Resist // When Your Ego Becomes A Problem

Woe is me, I'm not very important, I don't matter, I'm being humble.

That's actually not humility at all.

In fact, cs Lewis says humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

I'm going to say it one more time and connect some dots.

That's right.

Thanks bro, I hear you right.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself.

It's not like woe is me, like I'm not here, I'm a terrible person.

It's like, oh, I'm being humble.

No, it's not.

Humility is thinking of yourself less.

So it's me thinking more about you than about me.

And the opposite of thinking about you, the opposite of me thinking less about me and more about you, the opposite of that is pride.

Pride's about us.

And isn't it interesting when you think about the word pride, what letter is right in the middle of the word pride?

It's the letter I.

I.

It makes it about us.

When humility makes things about others, we could kind of say it this way is that humility is the door to enter the room of selflessness, but pride locks the door.

Humility is the door that allows us to enter the room of selflessness, but pride locks the door.

Pride prevents us from making things more about others.

Pride prevents us from making things more about others.

Pride prevents us from seeing people and seeing their needs.

And the reality is is pride is the barrier to greater selflessness.

Pride's our barrier.

And you can probably think of somebody in your life that maybe struggled with pride a little bit, that maybe struggled with pride a little bit Maybe boss, maybe a coworker, maybe somebody living under your roof Just kidding, maybe a friend and you thought, man, if they just weren't so prideful.

They just keep getting in their own way.

Man, their pride, their pride's causing them problems.

But if we're honest, if we're honest, it's not just their pride that causes them problems, it's our pride that causes us problems too.

And isn't it easy for us to look at everybody else's pride and forget, and maybe not even be self-aware enough to know that we could have a pocket of pride in our lives?

And something that's easy to forget but is so important to remember is, when it comes to our pride, in our ego.

Our ego is not our amigo.

Yes, yes, you know, it's true.

You look back at times in your life where you've made decisions based on pride, and you look back and you're like, what was I thinking?

If I could just go back five or 10 or 20 years and tell myself what I know now.

Well, what was happening?

It was our pride, it was our ego.

But if we choose to be humble, if we choose to be humble, it will allow us to enter the room of greater selflessness.

And if we enter this room, what's going to happen is it's going to change our relationship with others, it's going to change our relationship with God and it's going to change our future.

But what we have to do is we have to get past our ego to get into that room.

Now.

This can happen, and 1 Chronicles 21 tells us how it can happen.

And it's a choice that we all have to make.

And if we make this choice, I'm telling you it's going to be a game changer.

So today I want to show you how do we do this.

How do we choose humility over pride?

And maybe a better question is this is could there possibly be pride in us that we just don't even realize?

And could it be that our pride is hurting us and we don't even realize it?

First, chronicles 21.

Let's see what God has to say about this.

If you're ready for the word, would you say amen?

It says Satan rose up against Israel.

This is the nation of Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel.

David is the king David, he's the big man, he's in charge, he's got the power.

And the enemy, satan, incited him, tempted him to count the people.

Now, is counting people a bad thing?

No, it's not.

If you got a big family, whenever you go somewhere you're always counting to make sure everybody's there Right.

If not, you get in trouble.

It's like home alone all over again.

You know what I mean.

You count the people.

But for David it wasn't about counting the people.

It was about David's pride.

It was about David saying look at me, look at how great I am, look how mighty I am, look at our great kingdom.

So what David did in verse two is he said to Joab Joab was the main commander of David's army and the other commanders of the troops go and count Israel from Beersheba to Dan and bring a report to me so I could know their number.

Beersheba, sudan, two cities.

David says I want you to go between San Francisco and LA and I want you to count everybody in between.

Joab replied may the Lord this is God in heaven may the Lord multiply the number of his people a hundred times over my Lord the King.

So he was just talking about the Lord in heaven.

Now he's saying my Lord the King.

So he was just talking about the Lord in heaven.

Now he's saying my Lord the King talking about David.

Aren't they all the people you want me to count?

Aren't they all my Lord's servants?

Like, aren't they yours already?

Why does my Lord, why do you want to do this?

Why should he bring guilt on Israel?

So Joab is spotting maybe a little bit of pride in David's life and Joab's like are you sure about this, david?

These are already your servants.

Why do you want to do this?

Verse four yet the king's orders prevailed over Joab.

So Joab left and traveled throughout Israel and then returned to Jerusalem.

David's pride caused him to be selfish.

David's pride caused him to say Joab, go, do this for me.

Go and count the people.

And what pride does for all of us is it causes us to either be selfish.

Selfish or insecure.

So in this passage verse 2, david says hey, go and do this for me Now.

Insecurity and selfishness they actually both stem from pride, because insecurity and selfishness both make things about us.

So let me explain this, okay.

So this is what pride is.

Pride is having a high view of yourself, a too high view of yourself.

It's being entitled to certain things.

It's thinking you're always right, thinking things about you.

Insecurity, on the other hand, is this idea of I'm not significant, I don't matter, I don't belong.

And we hate these feelings of insecurity, don't we?

They make us feel a certain way, and what we do all of us, we want to get rid of these feelings of insecurity.

So we do things that make us feel secure, that make us feel significant, that make us feel valued, that make us feel loved, that make us feel valued, that make us feel loved.

So sometimes what we do is we get in a relationship that we probably shouldn't get into.

Or sometimes what we do is we post certain things on our social media because we want attention.

Sometimes what we do is we try to present ourselves a certain way, like we're important or whatnot, or I know this person.

Why.

It's insecurity.

Sometimes what we do is we buy things we don't need with money.

We don't have to impress people, we don't even like.

You know what I'm saying why?

Because I want to feel secure, I want to feel a certain way, and we don't like the feelings of insecurity that all of us have to some degree, even if it's just a little bit, and typically we think of insecurity as a problem.

I got to get rid of this insecurity.

But I actually want to reframe it for you this morning because I think insecurity isn't a problem as much as insecurity is just a signal.

Insecurity isn't your enemy, insecurity isn't your problem.

Insecurity is a signal of where we're trying to find security outside of God.

Insecurity is the place where I'm trying to find self-worth and meaning and significance from something outside of God, from something outside of God.

Let me give you an example of this in my own life.

I started preaching teaching nearly 20 years ago.

Some of you guys are like you're barely 20 years old.

What are you talking about?

I started two years old.

Mom gave me a bottle and a Bible.

She said go.

When I first started preaching, I had this weird mix of pride and insecurity.

So pride in that I think I'm a good preacher it was no secret I was not a very good preacher but also insecurity in that I needed people to give me compliments so I could feel a certain way about myself, so I can feel significant.

Have you ever fished for compliments?

You ever done that before right Fishing for compliments.

And so I had this weird mix of pride, insecurity.

And I went to Bible college and they had this thing called a preacher boy competition.

Preacher boy competition yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

So you had a couple hundred dudes.

We went in this competition to preach who's the best preacher, and out of the 200, you made the round of 20, and then you made the round of four or whatnot.

So I entered the preacher boy competition because you know I'm a good preacher.

I got this and I'm like I know I'm going to make the round of 20.

I got this and the preaching professor, who I had a relationship with, he judged all of those guys.

He listened to 200 different 10-minute sermons in a period of like five days.

God help his soul.

Okay, some of you guys are like Nate, I can barely hear one of yours a week, right?

So there's 200 different sermons and after I preached, like shortly after that, he called me and was like hey, I want you to come to my office, I want to talk to you.

I knew this was not good.

You ever had something like that.

I want to talk to you.

And you knew yeah.

So I walked down the narrow hallway on the second floor of the administration building and I go to his office and I sit down in his office and says hey, preached a pretty good message.

You know the top 20 advance.

You're number 21.

What was that?

You're number 21.

So you and your friend preached the same passage of Scripture and his message was better than yours.

And we can't have the same passage preached in the top 20.

And I'm sitting there and I'm like pride's coming up, I'm better than my friend.

Insecurity also, at the same time, weirdly, is coming up, like I don't measure up, I'm not good enough, I'm a failure, I'm all these things In this same moment.

Now here's the irony of all of it.

I was preaching God's word, but it was not about God at all.

It had become all about me.

How jacked up is that?

How messed up I it was.

It wasn't even about god, it was about me, and you know why?

Because of my insecurity, my pride and my selfishness.

It made it all about me.

And maybe it's not a preaching competition for you, but chances are.

There are some places in your life where you struggle with some insecurity or some pride.

Chances are there are some places that, because of your pride or your insecurity.

You make things more about you than about others.

Now, for most of us, our insecurity is pretty much easier to spot if we have some self-awareness.

Is our insecurity is pretty much easier to spot if we have some self-awareness, but it's really difficult to spot our pride.

It's a whole lot easier to spot other people's pride, isn't it?

Oh man, it's easy.

So what I want to do, because I'm your friend and because I love you guys, is I'm going to put some questions up on the screen.

That's going to help you identify.

No, go back, go back, go back, go back.

Not yet, thank you, I'm sorry To help you identify, maybe, an area of pride in your life.

Now, this is what I don't want you to do.

I don't want you to read the question and immediately your mind thinks about that other person.

You're going to read the question and you're going to be like huh, no, don't do that.

So do you promise that you will brace yourself and you will resist the urge of thinking about other people when these questions are asked?

Do you promise?

Everybody say I promise.

Oh, awesome, you just said this in God's house.

You cannot lie in God's house, okay.

Cannot lie in God's house.

Okay, so here's the questions.

Okay, here's how we can identify if we have some pride.

Here's the first question.

How hard is it for you to admit that you're wrong?

Not, I'm going to admit my wrong so I can get them to be quiet and shut up and leave me alone.

No, how hard is it for you to admit that you are wrong?

How about this?

When is the last time you apologized?

I'm sorry, you apologized to a family member.

You apologized to a coworker.

You apologize to a friend.

I messed up.

How about this?

Do you get defensive when somebody gives you feedback?

Immediately, do the walls come up?

Does justification start?

Does?

Well, I don't always.

Well, at least, I'm not like them.

Well, if you knew my story.

Well, you always say this.

Well, maybe they always say that because you always get defensive.

It's getting quiet in here.

Number four number four how about this?

Do you think you're owed things over other people?

Well, I've worked harder, I've done more, I've done this, so I'm entitled to this.

It's about you Pride.

When was the last time you sought counsel from somebody?

When's the last time you said I'm in this situation?

I'm pretty sure this is what I should do, but I'm going to seek counsel from this individual over there maybe a ministry leader, maybe somebody in my growth group and I want them to speak into this.

When's the last time you did that?

Do you often number six, wonder why people don't see things your way?

Are you often like I don't get people?

How come everybody's not just like me?

How come everybody doesn't just vote just like me?

How come everybody doesn't just do it?

Because if everybody did what I did, then the world would be such a better place, the world would be such a much healthier place, a much more amazing place, because you are amazing, aren't you?

And you know what it is.

It's pride, because our pride won't let us understand other people's point of view.

Our pride won't let us put ourselves in their shoes.

Our pride won't let us make things about them, because things are about us.

And here's the thing about pride Pride is the barrier to selflessness, because if humility is the door that gets us into the room of selflessness, pride locks the door, and until some of us learn how to unlock the door, we'll never enter that room.

And pride will bring problems not just to others, but to you.

Let's look at the rest of the text.

Let's see what happens in David's life.

It says in verse number eight David said to God I've sinned greatly because I have done this thing.

What has he done?

He's responded in pride.

He's counted the people, he's made a prideful decision.

Now please take away your servant's guilt, for I've been very foolish.

Now it's real easy for us to look at this text and we're saying, yeah, david, you have been foolish.

Joab tried to tell you, bro, you counted the people.

You're being prideful.

But can we like call a quick timeout, guys, and can we give props to David right here?

Do you know what David's doing, david?

David's actually repenting.

He's admitting he's wrong.

Now the thing about David is, repentance had not always been a part of David's life.

In fact, earlier in his life, david had refused to initially repent after he had sex with the dude's wife and then had the dude killed.

I think it's pretty obvious, david when you have sex with the dude's wife and then you have the dude killed, it's pretty obvious.

You're in the wrong Right.

Think so.

I don't think I'm going on a limb to say that.

And after David did that, david's like no, I'm okay, no problems detected, I'm good, right.

But here in this text it's not an obvious sin in that it's not something he can see.

It's a heart thing.

It's a pride thing.

So David before had a hard time repenting of something obvious.

But here in this text David is repenting of a heart condition.

He's repenting of his pride.

It's not as obvious.

Here's why I point this out to us this morning.

It's not as obvious.

Here's why I point this out to us this morning.

Some of you think that as I mature in my Christian walk, I'm really not going to need to repent a whole lot because I'm going to be okay.

But a spiritually mature person actually repents more often Because a spiritually mature person is humble enough to admit when they're wrong.

A spiritually mature person is walking close enough with the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit's pointing out things in their life for them to repent of.

A spiritually mature person doesn't find their self-image and their self-worth in always being right.

They find their self-image and their self-worth in Christ, in God.

So because they don't find their self-image and self-worth and always being right, they are much quicker to admit when they're wrong.

And, david, I want to give props to you, david, because I was kind of knocking you earlier, bro, but man like you repented of something in your heart.

And while David repented and there was full forgiveness, david was still going to be disciplined for his sin.

It says in verse 9,.

Then the Lord instructed Gad what a cool name, my name is Gad.

The Lord instructed Gad David's seer Seer meaning David's advisor.

And Gad was also a prophet, somebody that would speak on behalf of God.

So the Lord said to Gad go and say this to David.

This is what the Lord says.

I am offering you three choices.

Choose one of them for yourself and I will do it to you.

God is going to let David choose his own discipline.

Part of me is like that's tough, but other part of me finds it kind of comical.

Like parent, do you ever do that with your kid?

Are you like okay, you did this.

You have two choices.

What is your discipline going to be right?

You're grounded or you're not hanging out with friends?

You know, whatever it is right, god is going to give David the choice.

So God went to David and said this is what the Lord says Take your choice.

Here's the choices, verse 12.

I wonder what you guys would choose.

Choice number one three years of famine in the land.

Three years of famine.

Can I just say I'm not picking three years of famine.

I love to eat too much.

Okay, that's one choice.

Three months of devastation by your foes, with the sword of your enemy overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, a plague on the land, the angel of the Lord, bringing destruction to the whole territory of Israel?

Now decide what answer.

I should give back to the one who sent me We'll poll survey.

I'm curious how many of you, if these are your three choices, how many of you are picking the three years of famine?

The three years of famine, okay, three years.

How many of you are picking the next one?

Three months of devastation by your foes, with the sword of your enemy overtaking he's picking that one.

How many are picking that one?

Okay, how many are picking the last one?

You're picking the one where you're putting your hands.

Three days of the sword of the Lord.

How many are you choosing that one?

Okay, that is actually check it out, verse 13,.

That's actually the one that David chose.

And verse 13, david answered Gad I'm in anguish.

Please let me fall into the Lord's hands, because his mercies are very great, but don't let me fall into human hands.

So he leans into the mercy of God.

What God does is God sends a plague, god sends illness to the nation of Israel.

People die, many people die.

David humbles himself and in verse 18, the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go and set up an altar on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite Now the Jebusites.

They were Jewish people.

They just came through the lineage of a guy named Ham not Turkey a guy named Ham.

And Ham was the son of Noah.

You guys remember Noah and the flood and all that kind of stuff.

Noah had a son named Ham.

Everybody that came through Ham's lineage.

They were Jebusites.

So that's who Ornan was.

He came from that lineage.

They were Jebusites.

So that's who Ornan was.

He came from that lineage.

David verse 19, went up at Gad's command and spoke in the name of the Lord.

Ornan was threshing wheat.

When he turned and saw the angel, his four sons, who were with him, hid.

So threshing wheat means he was removing the edible part of the wheat from the chaff, making food.

David came to Ornan verse 21.

And when Ornan looked and saw David, he left the threshing floor and bowed to David with his face to the ground.

Why is he doing this.

David's the king, david's the big cheese.

David, like he, is the man.

David said to Ornan give me this threshing floor plot so I may build an altar to the Lord on it.

Give it to me for the full price so the plague on the people may be stopped.

Ornan said to David take it my Lord, my Lord, the king, do whatever he wants.

See, I give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the grain offering.

I give it all.

David answered Ornan, no, I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the Lord what belongs to you or offer burnt offerings.

That what's the next three words.

That costs me.

So David gave Ornan y'all ready for this.

He gave Ornan 15 pounds of gold for the plot.

I'm not a jeweler, whatever that word is.

You know what I'm saying.

That's a lot, though In fact I just did a little.

Google Google's my friend.

Sometimes this is like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's a lot.

And he built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.

He called to the Lord David, and he answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

And David, who'd been all about him.

David, who'd all been about counting the people, and Joab, go do this for me.

David now says Ornan, I don't even want you to give this to me.

I want to pay for this.

I want to do.

I don't want to do something, I don't want to give to God something that doesn't cost me anything.

He was humble and this is what his humility caused him to do.

His humility produced selflessness.

In these last few verses we read there's zero entitlement from David.

There's zero.

I'm the king horn and give it to me right now.

None of that.

It's repentance that came from a humble heart and now it's produced.

Him saying God, this is about you and you alone.

God, I don't just want to give you the leftovers, I don't just want to give you the spare change, ornan, I want to make a sacrifice to God.

He's willing to do the uncomfortable, hard thing because David wants to honor God.

David had said it's not about me anymore.

It's not about me.

And David had come to this healthy place that all of us need to get to.

And if you've gotten to this place, you know it's life-changing, you know it's game-changing, you know selflessness is on the other side of this.

And David got to this place where David got over himself.

David got over himself.

It was no more my personal status, it was no more I want things to be done my way.

Joab, I know you tell me I shouldn't do that, and you're probably right.

Count the people.

Well, not anymore.

David's heart is with God.

God your will being done, not mine.

David got over himself and his humility makes a difference.

It made a difference in this story and some of us wonder how can we make a difference in this world?

You know how you can make a difference in this world by being humble.

What makes a difference in this world is not how smart we think we are.

What makes a difference in this world isn't even how right we think we are.

What makes a difference in this world isn't even how right we think we are.

What makes a difference in this world is not how put together we think that we are, but how humble we are, because humility is the door to enter the room of selflessness.

It's humility and selflessness is what makes the difference.

And humility comes when we have an accurate view of God, when we see that God is great.

We just sang a song earlier about how God is holy.

Holy when we see God is holy when we see who he is.

A byproduct of that is you are holy and I want to bow before you.

A beautiful picture of humility is in Philippians, chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Jesus Christ, the epitome of humility, god in the flesh, came down to this earth, but he didn't use the fact that he was God.

He didn't leverage that for his own good.

Like Jesus, never walked into a restaurant as God and said hey, see that corner table.

There's like four or five people over there, but I want to sit in there.

Move those people, or I'm God, I'll move them.

Never did that.

You know what he did.

He laid himself down for other people because he was selfless and friend.

When you live selflessly, what it's going to cause you to do is want to serve people.

When you live selflessly, what it's going to cause you to do is make things more about others than about you.

When you live selflessly, what it's going to cause you to do is come to a church gathering like this and, rather than saying man, hope the worship is good today.

Man, I hope, pastor Nate, I hope the message is pretty good today.

I hope this happens.

I hope we get out in time, because you know I'm really hungry, you know I'm no, this is what we do.

We walk in saying who can I encourage?

Who can I be a blessing to?

Who can I build up?

Who can I pray for?

Who can I be here for?

Why?

Because humility causes us to be selfless.

When we talk about growth groups and Edgar's up here saying we have 17 growth groups, we don't sit here and like I don't know if I want to be a part of one, like it's not that big of a deal.

No, humility says I want to be a part of a group so I can encourage other people in the body, so I can grow deeper in my understanding of God's Word, because I know that I don't know the Word as much as I could know.

Like I want to be a part of a group.

That's what humility causes us to do.

And if we can be a church filled with humble people not self-righteous, uptight, religious people, but humble people we can enter the door of selflessness and we can make a difference.

So when people come in, they know there's something different about those people.

But our pride is the barrier to that.

So here's my question for you and for me when is pride getting in the way of you being selfless?

Not, where is pride getting in your co-worker's way or your family member's way?

Where's it getting in your way?

Where's the place where you need to be humble?

Where's the place where you need to consider that other person above yourself?

Where's that place where you need to apologize?

Person above yourself?

Where's that place where you need to apologize?

Where does pride have a lock on the door that's causing you to enter the room of selflessness?

Here's what I'm going to invite you to do this morning Unlock the door by humbling yourself and we're going to have a moment.

This is what I want to ask you to do.

God's already clearly spoken to some of us, but maybe you're in the room and maybe you're wondering, like what should I repent of?

Would you just say Lord, ask God, where's their pride in my life?

Where's their pride in my life?

Spirit of living, god, show me where there's pride in my life, and can we just surrender to that?

Let's have a word of prayer.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.