What is the number one sin that can bring you down? What is the number one sin that can destroy a pastor's ministry? This sin can destroy your relationships with your members, with your fellow called workers. This sin can destroy your relationship with your wife and children. Ultimately, this sin can destroy your relationship with God - what is it?
Do you ever worry that you might say something or do something as a pastor that would bring dishonor to God's name and his kingdom? You hear sometimes, about the sins that others commit. There is that Pharisee inside of every one of us that says, "I'm glad I'm not like that sinner." And after we brush that Pharisee off our shoulders, we think to ourselves, "Could I ever fall into that sin? What if I did something or said something that would push people away from God? Could I ever do something or say something that would embarrass my family?" Have you ever had these thoughts before?
There is one sin in particular that could cause you to do those kinds of things. It's the sin of pride. It's the root cause of so many other sins. Pride can you and me, not just as pastors, but as children of God. Pride can hurt people and bring dishonor to God. This morning we're going to examine ourselves in light of God's Word as we prepare for the Lord's Supper, and as we do, God is going to convict each one of us as pastors of the sin of pride. We're also going to hear God speak to us his words of comfort and forgiveness, as he lifts our eyes away from our sins and to his grace. Be humble! Be hopeful! These are God's Words to us this morning.
What are symptoms of pride? Verses 1-2 talk about quarrelling and fighting, killing and coveting, because we cannot have what we want. Have you ever done that? In your mind, "I think this is what should be happening in my parish, in my church body. I think this is what should be happening in my home, in my life. My opinion is the right one" we say, so we quarrel and fight with people at church, with our brothers in the ministry, with family. Maybe we even resent people sometimes, perhaps even having moments of hating somebody, as we covet a situation we cannot have. Can you see yourself, your pride, in these verses?
The end of verse 2 says, "You don't have, because you don't ask God." Not praying to God is also symptom of pride. Why should I pray to him when I can solve all the problems of my parish and my church body and my family with my own wisdom and my own effort? How often do you pray? Some sources describe Martin Luther spending hours in prayer, just in one day. Jesus would often withdraw to lonely places and pray. What stops you and me from doing that? Do we rely on our own wisdom and our own efforts, that we forget to rely on God's wisdom and God's efforts in prayer? Can you see yourself, your pride, in this verse?
Verse 3 says that sometimes my prayers aren't answered, because I'm asking with selfish motives that I might spend what I get on my pleasures. Why do I pray for a higher attendance? Higher enrollment in our schools, more people in Bible class, more volunteers for boards and committees - why do II pray for that? Is it really because I want more people to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and enter the kingdom of God? Or is there a part of me that just likes the feeling of having lots of people sitting at my feet, listening to me talk, validating all of my ideas and programs and stylistic tendencies with their attendance. Why do I pray for things? What really are my motives? Could there be some pride in my heart as I ask God for his blessings on what I do?
Verse 4 accuses you and me of being too friendly with the world: "Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." What does that mean, to be a friend of the world? The world refers to unbelievers. Jesus wants us to be in the unbelieving world, but not of it. Paul tells us to not to conform to the unbelieving world. Have I conformed, even just slightly in my life? Am I resembling the world more than I realize with my attitudes, my lifestyle? The unbelieving world is too proud to trust in Christ, it's obsessed with pleasing and entertaining itself. We live in a world of consumers, people who are overrun by technology and not really managing it very well. Does that describe me? The Greek word for "hedonism" can be found in these verses - to love pleasure - that's the world. Is that me? Am I more like the proud world than I realize? You can't be a friend of the world and a friend of God, this passage says. We think we can, and that's pride. "Do not love the world or anything in the world." And we do. This is hatred towards God, and makes us enemies of God.
This is you. And this is me. God calls us to repent - "wash your hands, you sinners," God says. The Greek word is "hamartoloi." To miss the mark because the pride. "Purify your hearts, you double-minded." To be double-minded means that part of us worships God but part of us also worships ourselves and the sinful things of this world. Can you see this sin of pride inside of yourself? Perhaps the most frightening words from this section are these words in verse 6: "God opposes the proud." That means that God opposes prideful you and prideful me. He stands against me as we proudly carry out our ministries. He stands against me as I pretend to be humble but really am filled with love for myself. God opposes the proud. Why aren't things working in my life the way I think they should? Why does it feel like God is against me? God opposes the proud. And what will happen to me when I die and stand before this God who opposes me?
Grieve, mourn, and wail, the Bible tells me. Repent. Have you been humbled yet, by this portion of Scripture? Verse 6 has those frightening words of law. But also those wonderful words of Gospel… Yes, God opposes the proud, "but gives grace to the humble." "He gives us more grace," verse 6 says. And this is what gives us hope. We abandon our reliance on ourselves, and we cling to God's grace, his "charis" the Greek says, his "charity," his incredible attitude of undeserved and unending love that he has toward sinners like you and me. God gives grace, and this gives us hope.
Grace is what caused God to give his Son Jesus to our world, to be our Savior. He lived the life that you and I could never live. He never fought or quarreled, he never hated or coveted, because he wasn't getting his own selfish way. He was perfect, for you and me. He prayed to God with perfect motives, and he never was a friend to the proud and unbelieving world. Jesus was perfectly humble his whole life. Why? Because God in Jesus was giving us his grace. This perfect life was for us - more grace than you and I could ever deserve. And that's what gives us hope.
And then God gave us even more grace, when he put our sins of pride on his Son, and placed his Son on that cross. God's grace is really beyond my understanding - how could Jesus, the most humble person ever to live, be punished for my many sins of pride? That's grace. God made Jesus, who had not pride, to be pride for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness, the perfect humbleness, of God. Jesus died and was buried, and my pride was buried with him. And then Jesus was raised for our justification. What incredible grace, that God forgives us, for every one of our sins of pride, because of the humility of his Son. This is what fills our hearts and our lives and our ministries with hope.
This is also what motivates each one of us here to be humble and hopeful in everything we do, whether we are being pastors, or fathers or husbands or neighbors, or citizens. We gladly obey verse 7, which tells us "submit yourselves to God." Gladly, we place ourselves beneath God's grace, and his loving commands for my life - the opposite of pride is to submit. And so this we do. There in God's grace we find the strength to "resist the Devil, and he will flee from you." When the Devil whispers in my ear, "you're better than this place, you're better than this situation, you're better than these people who don't know anything compared to you…" Resist the Devil! As we center our lives on God's grace, he gives us the strength we need to push those prideful thoughts out of our minds. And this is what gives me hope for the future.
In just a little while, an awesome thing will happen. We will be standing together at the Lord's Table. We will be doing exactly what God tells us to do in verse 8: "Come near to God, and he will come near to you." Come near, to the body and blood of Christ, in this sacrament. And as you come near, God comes near to you. He forgives you. He tells you that his body and blood were given and shed for you. He fills you with pure grace, and lifts you up, and fills you with hope.
Every day we can come near to God, through daily contrition and repentance. Every day, we can wash our sinful hands and purify our double-minded hearts, as we confess our sins to Christ, and cling to the promises we received in our baptisms, pure grace that fills me with hope as I fulfill my role as a father or a husband or a citizen or a pastor or anything else.
Humble yourself before the Lord, and he in his grace will lift you up. May God bless each one of us with an attitude of humility and hope as we seek to glorify our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, here at this conference, and in every part of our lives. Amen.
