Pride

Pride is the idolatry of the self. It's the nature of pride, whether one realizes it or not, to actually attempt to put yourself in competition with God. As foolish as that is, I see it every day from individuals puffing themsevles up to parents who are desperate to live vicariously through their kids, to even those attention seekers who'll advertise their condition as being much worse that it actually is . . . so they can garner attention. The list is exhaustive, but pride displaces God by putting oneself at the center of everythig, and that has led many Christian thinkers through the ages to regard pride as the essential element of all other sins. Pride, according to God's Word, was (and still is) Satan’s primary unyielding sin (1 Tim. 3:6), and from that pride came every manner of hostility to God and man: evil desire, hatred, cruelty,perversion, confusion,murder, fear, and deceit.

In the same way, man’s fall resulted from his being persuaded by Satan that he might throw off his creaturely limitations and be “like God” (Gen. 3:5). In effect, I should say, not so much persuaded but simply, because of mankind's being, well, mankind....pride naturally found its place in the heart and from it, all the rest of the evil that men think, say, and do to this very moment, is motivated by the desire of men and women either to serve themselves or to protect their place at the center of their existence. Whether lust, greed, anger, or indifference toward others, it's really not hard to see such sins as the expression of self-worship.

It's why I've said for years now that Sodomites (LGBT) are the poster-children for pride. They are so in love with thmeselves, that they would rather lie down with the very image of him/herself (in acts of gross perversion) in which God exposes and condemns as "abomination," than be obedient to God.

Now just think for a moment: A person doesn't necessarily deny that God is immeasurably greater than him/herself, but admissions of that type are no match for raging self-admiration in the heart.

The worst sin of pride consists in its breathtaking dishonesty: constructing a view of oneself in defiance of the facts. For example, some

one might say, "I said I'm a Christian, I said I love my friend, but I betrayed my friend, but my friend is still ok therefore my sin's not so bad, wait a minute...I'm not so bad...how dare my friend be disappointed in me, after all, I'm happy now, and I have the attention I was seeking, shouldn't my friend be happy for me, add nauseaum." That's the one thing about pride - it always lives in denial and fights in the heart of the wicked who will always try to justify sin, they'll always try to excuse hypocrisy and even try to turn their wickedness around by pointing to those they actually hurt to say they're the ones who are in the wrong. It's a real spiritual blindness, and David experienced it himself when it came to his own sin , in being responsible for Uriah's murder. He very hypocritically put on an act when prsented the facts about Uriah's murder, but when he was ready, as the king, to ensure that justice was done and the guilty party was dealth with, but the prophet Samuel looked at David and said to him " it's YOU! YOU'RE the guilty one! YOU'RE the murderer David, it's YOU!!!" Pride, as Aquinas put it, is "an offense against right reason." For my own part, as I've said it before, I'll say it again, those that have slandered me or even may be doing so as I prepare this blog, have, and likely will again, tell ridiculous lies about me. I could care less about their lies, but it's the terrible truth that I'd be worried about! You see, by God's grace, I'm keenly aware of the humiliation I'd suffer if the world knew the enormity of my sins and failures. And, I think it's safe to say, that my brothers and sisters in Christ know full well what I mean when saying that. It's the reason we run to Christ, and why we rejoice to learn that "if we confess our sins, God, Who is faithful and just, will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9).

I would suggest to you that it's a monumental effrontery to God to imagine that your selfish, petty collection of unworthy desires, such as yourself belonging somehow in the center of even your own life. The insidious, slithering,treacherous, deceptive, and corrupt nature of pride is such that men and women rarely realize how sinfully proud they are, and the indicator of pride’s power over the heart is that even the seemingly purest intentions of the Christian soul can be affected by it - it's the kind of pride of a novice, that when it comes, brings "condemnation" (1 Timothy 3:6). Truly, it's even possible (warning alarm should be going off as you read this!) to be proud of one’s confessions of sin, participation in church, and unworthiness or secretly to congratulate oneself on one’s “brokenness.” As anyone knows, who has struggled against it, one of pride’s most sinister effects is its dulling our sense of appreciation for the kindness and mercy of God. In the days we're living in, I believe it's all too evident that many "professing" Christians are just not Christian at all because, as those the Apostle Paul warned about, their "consciences have been seared" (1 Timothy 4:2) which means, they know what they're doing or may have done is wrong, but they've convinced themselves they're ok, they're not as bad as others, and since they've not been struck down by the proverbial lightening, then all is well. Well, they'd better worry about something eternally worse than a little lightning bolt because there's a hell-fire that awaits them - lest they repent!

A Christian, of course, would never say that he/she 'deserved' salvation, and maybe never even think it; but the difficulty every Christian has in being and remaining genuinely amazed and heart-broken at God’s grace to him/her is evidence enough of the pride that still fills the heart. We think so well of ourselves that it's difficult to think that God should not as well. I have to tell you though, just as I've told many parents: "the danger with telling anyone they're special, and that they can be or do anything they want, is that they'll actually believe it!" And therein lies another problem. We should be saying "if the Lord wills," and not "I will or I can or I deserve to..."

It's the power of pride, as the principle sin of the human heart, that explains the concentration on self-denial and humility in the Bible’s teaching on the Christian life. It's not too much to say, as Augustine did (Letters, 118), that "humility is the first, the second, and the third part of godliness." "If," he said, "humility did not precede, accompany, and follow every action we perform, it would not be a good work." He was right.

The Apostle Paul said that it's in living for God and others rather than for ourselves — the Bible’s simplest definition of humility — that we are most like Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:3–4). If someone so worthy of the worship of all nevertheless devoted Himself to the life of others, how much more ought we sinners, saved by grace, cheerfully live the life of a servant? And our lives cannot be a proper response to God’s grace if we don't live in heart and behavior as those who know very well that we have nothing that we did not receive (1 Cor. 4:7).

As I've told my son, Asher, many times "If God' determines for you to play college baseball, it will be because of Him,not you. It will be because of His grace, not your goodness. It will be because of His mercy and providential will for you to be a vessel for His glory, not yours!" We want to build our son up, not in his own merits, but in Christ's so that, Lord willing, he'll be led to use whatever talents God's given him to honour the Lord Jesus with his life - on the field and off. Brethren, putting pride to death is a lifelong work . . . and difficult. We'll get no help from our culture as pride is a topic of little interest to modern psychology and the self-help industry.Self-congratulation has become an accepted art form in the era of the “everyone gets a trophy." Nowadays, low self-esteem is likely to be thought of as a more serious problem than pride. That, of course, is completely opposite of what is right, and another example of the fallenness of mankind.

The godly have always known that true goodness requires the killing of their pride, or what we're taught: "through the Spirit, we are to mortify the deeds of the body" which will help us to live in/by the Spirit, and as a result, keep pride in-check (Romans 8:13). Sometimes, there's just no gentle way to go about it as it has to be hacked to death, in a manner of speaking, because our spirits are daily at war with our flesh. One godly man and woman after another has instructed him/herself in these or similar words: “Talk not about myself”; “Desire to be unknown, but make Christ known instead”; and “Lord, Deliver me from the lust of me, myself, and I.” That pairs well with John the Baptist's "I must decrease, Christ must increase!" (John 3:30).

There are other reasons to confess our sins to one another constantly, but the mortification of our pride is chief among them. Hard work? Yes, but the selflessness of the truly humble is one of the most beautiful things in the world and one of the greatest honors we can pay to our Savior.

I don't think I could even come close to articulating just how heinous pride is to God, and how foolish anyone, lost or saved, is when thinking highly of him/herself, but Charles Spurgeon captured it well in his sermon on Pride & Humility. I'll leave you to consider his warnings in the hope, by God's grace, you'll also be led to repentance and humility of heart as others have in the hearing of this message:

"Pride, the first-born son of hell, is indeed like its parent, all unclean and vile, and in it there is neither form, fashion, nor comeliness. In the first place, pride is a groundless thing. It standeth on the sands; or worse than that, it puts its foot on the billows which yield beneath its tread; or worse still, it stands on bubbles, which soon must burst beneath its feet. Of all things pride has the worst foothold; it has no solid rock on earth whereon to place itself. We have reasons for almost everything, but we have no reasons for pride. Pride is a thing which should be unnatural to us, for we have nothing to be proud of. What is there in man of which he should glory? Our very creation is enough to humble us; what are we but creatures of to-day? Our frailty should be sufficient to lay us low, for we shall be gone to-morrow. Our ignorance should tend to keep pride from our lips. What are we, but like the wild ass's colt which knoweth nothing? And our sins ought effectually to stop our mouths, and lay us in the dust. Of all things in the world, pride towards God, is that which hath the very least excuse; it hath neither stick nor stone whereon to build. Yet like the spider, it carrieth its own web in its bowels, and can, of itself, spin that wherewith to catch its prey. It seems to stand upon itself, for it hath nothing besides whereon it can rest. Oh! man, learn to reject pride, seeing that thou hast no reason for it; whatever thou art, thou hast nothing to make thee proud. The more thou hast, the more thou art in debt to God; and thou shouldst not be proud of that which renders thee a debtor. Consider thine origin; look back to the hole of the pit whence thou wast digged. Consider what thou wouldst have been, even now, if it were not for Divine grace. And, consider, that thou will yet be lost in hell if grace does not hold thee up. Consider that amongst the damned, there are none that would have been more damned than thyself, if grace had not kept thee from destruction. Let this consideration humble thee, that thou hast nought whereon to ground thy pride."

AMEN