Falling For Yourself

Introduction

Apologise for not being on the pulpit for the last 2 months due to camp season.

In the Egoless series - we’ve actually extended it because leadership feels that this is such an important topic for us as a church right now.

The church is going through a really good season - plenty of growth, new people, culture built, salvations, rededications etc.

Because of this - I feel prompted to really sit on this topic so that we grasp the weight of it. I feel like pride and ego have been the undoing of more than one great church.

Leila preached a brilliant message last Sunday 5PM where she talked about how there are often more hidden dangers in seasons of success than in seasons of failure.

I feel like really big things are coming for our church - so before we hit this season, let’s have a chat about ego.

Pray

The Heart of Ego

Today I’m going to be using the book of Esther. But unlike most times when we study the book of Esther, I’m not actually going to look at the character Esther, I’m going to be focusing on the lesser character Haman.

The book of Esther takes place under the rule of King Xerxes 1st (also known as Ahasuerus) in the Persian Empire. The Jewish people are living in captivity here - they are a minority people in a foreign empire.

Esther 3:1–5 “1 After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. 2 And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. 3 Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king’s command?” 4 And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury.”

We’re not told why Mordecai didn’t bow - it could have been that he thought it was an act of idolatry, it could have been that he didn’t want to bow against the people holding him captive - whatever it was, we are told that he did not bow.

All we are told is that this tiny act of insubordination inflamed Haman. Such a small slight was literally the trigger for Haman’s pride.

And it’s worth pointing out, even at this early juncture in the story that this is because the heart of Ego is self-worship.

We make the mistake of thinking that pride is about power - but it isn’t, it’s about worship.

We can often understate the danger of pride by making it sound like it’s simply just “attention seeeking” “making things about yourself”

We will never fully understand the severity of pride unless we understand that the end goal of pride is ALWAYS SELF-WORSHIP, the glorification of self, THE REPLACEMENT OF GOD WITH SELF

Genesis 3:4–5 “4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and YOU WILL BE LIKE GOD, knowing good and evil.””

Even in the description of Lucifer’s pride in Isaiah 14:13–14 “13 You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”

It’s not just about WANTING God’s power/authority, it’s about wanting to BE GOD.

And this is ALWAYS the end goal of pride - self-worship, the rejection of God from the throne of our lives i

it results in a constant need for ABSOLUTE validation, pride seeks worship.

Ego Escalates

This continues to get worse:

Esther 3:5–6 “5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury. 6 But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.”

So because of this one slight - Haman made it his mission to destroy ALL the Jews throughout the Persian Kingdom.

And this is something that I want us to notice about ego and pride - pride is not rational, pride actually is a very irrational sin. It causes us to do things and react in ways that are not rational or proportional.

The ego only knows how to escalate things

And we see this here - Haman receives one of the highest promotions in the kingdom, and yet because one insignificant person does not bow to him - he decides that he wants to eradicate the entire Jewish population.

It’s the mentality of “if you take my finger, I’ll take your hand - if you take my hand, I’ll take your arm; it just never ends. It is IRRATIONAL, DISPROPORTIONATE in its response.

This is how fractures in relationships, friendships, family, church can break from absolutely nothing. What starts as a small slight turns into an all out water - because one party has unresolved pride.

One comment on appearance, one wrong look and immediately we’re going to leave the church over it. There is no desire to resolve, to reason, to seek help or biblical counsel - we escalate it immediately because that’s what ego does.

Why? Because we have taken the place of God. Because we now view ourselves as the absolute. The more pride has taken a hold of us, the greater the injustice that we perceive has taken place - the more retribution is required.

And you can never justify the severity of the escalation - because it’s irrational. “Why don’t you talk it out?” “why can’t you just push through?” - don’t want to, I don’t even want to see them again; pride is an irrational sin.

ILLUSTRATION: One time a kid offended me

In one of the first sermons I preached at this church I told a story about the time I was offended. And I feel prompted to share this story with you guys again to relive my shame.

Let me tell you about the time I realised I had an ego problem. It was in youth ministry a long time ago. I was preaching an event that was big for our youth group at the time. And honestly the event went really well - preached a banger sermon, full response, ended the service - and walked off the stage to receive my compliments (don’t judge me, I was young). And man they were coming in hard and fast - well done pastor Jon, awesome sermon ps Jon, you wrecked me ps Jon. And then this chubby young kid came up to me - and out of nowhere was just like “Ps Jon, why do you like to wear such tight shirts?” boom. At first I laughed it off, “haha not as tight as yours buddy!” But when I went back home, and I was lying in my bed that night - you know all I could think of was that comment. What did he mean? Was he talking about how muscular I was? Does he not know the difference between muscle and fat? Man I probably sat on that small comment for days. My ego would not let it go - and that amazing event which God moved in was suddenly overshadowed by this one small comment. From that day, I swore to myself I would never let my ego get the better of me again.

Ego escalates - and if we don’t catch and correct it - it will only ever continue to escalate and get worse.

Pride erodes Contentment

Alot of people say that proud people are never happy. To be honest with you I’ve never found that to be true - I know plenty of proud people who are happy.

I think more accurately - proud people are never CONTENT.

Pride has an uncanny ability to steal the contentment from someone’s life, because everything becomes about comparison, everything becomes about competition, everything becomes a challenge.

Like I said before - Ego only knows how to escalate, pride only knows how to ask for more. We see this with Haman if we continue the story:

Esther 5:11–13 “11 And Haman recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king. 12 Then Haman said, “Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the feast she prepared. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. 13 Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.””

So this is Haman quite literally boasting about how everything in his life is going pretty much perfectly. His family life, his work life, his privileges, and yet ALL of that is worth NOTHING as long as this one Jew is sitting at the gate.

But that’s the thing with pride: There’s ALWAYS a man at the gate.

The imagery is so powerful there - there is a man here who has everything in the world going for him and yet he has no contentment because his pride draws his attention to the one person who has slighted him.

Pride erodes contentment

Because our ego is making us want to take the place of God - we become jealous for glory. We become jealous of anyone or anything that threatens to steal that glory, or that attention from us.

This is quite simple to understand, because when you take the place of God - you start to see everyone as a worshipper. Everybody owes you glory, everybody owes you honour.

There’s ALWAYS a man at the gate - someone who’s getting more attention, someone who’s overshadowing you, someone who looks better, leads better, preaches better.

And can I just take a second to point out one of the saddest things; is that we lose the ability to celebrate the success of others. Because we turn every celebration into a comparison. Everything becomes a measure of how well I’M DOING.

You know this sounds like a small thing - but I think that every believer really needs to watch out for this trait in their life, because it is such an obvious tell that pride is creeping in.

It sounds like such a small, insignificant thing - not knowing how to celebrate others, but the enemy really uses this to isolate us relationally from the people that we are meant to love and influence.

But this isn’t just the inability to celebrate with someone else - it points to a much deeper symptom, something that pride will inevitably lead to if left unchecked: it diminishes our ability to LOVE others.

Ego makes God your wall, not your way

Let’s look at the climax of Haman’s ego:

Esther 6:1–10 ESV

1 On that night the king could not sleep. And he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king. 2 And it was found written how Mordecai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, and who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. 3 And the king said, “What honor or distinction has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” The king’s young men who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.” 4 And the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5 And the king’s young men told him, “Haman is there, standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.” 6 So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” And Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” 7 And Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, 8 let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn, and the horse that the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown is set. 9 And let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble officials. Let them dress the man whom the king delights to honor, and let them lead him on the horse through the square of the city, proclaiming before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.’ ” 10 Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry; take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.”

This is actually a tragedy - so basically the King realises that he actually owes Mordecai a great debt that has never been paid. And just as he realises this Haman marches in to get Mordecai hanged, and in one of the most twisted misunderstandings of all time - Haman, in his PRIDE, manages to think that the king is speaking of honouring HIM, when in fact the king is trying to honour Mordecai. The result is that Haman inadvertendly bestows Mordecai with the highest honour from the King, instead of himself.

You know when I read this passage I couldn’t help but laugh at how comical this whole scenario is - and while there are many practical points we can draw from it about pride, I think none even REMOTELY compare to this one principle: Pride makes God our opponent.

James 4:6 “6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.””

The word for pride: antitasso means to align oneself against. This means that God quite literally aligns Himself against the proud.

This is not a passive sort of word - it’s not like God opposes us like He chooses not to bless us. No this means that God makes a PERSONAL stand against the proud.

Haman ran headfirst into a set of circumstances that are so ridiculous that ONLY God could have set them up to unfold this way.

We can be tempted to read into this dramatic turn of events as some twisted coincidence but I don’t believe that at all. I believe that God purposefully orchestrated these events to unfold the way they did because He was OPPOSING Haman.

And likewise in our lives - I can’t help but think of how many breakthroughs ended up turning into barriers because of unseen pride in our lives?

How many opportunities were turned into obstacles because we chose to walk the path of pride?

I think that on some level we underestimate the significance of pride as a sin because it seems like such a common sin; but I think we have to take scripture seriously, maybe this is why so many breakthroughs aren’t received - because pride makes an opponent of God.

I’m so aware of this ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO CHURCH.

ILLUSTRATION: Playing against Pierre

For those of you who may not know, I actually play tennis. Not saying I’m the best or anything - but I’m alright, played for high school; am obviously not anywhere near that level anymore but the fact is I can play tennis decently.

A kid from my youth was actually a bit of a tennis prodigy, so much so that by the time he was 17 he had an ATP ranking, I mean it was in the hundreds but still the point stands - this kid was beating seasoned veterans with relative ease. We used to play tennis together every now and then - I did it because I wanted to get better, looking back I think he was doing it because he was too scared of me to say no.

Anyway one particular session I was firing off some seriously good hits - felt my forehand was dialled in real good. And so I told him, “Hey Pierre - why don’t you play at like your absolute best. Like don’t hold back, let me have it.” And he really did - man you know it’s about to go down when he SWITCHES HANDS. I was like, “Wait, I thought you were a left hander?” He’s like nope just thought it’d be cool if I learned how to play with my left hand.

Man I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a 200kmph serve; but it’s like SOUNDS different. IF I could return the serve, then the next shot would obliterate me. I remember after just like 4 points; this overwhelming sense of NO MATTER WHAT I do - there’s no way I’m getting past this guy. Like there is absolutely no way that I’m winning any points off this guy. It’s UNBELIEVABLY frustrating.

But this is a glimpse of what happens when we play against God - when God literally opposes us. There is this sense of - no matter what I try, no matter what I do - I can’t move past this point. I can’t get breakthrough, I can’t build this relationship, I can’t succeed in this season.

Because I believe God will hold us back to save us from ourselves.

The Gallows and the Cross

The ending of this story is a tragedy. It occurs when Esther is having dinner with the King:

Esther 7:1–10 ESV

3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.” 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?” 6 And Esther said, “A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 7 And the king arose in his wrath from the wine-drinking and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king. 9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated.

Do you notice a pattern here?

Haman plans a public honouring for himself - which ends up being given to his enemy: Mordecai.

Haman builds a gallows for himself - and ends up being hanged on it.

Proverbs 12:13 “13 An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble.”

Pride ultimately ensares only the one who has it. In a very real way pride prepares its own demise.

But to finish off this sermon - I want us to look at this from a different perspective. Because while this story seems to be all doom and gloom for those with pride - I actually see the cross in this.

Just like Haman - The Devil, in his pride, prepared the cross as an instrument of death for Jesus. He was ready for God to be hung on that cross, putting an end to the Messiah.

But in His pride, He missed God’s real plan - God took the cross and used it to DEFEAT the enemy. God took what the enemy meant for evil and turned it for good.

The devil DIDN’T plan for Christ to take the path of humility

and it was Christ’s HUMILITY that ended up being the devil’s undoing.

Scripture says that in the wildest turn in all history - God, the only being with a legitimate claim to such pride - humbled Himself and made himself nothing in order to restore fellowship with us.

Philippians 2:5–8 “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

And this is the answer to anyone who is caught in their pride - wanting to know what they can do to leave that path:

The only way to escape the gallows of pride is to walk the way of the cross.

We are not meant to take God’s place, but we are meant to bear His likeness.

To walk the path of humility is not to replace God - but to resemble Him.

And the example He has set for us to walk is so clear, it is the path of humility. The death of ego. Literally laying our Ego down on the altar.

ILLUSTRATION: Olive Oil

In the last year of my tenure in FCC we had a prophet come to visit the church and we got him to prophesy over the leadership team. He went around laying hands on the whole team and giving them some amazing prophecies, some were going to have their ministries enlarged, some were going to be healed, some were going to get their breakthrough. Then he came to me, and man I was ready to receive the blessing - but he stopped and looked at me and was like “I see olive oil. The only way you extract the oil out of an olive is to crush it. God is going to crush you - but it will bring out the best in you.”

Man I was like excuse you. The pride in my life immediately rebelled against such a prophesy. I was rebuking it in the name of Jesus, I was looking up for ways to extract olive oil WITHOUT crushing the olive (spoiler alert: there isn’t one) man everything in me wanted this not to be true. I was in the best season of my life - I was set to take over the entire church, every ministry I touched was growing, we had serious momentum, like on all levels it didn’t make any sense - why would God crush me now? At the APEX of my ministry.

And yet - it did come to pass. Many of you guys know my story so I won’t bore you with it again, but the next year I was diagnosed with a depression which forced me to leave ministry completely. It was the start of a rough season that lasted nearly 7 years.

But here’s the thing - Sharon and I are now in this church, which is really the church of our dreams. This is such a sweet, loving, beautiful community. We’re not perfect - but in my mind, you guys are about as close as it gets. You know I don’t think I would have fit in here (Sharon would’ve been fine), let alone be fit to lead this church prior to that last season. God had to crush my ego - to extract what was needed so I could walk in His plan. And guys, I can tell you right now I’m so glad that He did.

What we have to realise - is that pride will ALWAYS chart a different direction to God’s will. We cannot walk in God’s will - as long as we are walking with pride.

Altar Call

Search our hearts

Put our ego on the Altar

Sing More like Jesus