Arrow of Pride

Arrows of Satan

Pride

Mark 9:31-35

Theme: God shows us how we can defeat the arrow of pride.

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We are in a summer series through August entitled: Arrows of Satan. Satan is a real created being who fell into sin and turned against God. There is a passage which describes his heart’s desire written for us by God.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” (Isaiah 14:12–15)

Satan not only opposes God but opposes anyone who wants to know and live for God. The Bible says he throws darts or arrows to try to stop us from getting close to God. These arrows are seen in various attitudes or temptations like: unbelief, envy, and last week was fear.

This week is by far the most potent arrow in Satan’s quiver: pride.

Pride is the most outstanding characteristic of Satan as seen in Isaiah 14. He embodies pride on so many levels in Scripture and he loves to throw this arrow. Since he is so familiar with this in his life, it is his “go to” arrow. This arrow lands most often in the heart of man because we are broken people because of our sin. Our sin nature weakens our heart towards God. There is a weakness in our flesh for pride and it goes back to the beginning of time.

Pride is a very old sin. It was pride that destroyed Lucifer. It was pride that destroyed Adam and drove him from the garden. It was pride that ruined humanity and keeps us from the Savior.

Pride in the Bible is living or thinking independently from God. It is rooted in building up self rather than building up God or depending on God. A common unbiblical saying I used to hear growing: he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. This sounds catchy but without God there is nothing we can do.

The alarming fact about this arrow is the permeating effect it has on us. It can grow very deep in our lives. Whether a person is a very Godly Christian or not a Christian at all, pride is what we all deal with.

In the passage we read this morning, it is shocking the level of pride that has taken hold on the disciples of Jesus. Nobody is exempt from this arrow. These were Godly men who spent time with Jesus. They heard His messages, His teaching, and ate with Him. They knew His plans and yet; pride came into their lives. Satan was most effective in landing this arrow in those closest to Jesus.

Jesus had taught them in verse 31, that He would die for the sins of mankind. This lesson is the greatest story ever told. It is the greatest answer to man’s problem. He was telling them about His mission and what was most important for mankind but they did not grasp its importance. The arrow of pride had already blinded them to an understanding what God is saying to them. In vv. 9-10 they could not understand rising from the dead because the message has not sunk in yet. Their discussion should have been about this important matter surrounding the Lord Jesus. The salvation of mankind by way of the cross was more than they could understand. He was building a team and they could not get past their own importance.

In the middle of this important time, Satan has been shooting his arrow of pride and the disciples were more concerned with who is the greatest rather than Jesus their great Savior who would soon die.

God here gives us the characteristic of pride and the cure for pride.

The characteristics of pride

We will have to identify this in our lives first.

1. Emphasize ourselves over God

Pride will always draw attention to ourselves over God. Pride will tempt us to think God brought us here and He owes us. Or to think our way or our thoughts are right and everyone else’s is wrong. If it doesn’t make sense to me, then I don’t believe it. Or what is in it for me. Pride causes us to want to be the only authority over our lives.

What a strange, sad, thing to see. The Lord Jesus had just told these disciples the greatest of all truths, and they are arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom. These simple fishermen, chosen, redeemed, and called by pure grace, are arguing with each other about something that is both in direct opposition to grace and in direct opposition to the teaching of Scripture. They were divided because they had a secret longing for preference and pre-eminence. Satan knew not only what arrow to throw at the disciples and where to land it.

“Only by pride cometh contention: But with the well advised is wisdom.” (Proverbs 13:10)

Can you imagine here God is teaching them about ministry and they were being beaten down with pride. Pride will take down the mightiest of men.

“A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” (Henry Ward Beecher)

These disciples were discussing what they thought they deserved. Pride is a very blinding sin. These disciples could not understand the glorious gospel teaching of substitutionary redemption because their minds were occupied with their own visions of grandeur about themselves in the kingdom of heaven. Pride can blind us so often to the truth of the gospel.

“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The emphasis they had was to advance themselves.

2. Pride is an attitude of self-importance

Galatians gives us a warning about pride

“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” (Galatians 6:3)

The practice of pride-think himself to be something. Pride always overestimates self. It causes people to overestimate their own skills and abilities. The people of pride is seen-when he is nothing-we are drawn to pride when we have done nothing. This is special temptation when we feel slighted or forgotten or not recognized as we think. The product of pride-he deceiveth himself-pride curses with self-deception and keeps us from viewing ourselves correctly. We deceive ourselves into believing our sin is not that bad but sin is so bad that Jesus came to die for all our sins.

Saul thought of himself as being greater than David and when he heard the women singing the songs of David’s praise, he sought to kill David.

3. Pride also leads us away from God.

“Pride made the soul desert God, to whom it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself as the source of its own life.” Augustine of Hippo

What these disciples did not realize is that God is not pleased with their pride. Pride will cause God to oppose them and the most predictable path is that pride will bring them down. While they were within the ministry of Jesus, pride had already filled their heart and was ruining any ministry they had. God will have nothing to do with pride.

“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” (James 4:6)

Human nature is spoiled with pride and so it causes us to act independent of God. Adam and Eve’s sin was deciding and acting independent of God. As soon as the arrow of pride was shot at the first man and woman, it landed in their hearts.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:6)

This first sin was rooted in pride for them to allow the arrow of pride to creep into their decision making. They would be wise like God. Humanism in a nutshell is seen right here in the very beginning of time. Man is the most important person in our world. However, the Bible says, God is the most important person.

Pride is at the root or center of sin.

Gen. 1:1 “in the beginning God.” There is nobody more important than God. God is a gracious and that is why He came to this earth to deliver man from the penalty of sin. God knew pride had lodged in the heart of man and Satan would keep shooting his arrows of pride at us.

God wrote that pride leads to destruction “Pride goeth before destruction, And an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). This is why He came to save us the destruction pride which is rooted in sin will bring us. Jesus came to deliver you and me from this destruction.

The cure for pride

Admission of sin

Just like in the middle of pride is “I” and in the middle of sin is “I.” The Bible shows us our condition as a sinner and the cure for this sin is the gospel. Jesus’s death on the cross paid for our sin. He delivers us from our sin. The cure starts with the admission that we are sinners.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23)

This admission of guilt before God is the beginning of the cure. When a person doesn’t think he is sinner, the Bible says he has deceived himself.

Accept Christ as Savior

Romans 10:13-call upon Him means we depend absolutely on Him and Him alone for our hope of heaven and victory over the defeat of sin. Satan will throw his arrows of pride by getting us to believe we are good enough or religious enough or righteous enough to go heaven on our own.

The cure for pride is to humble ourselves before a holy God. This humility means we admit there is nothing we can do but turn to God. He is our one and only hope.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

When we submit to Him, we are saying we cannot take care of our sin or our life, but we need Jesus to take care of these things. We need Jesus to give us new life and to have a personal relationship with God. Jesus not only died, He was buried, and rose from the dead.

Have a daily surrender

Once we accept Him as our personal Savior, Satan will continually shoot his arrows of pride. We will be tempted to live our Christian life our way on our terms. Pride will rob our soul of God’s blessing. Satan will shoot the arrow of unbelief and mix it with the arrow of pride so we will question God’s Word. The disciples here were missing the greatest truth in the history of the world and pride was robbing them of this truth.

The cure for pride: submission to God and His truth. Surrendering to the truth of God means you are saying God is right about me, about our world, and about the world to come. Be assured Satan will keep lying and shooting the arrow of pride to make us think we don’t need God or we are good enough in ourselves. Believers must learn to defeat pride through the power of God

“Pride is like a beard. It just keeps growing. The solution? Shave it every day.” (unknown)

If you are Christian, the daily time you spend with God by humbling yourselves before Him is a daily submission to Him and His will for our lives. If you are here today, and have never personally accepted Jesus as your Savior, you can turn to Him. Will you let someone show you how the gospel will transform your life by giving you a new life?