Get Out of Your Head - The Antidote for Pride

CS Lewis once said pride gets no pleasure out of having something only out of having more than the next man. Today were going to learn about the subtle dangers of self-importance and how can shift our focus off of ourselves and onto living fruitful lives and impact this Edition of Living on the Edge with trip and mission of these daily programs is to motivate Christians to live like as most of you know chips or regular Bible for this international discipleship ministry for the serious please turn the mic over to a close friend selling author and speaker, recognizer, founder of the chart.

Thousands of women around the country each year were nearing the end of Jimmy's serious get out of your head. She's been sharing seven crucial notes about the toxic thoughts that pollute our minds.

But before she continues.

Let me encourage you to use our messaging notes while you include a brief outline of what people share all the supporting Scripture to download these message notes just go to the broadcast stab@livingontheedge.org Listeners fill in notes where now is our guest teacher Jenny message for pride as we are beginning here want to start with Scripture.

As I started to cheat in Philippians 252 11 so powerful. Some of the most powerful scriptures in the Bible had this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, he did not even count equality with God a thing to be passed but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father, and I don't know if there's more powerful words because I don't know if there's a more powerful story that this is the thing that that makes our God unmatchable that he would take on the form of a servant, he would be born in the likeness of men. And he would humble himself to the point of death on a cross.

I don't know that there is another story. That's more beautiful in all the world. This is it.

Our faith hangs on this and it is most exquisite, incredible thing.

It's what he set before us as people to follow him as people that serve him. That led him to live like this that it says when were talking about the mind and were talking about fixing our mind.

He starts the verses, but that he says had this mind among yourself that this is how I do think were supposed to think and that not only were supposed to have this mind that it is our mind in Christ Jesus. God has given us the mind of Christ and we are to think like this, but we had the power to think like this because of what Christ has done for us self-importance. We love this one. It feels great to be important. It is even our bones to crave it to wanted to fight for it to live for it. I would be so bold as to say that if you don't know God and you don't know Jesus and you don't have this different way. That Philippians talks about that. This is the goal of your life and now we we chase it in different ways different forms, but ultimately it is to make ourselves seen known love important. That is what we are chasing.

Whether it's through relationships, addiction, fame, you know, all different things were ultimately wanting to be more disappointed that we aren't important. It is an addiction in our day and I believe if we do not notice this on ourselves. If we don't notice this in our ministries if we don't notice this and our following of Jesus and some subtle things happen. One of the subtle things is that we start to care a lot about how people view us, we care a lot and were constantly find ourselves thinking about that we find ourselves thinking out of people like us. If people notice as if people like our Post-it people support us and eight were just our eyes are darting back and forth kind of noticing what people are noticing about us and that so exhausting because largely they're not and they're not noticing as an and also largely mixed bag of what kind of opinion there and I have no matter how your living so I remember deciding this when I was in my young 30s and I was a pastor's wife remember getting to a place where I had become so addicted to people's approval that I was spinning my life on it was waking me up. I was anxious about it and it's the most exhausting pursuit to try to be like to try to be great with everybody because you can't be right, like that's never going to be fully achieved is not something it's always in our grasp or controllable. Last, but this idea self-importance can express itself in so many different ways.

What the enemy is ultimately after is what he was after in the garden with Adam and Eve without me the way that he tempted them the way that he twisted the plans and the will of God for their lives is that he made them want to be like God, he said, hey, if you eat of this fruit, then you'll know what God knows shall be like.God holding something out on you and so this idea self-importance that hey I want to be like God, what caused the devil to fall from heaven was that he wanted to be like God. He wanted people to worship him.

The way that they worshiped God. So this idea becoming like God and go back to the Tower of Babel early on in Scripture when there's now a human race. And there's multiple people on earth, and they come together and they build a tower to get to God. Everything is about becoming important from the very beginning of time and we all kind. Do this in her own way. We we all kinda build a tower of Babel and say hey look at me, looking me look at what we can do. Look at what I can do I can matter. What's interesting is this is really closely tied to obedience right like we we can start to put godly words on things that look like obeying God when it's really just becoming important and so that's where it gets sneaky. I think from the enemy's point of view is that he is coming at us with good things to build the kingdom of God, even to put God's name on it, but ultimately it's for ourselves that we would be more and more important, we would matter more and more and more I got an email from someone this weekend and she was on the borderline of death and had fought cancer and she came out of that and she said I was in this place.

I just wanted to matter so much. She had this fear like you know I'm gonna die and I knew my life to matter more than it does. I got this urgent and I gotta do something important. I gotta build something important about it.

Do you start a nonprofit or do something. It was his urgency. She wrote about leaving a legacy for her life and she said Jenny I'd gotten to a place where I was chasing that instead of letting my kids and the people right in front of me. I just wanted to do this important thing. I didn't even know what to do really and she said that she had read restless and she will which is actually about dreaming and and obeying God and doing the things that her take away what friend that was you know what the big thing is my kids and letting them well enough to be my legacy is like obeying God right in the trenches were nobody season and I think we gotta realize that ultimately God is after our obedience.

He's after his glory, and so his stories for us are not to lead us to our kingdoms in building our names in building our you know stories, but there to build hits and and what humility does is it gives us a posture to do whatever God wants us to do. No matter what. There is a submission and humility. There is a disregard for our life and our story in it and so it's not that we never do things that look important to the world and I remember my publisher when I was given a chance to write. She was like you need to put your picture on your website now is like no this isn't about me.

This is a pup and I don't want you know I don't even know me and and there was something noble and that there is also something just not smart about using J people just need to see you so they know they can trust you are not not okay okay but I think sometimes you can dismiss ourselves and diminish ourselves to the point of it being still about us like I wanted to be real clear back then I wasn't just about God's glory.

I was about not looking prideful. I didn't want to appear prideful is still a selfish motive to it. I just wanted to look humble you know I have the appearance of humility in my website in my life and I didn't want to buy into this. You know thing where everybody thought I thought I was a big deal and he still was a controlling of a narrative that was about me and so we can look humble and we can build a story that kinda tells the world hey we are humble people and it's still completely self-importance impact and this is not about necessarily the decisions we make outwardly in our life. This is about the state and the posture of our heart before God when that's right you know what happens. It doesn't matter as much about what people even think about you if they think are humble or not, you know, when you put your head on the pillow that you're right with God that you write with the people that know you and love you and there's a freedom and that humility typically looks a lot like great confidence because that confidence in truly humble people comes not from themselves and not from hiding their gifts or over promoting their gifts.

It comes from a dependence on Jesus and a belief that this life is all about him and that everything we do everything we say everything we are not him.

It's not about us. I was just listening to my friend Earl preach recently and he's a pastor in Dallas and he talked about you know with the Amazon that we carry the good thing but but we are back like were not were not the main event like nobody is going for the Amazon bag and they needed themselves. Oh my gosh look at this bag that just arrived in my house and they're going for the content and the contents of our lives should be the mind of Christ, which is someone willing to lay down their lives.

Someone willing to be emptied out being humbled to the point of embarrassment being humbled to the point of being misunderstood, being humbled to the point of Christ. Case death that we are producing the fruit of Christ because we have the mind of Christ. That's what should be known of us and why. Why is that what should be none of us, why should we be motivated to live this way. This sounds like a miserable way to live in one.

It's because the most free way to live honestly like not caring if we're important is this so helpful and I think that's the posture you get to enjoy with humility, which is not in this to impress on in this to perform in this for the glory of God and in this.

To love and I can I can rest and there's a there's a rest that comes over us with humility. The other thing that comes with humility is what this verse says is so that the name of Jesus every knee would bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father, the ultimate thing that comes over us with humility as people see God.

They see God in us, and they see God because of our obedience and that's what motivates me is I don't want people to see me. I think that was part of the girls heart you know that just was starting publishing back there. That little na�ve girl in her 30s. I think she had that heart he was. I just want people to see God. I think there was a na�ve sense that my face would distract from that and still announce the glory of God. Like good luck clicking really show off enough to steal the glory of God. And that's true.

However, what can feel the glory of God in our lives, and through our lives on. Still, the glory of God in eternity. And on this earth. It will not. But what can steal the glory of God being reflected in our lives is part and not to say the heart that's not a state of your actions outside the state of your words at the estate of people's opinions about you that is a state of your heart. And honestly, only you and God can work that out together.

You gotta decide like as is this something where I care more about what people think about me that I care what they think God and that is the question you gotta constantly ask yourself, and you have to ask yourself regularly, because on one day that might be true of me in two days later, it no longer is because something has captured my mind and my affections more than God. And so back to our weapon number one, which was stillness with God and time with God's word. That is why it matters every day because it sets priority in our life that God is first and I care more about him and what is known of him than what is known of me that you guys think it's good to come through being important and being known being famous. I mean this is something my son is obsessed with. He's 11 and I mean what is he do he talks about famous people with his friends all day. They talk about football players and talk about slow players they talk about musicians that you know they all talk about famous people all day long together. And so there is this goal in his mind set before him is like that's arriving. That's when you're important. That's when you get a matter that's when you can be happy and at the end of all of it for us. Y'all even now I look at people driven by this and social media. Right now I think there's this idea we don't ever consciously think it but a subconscious that were obviously thinking that the more we get known noticed loved seen the more work to be happy when that is not what is true. It's obviously not true in the deception that we buy into some how is that joy will come if we get known if we get power if we become important, but what Scripture says is joy comes when we lay down our lives is the opposite.

It's when we lay everything down on earth that we think matters when we lay down our name and we lay down being understood when we lay down even our own lives.

That joy is in that there is a freedom that comes through that and that is a super natural reality that is not something you can understand until you taste it, but when you tasted it. It's like this loss washes over you like a wave like I just gave up something on earth. And then it comes back out and there's this piece that follows it. Of and I'm okay. Yes, somebody misunderstands me. I'm not important to them. That's hurtful and then it washes back out and you and I'm okay because I'm love and I'm known by God. My hope is secure and that is the joy of self forgetfulness that there is a freedom that comes when we are not the center of our own minds of our own life. How do we change this guys ready you go out and you serve people and you love other people.

I look back in my life before I had four kids before him.

Even before I had Cooper because he is considered more consuming than my other three kids and I just had so much time thinking to myself I just did. I thought I was up all the time. But what, what, four kids did to me in the thick years of every minute trying to take care of them is that enough time. You know I just I was thinking about the next thing I had to do the next person and take care of the next problem they had and it was helpful in the sense that I was, and is consumed with myself. I think mission can do that and it doesn't certainly don't have to be mother had it can be anything that you set other people's needs before yourself and what happens when you do that a member can cut they used to have a saying you put God first and other second and yourself third, and so I am third was like the award.

It can then Alyssa and I just remember being like trying to will the and being will let me tell you how comes into being a comes as you serve people as you actually get up out of your chair and you clear the table. As you actually get up out your chair and you love and invite your neighbors and and get to know them that comes as a think about other people and all the sudden we are more obsessed with what God is doing in other people's lives and what he could do another people's lives and what he's not doing hours and it is a change and shift, and you realize that loving other people is so much better than loving ourselves so much. There is a freedom and joy that comes because of it.

And so today what I want to do is I want to do something crazy. I want you to love somebody that you would not normally love I want you to go loving neighbors in any which way, taking food to coffee have them over. Go you know motor line like I don't care. Just go love people in a radical way do something for someone today and watch your mind shift from caring so much about yourself to letting other people telling you that for every video for broad series. Jubal Jorgensen just to share some additional thoughts about what we heard today. Let me ask you a question what drives your thought life is anxiety, loneliness, feeling like the world's out to get you capture really pessimistic or obsessed with being recognized whatever it is to feel trapped by what, no matter how hard you try.

Your mind still drifts back to these ideas will in the series. Julie identifies seven common faults that are actually toxic to our lives can derail our connection with God. Don't live so we can break free from these dangerous mindsets by wielding the power God's already given us what learn how to fight back and win the war for minds.

If you have to miss any part of the series from JBL in the chipping warm-up is a great way to catch up anytime. I'll be right back in just a minute and I want to share a few thoughts that I have about Jenny Allen's message but before I do I will let you know that the things that your hearing in the series is a best-selling book that Jenny wrote called get out of your head and one of the reasons I wanted her to share.

Was I believe with all my heart that the greatest battle for this generation is what's happening to their thinking, their minds, their worldview and what Jenny is going to do in this book and what you started to do already.

She starts talking about seven toxic thoughts that really draw us away from God and his word and truth and what I love is she can say it in a way that I never could write firstborn, not a woman but second she's she's targeting in reaching an age group universe.

Some of you your listening and think I've got to get this and for others you're thinking this book. This content is what my daughter or my granddaughter needs. Let me just whisper something.

What she's actually saying just doesn't apply to women.

These toxic thoughts are ones that I'm sure head. If you're seeing those that you love really shaped by our culture more than by God's word and some of the things your hearing, you realize while I need to study this.

Let me encourage you get the book again together and as Jenny would say get out of your head. Click strip will to get your hands on Jenny's insightful book visit LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003. Her words will embolden you to really take every thought captive to find freedom from toxic drinking again to order your copy of get out of your head by JBL and go to LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003, or LivingontheEdge.org or the triplets for your application for what Jenny assured today as we close today's program. I wish we could have the visual of Jenny as she taught the I could just hear her passion ramping up as she called out to me and to you just get up out of your chair right just get off yourself. I love the illustration she used that she learned from camp. I am third. You know God first other second, I am third and it is interesting what she shared is so true and I don't want to minimize her or give you an illustration that is so trite but I travel quite a bit, and I've got a few back problems don't seem to fully go away and so I tend to find myself struggling and being self focus, because one I'm on a plane and when I said it hurts and I'm walking through airports and it hurts and you know pain of any kind. Right. We all tend to focus on it and I've just found a few little tricks that have helped me and I was traveling last week. I was getting ready to go and I was like oh man, I was really excited about was the go.

I just wasn't excited about getting there and so I got in line to the coffee shop there and those waiting on my plane and a thought came to me.

Just a thought because I found myself unconsciously like oh well you have to sit for five hours on the plane and this is how my backs can feel you know. Blah blah blah. And you know I was sort of developing my own little pity party and I looked over and I don't like it. Memory what the guy look like and I just sort of impulsively is, what Jenny said you practice these things you you going to training and I turned to the guy I just ordered dinner. Can I get up in a medium coffee and I said hey what are you getting me like who are you and why do you ask you as well get a lot is what size you want that we get the good it was really I said yeah you is what usually get a medium. I turned to the person's can I get out of the medium latte to that. This guy though I'm in. Yes, it cost me three bucks I could member what was he lit up. He lit up, while thank you, thank you very much and in that moment when I realized my back didn't hurt at all in that moment when I realized just taking my focus off of me for that 30 seconds, and here's how it works. Once you take some steps like that. My brain started thinking a different way it went down a different path than the me me me me me.

You see, pride is very easy to spot in others. It's very hard to spot in ourselves and I could give you lots of verses about humility right.

James 410 humble yourselves before the Lord and what he will lift you up. He will help you, but as I've battled pride in my life and it has been an enemy.

I mean, it is for all of us but boy it can be so subtle, I have learned that rather than focusing on my pride or even trying to be humble.

I love what she said and I would say the same thing just serve my wife was struggling recently and I came home and she had baked cookies and I said what he doing she was. I'm going to take the tour neighbor is great and then I do these take that to these other people. She was getting out of her head and she got out of her head to care for someone else. So I think I heard her teacher in speaker today specifically say love someone right just do it, do something for someone. Whatever it is, neighbor, friend, someone at work.

Get out of your chair, walk across to do something, some act of kindness serve someone volunteer church meet a need.

Let's see what God does great reminder chip ask just before we close. I would like each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving 100% of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. If you found the teaching today. Hopeful which are not yet on the team. Would you consider doing that today to donate. Just go to LivingontheEdge.org Donate on the up or give us a call at AAA 333-6003, let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do will join us next time as our guest teacher, JBL and rep suffer serious. Get out of your thanks for listening this addition will be a