“Pick em: Pride or Humility”
When MSU and U of M play their annual pigskin classic, no matter who has the odds on betting day, it’s a pick ‘em game in the end. I want to challenge you in this Proverbs for Life series to participate in a pick ‘em. Pride or Humility. That may not seem like a fair choice. To choose wrongful pride would be foolish, although many do, but to choose humility is a hard life to live in some cases. On the other hand, I believe we pick both at any given time in a day.
11:2 “ When pride comes, then come disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom”
16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
18:12 “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor”
29:23 “A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.”
8:13 “to fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech”
22:4 “Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life.”
Illus. Former heavy-weight boxer James (Quick) Tillis is a cowboy from Oklahoma who fought out of Chicago in the early 1980s. He still remembers his first day in the Windy City after his arrival from Tulsa. "I got off the bus with two cardboard suitcases under by arms in downtown Chicago and stopped in front of the Sears Tower. I put my suitcases down, and I looked up at the Tower and I said to myself, 'I'm going to conquer Chicago.' "When I looked down, the suitcases were gone."
Try these out:
· “Eat humble pie.”
· “Humble yourself before your accuser.”
· “No one has ever choked from swallowing their pride.”
· “It is better to lose your pride to the one you love, than to lose the one you love to your pride.”
· “Pride will always be the distance between two people.”
· “Pride is about my glory; humility is about God’s glory.”
· “Stop telling people more than they need to know.”
· “Pride is putting yourself first. Humility is letting others go before you.”
1. Due process of Sinful Pride.
Proverbs 8:13 “to fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech”
Pride is thinking a lot of yourself and little of others.
4 prideful Words that play off each other:
arrogance
perverse speech
evil behavior
disgrace
Pete Rose – best baseball player in baseball in his time. All time hits leader in history. Bet on baseball. It cost him his entrance into the hall of fame.
“The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness.” David Rhodes.
Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire. How did two hall of fame heros go from all their goodness to the homerun race that could only be won by steroids. A sad description of pride, arrogance, evil behavior that ended in disgrace.
There is nothing wrong with rightful pride. That is not our discussion today. We live in a nation that has for over 2 centuries been a nation that cares for others, defended other nations as well as our own, but of late, we have slipped haven’t we. Our wealth and expectation of happiness has been our downfall. Our goodness, and it has been good for so long, is now becoming our wrongful pride as we live for ourselves and even pass laws that have no regard for God’s moral laws in the scriptures.
2. Due process of Humility:
Proverbs 22:4 “Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life.”
4 Words that build upon Humility:
Wealth
Honor
Life
Wisdom
These words may not be the words that you thought would jump out at you. Did you think, wealth, honor and life and wisdom would be the words? Humility reminds us of being without, left behind, or being lessor than. It’s a hard decision to humble yourself and choose humility. It seems like the losing team not the winning team.
But when we yield to one another, something happens doesn’t it? Humility calls us to yield. I am perplexed at first why wealth is listed first as a result of humility. How many times do you hear the seminar speaker say, they key to wealth is humility. But think about it. The very idea of humbling oneself is not often on our radar. What if we spent our days, humbling ourselves not wanting to take credit for our good deeds. What if humbling ourselves should be the first thing we do, not the last.
John Maxwell said it well, ‘When you don’t care who gets the credit, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.”
Illus. Wakefield tells the story of the famous inventor Samuel Morse who was once asked if he ever encountered situations where he didn't know what to do. Morse responded, "More than once, and whenever I could not see my way clearly, I knelt down and prayed to God for light and understanding." Morse received many honors from his invention of the telegraph but felt undeserving: "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other men but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone and He was pleased to reveal it to me."
Illus. Miracle on the River Kwai. The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labor on a jungle railroad, had degenerated to barbarous behavior, but one afternoon something happened. A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot . . . It was obvious the officer meant what he had said. Then, finally, one man stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, there had been a miscount at the first check point. The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others! . . . The incident had a profound effect. . . The men began to treat each other like brothers. When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors (and instead of attacking their captors) insisted: "No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness."
We need more humility in our lives friends. Would you have said that humility would bring wealth, honor, wisdom and life. Truth is, God is looking for servants who can handle wealth, honor, wisdom and life. Has he found you? Are you ready to be a person who can handle the big task of loving others with lots of resources available to your disposal.
These are the words of our Lord. God wants to use us effectively in our lives, but the effectiveness is not in winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The effectiveness of our lives are lived in loving others with the love of Christ. To be a servant and no one know it. To carry a load and no one know it.
Thursday night, a woman who spoke at the Operation Transformation Banquet simply described her fame in becoming Miss Michigan. But more telling was her experience at Miss America. Every day and in every event, the leaders of the pageant reminded the ladies that only one could win the pageant but every woman there was meant for a time like this. In other words, every one of them was important.
“Pick em: Pride or Humility”
Due Process of Pride:
Proverbs 8:13 “to fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech”
4 prideful words that play off each other:
______
______
Due process of Humility:
Proverbs 22:4 “Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life.”
4 Words that build upon Humility:
______
______