THE CULT OF MY PERSONALITY

21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Personality is the way that I project myself in my actions and my reactions. In the Scriptures, we see a man who looks into the word of God which rebukes the things that need to change in his life. And the Bible says that if you’re a hearer of the word and not a doer of the word, then you are likened unto a man who looks into a mirror.

Every once in a while, in the morning, my wife will send me out to the store. I’ll go to the store and am ready to get out of the car, but then I look into the rear view mirror and there’s a big cowlick sticking straight up from when I slept.

I’m starting to get a little thin on top, so a cowlick’s not as big a problem as it used to be! God takes care of those things, amen? But my hair will be all out of whack, and I’ll say, “Honey, why in the world did you let me go out of the house?”

Now if we go into a store with our hair all wild and with a bit of egg on our face from breakfast, folks say, “Why didn’t this fellow comb his hair before he left the house?” That’s why the Scriptures tell us that some look into the word and never change.

Some of you have never trusted Christ for your salvation. You’ve looked into the mirror of salvation. Jesus has convicted you of your sin. You know you’re a sinner. You know there’s a Savior, but there’s never been a time when you responded by faith. Today you should receive Christ as your Savior!

But likewise, every single week as I preach the word of God, you’ve been there and the word of God has convicted you about something and you say, “That’s right, I need to do that,” but for some reason you do not make the necessary changes in your life.

The old song goes, “I’m tired of being stirred but not being changed.”

And a lot of times, you have a love for Jesus in your heart. You want to make a difference in people’s lives, but for some reason it never transfers to the outward actions of your life. You realize that the Bible says that if you don’t love your brother who you have seen, you cannot love the Father whom you have not seen (1 John 4:20).

One of the major problems that we have today in churches, in America, and in our families is our personalities. Most of our marriage and friendship problems deal more with personality than they do substance. It can be the way that you say something.

Perhaps you said something with all of the best intentions. You meant to be positive, you meant to help this person. And all of a sudden, they have gotten out of sorts. And you’re thinking, “Why in the world are they so upset?”

It was all in how you communicated it.

We are blood-bought Christians in the fact that we’ve been saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are salt and light in a wicked and dark world. We are to go forth and show the praises of God, but how many people have you heard before say, “If that’s what a Christian is,” (pointing to an individual person,) “then I don’t want to have any part of it!”

And many times I have the privilege of knowing these individuals whom they are talking about. And they’re good people! And they’re not mean people! They’re not mean-spirited, but the way they portray themselves is. And so that’s where I got the title of this message. Sometimes we are portraying ourselves as we are really not. We’re propagating something that’s not really true of our life, and we wouldn’t want it to be, but that’s the way we communicate ourselves.

It starts in our hearts. Matthew 15:19 says, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, (and) blasphemies.”

“For as (a man) thinketh in his heart, so is he,” (Proverbs 23:7). And if we’re thinking it, eventually it’s going to come to the exterior of our lives and into our works. If I believe that God is good, and God is right, and God is righteous, it is going to make a difference in our lives.

A poll was done not too long ago of several mega-churches. Church members were asked, “What is the number one word that would be used to describe your church?” Nine out of ten people said that folks would identify their church as friendly.

But then they went out to the houses that were near those churches and what one word didn’t come up? Friendly! They thought they were portraying one thing, but they weren’t.

And I wonder if we were really to take an account of our families, of our friends, and of our acquaintances, I wonder if they would say, “You know what? They’re a loving people!”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…” (John 3:16).

Now, didn’t our Lord Jesus Christ present that message to you and to me? Are we not to follow his pattern? Sure we are! But are we portraying that kind of message?

Now I’m not saying that we have to get light on sin. We need to stand up for what is right. But we need to still show compassion upon those we come into contact with.

People called Jesus a winebibber. But he said, “No, I’m not. I came to save you from your sin.”

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”

They said, “You are the Christ.” So Jesus wanted to know that men perceived him as he was.

And I want a lost and dying world to see Jerry Beaver for who I am. I am bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am saved by faith alone - and not works, and I am set about to serve God and be sanctified. I am set about to do his work, and I want people to know it.

This is not just a suggestion. This is a commandment from the Lord.

Do you remember what Jesus said in Mark 9:42? “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”

I know kids who were hurt in churches by other Christians and God says it is better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck.

With that being said, Romans 14:16 says, “Let not then your good be evil spoken of.” You see, we can even do good sometimes and it will turn upon us. We can do something for good and have it wind up being bad, like with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were good when they started out, but they got so embittered in their hearts…and yeah, they could stand in their flowery garments, and they could preach and they could pray, and they could give of their tithe and their mint (Matthew 23:23). They could do all of those different things, but it wasn’t helping them any, and they weren’t fooling anybody but themselves.

Everyone knew what they had, but when Jesus spoke, he spoke as one having authority (Matthew 7:29). And there’s a lot of preaching going on, and a lot of things done in the name of Christ, but are they really, really making a difference?

We need to take a look at how are we portraying Christ! How are we portraying Christ to a lost and dying world that does not know Christ? Are they looking at us and using us as a stumbling block that can keep them from accepting Christ? How am I expressing who I am?

Let’s park the Bible bus a little bit and I want to discuss our actual personalities. There are a lot of things that make up our personalities. It could be from your upbringing. They say that 90% of your personality is made up from when you’re 4 yrs. old to when you’re 12 years old. And older people understand that many times what you hated about your father is what you’re doing right now. There’s a reason why kids who grow up in alcoholic homes grow up to be alcoholics. There’s a reason why when the parents are fussing and yelling and screaming, full of anger, then the kids pick it up because that’s the only thing they learn.

Personality is essentially our actions and reactions to situations. Kids also pick things up in school. Peer pressure. Or maybe someone did them wrong, or persecuted them, or spread lies about them. That develops a personality at a very young age. And, even older, have you known someone whose mom or dad died and they’ve never been the same? Or maybe a person’s child died, and since then they’ve been embittered with the world. Their personality has completely changed.

These can be saved people. I’m asking us to look into our hearts and ask, “Am I truly portraying what I believe in my heart, or am I a hypocrite?”

There’s a positive and a negative here. The negative is that if I’m just claiming to be something, that’s hypocrisy.

Or if there are good things in my heart like love, gentleness, meekness, the fruits of the Spirit, if they’re on the inside, then why are they not on the outside? I want us to be able to look at this and make a difference in our lives as well as other people’s lives.

We need to realize that maybe we get angry and lash out at people. Or maybe you have a problem with a lack of forgiveness and you show it all over your vesture. Or maybe it’s pride. Pride is one of those things that effects everybody but the person who has it. You’re wrecking everybody else’s life, but you’re happy with your pride. It can surface in your marriage, and even in your relationship with your children.

James 1:21-22 says, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word…”

It is saying that we cast off those things. We take the word of God and apply it to areas that we maybe have a bad attitude about, or we apply it to those areas that afflict and affect us, and we do what the Bible says.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But, when we get saved, some of our old personalities do transfer over.

Some of you have been to my website and you’ve seen that a tract that I’ve written is called “The Great Makeover.” I did it that way before these makeovers became very, very popular. I did it about ten years ago, and now they’ve got a lot of shows going on about makeovers, like house makeovers. But I wrote that because, after I got saved, I did not clean up on the exterior right away. It took some time for God to get a hold of my heart in certain areas and I began to change on the inward and on the outward sides of myself.

Likewise, some of the attitudes I had before I got saved didn’t just automatically go away. I had to look into the perfect law of liberty, the word of God. I had to look and realize, “That’s who I used to be, that’s not who I am now. And if that’s how I portray myself, then I need to do something about it and give it to God.”

So, our personality is made by my family environment and by circumstances in my life. How do I get rid of a bad attitude or personality in my life?

First of all, we’ve got to really realize that it’s wrong. We need repentance. There are a lot of Christians with a bad attitude that are going around justifying it. They’re justifying having a mean spirit, and not the attitude of Jesus Christ, and that’s the reason that they never have dealt with it.

One of the things I often say is, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” One of the ways I can tell if I have a bad attitude is if people who have bad attitudes like to be around me. Birds of a feather flock together. If I’ve got friends around me that are negative, if I’ve got friends that want to hang around me who are sinful, that shows me that there is something probably wrong with my life. Because my life, shining, is going to be a contrast to their darkness.

Now another way that I can identify that there’s a problem in my life is if what you give out is what you’re receiving. I’ve heard people say, “I never have any friends!” Well, the Bible says that if you’re going to have friends, then you must show yourself friendly (Proverbs 18:24).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be around people who are stressed out. If you do, then probably you’re stressed out yourself. How many of us like to be around people who are angry? How many people like to be around someone who has a bad, snap-up-in-your-face temper? Nobody does!

How many of you like to be around someone who is self-focused, when every conversation is about them, not somebody else? We consider that a bad personality.

Now, with that being said, we need to really identify these areas and say, “That’s wrong!” That’s why the Bible says, “Others!” That’s why it says love God with all of your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39), because it’s all about them.

But we can get so self-occupied like it’s all about me, it’s not about Christ and not about others, and we segregate ourselves and no one wants to be around us. And so, we’ve never really been convicted about certain attitudes that are in our lives. If we’re going off and snapping at people, that’s not right, being Christian. We’re going off yelling at people, yelling at our spouses, or yelling at our kids, and doing all of these crazy sorts of whacko things … What makes us think that we’re going to attract anybody to us? We need to look introspectively at our lives.

I wake up and I comb my hair. I want people to see a sharp, well-combed fellow. I get up and I take a shower because I don’t want anyone to say, “Whew!” to my B. O., but what makes us think that we don’t need to put in check our attitude every single day because our attitude is what many people see first. And we wonder many times why other people don’t want to be around us.

How many of us have heard, “Well, that’s just the way that I was brought up. That’s just the way we handle things!” It doesn’t make it right.

Another good identifier is the excuse, “My parents were not Christians.” Or even if they were Christians, it still doesn’t make it right! There’s no excuse to portray Christ that way.

“Well, that’s just the way it was on the streets.” But you’re not on the streets, you’re a child of God. We’re not on the highway to hell, we’re on the highway to heaven and we should treat others a little differently.

Or maybe you’ve come from a bad relationship, divorced home. Maybe you’ve been divorced and the other husband or the other wife treated you a certain way and it’s still affecting and afflicting the relationship you have right now.

All of these things can cross over after salvation, and if they’re not dealt with or we don’t realize they’re wrong, I need to ask myself, “Am I portraying anger?”

And you may not be angry. Have you ever seen someone who just looks like they’re angry all the time? I need to look at myself and say, “I don’t have a smile on my face.” When you see someone moping or looking bitter, then you’ll be less likely to approach them. Or people will be less likely to approach you because they think that you’re going to bite their head off.

Am I always looking at the glass half-empty in stead of half-full? Am I always stressed out?

Now, going back to our verse, if it’s in the heart, then it’s going to be on the exterior. For some, it’s on both the interior and the exterior. For some, it’s on the interior. And we are body, soul, and spirit. We can place to the devil, and our flesh can be controlled by Satan in that particular area. So we need to make sure that we are displaying what Christ has done for us.

We need to, as in the book of James, look into the perfect word of God and check our attitudes and the way we conduct ourselves and the way we react to trials. And maybe we’ve known it for a long time, but we need to say, “God, it’s wrong. I shouldn’t act this way and, God, I need your help.”

We also need to replace the wrong attitude with the right attitude. The Bible says that “No man putteth a new piece of cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse” (Matthew 9:16). You don’t try to patch it up. So many times that is what we do with our bad attitudes towards our spouse or our family, or perhaps towards a specific kind of person.

We do not name our kids after people whose names leave a bad taste in our mouths. Say you tried to pick John. One of the two of you said, “I’m not naming my kid John because there was a John in school who used to pick on me.” We say, “I don’t want to think of that person when I’m naming my kid!”

But that’s an attitude problem that surfaces in our lives. But many times what we try to do is to whitewash the fence. We just try to think positive, but we’ve got to deal with the root of the problem.

If I’ve got a problem with a certain type of people, or if I’m intimidated by a certain type of people, I don’t need to be intimidated by anybody, because God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

And if we have an anger problem, God says, “Be ye angry, and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26).

I may have a lack of forgiveness, and I have to take off the old and put in the new. That’s why the Bible says that “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man …” (Every one of us has a former conversation. That’s not just our speech, but the way we conduct ourselves and the way we carry ourselves.) “… which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

We get saved, and we say, “I’ve got a bad attitude.” With a certain situation, or a certain person, or with a spouse, we admit a bad attitude. “When the finances are rough, I have a bad attitude towards God.” We look and we say, “God, that’s not right.”

Once we recognize it, we need to respond to it. We cast off the old ways and put on the new man.

So when we start to get angry, we immediately say, “That’s the old man, that’s not the new man!” When we start to doubt or worry, we rebuke it and say, “I’m a child of God. I don’t need to be doing that. I need to act differently because I’m a new man or woman in Jesus Christ.

The Spirit of God convicts you when you have these attitudes. He is there to convict you and to instruct you, but you need to be listening. And you have to make a conscious choice: “I’m not going to act this way anymore! I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it, no matter what comes my way or what situation comes my way, and I’m going to identify all these situations and I’m going to put in that which is good.”

For instance, Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Paul is saying that if these are evident in your life, then there is a problem somewhere. Either you’re not saved, or you’re living worldly in your heart and it’s manifesting.

Now, isn’t it sad that these things can be in your life: strife, wrath … when there is always a problem around and you are what is causing them? That is not the will of God, but for you to put on the new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

I take off the hatred and replace it with love. Love is more action than it is feeling. Many times I don’t feel like loving somebody, but that’s why the Bible says that you can love your enemies. I do good to them which despitefully use me. I don’t have to feel like it, I just have to do it.

I can take off the sadness and put on joy. “I’ve got the joy-joy-joy-joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay! And I’m so happy, so very happy! I’ve got the joy of Jesus in my heart!”

If I’m wanton, meaning that I need to have peace in my heart, then I put on peace.

Need patience? Longsuffering.

For hastiness? Gentleness.

Bad attitude? Goodness.

Worry? Faith.

For every good, there is a good trait from the word of God.

Remember that you’re always going to have tests in these areas. 1 Peter 1:7 says, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

Have you ever prayed for patience? How many of you realized that that was probably the worst mistake that you ever made? Because God’s going to surely send things your way to perfect that patience. When we pray for patience, God’s going to give us a great big dose of it.

If you pray over anger, then God’s going to send things your way to help you get angry. You see, if there’s no test, then there’s no passing grade.

When God convicts our hearts, and we respond by faith, we get trials.

If you come to an altar and say, “I’m not going to drink alcohol anymore,” then your buddies are going to come and say, “Hey, I’ve got a six pack. You wanna come drink?” Before this, you always bought the beer, but now, as soon as you’ve made a decision for Christ, they come by with a six pack!

And that’s when you must say, “I’ve made a decision for Christ. God said, ‘No, do not do it.’ And I said that I won’t do it, and I won’t do it now because I made a decision for Christ!”

But when we get tempted, we think that God’s not going to allow any temptation anymore. God allows temptation. God does not tempt, the Bible says. He allows the temptations and the tests to really see if we mean business. So don’t feel disenfranchised when you get the opportunity to work out the good attitude that you’re going to have.

Someone recently asked me to fill out an e-mail questionnaire about what I really thought of that person. And I had answered the question once before as to what I really thought of someone’s attitude, and they left the church because they really didn’t want to know.

And if you’re one of those people who says, “I just say what’s on my mind. I don’t care who doesn’t like it,” then nobody wants to be around you. Because if we went around telling everybody exactly what we thought of them, nobody would be around us!

But that’s why the Bible says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). We are to judge ourselves by our fruits. Now, I hope that I have a pretty objective perspective.

And one thing I do for this church is that if somebody says that this is not where God wants them, I ask them why. When I voted in to be your pastor, as for the people who voted no, they were able to state why they voted no. And I got a copy of all those votes that were negative. And I went through and I looked at them. And I would say that nine out of ten were right in what they said.

And I changed some things. I didn’t change any of my standing upon the word of God. I stand on the same place I was seven years ago at the start, and I will not change that. But I did get an objective look, different from the way other people portrayed me, and I changed my approach, not my stands.

What if somebody were to vote on you? What if they put what they liked and what they didn’t like, anonymously.

We can do that ourselves because the word of God is a mirror for our soul. It is a mirror for our attitudes and the way we treat people and the way we conduct ourselves. Because the reality is, we have to make a difference in people’s lives. And you may love, and you may have a burden for souls, but your attitude may get in the way of our ever being an effective witness.

But then, you may never have trusted Christ to be your personal Savior. Attitude is not your main problem; the lack of salvation is your problem. As I quoted 2 Corinthians 5:7 earlier, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Have you become a new creature? Putting a Band-aid on your cancer is not going to take care of it. You must truly get saved. You must truly trust Christ. Realize your sin, and recognize your Savior, and receive him into your heart and your life.

You see, you’re a sinner. Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” But, likewise, Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death,” and because of our sin we earn death and hell, separation from God.

But the Bible says also in Romans 10:9, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

John 1:12 also says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”

But as for the Christians, do you have a bad attitude? If your funeral were tomorrow, what good things could be said about you? What do people say about you behind your back? That’s another good one that you could find as to how you’re portraying yourself. Not that there aren’t always some whackos who always have a problem with everybody. But, I’m talking about the general consensus: How am I portraying myself as a Christian? It is our testimony that we have to give to the Lord.