Pride

Good morning, everybody.

It's a privilege to be sharing with you today.

Let me just clarify something, if I could.

Jono didn't allocate sermon topics based on his assessment of our character.

I can assure you, Virginia is not a dishonest person.

Me, with pride, it's a tricky one, that one.

He let us choose our own, which is, yeah, there we go.

I want to share again from the Bible if you are opening your scriptures or your phones, to Luke chapter 18 and verse 10.

Luke 18 verse 10.

A great little story about pride and humility.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people.

Robbers, evildoers, adulterers or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

But the tax collector stood at a distance.

He wouldn't even look up to heaven.

But he beat his breast and said, I tell you, sorry, he asked for forgiveness.

I tell you the truth that this man, rather than the other, speaking about the tax collector, went home justified before God.

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Back in middle 1980, I was a first-year Mawling College student, very wet behind the ears, had so much to learn, very intimidated by the faculty of the day.

These were men and women held in the highest regard, and we were away to retreat up at Camp Tewkley.

Who's been to Camp Tewkley?

The go-to place in the 80s?

What a great joint that was.

And during that retreat, there's an afternoon off, and one of my mates said to me, well, let's go and have a game of golf.

And Vic Eldridge, who was the vice principal at the time, he got wind of that and said, well, I'll come and join you.

I'll play, you know.

Vice principal.

And then Principal Rogers came up and said, look, I won't play, but I'll come for a walk with you.

And I can tell you that for me playing golf there on that first tee, I would have been less intimidated with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus there than Vic and Ron.

And we were standing there, ready to tee off, and Ron walked up to me, Principal Rogers, a man who stands up and reads from the Greek in English.

Always impressed by that.

Ron walked up to me and said, Andrew, let me carry your bag for you.

Let me carry you back, I'm just walking, I'm...

You know, these guys have caddies in golf.

Let me be your caddy for the day.

And there, a 20-year-old young man received a thousand sermons on pride and humility that I will never forget.

He was a wonderful man.

We find pride mentioned in all kinds of language, pride and joy.

Someone's a child is our pride and joy.

We look for a pride of place for someone.

We're house proud.

We need to swallow our pride.

We can do someone proud.

We use the word pride in a lot of ways.

Of course, we hear about recently the Pride Month, and I won't say any more about that, but pride is everywhere.

Pride and prejudice is one of the great movies that, at least for my wife.

And does Mr.

Darcy pop up in that one?

Mr.

Darcy is everywhere.

I think he was in the latest Batman movie.

Pride and prejudice about wealth and status and prestige and class.

Pride and prejudice.

But the most prominent identity who suffered a fall because of pride was the devil.

And Ezekiel 28 verse 17 describes that, You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour.

I cast you to the ground, exposed you before kings to feast their eyes on you.

This beautiful angel of heaven filled with pride.

Was struck out of heaven's glory because of pride.

Is there such a thing as good pride?

I think there is.

Pride has its roots in its sinful expression.

In possessing wealth or accomplishment, being superior or holding comparisons, having pride is a sin in the Bible.

Proverbs 8 verse 13, to fear the Lord is to hate evil.

I hate pride.

I hate arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech.

It's different to what I'm calling good pride.

To Corinthian 7, 4, Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church, and he said, I have spoken to you with great frankness.

I take great pride in you.

I am greatly encouraged, in all that troubles, my joy knows no bounds.

We know that when God surveyed his creation, he looked at it and he was really happy with what he'd done.

Like us with our children or our grandchildren, our uni results, whatever it may be, we can feel pride.

If you're a bloke like me, you can feel pride in a freshly mowed lawn.

You call everyone in the family to come out and have a look at it.

Or when you successfully stack the dishwasher.

That's a good one.

Rayleigh and Quik, look.

How good's that?

Yeah, good pride.

When I pick up my clothes off the floor.

Enormous pride.

In 1 John 2.16, when John describes the world as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the sinful pride of life, the sinful nature of pride.

He's not thinking of the emotions derived when you think about a child or an achievement.

Or when you positively responded to someone in need.

John was warning us against this destructive, proud attitude and the practice that says, I don't need God.

It's usually subtle.

We don't use words, but we act that way.

My definition of pride is this.

Pride is projecting an inflated view of self, and therefore a deflated view of God.

The Bible refers to pride by several names, self-exaltation, haughtiness, it's a good word, we need to bring that back, haughtiness, puffed up, lofty, conceit, arrogance, and boastfulness.

Pride rears its ugly head in all kinds of ways and situations, and usually we don't even realise we're acting proudly.

We all struggle with pride in one way or another.

In the reading from, that I read earlier, the Pharisee was highly honoured and one of the most respected people in the community.

He was held up as a great man of God and of integrity.

On the basis of strict adherence to the Jewish mosaic law, he was certainly the good man of the community.

That's how he was viewed.

The tax collector, on the other hand, was despised, hated, reviled, looked on with contempt.

And Jesus condemns the Pharisee.

It was revolutionary.

He affirms this text.

It was a staggering blow to the accepted judgments of the day.

He said, God, I thank you, I'm not like the other people.

I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

The tax collector reveals his heart.

God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Let me carry your golf bag.

However, pride begins somewhere else before we speak words.

It's birthed within us.

We cultivate proud attitudes, and they grow when we don't deal decisively with them.

And because out of the heart, the mouth speaks, as the Bible says, pride will emerge from these attitudes and these actions that lie within.

So what does pride look like?

We don't have time to go through these for very long.

Hardly any time.

But I want you just to hold your hands out, just do a little checklist to yourself.

No one's allowed to look at the person next to them.

And if something seems to ring true, then just give yourself a rating.

Some of you might need to take off your shoes and socks to keep going.

The first way pride manifests itself is through a loss of spiritual disciplines.

Prayer and Bible reading tend to be afterthoughts.

Secondly, comparison.

I regularly compare myself to others.

I'm performance-oriented.

I feel that I have greater worth if I do well.

Or self-sufficiency.

I lean towards being self-sufficient in the way I live my life.

I don't live with a constant awareness that my every breath is dependent on God.

Self-sufficiency.

Or micromanaging.

I'm self-critical.

I tend to be a perfectionist.

I can't stand for little things to be wrong because they reflect poorly on me.

I have a hard time putting my mistakes behind me.

Or we seek approval.

I desperately seek approval from others.

I make decisions about what I will say or do based upon my need for approval.

It's pride.

Or superiority.

I feel special and superior because of what I have or what I do.

Maybe my house, my physical giftings, my spiritual giftings, my intelligence or education or position or job, my car, my salary, my looks.

No problems with that one, but my looks, the number of friends I have on Facebook, the number of likes I got, my latest host.

Or Selfish Ambition, I'm selfishly ambitious.

I really want to get ahead.

Or feeling, having a better than attitude.

I typically see myself as more mature and more gifted.

Now remember, these aren't things that we come out and say.

None of us would say these things.

But these are attitudes of our heart, can be.

Rightness, I have a hard time admitting I'm wrong.

Competitive, I'm overly competitive.

I must win.

Jealous, I don't get excited about seeing or making others successful.

You can't follow, I'm a poor follower.

I have a hard time supporting and serving those over me.

Pride, churches struggle with this one.

Can't follow.

Self-righteous, I tend to be self-righteous.

God really needs me.

Ungrateful is a manifestation of pride.

I often feel ungrateful.

I tend to grumble about what I have or my lot in life.

We can resist correction, finding correction offensive, rather than viewing it as something perhaps God is using to grow me.

Arrogance, I find it hard to admit when I don't know something.

Unteachable, not very open to input, I tend to be unteachable and slow to repent when corrected.

Or smart aleckness, I called, new phrase.

I tend to think of myself as the smartest person in every room.

Pride.

Or for others.

I don't get that much out of teaching, but boy, some people in this room must do.

From the sermon today.

How did you go?

Three summary points.

With pride, number one, I need myself more than I need God.

Number two, some people can't make it alone.

I can.

Number three, my thoughts, words and actions seem to convey I can do a better job than God with almost anything.

We need to deflate self and inflate God to bear fruit for his glory.

John the Baptist said, John chapter three verse 30, he must increase, I must decrease.

John the Baptist talking about Jesus, saying his purpose in the world was to increase, mine is to decrease.

Pride will lead us to the right religious duties like the Pharisee and the story, only to one day discover we're wasting our time in terms of true fruitfulness and advancing the kingdom.

It's born out of pride.

So by grace, let's root ourselves with pride.

Wherever there's pride, there's grace available.

His presence, his patience, his power, his forgiveness, his sufficiency, he still says to you and to me and our pride, my grace is sufficient for this situation.

I'll leave you with a few points to think about.

Firstly, when thinking about pride, we need to gain perspective.

This message is with the others in this series, it can leave us thinking, what a horrible person I am.

And the intention is just the opposite.

We're all in this battle with pride together.

We have a father who knows us intimately, knows our weaknesses.

It's a good thing to be alerted to a life challenge.

Secondly, to reflect.

Ask God to illuminate your heart so you can begin to see the fruits of pride in your life.

The Bible says, for God opposes the proud and lifts up the humble.

I thought this week, imagine having God opposed to me.

He opposes the proud and lifts up the humble.

We need to worship.

It's a great source of dealing with our pride, to reflect, sorry, to reflect, to worship, to confess our need.

Don't hold onto it, to make a decision.

1 Peter 5 verse 8 says, humble yourselves.

Humility isn't an emotion.

It's a decision of the will to think and act differently.

Fess up to others that you may have expressed your pride to.

Finally, be resilient.

Our war against pride is lifelong.

It's not one in a moment.

Within these attitudes and these actions, God gives much grace.

He's found a soft heart, a teachable spirit.

And will lift you up.

He opposes the proud.

I'm too proud a person to try to defeat this pride monster in my own strength.

I can't live this Christian life without him.

Apart from me, you can do nothing, says the Bible.

Apart from me, you can't get rid of pride.

But grace abounds for us.

And let us consider carrying someone's golf bag for them one day, amen.

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