When our lives take – well – a turn for the worse – one of the hardest things of all, is seeing other people getting along just fine.  I mean, it’s just not fair.

We all have times in our lives when we feel like we’re in our own personal solitary confinement cell. Something’s getting us down, doesn’t matter what or how or how big or how small it is … something, and it’s like a prison. One of the things that we can feel in that little cell is, well, it’s not fair, why me? I mean look at her she doesn’t have this problem, look at him he’s doing just fine, but me, me, my life is a mess, we love to compare, don’t we?

It’s like we have a scorecard on life, his is at an 8, hers is at a 7 ½ and mine, mine’s a 2 at best. Let me get right in your face here, that scorecard has a name and it’s called pride. And pride is like the reinforcement in the concrete of our prison cell, pride just makes things worse. Whatever the issues are in your life or mine pride is like a hardening of the arteries; eventually you have a heart attack.

We’re talking about a letter that my mate Paul wrote, it was written in the first century AD. And the reason I call Paul my buddy is because I’ve read his stuff over and over again, and I really relate to the guy. And this letter we’re looking at is a letter he wrote to his friends at a place called Philippi, now Paul wrote this while he was on death row in Rome. He was political prisoner; he was there because of his faith. I mean he was a really well know guy, he’s spent a decade across Asia Minor preaching and planting churches.

This guy has made it, he’s had huge rallies, he’s planted all these churches, he’s got all these friends, he is on the map, he’s a celebrity. But now he’s in a dark, dark prison cell on death row. And there are some other guys out there preaching, well they’re getting stuck into Paul. Listen to what he has to say about it, I’m reading this from his letter to the church at Philippi. He says:

I want you to know friends, that what’s happened to me, well, it’s actually helped spread the gospel so that its become known through the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because of my faith in Jesus. And most of my brothers and sisters here have been made confident in God by my imprisonment and they’re daring to speak out the word with much greater boldness and without fear.

Some of them, well, some of them proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will, these proclaim Christ out of love knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel of Jesus. The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. Oh what does it matter, just this, that Christ is being proclaimed in every way whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1: 12-18)

Isn’t that amazing, here’s this guy on death row and he doesn’t compare, no Paul doesn’t want to do that. He could have been in that dungeon consumed with envy. “It’s not fair, why me, I’m in here, they’re out there, they’re getting all the limelight, and to make things worse they’re doing it just to upset me.” Comparison and pride, would they have made things better or worse for Paul?

If he’d been sitting in there with his pride comparing his situation to the situation of those people out there it would have seemed so unfair, wouldn’t it? And quite clearly that comparison and pride would have made things much worse for him. Would’ve ruined his day, would’ve ruined his life, wouldn’t it? Would have eaten away at him in that dark cell. He could’ve become bitter and twisted.

So let me get back in your face again and ask you, its obvious isn’t it that it’s a dumb thing to do, comparison and pride? So why do we do that? What is it about ourselves that we look at our situation and the situations of other people and we have to compare, and we have to complain and we have to say, “Oh its just not fair, it’s not fair that I’ve got a husband like this, it’s not fair that he got promoted over me at work.”

Come on, that stuff is like cancer, it saps the life out of us, it makes life so much worse. The opposite to that is humility. And humility is about not comparing, and humility is about making a decision that sounds something like this, it says, “You know something, no matter what’s going on, I’m just going to enjoy my life. I’m not going to compare my lot with theirs, I’m just going to enjoy.”

Paul goes on to write a little bit more about humility just a few paragraphs later in this letter. You can pick it up in Philippians, Chapter 2 verses 3 to 11. He says this, he says:

Look, don’t do anything out of selfish ambition or conceit but be humble, think of others as better than yourself. Let each of you look not at your own interests but the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus, even though he’s in the form of God he didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born as a human being.

Being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a gruesome cross. And because of that God exalted him highly and gave him a name that is above every other name; so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue one day will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2: 3-11)

That loss of Jesus on the cross, you know when they arrested him and they tried him and they, they beat him and they spat on him and they nailed him to a cross and he hung there for hours and died. Isn’t that a big loss? What a loser! That loss is the biggest victory in all history, it turns out. That loss of Jesus is your victory and my victory, as He suffered there for you and me He purchased eternal life.

In our circumstances we might be losing but with our Jesus in our hearts we have a huge, huge, huge win. It’s like a get out of jail free card, our circumstances may well be a prison for us. It may well be that we cannot change that one thing that’s hurting us, but inside that prison cell we can be free as a bird. We can live life to the full no matter what. And when we do that people notice.

Paul goes on to say:

Work out this salvation with fear and trembling because it’s God who’s working in you enabling you to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do everything without murmuring and whinging and arguing so you’ll be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation in which you shine like stars in the world. (Philippians 2: 13-15)

Pride is one of the hardest things to let go of, are you dealing with that today? “Father I pray for anyone today who is dealing with pride, who’s looking at their circumstances and comparing themselves to someone else, and father we know that pride is hard to let go of. But Father I pray in the name of Jesus that you would place your spirit into the heart of anyone who is struggling with this at the moment and set them free. I pray that is Jesus’ name, Amen.”

You know when Jesus puts His Spirit, His hand on our heart we have a security and a safety and a future and a hope and a joy and a peace no matter what. I’m enjoying my journey. I’m on a road that Jesus has put there just for me. And you’re on a road, you’re on a journey that he’s put there just for you. And even though my journey’s not perfect. You know maybe I’d have some things different on my journey, I wouldn’t have your journey for quids.

I love the journey that He has put me on, and the stupid thing is when we compare our journeys we only look at the bad things in our journey and compare them with the good things of other people’s journeys, don’t we? You think that’s a good idea? Does it make sense?

This Jesus kind of humility helps us to let go of that stuff.