A study just came out which indicated that drunk people cannot tell how drunk they are when around other drunk people. Forgetting for a moment that this should be incredibly obvious, and didn’t need a study, it made me think about a preaching point I’ve used for years when going through 1 John. You cannot tell much about your spiritual growth by comparing yourself to others—especially fellow believers.
What tends to happen, at least here in the Bible Belt, is that the longer you are saved the less and less you are around other believers. When you first become a believer, if at an older age, the change in your life is quite evident. But the more you get around other believers the less you see the spiritual growth. The reason is similar to the drunk person not able to tell how drunk he is because he is around other drunks. You start comparing yourselves to people who are now very similar to you—fellow believers. And you don’t look all that much different. Some conclude from this that their spiritual growth has stagnated.
One could make the conclusion here that what you ought to do is compare yourself to lost people or even your past self so that you can see how much you have or have not grown. While there might be some benefit to that—I think a better suggestion is to say that we’re all a bunch of drunks and Jesus is the only sober one among us. Compare yourself to him and you’ll see how far away from sober you actually are. This keeps you from the man-pleasing tendency to clean the outside of the cup and the deadly poison of comparing yourself to others.
But I also want to encourage struggling believers who might be discouraged by their slow growth. I don’t notice how big my children are getting because I see them every day. But when someone shows me a picture from three years ago I am stunned at how much they’ve grown. Likewise, when visit my parents they notice because they haven’t seen them for a few months. Christian growth is similar. It’s often little day to day growth and we don’t notice it as much because of our new environment. But if we are in Christ the Bible tells us that we are growing more like Him daily.
If you want to see that perhaps consider where you were a few years ago. Or go back to an old environment or situation and remember where you were apart from Christ, or even as a new believer. I imagine you will notice how much you really have changed. I appreciate what Matt Smethurst tweeted the other day. “I don’t remember 99% of the meals that I’ve eaten, but they’ve kept me alive. God uses faithful, forgettable sermons to beautify his bride.” I’m convinced that Christian growth is very similar. Most of our growth is going to be boring and forgettable. But Christ is faithful to His bride.
We are growing, but we just might be like the drunk guy who can’t tell how hammered he is because he’s comparing himself to other sloppy drunks.
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