Pride Before Destructionby Brett Hickey, sermon #9011 of 4

Pride Before Destruction

Let’s be real with ourselves this morning and our common struggle. In a radio message and later part of his bookMere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes,

“Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit…. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness… are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. I pointed out… that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others. In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or…patronise me, or show off?” The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not. Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power. Nearly all those evils in the world that people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride.”

Pride! The wise man said in Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride was the underlying problem in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:9-13, “Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." The tax collector made a realistic assessment of himself while the Pharisee thought too highly of himself. This morning we will drive home the biblical warning, “Pride before Destruction,”after our song…

What is pride? Gerald Cowen offers in the Holman Bible Dictionary that pride is“Undue confidence in and attention to one's own skills, accomplishments, state, possessions, or position. Pride is easier to recognize than to define, easier to recognize in others than in oneself. Many biblical words describe this concept, each with its own emphasis. Some of the synonyms for pride include arrogance, presumption, conceit, self-satisfaction, boasting, and high-mindedness. It is the opposite of humility, the proper attitude one should have in relation to God. Pride is rebellion against God because it attributes to self the honor and glory due to God alone. Proud persons do not think it necessary to ask forgiveness because they do not admit their sinful condition….”

Pride is a state of mind manifested in various behaviors. Pride is found in an ugly list from Mark 7:21-23, “For from within,out of the heartof men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy,pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man." Thayer saysprideis “the character of one who, with aswollen estimate of his own powers or merits,looks down on othersand eventreats them with insolence and contempt.” We witness this spiritual pride in the Pharisee’s prayer in from Luke 18.

Pride is a form of selfishness. Walter Dunnet writes in theBaker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theologythat one who is proud is “a sinful individual who shifts ultimate confidence from God to self.”

The opposite virtue is humility. Unfortunately, some people indulge in self-pity thinking it is a form of humility. Nothing could be further from the truth. Self-pity is more like pride than it appears on the surface. Self-pity and pride both indicate a preoccupation with self and lack of concern for, and interest in, God and others. Meanwhile, humility involves a reasonable and lower estimation of oneself. Glen Campbell popularized a song in the late ‘60’s titled “Less of Me” that aptly described humility and its effects.

Let me be a little braverWhen temptation bids me waver

Let me strive a little harderTo be all that I should be

Let me be when I am wearyJust a little bit more cheery

Let me serve a little betterThose that I am striving for

Let me be a little meekerWith the brother who is weaker

Think a little more of othersAnd a little less of me

Pride is an improper way of relating to God and our fellowman resulting from an overinflated estimation of one’s significance. In Luke 18 the Pharisee propped himself up by stepping on who he considered a morally inferior tax collector.This, of course, did not boost his standing with God, but had the opposite effect. Jesus directed this parable to those in his audience who, on the one hand, “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” which they thought gave them grounds for “despis(ing) others.” I have no business thinking or saying, “I’m better than you.” What could I hope to achieve by such behavior?

A realistic self-assessment puts us face to face with our own sinfulness. Despite how minimal we may consider the number and kind of our sins, the shame we feel for any or as many sins we have committed should repel arrogance. No Christian ever had more to boast about than the apostle Paul, yet he teaches us perhaps more than any apostle by word and example how inappropriate pride is. He writes in Romans 6:21, “What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” God forgives me of my sins, and so, I should not live in constant guilt, but at the same time, the residue of shame for my sin should reduce the temptation to elevate myself above anyone else.

Earlier in the same letter, Paul must have stunned some of his brethren when he addressed the supposed superiority of the Jewish Christians in Romans 3:9-12, “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.’” Paul then drives home the very point we are making in Romans 19-20, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” This should be a lesson for us all and lead each of us to get off of our high horse.

Paul’s personal application of these truths empowers his message. He writes in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” If the respected apostle Paul with his post-conversion godly lifestyle and all his tireless efforts for the kingdom amidst persecution of various kinds could view himself as “the chief of sinners” perhaps we need to reevaluate just how special and valuable we think we are. True, he was referring largely to his persecution of Christians prior to his conversion, yet notice he does not say, “of whom I WAS chief,” but “of whom I AM chief.” This awareness, along with his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7), enabled Paul to avoid being overcome with pride.

Some of us have obviously gotten a little too big for our britches; we have constructed an image of ourselves and our importance that is beyond the pale. We see his self-effacing modesty again in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Even when referring to his considerable labors, he did not credit his own greatness but the grace of God.

The statement that the Christian cannot get around, though, is found in Ephesians 3:8, where Paul writes that he is “less than the least of all saints." This forever turned upside-down the conventional self-assessment potential “ranking” systems Christians might adopt and promote. Think of it this way: abandon momentarily what we have been saying about avoiding comparisons with other Christians. Now, how would you rank yourself in comparison with the apostle Paul? No sane Christians would rank themselves above Paul. Would you rate yourself an equal? Surely, you know that would be a stretch, and yet, if Paul is “less than the least of the saints (or holy ones)” and you are lower on the totem pole, so to speak, than he is, than hardly gives you grounds for arrogance, much less boasting.

We frequently isolate the powerful statement in Roman 3:23 from its context. This statement is, in fact, only a partial fragment of a sentence that begins, “For there is NO DIFFERENCE; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” After the series of arguments presented, Paul writes in Romans 3:27, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded.”

Any gifts you have, any knowledge you have acquired, any wealth you have obtained, and any accomplishments you have made do not merit the tooting of your own horn because they did not originate with you. The same apostle writes to a congregation rife with hierarchies and parties in 1 Corinthians 4:6-7 “…that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” When we think this way, when we act this way, we have transported ourselves into an alternate reality, a fantasy world of our own making. How important does all you do make you? Jesus tells us in Luke 17:10, “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’" No room for pride in this arena.

How valuable does all you know make you? It is critical that we grow in knowledge as Christians. A growing knowledge is deemed so important that the Holy Spirit includes it as one of those qualities in 2 Peter 1:5-9 that if lacked indicates we are “shortsighted, even to blindness, and (have) forgotten that (we were) cleansed from (our) old sins.” Moreover, Paul writes in Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Though knowledge and its positive by-product, faith, are tremendous blessings, they do not make us better than anyone else. We read in 1 Corinthians 13:2, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” He wrote earlier of the attendant danger of these blessings in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”

The Spirit says in 1 Corinthians 1:29, 31, “no flesh should glory in His presence…. "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD." He adds in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...”

The tendency of pride to generate strife and conflict can endanger our souls. If you say, “I’m number one” (or act like it) and I say, “I am number one” (or act like it), the potential for trouble is obvious.

Solomon writes in Proverbs 13:10, “By pride comes nothing but strife...”Again in Proverbs 28:25, “He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife…” The work of John’s disciples was independent of the work Jesus’ disciples were doing and held the potential for conflict among them, but John’s spirit eliminated that possibility. Even though Jesus said there was no greater prophet than John in Luke 7:29, Jesus’ forerunner resisted any temptation to stake out his territory. He said of Jesus in John 1:27, “It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.” He followed that up in John 3:30 with “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The Christian who can consistently take this attitude toward his fellowman will foster good will and God’s blessing. This truth is validated in 1 Peter 5:5, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.’”

Similarly, the Christian who consistently has this spirit toward God, “He must increase, I must decrease,” will have an ever closer walk with God. The statement Jesus made that epitomized this idea is found when He was in the garden facing the reality of the crisis about to befall Him. He prayed in Luke 22:42, “"Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done."

This brings us to the greatest danger with pride: determining we can get away with placing our will – our wants, our preferences – above God’s will. Jesus says this will be the downfall of many religious people, even those who profess to be followers of Christ in Matthew 7:21-23, "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the WILL of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'”

Pride is what leads us to disobey clear commands and substitute our own preferences over the examples we can read right out of the New Testament. The plan of salvation taught by the apostles is overbearing. The worship of the New Testament church is too simple or not stimulating enough. The statement, “We have to change from what we read of New Testament doctrine to keep up with a times” is another way of saying, “We have discovered a way that improves upon God’s way.” Think about it: isn’t human arrogance and pride at the root of this type of thinking? We’ll tell you how to get a copy of this message, after our song…

Thank you for watching Let the Bible Speak. If you’d like a copy of “Pride Before Destruction” (#901), or our free Bible study course, please call or write us. Join our facebook page to receive weekly updates of the message in your area. Visit LetTheBibleSpeak.com to watch videos, hear podcasts or read transcripts of the program at your convenience. Finally, we echo the sentiment of the apostle Paul when he wrote in Romans 16:16, “the churches of Christ salute you.” Until next week, goodbye and God bless.