The Church of Eleven22 - S02E15 - Let Us Not Become Conceited, Provoking and Envying One Another

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

We can not simultaneously look down our nose on other people and fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. ²⁵ If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. - Galatians 5:25-26

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Hey, church family, welcome back to Deep and Devo. I, man, I hope you like diving into the Word. I sure enjoy the opportunity to be able to take the Gospel of John,

week by week, as we've been marching through it, in our weekend services, and God has just had his hand upon it like crazy. Lives have been changed. Marriages are being restored. People are being set free. And then during the week, us dive in to maybe just a deeper part of one section that maybe we touched on on the weekend but didn't dive into. That's what we're going to do again this week.

As you know, this past weekend, we looked at John Chapter 9 where the blind man was healed. that Jesus walks up to this man, spits on the ground, makes the mud, wipes it on his eyes, he goes, he washes, he can see. And then ultimately, this man goes and tells everybody that wants to hear about it, even people that don't want to hear about it. And basically his testimony was this simple. This is what my life is like. Then I'm at Jesus, and now I can see.

And I challenged you. I challenged you. If your life has been turned around by Jesus, then surely there is some, people in your life that need to hear your story. And again, I implore you, I beg you, I exhort you. Why don't you write down your story? Why don't you take just a minute to answer those questions? What was my life like before I met Christ? What were the circumstances around how I met him and what has my life been like since then so that when somebody is placed in your life by God and God gives you that nudge to share your faith and you will have the opportunity to. But in our time together today,

I want to dive into our one another. Our one another today comes from Galatians chapter 5, verse 26. It says this, let us not become conceded, provoking, and envying one another. Let me say that again. Our one another is this. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another. And the reason I wanted to talk about that one another

with John chapter 9 is just the first few verses of John 9. So before Jesus ever gets to the, the healing and all of that. We spent a little bit of time on it this weekend, but not a ton. The Bible says this, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked Jesus, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Again, the idea in that day was if there was any kind of physical defect in somebody, it must be a punishment from God. And so the disciples see a man born blind and they ask, all right, whose fault was it. Did this man sin or did this man's parents sin that he was born blind? And Jesus answered,

it was not that this man's sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Now, I know this is a review. I think this may be the fourth or fifth time I've been over this, but I want to go over it again just because the problem of pain and suffering not only bothers us with whatever pain and suffering we're going through, but also sometimes it can shake us up theologically, and people will often ask, why am I going through this pain? Similar to the question that the disciples ask. So whose fault is this? And again, there are basically five reasons why we have pain and suffering, particularly to our own experience. Number one, it could be a test from God. We see this with Abraham. The Bible specifically says that God tested Abraham and told him to take his son,

Isaac up into the mountain to sacrifice them. We saw it several weeks ago when we were in John chapter six when Jesus was going to feed the 5,000 and he says to Philip, where could we get enough money to buy enough bread to feed all this people? He said this to test Philip. We see this with the Apostle Paul. We find out in Corinthians that Paul cries out to God three times to remove this thorn from his flesh, but God says, no, no, no, I have given you this thorn. Now, one of the things sometimes we'll hear is that God will never give you more than you can handle. That is not true. Sometimes God tests us by giving us more than we can handle so that we can understand it is not up to us to handle our lives on our own, but that we are desperate for him. In fact, the gospel

itself is that we have a problem that we cannot handle. And we have to come to Jesus so that he can do it for us what we can never do for ourselves. So sometimes we go through pain. because it's a test from God. Sometimes it's a consequence of your own sin. Now, we know for sure in this particular instance that this man was not born blind because of a consequence of his sin or his parent's sin because Jesus specifically says that.

But sometimes the reason that we go through pain and strife is because of a consequence of our own sin. Sometimes the third reason we go through pain is because other people have sinned against us. The fourth category is sometimes it is a specific demonic attack. Paul says in Ephesians that our battle is not against flesh and blood. So sometimes the trials that we go through is because it is demonic, not possession if you are possessed by Jesus, but oppression. And then sometimes the fifth is it is just collateral damage from the fall,

that we live in a fallen world and things at the macro level, like weather systems don't work, and there's hurricanes and tornadoes, and things down at the micro level, like ocular nerves, or cells in your body don't work. But in all five of those categories, what we know to be true is this, is that Romans 828 is still true, that God is at work in all things for the good of those that love him

are called according to his purpose. So in this particular situation, Jesus says the reason this man is born blind, it's not because of him, it's not because of his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Now, what I want to talk to us about is this. I want to give you a warning as a believer.

You see, the disciples ask this question, all right, Jesus, what's wrong with that guy? And whose fault is it? Is it his fault or is it his parents' fault? And here's the warning I want to give you. When you walk with Jesus for a while, meaning when you walk in truth and light, then your flesh can begin to cause you because of your standing. with Jesus to look down your nose at other people. And the reason that our flesh tends for us to look down our nose at other people

is because our flesh begins to lie to us to try to convince us that the reason that we are in a better position or better off is because we are better. Now, you may be in a better position in your life because you are positioned next to Jesus as a believer, but it is not because of your own hard work. It is because of the grace of God. and what begins to happen is we as believers, and I'm telling you this, the longer you walk with Jesus, the more you have a tendency to do this, this is why I'm giving us a warning, is that we can look at other people, politically, socially, economically, spiritually, and began to think and kind of ask Jesus in our mind,

what is wrong with him? What is wrong with her? Is it his fault he's in that position, or is it somebody else's fault? And when you get there, and we, will all get there. When you get there, you better check your heart. Because ultimately what we begin to do when we do that is we puff ourselves up as if we earn the position that we are in. And what the gospel should bring us to, there's this very famous quote by a guy named John Bradford in the 16th century. John Bradford is walking down the street and he sees a group of prisoners on their way to their own execution because they had broken the law and this very famous quote comes out of his mouth and John Bradford says this, there, but by the grace of God, go I. Do you see the difference?

You see, a me-centered, flesh-centered idea of yourself says, what is, Jesus, what's wrong with those people? Is it their fault? Or was this done to them? And a gospel-centered view of one's says, there, but by the grace of God, go I. Now, with that in mind, Galatians 526 says this. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Now, let me give it to you in context. Galatians 516 starts this way. Paul says, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So here's what you've got going on if you're a believer. You have your spirit filled with the Spirit of God. Okay, you have the Holy Spirit in you,

but the Spirit filled your body, your flesh. So from the moment you accept Jesus to the moment you die, there is this process called progressive sanctification, and there is a constant war going on between your flesh, between your sinful flesh and desire, and your new life in Christ. All right, he's giving you a new heart,

you're a new creation, you have a new life, but you still have the same flesh, and it is a war. There's this old story, this old proverb about a wise and righteous man that lived in this village and a man comes and says, all right, how do you do it?

And the man says to him, he says, inside of me, there are two dogs at war. There's a good dog and there's a bad dog at war inside of me. And the man asks him, which one wins. And he says, the one that I feed.

That is a picture of progressive sanctification. It's what Paul talks about in Romans 7, that I want to do good things and evil is right there with me. is a war. And so Paul in Galatians 5 says, so walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. Sounds like a war to me. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of

the flesh are evident and then he is going to give a non-exhaustive list. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalry, dissensions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like that. Seems to ramp up there at the end. I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, he's not saying that if you do good things and you earn a right standing before God, that's not what he's saying. It's not what you do that saves you, but what you do will reveal who your Lord is. That's what he said. Then he says, but, so there's the desires of the flesh, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. And against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh, past tense, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. But did you know that even your dead crucified flesh can still rise up and bite you and war against you. I don't know if you know this, but did you know that if you chop off the head of a rattlesnake, the dead, bodiless head of a rattlesnake can still bite you for several minutes after it's dead. It's sort of what happens to the person that has been crucified with Christ. Your flesh has been crucified, and yet, even though the death blow has been established once and for all, and even though the old you is dead,

the old dead you can still, like a rattlesnake head, rise up and bite. And so with that in mind, then Paul says this, if we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit, and then here's our one another. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. So Church of 1122, the longer we walk with Jesus, let us not like the disciples here walking with Jesus,

take our eyes off of him and look down our nose at any other person that we perceive to be in a lesser state than we are and say, Jesus, what's wrong with him? Is that his fault or is it somebody else's fault? Now here's the thing. Notice what it says. Let us not become conceded. That Paul understands that as a believer in Jesus, as a son of the most high king, as more than a conquer, as a co-air with Christ, if we're in not careful, we can become conceded and think that we have something to do with it. And we cannot simultaneously look down our nose at other people and fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. So let us not become conceded. Let us not provoke one another. Provoke means to call out to pick a fight. I'm telling you, what's crazy to me is I look through these things on social media as I look on this thing. There's a whole genre of so-called

Christianity right now. And all it is is one group of Christians provoking and calling out another group of believers. And one group's telling the other group that they're not doing something right. And the Bible says, let us not provoke one another. And then it also says, and let us not envy one another. There's a subtle difference between envy and jealousy. Okay. Envy is, I want what you have. Jealousy is, I'm afraid, you'll get what I have. That's the difference, all right? And so, the Bible says,

let us not become conceding one another, and envying one another. And here's why. When we are conceded, when we look at someone and we think that somehow we are better than them or better off than them because of us, that is not the way we're supposed to look at people.

You see, when Jesus saw people, in a lesser state, in a suffering state. He was empathetic and he had mercy. And here's the problem is that when we become conceded and look down our nose at somebody and say, is this state of existence this person's fault, then when and if that person is healed or that person is blessed, then what becomes natural next is then we can become envious of their blessing because we think we are the ones that are entitled to the blessing because of all of our good works. But when we are graciously grateful for the status that we have in relationship to Jesus, then we can celebrate everybody else when they get healed or blessed.

So if Paul says to not become conceited, to not provoke one another, and to not envy one another. Then 1122, by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, may we practice the opposite. May we practice humility? And again, I think I have a new favorite definition of humility after studying John the Baptist in our John series. I used to say, I quoted this from somebody else, that humility isn't thinking less of yourself, is thinking of yourself less. That's okay. I think humility is thinking of yourself in light of who Jesus is. That's what humility is. Let us practice humility.

And let us not provoke one another, but let us encourage one another. Let us lift one another up. Let us look for opportunities to not point out everything else that somebody else is doing wrong, but let us look for opportunities to love and encourage one another. And then lastly, let us not be envious of one. another. And if you are, let me tell you the cure for envy. It's just this. Start praying for that person that you're envious of. That's right. And I don't mean pray about. Do you know what pray about means? To pray about your boss is, dear God, please get my boss and make him change so I like him more.

That's not what we're talking about. I mean pray for that person. Because when you pray for that person, then what God begins to do is he may or may not change the situation, but I promise he'll change your heart. then when God blesses that person, then you will see God's blessing in their life as an answered prayer request to what you have been asking on their behalf. So let us not become conceited, thinking too highly of ourselves. Let us not provoke one another, picking fights, pointing out every single thing that everybody else is doing wrong. And let us not envy one another. But let us practice humility. Let us practice encouraging one another and let us practice praying for one another.

That's pray. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we repent of every single time we look down our nose at any other person or group of people. And in our mind, we think, how could they, how dare they? In our mind, we begin to ask the question, God, okay, whose fault is this? Is it his fault, is his parents' fault, what's going on here? Because, God, when we do that, then we forget that you are at work in all things. God, I thank you, and I praise you, that it's not where we are currently situated or position that matters most. God, it's how far we've come and the direction that we're going. And, Lord, I thank you that through the power of the Holy Spirit, you're not finished with any of us yet. And so, Lord, I pray that we would have a humble spirit. Lord, I pray that we would use our mouths, that we

We'd use our platforms to encourage and love one another. And I pray that there would be no envy, but that we would pray for one another. I pray this in Jesus' name. Thank you for joining us for Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit C-O-E-22.com slash resources.

We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. As always, be free.