The Sin of Pride and Its Consequences

Those of you in the small groups in our Sunday morning time are beginning a study on the sin, the doctrine of sin. What does it mean to be in rebellion to God? It starts with a list of what's called the seven deadly sins. I don't know if you know where those all come from or not, but from Proverbs chapter 6 is where this all starts. Here in this passage of Proverbs, the wisdom of God, we see how God is trying to direct us so that we know what it is that he approves of and what it is that he hates in human life. Chapter 6 of Proverbs, beginning with verse 16, there are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, teeth that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. From this list, the early church began to process what it meant to face these terrible dangers that God hates and would bring judgment on their lives. The early church wrestled with trying to put together a list of the things that were most serious in our lives. One of the things you don't want to do in your life is have someone with great power who hates you. And the Bible clearly defines that there are some things that happen to us that God hates. And so the list was started, and it was changed over a period of time in some, and it became what you see in your small group study. The vices or sins that are found there are listed as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy, and pride. All of these are sort of variations of what are seen in Proverbs chapter 6. They're really also reflections of what's found in the Ten Commandments. The one that you start on today, the word pride, is one of the most, is sort of a puzzling one. Because sometimes you read in the Bible pride that seems to be bad and evil and wicked, and then you'll turn and read in a place where pride is not wicked but in fact actually good. We use those words in the same way ourselves. Sometimes we talk about pride in a good way. The Bible sometimes talks about it that way, and sometimes as if it's bad. In the Old Testament, in the NIV, if you look that up, there are 55 references to the word pride, and only three of them are bad, or only three of them are good. All the rest of them indicate that pride in a person's life is a terrible offense to God. But three times it mentions that it's something that is good to God. The New Testament doesn't use the word pride as much as the Old Testament does, only eight different references to pride, and seven of them are good, and only one mention is evil or bad. We use the word pride in two different kinds of ways. If you use it to talk about someone who's violated this command or instruction of God, then pride for us is someone who expresses, believes their ability is greater than it really is. We might say they're vain, or they have vanity, or we might say they're arrogant. See, we can use three different words to describe a person with that condition. Vanity, pride, and arrogance. Well, the Bible also has different words in the language it's written in. Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament, and there are about three different words that are translated pride in the Old Testament and New Testament, so that the language also sees that there is a difference between those two. The sin of pride or arrogance or vanity is a serious issue for God. In fact, it is maybe the fundamental of all rebellion against God, arrogance, focused on exactly what you want at the exclusion of all else in the world. This pride or vanity or arrogance is the thought processes that begins rebellion against God. How do you think in a certain way so that you become an enemy of God? Well, the best example we have, or maybe the first example we have in the Bible, is the story of Adam and Eve. Most people know that. God brought them into this special place. He said, here is everything that you can ever want to have and everything you'll need right here. You'll be safe. The only thing I tell you is don't eat of this tree. They obeyed God for a long time. Then the Bible tells us how they began to think. They began to think that maybe God's telling them not to eat of that fruit was actually keeping them from experiencing something that would be very good for them. What God is telling me I shouldn't do maybe will be actually a benefit to me. It will be a new experience. I'll learn something. So they began to see that what God said they shouldn't do, not in a bad light, but in a good one. God had said to them, if you eat of that tree, you will certainly die. Satan came to them and said, surely God wouldn't do that to you. So they began to think that maybe God was really not telling them the truth. This looks like it would be good for us. It looks like it would be good fruit, and maybe there won't be a bad consequence. So as they began to think through this, they began to question the authority of God and what he said. All of us know what this is like. It is the fundamental principle about every sin that we commit. I remember as a boy going in the store, I loved little tools, you know. And I'd look at the tools on the shelf in this little store. There's a hardware store, a tire store, something like that. And I wanted that very badly. And I thought, you know, there won't be anything that will hurt this store if I just take one screwdriver out of this bin and take it home with me. I can't see anything bad happening to this business if I do that. And no one's watching me, I mean, I'm just a little kid in the store. I can take that and put it in my pocket, and no one will know, it won't hurt them, and I will have a screwdriver. You see, what Satan does in our minds is he causes us to think that the words of God, you're not to steal, are really not dangerous. He does it by saying to us, it's not going to hurt anybody for you to do this, and nobody's going to find out, and you will actually have something that you'd really like to have. In the moment that you go through this in your mind, what suddenly used to be bad and evil now becomes attractive and valuable. What happens in that moment is you look at God's instructions to you and you say, I can't rely on that to give me the joy of having what I want, I can't rely on what God says as a guide for my life in this moment. Every time we violate any of the Ten Commandments, that same process goes through our minds. I know that God says I shouldn't do this, but I think that I will actually benefit from it, I'll get something out of it that I want, I might win an argument or debate, I might get something that I want, I might have an experience I'd never get to have without it, and I can't see in my own mind anything bad happening to me as a result of this. It won't hurt anybody else, if I take something from a store like Walmart, they're not going to go broke, I'll have the benefit of it, I'll go home and be able to use it or have whatever benefit comes from it, and nothing will happen. Except one thing. The divine ruler of the universe looks down on you and says, you do not believe me. This act of rebellion against God, saying to God, you don't know what you're talking about, you don't understand my circumstance, and so in that moment you have thought something that says, I do not trust God, unbelief. From that moment of unbelief, every single one of the rest of the Ten Commandments now become negotiable. For once you decide that God's word is not reliable, once you decide that you can think of ways that make sure God's saying to you, this is what you must do to have life, once you decide that God's way is really not always reliable, then everything is open to question. And the most reliable person around you, the most reliable person that you've always trusted, when you see they begin to think that way, you never know where they're going to stop. Will they suddenly decide that killing me is an advantage to them? There are some people who think that's true. They think that they gain an advantage in this world even by murder. The first of these, pride and arrogance, is equal to the first commandment, you're not to have any other gods in place of me. What that passage means is to say, there's not to be anything in this world that controls your mind except me. There's not to be anything in this world that controls your behavior except me. Pride, where we think more highly of ourselves, we exalt ourselves to the place where we think we are smarter than God, that is the key ingredient to all of the rest of the commands. For once you decide something else beside God can control your behavior and your thinking processes, then everything is in play. That's why this commandment in the beginning is so important and it's why the issue of pride is such a significant issue in the issue or the discussion of sin. It is the fundamental beginning of every single act of rebellion against God. Who do I think that I am to say to God, I read here what you say, but I don't trust you. I think if I go ahead and do what I want to do and what I think is right, that I will be better off than doing what you tell me is the right thing. That act or thought in your mind will result in an action that causes you to rebel against God's authority. So pride is the attitude or thought processes that puts in place our failure to obey God, our act of rebellion against Him. Once you've come to that, then your life is separated from God, He's no longer the ruler of your life. His life, His instructions are no longer a guide for your life. Now everything is open to question. The word pride is used sometimes in the Bible to describe a good thing. Paul says, for example, in the New Testament, he says, I take pride in my work. He meant by that that the Jewish people thought the Gentiles, people like us, were not open or important enough to know about God. So he said, God has given me this mission to you Gentiles, but I take pride in my work. I am doing what God has asked me to do and I find myself saying, this is what God wants and I take pride in that. When the Bible uses pride in a positive way in the Bible, it is always with regard to something that we do in submission and obedience to God. So pride in the Bible has two different dimensions. One, the act of rebellion, when our pride is in ourselves and our own minds and our own will and our own reasoning, which kills us spiritually. And pride in God or his work or what he calls us to do is the means whereby life in its fullness comes to us. So what the Bible is talking about in the terrible, deadly sins is that this arrogance, this pride, this self-sufficiency will kill you. But the Bible doesn't focus all the time simply on the things that are wrong. It has remedies for all the sin that comes to us. And the remedy that God gives for the arrogance and the pride that kills is humility. This is the biblical remedy. The Bible does not suggest, hey, don't have pride in yourself. It doesn't suggest you should reevaluate yourself and see if you're really smarter than God. It's not something that you do on your own. What the Bible describes for us is, I want to remind you that you didn't create the stars. I want to remind you that you've only known life in the short time that you're here. I want to remind you that you can't make the planets. You can't bring the snow or the ice or the water. I do all of that. Who do you think you are? So when a person comes face to face with the reality of who God is, he is the creator of the universe. He has watched millions and millions of people live in this world. He's seen every mistake a human being in the world can make. He has seen the choices that people make and the consequences that come from them, millions and millions of times. He has tested every rule that he's given us. He knows whether they work or they don't work. We're all accustomed to reading a story on the internet that says, oh, you should never eat this kind of food as long as you live because it's bad for you. And then five years later, someone comes along and says, no, it's not bad for you. It'd be fine for you to eat it. In fact, eat it twice. Human beings, with all of our skill and knowledge, cannot determine eternal truth. We have such a small picture of the whole universe, even in our longest lifetime. But God, from the very beginning of the human race, has watched his people. He told them what would give them life and what would kill them. He has power to make the world, as you heard this morning the children tell us, to raise the dead, to still the storm. And when you come face to face with this God, it's just not somebody else who has an opinion. This is the person that made everything. He's watched everything in this world and heard every thought that human beings have had. And he's watched as they test them against what he says is right. And he says to us, these things bring life. These bring death. Now, once you come to see God in this enormous place that he holds in the universe, it causes you to back off and think, maybe I'm not quite as smart as I thought I was. You might be pretty good at something in this world. But when you meet someone who's a world-class expert in that area, you might want to sit down and listen and not talk. If you go out to work on your car and you think you know everything about it, the guy that engineered and made that car walks up, you better shut up and listen. And when you're living in this world and you know the rules that God has set out for you, and you think, well, maybe these don't matter, I can't see any harm in it, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Boy, I hear those words a lot from people who disobey the words of God. I don't see anything wrong with it. I don't think it hurts anybody. I can't see any problems. It's my life, and then they do something God's told them they shouldn't do. That's arrogance and pride that kills. But once you come to understand who God is, his power, his authority, and his majesty, you step back a moment and say, let me listen to what God has to say. That's humility. It's a recognition that there is someone in this world smarter than you are, someone in this world who knows more than you do, someone in this world with more experience than you do, someone in this world who's given you the instructions that will allow you to live life in its fullness. And when you come to recognize who that God is, it causes you, should cause you, to stop and say, I'm going to listen to you. When you say that, then God tells you the areas of rebellion in your life, and you feel convicted, I have been living the wrong way. I can see now the mistakes in my life that I've made by doing this. I look at God and say, God, forgive me for what I've done. And I can see the things that I've done wrong, and I can see how it's messed up my life, and my thinking, and my relationships with people, and my family. All the things that are messes in my life are the result of things I've done that are in conflict with what you tell me is right. That's repentance. And then you say to God, forgive me. I want to start over. I want to live my life by the instructions you give me. And that is your trust in God. The remedy for pride is to recognize who God is. To humble yourself before Him. To confess what you've done that's wrong. To ask for His wisdom and guidance to do the things that are right. So that you can think the way He thinks. So that you can understand things the way He understands them. And so you can know the things that you should do. That's what you ask of God. And as you begin to read the Bible, you begin to hear it taught and preached, you wake up one moment and say, wait a minute. I've been thinking wrong about this. Here's what God says, and here's what I've been doing. And you get rid of your pride, and you confess your sin. You ask for forgiveness, and you say to God, give me the ability to live the way you say is right. That is a life of submission and humility. Recognizing the authority of God gives you humility. A commitment of life to God gives you faith and trust in Him. And it is an act of submission. Arrogance, humility, and submission. God gives us cures for every sin that infects our lives. He has an antidote for it. And humility and submission is the antidote to pride, arrogance, and self-sufficiency. So everyone in the world has a choice. You can do what you think is right for yourself, and you can see how it turns out. Or you can listen to God and say, tell me how millions of people who've lived before me have faced this same kind of circumstance. What did they do that worked out? And He can tell you, in the words of the Scripture, here is what works. And you can say, I will do whatever you tell me. In that moment of submission, you have humbled yourself before God, and then you will find life in all of its fullness. The most deadly of all sins is arrogance, pride, self-sufficiency. The secret to the life God wants you to have is a life of submission and service. It was a key to Jesus' life. He said, I only say the things that Father tells me to say. Wouldn't we all wish that that were true for us? I only do the things that Father tells me to do. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to claim that? And He made one of the most outstanding and impressive lives that's ever been lived in this world. And what He wants from you and for you is your submission to Him that He might give you life. When Jesus came to this world, He said to His disciples around Him, I have come that you might have life in all of its fullness. He was saying, listen to me, I will show you how to think, I will show you how to live. And if you do that, you will have life that is as full as your life could possibly get. Or you can ignore me and go ahead and live and discover all the trouble that that's going to bring to you. Which do you want? Most of the world, in their arrogance, chooses the latter of those two. Because it means giving up control of your life to someone else. Even though they're smarter, even if they're most wise, even though they're more experienced, who in the world would start out on a project, understanding they know little about it, when the expert comes along and tells them what to do, and ignore it? Only a fool. But God wants life for you. And He needs you to submit to His authority and to humble yourself before Him. So that you promise to say, whatever you tell me is the truth and right, I will do that regardless of what the apparent cost is in the beginning. Because I believe that in the end, I will find life in all of its fullness. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? What is it that you're struggling with in your life? God has an answer for that. And He won't answer you as fast as you may want Him to. In your arrogance, don't demand that He answer you today or tomorrow. He said, if you really trust me, you'll keep on knocking and keep on asking. And you'll keep on waiting until I give you the message. So humble yourself. It's our pride that says, I want, God, I want your will, I want you to tell me what I want that you want me to do, I promise to do it, but I need it right now. Humility says, God, whenever you're ready, I'll wait. And maybe you already know what God wants for you. But the cost seems pretty great. It seems like you'll lose out on maybe good things you'd like to experience and have. And so like Adam and Eve in the garden, you'd say, man, I can't forego what appears to be good to me when God says it's not good for me. You can lose your life in the garden like they did. God gives us clear directions. And life is found in humility and submission to obey Him. If you've never surrendered your life to God, that's the beginning place. If you've surrendered it to Him, then learning what He wants you to do by reading the Bible and getting every kind of Bible teaching and preaching you can get. Maybe God wants you to be a member of a church. Maybe He's ready for you to declare your faith in Him by baptism, showing your old life's gone and your new life has started. Don't be so arrogant and proud that when you know what God wants, you refuse to do it. In humility, if you know what He wants, you say, I'll do it, and I'll do it now. I'm going to ask the pianist to play. You know what God said to you. This is a moment in which you say back to Him, yes, God, I'll do what you've asked.