How Do I Overcome Crippling Self-Consciousness?

00:00:00.000 | Today we talk about a perplexing struggle for many, the struggle with self-consciousness.

00:00:10.960 | Also during this season, we've been talking a lot about preaching with the release of

00:00:15.000 | your book, Pastor John, Expository Exaltation, Christian Preaching as a Worship.

00:00:20.400 | That was a book that came out in April.

00:00:23.520 | All of which leads to this question from Parker, a pastor in Detroit, which opens the discussion

00:00:27.920 | I think we can all benefit from.

00:00:30.680 | Parker writes this, "Pastor John, in episode number 49," wow, that was a long time ago,

00:00:34.920 | back in episode 49, "you commented on how self-consciousness is the preacher's curse.

00:00:42.880 | What steps would you suggest I take or which truths would you suggest I meditate on in

00:00:48.080 | order to overcome the curse of self-consciousness in the pulpit?"

00:00:52.400 | Well, that's right, I have said many times that I long in the pulpit not for the privilege

00:01:02.000 | of being conscious of myself and liking what I hear.

00:01:06.720 | You might think, "Oh, that's what you'd want, be conscious of yourself and like what you

00:01:10.120 | hear."

00:01:11.120 | No, I would rather be unconscious of myself and so captivated by the truth that I'm preaching

00:01:18.600 | and so moved by love for the people in front of me that myself as a preacher is not one

00:01:27.700 | moment in my consciousness.

00:01:30.960 | So yes, I'm thinking about God or Christ or salvation or obedience of faith or the cross

00:01:38.720 | or the needs of the people or the hope for outcomes.

00:01:43.160 | I want so much to focus on that, that standing outside myself and watching myself preach

00:01:51.880 | is simply not happening, because if it happens, it produces all kinds of either discouragement

00:02:00.120 | or pride.

00:02:01.560 | So Parker's question is, yes, that's my question.

00:02:06.520 | Now it's not a simple matter, because not only is the immediate effort to get rid of

00:02:16.080 | self-conscious paradoxically impossible, you know, to focus on getting rid of self-consciousness

00:02:23.780 | requires self-consciousness, and that's not helpful.

00:02:29.080 | But the other reason it's complicated is because the New Testament teaches that there are good

00:02:35.640 | kinds of self-consciousness.

00:02:39.160 | They're not evil.

00:02:41.240 | For example, we're told to examine ourselves.

00:02:44.960 | We're told to deny ourselves, Mark 8:34.

00:02:49.040 | And that "examine yourself" text is 2 Corinthians 13:5.

00:02:53.400 | We're told to consider ourselves dead to sin, Romans 6:11.

00:02:57.560 | Keep watch over ourselves, 1 Timothy 4:16.

00:03:01.560 | Preach to ourselves, Psalm 42.5.

00:03:05.160 | Put on a new self, Ephesians 4:24.

00:03:08.720 | All of these commands assume that we are aware that there is in us a consciousness that we

00:03:17.080 | are not yet completely an integrated whole.

00:03:20.520 | We're divided.

00:03:22.240 | We are in some sense still split, part of us leaning toward evil, part of us wanting

00:03:28.000 | to please Christ.

00:03:29.680 | And as long as there is any measure of sinfulness in us, there will be a self that is aware

00:03:37.560 | of a sinning self and opposing it.

00:03:41.280 | So I must not create the impression when I say I want to be free from self-consciousness,

00:03:48.280 | I must not create the impression that I'm opposed to good kind of self-consciousness.

00:03:55.880 | I need to know what is good, what is bad, and what is required.

00:04:02.120 | So what must we do here?

00:04:04.160 | We must first make a distinction between the good kind of freedom from self-consciousness,

00:04:11.200 | the good kind of division of self, and the bad kind.

00:04:16.040 | And second, even with regard to the good kind, we must recognize that there are seasons when

00:04:21.760 | it is simply not helpful to have.

00:04:24.240 | So what kind of self-consciousness is not good?

00:04:28.720 | Let me read three little verses and then sum up what they say.

00:04:35.120 | He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

00:04:39.760 | This is James 1.8 and now 4.8.

00:04:43.040 | Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

00:04:45.800 | Cleanse your hands, you sinners.

00:04:48.120 | Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

00:04:51.120 | Split.

00:04:54.160 | One mind and another mind.

00:04:56.920 | Now Colossians 3.22.

00:04:59.280 | Bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye

00:05:05.320 | service as men-pleasers, but with sincerity.

00:05:12.080 | Now that word is so crucial.

00:05:14.360 | "Aplatitos" in Greek means essentially singleness, undivided, not duplicitous.

00:05:22.240 | So serve not with eye service as men-pleasers, but with this singleness, this sincerity,

00:05:32.480 | this undivided, this wonderfully clear-eyed heart fearing the Lord.

00:05:40.160 | And then one more verse, 2 Corinthians 2.17.

00:05:43.520 | With regard to preaching, Paul says, "We are not like so many peddlers of God's Word, but

00:05:50.160 | as men of," same word, "sincerity, singleness, united, unified mind, as commissioned by God,

00:05:58.280 | we speak in the sight of God."

00:06:01.700 | So from those three passages, I would say that the Christian ideal in relating to other

00:06:08.600 | people and in preaching the Word of God in particular is to be people that are pure in

00:06:17.520 | the sense of free from a divided heart that, one, tries to appear one way while being another

00:06:26.680 | way; two, tries to say one thing while believing another thing; three, tries to be all there

00:06:36.680 | with sincere attentiveness when really part of us is somewhere else.

00:06:42.360 | This kind of divided heart, divided consciousness, is at best insincere and at worst, we call

00:06:51.020 | it hypocrisy.

00:06:53.040 | So that's the bad kind of self-consciousness, and we should renounce it and avoid it.

00:07:00.320 | But like I said, even the good kind of self-consciousness, self-denial, self-assessment, watching over

00:07:08.360 | yourself, even the good kind of self-consciousness, the kind that puts to death the old man and

00:07:13.920 | denies the unloving self and keeps watch over the self so as not to fall into sin, even

00:07:20.200 | that good kind of self-consciousness isn't helpful in every situation.

00:07:27.600 | And preaching, I think, is generally speaking one of those situations.

00:07:33.560 | And one reason is that it's just plain distracting.

00:07:38.440 | It's distracting.

00:07:39.440 | It's not the moment for doing that.

00:07:42.160 | It's distracting from the real subject matter of the sermon and distracting from focusing

00:07:47.380 | on the people in front of us.

00:07:50.420 | And the other reason is that such self-awareness while preaching either leads to discouragement

00:07:58.520 | or to pride.

00:07:59.520 | You know, if you don't like what you hear, you feel discouraged.

00:08:02.400 | If you do like what you hear, you feel pride.

00:08:05.340 | As we stand outside ourselves and watch ourselves, and both pride and discouragement are deadly

00:08:11.520 | in the ministry of preaching.

00:08:14.520 | So now finally I've arrived at Parker's question, "What can I do?

00:08:19.020 | What can I do to avoid it?"

00:08:21.140 | And so here are three short bullet points that I think will make a great difference.

00:08:26.600 | This is the way I try anyway.

00:08:28.760 | Number one, since this is ultimately a gift of God, since freedom from self-consciousness

00:08:34.440 | is ultimately a gift of God—you can't make it happen.

00:08:38.360 | It's paradoxical.

00:08:39.360 | If you focus on making it happen, it's not happening.

00:08:42.280 | Since it's a gift of God, pray earnestly for the gift of self-forgetfulness in the

00:08:48.640 | hours leading up to your preaching.

00:08:51.760 | Number two, since the pursuit of self-forgetfulness must be indirect, since a direct pursuit is

00:08:59.560 | self-contradictory because fighting self-consciousness in the moment makes us self-conscious.

00:09:05.760 | So since we have to pursue it indirectly, let's pursue it by stoking the fires of

00:09:14.520 | love for our subject matter and for our people.

00:09:19.040 | The more thrilled you are with what you have to preach, the less you are going to think

00:09:26.600 | about yourself preaching.

00:09:28.760 | That may be the most important thing I have to say, so I'm going to say that again.

00:09:32.000 | The more thrilled we are with what we have to say about God and about His way and about

00:09:37.840 | His Son and about His gospel and about the life we have in Christ, the more thrilled

00:09:42.840 | we are with what we have to preach, the less we are going to think about ourselves preaching

00:09:50.440 | it.

00:09:51.440 | And the last thing, number three, if in the midst of preaching we do become aware of ourselves

00:09:58.800 | and realize this quietly—and God will give us the grace to do this—we need to say to

00:10:06.280 | that temptation, "No."

00:10:08.720 | Just speak up.

00:10:09.720 | "No."

00:10:10.720 | And in as much as it lies within us, consciously turn our back on that temptation of self-consciousness

00:10:19.360 | and focus again on the glorious thing we're saying and on the people in front of us.

00:10:24.640 | So may the Lord work this miracle in all of us, not just in preaching, but in all of our

00:10:32.060 | authentic communication.

00:10:33.060 | Amen.

00:10:34.060 | That's helpful.

00:10:35.060 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:36.060 | And thanks for listening in to this episode.

00:10:38.800 | For more information about the podcast, you can go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:46.520 | There you can explore all of our now 1,200 past episodes.

00:10:50.880 | You can scan through a list of our most popular ones.

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00:11:05.780 | to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app.

00:11:09.560 | Well, the love of money is the root of every kind of evil.

00:11:14.000 | So what kind of warning should be sounded to Christian entrepreneurs who have financially

00:11:19.080 | embarked on a venture to raise a lot of cash for a new business?

00:11:24.620 | We close the week with that one.

00:11:26.040 | That's a great question to be asking John Piper, and we're going to do that next time

00:11:30.320 | on Friday.

00:11:31.320 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:32.320 | We'll see you then.

00:11:32.320 | [music]

00:11:34.320 | [end]

00:11:36.320 | [music]

00:11:38.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Overcome Crippling Self-Consciousness?

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