WHEN YOUR CROWN GETS KNOCKED AROUND

Personal rights are a very sensitive topic.

If you’re breathing, you know this firsthand.

We’re in the midst of a pandemic that has shaken the world and as leaders attempt to regain control, millions cry out in protest due to their rights.

I’m not here to say that politicians are right or wrong, or to speculate on their motivations, or to offer my opinions for a resolution

Instead, I want to talk about the importance of our reaction to the perceived violation of our rights. The way we respond when we feel our rights are being trampled on reveals whether we are trusting in God or in ourselves.

If we’re honest, the moment we feel our rights are violated, all bets are off. When it comes to a relational conflict, we tend to resort to catty remarks, abuse, or even ending relationships. On a larger scale, when rights are violated by the government, we often see rioting and violence. 

Are these healthy, productive, or godly responses to being oppressed? Absolutely not. But they are also not the problem; they are merely a symptom of the problem. 

The root of our problem is our sinful pride that causes us to demand our rights – from our co-workers, from our boss, from our friends and family, from society, and even from God. 

“Oh, but that’s not me.”

Maybe not.

But I’d like to challenge you to take a step back for a moment and consider how you respond when…

• someone cuts you off in traffic
  
• your husband throws his laundry everywhere but the basket
  
• you have to work late
  
• someone talks down to you
  
• you don’t sleep well

 
If we’re honest, when someone violates our rights on the road, we get angry. 

And when our husbands make a mess, or don’t help out with the household chores, we get angry. 

When we have to work late, we get angry. 

When people disrespect us, we get angry. 

When we don’t sleep, we get angry. 

There is a clear pattern that begins to emerge: anger.

If you remember, we previously defined anger as the result of our unwillingness to accept what God is doing in our lives; an unwillingness to accept God on His terms. 

“Oh, but those are just little things. It’s just frustration. It’s completely natural.”

Maybe so.
 
But the truth is that these “little things” and our natural reaction to them reveal a problem with our understanding of personal rights. Left unchecked, it’s these “little things” that build up until we become aggressive in larger ways with more significant consequences. Consequences like divorce, unemployment, traffic fines, and even addiction as we attempt to cope with losses we’re experiencing. 
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GOD IS IN CONTROL

​When we respond in anger, and when we attempt to dismiss our anger as “only natural,” we reinforce our pride by telling ourselves we have a right to be angry, a right to vent our frustration, and ultimately, a right to act however we want when things don’t go our way. What we fail to remember, once again, is that everything that happens to us comes from God. 

The lot is cast into the lap,
but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33

I form light and create darkness,
I make wellbeing and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all things.
Isaiah 45:7

Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it? Lamentations 3:37
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“So wait a minute -- are you saying that God is causing my rights to be violated? Causing people to make my life harder, to disrespect me, and even causing me not to sleep?”

Yes.

Does that mean their behavior is okay, right, and good? Of course not. Nonetheless, God often uses the sin of others to reveal the sin in us so that we can grow through repentance and change.

Here is a critical truth: God doesn’t allow us to justify our sin by the sin of others. Regardless of whether our rights are being violated, God still requires us to act in a way that is set apart as holy and righteous.

​When God begins to stir things up to teach us what it means to surrender, submit, and yield our rights – which is what He calls all of His children to do – most of us respond with anger. We don’t like it, it’s not fair, and we want to make someone pay.
 

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

In Luke 14, Jesus is talking to large crowds and explaining what they need to do to become his disciples. The climax is found in verse 33, where Jesus says. “Any of you who does not forsake everything he has cannot be my disciple.” 

According to Jesus, we must forsake everything, and that includes our rights.

Scripture continually reminds us to submit to God and to others. We do this because we’ve given our rights up to God. It’s this surrender that allows us to trust God to take care of us, even as our “rights” are violated. The result? We no longer respond in anger and sin when things don’t go our way. Instead, we remember that we placed our rights and our control in God’s hands and we will wait and see what He does instead of grabbing control back. 

Demanding our rights always leads to discontentment because we never get what we want. People will eventually fail us; society is sinful and people will always cut you off, talk down to you, and mistreat you. Fighting back only causes things to worsen, not improve.

When we focus on our rights, we’re focusing on what we don’t have, which is the nature of temptation. Focusing on what we feel we are missing puts us on a slippery slope into sin, because as I focus on what I don’t have, I begin to demand what I don’t have, and I feel justified in taking whatever measures necessary (including sinful ones) to get what I need. Sound familiar? This is the path of idolatry that we talked about a few weeks ago. 

THE CALL TO HUMILITY

God calls us to a different standard than the world. 

He calls us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21), and to love one another above ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). He calls us to deny ourselves, not prove ourselves (Luke 14:27).

How on earth are we supposed to do this?

It starts with what we believe about God: is He good and does He love us? 

It continues with how that affects our beliefs about self: is my identity safe in Christ? 

If God accepts me, loves me, and is working for my good, then I don’t have to. I can surrender my rights because I have everything I need in my relationship with God. I don’t need the respect of others. I don’t need to be better than anyone else. I don’t need to have everything go my way, because I understand that even when things are difficult, God is with me, and that’s all I need.

Believing this truth is what enables me to walk in obedience; I can now surrender my rights, stop trying to take from my relationships and circumstances, and instead begin to give. I can love God and love others.

You see, you can’t love with submission. You can’t love without giving. And you can’t give when you’re only concerned about yourself. 

Submission isn’t just for some. It’s for everyone who follows Christ and it applies to every relationship and circumstances.

But how do we submit to people who we don’t like? Or to people who take advantage? We submit to God, and remember that the people He’s calling us to love and submit to are the people He has chosen to place in our lives. 

God knows what he’s doing. In any situation where we feel angry and frustrated, we must trust that He’s teaching us something very important: that He is good, on our side, and enough for us. He’s teaching us that we can deny ourselves and love others and still have peace and joy in our lives. He’s teaching us that He is all we need. But we must surrender our rights, our pride, our desire for instant gratification and our anger and selfish desires that ruin instead of restore.

When we surrender our rights, we learn that we don’t have a right to give the silent treatment when someone snaps at us. Our job is to love her.

We learn that we don’t have a right to punish our husband because he doesn’t understand you. Our job is to love him. 

And we don’t have a right to be angry and irritable because we didn’t sleep well the night before. Our job is to love others. 

We do this by God’s grace – the power He gives to do what He says. 

Some rights we believe are bigger, though, and far more dangerous.

Sometimes we believe we have a right to worship God wherever we want. We don’t. God calls us to worship him by coming together as a church.

Sometimes we believe we have a right to spend our time however we want, but we don’t. God calls us to honor him in everything that we do.

Sometimes we believe that we have the right to minister to whomever we want, but that’s not true, either. God calls us to minister to everyone we come in contact with, regardless of how challenging it is and how much of ourselves we must deny to do it.
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WHAT ABOUT NOW?

These truths are particularly painful to wrestle with in the midst of our current political and social climate. So many are concerned with our rights as Americans being stripped away. I don’t want to be overly political here, but I want to challenge you to consider that regardless of what we’re asked or required to do, our job is to love God and love others.

Instead of responding in anger in these moments, we still can choose to trust God and look for ways to honor Him in our reactions, and we still can take the time to consider how our actions and attitude affect those around us. 
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HUMILITY IN ACTION

I want to encourage you to consider what frustrates you most in your day-to-day life, and ask yourself why?

What perceived “right” have you been trusting in?

How has that right being violated caused you to act toward those around you?

How has it affected your relationship with God?

Let’s choose to surrender those rights to God and trust He is good, He loves us, and He is in control, even of the frustrations we experience in life.

Let’s reject the lie that we have the right to be treated a certain way, to experience certain things, and let’s embrace the truth that God is enough for us.

Let’s stop taking our frustration out on those around us, and let’s take joy in finding ways to love and serve the people God has placed in our day.  

Let’s choose to stop seeing people as obstacles, and instead see them as opportunities to minister and encourage and share the love of Jesus.

Let’s choose to surrender our crowns and become servants.
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“When I understand that
everything happening to me
is to make me more Christlike,
it resolves a great deal of anxiety.”
​–AW Tozer