Heart Conditions - Pride
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Good morning. It is good to be together in this place. God is good.
Last week we looked together at one of the lies of the enemy - that we should - to be happy, content, or joyful - we should be following our HEART!
This morning we are continuing on with that same thought process, digging into possible heart conditions that a christian might have, today focusing on Pride. Before we open the word - let us pray.
PRAY!
If you have your Bibles this morning, I would ask that you open to the book of James, chapter 4.
The more I study the word of God the more I realize how interconnected everything is. Today we are going to look at the book of James and the issue - the heart condition - of pride. This issue is dealt with hundreds of other times in scripture as each prophet, each apostle, each letter takes up the issue in some way. Because God cares very deeply about it.
Pride is a heart condition. As a heart condition, it is very serious.
What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you?
You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask.
You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?
But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Don’t criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames or judges a fellow believer defames and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.
Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Pride Defined.
Pride, like foolishness and laziness, is not simply a matter of you are or are not… because everyone deals with this issue in one way or another. It is the great fall of mankind. Because pride is to take our focus off of God, and place it completely on ourselves.
Pride is like bad breath. You don’t know you have it, but everyone else does.
Probably the most important verse to highlight here in this passage of scripture is James 4:6
But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
We have to understand that the pride in us, causes resistance from God. And to understand that, we should understand that resistance from God is really that you become an adversary to the almighty, omnipresent, Holy one. And that is not at all a place that you want to be.
And it spews out from our fallen nature. Going all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden - we chose to think of ourselves instead of God.
And like all other evil, it becomes a slippery slope.
Pride Says - Look at me, look at what I can do.
Pride Says - I can because I am.
Pride Says - I deserve Better.
Pride Says - I don’t need God.
Pride causes depression - because we can’t stop thinking about ourselves.
Pride causes anger - because we deserve to be treated better.
Pride causes anxiety - because the world does not conform to our wants and needs.
Shopping for a truck - what do I need?
Nebekenezzer in Daniel, gave himself credit.
Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh
This heart condition - if left untreated, will pull us completely away from the Lord. I have seen it happen. I have experienced it myself.
I get self reliant, and suddenly I stop giving God credit.
And I become an adversary of the Lord.
So how do we fix it? Lets turn back to the word. Starting in vs 7, there is a bit of an explanation…
We have to submit to the Lord. Put Him in the place of Glory, of importance. We have to draw near to him and put our focus on him.
Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
We must think rightly of ourselves
For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.
2. We must repent of our sin. Take the sin of pride, and cast it before the lord. To be on God’s side, we have to align ourselves with him, and make pride our adversary.
3. Humble ourselves, and ask God to help in that. - Willing to suffer, willing to mourn.
When we do that - we will reap the benefits of serving God.
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word.
But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
We started last week realizing the nature of our hearts - that they lead us astray, should not be trusted, but should be guarded and guided by our minds. This week we continue that by looking at this specific heart condition - and the way we treat it. Pride is pervasive.
Follow the examples given in scripture, we humble ourselves.
We ask God to humble us. And we reap the benefits.