When Self-Love is Selfish | Week 2 | Almost True

Welcome to the second installment of our sermon series, "Almost True." This week's sermon, titled "When Self-Love is Selfish," takes a hard look at how today's culture often pushes self-love to the point of selfishness. From influencers like Logan Paul and Mr. Beast to the everyday obsession with "me time," we dive into what the Bible really says about loving ourselves and others. Philippians and 2 Timothy provide clear warnings about the dangers of selfish ambition, reminding us that true fulfillment comes from loving God and serving others, not from putting ourselves first.

Join us as we challenge the world's view on self-love and rediscover what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves, in the way Jesus taught.

Creators & Guests

Host

Pastor Brandon Holm

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Greater Guild Announcer: 00:02

Hey there, fellow church nerds. Welcome to another episode of Church Nerds United. The podcast where faith meets fandom and sermons are the new superhero stories. That's right. Today, we've got a sermon that's more epic than the battle of Helm's Deep and more inspiring than Captain America's pep talks.

Greater Guild Announcer: 00:19

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Greater Guild Announcer: 00:48

Now, without further ado, let's jump into this week's sermon. Grab your bibles, light up your lightsabers, and get ready to dive deep into the word of God.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 01:00

Oh, good afternoon, everyone. It's me again. I am your pastor Brandon here, and welcome, welcome, welcome. Just wanna say it's glad to have you all with us today. And speaking of that, we're getting into our 2nd week here which is when self love is selfish.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 01:18

That is the name of this sermon. And believe me it's gonna be one of those that's gonna probably hit hard for many of you. But let's really talk about it, you know. We talk about almost true, you know, things that are almost true. And self love is one of those things.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 01:35

And we can see it in the progression of the influencers today on, you know, YouTube. You know, Logan Paul's one of them. I remember when he first got on, very humble guy, very, you know, very outspoken, which is a great great trait for, influencer. But as he progressed, look at what has happened over, you know, the last couple of years, especially within the last 3. And let's not forget, recent accusations with, leveled against mister Beast in many of his productions.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 02:08

So and again, I've seen mister Beast in the past, and I've seen a few things now. I'm not a mister Beast fan. Don't have them, you know, on my followers list, and, you know, I don't, you know, get notifications because I'm not subscribed to him. But there's a lot going on and if you, again, look at the progression, it's like almost they're becoming selfish in how they're doing things, how they're treating people, how they're doing everything else, you know, doing business. And that's a sad thought because if you look at our if you look at, you know, human nature in in general, putting ourselves first is one of the most natural things to do, and we do it.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 02:47

You know, think about it. You know, I need a me time. Or my personal favorite is, you know, all the ladies going, oh, look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 02:57

I've got the selfie. I got the selfie going. Yeah. That type of thing. You know?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:00

Or how about the, IRL, streamers? You know, it's all about, you know, me, me, me, and they're many of them are getting put away in, you know, jails because of the stupid stuff they're doing in other countries. But the problem is is that in this world where people are getting locked up for doing, you know, promotions and in real life, streaming, you know, the world still encourages the selfie obsession. You know? I do what's best for me.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:29

You know? I deserve my me time. We've redone that. We've probably talked about it. I've talked about it myself on numerous occasions.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:35

You know, my needs come first. That's usually how we feel it, and that's how

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:39

the world is giving us its perception. But if you

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:44

look at God's word, especially in Philippians, that's really not the case because it is very very, damaging to a human being when we're just to focus on myself right now all the time. I mean, a 100% of

Pastor Brandon Holm: 03:59

the time. And that's not

Pastor Brandon Holm: 04:00

to say a 100% of the time, you can't be you know, you should be out there, you know, giving yourself up, you know, to to your community and saying, you know, I'm doing all this and not give time for yourself. That's not what I'm saying. But when the focus is more on you, that's a big issue. And like I said, Philippians basically says this is do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility counts others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 04:37

Seriously. But the thing is is that the world culture doesn't preach that, you know. And another aspect of the world culture is well, you can't really truly love others until you love yourself. You know, treat yourself. Go ahead.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 04:54

You deserve it. Your self care is not selfish. You know, you can't pour from an empty cup. You know, these are things you've heard. Don't live for yourself.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 05:02

You know, you don't you don't need to justify your actions to anyone. You know, cut out anybody, doesn't add to your life. You don't owe anyone anything. Don't feel guilty. You come first.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 05:11

We've heard all that. That's what the world is preaching to us constantly. You know, we get it on TV ads, YouTube commercials. Well, let's I, you know, I can go on and on and on. But the problem is is that there's an issue in when we treat ourselves a 100% of the time just for ourselves.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 05:33

And there's a warning in 2nd Timothy that really explains this clearly. And basically says, but understand this, that I in the last days there will come that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. Think about that. Aren't we in times of difficulty as it is? Poor people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to your parent to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 06:14

And we should avoid such people. I know a lot of words there and it's a big word salad, but it really goes into what I said earlier. You know Logan Paul, he was a great guy until he really started getting famous and then all of a sudden if you look at it, he's transitioned from, you know, hey, you know, I'm gonna talk about me a little bit, but let's talk about other people. To now it's he's done crypto and n NFT scandals, you know, crypto zoo, the big, you know, the big scandal right now. And like I said, mister Beast, you know, in the beginning, you know, it was a little about him, but more about helping others or having fun with others.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 06:53

And now let's look at what's going on. It's it's it's amazing how all these allegations are coming, and it's coming from selfishness almost a 100% of the time. You know, when we get and if you notice it's a progression, you know, we let you know, you get narcissistic basically because, you know, you get all self centered and you love yourself, you become obsessed with yourself, and, you know, that's fine to a point. Like I said, don't think that I'm saying that self care and self love is

Pastor Brandon Holm: 07:28

a bad thing. But if you even look at our modern day churches today, if

Pastor Brandon Holm: 07:34

you notice self love, you know, that selfishness that my church is better than your church. My church does all this. What is yours doing? You know, is coming into the fold, and it becomes what is known as self centered. What will I call it?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 07:48

I don't know if it's known out there, but I call it self centered Christianity. Okay. I'm better than you. I'm doing this. I'm it's all about me.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 07:57

And thanks to YouTube, TikTok, and all these other streaming sites, and, so, you know, Twitter as well or x. Excuse me. People are just going online saying, oh, look what I did. I did all this. And if you think about it, you know, some of it is people actually doing it because they wanna promote that type of care out to the world.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 08:18

But most of them, you know, over 50%. If you look, it's just for the me factor. The wow factor. I'm doing it for me because I'm a good person.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 08:27

That's not Christianity in and of itself. Think about it.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 08:31

And I know a lot of people out there are burnt out from that type of Christianity Christianity. So we do know that God created us to serve and we live and and we should live as God exists here on earth right now.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 08:44

You know? And that's kinda hard

Pastor Brandon Holm: 08:47

to do when people are saying, well, you know, what are other people doing? What are you doing, you know, to help out? Don't discount, you know, you know, yourself, but in the long term, you know, look at yourself and say, you know, what am I doing to help others? What am I doing out there in

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:04

the world? You know, and it's far from just giving money. You know, even,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:10

you know, even if you don't, you know, put your tithes and donations to here at the Greater Guild, that's just an aspect. Okay? We take that money and we go out in the community. K? If you you know, that's what I think about tithes and offerings, okay, is really there if you are unable to do take the time to go out there, the church will do it for you.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:29

Now I

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:30

know that sounds like, you know, you know, conscription,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:34

you know, like they did in the in the civil war, but there's other things you can do outside that. So that's, you know, that's the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. Yes. You can donate to church and we can do that, you know, do it for you, but what are you doing in the little things too? You know, at work, you know, when you're out, you know, for doing you know, if you're a parent, you're doing school stuff with your kids and stuff like that.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 09:59

And what are the little things you're doing to help the community that you can do right then and there and and not and, you know, the church can do other things that get you beyond that. So that's why I say, you know, tithes and offerings, while not required, we do love them because we can actually go out there for you and say, hey, you know, give a family, you know, the necessities they need that most things they don't get from a food box including games because the big core of our thing is while games are great, we can play them online and do that, but I have found games like board games and stuff like that, card games for a family. It brings everybody together, and that's where we're at. Right now is we're gonna start ramping up our our, game drive, for Christmas. So, that's all that.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 10:49

So, we're looking, you know, like, you know, sorry for the tangent but if you live as god exists here on earth, that's the whole thing. It it's not just you you don't

Pastor Brandon Holm: 10:56

have to think of big things. Even the little things count. So let

Pastor Brandon Holm: 11:01

me just blow your mind here for a minute. I don't think it's for any of you. It's gonna be a mind blowing, you know, observation, but we're also obsessed with self care to prioritize ourselves. You know, we guard our me time. We protect my our mental health.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 11:16

Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing to do. I see a mental health care professional myself so don't think I'm being a hypocrite here. I do see one. But do what's best for me is usually what you get or yet, you know and and we do this.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 11:31

We we do all these things. We do protect our meantime. We do protect our mental health. We do protect it and prioritize ourselves. But when we do, have you noticed funny enough even with COVID and all that other stuff, we're more anxious, we're more stressed, and we're more depressed.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 11:49

So here's here's something I really wanna it really blow your mind on is a thought and it's maybe our problem isn't that we don't love ourselves enough. Maybe it's that we love ourselves too much. I know. Well,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 12:04

but think about it. Now if you really think think that

Pastor Brandon Holm: 12:09

the most selfish people, they have a lot of love to give and yet they're not giving it. You know, I have a lot of love to give. I give to my kids. I give to my wife. I give

Pastor Brandon Holm: 12:18

to my community. But I

Pastor Brandon Holm: 12:20

also love myself just as much as I I I I can and that's what's leading me to, you know, get physically fit, lose the weight, you know, eat better, get healthier. So it it really is one of those things that are and get my mental health in order, but beyond that, once my those things are taken care of, once I know I'm taking care of it, I realized that I do have a lot more love to give beyond my family, beyond the church, beyond myself. So if you look at the words of Jesus, he was asked what is the greatest commandment or commandments on on the planet? And here he goes, and he basically says, and you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:11

There's no other commandment greater than these.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:15

And seriously, we've talked about the 10 commandments in the past, but a

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:19

lot of people have a problem with, you know, love god with all your heart, you know, your soul and your mind and your strength. You know, it's like, do we have to put our mind on god, you know, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Well, yeah. You can actually put that on autopilot. Funny enough.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:34

And sometimes, just reading the Bible, you know, 10 minutes in the Bible reading, you know, getting a prayer in, you know, and you go, hey, god, I just need you and you go out there and say, you know, god, what's going on? I I feel a little off, you know, that's great and god wants that. So I love god with

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:53

all my heart. I love Jesus with all my heart. That's

Pastor Brandon Holm: 13:56

a given and it's not just platitudes and it's not just do it, you know, do things. You can't really show it because that's a different type of of of ideology. But for me and my heart and my soul, I am complete when it comes to my love for for all things because god has given me a little bit greater love not just for myself, but for other people and given me great insight on how to be, in the world. Now as he said as Jesus said also is the second is love your neighbor. You know?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 14:33

Well, how did he say that? Describe that, you know, as yourself. Okay. That's great, but here's the weird problem that has been creeping into modern Christian Christianity for years now is it concludes, you know, it concludes that Jesus is commanding you to love yourself.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 14:51

Well, don't you already do

Pastor Brandon Holm: 14:52

that when you wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror, and you go, my body doesn't look too great, or I think I need to lose the £2. You actually love yourself because you're actually looking at now to love yourself even more, go out and exercise, find a diet that works, and start losing the pounds like

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:08

I have been. Okay? But it's not a command to love yourself. You know? And you can't love others until you love yourself.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:18

You know? But here's the thing. Jesus didn't tell you to love yourself. Think about that. He didn't say that.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:26

He didn't say focus on

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:27

yourself. Okay? And the reason why a

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:31

lot of people have this problem is that loving yourself is not a command, it's an assumption. And the best thing I like to say about the word assume is it makes an ass out of you and me. Look it up. Think about it. But as I said, we already love ourselves, and it's a lot.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:50

I mean, we get up in the morning. We have to pound pavement to work, get our money, get our food, get our clothing,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:55

the whole 9 yards. And yet

Pastor Brandon Holm: 15:57

we continue doing that, we look in the mirror and say, oh, you know, I could do better, and we find ways to better ourselves. K? That's our that's how much we love ourselves. Okay. And Jesus doesn't have to tell me that love myself.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 16:11

It we do it naturally. Now here's a caveat to the whole thing. You know, understand we do not love ourselves in the way we wish to, but with mental health and other factors being worked on, we have enough love to spread to others.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 16:24

I know that sounds like a, you know, very dichotomy dichotomy, you know, type of, thought process, but again, like I said, we

Pastor Brandon Holm: 16:36

do not love ourselves in the way we wish to. Okay? That's a

Pastor Brandon Holm: 16:39

whole different meaning. We love ourselves when our self time is filled up, when we've we've just had a

Pastor Brandon Holm: 16:47

break, we've, you know, being able to relax, get a few time in, and you'll notice that now it's like, what else can I do? So when Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself, it's not love yourself and prioritize yourself. You're assuming that because you already do. You know, are there things that I don't like about myself? Oh, heck yeah.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 17:08

Do you agree with that? That? I mean, there's a lot of things that you probably don't like about yourself, but that's not self love here. What we do not like about ourselves, our physical, our mental, and all that, that isn't due to a lack of self love. That's the result of self obsession on the level of all the influencers and their selfies.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 17:31

So if you wanna be good at life, you know, especially as a geek or, you know, like anybody else, you know, and you still wanna be a disciple of Jesus. Well think about it. Matthew tells us exactly how to do that and it's really simple. It goes into then Jesus told his disciple disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. It doesn't say to be liked.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 18:02

It doesn't say to try to be nice. It doesn't say just go to church, or watch your favorite YouTube preacher or just go to the gym. That's not what's being said here. When Jesus said now to give you a little backstory here, when Jesus said deny yourself and take up the

Pastor Brandon Holm: 18:19

cross, if you really think about the historical context and

Pastor Brandon Holm: 18:23

the time that Jesus was teaching this, the disciples must have been clutching pearls going, is he really serious about saying this? You know, pick up the cross. That's a shocking issue because back in the day, you know, they were, you know, the disciples themselves were very aware of a bloody uprising that happening. You can read about it in acts 5 verse 37. There's an allusion to it, but less than 30 years earlier from when Jesus was speaking, the Jews have revolt Jews have revolted against the Roman government over taxation.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 18:58

And I'm not just talking about small thing. I'm talking Jews were just slaughtered, And we're talk and and not just Jews, but the rebels themselves were pretty much killed. And anybody who survived as a rebel, well, once they were captured, what was the first thing they did? The Romans crucified them, and they would and if you've seen a lot of the, like the greatest story ever told or other, Easter, movies that come out during that time, you'll notice that Jesus and a lot of the other people who are going to be crucified have to carry the cross for themselves. Okay?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 19:36

That was common, and you were dragged to the streets, and people would would, you know, throw rubbish at you and stuff like that, you know, and then what you do is you put down your cross. You would have to lay the on your cross while you were having the nails hammered into you, and then they'd raise you. Again, if you wanna know the whole thing, look at the Easter story movies that come out and that gives you a good reference. But what's not told in those movies and what actually did happen is that in order for the Romans to subdue that type of mental rebel mentality, you know, they didn't take down the bodies at all. The Romans left the bodies up there.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 20:21

In fact, people, you know, were told don't take the bodies down or you will be crucified. You know, it's a great deterrent, and what we know especially from historians is that they, you know, Romans would even leave the skeletons up there, hang them

Pastor Brandon Holm: 20:36

for years. So Jesus is

Pastor Brandon Holm: 20:40

saying this, and these guys are like, oh my gosh. I have to take up the cross. That's that's crazy talk. Oh my gosh. Am I gonna be you know, that would be running through my head, but what he's saying is to deny yourself, and that's the focus of it.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 20:55

Deny yourself. Okay. Deny your obsession with yourself. K? So I got a couple of questions before we wrap it up here.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 21:03

First question is, in what area of your life are you loving yourself more than loving God and loving others? I have this problem. It's mainly my weight and my look. But once I get that down, I've completed that task as a check mark and now I can put my entire diet and exercise on autopilot, and I can actually take what that love and obsession and put it into the love and obsession for other people out there.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 21:32

And the second one is, what is God calling you to do about it? Again, you know, and also just to

Pastor Brandon Holm: 21:40

make sure that I'm not going out, you know, and taking selfies of myself. You know, people say, you know, you really look good. You should take a picture. I was like, no. That's not really what I do and it's not how I really want to do business for myself because it's not about me.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 21:57

You know, I can post a picture and say, hey, this is this or talk to you right now and say, hey, look. I'm I'm I'm thinning out, and that's great, but that's where I wanna keep it. Because then it becomes, what can I do? Usually, I get and funny enough, I get that question every so often, from people who've known me for years, and it's like, what are you doing? You know?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 22:19

And they're overweight as well. I tell them well this is what I'm doing. Here's how I'm doing it and it may not work for you but you know try these things. And you know and I love seeing that some of them today you know have taken some of my advice and are doing the things that I've that I'm doing and they're losing weight, and it's great to see that, and that's what I love seeing is I don't care how much weight I lose or anything. I I just like to be fit thin, but when some people that I've known for years come to me and say, hey, that's all great.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 22:48

You know, how do I do it? And they do it and they're losing weight. I love seeing that because that's the love that we're talking about here and and and that's a small minute way. We're not talking about big things like doing charities and or going to charity events or or donating food or or working out like the food bank or stuff like that. It's not what we're talking about.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 23:10

So when you think about those two questions, I want you to understand that Jesus didn't call us to promote ourselves but to humble ourselves. K? You know, he didn't call us to pamper ourselves. He but really to deny ourselves. And and that's not denying food, water, you know, the basic necessities.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 23:28

That's kinda, you know, a given aspect but, you know, and not deny yourself, you know, some of your me time that you need because everybody has to de stress. But to deny yourselves like the Porsche. Okay? You can get around in a good in in a decent car. Now don't buy a car just for looks.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 23:49

You know, buy buy it for practicality. Okay? That's how you deny yourself. That's just the simplest example I can give. You know, next is Jesus didn't call call us to serve ourselves but to serve others, and we've talked about that many times in the past.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 24:05

Jesus didn't call us to put ourselves first but to put ourselves last. Basically take care of other needs before we take care of our own is not what we're saying here. It's take care of you know, once your needs are taken care of, you're you're done and if you look at, Maslow's,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 24:25

I just talked about this the other day too. Maslow's, pyramid of,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 24:35

you know, Maslow's pyramid, you know, basic needs are are at the bottom in there, the biggest one. Once that's taken care of, no, we now need to put ourselves last because now we have a, you know, we can take care of other people. Okay? So, that's I'm not taking away the the need of food, shelter, clothes, that stuff. You know, those are basic needs.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 24:55

It's more of once that's fulfilled, get to the next level where you can serve other people. Okay? And finally, Jesus didn't call call on us to seek out our pleasure but to pursue god's purpose. That's one that I'm still determining to this day. So don't think I know what God's purpose is.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 25:13

Okay? It's individual to you and to me. But think on, you know, what's what what drives you to help people? What will drive you to help more people? What would drive you just to go to the next step?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 25:28

So, what this doesn't mean, like I said, is it doesn't mean don't take care of yourself. Take time for yourself. Jesus did it too. I mean if you read, you know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each one states that every so often Jesus would just walk away from the disciples and have alone time with him and God and commune. Okay?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 25:47

He just take care, you know, take care of himself in those aspects And like I said, even if it's just to take care of your me time, get some prayer in, read part of your you know, some of your Bible. Those are great things because it can actually bring peace and restore peace to you, and that's how it works for me. May not work for you a 100 times but other things you can do is, you know, play video games. I don't I'm not a I'm not against that. I do it too.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 26:14

Or read a manga. I do that too. I have couple of apps on my phone where I can read actually good man manga, and I'm not gonna share those with you. You can find those yourself because the reason is because different apps have different manga, and it's hard to tell which ones are good and which ones are bad. So I know you may find one works well and has your favorite manga in there and it works with, you know, and that works with you.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 26:39

And also probably you can find the same manga that has your favorite anime. So watch anime as well. I'm not gonna judge. Like I said, that's God's decision, not mine, but whatever gets you comfortable and gets you relaxed. K?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 26:52

So something I want you to think about

Pastor Brandon Holm: 26:55

is when you do your self care portion of yourself, what

Pastor Brandon Holm: 27:02

is the motive behind it? If the self care is really, you know, once you feel relaxed and and ready to go and tackle on the next stuff, you know, is is you continuing this self care only for yourself? Because that's really being selfish. It really is. And, you know, I'm I will tell you right here.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 27:21

I'm I have that problem too every so often. Like I said at the beginning, it's basic human nature. K. But if the if the motives is to make sure you are mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually healthy and that so in doing so and taking care of yourself in those

Pastor Brandon Holm: 27:41

four aspects, once you are done is

Pastor Brandon Holm: 27:44

the self care next self care to love God and to love others, then that self care where you're praying for other people when you're just, you know, having a moment saying, you know, I hope so and so is okay. Now, that isn't selfish. That is not selfish. And that's really, you know, a lot of people think, oh, number 1 is where you're saying, oh, I hope everybody's okay and you're alone and you're relaxed. No.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 28:10

No. No. No. No. Once you secure your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual

Pastor Brandon Holm: 28:16

well-being, so that

Pastor Brandon Holm: 28:18

you can go to the next step and say, okay. I am done with that part. Ready to go for the next part where I can love others and love God. Then definitely the self care is not selfish. And when you realize you can't love yourself into happiness, you can't self care away into meaningful relationships, That's when you'll find the inner peace because self care isn't about finding a way for somebody to make you happy or to make yourself happy.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 28:46

It's to get your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self healthy. It's not gonna bring in the meaningful relationships because first of all it's by yourself. How can you do that? But when you look at it from a personal aspect, once you have all the all 3 done and you're loving god and loving others, you go out, you'll probably find meaningful relationships with others. You know, you'll find lasting happiness out there, but that's the next step.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 29:16

You can't love yourself into those things. No. Self love never fill you know, self self love will never fill you up. That's God's love that's filling you up when you

Pastor Brandon Holm: 29:29

get those times. So

Pastor Brandon Holm: 29:33

once you deny yourself, you know, basically those, you know, things out in the world that say, hey you need to get a new car. Hey you need all this. You know, you need the best thing on the plane. You need the latest iPhone, the latest this, the latest that. Once you get rid of all that, life becomes a lot bit easier and a lot more tolerable.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 29:50

Believe me. I still suffer from, you know, wanting the latest and greatest but I go, you know what? I don't need it right now. I need to focus on, you know, other things. I need to focus on people.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 30:01

I need to focus on, my ministry. I need to focus on, you know, all of you out there who watch and love us. So final takeaway of this is you need to understand that God is worthy in my life. Now his love is what matters and besides say asking yourself what is love? Baby don't hurt me.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 30:22

You know, going into that realm. But that's a question also in this aspect is what is love?

Pastor Brandon Holm: 30:31

And a lot of people think it's,

Pastor Brandon Holm: 30:32

you know, the physical aspect. No. God's love is a whole different level. You'll feel God's love once you know it. Because in God's love, whether you're a believer or not, God's love is very patient.

Pastor Brandon Holm: 30:45

And God's love never fails anyone. It never fails for me, and it definitely won't fail for you. So that's it for today. I thank you for joining us, and we will see you next week.

Greater Guild Announcer: 30:59

Wow. That was powerful. Pastor Brandon never fails to deliver a sermon that's both thought provoking and nerd tastic. We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and donate if you want to keep the sermons and geeky discussions coming.

Greater Guild Announcer: 31:14

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