Message 07-29-07

 

Series:            Seven Serious Mistakes [7 Deadly Sins]

Scripture:            Isaiah 2:6-22 [Matthew 23:1-12]

 

Title:                Pride

 

I take great pride in our young people today. The students who went to Costa Rica with me and Sara Winston and Kevin Woods worked so hard and studied so diligently. They expressed such compassion toward each other and the community of Fraijanes where we worked. I told them on the bus to the airport on Friday morning that I couldn’t wait to get back here so I could start bragging on them.

 

This trip was not just about going to do some charitable work. It was about our young people learning how to lead. They had to apply to be allowed to go on this trip and we had a waiting list. On this trip our students were in charge of everything. They made up the menus, they bought the food, they organized the work crews and the work, they planned and presented the program for Vacation Bible School, they led team study times and they led worship. But then they went beyond all that. They took care of each other and supported each other. They made friends with the people of the community. They worked so hard to understand and communicate even though they didn’t know the language. They dug in the dirt, they planted 4x4 beams for 4 long green houses and one short one. Then they replanted a whole section when it was discovered that they’d been done wrong. Then they did more than that. They jumped in on extra work that wasn’t on their schedule. They went to English classes so the students there could have Americans to practice English with. They went to play a soccer game with other young adults in the community after a long, hard day of work. They didn’t just do their job. They lived out the life of Jesus and Jesus’ love for all people.

 

I take great pride in our young people today.

 

But we’re told that pride is wrong. Pride is a sin. So is it wrong? Is it wrong for me to feel this way? Is it wrong for me to lift them up or to praise them?

 

For the past several weeks we’ve been talking about Seven Serious Mistakes that we can make as human beings. These used to be called the Seven Deadly Sins by Christ followers before us because it was understood that these were so serious that they could breakdown or remove your relationship with God.  We’re talking about them today as seven serious mistakes so we can get a bit closer to them, so we can handle them and consider them.

 

These are things that we don’t want to do.

 

So we’ve talked about Lust and Gluttony and Greed and Sloth and Wrath. I’ve so appreciated out other pastors, John and Nicole, stepping in to be part of this serious and adding their own voices and views into it. These are serious issues and they are the kinds of actions that break down our connection with God. They break down our connections with other people. They are serious mistakes in life because they produce damage we cannot undo. They become the moments and directions in life that we most regret.

 

So today we’re going to look at pride. Pride is usually seen as the foundational sin and one that could hold off to the end of our study, but we’re going to hold off Envy to the end. There are a couple of reasons for this, but one of them is that I’ve learned in my study of Pride that Envy follows Pride. As we look at Pride then, you may get a preview into next week when we wrap up this series. But for now, I’m back to my question, is it wrong for me to take great pride in our young people?

 

When U2 the Irish rock band sings the song “Pride” and they sing about the death of Martin Luther King and they say, “they took your life but they could not take your pride,” are they getting it wrong?

 

Pride, and the sin of pride, has to be defined so we understand what we’re talking about, what is the Bible talking about. We all recognize the kind of pride the Bible and our ancestors speak against. We’re naturally against it too. When an athlete makes an outstanding play, say when a receiver in a football game makes a tremendous catch and runs the ball in for a touchdown, and then later claims that the team would be nothing without them that gets into pride, the kind we are warned against. When, after the game, they bad mouth the quarterback who threw the ball or the blockers who led the way for them into the goal, when they claim that it is all about themselves and their own achievement, then we’re talking about pride.

 

It’s a competitive attitude that both compares yourself to others and claims that you stand on your own. Essentially pride is suggesting that your life has no support from anyone else. You stand alone and everything you achieve is the product of your efforts alone.

 

Do you remember G. Gordon LIddy? There’s a scary man. Mr. Liddy worked for the President of the United States, President Nixon, and was one of the men involved in the Watergate scandal. Mr. Liddy went to prison in part because of his involvement with that break-in and its cover-up. When he was released from prison he said, “I have found within myself all I need and all I ever shall need. I am a man of great faith, but my faith is in George Gordon Liddy. I have never failed me.”

 

Pride is saying I stand alone. My achievements come from the work of my own hand and no one helped me get here. I am my own god, creator and sustainer.

Pride expresses a desire to own your own life and to claim that nothing outside of you contributes to your achievements or even your ability to survive.

 

Essentially then pride is lying. It is a way of looking at the world that is lying about reality, lying deeply, internally. For a long time I’ve defined lying as creating a world that works for you. In the Bible God is described as speaking the world, the entire universe into existence. Lies create an alternative reality, a world that is all about you. It’s all about making life work the way you want it to work. Pride is very deep, a very deep and serious mistake we make as human beings, where we create a world out of our own words.

 

How do we deal with Pride? Our society tells us to look out for number one. Our society tells us to take care of ourselves, to stand on our own two feet, to pull ourselves up from our own bootstraps. Is Christ telling us something different?

 

The Apostle Paul gives us a hint in the right direction I think. In the book of Romans, which our students in Costa Rica were studying for the last two weeks, Paul writes, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

 

Paul is saying we need first to think of ourselves without extremes. 

 

There was a young woman who came to her pastor one day to talk about what she called a “besetting sin”. She said, “I have this problem. Recently, every time I come to church I realize that I’m the prettiest woman here. There’s no other woman here that matches me in beauty. It feels like this is a sin, but I can’t see how to get over that.” Her pastor said, “Oh, this isn’t a sin, my dear. This is just a mistake.”

 

We aren’t the best in the world and we aren’t the worst in the world. We are not to think of ourselves as better than everyone and we’re not to think of ourselves as worse than everyone. We are not God and we are not the basement of sinfulness. In either case we actually put ourselves at the top of the list. We’re told instead, by Paul, to think of ourselves with sober judgment. Someone once said, “God designed us so it’s hard to pat ourselves on the back and equally hard to kick ourselves in the pants.”

 

So, how should we live?

 

We are told that we should be humble. So what does humility look like? For some people humility looks like being a doormat, like being nothing. Some religions in the world tell us that we’re supposed to become nothing, to empty ourselves, but that isn’t what Jesus taught. What Jesus taught was actually a new way of looking at humility.

 

Humility, as it was understood by the Roman world and even much of the world outside Rome’s influence at that time, was the last thing you wanted to be. Humble was a word that described the existence lived by a slave. Humble was to be dirt. What Jesus did and what Christ followers expressed when they used the word “humble” to describe Jesus changed the nature of the word from “nothing” to equal. In a way, this is similar to the way we say someone is “real.”

 

Pride is all about expressing unreality. Humility is simply telling the truth. So, this is what I want you to do. As you go into this week, look for opportunities to tell the truth.

 

Look around you. Look at your employees. Look at your friends. Look at your family. Start looking for ways to tell the truth that you are seeing.

 

Say the words. Say the words. Say I need you. I can’t do this without you. I’m so glad you’re here. Simply tell the truth.

 

Look for ways to tell the truth.

 

Your way may be do to something nice for someone or to give them a hug or to send them a note or to cut out some time to spend with them or to go out and buy them something special or to give them a raise. It’s not about how you tell the truth, just start telling the truth.

 

Whenever you get the chance say it.

 

Every time you do you will be reminding yourself that your company can not stand with out employees, your life would be empty without people who help you, your home wouldn’t be home without the ones who help make it home. Say thanks to the garbage men, say thanks to the people who help you in any way to make life work. Shake hands with every person who works with you or for you and look them in the eye. Inside yourself say, “I need you” every time you do that.

 

You see that’s why it isn’t wrong for me to feel great pride in our students. They were humble. We didn’t go to Fraijanes because those people can’t take care of themselves and they needed us to be there. We went because there is a strong community there that is making a difference for Jesus. They are creating the kingdom of God. We went because we needed them. We needed them as partners. We got in on the work they are doing and our students learned how to lead each other, how to follow each other, how much they were able to do, how to get over being tired, how to work harder than we thought we could. I am proud of them because they learned a bit about how to follow Jesus. All we did in Fraijanes was to tell the truth. We went there to say, we know the kingdom of God is here and we believe you are building it. We are following Jesus just like you.