Se7en:
Pride
2 Chronicles 32:24-26
April 13, 2008
Pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. Many preachers and theologians have noted that pride is perhaps the one deadly sin that connects all the other deadly sins together. It acts like the nervous system. It feeds the other sins. It helps one engage not just one but often the others. Even though the love of money is the root of all evil, pride is the source of the love of money.
Pride is insidious. It gets in you and works on you. It sneaks up on you especially when you are at your best. It makes the worst out of the best. It is no wonder that one of the nuggets of wisdom found in Proverbs (16:18) says that “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride tells us that we’re not wrong. Pride keeps us in denial. Pride keeps us from admitting when we have made a mistake. It keeps us from admitting that we’ve sinned.
This is a picture of Johnny. Johnny’s mother saw him playing church with the family cat. The cat was sitting there quietly while Johnny preached his sermon to the cat.
Johnny’s mother smiled and went back to her work. A little while later, she heard a huge commotion where Johnny was supposed to be playing. She heard the cat meowing and hissing. Obviously something was dreadfully wrong and she rushed to the door and looked out to see Johnny shoving the cat into a tub of water.
“What are you doing to the poor cat?” yelled his mother.
“I’m trying to baptize the stupid thing,” Johnny yelled back.
“You can’t do that to a cat. It’s afraid of water.”
“He should have thought of that before he joined my church.”
I did a quick search for the word “pride” in the bible. I found 63 references, mostly in the Old Testament, with the word pride in it. Usually, the word was used in a negative sense to show sinful attitudes except when you get to the Paul in the New Testament, he starts to use it as something positive but only in terms of taking pride in the spiritual progress.
For example, in Galatians 6:4 “Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else.”
So here is the first thing on pride:
There is destructive pride and healthy pride.
One can take pride in others. One can soberly examine oneself (with the help of God) and realistically determine one’s spiritual progress. This is not something we have done on our own but have sense of pride that God has done this for me and through me. Or in the sense of others, take pride in what God has done in them.
This is more in line with what we might call self-esteem. Some people believe that we ought to look at ourselves at worthless worms. We are lower than dirt. Yes, we are depraved but we have also been made in the image (the word is eikon) of God. Sin destroys that but grace restores us.
Some think that having a healthy self-esteem is sinful. It is pride full. That is wrong and not biblical. In fact, I would contend that constantly degrading oneself is a form of pride.
Let me show you. If I walk up to you and say, “I’m awful. I can’t do anything right. I’m stupid. I’m worthless. I might as well be dead because no one should care about something so worthless as me.”
The most natural, immediate response of most people is… “No, that’s not right. You’re a good person.” We try to convince them that they are wrong. This is all a prideful scam. The person really wants you to know how great they are.
Another possibility is that they really do believe that. Then there is a sort of pride in the fact that you are not full of pride. And that is the second thing.
Pride can be a paradox.
Whenever we start to compare ourselves to others, we are entering dangerous territory.
There was a tax collector who went to worship. He admitted how bad he had been. He admitted his depravity and his sin. Meanwhile, a Pharisee was also worshipping and seeing the tax collector praised God by telling God that he was so glad that he was not like that tax collector piece of garbage.
Of course as soon as we read the story as say, “I’m glad that I’m not like that Pharisee.” We have just entered the pride paradox.
This is why Jesus tells us to be careful about judging others. Get the log out of your own eye. Judge yourself. Then you might recognize the incredible grace that God has shown you and can look at your brother or sister not to judge and condemn but to seriously try to help them.
So what is destructive pride? Really, just about everything else. Here is how I define what pride is. I find this in scripture and validated by experience.
Pride is control.
Pride asserts control over others and over outcomes. Pride takes all the credit. “I controlled that. I did it.” We have been given by God that ability to plan out a course of action. But we often are just planning our actions and setting goals, we are trying to control the outcomes. That is pride.
When I worked selling computers, we did this. We set goals. Mine goal was to sell $100,000 worth of computers and computer stuff each month. Most computers sold around $700 bucks. But I sold cables, printers (“I would like to buy a printer.”), monitors, disks, everything. So selling 100 grand was taking a lot of calls. It was tempting to try to manipulate things. Accidently “hanging up” on people who was just comparison shopping. Not calling back customers who had problems or questions when they had already bought from me. There was a guy who sat across from that did that.
Eventually, I did what was right and I surpassed the other guy and surpassed the goal. It was God who blessed me with the sells and the principles to do so. But it is sure tempting to say, “This is what I did.”
Pride happens all the time. It happens every time we say we don’t need God. That is what most of the references in the OT were about: People not needing God because they were in control of their own lives. They didn’t need a savior. They didn’t need any help.
Pride happens when we don’t let people know when we are sick and could use prayer. Ooohh, I think I just stepped on some toes. Pride happens when we think we are better than others because we ask for prayer when we are sick. Pride happens when we refuse to be a part of community life. “I don’t need that. I don’t need anybody else.” Pride justifies itself by saying, “I don’t want to be a burden.”
Hezekiah was a king that trusted in God a lot. God helped him because he trusted in God. At one point, Hezzy got sick. Hezzy prayed to God and God answered him again and gave him a miraculous sign. He was healed! Yet, Hezzy made a mistake full of pride. He took it for granted. He had always trusted God and God had answered so many prayers, Hezzy just thought that God answered his prayer because Hezzy was so faithful. He had trusted God so much and served God so of course God healed him. The scripture says, “But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the LORD’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.”
His heart was proud. He forgot to praise and thank God. He took God’s goodness and mercy for granted. He basically thought that he deserved it. His faithfulness had earned it. He was in control.
God was not a happy camper. In fact not only was God not happy with Hezzy, God was not happy with Judah and Jerusalem. His pride had an adverse effect on those around him. They suffered because of his pride.
And isn’t that what happens? Other people suffer because of our pride. Sure, we suffer but so often, when pride creeps into my life and I can’t admit when I’m wrong, those around me get hurt. Sometimes they are hurt and I don’t even know it. I’m blinded by my own pride to their pain.
Pride makes us blind.
Pride makes us blind to our own need. It blinds us to the fact that we need others. It keeps us from seeing the hurt and pain in the world around us. In fact, I would say that the great sin of the church in our day is one of pride. We neglect the homeless and poor. Yes, we are busy, perhaps too busy. Isn’t all of our busyness really about control and keeping things ordered and wanted what is best for ourselves and our families and, and, and…
Pride keeps us as Americans from taking a look around this world that we live and realizing that people die every day so that we can enjoy the privileges that we enjoy.
Did you know that Americans consume about 80% of the world’s coffee supply? And yet, we aren’t told a lot about the coffee business. In order for us to have our coffee at these rock bottom prices, coffee companies pay the coffee farmers in other countries pennies per dollar that we spend. Often the amount that they are paid is not even enough to pay their expenses let alone support their families. And it designed intentionally to keep them in debt and the countries in debt so that we can control the market. Sometimes it is even done so that the companies get the land and then make the farmers work for them while they make the profits.
The same is done with tea. However, there are groups, many of them Christian based, who have determined to change these practices and make sure farmers are paid fairly for their product. This is called Fair Trade coffee. It costs a more – sometimes a lot more. But to refuse to acknowledge the situation and hide behind some free market capitalism is just a mask of pride.
The same situations exist with clothing manufacturers as well as most of the other items that you might get at Wal-Mart or even the dollar stores.
We need God. The problem is huge. We need God to intervene. We need God to show us what it is that we can do. And this begins with prayer. Earnest prayer. It shows up in repentance. Things are messed up and we are a part of the problem. Pride says, “That really has nothing to do with me.”
One billion people live on less than $1 a day. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a boy spends every day chipping through stones in search of minerals to sell. For a flour bag of mineral-rich stones he is paid as little as 25 cents. His family and community are dependent on this industry.
As an act of worship and an act of prayer, I invite you to come to the front and using the hammer chip off a piece of stone from the cement block. Let this piece of stone be a reminder for you to pray, for you to be humble, for you to be thank full, and to pray for the billions who live in abject poverty. Pray that the numbers of people who live on less than $1 a day might be halved by the year 2015.
Pray for
• The proportion of people who live on less than $1 a day to be halved by 2015.
• Our pride to be revealed.
• God to help us.
• People to realize their need for God.
The opposite of pride is humility. Humility and humiliation have the same root. It is the same root that we get the word, human. Humility is saying, “I’m not God. Jesus, you are. You are in control. I’m certainly not. I have made a mess of things and on my own, I will continue to do so. That is why I, no Lord, that is why we need you.” Are you human or are you trying to be God?
Make this an act of worship, to remind you of the deep need that we all for God and to remind us that we need to pray. Let the stone remind this week to pray for the poor.
I have also left you a prayer to take with you and pray. It says:
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have ALL of me – good and bad. Remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of usefulness to You and my community. Grant me strength as I go forth to do Your will.
