Prides Devastating Effects
Back in college when I was really looking for what God wanted me to do with my life, I began a youth ministry. I took a position at a church in Missouri and began working with the youth of that church. One kid in particular sticks in my mind really well. He was the kid that thought he was better than everyone at everything. He continually threw in my face that he was better than me at basketball and everything else under the sun. It grew really annoying. Well, I guess it was the basketball thing that really got to me. I really wanted the chance to play him once because he kept telling me how much better he was than me. So I just wanted the chance to test his theory. Well, that day finally came at a church picnic. We were at the basketball court and I had my chance to play him. Now the point of the story is not whether or not I won the basketball game or not. The point is that in life people carry with them the baggage of pride.
We find ourselves in the airport again noticing all the people’s nicer things around us. We realize that we probably won’t ever have those nice things so rather than being focusing on that, we move on and now we are looking for someone who we think is below us. You know who I’m talking about. They are at the airport and they don’t look very nice. They aren’t the most attractive person in the world. When you see them you begin to feel really good about yourself. You think, “Man, I’m glad I’m not that guy.” And we look all around the airport and we see them, people who appear to be in a lower class than us with less money and we begin to get a big head. We look at them and we know deep down that we are just better than they are. We walk by them a few times. And we just hope that they will get a look at us because we want them to see how much better we are than they are. This is simply called the baggage of pride.
Everyone in life, mostly men, has carried with them the baggage of pride. Many people still carry it with them everywhere they go. Looking back over history you can see so many people who have dealt with pride. Alexander the Great, Nebuchadnezzar, the tower at Babel, Napoleon and even Hitler. Pride comes in many different forms and in many different ways. But the most popular way that you will find pride is simply in feeling like we are better than someone around us. Pride in the dictionary is described as “as unduly high opinion of oneself.” That means, we think that we are a lot better than we really are. We like to tell people about how good we are at everything. We have all met someone like this. It’s the guy in the office who gets really annoying because he is telling about one of his famous adventures again. It’s the person who continually rubs in the fact and makes sure that everyone around them knows that they have money or lots of things. They find their pleasure in trying to raise themselves up above everyone else. Anyone with less than them must be below them. They aren’t on the same playing field as everyone else. They walk on a different level of earth than the “common folk.”
Pride shows up in other ways too though. Sometimes it shows up when you are in a tough situation that you know you can’t handle. Someone offers to help you out in any way they can. They say something like, “Give me a call if you need anything.” You can think of 50 things you need right off the top of your head, but you think you can handle it yourself. This kind of pride is called self-reliance. Rather than finding friends and asking for their help, you try to deal with a difficult situation that you can’t handle by yourself. This is a form of pride that often goes overlooked. We mask it by saying, “I just don’t want to bother them.” But it’s just pride and trying to do it ourselves.
When it comes right down to it God doesn’t want us to live our lives that way. Pride will drag us down and actually make our lives more difficult. In fact, pride has devastating effects. Allow me to share some of those with you today.
I want to take you to a scene back in about 483 BC in Persia. There is a man who has just been promoted by the King to a very high position in the land. As he passes by the commoners, everyone bows. They all pay homage to this man because the King had commanded them to do so. As he walks he begins to get a big head about how wonderful and powerful he is. Then something, someone, catches his eye. He is told about a man who won’t bow to him as he passes by. And sure enough, as he goes by he notices the man who stands by the King’s Gate, but when he walks by, the man doesn’t bow. The man is filled with rage and he begins seeking a way to destroy this man who won’t bow. This is the story of a man named Haman in the book of Esther. We read this portion of his story in the book of Esther 3:2-6 (read).
Here is Haman, a man appointed by the King to a high position in all of Persia and he realizes that there is 1 man in the entire nation that won’t bow to him. And he is so angered by this that he seeks for a way to destroy all of the Jews. You see the Holocaust with Hitler was not the first time someone had tried to extinguish the Jews. In fact, it has happened many times in history. Haman was one of the first. And he begins to hatch this plan, a way to destroy all the Jews that are living in Persia. What was it that drove him to make this decision? It was his pride and his pride had been stung by Esther’s uncle, Mordecai. What is his plan? He tells the King that there are people living among them that worship a different God and that don’t bow to him or to the King’s commands. He allows his pride to get in the way so much that now he is attempting to manipulate the King of Persia. Well, it works and a decree is sent out that the Jews are going to be destroyed. In one day, all men, women, children, young and old will be annihilated. Before that day arrives Esther hears from Mordecai about the plot to destroy the Jews. The only way to save the people of Israel is to go to the King and tell him that he is actually about to destroy his wife as well. Mordecai tells Esther that this is something she needs to do, but Esther is nervous because you can’t just go to the King, you have to be summoned first. If the King doesn’t want to see you and you show up, you can be killed for that. Notice Esther 4:14 what Mordecai says to Esther (read). So Esther plans to intercede. She fasts and asks the entire nation of Israel to do the same, for 3 days. Then at the end of 3 days she gets all dressed up and goes to the King. With God’s intervention the King is happy to see her and allows her to stay. She invites the King and Haman to a banquet. At this point, Haman’s head gets even bigger. Listen to what the Bible says in 5:11-14 (read). His pride was so hurt that he couldn’t even enjoy a banquet that only he, the King and the Queen were invited to. Then he makes an even more elaborate plan, with the help of his supportive wife, to hang Mordecai off the gallows that he has built for him specifically. As the story goes, Esther puts on 2 banquets for the King and Haman. At the second banquet we find these words Esther 7:1-6 (read). Oh boy! The plan backfires. Now Haman is begging for his life. The King walks out mad to think about it for a little while, comes back in and Haman is lying on the couch with Esther begging for his life. Then the King accuses him of assaulting his wife in the palace and there’s just no good news from there. As the story goes, Haman is hung on the same gallows that he had built for Mordecai. The man who was so prideful that he tried to destroy an entire nation over one man, ended up being killed because of his pride. Many people think the gallows killed Haman, or the King killed Haman, but that’s not right. Haman’s pride killed Haman. You see, pride has devastating effects when it takes root in your life.
Pride shows up in the Christian’s life too. Many times it is just a Christian person looking out on the world and rather than having pity for a dying, lost world, they feel pride for how good they have it. We are sometimes just like the Pharisee who said, “Lord, I thank You that I’m not like this tax-collector.” And we look down on everyone around us and we put ourselves so high up on a pedestal that we cannot be touched, but so high also that we can’t reach down to save someone who is lost. Although we feel so high, our pride is actually dragging us down. It is actually keeping us from reaching our full potential in God. Friends, God does not want us to go through life that way. God wants us to live lives of humility and gratitude for what we have, but also with the ability to associate with the lowly and the less fortunate. We are no better than anyone else. There is not one person in this room who is better than another. We are equals in God’s eyes. And if we want to live fulfilled lives without this baggage constantly hanging around our necks, we will let our pride go, realizing it’s not about us, it’s about God.
The other type of pride that seems to show up in our lives frequently is the pride of self-reliance. This is the type of pride that shows up when you are dealing with a difficult situation and you try to handle it all on your own. This is when you tell yourself that you are strong enough to do it alone. You don’t need anyone, you can handle it. You’re dealing with a death in the family, “I’m not going to talk to anyone. They don’t care to hear from me anyway. Besides, I can handle this.” Your marriage is falling apart, “We can do this. We can make it work on our own. We don’t need any help.” Your family is in chaos, “My teenager is driving me nuts. I don’t know what to do, but I’m going to try it alone.” Your financial situation is about to drive you to bankruptcy, “How are we going to pay these bills this month? Where will the money come from? We need to cut back on things, but what do we cut out? I have to feed my kids. I need help.” The support is there for you, you just think you can do it alone.
This kind of pride was in Peter’s life in the book of Matthew 26:31-35 (read). Jesus is saying, “Peter, you’re not all that great. You still need some help sometimes too.” And Peter is saying, “I don’t care what these other guys do, I’m not going to fall away.” When the going got tough for Peter, rather than asking God for help to stay strong, he crumbled under the pressure. Why? Because the baggage of pride got to him and he allowed it to drag him down.
Within this church family are 12 small groups. Within those small groups is the support that you need when you are dealing with a tough situation. The Bible talks about small groups and meeting in each other’s homes. If you feel that you don’t have any support around you, I would encourage you to get into a small group. If you are in a small group and you aren’t going to those people for help and prayer in your time of need, then you are dealing with the baggage of pride in your life. The Bible says in Romans 12:15 to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We are to be there for each other. And in the very next breath, v. 16, the writer says, “Don’t be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.” This literally means stop relying on your own wisdom. When you are relying on your own wisdom then you aren’t relying on others to help you out. This verse is summing up a whole passage on the relationship between Christians. Friends, we have to understand that we are to be here for each other. If you are struggling through a situation right now I would encourage you to find someone you can trust, either in your small group or someone else, and talk to them. Allow them to help you share the burden.
And why don’t we do that more? The reason why we don’t do this is sometimes because we feel like someone will look down on us for having that problem or being in that situation. And because of that attitude, we struggle to deal with things on our own. We nearly drown trying to get ourselves out of a situation that is too big for us, all because we’re too prideful to let someone help us. James 5:16 talks about this as well, (read). When you are able to confess to someone else that is where freedom comes. That is when you are able to check your baggage of pride. You see, everyone else is a sinner too. Everyone else gets in over their heads too. Not one of us here is better than another person. Not one of us here is perfect or even has all the answers, but if you can just lay down your pride long enough to ask someone for help, that is where your freedom and healing will come into your life.
On the outside it appeared to be a perfect family; a husband, a wife, 2 children; a son and a daughter. They had a nice home everything appeared to be fine. Until one day that all changed. The husband and wife separated because of a gambling problem that the husband was having. He hadn’t paid the bills in months and so the two separated. The children happened to be with their father on a weekend visit when he just snapped. He was supposed to bring them back to the mother late one night and he showed up at her apartment, but he was alone. The mother said, “Where are the kids?” He just came in shut the door behind him, pulled out a knife and began repeatedly stabbing his wife. The hospital, later that evening, quit counting stab wounds after 59. She was had lost an enormous amount of blood and was in extreme pain. The father during the stabbings kept saying, “You need to be with your children. They need you.” When the man thought she was dead, he wandered off throughout the house. The mother got up the strength to call 911. The ambulance came but before they got there, the father had come back to stab her a few more times to be sure she was dead, then he left. The woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital where they did what they could to stitch her up. When her mother arrived she asked the doctors, “Where are the kids?” They said, “What kids?” So the grandmother called the mom’s best friend to see if she had them. The best friend didn’t have the children. She then called the cops to have them go to his house to look for the children. When they got there they couldn’t believe their eyes. Both children were dead. The girl was 9 and the boy was 8. The girl was suffocated to death with a pillow and the father had strangled his 8 year old boy with his bare hands. The mother lived to tell about it and to live another day. Do you want to know why the father did this? He had become addicted to gambling. He had lost all their money, they separated because of it and he wasn’t paying their bills. She wanted him to get help and he wouldn’t do it. When they separated he snapped and this is what he did. Pride has devastating effects.
Back at the airport we are told once again that we can’t take our pride onto this flight. We have to check it. Jesus Christ stands here one more time, waiting for you to choose to check your bags. He says, “Cast all your cares, your anxiety, on Me, because I care for you.” Cast everything on Him. Those things that hold you down, the things that hold you back, let Him have them. Hebrews 12:1 warns us to, “Lay aside every encumbrance,” and pride is one of those. It gets in our way, it holds us back, and we can never experience God’s fullness in our lives as long as we are holding onto our pride. Friends, pride will devastate your life, won’t you check your bags? Before you leave today, I would encourage you to leave your pride. Don’t take it with you. Choose today to check that bag, to leave that sin which gets in your way. Just leave it here. Jesus waits for your decision.
