Series: There’s an App for That
“Pride”
Matthew 6:1-4
Open
We’re in this series called There’s an App for That. “App” is short for application. It’s a downloadable program for your smartphone or tablet that aids you in some area of your life. The Bible contains applications for issues that we face in the 21st century. Today we’re going to look at a Bible app for pride.
A preacher read his letter of resignation one Sunday morning. He explained that he was leaving to accept a call to another congregation several states away.
He stood at the door after the service, like a lot of preachers do, when one of the elderly saints took his hand. There were tears swimming in her eyes. She said, “Oh, preacher, I’m so sorry you’ve decided to leave. Things will never be the same again.”
The preacher was very flattered but he responded with what he thought was a big helping of humility and grace. He said, “Bless you, dear lady. But I’m sure that God will send you a new preacher even better than I am.”
She chocked back a sob and said, “That’s what they all say. But they just keep getting worse and worse!”
How often are you tempted to think you’re more important than you really are? We like to be the center of attention. We like to promote ourselves. We like to receive praise from other people. We like the applause of others. It causes us to be more concerned about self than Hod and others.
David Rhodes said: “Pride is the dandelion of the soul. Its roots go deep, only a little left behind sprouts again. Its seeds lodge in the tiniest encouraging cracks. And it flourishes in good soil. The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness.”
Matt. 6:1-4 – “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
The Disease of Pride
There are two kinds of pride. The first kind draws us closer to God. It is a healthy kind of pride. It’s the pride you take in doing a job well. It’s the pride that drives you to give your best. 2 Cor. 7:4 – I have spoken to you with great frankness; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds. Paul is proud to see his work in Corinth producing good seed.
It’s the kind of pride that you take in your children or grandchildren. Prov. 17:6 – Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.
In this verse, “crown” and “pride” are descriptive ways of saying the same thing—that it is right and proper for grandparents to feel a sense of “pride” in their grandchildren, and vice versa.
The word we translate into English as “pride” literally means “glory” in the Hebrew, and is translated that way in the KJV. Just as the moon reflects the light (the glory) of the sun, children are a reflection (the glory) of their parents.
The second kind of pride drives us further from God. It’s a spiritual disease that God despises. Prov. 16:5 – The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.
Pride is the one thing that keeps you from celebrating other people’s successes. It’s the one thing that keeps you from initiating an apology when you know you’re wrong. It’s the one thing that keeps you from initiating an apology when you’re only 5% wrong and the other person is 95% wrong. It’s the one thing that keeps you arguing your point even after you realize that you don’t even have a very good point but you keep on arguing.
Pride keeps you from admitting that you’ve lost. It keeps you from admitting weakness. It keeps you from admitting you need help. It keeps you from admitting that you don’t know what you’re doing even though everyone else knows that you don’t know what you’re doing. It keeps you from being honest with yourself. It keeps you from being honest with others. It keeps you from learning new things because you want the people around you to think you know everything.
Pride is what causes you to feel good when others fail. It’s what causes you to power up when you should be opening up. It’s what causes you to cheat before you lose. It’s what causes you to lie about your past. It’s what causes you to have to have the final word. It causes you to buy things to impress people who aren’t even paying any attention to you. And it causes you to have to be the center of attention.
Jesus addresses one strain of the pride disease in the Sermon on the Mount. He talked about the kind of people who like to be the center of attention. Just like today, there were people in that day who liked to hear the applause and acclaim of others. They were people who liked to toot their own horns.
In Matthew 6, Jesus addresses three main issues: giving, prayer, and fasting. He doesn’t say if you give, if you pray, or if you fast. Instead, he says when you give, when you pray, and when you fast. Jesus expects us to do good things.
If I’m a follower of Jesus, I should be looking to do good things that help other people in their struggle, that help me in growing closer to God and that cause people to give God the glory. In an earlier part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says in Matt. 5:16 – In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
So what is Jesus talking about in our main passage today? He’s addressing doing good things for the wrong reasons. It’s me doing good so that other people will think I’m wonderful instead of thinking that God is wonderful. When I do that, I’m just blowing my own horn.
Jesus says that self-promotion is hypocritical. Our word hypocrite comes from the Greek word for an actor. In the first century, actors traveled from town to town in small troupes. They would present their play with individual actors playing multiple roles. The actors wore masks to denote what role they were playing at the time.
Jesus says that blowing your own horn is acting like something you’re not. When you’re full of unhealthy pride, you put on masks to make other people see something that is not genuine – be it generosity, religiosity, or virtuosity. The problem with pride is that you can see it clearly in other people but fail to see it in yourself.
The Discouragement of Pride
There are two reasons why Jesus warns us about pride. The first reason is because it’s self-serving.
In Jesus’ example, these people were supposed to be giving to the needy but they weren’t really concerned with the needy. They were only concerned about promoting themselves.
Sadly, if the recognition weren’t there, they probably wouldn’t have given anything at all. Someone said, “I wonder to what extent our charities would be supported if they did not publish an annual list of donors.”
And it’s true in the church and in church-related organizations. A lot of people will give more to a project just for the plaque that recognizes their contribution. One translation of Gal. 5:26 says: Let us not be ambitious for our own reputations for that only means making others jealous.
The second reason Jesus warns us about pride is because it’s self-destructive. Pride doesn’t make you bigger and stronger. It makes you smaller and weaker. Pride diminishes you.
It diminishes your capacity to admit what you need to admit. It diminishes your capacity to
acknowledge what you need to acknowledge. It diminishes your ability to apologize when you need to apologize. It keeps you from saying what needs to be said. It keeps you from hearing
what needs to be heard. It keeps you from giving what needs to be given.
Pride crowds other people out. When you are full of you, there is no room for anybody else.
Pride even has the potential to crowd God out as well. Ps. 10:4 – In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. Pride is a prison. It shuts me in and shuts God and others out.
C.S Lewis in his book Mere Christianity says this about pride: “Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
The Defeat of Pride
Former heavyweight boxer James “Quick” Tillis was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Leaving the Sooner State behind, he moved to Chicago. He fought out of the Windy City in the middle 1980s. This is how he described his arrival: “I got off the bus with two cardboard suitcases under my arms in downtown Chicago and stopped in front of the Sears Tower. I put my suitcases down and I looked up the tower and I said to myself, ‘I’m going to conquer Chicago!’ When I looked down, my suitcases were gone.”
If you exalt yourself, you will be humbled. James 4:6b – God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.
So how do we cure unhealthy pride? How do we avoid self-promotion? How do we keep from tooting our own horn?
First, Jesus says that we should resist the temptation to impress. He tells us that prideful people do a lot of what they do “to be honored by men.” They want to impress people. They like to show off. They want people to take notice of them and have a high opinion of them.
There’s a story about a newly-elected congressman. He went into his assigned office on Capitol Hill. The only thing in the office was a desk, a desk chair, and a telephone sitting on the desk. He sat down behind the desk and was taking it all in when he heard someone in the reception area. As the footsteps came closer to his office door, the congressman thought, “I’d better look busy.”
He picked up the hand piece on the phone and said, “Yes, Mr. President. I’m glad you were able to use my plan. Thank you. I knew it would work. No sir, you don’t have to give me the credit publicly. Just knowing my plan helped to save thousands of lives is enough.” Then he hung up.
Thinking the man now standing in front of him was a reporter, he said, “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” The man replied, “Well, I thought I was here to help you. I came to activate your phone.”
We want people to think we’re important. That’s why we go to great lengths to boast. The causes go much deeper. One reason that we brag and blow our own horns is because we are insecure. We need attention from others to boost our self-esteem.
Why I shouldn’t base my self-image on other people’s opinions? Let’s look at two considerations. The first consideration is that people are often fickle. They will give their approval one day and then criticize you on the next. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the first day of the last week of his earthly life, people shouted, “Hail, Jesus!” By the end of the week, they were shouting, “Nail Jesus!” People are inconsistent in their opinions and it’s difficult to please them. Some days, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to please them.
The second consideration as to why we shouldn’t base our self-image on other people’s opinions is that people are often wrong. One newspaper ripped Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg. They said that his remarks were inappropriate and not worth mentioning. Edward Everett, a well-known orator of that time, gave a two-hour speech before Lincoln’s address of less than 300 words. Which one of those speeches stayed in the memories of the American people?
Thomas Edison’s grade school teacher said that he was stupid and would never learn much of anything. He became a prolific inventor holding over a thousand patents in the United States and many more in Europe. People are often wrong and it is unwise to try to impress them because their view is frequently distorted and their opinions are regularly wrong.
Jesus gives a second thing to do to avoid being prideful: Simply let your good deeds speak for themselves. Don’t go out of your way to draw attention to yourself. Don’t draw attention to what you’ve done. Put your horn back in its case. If they are truly good deeds, they will be rewarded by God. True greatness needs no trumpet. It speaks for itself.
Gregory Peck was one of the most famous stars of Hollywood in his day. He won an Oscar for best male actor and was nominated four more times in the same category. Early in his film career, he went to one of the exclusive restaurants in Hollywood. He wanted to go into the reserved seating area but the maître d told him they were full.
He had a friend with him who asked, “Why don’t you tell them who you are?” Peck answered, “If I have to tell them who I am, then I ain’t.” If you have to announce your greatness to people, you must not be so great.
The third thing Jesus says to do to avoid being prideful is to resolve to do good whether you are recognized for doing it or not. If you make this decision and stick to it, it will keep you from being puffed up.
Early in our marriage, our family had a very tough time financially. We just weren’t bringing in enough money to pay the bills. We didn’t live extravagantly. In fact, we lived very frugally. There was one bill that we owed and couldn’t pay. We worried about it and prayed about it.
It wasn’t very long before we received a receipt in the mail that said the bill had been paid in full. We had no idea who did it. We didn’t even know that anyone else knew that we owed the bill. But someone surreptitiously paid the bill. It’s been over 20 years and we still don’t know who paid that bill. No one has ‘fessed up.
And that’s probably what they wanted. No thanks. No recognition. No bragging or boasting; just anonymously helping someone out. But God knows and I’m sure they have been rewarded for their act of grace.
If you have trouble in this area, try administering acts of grace like that. Send someone a card of encouragement in the mail with no signature on the inside or return address on the outside. Help a complete stranger who can’t thank you and will never know who you are.
Don’t seek honor from human beings. Just seek honor from your heavenly Father. Your reward is helping others; not receiving recognition for it. Giving in secret is a great way to train yourself not to toot your own horn because there is no one to listen. There’s no one to brag to.
Finally, Jesus advises you to change your aim in life. If your aim is to get noticed by other people, Jesus says that is all the reward you will get. If you give to demonstrate your own generosity, you will receive some admiration from other people but that is all you will ever receive. That’s your payment in full. But if your aim is to simply do things with the right motive then you will receive heavenly reward.
Your decision comes down to choosing between two completely opposite aims: Will I please myself by pleasing people or will I do what pleases God?
Col. 3:1-2 – Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. Andrew Murray: “The truth is this – pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you.”
Close
The opposite of pride is humility. Jesus taught and modeled a radically liberating version of humility. It’s this version of humility that will unwrap you from the confines of pride. It can unlock the door of your pride.
This radical version of humility defines greatness by how well you serve other people and not how well you are served. It defines greatness by how passionate you are about doing for others not by getting others to do things for you. The definition of greatness is turned upside down.
Reflecting on this standard of humility years later, Paul would write this in Phil. 2:5-11 – In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Your choice today is between the disease of pride or the cure of Christ’s humility. Will you choose the one the kills or the one that gives life?
