The Idol of Self-Promotion

"Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips." -Proverbs 27:2 (NET)

*This is sort of a part two in a series of blog posts. Previously I wrote about living a quiet life in a loud world. While today's post can stand on its own, it pairs well with the last one.

We live in a loud world. What I mean by this is that there is a perpetual stream of voices entering our heads at any given time. Social media, a constant flow of news from around the world, smart phones, streaming, music, and text messages seem to inundate us. There is always an outside voice. Few of us ever take the time to find silence and solitude in this world. On top of it all, there is a pressure on many of us. We feel like we have to promote ourselves, to grow our brand. Right? Do you feel this as I do? I mean, if you don't promote yourself who will? I hear this often. As a person who literally makes a living speaking, teaching, and writing, I tangibly feel this pressure often. However, the Scriptures tell a different story than our culture is telling.

Remember that time when Jesus' family and I'm sure many others were pressuring him to go out and promote himself, to build his brand? Take a look...

"Now the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. So Jesus’ brothers advised him, “Leave here and go to Judea so your disciples may see your miracles that you are performing. For no one who seeks to make a reputation for himself does anything in secret. If you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." -John 7:2-4 (NET)

There is a lot going on in these few verses, but I will mention only a few things. First, Jesus' brothers doubted him. Verse 5 says as much if you want to open your bible and take a look at it. They were pushing him into a situation, perhaps a bang or bust sort of scenario. It was a "show us what you got hotshot" sort of moment. Sometimes the pressure to self-promote comes from this sort of negative attention. Someone tells us they don't believe we can do what we claim to do so they tell us to prove it. Then we feel that we need to justify ourselves before them so we self-promote. Second, Jesus' brothers essentially give him some business advice rather than biblical, God-centered advice. They tell him that basically, everybody who wants to be anybody goes out and promotes his personal brand. Jesus' response to them was that his time had not yet come. Interesting. He was doing many miracles already, but he was not willing to make a performance out of them, nor did Jesus seek for himself to be elevated before others. In fact, Jesus actually tried to hide what he was doing. Many times he told those who were healed to go see the priest to make the proper offering as thanks to God, but to tell no one about what happened. According to worldly wisdom, this is the opposite of how you get the word out about yourself. This is the opposite of how we are taught to grow ourselves as speakers, authors, theologians, philosophers, and general leaders but this is how Jesus operated.

Jesus himself said that it was his Father who glorified him, not others' opinions of him or his own ability to promote his personal brand. In other words, what mattered to Jesus wasn't his popularity or the approval of people, but the approval of his Father in Heaven. This was really the heart of his true appeal. He was indeed human, but he did not behave like most other humans who were all about self-promotion and seeking their own glory.

I will submit to you one more example. One of the greatest men to live in our time was (in my humble opinion) Dallas Willard. You may or may not have heard of him, and I guarantee he would be fine either way. Dallas was a philosopher who loved Jesus with all his heart. He wrote many books about discipleship and walking with God. The amazing character of his life was evident to everyone who knew him. He was a very unassuming man. He would not have looked like a celebrity if you met him and yet millions were drawn to him. I heard a story recently from a man who had attended a conference in the early 2000s. There were many notable speakers holding breakout sessions there. Many were well know church leaders and young pastors who were articulate and acclaimed. The man who told this story said he walked around during the breakout sessions to see how many people were in each one. They all had a handful of people in them, but one breakout in particular was packed to the brim. It was so full people were sitting in the hallway. You probably already see where this is going, but most people would think it was probably one of those popular celebrity pastors demanding such an audience. Of course it wasn't. It was an old, gray haired, somewhat pudgy man sitting on a stool and talking about his life walking with Jesus. Those young pastors filling the room hung on his every word. Why? It wasn't because he was flashy or had it all together. It wasn't because he was the greatest speaker and had really propped himself up. He didn't have his own line of clothing or a fancy logo. He had never pastored a mega-church. What he had was character forged by relentless commitment to Christ, and God himself loves to promote that. He loves to promote it because only God can produce that in a man. These men were in Dallas Willard's workshop because the Holy Spirit drew them there. God promoted Dallas, not Dallas.

This brings us back full circle. Our world is loud and each of us are pressured into contributing to the noise. We feel that we have to promote ourselves, to make a name for ourselves. We think we need Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook followers to make a great impact. We clamor for likes and retweets. In truth, the only one we truly need to know who we are is God. If we live for his glory and not our own, if we focus on building character in Christ rather than a brand, God himself will promote us. People who want to follow Jesus will follow us as we follow Christ. They will do so not because we are great, but because Jesus is great in us.

So... let's not buy into all the hype. Don't listen to the people who say you have to make much of yourself. If you are doing worthy things, the Lord will accomplish his will through you. Jesus didn't seek out the crowds, they sought him. Be like Jesus. Oh, and just in case you forgot the Proverb I quoted to begin this post...

"Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips." -Proverbs 27:2 (NET)

Living Quietly in a Loud World

"Now on the topic of brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you. In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need. -1 Thessalonians 4:9–12

I will be the first to tell you that this has often been a struggle for me. Social media is both a powerful tool, and also an adversary. On the one hand, a person has a powerful platform from which to share meaningful thoughts. On the other hand, we humans tend to struggle with the ego inflation that comes from so much perpetual attention. Not only this, be we find ourselves often pressured to make that next zinger of a post. We speak our minds. We polarize. We don't think about who is affected, the consequences, or whether Christ is honored with our words.

Wisdom dictates that we don't say everything we are thinking, even if we are right. This is particularly true when we are angry. Proverbs 29:11 says as much. Anger and outrage make fools out of just about everyone. What should we do when we get so passionate about something, when we are triggered to the point of outrage? The wise people of old knew what to do, as did the Apostle Paul. We wait. We pray. We go to the scriptures. We listen for the voice of God. Just because you have an opinion, does not mean it must be said, particularly at the moment you feel that you want to give it full vent.

Often I have found myself giving full vent to my frustrations, political beliefs, and etc via social media. The Lord checked me on this a few years ago, and made me aware that the way I present an idea is just as important as the idea. Also, the Lord has reminded me that people are more important than my being right or setting something straight with a scathing post.

Many of us today have the mind of the world on this rather than the mind of Christ. Everyone has an opinion, most just say whatever they think. WE however, should seek to live a quiet life. What does this mean? It means we should not say too much. We should not be overly concerned with putting ourselves out there. We should be considerate of what we say. We should not make it our aim to cause a stir unless we have sought the Lord and believe it is absolutely what we are supposed to do. The voice that matters most in the culture is not the most frequent one, but the most well considered one.

I am not saying that we should never say anything difficult or controversial online. To do this we would have to abandon our call to preach the Gospel. What I am saying is that we should be careful how we say what we say and seek peace to the extent that it is possible for us to do so (Romans 12:18).

So let's do what the Scriptures say. Let's strive to live quiet lives, only stirring as the Lord leads us. Let's mind our own business and work hard at being good citizens of our communities. Let's not be rebel rousers, or contrarians, or busybodies, or pawns in the World's games. Rather let us seek to be the aroma, the peace, and the presence of Christ in this world.

The Humility of God

"At Babel, as someone has said, 'earth proudly tried to ascend to heaven,' while at Pentecost 'heaven humbly descended to earth.'" -Sam Storms (quoting John Stott in Chapter 2 of The Language of Heaven)

What a profound observation the above quote draws us toward. As I read this, it got me to thinking about human striving in the history of all things. Consider the fact that God, from the very beginning, took a humble posture towards humanity. He condescended to us where we were. The God of the universe... do you understand actual weight of who he is? The literal God who created everything and holds all things together walked personally with our first father Adam. Most of us would probably think that someone who is running the universe wouldn't have much time for such a small creature as a man. Yet he did. God took the time to walk with Adam. That's amazingly humble and it is our example. The only one who ever had a reason to be proud, that is God, walks humbly. Amazing!

So what about humanity? Clearly something has gone amiss with us. We are not humble like God. Some would challenge God's humility by pointing to his severity when responding to sin and evil in the world. Our problem is that we are short sighted. God is a humble God, but he is also a very good and just God. He will not allow injustice to stand and when we fell into sin, we became injustice in the flesh. At that point we had placed ourselves against God and he was forced to react to our rebellion. A king must do what is right even if he does not like it. In the same way, God takes no pleasure in the destruction of anyone, but he must carry our justice. We will get back to that again in a moment.

The people of Babel are representative of the whole of the broken human condition. Back in the Garden of Eden, people walked with God in his humility and grace. He tested them by giving them a restriction. Would they trust God to descend to them and raise them up to their proper place in time? Or would they strive to take it for themselves? We know how the story goes. Rather than trusting in the goodness of God to disciple them and train them so they could rule by his side, they proudly tried to ascend to heaven on their own and thus began a series of failures which do nothing more than perpetuate our rebellion against God and our destruction.

Every time we trust in something other than God to grant us life, we fall into a pattern of striving for heaven on our own power. We attempt to usurp God's rightful position and claim it for ourselves just like Adam and Eve, the people of Babel, and many who came before us. God calls us to something different, and it is hard for us to accept. It's so simple and requires us to trust in his goodness rather than our abilities. He calls us to rest in him with the promise that when we are at rest in him, he will come to us and give us the heaven we always wanted in the first place.

As God has always done, he has condescended from heaven to earth in order to draw people to himself and to train them how a person should live as a citizen of his kingdom. Rather than just destroying us, Jesus came to us and took the punishment we earned in our place. He was crushed for us and rose from the dead, declaring sin and death forever defeated. You see, God always wanted Adam and Eve to be wise, to know right from wrong. Their desire for knowledge wasn't wrong, but their striving for power apart from God was. Jesus does for us by the Spirit what he wanted to do for Adam and Eve. He is training us to live the way God created us to live. You see, the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of royal priests. Each citizen has dominion over a part under the leadership of God. We get to join God in building the earth out the way God intended. Earth is to become an extension of heaven! We see that at the end of Revelation and it is amazing.

The humility of God is truly an amazing thing. He has come to you. Have you heard his voice? Perhaps he is calling you now. You were meant for much more than to strive to scratch out a small kingdom for yourself before you die. You were made for eternity, to join God in building out his kingdom on earth. Don't you want to be a part of that? If so, why don't you stop striving and start resting in Jesus? If you want to pursue this further I highly recommend you reach out to me or a pastor near you. I also recommend you to pick up the Gospel of John in the Bible and read it, asking God to reveal himself to you and to teach you what to do next. I am certain of this, everyone who turns away from his life of sin and turns to Jesus, believing the gospel, will be saved. Come join the journey with this amazingly powerful, yet amazingly humble and loving God who is calling out to you.