Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton, the official podcast of Cross Christian Fellowship
Route 66 in the heart of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Burton is the lead pastor.
We're glad you're here.
Hey everybody, welcome to the sanctuary.
Pastor Burton here and we're kicking off season three of the Healing Scars podcast.
Now I know here in recent months you've gotten used to hearing it as it's recorded live
as I'm preaching there at Cross Christian Fellowship Route 66.
However, we've had some technical issues.
Things haven't been going as smoothly as we'd like.
So I decided, you know what, I'm going to go old school and you know what, part of me
misses being able to sit here and do it like this.
So if you do get to tune in live, whether it's via YouTube or whatever, of course, you
know, you've probably already heard this.
But as you know, you know, I have my notes here.
So sometimes we go down rabbit trails, sometimes we go, we go into things that weren't talked
about during the service itself, which is always exciting.
Right?
So good times there.
This is always going to be unique.
With that said, it's great to be back with you.
So again, welcome to the sanctuary.
This is Healing Scars.
So this is your first time joining us.
Let me just take a moment to say welcome.
Now of course, the new year's already hit.
Don't worry, I'm not going to hit you with that new year, new me stuff.
You know, I've already talked about it.
Instead, what we're going to be talking about today is that trap that the enemy loves to
set for us.
And it's basically when he pits us against ourselves, when our humanness is used to pull
us away from the Lord and the word we use for it is pretty short, it's three letters.
E-G-E-O.
Ego.
That's right, we're talking about ego.
We all have an ego.
Every single one of us has one.
Ego, it's another way of saying, easing God out.
But when it's fed and we step out into that limelight that really belongs to God, well,
our vision tends to shift.
It gets kind of skewed, right?
And it shifts so that we're focused on ourselves and our wants.
Not our needs, but our wants.
It's me, me, me, right?
We become like that little plant in that movie, Little Shop of Horrors, you remember that?
We start out small, but we get that first little bite of something that feeds our ego
and before long we're a towering monster planning to take over the world.
Feed me, feed me, feed me.
Feed me, right?
So with that said, let's open up our Bibles.
We're going to go to 1 Samuel chapter 15.
We're going to start right in the very beginning.
So 1 Samuel chapter 15 verses one through three, the word says, Samuel told Saul, the
Lord sent me to anoint you as king over his people Israel.
Now listen to the words of the Lord.
This is what the Lord of armies says, I witnessed what the Amalekites did to the Israelites
when they opposed them along the way as they were coming out of Egypt.
Now go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have.
Do not spare them.
Kill men, women, infants, nursing babies, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.
Wow.
Now this is intense, is it not?
Whoa.
This is one of those things that non-believers like to pick out and they say things like,
hey, remember when God killed children and babies?
Why would God do this?
Well, the Amalekites were essentially guerrilla terrorists.
We're going to go into why God would do that right here.
Okay.
See the Amalekites, they'd attack other nations.
They'd sack them, plunder them, steal their riches, kidnap and enslave their people.
If we actually go all the way back to Exodus 17 or even Deuteronomy 25, we can see that
not only were they the first people to attack the Israelites when they left Egypt, we're
going into the promised land, but they continued to raid and harass them at every turn.
Every chance they got, they were going at them.
These guys, they were big time idolaters and they had religious practices that if allowed
to continue and were introduced in any way, shape or form into Israeli culture, it would
have hurt their relationship with God.
Because of this, God knew he had to cut out the cancer.
The Amalekites were a cancer.
He had to root out the weeds.
You don't go into a small piece, take it out and then wait for it to grow back even stronger
or more aggressive.
The best way to get rid of something like this is to go deep and get it all out.
Just like cancer, they don't go out and just take a little piece of it and call it good.
No, they go in and they try to get all of it that they can.
In this case, the Amalekites, they're a cancer that they had gone down.
This is one of those terminal cases.
Amalekites hit the brain stem essentially.
If these children even had been left to grow up knowing that their families were killed,
especially in the culture and the way things were done back then, they would have come
back looking for vengeance and other ways to disrupt and destroy Israel.
Ego would have been hard at work and God was not about it.
He was not about to have these people going out and having that attitude where it's all
about me.
Picking back up our word here, 1 Samuel 15 verses 4 through 9, the word says, then Saul
summoned the troops and counted them at Tulane.
Two hundred thousand foot soldiers, ten thousand men from Judah, Saul came to the city of Amalek
and set up an ambush in the Wadi.
He warned the Kienites, since you have shown kindness to all of the Israelites when they
came out of Egypt, go on and leave.
Get away from the Amalekites or I'll sweep you away with them.
So, the Kienites withdrew from the Amalekites.
Then Saul struck down the Amalekites from Hevilah, excuse me, I'm probably butchering
this word, Hevilah, all the way to Shur, which is next to Egypt.
He captured King Agag of Amalek alive, but he completely destroyed all the rest of the
people with the sword.
Saul and the troops spared Agag and the best of the sheep, goats, cattle and choice animals,
as well as the young rams and the best of everything else.
They were not willing to destroy them, but they did destroy all the worthless and unwanted
things.
Alright, so Saul decided to let Agag and some animals live, right, while taking the choices
to plunder.
Wait a minute, back in verse three, did we or did we not see that God told him to destroy
it all?
Yeah, wipe it off the planet, right?
Being told to destroy it all, this wasn't even unheard of or unknown to them, especially
if there was a chance that it was going to introduce something that was against God.
Alright, and this is going back to what we were talking about before, rooting out that
cancer, right?
We actually go back to Deuteronomy chapter 20 verses 16 through 18, so Deuteronomy 20
the word says, however, you must not let any living thing survive among the cities of these
people.
The Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
You must completely destroy them.
The Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jubisite, as the
Lord your God has commanded you, so that they won't teach you to do all the detestable
acts they do for their gods.
And you sin against the Lord your God.
And look right there, the reason why.
So that they won't teach you the detestable things that they do, right?
Anything that God banned was to be completely and utterly destroyed.
To do otherwise was disrespectful to God and ignored his laws completely as it gave way
to idolatry.
Idolatry gives way to ego, the worship of one's self.
So when we try to justify our sin in order to protect ourselves or what we've gained,
we're not just being shrewd.
We're being downright disobedient to God and we're putting ourselves first.
Whether we realize it or not, we're making an idol of ourselves because what we're saying
when we do these things is that what we want is more important than God or what he wants.
It's no different than telling someone they're going to go to hell because of their sexual
choices while trying to cover up the fact that their son makes the same choices.
People do this, right?
Or cheating on their spouse.
Or telling someone that they shouldn't be smoking marijuana while they themselves are
an alcoholic.
Saying that we need to care for everyone but only help them if they're a quote unquote
member.
That's sin.
Right?
We got people out there like, you're going to go to hell.
But what about their sin, right?
It's our ego that tells us that our sin isn't as bad as it really is and that we're not
as bad as another person.
But I'll remind you, to God, sin is sin.
Sin is sin.
It doesn't matter if you're a pimp, a drug dealer, a false teacher, a politician wrongfully
getting the medal of freedom.
Ego is a sin of self-idolatry.
So when Saul and his troops decided to take these things for themselves, they were giving
way to ego.
What they wanted was more important.
And they were easing God out the door.
And you'll see what I'm talking about here momentarily.
So let's go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15.
So we're in 1 Samuel chapter 15 verses 10 and 11.
The word tells us, then the word of the Lord came to Samuel.
I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not
carried out my instructions.
So Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night.
Alright, pause right here.
We're going to take just a moment because there's something very big right here.
God says something here in verse 11 and he's going to say it again towards the end of the
chapter.
He says, I regret.
I call your attention to it because it's a translation issue that comes about because
in English, we don't have, or at least at the time, didn't have an exact comparative word
for what's actually being said.
So I'd encourage you, highlight these words, underline it, make a note.
Because here's the thing, if we're looking at face value, it's like it's saying that
God's saying that he made a mistake or he changed his mind, which is not the case.
What God's actually communicating here is an expression of sorrow.
Not that he's remorseful, rather he's saddened by Saul's actions as king.
And it's because he sees the change in Saul's heart.
Saul's heart no longer belonged to God, but to himself now.
He turned away and because of this, God was now going to have to change the way he related
to Saul as well.
Now that's really heartbreaking, isn't it?
It's extremely heartbreaking when we realize what's happening and just how sad it is.
And think about it, if it's heartbreaking even just for us, think of how heartbreaking,
how utterly crushing it was for God as well.
But I'll remind you, it's just like when we turn away ourselves and we put ourselves
first.
Just like when we crucified Christ because we were too ignorant and too self-indulgent
to realize what he was saying and what he was doing for us so that we could be free
from the bondage of sin.
Now in the military and other services, there's a lot of pride that many people take in their
awards.
All right?
Ribbons, medals, all that kind of stuff, shooting badges.
And a lot of these awards, they get kind of pulled together into what we refer to as a
shadow box.
Things like this, it's a box, it's kind of like a little box that's put together.
It has their rank, maybe something signifying how many years of service they have, but it
has their ribbons and medals and shooting badges and all that kind of stuff.
Maybe little trinkets showing some of the places that they've been even, especially
if they're awarded or given this box by their unit when they're leaving and they're overseas
for example.
Something like that, right?
The shadow box.
All right?
And it's something that when veterans, we put these things together.
At home, there's usually a little area that's kind of dedicated to it in a lot of veterans
homes and it's what I've always referred to as the wall of I love me.
It's a point of bragging about ourselves instead of taking a look at it and seeing what it
really is.
Instead of being a story told by those ribbons, medals, and certificates that's telling a
story of me, we should actually be putting it out there to tell the story of what God
has led us through, what he's helped us to overcome.
Not the I, I, I that these things tend to be and what they become.
This should be pointing the way to he, he, he.
Saul, he built himself one here in 1 Samuel verses 12 through 16.
So we're going to go into that now.
So 1 Samuel 15 verses 12 through 16.
The word says, early in the morning, Samuel got up to confront Saul, but when it was reported
to Samuel, Saul went to Carmel where he set up a monument for himself.
Then he turned around and went down to Gilgal.
When Samuel came to him, Saul said, May the Lord bless you.
I have carried out the Lord's instructions.
Samuel replied, Then what is the sound of sheep, goats, and cattle I hear?
Saul answered, The troops brought them from the Amalekites and spared the best sheep and
goats in order to offer a sacrifice to the Lord your God.
But the rest we destroyed.
Stop!
exclaimed Samuel.
Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.
Tell me, he replied, Saul built a monument to honor himself.
Unlike Moses or Joshua who gave all the credit to God where it belonged, he put himself on
the podium.
He took the credit.
Ego.
I love me.
He was full of it.
Awards and accomplishments.
These are all good things and they can be wonderful things.
However, we need to be honest and give credit where it's due.
And it is always, always due to God and what he is doing in our lives.
And it gets worse.
He lied to Samuel about what happened.
He was treating him like he was some kind of an absolute moron who had no idea what
was going on.
Like he's not going to recognize new animals and the sounds that are coming from them.
Galatians chapter 6 verse 3, the word says, For if anyone considers himself to be something
when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
And we can never think for even just a second that we're totally on our own.
That we are the ones in control.
That we're like these independent owners of our own little universe like we're little
gods walking the earth because we're not.
None of us has that influence.
None of us has that importance.
None of us has that kind of power to exercise control of anything without God.
Without God we are nothing.
Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 23, the word says, I know, Lord, that a person's way of life
is not his own.
No one who walks determines his own steps.
We follow where the Lord leads.
God knows what is best for us and his ability to light our paths and guide us down them
is far superior to our own.
That's why when we walk without him or we try to walk without him, we end up in darkness.
You think about it.
We're wandering around like a bunch of dodo birds.
What happened to the dodo birds?
Bye bye, good night Alice.
They went away.
There's like a bunch of limbs.
It doesn't work out so well.
We can't see the path for our own shadow.
Going back to Saul, he thought of what was happening as a great victory to be celebrated
and commemorated.
God saw it as a failure for a couple of reasons.
One, because Saul disobeyed him and two, lied about the results of the battle.
The results being a victory of sorts to him.
He was only fooling himself into thinking that everything was still good.
It's one of those moments where he was literally looking at it like the ends justify the means.
He was lying.
He was lying to other people.
He was lying to himself.
And a lie to yourself is still a lie and it is still sin.
And sadly, very sadly, dishonest people are usually the first ones to believe their own
malarkey.
The tool that they're using, you've heard me talk about this before, it's called illusory
truth effect.
Now illusory truth effect, if you haven't heard this before, this is a tool that's used
frequently.
And this is a phenomenon that happens.
Usually when you hear something over and over and over again, even though it's a lie, you
know it's a lie, but you hear it as if it was a fact enough times that eventually you
start to believe it.
You start to believe the lie.
And after a while, you start to believe that that lie isn't really a lie, but it's the
truth.
And the media love using this tool.
You know who else does though?
Abusers in domestic violence cases.
And they're not the only ones.
That's why you see victims going back over and over and over again.
Because they're believing the nonsense that's coming from these people saying, hey, you're
nothing without me.
Oh, I can do this.
You can't.
I can.
Or all this other stuff.
Everybody likes to put that little thing out there.
Ooh, fake news.
But you know what?
It's used on all sides and it's called illusory truth effect.
Just like we should be discerning and studying our Bible to find out what's fact and what's
fiction, we should be doing the same and not just taking the media's words for it or somebody
else's.
This is one of those cases, my friends, where it's been proven.
You can shine a turd, but it's still a turd.
I apologize.
I know it's a little harsh for some of you.
Like, ooh, pastor, you know what?
There's a harsher way of saying it.
Let's be adults here.
Don't fall for it.
The problem is that when people start believing their own nonsense, they lose the ability
to discern between truth and lies.
And if you start spitting lies, eventually you're going to start believing them.
And you're going to become the victim of ego.
And there's a few things that happen when this occurs.
One, you deceive yourself.
You deceive yourself.
Secondly, you separate yourself from God.
You have sin there.
That's not going to be where sin exists.
And thirdly, eventually things are going to catch up and you're going to begin to lose
credibility with others.
People are going to see through it.
Like, no, something's not, no, no, no.
Here we go again.
It's going to happen.
So we need to push our ego away.
And we need to be honest even when it's not easy.
We need to remember that without Christ and all the things that He has done for us and
is doing for us, we are nobody.
Christ is our shepherd guiding us through life.
And if we're going to make it through His narrow gate, then we need to be honest with
ourselves.
We need to be honest with each other.
And we need to be honest with Him.
All right, now for time's sake, we're going to end here.
Next time we're going to pick right back up though as we continue to take a look at ego.
All right?
So as we leave here today, I want to remind you, you are loved and you are blessed.
Now go and be the church.
Thank you for joining us at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
If this message spoke to you or if you would like to help us reach more people, please
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You can learn more about our ministry or how you can support us at www.thecross66.org.
Until next time, take care and God bless.