I Quit: -
In this series, we’ve talked about things we need to quit. Things that can prevent us from fully surrendering to God’s plan for our lives. We’ve talked about how making excuses, complaining, and fear can keep us from God’s best. Now today, I want us to consider another habit that can hurt us - comparing ourselves to others. (READ TEXT)
We compare ourselves to others to “commend ourselves.” We do it so we’ll feel better about ourselves. And when we refuse to surrender to God’s plan for our lives, we often compare ourselves to others to
justify not saying “yes” to God. How do we do this?
1. We compare sacrifices.
Sometimes we try to justify our resistance to God’s call to by pointing out just how we’ve had to sacrifice or suffer more than others. Like a spoiled child, we stomp our feet and yell, “It’s not fair! You’re don’t ask as much of them as you do me. Why do I always have to make the big sacrifices? Why are they more blessed than I am?”
Peter is an example of this in John 21. Jesus told Peter how he’d end his life being martyred. Tradition says Peter was crucified upside down, because he didn’t think himself worthy to be crucified like Jesus. Now, Peter eventually came to terms with the Father’s plan for his life,
including the way he’d die. In fact, it seemed to motivate him.
“I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.” - 2 Peter 1:13-15 (NIV)
But Peter wasn’t initially so willing to accept the Father’s plan and raised a question right after Jesus had finished speaking to him about it. After telling Peter about the Father’s plan for how his life would end, Jesus said, “follow me.” But Peter protested, “Lord you’re sure asking far more of me that you are of him!”
“Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was
following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’) When Peter saw him, he asked, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus
answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” - John 21:20-22 (NIV)
The day before Thanksgiving an elderly man in Phoenix called his son in New York and said to him, “I called to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; 45 years of misery is enough. So you call your sister in Chicago and tell her.” Frantic, the son called his older sister, who exploded. “They’re not getting divorced,” she shouted. “I’ll take care of this.” She called Phoenix and said to her father. “You’re NOT getting divorced! Don’t you do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” The man hung up the phone and said to his wife. “Okay, dear, you got your wish. The kids are coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”
That’s what you call master manipulation! As parents, we might be tempted to do that to our children; But our heavenly Father never will do that with His children. His call is always straightforward.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.” - Matthew 16:24b (NIV)
But what’d He mean by “Take up your cross and follow Me?” Well, here’s what He didn’t mean. He didn’t mean what many think today, that my “cross” is a burden to carry, like a strained relationship, a thankless job, or a physical illness. With self-pitying pride, folks say, “That’s just my cross to bear.” But that’s not what Jesus meant. When Jesus carried His cross to be crucified, no one thought the cross was symbolic of a burden to carry. To a first-century person, the cross meant one thing only: death.
Therefore, “Take up your cross and follow Me” means being willing to die in order to follow Jesus. That’s called “dying to self,” a call to surrender to the Father’s plan. Each time Jesus tells us to take up our cross, He’d also say:
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” - Luke 9:24-25 (NIV)
The call’s tough, but the reward’s matchless. For in responding to the call to take up OUR cross, the Father’s plan for OUR lives, we end up with a life of eternal significance and purpose. Peter lived such a life by ending it on a cross, and John lived such a life by dying of old age. But each in his own way, died to self; each took up his cross; each followed Jesus. Each lived a life of purpose and eternal significance. If we would do the same, quit making comparisons, and take up our cross, too.
“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering
which every man must experience is the call to abandon the
attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is
the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon
discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his
death - we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is
not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life,
but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like (Martin) Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
2. We compare failures.
We can try to justify our refusal to surrender to God’s plan for our lives by focusing on how we’re the biggest failures in the room; and use that to say why we’re unworthy to be used of God. We compare our failures with others in order to justify our pity party on how we’ve given up on ourselves, so God should also give up on us.
But God won’t give up on His children. No matter how you may have failed, the call to surrender your live into God’s hands is still there.
“God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty -
never canceled, never rescinded.” - Romans 11:29 (The Message)
“The God of the Bible is the God of the second chance, a God who prefers to mend rather than discard. In Matthew 12:20, it is said of our Lord Jesus that ‘a bruised reed He will not break and a smoking flax He will not quench.’ The reed was used by shepherds as a kind of flute and once cracked, was discarded. A smoldering wick was also useless for giving light. These references represent people who are damaged goods and rejected by others and society at large. God’s commitment in Christ is to mend and heal such people, not to
‘break’ them or to ‘quench’ them. When we land hard, Christ’s nailed-pierced hand is there to help us bounce back.”
- Pastor Philip De Courcy
A. Everyone fails. That there’s someone to compare to proves that.
B. We can fail forward. We can learn from what we’ve done wrong, repent, and laying hold of God’s forgiveness.
When we’re faithless, God is faithful. In bringing our failures to God, He’ll restore, rebuild, and reveal important things about ourselves and valuable things that we and others need to learn about Him.
“The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
- 1 Thessalonians 5:24 (NIV)
C. God never fails. God loves to restore the broken and brittle and then parade them before the world as trophies of His grace.
A handkerchief made of valuable material was ruined by an ink blot. The owner could no longer display her prized possession; but she showed it to English art critic and painter John Ruskin. He took it, and made the ugly ink blot the center of a beautiful design. The woman’s handkerchief became more valuable than before.
3. We compare fruit.
Sometimes, we compare fruit and say, there’s no point in surrendering my life to God. I’m not as talented as others, or as skilled as others or as gifted as others. What fruit I might bear is nothing of value.
Jesus acknowledged some might be more fruitful than others. In the Parable of the Soils (Sower) Jesus describes those fully surrendered to God’s plan for their life and wide-open to God’s Word and living by it:
“Still other seed fell on good ground and produced fruit:
some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times what was sown.”
- Matthew 13:8 (CSV)
Jesus doesn’t say one quantity of fruit is better than the other. They are all equally commended. Why? Because each amount of fruitfulness brings glory to the Sower, not the soil. And with our lives, whatever fruit I am privileged to produce is for God’s glory, not mine.
In one church I served, a man I didn’t think I could learn anything from taught me a valuable lesson. I said I didn’t understand how it would be that believers would receive different rewards in heaven. I thought we’d all be beyond such things as rewards. But his reply was that if he put a log on a fire and I put a twig on the fire, we’d both bask in the warmth of the fire. And in heaven, we’ll all cast our crowns before Christ and equally bask in His glory.
Let’s quit comparing ourselves with others and instead of focusing on ourselves, focus on God, take up our cross, give Him our failures, and give Him all the glory! (Crowns video)
