The Sneakiness Of Pride Series

THE SNEAKINESS OF PRIDE

INTRODUCTION:

• Welcome back to the House of God and welcome to those of who you are tuning in online.

• Today we’re in the third part of the series I called it SOP.

• I talked about the Source of Perseverance three weeks ago.

• And last week, I talked about the Sacrifice of Praise and I hope today we all came to offer our sacrifice of praise.

• Before I go on, let’s uphold this time to the Lord,

• pray for that the Spirit of God will grant us understanding and Grace to live for His Glory.

• And today, we are going to look at one of the serious sins and most of us are struggling.

• This is what keeps you from apologizing, sharing your weakness, admitting you’re wrong, losing your argument.

• It causes you to compare with your friends, compete with your colleague, and have conflict with your spouse.

• This is the sin that made the devil, devil.

• This is what the Lord hates.

• Anyone of you can guess it? It’s Pride.

Proverbs 16:18 (TPT)

Your boast becomes a prophecy of a future failure.

The higher you lift up yourself in pride, the harder you’ll fall in disgrace.

• I entitled my sermon “the Sneakiness of Pride”

• This pride basically makes us think we are better than everybody else,

• and sometimes can be expressed by boasting.

• Being rich is not the problem, pretty is not the problem, successful is not the problem, clever is not the problem.

• But pride might sneak into our heart when we add the “ER” behind the word.

• When we know we are richer, prettier, cleverer, better, successful-er? I came out with this word.

• When we use our appearance, authority, intellect, or skill to degrade, humiliate, dominate, or to demean others.

• Especially even to the extend of exalting ourselves and take all the credit/glory in our achievement.

• Basically just thinking yourself more

• The boxer Mohammed Ali who used to say: “I am the greatest.”

• There’s a story reported about a conversation that took place between a flight attendant and Mohammed Ali, then at the start of his career.

• Ali was on a plane, and as he didn’t have his seat belt fastened, the stewardess came up to him and told him to buckle up.

• “Superman don’t need no seat belt,” he told her.

• She replied, “Superman don’t need no plane.”

Pride can be boastful.

• But at the same time, pride can be subtle and sneaky.

• It can creep into our hearts to cause us to say certain things or act a certain way.

• You don’t need to be an outspoken person in order to have pride.

• You can be introverted and inferior yet having a pride issue.

• Pride can express in various way but it starts inside of us.

Taekwondo – plumb, friends laugh, don’t wanna lose face, want to impress, kick as high as I can, kicked my coach’s arm.

Swimming?

• What is so wrong about pride?

• Not only God hates it, as I mentioned earlier, that’s what makes the devil, the devil.

The Pride of Lucifer

Isaiah 14:13-14

You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

The Fall of Man

Genesis 3:5-6 (NIV)

5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

The Temptations of Jesus.

Matthew 4:8-9 (NKJV)

8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."

So today I want to tell you a story and may we learn from the Life of King Uzziah.

I going to share about the FAME, the FAULT, and the FALL.

1. THE FAME (2 Chro 26:1-15)

• The basic facts about Uzziah’s background are given first (vv.1-5).

• Although he was only 16 years old, Uzziah was crowned king by the people

• Because his father, the previous king was assassinated. King Amaziah.