C .S. Lewis once said, pride gets no pleasure
out of having something, only out of having more
of it than the next man. Today, we're going to
learn about the subtle dangers of self -importance
and how we can shift our focus off of ourselves
and onto living fruitful lives of joy and impact.
Stay with me. Welcome to this edition of Living
on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our mission is
to inspire Christians to be genuine followers
of Jesus and to empower them to be active disciple
makers in our world. Thanks for joining us as
we near the end of our series, Get Out of Your
Head, taught by our guest speaker, Jenny Allen.
You may recognize Jenny from her If Gathering
events or any of her popular books. For the past
few programs, she's helped us combat the toxic
thoughts that pollute our minds and break our
connection with God. If you've missed any part
of this insightful teaching from Jenny, let me
encourage you to go back and catch up anytime
at livingontheedge .org or wherever you listen
to podcasts. Well, she has a lot to share today,
so get your Bible and notes ready as we join
Jenny with her message, The Antidote for Pride.
As we are beginning here, I want to start with
Scripture. I just want to start with the truth.
It's in Philippians 2, 5 through 11. It's so
powerful, some of the most powerful Scriptures
in the Bible. Have this mind among yourselves,
which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he
was in the form of God, he did not even count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men and being found
in human form. He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on
a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name that is above every
name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee shall
bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. And I don't
know if there's more powerful words because I
don't know if there's a more powerful story that
this is the thing that makes our God unmatchable.
that he would take on the form of a servant.
He would be born in the likeness of men, and
he would humble himself to the point of death
on a cross. I don't know that there's another
story that's more beautiful in all the world.
This is it. Our faith hangs on this, and it is
the most exquisite, incredible thing. It's what
he set before us as people that follow him, as
people that serve him, that love him. To live
like this, that it says when we're talking about
the mind, when we're talking about fixing our
mind, he starts the verses with that. He says,
have this mind among yourself, that this is how
we're to think. We're supposed to think. And
that not only are we supposed to have this mind,
that it is our mind in Christ Jesus. God has
given us the mind of Christ and that we are to
think like this, but we have the power to think
like this because of what Christ has done for
us. Self -importance. We love this one. It feels
great to be important. It is deep in our bones
to crave it, to want it, to fight for it, to
live for it. I would be so bold as to say that
if you don't know God and you don't know Jesus
and you don't have this different way that Philippians
talks about, that this is the goal of your life.
And now we chase it in different ways, different
forms, but ultimately it is to make ourselves
seen, known, loved, important, that that is what
we are chasing, whether it's through relationships,
addiction, fame. all different things, we're
ultimately wanting to be or disappointed that
we aren't important. It is an addiction in our
day. And I believe if we do not notice this in
ourselves, if we don't notice this in our ministries,
if we don't notice this in our following of Jesus,
then some subtle things happen. One of those
subtle things is that we start to care a lot
about how people view us. We care a lot. And
we're constantly find ourselves thinking about
that. We find ourselves thinking about if people
like us, if people notice us, if people like
our post, if people support us. And we're just,
our eyes are darting back and forth, kind of
noticing what people are noticing about us. And
that's so exhausting because largely they're
not. And they're not noticing us. And also largely
it's a mixed bag of what kind of opinion they're
going to have no matter how you're living. So
I remember. deciding this when I was in my young
30s and I was a pastor's wife. I remember getting
to a place where I had become so addicted to
people's approval that I was spending my life
on it. You know, it was waking me up. I was anxious
about it. And it's the most exhausting pursuit
to try to be like, to try to be great with everybody
because you can't be, right? Like that's never
going to be fully achieved. It's not something
that's always in our grasp or controllable by
us. But this idea of self -importance can express
itself in so many different ways. And what the
enemy is ultimately after is what he was after
in the garden with Adam and Eve. With Adam and
Eve, the way that he tempted them, the way that
he twisted the plans and the will of God for
their lives is that He made them want to be like
God. He said, hey, if you eat of this fruit,
then you'll know what God knows. You'll be like
God. And God's holding something out on you.
And so this idea of self -importance that, hey,
I want to be like God. What caused the devil
to fall from heaven was that. He wanted to be
like God. He wanted people to worship him the
way that they worshiped God. So this idea of
becoming like God, I mean, go back to the Tower
of Babel early on in scripture when there's now
a human race and there's multiple people on earth
and they come together and they build a tower
to get to God. Everything is about becoming important
from the very beginning of time. And we all kind
of do this in our own way. We all kind of build
our Tower of Babel and say, hey, look at me,
look at me, look at what we can do. Look at what
I can do. I can matter. Now, what's interesting,
is this is really closely tied to obedience,
right? Like we can start to put... godly words
on things that look like obeying God when it's
really just becoming important. And so that's
where it gets sneaky, I think, from the enemy's
point of view, is that he is coming at us with
good things to build the kingdom of God even,
to put God's name on it. But ultimately, it's
for ourselves that we would be more and more
important, that we would matter more and more
and more. I got an email from someone this week,
and she was on the... borderline of death and
had fought cancer. And she came out of that and
she said, I was in this place where I just wanted
to matter so much. She had this fear of like,
you know what, I'm going to die and I need my
life to matter more than it does. So I got this
urgent, I've got to do something important. I've
got to build something important. I've got to
start a nonprofit or do something. And it was
this urgency she wrote about leaving a legacy
for her life. She said, Jenny, I had gotten to
a place where I was chasing that instead of loving
my kids and the people right in front of me.
I just wanted to do this important thing. And
I didn't even know what to do, really. And she
said that. She had read Restless, which is actually
about dreaming and obeying God and doing big
things. But her takeaway from it was, you know
what? My big thing is my kids and loving them
well. And that's going to be my legacy is like
obeying God right in the trenches where nobody
sees. And I think we've got to realize that ultimately
God is after our obedience and He's after His
glory. And so His stories for us are not to lead
us to... our kingdoms and building our names
and building our stories, but they're to build
His. And what humility does is it gives us a
posture to do whatever God wants us to do no
matter what. There's a submission in humility.
There's a disregard for our life and our story
in it. And so it's not that we never do things
that look important to the world. I remember
my publisher, when I was given the chance to
write, she was like, you need to put your picture
on your website. And I was like, no. This isn't
about me. This is about God. And I don't want
to, you know, I don't want anybody to know me.
And there was something noble in that, but there
was also something just not smart about it. And
she was like, Jenny, people just need to see
you so they know if they can trust you or not.
And I was like, okay, okay. But I think sometimes
we can dismiss ourselves and diminish ourselves
to the point of it being still about us. Like
I wanted to, let me be real clear back then.
I wasn't just about God's glory. I was about
not looking prideful. I didn't want to appear
prideful. It still had a selfish motive to it.
I just wanted to look humble. I want to have
the appearance of humility in my website, in
my life. And I didn't want to buy into this thing
where everybody thought I thought I was a big
deal. And I mean, it still was a controlling
of a narrative that was about me. And so we can
look humble and we can build a story that kind
of tells the world, hey, we are humble people.
And it's still completely self -importance and
pride. And this is not about necessarily the
decisions we make outwardly in our life. This
is about the state and the posture of our heart
before God. And when that's right, you know what
happens? It doesn't matter as much about what
people even think about you, if they think you're
humble or not. You know, when you put your head
on the pillow, that you're right with God, that
you're right with the people that know you and
love you. And there's a freedom in that. Humility
typically looks a lot like great confidence because
that confidence and truly humble people comes
not from themselves and not from hiding their
gifts or over promoting their gifts. It comes
from a dependence on Jesus and a belief that
this life is all about Him. And that everything
we do, everything we say, everything we are,
it's about Him. It's not about us. You're listening
to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Jenny
Allen is our guest teacher for the series Get
Out of Your Head. And real quick, if you'd like
to learn more about Jenny's popular book that
this series is based on, keep listening after
the teaching. Chip will join us in studio with
all the details, so be sure to stick around.
But for now, let's get back to Jenny's talk.
I was just listening to my friend Earl preach
recently and he's a pastor in Dallas and he talked
about, you know, we're the Amazon bag, you know,
like we carry the good thing, but we're a bag.
Like we're not the main event. Like nobody is
going for the Amazon bag and thinking to themselves,
oh my gosh, look at this bag that just arrived
at my house. Like they're going for the contents
and the contents of our lives should be. The
mind of Christ, which is someone willing to lay
down their lives, someone willing to be emptied
out, being humbled to the point of embarrassment,
being humbled to the point of being misunderstood,
being humbled to the point of, in Christ's case,
death, that we are producing the fruit of Christ
because we have the mind of Christ. That's what
should be known of us. And why? Why? Is that
what should be known of us? Why should we be
motivated to live this way? This sounds like
a miserable way to live. And one, it's because
it's the most free way to live. Honestly, like
not caring if we're important is so helpful.
And I think that's the posture you get to enjoy
with humility, which is I'm not in this to impress.
I'm not in this to perform. I'm in this for the
glory of God. I'm in this to love. And I can
rest in that. There's a rest that comes over
us with humility. The other thing that comes
with humility is What this verse says is so that
the name of Jesus, every knee would bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of God, the Father. The ultimate thing that comes
over us with humility is people see God. They
see God in us and they see God because of our
obedience. And that's what motivates me is I
don't want people to see me. I think that was
part of the girl's heart, you know, that just
was starting publishing back there, that little.
naive girl in her 30s, I think she had that heart
too, was I just want people to see God. I think
there was a naive sense that my face would distract
from that. And you're not going to steal an ounce
of the glory of God. Like, good luck. Like, you
can't really show off enough to steal the glory
of God. And that's true. However, what can steal
the glory of God in our lives and through our
lives, it won't steal the glory of God in eternity
and on this earth. It will not. But what can
steal the glory of God being reflected in our
lives is pride. And that's a state of the heart.
That's not a state of your actions. That's not
a state of your words. That's not a state of
people's opinions about you. That is a state
of your heart. And honestly, only you and God
can work that out together. You've got to decide
like, is this something where I care more about
what people think about me than I care what they
think about God? And that is the question you've
got to constantly ask yourself. And you have
to ask yourself regularly because on one day
that might be true of me. And two days later.
It no longer is because something has captured
my mind and my affections more than God. And
so back to our weapon number one, which was stillness
with God and time with God's word. That is why
that matters every day because it sets priority
in our life that God is first and I care more
about him and what is known of him than what
is known of me. Because here's the truth, guys.
We think it's going to come through being important
and being known, being famous. I mean, this is
something. My son is obsessed with, he's 11.
And I mean, what does he do? He talks about famous
people with his friends all day. They talk about
football players. They talk about basketball
players. They talk about musicians. They all
talk about famous people all day long together.
And so there's this goal in his mind set before
him of like, that's arriving. That's when you're
important. That's when you're going to matter.
That's when you're going to be happy. And at
the end of all of it for us, y 'all, even...
You know, I look at people driven by this in
social media right now. Like there's this idea
we don't ever consciously think it, but it's
subconscious. But we're obviously thinking that
the more we get known, noticed, loved, seen,
the more we're going to be happy. When that is
not what is true. It's obviously not true. And
the deception that we buy into somehow is that
joy will come if we get known, if we get power,
if we become important. What scripture says is
that joy comes when we lay down our lives. It's
the opposite. It's when we lay everything down
on earth that we think matters. When we lay down
our name, when we lay down being understood,
when we lay down even our own lives, that joy
is in that, that there is a freedom that comes
through that. And that is a supernatural reality.
That is not something you can understand until
you've tasted it. But when you've tasted it,
it's like this loss washes over you like a wave,
like, oh, I just gave up something on earth.
And then it comes back out. And there's this
piece that follows it of, and I'm okay. Yes,
somebody misunderstands me. I'm not important
to them. That's hurtful. And then it washes back
out and you go, and I'm okay because I'm loved
and I'm known by God and my hope is secure. And
that is the joy of self -forgetfulness, that
there is a freedom. that comes when we are not
the center of our own minds, of our own lives.
How do we change this? You guys, you ready? You
go out and you serve people and you love other
people. I look back at my life before I had four
kids, before, I mean, even before I had Cooper
because he is more consuming than my other three
kids. And I just had so much time to think about
myself. I just did. I thought about myself all
the time. But what four kids did to me in the
thick years of every minute trying to take care
of them is... I didn't have time. I was thinking
about the next thing I had to do, the next person
I had to take care of, the next problem they
had. And it was helpful in the sense that I wasn't
as consumed with myself. And I think mission
can do that. And it certainly doesn't have to
be motherhood. It can be anything that you set
other people's needs before yourself. And what
happens when you do that, I remember at Kanakuk,
they used to have the saying, put God first and
others second and yourself third. And so I am
third was like the award at camp and all this
stuff. And I just remember, being like trying
to will that into being. Well, let me tell you
how it comes into being. It comes as you serve
people, as you actually get up out of your chair
and you clear the table, as you actually get
up out of your chair and you love and invite
your neighbors in and get to know them. It comes
as we think about other people. And all of a
sudden we are more obsessed with what God's doing
in other people's lives and what he could do
in other people's lives than what he's not doing
in ours. And it is a... change and a shift and
you realize that loving other people is so much
better than loving ourselves so much, that there
is a freedom and a joy that comes because of
it. And so today, what I want you to do is I
want you to do something crazy. I want you to
love somebody that you would not normally love.
I want you to go love your neighbors in any which
way. Take them food, go to coffee, have them
over, go mow their lawn. I don't care. Just go
love people in a radical way. Do something for
someone today and watch your mind shift from
caring so much about yourself to loving other
people. And I'm telling you, that's where the
freedom is. You're listening to Living on the
Edge with Chip Ingram. Jenny Allen was our guest
teacher for this program, The Antidote for Pride,
which is from her series, Get Out of Your Head.
Chip will join us in just a minute to share his
application for this message. Let me ask you,
what drives your thought life? What influences
the way you think? Is it anxiety, loneliness,
insecurity? Whatever it is, do you feel trapped
by it? Like no matter how hard you try, your
mind drifts back to these harmful patterns. In
this series, author and speaker Jenny Allen calls
out seven toxic thoughts that derail our connection
to God. Discover the powerful antidotes God's
given us to break free from these dangerous mindsets.
Join Jenny to learn what you can do to fight
and win the war for your mind. Well, before we
go on, here's Chip. I'll be right back in just
a minute, and I want to share a few thoughts
that I have about Jenny Allen's message. But
before I do, I want to let you know that the
things that you're hearing in this series is
a bestselling book that Jenny wrote called Get
Out of Your Head. And one of the reasons I wanted
her to share was I believe with all my heart
that the greatest battle for this generation
is what's happening to their thinking. their
minds, their worldview. And what Jenny's going
to do in this book and what she started to do
already is she starts talking about seven toxic
thoughts that really draw us away from God and
his word and truth. And what I love is she can
say it in a way that I never could, right? First
of all, I'm not a woman. But second, she's targeting
and reaching an age group. You know, for some
of you, you're listening and think, I've got
to get this. And for others, you're thinking,
this book. This content is what my daughter or
my granddaughter needs. And let me just whisper
something. What she's actually saying just doesn't
apply to women. These toxic thoughts are ones
that I've sure had. If you're seeing those that
you love really shaped by our culture more than
by God's Word, and some of the things you're
hearing you realize, wow, I need to study this,
then let me encourage you. Get the book, dig
in together, and as Jenny would say, get out
of your head. Thanks, Chip. Well, to get your
hands on Jenny's insightful book, visit livingontheedge
.org or call 888 -333 -6003. Her words will challenge
you to take every thought captive and find freedom
from toxic thinking. Again, to order your copy
of Get Out of Your Head by Jenny Allen, go to
livingontheedge .org or call 888 -333 -6003.
App listeners tap special offers. Well, with
that, Chip, let's hear your application for what
Jenny shared today. As we close today's program,
I wish we could have the visual of Jenny as she
taught. I could just hear her passion ramping
up as she called out to me and to you, just get
up out of your chair, right? Just get off yourself.
I love the illustration she used that she learned
from camp. I am. third, you know, God first,
others second, I am third. And it's interesting,
what she shared is so true. And I don't want
to minimize or give you an illustration that
is so trite, but I travel quite a bit and I've
got a few back problems that don't seem to fully
go away. And so I tend to find myself struggling
and being self -focused because one, I'm on a
plane and when I sit, it hurts. And then I'm
walking through airports and it hurts. And, you
know, pain of any kind, right, we all tend to
focus on it. And I've just found a few little
tricks that have helped me. And I was traveling
last week, and I was getting ready to go, and
I was like, oh, man, I was really excited about
where I was going to go. I just wasn't excited
about getting there. And so I got in line to
the coffee shop there, and I was waiting on my
plane. And a thought came to me. I mean, just
a thought, because I found myself unconsciously
like, oh, wow, I'm going to have to sit for five
hours on that plane, and this is how my back's
going to feel, and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, I was sort of developing my own
little pity party. And I looked over, and I can't
remember even what the guy looked like, and I
just sort of impulsively, it's kind of what Jenny
said, you practice these things, you go into
training. And I turned to the guy and I just
ordered, you know, can I get a medium coffee?
And I said, hey, what are you getting? And he
looked at me like, who are you and why do you
ask? He goes, well, I'm getting a latte. I says,
well, what size do you want? I never get that.
He goes, really? I said, yeah. He goes, well,
I usually get a medium. I turned to the person,
can I get, add a medium latte to that? This guy,
now, I mean, yes, it cost me three bucks. I can't
remember what it was. He lit up. He lit up and
said, wow, thank you. I mean, thank you very
much. And in that moment, what I realized, my
back didn't hurt at all. In that moment, what
I realized, just taking my focus off of me for
that 30 seconds. And here's how it works. Once
you take some steps like that, my brain started
thinking a different way. It went down a different
path than the me, me, me, me, me. You see, pride
is very easy to spot in others. It's very hard
to spot in ourselves. And I could give you lots
of verses about humility, right? James 4 .10,
humble yourselves before the Lord and what? He
will lift you up. He will help you. But as I've
battled pride in my life, and it has been an
enemy. I mean, it is for all of us, but boy,
it can be so subtle. that rather than focusing
on my pride or even trying to be humble, I love
what she said, and I would say the same thing.
Just serve. My wife was struggling recently,
and I came home, and she had baked cookies. And
I said, what are you doing? She goes, I'm going
to take that to our neighbor. That's great. And
then I did these, and I'm going to take that
to these other people. She was getting out of
her head, and she got out of her head to care
for someone else. So I think I heard our teacher
and speaker today specifically say, love someone,
right? Just do it. Do something for someone,
whatever it is. Neighbor, friend, someone at
work, get out of your chair, walk across, do
something, some act of kindness, serve someone,
volunteer at church, meet a need, and let's see
what God does. Really practical challenge, Chip.
Thanks. As we wrap up this program, Living on
the Edge depends on listeners like you to help
us continue encouraging Christians to live like
Christians. So would you consider becoming a
monthly partner to help others benefit from this
ministry? You can set up a recurring donation
at livingontheedge .org or by calling 888 -333
-6003. That's 888 -333 -6003 or visit livingontheedge
.org. App listeners, tap donate. And thanks for
doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well,
be sure to join us next time as our guest teacher,
Jenny Allen, wraps up her series, Get Out of
Your Head. Until then, this is Dave Drewy saying
thanks for listening to this edition of Living
on the Edge.