How to Kill Relationships...Cedarville Chapel Messages

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week I'm speaking at the chapel service for Cedarville University. I'm going to preach two messages that I did two years ago at College Park from my How to Kill Relationships and Irritate People series:

• Be Full of Yourself - 1 Peter 5:5-7
• Never Be Satisfied - Ephesians 5:1-5

Here are few important points:

On Pride...

Why does God take pride as such a serious sin? Here’s why: the proud person trusts in themselves and seeks glory for themselves.So pride is a problem of trust and glory. In other words proud people are competing with God. CJ Mahaney, in his book Humility, says “pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon him.” Therefore the motive in pride is self-glorification. Proud people contend with God for supremacy. That was a helpful, simple, and devastating definition for me: pride is contending with God for supremacy.

Now one of the ways that God opposes people is to allow them to run their own lives, to allow their self-centered, self-seeking, and self-glorifying hearts to run wild. The Bible often calls this God “giving them up” (see Rom 1:24, 26, 28), and it is frightful judgment. Listen, it is scary thing for God to say, “Okay, you can run your life…let’s see how that goes.” Or “Try and run your life your way…good luck with that.”

On Covetousness...

Covetousness is connected to worship in that it places security, joy, and satisfaction is something other than God. So covetousness is a worship problem that expresses itself through a desire. In other words, objects of worship always demand more. With God, that is a good thing. With other things – like money, possessions, popularity, status, attractiveness, power, etc – it is a terrible sin. The problem is not just desire; these objects take over, control us, become function gods. It is false worship.

Covetousness doesn’t have to be just about money or stuff. It relates to anything that you want. And it is devastating to live with someone or try to have a relationship with someone who is never satisfied. They try different jobs, cities, churches, friends, cars, hairstyles, clothes and lovers because they are always looking for something more. And they end up destroying everything in their yearning for more. Covetousness is the treadmill that never stops.