The Monsters Inside of Me: Self-Delusion

If I were to show up at your house, unannounced, to do an inspection on how clean is your bedroom, would you be embarrassed with how messy it is or content with how clean it is? How often do you clean your room? Are you the thorough cleaner or the stuffer?

I hated cleaning my room when I was a kid…who am I fooling, I still hating cleaning my room. I can remember a Saturday morning where I didn’t want to clean my room, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to go outside and play until it was done. I devised a great plan, lets shove everything in the closet and shut the door. Everything will look clean super quickly. 

This is my song:

Well, when mom came in to inspect she was impressed, until she opened the closet doors and everything fell out. Did I clean my room? No, I just suppressed the mess in the closet.

My planned backfired. I bought into my self-delusion that my room was clean. The remedy was pointed out by my mom and not only did my room get cleaned, my closet did too.

Anyone here like that when it comes to cleaning your room? You just hide stuff and have to find new hiding places?

Tonight, we’re starting a new series for the month of October called “The Monsters Inside of Me,” and the reality that we can ignore, that oftentimes we are our own worst enemy. There are emotions and attitudes that we can harbor internally that, if we don’t tame them, they can destroy us. Things like anger, fear, worry, these things can consume our thoughts, dictate our decisions, and prevent us from walking in the way that God wants us to walk.

It may be easy to pretend you have a clean room when everything is just shoved in the closet, but it is dangerous to pretend life is good when you have these things shoved into a dark corner of your soul. This leads us to the Monster we will talk about tonight, self-delusion. 

Self-delusion is choosing to believe a lie rather than reality. I believed my room was clean, but reality was the filth was just pushed aside. I deluded myself by suppressing the truth and presenting a lie as true. 

We are prone to do this with our life. We put on a smile and say we are “fine,” but in reality we have a whole lot of junk that we are hiding inside. Some of us hide doubt. Some of us hide faith. Some of us hide hurts, some hide wounds. Some hide rage, some hide mistakes. Some hide shortcomings or weaknesses. Some hide pain. 

We believe the lie that people will reject us if they know the truth. We believe God will condemn us if we admit the truth. We believe the self-delusion that God doesn’t already know and that we can handle this junk on our own.

Part of our problem is the secular worldview that is permeates our culture from classrooms, counselors, and media. It’s the teaching that you should “live your truth.” This teaching actually is encouraging you to believe and live out your self-delusion. 

Here is a typical encouragement of the day by author and entrepreneur Kamal Ravikant, “It begins by looking inside ourselves, because when it rises from within, we have no choice but to express it, to live it. That is when magic happens: fulfillment, happiness, relationships and success.”

How hopeless is that? “Look inside ourselves” to find what? Fulfillment? Happiness? Relationships? Success? From inside ourselves? 

God’s word says this: Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

If I look within myself, I will be looking at the Monsters Inside of Me and trying to find answers from them. What is true is that those hidden monsters will lie to me, deceive me and cause me to look for happiness and joy in things that will only leave me empty and full of shame. 

This is a pattern God’s Word warns us about: Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 

It is the unrighteous tendency to suppress the truth (self-delusion) to live their own way, or “live out their truth.” But God wants us to “live in the truth.” 

Let’s turn to Psalm 139 to be reminded of the truth of God, take a few moments to read it. 

This Psalm opens with the statement that God has already “searched me and known me!” Can I put it this way, “God you have already opened the closet doors of my room and found my mess. You have seen my futile attempts and you know my self-delusions!” 

Verses 1-6 plainly put that God knows our thoughts, our patterns and our words before we say them.
Verses 7-12 tell us that we cannot run from God or hide from God. We cannot conceal our monsters from Him, so why do we try?
Verses 13-16 tell us how God views us, that we were made by Him. He was intimately involved in the formation of our body, souls and spirit. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He knows the number of our days.
Verses 17-22 show how David’s reflection on God resulted in worship and a desire to purge the world of anything that is against the purity of God. 
Verses 23-24 concludes with a prayer for God to continue to search him and reveal anything that might disrupt his relationship with God. 

In this brief summary, I want you to see that you don’t have to hide these monsters from God. He already knows it. Praying this prayer is not an invitation for judgment, but an invitation for freedom. 

Skit Guys on Psalm 139:

Muck, Guck and Yuck (from the video) can be easily cleaned out of our bedroom closet, but we cannot clean it out of our hearts on our own. That’s what Jesus came to do for us, to provide a way for our sins and shame to be paid for and cleaned out of our life. 
Don’t allow the sin of self-delusion to prevent you from the life God has created you for. If you stop hiding the monsters and confess them, God will forgive you and cleanse you from them (1 John 1:9). 

In Christ, there is no reason to feel condemned because Jesus took care of the problem (Romans 8:1). The enemy wants you to believe God will give up on you, but nothing can separate you from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39). 

This first monster of self-delusion is what leads us to shoving the rest of the monsters we will talk about in the closet of our hearts. It is time to open those closet doors and let the light of Christ shine in and bring healing to your heart. 

Don’t look inside for fulfillment, happiness, relationships and success, look to Jesus for the remedy. What you find will be the fulfillment your soul is craving, a reason to not only be happy but joyful, a relationship that will never let you down and a the path for a truly successful life in God’s eyes. 

My shortcut in cleaning my room led to more work in the end. Don’t allow the lies of the enemy to lead you into self-delusion that suppresses the truth and pushes those monsters deeper into your heart’s closet. Open the doors, learn to confess and talk about those monsters with someone who can show you what God’s Word says and the hope we have in Jesus.