Sermon Transcript — October 13, 2007
I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 18. I'd like to play off a statement Jesus Christ of Nazareth laid out for us here in Matthew 18 to begin to work the concept of the sermon for today.
Matthew 18:1 – At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" That is the key point that He is going to play off of now.
Verse 2 – And Jesus called a little child. . . He didn't ask for an infant; He didn't ask for a teenager; He didn't ask for someone that was a bit older. He asked for a little child, and what we recognize in this particular case, it's someone that is of the age of innocence, as we call it, someone in this particular case that was young enough, yet old enough to have the ability to show a frame of mind and an attitude that He was wanting to show them. And so He . . . set him (the child) in the midst of them,
Verse 3 – (and) He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you (will) shall by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." Now I don't know whether you get the feeling from this that I do; it's a simple basic parallel, but it is such a strong statement that Jesus is making here that you get the feeling that He's trying to tell us something extremely important.
Verse 4 – He said, "(Therefore) whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." So now He begins to tell us, "Be converted." He tell us to become as little children, and last of all, "He who humbles himself, like this little child."
Why? I have mused over this for fifty years, trying to figure out exactly where He wanted us to go, and over the last six months as we began to do some study for our pastoral training class, began to realize that there's something that He wants us to understand about this particular scripture. ". . .be converted," or as it means simply, to be turned from and turned to, or as converted means, "turning," meaning a present progressive type of concept, and ". . .become as little children." Ultimate end, you have to go from being an adult in this frame of mind to being like this age of innocent child.
So we're going to play on this particular passage today and look at something that I hope will be helpful to you as you go home, as you watch little children, as you think about what Jesus said here, because the body of the concept here of this sermon is to humble ourselves as this little child. It's the key issue of being the greatest in the kingdom of God.
My question is then, foundationally, why? Why? Why is this humble and greatest in the kingdom so important? Let's look at it today.
In his essay entitled, "Pride, Humility and God," a religious writer named John Stott wrote the following: "At every stage of our Christian development, and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy, and humility is our greatest friend."
Now if you want to think about that just a little bit, I think you're going to find that his perception in this one case is profound. I think it's important because he said, "At every stage and every level, wherever we go, the greatest enemy, . . ." (The greatest enemy; he didn't say it was one. He didn't say that it was part of all the sinning of humanity.) He said that the greatest enemy is pride, and the greatest friend is humility. I want to ask the question again, why? And I want to try to answer that for us.
The sad fact is that no human being is immune to the logic-defying, blinding effects of pride. It's just illogical sometimes. It's just so foolishly stupid at times, and you say, "Wow!" This thought shows up in different forms and in differing degrees. It infects all human beings to one degree or another and it's going to be amazing as we're going to look at several aspects of it from two sides today. But the real issue here is that pride does exist, and pride is expressed, and we have to understand how it is. As long as we can, we can deal with it.
So today I would like to show you that pride is strongly and it is dangerously rooted in every human being's life even far more than sometimes we care to admit or even think about. We must be aware of the greatest perils of pride not just occasionally or under certain circumstances, but as Stott said, ". . .at every state and every sphere." It sneaks up. It's an amazing thing how it sneaks up on a human being.
So let's go back. Let's start all the way back to a creation that we understand that was before Adam and Eve. Pride has quite a history, one that precedes Adam and Eve. Pride was at the heart of the very first sin. In his heart was the deepest part of motivation by this spirit being. Let's go back there and read Isaiah 14 to begin our study and look at this concept.
Isaiah 14:13 - It's interesting to note how this particular passage opens up some words that flow one after the other and the attitude that begins to show as what I call the root of all the sin of this spirit being. All the sin at the root of this particular spirit being's thinking, as we say, in the deepest part of his motivation. Let's read the verse and then go back and emphasis a little bit what I mean by that. It's talking about: Verse 12 ". . .how you have fallen from heaven, Lucifer, you were cut down to the ground, you have weakened the nations. . .
Verse 13 – "For you have said in your heart:. . ." If you begin to look at people, you begin to understand that you keep going down deeper and deeper and deeper into their psyche or their logic or their heart or their mind, and you'll find the deepest part of the word of God saying that in the heart is the deepest part of motivation. In the heart, as we read so many places in the scripture, so he said, ". . .you have said in your heart. . ." It was deeply embedded within him, he said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;
Verse 14 – "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Now did you note that the motivation behind Satan's rebellion is exposed five times? Five times, it says, "I will," and he's doing it. Five times he said he would do, he would do, he would do, I will. It's a willful action with no recourse as a result of that by this particular spirit being.
So we recognize then that pride not only appears to be the earliest sin, but we're going to find that it is at the core of all sin. It is at the core of all sin. Pride is more than the first of the seven deadly sins as are written by some of your religious writers both in the Catholic world and also in the Protestant world. We recognize that it is at the core. It is the basis; it is the basis. Pride is more than the first of the seven deadly sins that we read about. It is in itself the essence of all sin. And when he said the last part of Verse 14, ". . . I will be like the Most High," you begin to realize what his motivation was, and what he was trying to become to be, as we would say.
Genesis 2:16 – Let's take it a little bit further. Let's notice very quickly. I just want to lay some foundational aspect to the sermon here and then move it on down a road that will help us understand what I was laying out for you as pride being at the core of all sin.
Verse 16 – He said, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
Verse 17 – "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Genesis 3:1 – Now the serpent was more cunning than any of the beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he goes on to say: And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'"
Verse 2 – And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
Verse 3 – "but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God (has) said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
Verse 4 – And the serpent said to the woman, "(You will not surely die.)" You won't die.
Verse 5 – "(For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.) For God knows better, the Spanish translation. But that's the concept. ". . .that in the day that you eat thereof your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God. . ." So you see the point was that he was showing her that there was actually a way to get to what she wanted much sooner, and you didn't have to follow the rules. You could do it your way. And so what we recognize here is that they disobeyed and they were expelled from the garden. Sin was not only in disobeying but the motivation was inspiring to be like God their own way, deciding for yourself. And that comes with two words: pride and arrogance.
Here we see, in the sense of the word of one of the aspects of human nature, is the pride of life. So when Satan broadcast to Adam and Eve, he pumped into their minds the essence of all sin. Pride, because that's what he was full of when you look at the last part of Isaiah 14:14. You recognize very simply that this aspect of human nature is a killer. It is a terrible thing because Jesus said, "If you want to be in the kingdom, you've got to become as this little child." And the reason He said that is because He understood the great effects that pride have upon human beings.
Over in Proverbs 6. Let's go over to Proverbs for just a couple of moments:
Proverbs 6:16 - These six things (the Lord hates) God doesn't care for. He wish you wouldn't do it. It'd be better if you laid off this. No, He says a word here. He says a word in the Hebrew which has strong meaning. He said, ". . .these six things (the Lord) God hates." Then He puts a second emphasis on it, and He goes on to say: Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: He carries it beyond hate to abomination, and He just knows the concept is that this problem degenerates, and if you'll notice from God's perspective, the most serious one that He notes first and foremost is found in Verse 17.
Verse 17 – A proud look . . . A proud look . . . or as the margin has it, a haughty look, or another word for that is arrogance. So it seems that there is nothing God hates more than this. We're going to see in other places in a moment that He begins to spell it out even more fully. It is cause and effect. The cause is pride. The effect is sin. And from this one particular sin flows all of the things that we see in human nature. It is at the root cause because the devil was the root causer and the pumper of that into the human mind. Not into the mind of an innocent child, but as that child grew and as that child became older, then you began to see as he interrelated with society and with other human beings, then you began to see this beginning to show up as they grow older, and have grown older.
God righteously hates all sin. Let's start right there. He hates all sin, of course, but Biblical evidence abounds for the conclusion that there is no sin more offensive to Him than pride. And the proud man's haughty eyes or arrogance head up the list of things that are an abomination to Him. Now we've not talked about that all that much in the church in the years gone by in the same way that I think we're beginning to understand it now. I'm really amazed that as we open this up, we begin to realize how important, how important understanding this concept becomes to all of us.
Proverbs 8:13 – Let's go to another one. Notice what Solomon is saying to us. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil,. . . Again, you notice the word. It is an extremely strong word in the Hebrew language. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate. So God talks here, when He personifies the wisdom of God in this particular eighth chapter, He says, "I hate pride and arrogance." That's the NIV if you want to go back and look at it. I hate pride and arrogance.
Proverbs 16:5 – Let's read another one. Notice what He says here. He said, Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord;. . . Pretty strong stuff. Hate and abomination, this is what He tells us. He said it's an abomination, and it goes on to tell us: . . . though they join forces, none will go unpunished. Ultimately, everybody sits down to a banquet of consequences. Everybody does, and if pride isn't extricated from a Christian's life, the Bible says that you will not enter the kingdom unless you have become, and are becoming, like this little child. That's how important it is, and it's a shocking revelation if we have not come to that conclusion as members of God's church.
Stronger language for sin simply cannot be found in the scripture. But why? Again we come back to the question, why? Why does God hate pride so passionately? It seems that, we've only touched on a few scriptures, but why is it? I think there's a reason for that. Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him. I think this is what you finally come down to. God is God and there is none else like Him in all of the universe. But people decide they're going to do it their way. If you remember the old song that Frank Sinatra sang, "I did it my way?" And I think we recognize that this is a part of human nature, but we must recognize that pride, when sinful human beings aspire to the status and the position of God, and refuse to acknowledge their dependence on Him, it is nothing more than a prideful act. It is contending for supremacy with God. That's your bottom line. We've never said that before that I can remember in any of the articles or literature that we've ever talked about. It is contending for supremacy with Him.
Pride takes innumerable forms, but only one end, self-glorification. That motive and the ultimate purpose of pride are to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification contending for supremacy with Him. I'm going to repeat that again, because I think we want to remember that. The ultimate purpose of pride is to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive and can handle.
Why don't you go to the book of Job with me? I gave a sermon in the AM church, and I'd like to just share one particular aspect of this out of Job 9. I found Job probably one of the most interesting characters in the Bible because he was one of the most righteous men, and yet he had a flaw that needed to be humbled. He had a flaw that needed to be dealt with. He had to learn some lessons along the way as he dealt with his three friends which he argued with, and then with Elihu, he didn't have an answer for him, but he still was there with Elihu and having contention with him, and finally in the last few chapters of Job, God says, "Okay, I'm going to contend with you, and I'm going to start asking you some questions, and you tell me."
And I don't know you've ever seen this, but I remember one time someone showed a big old garbage bag, and they took a hair dryer, and they stuck it in there, and they blew this thing all the way up. And they were describing going to the Feast. They put this hair drier in there, and this big old garbage bag got so full, it could almost burst. And then the person began to describe how as you go away from the Feast, the first day, you let a little bit of air out. And five days later, you let some more air out. Five days later, you let some more air out until finally after about two weeks, you look at this limp garbage bag. And they said, "This is what you are after you've been through such a great Feast. You just end up looking like a limp garbage bag."
And I thought it was most interesting because of the fact that this is what happened with Job. He got all puffed up over, in this case, where he was and what he was able to do in his own righteousness that he had an argument for God. Now going to the Feast, that has nothing to do with vanity. It simply has to do with how you're so filled with the messages. But with Job, Job wanted desperately to contend with God. Notice what it says here.
Job 9:2 – He said: Job answered and said: "Truly I know it is so, but how can a man be righteous before God?
Verse 3 – He said: If one (wished) wishes to contend with Him, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
Verse 4 – God is wise in heart (and) mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against Him and prospered?
Verse 14 – "How then can I answer Him, and choose my words to reason with Him?
Verse 15 – "For though I were righteous, I could not answer Him; I would beg mercy of my Judge.
Verse 16 – "If I called and He answered me, I would not believe that He was listening to my voice.
Verse 17 – "For He crushes me with a tempest, . . . This is what I would describe as truly an interesting attitude, and we see that, as we go through the rest of the section, we see that Job simply contended with his three friends and he was telling them that he wanted to find God and bring his arguments before Him to contend with Him. You'll find that in this whole section of the book, a man had his pride humbled by the end of the book because of Job 42. Let's turn there for just a moment and show you what he finally became because he had to learn some lessons. It wasn't that he wasn't a righteous man. It wasn't that he wasn't doing many of the things that should be done. He just simply had this struggle that he went through, this great difficulty, and he did not know how to handle it, and he wanted some answers, and he wasn't getting them the way that he felt he should.
Job 42:1 – (Then) Job answered the Lord and said:
Verse 2 – "I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
Verse 3 – "You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." So Job began to realize that he was being shown where he was wrong. And he said:
Verse 4 – "Listen, please, (and) let me speak; You said, 'I will question you, and you (shall) will answer Me.'
Verse 5 – "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You." Meaning he saw the creation of God, and he saw God as the great Creator, Ruler, Sustainer of life and Law Giver. He said:
Verse 6 – "(Therefore) Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." But he went one step further. He went one step further because when you go back to the tanakh, or the Jewish translation, it's translated this way: "I repent. . ." And this is the true translation from the Hebrew. "I repent seeing I am dust and ashes." He humbled himself, or he was humbled, I should say, by what happened to him.
It's no wonder God opposes pride, no wonder He hates pride. I think that truth has to sink into us as members of the body as we begin to look at the question of the very first sin and how that's been perpetuated upon mankind for thousands and thousands of years.
There's a book that was written by Solomon Schimmel. The book is entitled, The Seven Deadly Sins. He made some interesting comments. I'd like to share just a few of them with you this afternoon in the sermon. He said the following: he said, "Pride or arrogance exaggerating our worth and power and feeling superior to others has been recognized since ancient times as a root cause of cruelty and evil." He said, "Pride is unique among the seven deadly sins in that we are frequently unaware of our arrogance." We are frequently unaware of our arrogance. ". . whereas we tend to know when we're angry. We tend to know when we're greedy. We tend to know when we're gluttonous, and so on. But moreover, like the other six sins when our pride is pointed out to us, we often do not even realize that it's a vice."
It goes on to say, "It is because of this, this is because it is difficult for us to admit that we are of less worth than we imagined ourselves to be. And because our culture values high self esteem and failed to appreciate modesty and humility. One last statement he made. He said, "There are English terms for personality traits closely related to the traditional sin of pride, arrogance, haughty, conceited, egocentric, narcissistic, insolent, presumptuous and vain." Those are words we all know in the church are things we are striving to avoid.
"In theory our culture advocates an egalitarian ethos. All men are created equal and no group or individual should dominate or serve another. Humility suggests submission to authority, a sense of being low in a hierarchy of merit and power." He said, "Such feelings go against the grain of equality and so we under value humility as a virtue."
Now, let's do something. I'd like to take us down a road that perhaps we've not gone before. I want to show you how pride hides itself and how it disguises itself. Pride is disguised, and can be disguised, and it can actually appear as two faces of the same coin. Two sides of that particular same coin.
I want to take you through some statements that were made by Englishmen back in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth centuries, and show you how they felt about this whole concept of humility. Humility tends to have a bad name, as we're going to see. In fact very little was written until just probably the last four or five years that we've been able to get our hands on in the same way that we're doing right now.
It has a bad name. It may be self effacing; it may be self denigrating, or running yourself down. Notice some attitudes going all the way back to the fourteenth century. Notice the fourteenth century attitude. The writer says, "In humility, one must feel unable to dwell among men. You are unprofitable to your brother; you must judge yourself more foul than any other creature." You can see why humility has a bad name. Who wants to feel more foul than any other creature? But I think what we recognize is that humility that he's talking about here is actually connected with pride. It's actually pride disguised. Man's humility is actually connected with pride and we don't even recognize it. Humility is regarded as an aspect of pride, two faces of the same coin.
Benjamin Franklin made this comment: He said in his autobiography, he said, "Pride is hard to disguise. It is hard to disguise it because I am proud of my humility if I can hide it." Aw, I tell you. This is an interesting study, but it just makes you realize what we're just beginning to scratch the surface of in some ways. Let's look at two forms of what I call, "carnal humility," okay? It's been foisted off on us in, whether it's the society now or the last four centuries, but the point is it's a very interesting one. So let's take a look at it, there are two of them.
Number One: Power Seeking Humility: There are various degrees of power seeking. One can gain power by avoiding problems and getting on with people. And the concept is, - avoid trouble. Act humble. A good example of that: a police car pulls you over; what do you do? You'd better play humble. You'd better not get into an argument with him. You'll get on better that way, and if you're like my wife, she can talk herself out of some things. I've seen her do it, and the answer to that is, she was just being innocent, I think she was at that time, she was innocent. She didn't know she had done something wrong. But it's interesting that the policeman picked up on that, but the concept is – avoid trouble, act humble and play humble. You'll get on better that way.
Two people that I knew some years ago, one acted humble and contrite when he was corrected. He told his friend, "Just say you're wrong. Just say you're wrong. Act humble." And he said, "You really don't change after getting caught, you just pretend. You pretend humility." And this is what he would do in trying to get through the particular problem that he was caught on.
Sometimes you see hostages are in what they call a – cringing humility. But the real attitude is far from that particular frame of mind as we realize.
The little boy when told to sit down and be quiet, later on he told his mother very simply, "Well, I may be sitting on the outside, but I am standing on the inside." But the concept is that you can outwardly feign this humility. It's what we call, it's a part of power seeking humility, and you get on better that way until you can get beyond that situation.
This humility in many, many cases is really for self-advancement. He plays on the other person's self-importance to advance in rank. Notice the sixteenth century approach to humility. The writer said, "We must debase ourselves, and when we did, we got awards for it, being humble. Keep yourself down and let people feel above you. So again, it's a wrong use of the concept, but it's the concept of power-based humility. Disguised as humility, it's simply a fawning attitude. We court favor by a cringing or a flattering manner."
This is not unusual in the business world. To give you an example: when J. Paul Getty was still alive, the oil billionaire, or magnet, purposely came up with a ridiculous business idea. He wanted to know where his men stood. It was the most ridiculous thing some people said that he ever suggested or proposed. Six men immediately approved the ridiculous plan. "Wonderful, J. Paul, never heard anything quite like this before. It is really great. I'm so glad to hear this."
Two junior executives sat there, like that, glumly; they just were very unhappy, and only one young man showed enough gumption to tell him, "That is the worst suggestion I ever heard you give, Mr. Getty. I cannot believe that you came up with that." He was promoted to a top job just a few months later.
J. Paul Getty said he simply wanted to find out where his men stood. And he said you really found out that they were just simply being sycophantic loyalists, and they simply were not being honest with the boss because that would not be humble, and so that is what you saw there.
In reality you'll find that this humility often desires to topple and replace people in power. Let's go notice over in II Samuel 15. Let's take a look at a man by the name of Absalom. This is II Samuel 15:1.
II Samuel 15:1 - He said: After this happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him.
Verse 2 – Now Absalom would rise early and stand (beside) by the way of the gate. So it was, whenever anyone (who) had a lawsuit they came to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call (to) him and say, "What city are you from?" See, he was appealing to this individual. He was trying to get inside of the individual and so he simply said, "What city are you from?" And he would say, "Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel."
Verse 3 – Then Absalom would say to him, "Look, your case is good and right; but there is no deputy (of the king) to hear you." You can just see him oozing with awe, "I'm so sorry. Your situation is really important. You know, you really should be heard but there's nobody here to help you."
Verse 4 – Moreover Absalom would say, "Oh, that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice."
Verse 5 – And so it was, whenever (anyone) anybody came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him (yuck) and kiss him. I mean, how bad can it get? You know the feigning of friendship? He slobbers all over his hand. You know, that type of thing, just enough make you sick. I don't know if you run into people like that, but it's a terrible thing. Notice Verse 7:
Verse 7 – Now it came to pass after forty years that Absalom said to the king, "Please, let me go to Hebron and pay the vow which I made to the Lord.
Verse 8 - "For your servant took a vow while I dwelt at Geshur in Syria, saying, 'If the Lord indeed brings me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord.'"
Verse 9 – And the king said to him, "Go in peace." And so he arose and went to Hebron.
Verse 10 – Then Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, "As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, 'Absalom reigns in Hebron.'"
Verse 11 – And with Absalom went two hundred men invited from Jerusalem, and they went along innocently and they did not know anything. Isn't that amazing? Here he was, disguising his true intentions by feigning humility and making David appear as incompetent, and then he was simply vaunting himself into the position in the name of the Lord. It was nothing but treason. It was nothing but absolute treason.
Many people reveal their true feelings when they finally get into power. Power seemingly turns people into another personality. Some people feigning humility are being so low in self-esteem and self-worth that he's now drunk with his power. But that's the same individual, two sides to the coin; it's the same individual. Give him the job; give him some authority; and this person who would not hurt a flea can become unreasonable, heard-headed and truculent.
In my early years in the ministry in Canada, we did not have what you had down here. We had armbands for deacons. I don't know how many of you had the armband, how many knew about the armband. But then we had another armband for assistant deacons. And let me tell you that those assistants really did their job. And I mean there were times, it was really interesting because I remember Mr. Walter Johnson, who was a member of the church in Kansas City, worked up in Canada for while, his wife was dying of cancer, and they had a speaker outside so the men who were watching the parking lot could hear the sermon. And so what he did was he turned the station wagon around, his wife was in the back of the station wagon, he opened it up and he's starting to pull in so that he could get the speaker to speak to her so she could listen to the sermon. She couldn't go inside. She didn't have the capacity.
And so the assistant deacon said, "You can't park here."
And Walter said, "Yes, my wife is ill, I can't go in."
He says, "You can't park here!"
He says, "You know, my wife's ill, and it's the only way she can hear the sermon."
He says, "You can't park here!"
And Walter said to him, he said, "You'd better move out of the way because this car's coming back, and if you're in the way, I'm going to run you down."
You know what happened? That assistant deacon moved. And the interesting thing was he had that armband, and you weren't about to. . . He was unreasonable, and this is what happens sometimes with people who really want to be in power. They feign this humility, and then all of a sudden, when they get into power, they do things that are unreasonable. And that's not unusual to talk about some of those experiences because we went through them in the early years of the church. The carnal desire was for power in the first place, but through outward humility.
Now there's the other end of the gamut is when power is diminished. It causes people to leave because they really weren't humble, they were just humiliated. I could name you on both of my hands people who had that happen simply because when they were in power and they were removed from the job, they couldn't handle it. They were humiliated, and so they walked away from the church. They walked away from the job.
Seventeenth century description of humility: Listen to what the writer says. He said, "Pretended submission. Pretended stratagem or trick of pride which abases itself to exalt itself. It is best hid under the guise of humility. It's best hid under the guise of humility."
This is what I'm talking about when I said, "Power, carnal power, humility."
Eric Hoffer, probably many of you know him as one of the writers and well known men in counseling in the seventies and eighties. He said this of this humility, or power humility, that it is one substitution of pride for another. It is one substitution of pride for another. Same coin, just the other side. The motivation is simple. It's man-centered. The motivation is man- centered, not God-centered.
Point number two: The second form of carnal humility is what we call, "Weakness humility." False humility was seen a great deal in years gone by in the church. Self-respect or having proper ego strength was seen in terms of a power, pride, or vanity.
I remember when I went to Chicago after I'd been on a baptizing tour, and I came back there, and they had their first spokesman club, and I was asked to give an evaluation of the speakers, the three speakers that spoke that night, and they did a great job. They did a wonderful job. And finally after it was all said and done, they asked me to evaluate, and I said, "I think you know you did this well, this well, this well, work on this one point."
And after the club was over, I had a whole group of them surrounding me, and they said, "Why did you treat him so nice?" You know, "Why didn't you really tell him where it was at?" As they say in Chicago.
And I said, "Well, he did a good job." I said, "He had one flaw in what he was saying."
And the answer was, you know, because you're not supposed to treat them nice. You're really supposed to run them down, get them worked over, that type of thing and when they leave there, they should be walking with their nose almost plowing, you know, the ground as they're going out.
It's like I remember one man said to me, he was so humbled by what happened to him, he said, "I was lower than a snake's belly." Now I don't know what's lower than a snake's belly, but this is what he told me. So the point is we saw back years ago that we were to only see ourselves as I Corinthians 1:26. Not many wise men, not many noble, not many, you know, of this type of individual. . . And we were supposed to mentally remain that way, according to what some people taught me. But it didn't happen that way. We began to realize that was wrong.
That false humility is actually sometimes found in the word – humiliation. People feel inferior to other people. But the God family see and feel equal to each other. Philippians 2:6 says the following: . . .he thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Christ said equality with God was not a thing to be grasped at because he already had it. He said He and His Father were one, not in authority but They were one and there was a union and a working unity that was there. So we didn't have this attitude and frame of mind that we see that did occur in the early years of the church. Weakness humility, weakness humility and man-centered human ego get all the credit because he sees himself as being under other people. He doesn't see himself as being inferior to God and God alone. He sees himself as being inferior to man and taking, as we say, sometimes a lower rung on the ladder.
Many times our estimation of ourselves is based on our relationship with humans, not with God. And it becomes a totally, in some cases, a whipped attitude, deeply ingrained humiliation because of comparisons. II Corinthians 10:12 tells you the following. You don't need to turn there, but He simply says, "They who measure themselves among themselves and measure themselves by themselves are not wise." There is no inferiority and superiority between us in the church. The only thing that we have an inferiority to is to the great God of heaven and earth because He is what He is and we are what we are.
So, what we see is the same coin, two sides. We see superiority brings pride, vanity, self-righteousness. Inferiority beings a lower opinion of yourself and sometimes humiliation. But neither changes. That's the sad part. But neither changes.
Let's go over to Luke 18. Let's take another scripture here in Luke 18. You've seen it. I'm not going to take the time to expound the whole parable, but we simply see this carnality at work in this example in Luke 18. We call it the Publican and, of course, the Pharisee, I'm sorry, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, I'm sorry.
Luke 18:9 – (Also) He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Verse 10 – "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Verse 11 – "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,. . . I love that kind of prayer, pray with yourself. Did you ever do it? I think if we were really honest, we could all say that we've done that at times. We hear ourselves talking to ourselves, you know. That does happen. He goes on to say, this particular man went up to the temple, prayed with himself and said, 'God I think You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
Verse 12 – 'I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'
Verse 13 – "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat on his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'
Verse 14 – "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself. . . in his relationships with other human beings. . . that's what He's talking about. . . is going to (will be) humbled, and he who humbles himself in his relationship to God. That's the point." That is the point that you finally come back to. The Publican was God-centered. He was showing a basic humility in this case.
I thought it was interesting. Another religious writer made this comment, and I want you to think about it for just a second. C. S. Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people. He's always looking down on things and people. And of course, as long as you are looking down, you can't see something above you." Think about that. Think about that. The person who's looking down can't see something that is above you.
God is actively opposed to pride. You and I hate nothing to the degree that God hates pride. His hatred for pride is pure. His hatred for pride is holy, and God will not bear with seeing his glory appropriated by man even in the smallest degree. It is sacrilegious arrogance of those who by praising themselves obscure His glory as far as they can. And because God cannot bear with this arrogance, He reveals Himself in the scriptures as actively opposing pride, actively in an ongoing way opposing pride. Notice James 4:6. I won't read the second one, but James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5, but let's go over to James because they both quote from Proverbs 3:34. Let's go over to James 4:6. Notice what it says. He says:
James 4:6 – But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Simply God resists. It's an ongoing progressive thing. God opposes. Opposes in this statement is an active present tense verb showing that God's opposition to pride is immediate and a constant activity. The proud will not indefinitely escape discipline. We are constantly warned against pride, especially spiritual pride because it can bring such a premature ending.
Pride also, you will find, undermines unity, and it can ultimately divide a church. Show me a church where there is division; show me a church where there is quarrelling, and I'll show you a church where there is pride. That's a fact of life. Proverbs 13:10 says the following:
Proverbs 13:10 - By pride comes nothing but strife,. . . I have seen it. Many of you have seen it. It will bring down pastors and leaders as well. It is more insidious in the church than radon gas in the home. It just is.
Proverbs 16:18 - Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
So as we began today in the sermon, I took you to Matthew 18. And I asked you to look at that particular question that we see there, the greatest in the kingdom was to be humble, or to become humble like this child. This is what Jesus said that we should be looking at.
On this day of the blessing of little children, we should not forget these words, an admonishment to us because He says, "Assuredly I say unto you unless you are converted and become as little children you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
By unmasking pride as well as introducing us to humility, our greatest friend, God lays out for us the path to true greatness, a path that we see most clearly in our Savior, Jesus Christ's life, His death and His resurrection. I hope this has been helpful to you to the degree that you can see the concept that I was trying to get across today, how great is the sin of pride.