We thank You for the opportunity
to be a part of Your body, to have the freedom to come and
express ourselves in worship through song and through the
reading of Your Word. And God, just as we celebrate
the death of the saints, Lord, we ought to celebrate the life
of the saints as well. God, may our lives be Not worthy
because of what we've done, but Lord, may our lives be worthy
because of Your work in them. May our lives be worthy because
Christ is ours and we are His. Lord, our lives are worthy because
You have a love for us. Father, as we come to Your Word
this morning, I pray that You would just begin to tap into
the reservoirs of our hidden heart. I pray that You would help us
to see what is hidden down underneath the most cavernous space, the
darkest corner. Lord, that through Your Holy
Spirit and through Your Word, God, that You might bring to
light hidden pride. That You may bring to light what
has been deceiving us for so long. That each of us, every
one, has pride in our hearts. to some degree. God, it is my
prayer this morning that through this worship service, through
this sermon, that maybe this would just be the beginning of
repentance for some of us, especially in the area of pride.
So God, in that vein, we humble ourselves before You. And Father,
where we are not able to bend that knee, God, would You break
it? We thank You for Christ who suffered
for us that we might live. May we live our lives as He lived
His for Your glory and righteousness and honor. And it's in His name
we pray. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Well, as we consider the Proverbs
again, And over the next month or so, we continue in the Proverbs.
We will see little topics that flesh themselves out in such
ways that are very uncomfortable. And three weeks ago, I was compelled
to preach on pride, but I had to postpone it. And then another
week went by, and I had to postpone it, and I had to postpone it.
So today is the day by which I will share God's Word with
you in a brief way on pride. Why I postpone it? For as there
is no integrity in preaching something that God doesn't work
inside of your own heart. So I'll let that speak for itself. And may He continue to break
me and the pride that I might have hidden away. When we think
of pride, there are two veins of thoughts with pride. Most
cultures Teach that pride is a good thing on one hand, and
then most cultures teach that pride is also a snare, something
negative to be avoided on the other. And so in that way of
thinking, I want you to ask yourself how you really think of pride,
how you see pride in your own life. For example, there are
many of us who would say, well, I have pride in my accomplishments,
or I am proud of my children, I am proud to be an American,
I have pride in my Lord, etc., etc., etc. There's one thing
to hold or esteem in the sense of pride to a certain level of
reverence or honor. But there's another thing to
hold pride in one's heart as a way of thinking, affection,
or an attitude. I would suggest to us all this
morning that any type of pride needs to be checked. Any type
of feeling of esteem needs to be checked. so that we might
really gauge as to whether or not it is something of the Lord's
doing, or if it is something of our own fleshly desires. As
I looked over the week for some quotes on pride, I wanted to
see just sort of how pride has played itself out in the history
of this world. And I was surprised to see just
how positive pride is in the eyes of so many. Pride, I saw
as a quote, is a personal commitment. It is an attitude which separates
excellence from mediocrity. And so, see, if you hear some
quote like that, you think, wow, I should be proud for the proud
overcome mediocrity and strive for excellence. Oh, how far a
cry that is from what a biblical worldview teaches. And that excellence
is only found in Christ, and anything other than excellence
in Christ is not even near mediocrity, but is absolute worthlessness.
See how that fights against your feelings? See how that statement
itself fights against the view that you have in the world today?
See how that particular thinking grinds against the very nature
of your soul? Thomas Fuller has been quoted
saying, pride will spit in pride's face. I think that's a good way of
looking at pride from a biblical perspective. That should be a
proverb, Thomas Fuller. Paul Bryant is quoted in saying,
show class, have pride and display character. If you do, winning
takes care of itself. And so we see, even historically
throughout the ends of some of these quotes, I have a few more
to give you. For the most part, people either look at pride as
a wonderful thing that strives one for perfection or excellence,
to overcome the wanes of the world or the problems of life.
And in another sense, pride is looked at as some type of conceited
disease. Women love the lie that saves
their pride, but never an unflattering truth. Human pride is not worthwhile.
There is always something lying in wait to take the wind out
of it, Mark Twain says. John Ruskin says it this way,
in general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. John Donne, as soon as there
was two, there was pride. Pride, by definition, is a reasonable
or justifiable self-respect. A reasonable or justifiable self-respect. Or an improper or excessive self-esteem,
known as conceit or arrogance. So when we look at the definition
of pride and we see both sides of the coin, we ask ourselves,
is one of them good and is one of them bad? In the context of
having a reasonable or justifiable self-respect, what allows a man
to come to respecting himself? How does one justify themselves
in having self-respect? Oh, maybe it's because of what
God has done in us, sort of like the Pharisee that Jesus tells
about. Thank you, God, that I am not
like others. I would suggest that's not a
good pride at all. but actually an excess of self-esteem or conceit. I would say that there is really
no way, and I haven't thought through this exclusively, that
pride should be infiltrating and mandating the thoughts and
hearts and actions of man in any way who call themselves believers
in Christ. I'd like to suggest that maybe,
just maybe, as we contemplate the pride that we hold dear to
us, or the things that we hold dear in pride, we need to ask
ourselves, are those things actually worthy of respect or not? For Paul had the right attitude,
and it was not the attitude that Paul was born with, rather it
was the attitude that Christ gave him. Had this mindset among
you. He says, I count it all as loss.
Consider it nothing. Worthless gain. Nothing compared
to the priceless gain of knowing Christ my Savior. I am nothing. And God will use the nothings
to bring to nothing the things that are. Will use the foolish
things of this world to profound the wise. The first shall be
last and the last shall be first. So a personal self-respect, even
if it's justifiable, must, for the Christian, be centered in
the Gospel. And the respect and the pride
must be in Christ alone, not in even His working in our own
lives. For the moment we believe that
we are worthy of respect because of what God has done is the moment
we have begun to look at who we are and we've put God under
a sheet. However, there is a positive
kind of pride when speaking of confidence in Christians. We
have a pride in the strength of the Lord. We have a pride
in knowing that you are believing and growing in faith. Paul even says sometimes that
the people of those cities that he ministered to were his joy.
But he did not contradict the reality that Christ was his ultimate
joy, but that he did see the joy of the Lord in the maturing
of his people. However, for most of the entire
Word of God, the meaning of pride is sinful. The meaning of pride is sinful. Pride comes before the fall,
as you'll see in a moment. Self-exaltation is a good way
of establishing a good definition of pride. Pride is when one person,
either consciously or subconsciously, whether in attitude or heart
or affection, passion, motion, movement, action, whatever you
want to say, when they elevate themselves to a place or a standard
that they feel good about who they are. Pride looks like this. There's
several types of pride as I thought through this, and this is not
conclusive, but maybe some of these will ring through to you.
There's the pride of position. Before we get into our text this
morning, I want to walk through some of these. The pride of position.
That pride says, do you know who I am? Do you know who you're
talking to? I'm a regional manager. That
kind of thing. I'm the overseer. I'm the pastor. I'm a president. I'm a chairman.
You just fill in the blank. I'm the daddy around here. A wise brother and mentor in
my life told me years ago that when you have to say that you
are the leader, you aren't. He says, for a man who leads
is worthy of being followed, and a man who walks with no one
behind him is just taking a walk. The pride of position. Who are
you really? The pride of position is the
one who says, I am. And we fill in the blank. I am
something. I am something. Amazingly, the
only words that actually hold clout in that construct in the
Word of God is God Himself saying, I am. And it's amazing that Satan himself
started to say, I will become, I am. Nothings of this world,
the first shall be last, the pride of position, the other
type of pride or another type of pride is the pride of property.
This is alliteration here. They're all Ps. The pride of
property. The property. I find pleasure
in what I have. I find pleasure in what I own.
I am happy to have the things that I have. Nothing wrong with
having things. It's just when we feel good about
them. I remembered last night that
I had an autographed baseball from 1974 by Hank Aaron. And I was just
thinking, wow, where's that ball? I need to get rid of it. Whereas
years ago, it would have been front and center. It might have
been sitting right here. See the difference? We have pride
in our property, our possessions, if you will. And we say, I'm
so happy that I have these things. Or we might say, I'm sorry that
others cannot have what I have. And you may genuinely feel that.
But nothing changes in your heart and your affection toward those
things. Or here's one. I feel bad for
the people who are homeless. as we lay in our beds. We have a comfort pride. We might
even say, I wish they had beds. Love not the world. Seek first
the kingdom. Store up treasures in heaven.
Not treasures of this world. Not the pride of property. Another
type of pride is the pride of pedigree. This is big where I
come from, for who your father is determines on where you're
going to go if you stay in town. If your father's a rogue, you're
a rogue. If your father's a drunk, you might as well be a drunk.
It doesn't matter. It takes four or five generations
to clear the name in the area of the country where I come from
of a family. As a matter of fact, there's
family names that have stigmas and I don't know one person from
some of these families who never met anyone by that name. But
if I ever did, I would shy away from them just because of what
I've been told about how bad these people are. Well, what
did they do? Nobody knows, but they're bad
people. Watch out. Where do they live? I'm not sure, but they're
hiding. Be glad you're not like those people. My dad used to
tell me as a child, there's only two things you have. And one of those was your name. And remember whose boy you are,
son. Proud of pedigree. Our position,
our families, who we are, our heritage. That could even move
out to our nationality, our feeling of honor, our superiority because
of who we might be connected to. Nepotism runs deep. My brother Justin, pray for Justin. He'll die that I said this out
loud, but pray for Justin. He's in seminary and he's really
praying for God's will in his life. My hometown, you either
work for someone who knows the family or you work for the family.
And we were having that conversation a few weeks ago and I actually
made a joke about a specific young man who graduated from
seminary and is back in our hometown. And I made a joke about him working
for someone like that. And then all of a sudden I went,
hey, that's not funny because it's true. So there's only two
or three people that employ anybody and the only people they will
employ are those people who are connected to the right families. And so
if you live in my hometown and you're not connected to those
right families, you will go door to door asking to cut yards.
And unfortunately, the people who own the real estate or the
landscaping businesses are connected. And so it's really a tight-knit,
very, I don't know, caste system, if you will. And I don't want
to put a negative light. If you showed up, you wouldn't
see it. But try to do business there. Try to make a living there. And it's very pedigree-driven. But the Scriptures teach that
God is not a respecter of persons. The Pharisees try to use the
argument in the rabbinic style, saying, we are the sons of Abraham.
And Jesus very clearly says, no, your father is the devil.
For if you were Abraham's children, you would not be seeking to kill
me. There's the pride of position, of property, of pedigree, and
the pride of power. I can really just preach 1 John
2.15-17 and bend over with it today, but I've already been
in that book, so we'll stay in the Proverbs. We're the prod
of power. Look at what one can do. Look
at what I can accomplish. Look at what I control. And I
want the world to see. But yet, the Scripture says that
God will strike down the nations with a mighty hand. He will bring
to nothing the fullness of all governments. He will cast them
into the lake of fire. For all things that are something
will be brought to nothing by the mighty hand of God. In Revelation
19, it says that the Word of God is what He uses to strike
down the nations. Jesus, a mighty warrior, with
the sword of His mouth, with the Word, He strikes down the
nations. The pride of power. Doesn't it
feel good to be in control of things? Control of our own lives?
Control of our own destinies? How many letters and books and
movies and plays and theater, how much through the years have
been given in the name of entertainment, which are really just propaganda
of the enemy, to drive our youth and to drive our children and
to drive the passions of our minds to a better standard that
is nothing but a control for power. Solomon says there's nothing
new under the sun. That was a man who yielded great power. For
he owned most of the riches of the world. And yes, most of the
riches of the world. There's not a government today
that has the riches that Solomon had. There's not a man today that
had the wives that Solomon had. Now see, that would not work
today, would it? All the riches, all the wives.
That's a joke. The pride of power. The pride of privilege. I have
the means, and this gives me joy. I have the ability. I am
put in a place. I am so thankful that I didn't
have to suffer as a kid. That type of mindset. The pride of purpose. See how
special I am? See how needed I am? See the
level of impact I have? See, if I am not here, something's
going to take place, and that something's not going to be good.
The pride of purpose. And that goes hand in hand with
the pride of power in some sense, because all of these things give
us power, don't they? The pride of purpose. There's
nothing new under the sun. And God's glory and God's work
and God's plan and God's purpose will not be thwarted by the works
of man. Sometimes pastors can fall into
the prod of purpose without even knowing it. And there's the prod of pleasure.
These are the things that are most important to me. These are
the things that I feel I deserve. These are the times when we say,
you know, I deserve this. I've worked hard and I deserve
this. You deserve nothing. You deserve death and judgment. And if you get this, it is nothing
but a hand of providence. through a gracious and merciful
God. I need a good time. The Scripture teaches us to put
to death the things of the flesh. And that the joy of the Lord
is our strength. Not our stuff. Not the pleasures of our flesh.
Not the health of our bodies. Not the relationships that we
have. And the pride of pleasure. And
then we have the pride of pain. You don't know how hard I've
been working. The martyr syndrome. Don't you
see what I'm doing for you? You see this mindset? You see
this attitude? The pride of pain. The pride
of martyrdom. Don't you know how hard it is for me to do what
I do? See, that surfaces the cause of pride. We esteem ourselves,
and therefore, it's not a dying to oneself. It's not a laying
down one's life. It's a building up of oneself
by laying down one's life. Jesus didn't go on the cross
and say, Father, forgive them even though they're crucifying
me. He didn't stand there and say, I'm the God of the universe.
You're going to stick me on the cross? Do it. Do it. Do it. No,
He didn't say that. Don't you see how much I've bled
for you? Would that be the words of our God? But He does proclaim that, but
not in that way. Not in that way of, would you get out of
my face? Would you stop whining? Would you stop sinning? No, He proclaims it because it's
His joy. His glory. God is joyous. The Scriptures
say to fill up, Paul says, Colossians, we are to fill up what is lacking
in the suffering of Christ. Our pain is our duty. It is our promise. It is the
promise of God. We are to rejoice in all things.
Rejoice in suffering. Rejoice in trials. And there's
a promise that we will suffer. There's the pride that goes really
hand in hand with the pride of privilege, the pride of property. There's an antithesis of that
called the pride of poverty. What does that mean? I'm so glad
that God took my stuff. And I'm not materialistic like
the property guy. It's hard to have a pride of
property when you have no property, but when you have no property,
you can have a pride in your property. You can. You can have pride in
your stewardship, you can have pride in your nothingness, you
can have pride in everything. Be careful, because God can't take
nothing from you. And you can have less than nothing. Look at my strength when I have
nothing. The Scripture says give it all. What is the greatest
sacrifice when everything has been given? Christ is the greatest
sacrifice. Jesus made Himself nothing. This
is the pride of progress. This can be done in many ways. The progress is this thing, this
is my goal and I've accomplished this. Yes, look at me. Even though there is some sense
of accomplishment is your pride. Do you really esteem yourself
worth? Do you esteem yourself worth?
Do you esteem your position in society or in the circles that
you roll because of something you've accomplished? Fear that
what you've accomplished is just by the grace of God. The unregenerate
of the world who believe and do all sorts of things in their
own knowledge is given to them by God's hand. And the staunchest
of atheists who just derive the cure of cancer, it is by the
grace of God that he had the knowledge to do that, for it
is purposed by God to put that understanding and discovery in
his brain. That's called sovereignty. And if God isn't sovereign, He's
not God, and someone else is, and we need to find out who,
so that we might worship Him and find eternal life. The pride of progress is the
one that says, I will do these things. I won't do that. If the Lord wills for His glory,
we will die to oneself. We should die to our selfish
ambition. Do not work and strive for personal gain and selfish
ambition, for it is all nothing but junk. It's like the old joke
that you heard for years. about the rich man grabbing some
of his gold bars on his way to heaven and walking in the pearly
gates. And at the entrance of the gates,
somebody says, oh, you brought pavement. Ever understand the illustration,
the magnitude of the riches of the glories of heaven? Is that dirt is gold? It's all God's anyway. There's
also a pride, and I believe this is a pride that really works
from what we talked about last week in repentance. And I see
this more than I see anything in the church, in the people
of God across the country. It's a pride of piety. A pride of piety. A pride that says inside the
deepness of our souls, oh, see the level of holiness I have
obtained. See the level of righteousness that I live by. See what God
has done in me that I am not the man I used to be. Praise
you, God. Thank you that I am something
now when we have never arrived. And friends, our mere existence,
even as the children of God without His grace, is worthy of judgment. The pride of piety. And it goes
along like this. Sometimes it goes and says these
things. Why can't these people see what I see? Why can't they get it? Pastors
can fall into that. Christians can fall into that
easily. They can't get it because God has turned them over to a
reprobate mind and blinded their eyes, so we pray that God in
His grace would give them eyes to see. We just sang that song. I don't know how long ago that
was written, probably in the 60s, 1960s rather. Open my eyes that
I might see Jesus. That's a very biblical prayer.
Paul prayed that prayer. He prays that the Lord might
open the eyes of unbelievers, that the gospel would not be
veiled. But he did go to say, he did say in a letter to the
Corinthians, that if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled only to
those who are perishing. For the God of this world is
blind to the eyes of unbelievers that they might not see and believe. The pride of piety might say, why does so-and-so
do what they do? Why can't others get their lives
together? But all the while, we have been
blinded to think that our lives are together. No one is righteous. No, not
one. Remove the log out of your eye before you deal with the
speck in your brother's. Be holy because I am holy. All have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. And Jesus says in Luke,
when the servant has done all that is required of him, he only
says, I am an unworthy servant. It does not deserve him a reward. See, it's easy to see pride in
other people, but it's often very difficult for us to see
pride in our own hearts and in our own lives. It's an easy view
to see pride when someone comes and says, I'm better than you.
But it's not so easy to see pride when we say, you're bothering
me in our hearts. But that is pride. Someone bothers
you, that's pride. That don't mean hitting you in
the head, that's bothersome. But you know what I'm talking
about. The easy view is when someone proclaims with their
mouths, I deserve better than this. Get the manager. There's
a fly in my soup. He used to be a tailor. Isn't
that what you said this morning? The cook used to be a tailor. Okay. That's a cheesy prayer time joke. I deserve better than this. There's
nothing more embarrassing than being a group of believers in
a restaurant and one of them decides to get haughty with the
waitstaff. Or not leave a tip. Because the
waitress just happened to have lost her husband that week. Or
found out that her mother had cancer. Or had a massive car
wreck the day before. And she's off her game. And how
dare she have a problem when I paid for this burger and I
said no onions. I'm not paying for this and I'm
not tipping her. I'm glad God isn't like us. But a not-so-easy way of seeing
that pride is inside of our hearts when we say, I don't really deserve
this. Why is this happening to me? There are five sections of
Proverbs. You can turn there with me through
each one. If you'd like, Proverbs 8.13.
These are one of these topics that we could really just bust
through the Bible and almost hit every book. Pride is dealt
with in such a way that there's probably something relative or
directly written about it in almost every letter of the Bible. Proverbs 8.13 says, The fear
of the Lord is the hatred of evil. It's not new to you. We've
talked about it already in our journey here. Pride and arrogance
and the way of evil and perverted speech, I hate, says the Lord.
I'll add that. So God hates pride. He hates arrogance. God hates pride because it is
in direct opposition to Him as a person. To His character. It's in direct opposition to
His nature. It's in direct opposition to
His glory. Pride does not fit with God. Because pride is a self-exaltation. And it is in opposition to His
holiness and His glory. So His glory will be exalted
in the destruction of pride, for God hates it. Now, why is that so? Because
pride is the opposite of humility. Friends, I don't know if you
realize this, but you are not a free man. You are not a free
woman. You do not have rights. You do
not have the freedom to express your will without boundaries.
You do not have the freedom to choose things without limits.
None of us could choose to go and create gold out of this piano.
Or to touch our neighbor and heal them. or to fly into the
outer space without a jet or a ship. None of us can change
the color of our skin without chemical processes. No one of
us can change our birth parents. None of us can change our DNA,
our cells. But pride thinks that we can.
Pride thinks that we are who we are because of our own Determination. Pride is the opposite of humility.
Humility is really knowing one's place. And one's place in this
world as a human being, that person is a slave who is owned
by God. And what God owns, He does with
as He pleases. And if that is maniacal to you,
If that seems frustrating to you, I pray that God would open
your eyes to see that it is not maniacal and evil that God does
what He wishes with His children. It is the utmost of pride to
think that you have a right to anything different. And until
you can approach God in that way, you cannot be saved. Friends, you cannot know the Gospel and
approach God in a way that He moves on your behalf. You cannot
approach God and be saved with a gospel that says that you are
the center of God's universe. God created all that there is,
and He owns it all, and He has the right to destroy it all without
question. As Dr. Mohler said last year
at a conference, Sarah cannot question perfect. Understanding the reality of
one's significance is sort of like being humble. The significance
of one's existence. The reality of one's significance. Placing oneself under the rule
and the authority of another. That's why it is impossible,
friends, for you to say that you trust in Jesus to have been
the atonement of your sins, but He is not your Lord and you do
not live your life for Him. You fail in the process of, yes,
you do sin, but you do not live for yourself and say that you
are a believer in Jesus Christ. That is pride trying to mix with
humility. That does not work. Humility is also like not exercising
the authority one does hold. Amazingly, humanity has no authority. But God does. And God's authority
gives Him the right to cast all people into eternal judgment
known as hell. But God's humility He became
like us and died on the cross for us that we might be saved. As Dr. Carson, I quoted this
a couple of weeks ago, said, you can trust a God who bleeds
for you. Why is that maniacal? Why is
that so self-egotistical? When we think that God, who is
perfect, who created us for His glory, who owns us by His pleasure
and commands us to be like Him, which we cannot do, but then
provides a way for us to be saved by dying in our place so that
the fullness of the joy that the universe has ever known is
to know Him. He does it for our good, for
our pleasure, for our joy, for our hope, for our life, and we
come to Him with some kind of a question about, well, that's
not fair. It's like the crayon stopping
the child from coloring. and saying, you're not drawing
a balloon today, you're drawing a star. Snap it. Proverbs 11.2 I'm going to go
through the next three verses very quickly and get to what
I really want to talk about this morning. Proverbs 11.2 says,
When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with the humble
is wisdom. See, pride always brings disgrace. God hates pride. Pride brings
disgrace. Just stating the Proverbs here.
There are other things that the Scriptures teach that pride brings.
But pride brings disgrace. The excellent way of godly wisdom,
however, overcomes pride by rightly measuring one by his Creator's
holiness. I think I said this a few weeks
ago, that God will measure man by his holiness. Proverbs 21-24. Scoffer. Scoffer is the name
of the arrogant. Haughty man who acts with arrogant
pride. You know what that says? You
know what a scoffer is? Someone, I'll just define it
in an easy way, someone who laughs at humility. A scoffer is someone
who laughs at wisdom and thinks it's foolish. A scoffer is one
that laughs at truth, thinking that they know the best. Now,
none of us would laugh at that, not consciously, but oftentimes
we laugh, we scoff at the Word of God because it does not fit
within the confines of our traditional upbringing. Because unfortunately,
what we have learned our whole lives has been a piecemeal pretext
that we have blended into a smoothie that we love. And we've just found out that
fish eyes have been a part of that smoothie for years, and
we don't want to drink it anymore. Scoffer. Scoffer is the name
of the arrogant. Pride laughs at humility. And
pride and scoffers consider the one that has true wisdom to be
a fool. Proverbs 29.23 says, Once pride
will bring him low, But he who is lowly in spirit will obtain
honor. So, pride is the opposite of humility which God hates.
Pride brings disgrace. Pride creates an attitude of
scoffing. Pride, lousy humility. Pride brings a man to nothingness. But those who are nothing will
receive honor that is not due him. Now turn to Proverbs 16. I skipped
this one because this is where I want to go. Proverbs 16, verses
18 and 19. The Word of God says this, Pride
goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. It is better
to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil
with the proud. I read this verse so much in
the last few weeks, and so many things. If you notice, I didn't
really have an introduction to this message today like I normally
do, because I want to stick it in the middle. I begin to see pride in the same
way that Solomon illustrates wisdom as a woman crying out
in the streets. And I thought to myself, what
if pride were like that? Pride deceives us in such a way
that if we could see destruction coming, would we not stop? Even
a fool stops. Even a fool stops before destruction. But pride is the mother of destruction.
She gives birth to it. Pride brings forth destruction. A haughty spirit. A prideful
spirit. A know-it-all spirit. An I-know-best
attitude. A look-at-me-I'm-the-one-that-I-think-about
mindset is always before a fall. And so if pride is the mother
of destruction, the type of destruction that is spoken of here in Proverbs
is an eternal destruction. But even in the church, friends,
even for the children of God, if pride sneaks up and taps us
on our back, she will bring destruction even in our lives as believers.
Not eternally. But it will feel like it. We have in the counseling arena,
the counseling circles, consequences. They have deserved and undeserved
consequences. Deserved consequences is when
you stick your hand in the fire, the burn is your fault. The undeserved
consequences is when the arson catches your house on fire and
you get burned. The deserved consequences is
you don't let that boy play with matches anymore. The undeserved
consequences is you help them rebuild their house. Here's the thing. When we look
at the deserved consequences of our lives, sometimes we pray,
and this is a whole other sermon, sometimes we ask people to pray
for us against the will of God, because what we're dealing with
in life is an absolute equal consequence of God's decision
against our sin, mostly against our pride. God, stop this, stop that, please
pray for me on this, please pray for me on that. How'd you get there? I pray for
God's will to be done because He's teaching you a lesson. And
I'll be right here with you, and I love you. But I'm not praying
for God to take you out of what He's purposed for your life. Samson and Delilah? Simple. Don't cut your hair.
Don't tell anybody the source of your strength, and stay away
from that woman. Wakes up blind, grinding corn. And the only way to redeem himself
is to kill himself with everybody else. It's the only option he
has. Pride is the mother of destruction.
That destruction for the unbeliever is eternal. Because pride prohibits
you from seeing the gospel. Pride is the attitude of righteousness
and worthiness. And this attitude leads to death.
There's a way that seems right to a man. The Scripture says
it is better to be low. It is better to be low in spirit.
A low spirit is a low in the mind's eye of one's own self.
A low spirit is one that thinks of themselves as they truly are.
Not in a self pity, but in a self picture. There's a difference. You should know who you are.
You are a sinner who deserves judgment. And if you're a child
of God, you are a sinner saved by grace alone through faith.
And you should rejoice. And you should be proud of the
Lord and ghost in Him and not worry about who you are, but
more specifically whose you are and the fact that you don't deserve
to be His. It's amazing that Solomon in
this proverb, verse 19, he actually contrasts the person of pride
with a thief. It's better to be poor in spirit
with the poor than to divide the spoil, which is a treasure
or something that's been stolen, with the proud. Because the thief
thinks he got away. That's pride. I'm a child of
God and I can do what I'm going to do and God forgives me. That's
pride. And pride in the heart of man
is what gives way to destruction. It's what walks in ever so boldly
to the passions of his heart and then suddenly leads him to
his grave. Pride delivers one to his own
demise while whispering sweet affections in his ear. Pride
determines the path of the world's living while blindly telling
them they are not dead. Pride exalts oneself above the
nations of all men and settles for nothing less than egocentric
perfection. Pride is the mother of deceit.
She laughs as she says, good job, and she cries and says,
why me? Pride develops a man into the
driven bull that he is and determines to keep his eyes focused on the
prize of a race that has no finish line. Pride begets her children
and then casts them away with no regard to the spreading of
her disease. The plague of her approach is
silent. And she devours governments and families and the heart and
mind of the single child without a trail of warning. Pride leads
men to power. Pride leads men to anger. Pride
leads men to self-reliant ideals that come between the grace of
God and His anger. God hates it. God rightly will
destroy all who walk with her and who lay with her, and He
will unite all the proud of this world in the way of destruction
and make them lie down in their own iniquity. Pride has much
to say and no words are even there. She speaks and her words
are such but a noise that rings in self-proclaiming visions of
grandeur. Pride is not a friend. She is a mortal enemy. She begs
for her prey, a cake laced with lie. Pride is puffed up and seems
much bigger than she is. She proclaims much about herself
and in her disgust of others, she brings fools into her song
who sing as though they are as big as she. Then she pops their
balloons and watches them flip to stay in the air. O the proud in heart, should
not we mourn over sin?" Paul says, it is actually reported
that there is sexual immorality among you and a kind that is
not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has had his father's
wife. And you, he says, are arrogant. You are prideful. Ought you not
rather to mourn? Pride makes little of sin. Pride
makes less of afflictions toward God's holiness. Pride belittles
and smiles and laughs. Our love should be our boast
through grace. We know that all of us possess
knowledge, but this knowledge puffs up. That love builds up. And love is patient. Love is
kind. It does not envy or boast. It
is not arrogant. Let us make war with our minds
and our hearts and our hands. Let us live in the power of God
and put down pride so that no boasting rests in our hearts
except that of the grace of the Almighty God. To the Ephesians, Paul writes,
Now this I say in testifying to the Lord, that you must no
longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God
because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness
of heart. They have become callous and
have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind
of impurity. But that is not the way you learned
Christ. Assuming that you've heard about Him And we're taught
in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which
belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through
deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your
minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness
of God in true righteousness and holiness. See, pride is futile. And pride
begs to be heard. But when she is whipped and battered,
her reality comes clearly visible as a haggard waste of hot air. The glory of it all is you might
establish in your mind right now that there is pride in your
heart that has been hidden from your eyes. That it is not hidden
from God. God sees all things. And it's
good to see that God gives more grace, as James says in James
4. God gives more grace. Therefore, it says, James quoting,
God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. What does
he say? Submit yourselves, therefore,
to God. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you and purify your hearts. And you double minded,
be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves, therefore,
before the Lord and he will exalt you. That's in James 4. And we think of them saying that
that's not joy. That is joy. Being exalted by
God is the finest and fullest joy there is. Being lifted up
and approved by Him. Being called out and declared
righteous is joy. Because we know we're not. For
our pride deceives us. It puts a blanket over our heads
and a cover over our souls that we might feel content and okay with God. May God give us more grace. God
opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble.
Be careful in this one not to say, whew, I'm glad I'm humble. Be careful. For thou, my friend,
is a proud statement. Rather, cry out like the publican.
Have mercy on me, O sinner!" Add this. Have mercy on me, O
God, a proud sinner. It is God who shows us our pride.
Worship Him that His glory might be known among all for His beauty
and His beautiful mercy and His wonderful grace. For God gives
grace to the humble because God opposes the proud. In this opposition,
friends, it's threefold. God does oppose the proud. As
a matter of fact, there's probably more than that, but these just
flew off my head this morning. God opposes the proud in three
ways. He opposes the proud through
blindness. He blinds their eyes that they
cannot see the light of His grace. He blinds the proud for they
are not fit to come to Him, which no one is. But a man that thinks
that he can control his own destiny, a man that thinks that his decisions
is what paves his path, is a man that cannot stand before God
justified in any way. But that is a man that is condemned
and blinded by God. Read the New Testament and see
that the Scripture is clear that God blinds the proud. God blinds the proud that they
might not see the light of His grace. And secondly, God opposes
the proud by judgment, through judgment. I call the current
judgment and the coming judgment. Part of the current judgment
is the blindness. He turns them over to a reprobate mind. And
they wait, numb, impatiently in a raft, floating down the
river, straight to destruction. And they don't even know it.
To the coming judgment when He will cast them all into the lake of fire. The judgment of God. He opposes
the proud through blindness and through judgment, and ultimately,
God opposes the proud through death. They will be forever separated
from His mercy. Who is Jesus? The Christ. But
back to what we said earlier. God gives more grace. Humble
yourselves. Submit yourselves, therefore,
to God. This is the mark of the humble. This isn't the path to
humility. This is the mark of the humble.
But at the same time, it is the battle that we must fight. It
is the struggle that we must hold on to. It is the war that
we must continually be making. and submitting to God. That is
believing every second of your life. Trusting and believing
through daily grace and future grace. We walk into holiness. We walk away from the world.
We strive for right living. We fight against sin. So we submit
ourselves to God through these ways of actively and positively
and continually believing that He is our only hope by faith. And then we resist the devil,
not by praying to the devil. Don't pray to the devil. Don't
talk to the devil. Pray to God. Resist the devil by believing
in God, by repenting of temptation, and by daily not giving into
the heart that so easily ensnares. Don't listen to the flesh. Don't
listen to the whispers of pride as she tells you all these illustrious
lies about what comes if you just walk this way. Free from
sexual immorality. Run from pride. Run to the cross. Be a beggar of grace. Return to Christ every second. Draw near to God, James says.
Drawing near to God. This is a continual and forever
worshiping and adoring and a desiring to be with God. To know Him more
intimately. To walk into the pages of His
Scriptures so that we might be like Adam and Eve before the
fall. Walking in the garden with our God. In the essence of His
Holy Spirit, when we are with Him in the Word, we are walking
with God and He with us. And we can cling to God. We draw near to Him. For the
Scripture says when we draw near to Him, He draws near to us.
It's not a conditional issue. It's a practical issue. God doesn't
move. And so when we're seeking Him
and we're desiring Him, it is because we are passionately aware
of our sin and ultimately in love with His holiness and we
strive to be near Him, for He is our protector. He is our refuge. He is our shield. He is our strength
in time of weakness. Friends, stop coming to God when
things are bad, but stay with Him. That you might just look up. It's not a relationship to run
and take out a loan of grace. Because you can never pay that
back, and you will be asked to. A relationship is when you walk
with Him. Cleanse your hands, James says. And it is what we
do in our daily practice, in our walking in the light. We
make the choices that are righteous for His glory and for His namesake.
In our minds, we cleanse our thoughts and we put our thoughts
on heavenly things. We shield our eyes. We guard
our hearts. And it is the wellspring of life,
church, if you are a child of God. If not, inside of your heart
is death and it will boil over. Cleanse your hands and our minds
and our thoughts. and cleanse all of these things
from being controlled by our pride. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to gloom. There's so much to say about
that, and I didn't come to preach that this morning, but let me
ask you the joy that you have. Is it in the midst of your wretchedness?
Is it in the midst of your mourning over your sin and your pride?
The world that we live in says, fix your problems. The Bible
says, your problems stay. But Christ is your Savior. The
world that we live in says, get over it and become strong. The Scripture says that Christ
is our strength and His grace is sufficient for us. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to gloom. When we see pride and sin in
our hearts, when we see anything that is contrary to the will
of God in our lives, it should not make us do anything but tear
our clothes and fall on the floor. But unfortunately, like we talked
last week in repentance, sometimes our hearts are so numb that sin
doesn't even bother us. My prayer for all of us, all
of us, is that our sin would bother us. Not that it's a hopeless
despair, but a hopeful grace that we trust in and that we
do not desire to sin against God. And then when we do, we
don't come for cheap grace and say, thank you for this ticket,
God, I'm going to do it again. But we repent and run away from
that sin as hard as we can, as fast as we can run. Humble yourselves before the
Lord. And he will exalt you. The alternative of that is God
will humble you before himself. when you exalt yourself. Let's pray. God, I thank You for the journey. For the journey that seems so
impractical sometimes, Lord, that we don't know where to turn,
but it is at that time that we are able to trust in You. And Father, I pray that just
the hearing of the text this morning, just hearing the things
that the Bible says about pride has stirred up in us a humble
response. A response that says, oh, woe
is me, a sinner. And we worship You for Your grace
and we trust in that. Versus the proud response that
says, I'm going to do something about it. Or even worse, I don't have it.
I don't have pride. Lord, just work it out, please,
in Your will, for Your glory. And God, even though we are powerless
against pride and sin, Lord, You have overcome it. And so
as we draw near to You, God, You will enable us to be able
to walk closer to You. But Father, we do know we look
forward to that day when that pride and sin will be forever
gone from our hearts. Help us to live as though we
really are looking forward to that day. For so many of us,
Lord, it seems as though we hope You wait a little longer so we
can live it up a little more, so we can do things for ourselves
a little bit more. God, give us a yearning for You.
to grow intimately with You and Your Word. And let us forbear
one another. Let us put up with each other
with joy and love and compassion, not tolerance, but truth. Father, there are some who hear
these words today and have not come to faith in Jesus Christ
God. We call them out to repent of their sin and trust in Christ
alone. And Lord, that some, even under
the sound of my voice today, have began to trust and believe
and repent in this moment. May they make that known and
come for baptism and join this church and grow in their faith.
Publicly live for Christ and grow in Him and disciple others. Father, it is only by Your grace
that we even stand here and talk to Your ears today. We thank
You for the humility that You gave when You came and sent Your
only Son. And we don't deserve Him. We
don't deserve His atonement. We don't deserve Your mercy.
But we thank You for it. Humbly, in Jesus' name, Amen.