The Comparison Trap

Introduction

I want to talk about the curse of comparison today.

Comparison is a sickness

It eats away at the person who has it

Moves beyond just a thing we do into a habit

With social media it’s everywhere - always looking at people’s highlight reels etc. while you’re only seeing your behind the scenes

What comparison does to us

Luke 15:11–32 (ESV)

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

Both brothers were wayward

The younger son represents those who seek self discovery through rebellion

The older son represents those who seek control through moral conformity

The important thing to note here is that both are alienated from the Father

I want to start by looking at what this curse of comparison does to us by taking a look at what it did to the older brother in the passage.

Take a look at these and really search deep to see if you may even fall into one of these categories.

His first reaction was anger in v28.

Luke 15:28 “But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,”

Comparison leads to resentment - it is always the end of the pathway.

Comparison BREEDS hostility - it makes an enemy out of everyone

We lose the ability to celebrate wins with another person. Even close friends and family - a comparison mindset stops us from being happy for other people

Comparison steals your contentment

Luke 15:31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” - indicating that the son always had access to the Father’s resources but never saw it.

We become so focused on what others are getting that we neglect what we have

Nothing that we have seems good anymore, we’re never happy with what we’ve got

Comparison ends up in isolation

All of this enters us in a race where it’s us against the world.

The loneliest race in the world - because even if you win, you end up alone

And if others overtake you and you lose - your resentment and discontentment eat you alive.

The last thing I want us to note about comparison is that it is the thief of joy

Comparison doesn’t just affect you if you’re envious of someone who’s doing better, who has more. Comparison affects you even when you’re comparing with someone who has LESS.

That’s the worst part - whether you’re comparing yourself to someone who has more or someone who has less - you will always have your joy stolen at the end of the day.

That’s the issue with comparison - it steals your contentment

It steals your restedness.

It’s so tiring to constantly be comparing to others.

ILLUSTRATION: Quickest way to killing a church

You know the quickest way to kill a church? Foster an environment of comparison instead of compassion. Do you know how depressing it would be to come into a church where we were just sick with comparisonitis?

A place where Kay would always want to be the best worship leader, and would get discouraged if other worship leaders did a good job and received praise.

What if the preachers started to compare - who’s the best preacher? We start to not like it when another good message is preached because it means that I’ve now got to top that message.

Imagine if central started to compare ourselves to south and think we were better just because we were bigger

Imagine our socials team started to count the likes on their posts to see which one of the team produces the best content.

Imagine how much it would suck to be in a church that doesn’t want other churches to succeed so that they would be the biggest in the city.

You know the sad truth I’ve probably described a reality for a couple of people here and a couple of churches out there.

Man I tell you something - I don’t want anything to do with a church like that.

I want to be a part of a church that’s happy when another church blossoms and grows - because we know that means the kingdom wins as well

I want to be in a church where the socials team celebrates every time a post reaches a record amount of likes - no matter who posts it because that means we’re reaching more people for the kingdom.

I want Central campus to SERVE south campus and ANY other campus we plant and if they grow bigger than us - then I want to celebrate that win because when one of us wins, we all win!

I want our preachers responding to each others altar calls because they’re so moved by each others messages. I want them celebrating every time the Word of God goes out because it never returns void

Man I want the worship team lift Jesus up so high that they forget about who even was singing that week - it becomes all about the worship, all about God. And we obsess over that, not each other.

What is at the root of comparison?

But what is the cause? What lies at the root of comparison?

The “curse of comparison” may be a new age thing but it has an ancient name in the bible: envy

Envy is an aggressive, resentful longing for another’s success (in the form of possessions, position, achievements) birthed from a deep dissatisfaction with self.

What is The root of envy? The bible tells us explicitly:

Mark 7:20–23 “And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.””

Comparison and envy come from THE SELF.

It is an indulgence in selfishness - when a person’s ego becomes untamed

Look at the response of the elder son to the Father: Luke 15:29–30 “but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’”

Look at the reasons for his anger - it begins with self-entitlement. It begins with self! I have served, I never disobeyed, you never gave ME. The focus is me, my, I

And a deep contrast is drawn here between the broken prodigal son and the bitter elder son. The prodigal son confesses to the Father, “I have sinned without excuse” and the older son complains, “I have served without reward!”

One returns to the father because of humility, the other is resentful of the father out of his selfishness

Can I tell you something? Any time the “self” rises up in our lives and becomes more important - it will birth a deep dissatisfaction within.

Because of one simple fact: We weren’t made to be worshipped, we were made TO worship.

We were made to worship God - and as long as we avoid that there will be an emptiness in our lives that we will try to fill with whatever is around us.

We’ll try to fill it with addictions, relationships, money, popularity, work.

It may work for a while - but all these things are temporary. And our hearts are longing for the eternal.

That’s why - as long as our “self” is glorified - even just a tiny bit, we will start to breed dissatisfaction in our hearts.

This dissatisfaction is the root of envy - we are not satisfied who God has made us, and so we seek validation by comparing ourselves to others. (Examples)

We start complaining when others do better than us, rejoicing when we are doing better than them.

And the worst thing about it? It begins to affect our relationship with God too. Everything we do for God becomes too much, and everything God does for us is too little.

What an ugly sin.

Envy resents God's goodness to others and ignores God's goodness to ourselves.

Is that not what the older brother was doing?

Friends, can I tell you - that as long as envy and comparison lie in your heart, there is joy being stolen from your life.

There is fulfilment being robbed from your life.

ILLUSTRATION: Envying Dan

You know I’ve felt the power of comparison and envy firsthand because it may have been the only time that it caused me to hate someone.

I was once a part of a real gun preaching team - and we were going through one of the best seasons ever. But I wasn’t the best preacher on the team, there was this one guy who was just better than me - plain and simple. And it sucked. I hated it. I hated not being the best, and no matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I prepared I never could get up on his level.

I can literally remember sitting in his sermons - hoping that he would bomb. Like hoping that he would do badly because I wanted to be the best.

At every altar call - I would pray for him to bomb and have like 1 respondent. But every single time he did, hundreds responded. I’ll never forget once he did this stupid altar call - he literally put up a picture of the ocean and was like God’s grace is like an ocean, you can throw any object of any size into it and it wont be affected, a house, a car, whatever it is no matter how big it will absorb it unaffected. And that’s what it’s like with our sin - we can throw it into the ocean and God’s grace is enough to cover it a million times over. And I was like that’s the dumbest crap I’ve ever heard - but boom 400 respondents. I was like y’all are tripping.

You know - it got so bad that I started to doubt God’s love for me? God why do you favour him so much? Why is he so much better? I prepare so hard, is that not enough for you? Why do you hate me God?

So envious, so insecure, so comparative. What we may think starts off as harmless ends up causing resentment not only with man - but with God too.

What is the solution?

What’s the solution here? How do we remove the curse of comparison over our lives, how do we get rid of the seed of envy?

Notice that one crucial thing is missing from the older son.

He has failed to see that his seat at the celebration was not earned by his effort - it was a gift given freely out of the Father’s abundant love.

The moment his focus was taken off the Father’s extravagant love for him - his eyes fell and he looked to himself.

“What can I do to earn a seat at the celebration?” “What can I do to win my Father’s attention?” “What can I do to be loved?” “What can I do to be acknowledged?”

The moment he took his eyes off the Father’s love for him - the self was raised and envy set in. And that’s where the curse of comparison begins.

The moment we lose sight of God’s extravagant love and affection for us, the moment we lose sight of the value that He lovingly bestows on us - is the moment that we feel like we have to earn that love, and earn that value.

But God’s extravagant love for us is a gift - we don’t have to earn it.

And as long as we feel like we have to earn God’s love and affection - we will always feel the need to prove ourselves.

That is the birth of self righteousness, and subsequently of envy.

You, sitting here today listening to me - hear me. You are ALREADY so loved by God. He has an extravagance of love for you, He sees more value in you than you could possibly see in yourself. He has grace for any failure you may have committed - and any failure you may commit in the future.

And the best part is - you don’t need to earn this! There’s nothing you need to do to win God over, there’s nothing you CAN do to win Him over.

In fact there’s an OVER ABUNDANCE of His love - it’s not just more than enough for you, once you are filled it will NATURALLY overflow out of you and into others.

It reverses the curse of comparison - instead of wishing that others would fail or do worse, you find yourself cheering for their success

instead of constantly seeing others as competition - you start to see them as children of God filled with value

instead of struggling to be kind out of emptiness - you begin to love freely out of abundance

Instead of constantly feeling the need to compare yourself to others - you feel overwhelmingly content with who you are.

Many people think that the word “prodigal” in prodigal son means lost. Actually that’s not true - the word “prodigal” means extravagant. A reference to the extravagant way he wasted his Father’s money.

But you know the beautiful part? God is the truly prodigal one in this story. God is the one with the extravagant love that He pours out on both sons.

God’s extravagance is unmatched by our selfishness, our sin, our situation. His love for you is always enough.

No matter how prodigal you may be in your sin - God is far more prodigal in His grace.

Today, whether you’re the younger son who has walked away from the Father in sin. Or whether you’re the older son who has always been in the house but are now bitter with envy - it’s time to shed this curse of comparison.

Altar Call

The only way to get rid of the curse of comparison - is to receive His love. It is so freely and willingly given. He longs to love on you. Jesus is the proof of that.

It’s to accept and truly believe that you are enough - and that He loves you. And that nothing in the world could separate you from it.

Romans 8:38–39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You know the ironic part is that it is the self that tells us that we’re not enough. That we need to do more, be more, be better than others, look better than others.

We need to die to self so that we can take up God’s love.

We need to stop fighting for our value - and instead let God speak His value into us.

ILLUSTRATION: The Ocean

One of the best preachers I’ve ever sat under in my entire life shared this illustration. I’m hoping it will speak to some of you today.

You’re familiar with displacement theory? Good, then you’re way ahead of me. Basically if I have a cup of water, and I throw my phone in, then the water in the cup rises and spills out of the cup - there’s not enough water. But if I now increase that to a bucket of water, the water level goes up - but none of it spills out of the bucket, the phone is not such a big deal anymore. But what happens if I take the largest body of water I can find - let’s say the entirety of the ocean. What happens when I throw my phone in there now? Nothing. Doesn’t even affect the level of the ocean. I can throw a car into the ocean, no effect, I can throw a house into the ocean, no effect, I can throw oil tankers, planes, buildings into the ocean and the same result will ensue - they will all be swallowed up by the sheer vastness of the ocean. The same is with our sin and God’s love. You may think your sin is the equivalent of a phone, or a car or a house, or a skyscraper - you can think whatever you want quite frankly because the end result is that it doesn’t matter. God’s ocean of love responds the same way - it swallows your sin and covers it completely.

Maybe you’re here today thinking your sin is too great, or that God doesn’t really love you, that you’re not adequate, that He loves others more than you. I can promise you wholeheartedly that He has more than enough love to cover you completely. In fact He wants you to have so much of His love that it overflows from you into those around you.

As Tim Keller says, “we may be more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”