June 18 Our Great Struggle with Pride
The lower we bend, the higher we fly.
Pride is an inaccurate and malformed understanding of one’s self-image and self-worth.
1. Pride places our perspective above God’s.
2. Pride believes we know better for ourselves than God
Critical connections:
Lots of physical touch beginning in preschool
Lots of direct talk when in grade school
Lots of encouragement and affirmation in junior high school
Lots of question asking and listening in high school
3. Pride propels us toward tragic consequences.
Funny sports story of over estimating self
Turn to Genesis 3
We’re half way through this series entitled, “The Higher Path.” The Higher Path is leads us to attain to the highest of human purpose and satisfaction and contentment and fulfillment and love and peace and joy.
Our culture is telling us that the way to scale the heights is to gain all the worldly pleasures we can, gain all the power and influence we can, gain all the thrills and experiences we can, gain all the money and possessions we can.
But that’s not what Jesus said. That’s not what Jesus modeled. Jesus modeled and taught that the Higher Path is not about self-absorption, but self-denial. The lower we bend, the higher we fly.
But there is a primary attitude that all human beings have that gets in the way; a huge boulder that keeps us from walking on the higher path, and that is pride.
I’m going to give you what I think is a fairly accurate definition of pride. Pride is an inaccurate and malformed understanding of one’s self-image and self-worth.
If you don’t understand accurately why God created you and what He intends for you, you’ll either overestimate your self-importance or underestimate it. Now if you gain a biblical perspective of who you are, it can make all the difference in the world and eternity.
If you are outside of Christ( draw big circle w/person outside of it), a biblical perspective is that you understand that you are lost and condemned because of your sin and you need a savior (draw red cross in middle with small circle around it.) That doesn’t mean that your worthless—it means that you are worth enough for Jesus to have died to rescue and redeem you from your sin. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
But if you fail to accept the fact that you are helplessly unable to gain right standing with God by yourself, that you’re ok the way you are and God should be ok with that, then that pride will condemn you to hell for all of eternity because you lack the perspective needed to humble yourself and stop trusting yourself and put your trust in Jesus alone.
Now if you recognize that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and you humble yourself and depend on Jesus to save you from the consequences of your sin, (draw person inside of circle) then you are in Christ. As you grow and mature, you get a more clear, accurate, well-formed understanding of who you are in Christ. Ephesians 1 gives us a pretty clear picture: we were chosen by God, we were rescued by God, we were redeemed by God, we were saved by God, we were adopted by God, we were indwelled by God, we were sealed by God, and we have an incredible inheritance in God. What was the one phrase I used over and over again? By God. I wasn’t rescued by self, redeemed by self, saved by self, but all by God.
And the more you understand that description and live out that description of who you are in Christ, the healthier your self-image, self-worth is. Anything outside of that is pride because pride focuses on self rather than God. (circle person) That’s why both the person who OVER estimates their self-importance AND the person who UNDER estimates their self-importance (draw arrow above and below) has pride at the root of their self-image.
So where do we get this human tendency to misunderstand who we are and who God expects us to be?
It all started in the garden. No, not the Botanical Garden. The Garden of Eden. Turn with me to Genesis 3 because this is where all human problems, all pain, suffering, shame, and death began.
There is so much to be gleaned from this passage, I’m only going to have time to touch on a few key teachings. So let’s read vv.1-6
“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
1. Pride places our perspective above God’s.
Did you notice what line of attack Satan first took? “Did God really say?”
There is always the temptation to doubt God’s word and place our perspective above His, isn’t there?
Dad’s, we see it in our kids, don’t we? “Don’t hold that firecracker in your hand, it might go off before you can get rid of it.” What do they do? Hold it and injure their fingers…I know from experience.
One Christmas, got a pellet gun…dad had to go to work said wait til he got home to shoot it. I couldn’t wait. Put the pellet in, pumped the gun up like 10 times. Fired. Didn’t shoot. Figured out safety was on; the mechanism was hung on the safety. All I had to do is cock it again and then release the safety. But no, I thought I knew better: put the gun on his work bench, got a hammer, and tapped the safety til wasn’t in the way. Of course the pellet shot out of the barrel. Know where the barrel was aimed? Bout right here? 2 inches to the right and I wouldn’t have any grandchildren right now.
Pride places our perspective above God’s. God doesn’t really understand sexuality, so I can decide for myself. God’s word can’t be trustworthy about contemporary issues like same sex marriage or premarital sex or adultery or pornography. So I’ll decide for myself. That’s nothing but pure, mitigated pride.
That goes for a whole myriad of issues: how we spend our money, how we treat our spouses, what language we use.
2. Pride believes we know better for ourselves than God
The second strategy Satan chose was to attack not just the Word of God, but the love of God. Satan says, “God’s holding back on you. He knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like He is.”
Satan’s point? “God doesn’t really love you, Eve. If He did, He wouldn’t have forbidden some things. He’d give you what you want.”
And we’ve been doubting God’s love ever since. And guys, we judge God’s love by the love our earthly fathers showed toward us. Most men I’ve known through the years have what is called, The Father Wound.
‘Though the Father intended for us to be roused and sharpened by our fathers, we find more often than not that our fathers were silent and distant, more shadow than substance in our lives.’ Andrew Comiskey, “Strength in Weakness”
“These fathers provided for their sons’ material needs, but they were strangely absent when the time came to satisfy the needs of the heart, such as intimacy and connection. Fathers like this may have been available to coach their sons’ baseball teams or supervise yard work. However, they were less likely to model intimacy in relationships, or to be an active presence when their sons were dealing with the pain of rejection by peers.” Jeff Eckert
Health professionals are claiming that the number of men suffering, sometimes unknowingly, from a Father Wound has reached epidemic proportions and only going to get worse with the number of children being raised without a father in the home.
If you don’t get your father wound healed, guys, it’s going to be passed down to your children, particularly your boys. Here are some Signs of a father wound: (build)
Rebelling against authorities
Distorted sexual fantasies and behavior
Being overly aggressive
Frequent outbursts of anger and even rage
Low self-esteem
Trouble feeling empathy
The way you get your father wound healed is to gain a clear picture of who your Heavenly Father is and to come to believe deep in your heart that He loves you with an amazing love. (point to chart) And when you have a clear picture of who you are in Jesus, then that overflows to your wife and children.
I love how so many of you fathers are taking your role as a father so seriously and positively. Research indicates that a child’s most formative years are between birth and 5 years old--so dad’s get connected to your kids in the delivery room—and stay connected the rest of their lives. Critical connections: (build)
Lots of physical touch beginning in preschool (don’t stop; my boys…)
Lots of direct talk when in grade school (engage them in conversation about school, sports, creation, habits, respect, authority)
Lots of encouragement and affirmation in junior high school (pre adolescents feel very awkward and are so sensitive to peer pressure; low self esteem—so encourage)
Lots of question asking and listening in high school (become a great question asker; foster them talking and avoid being the answer man—listen most of all)
So dad’s, I encourage you to gain a proper perspective of God’s word and God’s love—and then pass that on to your children. Everything depends it. Because what happens when we don’t? Look at v.7 “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.”
3. Pride propels us toward tragic consequences. When Adam and Eve acted out of a misperception about God’s word and God’s love, they made a tragic decision, and it has cost every generation since then. Since then, we’ve been dealing with shame, self-hate, low self esteem, posturing—which then propels us to anger, hatred of others, and self-absorption.
Closing Illustration
