Pride

Pride – God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble

Intro

I don't know what you thought of when you heard that we were staring a series on the seven deadly sins and that today's sermon was on pride. Perhaps you groaned inwardly (I didn't hear any of you groan outwardly), or perhaps you thought of a popular ice cream makers range based on the seven deadly sins. It struck me as I was preparing that pride is a strange topic for a sermon. We use the word quite often and normally pretty positively we talk about taking pride in our work, being proud of our children or we try to encourage 'civic pride'.

But when we see the word pride alongside sloth, greed, envy and lust we know we're talking about something quite different. In that context we know that pride is a negative and our minds turn to arrogant people we know or we slouch into expectations of an on-coming telling off. We know we shouldn't be proud, we know we should be more humble but it doesn't sound particularly appetising. It's a bit like all those New Year diets that are doing the rounds now; probably a good idea but in reality most of us prefer chips.

Well I want to tell you that the Bible's message about pride is not about moralising. It's not about telling us off or about teaching us how to be good, respectable, moral people. Please don't go into this series thinking that's what it's about, it's not. The Bible's teaching on pride is that it is a death trap, a death trap leading us to a life of false promises, disappointments and insecurity. Pride is at the root of what is wrong with the human condition, what is wrong with me, with you and is the very thing preventing us from receiving Salvation and freedom. The Gospel crushes our pride and replaces it with life, grace, real security, satisfaction and meaning.

Each of us struggles with pride. In some areas that's easy for us to see we hear people boasting about their careers, their cars, their holidays. We see how these things give people significance and we sense there is something wrong but what about having pride in our family, our children, our intellect, how funny we are, how many friends we have, the places we have been, our good taste. All of us take pride in things like this, the question isn't 'Are you proud?', it's 'What are you proud about?'. So given that we are all proud, what does it mean in 1 Peter 5.5 when it says; 'God opposes the proud'? This is what I want to look at in my first point; 'pride is misdirected love'.

1 Pride is misdirected love

Have a listen to this newspaper's assessment of the decade;

The decade now ends with the threatening shadows still in the caves and the whole thing bookended by another recession caused by unreal money. The banks were worth trillions and then they weren't. The enemy was invisible and money unreal. In the Noughties, all that was solid melted into air, into thin air.No wonder we felt insecure. Shadows wanted us to die, and we might at any moment be broke. In fact, if you want the word of the decade, here it is: "security".

I think this is a reasonable assessment of at least the Western world at the beginning of 2010. Many of the things that our culture worships have as the writer says 'melted into thin air'. Our immense wealth was not secure and our armies cannot always protect us. Whilst this is true for our world, isn't it also true in our own lives? Those things that we find significance in whether they be wealth or health, friends or fashion none of them are secure they can all be taken away we are not secure. Isn't it also true that even those who are fabulously successful, beautiful, intelligent in the world's eyes are also those who internally are the most tortured and dissatisfied? The truth is that on their own the things that we are proud of, the things that we boast in often slip through our fingers or at least they never truly satisfies us.

When I was about seven I got a remote control yellow digger for Christmas, it was beyond my expectations, most remote control cars have two levers to control the car with; this one had four. But it quickly broke and it was slow and it didn't dig very well. I'd set my hopes on something that would disappoint and break eventually. Our pride is often like that; set on things that won't ultimately satisfy. That digger left me disappointed our pride often leads to disappointment too but also to selfishness, to arrogance, to hurt and ultimately, the Bible says, to death.

This is the context of that statement 'God opposes the proud', God isn't setting himself up against us but he is setting himself up against our pride which loves and worships things which ultimately don't satisfy, are insecure and lead us into patterns of behaviour which not only harm us but those around us to. This was the dynamic at work when Adam and Eve first sinned, they believed the serpent's lie that eating the fruit would make them 'like God' and they grasped after that. They sought life and satisfaction in something other than God. That's pride and it led to them being banished from the garden, separated from intimate relationship with God and his blessing. This is pride – unbelief. Not believing that God is worthy of all worship that it is only he who can truly satisfy. Jeremiah puts it like this;

This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

We are not to boast of our wisdom, our strength or our riches but rather we should boast in God. This is where our love should be directed, towards God full of kindness, justice and righteousness. He is the one who deserves praise, who deserves glory who is worth boasting about. He is glorious not us.

And yet He loves us in spite of our love often being directed at ourselves, at what is not worthy of love instead of Him who is. He says that we should boast that we know this God of kindness, of love. Nothing else will satisfy us because we were made to worship God, only in doing so will we be satisfied.

God opposes the proud. He opposes them because He is the only thing worth being proud about, he is due his glory and his praise.

God opposes the proud. He opposes them because He loves us, nothing else will satisfy us, no-one else can save us. Our love is misdirected but His is not.

2 The Pursuit of Humility

The second half of that sentence 'God opposes the proud' reads; 'but gives grace to the humble'. How then do we overcome pride and become humble? I have three suggestions for us:

a) Realise that we are proud

Admitting that we are proud is difficult it is uncomfortable for us. In fact we have created a whole list of synonyms for pride so that we can avoid dealing with it; we say self-esteem or self-worth. Our hearts are deceitful and we fool ourselves into thinking we aren't proud or at least that our version of proud is OK.

We need to realise that we are sinners that we have traded the true God for gods of our own creation. We need to know that this is serious and that in fact we deserve hell because of it.

Pride manifests itself in many different ways. Here are some questions to help us identify where pride may be an issue in our lives: -     James tells that when we plan for the future we ought to say; "If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that." How do your plans for 2010 match up to James' advice. -     What things in your life make you feel secure? -     Are you able to accept service/offers of help? -     Do you ask for help? -     What dreams are you chasing this year? Why? -     How teachable are you? Take a few moments to think through these questions this week or better get someone you trust, a good friend to answer them for you. As we said earlier the question is not are we proud but rather what are we proud about? All of us will be at different points with this, the questions are not designed to make us feel guilty but rather help us think about where pride is an issue for us. Having said that, if we take pride seriously then we do need to repent of our pride to God so that we can receive forgiveness and get on with pursuing humility instead.

b) Pursue God

Pride is about putting ourselves in the place that God should occupy, we honour ourselves and gain pleasure, meaning and significance in what who we are and what we have done, rather than in who God is and what He has done. We read earlier Jeremiah's warning against doing this;

This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches,

So what is the alternative? Well Jeremiah goes on to say;

24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

Jeremiah instructs us to boast in our relationship with God; 'boast about this: that he understands and knows me'. Here is our source of security, of meaning, of pleasure, of joy; that we know the God of the universe and that he has revealed himself to us so that we can understand Him. What a privilege! Christians know the living God, the God who brought the universe into existence, who set the stars in the sky, who made the sun rise this morning and who put each breath in our lungs. We know Him and are known by Him.

Jeremiah goes on and encourages us to boast in; 'kindness, justice and righteousness on earth or in these I delight, declares the LORD.' We are to boast, to delight in the things that God delights in, in acts of kindness, when justice is done, when God's way is followed. These are the things that bring us lasting pleasure and satisfaction.

The answer to pride is not the absence of pride but rather a shift in what we are proud in. When we remember the goodness, the holiness and the glory of God our worship shifts away from ourselves and on to God. In essence the answer to our pride is to worship God. That's why we meet here each Sunday, to worship God. The elements of the service from the readings, to the songs we sing, the creeds that we say and the prayers that we pray are designed to exalt God, to lift him up reminding us of his greatness. So please make it a priority to make it to church we need you, we need you to encourage us, to sing and pray and listen of this God who is wonderful. Let's boast together that we can know Him and encourage each other to know Him and his kindness, his justice and righteousness more this year.

c)Follow Christ

Finally; follow Christ. If we want to see to see the ultimate example of humility then we should look at Christ's life. Unlike us Christ had much to be proud of, indeed we are told that he shared glory with the Father before the world began. He deserved this glory; he had every right to boast. Yet Christ forsook that glory and intimate, perfect union with the Father. He swapped his glory for the frailty of an inglorious human body and he lived perfectly in submission to the Father. This obedience would lead him to a Roman cross to be killed by those he had created in order to save them. If you want to explore this more then Philippines ch2 is a great place to start.

In Christ we see how humility is more than just an attractive virtue. It is only because of Christ's humility that we are able to boast in our knowledge of God. It is by his humility that we are saved. In that passage in Philippians 2 Paul says that we should have the same attitude. The same attitude which led Christ to abandon the status that was rightfully his and become obedient to death, even death on a cross. That's quite an ask, to have that attitude. But because Christ has saved us and now lives within those of us who have put our trust in him we can live differently. We are able to cast off our pride which leads to insecurity and disappointment because Christ is at work in us.

I want to encourage us to agree together to exchange our pride for worshipping, for being satisfied in, for delighting in Christ who gave up even his life for us. Lets help each other to be humble because God gives grace to the humble. Amen.