Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture

John 21:

2 Corinthians 10:12

Today I want to talk about comparison.

So I want you to turn to your neighbor and ask them this question, which is the title of this message.

Say “Neighbor, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH YOU?”

Introduction

During this season, people are beginning to post all different types of things on social media.

They are beginning to post their graduation pictures, their prom pictures, their wedding pictures, the locations where they are getting ready to go on vacation, their summer-ready bodies.

And when you are scrolling up and down, it is easy to fall into the trap of beginning to compare your life to someone else’s.

You can begin to wonder why certain things are not happening for you.

If you made the right choices and decisions in life, or even why you were dealt the cards you were dealt or born into the family you were born into.

And in some cases looking at other people’s life can be a good thing because it can serve as a source of motivation.

For when you are looking at people graduating and doing some big thing it can cause you to want better and to do better if you know you are a lazy person and are stuck in a place of complacency.

Looking at other people to get make you start thinking well maybe I do need to study more, maybe I do need start going to Bible study, maybe I do need to stop playing video games and binge watching Netflix and Hulu all day.

Looking at other people as a source of motivation can be a very good thing.

But when God is orchestrating your life.

When God is ordering your footsteps, and he is in the driver seat of your life, you have to be careful in spending a lot of time staring at what other people are doing, because what God is doing in their life may not have anything to do with you.

Craig Groeschel says “A quick way to ruin something special is to compare it to something else.”

Yes they got a new house, but what does that have to do with you?

Yes they get to travel with their job, but what does that have to do with you?

Yes they got accepted to that college, but what does that have to do with you?

Yes they got some new shoes and the new iPhone, but what does that have to do with you?

Yes all of your friends are married or booed up, but what does that have to do with you?

Craig Groeschel says “A quick way to ruin something special is to compare it to something else.”

A quick way to ruin something special is to compare it to something else.

If you ask any of my preacher friends about me, just about all of them will say I am not your typical black preacher.

I don’t have their same preaching style, nor do I share the same experiences.

When I was 17, I went off to college and their I studied under a white pastor and worshipped in a multi-cultural church for four years and it completely shaped the way I preached and my thought process about ministry.

Most of my friends stayed in LA and preached in the LA black circuit.

: Preacher platform and style - If you ask any of my young preacher friends, they will all tell you that I am not your typical black preacher in Los Angeles.

haven’t preached in the same

And when I came back to LA, there were times when I began to wrestle with the preacher that I believed God was shaping me into and the black preacher I was used to hearing.

I wondered why I didn’t have the same opportunities to preach in certain churches as my preacher friends.

I wondered what if I had stayed in LA and continued preaching like my preacher friends.

I wondered if something was wrong with me.

But then I began to recognize that the reason why I didn’t have the same preaching opportunities, and the reason why God sent me off to Santa Barbara to study under a white preacher is because God had different pulpits and different opportunities that he wanted to speak in.

And that’s why I have had the privilege of speaking before black people, white people, hispanic people, and asian people.

That’s why I can regularly preach at a church in South Central Los Angeles and then turn around a preach at a seminary graduation that is multicultural and full of PhD professors.

God had different places that he wanted me to preach in.

What Am I trying to Say?

What am I trying to say?

When God is shaping you and molding you into who He wants you to be, you don’t have time to be staring and comparing what God is doing in your life to what God is doing in somebody else’s.

The Bible says in that your gift will make room for you and bring you before great men.

But that is only true if you decide to be the person God has created you to be and not a knock-off or a fake of someone else.

But that is only true if you decide to be the person God has created you to be and not a knock-off or a fake of someone else.

The world doesn’t need another Brandon, because no one can beat me being me.

But the world needs (say names of people in the audience if you know their names).

The world needs you to be the person God is shaping you to be.

Somebody needs to hear today that “I’m too special to be comparing myself to something or someone else.”

No one can beat me being Brandon.

The world needs Brandon (Akayla) , not a knock off or a fake of someone else.

And so today, I’m going to give you three things that comparing ourselves to others can do and then give you one thing we can do going forward.

Comparing ourselves to others can lead to having an inflated view of self.

Some people are posting thi

Comparing ourselves to others can lead to having an inflated view of self.

When you think of the word inflate think of a balloon.

It looks big, but at the end of the day it is just full of air.

That’s how some of the Pharisees had such an inflated view of themselves that Jesus would refer to them as white washed tombs—clean on the outside, but nothing but death on the inside.

And in ...

Comparing ourselves to others can make us settle for less than what God has for us.

Comparing ourselves to others can lead to having an inflated view of self.

Luke 18:9-14

(Explain or read scripture)

Aren’t we like that as Christians sometimes?

We compare our Christian walks to other people Christian walks.

And because we feel like we don’t do any of the “big” sins like THEM we feel good about ourselves.

I don’t steal.

I don’t kill.

I’m not addicted to any drug.

Compared to other Christians, I look good on paper.

I mean yes I’m a little prideful, yes I’m selfish, yes I got a nasty attitude and a sharp tongue, yes I don’t like doing my chores when mom and dad tell me to, yes I place my extracurricular activities before my relationship with God sometimes, and yes I’ve been a bad student because I’m getting D’s when I know I could be getting A’s and B’s.

But at least I’m not like THEM!

And you see what makes having an inflated view of yourself so dangerous is that you begin to lose the drive and the urgency to grow.

We begin to look left and right and because we see ourselves doing more than the people around us and you begin to tell yourself well maybe I can stop.

Maybe I don’t have to do anything more or strive for anything better.

Black Student Union Story - I remember being over the Black Student Union at my college, and historically BSU praised first-generation college students.

For those that may not know what that means, a first generation college students is a student that is the first person in their family to attend a four-year university and obtain a bachelor’s degree.

It is something we praised and clapped for, especially because many of our families didn’t have an education because they were denied an education.

First generation college students is something to be celebrated.

But my problem is when we become so inflated with the idea that we have done one more thing than our parents didn’t do that we miss out on the ten other things that God also has for us.

Maybe God doesn’t want you to just have a bachelors, maybe he wants you to get a Ph.D or a doctorates, maybe he wants you write a few books or own multiple properties.

Maybe God wants you to do a hundred things more than your parents never did, but so long as you are inflated with the idea of doing more in comparison to the people around you or that came before you, you will miss out on all the other things that God has for you.

Having an inflated view of yourself can cause you to lose the drive and the urgency to grow.

Comparing ourselves to others can make us settle for less than what God has for us.

In , Samuel, the judge over Israel was getting old so he appointed his two sons as the judges.

But his two sons weren’t good people.

They didn’t have the same character that their father Samuel had.

So instead of asking for another judge, the Israelites use this as an excuse to ask for a king like the other nations.

And in response, Samuel tells them a king is going take your servants, your sons, your daughters, your cooks, your bakers.

Samuel was basically trying to get them to understand that having a human king going to take more from them than add to them.

But despite Samuel’s warning, they say this in verse 19-20.

Comparing ourselves to others can lead to jealousy & insecurity.

Israel wants a human king that can go before them and fight their battles.

Let me say that again.

Israel wants a human king that can go before them and fight their battles.

But because they are comparing themselves to other nations, they can’t see that they already had the greatest King that has ever been.

God was their king.

And God was the type of king that would hear his people’s cry and send not 1, not 2, not 3, but ten different plagues to deliver out of 400+ years of slavery.

But Israel wants a human king that can go before them and fight their battles.