Finding Pride in Yourself — Romans 2

0:00 I'm going to open up with a word of prayer but before I do that, I'd like to, could you guys turn me down just a little bit? I'd like to put this phrase in your mind. See god. See God. And as we as we think about God, we have this concept of God.

0:21 First thing we'll consider briefly is is his works. We think of the Psalmist when he he would write and he says, the heavens declare declare your handiwork. The heavens declare the glory of god. When we consider his works, the things that he's made, he consider like the human body, you and I, this how we've how we're designed and made and the DNA and all of that. It blows our mind but you know what?

0:47 It directs us back to like we come back as we see god in it. We see god in his works. See god in his word. Most of us today have a copy of the word right in our right in our lap. We've got his word.

1:02 God's word reveals himself to us. See god. We're going to look at his word and we want to see god in his word and then, we're the third third thing I'd ask us to consider as we go to prayer here is to say, see god in his ways. See god in his ways. He's he's a loving god.

1:25 He's a merciful god. He's a just god. He's a mysterious god. We heard last night at missus Dick's memorial. This lady given testimony that...

1:36 Where Mrs. Dick led a bible study and and she was led to the Lord. God works with you and I in different ways and different circumstances. When we consider the ways of God though we still say like, wow. I want to see God in His ways.

1:51 I want to see God in my experience with Him. See God in His works, in His Word, and His way. Let's let's pray. Our heavenly father, we we would like to see god this morning. We'd like to see you as our heavenly father.

2:09 We acknowledge you. We would like to see god the father, god the son, god the holy spirit. We'd like to understand more the eyes of our understanding being opened, enlightened. We'd like to experience the reality of god. Father, we wanna...

2:25 We want to know the truth of your word to have a correct and right concept of god, of of of yourself. We're going to look at the word. Father, we're going to we're going to try to derive some principles. We're going to try to to grab a hold of some concepts but really we're we're asking for you to reveal yourself to us. And perhaps if you agree with this, you just might in your in the in the quietness of this little moment here, just pray pray to the lord.

2:59 Pray to god. Ask him to reveal himself to you this morning. Our heavenly father, we commit ourselves to you. We we pray this in the name of the lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

3:19 In the book of Genesis, we read about this fellow named Joseph and we're we've got quite a bit of information about his life. It's really cool how we can build the build back his life by reading through the book of Genesis and you know, Genesis Joseph, he had he had himself 11 brothers and some sisters, right? But Joseph's brothers didn't, well, they didn't really think too much of Joseph. In fact, I'd like you to I'd like to open the floor here and just raise your hand if you would like to answer this question. Why is it?

3:55 Why why would you say that Joseph's brothers didn't like him? Phil's quick to the draw here. You got an answer? They were jealous. They were jealous?

4:05 Okay, good. Anybody else got something they want to add? Why did Joseph's brothers not like him? Thank you for raising your hand, Jim. I'm teasing you.

4:17 He's good He's a good Yeah. He was spoiled. Alright. Daddy, you said you're you're saying daddy spoiled him maybe. Yeah.

4:25 Right. Yeah. He was a favorite. It does stay clearly in scripture. He was a favorite.

4:29 Laura? Yeah. Yeah, that was tough. Right? So we're hearing these reasons that Joseph's brothers didn't like him.

5:39 He's coming to check on them by his dad's command or by his dad's direction. He's vulnerable. They say, they work up a plan right quick and kind of long story short, he ends up in a pit, right? They're going to kill him first and then they they reel that back in a little bit, throw him in a pit, then somebody's got a good idea. I think it was Judah that said, let's sell him.

6:00 And make some little side cash, you know. And so, anyway, then fast forward again, he finds himself in Potiphar's household. He he's raised up. He's the Bible says clearly in this section that he's the lord was with him. Joseph was with with the lord.

6:19 He was following god and and then Potiphar's wife took a liking to him, right? And she makes multiple advances on him to to try to get to try to get Joseph and come to be with her. He denies it. In fact, he makes this statement and Genesis records for us says, how could I do this wicked thing and sin against god? I'm going highlight that statement in your mind.

6:51 Joseph does everything right from what we can tell and yet he ends up in prison. She squeals, makes up a story, lies about what Joseph tried to do to her, and he ends up in prison. Now, raise your hand again if you want to answer this question. What what happened to what what we've talked about so far that's happened to Joseph, was it fair or unfair? It's not a trick question.

7:26 Unfair. Alright. Mason? Unfair. Unfair.

7:30 George, what were you going to say? Unfair. Philip, what were you going to say? Yes. Alright.

7:34 Okay. Now work with me on this, okay? Does everybody agree that it was unfair? Oh, let's just do this. By a show of hands, raise your hand if you think it was unfair.

7:46 Alright, if you think it was unfair. Alright? Good. What do you think? You're not going to vote?

7:54 No. I'm waiting for the next vote. Alright. So by show of hand... Or by a raised hand again, why was it unfair?

8:12 Why why was it unfair? Alright, we hadn't met yet. What's your name? Peter. Peter?

8:18 Go ahead. Wait, you're Peter and you're Peter too? I'm Steven. Oh, Steven. Okay.

8:21 Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Alright. I got.

8:23 Yeah. Alright. By man's standard? Okay. Interesting.

8:31 By man's standard, right? Anybody else got any insight on that? Why was it unfair? What's that? He was lied about?

8:41 Okay. Janelle? Right now. Okay. Justice wasn't being served when he got, you know, he ended up in a pit twice, right?

8:51 I mean, he ended up in a pit by his brothers, got sold in slavery, ends up in a pit or a jail, in a dungeon, And so we're saying it, we all agreed, I think. We all agreed it was unfair. We're starting to think about like, why is it unfair? And it doesn't feel right. I mean, it's like it's...

9:09 We we all come to this conclusion that he was unjustly dealt with. In a sense, what we have just done as a as a group exercise, we have judged the matter. We heard the evidence and we came to a conclusion about it, right? We we came to a conclusion and I would say we came to a a reasonable, right conclusion. Now, this is really important.

9:43 You got to raise your hand if you want to answer this question. Last week, Denzel gave a definition of pride. You can use your notes. If you want, if you wrote it down, could somebody raise their hand and give us that definition of pride? Phil, you got it?

10:09 You know it? Lions. Oh, not quite the definition. Said lions. That was the picture that he gave.

10:16 Alright. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. That was one of the definitions.

10:19 Yeah. Anybody got it? Mason? High or an or an opinion of one's own dignity or its merit or superiority. Okay.

10:28 Alright. Yeah, that. He gave that but what I'm looking for. Now, I'm going to you're going to get credit for that. There.

10:36 That's the one we're looking for. That's... Say that one again. Everybody listen to what Mason is gonna say right here. A view of me higher than what is true.

10:43 That's right. See, there's a reward for for this one right here. Alright. He got he got rewarded for having that definition. A view a view of me that is higher than true.

11:01 I thought about alternate to try to make it rhyme a little bit more. A view of me that isn't true. View of me true. View and true, Brian. But got it?

11:14 A view of me that isn't true. Okay. We gotta ask some more questions. What about who who did the wrong? Who did the wrong in the scenario when Joseph's brothers, collected against him?

11:40 Or or who who did the wrong there? Anybody know? Yeah, Judah? Joseph's brothers, we could conclude that. In the scenario with Potiphar's wife, who did the wrong?

11:55 Potiphar's wife. All right. So we got that. Do you think that Joseph's brothers knew that they were doing wrong? I mean their conscience was bothering them.

12:09 I mean, like they were I mean, they're they're like changing the plan around. How can we make this? I mean, did know it, but they still did it. They still, like, knowingly did wrong. Now here's this little tougher.

12:21 Do you think Potiphar's wife knew she was doing wrong? You think so? But she didn't wait till nobody was in the house, you know, and yeah, I mean. So I would like you to turn our main our main portion this morning is going to be in Romans chapter two. Romans chapter two.

13:07 At some point in the study, we'd like to slip it and say humility first and then versus pride. But for today, we're going to say pride versus humility and and so, we we've given this scenario about Joseph and we're going to read some scripture here and we're going to we're going to maybe check back and forth and use this to help illustrate some of these points. But look at Romans chapter two and verse one. Romans chapter two and verse one. I'm reading from the NIV.

13:36 So, you may have a little different passage but I just, the NIV particularly helps this passage read to where I believe we get a better gist here. You therefore, have no excuse or the King James version would say, you're inexcusable. You who pass judgement on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgement do the same things. Now, if we take this verse and we apply it back to the scenario that we've just been considering and the questions that we've been answering, asking, and answering, we would say this, we all judged that Joseph's brothers did wrong.

14:27 But the verses revealing this truth to us and man, is this helpful to grab a hold of is that we, you and I, play the role of Joseph's brothers in our life at different points. I'm the envious. I'm the jealous. I'm the I'm the one who wants to put him down. I've been angry at my brother.

14:52 I've wanted to wring his neck. You and I play that. By condemning, by judging their actions wrong, you and I actually condemned ourselves because we've done the same thing. And if you're thinking this, Well, I've never done what Potiphar's wife did. Listen, here's what the verse says.

15:23 If you judge her actions as wrong, you yourself are condemning yourself because you have done, will do, got very close, have the capability to do the same thing. Just we're in mowing season, right? Conor, did you mow the yesterday? Looks great. Yes, let's go.

15:48 We're in mowing season and Worth is not in here, so I can tell this story. He probably mowed the lawn with his bow tie, right? So here, this is a couple of weeks ago, right at the beginning of the season, you're kind of like he's a young fellow and so he's got a his mowing skills probably got a little rusty over the winter. He's mowing the yard for the first time in the season. You know, we got off the mower and thankfully, the old faithful Toro started right up on the first pull.

16:27 And so he's out to mowing. I left him mowing and I'm working something else. And he comes back to me, I don't know, a little bit later and says, Dad, I broke the mower. I said, What happened? He goes, I hit a brick.

16:44 And so I go out there and I go like, know, kind of just gave him my dad talk. Surely, I mean, you hit a brick? How did you hit a brick? I mean, can't you see a brick? Don't you watch where you're mowing?

16:58 Can't you know, like this this kind of a thing. Gave them some instruction about it's not you shouldn't hit a brick when you're mowing. Right? A week later, guess what happened? You know it, right?

17:14 I did. Now, mine wasn't as big. Okay. But I'm mowing in the backyard in the high grass and don't you know there's like a quarter of a brick in a strange place and I'm mowing right there and hit the brick. I immediately thought, man, I was upset at him for hitting a brick and gave him the dad talk.

17:45 There was nobody to give me the dad talk. In fact, you know what? I didn't even think I needed it. It was whoever put that brick there fault to begin with. This is this is our this is our thinking, right?

17:58 I was like, I I I gave myself so much grace. I was like, yeah, it could happen to anybody. Do you you see the injustice in this? Do you see the inequity in this? You therefore have no excuse.

18:26 You who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgement do the same things. We think higher of ourselves than is true. Look look at the so look at verse two. Look at verse two, Romans chapter two verse two. Now, we know that god's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.

19:34 He's writing to those guys. You see? And what he's trying to say is that the the Pharisee is inexcusable. He's a sinner just like the publican is. What he's trying to say is like, you and I who think more about ourselves than what is true, he's trying to reveal to us the truth.

19:56 The truth is that we are without excuse. The truth is that we sin. You know what? The truth is we all have a problem with pride. That's true.

20:09 If you're in this life, if you're living, breathing, if you looked in the mirror today, if you brushed your teeth, you prepped, you got ready, you changed your outfit before you came, We all got the similar... And look, it's all of us, okay? We can all say that I've got an issue about pride. I think more about myself than what is true. I think higher than myself is true.

20:39 I esteem myself better than others. It's just reality. But let's let's keep reading. Now so I might say this, Denzel defined pride for us. Thinking higher than ourselves than is true, thinking more of ourselves than when it's true.

21:04 Maybe today, as a next step, we could say, I acknowledge that there's pride in my life. I acknowledge that pride is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Verse three, so when you, a mere man, a mere person, pass judgement on them and yet do the same things, you do you think that god, do you think that you will escape god's judgment? You see, god judge... Judges according to truth.

21:40 God distinguishes. He distinguishes the reality. When Jesus was with... Remember when the the the roof broke out, the roof broke up and those four faithful friends lowered lowered their their paralytic friend down on the... Down down in the crowd, in the midst of the crowd.

21:58 And and Jesus, he says that he he saw their faith. He he talks to the man. He restores the man. He forgives them of the sin. And...

22:07 But He asked the Pharisees this question, Why do you perceive in your heart? And He told them what they were thinking. God judges according to truth. God knows our thoughts. He knows our motives.

22:20 He knows our intentions. And so, We are without, we are without excuse. Then look at verse four. So do you not think that God's going to judge rightly? Do you not think that God's God's going to call out your sin for what it is?

22:44 Would we call... Would everybody agree that pride is sin? We say that? Yeah? Okay.

22:49 So... Or or look at verse four. Or do you show contempt? Man, listen. Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, his tolerance.

23:02 This is god's kindness, god's tolerance, god's patience, not realizing that god's goodness leads you toward repentance. You see, we're all... Remember we said, see God in His ways. God deals with us in different ways. God God draws us...

23:26 God draws every man to Himself and it's up to you or I if we accept what God is offering or reject it. God then develops each of us. When we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior, when we take on this... When we're born again, God develops each one of us. Now listen, we're all at different stages of development.

23:46 And one of the things that this verse reminds us about is the fact that God is good, God is tolerant, God is kind, God is patient. You know what we are? We're the opposite of those things. We judge pretty quick that Joseph got the raw deal. We judge pretty quick that I was mistreated.

24:11 But you know what God is saying? I'm going to give them a little more time. I'm going to work that issue out for them. And so here's where the rub comes in, okay? When you and I don't extend each other the same grace that we give ourselves.

24:32 When you or I don't act god like or Christ like and we don't extend the this trilogy that that that is is given in verse four when we're not kind, tolerant, patient. We were done wrong. Can you be kind, tolerant, patient? Can you expect the same behavior from all the believers in your life? No.

24:59 Some believers are struggling with pride. Some believers are struggling with lying. Some are struggling with lust. Some are struggling and you know, some are making progress but they're not there yet. God is he's he's saying he's he's he's kind.

25:18 He's tolerant. He's patient. And this kindness that... Here's God's God's way. His grace is leading you toward repentance.

25:30 Do you realize that if you extend grace to others that will lead them toward repentance? That's a principle we see in scripture. Now, we defined... We're using this definition of pride of one, having a view of themselves that is not true. A higher view of themselves is not true.

26:35 Last time you got upset, scripture tells us that when where there's contention, there's pride. Only by pride cometh contention. And listen, if you got upset If you're mad about something, well, we know there's a right way to deal with it, but if we're... It's dam... Pride is damaging our relationships.

27:12 Pride unchecked, pride undealt with is damaging our relationships. And so part of it is we don't see ourselves as without excuse. We think we got a platform to call other people out. You're irritated about something, you're mad about something, you're critical about something. You see that all these are all these string together.

27:39 You think the other guy's got the problem, You want to point it out to him. You think the other person did you wrong? You want to point it out to him. Am I making sense in that? Does that make sense?

27:54 So here here's here's... Let me let me try this. Okay? I'm trying... We'd like to base this off of scripture in the sense that we understand you, therefore, have no excuse.

28:08 You who pass judgment on someone else, for whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who pass the judgment do the same things. Could we... The next time we are offended, the next time that we are upset about something, could we have this mindset? I do the same thing to them that they're doing to me. I do the same thing that I'm getting upset about.

28:42 It's the whole worth mowing the yard, worth hitting the brick. I do the same thing. And so how about this? Let's try this on for size. What about if we did this?

28:54 If I replay this scenario with Worth. He hits the brick. He comes to me, says, Dad, I broke the mower. I say, Son, what happened? He says, I hit a brick.

29:10 Now here it is. I say this, I've changed my way of thinking. I've changed my approach. I'm going to implement this Bible verse. Man, I've hit rocks and bricks and stuff like that.

29:26 I've made that mistake myself a lot. Let's go look at the mower and see what we can do. Hey, you know that next time you just want to pay pay closer attention. Right? You see see the difference?

29:41 I didn't come from the I didn't come from the higher, like, how could you do this? I came I came right there without excuse. I came saying, look, I'm guilty. I do the same thing. It could happen to me.

29:57 It has happened to me. That'll revolutionize relationships. Revolutionize. That'll revolutionize this church. This local body of believers.

30:34 When you told that lie about me, it really hurt my feelings. I've approached it a whole different standpoint. Pride versus humility. One thing we're doing is we're understanding the definition of pride. We're admitting we have a problem with pride, but now we're wanting to take steps to reverse the actions of pride and start to act in humility.

31:03 I'm going to act in humility by admitting that I am without excuse, by it not by saying, I want to be like God and give forbearance, give tolerance, give patience, give grace, the same as I would give myself, I'm coming now from a position of humility. I'm practicing humility. This will draw us all closer to the Lord. This will draw us closer to each other to behave in humility. This will diffuse contentions.

31:43 This will make relationships healthier. They'll make them improve. This is not easy. You know how, like, you meet somebody and you say, Boy, you look great. What have you...

32:02 The person's like, You haven't seen him, like, in five years or something and they've lost all this weight. They're looking great. You say, What did you do? And you hear him say this, Well, I made a lifestyle change. And they got on a better track.

32:16 I made a lifestyle change. Would we be willing to make a lifestyle change concerning this issue right here? How we deal with pride in our life? And the first action item... This is an action item that every one of us can do.

32:36 Eli, you can do this. Who's who's the oldest among us? Do I want to admit the oldest among us? So every one of us can do this. We can start and say it as soon as we want to...

32:57 I want to be critical. And go to the person and say, Hey, you know what? I set a standard way too high for myself. Don't even meet my own standards. You think we could do this a little differently?

33:13 Just go ahead and admit it. Be transparent And come from a position of equality or identifying with that I mess up too. I'm broken. I need forgiveness. I need growth in this area.

33:32 That's one action item. Second, second action item. That we can do to help us get on a path of humility. Now there's a little bit of risk in this. Okay?

33:49 So remember Joseph? We all looked at the scenario and we came up with a solid judgment. Could it be the reason that the Lord says in Scripture, there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors? We read verses like iron sharpens iron. We read verses like speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms to build and edify and encourage one another.

34:22 We need the interaction with other believers. Here's the second action item. You want to deal with pride in your life? We we all admitted like, hey, hey, we got a we got a... We got this problem.

34:37 Now one way we can do is is execute Romans two. Second way we can do is call together trusted friends, loved ones, spouse, and say, look, can you tell me where I'm outside of the line here? Can you show me where pride is is creep... Crept in? Can you tell me where pride is unchecked in my life?

35:10 Look, the person you are asking, if you choose wisely, they love you, they want the best for you, they see accurately, then you can. Remember, it was... It's hard. It's hard for you to assess the situation when you're in the middle of it. You know what?

35:30 Yeah. Joseph's brother's conscience were bothering them, but they were able to go ahead. They needed somebody to come in, an outside perspective. Potiphar's wife would have benefited from an outside perspective. You know what?

35:45 David needed an outside perspective, right? He had sinned with Bathsheba. He had killed Uriah. He's there conducting kingly business and he thought, hey, maybe everything's alright. Life's going to go on.

36:00 Nathan gave him an outside perspective. You are the man. And he he realized, I had done wrong. He needed to be called out on it, and he was the better for it. Would you ask somebody in your life to say, hey, evaluate me.

36:27 Evaluate me in this pride issue. We're doing a study on pride versus humility at the chapel. You heard the message Sunday. You heard the message last Sunday. Would you look at my life and tell me where I need to change?

37:02 Would you do like Joseph did? When he's when he's resisting Potiphar's wife, could we today see pride as a wicked thing that would sin against god. Joseph resisted this resisted this woman's offer and he said these words, I, how can I do this wicked thing that would sin against god? A problem that we have, we don't see pride as a wicked thing. We justify pride.

37:36 We live with pride. We cozy up with pride. We exude pride. It's unchecked in our lives. Would you see it as a wicked thing and a sin against God?

37:48 If you're there at that point, if you're saying, Yes, I see it as a wicked thing and as a sin against God, then you're going to be willing to come and approach others from the standpoint that you are without excuse. You're going to be willing to you're going to be willing to ask a loved one, a friend, a a mentor, a spiritual partner and say, look, where where's pride in check-in my life? And you're going to be willing to pray to God and say, show me where it is. Search me. Know my heart.

38:25 Know my deceitful, corrupt, wicked heart. Show me where I need to clean out the cobwebs. God, I know I'm going to come before you. I'm going to ask you to search me because you know what? I know that you're forbearing.

38:37 I know that you're long suffering. I know that you're patient. I know you want to give me these things. Look at back at our at our at our chapters we conclude. Look at look look at look at this.

38:47 Verse seven, to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But those who are self seeking and who reject the truth, they will follow evil. There will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble, distress for every human being who does evil. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

39:15 But glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for God does not show favoritism. There's one more verse we didn't get to. I wanna read verse five. Listen to this, the truth of the scripture. But because of your stubbornness, if you're here this morning and you think I don't have a problem with pride, if you're here this morning and you say, I don't really think I think more highly of myself than what is true.

39:48 I think I got a pretty good handle on it. Listen to this. Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of god's wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done. We have before us a path to all behave ourselves in a way from a a humble position going forward from today.

40:48 There's trilogies concerning our behavior. There's trilogies concerning your rewards for us. Father, we pray that you would help us to preserve the unity, help us to build and strengthen relationships, help us deal with this matter of pride, help us take our pride, our prideful stance, our prideful approach, and and reverse it and turn it into, convert it into a position or approach of humility. We're asking for help in this. We're praying for this.

41:24 We know this will be well pleasing to you. We know this will bring you honor. We know this will be a help and a benefit to our own Christian walk. And we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.