Being Free From Trying to Be Better than Others

Welcome to the New Life Ministries podcast. Climbing the social ladder or climbing the corporate ladder. Just trying to get ahead in life. Inevitably, that means getting ahead by pushing someone behind. The writer of this morning’s text looks around at how people live. Likely also looks back at his own life and asks, “Is there a better way? A way where I am not left behind, but where I don’t have to climb over others to get ahead. Yes, there is another way. Let’s consider the good news in Proverbs 30. Today we’re going to look at Proverbs 30, page 996. If you have a New Living Translation giant print Bible, and if you just have your phone, it’s the New Living Translation. And welcome to those of you uh online, those listening to the recording. I was listening to a talk this week uh called the gospel-shaped life by Timothy Keller who’s a pastor was a pastor from New York and he said advice is counsel you get that helps you to get something accomplished. Religion is about advice. This is what you need to do to make something in your life work better. The gospel is not advice. The gospel is news. News is a report about something that’s happened, something that has something that has gone on in history. The gospel is news. The gospel is good news. Uh the gospel is this is what the Lord has done for you. He has removed your sin. He’s removed your guilt. He’s removed your shame. He’s reconciled you back to the father. He’s removed your powerlessness. You are no longer alone as you try to figure out how to live. advice. Religion puts a burden on you. This is what you have to do. The gospel takes the burden off. It’s been done for you. And I really like how clear that that was. So in the passage today, this is very much the sentiment of the writer that the weight and the burden of life has been taken off. So in Proverbs 30, we have the words of a man named Agur. We know almost nothing about him. He’s not in scripture anywhere. He appears to not be Hebrew um or not part of the community at the beginning. And he gives us this speech about his desire to live differently than what he has seen in the world around him. And the bulk of this passage is him looking at people who spend their lives climbing the ladder of success, the ladder of greed, the striving to be better than others, the self-importance. And he’s so tired of what he sees. He’s tired of the results it produces. And I think he’s also tired of the time he has spent trying to live that way. And his answer and he starts his passage with his answer. His answer is to seek the Lord. Like with the Lord there is wisdom. With the Lord there is another way of living. And then the passage ends with his praise of what living with God’s wisdom provides which is everything we actually need. So with wisdom the burden comes off. Advice this is what you need to do puts burden on you. This is what you have to do. The gospel takes the burden off. So with that let me offer a prayer and we’ll tackle this passage. Father, uh thank you for the beautiful moments we’ve had in our service today and the way you are directing our attention um very much to point at you and point at the gift that you are to us, the rescue to us. Lord, as we look at this passage which is full of thoughts, each of which could capture our attention, help us to be complete in our hearing, complete in our understanding, that we would see the big picture and we would see the gift that you are offering us. May you be glorified, draw ourselves to see you and to see your glory. Amen. So, Proverbs 30,

the sayings of Agar, son of Yuka, contain this message. I am weary, oh God. I am weary and worn out, oh God. I am too stupid to be a human. And I lack common sense, and I’ve not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One. Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down? Who holds the wind in his fists? Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak? Who has created the whole wide world? What is his name and his son’s name? Tell me if you know. Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection. Do not add to his words or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar. Oh God, I beg two favors from you. Let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I go rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord? And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.” And now he goes into his observations. Never slander a worker to the employer or the person will curse you and you will have to pay for it. Some people curse their father and do not thank their mother. They’re pure in their own eyes, but they are filthy and unwashed. They look around casting disdainful glances. They have teeth like swords and fangs like knives. They devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among humanity. The leech has two suckers that cry out, “More, more.” There are three things that are never satisfied. No, four that never say enough. The grave, the barren womb, the thirsty desert, the blazing fire. The eye that mocks a father and despises a mother’s instructions will be plucked out by ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures. There are three things that amaze me. No, four things I don’t understand. How an eagle glides through the sky. How a snake slithers on the rock. How a ship navigates the ocean. How a man loves a woman. An adulterous woman consumes a man and then wipes her mouth and says, “What’s wrong with that?” There are three things that make the earth tremble. No, for it cannot endure. A slave who becomes a king, an overbearing fool who prospers, a bitter woman who finally gets a husband, a servant girl who supplants her mistress. There are four things on Earth that are small but unusually wise. Ants. They’re not strong, but they store up food all summer. Hierraxes or rock badgers. They aren’t powerful, but they make their home among the rocks. Locusts, they have no king, but they march in formation. Lizards, they are easy to catch, but they are found even in king’s palaces. There are three things that walk with stately stride. No four that strut about. A lion, king of the animals, who won’t turn aside for anything. The struting rooster, the male goat, a king as he leads his army. If you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame. As the beating of cream yields butter and striking the nose causes bleeding, so stirring up anger causes quarrels. So all these little topics that actually do link together because remember part of the thing with proverbs is their own little concise little statements. So before we get to the man and his opening comments, I want to look at the problem he’s talking about. So the first commentary I read on this passage said, “The key to this passage is understanding hubris.” And I went, “Ah, yes, of course.” What does hubris mean again? You ever encounter a word that is key to understanding something and you have no idea what that word means? No. Might just me? Years ago, I was watching a play uh and in the middle of the play, the woman turns to the man and she goes, “Ranker?” And he goes, “Ranker? No. No ranker?” I’m like, “Ranker? That’s a monster from Return of the Jedi? What on earth? No idea what this word meant. It means bitterness.” So, if you ever have a friend who when they talk with you, they like to up the words. Um, sometimes people just use jargon, but other times they’re trying to impress you with their big words. Do you have anyone who’s like that in your life? I have a friend who uses words like epistemological. He sent that me to me in an email. Um, and I told him about the talk I was given and he said, “Oh yeah, epistemic hubris is a common phrase.” like there’s nothing common about that phrase at all. Now, excuse me. I need a dictionary to find out what you just told me. And he’s not being arrogant. He’s just a really smart cookie. And and these are words that are in his vocabulary. So, hubris means excessive pride or excessive self-confidence. I was telling Jessica about it and she said, “It’s the kind of self-confidence that leads to your downfall. It’s being superior to people. It’s being arrogant. It’s believing you are better than others. Was that arrogant? Arrogant. It’s believing you’re better than others and therefore you climb over them to get ahead in life. You climb over them to get what you want out of life. So uh hubris being arrogant leads to a behavior that is not healthy or not helpful. And what our man finds frustrating and defeating and somewhat futile is hubris that’s all around him. So many people spend so much time trying to get better, trying to be better than others because our world says that’s how you’re going to make it through life and that’s how you’re going to get what you want through life. And he’s just got uh a section of complaints about that attitude. So it starts with verse 10. Don’t slander a worker to his employer. Well, why would someone do that? Well, it’s to get credit with the boss. It’s to get advanced, right? Advancement. Put down the employee so you can either look good or you can get ahead of that employee. And Agra says, “Sai, is this the only way to get ahead?” Like, is this how it’s done? I’ve got to step on someone to advance. And in verses 11 to 14, it says, “There are some people who curse their parents. They’re pure in their own eyes. They look with disdain on others, and they devour the poor and the needy.” And in Hebrew, each line starts with a generation. A generation does this. A generation curses their parents. A generation is pure in their own eyes. A generation tries to devour the poor. And you get the impression as he’s writing, he’s thinking about a very specific generation that’s alive at his time and saying, “Man, look at their behavior.” But he never says what the generation is. And so as I read it, I thought maybe every generation does this to other generations that we look at another crowd, another age group, and go, man, look at their behavior. And it’s very possible that they’re doing the same thing back to our crowd. And so he says, some people they’re taking from others. They’re taking resources that belong to others, but they’re taking respect, respect, and gratitude from people they should give it to. They’re taking away that equality of being alive together. Like, we’re all on this planet together right now. And hubris says, “I’m above you. I look down on you, and I’m going to step on you to get what I want.” And it’s like, can’t we just see ourselves as being together in this? And then he goes the leech in verse 15. And he’s talking about the animal, but he’s also talking about people because you know what it is to have a leech, right? A leech does two things. It grabs onto you and it sucks your blood or it sucks the life out of you. It just keeps taking. You got it. It you can’t get away from it very easy and you are not a willing donor to its cause. And a gur size, is this the way it has to be? Is this how we make it through life? By being leeches? And as if he’s thinking about people who are always out for more, always trying to get more because they believe they’re better. He thinks about other things that never say, “I’ve had enough. I’m full. I’m satisfied.” Well, the grave never says that. And the barren womb never says that. And the desert with rain never says that. The fire never says that. There are leeches who never say that. There are some generations that never say that.

So, how often for yourself have you compared something you have with something somewhat other person has and it’s left you feeling dissatisfied and wanting more? Like, is that something that only the rich do? Is that something that only the middle class does? Is that something only folks in poverty do? We all do this. We want what our eyes see and we want it now. And TV has made that worse for us because when we watch TV, we saw what other people we thought they had or the lifestyles they had. And we wanted it to. And the internet has made it worse because now we’re in an era where what people put online for you to look at has been edited and airbrushed and filtered and staged to make it look better than you and you think, I want that and nothing’s real. So, you watch a video and there’s a house in the background um and it’s perfect. The bookshelf is perfectly designed. The couches are perfectly laid out. The cushions are just perfect. There’s no stains. It’s so clean. You look at um some people online and the filters they use uh for their faces. And the filters don’t just like remove a couple of wrinkles. There are filters that radically change how a person looks, you know, suck in here and stronger there. And I’ve seen it where I’ve encountered the picture and then I’ve encount I’ve seen the picture and I encountered the person. I’m like, what? It’s not even the same person. or guys who go to the gym spending time getting the perfect pose under the perfect lighting to get the perfect photograph to put on their Instagram feed. What drives this? I have to be better than I am. I have to be better than others. What’s driving this? Our salaries like our income. I deserve more. I deserve more than my colleagues. Or we compare ourselves with our friends or we compare ourselves with our spouses. I’m better than this. I’m better than they are. I deserve more than what I’ve got. So, psychology will say we compare ourselves with others um and we push to upgrade ourselves in order to understand how we rank and our value in the social system like where do I fit in this? And so comparing helps us know where we are. And there’s also a sense of I want more. um I want to be better because otherwise I will lose at life. I don’t feel adequate. I might miss out. And so they kind of drive us into this. But after all the advice you read or watch online about how to improve whatever part of your life you feel insecure about, all of the what you need videos, all the this is how you get ahead, this is how to be more pretty, this is how to be stronger. Do you get a little bit tired of playing the game? like I’m tired of this. That’s where Agar is at. And he starts with this p he starts our passage with, “I am weary, oh God. I am weary and worn out, oh God. I’m too stupid to be a human. I lack common sense. I’ve not mastered human wisdom, and I don’t know the Holy One.” And he says, “Who but God to heaven and comes back down? Who holds the wind in his fists? Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak? who has created the whole wide world. So he’s saying, do you know who do you know who knows how to make life work? It’s the Lord. I need to go to the Lord. He’s the guy who knows how to make this work. And the idea of going up to heaven is that if you could get to heaven, you will have a more complete understanding of how this life works and that will help you live. You know, we just don’t have enough information. We don’t know what’s coming. We don’t really understand what has happened. And if I could somehow get up to see God’s perspective, I would see the picture. Now I understand what’s happening and I can make my decisions. Um, but we can’t get to heaven. And scripture has said that people try to go to heaven like try to get their way up to heaven all the time. The tower of babel, let’s get up to heaven. And agar says only God has come down from heaven. And he tells us what we need to know. Verse five, every word of God proves true. He’s a shield to all who come to him for protection. Don’t add to his words or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar. So that’s the pressures coming off moment. Rather than all the work of trying to be better than others so that you can get what you want out of life and all the nastiness that can come from that kind of behavior, you don’t need it. The Lord will tell you what you need. And it’s like he’s saying, “Here’s the gift. It’s in my words.” And we know in the Bible, God reveals his character and he reveals his plan. And if you know his character and his plan, then you know how this world was made to work and what he’s doing on this planet while you live. And that will give you what you need. So God is kind. You are meant to be kind. God is faithful. You were meant to be faithful. God is compassionate. God rescues. You were meant to be compassionate and rescue. And God is trying to re uh draw people to himself, show them their need for himself, and rescue them. So what he’s doing is bringing problems to the surface so we ask for help. So it’s partly why we encounter problems all the time. So God’s like, I need you to see the problems because then you can see I’m rescuing you. So Agger asks in light of everyone trying to get ahead and the faking and the hiding and the effort to get ahead, he says in verse eight and none, let me be honest. Let me just be truthful with who I am. And then two, please give me my daily bread. He says, “Let me be honest. When folks see me in real life, I want to look like what I look like on my on in my online pictures. Even if I’m overweight, even if my face isn’t the prettiest face, when they see how I live privately, let it align with my public persona. That how I am at home and how I am at work and how I am when I’m playing is all kind of the same. I’m not pretending anywhere. And it doesn’t mean that you stop growing or stop improving, but you’re not trying to step on somebody and be better than them in order to grow yourself. Lord, let me be honest and give me my daily bread so I don’t dishonor your name. And then the last part of this passage, he makes these observations that feel disconnected, but he’s showing you life with God’s wisdom is so much better and it gets you what you are afraid you might not get. So he says, “Look at the eagle. Look at the snake. Look at the sailing ship. Look at a man with a woman. They move with ease and grace that is beautiful and mysterious. They’re living the way God built them to live in his wisdom. And you can study how an eagle flies and you can study how a man courts a woman. But when you see it in action, there’s a mystery and there’s a lovely freedom. But by contrast, the adulterous woman devours a man and says, “I didn’t do anything wrong.” And it’s like a looks at four situations where people have climbed the social ladder, where they’ve successfully made themselves better. And he says, “The earth shuddters at some of this stuff.” So, the slave who becomes a king, a servant is supposed to serve the king. Um, this particular guy has worked his way up being better than others until he became the king. And you think, well, what’s wrong with that? Well, first, there’s nothing wrong with being a servant. Your values not in your work, and you can contribute wonderfully. Second, kings are trained to be kings, but we have someone uh in power who’s not trained to be in power. This guy, this servant, has made his life climbing the corporate ladder, being better than others, being better than others, being better than others. It’s all about him. So when he’s suddenly the king, it’s still about him. He’s not in that moment suddenly going to be a servant of the people. He’s going to be arrogant and boastful and serve himself. and the earth goes, “Oh dear, that’s not a good leader.” Or the overbearing fool who prospers. Fools are not supposed to prosper. They’re unteachable. They’re arrogant. They’re not supposed to win. And when they win, the earth goes, “Oh, that’s not how it’s supposed to be.” The bitter woman who finally gets married. She’s angry. She’s hurt. She’s resentful. And you know, she’s going to take it out on her new husband. And that’s not good. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. That behavior shouldn’t get rewarded this way. And a servant girl who supplants a mistress. Well, she probably did that because she had an affair with the husband. And the earth goes, “That’s not how this is supposed to work.” And you say to me, “Look, Curtis, there’s no other way to make it through life. You push, you climb, you claw. There’s no other way.” And Agar says, “No, stop. Look at these animals. The way of wisdom gives a small weak ant enough food for winter. The way of wisdom gives a tiny rock badger, which are it’s a funnyl looking animal, a safe home in rocks. Look at the locusts who work together to accomplish great things, but no one is claiming to be better than the other people. And look at the locust. Uh, sorry, the uh, simple lizard that you can pick up and catch and move around, but they live in king’s palaces. Food, shelter, community, activity, accomplishment, living with honor. Isn’t that exactly what you’re after in the first place? Wisdom can give you what you want. You can take the pressure off of trying to be better than others in order to get it. And you can be proud of who you are. The lion is so is the rooster and the goat and the king with their ar his army. Be who you are in this world and let the confidence come from truthfulness. Let wisdom which comes from God give you what you’re looking for. And this lovely closing line in verse 32. If you’ve been a fool by being proud and plotting evil, close your mouth in shame. As the beating of cream yields butter and striking the nose causes bleeding, stirring up anger causes quarrels. When you’re proud or plotting evil, you are stirring up anger and causing quarrels. Stop that.

So when you consider your behavior and you think about how you talk, what you do, what’s driving what you do, are you hiding who you really are? Are you trying to be better than others in order to get what you really want out of life? That’s exhausting and it’s never enough. And the Lord would be glad to take that work off of your shoulders because the Lord knows how to live well and wisdom will give you what you really want anyway. Help me never to tell a lie. Teach me to be honest about who I am and give me neither poverty nor riches, just enough to satisfy my needs and I will not dishonor your name.

So, how do you respond to this passage? How is the spirit speak? Is the spirit speaking to you about something in this text? What catches your attention? I absolutely love the opening lines. I’m too stupid to be a human. I’m like, I don’t do human. [laughter] But you know, he calls himself unwise. If he’s unwise and these are his observations, we truly are fools. Yeah. Yeah. He makes such astute observations of things going on around him. I love that he brings in the natural world and our natural tendencies. It’s almost like when you move into a new house and everything’s carpeted, but you really want to find out what are the bones on the house. You tear back the carpet and you look at the floor underneath. This is kind of what he’s doing is Yeah. tearing back that veneer that all the makeup that we put on ourselves, whether it’s actual makeup or just filters or the persona that we give to the public, it’s all fake. It simply covers up what’s underneath. And until you see the underneath, you really don’t know, is this a good structure? Is this a bad structure? Is this a good life? Are they just faking it? It was really kind of eye opening a little bit to finally see the ants, the hier, the locust, and the lizards. I’d always seen those and go, “Yeah, those are great observations, but I never saw provision, safety, teamwork, teamwork, and honor. Yeah, that’s exactly what the world is all after. That’s so wild. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very cool passage. Cool. There were two things that uh caught my attention this morning and I can totally relate, Dad. One of them was I’m too stupid to be human. I get that sensation all the time where I’m like, “Wow, how am I alive? I am too dumb to keep me alive. And I have three tiny humans I also am keeping alive. What is happening?” And I never caught before that. It’s always after I have done something that people do all the time and failed miserably at it. And it and I I have never really made that connection that it’s not like I’m too dumb to be alive because I have cut myself doing something. It’s always those like, “Wow, I’ve just burnt my dinner because I got distracted and wandered off. How am I still a person? Everybody can do this.” [gasps] So, that was just like one of those, huh? Because I’ve read this chapter lots of times and I’ve never really figured out what the point was because he’s talking about all of these different disjointed things. I’m like, I don’t get it. And then so you were talking that you kept going and you hit the barren womb and I was like, “Oh, because there’s this point especially after you have lost a pregnancy where your brain is like you’re a failure. You can’t even do the most basic thing. this is like the one thing you are actually made for and you suck at it and you’re just ruining everything and that sensation of wow this is like the most basic thing and you can’t do it. I had never thought of that as hubris before, but it is. It makes perfect sense because it feels like this. The world is crushing you, but the world is crushing you because you’ve put expectations on the basic things that you should be able to do. That that’s not reality. That’s not realistic. You can’t control that. That’s not you. That’s not your job. That’s not your thing. It’s not your responsibility. And that was really really really neat this morning. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Nice. I really relate to this passage because I know like what he’s talking about and how you can think you know everything cuz I was like that probably most of my younger life until everything changed. I had a coma and when I woke up I had to learn how to do everything all over from the most basic things like having to learn to go to the washroom, having to learn to walk all that again. And so I kind of get this passage. Yeah. Yeah. I know I’m intellectual, but I have learned ever since then not to try and be better than everybody and just learn to live with everybody because I have huge limitations that before 2012 I felt invincible and I felt I knew everything. Yeah. Yeah. I like how you said that. I just liked verses seven and eight. Like two favors. Let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. How much wisdom is there in that? And and that that’s just touching. Yeah. Nice. Let me offer a prayer and uh we’ll close with a song. Father, Lord, your word is full of life and draws us to think about true things within ourselves throughout this day, through this week. Lord, continue to call us to move towards you, to look to you for uh our life, for what we need. And Lord, that you would give us that experience of taking the pressure off of rather than thinking about what we have to do to fix our problems, uh it’s about following you to get what we need. Bring glory to yourself. We thank you. Amen. Thank you for listening to our podcast today. New Life Ministries is located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. You are invited to join our service in person or over Zoom. Please use the contact us link to send an email to the church office and request the address or zoom link. If you would like to use these podcasts as part of your home church or local church gathering, you are free to do so. We do request that you let us know. If there is any other way that we can help you in your ministry, please send us an email.