The Doppelganger Distraction // The Prison Of Comparison // Read
It’s shocking how often our suffering is self-inflicted. In fact, sometimes the worst thing the Devil does is wake us up - then we take it from there! And in our day and age, there’s one specific way we shoot ourselves in the foot time and time again: Comparison. We live online, sharing the highlights (and lowlights) of our lives. We’re more aware than ever who our literal and metaphorical neighbors are, what they have, and exactly how we fall short or outshine them. Comparison may seem harmless, but it’s a serious threat. It’s a prison that will rob us of the life we were made to live. So it’s time for a jail break! It’s time to get freedom from Comparison’s toxic mindset! It’s time to start seeing ourselves and others as Jesus intended!
There are some people in the world who seem to have everything going for them. They’re attractive, witty, successful...they’re just so perfect. And if you were just like them, you’d be perfect, too...right? Wrong! Trying to become a duplicate of someone else is a disservice to the unique person God created you to be. And the sooner you identify and ditch The Doppelganger Distraction, the sooner you’ll make the difference in the world you were designed for.
Today, I'm so glad that you guys are here that you're worshiping with us today. As we are in part two of our series, the prison of comparison, if you have a Bible and you want to follow along, we're going to kind of be jumping around between Hebrews chapter 11, and Hebrews chapter 12. So if you have your Bible or a cell phone app, anything like that, and you want to follow along, you can hop on there. This brings me to a little, little joke I have for you guys.
Okay, um, how does Jesus make his coffee? He brews it. I had to it was there it was, we're talking about the book of Hebrews today. That was bad, though, wasn't it? That was bad. That was like that was a cross between a pastor joke and a dad joke, which made it very bad. That was just awful. I'll turn in my credentials after the surface for you guys.
So this is week two, week two of the prison of comparison, the prison of comparison, there is a prison inside every comparison that we make. In fact, if you look at the word comparison, you take out that co M and that a and what do you get? You got a prison, right? Because prisons are inherent in comparison, the moment we start comparing ourselves to other people, and how great we are in comparison to them, or how great they are in comparison to us. When we do that we are putting ourselves in a self-inflicted prison cell one of our own makings, right? Isn't that the worst? life throws enough stuff our way, doesn't it? life gives us enough curveballs enough things that don't go our way. So whenever we create our own prison cell, it feels especially infuriating.
Now here's the thing, whenever we put ourselves into the prison of comparison, we tend to either find ourselves occupying that prison cell with one of two cellmates. We talked about one of the cellmates last week, we find ourselves stuck in a prison cell comparison with superiority, right? self-righteousness. Look how great we are. Look how incredible I am.
We looked at Luke chapter 18, where Jesus gives this illustration he sees people who he knows are so confident of their righteousness. And so he tells this story talking about a faricy who goes to pray and a tax collector who goes to pray in the Pharisees says, God, thank you that I'm not like these people around me. Thank you that I'm better than them that I type. Thank you that I fast twice a week, thank you that I am better than the people around me. I'm such a good person, this person who is just so confident in their own righteousness, we talked about how that's not a place where any of us want to be I don't know about you, I can't speak for you, I can speak for me. And for me, I do not want my righteousness in my standing before God to be based on my goodness and said his grace, right? That is not anywhere where I want to be I want no part of that. So no, we need to get off the high horse get off the self-righteousness and stop comparing ourselves. Whenever we when we know we're slacking. When we know we're sending and we try to find people who are well, I'm not sending that bad. So hey, look, look how good I am now cuz man, he's, like, you think I kind of I drink a little bit too much. Okay, I'll give you that. But man, this dude, he kills it to worry about him, not me, right.
That's how we get self-righteous. That's how we become legalistic. It's how we become judgmental. That knows where we want to be. It turns us into a people that we would hate. We would hate we have got to avoid spending time with the cellmate of superiority. Now, this week, we're looking at the opposite end of the spectrum, because this again, is what comparison does us it either makes us feel superior to people or inferior to people, right? We feel less thing we feel like we don't measure up to the people around us. I will let you know today's sermon is going to be more upbeat than last week. I actually had one of our I told you last week was pretty heavy. I had one of our MPs before service in our MP rally that we do every Sunday. We're like, hey, any more questions before we like pray? She said, Yeah, I got one real quick for pastor Jacob. is today's sermon going to be a little bit more uplifting than last? But yes, it will be just a little bit.
But today, what we're focusing on is that cellmate of inferiority, feeling like we are less than that we're not enough. I got to tell you, this is a very personal sermon for me because this is where I find myself a lot, a lot. So if you're like me, this is someone or this is something you needed to hear about today. I want to pray for you.
Real quick before we hop in. Let's bow our heads and let's pray together Father God, please just speak to our hearts today. Like we say around here. I don't want people here because they want to hear my opinion. We don't care what pastor Jacob thinks. We care what you think we care what your words speak to us and what you illuminate in our hearts. So God move in a fresh way today. Help us to hear your words, to take what we hear today and not just internalize it, but to actualize it to see it manifest. In our lives, so we become different people following you the way that we should. We love you, Father, we pray this in your name, amen.
Well, hey, I like I said, I've struggled with inferiority for a long time. If an inferiority is a cellmate in the prison of comparison, we've done some time together. Like, we've done some time together, not like we're both in for five years. No, we're like red and Andy and Shawshank Redemption like we're, we're like this, we're after it's all over. We're going to zoom out today, whoa, together, like we're building a boat. Like, it's like that, like we, me, and inferiority are close, I have felt inferior in so many ways. My whole life, I have had an addiction to comparing myself to people that I think are better than me. I've just done it my whole life. I'm the baby of the family. I'm the youngest. And so I think there's already that kind of battle that you have to fight because you're the youngest. And so you're instantly you're comparing yourself to your siblings, you're comparing yourself to your older brother and your older sister and how they did things and how they handled stuff and how they did in school how they didn't sports like I'm, I'm making all of those comparisons. Speaking of schools, it wasn't my parents, it was me deciding to go to different schools. But I changed schools at like the absolute worst times, like after Elementary, like I went from sixth grade into a new school and seventh, so going into middle school, not really knowing anybody. And then I went from eighth and ninth going to a different school. So starting high school, at a different school only knowing a handful of people. Not a smart move. Not a smart move for someone who's insecure, and has a hard time not comparing themselves to people. Because I put myself in these brand new environments, where I'm clearly the odd one sticking out because I'm the new one that no one else knows. And so I'm in these moments, and I'm comparing myself to other people. And well, how are they? I want to make sure okay, what are they? What are they wearing? Okay, I'll start wearing that. And how are they talking? Okay, maybe I talk like that because I don't want to stand out. I don't want to feel less than I don't want people to think I'm stupid or weird or anything like that. And now, I wish I could tell you and then it all stopped in high school. It's gotten worse in some ways. Like it's, it's still hard today.
Now. I'm a pastor and man, whenever I get on Instagram, let me tell you, like, every pastor for it, like I follow every church I follow, I look at their stuff. And I'm like, you're so cool. You're just so cool. And the way you articulate things is so smart. And your insights, man, they're just so spot on and your hair is awesome. Your outfit is on point and like, Man, it's just everything looks so good. And it sounds so good. And I'm just seeing all this. And it's like every other thing I flipped through and I'm like, ah, then I go back and I make a post on mine. And I'm like, that sounded stupid. Like, that's not insightful. Anyone could get that right. Geez, why was I wearing that shirt? What in the world? Like, I see all this stuff. So like I said, if anything, it's gotten worse. For me. It's gotten worse. I will say though, I will say it's easier for me to feel cooler with this stage. Are you kidding me? Isn't this incredible? Man. Oh, I if I'm leaving anybody out. I know. Matt Ellis, Megan Oberlin, Sheila Oberlin, Bruce Oberlin? Oh, and Miller, have all worked on it. And I'll tell you this much. You look at it. And it's like, Wow, it looks great. Must have caught it. This actually was not expensive. This was sweat equity. This was a ton, a ton, a ton of hard work from a lot of amazing people. So thank you, guys. Again, for everybody who had a hand in it looks so so good.
But I do, I need to watch myself as I watch all these cool pastures as I watch all these relevant masters, because what I want to do, what I want to do as I watched them, is it's tempting for me to try to copy them. It's very tempting. I watch them. I compare myself to them. And then I want to take from them. I want to copy them. I want to mimic them. I want to use the same phrases they do. You use the same mannerisms, the same style, the same all this stuff. Because obviously, people love that. People love these guys and love these women. And so I'm like, well, they're doing something right. Maybe I need to do what they're doing now. I get it. You're not a pastor, completely aware.
But in this day and age, we are so hyper-aware of how everybody else is doing. And so you don't need to be a pastor to feel like you're less thing. All you have to do is sign on to Facebook, Instagram to Twitter to tik tok, whatever you're given social media platform is and you'll find someone who's doing that thing that you love so much better than you're doing it. Right. So you're not a pastor but you and you're not even an interior designer, but man, you love the way your house looks. You're so proud of it, like you, you feel like you've got a good eye for it and on how to place things and, and you got, you know how to, you know, match up colors good and you've got all this stuff. And man, you've just finished redecorating your living room and you're looking at you're like, Man, this is great. This is awesome. You take a picture, you're thinking about posting it. So you open up Instagram and you start adding your hashtags. And so you start seeing other pictures with those hashtags of people who have been redoing their houses. And so we started looking at them and instantly that room that you felt so much pride in that you were so pumped about because you put so much work into it and you thought you were good at this you're seeing all these other people and you're like really start looking around your room and suddenly the room that looks spectacular looks real shabby you probably don't even post the picture then you're like well what's the point?
What's the point because you are comparing yourself to other people maybe you're a baker you're home Baker and you're doing cookies you're doing you know you're doing cake stuff like that you see these other people on Food Network who are on these competition shows as I've only been doing this for eight months, and they've got a lifelike size cake and it looks incredible in your house eight months like how did you do this? It makes you not even want to do it anymore. Right, It just seals your joy you see what people are doing in your given area you see how other parents are doing you see how other families are doing you see how other employees are doing and you compare yourself and you just feel I have been there that is such a difficult place to be it's so easy at that moment to feel like you know what, I can either feel crappy or I can try to copy I'm gonna try to copy I'll just be them just carbon copy what they're doing just be an exact duplicate of that pastor. talk the same way same cadence everything is just like that designer.
Oh, people come over man this is great looks awesome. Yeah, I just copied it literally paid for page from this book because I had something but it looks stupid. It looks stupid. So I changed it up. There is a big temptation to copy and I call it the doppelganger distraction. Does anyone know what a doppelganger is? doppelganger. It's, it's like a copy. It's like a twin. I always think there's an SNL skit. You guys have to check it out. back whenever SNL is still really funny. They had a really funny skit called doppelganger. look it up online. It's hilarious. I always think of every time we do this and the whole part of the skit. You see it's the same people playing themselves, right? Like it's a group of guys out for lunch. And they're like, oh, man, I think I spotted your doppelganger. That guy looks just like you. And you're looking at the exact same actor. He's just wearing a different hat. Right? There's always just one thing that's off about that person. And that's really what a doppelganger is it's, it's like a copy, but not right. It's like a copy but not quite there. It's like a low-quality copy.
That's what a doppelganger is. Here's a doppelganger for you. Um, food club. Peanut butter. Not peanut butter. So how bad could it actually be right? I mean, let's be honest. It's like pizza. Like you'll eat it. It's peanut butter. So I'm sure it's good. Food clubs are not like bad or anything but it's food clubs right through the club. This is a doppelganger because who is this pretending to be? Who is this masquerading? Who is this masquerading and trying to make us pretend that it is of course. CIF, CIF, this is the good stuff now I'm a person who I can do generic like I'm fine great value brand like I can roll with that. There's one thing that I like that the taste level is so much different than like well it's we got to go brand name, Jeff. This stuff came along with the 10 commandments. It came down at Sinai it just like elevated down and we still have it to this day so stinking good It's so good. And so what happens is we have places like food club like in I mean there's another good one Peter Pan Skippy they're all you know they're all fine but they're all knockoff versions of the good stuff. We know what the good stuff is right? Maybe you've seen these I mean you'll see plenty of the stuff whenever you go to stores you see all the knockoff brands you see that? I remember this is not a joke. You'll think I'm making this up. You guys know like Chex cereal and little squares. It's kind of hollowed-out there was I think it was that marks one time I went shopping with my mom and I remember walking by and they have all of the like generic cereal on the front where it's you know the exact same time we just a different name. And their knockoff for that and it was little cereal look just like checks but in the shape of a hexagon in the name of the cereal like imagine being A kid and you're like, What? What do you want honey? And this is what you asked for the name of the cereal was crispy hexagons. Like, it doesn't sound delicious. It just sounds like the most accurate description of a food item ever actually is what it sounds like crispy hexagons. And maybe you've seen instead of Dr. Pepper, there's Dr. Thunder and like mountain fury instead of Mountain Dew like all these little knockoff names. It's so funny for there was a period of time.
It was honestly it was before like Walmart became like supercenter and they had all the groceries where my mom would go shopping at a place used to be in Coventry Plaza called Dave's deep discount. And they had deep discounts. They're like you, you got what you paid for a day's deep discount. And so you would get you to know, like Doritos and be like fun redoes like it's this all these, you know, knockoff brands and see what buy these things. bring them home and my dad, I'm sorry, so funny. My dad would always be like, brinda. Now, what is this? Like? And he's, you know, he's a grateful man. But anytime we would like to have chips if I would sit him down he like kind of look at and go, Well, what is that? I never heard of this before. Where did you get this? Like, well, Dave's deep discount. And so it just became a running gag that anytime we saw this kind of stuff pop in the house that would Dave's running a special this week, I have an extra special this week.
But see, I see how this happens. I see how this happens. I see how people try to become like checks and how people try to become like JIFF and how people try to become like Doritos. We try to copy them. We try to copy them because they're good. And we think this is just me at least we think that whenever we're copying, I'm going to mix metaphors for you real quick. So we've been talking food. We think that whenever we copy someone else, we compare ourselves and copy that we're making a digital recording of them. And we're not that simple. Remember tapes, cassette tapes? Do you remember what these things were? Good? Yeah. cassette tapes. Have you ever made a copy of a cassette tape, and then a copy of that copy? And then another copy? How's that thing sound? rough, right? You make enough copies. It starts sounding warbled and distorted. And it's just it's not good at all. Because the quality suffers every time they get Kabhi digital. On the other hand, man, I can pop up my Apple Music on my iPhone on my iPad, and it sounds the same, like just crystal clear, the perfectly same file that I download here is there and it sounds perfect.
And that's what we think happens when we're trying to copy the people around us. We think, Oh, I can do that. And it'll be just, I can watch how that preacher does it and do it at Cornerstone and it'll be perfect. apples to apple comparison. And it's not. This is what we think we end up with whenever we're copying other people. But this is what we actually are. All that we do is when we try to compare ourselves and copy the people around us.
I'm just gonna be frank. We're just a crappier version of them. That's it. That's it. It's why the Bible so strenuously objects to the idea of Don't you dare compare yourself to other people? Don't you dare try to do what they're doing? You were not called to do that. you're called to be you. I get why we want to do this. Because people love Jeff. I didn't even have to hold this up. I said Who? Who is this imposter trying to be and like half the congregation was like, Jiff, hallelujah turn to be like Jiff, right? Like, because we all know because we love Jiff because it's the good peanut butter. Everyone knows it's good peanut butter. So of course all these other companies are trying to mimic them are trying to copy them are trying to get their taste to be as close to Jeff as possible. I get it. So in the same way you're looking at your life and going well, man, look at these people around me who other people love them so much. Well, man, maybe if I just copy what they're doing, I just copy them.
I've just become pretty much a carbon copy, then I'll be fine too. I get why we do it. Because we feel inadequate. We feel inadequate. How many of us honestly think to ourselves, and you may never even admit this to yourself. Just think you know what, if people ever got a look at the real me if people didn't see the smiley face that I put on when I walked through these doors on Sunday, and the bumblebee personality I tried to put on that actually isn't mine, but I've kind of like adopted it from my friend. I've taken it from them that that's actually not me. I'm more of an introvert. But I know if I just act like a normal introvert what comes naturally to me, people will think that I'm standoffish people won't like me. And so I've got it. I've got a Different. How many of us are that us? We feel inadequate that if the world actually saw who we were the real me, they wouldn't like it. Do you know that was one of my biggest hesitations to starting preaching? It honestly would have been easier if I had never felt like we saw the pictures, it would have been easier if I never volunteered and been on the stage before. Because when I was on the stage, I was in skits. I was giving announcements, I was sharing things that I didn't write.
These are announcements somebody gave me I'm just reading them. This is a skit someone else wrote, I'm just acting it out. There was zero vulnerability that I had to put into it. But whenever I'm standing up here, now saying that I'm preaching God's word, I'm sharing what I feel like God's put on my heart with other people. Suddenly, that's very vulnerable. I can get critiqued, that's incorrect theology. Pastor, your doctrines are not on point. You had a harsh tone. I don't like the way you said that. Man, you need to change this, you need change that and that's hard. Because now it's not just some script. It's not you. And for someone who feels inferior a lot, someone who feels less than a lot. That was a terrifying thing. And it still is, it still is to this day, it's a scary thing. If you see the real me, maybe you won't like what you see, we have all been there. Maybe you are there right? Now it happens to all of us. Maybe it's because of something that's been in your past, something that's happened to you something that someone has said to you. And because of that, I totally get why you want to imitate, mimic and copy and compare yourself to the people around you who seem to have it all together. So okay, let me just do what they're doing and try to fulfill the calling that they have and try to fulfill the purpose God's put on their life. Let me just be who they are.
This brings me back to our scripture. For today. I promised I would get to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, is where we're going to start in verse one. And I'm telling you right now, we're going to be doing a lot of flipping back and forth between Hebrews 12. And Hebrews 11. This is what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse one. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles in let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, I want to stop right there real quick. And I want to say a super, this is such a pastor cliche. If you only remember one thing today, remember this, right?
Hopefully, you remember more than one thing. But if you remember one thing today, this is really kind of the thesis of the entire sermon is the thing that everything's going to surround on. Do not ruin your life, running someone else's race. That is the thought I want to leave you with. That's what I want you to be thinking about this week, do not ruin your life, running someone else's race. Listen again, to what the writer of Hebrews says. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us with perseverance, run the race marked out for us. That means I race for me, God when he was forming me in my mother's womb, set aside a destiny and a purpose and a will for my life.
And that is the race that I am supposed to run. I'm supposed to run that race. I'm not supposed to run anybody else's race. Any of these Instagram pastors that I follow. I'm not supposed to fulfill their calling. I'm not supposed to run their race, those people on Facebook that you can't help but confess, compare your family to all the time, you're not running their race, you're not supposed to stop trying to run it, you will ruin your life trying to run somebody else's race. All we have to do is hop back one chapter in Hebrews back to Hebrews chapter 11. I'll encourage you to read this sometime throughout the week. Hebrews chapter 11, is famously called the Hall of faith. Because scripture lists out 18 individuals and how they were able to do incredible things on behalf of God because of their faith. Because they trusted in God, they put their faith in him. Here's the common denominator, you'll see between all 18 of those people. They were able to do amazing things, they were able to make an impact on their world. Think about this, they were able to make an impact that lasted so long. Some of these people lived 5000 years ago, and we're still talking about them today. Shocking impact in the reason they were able to do that is that to a person, they ran the race marked out for them. They weren't trying to be anybody else. They weren't trying to run somebody else's race. They knew what God had put on their heart, the calling that he had on their heart, and they pursued that above all else they ran the race that God gave them. And because of that, they made a difference.
I want to tell you to stay in your lane. stay in your lane, whatever lane God has in mind for your stay in it. Don't look around the moment you start looking as the moment you start drifting. All you have to do is whenever you're driving, you've done it before you're looking at something outside one of your windows, take your eye off for a little bit and guess what happens? You start to drift, start to drift to the left, start to drift to the right. Don't let it happen. Keep your eyes focused on the race you are supposed to be running stay in your lane. Now comparison that one of the things that makes it so devastating to us in such an insidious prison is how sneaky it is. Back to Hebrews 12. Listen to how sin is described here. The sin that so easily entangles, I was studying this verse this week, and that phrase easily entangles it's actually one Greek word. And it's the only time this word appears in the entire entirety of Scripture.
And what it means is to skillfully set in, that's what that word means to easily entangles means it's skillfully getting its claws in. It's just it's getting in there with skill and with stealth and very sly. That's how sin works. Especially the sin of comparison. It's so sly, which is exactly how the enemy works, right? He's stealthy, he, he wants us to think we're doing something good when in actuality we're doing something that will tear our lives apart. Right? That's how he works. And so some of you may be in here, arms crossed, thinking that this sermon doesn't even apply to you. And you're just like, on your phone or whatever. Because you don't think you have a comparison problem. Because in your mind, I'm bettering myself. I'm not comparing myself I'm just bettering myself and becoming a better person. I'm just sure I look at this person, I take their stuff, and I think there's a but I'm just bettering myself, hey, if you're bettering yourself more power to you, that's great. Just be careful. You're not erasing yourself. Because there are some of us who that's exactly what we're doing. We're not actually bettering ourselves. We're just erasing who we are and becoming a carbon copy. That's not nearly as good, as the original of somebody else. We're trying to be the parent they are, you don't have their kids. And if you knew their kids, you might be thinking God, you don't have their kids. Because you don't know what goes on behind closed doors.
You don't know how they talk to them. When no one else is around, you don't know that stuff. You're comparing your life to someone else's fantasy in your mind. You have no idea what's really going on. Don't erase yourself. You've got to be so Cognizant to realize, man, I'm drifting. I'm taking my eyes off my lane and I'm starting to drift over here. You got to be cognizant of it. You got to be thinking about it. You got to be praying about asking the Holy Spirit. Be real with me. God be real with me. Am I actually trying to just better myself? Or am I trying to become that person? God, am I really trying to become a better person? Or am I trying to become them? Am I trying to fulfill what they've got over here? Am I trying to measure which we're talking about next week? Am I trying to measure my success off of their definition of what success looks like? In my comparing myself to other people, you've got to be vigilant about it. And when you are there is a way that you can fix the doppelganger distraction. If you feel yourself starting to drift, man, you feel like okay, I'm going to assign the next side.
If you feel yourself starting to drift, starting to want to become a doppelganger of somebody else. Here's how you fix it. Hebrews 12 verse two, let's continue this what it says. And let us run with perseverance. The race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross scorning its shame, it sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, is he Jesus gives us the model for how we can fix the drift in our life. And if we start to drift, trying to compare ourselves and be like other people, how we fix the drift is by fixing our eyes. It's that simple. You want to fix the drift in your life, fix your eyes back on Jesus, where they should have been the whole time. You and I have no business looking around at other people and trying to Well, can I just can't I have their calling? Hey, can I be called to a church in like Hawaii, like, Can I all go suffer for the Lord down there? Can I have that? Fix your eyes to fix the drift in your life? fix our eyes on Jesus fix our eyes on his example. Look at what Scripture says that he did. It says that Jesus was able to endure what life threw his way because he set joy beforehand. He had joy set before him something that was a milestone out there in the distance. So all that stuff, he went through all the names, all the persecution, all the whips, and the nails and the cross, he was able to get through all of that, because he had joy set before him. Were eight guys, we're in the middle of it, we're able and don't get me wrong, the church, the auditorium looks beautiful. Now we got to stage fixed everything.
But let me tell you, no amount of paint changes the size of this building. It's still too small. Why do you think we're adding a Saturday service? It's just too small. It's too small. Our church membership is too big. We have too many people who are involved here and called their home church for this to really work. Whenever you go out here and go down the kid's wing, man, there's more paint that needs a fix. And there are chips and there are old light fixtures on this carpet. You don't even want to know, right? Like, it's just, it's bad. It's bad. And if there was no end goal in sight, it was just like, well, sometime, we'll get to this stuff.
And one of these days we'll have a building one of these days, you know how hard that would be? That would be exhausting. That would be difficult. Right? We experienced it. Whenever we were at the school with people who were doing setup and teardown, having no idea whenever we were going to get our building again, people being like, how many more weeks this, this is, this is nuts, right? But we're able to push through, and we're able to not just endure what's going on right now. But actually rejoice in the midst of and believe that the best isn't just yet to come. But it's here. And now we're able to do that. Because we see the vision that God has for us as a church, we see this beautiful new building, it's going to be able to welcome people from the Akron Canton area, it's going to be able to house people who are coming out of addiction, people who are needing their relationships fixed, it's going to be able to house people who just need a place to come and hang out, it's going to be able to do all of that. And I see it and we see it here, man.
Maybe it's just me, every time I drive by this, I just see I don't even see our building, I see the new buildings, I see. I see what it's gonna look like, I'm like, I can picture it as I can just picture it. And because of that, man, I can put up with all this stuff, I can put up with paint chips like the stage looks incredible. If it didn't cost a little, we probably wouldn't even be done it. You know, if it wasn't just the hard work, but because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because we know what's coming. We have joy set before us. And because of that joy set before us, we can endure what we're going through right now. And that's exactly what Jesus did. And I want to let you know, if you have joy set before you, you will start to notice that you compare yourself to other people so much less than you used to. If you have joy set before you. So what is set before you, I hope this doesn't hurt too much. Maybe you're looking around. Maybe you're looking around because you don't know what you're running toward. You don't have anything set before you.
Jesus had joy he had the joy of his father and the joy of knowing that you know what, on the other side of this cross is an empty grave, and I have that joy set before me. What joy Do you have set before you? Because that's the thing about that. That's the only reason Jesus got through the way he did. For the joy set before him, he was able to endure the cross and scorn and shame. Some of us, you wonder why you can't get through life. You have nothing set before you nothing. You just live every day, almost on accident, whatever happens, happens. And you hope that by the end of your life, you have a life that kind of matters. That is not how it works. That's not how it works. You've got to have something set before you something out there that you are constantly reaching toward, that's going to keep you in your lane and from drifting and other people's lane. For me, I look out to the future. And I see, you know what I see down at the finish line, I see a faithful ministry, I see a faithful ministry that whenever I get to the end of my pastoral leadership, I can do as pastor Brenda did, and pastor Charlie before her, I can say, Hey, I honored God. And I was faithful to the time that I was given to lead this church and I can hand it off to another leader. That's what I want. I want whenever I get to the end, I want to be able to have kids who are mature and love God because they were raised in a healthy, mature, godly environment. I want to have them have kids who do the same for them. I want a marriage that's more in love and a better place than it was on our wedding day. Like I want all of those things. And so for that joy, I see that Jacob out there in the distance. I'm so pumped by that Jacob that I see. Whenever I fix my eyes back on that what Jesus is calling me to, I realized man, all these other pastors I'm comparing myself to I don't want what they have.
I love what I got. Like he's given me enough. I just need to steward what I've been given. I just need him to manage the race that I have been given and stop trying to compare myself and run other people's races, because it will never bring me fulfillment and it will never bring you fulfillment. If you're constantly looking around trying to run somebody else's race, what is set before you, man? Honestly ask yourself that this week, really ask yourself, man, God, what am I? What am I setting in front of me? Like what is my end goal night because if you don't have one, get one, get one. And I'll tell you what it should be, it should be the godliest version of you you can imagine is at the end of that line, the end of your line should look like Jesus, that's what it should look like. And if you do that, I promise you, you will start becoming so consumed with what your race looks like, you will start to care so much less about the people's races around you.
Man, if we just knew, if we just knew what God had in mind for us, like if we were talking about this with our building, like once we get the plans. And once we have the drawings, it's gonna be like such a game-changer, because then we can see it, then we're like, oh, that's what it will look like, this is what it will look like that picturing it here and everything like that, that's such a game-changer. Because then you're not trying to imagine you actually have a tangible picture of what this thing will look like. And that's kind of what's so hard about keeping your eyes fixed and not comparing to other people. Because it's, an unknown possibility down there. But you are surrounded by so many known realities, you get what I mean? Like, we, we know, we can know that God has something in mind for us down there. But we can't articulate it, we can't really visualize what that looks like. It's, it's like the building some of you you're trying to think of what the building looks like. And you're like, ah, I mean, will we keep this one? And maybe what, what will we do here, and so it's hard, it's kind of hard. And in the same way, your future can be so hard to visualize sometimes.
But man, it's not hard to visualize what this person is doing. Because you see it on your Facebook feed every day. It's not hard to see what this person is doing, because it's on your Instagram all the time every time you check it. And so it's easier for you to compare ourselves and say, focus down here to just compare ourselves to what we can actually see. And like, well, I want a future that looks like that. Well, their current reality is kind of close to that. So I'll just do this, then, like, I'll just I'll do what they're doing. I'll just try to fulfill that because that's tangible. I can see I can, I can feel it. But if we knew what God had in mind for us, man, we wouldn't want what other people have. We wouldn't we wouldn't we, we just project what we want onto other people. And that's no way to get where we want to be. You see the doppelganger distraction, the only way to break it requires faith as the only way to break it. Because we all want something tangible. We all want something to know everyone wants concrete, like, tell me what it's going to look like, tell me when it's going to happen. Tell me how it's going to happen. And if I know all that, then I'll stop. It's like, that's not how God works. It's not how God works. And so that's why we're so drawn to compare ourselves to be because we want concrete, but that's not how God works. God works through faith. And that's what we've been seeing here in the book of Hebrews. I want to turn us back one more time to Hebrews chapter 11. Listen, listen to this description of faith. And keep in mind that we're saying faith is how we break the doppelganger distraction. Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see is not a great description. Faith is confidence and what we hope for, and assurance in what we do not see. You see the heroes that we read about in the following verses in chapter 11, all of them, the reason they're heroes of the faith is that they had faith. They had confidence in what they couldn't see, and assurance of what they couldn't see. They had that and they followed it, even though they couldn't see it, even though they're like, I don't know what the end goal of my life looks like. But I'm just I have faith. I have faith at the end of the story that God is writing. I have faith in that. And because I have faith in that I can march towards this confidently and say, even though I don't know what I'm going to have down here, I don't want your race. Even though I don't know what's waiting for me at the end of this finish line. I don't want what you're doing. Because I was created with a certain purpose in mind and it matters and I matter and I'm sticking to it. That's why these people were heroes of the faith they had faith in the story that God was telling in a fix their eyes on what they could not see in the same is true for us. We've got to fix our eyes on Jesus. fix our eyes on Jesus, because we don't know how our story plays out. We all know how the story plays out.
So we just fix our eyes on Him and trust in him that if we could see what he could see, we would choose the exact same thing that we would say, Yep, I want my race. I don't want any buddy else's. And then here just in the last little bit in closing, I want us to turn back to Hebrews 12. This is so good. This is how this set of three verses ends. And chapter 12 says, consider him, which isn't that just beautiful language right there just those two words, consider him consider Jesus, how different our world would be if just we did that. Consider him who endured such opposition from centers so that you will not grow weary and lose heart, consider him the more we consider the Jesus, the less we compare ourselves, the more we get just so in love, and just so focused and so drawn to Jesus, the lest we compare ourselves because we get so caught up in who he is, and what he's done for us. We realize how valuable we are. We don't have an inferiority complex anymore, or it starts to die a little bit every day and maybe rises up again. But you start to remember, no, no, I'm considering Jesus. And I think about the fact that he endured the cross. And he did all this. And one of the main reasons he did it was to reconcile me to him, how valuable am I? How valuable is the mission that God has given me that I was I, the Son of God, that his blood? for my future was a good trade? Like, how valuable Am I that's the fact? So shame on me if I want somebody else's life? How dare I even try to say no, I need to have what they have because I was purchased at a high cost. So my race is a good enough race. And I'm going to stay on course. So in conclusion, you might be thinking, if this is it, I want to make sure no one leaves out here with any ill-conceived notions that you're just not supposed to change at all right? Like, so what I just don't change, like you're telling me not to compare myself to anybody. So I'm not supposed to have any like role models. I'm not supposed to have any mentors, anybody that I look to and say, hey, I want to be like them. That's not at all what I'm saying.
Having role models, having mentors, having people who you look at you admire, and you go, man, I love the way that they're following God, I love the way that they, they lead their family, I love the way that they input into their kids, I love the work ethic that I see in them, I love the skill level that they put in here. It's totally great to see that to admire it and to want that for yourself. But there is a big difference between just trying to copy someone and trying to take the principles that they are using to succeed and apply them in your own life to vastly different things. So for an example, these pastors that I like so much, man, I can get so much from them, from the way they study the way they prepare the way that they make sure that they are in God's word, not just from a work perspective, but a personal perspective, that they have people in putting those things into their life. I can do all of those things. I can apply all those principles without copying them. Without comparing myself to them without mimicking them. The same is true for you. So yes. Find people in your life who you admire, get close to them. Find out how they do what they do. apply those principles into your life, do whatever you need to do to better yourself, but do just that better yourself. Don't try to become somebody else better yourself, because and this is gonna sound so cheesy, right?
There's like the end of the 30-minute sitcom where everything comes together and it's all so sweet. It's gonna sound cheesy, I promise you. It's not the world that needs you. And I'm not even talking about the global world. Don't maximize this thing. So big. Start small. I'm talking your household needs you. Your workplace needs you, your community, your neighbors need you and they don't need the crappy version of you trying to be somebody else. They need you. You may not realize it, but you are the top tier of you. You're the best you there's ever been right? And we need you. You have a unique skill set. You have a unique experience. You have a unique calling. Don't forfeit it trying to be somebody else. Not for one more day. Because we need you. And all you need is Jesus. That's it. That's it. You don't need what's going on over here. All you need is him standing at the end of your finish line with a Well done, good, and faithful servant. And that's it. That is it. Everything else is a cherry on top because that is more than enough. Heavenly Father. Help us to see that today that you are more than enough that we don't need to look at other people's lives and want what they have or feel less about ourselves, we don't need to do that. All we have to do is look at you. And the more we focus on you, the more we fix our eyes on you, the more we fix this doppelganger distraction that tries to lure us away from the calling you have placed inside our hearts. God, there's too much at stake, help us to fulfill and to run the race that you have marked out for us with perseverance. And to run it in the same way that Jesus did with our eyes set on the joy before us so that we can become the people. You created us to be people who only need one thing. As we were singing in both services, something came to my mind.
I'm wanting to make sure I say before we get out of here, and that's as you fix your eyes on Jesus, as you focus on him. I want to encourage you to start that today. Like, start that right now. Because this is what I can promise you. I can promise you this is true. You can thank Yeah, I'll put it off. I'll do it later. I'll focus on where I should later. But right now, man, I'm just I'm kind of doing whatever. I'm not really setting anything beforehand. It's kind of living. whether you want to or not. The race has started. It has started and you're making strides with every second that passes by. And God forbid, you get years down the road from today. years down the road, wishing man I wish I would have stopped comparing myself I wish I would have stopped trying to go for this and this, and I would have just fixed my eyes on where it matters and put that joy before me how different my life would look.
Pastor Brenda can't tell you how many people she has counseled who have had that exact cry on their hearts. I knew what I should have done but I just didn't do it at the moment. Make this your moment. Make this your moment.
