The Age of Self

We are living in what many have called The Age of Self.

In this powerful message, Pastor Chip Dandridge unpacks what the Bible says about the condition of the human heart in the last days. Scripture warns that people will become lovers of themselves, lovers of money, and that love for others will grow cold as lawlessness increases.

But how do we recognize this spirit in our culture?
And more importantly… how do we resist it?

In this episode, Pastor Chip explores the warning signs Jesus and the apostles gave about a culture consumed with self, pride, and personal gain. He also challenges believers to live differently in a world that constantly tells us to put ourselves first.

This message will help you:
• Recognize the cultural shift toward self-centered living
• Understand what the Bible says about the last days
• Guard your heart from spiritual drift
• Learn how to endure in love and faith when the world grows cold

This is a sobering but hope-filled message calling believers to stay rooted in Christ in a generation focused on self.

From Harmony Vineyard Church in Ashland, Virginia, this message invites you to examine your heart and ask an important question:

In the Age of Self… will your love endure?

#KingdomReality #HarmonyVineyard #EndTimes #BiblicalTruth #FaithOverCulture #ChristianPodcast #LastDays #BibleTeaching #SpiritualAwakening

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

So last week we talked about how you need end times discernment, meaning you literally need the Holy Spirit to know what's true and what isn't true nowadays. You can't depend on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or formally Twitter or CNN or Fox News or anything other than the Spirit of God. Today we're going to talk about something that Jesus warns us about and we're warned about in Timothy. So if you have your Bible, you can head over to Matthew 24 verse 12. And we're going to start there. Matthew 24, verse 12, and we'll put it up on the screen. Speaking of end times deception, and this might sound conspiracy theory-ish, you really should own a paper Bible. Because the Bible on your phone, I'm not saying don't use your phone, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying have a copy of the Bible written out that somebody can't go in and edit digitally. Because if you think that doesn't happen, it's already happening in places. They'll edit out verses that they don't feel are appropriate. And I don't know about you, that makes me real nervous. And I know that they can't change the Bible that I have physically. So I'm not knocking technology, I'm just saying have one in your house, maybe. Jesus says, because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one that endures to the end, he will be saved. Lawlessness. Yes, there's a level where he's referring to people breaking the actual law. We get that. But Jesus isn't talking about everybody's gonna run stop signs, you know, or everybody's gonna. Lawlessness is meaning living totally outside the laws of God. Totally doing whatever they think they should do, whatever feels great, whatever feels right. And people are gonna become, in the end times, completely lawless. And because of that lawlessness, because they're only living for themselves, their love will begin to grow cold. Which is interesting that the result of lawlessness is cold love. Because when we stop following the law of God, of course our love will grow cold. Because if we don't follow God's law, we're following our own our own laws. So as lawlessness increases, love will grow cold. And then it says an interesting statement, and we'll come back to it a little later, too. But the one who endures to the end is the one who will be saved. That means lawlessness and cold love, number one, is something that is so hard to deal with, you have to actually endure it. It's interesting, Jesus doesn't say fix it. He doesn't say go out and change it because it can't be changed. Yes, people can get saved, but at the end, the end, things are going to happen that are just, they're already destined to happen. So you must endure the lovelessness and the lawlessness of the age. Part of that endurance isn't surviving, it's can your love stay warm until the end? Because as lawlessness increases and people become more about themselves, you will find people whose love begins to grow cold even within the church. And when I say church, I don't mean literally this building, I mean the church. Are you going to come out of this still loving like Christ, still being formed like Christ? Well, Chip, of course I am. Well, look at yourself. It sounded worse than I meant it. Christians love until someone is on a different political side. Then all of a sudden they're rivals. Christians love until someone believes a little different than them. Christians love until somebody says something they don't like. Your love has to endure and it has to be for everybody. It doesn't matter where they stand in this life. And it's really hard to do that when lawlessness is increasing, everybody's doing what they want, and the crowd becomes unloving. See, when the world becomes unloving, our systems become unloving, everything we're exposed to becomes unloving, and it's very easy for us to go, well, that's what everybody does. And understand there's not a day you'll wake up and go, Whoa, should have slept with a blanket. My love's grown cold. It's a slow chipping away. That's how the devil works usually. We tend to think of it as in one swoop, the devil does this. If he did that, you would recognize it was him. So what he does is every day he chips away at your love. A little offense here, a little anger there, a little bitterness there, a little unforgiveness there, a little, yeah, they did this to me, so therefore I can never ever get past it there. And slowly over time, you become just like everybody else, lawless and unloving. Because the law of the kingdom is I don't get offended. I love. I don't get the law of the kingdom is I don't get the choice to hold on to unforgiveness. I can't be a Christian and willingly hold on to it. I'm not saying you won't struggle to forgive. We all face that. But you cannot be a Christian and willingly not forgive somebody. Well, chip, they did horrible things. That doesn't matter. They did horrible things to Jesus. I'm not saying it doesn't matter that it happened to you. It very much matters. God is very much concerned. God is brokenhearted over it. But at the end of the day, God's calling you to rise above it and move into a direction that isn't going to lead you into hell. Can your love endure? And then we go to 2 Timothy, verse 3. If you have that, you can go ahead to that too. Verse 3, I'm sorry, chapter 3, verse 1. And Timothy says this. But realize this. Boastful, arrogant, revelers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, and unholy. Well, that sounds familiar. That's a lot. In the last days, people will become lovers of self. Let's start there. Loving yourself means loving your flesh, loving your impulses, loving the things that are within you that you think are your preferences. I've seen people literally adults and children, especially children, well, maybe especially adults, throw complete temper tantrums when they don't get their way. Why? Because uh that I didn't get my way. I like it this way. It has to be this way. Why does it have to be that way? Because that's how I've always done it. That's how I like the lover of self. You're not willing to explore anything else. You love your preference above somebody else's. Well, how do you test that? A real lover of self will step out of their preference so someone else can be comfortable. That's why I don't get into all this like church culture. Like I can go to a black church and have different music and worship God. I can go to a Spanish church where I don't even speak the language and feel the Spirit of God. I can go to, you name it, if God is there, I my preference doesn't matter. Amen. All of us aren't like that. Some of us have to have the lights right, the air right, the I don't really like that song. Well, great news, we're worshiping him, not you. So as long as he likes it. But you see what I'm saying? Or we become in a place where we we see it as we have to protect ourselves at all costs. So we start, we start cutting people off, we start treating people badly, we start doing all these different things to self-preserve. And all of that is done so we feel good. And as we begin to become more and more selfish and more and more, there's a new trend. I don't know if any of you are online where the word narcissist is a big deal now. It's a real big psychological. This person's a narcissist, and I'm not saying there aren't real narcissists, there are, I've met them. But if every boyfriend you've ever had is a narcissist, or every girlfriend you've ever had is a narcissist, or every friend, and you're always the victim, and it's always been done to you, and you've never had any fault, the issue might not be them. The issue might be you're a lover of self, and as soon as a person doesn't perform and do what you expect them to do, you cast them away. Because they no longer serve my purpose. They no longer glorify me, they no longer come through the way I want. Some people do the opposite. We hold on to things that we should let go of because we love ourselves so much, we just we're getting some kind of pleasure out of it. There's people in dysfunctional situations right now that are getting pleasure out of being in a dysfunctional situation, and you've prayed and you've asked God to deliver you, and when he brings about deliverance, you say, I don't want to. I like my dysfunctional relationship that I pray for deliverance for. I like my porn addiction that I pray deliverance for. I like my alcohol addiction that I pray for deliverance. I like being mean. I like being a gossip. I like, I'm don't worry, I'll get to you. I like my social media that God told me. And we pray and pray for deliverance because it makes us miserable. And when deliverance comes, we say, oh, but I love my comfort and myself so much. Actually, God, what I'd rather do is ask you for deliverance, refuse the deliverance, then get angry at you for not delivering me. And that's how a lot of people live. Help me, help me, help me, help me. Not yet, not yet, not yet, not that way. Lord, I want more money. Work more hours. Lord, why won't you give me more money? I already gave you a job. I don't like working. There's your problem. But we live that way. And it's crazy. And being a lover of self increases. Now everybody, and I understand. I I'm on the internet posting videos all the time. I understand there's things that require you to be out front. I understand that. But there's a difference in promoting the gospel and self-promotion. Self-promotion is what benefit can I get out of this? Well, I love it when I'm watching something really serious online and I'm really in the spirit, and they're like, yes, in Jesus' name, we're praying, we're praying, we're praying, da-da-da-da-da, and this scripture, and you've got to die for Christ, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. This Bible study is brought to you by Neutrophil. Like, wait, what? And then all of a sudden you realize, oh, you're you're putting ads on. I'm not even against ads, but you're putting ads on this, and it's like, are you now doing this and putting out content for a purpose, or are you putting out content because you have to put it out because you have advertisements? Because when the motives change, that's the problem. That's what you need to learn to look out for. Motives. Why, why, if you do something publicly, like preach on a stage, you have to constantly, and I can only use myself as an example. I don't know how it plays out in your life. I have to constantly ask, why am I doing this? Why are we posting this? Why am I preaching this? Why am I that why do you know you can preach a sermon? I could write a sermon, and this sounds arrogant, but I don't mean it that way. I could write a sermon, I guarantee it, come in here and know all the right things to say to get every one of you super hyped up and excited. Truly. With just the goal of everybody going, oh, he preached really well this Sunday. You have to check your motives. I remember one time the Lord, I was looking through the Bible when I first became a pastor back in I think 2015, and I was like, Lord, none of these seem like they would preach. Well, it all preaches, Chip. But what I was really saying is, none of this seems like it's going to get the desired reaction that I want. And God spoke and said, Are you preaching for people or are you preaching for yourself? Are you preaching to build your ego or are you preaching to help people? And you have to constantly check your motives in everything you do. It's part of being a Christian. And it's a good part. Because it keeps you from becoming all about yourself. You don't want to. Yes, I could come. Old-timey preachers call it the candy stick sermon. Y'all don't know about that. Basically, that's your top sermon that you know if you get invited to preach somewhere, you pull that thing out and you put it down, and everybody's just, for lack of a better term, it just murders. It just is the you come out with God has a plan for you. He's about to bless you, he's gonna take you to a haul. There's people that will get hype and excited about that, and there's preachers that do that all because of the response. I've actually seen, because I study a lot of leadership material, I've actually seen churches where they plant people in the church to amen the pastor. Literally, what the they're like, and you can give out this list of things to say, and we'll send it to you. Things like, so good, wow, that's my favorite. I've never said anything so profound that you need to go, wow. When I do, then I'll be excited. So good, that's great. Come on back. Like, what are we doing? Because what's happening is somebody's needing their ego stroked. Lovers of self, and it's not just in the pulpit, it's all over. How many times do you justify at work cutting someone off or doing something shady or backhanded so you can get the promotion? So you can get the person pushed down, so you can look better. How many times do you love yourself more than you love your family? How many times do you love yourself more than you love your spouse? How many times do you love yourself more than you love discipline? In the end, people will become lovers of self and understand we're not separate from that just because we're the church. We have to make an effort to not become that. People will become lovers of money. I'm glad that doesn't happen. 1 Timothy 6.10 says this. For the love, everybody say love, of money is the root of all, say, sorts, sorts of evil. And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. In the end times, people will become lovers of money. Well, chip, people have always loved money. But what's interesting about that scripture is we we tend to, and I think the devil does this on purpose, we tend to say, money is the root of all evil. That's not what it says. But if you believe that's what it says, it allows you to get away with a lot of stuff. Because what it actually says is, for the love of money, why would you love money? It's not a person, it doesn't have a personality, it it doesn't, it doesn't do anything to serve God unless you put it to use. We shouldn't love money, we should love what we're able to do with money for the kingdom. Amen. So the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Have you ever wondered how some people get involved in stuff? Have you ever wondered why? It seems like trying to think how to phrase this, but I'm just gonna say it. Do you ever wonder how a bunch of billionaires become pedophiles? Do you ever wonder why people will take an old lady, every dime they have, out of their bank account in a scam? Do you ever wonder why people embezzle from churches? You ever wonder why people traffic children? What motivates that? The love of money being is the root of all sorts of evil, not just one type. It can be up here with billionaire pedophile ring or down here to I'd rather have money than spend time with my kids, so I'm gonna take those extra shifts. See what I'm saying? The love of money, when we take our security in money and our pleasure in money, it will lead you into evil. What's my my favorite one? And I'm not knocking you, I know everybody has to do this sometimes. I do it every week. People that go, I won't be at church ever because I work on Sunday. Fix it. You can. How come that is the only that if you were to say, I can't be at church because I have to go play bingo on Sunday, we'd all be like, well, that's kind of weird. But when you tell someone, oh, I'm earning some money, oh well, that's fine by all means. And the problem is we fill our pockets. You like Monopoly, what we do is we fill our pockets, hit go, and go straight to hell. Because we spend our life working for money instead of believing in the source. See, when I need something, I used to pray for more money. Now I just pray, God, give me what I need. Sometimes he'll do it through money, sometimes he'll do it through a person, sometimes he'll do it in a weird way. I promise you it'll always be a way you don't expect. I promise you that. But when we begin to fall, and what's going to happen in this society is as it continues to decay into the end times, it's gonna be harder and harder to not love money. Because we're under the illusion that money buys us security. When Jesus says, Have you not considered the lilies or the birds? I clothe them, they don't make any money. And I'm not discouraging you from having a job, I'm not discouraging you from building wealth, I'm not discouraging you from any of that. What I am discouraging you from is allowing money to lead you astray. Because it's very easy. And we got to get out of the thought process that only rich people can do that. I know a lot of poor people who love money so much that it ruins their life, too. That's how a lot of crime happens. All sorts of evil. When we read about things in the headlines, nine times out of ten, there is a financial piece to it. There's somebody somewhere who's done something for money. I'm glad this isn't too heavy. What did the pastor talk about today? Pedophile rings. But it's true. We got to speak out because it's been going on for years. Two or three, people will become boastful and arrogant. What does that mean? That doesn't mean I hate false humility. Where people don't acknowledge their gifts or don't acknowledge their talents or act like they're less than they are. That's not what Jesus wants. Boastful and arrogant, that means this. Boastful means I'm pointing to myself for all my accomplishments instead of Jesus. Being boastful is giving yourself the credit that you don't deserve. Because the Bible says, apart from him, I can do nothing. Nothing. Can't walk, can't breathe, can't talk, can't sing, can't preach, can't get out of bed, can't do anything without God. Anything I take the credit for in myself is wrong and is boastful. When I say, look at me, look what I've done, look what I've accomplished, look at what I've done. Look at this. Look at that. Look at that. It should be look at him. Look at what he's done. When I preach or sing, I don't think of it as I'm the anointed one of God. I think it as that scripture in the Bible. He's still making a jackass speak. He's still, he's still doing it. He's still working through the least likely of people. That's why the Bible says that the foolish will shame the wise. You'll have gifts that don't even match your intelligence level. You'll have gifts that don't even match your qualifications. You'll have gifts that are so out there that you shouldn't have. You'll understand things you shouldn't understand. And when people look at you and say that, you're not supposed to go, well, that's because I'm so smart. It's because of him. Arrogant. It says people will become arrogant. We tend to think of arrogant as better than everyone. I'll think I'm better than everybody. But really, arrogance is refusing to have a teachable spirit. I already know everything I need to know. I don't need to be taught anything else. I always think of my great-grandfather who gambled his whole life. That was his job. One time he won, like, I think it was $100,000. And he brought it home, and my nana threw it in the furnace. Because it was won by being bad. And so that's always the story in our family. Years later, he goes, Oh, Luigi, you know I pulled it out and the bank gave me most of it back. But that's a different story. He got saved, and then he totally froze. He went to heaven, I'm sure. He was a good Christian man, but he never grew one day past being saved. He never expanded on his beliefs. He never went deep into things. He never really progressed. He never understood grace. He never understood. And all of this was because he didn't have really a teachable spirit. You'd try to teach him something, and he would, he just wasn't clicking. He wasn't rude about it. Then there's people that are rude about it. Have you ever met somebody that every time you tell them something, they say, yeah, but actually, well, actually this is true. Well, actually that's not true. One time I knew a lady, no matter what you told her, she'd go, I know. I know. Oh, yeah, I know that. I heard that. I know. Because she couldn't stand to be thought of as less. So you know what we did? We started making stuff up. Not lying. I'd start making stuff up. Oh, I know, I know. This is, and then we told her we're making it up. And then this has nothing to do with my sermon, but it's funny. She was my Sunday school teacher, and she said, Amen means all men. And I said, No, amen means be done. And she's like, No, it doesn't, it means all men. That's why some people say amen. And then later I found out she checked and found out I was right and told the class not to tell me I was right. Then I married her daughter, and that was also a mistake. That's how you got to do it. Yeah, that's how I don't know that you might have. But you see, got me after all. But we'll edit that out of the video. That will not be put out this weekend. But there's people that they cannot be taught. And if you can't be taught, you can't be helped. And if you can't be taught, you can't help. Because what God has a way of doing is teaching us through everybody. When I sit down across from someone for counseling or to pray for deliverance or to or for any of that, I never look at it as I'm the spiritual one here, I'm the one that's going to fix it, I'm the one that's going to solve it. I look at it as what am I going to learn from that person? Because it's a two-way thing. I say it all the time. John said it to me one of the first times I came here. The kingdom of God is a two-way street. There's always an exchange. When I'm doing discipleship with some of my people that are new Christians, there's so many times they'll have an insight I've never thought of. And I'm like, wow, how have I missed that? What's wrong with me? But we're arrogant. And we become arrogant, we become unteachable. And many Christians think that they've reached the pinnacle of Christianity and don't need to progress anymore at certain points, and that's wrong. We don't want to become that. This one's always skipped over. Revelers. So then I was like, what does that actually mean? Let me look that up. So I'd like to give you the definition. A reveler looks like someone who insults others, mocks people, tears them down publicly, spreads slander, verbally attacks people, uses abusive or harsh language. Do any of us fall into that? I'm not gonna lie, I read it was like, uh-oh. And they do this publicly. They do it publicly. They just love tearing somebody down. And as Christians, go ahead on YouTube and type Bethel exposed, Carl Lentz exposed, Hillsong exposed, and you'll find thousands of Christians who just want to publicly talk terrible about people that are also Christians. And I'm not saying people shouldn't be called out for bad things, they should. In any organization, especially church. But there's a whole industry of Christians that make money off tearing down other Christians. How many of us have to tear down other people to feel better about ourselves? It says that in the last days, that's what will happen. Get online, scroll through your feed, and see how many people are doing what I just read. Insulting, mocking, tear down publicly, spreading slander, verbally attacked, uses harsh or abusive speech. One out of every five videos isn't that. And you know why? We eat it up. We don't want to admit it, but we love a reveler. Oh, we love to hear the rumors. We love to hear the salacious talk. We love to hear how this person's failing. We love, we do it at work. Did you hear about so-and-so? No, what? Well, she was never very good at her job. We love to do it about family. Don't do it. Don't become what the world is becoming. The next one it says, disobedient to parents. Do I need to say more? Really? How many times have you been at Walmart and you're like, if my kid said something like that to me? You hear kids, the way kids talk to parents nowadays is wild. I think it's because they're not allowed to get slapped anymore. I mean, I hear kids up in Walmart, five-year-olds, telling their mom to shut up. Get out of my face. Leave me alone. And it's common. It's very common. What's happening is the parents are becoming the things on this list and producing rebellious children. Granted, yes, there are cases where you can do everything right and the child still rebels. That's part of it. That's the spirit of the age. Understand your kids are influenced by the spirit of the age. That's all I'll say about that since I'm also the daycare director. And I'd like to keep some of the kids there. They become ungrateful. Ungrateful is not appreciating what God has done for you. Not appreciating the things you do have. Yeah, you might not have a Rolls-Royce, but that Toyota, thank God you have it to get to where you need to go. You might not live in a mansion, but that little apartment is a blessing on a cold night. There may have been some people that treated you wrong, but we focus on them instead of the ones that treat us right. And we live ungrateful, and being ungrateful repels blessings. Many of us are not blessed on the level we need to be blessed on because we're not even grateful for what we have. We want more but fail to appreciate what we have. The second part of ungrateful, ungratefulness ultimately comes from entitlement. You're only ungrateful when you think you're owed more than what you have. Well, I should have something better than this. I should live in a nicer place than this. I should have a better position than that. I should have this. I should have that. I should be this, I should be that when God has given you all these other things, and you start becoming ungrateful saying, all the things you believe you're entitled to. Why? Why are you so entitled? One of the most powerful questions ever asked to me by Gary Naran, he preached here once. I was telling him all these things, and I said, I just don't understand why me. And he looked me dead in the eyes, and I was expecting a Jesus hug. He said, Why not you? Why are you special? He said, By you saying why me, you're saying it should be someone else. So why are you wishing this on somebody else? What makes you better than someone else that they should suffer and you shouldn't? Because the truth is we all suffer. We all go through stuff. And as soon as we stop asking why me and start asking God, what are you showing me through this? We might actually get a little bit of freedom. But if you stop feeling so entitled all the time, God isn't disappointing you. Your entitlement is disappointing you. You thinking you should have more than what he's given and saying it's not enough is what's disappointing you. And then finally it says unholy. That the world will become unholy. Then I started thinking, the world isn't holy to begin with. So that could only apply to the church. And when the church becomes unholy, what does holy mean? It means set apart. It means there will come a time where if we become these things, we will no longer be set apart. Galatians 5.22 says this, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. That's the self, the self-life. If we live by the Spirit, let's follow the Spirit as well. Let's not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. The answer for your love not growing cold, to endure to the end and not become these things, is to walk in the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And you cannot walk in the fruit of the Holy Spirit by yourself because it's not the fruit of Kyle, the fruit of Fran, the fruit of Chip, the fruit of John. It's the Spirit's fruit. My fruit, half the time it's rotten. That means if I don't have the Spirit in me, I can't bear the fruit of the Spirit. That means if I'm not cooperating with the Spirit, I can't bear his fruit. You want to know why you don't have peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I don't know it all without reading it? You don't have it because you're not walking in cohesion with the Spirit. Because A, you don't understand him. B, you're afraid of him. C, you think there's no more levels for you to go to. Or D, you think the only thing the Holy Spirit's for is miracles. I've seen cancer healed. I've seen HIV healed. I've seen open wounds healed. I've seen angels. I've seen glory clouds. I've seen literally blind eyes open. But I've never seen a bigger miracle than the transformation that's been inside of me. Or the transformation that's been inside of the drug addict who gave their life to Christ and now is doing something incredible. Or the person who came totally broken down, totally with nothing, and then God changes them from the inside out. I'm impressed by these outward miracles and those signs and wonders, and I welcome them and I love them. But I'm more impressed when God can speak order and peace into the chaotic inner world that many of us have. If you want to see a miracle, let the Holy Spirit start changing things in your life. I'm not so worried about my ankle or foot being healed. He can heal it and I'll offer it up to him. It doesn't really hurt. I'm using an example. I would rather him heal my soul. Because I can live with a hurt foot, but you can't live with a crushed spirit. We've got to partner with him. So in Luke, I'll end with this. Luke 11, so I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receive. The one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be open. Now which one of your fathers will his son ask for a fish, and instead of a fish, he will give him a snake? Or if he asks for an egg, his father will give him a scorpion. If then, despite being evil, good evil, they know how to give good gifts to their children. How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Stand with me for a moment, please. Kyle, would you play something for a moment? What we're gonna do is we're gonna enter into a time. If you need to leave, you can do that quietly. But if you want more of the spirit, this is your moment. Say, I don't know where to start. Ask, seek, knock. The father will give it to you. The father will give him to you.