Jonathan Tucker | The Vice of Pride

good morning well we're just going to do a little study on pride this morning thought it would be good to go through some of the different things that we struggle with and so we're going to [Music] study pride and and just try to understand it a little bit better as we try to grow to be more like christ so one of the areas that i that i have a burden for as far as the life of the church is that we would not only know the theology but that we would apply the truth to our lives and sometimes there's a little space between you get the principles out of the word but then those principles can just be left kind of in the abstract and so there's another distance that we have to take that and is to take those principles understand them and apply them to our lives and that's a little bit what we're going to be focusing on on this morning so we're not going to be in one passage we'll be looking at several different passage and we're just going to have a broad overview of of this sin so let's let's go ahead and start with the word of prayer heavenly father we we know our weakness and we know that we are frail and we are but dust and we will always struggle with sin but we we pray that you would give us an understanding that you would give us an honesty as we look at our own lives that we would see where we struggle with pride this morning that you would work through your holy spirit to convict us of of this and to give us a desire to be more like christ and grow in our battle against pride in jesus name amen well if we looked at a basic definition of pride we could say something like this it's mostly used in scripture to point to an excess in self-esteem an arrogance or haughtiness that leads a person to exaggerate his own importance or virtues the hebrew word comes from a word that means to elevate oneself and so the connotations or the biblical words that we might see that would be synonyms with this are haughtiness presumption and rebellion pride makes us think that we are better than others and worse it denies god or questions his words and actions so that's that's in the hebrew now the greek word for pride is very interesting because it comes from two two semantic ranges and that's just a fancy word for two ways of using it so if you looked it up in a dictionary it could be like definition one in definition two and it speaks one of those it speaks of stretching the neck so imagine you're walking and you want to look taller so you're stretching your neck to look to seem taller than everybody else and the other one has to do with being blind or being in smoke so we see ourselves better than others but the problem is we're not seeing clearly because we're we're in that smoke we're seeing ourselves in a way that isn't isn't realistic some other synonyms for pride are vainglory boastfulness arrogance and mockery so if we think of the most basic aspect of pride what it is at its core it's self-worship we don't see god where he should be and see ourselves in relation to god we see ourselves as the center we we essentially see ourselves as god and we see ourselves as the source of what is good as the factor that accomplishes anything and as the benefactor so we do everything and we don't depend on anybody else it's a self-sufficiency and we do it for our own benefit so last night we went out um to the we went out to the park nearby and we're looking for opportunities to share the gospel and i i spoke with the gentleman that was there and he said whenever my life is messed up it's when i've thought i could just go at it on my own when i thought i got this i could see how my life took a turn for the worse and that's exactly what what pride is it's thinking that it's all about us we see everything in a perspective that is centered on our interest on our desires there's also a flip side of pride which is self-pity now we don't usually think that self-pity is pride but if you think about it when you are wallowing in self-pity when you are thinking that you're a victim to everything that's happening around you you always see yourself as the victim it's a mindset that's still focused on yourself right and the problem is problem is many times we we all have areas that we could say well i wish i was better at this or better looking or whatever we all have areas like that right but the problem is when this this that the the world would term low self-esteem is that i think i deserve better than the the hand that i've been dealt so you see it is pride it is pride if i if i say well i'm just not good looking and i'm always talking about oh i'm so ugly in this and that what i'm what what's happening deep inside is i see people that are better looking than me just to use an example and i think i deserve to look like that and so e that's that's a pride that is is it manifests itself in a different way but in its essence it's the same thing so the mindset of pride is the mindset of self it's the mindset of a master rather than a servant so i see myself as the master so i'm focused on self and self service i'm looking for recognition and exaltation from others i want others to recognize me for how awesome i am and so that causes problems when someone does not recognize me for who i think i am i have a problem with them it's also a desire to control and use all things for my own purpose that's the mindset that pride has it's all about self and the problem with pride is it's so subtle listen to what richard baxter says pride is so indiscernible by the majority that while they hold it they speak against it because the problem is when we're proud we really notice pride in others because we think everybody should be bowing down to us so to speak and when others are proud and they're thinking that we should be bowing down to them there's a problem there we quickly realized that this isn't going to work right but the problem is that subtlety it's hard to see in ourselves and today later on we're going to go through a few things to help us see that we're going to look at different manifestations of pride and try to identify how that is manifesting itself in our lives so pride blinds therefore the fact that we see pride in our lives doesn't prove anything in fact the question is not am i proud but where is my pride in what way does my pride manifest itself where is it there's a few biblical warnings about pride if you turn with me to proverbs 16 5. proverbs chapter 16 verse 5 says everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the lord be assured he will not go unpunished so the bible has strong words about pride because in essence it's rebellion against god it is putting ourselves in the place of god an example of pride would also be in third john verses 9 and 10. you can either turn there or just listen to me i'm going to flip around a little bit here third john versus 9 and 10 i have written something to the church but diop diatrophies who likes to put himself first does not acknowledge our authority so if i come i will bring up what he is doing talking wicked nonsense against us and not content with that he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church so in 3rd john we have an example of a man that is devoted to christ and loyal but then we have this example of diotrophies and he's one that wants to be first he always wants to have that first spot that priority spot and because of that he doesn't submit to the elder which is the apostle john who would travel through there and send people to travel through and encourage the churches he wouldn't submit to him and he would actually put people in church discipline that would host these traveling evangelists so we can see how it how that pride worked out at that point into actions against against the gospel and against the kingdom right there so a good antidote to pride is in romans chapter 12 verse 3. this is the instruction that we have for by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that god has assigned so this is the opposite of pride right paul's telling paul is telling these believers and us don't think of yourself as more than you are think of yourself soberly we can all you can talk to the person in prison or the homeless man in the park and you will list if you talk to them very long you'll see that they think they're better than you and that's very natural pride is very natural in the carnal mind we all think that we are better than those around us but we should be thinking of ourselves measured and not not greater not puffed up as we're going to see that that the word talks about so what are the sources of pride what are the things that we can grab onto to be proud and it's it's probably different for everybody the scriptures gives give several examples of of sources of pride one of them is self-righteousness if you'll turn with me to luke chapter 18. luke 18 verses 11 and 12. and actually we'd start in verse 10 two men went up into the temple to pray one a pharisee and the other a tax collector the pharisee standing by himself prayed thus god i thank you that i am not like other men extortioners unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector i fast twice a week i give tithes of all that i get but the tax collector standing far off would not even lift his eyes up to heaven but beat his breath 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 but the one who humbles himself will be exalted so many times even when we are doing things that please the lord good things we start to see that as coming from ourselves like we said in the beginning right i am the source so these good things are now a source of pride for me to see myself better than other people and when you get into a a real legalistic mind frame people sometimes choose the strangest things to to not do or to do and those can become the source of our pride we when we see the scriptures we see that in the christian life there's a series of convictions there's things that aren't clearly mentioned in scripture where you and i might have a different perspective but sometimes we can take these things and say you know i wha what would be a good example i uh don't watch r-rated movies okay maybe that's the thing and you take that thing and you make it something that the scripture doesn't make it you elevate this that is a good thing we need to watch take care of what we are watching or maybe we say i don't want to watch any tv at all or whatever but and that's fine as a conviction but when we raise it to the level of making it a test of spiritual maturity many times that's where we're going to get self-righteous about it and as we see here the pharisees they were meticulous about the law and keeping everything that it said and it was a source of pride it was a source of pride that distanced them from god another is unsanctified knowledge and this is this can be very prevalent and is it can be a temptation for us as we learn more about the word if you go to first corinthians or i can i can just read it here first corinthians chapter 8. now concerning food offered to idols we know that all of us possess knowledge this knowledge puffs up but love spilled up but love builds up so there's a knowledge that puffs up is knowledge good certainly the bible exhorts us to study to learn more about the lord to draw near to him to learn the truth and we can't exhaust the knowledge that's in the word of god we could study for the rest of our lives and we're never going to exhaust it the problem is knowledge that is not sanctified because if we're learning more about the lord in his word don't you think that that's going to make us more humble it should it should but when we learn facts and knowledge about the bible it can actually make us proud it can be a source of pride and i'm sure you guys have met some i've met some people that knew the bible forwards and backwards and could probably debate me on any topic and and when in a debate but they were so arrogant that you said you're you're not like christ it's off-putting because you do know the truth but the way you use it it's like a sword you're not edifying anybody so knowledge that isn't sanctified is going to lead to that and what is what is sanctified knowledge it's it's that we approach the word not as an end in itself not to make ourselves smarter to debate other people we approach the word to know god more and this is a means to the end of knowing god more and living a life that's consistent and as we work to to understand god's word and see what he wants of our lives we're going to see wow i really fall short and that's humbling and i need to work on this and as we work to apply that in our lives that's the knowledge that is now lived out in our lives and wisdom and is going to lead to humility another passage is or another source of pride is lack of experience not lacking experience of itself but in first timothy 3 6 and i'm not going to look at these next passages because i want to get through what we have this morning but it's somebody receiving a position that they had don't have the experience to have and specifically here it's talking about the qualifications for elders and a qualification for elders is not to be a new believer why because you're putting someone in a position that they're not ready to be in and that's going to lead to pride a source of pride another is power leviticus 26 19 we're not going to turn there but god says he's going to humble these people because of the pride of their power he gave them power he allowed them to have power but it has made them proud and now he's going to humble them so some of these things aren't bad in themselves but you can see that they can become a source of pride in our lives also there's a lot of other things that the bible may not mention but abilities when when you identify yourself based on something that you can do you need to be real careful all of us here should should see ourselves and that's something we're not going to talk about today but how we see ourselves how we what our identity is is very important and we should see ourselves first and foremost as christians now we're a lot of other things right we're american citizens we're whatever we're a rancher you know or whatever we're a student that's one of our identities right maybe you're a of course you're a son or a daughter you might be a father or a mother all these are roles that we play but our foremost identity needs to be that we are in christ because when anything else goes above that be careful haven't we all seen people that their identity is their work they're all their whole the way they see themselves is based on i do this i do it well and sometimes they do do it very well but what happens if one day you can't do that job anymore or what happens when you retire we know that a lot of people once they retire have very hard struggles because their identity was wrapped up in their work and now that is no longer their whole reason for living was their work and now they're at home and there's there's going to be a problem physical traits physical abilities accomplishments in the past all these things are not bad in themselves but if we can take these things and make it a source of pride so why is pride so bad well we have to look at the consequences of pride what does pride lead to what consequences is it going to have for us turn with me if you would to daniel chapter 5. i have a bilingual bible so it might take me a little longer to find the books because i have to go through twice as many pages but turn to daniel chapter 5. if you would here we are verse 20 nebuchadnezzar we know what happened to nebuchadnezzar don't we daniel 5 20. but when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened notice that pride causes a hardness of our heart his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly he was brought down from his kingly throne and his glory was taken away from him he was driven from among the children of mankind and his mind was made like that of a beast and his dwelling was with wild donkeys and it goes on and explains more about that god humbled nebuchadnezzar and it says here that his pride had made him hard it had hardened his heart and in our relationship with god our pride is going to harden us toward him it also causes opposition to god in psalm psalm chapter 10 verse 4 it says in the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him all his thoughts are there is no god so when we are proud god is smaller because we're bigger the more focused we are on ourselves and the more inflated our view of ourselves is the smaller our view of god is going to be so when we are proud we oppose god that causes an opposition to god but not only does it cause opposition to god it brings about opposition from god which is even more fearful take a look at james chapter 4 with me james 4 6 and this is if if you meditate on this it is quite frightening but he gives more grace therefore it says god opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble he opposes the proud because our pride causes us to oppose him and now he is opposing us that's not the place that we want to be is it so what we see all in all is that pride is a great great hindrance to our relationship with god this passage is going to say it says earlier draw near to god humble yourselves the first step is to humble yourselves in hebrews it says to submit therefore to god and pride is the opposite of that it's resisting god so next i want to look at several ways and this is from stuart scott came out with a book called from pride to humility and he gives these manifestations of pride that we can look at and see is that true of me is that true in my life and it's it's been very helpful for me and every time i go through it it's helpful because many times in in a small child their sin is so obvious right and and it's just it's just there they don't care it's their sin is very obvious but as we get older we get smarter in our we we have a more sophisticated way of sinning we have ways of sinning that aren't obvious to others and they're not obvious to ourselves many times so we have to we have to look at ourselves in light of the word and try to see in what ways is my sin manifesting itself because it's subtle as we saw it's subtle and it's deceitful olsen is deceitful but pride is especially subtle so let's let's just go through this list and all of these have passages but we're not going to look at those because there's quite a few and it would take quite a while to look at those passages but if you are interested in getting the passages afterwards you can come up and take a picture of my notes or something i'm just going to focus on on the different manifestations of sin of pride that we might see in our life so the first one is complaining against or passing judgment on god so any time we were complaining we're really complaining against god right when adam said this woman that you gave me he was he was blaming god he was blaming god for his own sin any time we were complaining of course as believers we're not going to judge god directly because that's obviously wrong but we will find ourselves complaining won't we and that's that's a manifestation of pride on our part on thinking i would have done this better or i don't deserve this i deserve better than this god has we won't say it but the idea is god has made a mistake here because this shouldn't be happening another one is just a lack of gratitude you know if we have an inflated view of ourselves we're not going to be grateful because we believe we deserve better but if we're humble anything good that comes our way if we understand the gospel and know that i deserve hell and the fact that i'm breathing right now and the fact that god has given me a family and i have a home to go back to and i have a vehicle and the list goes on and on and on and on the fact that i'm not in hell suffering is a reason to be grateful so with the correct perspective with a biblical perspective i'm going to be a very grateful person another one is anger anger is a a manifestation of pride because we we want either to control something or we want something to be a certain way and we're going to talk about that a little bit in the in the sermon today and it's not so our reaction to that and today we're going to see i guess we're getting a little bit ahead but what's an emotion and we're going to see it today in the sermon but an emotion is there's an external circumstance that we run into and based on a belief that we have we react to that okay so it's a reaction to the outside so when we get angry we have to first examine the reason why am i getting angry what do i believe that is colliding with this outward external circumstance that i think gives me a justification to react in this way that's a whole other thing though we're not going to go into anger right now but if we have anger we need to take a step back and say what's going on right here because if our perspective is biblical we we are going to know that even the things even the trials and troubles and things that don't go our way that come into our lives god is using all of these to make us more like christ does he not how does james say in chapter one that we can have joy in trials sorry i was thinking in spanish probably most of you know spanish i could probably say tenets have complete joy in trials and it's like what well we have to understand how trials are used by god right another one that's more obvious is seeing ourselves as better than others we won't talk too much about that when it's it's a little more obvious having an inflated view of our importance our gifts our abilities being focused on our lack of gifts or abilities perfectionism and that's an interesting one right perfectionism why why is that a manifestation of pride because we don't want anything substandard is it good to do something well yes but when we get to the point of going so far beyond a reasonable investment of time or effort and what we're doing and it has to be perfect because we consider that a reflection of ourselves and and we are perfect or we think we are then that can be a manifestation of pride talking too much proverbs 10 19 on that one and that one's one that i struggle with i like to talk i like to converse but sometimes i'm doing all the talking and i'm not letting somebody else talk and that's that's kind of a proud thing it deep down it's saying what i have to say is more important than what this person might have to say if i was humble i would be asking more questions wouldn't i drawing out the wisdom that this other person has but it goes back to the same thing of seeing myself as superior right talking too much about ourselves is another manifestation of pride another one is seeking independence or control the proud person can't relinquish control because if i think i'm better than everybody else well i should be making the decisions i should be in charge because if it's out of my hands it's in the hands of somebody who is less qualified than i am let's see where we are here being consumed with what others think this is another form if i think i'm the special thing this gift of god to humanity i'm going to make want to make sure that everybody approves of me and sees that and this one is this one is hard guys this means that if somebody i know that somebody looks at me kind of like oh i don't know about this guy oh now all of a sudden it bothers me and i'm obsessed with what do i have to do to get this person to see me for who i am you know to see me for this great great guy that i am and that can be oh brothers and sisters that can be that's that's a very i mean the bible says that the fear of man is a snare and it totally is it totally is it can be consuming to a degree that you in counseling you see people that can't go anywhere where there's people because they're obsessed with what people are thinking and most of the time people aren't looking at you or thinking about you but when you're in this mindset you think that all eyes are on you all the time another one is being devastated or angered by criticism and isn't this hard when we're criticized it's not easy to be criticized but if we're proud it's going to devastate us we're not going to be able to handle criticism because we believe it's totally incorrect it has to be wrong if i'm this great person and somebody's pointing out a flaw that i have they must be they must be wrong on that another one is being unteachable that's pretty obvious right if i think i have it all figured out it's i'm not going to be a teachable person i'm going to want to do it my way and even my way is turning out wrong no keep your advice to yourself i'm not not going to listen being sarcastic hurtful or degrading the way i speak to others is going to be hurtful because if i'm my pride is going to make me really not care what others are going through so i'm just going to say what's on my mind and we hear that a lot right people say well don't mind me i just i say how it is and and that's just that's just who i am well that's who you are but it's it's because of your pride because you're not thinking you're not thinking as the word says that i should be speaking in love let no corrupt word come out of your mouth but only that which is going to edify right i'm not thinking like that i'm just thinking i want to say my opinion and i don't care what happens another one is lack of service if i am humble i'm going to look for opportunities to serve others because i see them as as philippians 2 would say i see them as superior to myself i'm going to look for a way to bless others to serve others and if i don't have if i'm not serving others it may indicate that the reason i'm doing that is because i think they should be serving me a lack of compassion kind of goes along with being sarcastic you know i just care about myself i'm not thinking about other people and what they're going through another one is being defensive or blame shifting and this is it goes along with the criticism thing right it's hard to to receive criticism and i think always our initial reaction is going to be like whoa what's going on here i'm going to get defensive i'm going to tell you the reasons that i'm doing something so you understand that i'm not in the wrong i'm going to blame someone else for what's going on because my pride resists that it resists accepting the blame for something which also goes along with lack of admitting when we're wrong also a lack of asking forgiveness if i'm proud it's going to be very hard for me to ask someone to forgive me because that's kind of putting myself at a lower level than them right admitting that i was wrong and asking for forgiveness another manifestation of pride is a lack of prayer this is one that we don't usually think about but if we really see ourselves as weak and frail and needy of god as we truly are we're going to be praying all the time we're going to be praying for everything we do because we know how we know how flawed we are we know how prone to fall and and make mistakes and and our life is going to be characterized by prayer because prayer shows dependence on god which is the opposite of independence which is what pride is thinking that we are self-sufficient another one is resisting authority or being disrespectful to authority and that's something that now in our culture is is the norm i mean i think in days past being respectful to authority might have been at one point in america kind of the expected thing to do when when you have a police officer when you have someone in authority you you are to respect that and you know there was a time when if a teacher told a parent that their kid was acting up in class not only would the teacher discipline the child but then they'd get home and the parent would discipline the child for for doing that and for making the family look bad right but now if the teachers tell the parents that the child did something wrong the parents are more likely to attack the teacher because their kids don't do anything wrong you must be wrong there must be a mistake my kids don't do the wrong thing right so that that goes along with it that goes along with it a humble person is going to respect the different authorities that that are in your life even when you might not agree with their decisions another one is voicing preferences or opinions when nobody's asking for our preferences or opinions right we're always quick to to say our our opinion or our preference but if nobody's asking for it that's not a sign of humility rather pride another one in this one minimizing your own sin and shortcomings isn't it true i know i can say that it's my it's true in my life i can have the same flaw as somebody else but mine looks so much smaller mine is just well you know this is how i am and so forth but if somebody else says whoa didn't you see that that they did wow what's going on over here they they need to take care of that and that's that's what pride does that's what pride does and it's always it's always so so true i think it's it's it's unbelievable how our sin is so we're so blind to it ourselves and others can see it and i think that's that's why we have the church body right i think that's why we need to have relationships that are so close that we can help one another and in love say hey you need to work on this you know another one is being impatient or irritable with others you know and it wasn't until i was reading a book a few years back and i realized being irritable is a sin because it's not being kind it's not being patient and it's so easy just to kind of get in a mood where we're just kind of on edge and irritable and and it's said it's a manifestation of pride because i want things to go my way and they're not it's it's a problem being jealous or envious once a little more obvious using others it's it's good to ask yourself every once in a while how do i see other people how do i see those around me do i see them as souls do i see them as people that are made in the image of god that i need to respect or do i see them as a means to get what i want it's very easy to in our relationships just to see people our even our closest friends even you know our family our our wife or our husband and just kind of see them as a source of something that i want instead of seeing them as a person and someone that we should be serving another one is being deceitful by covering up sins faults and mistakes you know it's hard to be transparent about our our mistakes our sin our faults and doing when we are transparent not that we're going to tell everybody but there's certain people that we should be talking about with these things and if we're trying to cover up if we're trying to hide all that we're not letting anybody in it's it's a sign of pride another one is using attention getting tactics trying to always be the center of attention you know and trying to just doing things so others would would notice me and the last one here not having close relationships not having close relationships because close relationships are are hard right it's it kind of goes back to some of these other ones someone that knows me and that i share my struggles with my weaknesses that i ask for help and that requires humility to have these close relationships that can be used by the lord for for mutual edification and unfortunately we live in a time where it's not common to have real good friends i think most of us are living our lives and we kind of just deal with the people that are there but it takes time and it takes effort and you have to open up to have good deep friendships that that are truly edifying so i hope that just going through through what pride is and just seeing these manifestations has been helpful for you i know every time that i go through this list it really brings up some things that i need to work on and the right response to seeing any sin in our life right is to confess it to repent and something that i always say you're going to hear it from me anytime you hear me speak whenever we want to change to be more like christ the bible gives us in several passages the put on put off and renew the mind not necessarily in that order but one of the things we need to do is renew our minds so if i'm struggling with pride i'm going to memorize some verses that talk about humility that talk about the danger of pride to renew my mind and be conscious and i'm memorizing something you know usually we're reviewing every day and just filling our mind with this truth of god to help us in our fight against pride and also we're going to look at the biblical substitute for pride which in this case is humility and we're going to work on we're going to look at our life and see where in this list are are the areas that i really struggle with pride where is what is the what are the specific ways that i'm i'm manifesting this and then i'm going to work on breaking that habit because it's a habit we respond in this way habitually and so i'm going to work on stopping there and when i get to the point of this manifestation of pride what's the humble alternative to that that i can replace it with and as we work on this and depending on the the grace of the lord we're in prayer we're depending on his grace to do this his transforming grace we start to see that we're breaking the habit the bad habit and we're starting to create a new habit which is the biblical alternative so that's that's how we could go about growing in that so so that's that's all for this morning if i can just finish with the word of prayer heavenly father it's it's convicting to look at at pride and how it manifests itself and i just want to ask you that you would forgive me for for the pride in my life that is a parent lord and that you would you would help us to be humble people we know that pride is such a divisive thing in a church and humility is is what you want what you require of us and you hate pride pride is against you it's a it's opposition to you and we don't want to be opposed to you we don't want you to be opposed to us lord we want to draw near to you in humility and i pray that you would you would help us in this following week to to grow in christ likeness and putting away pride and putting on humility in jesus name amen

Channel: Grace Community Church Laredo

Views: 67

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 6xbmcwIp8fI

Length: 46min 9sec (2769 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021