deserve.
It is, it is only because of Christ.
(28:22):
And the thing is, there's nobiblical precedence for the kind
of language where we, you know, wespeak of, or they say things like,
man, you're of infinite worth.
You don't see thatanywhere in the scripture.
No.
And if that were a trueconcept, you would see that.
You would.
Like, that seems like it's apretty big deal for the Bible to
(28:44):
have left out if it was all about,you know, our infinite worth.
But all
the scripture does ever is elevateGod, elevate Christ, never, never man.
Yeah.
In all that it does,it never elevates man.
And so to claim that, again, isa twisting of the scripture and
(29:07):
taking, taking something that'sGod centered, Christ centered, and
you are making it you centered.
Yeah.
I, I, that's, that's right.
It's, it twists everything.
I, I love this Matthew 6, 26,it says are you not much better?
Than the, speaking of thesparrows, Matthew 10 31, are you
more valued than the sparrows?
Luke 12 7 says the same thing.
(29:27):
And then you know, in, in those passagesJesus says that two sparrows are sold
for a cent and five for two cents.
And so man is said tobe of more value than.
Many sparrows and this means that if manysparrows means let's say 500 sparrows and
you're worth two dollars and fifty cents
Maybe five maybe five.
(29:49):
So how many sparrows
are you worth then?
Yeah
a thousand sparrows.
Okay,
so you're five bucks.
You're five bucks I think that'sthat's just hilarious because yeah,
you know, we're compared to thevalue We're worth more than sparrows.
Well, how much more?
Well, it doesn't say infinite
value.
No, it does not say infinite value.
So,
the point is that the bird That,that man's value to God, man's value
(30:15):
to God is not the point in that.
No.
It is, it has to do with God's providence.
Yes.
God's care.
It's all about God's value.
Yes.
It's all about His ability to care.
And if He's going to carefor the sparrows, you're
worth more than a sparrow.
Yes.
At least 2.
50 more.
That's right.
So don't worry, I'll take care of you.
Yes.
(30:35):
You know, it's an argumentfrom the lesser to the greater.
But it's all about God, right?
It's all about Him.
It is.
And that's, that's the point of it all.
Man's, I like what he says here.
Man's value to God is not in question.
It's because God obviously has value.
He created man in His own image, but,but yet God is the one who did that.
(31:01):
And God is the one who cares for manout of his grace and out of his mercy,
even unsaved and unregenerate man.
He causes his rain to fall on therighteous and the unrighteous.
He brings the rain and it seasons sothat the people on the earth can eat.
And that is all a result of his grace andhis mercy, not the infinite value of man.
(31:24):
Everything just focuses on God,and God alone, and never man.
Man is never the central focus of the
scriptures.
Yeah, it's all about theinfinite value of God.
And that's what the Bible teaches.
That's what the Bible clearly teaches.
That's the language of scripture.
It is God centered and Christ centered.
Never man centered.
Yes.
(31:44):
And any man centeredness is, is in termsof fallenness of man in his inability to
measure up to the infinite worth of God.
And and, and Jesus doesn't comeand restore our infinite worth.
Jesus is our infinite worth.
That's right.
That's right.
So, I mean, there's
a big difference.
(32:04):
There is a big difference.
And there's a lot of people thatwould claim that there's a lot of
evangelicals that would say, well,Jesus came to restore our worth.
Yeah.
No, he didn't.
He did not.
He, like you said, heis our infinite worth.
And it is only because of him that wecan even enter into the presence of God.
Yeah, I think that's a,that's a good place to stop.
(32:26):
And we'll continue this.
Again, I think there's more to say.
I think we need to look at a biblicalview of man, you know, what does the Bible
teach about man and man's responsibility?
Yes.
What does it mean that he'screated in the image of God?
If it doesn't mean that we have infiniteworth all of these are important.
(32:47):
And then I want to discuss also what.
Is self-esteem because there issomething the Bible says about
self-esteem that we need to know.
And it relates to our conscience andin what the world calls self-esteem.
The Bible has a category for.
And I think that, that that'll bewhere we'll wrap up this discussion.
(33:10):
You know, either next time or,or after that, we'll see how many
podcasts we can extract out of this.
Yes.
But all right.
Great discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Again, this is a ministry of FaithBaptist Church in Visalia, and if
you're looking for a good church, youshould come visit us Sunday School at 9.
(33:31):
30 on Sundays, and then 10.
30 is the main service, and then 6 o'clockon Sundays we have our evening service.
And we have lots of great discussionin the evening, so if you can
make it to that, I think you'llfind it really enjoyable, but
alright, well, until next time.
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