SERIES: “OVERCOMING OBSTACLES THAT OBSTRUCT OBEDIENCE”
TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 4:6-21
TITLE: “THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE”
INTRODUCTION: A. A young lawyer has just opened his new practice. On his very first day, he sits at
his desk waiting and hoping for a client to walk in. It doesn’t take very long. He can
see out into the reception area as the very first person to enter his office comes in
through the door.
The lawyer decides that he should look busy so he grabs the phone and starts
talking: “Un, hunh. Un, hunh. Look, about this merger deal. I think I’d better
come down there and handle it myself. Yes. No. I don’t think three million is gonna
cut it. We better have Rogers from NY meet us there. OK. Call you back later.”
He hangs up the phone, looks up at the prospective client and says, “Good
morning! How may I help you?” The visitor says, “Well, I thought I was here to help
you. I’m from the telephone company and I’m here to hook up your phone.”
B. The Bible has a lot to say concerning pride:
1. Prov. 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
2. Prov. 21:4 – Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are a sin.”
3. Phil. 2:3 – “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility,
consider others better than yourselves.”
4. James 4:6 – “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
C. Pride does several things:
1. It blurs our vision
--We can’t see what God wants us to see
2. It causes delusion in our minds
--We become confused about what to think and what to do
3. It causes us to stumble
--If we can’t see, if we can’t think, and we operate out of blurred vision and a
blurred mind, it only stand to reason that we’re going to get tripped up.
4. Someone: “Pride is the dandelion of the soul. Its root goes deep; only a little left
behind sprouts again. Its seeds lodge in the tiniest cracks.”
D. 1 Cor. 4:6-21 – “Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for
your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, ‘Do not go
beyond what is written.’ Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not
receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? Already
you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and
that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be
kings with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end
of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a
spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.
We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are
strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and
thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with
our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;
when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the
scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. I am not writing this to shame you, but to
warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in
Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through
the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you
Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my
way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every
church. Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I
will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only
how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom
of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you
with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?”
D. Paul doesn’t cover every aspect of pride in this passage
1. He does point out that pride is one of the major contributing factors to the problems
in the Corinthian church
2. Much like the Pharisees in the gospels, there were those in the Corinthian church
that looked at themselves as being spiritually superior to others
--some even considered themselves better than Paul and the other apostles!
3. Paul contrasts two ways of living:
a. A life lived out of pride
b. A life lived in perspective
I. A LIFE LIVED OUT OF PRIDE SAYS:
A. “I Have done it all myself!”
1. “Look how wonderful I am.”
a. I heard about a fellow that thought he was so wonderful that he’d be broke just paying the taxes on
what he thought he was worth
--In fact, he joined the Navy just so the world could see him
b. The thing is, you can’t convince people that you’re wonderful and that Jesus is wonderful at the
same time.
c. Is. 5:21 - “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”
2. Jesus told a parable with a warning in Lk 18:9-14 – “To some who were confident of their own
righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the
temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed
about himself: God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even
like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a
distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a
sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’”
B. “I am important”
1. Paul points out that there were a good number of people in the Corinthian church who thought they
were important
a. They considered themselves as kings and as rich
b. They considered themselves wise
c. They considered themselves strong
d. They considered themselves as honorable
2. A beaver and a rabbit were staring up at the immense wall of the Hoover Dam. The beaver said, “No, I
didn’t actually build it myself. But it was based on an idea of mine.”
3. Prov. 3:34 (quoted by both James and Peter)– “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
4. C. S. Lewis put it this way, “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course,
as long as you are looking down, you can’t see something that is above you.”
C. We have to realize that we don’t have it all together
-- There was a well-known Christian businessman who was visiting a church and was asked to give his
testimony. He said, “I have a fine family, a large house, a successful business, and a good reputation. I
have plenty of money so I can support some Christian ministries very generously. Many organizations
want me on their board of directors. I have good health and almost unlimited opportunities. What more
could I ask from God?” As he paused for effect, a voice shouted from the back of the auditorium,
“How about asking Him for a good dose of humility?”
II. A LIFE LIVED IN PERSPECTIVE SAYS:
A. “Everything comes from God”
1. Acts 17:28 – “‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’”
2. Eph. 2:8-10 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it
is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
3. A life lived in perspective recognizes that we’re all sinners and fall short of the glory of God
B. “I am important only when God works through me”
1. Rom. 12:3-8 – “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. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these
members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each
member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s
gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his[b]faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is
teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of
others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let
him do it cheerfully.”
2. 2 Cor. 12:7-10 – “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations,
there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded
with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power
is made perfect in weakness.’”
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
C. When compared together, this is what the life lived out of pride and the life lived in perspective look
like:
Pride
Source of success is self
Boasts unrealistically
Inflated sense of self-importance
Imitates the world
Arrogant
Perspective
Source of success comes from God
Faces suffering honorably
Becomes a fool for Christ
Imitates Christ
Humble
CONCLUSION: A. Paul exercises some discipline on his spiritual children
1. It’s kind of like the father saying: “Don’t make me come up there” or “Don’t make
me stop this car.”
2. Paul did what he did not out of contempt but out of love
3. Sometimes we all need to be chastised or disciplined because we’ve gotten off the
right path and are following the wrong one
Back during the 2001 Word Series, “Rocket”Roger Clemens, pitcher for the NY
Yankees battled Curt Schilling, pitcher of the Arizona Diamondbacks in game seven.
Clemens had won 20 games already that year while Schilling had won 22.
It was not the first time they had squared off. Back in the winter of 1991, they
both played for the Houston Astros. Clemens noticed Schilling working out in an
adjacent weight room. Clemens, 28, asked the younger Schilling, 24, if they could
talk. Schilling thought it might be fun to talk some baseball with Clemens but he had
no idea what Clemens had on his mind.
Clemens got in Schilling’s face, telling him he wasn’t taking advantage of the gifts
God had given him; he wasn’t respecting himself, his teammates, or the game.
According to Clemens, the conversation got heated.
But it had an impact on Schilling. Schilling says, "I walked away saying to myself,
#1: Why would he care as much as he did? and, #2: If he did care, there must be
something there.” Schilling adds, “I began to turn a corner at that point in my career,
both on and off the field.”
4. Where are you tonight?
B. Jer. 9:23-24 – “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who
boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who
exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the
LORD.”
