Pride & Destruction
Part 2
Introduction
Last week I started a message on Pride, the one sin that actually originated in Heaven. God had pride in everything that He created – after each creation He evaluated it and called it good. He was pleased with what He saw. He had pride in His creation. Remember one of the definitions of pride is “being satisfied with something that you do.” God was satisfied with everything that He had created. We also talked about Proverbs 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction…” We used this as our foundational Scripture – for truly pride goes before destruction.
Last week I gave you a history of pride from the good use of it (God) to how it became sin when Satan used it. We read in Ezekiel 28 how Satan beheld himself and became puffed up with pride because of his beauty and perfection. Remember he was made perfect in wisdom, he was an anointed cherub and he was beautiful. He was perfect until sin was found within him – that sin was pride. Isaiah 14 tells us that because of his beauty, wisdom and everything that God had placed within him, Satan decided that he should rule heaven and replace God. He convinced a third of the angels he was correct and could pull this revolt off. Of course we know this did not happen. Instead, he was cast out of heaven. Jesus said in Luke 10:18 that He saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven to the earth.
Finally, last week we talked about Rehoboam, Solomon’s son who became King after Solomon died. He had the opportunity to do something that would make the people love and serve him forever but chose not to do it because of pride. At the close of my message, I asked each of you to think this week about how pride influences our decisions – whether to our good or to our harm. Now as you think about the different things you encountered this week where your pride was evident, I want to take us a little farther in our understanding of how Satan uses our pride – something that should help us – to destroy us.
I. Philippians 4:13
I talked about this a little last week, but this week I want us to really look at this Scripture and understand what it means. Because we profess this, in some way or another, Satan works overtime to really test us to see if we believe what we are professing. Remember last week when I told you that God would not share His glory with us. In Acts 12:21-23, we are told of the death of Herod. Herod was the one who beheaded John the Baptist and became friends with Pilate during Christ’s trial and crucifixion. Herod was celebrating a festival honoring Caesar when he stood and started addressing the people. The people kept shouting out loudly that this was the voice of a god and not a man. Because Herod refused to acknowledge God and allowed the people to call him divine, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he died and was eaten by worms.
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Acts 12:21-23 (NIV):
(21) On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.”
(22) Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
God will not share His glory with us. I told you that story to set the stage for our understanding of Philippians 4:13. It says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Last week I said that if we truly believed this we would not get offended when we are doing things and not getting credit for it. Everything that we do we are supposed to do as unto the Lord and if we apply this Scripture to that concept, then we have to conclude that we do not have a right to get offended when we are doing the things that God blessed us to be able to do. All Herod had to do was give God a little credit and he could have lived a little longer.
Jesus told Paul in II Corinthians 12:9 that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weaknesses.” Paul had been praying about his thorn in his flesh – something that was hindering him, something that he had to contend with daily. Although we do not know exactly what it was, we know that He prayed to have it leave him and this was Jesus’ response to His request. What can we take away from this? We can take away that from this that whatever is within us, it is there because our Lord allowed it to be there and therefore we have nothing to boast about. Even when we believe that we are weak; in our moments when we are not at our best, the power of Jesus is able to bring us through. He elevates us to greatness so that regardless of what you feel on the inside, people will be able to see Jesus on the outside in what you are doing for Him.
Back to my original point: when we profess that Christ is our all in all and that we can do all things through him, Satan tries to see if you will put your faith where your mouth is. This is his first attempt. Do you know how many blessings have been missed or walked away from because of pride? It’s not that people believe themselves so high that they should be worshipped; no Satan is smarter than that. What he uses is the offense that comes when we do not receive our due recognition. As I said last week, if we truly believe this scripture, we should not be offended when we do not receive the praise of men – we are doing it as unto the Lord. In other words, everything that we do we should do it as if we are doing it for the Lord. Ephesians 3:16 says that God would strengthen us with His power in our inner man. Whatever we face, whenever we are weak, God is there through the Spirit to strengthen us. Whatever we accomplish in life, it is due to God’s grace and mercy. We are the Lord’s and therefore as we walk in whatever we do we do it as the Lord’s. What am I trying to tell you? We must believe that we are the Lord’s and that everything we do is because of Him. Whether we are praised for our efforts or given any credit, as long as we know we are pleasing to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that should be enough. That will keep us from looking at men for confirmation. But praise is a powerful thing.
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II. Pride and Praise
Praise is good, but it can lead to pride and none of us are immune to dealing with pride. I cannot stress enough the importance of understanding that whatever we do, it is by the grace of God. There are times when I receive praise and I can handle it – I know that what I am being praised for is by the grace of God and I tell people to give God the praise. Now there are other times when I am not as strong and I think “man I really did this right or I was really good” which gives all the credit to me. Then, and this for me is the worst of all, I expect praise so that I can be humble and give the credit to God and then no praise is to be found. When that happen you’d think I would be fine, but not me. Those are the times when I say in my flesh, “Man, where is my praise? Did anyone not like this or what?”
It is easy for me to get into my flesh. As I think about how praise can lead to us falling because of pride, I realized that for me, sometimes I had used praise as confirmation that I had done right or that I was on the right track. The problem with that is this: often times you are on the right track and it makes people nervous and they can’t give praise when they are not comfortable. Sometimes praise is given because people don’t want to hurt you or because they feel they must say something because of the pride thing. We can’t use praise as confirmation that what we are doing is right because it too will lead us down a road of pride. Also, if we do things to receive praise (which is motivated by pride) according to the Scripture we have received our reward. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 6:5: ”When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward ¬in full.” Jesus makes this very plain. Although He was talking about the people who prayed for recognition (the Pharisees and Sadducees), it was not the act He was addressing, but the motivation behind the act. They were praying in public to receive the praise of men. Since that is what they were seeking, that is what they received. Notice the last two words Jesus said: “in full”. In other words, they will receive no rewards in Heaven for giving such powerful prayers because they received their rewards from the men who heard them. They have been paid in full. Jesus’ advice for us is do what we need to do in secret (Matthew 6:6), not for the praise of men and that God who sees what is done in secret will reward us openly. Let me ask you this question? Whose responsibility is it to see that you get what is coming to you? Whether it is recognition, praise or rewards? It is not man or your responsibility – it is God’s. Once we understand that, Satan cannot use the praise of men as a way to help us get lifted up in pride.
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II. Pride In Life
We have discussed several Scriptures pertaining to Pride, from Proverbs to Ezekiel to Isaiah to Matthew. Everything that we have discussed says one thing: pride in the wrong context will lead us to destruction. We cannot escape it, we cannot hide from it nor can we say it does not affect us. We must call it what it is and deal with it appropriately. So what I want to share with you is the How. How do we recognize the pride in our life that can lead us to destruction and how do we deal with it. There are several areas that I could address, but I want to limit this to two areas, our spouses and our kids. If we can master the use of our pride in these two areas, we can transfer the things we learn into other areas in our lives as well. Let me walk you through pride as it relates to our kids first.
A. Pride that impacts our kids. Ephesians 6:4 says “Fathers (mothers also) do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” For a long time I misunderstood what this meant – I thought we could not make our kids angry. What this is saying is that we should not provoke anger within them but raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. How can we bring them to anger? Men who were in prison and on death row were interviewed and asked about their relationship with their fathers. You know what they said? Many said it was bad, some said that the father never disciplined them and other said they hated their father. We bring our children to anger when we as parents do not walk before them as God commanded. Our kids need our love, our patience and our respect. They need to know that they are valued, that their opinion matter and that they have something to offer. Finally they need to know that there are boundaries that they should not cross, that the respect goes both ways.
One of the gravest mistakes ever made by a parent, including me, is to tell our children “do as I say, not as I do”. That’s hard for them to do. Where does this come from? Pride. Because of our pride as parents, we do not believe that our kids have the right to question us, our authority, our position on issues, etc. They should be “seen and not heard”; marching behind us like good little soldiers and never step out of line. I am not advocating that we let the kids do and say whatever they want, but we cannot address them from a pride standpoint without explanation.
Another example – school sports. I have seen parents scream and shout at their kids or the coaches in anger. They yell at the kids if they make a mistake. Why? Because it’s embarrassing to them as parents – it hurts their pride. Their child should be the best – nothing else will do. What about when our kids make us angry? They come to us for forgiveness, but sometimes we may feel the need to teach them a lesson. Why? Pride – we want them to know who holds the upper hand. I told my daughter last week that raising kids is hard – I didn’t
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know I could make so many mistakes. In order to raise our kids scriptually, we must humble ourselves before them, listen to them, and reach out to understand them. I struggle with this sometimes as I am sure other parents do too. Not only must we swallow our pride when dealing with our kids; we must build up their pride. How do we do this? First whenever there is conflict between you and your kids ask yourself, am I responding based on pride, or rational common sense. When they question us, do not withhold answers because your pride says they do not have a right to ask the question, answer the question so that they will know the “why” behind your response. Never tell them to do what you say if what you are doing is the opposite of what you are telling them to do. Humble yourself before them. They will learn humbleness and what it means to keep their pride under control in every situation as they continue to learn.
B. Spouse. This is more difficult because society has labeled the roles of men and women – leader of the household, caretaker of the family. In order for us to fulfill the Scripture found in Ephesians 5:22 & 25, 28 we must keep our pride at bay. These scriptures talk about the responsibility we have to each other yet neither can be fulfilled if we walk in our pride. Men are commanded to love our wives while the wives are commanded to respect their husbands, or be subject to them. In the 28th verse it says that we (men) should love our wives as our own bodies. It’s hard for negative pride to flow through love; likewise it is hard for love to flow through negative pride. But if I love my wife as I love myself, I would have pride in her (the positive pride) just like I have it within myself. If she respects me as she respects herself, she would have pride in me as she has in herself.
But the negative pride, the pride that says you will submit to me because I am the head of the house will shut down love. The pride that says because I’m the man I don’t have to clean the bathroom or wash the dishes makes it hard for love to flow. When my wife points out something that I need to change and I refuse to change just because she points it out, it makes it hard for love to flow. When I am wrong and I am really sorry, yet I cannot say it because I don’t want her to know that she has won, it makes it hard for love to flow. Likewise the pride that says I cooked last night, you go cook because I don’t want to can shut love down. The pride that says I will withhold from you until I get what I want will shut love down. Although in some ways it is more common for men to walk in pride in a relationship, women can also walk in this role. So what do we do? How do we recognize when pride is hindering us from doing what we know is the right thing to do? This one is easy. If you know it is the right thing to do, but you are struggling with doing it, you are dealing with pride. If you want to give in, but you don’t want to seem weak, you are dealing with pride. If you want to reconnect, but you don’t want to be the first one, you are dealing with pride. If we make it a habit to always do what is right – regardless of how it pains us, we will be able to suppress the pride that wells up within us.
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Conclusion
What Would Jesus Do? I have known and seen people wearing the WWJD bracelets to remind themselves in every situation to do what Jesus would do. If you think about it, if we asked ourselves this one question in every situation, “What Would Jesus Do, or How Would Jesus Respond?” then a lot of our pride issues that Satan uses to destroy us would disappear. Why? Because we would not be giving him room to operate. There was a song that said “don’t let the devil ride, if you let him ride he will want to drive don’t let him ride”. If we constantly ask ourselves what would Jesus do, then we will stop giving Satan a ride.
