Defeating the Idol Of Competition

Bibles, if you would. Isaiah 46, Isaiah 46. Amen. Isaiah chapter 46. I've been wrestling with this series. It's. It's really. God gave me this text back in the month of July with some things I personally was wrestling with. And then as it began to go into this month, God allowed me to bring it to our space. The first week we talked about destroying the idol called Potential. The second week we talked about destroying the idol called age. And this week I want to wrestle with defeating the idol of competition. Defeating the idol of competition. And we see this in Isaiah chapter 46. And I believe, I pray this will bless you. I pray this series has been a blessing to you. And I pray this will bless you in the seasons you're in and wherever God is taking you today. Isaiah 46. Here's the word of the Lord. It says this. With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared? Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales. They hire a goldsmith to make it into a God. They bow down and worship it. They lift it up to their shoulders and carry it. They set it in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it. It cannot answer. It cannot save them from their troubles. Verse number five is our main verse today. Who will you compare me to and count me equal? I want to wrestle with, just for a few moments with this thought, defeating the idol of competition. So getting back to the context of this text In Isaiah chapter 46, here's what's happening. Remember beginning of Isaiah 46, 1, 2, it talks about there are two gods. The Babylonians had created the gods they had akin to Jupiter and Mercury. And these were the two most powerful gods in Babylonian culture. And what happened is the text says that these two most powerful gods that God had. What happened was that these gods, the Persians, came in and were victorious over their idols. They had created these two gods. Bel. We see the same word bel in the root word for the word baal. BAAL was what we see here in later in scripture. Scripture being a God of fertility, a God of rain. Later we see Nebo being the same root word for Nebuchadnezzar. That BAAL bell the word, the word there for that God was a God who produced for the people. So you see that name as a root word for a lot of the Old Testament gods. Whereas Nebo on the other side was a root word for a lot of the Old Testament prophets. So we see those two things constantly throughout scripture. And God says, here's what I did to your enemies. I let their enemies, the Persians, come in and destroy them and. And destroy their gods. And so God says, don't you dare, as you come back into the world, try to create something that I can come in and allow to be destroyed. God says, I destroyed Bel. I let their enemies come in and destroy Nebo. And so God says, first of all, here's what I want you to understand. Tertullian put it like this, that whenever we create idol gods, we become captive to things that we created. We become captive to what we created. And so God says in verse number three, he says, first of all, I want you to get rid of the idol, of your potential. I don't want you to get so caught up in what you think you can do that you forget what I, God, say that you can do, what I've empowered you to do, what I've called you to do. And I don't want you to worship what you're capable of more than you worship what you know that I'm able to do. That's verse number three. Verse number four. Last week we talked about how to destroy the idol of our age. At the same time, God says, I don't want you just to get caught up then in what you what, what your potential is. But then secondly, God says, I don't want you to get caught up in what your age says. You can do that. A lot of times we stop moving or stop going where God has us to go because we want to talk about how old we are or how young we are. And God comes back and says, listen to your old age. I'll be with you when you have gray hair, I'll be right there with you. I will allow something that meant sin and slaughter in one season to now mean grace and mercy in another season. That's verse number four. And then in verse number five through seven, God gets very interesting because then God says, so then who will you compare to me too? God comes back and says, listen, I don't want you to get caught up in doing things on your own. I don't want you to get caught up in doing things the way you think they ought to be done. God says, I want you to check who will you even begin to compare me to? Because God says, I want you to check then what idol gods do to you, what happens when we idolize things. And verses 6 and 7 tell us that first of all, when we idolize God. We idolize different gods. We make up different gods. The first thing verse six tells us what happens is number one, we begin to try to show off something contextually, the text in verse number six, as they were showing off gold and silver, and what God was trying to remind the people of Israel was, watch this. He said, the reason I don't want you to get so caught up in showing things off is because the reason they are walking around with so much gold and silver is the gold and silver is the destroyed idol. He said, they're showing off the gold and silver but not remembering and holding on to the fact that I came through and destroyed their gods. The gold and silver used to be their gods. And God says whenever we get caught up in competition, one of the first things we do is we spend time trying to show off things about ourselves. We want to show off the gold in our lives, show off the silver in our lives. And God says, I don't want you to do that and start to worship something because I'm still God and I have the ability to destroy anything that comes in between my love for you and the love that you extend towards me. The first thing that comparison does is it forces me and challenges me to show off things. And verse six says, at the same time, when you begin to show off those things the same way for the people in Babylon, their gods became a burden to them. I want you to think in your life, what things have you shown off? What things do you talk about that you're better than someone, you're able to do more than someone else that now become burdens to you? What thinking patterns, what relationships were good in one season, but because you kept showing them off became something that dragged you down, that slowed you down. Because whenever I get so consumed in comparison, I'm slowing down what God is, what I'm capable of doing and they become burdens to my future. The second thing verse number seven tells us, not only do does comparison cause you to show things off, but comparison causes you to lift up the wrong God. The text tells us in this text that now they were lifting up something else to God and God was showing them, listen. That they are carrying an idol God, when I, God, am capable to carry them. Don't miss that. That God says, I'm able to carry you, but you're so consumed with carrying a God. And whenever I get to a place of comparison, I'm lifting myself up higher that now the thing things where I could be sitting in a posture of worship, I am now carrying Something when God says, when you serve me, you don't have to carry unnecessary weight, you don't have to carry unnecessary guilt, you don't have to carry unnecessary shame, you don't have to carry those things from your past. Because God says, I'll carry you, you don't have to carry me. And that should be good news for somebody under the sound of my voice that you serve a God that you don't have to carry. You don't have to tell God when to check in, you don't have to tell God when to check out, you don't have to check God's time card. Because matter where you go, God is going to be right there. And God says, when you get over trying to carry Me and allow me to be the one that carries you over mountains and carries you over valleys and carries you over waters. But when I get caught up in comparison, I want to show off something and I try to lift myself up. Where are the places you're exerting strength that you don't have to exert? Where the places you're getting so anxious about you're living sometimes? My counselor told me, justin, you have high functioning anxiety that you're so hard, you're lifting yourself up, you're telling yourself what you can do, where you can go, you're trying to show off yourself to others, you're lifting yourself up higher, you're telling people what you're capable of doing instead of sitting back and allowing God to gracefully carry you over things you're trying to fight. What battles are you fighting that God says you don't have to fight? What relationships are you struggling in that you don't have to struggle in? Because when you stop trying to lift yourself up and let God be the one to carry you, it changes your perspective. Watch it. Because I'm no longer seeing things the way that I see them. I begin to see them the way that God sees them. I no longer approach things the way that I want to approach them, but I approach them the way that God says I can approach them. And God says, here's the challenge I want to give you in comparison. Quit trying to carry yourself or carry your idols and allow me to be the one to carry you. That's the text. And God says so. It's interesting to me when I read this story and I'm reading this text, that contextually God is talking explicitly about idol gods. Contextually God is talking explicitly about Bell and Nebo and the Babylonian and the Persians. But it's amazing to me that the thing that God confronts in verse number five is God says, before you go back into the world, before you go among people again, before you guys go back out and Jeremiah 29 comes alive before you go back into the world and you are everything that I've called you to be. God confronts the ability for them to compare themselves to other people. It's amazing to me that it all starts not with their worship, not with their conversations, not with the folk around them, not with what they wear, not with what they've accomplished. But God says, I want you to destroy your yearning, your ability, your desire, your want to compare yourself to other people. Because God says, I want you to keep your focus so much on me that you bring your focus down here and begin to focus on others and talk about how good you are, how much better you are, how well off you are. God says, I want you to destroy competition. How many of you, under the sound of my voice at one point to another in your life, have forbidden yourself some relationships or only kept relationships because of competition? Oh, I'm. I've never been that fat. Here's what happens in competition. The text even shows us in the text that what happens is here's where idolatry comes in on one hand, of competition. I put myself up here and I put somebody else down here. So now here's what I want to do. I want somebody else to look at me and tell me, and I can tell you how great I am. Because at least I'm not that individual. At least I don't sin like them. At least I work like this. At least the title in front of my name is this. At least the letters behind my neighbor this. At least I live on this side of town and I put myself up here because I want someone to worship me, to look at me. And the reason I say worship intentionally is because I don't want just to call it I'm mentoring or looking up to someone. But there are some places in our lives where insecurity tries to force people that we perceive down here to look up to us and to worship who we are and what we do and how far we've made it and everything that we've done in our lives because I want someone to see me up here. And maybe for some of you, the competition bug, the comparison bug for you is that you've positioned yourself above certain people, that there's certain folk you don't want to talk to, there's certain people you look down upon, there's certain people. Matter of fact, you like worshiping in your car because there's some folk you finally don't have to sit next to. You hate being inside that packed church that's so hot. Because you love the fact that you don't have to sit next to some people because they shouldn't be coming to my church because I'm up here. They shouldn't be singing like that, worshiping like that, looking like that, or dressing like that. Because I put myself up here and I'm comparing myself to my assumptions about somebody else. And on another side, we put ourselves down here. And so now I find myself, instead of looking directly up to God, I'm looking in. My measurement of success is another person. My measurement of success is what somebody else is doing. And so I keep myself down here. And that's where we constantly hear the phrasing. Well, I'm just going to get better. Eventually I'll go back to school. Eventually I'll do this. Because all my measurement of success is I just need to become this person. And our lives begin to shatter when we begin to worship another person. Because if that person fails, that person sins. You see something in the closet that they keep locked in the back of their room and the back of their house or in the back of their mind, you hear something negative about them. Because my worship isn't unto God, my worship is unto a person. Now I'm simply comparing myself to their success or failure and not comparing my, not, not worshiping the God that brings them wherever they go. That's where Dale Andrews, in his work Practical Theology for African American Churches, talked about among African American religious experiences, about American individualism. And he talked about the death of not the Negro church or the black church, but the death of the African American church. As we progressed over time, but over and through slavery and Jim Crow, and now the new Jim Crow, he suggested that it's American individualism among African American communities that's keeping us comparing and competing with one another, that we're not defeating the systems beyond our community because we're trying to defeat one another. What Dale Andrews suggested, he said, even in black religious experiences where the black middle class doesn't want to worship with the black lower class and the black lower class doesn't want to worship with the black upper class, the black upper class doesn't want to worship with anybody. Because when I come to church, I want to talk about how much better I am than somebody else instead of worshiping. If it had not been for God who was with me, me who was on my side and Walking with me and the reason we see fractured and fragment nature among black urban youth, among black suburban youth, among black youth, among black millennials, black Gen Z, black seniors, is because we've gotten so caught up in ourselves that we've forgotten that the only reason we can move and be all that we are is because God is on our side. And when we get to a place church, where we have a true liberation ethic that says, I'm more consumed about exiting out of oppression than trying to find a way to compare myself to somebod else's, I'm more consumed about getting beyond myself than being so consumed with what somebody else is doing. Then we get to a place church, we take our focus off of somebody down here, and we bring our focus back to the God that brought all of us out, the God that birthed all of us, the God that gives all of us mercy and grace and joy every single morning. Church. Who are you comparing yourself to that's keeping you at a level that you know you can break, but you love talking about what somebody else is doing? Who's the person from high school that has more control over your life than you do? Who's the person from college that dictates how you pray? Who's the person in your neighborhood that dictates how you're married? Who's the person that you are that's dictating how your child lives? Who dictates how you work? Who dictates how you dress instead of you being the best person that God's calling you to be, it's being dictated by somebody who doesn't even know they're the idol. And God comes along and says, church, before you go in the world, I want you to destroy the, the yearning, the heart inside of you that says, I'd rather compete and compare with somebody else than keep my eyes on who God is. Because here's what the text shows me. Church. Here's what the text teaches me today, and I'm finished. That the anecdote to comparison and competition is radical authenticity. It's a sad reality, Deacon Metz, that authenticity is a radical thing. But the anecdote to comparison is authenticity. That when you lean into all that, you are more than you lean into the gossip lines about somebody else. When you lean so fully into how gifted and how graced and how powerful and how beautiful and how strong and how wise that you are, instead of leaning over into somebody else's house, when you lean into how great your children are and not worried about somebody else's children, when you lean into how smart you are and not worried about how smart somebody else is, church, you can begin to see the grace of God that's on your life, the hand of God that's on your life, and not be distracted by what somebody else is doing. Who are you afraid of becoming that you're trying to become somebody else? What is it inside of you that you're afraid of doing because you like seeing what somebody else is doing, knowing that you're not capable of doing it? What would happen, church, if you decided this week, I'm going to lean into me. I'm going to. I'm going to lean into my grace. I'm going to lean into my struggles. I'm going to lean into my trials. I'm going to lean into my authenticity. I'm going to lean into my voice. What would happen, church, if you didn't lean into somebody else's life, but you leaned into your life? Radical authenticity is the anecdote to comparison and competition. Church. That's what makes our church so amazing and so awesome that we stopped trying to be somebody else's church. I wish y' all talked to me and decided we gonna be our church when we stop trying to look like somebody else's church and said, how can Congdon street worship? What does Congdon street need to wear? How does Congdon street need to worship? Matter of fact, that means we don't worship at a parking lot in our own community. We worship in a parking lot we want to sew into. What parks do we need to go to? What T shirts do we need to. What mask do we need to make because we stopped trying to be somebody else's church. And we said we gonna be the best church we can be. What would happen if you were the best medical student you could be the best mama you could be the best father you can be because God did not create you. To be somebody else would be so radically authentic to be yourself. Because church, when you are you, there is no one that you can compare yourself to. Therefore, I keep my eyes focused on the master and the maker and the Creator, and I could care less about what's going on down here. But here's what we can do together. When all of go children respect the God inside of them, what a time we will have. So, Pastor Justin, how can I do this? How can I lean so fully into myself? What does the text teach me? Here's a very quick principles I want to give you and I pray this helps you. Number one, verse five teaches us initiate More space for God in your life by taking a God inventory. Initiate more space for God in your life by taking a God inventory. God says in verse number five, he says, who will you compare me to? To who will you liken me to? God says, there is nobody like me. God says, I want you to remember who I am. And by remembering who I am, you'll then unearth who you are. And God says, I want you to initiate more space for me by taking a God inventory. I saw this image like this when I. When I go into Shores in the afternoons or going to Shores at evening, and you see people getting out, the clerks going out, and they go in the check and see what's on the shelves. And they go on the shelves and they see, we have some of this, we have some of this, and we don't have some of this. And we have to order some of this stuff, we have to buy some of these things. And so they go and take an inventory of what's on their shelves and what they have on their shelves they don't need to order. Again, what they don't have on their shelves. They need to call the supplier and get the supplier to give them what they need to go on their shelves. That church, when you check and see in your life what fruits of the spirit are sitting on your mind and what fruits of the spirit deemed to call the supplier for what inventory? Where's God's? Where is God in your life? What space have you created for God in your life? Do you need to call God to get more peace? Do you need to call God to get more joy? Do you need to call God to get more adoration? Here's what happened. Church. And the reason where comparison comes in is that then I begin to replace the things that only can come from God with things that come from people. And that's where I begin to say, the way that I have joy is I get joy through another individual. The way that I have peace is I need my boss to affirm me. The way that I have possibility is I need someone to hug me, to look at me and tell me something instead of listening to what God says. So, church, instead of you calling on somebody else to stock your shelves, what would it look like for you this week to say, God, I need more of this directly from you to come unto my shelves. What. What have you filled in your life that people have given you that God says, if you call on me, I'll give it to you? What have you put into your body, put into your mind Put into your marriage, put into your children that you got from somebody else. That God says, call on me and I'll give you jo. Call on me and I'll give you peace. Call on me and I'll teach you how to be patient. Call on me and I'll teach you what it means to have long suffering. Where in your life have you let other people give you what God says I'll give you create more space for God by taking off the shelf the stuff that people have given you and trust God to give right over to you. Think about those places in your life, church, where you've replaced possibility with sex with someone else. Think about the places in your life where you've replaced things with drugs in your life. Think about the places in your life where you replace them with insecurity and anxiety and frustration. And God says, take those things off the shelves. They're not going to sell. Take those things off the shelves. You don't want anyone to see that in there. But God says, but if you call the supplier, I can show you that I cattle on Thousand hills still belongs to me. If you call the supplier, I'll show you. If you lift your eyes beyond the hills, your help doesn't come from the hills. Your help comes from the maker of the heavens and earth. When you call on the supplier, Isaiah 40 says. Isaiah 40 and 31 says, he'll give you fresh strength, he'll give you new strength that you'll be able to run and never be weary. You'll walk and never be faint. What do you need to call the supplier for to stock your shelves with? Number two, Verse six teaches us this. Don't diminish your light looking at somebody else's highlights. Don't diminish your light looking at somebody else's highlights. Verse 6 says, the people were going around carrying gold and silver. The gold and silver they were carrying church were the destroyed idols that God had allowed their enemies to come in and destroy. And God says, listen, I don't want you to get so consumed with the fact that they're walking around with gold and they're walking around with silver that you miss that. The reason. Oh, shoot. The reason they're walking around with gold and silver is because the gold and silver they're walking around with are the idols that I, God, have come and destroyed. Church. I want you to hold on to this simple fact that God is challenging us. Don't diminish your light, who you are, what God has called you to be, what God is pushing you to Be because you're consumed with somebody else's highlights. You're consumed with the gold and silver that somebody else has. You're consumed with the gold and silver that somebody else is wearing. You're consumed with the gold and silver that somebody else has in their lives and in their bodies. You're consumed with somebody else's marriage that you won't grow your own marriage. You're consumed with somebody else's children that you won't grow your own children. And God says, don't get so consumed with their highlights. You know, social media has taught me so much in this quarantine and Corona season. And what social media has shown me is that nobody ever puts on Facebook the argument they have with their spouse. They don't, I don't know about any married person in the room. I don't think you ever get a live stream and get, get the phone out and you start live streaming the argument you had with your spouse. Nobody ever puts up the times when the child keeps them up at 3 o' clock in the morning because they pooped in the bed. Nobody ever puts that up on Facebook. Nobody ever puts up on Facebook the times where you failed the test in college and you put that long post up about how you failed the test. We put the post up at the end with how you failed it in the first semester. But oh my God, God made a way in the last semester. We put up how the child used to do this, but six years later, how they never do it again. Church. You know why? Because we love, love putting up highlights. We live in a world of highlights and church. If you begin to compare your life to somebody else's highlights, you'll never lean into the light that God has inside of you. Someone puts up one picture of a vacation and now your whole life is ruined because they went on vacation. They got money to go on vacation. I wish God loved me enough to go on vacation. Because you are sitting there comparing your whole life to someone's highlight. You see their child that gets an A on a test and you're sitting here saying, your child is so stupid. Because my child didn't do this, my child didn't do that. Looking at somebody else's church. They look this big, they have all this stuff looking at somebody else's job, how do they get the promotion? Because you're comparing your whole life to somebody else's highlights. God says, I want you to understand, if you compare yourself to gold and silver and you don't recognize that I'm still God for you that you don't need the gold and silver that somebody is showing you as a highlight so you can own the light inside of you because God shows the people of Israel. I've given you the ability and the potential and the prophecy to create things that are beyond the highlight when you own the light that's inside of you. Church, whose highlights are you watching every single day? Church, whose highlights are you looking for and looking forward to that? God says, don't diminish your light looking at somebody else's highlights. You know, that's one thing I was sharing with someone a couple weeks ago. She asked this question very powerfully. She said, justin, what are you doing for self care? I began to share with her some things that I wasn't doing for self care because I was comparing my life to somebody else's highlights. Well, their child did this and their child is at this school and their church looks like this and this is what their team is doing and this is what their their parking lot looks like and this is what their stuff looks like. And if only I did this and began to share with me. Justin, no, listen. This is what God has graced you to do. This is what God has graced you to go to. This is how God has graced you to preach. And if you care more about who you are and then worry about the highlights somebody else shows because the highlights don't show you the struggle before it. The highlights don't show you the joy before it. The highlights don't give you the full story. Church, what parts of the story are you idolizing more than living into the story that God's called you to live? Don't diminish your light consumed with somebody else's highlights. The last thing I'm going to give you today, Leave your comfort zone and embrace God's growth zone. Leave your comfort zone and embrace God's growth zone. Verse number seven tells us at the end of the text it says that God says, listen, the things that they are carrying, I can be carrying them. But they decide to carry idol gods. Church what God is showing us here are the places in our lives where we're comfortable carrying things that God says you are not qualified or strong enough to carry. What things in your life Church can you grow and get stronger in instead of you being so consumed with telling yourself you can do it by yourself, you can do it on your own, you can be bad all by yourself. God says, leave the comfort of what you think you can do and embrace. God says, what I'm able To do church. What in your life are you doing all by yourself that you haven't asked God to assist you with? We sing the songs, ask the Savior to help you comfort, strengthen and lead you. I think we leave that song in the altar because I don't want to ask God to help me on my job because I can do it. I don't want anyone to know that I'm saved. I don't need God. I love you. But I leave you at the. At the devotional in my car before I go into my job. I don't want you to come in in my job with me. I want church. I want you to leave your comfort zone and embrace your growth zone. I'm in this phase now where I'm working out this thing called tabata. And tabata is so cool because we do. In Tabata, you end up. You work out for a certain amount of period, you pause, you work out for a certain amount of period, and you pause and you get to this. You get to this great calorie burning zone, and you recognize muscles in your body you didn't even know you were working. You recognize parts of your body you didn't even know that you needed to work. And when you begin to work those different muscles in your body, you begin to see how strong you can because you're overworking the same muscles and not working new muscles. You find this great calorie burning zone. Church, what muscles have you gotten comfortable with? Staying the same way that God says, when you trust me, I'll lead you to another zone where you can grow with me, where you can stop trying to carry things that God says I can carry for you. Here's the affirmation I want to give you. And I'm finished. First week, I told you something good's going to come out of this. The second week, I told you that God's going to get you there. Here's the last affirmation I want to give you. I want you to say this to yourself every day this week. I'm worth it. I'm worth it. I'm worth the struggle God is taking me through. I'm worth the frustration that I'm going through. I'm worth the pain I'm in. I'm worth the joy that God wants to give. I want you to love yourself so much that you lean more into who you are by simply saying, I'm worth it. I'm worth the pain. I'm worth the frustration. I'm worth the struggle. I'm worth the joy. I'M worth the peace church. God loves you too much to let you get comfortable in talking about how great you are when you can lean into the places where God can grow you. Let me pray for you this morning. God. Today I pray. God, against comparison and competition in our homes. Comparison and competition. God, on our jobs. God, I pray today against comparison and competition in our marriages, among our children and in our community. God, I pray now for a radical movement of your glory and the Holy Ghost us to come among us and with us, God, that we can kill comparison by remembering how great we are because we're connected to you. God, thank you for allowing us to be worth glory, peace, grace and honor. God, do your best work with us. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Come on, you. If.