Well, once again, we are Taking note of some of the prominent themes of the book of Proverbs as we make our way through this book of wisdom. And we come today to chapters 25 and 26. We discover in these chapters that one of the prominent themes is the theme of pride. Boastful arrogance. Self-importance.
The foolishness of pride is certainly among The most pervasive and yet unnoticed sins. In the heart of man. I'll read seven verses from Proverbs 25 and 26, and then we'll spend some time. Considering the problem of pride, but also considering the power. Of the gospel.
We begin with Proverbs 25, verses 6 and 7. Hear now the word of the Lord. Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great. For it is better to be told, come up here. than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
25 verse 14, like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give. Proverbs 25, 27. It is not good. to eat much honey. Nor is it glorious to seek one's own glory.
Proverbs 26, 5. Answer a fool according to his folly. lest he be wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 26, 12. Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool. than for him. Proverbs 26, 16. The sluggard. Is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.
Let's pray together. O God, in heaven there is none like you. We fight and fret. To be sovereign over our lives, to be praised and adored by others. To get our way, our will in all matters, but you alone are God, and we are not.
You are worthy to be praised and worshipped. We are created to praise and worship you. You are all-powerful. We are called to rest in that power. The power that Not only does it do all it wishes to do, but also wishes to save sinners from.
death and destruction.
So, Lord, if you allow it, we'll spend the next several. Moments realizing how proud we are and what an affront that is to you. In these moments, please give us a sincere. vehemence for pride and a genuine esteem. for your awesome glory.
Give us a hopeful confidence. In the gospel of your Son, Jesus Christ. In whose name I pray. Amen. Pride is subtle.
Pride is. Pervasive. Pride is wicked. Pride is subtle. It's a a vice that Interestingly, we cannot tolerate in other people, and yet one that we often overlook in our own hearts.
We're quick to identify it and dethrone it in those around us. But slow to even acknowledge it, much less mortify it in ourselves. Pride is subtle. Pride is pervasive. It lurks in the shadows.
It hides in secret places. It especially likes to disguise itself behind virtues. of various sorts so that it can come out into the open without being noticed. Pride pervades all of a sinner's being. Pride is wicked.
To be proud means quite literally to be lifted up. above what is fitting. To have a greater sense of self-importance and value than is appropriate or true. Pride is an inflated sense of self. Pride as one theologian put it is pagan Behavior.
It seeks to subvert the natural hierarchy of things in order to achieve status. and recognition and the worship that goes with that recognition. In this sense, pride is an attempt to be God. It's wicked. It is, in fact, this sin that lies at the root of every other sin we commit.
At the root of lust is an inflated sense of my own self-pleasure. At the root of envy is an inflated sense. That I deserve what someone else has. At the root of bitterness is an inflated sense that I don't deserve what's been given to me. At the root of Divorce.
is an inability to lay down my life for someone else. At the root of rebellion is an unwillingness to subject self to a higher authority. At the root of greed and slander and coveting and stealing and adultery is the arrogant notion that I deserve anything and everything I want. Pride is subtle. and pervasive and wicked.
And if we're not killing pride, Rest assured, it will be killing us. The point I want to make this morning as we look at these Proverbs is very simple and yet profound. It's that your pride is stronger than you realize. but the gospel is stronger still. Pride is stronger than you realize.
But the gospel is is stronger still. Yeah. First, we note that pride is stronger Than we realize it's not a peccadillo, it's not a misdemeanor in God's economy, it is a full frontal assault on the very deity of God. Several chapters ago in Proverbs 6, verses 16 and 17, we encountered a list of things that God hates, a list of seven sins that to God are abominations. offenses of the worst sort.
This means that there are degrees of heinousness when it comes to sin. All sins merit eternal punishment, but not all sins are equally heinous or atrocious or monstrous.
Now, of the seven abominable offenses before God, do you know which one is at the top of the list? It's pride. haughty eyes. An arrogant countenance that betrays a heart and a mind that has an inflated sense of self-importance. God cannot and indeed will not tolerate pride.
Pride. In fact, in Proverbs 16:5, the Lord guarantees punishment for the proud person. Proverbs 16:5, everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured he will not go unpunished.
Some crimes come with a mandatory sentence. No leniency, no loopholes, no exceptions. If you do acts, you will be punished. In man's economy, those crimes are things like gun-related crimes, violent crimes, crimes that do great damage to another human being. In God's economy, it's crimes that do Great damage to the glory of God.
Arrogance in your heart. Haughtiness on your face, pride in your life is so abominable.
So offensive to a holy and supreme God that it carries with it a mandatory. Punishment. Everyone who is arrogant, Proverbs 16 says, will be Punished. We have in our own minds a small sense, perhaps, of God's contempt for pride. In that we cannot tolerate a fellow human being, a fellow sinner getting more credit than he is due.
or thinking more highly of himself than he ought. When someone steals the spotlight or Conceals their flaws in order to get privilege or praise or to just avoid consequence, we dogpile them. We yell foul when someone climbs the corporate ladder unfairly and gets ahead of us or tries to cut in line in bumper-to-bumper traffic without waiting their turn. or he gets praised by the coach. When they don't deserve the praise, or entrusted with responsibility they don't deserve.
We cannot abide an arrogant heart. in other people. And yet, how often and how easily we overlook the times that we try to get ahead without earning it. Or that we accept the praise without deserving it, or that we enjoy the privilege without paying the dues. Pride is so easily overlooked when it resides in my own heart.
But trust me, it's there. In fact, do you know how to tell that it's there? You know pride is in your heart by the pains you take to conceal the petty thoughts and attitudes that you harbor there. An Anglican minister from a few generations ago said that he would rather be hanged and his body thrown in a swamp. than that anyone should be allowed to look into his heart.
If I had a camera and could capture every thought and motive of your heart from this past week, and I threatened to put everything I had recorded on these screens behind me. I'm fairly certain we would all run out of this room as fast as we could and never show our face here again. Our hearts are full of pride. But we don't like to admit the depth of that pride. In fact, we are experts at hiding our pride, even from ourselves.
William Law said The insidious nature of pride is such that men and women rarely appreciate how proud they are, and the index of pride's power over the heart. Is that even the purest motions of the Christian soul Are infected with pride. Indeed, it is possible to be proud of one's confessions of sin. and unworthiness. or secretly to congratulate one on one's brokenness.
We have such an inflated sense. of self that we even take pride in how humble and broken we are. That is really pathetic.
So if pride is such an affront to God, And yet, it's so easily hidden to ourselves. How can we recognize it in our lives? What does it look like? How does it behave?
Well, this is where the proverbs that we just read come into the picture. These proverbs expose pride by helping us to see what pride does. What pride looks like in action. Proverbs 25, 6 and 7 expose pride's tendency to exaggerate its own prominence and positions. One of the big giveaways that pride is in the heart is the Presence of the habit of self-promotion.
Pride exaggerates its own pride. prominence. In Proverbs 25, 6, and 7, we see the prohibition to not put yourself forward or stand in the place of the great. Why? Because it's better to underestimate your distinction and honor than to overestimate it.
Now honor is not bad. But having too high a sense of my own honor is bad. Being recognized by others is not bad, but recognizing myself is bad.
Now, I suppose it's rare for us to find ourselves in a king's banqueting hall, as verse 6 describes it. being tempted there to to sit down at the head of the table, but There are other ways that we put ourselves forward, right? Maybe we drop names or associations that Earn us some extra clout. Maybe we throw in a credential or two just so people will notice. Perhaps we stand in the place of the great by volunteering to do the visible job that solicits praise rather than that menial task that nobody will ever know or care that we did.
If you find within yourself a need to be noticed, And you act on that need by putting yourself in the obvious spot. The the place of prominence. Search your heart, and you'll find an inflated sense of self. You'll find pride lurking in the shadows. Another indicator of an arrogant heart is the need to exaggerate one's own ability or means.
Pride exaggerates its own ability and means. If the previous symptom of pride involved clamoring to be seen. Uh this one involves clamoring to be heard. It's it's the pride of false Inflated boasting. Proverbs 25, 14.
Like clouds and wind without rain, is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give. This is the act of making promises you can't keep or don't intend to keep. You simply make the promise so that you can gain a following or get Ishan. The book of Judges applies Proverbs 25:14 to false teachers. calling them waterless clouds.
They promise an abundance of rain but deliver nothing because they're driven by their own lust for control and power and advantage. Do you find yourself making promises that you can't keep? Simply so that people will like you. or rely on you. Pride exaggerates its ability and means.
Proverbs twenty five, twenty seven is an interesting proverb about pride. In fact, of all the proverbs related to pride that we've looked at this morning, this one might be the best summary of pride's essential trait. It tells us that pride exaggerates its own. Glory. its own weightiness.
Its own honor. Proverbs 25:27 says: It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one's own. glory. You need to know that there is some ambiguity in the second statement of this proverb in Hebrew: seeking one's own glory, as it's translated in the ESV, could also mean seeking weighty knowledge. Knowledge that's that's too high, that's out of reach, that's out of bounds.
The NIV translation reflects this meaning by translating the statement like this, nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep. Either way, the character trait of pride that's being exposed here is that of meddling in things too deep, too glorious for itself. whether it be too much knowledge or too much honour. The proud person doesn't remember his place. And starts aiming for knowledge of lofty things, starts pursuing access to weighty things about which he has no business looking into.
Now knowledge is not inherently bad. Looking into weighty matters is not always a vice. In fact, it's frequently commended in the book of Proverbs. The very beginning of chapter 25 actually commends the searching out of truth. Proverbs 25:2 says, It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
The pursuit of deep things. glorious things then is is not inherently prideful. Bride comes in when our pursuit is excessive. or disproportionate to our place. in God's world.
In other words, when it goes beyond what is naturally ours to know, too much of a good thing. Like too much honey is a bad thing. There are certain things that we're simply not meant to know. There are certain stations in life which we are simply not meant to occupy. Psalm 131.
Verse 1 says a similar thing to Proverbs 25, 27, perhaps with even more clarity. Psalm 131 says, O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high, I do not occupy myself with things too great. and too marvelous for me. I'm not sure that we view this kind of humility as a virtue. In fact, our world encourages the exact opposite, doesn't it?
Ours is a world of ambition and winning, of being on top, of being the best. You see it in athletics. You see it in business. You see it. in the church.
Christians are often exhorted to attempt great things for God. Under the pretense that the greater the thing attempted, the greater the honor and praise that God will receive. But instead of defining the greatness of something in terms of its conformity to the gifting and the lot that God has assigned, we define greatness in terms of renown or fame or spectacle. And so, for example, the work of a faithful mother giving her life to raise and nurture the children God has given her is viewed as a lesser feat than the work of a woman who is the keynote speaker at all the women's conferences and sells a million books. Go big or go home.
And big is defined as famous. Invisible. and lauded by many. It's the eating of too much honey. And there's nothing glorious.
or praiseworthy about it. Listen to John Calvin's comments from half a millennium ago and notice how antithetical they sound. compared to the prevailing sentiment of our day. John Calvin said, This is the lesson by which we should be ruled in life. To be content with the lot which God has marked out for us.
to consider what he calls us to. and not to aim at fashioning our own lot. in our desires. to avoid entering upon rash undertakings. and to confine ourselves Our inflated sense of what constitutes honorable work.
And appropriate position probably makes Calvin's words sound hollow to us. The notion that it is good to give thought to what moderation looks like. And that it is good to put a restraint. on the rising ambitions of our hearts. Maybe sounds like unfaithfulness to people who make a habit of indulging in the honey of self-glory.
Pride exaggerates its own glory and sees that as virtuous. Our pride is stronger than we realize. Fourthly, we discover a triad of Proverbs in chapter 26 that make repeated references to being wise in one's own eyes. Pride exaggerates its own virtue. This is perhaps the most ironic expression of pride that there is.
It's the sort of pride that says, I'm right, I'm wise, my motives are pure, and everyone else is wrong. It's the self-refuting trait. of taking pride in my own holiness. When a person reaches The point of taking pride in their own virtue, they have isolated themselves from all reason and correction. Their feet are firmly stuck in the cement of foolishness, and that cement has set.
Three verses make the point. First there is Proverbs 26, 5. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. To be wise in one's own eyes is to think of oneself as center of the universe. I am the frame of reference by which wisdom is measured and truth is found and the right way is determined.
If a person is allowed to continue thinking this way, he will reach a point where he assumes that everyone else's silence must mean he's right. His ideas are so foolish that nobody wants to even acknowledge them, and so they remain silent. But the fool then interprets everyone's silence as awe and respect and confirmation of the wisdom of his insight when the exact opposite is what's happening. I don't want to be that person. The fool who is the only person in the room who cannot see his own foolishness.
What a terrible state to be in, the state of incorrigibility. In fact, one of the most practical and beneficial results of humility is that it breeds an openness to correction. It makes me teachable. The next verse that describes the fool who thinks he's wise is Proverbs 26, 12. It says, Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool. than for him. As bad as foolishness is, there's something worse. A fool who thinks he's wise, a proud fool. The implication of this is disturbing.
It means that if you have allowed pride to grow and fester in your heart, there's a good chance that you don't even realize how proud you are. A fool can see his own foolishness quicker than an arrogant heart can detect its own pride. Pride is stronger than we realize. The third verse in this set is Proverbs 26:16. It says, The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes.
than seven men who can answer sensibly. Laziness and pride go together. In fact, they strengthen each other. At the bottom of self-conceit is slothfulness. It seems that the proud person who is wise in his own eyes simply doesn't want to do the work of learning and growing and increasing in wisdom.
They would rather just assume. their own wisdom then have to deal with their foolishness. Sins often work like that, don't they? They work in concert with other sins. My anger feeds my bitterness, and my bitterness feeds my prayerlessness, and my prayerlessness just feeds my anger, and so I just get more and more entrenched in my sin cycle.
In the case of Proverbs 26, 16, pride is buttressed by slothfulness, and slothfulness is buttressed. by pride. They help each other out. Brothers and sisters, pride is a worse sin than we give it credit for. And in our own hearts, it is a more pervasive sin, I fear, than we often realize.
Our pride is stronger than we realize, more destructive than we realize, more heinous to God. then we realize what are we then to do? Because of the very nature of pride itself, there's a tendency for us to. I think deal with pride in one of two ways. And the most natural way of dealing with pride is to just deny it, ignore it, downplay it.
Yes, all the things that Proverbs tells us about the nature of pride are true. It's a terrible vice. I'm just glad I don't struggle with it like other people do. We refuse to see ourselves as having a pride problem, which is exactly what a proud person would do. The arrogant heart of a more sophisticated sort understands that he cannot deny or downplay his pride, and so he admits to his conceit.
and maybe even mourns about how awful and destructive his own pride is. and then he promptly sets out to destroy his pride with his own two hands. I'm gonna Resolve to be humble. I'm going to always take the low place. I'm never going to talk about myself again or offer my skills and talents.
I'm going to stay in the background. Hidden, unnoticed, humble. The problem is, that's a very proud way of mortifying the sin of pride. That is an example of pride hiding in the shadows of virtue, pretending humility. It's pride saying, look at me, I'm being humble.
If all we had for our moral instruction were the book of Proverbs, we might conclude that the only way to fight pride is to either deny that we have a problem or double down on our resolve and just try harder. But the book of Proverbs is not all that we have. This book of ancient wisdom has a context, and that context is the whole of Scripture. The truth of the matter is we dare not take any portion of God's word out of its context, because doing so will lead down destructive paths. When we consider all that Scripture has to say, we realize that while pride is a very real enemy in the human heart and pride must be put to death if we are to ever enjoy the freedom and the joy of true righteousness, there is only one way that pride can be defeated.
We fight pride the same way we fight every sin. We look to the only one who has conquered sin and this world system and the flesh and the devil. We look to the one who has crucified pride on behalf of anyone who will come running to him in faith for forgiveness. We look to Jesus Christ who is crucified. Yes, pride is stronger than you realize, but church, the gospel is stronger still.
There has yet to be a sin that is a match for the power of God to save. Pride, as rank as it is, as pervasive as it is, as subtle as it is, as persistent as it is, cannot withstand the death blows of the gospel. Paul declared the power of the gospel in Romans 5:20 when he said, Where sin abounds, grace abounds more. Where sin is deep, grace is deeper. Where sin is pervasive.
Grace pervades even more. Where sin is strong, grace is stronger still. How then does one look to Christ? How does a person throw themselves on the power of the gospel to defeat their pride and save their soul? Looking to Christ.
means trusting in his ability. And desire. to remove The guilt. of all your sin, including pride. and in its place to give you innocence and moral purity.
The other day, I had to do some unexpected work in my dress clothes, and I ended up getting dirt and grease stains all over my nice pants. I could not get them clean. I didn't know how. I didn't have the means to remove the stains. But my amazing wife took those pants.
removed the stains, brought them back to me brand new, clean, and spotless. I did nothing but look to her to clean what I could not clean. I trusted her, and she redeemed my pants. Church Christ does that for our souls. We bring him our sin-stained lives.
He washes them with his blood. He makes us new. That's how pride is defeated. It's put to death by the death of Christ.
Now what if I had taken those pants that my wife so graciously restored and treated them as if they were still filthy? What if I had worn them the next time I had some dirty work to do and ruined them all over again? I have no doubt that Laura would have claim them again. But she didn't clean them the first time in order for me just to go and treat them like work pants. Jesus does a thorough job of cleaning our souls.
What he does, he does completely. But he also commands his washed children to stay out of the dirt. For us to go running back to sin once we have experienced the washing, regenerating work of God is to dishonor the gift that we've been given. We will get dirty again. And again and again.
And Christ's atoning work is so powerful that it can absorb all of our sin, but it is also so powerful that it not only washes away sin, it also gives us a new desire. to maintain a clean soul. The Bible assures us that one day we will stop sinning. Pride will die and never resuscitate. I cannot wait for that day.
The prophet Isaiah describes it as a day of radical humility. Radical humility. Listen to how Isaiah describes it and ask yourself, if eternity is about the complete exaltation of God, am I learning now to be enthusiastically content with God getting all the glory? We often affirm it with our mouths, don't we? My chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
But am I practically that radical in my humility? Am I practicing that radical worship? Today, at home, at work, in my mind, in my heart. Isaiah 2 says that on the last day, The haughty looks of man shall be brought low. And the lofty pride of men shall be humbled.
and the Lord alone. will be exalted in that day. For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low. And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone. will be exalted.
in that day. Your pride is stronger than you realize. But the gospel is stronger still.
So look to Christ in awe. And you will see greatness that will expose your pride. Book to Christ in faith. and you will find grace that will forgive your pride. Look to Christ.
and live. Mm-hmm.
