Self Importance vs Humility
Are you tired of trying to matter? We’re talking about the enemies of our mind in our generation. These are things I see that are rampant in our society. We live in a world where everyone can be somewhat important. We can all start a Youtube channel, or be kind of Instagram famous. It’s easy to self inflate. We can make ourselves a big deal even if it’s to a small audience all day long.
I want to start with scripture, specifically Philippians 2:5-11, “have 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 grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and 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 shall 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.”
These are such powerful words. It makes our God unmatchable. He takes on the form of a servant, born in the likeness of men, and humbles himself to death on a cross. That is such a beautiful story. That’s the example Jesus has set before us as those who follow him.
It feels great to be important. We crave it, we want it, we fight for it, and we love for it. Honestly, if you don’t know God or follow Jesus, that’s probably the goal of your life. We chase after it in different ways, but ultimately it’s to make ourselves seen, known, loved, and important. Whether it’s through fame, addiction, relationships, all different things. If we don’t notice this in ourselves, some subtle things begin to happen. We start to care a lot about how people view us. We find ourselves constantly thinking about that. We want to know if people like us, if they notice us, if they like our posts. That’s exhausting because largely they are not noticing us. And it’s a mixed bag of what kind of opinion they’re going to have no matter how you’re living your life.
I remember when I was in my 30’s and I was a pastor’s wife. I had become so addicted to people’s approval that I was spending my life on it. It’s such an exhausting pursuit to try to be great with everybody. It’s not something that’s within our grasp. What the enemy is ultimately after in this is what he was after in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. He made them want to be like God. That idea of self-importance is what caused the devil to fall from heaven. He wanted people to worship him the way they worshipped God.
Go back to the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. There’s a human race and multiple people on earth, and they all come together to build a tower to get to God. Everything is about becoming important since the beginning of time. The Devil convinced Adam and Eve that God was holding out on them.
What’s really interesting is this is closely tied to obedience. We can start to put Godly words on things that look like obeying God when it’s really just becoming important. The enemy comes at us with good things to build the kingdom of God, but ultimately it’s for ourselves, that we would be more important. We’ve got to realize God is after our obedience and he’s after his glory. His stories for us are not going to build our kingdoms or our names, they’re going to build His. There is a disregard for our life and our story in the grand scheme of things when it’s all about God’s glory.
This can also go in the other direction. You can dismiss and disregard yourself so much, that it becomes about you. It’s a backwards pride in how humble you can be. We want to look humble. Humility is not so much about the decisions we make in our outwardly life, but the state of our hearts before God.
Humility often looks like great confidence, because that confidence comes from dependence on Jesus. It comes from a belief that life is all about Him and that everything we do, everything we say, and everything we are is about him. I was listening to a friend of mine named Earl preach recently, and he made the analogy that we’re the Amazon bag. We carry the good thing, but we are not the main event. Nobody gets the Amazon bag and thinks, “oh my goodness look at this amazing bag!” They care about the contents of the bag. And the contents of our lives should be Jesus. Someone willing to lay down their life, be emptied out, be humbled to the point of embarrassment, be misunderstood, and then die.
Not caring if we’re important is so helpful to us. You no longer have to perform. There’s a rest that comes with humility. In our humility, people can see God. They can see God because of our obedience. That’s what motivates me. You’ve got to decide if you care more about what people think about you than what they think about God. That’s a question we have to ask ourselves everyday.
It takes us back to weapon #1: stillness with God and time in his word. It sets priority in our life that God is first. Our hearts actually aren’t built for power and importance - they’re built for joy. We think joy will come through importance. We think we’ll finally be happy when we matter. But that’s just not true. Scripture says joy comes when we lay down our lives. When we lay down our name, when we lay down being understood, when we lay down even our own lives. That’s where joy is. That’s where freedom is. It’s supernatural and you can’t understand it until you’ve tasted it. That there is a freedom that comes when we are not the center of our own minds.
So how do we change this? It’s simple guys. Go out and serve and love other people. I look back at my life before I had four kids, and I had so much time to think about myself. But when I had those babies, I was thinking about the next thing I had to do, the next person I had to take care of, the next problem they had, and it was helpful in the sense that I wasn’t as consumed with myself. But what, what four kids did to me in the thick years of every minute trying to take care of him is I didn't have time.
Mission will do that. It doesn’t have to be motherhood. It can be anything where you set the needs of others before yourself. It comes as we get out of our chairs and go clear the table, invite your neighbors over, go to the elderly home, and think about other people. We become more obsessed with what God’s doing in other people’s lives than our own. Loving other people is so much better than loving ourselves.
So today, I want you to go love somebody that you would not normally love. Get your friends together and figure out who you can love radically. Go mow their lawn, take them food, have coffee with them, do whatever! Do something for them. And watch your mind shift to caring about yourself, to caring about others.
