LESSON
3
Character vs. Personality
The subject we
are about to embark on is by far the most important aspect of your Christian
experience. Discipleship will have no
real effect on your life if you are not primarily interested in the change of
your character.
You can be the
most talented person alive but your character is the only thing that really
matters.
Your flesh
will do everything it can to cause you to bypass the development of Christ-like
character in your life. The flesh likes
the gifts. It likes to feel the power of
the Holy Spirit. It likes being slain in
the spirit. They are enjoyable
experiences with God. The flesh can
enjoy them. It cannot however, enjoy
what it takes to get character, which is death.
It does not like to die.
We have to die
to ourselves so that Christ may live.
There is no increase of the character and nature of Christ in our lives
until we first decrease. We must decrease
so that Christ may increase. This is the
process of dying.
Character is
the central issue of what Jesus is after.
It is the ruling point upon which Jesus said we are to judge whether a
person is truly of Him or not.
John
John
15:7-8 If ye abide in Me, and My
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
you. Herein is my Father glorified, that
ye bear much fruit: so shall
ye be my disciples.
Jesus says if
you have love, they will know you are His disciples. Then He says that if you bear fruit you will
be His disciples. He ties them together.
Most people
think the FRUIT that Jesus was talking about is the works
that they do.
This is not
true. The fruit He is speaking of, is the fruit of the Spirit.
Gal.
5:22,23 But the fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance:...
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We must
remember that in the scriptures there is consistency. There is a stream that things flow in. When God uses a symbol in the Bible, it sets
a president for how that symbol is used in other parts of the Bible.
The fruit is
the character of Jesus Himself. Jesus
was saying that the Father is glorified when you bear the character of Christ
in your own life and then reproduce it in the lives of others.
CHARACTER is who you are in private. It is the underlying
motive for everything you do.
PERSONALITY is who you are in public. It's who you want men to see you as.
The further character and personality are
apart, the greater
the deception in one’s life.
Most of us do not let people see who we really are. The way we act in public is our
personality. Character is who we are on
the inside. It’s what really drives us
to act the way we do.
We act upon
what is deep within our hearts.
Men commit to personality and
outward appearances. God commits to character and the heart
of a man.
I Sam.
16:6-7 And it came to
pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab,
and said, Surely the LORD'S anointed [is] before Him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on
his countenance or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him:
for [the Lord seeth] not as man seeth; for man looketh
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on
the heart.
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People are easily
impressed by a person with talent or personality, but God is looking at what is
really on the inside of a person.
God wants to develop a Christlike character
in you.
In our look at
character verses personality, we will be looking at the lives of King Saul and
King David. They represent the classic
example of the difference between the two and the consequences of failed
character.
God sent
Samuel to tell King Saul that He had rejected him. Note what God was looking for in a king.
I Sam.
God was
looking for someone who would think like Him.
Psa. 24:4-5 He that hath clean hands, and
a pure heart; who
hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He
shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his
salvation
The man who has
a pure heart and is submitted to the lordship of Christ shall receive blessings
from God.
Matt. 5:8 Blessed [are]
the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
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God is seeking
those who will allow Him to develop Jesus' character in them. His purpose for sending Jesus was not just to
forgive you of your sins, but to reproduce Christ in you.
II Cor. 3:18 But we all, with open face
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord.
We are being
changed into His very image as we continue to behold Him, stay before Him and
pursue Him. We are being changed from
one degree of glory to another. This is
the purpose of God, to change us into the image of Christ.
Col. 1:27 To whom
God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among
the Gentiles; which is Christ in you,
the hope of GLORY.
Rom.
The purpose of
God is to develop Christ in you. God is not looking at talent, aptitude, personality, or stature. God always judges based upon the heart. He wants someone who will seek after His
heart.
God's intention is to so change us that we behave just like Jesus.
KING SAUL
The old saying
goes, ‘Total power corrupts totally.’
This is only
true of the nature of man without the character of Christ. God desires for you to walk in His power, but
His power and authority in the life of a natural man will destroy that man. Only the character of Christ can handle the
power of God.
Saul and David
are classic examples.
I Sam. 8:7-20 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in
all that they say unto thee: for they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over
them. According to all the works which they have done since the day
that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have
forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore
hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them,
and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign
over them. And Samuel told all the words
of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that
shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint [them] for himself,
for his chariots, and [to be] his horsemen; and [some] shall run before his
chariots. And he will appoint him
captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and [will set them] to ear his ground, and
to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his
chariots. And he will take your
daughters [to be] confectionaries, and [to be] cooks, and [to be] bakers. And he
will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards,
[even] the best [of them], and give [them] to his servants. And he will take
the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to
his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and
your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put [them] to his
work. He will take the tenth of your
sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day
because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear
you in that day. Nevertheless the
people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will
have a king over us; That we also may be
like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and
fight our battles.
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The children
of
The man they
chose outwardly fitted what they believed a mighty king should look like. They didn’t even care when God warned them of
all the horrible things their new king would do.
It is a scary
thing to ask God for something, because He just might give it to you. We must be careful what we ask God for.
It is a grave
mistake to think that God will not give you what you ask for, just because He
doesn’t want you to have it.
I Sam.
10:22-24 Therefore they inquired of
the LORD further, if the man should yet come thither. And the LORD answered,
Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.
And they ran and fetched him thence: and when he stood among the people,
he was higher than any of the people
from his shoulders and upward.
And Samuel said to all the people, See
ye him whom the LORD hath chosen, that [there is] none like him among all the
people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king.
God gave the
Israelites the king they asked for. Saul
became king. Saul had impressive
physical stature, but he lacked character.
This is where
the problem began with Saul. As we peek
at Saul’s life, notice his lack of character.
I Sam. 13:8-13 And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel [had
appointed]: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the
people were
scattered from him. And Saul said,
Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the
burnt offering. And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of
offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet
him, that he might salute him. And Samuel said, What,
hast thou done? And Saul said,
Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and [that] thou camest not within the days appointed, and [that] the
Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash;
Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the LORD: I
forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done
foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he
commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon
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Saul was
scared of losing the people. He had no
right to make the sacrifice. It went
against the commands God had laid down for the manner in which a sacrifice was
to be made.
Saul was
easily swayed from the commands of God by the pressures of the people.
One of the
attributes of a Christlike character is unwavering
conviction.
This is where
so many of us fall short. We get into
situations where we know what the command of God is and yet we begin to be
pressured by people to disobey the clear command of God. If you are not a person of character and
conviction to stand firm on what you know is right, you will be swayed by the
pressures of people.
Most people
are people of preference, not conviction.
When the pressure hits, they are more concerned about what people will
think than about what God says and thinks.
Saul was this
way. Repeatedly in his life he caved in
to the pressures of the people.
Saul was a man of preference.
David was a man of conviction.
PREFERENCE IS SWAYED BY PRESSURE.
CONVICTION IS STRENGTHENED BY PRESSURE.
Lets look at one of the most
pivotal points in Saul’s life that brought the final judgment of God upon him,
setting the course of his life and the action that opened up the door for
David.
I Sam. 15:2-3,
9 Thus saith the LORD of
hosts, I remember [that] which Amalek did to
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Instead of
obeying God’s command to destroy and kill everything, Saul spared the king and
kept the best of the spoils. Saul was so
deceived, he thought he had obeyed God even though he kept the best of the
spoil and spared the king.
I Sam.
15:19-20 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the
spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea,
I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent
me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But
the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been
utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.
The first
thing a person who lacks character will do is blame their mistakes on somebody
else. They fail to take responsibility
for their own mistakes. This is what
Saul was trying to do. He blamed the
people when he alone was to blame.
Many of us try
to make up for what we lack in obedience, with sacrifice.
Saul continually
showed that he was more concerned about what the people wanted than what God
wanted.
I Sam.
If you are the
kind of person who is bound by what people say about you, you are a Saul kind
of person. You have the heart of
Saul. As long as you are more concerned
about what other people say about you, it will cause you to disobey the Word of
God
Saul was
rejected by God. Saul lost his kingdom
because he didn't have the character to handle the power and authority. Saul went from a nobody
to a king in a very short period of time.
In Review:
1. What is character? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. What is personality?
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3. What is the difference between what God and
man commit to?
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4. How far apart is
your character from your personality? Is
it close to even?
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5. What is the only attribute that can handle
the power of God?
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6. Why did God choose Saul as king over
7. What was Saul swayed (or influenced) by? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8. What is the Christlike
character influenced by?
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