Pride and Humility
James 4
CHCC: November 21, 2010
INTRODUCTION:
At the center of this chapter, James quotes a Proverb: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6 from Proverbs 3:34
God gives grace to the humble is because they submit to Him. In other words, the humble know they NEED God. God opposes the proud for just one reason: because they oppose Him.
The verses in the middle of chapter 4 tell what it means to be humble. It says simply: 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Vs. 7-9 begin with the word “submit.” That word packs a whallop. It means to come under something and yield to it (hupeiko). It is not something you can necessarily force another person to do, but it must be done willingly, and implies that the submitter acknowledges the superiority of the one to whom he submits. It is closely aligned to humility and is the attitude that makes us able to be humble. So what prevents submission and humility? Pride. Pride like that which Satan had when he assumed that he could rise up and be equal to God. He was grossly mistaken and kicked out of heaven for it. For us, submission comes first, then the ability to resist temptation follows next in line. Submission and humility puts us where God is able to do something major for us. He can lift us up only after we place ourselves willingly beneath him. We must acknowledge that He is God and we are not. It is hard to imagine anyone not catching on to that, but some are still ignorant of their humanness in the face of God’s transcendent deity.
So, what are you? Proud or humble? It’s obviously an important question because it makes all the difference between living a life in opposition to God, or living a life basking in God’s grace.
Humility’s one of those illusive traits where it’s hard to know if you have it or not. I remember the old song I parodied: I’m so proud that I’m ashamed, but I’m ashamed that I’m proud… (Based on “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God)
As soon as we think we’re humble, we get proud of how humble we are, which brings us right back to where we started, and we have to get humble again.
So today, with the help of James, we’re going to clear up all the confusion … because this chapter lays out a bunch of the warning signs of pride. You see, humbling ourselves … and submitting ourselves to God … is not a one-time thing. It’s a way of life. Every day we need to be on guard, watching for the warning signs that PRIDE is raising its haughty head in our lives.
1. Constant Conflict
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
How are things going in your closest relationships? Are you constantly in conflict with your spouse or neighbors or co-workers … or even with people in your church family? This is a clear warning sign that PRIDE has reared it’s ugly head.
Have you even noticed that people who are at odds with the people around them are sure of one thing: that they are RIGHT. Not only are they RIGHT, but they are more important than all those other WRONG people around them. These are people who took that old Burger King commercial a little too literally: Have it YOUR way.
There’s another thing at work here. If you are constantly clashing with people around you, you may have the idea that you are in control. James says, “You do not have because you do not ask God.” We don’t tend to ask God for things when we’re convinced that we can get those things for ourselves.
This is a false kind of self-sufficiency. The root cause is pride. The solution is to recognize the pride in your heart and then to humble yourself before God. But even when we do turn to God in prayer, we may find another warning sign … unanswered prayer.
2. Unanswered Prayer
3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
Not every prayer is going to be answered exactly the way we want and at the time we want. But if you are getting frustrated because you hardly EVER see an answer to your prayers, then check to see if pride is the culprit. Being entirely self-centered is a sure sign of pride. And a self-centered person prays mainly for what will make SELF happy.
I remember a very sincere lady years back who announced in a Bible Study that God was soon going to give her a new SUV. Her car was old and kept breaking down … and she wanted an SUV, so she was sure that’s what God would give her. She believed with all her might for several months, but she was still getting by with the old clunker.
She finally asked the Bible Study group why God wasn’t answering her prayer. They were able to show her that God was not a Genie in a Bottle who owed us all 3 wishes. We need to approach God with a truly humble heart. This means that we really believe God knows what is best. We rely on Him to meet our needs, but we don’t try to dictate the terms.
It comes down to whether we want God or whether we want what God can give us. Do we want God to live in us or do we envy the things the world holds for us. Here’s how a version called The Message translates verses 4-6:
4-6You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover." And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble." (The Message)
Verse 11 gives another Warning Sign of Pride:
3. Slandering Others
11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
I heard about a mom and daughter who were walking to their car in the church parking lot when a car-load of teenagers pulled out with their BASS up so high the asphalt was vibrating.
The mom turned to her daughter in disgust and said, “Look at those kids. They can’t even wait to get out of the church lot before their turn up that loud music!”
Her daughter gave her something to think about when she answered, “Yeah, mom. And look at you. You can’t even wait to get out of the church parking lot before your start judging others.”
Do you find that you’re constantly critiquing other people? Is it hard for other people to live up to your standards? The surest sign of PRIDE is when you find yourself constantly passing judgment on others. You can’t critique others without raising yourself up to a position of “chief critic.” When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
In our Pueblo group we asked how we could define spiritual maturity? Someone said, “Being spiritually mature probably means you don’t try to figure out whether the people around you are spiritually mature or not.” Someone else said, “It’s all I can do to figure out what God wants me to do. I don’t need to try to figure out what God wants everyone else to do.”
Which leads to the next Warning Sign: boasting
4. Boasting
13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil
Do you feel a need to be sure everyone knows the impressive things you’ve done … or are about to do? We all know that constant BOASTING is a sure sign of PRIDE. But James gives a new definition of boasting. According to these verses, any time we talk about our lives as if we we’re in total control, we are boasting.
For the first 11 years of ministry, I lived in a rural area of South Texas. I often heard people say things like, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lord willin’” or “We’ll have an all-church pot-luck next Sunday, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”
We may not use that particular phrase, but we need to remind ourselves that we are not masters of our own destiny. A person with a humble heart knows that every breath is dependent on God’s grace.
The chapter ends with this sobering warning:
5. Deliberate Sin
17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.
The end result of PRIDE is that we set our own course. Even though we know what the Holy Spirit wants us to do, we deliberately choose to go another way, thinking somehow it will all come out just as well. After all, we know how truly smart we are. Susan and I often say (tongue in cheek) “Wisdom will die with us.” Actually we know better. The truth is that wisdom will die with our children. (Just kidding) It is hard to imagine that not doing good that we know to do amounts to sinning, but this is precisely what James warns. It is obvious that procrastinating on doing good is actually willful disobedience. God cannot bless the fact that we have become educated beyond the level of our obedience. Knowing good and not doing it amounts to deliberate sin, and as in everything else we have said today, the root of it all is pride.
CONCLUSION:
8Come near to God and he will come near to you.
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up
So if the root problem is pride, and the outcome is sin and humiliation (the humbling process God puts us through when we refuse to humble ourselves), then the answer to the problem is willing submission with the resulting humbleness that places us back where God is then free to work in our lives. From the place of submission and humility we gain the ability to resist temptation, the earnest desire to draw near to God, the ability to clean up our act (wash your hands you sinners), and to purify our hearts before God. Joy will eventually come to us, but we may need to weep before God and admit our waywardness so that God can lift us up in our brokenness. It’s hard to imagine anything positive about brokenness, but it is the pathway to God’s intervention in lifting us up. Anything else will result in humiliation. It’s hard to learn that the pathway leading up begins will bowing down in humility. This is the heart of James 4.
