Introduction
I have made the comment in class here before that the longer I live on this earth, the more I think that the purpose of life here is to beat the pride out of man.
We know that God detests pride. The pride of life is one of the three great temptations listed in the Bible. (1 John 2:16).
Let’s dig into this a little this morning and remind ourselves what God thinks about pride, think about all the ways that pride shows up in our lives, and then look at how we can get it out of our lives. I welcome your comments and questions!
What God thinks about pride
From Solomon
Solomon warned about the dangers of pride. Proverbs 16:18-19
It is better to be humble, even if that means you most associate with the lowly people of the world.
Regarding Moses
Moses was very meek, but God clearly respected him for this, going so far as to speak to him plainly. Numbers 12:3-8
Moses’ meekness as a leader was a tremendous blessing to him and not a weakness as many in the world today would say.
Jesus’ example
Jesus Himself was humble and lowly in heart, despite His great power and deity. Matthew 11:28-30
Paul’s warning to Timothy
In Paul’s letter to Timothy, Paul warns Timothy of various types of people he should be wary of. II Timothy 3:2-5
Those who are proud are listed among the people that should be avoided. Several of the categories that Paul lists here (lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, and arrogant) are all symptoms of the underlying disease – pride.
Jesus’ parable
Jesus tells a parable of the two men praying, showing God’s perspective on the two men and their prayers. Luke 18:9-14
The Pharisee was not humble. Jesus’ judgment on the matter is that whoever exalts himself will be humbled (either now or at judgment). Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. How much better to be humble now and be exalted at judgment!
Act out of humility
God tells us to be humble and count others as more significant. People are more willing to follow a humble leader and will be humble themselves when doing so. Jesus is the ultimate example of this. Jesus is deity, yet He humbled Himself coming in the likeness of a man and humbled Himself to God’s will, dying a terrible death on the cross for our sins. Philippians 2:3-11
Be subject to authority and each other
God instructs us to be subject to our elders and to each other. Ultimately, we must humble ourselves before Him. I Peter 5:5-7
How does pride manifest itself in our lives?
Pride can be a very deceptive thing. Even when we think we have rid ourselves of it in one area of our lives, it can pop up somewhere else. Let’s take a few minutes thinking about how pride might show up in our lives. When you really start thinking about it, you might be prideful in more ways than you realize!
Here are a few ways:
- By doing what we want to do and not considering God or others.
- This is the definition of pride and selfishness – thinking that the rest of the world revolves around us.
- By bragging about our own accomplishments.
- What have we done that God has not given us the ability to do?
- By refusing to do work that “is beneath us”
- Jesus washing the feet of his disciples should rid us of this notion!
- By looking down on others for whatever reason.
- We may think it’s a good reason, but that’s still not a good reason!
- By not serving others.
- Serving others is loving others!
- By not being generous with our time, money, and resources.
- Why did God give us these things in the first place? Was it not so that we could obey His commands to love our neighbor?
- By allowing sin to creep in, thinking that we know how to handle it. Or, worse, being proud of it!
- I Corinthians 5:2 – The Corinthians should have dealt with the sin in their midst instead of being proud of tolerating it.
Sneaky ways that pride shows up:
Aside from the more directly prideful things we talked about, there are a number of “sneaky” ways that pride can show up in our lives. We may not recognize them as pride, so we don’t take the necessary steps to address the problem.
- Anxiety
- This is one that I have had trouble with in the past – being anxious about a job or money or schedules or any number of things.
- We will cover this more below, but we must cast our cares on God. To be anxious is to look inward for the answer when we should be looking to God.
- Psalms 37:25
- Being anxious can cause us to turn inward and not love God and our neighbor as we should.
- If you are anxious about something, do what you can to remedy the issue, and give the rest to God. If you need help, reach out to your brethren. This room is filled with people who would love to help, many of which have probably been there themselves!
- Depression or nostalgia
- This can be very tricky. This way of thinking is very centered around me. It is not centered around God or others.
- By looking too much at things of the past, we overlook ways to serve God and others now.
- It is certainly good to remember the good times that God has given us. It is not good to only look to the past.
- Depression is the inverse of anxiety. Anxiety is being too concerned about the future. Depression is being too concerned with the past, thinking about what bad things have happened before.
- Overeating / poor diet
- What I want to eat is more important than what is good for my body and my health.
- God gave us our bodies and they are incredible blessings. It is important that we treat them well and try to keep them functioning properly so that we can serve God.
- Side note: Your palate and your appetite are a little like your conscience. They are a guide but can be trained wrong. Your body adapts over time to what you eat. I used to avoid vegetables also, but after learning this, managed to gradually change my diet.
- Greed
- Greed tells us that MY money and things are the most important.
- Again, this is a view that looks inward, rather than upward to God.
- Hebrews 13:5-6
- Being late
- Considering your own time more important than the time of others who may be waiting for you.
- It’s not a big deal if it happens occasionally. If it’s a chronic problem, it could be a sign of pride in how you manage your time.
- Why is it that you are always late? What are you doing with your time? Is it as important as you think it is?
- Driving recklessly
- I want to drive how I want to drive!
- Putting others in danger is not showing love for our neighbor.
- If someone saw how you were driving, then saw you pull into the church parking lot, would they be surprised?
How to get pride out of our lives
This is a life-long pursuit! It’s not like we can just conquer pride once and live happily ever after. If only that were true!
Love God first. Love your neighbor. The rest will fall into place.
Matthew 22:34-40
God has made this so simple for us. Just love God and love our neighbor. Let the rest fall out of that. Easy, right?!
Trust God to provide.
Part of the way pride can sneak into our lives is the idea that I need to watch out for myself and get what is mine. If I don’t, I will lose out or be destitute. Certainly, we must work to provide for ourselves and our family, but this can go too far in the sense that we don’t trust God to provide. This leads to anxiety.
Matthew 6:25-34
Someone I heard once gave the analogy that life on earth is like a boardgame. When we die, the pieces all go back in the box. Why are we so worried about the pieces?
Ironically, our anxiety and pride about what we do have might be preventing God from blessing us even more!
Remember to look to God for direction – not ourselves.
Jeremiah 10:23
We must look upward for our direction in life, not to ourselves. God’s direction is perfect and unwavering. Ours may waver constantly and rarely be correct!
Look for ways to serve others.
Galatians 6:2-10
If we are looking to serve others, we are putting our heart in the right place. We both encourage others and help inoculate ourselves against pride.
Remember our common struggle
Romans 3:21-23
Remember that we are all in the same boat - we have all sinned and are all trying to have a good relationship with God. Once we truly understand this, it should be difficult to be lifted up with pride.
Try to see things from God’s perspective
Remember that we are only seeing things from our own perspective. Try to think about what God’s perspective is on a situation.
It is easy to point out other people’s problems. But we must get the logs out of our own eyes first. Maybe then we’ll see that we were the ones with the problems in the first place. We may even need the help of the person we had been looking down on.
Conclusion
Let us take a fresh perspective on pride, find where it lurks in our lives, and root it out so that we might be acceptable to God.
