Louie Giglio - Comparison Is on the Mic
The microphone was invented to amplify sound. Thus, the series that we’re in is asking the question: what voice is being amplified most in your life? In other words, what is it that you are hearing the loudest? What’s impacting your emotions and emotional well-being the most, and what, in turn, is dictating your actions? We’re asking that with the question, «Who’s on the mic?» In other words, who’s got the mic in your story today? We want to make sure that we understand we have control over who gets their hands on the mic, and ultimately, we want that to be the voice of God on the mic. However, there are other voices trying to grab hold of the microphone, and one of those is comparison.
I’m guessing every single person in the gathering today has been dealing with it for a long time. Comparison gets on the mic, and that happens to us when we’re born. For some of you, your whole life you’ve been compared to your brother or sister—has anybody had that happening their whole life? You’ve been told you were never good enough, not as smart or as fast as them or whatever it is. For some of us, it was being compared to that other kid in the class or another person on the team, or maybe we were being compared to a picture that our parent had of what we should be—an imaginary, unattainable goal that they thought we would achieve, regardless of what we did, whether good or bad. It was always compared to their expectations. Or maybe you’ve set expectations on your own life and have been comparing yourself to those expectations your whole life.
When comparison gets on the mic, it leads to two primary responses. One response is, «I’m not good enough,» and some of us have been living out of that response as long as we can remember. The other response is, «Just watch me because I’m going to become better than everybody else.» These two responses often trace their roots back to comparison being on the mic. It’s looking out the window at our neighbors and noticing their house is newer, their cars are new, their kids are better, the school they got into is better than the one we got into, or the promotion they received at work is better than the one we received at work. They went to Barbados for vacation while we went to Dollywood. Or maybe you think, «No, they went to Barbados, but when we went to Dollywood… hello!» I mean, I don’t know how it works in your world, but it’s always looking over here at this family, or at the person in the office next to you, or the person in the program in grad school right ahead of you, or someone on the cover of a magazine. We wonder, «How do we measure up?» And once again, it puts us in that position of «I’m not good enough,» or «I’m going to do whatever it takes to become the best.»
But here’s the problem: at the core of comparison is a seed called sin. If you trace it all the way back to Eden, as soon as Adam and Eve took their eyes off the Creator and onto the created things, that’s when comparison, jealousy, and sin entered the story. This sin trickled immediately into their offspring, Cain and Abel. One was comparing his offering to the offering of his brother, which led to jealousy and anger, and then murder occurred just eight verses after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. The destructive patterns are everywhere.
You’ll know comparison is on the mic because it devalues your uniqueness. You’re going to write down quite a few things today, and I’d start with that: when comparison gets on the mic, it devalues your uniqueness. You look out the window or onto the screen and think, «Look what they have, look what they can do, look at how they look.» Once we start down that road, it ultimately erodes the sense that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. The second thing that comparison does to us is it disrupts our calling. In other words, it gets in the way of the fact that God wants each one of us to play a specific role in the world. As long as I’m looking at somebody else and what they’re doing, it distracts me from my particular calling and the role I need to play.
The third thing comparison does in our lives is divert our focus. That’s the thing that is so difficult for all of us because staying focused is challenging in the world we live in right now. But God has something for you every day; He has assignments for you. He wants you to be in tune with His voice to hear that still, small whisper that we talked about last week, so you’ll know how to do what you see the Father doing and say what you hear the Father saying. But when comparison gets on the mic, it’s always telling you there’s something else going on somewhere else in the world.
We coined the phrase in our culture called «FOMO,» or the fear of missing out; and when you get right down to it, FOMO came into our lexicon officially in 2010 when it was added to the Guardian glossary of youth internet vocabulary, but it started all the way back in 2004. Check it out: a Harvard grad school student was hanging out with his friends at their winter ski house that they had rented in the mountains. When they weren’t in class at Harvard grad school during the week, they would be at their ski house on the weekends.
This sounds just like when I went to Georgia State! While they were at their winter ski house, they used the term regularly, «FOBO,» which is the fear of better options, and then they figured, «Oh, that sounds better as FOMO.» So they came up with the term in 2004. Are you tracking with the irony here? Some Harvard grad students with a rented winter ski house are afraid of missing out while, at the same time, another Harvard student is creating a social media platform called «The Facebook.» This platform was created to compare students based on their appearance.
So, as these guys were afraid of missing out at their ski house (not knocking them or their ski house), another student at possibly the most prestigious school on the planet is creating a social media platform that has now evolved into something much more than just rating students on their appearance—a platform that one in eight people on planet Earth are users of. And out of both of these events came something that exists in you and in me; it’s called the human condition. It is what happens when we take our eyes off who God is and what He has called us to do. All of a sudden, comparison diverts our focus.
If there are any older people here today (although you probably aren’t) and you remember all the way back to the day when there was a store called Kmart—I don’t know if anybody remembers Kmart or not—Kmart is long gone. Kmart was a thing! Target is cool, but not as cool as Kmart was. Kmart was where the common man shopped. I always remember being in there, whether it was with my mom or whether she had given me a list of things to get, and I was minding my own business. I knew how much money I had because back then, I probably wasn’t using a debit card; it was like here’s $20 and here are the things you are supposed to get on the list. You’re responsible for bringing me back the change.
I would be going down the aisle with my cart, minding my own business, until they came up with this brilliant thing at Kmart called the Blue Light Special. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? I know there are a lot of people now who probably say, «I don’t know; I get stuff delivered to me by a drone,» so I’m not sure they’re following me, but they would literally have this blue light siren-type thing on a pole with wheels. They would roll it around the store and announce a special on some item that they ordered too much of.
You would be minding your own business in your aisle, looking at whatever, and they would come on the mic and say, «Attention, shoppers at Kmart!» It didn’t matter what you were getting; you were arrested in your tracks. Your blood pressure started going up, your palms were getting sweaty, and you thought you were going to have to knock somebody out. This was the precursor to Black Friday specials and fights at Walmart; this is where it all started. «Attention, shoppers! Welcome to Kmart! For the next few moments, we’re running the Blue Light Special on aisle 13.»
Immediately, your heart sank; you thought, «What aisle? I want to know,» and then you got six aisles to go to get to whatever you were originally going for. «We’re running a special on number two pencils: four packs for 99 cents.» You didn’t need any pencils, but now you were doing a wheelie with your cart, rushing to aisle 13. Suddenly, everyone in Kmart was converging on aisle 13, bumping into people along the way, grabbing stuff. Why? Because FOMO! You didn’t want to miss out on the special going on. You had a list, you had a plan, you had a budget, and now you were completely diverted by something inside all of us that compels us to look left and right and wonder, «Am I good enough?» or, «What do I need to do to become the best?»
That’s what happens when comparison is on the mic. Some of you just want to check out on the message right about here; you’re on aisle 13, and God needs you on aisle 5. But you’ve become diverted and distracted because you didn’t feel good enough, or you’re determined to be the best, and you are somewhere you’re never intended to be because comparison is hogging the mic.
The last thing I want to touch on is that comparison destabilizes your sense of accomplishment. So it devalues your uniqueness, disrupts your calling, diverts your focus, but, more insidiously, it destabilizes your sense of accomplishment. You’ve worked hard, you did your best, and you really tried to honor God. But at the end of the day, when you finished your work, you looked left or right and saw what they did and what they achieved. Suddenly, that famous quote from Theodore Roosevelt rings in your ears: «Comparison is the thief of joy.» Where you felt good about what you accomplished five minutes ago, now you feel like a complete failure because your accomplishments weren’t as good as theirs.
It’s every preacher going home on Sunday night after having tried to build the church, thinking, «Man, we baptized some people today, it was amazing! We preached the gospel, we led people in worship, we served our community, we gave to the causes of the Kingdom. Today, we saw people encouraged, set free, and find a place.» Then you get home and pull up your social media, and the other pastor, Fran, happily posts, «We saw 709 people put their faith in Jesus today.» You think, «Lord, I’m so sorry we’re people of small faith and we failed. We had 19 people go from death to life.» All of a sudden, what was an amazing day of comparison, if you let it, destabilizes your sense of accomplishment, which then goes out the window.
The problem is that if you let comparison hog the mic, it pushes you into the red and robs you of rest. In every dashboard of a car, there was a tachometer that measures the RPMs, or revolutions per minute, of your engine. You might say 4,000 is fine, but 8,000 is unsustainable. When comparison is on the mic, it destabilizes our sense of accomplishment, pushing us into the red. Many of us are at our breaking point because we are trying to prove we are good enough after all, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to be the best. So, we stay in the red our whole lives when Jesus is inviting us to rest.
He said in Matthew 11, «Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.» Now, rest doesn’t mean an eternal spiritual retreat on the mountainside. Because in the very next verse, He says, «Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.» That means we’re going to till some ground, plow the dirt, plant a crop, and see a harvest together. He says, «Take my yoke upon you; learn from me, for I, Jesus, am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.»
In other words, there’s a way to connect our lives to Jesus in such a way—to link arms with Him in such a way—that we know there is a role to be played. I know I have a job to do, something God wants me to accomplish, and something He wants me to leave behind for the next generation. One way puts me in the red, and another way puts me in rest. It’s linking arms with Him and knowing what contentment means—not ease, but meaningful work joined together with the power and calling of Jesus Himself. If I link arms with Him in the work He has given me to do, He’ll take care of the rest.
If that’s what comparison does on the mic, then how do we get comparison off the mic? I think it’s five verbs that we find in a passage that a lot of us know well in Hebrews chapter 12. In the first few verses, it says, «Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Key phrase: let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him, Jesus, who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.»
Five verbs will absolutely get comparison off the mic. The first verb is «see.» The writer of Hebrews wants us to understand we are in a grand story on a long arc with significant eternal implications. He explains that by setting up chapter 11, which we call the Hall of Faith. He describes how vital faith is and gives examples of faithful people. You know their names: Abraham, Sarah, David, Samuel, Gideon, and Moses. You’ve seen how their faith changed history.
The back half of chapter 11 features people whose names we don’t know. They were thrown to the wolves, persecuted for their faith, but they didn’t give up their hope in God. They were pushed to physical limits, and many were martyred for their faith in Jesus. However, they never wavered in trusting His sovereign plan. As this next section in Scripture begins, he says, «Oh, and by the way, I want you to see that you are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.» Imagine that as you’re running your race. When you come to a challenging part of your race, there’s a stadium full of faithful saints cheering you on.
So, while you’re looking out the window at your neighbor’s family, wondering why their kids are more this or that than yours, the writer is saying, «I want you to notice that there’s an entire stadium filled with people like Abraham cheering for you in your race.» As you’re wondering if you’re good enough or determining you’re going to be the best, there’s an entire cloud of witnesses cheering for you as you run the race God has called you to run. You’re running the lap after having taken the baton from them. It’s your turn to run, and he says, «You have to see the cloud.»
The first name in the cloud is Abel, the one who was almost pulled into the vortex of comparison, which led to his demise. When we go all the way back to one sacrifice versus the other, one being better than the other led to envy and anger, and ultimately to death. That same pattern shows up right in the cloud of witnesses cheering you on.
The second verb we see in this chapter is «run.» Run the race that is marked out for you. In other words, God has a specific assignment for each one of us. The enemy’s multi-layered and multifaceted plan to keep you from your assignment includes getting you to look at the people who are in the lanes next to you. However, understanding the economy of God, He didn’t make you like the people around you. In Romans 12, Paul writes, «For just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.»
Look at verse 6: «We have different gifts.» I just want to emphasize that again—God made us all different. He doesn’t want you to be like the person sitting next to you; He doesn’t want you to look like them, talk like them, laugh like them, or process information like them. His plan was to make you different, gifting you differently according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
In other words, run your race! The most important thing to me is to discover God’s calling on my life and to get busy with what He has called me to do. But sin wants to look at the list and ask, «Why didn’t I get prophecy? I like prophecy! I wanted that instead of encouragement. Why did you give them encouragement, and you gave me generosity? Why did you give them leadership and me mercy? Why don’t I have what they have?»
God is saying, «I decide who gets what gifts, and I’ve decided which gift I’d like to give to you. Now, I would love for you to play your part in my story by exercising your gift in your lane, because you are the only person who can run in your lane! You’ve got a crowd who’s cheering you on. It’s not like the rabble-rousers in the upper deck of a hockey game, who say, 'Knock her out of her lane! Trip him up! Get in his lane! ' No, they’re cheering for you! Stay in your lane! Run your lane! You’ll be the first one to finish in your lane, guaranteed!»
Run your race. The third of these verbs is «rid.» He says, «I want you to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, so you can run with perseverance the race marked out for you.» When we read that verse, we often go to the sins of indulgence—terrible, horrible sins that, if we commit them, will keep us from running our race, and for sure that’s true. But it’s also about sins like jealousy, envy, covetousness, and not embracing that you’re fearfully and wonderfully made. It’s about not accepting that God gave you a unique talent, gift, calling, and ability. It’s that false sense of humility that says, «Oh, I’m not good enough!» God says, «Forget about all that! I gave you something special. I put something amazing in your life; there is a calling, an anointing, and a purpose for you to do great things in the power of the Holy Spirit to change the world and eternity. Stop downplaying it and start embracing the fact that you are somebody. You have an incredible calling on your life! Get rid of the sins that are entangling you.
Some of us look like we’re in a sack race while God is saying your strides are way bigger than that! As long as you’re looking left and right, you’re never going to stride. Sin is on the prize; get rid of what you need to get rid of today. It may be that you had nine cheeseburgers and can’t finish the race, but it’s more likely that you ate comparison for breakfast and can’t breathe. You’ve got to get rid of all that.
How do you do that? The fourth verb is „fix.“ Fix your eyes on Jesus. You know, I don’t know whom you’re following. Some of you are not on social media, which is great; some of you are. Apparently, a billion people are on Instagram right now, and almost three billion on Facebook. There are two important questions: Who is following you? Does anybody know how many followers you have on Instagram? Not one single person here knows that, and that’s so amazing, right? „No, Louis, I’ve been memorizing the Greek New Testament—not just the New Testament, but the Greek New Testament—and I haven’t even thought about my followers on Instagram.“ But you know how many followers you have, give or take.
The other important question is: Who are you following? I’m not trying to make some dumb comparison; I’m just saying if Jesus isn’t at the top of your following list, then you’re likely a person with comparison hogging the mic. He’s the one who said to follow Him! The writer to the Hebrews said, „If you’re going to run your race, get free from the comparison trap; keep your joy; and maintain your sense of accomplishment.“
If you’re going to manage to not be distracted by the Blue Light Special, the only way you’re going to do that is if you fix your eyes on Jesus. If you want to compare, he’s saying that’s fine, compare yourself to Jesus! He’s the only one that your heavenly Father has deemed as your best self when you look most like Him. That’s your best hope! That’s why I brought you from death to life; that’s why I put my Spirit in you and made you a new creation! That’s why I’m filling you with my Word, placing you in community, and renewing your mind so that you can mature into the very likeness of my Son, Jesus Christ. I’m trying to mold, conform, and shape you into the image of Jesus. He’s the one you need to fix your eyes on!
The last of these verbs is „fight“ because this isn’t going to be easy. Nothing is easy about undoing something sinful in our hearts, especially when shifting your life trajectory from something you’ve dealt with since childhood, when you heard your parents say, „Why aren’t you more this?“ or „Why can’t you be like them?“ Or it’s been a constant in your life, telling yourself, „Why aren’t you more this or less that?“ Comparison has hogged the mic your whole life. Getting it off isn’t going to be, „Oh man, we had a great series, and the second talk was about comparison being on the mic, so that’s all going to go away now.“ It will not just go away without you fighting for it to leave.
Where do you get this information? I’m getting it right here in the text. When you fix your eyes on Jesus, you’re asking the question: okay, if I’m looking at Him, what was He looking at? He was looking at joy, the joy of you being reconnected with Almighty God. He saw joy, and he saw God getting glory, as well as you being reconnected to God. When He looked at the cross, He said, „If I have to go through the cross to make sure they know they are loved, valued, and prized by Almighty God—so they don’t have to look at that family or that dude next door in the other office, they have the opportunity to know that God Almighty thinks they’re amazing. He made them amazing, gifted them amazing, and placed them in a story to do something amazing for His glory.“
That was the end game! If I have to go through the cross to make that happen, then I’ll fight with everything I’ve got for that outcome! Some morning they will wake up, and the comparison game will be over. They’ll know their name is called Daughter of the Most High God, and they can find their lane, run their lane, and rest while running their lane. At the end of the day, you’ll hopefully hear those words: what words do we want to hear when we die? We want to hear, „Well done, good and faithful servant!“
Let’s say you tripped that guy, and he fell over, knocking the other guy out of his lane. You got to run on the inside curve and grab the trophy at the end, right? No! You want to hear, „Thank you for running your race well. Well done!“ Only one person can tell you that. That’s the trick of the comparison game. Your friend dies, and you look through their social media; all well-meaning people will write, „Well done, good and faithful servant.“ But you can’t write that on your friend’s Facebook!
You can’t say that about anybody because only one person knows what we were given. Only one person knows everything about us. Only one person knows what opportunities were placed before us. Only one person knows whether we trusted Him to act upon those opportunities. Only one person knows how divine providence fits everything together, and only He can say, „I know what I gave you, how I made you, what I led you to do, what I spoke into your heart, all the gentle whispers in you, and the decisions you made that nobody applauded you for!“
He knows the secret story, and He would like to say now, „Well done, good and faithful servant! You have finished your race and can now enter My rest.“ I’m telling you, the more you fight for that, the less you’re going to fight for what someone else has. Because nobody else has anything that will earn you the response, „Well done, good and faithful servant.“ Only one voice can do that!
Interestingly, when Jesus taught us that parable, He said the master gave one guy five talents, another two, and another one. The master said he would be back soon. Immediately, comparison could have jumped in, and maybe it did! „Why didn’t I get five? Why did I get two? Why did he get five?“
But he said, „You get one; you had none, and now you have one. He got five; he had none, and now he has five.“ It’s not about how many you got; it’s about your faithfulness with what you have! Isn’t that amazing? See, run, rid, fix, and fight—that may seem highly spiritual!
Let me give you a few practical things you can do tomorrow. Write them down quickly. Start with gratitude. Tomorrow, express gratitude. Number two: have a plan regarding what you believe God wants you to do with your life. This will save you time watching what everybody else is doing. Number three: don’t always pick the very best person in every discipline to compare yourself to. You usually want to become a better baker, so what do you do? You find the top baker throughout history. I will become as good as them!
You then do that for all the other areas of life, and you basically line yourself up with those who have won Best in Show in all disciplines. You could be good too, but it’s okay to pick six people that you respect in your area and aspire to be as good as the fifth one to start. Give yourself a break in the process!
Number four: When you find people who inspire you, decipher what you can learn from them versus how you compare to them. There is a difference. Sure, you can be better than me, and I watch people communicate; I watch anyone communicate! I mean, if you pull up to Publix and say, „Hey, I figured out the mic is on at Publix,“ I’ll listen to you because I am a communicator. I listen to any communicator speaking about anything! Because I want to become the best communicator I can, I will learn from others. A ton of them are better than me; I must have space in my life to understand that you’re better than me at that.
However, here’s where it shifts: when you see people better than you who inspire you, it’s vital to distinguish what three or four or five things they do that have made them so good at what they do, versus walking away and saying, „They’re better than me; I’ll never be as good,“ or „One of these days, I’ll guarantee I’ll be better.“ Both mentalities produce a harvest you don’t want!
Next, compare progress gained in your life, not just the progress that needs to still be gained. In other words, you want to compare looking back a year ago at what you achieved; you might say, „I’m doing better than I thought!“ You could look back from when you first decided to make a change and see where you are now; recognize your progress since the commitment you made!
Next, publicly praise the successes of others, especially those who grasped what you wanted. You may not feel like being gracious, but it’s not about feelings; you’ll publicly praise the successes of others! For example, on your Instagram or Facebook, at the office, or in conversations with friends, you would say, „Did you see what she did in that deal? The way she worked that out was phenomenal!“ That was one of the best moves I’ve ever seen in business! Man, did you see the way she led her kids through that challenging situation? What phenomenal parenting!
As you do that, you will start to find the grip of comparison loosening in your life. Then, if you get ahead or you are recognized, credit the people you learned from to help you get better. So many times, we finally arrive and we’re recognized, and we thank everyone while lifting our hands to God in heaven. But how many times do we stand up and say, „You know what? Let me take a moment to tell you how I got here. I’ve been watching my coworker for the last five years, and she’s taught me so many secrets that helped me get to the place I am now.“
So, shout her out and recognize her alongside you, because she’s responsible for so much of the success directed toward you! This whole attitude runs contrary to a sinful, conceited, envious heart. It breaks that cycle in our lives.
Lastly, you can start doing this tomorrow: notice who might be struggling with comparison to you. Is there anyone in any area of life who is looking at you and saying, „Man, if only I had their family!“ or, „If I just had their spouse!“ or „If I had kids like theirs! or a job like theirs!“ or „If I looked like them!“
If you notice someone looking at you, can you humbly get close enough to them to share your secrets and struggles? You could say, „Here’s how I got here, and I’m not afraid to share it with you because I hope it will help you too.“
You may also share your current struggles honestly. Many comparison gaps you see anyway are often a mirage! You do not want those people’s houses! You have no idea how upside down they are financially. You don’t know how close they are to cashing it all in or how many times they considered bailing out. You don’t know how close they are walking on a thin sliver of ice regarding what their future holds! That’s just the highlight reel you see.
Freedom comes when you notice, „Am I making anyone feel inferior?“ You get close to them to help them understand how you got there as well as share some of your struggles. You’ll find that if you practice these things tomorrow, you’ll begin to feel comparison loosening its grip. Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy, and I will give you rest!