Getting Over Yourself with Dean Inserra
Getting Over Yourself is a call for Christians to reject the hollow messages of personal prosperity and to return to the humble truths of the gospel. You’ll learn how to identify this insidious, popular theology in culture and churches and examine its devastating effects. And, perhaps most importantly, you’ll learn how to combat it with gospel truth that leads to the abundant life Jesus actually desires for His people. Discover the beauty in losing yourself — and ultimately in gaining him.
My guest, Dean Inserra, is founding pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. Dean is married to Krissie, and they have two sons and a daughter. Dean likes baseball, wrestling, and the Miami Hurricanes.
Key Ideas
- Key influencers are promoting a false version of the Christian faith. Because it’s new, we haven’t seen all the consequences yet.
- The new prosperity gospel is savvy and attractive. It tells us that God wants to unlock our potential and to help our dreams come true. It focuses on personal branding. It doesn’t want you to live an ordinary, simple life.
- The new prosperity gospel only makes sense in an affluent Western culture.
- The new prosperity gospel sounds just Christian enough to be okay, but it emphasizes brokenness instead of sin, a comeback instead of repentance. It focuses on living a good life on the world’s terms rather than God’s terms. Churches built on the new prosperity gospel aim to give worshipers a good experience.
- The new prosperity gospel preachers believe in orthodox Christianity, but emphasize “theology light” and the good life. They minimize biblical theology and misuse Scripture.
- We must examine both our message and motives to guard against buying into the new prosperity gospel.
- Preachers can be influenced toward the new prosperity gospel by the people they follow.
- The new prosperity gospel does not prepare us to live an ordinary life away from all the trappings of success.
- Churches can help people who’ve been discipled by the new prosperity gospel to see the beauty of the real gospel.
Quotes
“This new prosperity gospel is really cool. It’s really hip, it’s not cheesy at all. It’s trendy, it looks really great.”
“I worry, not only are we following a version of God that we’ve made up and we’ve constructed, but also we’re setting up a generation for major disappointment with God when all their dreams don’t really come true.”
“Any Christian I know would be okay with saying that Jesus has to increase … We just want to do it with him. Just take me with you.”
“The greatest blessing of God is God himself.”
“Don’t equate having God’s blessings with having God.”
Episode Links
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Transcript
Download a PDF transcript of this episode.
