The Sin of Pride and How Do We Control It? - Ask the Pastor

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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so the question this morning, "Can you address the sin of pride? How do we get a grip on it?" So like I said, I think this is a sin that probably to some degree, we all struggle with.

Gary Schick
Amen and proud of it!

Ben Poole
Yeah, we're proud of how much humility we have! Pride is a hard one, because it can come off almost so innocently and how do we address that in our own lives? What is pride? What does the Bible have to say about pride? And so I think there's a lot that we could dig into in our short period of time. So Gary, why don't you open this up with some thoughts?

Gary Schick
I think there's also confusion based on how you use that word pride. I mean, I think there's a, what we use in our language as a healthy pride, you know? Taking pride in your work, healthy self-esteem, this is I guess what you call a right and proper, appreciation of doing your best. But what the Bible's talking about with pride is actually, self-esteem out of balance, it's self to the extreme, you know? Just the first thing that comes to my mind, that I remember learning in the old King James as a kid, the word from Proverbs, "Pride cometh before a fall." And of course, probably the greatest example of that is Satan himself, which taking from some things in Ezekiel and Isaiah, it appears that he was at one point the highest of the angels. So a healthy pride would've been, "Wow, God has placed me here. What a wonderful thing!" But that wasn't enough, he wanted to place himself above God. And that's what we do when we sin pridefully. C.S. Lewis, I believe in Mere Christianity, calls pride the cardinal or root sin. The sin that is basically at the base of all other sins, where we want our own will above what God has asked of us. That takes a certain unhealthy focus on self and an unhealthy view of yourself, kind of putting yourself in the place of God. So what's the cure to that? Well, Jesus, of course, is the cure to everything and how do we come to Jesus? We have to humble ourselves. You know, when I talk to kids about the 10 commandments, I remind them that there's two sides to every commandment, you know? Thou shall not kill, well what is that? You know, don't murder, don't kill, but what's the opposite of that, that we should be doing? We should be valuing life, you know? Honor your father and mother and respect authority. So what's the opposite of that? Don't disrespect authority. We can go through all 10 commandments. Well similarly, in the cardinal sins, there's also their counterparts, cardinal virtues. And you know like, the opposite to hate perhaps would be love. The opposite to pride would be, I believe humility. And interestingly some of these great thinkers, C.S. Lewis I think, I think he got it right, pride is at the root of all sin. Another great thinker Andrew Murray, in a book on humility, actually calls humility, let's see if I can find it, "The highest virtue and the root of every virtue." You know, Jesus modeled humility and everything. He said, "The son of man came not to be served, but to serve," He humbled Himself. In Paul's letter to the Philippians he said, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, He humbled himself then became obedient to death, even death on to the cross. And God has exalted him to the highest place that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." So Jesus, in His total obedience to the will of the Father exemplifies a healthy humility in all of its ways. And what does the scripture say to us? "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due time He will lift you up."

Ben Poole
Yeah, this is such a huge topic, and I think that a lot of what you talked about, even what C.S. Lewis said is so true. That pride really, from my perspective, is selfishness, "It's about me." And as Christians it's everything but about me. It's supposed to be about God and about others, and that should be our hearts desire. So I just kind of looked this up. There's so many different places you can look on different topics of the Bible. One of them is openbible.info, where you can type in different themes and it'll put out, you know, like the first hundred verses of that topic. Well so I put in pride just to see, and there's well over a hundred verses that talk directly about pride and pridefulness and the sin of it. A lot of them are found in Proverbs, which is a book of wisdom, which I think we ought to be reading in pretty regularly. I just wanna read a few of these: Proverbs 11:2, "When pride comes then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom." Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 29:23, "One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor." Jump to the New Testament, because this is also talked about in the New Testament, one that's I think really impactful, it comes out of James. That I think sometimes we don't like to talk about some of these things, because it's unpopular, uncomfortable. But this is what James 4:6 says, "But he gives more grace. Therefore Scripture says: God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." So one thing that I strive for in my own life is, if there's pride what position is that placing in me in my relationship with God?

Gary Schick
And others.

Ben Poole
And others especially, you know? And so that realization that if I'm allowing pride to settle in my life, this is a real sin, and if I'm allowing it to settle, what does that mean? That I am in opposition to the will of God. To consider that is detrimental to the Christian to think, "I'm placing myself at odds with God." I don't know anyone who's a Christian who wants to be at odds with God. And to lose maybe the blessing of God because of selfishness and pride. And so we strive to be humble and what does that look like? And there's so many things that we could talk about there, but---

Gary Schick
Jesus.

Ben Poole
Its really yeah, what did Jesus do? He gave His life for others and we're called, you know, and I think about this even as husbands. You know, as we are to lead our family and Ephesians says, "Husbands, you are to love your wives." How? Like Christ loved the church. What did Jesus do to love the church? He gave Himself up for the church. That's how we lead our families is a sacrificial way that we would give up ourselves for the people that we love.

Gary Schick
And others, if you're in any kind of a position of power or authority, how do you view and treat those that are under your care or leadership or direction? Do you demand or do you serve? Do you lead by example or do you lead by authority and position? I tell you what, pride not only puts us out of balance, but putting us in the place of God. When we are not that, we're just vice Regents in this creation who rule under Him. But it also dries up everything that we desire, it's a love killer. Let's not forget 1 Corinthians 13, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered." It's not proud, not self seeking. You know, in a way that definition kind of spells out what pride is. It's wanted itself, to put it in the Old King James, it puffs itself up, it puts itself first and ends up ultimately, last and alone. A lonely place to be.

Ben Poole
So you're listening to this and we're talking about pride, and you know, we don't have a whole lot of time left, but I just kind of wanna look into how do we get that? How do we get a grip on it? How do we really address, as you did touch on that, kind of at the beginning, what's the anecdote for this? Jesus. And we say that, but I wanna put some meat on that. What is that gonna look like? And I think part of it is, maybe you don't know if there's pride in your life or not. One thing that I do and I try to do regularly in my own prayer time with God is, "God, if there is sin in my life that I'm not aware of, would you help me to see it so that I can truly repent for from that?" And that's where it comes to, is this heart of, "I do not desire to be proud I want to be humble. So God, would you show me in my life where I have the sin of pride?" And then go to God in prayer and truly repent and give that up to God. And then through your daily life, I'm kind of a practical person, so I think about throughout the day, you know, one of my struggles as a Christian is anger, you know? And so I have to be really hands on with that, and really address that. And when I see a situation that I'm struggling with, that I want to be angry, I'm aware of it because it's on my mind. And I think pride or any other sin can be that way. It's in our mind, we're thinking about it and we're trying to stop Satan from having that foothold in our life that we can, "No Satan, you are not welcome here. I'm not allowing this to take place, I'm sticking with team Jesus here. You know, and I'm gonna go a different path." And sometimes, and I think pride especially, that can be really hard. Where to have that understanding that we to be like Christ and have that same mindset. That was not an easy thing, even for Jesus to do, you know? He really, you know, I think about the sacrifice He gave for the world. I mean, He was so stressed out physically as a human, nearly to the point of death already. That sweating blood was a real thing that took place, and it means that your body was so distraught that it's near death from the stress. And so I'm not saying that that's where we're at, but I'm understanding that God is full of grace, thankfully, and He sees that. But we need to understand that we're not called to live this easy life, the stress-free life. We're living a life of sacrifice, but for the glory of God.

Gary Schick
Yeah, and you know, I think of the beatitudes, and they focus on humility. And, you know, the very first, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom." So a confession to God, "Lord, you know what, pride, It is at the core of my sin, the old sinful nature. And I can't fix that, so I just ask you to do what I can't, make me aware." We have to humble ourselves to come to Christ and we need to continually humble ourselves to say, "And Christ do your work in me." I think focusing on the virtues that come from a Christ-centered life, you know, the fruits of the spirit, praying for those and focusing on those. I think, again Paul's words in Philippians finally brought us "Whatever is true, noble, right, pure." Friendship building, well spoken, virtuous, praiseworthy, think about these things. And then, you know, I think there was some real wisdom in old Martin Luther. He would actually pray through the 10 Commandments and he'd just say, "Lord, where is something else God, in my life besides you? Where have I misused your name? Where am I, you know, not respecting others? Where am I lusting? Where am I coveting?" Where, you know, he would work through, and then finally don't ever forget the greatest, "Lord in what ways am I failing to love you and my neighbor?" God will show you the pride in places and the places of sin in your life. When you do the work to declare your need for Him, when you put your focus on the virtues, and when you physically pray through the Commandments, and let Him do the weeding. Don't be so proud that you think you can do this by yourself.

Ben Poole
Yeah, and I think I wanna close with that before we pray out of here, but I kind of give it as a warning, but kind of just a realization. If you're gonna pray to God, which you should, and you're asking Him to reveal some things, or show some things, be prepared to listen. You know, be prepared to listen and then be obedient because He's not gonna lead you down a path that He doesn't want you on. He's gonna lead you down the right one, but we need to be able to hear, listen, and obey.