The God Of Me Series

A. One cold evening during the holiday season, a little boy was standing out in front of a store begging.

1. The little child had no shoes on and his clothes were mere rags.

2. A woman passing by saw the little boy and could read the longing in his dark eyes.

3. She took the child by the hand and led him into the store. There she bought him new shoes and a complete suit of warm clothing.

4. They came back outside into the street and the woman said to the child, “Now you can go home and have a very happy holiday.”

5. The little boy looked up at her and asked, “Are you God, Ma’am?”

6. She smiled down at him and replied, “No son, I’m just one of His children.”

7. The little boy then said, “I knew you had to be some relation.”

B. I begin with that story because of the accurate self-awareness of the very generous woman.

1. She had the correct understanding that we all need to have – “No, I am not God, I’m just one of His children.”

2. You might think that is an obvious self-assessment, and that none of us would think otherwise, but that is not always the case.

3. We might joke about someone having a “God complex” or a “Messiah complex,” and we know that some people in psychiatric facilities have suffered from delusions of grandeur and truly believed they were God, but they are not the only ones that can develop that problem.

C. Since the very creation of mankind, Satan has been tempting us with the possibility that we too can be God.

1. Adam and Eve fell into the trap, and countless others throughout time have as well.

2. Satan whispers in our ears, “Why serve God when you can be the ruler of your own life? After all, you have everything you need to be your own god.”

3. Every day we are faced with the same choice as Adam and Eve: Will we worship God and find our true place in God’s universe and the place He has arranged for us?

a. Or will I worship me and decide that I can somehow come up with a better life for myself than the Creator of all could design?

4. The truth that all of us must believe, embrace, and obey is that there is one God, and we are not Him.

a. That one true God must be given His rightful place on the throne of our lives.

b. And the god of me must be seen as a false god who is just a pretender to the throne.

D. It’s not coincidental that we have left this god, the god of me, for the last sermon in our series.

1. All of us may or may not confront many of the other gods that we have examined so far: the god of food, sex, entertainment, success, money, romance and family, but all of us will likely have to wrestle with the god of me every single day.

2. And the really dangerous part about the god of me is that he is able to hide himself so well that we don’t even recognize him.

3. Through rationalization and deception, we might not even recognize that we are not truly serving God the Father, but we are serving the god of me.

4. When the god of me and God the Father happen to be in agreement, we might not even realize that we are serving the one and not the other.

5. It is when the two are not in agreement that we might be able to recognize which god is really in control.

E. What are some of the symptoms that might help us recognize that the god of me has taken over the throne of my heart?

1. In Kyle Idleman’s chapter on this counterfeit god, he suggests three symptoms that reveal that we have allowed the god of me to be in charge.

2. One symptom is arrogance.

a. The god of me encourages us to trust in our own thinking.

b. The god of me says that I’m always right and that my way is the best way.

c. The god of me convinces us that we are better and know better than other people, but the really scary part is that he can also convince us that we know better than God.

3. Another symptom that surfaces when I start to worship the god of me is insecurity.

a. The god of me is consumed with what others think about me, because when you’re god it’s all about you.

b. The god of me is terrified about failure, because failure would show others you are not as great as advertised.