Privilege a special right, advantage, or immunity, granted or available only to a particular person or group. Not subject to the usual rules or penalties because of some special circumstance.

Spiritual Privilege is the assumption that because I have been faithful, obedient, or “good” in certain aspects of my faith; I am entitled to certain advantages or am immune to experiencing certain disadvantages. 

LUKE 11:37-42
37 As Jesus was speaking, one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal. So he went in and took his place at the table.[l] 38 His host was amazed to see that he sat down to eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony required by Jewish custom. 39 Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! 40 Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? 41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over. 42 “What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens,[m] but you ignore justice and the love of God. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.

1. 1. Spiritual privilege pacifies conviction
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3. 2. Spiritual privilege kills integrity 

LUKE 11:39-40
39 Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness!

DAVID GUZIK 
If these religious leaders were as concerned about cleansing their hearts as they were about their hands, they would be more godly men. We often want to look to a ceremony or a ritual to cleanse us, instead of the sacrificial work of God on our behalf.

3. Spiritual privilege blinds us from seeing what’s really important

LUKE 11:42 
42 “What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens,[m] but you ignore justice and the love of God.

DAVID GUZIK
Their tithing was meticulous and noteworthy; but hypocritical because it served to sooth the guilt of their neglect of the justice and love of God. It is both possible and common to be distracted with relatively trivial matters while a lost world perishes.

4. Spiritual privilege leads to a facade

LUKE 11:40-41
40 Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? 41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.

DALLAS WILLARD
“The discipline of sacrifice is one in which we forsake the security of meeting our needs with what is in our hands. It is total abandonment to God, a stepping into the darkened abyss in the faith and hope that God will bear us up. Our need to give is greater than God’s need to receive, because he is always well supplied. But how nourishing to our faith are the tokens of God’s care in response to our sacrifice. The cautious faith that never saws off the limb on which it is sitting never learns that unattached limbs may find strange, unaccountable ways of not falling.”

God does not just call us to sacrificial living; He honors it.

WE SACRIFICE OUR PRIDE ON THE ALTAR OF PERCEPTION

LUKE 14:8-11
8 “When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? 9 The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table! 10 “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. 11 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

WE SACRIFICE OUR MONEY ON THE ALTAR OF PROVISION

LUKE 21:1-4
While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. 2 Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.[a] 3 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. 4 For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

DAVID GUZIK
The widow challenged the mindset that says, “I’ll give when I have more.” The widow had virtually nothing, yet was a giver. This means that we can all please God with our giving just as much as the richest man can please God with his giving. Whatever we give sacrificially to God, He sees it and is pleased

WE SACRIFICE OUR PLANS ON THE ALTAR OF CONTROL 

GENESIS 15:17-18
17 After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. 18 So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day

JOHN MARK COMER
God makes Abraham fall into a deep sleep, and in it, Abraham sees a vision of God, in the image of a “smoking fire-pot,” walking through the animals all by himself… It’s God saying that even if Abraham and his children don’t keep their end of the bargain, he’ll still keep his promise.

We live in an upside down Kingdom. In the world, we use our PRIVILEGE to avoid making sacrifices but in the Kingdom of God we understand that it is a PRIVILEGE TO SACRIFICE to a God who sacrificed it all.