The Problem Of Pride Series

SERIES: “OVERCOMING OBSTACLES THAT OBSTRUCT OBEDIENCE”

TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 4:6-21

TITLE: “THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE”

INTRODUCTION: A. A young lawyer has just opened his new practice. On his very first day, he sits at

his desk waiting and hoping for a client to walk in. It doesn’t take very long. He can

see out into the reception area as the very first person to enter his office comes in

through the door.

The lawyer decides that he should look busy so he grabs the phone and starts

talking: “Un, hunh. Un, hunh. Look, about this merger deal. I think I’d better

come down there and handle it myself. Yes. No. I don’t think three million is gonna

cut it. We better have Rogers from NY meet us there. OK. Call you back later.”

He hangs up the phone, looks up at the prospective client and says, “Good

morning! How may I help you?” The visitor says, “Well, I thought I was here to help

you. I’m from the telephone company and I’m here to hook up your phone.”

B. The Bible has a lot to say concerning pride:

1. Prov. 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

2. Prov. 21:4 – Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are a sin.”

3. Phil. 2:3 – “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility,

consider others better than yourselves.”

4. James 4:6 – “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

C. Pride does several things:

1. It blurs our vision

--We can’t see what God wants us to see

2. It causes delusion in our minds

--We become confused about what to think and what to do

3. It causes us to stumble

--If we can’t see, if we can’t think, and we operate out of blurred vision and a

blurred mind, it only stand to reason that we’re going to get tripped up.

4. Someone: “Pride is the dandelion of the soul. Its root goes deep; only a little left

behind sprouts again. Its seeds lodge in the tiniest cracks.”

D. 1 Cor. 4:6-21 – “Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for

your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, ‘Do not go

beyond what is written.’ Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not

receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? Already

you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and

that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be

kings with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end

of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a

spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.

We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are

strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and

thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with

our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;

when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the

scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. I am not writing this to shame you, but to

warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in

Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through

the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you

Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my

way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every

church. Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I

will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only

how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom

of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you

with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?”

D. Paul doesn’t cover every aspect of pride in this passage

1. He does point out that pride is one of the major contributing factors to the problems