Pride

There's a thought that I'd like to spend a few minutes in the remainder of the time that I'm with you here today that I've had a lot on my mind about as we prepared for the Passover service and as we dealt with the various matters in our individual preparations in coming up for the Passover service. We know that we all examine ourselves very carefully as we prepare for the Passover each year, and each of us examine and find various matters within ourselves that we do need to look into and deal with in very, very important ways. One of the thoughts that was on my mind this year was that of pride. Pride is an issue that any of us can come up with and deal with and come face-to-face with if we recognize it. The Bible has a great deal to say about pride. It is one of the most insidious of sins that can overtake a person and deal with a person in their lives if they are not very careful. Over the years, I've had a number of discussions with ministers and friends of mine who are involved in this process of dealing with issues of this particular nature. One of the most interesting conversations that ever came my way was with a very, very good friend of mine who is a mentor. He has been a mentor of mine over the years in a conversation he and I had a few years ago about pride. He made the statement to me that anytime we get our eyes off of Jesus Christ and ignore the central truth that He is the one who deserves the credit for any and everything that we do, and that we are merely instruments in His hands, He said that we are setting ourselves up for a fall. That approach, He said, was doomed to failure. His point was that we have to always keep our mind on God and be able to give God the credit for anything. Pride is a very, very big problem. This was an issue that, or let's say a matter that I kind of pinpointed in my preparation for the Holy Days leading up to the spring Passover this year. It's a thought that has been on my mind for some time and perhaps is one to carry on over beyond the Holy Days to reflect on as we move forward.

Pride is a vice of which no one really is free. We are loathe to see it in someone else. When we do identify it in someone else, we can be fairly quick to pinpoint it. But seeing it in ourselves is something that is completely different and much harder. Thinking about this, you know natural gas is something that you do not smell in its natural state. They have to add that noxious odor to natural gas. Otherwise, you wouldn't know that it was leaking in your house or wherever you might come across it. So that rotten egg odor is added to natural gas. Now, pride is like that. It's an odorless gas that we don't always see and cannot always identify. We can see it in someone else, but we can't always see it in ourselves. It is a very, very basic vice. When you look at many of the other evils that are identified in the Bible, immorality, anger, greed, drunkenness that are mentioned, in one sense, pride can be the lead-up to a lot of those and be at the base of some of those. Some have even called it the entire anti-God state of mind. There's a scripture, perhaps as a basic starting point to this in Isaiah 14 to go to.

Isaiah 14, we all know this scripture quite well. It is a scripture that identifies the attitude that was in Lucifer when he rebelled against God.

In Isaiah 14, verse 12, it says, Yet you shall be brought down to the shield or to the grave, to the lowest depths of the earth. Verses 13 and 14 describe the attitude that Lucifer found within him, one of pride. I will exalt my throne. I will settle on the mount of the congregation. I will ascend. I will be like the Most High. It's easy to read over this and just attribute this to Lucifer, a spirit being in a much greater, grander platform or stage, perhaps, than we think we operate on. But when you put all the other scriptures regarding pride together, you find that these very same attitudes can be found within us at times when we're not even aware of it. We might have them manifest in certain ways within our life and within our heart, and we don't even know it. Because pride, we find here, originates in one's sense, in the mind and in the heart of the devil. It can be insidiously injected in many different ways as we might give ourselves over to the work of Satan. As we might give ourselves over to some of the works of the flesh, that can begin to cause us to lose our spiritual bearings and our spiritual perspective. Pride is something that caught the nation of Israel in a web and caused them to lose sight of God as their source of blessing and protection. Back in Deuteronomy 8, God knew that this would be a problem.

God knew that this would be a problem.

Deuteronomy 8, verse 11, God told Israel as they were about to go into the Promised Land, "...beware that you do not forget the Lord your God, by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes. Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them.

And when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied. When your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock and fed you in the wilderness, that He might test you to do you good in the end." Verse 17, "'Then you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand have gained me this wealth.'" Again, you see the attitude of pride. He's warning them against. That everything that they would accumulate would then be attributed to their efforts, to their exceptionalism, to their might, their genius, their power, whatever it might be. It's an attitude that very often we see at times expressed even in our own modern wealth of our nation, the United States of America, as being an exceptional nation. We think that we have our might and our power and our wealth because of who we are, and we don't fully recognize again that it came from God. This warning from God, not only to ancient Israel, applies to modern Israel in the same way. Verse 19, He says, "'It shall be that if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.'" So He warned them against forgetting the source of their blessings. And it's a very important lesson for each one of us. No matter how much we might have at any one time, no matter what we may think we have accumulated, do we give God the credit? Do we recognize that what we have, our health, our blessings, our life, comes from Him? And allow that to develop within us a sense of humility, rightly using the material that we have, but also using it to His honor and to His glory, and not letting it corrupt us, not letting us cause us to forget in any particular way what God has done. Pride. Pride can affect relationships. In 1 Peter 5, go all the way back to the New Testament, 1 Peter 5.

And in verse 5, Peter says, Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. And just to, I think, almost as if in the thought, he's trying to make the point that it's not just younger that he's talking to, but he's really talking to all of us. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and clothed with humility. Humility is the opposite of pride.

They're polar opposites. However you want to chart it, graph it, put it out, they're polar opposites. Be clothed with humility. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God may not hear, may not answer in the way that we want. A request that may be tinged with a bit of pride. Again, keep in mind that pride is something that cannot always be identified or seen within us. Verse 6, he says, It can affect our relationships.

By creating a sense of superiority, creating a sense of entitlement, creating a sense of elitism. However we might interpret that as we look at one another, anytime we are not willing to submit ourselves, and that's why we go through the right to the Passover, the foot washing, the examination that leads up to it, so that we can hopefully identify that within ourselves at any particular time, and be willing to yield, be willing to submit, when need be, be willing to certainly esteem one another better than ourselves, as Paul writes in the book of Philippians chapter 2.

This attitude is something that we must always be on the watch for. Proverbs chapter 6 is an interesting list of things that God hates. Proverbs chapter 6 Proverbs chapter 6 Beginning in verse 16. There are listed six things the Lord hates, we're told. Yes, seven are an abomination to Him. And at the head of the list is a proud look. A proud look. Pride. The other six that are then mentioned, in a sense, you could say, lead on from this, if you're going to say, lead on from this, if pride is at the base or at the root of these, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift and running to evil.

I was reading that this morning, and I contrasted that to the well-known Ephesians 6, the armor of God. And I think that's a good question. I was reading that this morning, and I contrasted that to the well-known Ephesians 6, the armor of God. You remember in the image of the armor of God, what the feet of the armor are clothed with, shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Those are the shoes that one who puts on the armor of God, piece by piece, has. The gospel, which is truth, which is righteousness, godliness, and pointing people toward God. That gospel carries us in the path of righteousness, if you want to look at it that way.

Keep in mind that we've just read in 1 Peter that we are to put on humility in a sense to be clothed with it, and we put it on one piece at a time as we get dressed every day. We put on one item at a time. And then you look at here, and it talks about here a feat, verse 18, that are swift in running to evil.

It's quite a contrast. Do we run to evil, or do we run from evil? And whatever form evil may be, an evil can be pride, a proud look, lies, hands that shed innocent blood, that rip faith, that rip innocence away. Feet that are swift in running to evil. We should run to truth. We should run to righteousness. We should have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, and run to God. We should not run to evil.

We are to flee those things. So pride, in a sense, bears into, works into that. Verse 19 talks about a false witness who speaks lies and one who sows discord among brethren. But the root here is pride. There are many, many scriptures that speak of this problem of pride.

This is one that is quite interesting, just to note, in terms of the seven things that God says that He hates and their impact upon people. Their impact that can be there upon the Church of God that we should strive to understand.

Pride can be something that manifests itself within the Church and always needs to be on the lookout for. If Israel of old can be proud, Israel of the New Testament, the Church, can be proud too. I know at some point it was referred to during the Unleavened Bread season, 1 Corinthians 5. We read there about keeping the feast with the Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth, which follows after the very fact that in verses 1 and 2 of 1 Corinthians 5, Paul talks to the Corinthian Church about being puffed up.

Of course, the leaven of pride is part of that leaven. But they had a problem. It was a problem of morality that was within the congregation. But the congregation itself had a problem. How they dealt with that, or in this case would not deal with it, but the congregation was lifted up in pride.

Paul is addressing that in his comments about the Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth.

So a church, a congregation, churches as a whole, can be subject to that. When you look in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and the messages to the church, many of those congregations there have a particular problem that is pointed out. The congregation of Laodicea has a unique message that we all know, but let's turn and read it again. Because it seems that pride was the problem in Laodicea. And again, something for each of us to consider. Revelation chapter 3, the message to the church at Laodicea begins in verse 14.

And he says to them in verse 15, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot, I would wish that you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'll vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing. And do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And so there at the beginning he hits them because they look at themselves, they're rich, wealthy, but they need nothing. He's really hitting at a spiritual problem here, where they feel that they have all that they need, and is it that they don't need God? Do they not need one another? Do they not need to be humble? What is it exactly? He counsels them to buy gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesab that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chase him, therefore be zealous and repent. And then he says something that's very interesting in verse 20. He said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and dine with him, and he with me. Christ here gives to the church at Laodicea the antidote to their pride of being in need of nothing. What is that cure? Him. It's him. Because he tells them, I'm not in your midst. I'm not in your life. I'm not in your congregation there at Laodicea. However it is applied, he's saying, there's a separation between us, and I'm on the other side of that door, and I'm knocking. Just like that.

He's knocking. Now, you know, when you hear a knock on the door, you normally go and open it. Right? Unless you know it's somebody carrying a Bible, or dressed in white shirts and riding up your driveway on bicycles, wanting to talk religion. Somebody came to my door this morning and knocked on the door, and it was somebody running for sheriff. So I didn't have to get into a religious discussion this morning with someone, because I was at the back of the house and I heard the door ring. I was like, who's coming to the door? And so I went on to see it. But when someone rings your doorbell, when there's a knock, it should get our attention. Christ is saying here, He said, I'm standing at the door and I'm knocking. If anyone hears and opens, I'll come in and dine with Him and He with me. To Him who overcomes, I'll grant to sit with Me on My throne. The problem with the church there, the lesson for us to take into our own lives, individually and collectively, as a church, is if we open the door to Christ, the head of the church, and let Him come in.

Or do we not need Him? Or do we think we have Him here and He's not here and we don't even hear the knock on the door? I mean, there's any number of different ways by which we can learn from this particular example. The problem to what was a church, a bona fide, legitimate church of God, was an attitude that is described here in Laodicean of pride. They thought they had enough. Enough knowledge, enough money, enough position, enough members, enough of whatever it might be, they didn't need God. But they thought they had God. They were the church of God. This is something that, even collectively, we in the church have to examine and make sure that we are not keeping Christ from coming in and setting down and dining with us. I think that that is a check for the United Church of God on a regular basis. We can never get too complacent. In our approach to the mission that Christ gives to us, knowing who we are, what we are to do, and what we must work with.

Fifteen years into the United Church of God experience this coming month, it's hard to believe that fifteen years has gone by since we had our founding conference right here in Indianapolis. The attitudes with which we came together were pretty flat at that time. Some of you were there.

How many of you were at that first Sabbath service at what was a holiday inn over here? Several of us were still around. We walked into that service and didn't know who to show up. We were going to show up. A couple of days later, or the next evening on Sunday night, the ministry began to meet, roughly 150 of us. For two or three days, we came together to try to figure it all out. There was a humility. We were pretty flat. None of us had jobs at the time. We had always signed. We didn't even have a name, much less anything else beyond that. We didn't even have a name. I remember the camaraderie. I remember the hugs. I remember the feelings, just like it was yesterday. We were a pretty flat group, but we wanted to hold on to the light that we had been given. We didn't want to see it extinguished. God, I think, blessed our efforts. So here we are. We can never lose sight of some of the, I think, not only... What's more important to me, brethren, is not the founding documents that we have, but the founding attitude. The founding attitude that we had. That's what's most important to me. Documents are important, all of that as well. But without the founding attitude, then all of that is just so much paper and ink. We've got to examine ourselves and make sure that we are submitting to one another, not taking credit. As a church, as a people, we can get caught up in all that we do. A lot of programs and a lot of activities and a lot of work has been done. There's a lot more to do. There's a great deal more to do. In one sense, I feel that all that we have done is just, in one sense, just a foundation, just a mere beginning. As to what God yet has in mind and in store for His church to accomplish in preaching the gospel and preparing a people. In Luke 17 and verse 1, there's an interesting passage. Luke 17 and verse 1.

He said to His disciples, Christ, it's impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to Him through whom they do come. It would be better for Him if a millstone were hung around His neck and He were thrown into the sea, than that He should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. He sins seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith. And so the Lord said, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, Be pulled up by the roots, be planted in the sea, and it will obey you. Which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he's come in from the field, Come at once and sit down to eat? But when I rather say, Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, And serve me till I've eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink. Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. Verse 10 is the key. So likewise you, when you've done all those things which you've commanded, say, We're unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.

The attitude that is manifested here that Christ is showing through this particular incident or the story, Is that no matter what we've done, no matter what we've accomplished, no matter what our resume might be, Spiritually, organizationally, whatever, we've only done those things which we've been commanded. That's our reasonable service, as Romans 12.1 would say. That's just what's the duty. That's what you're supposed to do. And at that point you say, Well, I'm still not profitable. We haven't turned to profit yet. Because we've only done what we're supposed to do. We've only done what was our duty.

We can never think that the job is done. We can never think that any amount of it is finished.

We are stewards of what God has given to us at any given time, point, or place within the body of Christ. We are to hold onto it, nurture it, develop it, treat it like a talent, and not hide it under a basket, but develop it to grow, and then it will be handed off to someone else. Whatever the job might be, and even our calling. You and I hold a calling given to us. We nurture it. We remain faithful to it. We pass it on to our children. We pass it on to each other by our examples, words, and deed.

And it's God's. It is God's in the end. We must never, ever forget that.

And what God does in us, what God accomplishes with us, is by His will and by His grace. And that is ultimately the most important thing. No matter how long we've been in the Church, no matter what we have done, to avoid the matter of pride and having that puff us up to where we forget God, is one of the most insidious of problems that can infest us within the Church. There's a story that one of my fellow Council members actually read a few years ago, and I've repeated it here. I'm going to repeat it again, because I think it's a very good story that bears repeating. Just to illustrate this, it's one of those stories that you think is a true story. It involves true people, at least, and true ceremonies. But in regards to the Habsburg dynasty of Austria, for more than 600 years, the Habsburgs exercised political power in Europe. When Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria died in 1916, his was the last of the extravagant imperial funerals. A procession of dignitaries walked along with a coffin, as it was draped in the imperial colors of black and gold.

To the accompaniment of a military band's dirges and processed with torches, the coffin went to the front of the church at Capuchin Monastery in Vienna, Austria.

At the bottom was a great iron door leading to the crypt of the Habsburgs. On the other side of the steel door was the archbishop-cardinal of Vienna. The officer in charge followed the ceremony that had been developed centuries before, and he cried out, Open! Responded to Cardinal, Who Goes There? The officer said, We bear the remains of his imperial, apostolic majesty, Franz Joseph I. By the grace of God, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Principal Hymia, Moravia, Grand Duke of Lombardy, Venetia, Sergia. And then the officer continued to list 37 other titles of Franz Joseph I. When he was finally finished, the cardinal responded, We Know Him Not.

Who Goes There? This time the officer spoke again, using a much abbreviated series of titles. And once again the cardinal on the other side of the steel door exclaimed, We Know Him Not. Who Goes There? And finally, the officer in charge stripped the emperor of all of his titles and said, We bear the body of Franz Joseph, our brother, a sinner like us all. And at those words, the door was opened.

I assume this is a true procedure that accompanied the burial of any of the Habsburg monarchs over the years that they were in power in Austria. It certainly tells a very compelling story that no matter what our titles, no matter what we've accomplished, in the end, we're all a sinner. And we're all in the same boat. And it's something that we should never forget. In our dealings with one another, and especially in our relationship with God. Well, remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar? It's told in Daniel 4. I won't turn there and read it all. I'll just refer to it. The Nebuchadnezzar is this arch-type of a potentate monarch of the ancient world who was the arch-nemesis of God, along as the first great ruler of Babylon. That system that spans Genesis to Revelation as the system that is in the antithesis of God's kingdom. We all know Babylon of old and Babylon to come. But Nebuchadnezzar walked out on his veranda one night, and he said, look at all that I've built, this great Babylon. Look at all that is mine.

God played a little, not a trick, but a... turned him into a kind of a... some type of... He described that he was almost like a beast of the field, eating grass as a cow, and seven times would pass over him, which would be seven years. Whatever that translated to, if he just went into a madness that caused him to be put under house arrest and kept away from the public for seven years, we really don't know. There's a very interesting drawing that William Blake, an artist, did of a Nebuchadnezzar crouched down on all fours, and his body all hairy, and he looks kind of like a human cross between a human and a lion. It's a very interesting picture that kind of gives you an eye view of what he might have looked like. But he was like a beast of the field. Now, whatever that was, in terms of a kind of a probably incarceration, he was probably kept away from everybody, and somebody else ruled in him, and maybe even the whole kingdom didn't know, as they would have tried to hide that. And he came out of it, the madness and the stupor that he was in. But the Scripture in Daniel 4 eventually says that understanding returned to him, and he blessed the Most High. He came back, and he learned his lesson, and he blessed God and praised God for his dominion, his power, and he finished out his reign. But it was said later of him on the night of Belshazzar's feast that his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened, that he dealt proudly. He dealt proudly. And so he was deposed from his throne. And of course, he's the epitome of the attitude of Babylon. That of pride. Nebuchadnezzar thought he was in the driver's seat. He wasn't. God was.

For you and I, as we have come through the days of Unleavened Bread, do we recognize who is in the driver's seat?

Is God driving? Is God sitting at the table? Are we dining with Him? Have we opened the door? Have we allowed Him to teach us? Have we begun to look at one another as better than each other and submit ourselves in that sense in the attitude of the foot-washing service?

Proverbs 13.10 says, By pride comes only contention.

Pride generates contention. Seems to be an ingredient in every quarrel. And the only thing that any of us can do is to look at ourselves and examine ourselves to make sure that it's not found within us. On this subject of pride, probably the one example that stands out in my mind is that of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist. In the book of John, let's turn and read that.

John 1.27.

When John was questioned about his work and who he was, in verse 27, John, verse 26, he said, There's one who stands among you whom you do not know, speaking of Jesus. It is he who, coming after me, has preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose. Now, John had an attitude toward Jesus. He knew who he was, that he was the anointed Messiah.

But most importantly, John knew his role. He knew what he had to do. He was a forerunner, announcing, baptizing in advance, but he knew that his life and his mission and his work would be rather short-lived. In chapter 2, John 1.27. In chapter 2 of John, he was baptizing, verse 23, again, this was at the time of the Passover. I'm sorry, it's John 3. I said John 2, John 3, and verse 22, where he was baptizing near Selim. John had not yet been thrown into prison, and another dispute arose among his disciples. John answered in verse 27, and he said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.

John the Baptist had his role clearly in mind.

He knew that there would come a time that he would have to step aside, and Christ's ministry would take preeminence, and his would be over. John the Baptist was able to be a very powerful and effective servant in the hands of God because he knew when to step aside.

He knew what his job was, and he did it, and he did it well. And so we find they're probably one of the best examples of an individual who represents the antithesis of that of pride in comparison with all the others in the Scriptures. So, as we look at ourselves, as we think about our needs, and as we prepare ourselves even for the next holy day coming ahead, which is the Feast of Pentecost, which pictures the power of God's Spirit being given to us, let's recognize that that Spirit will and can work in a heart and mind that is humble, has been flattened, has learned the lesson of the days of unleavened bread, and can be an effective servant and be of effective service in the hands of God because of the humility that is there. And let's always be aware of this matter of pride, be able to give ourselves over to the power of Jesus Christ, living his life within us, the only real power by which we will effectively do the work that God has called us to do, and be the work that God wants to create in each one of us.