Read Revelation 3: 14-19.
Before we get started, I’m going to let folks in on something that might surprise you. If you knew me when I was a kid, then you might not be surprised at all, mind you, but there’s not too many people here today that knew me then. In any case, when I was a child, there were times when I was, well, let’s use the term “too big for my britches.” Even though I was at times shy and socially awkward, once I felt decently confident in a given situation, or when I was certain that I was right, which was probably not quite as often as I thought it was, then I would push forward boldly and assert my position, regardless of consequences or hurt feelings.
Yes, at times I would experience, shall we say, blowback, or perhaps negative feedback, from this. I was ordered on more than one occasion to apologize, for example, for infractions such as pointing out to the person leading Sunday School that Africa was a continent, not a country, and for telling a classmate “I don’t care what you think.” One thing that I don’t ever recall happening, though, was that no one ever asked me “Who do you think you are?” My level of undiagnosed ASD awkwardness combined with generally being a smart Alec never quite reached that point.
That’s a phrase that probably you are familiar with, maybe you’ve had it directed at you personally. Like I said, I haven’t been hit with that one, although I probably deserved it. It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Who do you think you are to do this or that, to come in here and say something challenging or improper or otherwise problematic? It’s not a question that is usually asked looking for an actual answer, and when it popped up the other day, it got me thinking. Who do I think I am? And why does that matter?
So now I’m going to ask that question, although I’m not actually looking for an answer. Who do you think you are?
Who you think you are may be entirely different from who you actually are. Sometimes we think ourselves far greater than we actually are, far more intelligent, far more capable, more athletic, more popular, more witty and clever, and the reality is that we are nowhere near the level we imagine. Other times we think that we are insignificant, unwanted, unnoticed, and unimportant, and we imagine ourselves as much smaller than we truly are.
We might also think that we are far better than we are. That was the case with the church at Laodicea, as I read to start. This was one of the seven churches of Asia to whom John wrote, the seventh and final church. Many people think that it is reminiscent of the church as it is in western nations today, and that is a fair assessment in my opinion. We think of Laodicea as being the lukewarm church, and that is certainly a good description of them, because they were not flagrantly wicked, they didn’t have the same specific doctrinal or behavioural issues as we see described of some of the other churches of Asia in this passage, but they were also not fervently righteous. Of all the seven churches, this is the only one where there is nothing specifically positive said about what they have been doing.
So while it’s clear to us that the Laodiceans had problems, how did they see themselves? Who did they think they were? The answer is found at verse (17a) Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and we’ll pause there, mid-verse.
That is how they saw themselves. Laodicea was a prosperous town, and so yes, they were rich, they were well provisioned, they had no lack, they had no wants. That is what their identity was, that is how they lived. They were not riotous and evil, they did not have the multitude of problems that, say, the church in Corinth had, but they were self-satisfied. They were comfortable.
But that is not how God saw them, for that was not how they actually were. Verse 17 continues with a more accurate description of that church. (17b) and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
That is an entirely different picture, isn’t it? God was not impressed with their money, with their material goods. He was far more concerned with their spiritual condition. The Laodiceans were comfortable, so comfortable in fact that they didn’t even see their own sorry spiritual state. They didn’t realize that their condition was lukewarm, and that this was deeply offensive to God. And of course it would be, God had sent His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for them so that they might have life. He had sent missionaries to preach to them so that they might have the truth, He had sent letters to them in order that they might be instructed further, and the general attitude of the Laodiceans was “Eh, whatever.”
That’s a question to not soon dismiss, are you comfortable? If that is how you see yourself, or that is one of your key objectives, to be comfortable, then you should ask yourself how close to Laodicea have you become.
In our culture, we like to be comfortable, we expect to be comfortable; this is a common and accepted thing. But God never promised those who follow Him comfort. He has promised us salvation from the power, penalty, and ultimately, from the presence of sin, and He has promised us life eternal with Him in Heaven, all of which is far better than a little earthly comfort and ease. If we answer the question of who do you think you are? with comfort as any part of the answer, then that is a going to be a problem.
Of course, comfort is hardly the only problem, hardly the only flawed way in which we might see ourselves. I’ve been reading through 1 and 2 Samuel lately, about Saul and David in particular, and how people see themselves, versus how God saw them is a topic that comes up time and time again in those books. In 1 Samuel chapter 15, at verse 17, we see a good example. I’ll read from the previous verse for context.
(16) Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. (17) And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel? (18) And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. (19) Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD? (20) And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. (21) But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal. (22) And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (23) For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
Saul was the first king of Israel, and he had come from basically nothing. He was from the smallest tribe, not from a particularly wealthy or influential family, and God had sent Samuel to anoint him as king. Saul had considered himself as being no one, as being insignificant, as being small. Was this accurate? Not literally, we are told that Saul was actually quite tall, he was described as standing head and shoulders above the people. But in his own eyes, he was small. And so he had acted small. When Samuel anointed him, he went back home and went about his business, and even after the nation convened to select him publically, he continued farming until there was a crisis that required attention. Saul thought he was small, and so he was, at least at first.
By the time we get to chapter 15, even though he had been through a number of challenges at this point, Saul still seemed to have a mistaken idea as to his place and who he was. On the one level, it seems that he thought of himself as a whole lot larger. He had been given specific instructions about dealing with the Amalekites, and he did not follow them. Don’t take any spoil was the order, and he took the best of the spoil. That seems to me to fall under the heading of “too big for his britches” like I had mentioned about myself earlier.
But at the same time, the moment Samuel confronted him on this, Saul counters that he’s done the right thing, but the people took the spoil. So he’s pretending that he’s small again, because what sort of king tells his army “Sure, do whatever you want?”
Saul is a tragic figure on a number of levels, and one of the key problems is that I don’t know that Saul ever had a solid idea of who he truly was. Yes, he made impulsive and poor decisions at times, but he also doubted himself at every turn. He was plagued with paranoia, with impulsiveness, with violent and vindictive tendencies. Of course, when you don’t know who you are, then how are you going to behave? How are you going to conduct yourself? And if you have a kingdom and throne, well, that’s only going to amplify that behaviour. We can see the result if we look at Saul’s reign, and it’s definitely not pretty. We can see many people who are much the same today, uncertain of who they are, who sow disorder and reap chaos.
What a contrast when we look at the next chapter, and the next king. David was small in almost everyone’s estimation; he was the youngest son of a large family, tasked with tender the sheep, which was a lowly job. He was basically an afterthought when Samuel came into town and asked to meet Jesse’s sons. After trooping through seven of them in order, even though they certainly featured some impressive physical specimens, none of them was chosen. There was a lesson in there for Samuel, and for all of us, because we do have a famous verse, in this passage, verse 7, which we’ll deal with a bit later.
David was almost forgotten. “You want to see all my sons? Oh, yeah, there’s one more, he’s out in the pasture, we can send someone to go and get him if you really need to see him.”
We probably know what came next, Samuel was immediately told by God to anoint David to be the next king, to be the successor of Saul, and he did so in the sight of his brothers. You would not be surprised if this had caused David to have an inflated impression of himself, if it had caused him to become proud or aggressive or otherwise insufferable, but it seems that the opposite was true. We are told in verse 13 that the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward, and it seems that remained the case, that the Holy Spirit found Jesse’s youngest, almost-forgotten-about Son, to be a willing vessel.
We see this in the very next chapter, I’ll read a few verses from there, reading at verse (32) And David said to Saul, Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. (33) And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. (34) And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: (35) And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. (36) Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. (37) David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee.
When David was faced with Goliath, he was confident in who he was, he saw himself as someone that God had protected, and would continue to do so, even with faced with a Philistine giant. He had good reason to believe this, he had faced a lion and a bear when tending to the sheep, and had killed them both. He did not see himself as small, as someone with little worth, but rather as someone who trusted God and whom God had taken care of.
We see this pattern continue throughout David’s life. When faced with enemies that wanted to destroy him, at most times he trusted God, and at those times when he tried to take things into his own hands, that was when things generally went badly. When given easy opportunities to kill Saul and seize the throne early, he refused, not willing to smite the Lord’s anointed. David knew his place and his purpose.
David was certainly not perfect, though. He may have been called a man after God’s own heart, but he was not without problem. He made mistakes, he had some truly horrendous failures, but at no point, even when he feared that God’s Spirit might depart from him, as it did for Saul, but even then he did not see himself as beyond redemption. He repented and sought forgiveness when he sinned, even if he had to live with the consequences afterwards.
We’ve seen several examples so far this morning. There’s the church at Laodicea, King Saul, and King David. Each of these thought of themselves in very different ways, and therefore their behaviour and their actual results are likewise different. In general though, we can see that the more closely aligned with how God actually saw them the better things went.
The Laodiceans thought they were wealthy and comfortable, but God saw them as miserable, lukewarm, and poor. We hear nothing good about them, only cautions and warnings. Saul had confusion as to who he was, he thought himself small even when chosen, he saw himself as persecuted even when no one sought him harm, and he ended in a sad and tragic state. David thought of himself as protected by and provided for by the Almighty, and so long as he stuck to that, things went well.
How we see ourselves, who we think we are, is a major factor in how we live. It affects our attitudes, our health on all levels, our treatment of the people around us, and our relationship with God. If we think that we are people whom God loves and cares for, then it is far more likely that His love will be apparent in us. But if we think that God is opposed to us, or does not care about us, or that we have no need of Him, then what space will there possibly be in our lives for Him?
What’s just as important as what we think we are is who God thinks, or rather knows we are, how He sees you and me. I had skipped over this verse when we were talking about David earlier, but I’ll read it now, it’s probably the best known verse in the book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel 16:7 (7) But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
When Samuel saw Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son, he was impressed with what he saw. He was ready to anoint him then and there, but God said no. What he looked like, what was on the outside, that didn’t ultimately matter in that case. Nor does it matter in general, because it’s what is in the heart that is important.
That’s how God sees us, not the face that we present to the world, but the actual inner person, with all our hidden flaws and weaknesses. The false front we put forward does not fool God, not for a second, even if it fools the people around us, or even if we manage to deceive ourselves.
In Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet, the title character makes an observation in Act 1, scene 5 about his uncle Claudius, whom he is starting to suspect has murdered his father. That one may smile and smile and be a villain. A cheerful and pleasant exterior may not reveal, may in fact conceal the wickedness within. It’s been over 400 years, so it’s probably not a spoiler alert, but Claudius was indeed a villain. He fooled everyone for a while, but he was a scheming murderer. It’s what’s inside that matters, that determines who we really are.
So this morning I ask you again, who do you think you are? Not who you would like to be, not who you wish that you might someday become, and certainly not the mask that you might present for others to see. Who do you think are you, really? I’m not looking for responses, I’m asking you to think about that, ponder it, and see if you can answer that for yourself. And then ask yourself this: Does who I think I am look anything like how God sees me?
Who do I think I am? I’m a man, a husband, a father, a friend. I’m also a son, a brother, an uncle, a cousin, a neighbour. I’m a writer, a reader, a preacher, a manager, a leader, a follower, a consumer, a creator, a listener, and a talker. I have been a helper and a blessing, and I have been a hindrance, a nuisance, and a curse. I am wise, and I am a fool. I am many things, but underneath all of that, I am a person created in the image of God, a God who loves me enough to send His only begotten Son to be a perfect example, and to die for me so that I might spend eternity with Him. I am a sinner, but am I redeemed by His grace.
Who do you think you are? Are you like the Laodiceans, comfortable and self-assured, unaware of your true state? Are you like Saul, full of doubts and fears, unable to trust? Or are you like David, flawed within and often unappreciated by others, but trusting in a God who is far greater than all to lead, protect, and provide for you? And yes, none of those is perfect, none of those is without issue, but neither are any of us.
Do you know who you are? Do you know where you stand before God? It is entirely up to you if you believe when He tells you that He will care for you, both in this life and the next, and that He prepares a place for you, so that where He is, there you might be also.