The Pernicious Problem of Pride, Brad Kinnison, James 4:6, etc.

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Sermon Title: The Pernicious Problem of Pride Sermon Text: James 4:6

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James chapter 4, verse 6, hear the word of the Lord. But he gives more grace, therefore it says,
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God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.
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Now we'd like to invite Mr. Brad Kenison. He's been with us several times before. He's welcome to present the word to the church.
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It's good to be back with you all again. I think the first time I came here was somewhere around 2017.
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At that point, I was a single guy and now, praise God for Abby Kenison and a little girl on the way in November.
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So we are very thankful for the Lord's kindness to us and it's good to be with you all. I want to bring you a warm greeting from Emanuel Church in Winston -Salem, where we live and we serve alongside our church family.
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If you want to join me in prayer before we look to God's word together. Father, we ask for you in the minutes ahead to meet with us and to do a work in us that we cannot do for ourselves.
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Your word is truth. Your word reveals Christ to us. It reveals your will to us.
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It reveals where we find true fulfillment, true satisfaction, true meaning in our lives.
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And it is only in living under the light of your son. But we want to pray specifically this morning that you would crush pride under the weight of your glory today.
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Show us how great you are and how small we are. You are exalted above the heavens and the earth.
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You are exalted above world leaders and nations. You are higher than every one of us here this morning.
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You are the creator and the sustainer of all things. And you have exalted your son,
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Jesus, to your right hand. One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. And on that day, there will be no more proud thoughts in our minds. There will not be one single proud word spoken as every knee bows.
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We will all be humbled before your glory. We pray that you would help us to humble ourselves today and in the life in front of us until the day where we see you face to face and bow humbly before you together with all of your creation.
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We pray this in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen. Well, I've entitled this sermon,
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The Pernicious Problem of Pride. The Pernicious Problem of Pride. My purpose this morning is for us to discuss and sift through the sin of pride together and how it manifests in our lives.
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James 4, 6 will serve as a frame for us this morning. This is not an expositional sermon.
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I'm pulling a first in my experience in preaching a topical sermon. Hopefully all the texts that I use,
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I will use expositionally in their context. God helping me. This sermon is built upon the
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Bible's acknowledgement that we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God and that killing sin is basic to what it means to be a
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Christian. So if we are to be Christians according to the
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Bible, then we need to do away with any absurd notions that talking honestly about sin and encouraging one another to kill plan and game planning or strategizing of how to best kill sin in our lives is in any way legalistic.
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This is in fact God's will for our lives. It magnifies his grace and it brings him glory.
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So brothers and sisters, I want to bring a charge to us this morning that we would recommit ourselves to killing sin in our lives to the glory of God.
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And specifically, I want to draw attention to the sin of pride this morning. Would you assess pride to be a problem in your life?
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Is it a sin that you've discovered lurking underneath the way that you've spoken to somebody or maybe thought about somebody or the way that you've acted towards other people?
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Have you ever compared yourself to someone else and found yourself to be superior in your eyes at least?
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Have you ever gossiped about someone else and thereby exalted yourself by comparison to them?
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Have you ever been asked to carry out what you thought was a menial act of service and just thought that was beneath my dignity?
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I'm not willing to do that thing for that person. Have you ever looked down on someone else because you thought that you were smarter than them or that your way of life was better than their way of life, your standard of behavior, your morality, your ethic was better than theirs?
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We could go on and on and expose, I think, the thing that is obvious to all of us that pride exists within every one of our hearts.
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Pride is a perennially pervasive sin for all people. And so I trust that this morning's consideration will be helpful to every one of us.
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John Stott has said at every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our
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Christian discipleship, pride is our greatest enemy and humility is our greatest friend.
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And so my goal for you and for me today is that by God's grace, we would dig deep and get to work doing the work of killing pride in our lives.
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So I'm going to outline this sermon using four questions. First, how does the
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Bible define pride? Then second, we'll consider how does God respond to pride?
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Third, how does pride manifest in our lives? And then fourth, what medicine does the
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Bible give us to treat the sin of pride? So let's look first at how does the
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Bible define pride? So first off, the Bible speaks of pride that is good and pride that is bad.
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So for example, of pride that is good, Paul in Romans 15, 17 to 18 says, in Christ Jesus then,
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I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what
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Christ has accomplished through me. So pride, Paul is taking pride in his work for God, that he's living midstream of God's will for his life.
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He's fulfilling the calling that God has placed on him. He's walking in obedience. He takes pride in that.
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And the kind of godly pride that Paul expresses, the type of pride that immediately gives the glory to Christ by saying,
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I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. Another example of a godly kind of pride in 2
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Corinthians 7, 4, Paul expresses his pride in the Corinthians saying, I am acting with great boldness toward you.
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I have great pride in you. It is good to remember, and I want to at the beginning, up front, say that the
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Bible has two categories for pride. There is a good kind of pride. There is a godly and a
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God -honoring kind of pride. And so this morning, in what I say, I do not in any way want to discourage that kind of God -honoring pride.
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Because in your day -to -day life experience, I hope and trust that you'll feel this kind of pride that is entirely pleasing to God.
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But this morning, our purpose is to focus in on killing sin.
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And so I want us to focus our attention on the sinful kind of pride. So with that being the point of this sermon, let me ask a rhetorical question for you to think about for a moment.
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How would you define pride? In your own words, how would you define pride?
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I'm going to share a few definitions that I've taken from others, and then I'll propose a definition for us to consider this morning that's come from my surveying of every text that I could find in the scripture discussing pride.
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First, Merriam -Webster defines pride as inordinate self -esteem. Another dictionary definition says that pride is a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
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What I like about that second definition there is that it acknowledges this dynamic where pride can be cherished in the mind.
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If you want a simple one -word definition of pride, one hyphenated word, one hefty word,
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John Calvin's your guy. John Calvin says pride is self -glorification. If you want to simply define pride,
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I think that's a great one -word definition of pride. John Piper defines pride in terms of unbelief.
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He's trying to trace unbelief as a root lying underneath basically all sin.
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And so John Piper says, quote, unbelief is a turning away from Jesus or God in order to seek satisfaction in other things.
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And pride is a turning away from God specifically to find satisfaction in self.
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So Piper's wanting to appeal to our affections, the things we find satisfaction in.
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And if we find, if we are bent, if our will is bent on finding satisfaction in ourself rather than finding our soul's satisfaction in God, then that is pride.
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The definition that I want to propose this morning is the following. Pride is an internal disposition of the heart, which inordinately elevates self over and against God and others.
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Let me say that again. Pride is an internal disposition of the heart, which inordinately elevates self over and above God and others.
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Some biblical synonyms and related terms you'll see if you do a deep dive in Scripture studying pride just to have in our minds are words like arrogant, boastful, haughty, puffed up or conceited.
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So when you see those words in the Bible, we're talking about the fundamental issue of pride.
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So let's break down that definition I gave a moment ago in three parts and see if it lines up with the way that the
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Scriptures speak about pride. So first, pride is an internal disposition of the heart.
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I think we should understand pride to be a root sin of the heart, similar to how
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Jesus traces sin to its root in the heart in the Sermon on the Mount. So in the
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Sermon on the Mount, you'll remember that Jesus says, you have heard that it was said, you shall not murder.
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But I say to you, sorry, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.
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But I say to you, whoever looks at his brother, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to the judgment.
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So he identifies the external sin of murder and he traces it back to its heart root of anger.
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Jesus does the same thing with the sin of adultery. He identifies the external sin of adultery. He says, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.
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But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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So he's identifying the external sin and he's tracing it back to the root sin in the heart.
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I think that's the way we should view pride. The pride is a root sin of the heart that springs forth into so many different external manifestations.
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Let me give one, one very explicit text that that locates pride as being in the heart.
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Second Chronicles, Chronicles 32, 25 and 26. No need to turn there.
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In the context here, God has just delivered Israel from Assyria and he's also just healed
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Hezekiah. And the text says, but Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him for his heart was proud.
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Therefore, wrath came upon him and on Judah and Jerusalem. But Hezekiah humbled himself for what?
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For the pride of his heart. So pride is located internally in the heart.
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I think it's important for us to understand that, to understand how, how pervasive pride is.
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It lies underneath so many other sins that we call by different names. So that's the first part of the definition.
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Pride inordinately elevates self. Second, pride inordinately elevates. I'm sorry.
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So pride is an internal disposition of the heart. Second, pride inordinately elevates self.
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If you will turn to Isaiah two with me, we'll start in verse 11, Isaiah two, verse 11.
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And as we look at this text, I want you to focus your attention on words like lofty and exalted.
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I'm trying to, I'm trying to bring out from the scripture here is this, this dynamic of pride that has this component of elevation or abasement of highness or lowness.
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Isaiah two, starting in verse 11, the haughty looks of man shall be brought low and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled.
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And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty against all that is lifted up and it shall be brought low.
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And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low.
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And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. So you hear,
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I mean, just saturated throughout that text. It's high and low. It's lofty and exalted compared to humility and being brought low.
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Matthew 23, 12 says, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
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Romans 12, three says, for by the grace given to me, I say to every one of 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.
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So, so this is why in the way we define pride, I think we need to understand this dynamic.
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The pride is an inordinate elevation of self. But the third part of our definition is the pride inordinately elevate self over and against God and others.
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Pride inordinately elevate self over and against God and others.
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We cannot rightly understand the nature of pride unless we rightly understand the nature of God.
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A pride is at its roots, an exaltation of self over and against God and his sovereign authority over our lives.
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If we are to grasp the seriousness of pride, we must see it fundamentally as a sin of exalting our being and our will over and above God's being and God's will.
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And this is why it is so important for us, brothers and sisters, to have a robust understanding of the doctrine of God.
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Do you want to make progress in killing pride in your life? Then I would encourage you to run to the scriptures and to study deeply the attributes of God and the works of God.
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They will crush pride in our hearts. If we fill our vision with the wonder and the glory, the beauty and the perfection of God and all of his perfect attributes, it's one of the best ways that we could seek to crush pride in our lives.
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Psalm 10, chapter 10, verses 2 through 4 speaks about the way the proud exalt themselves against God.
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Listen as I read Psalm 10, 2 through 4. And the point, the reason
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I'm highlighting this text is to illustrate this point that the pride is set in contrast to God.
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Pride is against God. So Psalm 10, verse 2, in arrogance, the wicked hotly pursues the poor.
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Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul and the one greedy for gain curses and listen to this, renounces the
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Lord. And in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. And listen to this, all his thoughts are, there is no
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God. So the proud, the one who is prideful takes this mentality of there is no
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God. So that's not me, right? I don't do that.
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Maybe not to the nth degree, but we all in moments of our pride are functionally living as if God is not
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God, as if either he does not exist or he's not as high and holy as the scripture says he is.
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Before we move on from this definition to our second main outline question,
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I want to address a question that comes up pretty frequently in conversations about pride.
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And the question is, is pride the original sin?
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I've heard that question raised in theology books, in sermons and in personal conversations over and over again.
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So I want to briefly address this. Is pride the original sin? I'm going to give you a very, very quick answer to this.
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First, this is not a question that the Bible ever explicitly asks.
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Second, neither Moses in Genesis nor any other biblical author seeks to answer this question directly.
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Third, this question assumes that there's only one sinful dynamic at play at the point of the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden.
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And I think that there may have been multiple dynamics of sin at play all at once in that moment in the garden.
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So 1 John 2 .16 broadly describes the sins of the world using the language of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
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I think that this is I not the Lord here, but I think that could describe something of the dynamic of the way that sin occurred in the garden.
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It's an assumption, in my opinion, to think that there was just one sin necessarily at that moment.
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I believe it's very possible that Adam and Eve crashed and burned spectacularly and sinned in multiple ways at once.
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So all in all, I give that answer to those points of answering that question. Just as I don't find that question, is pride the original sin, to be a generally helpful question or line to go down.
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The scriptures make very clear over and over again that the pride is a major sin. It's a major dynamic of the way that we rebel against God and our fallen humanity, that we would inordinately elevate ourself over and above God.
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So we have more than enough material in the scripture to identify the sin of pride and to take up arms against the sin of pride without having a debate about whether it was the original sin.
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All right, with that question behind us, let's move on to our second main outline question.
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How does God respond to pride? How does God respond to pride?
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Well, the first answer is that God opposes the proud. James 4, 6 says that God opposes the proud.
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Those are some of the scariest words in the Bible. I don't want for us to just traipse by those words nonchalantly.
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Can you think about that reality that James is sharing with us? That the omnipotent creator of the universe, the one who spoke the galaxies into existence, the one who causes your heart to continue beating until the day he has determined that it has stopped, it will stop.
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This God, this sovereign God opposes the proud.
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He sets himself in opposition to the proud. The holy and just judge who will call us all to stand before him and give an account on the last day cannot and will not abide pride.
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It is an affront to the perfect holiness of his character and to his divine right as the one who alone deserves supreme glory.
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Do you see the seriousness of pride? God opposes the proud.
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So that's the first answer to how God responds to pride. He opposes the proud. Second, God responds to the proud by judging the proud.
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The severity of God's judgment against pride in the scriptures shows how seriously
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God takes the sin of pride. And it should sober us and cause us to take pride equally as seriously.
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Isaiah 2 is such a useful text in considering the sin of pride. Let's turn back there again.
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Isaiah chapter 2, and we'll look at verses 11 through 12 and then verse 17 again.
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And this time as we go through it, I want you to focus on different words, different phrases. Last time we were focusing on words like lofty or exalted.
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This time I want you to focus on the way God responds to pride.
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So Isaiah says, verse 11, the haughty looks of man shall be brought low.
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And the lofty pride of man shall be humbled. And the
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Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And then verse 12 is key here. For the
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Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up.
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And it shall be brought low. Do you hear that? The Lord of hosts has a day set against all that is proud and lofty.
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It shall be brought low. Verse 17, and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled.
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And the lofty pride of men shall be brought low. And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
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My friends, make no mistake. The Lord of hosts has a day set against all that is proud and lofty.
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He may allow the pride and arrogance and conceit of man to continue for a while in this age, seemingly unchecked, but it will not be so on the last day.
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He will put all that is proud away from him once and for all, when he separates the sheep from the goats.
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Zephaniah 3, verses 11 and 12 makes it very clear that the Lord will remove all those who are defined by pride from the midst of his redeemed on the last day.
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Zephaniah 3, 11 says, on that day, you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me.
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For then I will remove from your midst, your proudly exultant ones. This is what the
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Lord is going to do on that last day. For then I will remove from your midst, your proudly exultant ones.
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And you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly.
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They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Brothers and sisters,
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Hebrews 12, 14 says, there is a holiness without which no man will see the Lord. And Zephaniah 3 is telling us that on the last day, the
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Lord is going to remove the proudly exultant ones from those who will be his lambs who inherit eternal life.
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I want to exhort you to hate pride as much as God does and to get to work killing it.
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But we can't kill something if we can't diagnose it and identify it in our lives. And so let's look at our third question, our third main question this morning.
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How does pride manifest in our lives? How does pride manifest in our lives?
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My goal in this point is just to do a survey, to have a lot of touch points with how pride can manifest.
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And the point being to kind of increase our diagnostic awareness of pride in our lives.
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If we can't recognize it, then we can't treat it. If we're oblivious to it, then it's all too easy for that pride to continue on in subversive ways in our lives.
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Allow me to speak for a minute as an ER nurse. So I work at the hospital in the emergency room and have done so for the last eight years.
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In the emergency room, we are working in the world of diagnostic medicine. People are coming in, they have all these symptoms, they're sick.
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They want us to diagnose them and they want us to treat them. So they want an accurate diagnosis and they want a good treatment to take care of their illness.
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And so I want to share with you some principles that I've learned that would lead to becoming a good diagnostician or good diagnostic.
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First, you have to know the disease inside and out. Know the pathophysiology, know the disease process, know how it operates inside the body and know the cluster of symptoms that it can produce.
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So know the disease well. Second, gain real -life clinical experience treating as many people with the disease as you can.
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Because the more people you see with this disease, just the better you are going to get at picking it out from the crowd and diagnosing it.
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And then third, it's important to always remember that no two people ever present exactly the same, even if they have the same disease.
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We need to be alert to minor symptoms that could be an indication of a larger infection or a larger problem.
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I use that to illustrate that the pride is like that. It often manifests in different ways for some of us than it does for others of us.
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So let's, in this section, as we just try to have touch points identifying different ways pride manifests,
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I want us to start by looking at the Bible and then we'll move to examples from everyday life. So what are some examples of pride that we see in the
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Bible? Well, pride looks like Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve exalt their will over and above God's will.
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Pride looks like the account of the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, where the people gather together and say, we'll make a name for ourselves by building a tower that reaches the heavens.
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And in a moment of divine disdain and irony, the text says the tower was so high that God had to come down to see it.
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That tower was just so high that God had to come down to see it. And then he confuses their language and scatters the people.
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Pride looks like Exodus 7 through 12, where Pharaoh refuses to listen to hear and obey
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Yahweh and let God's people go. Pride looks like 2 Chronicles 26, where God kills
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King Uzziah for trying to assume the position, wrongfully assume the position of a priest when he burned unauthorized incense before the
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Lord. Pride looks like Daniel 4, where Nebuchadnezzar, at the height of his power, glories in his own majesty.
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And what does God do but humbles him and makes him live in the field with the beasts and eat grass like the oxen.
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Pride looks like Matthew 10, 35 to 45, where James and John seek elevated position by asking to be seated at Jesus' right hand and left hand in the kingdom.
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Pride looks like Matthew 26, 31 to 34, where Peter has the conceit and the arrogance to look
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Jesus in the face and say, you're wrong. I will not deny you three times.
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Pride looks like 1 Corinthians 8. And I think maybe this one, this may strike a little closer to home.
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Pride looks like 1 Corinthians 8, where the believer with superior doctrinal knowledge is puffed up by that knowledge and uses his
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Christian liberty to place a stumbling block in the path of brothers and sisters with weaker consciences.
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Pride looks like Philippians 1, 17, where Paul says that some people around him were even preaching Christ from selfish ambition.
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You see, pride is so insidious. It can have some very spiritual flavors and faces to it.
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It is a sin that can be traced from Genesis to Revelation. In 1
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John 2, 1, the apostle John says, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
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I think John's intent rings true to why God revealed the whole Bible to us.
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God has revealed himself and his will to us so that we would not sin, brothers and sisters, so that we would not violate his will.
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I pray that as you and I think through these different biblical examples of pride, as we, in our own reading, encounter these different biblical examples of pride, that we would learn from them and that we would flee the sin that it exposes.
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So those are ways that pride is manifested in the Bible. Let's briefly look at how pride manifests in everyday life.
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I want to highlight five common categories that pride manifests itself in.
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First is the pride of moral self -righteousness. The pride of moral self -righteousness says,
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I am better than you because my outward moral behavior looks better than yours. Therefore, I'm better than you.
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The classic example of this would be the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18.
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Second, the pride of elevated position. The pride of position assumes that one's position in life is owed to them and that those with lesser position are by nature inferior to them.
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Third, the pride of achievement or possession. The pride of achievement strives for success as a measure of personal worth and often, often, so often tramples others in its path to get there.
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Fourth category of pride, the pride of attention -seeking or recognition.
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The pride of attention -seeking operates as if the universe exists or the people around us exist to recognize us, to give us attention.
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The fifth is the pride of a critical spirit. The pride of a critical spirit constantly elevates itself by finding faults in other people.
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And the classic example of this is Matthew 7, 3 to 5, where the one person is very good at diagnosing the speck in the other person's eye, completely failing to recognize the log in his own eye.
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So these are five common manifestations of pride in our life. I just wanted to do that as kind of a thought experiment, that there are so many ways we could identify pride, so many labels we could put on different sins that would elucidate the nature of pride underlying them.
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But I found it helpful, personally, as I've been studying and thinking through the sin of pride, just to think about how many different ways it rears its head.
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And it's made me, throughout the week, recognize ways that it's popped up in my life and in my heart.
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And it's shown my need for fresh grace in fighting this sin. That leads to our final point this morning.
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What medicine does the Bible give us to treat the sin of pride? But what medicine is the Bible offering us to make progress in killing sin in our lives?
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If we were to make any progress in the fight against pride, then we need to look to the great physician for medicine and nowhere else.
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Most assuredly, not to our own resources. The Bible offers us a lot of medicine to help us in the fight against pride.
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I'm just going to identify some. So let me first identify four of what I'm going to call broad -spectrum antibiotics.
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These are biblical truths that will help us fight and kill all different kinds of pride.
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So broad -spectrum antibiotic number one, believe the bad news of the gospel.
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That seems like a medicine that doesn't taste good going down. Believe the bad news of the gospel.
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How is this medicine? There would be no good news to the gospel if there were not bad news.
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We will never make progress in killing pride unless we honestly embrace the Bible's teaching about our sin natures.
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The Bible teaches that we are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3 .23
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says, we are spiritually dead in our sins and completely unable to save ourselves.
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Ephesians 2 .1 -3 says, our hearts are desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.
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Jeremiah 17 .9 says, and we justly deserve the wrath of God and eternal separation from God because of our pride.
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Romans 6 .23 says, broad -spectrum antibiotic number one, broad -spectrum antibiotic number two, believe the good news of the gospel.
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So first we need to believe the bad news of the gospel. Now friends, believe the good news of the gospel.
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The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. Oh, when
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Jesus says that in Matthew 9 .13, every time I read that text, I say, yes. Praise the
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Lord that he came for sinners. He came not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous.
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Praise God. What does the old catechism say?
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What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify
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God and to enjoy him forever. The good news of the gospel is that we're going to find our true joy in Christ and Christ alone.
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God shows his love for us in that while we are still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5 .8.
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If any of us sin, brothers and sisters, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
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First John 2 .1 says, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to save prideful sinners just like us.
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Praise God. He died to save us from the sin of pride. Let us motivate us towards holiness in the area of pride.
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Broad spectrum antibiotic number three, make it your highest ambition to glorify
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God with your life. Make it your highest ambition to live for the glory of God in all things.
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May we lose our lives seeking the glory of God in Christ Jesus and thereby find our lives.
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Find true and ultimate satisfaction. Matthew 16 .25. Let us kill pride by recommitting ourselves to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
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Matthew 6 .33. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever.
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Amen. Romans 11 .36. Let us so tenaciously seek the glory of God, brothers and sisters, that any thoughts of our own glory would be eclipsed by the glory of God being made known through our lives.
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Broad spectrum antibiotic number four, cultivate the grace of humility.
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Cultivate the grace of humility. Humility is the Bible's prescribed antidote and antithesis to pride.
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While God opposes the proud, he gives grace to the humble. Humility is again and again presented as a mark that defines
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God's people, those who will dwell with God for all eternity. And most importantly of all, humility is personified and exemplified through the incarnation of Christ.
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The greatest weapon we have against pride, brothers and sisters, is following in the footsteps of Christ himself and his example of humility.
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Look at Philippians chapter two, verses three through eight with me. Philippians chapter two, verses three through eight.
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Paul says to the believers in Philippi, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
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Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
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Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, listen to this, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped or the idea there is something to be clung to or held on to.
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But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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My friends, do you say that you want to be like Christ? Those words come out of your mouth,
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I want to be like Christ. Then esteem the interest of your brothers and sisters in this room more highly than your own, to the point where you would be willing to empty yourself in service to them.
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Do you want to create a culture, a dynamic and covenant church here, where there's no room for pride?
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It's a culture where you're pouring yourselves out for the interest of each other over and above your own interests.
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Those are for broad spectrum antibiotics to treat all forms of pride. Now let's consider some targeted antibiotics to treat the five specific forms of pride that we mentioned earlier.
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First, targeted antibiotics for the pride of moral self -righteousness.
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Humility remembers that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted,
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Luke 18, 14. Do you want to kill this pride of moral self -righteousness?
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Then look to Isaiah 64, 6. Humility remembers that our best deeds are as filthy rags.
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Do you want to kill the pride of moral self -righteousness? Then look to texts like Titus 3, 3 -7 and 1
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Corinthians 15, 9 and 10. Humility acknowledges that except for the grace of God, we could be just as bad or worse than anyone around us in this room or anyone around us outside the walls of this gathering.
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Second, targeted antibiotics for the pride of elevated position. According to the text we just read,
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Philippians 2, 3 -8, humility lowers itself like Christ to sacrificially serve others.
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You want to kill the pride of elevated position? Lower yourself like Christ. Have the mind of Christ.
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And Mark 12, 42 -45, humility counts service as true greatness.
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The disciples are squabbling. Who is the greatest among us?
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The greatest among you is the servant of all, the Lord Jesus says. You want to kill the pride of position?
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Hear those words. The greatest among you in this church family is the servant of all.
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Third, targeted antibiotics to treat the pride of achievement or possession.
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Humility happily admits that everything we have is a free gift from the sovereign God so that whatever we have, we cannot boast in it.
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1 Corinthians 4 -7. Fourth, targeted antibiotics for the pride of attention seeking or recognition.
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Humility cares only about God's recognition. Remember the
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Sermon on the Mount where in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is giving the instructions to the disciples about not living for external recognition.
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He tells them they're supposed to give in secret. Now, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. You're supposed to pray in secret.
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You're supposed to fast in secret so that people don't see your disfigured face. Like, oh, they're fasting.
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They're holy. Jesus says, but live for your father who sees in secret.
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And your father who sees in secret will reward you. You want to kill the pride of being a slave to needing the attention or the recognition of others?
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Care only about the recognition of God, recognizing that that is all the attention, all the recognition you will ever need.
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Fifth, targeted antibiotics for the pride of a critical spirit. Matthew 7, 3 -5 shows us that humility sees the log in our own eyes long before we see the speck in each other's eyes.
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Brothers and sisters, I want to close this morning by bringing us back to Christ.
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It is only because he humbled himself to the point of dying in our place on a bloody
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Roman cross that we can have any hope in the fight against the sin of pride or any other sin.
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He paid the price for your pride when he bore it on the tree and he shed his blood in your place.
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How wonderful and good news that is. He paid the price for it. He achieved definitive, this is more than paying the price with the shedding of his blood.
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With his resurrection, he achieved definitive and irreversible victory over that sin.
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Now and forever, a victory that will be finally realized when he returns.
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And he has given you, brother, sister, he's given you his
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Holy Spirit. Who alone has the power to enable you to grow in the fruit of grace.
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And specifically this morning, the fruit of humility, this side of heaven. One day when we see him face to face, when we stand in his presence, he is going to transform us.
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He's going to glorify us. He's going to excise, to eradicate every last vestiges of pride hidden and tucked away in our hearts.
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That's the promise, the secured, the definitive future for God's people.
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Your fight against pride has an end date, an expiration date.
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But I want to exhort you. I want to plead with you, brother, sister. Remember, God will remove the proudly exultant ones from the midst of his people on the last day.
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If pride is seen to be the defining characteristic of the way we relate to other people, or the way we relate to God, he will remove that person from the midst of his people.
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But he gives grace to the humble. That's good news for us. Until the day when we meet
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Christ face to face and he ends this battle in definitive victory for us,
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I want to encourage you to fight the fight against pride as those who know the victory is already won by the grace of God.
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Let's pray. Father, to you alone be the glory.
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from you and through you and to you are all things. Amen.