Vainglory

Vainglory

INTRO

I’d like to share a bit this morning about some lessons I’ve been learning this past year, ever since my ministry sabbatical last Summer. It surrounds the area of humility, which some of you probably know well, is something of a slow lesson for me.

This message is actually going to be in two parts, the first this week, and the second next week. This week I’d like to make some more personal and individually oriented observations about this idea of humility, and next week I’d like to talk about the effect of this issue on ministry and how we go about the business of the church.

 

THE SERIES SO FAR

Walking in the Gospel: one-on-one proclamation, then loving neighbor and cultivating relationships, then church planting, This morning: preaching the gospel to ourselves.

I’ve heard it put that there are three things we need to do as the church, and this is what the whole goal of discipleship is:

Get the gospel right, Get the gospel in, Get the gospel out

This message will be focused on getting the gospel in, which will provide the drive and right motivation for getting the gospel out.

[PRAY]

MY STRUGGLE IN THIS AREA

On this issue of humility, I’d like to confess that I’ve known for years that I struggle with the lack of it. I’ve been reproved and corrected and convicted by teaching over and over again year after year for most of my christian life in this area. It was this area that caused people most concern when I was being assessed for becoming a pastor.

I’ve known for most of my life that I need to be more humble, but in all honesty, I haven’t even really known what that means. I think I do know what it means to act humble, and I think by God’s grace over the years, he’s protected this church from the full brunt of my lack of humility by that whole fake-it-till-you-make-it thing. Some of you have experienced it full-force and may be having a hard time listening to me talk about this and let me just say that I can honestly appreciate and respect that. And am sensitive to that even now.

I’ve been baffled over the years about how to battle this issue of humility, because I haven’t experienced the lack of it consciously, I only see it, as it were, in the rear-view mirror after hurting someone or steam-rolling a conversation. Part of the issue has to do with the fact that I’ve recently realized that I was thinking of the wrong sort of thing with the whole humility deal. It’s not that I’ve thought of myself as so much more wonderful than “all you plebes” out there, or that I was God’s gift to the universe or anything like that.

The issue was that I was too overly concerned with some things. And for the sake of the sermon this morning, I’m wondering if any of you might resonate with some of these in yourself. I think, looking back, that my non-humbleness manifested itself in a few of these ways, and maybe others:

  • An inordinate concern for “how I fit in here” – “where can my gifts best be leveraged?” Rather than a heart that just desired to serve where needed.
  • An inordinate desire to be respected, and a strong reaction at anything that called in to question my competency, expertise, or respectability
  • Summed up: a subtle me-first attitude that made me the main character of the story of reality (in my perception). Rather, than myself as a servant for the sake of you all, who are more significant in the story than myself.  I made myself Neo rather than Morpheus. Frodo rather than Sam. Luke rather than Ob-wan.

There is an old word, not much in use anymore, which sums up this way of thinking and being: vainglory.

VAIN GLORY

Take a look at Galatians 5:25 with me. I want to take a look at one of the threads of Paul’s thought here. He’s dealing with a larger issue, but what I want to look at is the way he deals with it.

Galatians 5:25–6:14 (ESV)

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 

(This, by the way is one of the verse we get the title for this series, and the language of our mission statement from.)

26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

  • Conceited = “vainglorious” in the King James, a more direct translation of the greek “kenodoxia” which means “empty of glory”, or as the King James puts it, “desire vainglory” meaning to pursue empty glory.
  • And his thought here is that there is real glory to pursue, so don’t pursue the empty stuff, the vain stuff.
  • This is a good word. The more conventional word “conceit” is, in fact, synonymous, but just doesn’t carry the same weight.
  • Provoking – i’m better than you. Envying – i’m worse than you.

“Now what you want to get clear is the Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest.”

“…it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But Pride always means enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.”

– C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity

  • Two sides of the same problem, an over-inflated ego, and a pained, de-inflated ego. The problem in both cases: Judging every situation by “how does this make me feel about myself” — Rather than moving into relationships as a servant.
  • Not doing the cost-benefit analysis on how helping this person will affect my life. (Will get me connected to people I want to be connected to, will get me ahead, will keep me down, will be a drain on me…) Over-inflated ego says “this isn’t worth it”, under-inflated says “I’ll never measure up…”
  • Vain Glory is
    • Desparate for affirmation and recognition
    • Desparate to prove self.
    • Felt emptiness of glory that we long for.
  • Vain glory is especially detestable to people who are themselves vainglorious.
  • And again the problem is not primarily that we are looking for glory. We were designed to seek glory! The problem is that we are seeking it in the wrong places. We seek it in places that are going to leave us empty. We seek it in vain.
  • We are all designed to hear “well done good and faithful servant” from God. There is a place inside of us that yearns to hear that. Romans 1 says the problem is that in our natural state, we’ve denied God, so we are thus forced to seek those accolades elsewhere, like a vampire who doesn’t have any life of its own, and must leach it off of others.

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”

– Blaise Pascal

6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 

  • And here’s the key, in the ultimate sense, we are all nothing. All the glory that we are looking to obtain, or think we have found in this world: money, fame, power, influence, all of those are deceptive, because in the long-run they are nothing, and if you look for your significance and self-worth in them, you are lost.

“In God you come up against something that is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know your-self as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

C.S. Lewis

  • Where was Paul looking for Glory? How do we find the glory we are looking for?

6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

  • Boasting = a declaration of your identity, and a declaration of ability.
  • Vainglory boasts in all sorts of things.  Wealth, beauty, and power are obvious ones, but it can even be theology & ministry things. “Look at the work I’m doing. Look at how bold by faith is. Look at how much I know about the bible. Look at how much of the Bible I’m doing.”
  • Jesus told the 70, who were excited about the success of their missionary work – (basically) “you ain’t seen nothing yet…”

Luke 10:20 (ESV)

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

  • Boasting in the cross = declaration of your identity as a redeemed sinner, unworthy but valued and loved child. Boasting in the cross also declares that there is no other way of life. It is a very exclusivist claim, and it is inherently evangelistic.
  • It is important to boast in the cross to yourself, but for that boasting to have any real effect, you must boast in the cross (declare your identity and ability as found only in Christ) to others. Fellow believers, friends, neighbors, family…
  • If you pretend to have any other identity or any other ability when you are around non-church people, well this is in essence the same as denying Christ before men, and this will lead right back to vain glory and cut you off from the only source of real power and real glory you actually have access to.
  • Boasting in the cross means that you are seeking the applause of God, and no one else.

Jeremiah 9:23–24 (ESV)

23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

  • TAKE ON PAUL’S ATTITUDE – Paul, awareness of his failures: “I AM the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) – present tense. Aware of all his “successes” (the worldly ones) in Philippians 3 as well. None of these were the basis of his judgement of himself.  “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…”

Philippians 3:7–10 (ESV)

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

APPLICATION

  • Acknowledge that we are proud.
  • We must realize our tendency toward vainglory.
  • Fight our seeking after vainglory by boasting only in the cross:
  • Ultimately seek the “well done good and faithful servant” from God and no where else.
  • Realize that we already have it. For those of us who are in Christ, His judgement will be our judgement.
      • (Yes there will be degrees of reward based on faithfulness in this life, but ultimately we will hear our judgement based on his merit, not ours.)
      • Christ was mocked by men so that we could be applauded by God.  He was rejected by the masses so that we could be accepted.
    • So follow him in this way. If this was the right way for him, why would it be different for you?