Sermon Central
-
Do You Suffer From Comparisonitis?
Contributed by Ronald Crandall on Jan 7, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: I don’t think that comparisionitis is actually a word, but boy did my congregation listen to it. Because we all have the tendcy to compare ourselves to someone or something. In this message we look at danger of the deadly disease I call "Comparisionitis"!
DO YOU SUFFER FROM “COMPARISONITIS”?
By: Pastor Ron Crandall
INTRO:
All of us have a dislike for diseases or illness’ or something that is like a destructive process in an organism.
We do not like suffering, We do not like the bearing of pain or distress.
When we have a deficiency in an area or multiple areas in our lives we tend to either cover them up, kind of like the squirrel does his nuts, so no else can find them.
Or like the anteater we begin to bury our noses so far into the hole that should a predator come, he has a hard time escaping the terror that is about to take place.
If you were to search medical journals or textbooks, you will not find this illness listed in any of them, nor will your company’s disability or health insurance or worker’s compensation program reimburse you for it.
Yet we are looking at one of the most debilitating diseases of the modern world it is called "comparisonitis"-the tendency to measure one’s worth by comparing oneself to other people.
Make no mistake this morning: comparisonitis is a scourge. It is an evil task master to your self esteem and your emotional well being.
It is as widespread and destructive as any physical or emotional malady (disease) known today.
So this morning, “How do you establish your identity?”
Are you always comparing yourself to others?
If so, you are suffering this morning from “Comparisionitis,” it is a disease that can kill you!
It will leave you isolated from others in the church. It will leave you isolated between your family members.
It will leave you isolated from your friends.
It will leave you isolated from your co-workers on your job. These are people in whom you may be trying to lead to Jesus, but because you are letting this distructive virus loose you are bound.
Do you find ways to look down on others and think highly of yourself because you enjoy greater abilities, intelligence, status, or wealth than they?
Or do you look down on yourself and envy others because you feel you are not as capable, smart, powerful, or rich as they are?
You risk loneliness, because no one cultivates friends by always finding fault with others in order to feel better about themselves.
In our Main thought this morning Paul’s writes to the Roman church about this subject in just 33 words giving the church warning of its deadly grip:
Rom 12:3
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly (not flashy, but reasonable and serious), as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
(NKJ)
Jesus broke it down for the Jews in a parable, he wanted them to understand the nature of it’s seriousness.
9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ’God, I thank You that I am not like other men-- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
12 ’I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
13 "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ’God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
14 "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
(NKJ)
The Pharisee was plagued by comparionits; "God I thank you that I am not like other men...extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.’I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
Yet the man who was despised by many the word says:
The tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ’God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
We need to take a look lives and look hard at our thoughts, our desires, our motives, and our actions.
Many times we try to cover up the reality of lack of relationship with God by masking the predicament of our situation by the belittling of another, we try and pass it off as just mere jesting…..
Yet it is cruel to the bone…
We like to come at people who respond with disdain (beneath one’s dignity) with comments like….
Hey can’t you take a joke?
You are making more of this than is really there? Oh really…
