Pride

Pride

Luke 18:9-14; Phil. 2:3-8, 15-16

Introduction

Have you ever bought something and then not used it as you thought you would? With the world of QVC now it happens all the time, especially with fitness equipment. We buy the Ab Roller 2000 or the Bo Flex with great intentions, but after a short while, we forget about it and bury it somewhere in the garage. Yes, when you first spent all that money on it, sure you never thought it would go to waste.

This is just one way that we are not like God. When God pays for something he really wants it. God never loses interest in something he’s bought. God has bought us and the price of that purchase was the blood of his Son. Is God an impulse buyer, who has bought us only to lose interest in us? No! God cares about us, about how we live and he bought us for a purpose. The price was high—it’s one thing for you to pay $199 for an Ab-cruncher you’re never going to use but it’s totally absurd to think that God would pay for us with the precious blood of his Son and do the same.

There are hundreds of unused Ab-crunchers sitting in garages—that’s a waste. But Christians sitting around in churches unchanged by God’s mercy and love and forgiveness—that’s worse than a waste it’s offensive. Continuing in the very same sin we’ve been saved from.

God hasn’t just saved us from something, he’s saved us for something, an intimate relationship with him and a life spent honoring him. This series on the seven deadly sins is all about honoring God who bought us at a price. As a church we need to realize that he didn’t buy us just to sit around but to make us into his people. He didn’t just save us from something, he’s saved us for something— he’s saved us from the penalty of sin for an intimate relationship with him.

Sometimes I think our thinking is a little wrong. We say that Jesus died on the cross so my sins can be forgiven and that means that, when I die, I’ll go to heaven. This, of course is true, but does that mean nothing changes now? Is the time between becoming a Christian and Jesus coming back just a time of limbo? Is our church just a waiting room for Christians going to heaven?

It’s like God’s bought us and just shoved us here in the garage and one day in the future he’ll get interested in us again, as if his return to earth is picking up a toy he put on lay-away? Of course not! The New Testament says that God has forgiven our sin but now he wants to remove it! He’s removed the penalty for your sin but now he wants to remove the presence of sin as well.

The Bible says in Colossians 3:5 that we need to put sin to death because we belong to God now. Colossians also says that we don’t just die a death, we rise to a new life too. Being a Christian is all about dying to sin and rising with Christ. When we become a Christian one life ends and a totally new one begins - one with new priorities and one in which we follow God’s Word and Will. In the Christian life we must first put our trust in Jesus and be forgiven. Then we must put on the character of Jesus and be transformed.

In Christ there’s an ‘Under New Management’ sign sitting over our lives and there’s countless changes God wants to work in you. He definitely bought us for a reason—to truly make you his—and this series is about going into the Word, opening ourselves up to it and allowing God to do some spiritual surgery in our hearts. So, let’s dive in to the first procedure that needs our attention: dying to pride: rising to humility.

I. Pride

• The sin that our surgery needs to start with is pride.

o In fact pride is really at the heart of all sin—confidence in ourselves instead of God, a focus on ourselves instead of others.

o That’s where all sin flows from.

o In understanding this sin first you’ll understand the nature of all sin.

• Pride is behind the birth of sin in the fall in Genesis 3.

o Adam and Eve have been placed in the Garden of Eden by God.

o Life is perfect.

o It’s a life where God knows best because God is God and they obey.

o God says that they can eat from any of the trees they like except this one tree in the center of the garden.

o This tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that’s why Adam and Eve have no business eating from it.