SERIES: Deep Relationships in a Digital World — Proverbs
TEXT:  Proverbs 25:6-7; 27:2
MESSAGE: “Don’t Build a Brand. Receive an Identity.”

“Recognition is the first human quest. After an ordinary delivery, after the first few startled cries, newborn infants typically spend an hour or so in the stage doctors call ‘quiet alert.’ Though they can only focus their vision roughly eight to twelve inches away, their eyes are wide open. They are searching, with an instinct far deeper than intention. They are looking for a face, and when they find one—especially a face that gazes back at them—they fix their eyes on it, having found what they were most urgently looking for. Recognition is the primary task of infancy. Feeding, crying, and even sleeping are just the support system for this most essential work of figuring out who we are, and where we are, by making contact with other people, seeing them seeing us, gradually beginning to build our sense of self through their eyes…before we knew to look for a mirror, we were looking for another person’s face.” — Andy Crouch

“In early 2023, Dave Hollis was found dead with a phone on his chest. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was a ‘tragic’ end to an ‘Instagram-perfect life.’ Dave’s ex-wife, Rachel Hollis, had rocketed to stardom (at least temporarily) with the publication of her 2018 bestseller, Girl, Wash Your Face. The book and subsequent multimillion-dollar business capitalized on a glaring irony: that self-improvement was just as essential as imperfection. Dave left his executive position at Disney to dive alongside Rachel into the bleeding world of indiscreet self-disclosure. Before the couple’s divorce in 2021, the two ‘mined their everyday lives for content.’ Their brand of gritty ‘authenticity,’ performed for an audience, was effective. Yet private life could not support the weight of public exposure. After the couple’s divorce, Dave doubled down on the tell-all strategy. He wrote a self-help book. He continued the public live stream of his private life. But soon, not all that glittered on Instagram was gold. Hollis checked himself into rehab after admitting on social media that he was ‘feeling completely broken from the pressure of this strange public life.’ When Hollis returned to social media four months later, his nearly half a million followers ‘saw an avatar of health online, spray-tanned and teeth whitened.’ His handful of next-door neighbors, by contrast, witnessed another Dave who returned to self-destructive addictions. After Hollis was found dead after an overdose, neighbor Lynn McKay blamed ‘viral social media fame and the platforms that power it’ for his death. ‘They’re all drugs,’ she said.” — Jen Pollock Michel

TEXT: Proverbs 25:6-7; 27:2

“This isn’t merely about etiquette—the theocentric vision of these chapters stands opposed to cultural systems that measure worth by public reputation, declaring instead that “fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe (Proverbs 29:25).” — Jerry Hwang

Q: How do I live faithfully receiving my identity? It starts by knowing the dangers of…(1. Putting ourselves first 2. Promoting ourselves to high places 3. Praising ourselves to others)

1. Putting ourselves first (25:6)

“Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great…”

“What does this mean? Bruce Waltke describes it this way: “…(this is an) attitude of esteeming oneself as deserving deference to the action of taking up the higher station…” — Bruce Waltke

“Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” — Luke 14:7-11

“Verse 11 delivers the punch line…The way to be exalted is to seek humility. It is better to start low and allow others to exalt you than to start high and have others demote you. This is the way of the gospel and the kingdom: Those who seek humility find that God exalts them.” — Thabiti Anyabwile

“For God does not show favoritism.” — Romans 2:11

“At times the church of Christ has created institutional ways of challenging pride. Few are more moving than the burial ceremony of the Hapsburg emperors, who were laid to rest in the vaults of the Capuchin monastery in Vienna. When Emperor Franz Josef died, the grand cortege arrived at the closed doors of the monastery and a herald knocked at the gate. From within the voice of the Abbott could be heard asking: “Who are you, who knocks?” “I am Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary,” the herald replied. “I don’t know you. Tell me again who you are?” “I am Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Lodomeria, and Dalmatia, Grand Duke of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Styria and Corinthia…” “We still don’t know you. Who are you?” the sepulchral voice reiterated. Whereupon the herald knelt down and said: “I am Franz Josef, a poor sinner humbly begging for God’s mercy.” “Thou mayest enter then,” the Abbott said and the gates were flung open.” — Os Guinness

2. Promoting ourselves to high places (25:7)

“…for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” — Matthew 11:29

“The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible. For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.” — Dane Ortlund

3. Praising ourselves to others (27:2)

“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”

“By comparing ourselves to other people and trying to make ourselves look better than others, we are boasting. Trying to recommend ourselves, trying to create a self-esteem resume because we are desperate to fill our sense of inadequacy and emptiness. The ego is busy. So busy all the time…A truly gospel-humble person is not a self-hating person or a self-loving person, but a gospel-humble person. The truly gospel-humble person is a self-forgetful person whose ego is just like his or her toes. It just works. It does not draw attention to itself. The toes just work; the ego just works. Neither draws attention to itself.” — Timothy Keller

“Do not praise yourself or embellish your accomplishments…So often self-exaltation is seen as good and necessary to get ahead in our culture. Or you know people who always turn the conversation back to themselves no matter what you say…Why do we do this? We do it because either we are insecure or we want to exalt ourselves. The gospel can cure both of those things because God’s approval in Christ is incompatible with insecurity, and the humility of Christ in laying down his life for others is antithetical to self-exaltation.” — Jonathan Akin

TAKEAWAYS:

• Take on a new posture: “I am third”
• Trust God with your current place in life
• Avoid the trap of posting for approval

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” — Philippians 2:5–11