Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture

Nurture vs. Nature Wounds

Today we’re going to be talking about a final wound. Up until this point, we’ve been talking mostly about wounds that have been inflicted upon us through our environment, the Nurture Wounds. Maybe you grew up in a difficult environment. You maybe grew up in very unique circumstances that you feel shaped or even warped, for a period of time. Maybe it was the lack of friends or the lack of family. Maybe you identified real strongly with the fact that dad wasn’t there for you, and because he wasn’t, it left this huge open void in your soul. Or maybe it was the fact that mom moved in and overly bonded with you. Maybe it was the fact that you’ve never had people come along side of you who could point the way.

So life has been just one series of disappointing guesses after another, and some of those guesses have hit some very serious dead-ends.

Yesterday, when we talked about having a mentor, maybe there was something inside of you that said, ‘Man! I would’ve given anything in my life to have someone older than me, who admired me, come along side of me and point the way.’

Maybe, as you thought about your life you said, ‘you know, those have been the kinds of wounds that have altered my social behavior, the same way a physical wound alters physical behavior.’ Those are ‘Nurture Wounds.’

But the wound we’re going to talk about today is a wound that goes beyond nurturing. It’s a profound wound that doesn’t have anything to do with environment at all. It’s the wound that’s stamped on our nature from birth, and Each of us that you has this wound.

We said at the beginning that every man carries a baggage. I told you that how a man unpacks that baggage will determine the character and the quality of his life later on? Unpacking our baggage is a necessary first step in the quest for authentic manhood. We have been unpacking that baggage but, maybe along the way as we did that, you’ve been making your checklist and you’ve said, ‘Listen, I had a good dad growing up. My mom wasn’t overly involved in my life at all. I had friends in my life, some really good friends – and we’re still friends. On top of that, I’ve even had a couple of mentors who have helped me along the way’, so as we’ve been going through those wounds, you’ve been checking them off and said, ‘hey! My life has been pretty good. If some of these guys have been hurt like that – I haven’t.’

So along the way, you’ve maybe excused yourself from all of that and said, ‘I’ve been a guy who’s had a rich background.’ Let’s just say you’re one of those few good men, all right? You don’t have a baggage. All you’ve got is a clean slate no baggage. But if you’re one of those quality guys who had a rich background, I want you to know you still carry this wound.

Every man carries it. It’s the black heart and it represents a defective nature we’re all born with that can still corrupt our lives, no matter how good or how healthy our background. We’ve had it all: a good dad, a good mom, good friends, good mentors, but we still have a defective heart, a defective nature that Paul expressed this way in Romans 7:

“For that which I am doing, I do not understand. For I am practicing what wouldn’t; I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I’m doing the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me – that is, in my flesh, for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me from the body of this death?” Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 24

Comrades, have you had that experience? The good that you know you can’t do, the wishing is present in you, but the doing of the good is not! And the very thing that you don’t want to do, you end up doing, and you ask yourself ‘why?’ Deep within there’s a sinister force that we need to talk about, and every man must come to terms with that force if he’s going to be an authentic man in life.

We haven’t looked deeply into our baggage and understood the most profound wound of all, that’s not of nurture – but is in our very nature. Today, we want answers about why we aren’t winning. Most of the answers being offered today on why we’re losing out in life, are ‘half-truths.’ What I mean by ‘half-truths’ are answers offered to us that have some validity to them, but they don’t go all the way at explaining why we are the way we are.

Half Truths

1. Some say we’re losing out because of poor self-esteem. The self-esteem credo goes like this: “there are not bad people; only people who think badly about themselves. Winners feel good about themselves.” And so in schools, you have school children chanting the mantra: ‘I am somebody. I am somebody’, to help them feel good about themselves - and to feel good about themselves regardless of their circumstances. As a result, positive self-esteem is way up in today.

The fact we’re feeling better; are we living better? Has it helped separation/divorce? Or drug addiction? Or the crime problem? Or child abuse? Or spousal abuse, or racism/tribalism – just to name a few?

Here’s the point: Feeling good about yourself is no guarantee that you’re going to do good or that you’re going to be good.

2. Secondly, some say we’re losing out because others are to blame. One of the big problems for men is We like to whine, we like to blame; we like to say its other peoples’ faults. Blame is commonplace everywhere.

3. Third, we’re offered the half-truth that we’re losing because of a lack of education. I’m a strong proponent of education, but somewhere in our past we began to assume that if we’re educated enough, we’ll act responsibly

Are we educated about the value of exercise? Do we do it? Most people don’t do it. High-risk groups are told all the time that their life is on the line with unprotected sex; with smoking; with drug abuse. Does that stop students from doing it? No. Something deeper in us is the problem.

Child experts tell us the healthiest and best environment for a child growing up is to have a parent in the home, nurturing that child, especially in the earliest years of life – The reason for that is because most of a child’s emotional, social and intellectual health is set in the first 4 years of life and every child expert tells us it’s absolutely essential that that child in the first 4 years of life get maximum parental attention. And yet, with all of that coming out, more and more moms and dads are abandoning the home for the workplace, so all that education means nothing. And it doesn’t solve the problem about why we’re losing out on life. Could it be that there’s a deeper problem we’re uncomfortable talking about?

4. Then some say today, we’re losing out because we are defective. That’s become a great, new revelation. Scientists tell us that we were born this way. The reason we act out the way we do is because of genetic issues. It gives us a reason to exonerate ourselves and say ‘it’s not my fault – I was born this way.’ Or when we are offered help we say, ‘the reason I can’t stop is because I was born this way.’

Half-truths allow us to escape the deeper truths about ourselves. The deeper truths about ourselves are that, we have a spiritual problem. That’s something people don’t like to talk about. For some reason, they don’t like to go really deep and discover that deep within themselves there really is a heart wound. there is disturbing reluctance in our time to talk seriously about spiritual matters. There is an aversion to spiritual language in our world today.

The Hidden Truth Behind All of Life’s Troubles

A. We are all cursed with a condition known as the Depravity Wound.

Let me introduce you to the background of this particular wound. It is fundamental to everything in life – social, moral, practical, and spiritual, this wound alone provides the context for everything in our life. In the Bible it’s the principle that makes everything else in the Bible make sense. It’s the reason why we are the way we are much of the time. It is the hidden truth behind all of life’s trouble. So what is it?

It is that cursed condition known as the ‘depravity wound.’. It’s something rarely talked about. Yet, I find that surprising because it’s the backdrop from which, and to which, everything else in the Bible speaks.

Here’s what the Scripture says about our heart. Look at what it says in Jeremiah 17:19. It says this:

“The heart (now he’s speaking to each one of us; you could put in ‘my heart’) is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?”

Ecclesiastes 9:3b says it this way. This is the way King Solomon said it. He said, furthermore, as he had looked at the world, looked at life, and examined men, he said:

“The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives.”

There’s a sickness deep within and it wasn’t given by mom or dad, or friends or the lack of friends, or in my environment, or circumstances. I was born with this sickness, a defective heart.

B. This wound defined: We are all fallen and defective creatures, at odds by nature with our Creator and each other.

The Bible says that when mankind fell because of Adam, the whole human race was cursed by God. Man has fallen away from God and as a result his whole nature has become perverted. Man’s whole bias is away from God by nature. His god is himself. His own abilities and powers; his own desires are all for himself. He objects to the demands that God makes on him. Furthermore, man likes and covets the things which God prohibits and dislikes the things and the kind of life God calls him to. This explains the moral muddle and ugliness that characterizes our life.

In other words, when I go through the day and interact with the situations that confront me, deep within myself is something that’s twisting everything and oftentimes bringing me into situations that fail for me. And I want to blame, I want to point in some direction and say ‘this is the problem’, but where the fingers need to be pointed is back to me – and to my very nature.

Some people dismiss the wound of depravity and assume that depravity means you’re going to be as bad as you can possibly be. Since these people observe in themselves and in other people that they’re not bad - that there’s some goodness in them; that they like to help people from time to time – then this principle must be in error.

comrades, the doctrine of depravity never means that people will be as bad as they can possibly be. It just means that they are as bad off as they can possibly be because they are born without GOD, and they are born with a nature that is bent on self – not selflessness. And they have an inclination and bent towards evil – not towards goodness. When opportunities present themselves to indulge that nature, they are powerless oftentimes to choose anything but that. That’s what depravity means.

C. Understood, depravity means

1. It means that I’m separated from God and under His judgment. In the scripture of Ephesians 4:18 it says that I was born excluded from the life of God. We’re not born into the kingdom of God, we’re born excluded from the life of God. Depravity means that I’m under – in a sense – a death sentence. I was born without God at the start of this life and, unless in some way I find God in this life, I will die without God.

2. Secondly, it means that I’ve inherited a corrupt nature that no human agency can cure. A good dad can’t cure it; a good mom can’t cure it; a good job can’t cure it. King David said it this way in Psalm 51:5; “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” In other words – this is a hard thing to say - in other words, I was born to lose. That’s how I was born – to lose – not to win.

It means that our corrupt nature was inherited from our distant parents and was given to us at birth. It can’t be eradicated by education, or better environment, or better self- understanding, or counseling, or money or even willpower! It defies all these things, and that’s why we find ourselves saying, just like the apostle Paul said 2,000 years ago, ‘the very things I hate, I do. Even while the wishing for the good is in me, the doing of the good is not.’

What is that? The Bible says it’s the depraved heart you were born with. It defies everything. Jesus came into the world and He looked at mankind and He said these words, “that’s why you must be born again.”

3. Thirdly, my corrupt nature left unaddressed inevitably corrupts my life with sin. We get introduced to the word ‘sin’. Sin being those everyday acts of selfishness, greed, immorality, pride, anger, hatred, impurity, and so on that come into my life. They spoil my life, ruin my dreams, and hurt the people I love through me, and leave me with an empty life, full of guilt. It’s the hidden reality behind every life cut off from God.

We sin – because we have this sinful nature that comes from this wounded heart, and we hurt ourselves. We do things we never intended and we wonder why we got there, and why we’ve hurt others in the process. All this goes back to the deepest wound of all - not of nurture – it’s our nature.

Two Implications of This Fundamental Flaw

1. It requires a spiritual solution that only God can give. If it is, spiritual, it can only be handled spiritually. Only God can change this corrupt nature. Only He can bend what has been bent towards the wrong, back towards the right. I believe, only God can give the power necessary to move you away from evil. Only God can give you the power to do the things that you wish to do.

2. Admitting my depravity wound is the essential first step to finding a real, authentic relationship with God – not just finding more religion. God save us from that. What I’m giving you is the context for all spiritual life, Without it, we just go to church; we participate in spiritual exercises, thinking somehow it’s just going to give us a lift. But if you understand what I’m saying today, you’re not looking for a lift. You’re looking for deliverance - what the Bible calls salvation from self - because this wound is so profound.

It’s only when we recognize that we have that true condition that God even makes sense at all. comrades, did you know when Jesus Christ came to earth – when He preached His very first message; His very first sermon in front of people -- is very first words were these. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3

Let’s put it this way: ‘happy are those who are poor in their heart’. What’s He talking about there? He’s saying the people who will really make it in life – the people who will become authentic in life; the people who will finally understand what it means to win - are those who first recognize that within each of us there’s poverty. Within each of us there’s woundedness.

Within each of us there’s depravity. Once people recognize this, then they have a path to deal with it – but they’ve got to first recognize it first.

Did you know God’s automatic warning system is the Bible? And it’s been faithfully warning every man since the beginning of time that our natural instinct is selfish and sinful. That our nature is contemptible, depraved, and wounded from birth.