Pride

Intro: Before even getting into the message I want to re-affirm the truth that I and staff are not perfect in any of the areas we are covering in this series. Tonight is on pride and I, IN NO WAY, consider myself and expert in the area of humility.

I realized that sometimes at a coffee shop I am craving a sweet drink and I walk up to order and then see this cool coffee guy behind the counter asking what I’d like. He seems really cool and like he definitely just drinks straight espresso. And rather than asking for the pumpkin spice latte, I make a last minute switch to an americano so I don’t seem girly and so I can earn the respect of a barista that I don’t know.

Sometimes at the gym I’ll head over to the bench area to do chest. And some gym rat girl pulls up next to me, grabs 60’s and starts going for it… I was planning on starting at 30’s and working my way up. BUT OF COURSE I grab 65’s get one rep in before I feel light headed and then head over to the cables to escape embarrassment.

I am not free from this, honestly studying for these past two sermons has been painful and I am in it with you.

1. What We Think

Here is the misconceptions that many of us have on the sin of Pride:

We need to love ourselves before we love others

Have you ever thought, “I need to take some time to focus on myself, make myself better before...”

Do you know that philosophy is NOWHERE to be found in the bible, or any variation of it?

the Bible actually gives us commands to strive for focusing on OTHERS as a priority, because it rightly ASSUMES that human beings are ALREADY focused on SELF.

Yet thats what the world tells us, that “YOU ARE IMPORTANT”

“this life is a movie and you are the main character”

“love yourself just the way you are and never change.”

I need to focus on my relationship with the Lord before I can do that

“We'd always go into it blindly I needed to lose you to find me This dancing was killing me softly I needed to hate you to love me, yeah”

If you think this way even slightly, you have fallen into a pitfall of Pride

We are entitled

We think we deserve special privilege

You get frustrated when your parents don’t let you go to that friends house, when in reality you are their kid and their is no inherent right you have to do what you want when you want

You may only help around the house when you expect a reward for your work

You may think the whole friend group needs to bend beneath your will and go where you want to go, eat what you want to eat, stick to the plan you made

You may think that rules don’t apply to you because of who you are, and your reputation - I’m going to a church event to I can drive people even if thats technically illegal, I can show up late, I can go on my phone during a message

Entitled attitudes are prideful ones

We are better

You may see the kids on your campus that are coming to school drunk or high, the kids that are sleeping with their girlfriend or boyfriend, the openly homosexual or transgender

And because we don’t engage in that we look down on it as if we are on some pedestal above the rest.

This is the pride of “I’m better than you”

Those things I listed are definitely major sin BUT when you adopt a self righteous attitude about them you are just as bad

Some people get some sort of gratification out of complaining over how awful the world is

OR we can even be around people who are this way and think “Wow thats so prideful, I’d never be like that” AND boom you are now exactly like that

We know more

Our parents tell us what to do and we can’t obey them because they are out of touch and don’t understand

Spiritual leaders like parents or mentors give advice that we just cant accept because they don’t understand how you are feeling, or how your generation works, or just the dynamics of the situation

So we will just do what we think is best, because we know more

Thinking we are wiser than the rest is prideful

2. What He Thinks

James 4:6 “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.””

Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.”

Proverbs 6:16-17 “There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood,”

Isaiah 66:2 “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

God hates pride. It is not just a sin that we all commit and will always commit and so we can haphazardly confess it, acknowledge it and move on with no real change.

God hates pride so much because ultimately PRIDE IS contending for supremacy with Him.

It is when we aspire to the status and position of God without acknowledging our dependence on Him.

It is stealing the attention and glory THAT ONLY GOD DESERVES, for ourselves

When we are prideful in a big or small way, God is opposed towards us and he hates the way we are acting. Pride is reason for the fall of Satan in Isaiah 14. Pride is a massive deal, its the root of all sin and when we let it sit and fester in large or small ways we can expect destruction and to fall because we are contending for supremacy with the king of king and lord of lords. We are competing against the Holy one who is sitting on a lofty throne, high and exalted, whose glory the whole earth is filled with.

We have no right to be prideful, we have nothing in ourselves to boast about.

Pride is insanity - that we all commit on a daily basis that must be dealt with not by fake humility but by going to calvary, where the Creator of the universe worthy of all glory HUNG on a cross FOR OUR PRIDE.

Lets look at what God thinks of our pride when its expressed in 2 ways: Spiritual Superiority and Know it alls

A. Spiritual Superiority

Luke 18:9-14 “And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.””

Although this Pharisee may be the easiest villain to dislike in the Bible - we can very quickly look at this pharisee the way he looked at the tax collector, like WE are better than him

Why is it wrong to think we are better than others? Wouldn’t you say to an extent you are? Wouldn’t you say that yes a religious man is better than a guy who steals money from other people.

The reason why we think ourselves as better than others is because we don’t have a correct view on how bad we are.

And I don’t harp on our sinfulness to beat you up BUT it is vital to kill Pride

Listen to these truths of scripture like you never have before, place yourselves in the following verses

Because the Bible is the ultimate truth and authority and this is what it says about you and I

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Rom 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John 5:40 “and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”

John 8:34 everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

Psalm 14:1 There is no one who does good.”

So we aren’t neutral creatures. Fighting to do more good than bad. We were dead slaves to sin unwilling to come to God with no ability to do any good because apart from faith everything is sin.

So how could any human think they are better than the next. For the respectable sinner, It happens suddly. We claim prideful spiritual superiority by things like:

Saying you can’t be friends with people because you are more mature than them

Complaining about how someone talks one way in small group but lives differently at school

How about you guys in crew? Maybe there is pride of

considering yourself to be more mature than those around you because you serve in this role or that role

Or you are annoyed or discontent because others are getting responsibilities that you think you deserve

Remember who you are, not at all a spiritual superior to your friends but as a rebellious sinner saved by grace NOT saved by your last name, church attendance, service role, or a life of small sin and no big ones

Have you been doing the very things God hates by thinking of yourself as a spiritual superior

B. Know-it-Alls

This is the obvious pride of “You cant tell me anything” because I know better

I see this in my nephew and it is so painful to deal with

He is 4 and I’ll tell him something like don’t hang from that because you’re gonna fall and get hurt

And he has the audacity to say, No I’m not

And instead of me going and physically moving him so he doesn’t get hurt, I have the philosophy of learn from your failures.

So I say, “Benjamin you're 4 Im 21, you literally know nothing and you’re gonna hurt yourself”

And he has this thing where he goes on a long tangent about how He is right and I don’t argue I just say okay see what happens

And of course Boom he falls and starts crying his eyes out and do I go comfort him? Absolutely not, I remind him of the 1 Cor 10:12 “let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

But in the big picture of life You and I are young. You are younger than me. Most of you haven’t paid and electricity bill, bought your own car and thats not a shot at you its just the reality of a teenager

This is why the proverbs often say to the younger person

Prov 3:1 “My son, do not forget my teaching, But let your heart keep my commandments;”

Prov 5:1 “My son, give attention to my wisdom, Incline your ear to my understanding;”

Prov 7:1 “My son, keep my words And treasure my commandments within you.”

Don’t be deceived we do not KNOW IT ALL, in fact we don’t know much

So we must keep this in mind when it comes to the authorities God has placed in our lives

Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”

This is in reference to spiritual leaders but the principle of submission to authority is clearly found elsewhere in scripture

It is the pride of an independent spirit that makes us unteachable and unsubmissive at a young age

Scripture is black and white on this issue. Obey and honor authority until they command you to do something directly against Gods word

How is that going for you?

When all the kids in your class are making jokes at the teachers expense, do you join in?

When you get a sub, do you immediately take full advantage of them?

When your parents tell you to do a chore do you do it happily unto the Lord?

When you have to put a mask on IS IT DONE WITH JOY oh baby

When you are stuck at family night while your friends are hanging out without you, is there grumbling and complaining in your heart?

God is in control of every single thing in the universe INCLUDING the teachers you have, the parents you got and the president in office. Submission to them is submission to God. When you think “They just don’t get it” that comment doesn’t stop at the first rung of the lateral but goes up to heaven.

“They don’t understand = God doesn’t undertsand”

Don’t contend for supremacy with the all knowing God

3. So What?

Preach the gospel to yourself

Jesus Christ died a humiliating death on the cross

The King of heaven was led like a little lamb to its slaughter and He didn’t speak a word during it.

And on that cross, although he had no sin of His own, he experienced the full wrath of God stored up for your sin and my sin.

Jesus suffered and died for our pride, are phony spiritual superiority, for our pharisaical pride

And when we see what our sin caused and the grace that God showed us we are humbled, we cannot respond in pride.

Imagine if you reminded yourself of the gospel everyday

Write it on your mirror, set a reminder in your phone, change your wallpaper, DO SOMETHING to keep the gospel at the center of your life and meditate on it.

Be boastful

You heard me, be boastful

Human beings were created to boast

Although not about ourselves but of God

jer 9:24 “but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me,

Christians of all people should be boastful, not of their spirituality, not of their intellect but of this one thing that they KNOW GOD

This of course will kill pride if you brag about God

His goodness towards you, the blessings he gives, the strength, he provides

You are made to show off God

How will you boast about God this week?

Begin your day expressing your need for God

End your day with thankfulness to God

Every night list 5 displays of Gods grace in your life THAT DAY

If you struggle with that, its because pride is blinding. God’s grace is infinite and if you can’t identify 5 ways he shows you grace each day THAT can be diagnosed down to pride

Play Golf - C.J.

Unless your name is Lauren

But yeah guys you struggle with pride? Think you're athletic GO PLAY GOLF WITH LAUREN

C.S. lewis says laugh often and laugh at yourself

Its hard to laugh at yourself if you are protecting your ego

Lastly DONT FAKE IT

God knows your heart, he will not be impressed by fake humility.

Its possible to come across humble but yet still be filled with Pride

The only way to humility is through true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ - if you have not done so alreayd you need to do that tonight.