Worship with our Hearts // How to Get Over Yourself and Live a Life That Counts, Part 9

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Sometimes – sometimes we just need to hear it straight. Come on – tell it to me the way it is. And sometimes what we need to hear – like it or not – is that it’s time for us to get over ourselves – and God has a sure fire way of making that happen!

Now it never ceases to amaze me how many things we can find to be proud of, at least I can. I used to be proud of my wealth, such as it was, the car that I drove, the house that I lived in, my gifts, my abilities, my talents. Not that I'm anything special mind you, not that I'm some great mega rich businessman, not that I had one of those really, top of the range, super dooper expensive cars.

Not that I lived in a multi million dollar house with water views. Had none of those things but I still had pride in what I had and who I was, as though I had anything that God didn't give me in the first place. Have a look around and it's amazing how pride rules the roost in many a person’s life.

Whether or not they believe in Jesus. I know plenty of Christians who suffer deeply from this disease of pride. And here's the crazy thing, pride ultimately leads to our destruction. Pride ultimately brings us down. The Old Testament, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 18, says this:

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

But still, pride is one of the most prevalent, most destructive diseases doing the rounds today. And there is one, one sure fire way to deal with pride. One trump card if you like that will knock pride out of our lives like nothing else. That's what we're going to be talking about on the program today. God's trump card in dealing with our pride.

I was at an investment seminar recently. Just interested, went along, read a book on investing in the Stock Market and wanted to hear the author speak. Probably, I guess, there were a couple of hundred people there. I sat in the aisle seat in the last row just so I could make a quick exit if it proved to be a waste of time.

And there was an older man, I'm guessing in his late 60's, sat in the opposite aisle seat. We got chatting before the presentation. This was not long after a major Stock Market crash and recession. He was telling me about a friend of his who'd been a top merchant banker, earning huge amounts of money.

This man had gone and bought a house worth 4.4 million with a down payment of $400,000 and a mortgage of 4 million. That was okay, he had the income to service the loan until the Stock Market crash. Where he lost his job and property values plummeted. That man had to sell that same house, to let it go in a fire sale for 2.6 million dollars. That's a loss, just quickly doing the maths, of 1.8 million dollars.

Can you believe it? What's going on here. Is there anything wrong with borrowing to buy a house? No, it's something that lots of people do. We don't own our house, the bank owns about 20% of it and so we have a mortgage.

What's wrong though is that when we get to having such an over inflated sense of pride, we imagine that it's okay to borrow these outrageous sums of money just so that, well, so that we can make ourselves and our friends think that we're someone important.

Years ago I used to live in big houses with gold taps, before I became a Christian. And I'd also lived in small apartments. Can I tell you something? Provided that you have a reasonable roof over your head, the size or the grandeur of that roof makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to your level of happiness.

What's going on here is that our pride, our sense of self and self importance causes us to worship things that we want to worship. We worship our reputations. We worship our wealth. We worship our cars or the success of our children. We can find so many things, impostors, to worship but inevitably they all come unstuck.

So, what's the sure fire way of dealing with this pride? What's the one thing that you and I can do to finally get over ourselves and live a life that counts? What's Gods trump card that will deal with pride every single time? Do you really want to know? Well here it is, Exodus chapter 20, verse 2. It says:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth below or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

What's the sure fire answer to pride? Worship God instead. Worship the one true God above all other things. Instead of finding little tin pot gods in money, houses, prestige and worshipping those impostors, go for the real thing. Jesus put it like this, it's in Luke chapter 10, verse 27. He said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.

Now, let's just think about that for a moment. What does it mean to worship someone or something? What is it that actually happens when we worship? Because worship isn't a term that's particularly popular in today's vernacular anymore.

Well here's what a dictionary on my PC tells me what worship means. "Adoration or devotion, comparable to religious homage, shown towards a person or a principle." Interesting, we think of the term of worship as being related to God but it's entirely possible for us to worship something or someone other than God.

But the Hebrew original word in Exodus chapter 20, verse 5, that first and second commandment that says we shall not bow down or worship idols, literally means, 'we will not labour or work for them. We will not serve as their subjects. We will not make ourselves their servants.'

Here's the thing, we all worship something. We all labour for something. For that man with the 4.4 million dollar house that he lost, he poured his life out for something that failed him. He worshipped it. But when we worship God, when we do that with all our hearts, you know what we're doing, we're placing God above ourselves and oddly enough that's exactly where He belongs.

Think about this, worshipping God is the single most selfless thing that we can do. You know one of the reasons I love being part of a Church is that the whole thing of joining together with fellow Christians, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and worshipping God. Singing does that. I pour my heart out to God and lift my hands and bow down my life and worship Him with all that I am.

You start doing that, I mean not just singing songs but worshipping God with all your heart and something happens inside. The big house and the flashy cars, they don't seem worth it anymore and for me, you know what I discovered, my reputation, that thing that I, in my pride, valued so highly, it doesn't matter much anymore.

All of a sudden, when I stop labouring for the impostors and start setting about labouring for God, my whole world changed. The worship of God is Gods tool to deal with our pride once and for all. It's powerful, it's mighty and it's affective. Because when we worship God from our hearts, what we do with our hands starts to change too.

That's what we're going to be looking at tomorrow on the program. God sets to work in us, enabling us both to want to live for Him and then actually to live for Him. Worshipping God with all that we are and all that we have, as it turns out, is the greatest medicine for the pride in our hearts.

It's God who helps us to get over ourselves and live a life that truly counts.