Pride and Humility

Introduction and Context

This morning we turn the page in our Proverbs study.

We have spent the first six months of our study in Proverbs 1-9.

This is the First Collection of Proverbs—sometimes called “The Prologue.”

Today we launch out into Proverbs 10-29.

Proverbs 10-29 contain the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th collections of Proverbs.

Collection 2—Proverbs of Solomon (10:1-22:16)

Same author as Collection 1

Collection 3—Thirty Sayings of the Wise (22:17-24:22)

Wisdom Solomon has collected from the Ancient world

He re-purposes them with a Jewish worldview

Collection 4—More Sayings of the Wise (24:23-34)

Appendix to Collection 3

Collection 5—Proverbs of Solomon Collected by Hezekiah’s men (25:1-29:27)

Written by Solomon but arranged and published by Hezekiah’s servants

There are a number of ways to go about studying this section of Proverbs:

A) Verse-by-Verse—would take a very long time and I am not sure they’d be the best sermons

B) Collection by Collection—Still facing trying to preach a lot of verses all at once, that are not necessarily connected

C) Teach through the Lens of the Law—one great Baptist preacher I know of preached these chapters in ten sermons with the Ten Commandments as a guide.

Our approach—Nine Topositional Sermons

We typically don’t do topical preaching here—that is where you decide your subject and find a bunch of verses to support your purpose (generally poor approach)

We practice expository, verse-by-verse preaching, where we can understand the Word in its context and get down to the meaning

As we trek through Proverbs 10-29, we will take a hybrid approach.

We are not going to be purely topical—we aren’t looking to import anything into Proverbs here.

We still want to understand God’s Word properly and not impose anything on it.

But we are not going to be strictly verse-by-verse either.

Instead, we are going to look for the themes that run through Proverbs with the most prevalence and we will focus on those.

Here are the 9 themes we have selected:

Pride and Humility

Tongue and Speech

Humanity and God’s Sovereignty

Marriage and Faithfulness

Parenting and Children

Friendship and Community

Anger and Conflict

Justice and Society

Wealth and Poverty

It is more topical, but we still want the Bible’s content and conclusions to drive the sermon and NOT the other way around.

So with that said—we begin today with Pride and Humility.

Outside of the comparison of wisdom and foolishness, this may be the most pervasive theme in all of Proverbs.

If we were to boil down all that one pithy statement—maybe it would say something like this...

Big Idea

Pride finds ruin, but humility finds grace.

Outline

1. Pride is opposed to the first principle of wisdom.

2. Pride goes before destruction, but humility goes before honor.

3. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

1. Pride is opposed to the first principle of wisdom.

Defining the Fear of the Lord

To understand this, we need to understand what the First Principle of Wisdom is...

...AND What Pride Is.

Throughout Proverbs 1-9, we learned the first principle of wisdom: The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 9:10 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

To fear the Lord is to submit to Him with affectionate reverence.

It does not mean being afraid of God.

It does not mean living in dread of His punishment.

It does not mean trembling before Him like a slave in front of a cruel master.

Instead it is a love-driven fear.

The nature of the living God means that the fear which pleases him is not a groveling, shrinking fear. He is no tyrant. It is an ecstasy of love and joy that senses how overwhelmingly kind and magnificent, good and true God is, and that therefore leans on him in staggered praise and faith.

Michael Reeves, What Does It Mean to Fear God?

In other words, to fear God is to have awe in your soul over how good and great God truly is and to submit your whole life to Him as an offering of praise.

Defining Pride

Pride is the opposite of this.

Pride does not submit one’s life to God as an offering of praise.

It withholds life from God and says, “My life is FOR ME and RUN BY ME.”

It is the sin of our Father Adam in the Garden, who decided he would call the shots on which trees he could eat from.

The very sin that ushered death into the world.

I’ll avoid a cold dictionary definition and give you some voices from history to define it further:

Pride is the love of one’s own excellence.

Augustine

Or at least their perceived excellence...

Pride is the complete, anti-God state of mind.

CS Lewis

Even though Benjamin Franklin wasn’t a Christian, he recognized the dangers and difficulties of pride.

In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself.

Benjamin Franklin

The Bible defines pride as sin and calls it the Lamp of the Wicked.

It is the black flame that leads them around, compelling them to commit all of their sin against God.

Proverbs 21:4 ESV

Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.

Oriented Away From Self and Pride

Understanding our definitions, we can see that Pride and the Fear of the Lord stand on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Fearing God is truly an orienting of the heart toward God—in attitude, in affection, in action.

This is why we say it is where wisdom begins.

You can’t be wise and have a heart that turned away from God.

And if your heart is oriented toward God, it is not oriented toward SELF.

The one who fears God says, “God is great.”

The one who does not fear God inevitably says, “I am great.”

And here is where the great friction lies between the First Principle of Wisdom and Pride.

Wisdom calls us to put God in the center of our lives

To fear Him rightly

To have everything else in our lives re-oriented and shaped by the reality of who He is

But Pride says to put YOU in the center of your life

To make everything about yourself

To have everything in our lives oriented and shaped by the reality of WHAT WE WANT AND DESIRE

So then, you can see how these two things are diametrically opposed to one another.

Any imaginations we have about putting ourselves first and fearing God being able to co-exist need to be cast off.

It is like saying a thing can be both completely wet and completely dry or saying that something pure light and pure darkness.

These things are mutually exclusive.

But as much as pride and the fear of God DO NOT go together, HUMILITY and the FEAR OF GOD DO go together.

Proverbs 15:33 ESV

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

The humble man rightly evaluates God and himself.

God is good and great and should be lovingly revered.

I am not good and great and I need God’s help in all of life.

This is the posture of humility and this is the posture that wisdom requires.

A posture of pride, which exalts SELF and undermines God’s identity and authority, is foolishness.

Pride distorts our view of SELF as being “most important,” which distorts our view of God who is ACTUALLY most important.

Therefore, you can’t have a prideful view of yourself and a right view of God at the same time.

You need humility to have a heart that gets God and Self right.

Pride Makes You a Mocker

Proverbs shows us how this plays out in life.

The Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Rightly fearing God is the ticket needed to enter into Wisdom’s house.

But Pride is the beginning of being a mocker and a scoffer toward God and others.

Proverbs 21:24 ESV

“Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.

Pride exalts your view of yourself so high that you begin to think, “Nobody can tell me a thing.”

God can’t teach me.

The Church can’t teach me.

My parents can’t teach me.

I SO know what is best, I can cast off every opinion out there and just do what I want to do.

Ultimately, that is what the scoffing prideful man desires—to be able to call every shot.

To be able to direct their own movie.

Psalm 1 and the Mocker

But the Bible shows us that this has terrible results for the prideful mocker.

Psalm 1:1–3 ESV

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

Psalm 1 sets up two different types of people and it compares and contrasts them.

One man does not sit in the seat of a scoffer.

He delights in God’s Law—clearly seeing it as God’s commands for life and treating it with reverence

In the end, he is like a nourished tree by a stream, bearing fruit in season and prospering.

But then there are the wicked.

They are not rooted, but blow away like chaff.

Psalm 1:4–6 ESV

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Driven away.

Not able to stand in judgment.

Outside the congregation of God’s righteous

Ultimately perishing

This is where the wicked, who are led by the Lamp of Pride, will find themselves.

This is where mockery leads

This is the end that awaits the one who chooses LOVE OF SELF over the FEAR OF GOD and rejects the first principle of Wisdom.

We must choose rightly.

Reject Pride.

Embrace the humble posture of fearing God—this is where Wisdom is found.

This is the pathway to being the Blessed Man and not the Wicked Man.

2. Pride goes before destruction, but humility brings honor.

Proverbs 16:18

We have already seen this on some level in Psalm 1.

The mocker’s way lead to ruin (Psalm 1:6)

But it is illustrated even more clearly in Proverbs 16.

Proverbs 16:18 ESV

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Pride precedes destruction like dark clouds precede a brutal storm.

Wherever you see the dark clouds of pride accumulating, destruction is not far away.

Wherever you see the fear of the Lord forsaken, it won’t be long until there is a fall.

This is thread of truth is woven throughout Proverbs so that the reader does not forget.

Proverbs 11:2 ESV

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

Proverbs 18:12 ESV

Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.

Proverbs 29:23 ESV

One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

Again and again, the principle is reinforced:

Pride and haughtiness (high-mindedness) result in disgrace, destruction and being brought low.

While humility and lowliness in spirit brings wisdom and honor.

Pride and Destruction

Pride contends for God’s place.

Pride wants God’s seat.

Pride mocks God’s authority.

This sort of attitude will not go unchecked by God’s divine gavel.

God will see to it that the prideful reap what they sow—in this life and in the next, if there is no repentance.

God will not be mocked, as Paul tells the Galatians (Galatians 6:7)

If a soul wishes Him out of the equation, God will let them feel what it is truly like without Him.

Humility and Honor

Humility does not contend with God, but commits to keeping God in His rightful place as the Wise and Worthy Ruler of All.

Humility bows before God’s seat.

Humility gets low before God’s authority and seeks to obey His commands.

And this sort of heart posture does not go unnoticed by God.

He is kind to reward the humble heart with honor.

The honor spoken of in these verses is the opposite of destruction.

The Hebrew word is kabod, which means glory.

So then, honor and glory comes to the humble.

I think this is both heavenly and earthly.

In the heavenly sense, God looks upon the humble with His smile.

Why? Because they are not mockers who try and hold God in derision.

The truly humble exalt Him and praise Him.

In the earthly sense, other people look upon the humble with admiration.

Even in the unbelieving world, no one really likes being around a prideful person who thinks only of themselves.

People value those who humbly serve those around them.

The Difference Illustrated

You can see the difference in the pride that brings destruction and the humility that brings honor in Proverbs 13.

Proverbs 13:10 ESV

By insolence comes nothing but strife, but with those who take advice is wisdom.

The Hebrew word for insolence communicates pride and over-confidence

CSB translates it “arrogance”

And this arrogance brings nothing but strife.

That is because the proud man can’t be taught.

He can’t be confronted.

He can’t be corrected.

If you try to instruct him or rebuke him, you will be met with argumentative pride.

“I know what is best to the point, that I won’t listen to you.”

If someone is too prideful to be course-corrected, they will eventually destroy themselves.

No imperfect, fallen human has all the knowledge they need to live a destruction-free life.

Pride will cause someone to tune out every voice but their own and the ones that agree with them.

Inevitably this will lead to a doom of their own making.

But on the flip side, those who can take advice and admit that:

They don’t know everything.

Sometimes they are completely wrong.

Others know more than them and can help them.

This sort of attitude puts them in position to learn and grow in godliness.

This brings about the glory and honor of the Lord being please with their life

AND the effect of their lives being seen as honorable by those around them.

Hezekiah’s Example

If we want to see a biblical example of a man’s pride going before destruction and disgrace, consider Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20.

In this passage, King Hezekiah is reigning close to 300 years after Solomon.

He has been very sick and close to death and God delivered him.

God spares him and gives him 15 more years of life to live

He does this, in part, because of Hezekiah’s humble and faithful life

But then Hezekiah responds to the deliverance pridefully

2 Kings 20:12–15 ESV

At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

When the envoy from Babylon comes, Hezekiah gets caught up in the moment and says, “Look at all my stuff—silver, gold, oils, spices, weapons—look at it all.”

Indeed the Babylonians looked.

And what they saw was bounty worth plundering.

Isaiah pronounces the destruction to come that follows Hezekiah’s pride:

2 Kings 20:16–18 ESV

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

As you read the history of Israel and Judah’s kings, you find that there were a lot of rough characters.

Hezekiah is one that we would say was typically a good and faithful king.

And yet—look how quickly pride seized him.

Beware of this.

We can pridefully assume we are beyond arrogance and insolence, only to find it is bringing ruin to us and the people we love.

No one is exempt from Proverbs’ principles—Pride goes before destruction.

The Teaching of Christ

And this is not confined to the Old Testament.

Jesus echoes the teaching of Proverbs in Matthew 23.

Matthew 23:12 ESV

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

This comes in a passage of Scripture where Christ is pronouncing woes on the Pharisees, who were prideful hypocrites.

They thought that greatness came from where they sat at banquets and how decorated their religious garb was.

But Jesus is telling a crowd that true greatness is found in humility.

The same spiritual principle from Proverbs is on display.

Those who are prideful will be humbled.

There is disgrace and ruin coming which will painfully humble the proud.

Those who are humbled will be honored.

They will be exalted.

And Jesus does not leave it in the abstract. He is clear about what it looks like to be a great.

Matthew 23:11 ESV

The greatest among you shall be your servant.

The greatest of Jesus’ disciples will be those who humble themselves by serving others.

Something the prideful see themselves as too important to do.

Two Tracks

So then, in Proverbs and in the teachings of Christ in Matthew 23, we see two tracks.

One is ascending

One is descending

The world may look at the prideful and assume they are on the ascending track because how they prosper and how they carry themselves

Meanwhile, the world may look at the humble and assume they are descending because of how they serve others and do not make much of themselves

But in God’s economy, it is the opposite.

The one who exalts himself is actually descending.

On their way to the pit and to destruction.

The one who humbles himself is actually ascending.

They are ascending in glory and honor and always drawing closer to the Lord

Stop and take stock of your own life.

Are you correctable?

Can you admit when you are wrong?

Do you serve others?

Are you ascending—drawing closer and closer to the Lord in humility?

Or are you descending—pridefully dropping into an abyss of judgment for the insolent?

Which track are you on?

3. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Scriptural Proof God Resisting the Proud

The final thing that we must see this morning is that pride doesn’t just lead to destruction—it makes an enemy of God along the way.

Consider what Proverbs has to say about the proud.

Proverbs 15:25 ESV

The Lord tears down the house of the proud but maintains the widow’s boundaries.

God will look after the property of the widow (someone who has no one to speak for them), but He will tear down the house of the prideful.

God is not on the side of the arrogant.

Proverbs 16:5 ESV

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.

Another way to state this would be to say, “God despises the arrogant in heart.”

Again—God is decidedly against the prideful.

Or how about David’s song in 2 Samuel 22.

2 Samuel 22:28 ESV

You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.

Unlike the humble, He targets the prideful with His wrath and will cut them down.

Clearly we can see that pride has its consequences in Heaven’s courtroom.

Scriptural Proof God Giving Grace to the Humble

But on the other hand, God is in the business of giving His grace—unmerited favor—to the humble.

Proverbs 3:34 ESV

Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.

And then this is re-stated by the Apostles in their epistles.

James 4:6 ESV

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

1 Peter 5:5 ESV

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Parable of Pharisee and Tax Collector

If we want to see this playing out in an illustration to understand it better, Jesus gives us the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

Luke 18:9–14 ESV

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Notice that the parable’s audience are people who trust in themselves and treat others with contempt.

These are the prideful.

They believe they are righteous without God’s help

And they seem to feel they are so above serving others that they can abuse them and see others as a means to their end

The pride of Pharisee is evident:

His prayer is self-focused, thanking God for how good HE is instead of how good GOD is

He brags about all of his good works and his religious resume

He is an example of someone who pridefully thinks they are righteous in and of themselves

Compare that with the humility of the Tax Collector

His prayer is focused on God’s mercy and how he is in need of it as an undeserving sinner

He is keenly aware of what he should get (wrath!), so he begs that God would show Him compassion

Jesus tells the audience that only one of the men went to his home justified.

The Greek word that translates to justified can also mean “Free” or “Vindicated.”

The irony is thick.

The man who thought he was righteous goes home condemned

The man who knew he was a sinner goes home forgiven, as if he had never sinned

Free from guilt and shame

Our final teaching point from Proverbs is clearly seen in function.

God actively resists the man who is prideful.

He is left in his sins, which he doesn’t even think exist.

But God is pouring out His forgiving and redeeming grace upon the humble man who is not arrogant or high-minded.

He comes before God and gets low and grace flows to him.

Grace Like Water

Ultimately, what we are seeing is that God’s grace is like flowing water.

It is going to go to the lowest point.

Just as water does not flow upwards to a mountain’s peak, grace does not flow up to the prideful soul.

Instead, it rolls down and finds the poor soul that is crying out to God for salvation, forgiveness and the wisdom to live.

So which one are you?

Are you the person who says, “I don’t need grace?”

Or are you the person who comes to God with empty hands and says, “My only hope is grace?”

God’s heart is such that he turns to the empty hands, again and again, and fills them up with the love that no sinner deserves.

Gospel Conclusion (Philippians 2)

So then, here is where Proverbs leaves us this morning.

Pride opposes wisdom.

Pride is deadly.

God Himself opposes the proud.

Ben Franklin knew pride was a monster he could not beat.

Hezekiah knew better and still fell into it.

And unless YOU turn away from pride, you will feel its consequences too—even more than maybe you already have.

It can all feel a bit daunting and it leaves us in need of hope.

But thankfully, we don’t have to look far for help.

Philippians 2:5-11

For in Philippians 2, Paul points us to the rescue from pride and haughtiness.

Philippians 2:5–11 ESV

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

We are born prideful sinners who are children of wrath by nature and we rebel against God without anyone teaching us.

Pride is the human way of life, unless God intervenes.

And intervene HE DID!

For God has come to us Himself, in Person of Jesus Christ, and walked on this earth.

He did not count His equality with the Father as a thing to be grasped and gripped, but set it aside, in order to take on the form of a Servant. (v. 6-7)

A Servant who lived a perfect life.

A Servant who obeyed God all the way to the Cross. (v. 8)

A Servant who laid down His life as a ransom for many.

A Servant who opened the way of salvation for prideful sinners in need of transformation

And for all who receive this salvation by repenting and believing upon Christ, they are not just SAVED but CHANGED.

The Gospel and Pride

See—the power of the Gospel overcomes the power of pride.

Pride says—Make sure you get yours! You are most significant! Push everyone else out of the way!

The Gospel says—I am not most significant. Christ who saved me is most significant. His pathway to glory was by serving others—even to the point of death. I will do the same. I will die to my preferences and serve others.

Philippians 2:3 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

The Gospel reminds you that you are free to do this.

And it shows you a Savior who has done it before you.

Pride says—I must exalt myself and all my wants and desires above others!

The Gospel says—Christ who saved you did not climb a mountain to stand over others, but to die for them on an instrument of torture.

In light of that—I know the pathway to Christlikeness is not just looking to what I want and desire.

Philippians 2:4 ESV

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Pride says —Everything must be the way I want it and if it isn’t I have the right to grumble and complain to everyone around me.

But the Gospel says—Christ laid His life down for others and never grumbled, but endured the Cross for the joy set before Him.

It makes our entitled complaining look ridiculous.

It frees us to live a better way.

Philippians 2:14 ESV

Do all things without grumbling or disputing,

What the Gospel Offers

So then, for the prideful man—the Gospel is not just a way to be rescued from destruction—it is an invitation to a whole new way of life.

It is a beckoning to a new ethic in this world.

You used to live like this:

ME

OTHERS IF IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD (ME)

RELIGION IF IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD (ME)

But we must cast that way of life off for a new way in the power of Christ’s salvation:

1. God and His Kingdom

2. Others

3. Ourselves

If you are not a Christian—come to Christ with empty hands.

Confess your need as a sinner.

Trust in Him for salvation.

He will fill your empty hands with saving grace.

If you are a Christian—maybe your mindset has slipped.

More high-minded. More selfish. More prideful.

Today is the day to drop the worldly mindset.

Turn up your hands to Him once more and ask for mercy.

Ask Him to give you a mind of humility—which is yours in Christ Jesus.

For grace flows to the lowest point—and always will.