Becoming the Real You

Today I want to talk about how each of us is one person with four selves.

That’s why every human being is such a mystery. And so deep.

There are four of what you might think of as versions of you or dimensions of your identity that together tell the whole story of who you are.

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The first self is the one everyone knows.
The second self is the self no one knows.
The third self is the one you don’t even know.
And the fourth self… Well, we’ll get to the fourth self.

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We’re in this series in the book of First Corinthians, and we’re looking at how the message of the cross of Jesus places key decisions in front of each of us.

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What we’re going to look at today is — Who am I living to please?

Whose judgment of me or examination of me or opinion of me will I allow to determine my happiness and sense of self-worth?

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Life is a journey from the first self to the fourth, and if you make it to that fourth self, that is salvation. That is your highest good.

And if you don’t, it is failure and death, whatever else it might look like you’ve achieved in life.

You are right now either on your way moving toward that fourth self or moving away from it.

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The place where I first saw the existence of these four selves is in chapter 4 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where he writes:

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God. (1 Corinthians 4:1-5)

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Alright, here we go. The four selves.

The first self is…

1. My public self

This is who you think I am. It’s my outer self.

This is the image I project. It’s the me that gets praised or criticized by other people.

When I idolize my public self, and I have a tendency to do this, then I hide my bad qualities, exaggerate my good qualities and make my life all about impression-management, and self-promotion.

And I become a prisoner of other people’s opinions of me.

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Paul does not think this is a good life strategy.

He says:

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court. (1 Corinthians 4:3)

That’s a remarkable statement.

If you want to, turn to the person next to you right now and say, “I care very little what you think about me.”

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In Corinth, the idolization and promotion of the public self was a way of life. And the standard term for it was boasting.

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Do you ever boast?
Do you ever find yourself doing a little self-promotion?
Worse, have you ever boasted about something with another person where it turned out they were way better at what you were bragging about than you were?

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There was a good couple years of my life when I golfed a lot. I had decided I would learn how to play the game and the best way I knew was to just get out there and hack at balls, which I did, everyday, for a couple years.

My goal was to shoot in the 70s, which I did for a few months. My best score was 73 — one over par. Now I’m boasting to you.

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Another goal of mine was to play Pebble Beach. I ended up being invited by a friend to play at the Monterey Bay Peninsula Club.

I was there with a friend who was a pastor at a church in Monterey.

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So while we’re out hitting balls, warming up, I started telling my friend about what I was shooting, and how my lowest score was a 73.

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What was most amazing about my friend was his humility exceeded his talent. He just smiled and congratulated me as I shared my accomplishments.

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What I didn’t know was my friend had focussed quite a bit on his game and had become a scratch golfer while living in Monterey. He didn’t tell me that when I was bragging about my game.

On the first tee, he ripped a drive about 350 yards down the fairway.

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I shot in the 80s that day. He shot, I’m not kidding, a 73.

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Part of the irony of boasting is we do it to convince people that we’re superior and secure, but of course, if we really were secure we wouldn’t feel the need to boast in the first place.

It turns out to be really hard to boast effectively.

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You might be surprised to learn the Bible has a great deal to say about boasting, and particularly this is true in Corinth.

The word boast is used 59 times in the New Testament, 55 times by Paul, 39 times when he’s writing to the church at Corinth.

So Corinth is Ground Zero for boasting in the ancient world.

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In Corinth, boasting referred to the verbal techniques that were used to pursue status in an honor and shame society.

It was essentially a technical term. You could almost replace it in our day with personal brand management or marketing yourself.

In fact, one of the best-selling books in the ancient world was written by a Roman writer named Plutarch, and it was called — On Praising Oneself Inoffensively. How that book would sell today!

It was written specifically for politicians to help them learn to boast in a more effective manner.

Have you ever heard of a politician boasting?

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Well, Corinth was filled with inscriptions where wealthy benefactors promoted their brand.

The single most famous inscription in the ancient world was carved on two pillars in Rome, the capital of the ancient world, and it was called The Deeds of the Divine Augustus.

There was a copy of The Deeds of the Divine Augustus.

This is what it said:

Below is a copy of The Deeds of the Divine Augustus by which he subjected the whole world to the dominion of the Roman Empire.

Does anyone want to guess who wrote The Deeds of the Divine Augustus?

That would be Augustus.

For 35 paragraphs he recounts the offices he held, the battles he won, the titles that were his, and the wealth he dispersed.

It ends with him saying:

I receive by decree of the Senate the title Augustus. The doorposts of my house were publicly decked with laurels. A civic crown was fixed above my door, and a golden shield was bestowed upon me by the Senate and the Roman people on account of my valor, clemency, justice, and piety. After that, I excelled all others in dignity.

#blessed, #humblebrag

That’s how you praise yourself inoffensively in Rome or Corinth or maybe today on social media.

That’s the public self.

Boasting is this whole world constructed around promoting my self-image.

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What’s Paul’s strategy for dealing with this public self?

His strategy, oddly enough, is to die to it. Die to your public self.

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In Corinth, comparing and evaluating speakers, sages, sophists, or orders is what they did. Teaching or speaking, what Paul did, in that day was like Olympic figure skating in our day.

The whole point was to impress the judges. That’s how you found out if you won.

Paul’s response is quite amazing — “I really don’t care very much. A little. Not much.”

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Just to level the playing field, I’m going to ask everyone here in a moment to raise your hands if you have ever been criticized.

Think about different areas of your life (your appearance, your athletic ability, your work, your personality, your habits, the way you treat other people, the way you drive, the way you deal with anger, your words).

Then, think about the people in your life (your parents, your teachers, coaches, boss, friends, enemies, relatives, people you are dating, people you used to date, people you tried to date).

How many of you have ever, at least one time, been criticized in your life?

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Criticism was inevitable in Corinth as much as it is here.

At another church, I used to work on a team with a person who would often start a sentence, “I don’t mean to criticize but…”

Then, guess what he would do.

Of course he meant to criticize! That’s exactly what he meant to do!

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In Corinth, people were devoted to their public self-enhancement project, and they were turning the church into one more place to do that.

Paul talks about how they were constantly posturing to appear smart and rich and strong and honored and turning spirituality into one more competitive activity.

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By way of contrast, look how Paul goes on to describe his own life.

We are fools for Christ… To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands.

When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment. (1 Corinthians 4:10-13)

How is Paul’s self-enhancement project going?

That word translated fool is the Greek word moros.

We get our word moron from that.

We’re regarded as morons.

He ends by saying, “…the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world…”

Garbage is the Greek word peripsema, which is so extreme that Bible translators wrestle with how to translate it.

It’s the word they would use for what gets swept up from a filthy floor or dirt removed from the body (earwax, belly button lint).

It’s a bumper-sticker word — “Peripsema happens.”

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Paul, that’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? The garbage of the world, the scum of the earth?

Paul is simply describing the extent to which he has died to what other people think about him (image management, the public self).

He has just simply let it go.

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Here’s the irony. When you die to the public self, you don’t live miserably; you live free.

You think it would be awful, but it’s not.

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One person put it like this: “Don’t let your critic be your judge.”

There’s a big difference between a critic and a judge.

A critic offers an opinion.
A judge imposes a sentence.

A critic can offer a word.
A judge gets the last word.

It’s good to listen to my critics but not let them become my judge.

Paul loves the Corinthians, but he will not let them judge him. In fact, Paul goes on to say, “I do not even judge myself.”

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This brings us to the second self.

The first self is my public self (who you think I am).

The second self is:

2. My private self

Who I think I am.

There is a me I don’t want anyone else to see.

There are things I’ve done that I’m ashamed of — the anger, jealousy, disappointment, greed, or grandiosity that I try to hide.

Now, I can think of my public self and my private self as two overlapping circles.

The more my private self is congruent with or the same as my public self the more authentic or sincere or honest or truthful I am.

This overlap is what we might think of as the Authenticity Zone.

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The area outside of that zone is where I’m hypocritical or hidden. I pretend to be nicer or braver or more agreeable or smarter than I really am.

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It takes a lot of energy to prop up that zone, so the strategy for dealing with my private self is to reveal the private self, to let it be known.

Don’t hide.
Don’t fake.
Don’t pretend.
Don’t indulge the desire to look better than I really am.

The strategy for dealing with my private self is to reveal my private self.

Just stop hiding.
Don’t fake it.
Don’t pretend.
And don’t indulge the desire to look any better than you really are.

This is why at Blue Oaks we believe it’s so important for people to be part of a small group or serving group that really gets to know each other.

Because the private self can never be healed as long as it remains hidden.

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You and I can only be loved to the extent that we’re actually known.

And we want every small group and every serve team to be a safe place, a place where you can find another person to whom you can gradually, appropriately, and wisely over time (it takes time to build trust) reveal your private self so you can be known and you can be loved.

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There’s a fascinating term Paul uses that describes the temptation of the private self.

He says to the people at Corinth:

“Do not go beyond what is written.” [That is, what is written in the Scripture.] Then you will not be puffed up. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

Now, the word translated puffed up literally means to be filled with air.

This is the inflated ego, trying to look bigger than I really am.

And the people at Corinth struggled with this so much that Paul talks about it repeatedly.

“Some of you have become puffed up,” he says in chapter 4, verse 18.
Then, in chapter 5, “You are puffed up.”
Then, in chapter 8, “Knowledge puffs up but love builds up.”

What kind of knowledge puffs us up?

Any kind. Even spiritual knowledge. Even knowledge of the Bible can do this.

This is part of what Jesus understood and taught.

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I was with a bunch of pastors at a conference one time and the speaker who was leading the session actually split us up into little teams and had us do a competitive score-keeping Bible quiz to see who had the most Bible knowledge.

These are pastors, which means they’re my fellow servants in the cause of advancing the kingdom of God. I’ve never competed in something like this before. I want to be humble about my knowledge of the Bible. That’s what Jesus would do.

But I went to seminary, and I’m competitive, and I teach the Bible every week, so if I lose it looks like I don’t know the Bible, but if I win I’m showing off how smart I am.

My public self in that moment is acting like, “I don’t care who wins. I’m beyond that, for I have been crucified with Christ,” while my private self is thinking, “I have to beat these other pastors but look modest while I’m doing it.”

That moment when they revealed the final score of the competition was a very interesting moment.

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And that leads us to the third self.

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By the way, are any of you so carnal that you’re wondering who won the Bible competition?

I’m not going to tell you.

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I would tell you, but that would be boasting.

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Alright, the third self, the self that slips out every once in a while even when I don’t want it to is —

3. My actual self.

That is, who God knows me to be, my actual self.

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It’s so fascinating. The Corinthians were Paul’s critics, but he wouldn’t let them be his judges.

Paul was his own biggest critic. He examined himself quite carefully. He called himself the least of the apostles.

He famously lamented:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:15)

He was often quite critical of himself.

But Paul said he was not his own judge.

He said:

I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Corinthians 4:3-4)

In other words, Paul was saying, “I am not qualified to be my own judge because there is far too much about me that I do not know. My capacity for self-deception is too great. My conscience might be clear, but that doesn’t mean I’m innocent.”

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It’s a fascinating thing that in our day in popular psychology we often run across the idea that we don’t think highly enough of ourselves and we need to think higher of ourselves.

But research from empirical psychology consistently shows we think of ourselves more highly than we ought.

We accept more responsibility for our successes than our failures.
We remember voting for the winning candidates more often than we actually did.
We have an inflated belief in our ability to know truth compared to other people.

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The average businessperson believes they are above average in their ethics.

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Of high school students, 70 percent believe they’re above average in leadership.

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From a survey of 800,000 high school students, 0 percent believed they were below average in ability to get along with others.

Obviously, 50 percent are average or below, but 0 percent thought they were below average.

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Not only do the majority of drivers believe they are above-average drivers but the majority of people in the hospital who are injured in a driving accident that was their fault believe they are above average drivers.

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The average person believes they will live longer than the average mortality age.

Which is why Freud used to tell the story about a husband who said to his wife, “If one of us dies, I think I’ll go to Paris.”

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In other words, there is a gap between my private self (that person I think myself to be) and my actual self (the person who actually exists who only God knows).

Now, there’s an overlapping zone here too.

My private self is who I think I am.
My actual self is who God knows me to be.

We might call the middle zone — the Self-awareness Zone.

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This is where I actually do know the truth about myself.

It’s where the person I think myself to be and that I actually am are one and the same.

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The area outside that zone is Fantasy Island.

It’s what used to make for bad but riveting American Idol auditions.

Everyone knows this person cannot sing except the person themselves.

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What’s the strategy here?

It’s to discover or to come to know my actual self.

How do I do that?

Who knows my actual self?

God does.

So I need to ask God to reveal the truth about me to myself.

I examine my life with an open mind and a humble spirit.

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The writers of Scripture were so brilliant about this human psychology.

The psalmist put it like this:

But who can discern their own errors?

Who actually knows this?

God does.

Forgive my hidden faults. (Psalm 19:12)

Only God is thoroughly qualified to be my judge.

You can’t be. I can’t be.

God can. He knows everything about me.

He knows my outer actions.
He knows my inner thoughts.
He knows my public words.
He knows my private desires.
He knows the wounds I have inflicted on others.
He knows the wounds I have received.

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I’ve been reminded so vividly that everyone you see is fighting a battle you do not see.

They fight anxiety or depression or addiction or a compulsion, or they were abused, or they were molested.

This is why Paul says to judge nothing before the appointed time before God makes everything clear.

Especially, do not live with a judgmental spirit toward other people.

God judges me, but God loves me and accepts me and forgives me and wants to transform me.

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And that actually is the fourth self.

4. My glory self.

That is who God wants me to become.

Your glory self is the person God wants you to become.

Everyone has a glory self.

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Tim Keller said your glory self is the person God had in mind when he thought you up… as radiant as heaven itself.

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The real reason we want to be famous, or beautiful, or admired is because we were made for glory, and we can never stop craving it, but when we try to get there without the inner transformation of character that genuine glory requires, it’s a train wreck.

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In Corinth, they were trying to make their public self their glory self.

That’s the constant human temptation — “You will be like God.”

That’s why it can be so depressing to go on social media and see other people’s public self that they present as their glory self. And we compare that to our private self.

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And Paul’s strategy for this one is — desire becoming the glory self above all else.

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It’s an ironic thing. We talk in our day about and crave self-esteem so much that it often seems odd to people in our day that the Bible is full of such dark warnings about our sin and our evil.

On the other hand, in our day our most grandiose descriptions of ultimate human potential look timid and pale and small next to what Paul writes is in store for us.

He’s constantly saying things like:

And we all, who with unveiled faces

That is, without hiding our public selves.

contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

You have an actual self. That is you, as you exist right now with all of your fallenness and all of my fallenness that only God knows for sure.

But you also have a glory self, and I have one of those, and when they begin to overlap…

We have to go way back in time because in our day we don’t tend to have a good word for this.

This overlapping zone is what the writers of Scripture would call the Sanctification Zone — to be made holy and whole and glorious.

Other words for it are words like heaven and joy and love and everlasting life, to shine like a radiant star.

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One of the reasons falling in love is so powerful is that when someone falls in love with you they get a little glimpse of your glory self.

When you’re deeply in love, that’s all you can see. You think that’s all there is, just the glory self.

And then you get married, and the actual self looks real clear.

You might lose sight of the glory self altogether, but it’s still there.

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We were at a party, and afterward Kathy said to me, “You talked too much.”

I said, “No, I don’t think so! I was saying such wonderful, clever, funny things. That was my glory self.”

She said, “No! That wasn’t your glory self; that was your inflated, puffed-up, public self. Your glory self is downstairs cleaning the kitchen.”

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When you fall in love with someone, you actually get a little glimpse of this.

And we’re meant to see this and to see the actual self and to call out the glory self in one another.

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That brings us to one very practical note I want to end with.

Paul makes this statement to the Corinthians.

Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

An eternal weight of glory.

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The word for glory in the Old Testament in Hebrew is kabod. It’s a word that also meant weight.

There is a weight of glory.

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There’s a wonderful essay written by C.S. Lewis that he calls The Weight of Glory.

He ends it by saying that we should work really hard when we look at other people, normal people, ordinary people, to think about their glory selves.

You can sneak a look at the person you’re sitting next to right now as you listen to C.S. Lewis’ words.

He writes:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

And I know, I know how hard that is.

I know there are family vacations coming up where someone will be there who drives you crazy.

And there is someone there who you drive crazy.

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But we need to work to see past the public person. See past the private person they struggle with. See past the actual person who is so filled with flaws and wounds and scars right now.

See the glory.

Everyone you see, every time you look in the mirror, every conversation you have, every pair of eyes — see the glory. See the glory.

Alright, let me pray for you.

Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA