Gospel Centricity & Self: How the Gospel Transforms Our Understanding of Self

REFLECTION QUOTES

“It is better to be hurt by the truth than to be comforted with a lie.”

~Khaled Hosseini, Afghan-born novelist and physician

“At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend…. Pride, is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sin.”

~John Stott, Anglican priest and theologian

“The contemporary climate is therapeutic…. People today hunger… for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.”

~Christopher Lasch (1932-1994), American historian and social critic

“Those who suppose that the doctrine of God’s grace tends to encourage moral laxity are simply showing that, in the most literal sense, they do not know what they are talking about. For love awakens love in return; and love, once awakened, desires to give pleasure.”

~J.I. Packer, British-born theologian

“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it…. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), writer, lay theologian and professor

“The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), pastor and theologian

“While religious dogmatism is always a danger…. [w]e’ve got more to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get angry about it.”

~David Brooks, New York Times commentator

SERMON PASSAGE

Luke 9:18-25, Ephesians 4:20-24, Galatians 2:20 (NASB)

Luke 9

18 And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” 19 They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.” 20 And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” 21 But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. 25 For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?

Ephesians 4

20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth

Galatians 2

20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.