I cannot think of a better way to begin today’s teaching except to read a passage from Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. This book is a transcription of a radio series Lewis taught in England during World War II. The chapter is appropriately called, “The Great Sin,” and it is all about pride. Here is how he begins the chapter:
"Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone who was not a Christian who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
"The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit; and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the center of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the center. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites 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.
"I would agree with every word C.S. Lewis wrote. Every totalitarian regime, responsible for the deaths of countless millions of people, at its core has been fueled by pride. Pride was at the center of the Nazi regime; Hitler believed he was part of a superior race, and because of that superiority, nature gave him the right to do with “inferiors” as he chose. Despite what some people think, pride is at the center of Communism and Socialism, because it is only pride that allows someone to say that they know better than anyone else, what is “fair” – that nobody should be allowed to have more than others (except for themselves, of course). Pride is what makes people argue against freedom. You shouldn’t have the right to do that (whatever that is) because we know better than you."
I found it difficult this week to come up with meaningful statistics related to pride, but I found one that I think is telling: the percentage of the world’s population with free press: 17%. Freedom of the press is like a canary in a coal mine – it is one of the first things to fall when the “air” of freedom turns bad. This means that about 5/6 of the entire world lives in areas where freedom of the press is under some degree of attack. And actually, I think this number is even worse than indicated; for example, here in America, some members of congress have been rumbling about reinstating the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” a rule that is anything but that and would force conservative talk radio off of the airwaves. What fuels suppression of the press? Pride. Pride says, “We’re right and you’re wrong; not only that, we are so sure we are right and you are wrong that we won’t even let you speak.”
More than anything else, pride is what keeps people away from salvation in Christ. To become a Christian, you must agree with the statement that you are a sinner. Not only that, you must agree with the statement that your sin was bad enough to justify God sending you to a place in which you experience eternal regret and eternal separation from God, that is, to hell. And not only that, you must agree that there is nothing in you good enough or clever enough or capable enough or powerful enough to make the slightest improvement in your situation before God, and there never will be something in you or of you able to do that – ever. To become a Christian, you need to understand this and wholeheartedly believe this so that you throw yourself on the “mercy seat” of God, that you accept the fact that your sin was so serious that nothing short of the substitutionary death of Christ, God’s only Son, on a cross could redeem you from your situation. You have to believe that there is no “both and” when it comes to your salvation. There is no “my part” and “His part.” All we do, and all we can do, is believe, and by believing, we accept that most costly and precious gift in the history of the Universe.
The Bible is filled with examples of pride and warnings to those who persist in it. An NIV search on words related to pride gives the following. Pride/proud: 110 verses. Boast/boasting: 86 verses. Arrogant/arrogance: 58 verses. Humble/humility: 86 verses. You could probably think of more keywords than I have, but with just these, we are already up to about 350 verses! Today I am going to look at a small number of verses mostly different from these, because pride is so important that these numbers actually severely understate the presence of the topic in Scripture. We will start at the beginning, back in Genesis Chapter 2.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." – Gen. 2:15-17
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" – Gen. 3:2-3
Did God actually say that part about touching it? No. Why would Eve add that in? Perhaps she sincerely believed that is what He said; perhaps that is what the man told her. But one of them – Adam or Eve – made an “enhancement” of the story. Why do people enhance things? I believe one strong motivation is pride. We like to sound important, and we like to command attention, and we hate to appear weak. That is pride. I bet the serpent just smiled when he heard Eve do that. “This is going to be easy,” he probably thought.
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 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. – Gen. 3:4-6
The serpent is clearly using an argument that gets its power from pride. Come on, don’t you want to be like God? You can, you know. You don’t have to obey God; why don’t you do what you want to do? And the serpent is simply using the same argument that he must have used on himself when he decided to disobey God.
Recall that the punishment for this disobedience was the pain of childbirth, the toil of work, and the introduction of death into the world. Talk about a deadly sin! All death in the history of the world has its roots tied to pride!
Here is another quote from that same chapter of Mere Christianity:
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God.
I think this perfectly describes Adam and Eve. How could they even think of disobeying their all-powerful, all-God, all-giving Creator? They didn’t know Him at all, if they could buy into the lie that God was withholding something good from them. If they had known God, they would have known that everything God did He did because He created them and loved them and wanted what was for their best.
Are we any different? When we willfully sin are we any different? What are we thinking? Do we know God at all? Pride is amazingly powerful. It is like a hypnotist that makes us do foolish things. Pride is like the snake charmer, and we become like the snake.
Here is another incident from Genesis to consider:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." – Gen. 11:1-4
“Make a name for ourselves”? That’s not a good sign. That’s pride. Pride says, “Hey, look at me!” And then it moves on to, “Hey, look at me and be amazed. Look at me and tremble.” By building a tower that attempted to reach heaven, it was as if they were saying to God, “Hey, look and us and tremble.”
Did God tremble? Not exactly. The next verse says that the Lord “came down” to look at the city they were building. The Hebrew words for this imply that the Lord had to come way, way down to find this little dot of city. It implies that the Lord had to look for this little flea-sized tower they were building. I believe the author of Genesis, inspired by the Holy Spirit, used these words with humor, on purpose, to show just how ridiculous these people were being because of pride.
Pride makes us want to impress other people. And even worse, pride gets us to try to impress God. We can’t! When we try to impress God like this we are like a man at a party that is so drunk he is making an absolute fool of himself and is ruining the party for everyone else.
You don’t think you do this? Well, what about when you achieve some measure of victory in overcoming a sin you have battled for a long time? How do you feel? How do you think? Do you feel – dare I say it – proud of yourself? “Hey, look at me, God! I’m not sinning!”
We build our own Towers of Babel when we do this, when we overcome some measure of sin in our own strength. Pride is actually a powerful motivator. Pride, in fact, can enable you to overcome certain sins – for a while. If you’ve ever said, “I’m above this,” you are guilty.
I believe God “comes down” to our Towers and does exactly what He did at the original Tower – He creates chaos and causes the Tower to stop being built. Why does He do this? I believe it is because He loves us too much to let us go on destroying ourselves with pride. I believe this is what is meant in the next verse in Genesis 11 when God says that if they have already done this (built the tower as far as they have), there will be no limit to what they do – no limit to how far they will destroy their souls.
Along these lines, we should ask why exactly God is so opposed to pride. Again, I cannot better the answer in Mere Christianity:
We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity – as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble – delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.
So how do we overcome pride? As C.S. Lewis says, the first step is to admit that you are proud. But then what? Let’s look at a New Testament passage in I Peter. There are countless passages I could use, but I am going to focus on this one.
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. – I Peter 5:5-7
We tend to think of these verses and the succeeding ones in isolation, but I want you to consider these all from the viewpoint of pride and humility. First of all, it says to clothe yourselves with humility. We are also told this in Colossians 3:12:
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
How does one clothe oneself with humility?
The Greek word for “clothe” in I Peter 5 means to knot, or tie, or fasten to yourself the white scarf or apron of slavery. This garment was fastened to the belt of the vest and made it easy to tell apart the slaves from the free people at the time of Christ. So we are to put on the servant garment of humility toward each other. So as an action step, I would suggest to you that if you are seeking the “state of humility” – if you are trying to get a “humble mindset” – you are going at this wrong. Instead, take out the trash. Wash the dishes. Even change that diaper, or clean that toilet. Guys, watch that “chick flick” with your wife. Ladies, go hunting with your husband.
Again, one of the things that is so insidious about pride is that right when you start doing things like this, a voice in you starts saying, “Hey, look at me! Look at me, spouse! I’m serving you! Aren’t I great?” Or, “Hey, look at me, God! Aren’t I humble?” Hey, I didn’t say overcoming pride is easy!
What does it mean to “humble yourself under God’s almighty hand?” How do you humble yourself? I think you agree, personally, with the scripture that says “all your righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) Do you agree that any good things you have done have been done by the grace of God? Do you agree that apart from Christ you are weak, broken, and unfixable? Do you agree that apart from Christ you would only become worse, more and more degenerate? I think that gets at the gist of the “humble yourself” part. What about the “God’s almighty hand” part?
How do you view God? What is your personal emotional connection to Him? If you are going to wear the apron cloth of a slave, what kind of Master do you think you serve? I hope you don’t think He is harsh, or uncaring, or unsympathetic – scripture is perfectly clear that He cares – it says that in this passage! – and He is gentle; Matthew 11:28-29 says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light." And He is sympathetic; Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.”
This is so important! We serve the High King! He is good! He is beyond good! He is worthy – as the multitudes shout in Revelations – to receive every honor, and not just because He died for us, but because dying for us shows us who He is. He would do anything for us, and He has!
And as we wear the apron of a slave and serve our wonderful High King, understand that often what this service looks like is that He sends us on “away assignments” – quite literally, He sends us on mission. He sends us to show His love to others through us – to other believers (to one another) and to a lost and dying world. Part of humility is learning to listen to Him, to follow the quiet whispering prompts of service to others, being His hands and feet and His mouth, sharing the good news of salvation available to all who have faith in Him.
What about “casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you”? Does that have anything to do with overcoming pride? Absolutely! By the way, this is one of my very favorite verses.
He cares for me! Jesus loves me! He is going to take care of me for eternity! The more you get this, the more it is real, tangible in your life, the more the worries of this life just melt away. And the more the worries of this life melt away, the less you will even think about yourself and your daily situations.
Generally speaking, humble people don’t think about trying to be humble. They don’t think about trying to avoid being proud. And they certainly don’t become consumed by worry. Worry, by the way, forces your attention on yourself and on future events that may or may not happen. In contrast, a humble person’s focus is on the present. They are relaxed, at peace, content. They do their work as unto the Lord. They help others as opportunities arise. They see their relationship with God as a joyful wonder, and their thoughts are never far from Him. Their minds are controlled by the Holy Spirit, and their primary emotion is agape love – love towards their wonderful Savior and compassion towards those around them.
That word casting, by the way, means to throw off clothing. It is the exact opposite of the word that means to clothe yourself. We are to wear the garments of the slave, but not put on other strange garments. I picture someone choosing to wear the garments of a slave, but he also keeps wearing a nice suit underneath, just in case. Just in case what? What would you rather have, the false security offered by a fine suit, or the real security found in being a bondservant of Christ? Cast off the suit!
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. – I Peter 5:8-9
Now you may hear these verses and think they are a contradiction with the verses that came right before them. What does this have to do with clothing yourselves with humility? What does this have to do with avoiding anxiety? If the devil is like a lion out there looking to devour me, I think I’ll stay anxious, thank you very much!
No! That’s not the way to understand these verses! They don’t tell you to be anxious, and they don’t tell you to stand firm in your own strength. They tell you to be vigilant, alert, and they tell you to stand firm in the faith.
I have probably used far too many examples from the Lord of the Rings books and movies, but I love how they portray the idea of being self-controlled and alert in the context of humility. Gandalf refuses the One Ring because he knows that it would overcome him. There are others who know they are weak, and they are careful because they are weak.
So should we be! We too are weak, vulnerable to the strategies of Satan as well as the temptations of the world and of our own flesh. Because of this, a humble person is wise in their actions. They are careful to avoid situations that could lead to becoming lion food. They are careful to monitor their hearts, to see if they were continuing to rely on the daily help of the Lord. Back when I used to use a PDA for appointment keeping, I would always set an alarm for the first of the month at noon with the message “Heart Check.” Its purpose was to force me, no matter what I was doing at that time – even teaching a class on campus – to stop what I was doing and think about my relationship with the Lord. It was an effective reminder!
And because we are weak, we need these reminders. This is one of the reasons I believe the Lord instituted the breaking of bread times of remembering Him, because we are weak and we are forgetful and like sheep, we are prone to stray. Part of humility is knowing that you never outgrow the need for periodic “heart checks” and reminders of Whom we say we serve.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. – I Peter 5:10-11
One of the most effective weapons against pride is worship, genuine worship (not just going through the motions). It is impossible to be proud while truly, sincerely, thankfully, worshiping God.
We are eternal, and thanks to Jesus, we have an eternal future with Him. In contrast, our battle against pride, like our battles against the other six deadly sins, is temporary. And God is faithful – He will finish the work He has begun in us. We will be strong, firm, and steadfast, and yet, we will hardly even notice. We won’t even think of saying, “Hey, look at me,” because our eyes will be fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
"Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone who was not a Christian who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
"The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit; and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the center of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the center. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites 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.
"I would agree with every word C.S. Lewis wrote. Every totalitarian regime, responsible for the deaths of countless millions of people, at its core has been fueled by pride. Pride was at the center of the Nazi regime; Hitler believed he was part of a superior race, and because of that superiority, nature gave him the right to do with “inferiors” as he chose. Despite what some people think, pride is at the center of Communism and Socialism, because it is only pride that allows someone to say that they know better than anyone else, what is “fair” – that nobody should be allowed to have more than others (except for themselves, of course). Pride is what makes people argue against freedom. You shouldn’t have the right to do that (whatever that is) because we know better than you."
I found it difficult this week to come up with meaningful statistics related to pride, but I found one that I think is telling: the percentage of the world’s population with free press: 17%. Freedom of the press is like a canary in a coal mine – it is one of the first things to fall when the “air” of freedom turns bad. This means that about 5/6 of the entire world lives in areas where freedom of the press is under some degree of attack. And actually, I think this number is even worse than indicated; for example, here in America, some members of congress have been rumbling about reinstating the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” a rule that is anything but that and would force conservative talk radio off of the airwaves. What fuels suppression of the press? Pride. Pride says, “We’re right and you’re wrong; not only that, we are so sure we are right and you are wrong that we won’t even let you speak.”
More than anything else, pride is what keeps people away from salvation in Christ. To become a Christian, you must agree with the statement that you are a sinner. Not only that, you must agree with the statement that your sin was bad enough to justify God sending you to a place in which you experience eternal regret and eternal separation from God, that is, to hell. And not only that, you must agree that there is nothing in you good enough or clever enough or capable enough or powerful enough to make the slightest improvement in your situation before God, and there never will be something in you or of you able to do that – ever. To become a Christian, you need to understand this and wholeheartedly believe this so that you throw yourself on the “mercy seat” of God, that you accept the fact that your sin was so serious that nothing short of the substitutionary death of Christ, God’s only Son, on a cross could redeem you from your situation. You have to believe that there is no “both and” when it comes to your salvation. There is no “my part” and “His part.” All we do, and all we can do, is believe, and by believing, we accept that most costly and precious gift in the history of the Universe.
The Bible is filled with examples of pride and warnings to those who persist in it. An NIV search on words related to pride gives the following. Pride/proud: 110 verses. Boast/boasting: 86 verses. Arrogant/arrogance: 58 verses. Humble/humility: 86 verses. You could probably think of more keywords than I have, but with just these, we are already up to about 350 verses! Today I am going to look at a small number of verses mostly different from these, because pride is so important that these numbers actually severely understate the presence of the topic in Scripture. We will start at the beginning, back in Genesis Chapter 2.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." – Gen. 2:15-17
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" – Gen. 3:2-3
Did God actually say that part about touching it? No. Why would Eve add that in? Perhaps she sincerely believed that is what He said; perhaps that is what the man told her. But one of them – Adam or Eve – made an “enhancement” of the story. Why do people enhance things? I believe one strong motivation is pride. We like to sound important, and we like to command attention, and we hate to appear weak. That is pride. I bet the serpent just smiled when he heard Eve do that. “This is going to be easy,” he probably thought.
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 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. – Gen. 3:4-6
The serpent is clearly using an argument that gets its power from pride. Come on, don’t you want to be like God? You can, you know. You don’t have to obey God; why don’t you do what you want to do? And the serpent is simply using the same argument that he must have used on himself when he decided to disobey God.
Recall that the punishment for this disobedience was the pain of childbirth, the toil of work, and the introduction of death into the world. Talk about a deadly sin! All death in the history of the world has its roots tied to pride!
Here is another quote from that same chapter of Mere Christianity:
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God.
I think this perfectly describes Adam and Eve. How could they even think of disobeying their all-powerful, all-God, all-giving Creator? They didn’t know Him at all, if they could buy into the lie that God was withholding something good from them. If they had known God, they would have known that everything God did He did because He created them and loved them and wanted what was for their best.
Are we any different? When we willfully sin are we any different? What are we thinking? Do we know God at all? Pride is amazingly powerful. It is like a hypnotist that makes us do foolish things. Pride is like the snake charmer, and we become like the snake.
Here is another incident from Genesis to consider:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." – Gen. 11:1-4
“Make a name for ourselves”? That’s not a good sign. That’s pride. Pride says, “Hey, look at me!” And then it moves on to, “Hey, look at me and be amazed. Look at me and tremble.” By building a tower that attempted to reach heaven, it was as if they were saying to God, “Hey, look and us and tremble.”
Did God tremble? Not exactly. The next verse says that the Lord “came down” to look at the city they were building. The Hebrew words for this imply that the Lord had to come way, way down to find this little dot of city. It implies that the Lord had to look for this little flea-sized tower they were building. I believe the author of Genesis, inspired by the Holy Spirit, used these words with humor, on purpose, to show just how ridiculous these people were being because of pride.
Pride makes us want to impress other people. And even worse, pride gets us to try to impress God. We can’t! When we try to impress God like this we are like a man at a party that is so drunk he is making an absolute fool of himself and is ruining the party for everyone else.
You don’t think you do this? Well, what about when you achieve some measure of victory in overcoming a sin you have battled for a long time? How do you feel? How do you think? Do you feel – dare I say it – proud of yourself? “Hey, look at me, God! I’m not sinning!”
We build our own Towers of Babel when we do this, when we overcome some measure of sin in our own strength. Pride is actually a powerful motivator. Pride, in fact, can enable you to overcome certain sins – for a while. If you’ve ever said, “I’m above this,” you are guilty.
I believe God “comes down” to our Towers and does exactly what He did at the original Tower – He creates chaos and causes the Tower to stop being built. Why does He do this? I believe it is because He loves us too much to let us go on destroying ourselves with pride. I believe this is what is meant in the next verse in Genesis 11 when God says that if they have already done this (built the tower as far as they have), there will be no limit to what they do – no limit to how far they will destroy their souls.
Along these lines, we should ask why exactly God is so opposed to pride. Again, I cannot better the answer in Mere Christianity:
We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity – as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble – delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.
So how do we overcome pride? As C.S. Lewis says, the first step is to admit that you are proud. But then what? Let’s look at a New Testament passage in I Peter. There are countless passages I could use, but I am going to focus on this one.
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. – I Peter 5:5-7
We tend to think of these verses and the succeeding ones in isolation, but I want you to consider these all from the viewpoint of pride and humility. First of all, it says to clothe yourselves with humility. We are also told this in Colossians 3:12:
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
How does one clothe oneself with humility?
The Greek word for “clothe” in I Peter 5 means to knot, or tie, or fasten to yourself the white scarf or apron of slavery. This garment was fastened to the belt of the vest and made it easy to tell apart the slaves from the free people at the time of Christ. So we are to put on the servant garment of humility toward each other. So as an action step, I would suggest to you that if you are seeking the “state of humility” – if you are trying to get a “humble mindset” – you are going at this wrong. Instead, take out the trash. Wash the dishes. Even change that diaper, or clean that toilet. Guys, watch that “chick flick” with your wife. Ladies, go hunting with your husband.
Again, one of the things that is so insidious about pride is that right when you start doing things like this, a voice in you starts saying, “Hey, look at me! Look at me, spouse! I’m serving you! Aren’t I great?” Or, “Hey, look at me, God! Aren’t I humble?” Hey, I didn’t say overcoming pride is easy!
What does it mean to “humble yourself under God’s almighty hand?” How do you humble yourself? I think you agree, personally, with the scripture that says “all your righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) Do you agree that any good things you have done have been done by the grace of God? Do you agree that apart from Christ you are weak, broken, and unfixable? Do you agree that apart from Christ you would only become worse, more and more degenerate? I think that gets at the gist of the “humble yourself” part. What about the “God’s almighty hand” part?
How do you view God? What is your personal emotional connection to Him? If you are going to wear the apron cloth of a slave, what kind of Master do you think you serve? I hope you don’t think He is harsh, or uncaring, or unsympathetic – scripture is perfectly clear that He cares – it says that in this passage! – and He is gentle; Matthew 11:28-29 says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light." And He is sympathetic; Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.”
This is so important! We serve the High King! He is good! He is beyond good! He is worthy – as the multitudes shout in Revelations – to receive every honor, and not just because He died for us, but because dying for us shows us who He is. He would do anything for us, and He has!
And as we wear the apron of a slave and serve our wonderful High King, understand that often what this service looks like is that He sends us on “away assignments” – quite literally, He sends us on mission. He sends us to show His love to others through us – to other believers (to one another) and to a lost and dying world. Part of humility is learning to listen to Him, to follow the quiet whispering prompts of service to others, being His hands and feet and His mouth, sharing the good news of salvation available to all who have faith in Him.
What about “casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you”? Does that have anything to do with overcoming pride? Absolutely! By the way, this is one of my very favorite verses.
He cares for me! Jesus loves me! He is going to take care of me for eternity! The more you get this, the more it is real, tangible in your life, the more the worries of this life just melt away. And the more the worries of this life melt away, the less you will even think about yourself and your daily situations.
Generally speaking, humble people don’t think about trying to be humble. They don’t think about trying to avoid being proud. And they certainly don’t become consumed by worry. Worry, by the way, forces your attention on yourself and on future events that may or may not happen. In contrast, a humble person’s focus is on the present. They are relaxed, at peace, content. They do their work as unto the Lord. They help others as opportunities arise. They see their relationship with God as a joyful wonder, and their thoughts are never far from Him. Their minds are controlled by the Holy Spirit, and their primary emotion is agape love – love towards their wonderful Savior and compassion towards those around them.
That word casting, by the way, means to throw off clothing. It is the exact opposite of the word that means to clothe yourself. We are to wear the garments of the slave, but not put on other strange garments. I picture someone choosing to wear the garments of a slave, but he also keeps wearing a nice suit underneath, just in case. Just in case what? What would you rather have, the false security offered by a fine suit, or the real security found in being a bondservant of Christ? Cast off the suit!
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. – I Peter 5:8-9
Now you may hear these verses and think they are a contradiction with the verses that came right before them. What does this have to do with clothing yourselves with humility? What does this have to do with avoiding anxiety? If the devil is like a lion out there looking to devour me, I think I’ll stay anxious, thank you very much!
No! That’s not the way to understand these verses! They don’t tell you to be anxious, and they don’t tell you to stand firm in your own strength. They tell you to be vigilant, alert, and they tell you to stand firm in the faith.
I have probably used far too many examples from the Lord of the Rings books and movies, but I love how they portray the idea of being self-controlled and alert in the context of humility. Gandalf refuses the One Ring because he knows that it would overcome him. There are others who know they are weak, and they are careful because they are weak.
So should we be! We too are weak, vulnerable to the strategies of Satan as well as the temptations of the world and of our own flesh. Because of this, a humble person is wise in their actions. They are careful to avoid situations that could lead to becoming lion food. They are careful to monitor their hearts, to see if they were continuing to rely on the daily help of the Lord. Back when I used to use a PDA for appointment keeping, I would always set an alarm for the first of the month at noon with the message “Heart Check.” Its purpose was to force me, no matter what I was doing at that time – even teaching a class on campus – to stop what I was doing and think about my relationship with the Lord. It was an effective reminder!
And because we are weak, we need these reminders. This is one of the reasons I believe the Lord instituted the breaking of bread times of remembering Him, because we are weak and we are forgetful and like sheep, we are prone to stray. Part of humility is knowing that you never outgrow the need for periodic “heart checks” and reminders of Whom we say we serve.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. – I Peter 5:10-11
One of the most effective weapons against pride is worship, genuine worship (not just going through the motions). It is impossible to be proud while truly, sincerely, thankfully, worshiping God.
We are eternal, and thanks to Jesus, we have an eternal future with Him. In contrast, our battle against pride, like our battles against the other six deadly sins, is temporary. And God is faithful – He will finish the work He has begun in us. We will be strong, firm, and steadfast, and yet, we will hardly even notice. We won’t even think of saying, “Hey, look at me,” because our eyes will be fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment