The Half Jubilee: Why Comparison Is a Curse

Sermon outline

The blessing waits on the other side of obedience, sacrifice and faith, and we will never walk through that door while we compare ourselves with others or mistake material things for vision.

1. Fight the good fight of faith

   The fight Paul charges Timothy with is not physical. It means being mentally alert, strategic and resolved, refusing to let your mind hand you thoughts of chaos and disaster when your emotions are under attack. Speak the word over your situation out loud, and if you do not know what to say, open your Bible and read scriptures aloud. Looking for the word once the battle is raging sounds ridiculous, yet it is how most of us live, so prepare beforehand. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal: we release authority with words like "peace, be still".

   “Taking out the word when the battle is raging sounds ridiculous, but it seems that it is how we tend to manage our lives.”

   • 1 Timothy 6:12-16
   • 2 Corinthians 10:4
   • Mark 4:39

2. Twenty five years of obedience

   Everything with God is about obedience, sacrifice and faith. Abraham was seventy five when he received the promise and a hundred when Isaac came, twenty five years into his obedience, when some of us cannot wait twenty five minutes. His obedience was also seasonal: had he waited twenty five years before obeying, there would have been no blessing. Everything he went through was the setup for where God was taking him, so the challenges we face are setups too, either growing us or preparing the environment. This is not the time to stand by and see what happens.

   “Some of us don't even want to wait 25 minutes when God says move.”

   • Genesis 12:1-3
   • Genesis 17:4-8

3. Faith unlocks the door, grace takes you through

   Obedience and the step of faith open the door, grace carries you through it, and the blessing is on the other side. Put your hope in God rather than your own reason, and He will make your steps straight. When Abraham told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister, God still warned the king in a dream and protected them. The small lies and deviations along the journey of obedience did not cancel the grace carrying Abraham to the place of blessing, and they do not mean starting again from the beginning.

   “Faith helps us to unlock the door. Grace takes us through that door.”

   • Proverbs 3:5-8
   • Genesis 20:1-7

4. The blessing is on the other side of uncomfortable

   He has put himself and his family in uncomfortable, inconvenient places and has seen God move in his children, his wife, his mother, the wider family and the church. He has found himself sowing, giving and sacrificing more. The blessing is not a once-off sum but generational. Even in marriage no one knows what tomorrow brings; it is grace that carries a couple through. We do not find our purpose; we serve God's purpose, and serving God's people will be uncomfortable.

   Illustration: In six months he has had four life-changing moments as pastor, each in a meeting he found inconvenient to attend, where the Lord spoke something different from the message being preached.

   “We don't find our purpose, we serve God's purpose.”

5. Stop trying to fit someone else's identity

   God does not make junk; the very fact that you were born is evidence of His purpose. You are not called to do what others are called to do. Comparison is a loss of identity, trying to fit into somebody else's life when God knows every hair on your head. Why are we surviving, getting by and doing the same old things while expecting something new? Everything you have desired is on the other side, but you have to pass through the uncertainty to reach it. Read Ephesians 1 to 3 as a family.

   Illustration: He quotes TD Jakes: to sustain the things you want to do, you have to get uncomfortable and do the things you do not want to do. At work, the extra load you complain about may be God enlarging your capacity for more than the job.

   “God doesn't make any junk, brothers and sisters.”

   • Ephesians 1-3
   • Matthew 10:30

6. Tools, not vision

   Why prioritise nails, a weave and takeaways that are gone tomorrow over giving and sacrifice? Vision is not the car or the house. A car loses a large part of its value the day it leaves the showroom, and if you stop paying the instalment it was never yours. The blessing of the Lord is not in hire purchase or interest; it makes rich and adds no sorrow. Material things are nice to have, but they must come as a byproduct of fulfilling God's purpose, not as the vision.

   “The blessing of the Lord is not in the HP, it's not in the hire purchase, it's not in taking a loan.”

   • Proverbs 10:22

7. Comparison is a curse

   Closing after the prayer points, he warns that it is a curse to find your identity through other people's lives. Comparison breeds discontentment, ingratitude, impatience and even depression. Change the mindset and the heartset, and align them with what God wants.

   “Remember that it is a curse to compare yourself to anybody else.”

In this message