Pride and Humility — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:00 What is a group of lions called?

Okay. Quiz for you to get started. If a if a group of turkeys is called a... Do we know what that is? Okay.

A flock. And a... A group of whales or a group of dolphins is called a... Pod. A pod.

Then what's a group of lions called? Pride. Pride. That's right. So that's how we get started here today.

Pride and humility is what we're we're starting to kick off the the the study with for the next month or so. So, why would I put up a pride of lions there? I think the point is we're gonna talk a little bit about definitions. I'm gonna do an effort, make an effort to talk about what is pride, okay? To define pride.

And there's many definitions for pride. This is one that's the wrong Okay? So we start there. Let's make sure we get to the right definition. At least we'll we'll give it a big we'll give it a big try.

Now, pride and humility, humility and pride. To be honest with you, this is something that Andy and I have been impressed about for some time, so we finally gotten here. Now, for the record, it's not because one of you has problems. It's not because we're trying to pick on a group up. It's because we're looking at ourselves and everybody else and saying, you know what?

If there's one thing that that we could all work on, this would be one of them. And I think we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go forward to understand why that's the case. But don't take it personal. Don't be mad at us. Okay?

So now when you talk about pride and humility, pride and humility reminds me of a joke an old friend of mine had. Now you'll have to bear with me. Okay? His joke went something like this. I have to clean it up a little bit, but let's say if you eat, if you mix up equal parts of chocolate ice cream with dog poop, what do you get?

Poopy ice cream. Right? It it's it's not chocolatey poop. It's poopy ice. It's just lousy ice cream.

What a lousy thing to do to ice cream. Right? So, you know, maybe fifty fifty is not okay. What if we just took a little bit and mixed it with chalky eye... Chocolate ice cream?

What do you get? Same thing. Right? Ice cream. Alright?

It's... I think it's the same way here. You know, what do you what do you do when you mix a little bit of pride with humility? Lousy humility. Okay.

And so I'm not sure it should be pride and humility. It should be pride versus humility. It's a contrast here that we're gonna talk about. Now I've been taking this course recently, reading a book that a friend gave me. And and and the brother that's writing the book says, talk about what you know.

Okay? Teach what you know. Well guess what? I don't know anything about humility so I think that leaves me with talking about pride today. And I think it's a good place to start with our whole study.

Okay? So let's see if we can talk a little bit first about definitions. Now the first place to go for a definition, the one place to go for a definition is the dictionary. So dictionary.com says pride has all of these definitions. Right?

Now one of them is the wrong one, the group of lions. So there's there's another 12 in there. We're gonna pick one to talk about today. Alright? You might also talk about proud.

Okay? We can talk similar to pride and there's a reason for that. But with proud, there's also a possible highly gratifying to the feelings or self esteem. So so we might think of some passage in the Bible like, you know, where the father says, this is my beloved son of him... Of whom I'm well pleased or in whom I'm well pleased.

Listen to him. Now that could be considered a proud moment. That's not what we're talking about today. We're Okay? Not talking about that kind of pride.

Here's the definition of pride we're gonna use today. A high, this is the first one on the list. There are high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority. Whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed and bearing. So whether you think it or you do it, when we have a higher inordinate opinion, one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superior, that's what we're gonna call pride.

That's the kind of pride, that's the definition of pride we're working out today. Proud could be the same thing. Having, proceeding from, or showing a high opinion of one's own dignity, importance, superiority. Okay? It's a focus on the person yourself.

Alright. And you notice here if you remember your English, pride is a noun. So that man has a lot of pride. Okay. Versus he is a very proud man.

Okay. Say same concept here. One's an adjective that modifies a noun. One's the noun, which is a person, place, or thing. That's the end of the lesson for English today because I don't have a lot of information to give you there.

5:07 Pride is a higher view of me

So I figured I'd talk about a little bit of pride there. Right? So we easily go to our accomplishments. Right? And I forgot my props today.

I was gonna bring a prop with me to to show you. I was gonna put this jacket on. Okay. It's my letterman's jacket from high school. Know this is a graduate Sunday, we ought to talk a little bit.

Start there. I'll start in high school. I put my letterman's jacket on, and I was gonna show you it's from West Yaga. I graduated 1982, long time ago. Right?

Forty one years ago. And I'm gonna turn around, you're gonna see my big old belly sticking out from it. Right? It doesn't fit anymore. So I was really proud of that at the time.

Okay? I earned my letter as a sophomore in high school, something that was unheard of in our day. Okay? At my high school that just didn't happen for whatever reason. Okay?

But I did. My dad bet me thinking he had it all figured out. If you letter, I'll buy your jacket. I was like, woah, watch this. And he did.

A $110. He didn't have it, but he definitely paid it with a smile on his face. He was proud of me too. I was real proud of that. But you know what?

If I look back at that, one of the reasons I got that, one of the reasons I was good at football, I was bigger than everybody else. Most everybody else. I'm not bigger than these guys over here now, but they're growing bigger these days. So... But the point is that just because I was bigger, I didn't have anything to do with that.

My daddy gave me that. I didn't get it. It's not me that was bigger. I had two guys that pushed me like a dog when I first got there named Jim Ritz and Rick Rosenberg. And a coach named Bob Quackenbush that pushed me to a level I didn't deserve.

And they did a good job. Okay? So that... I can't be proud of that. They helped me.

Alright? So off to college I went and I studied hard. Well, but not as hard as most. I'll be honest with you. Studying came easy for me.

My wife hates me to this day because of that. Because I somehow it just it came easy. I could study and it it made sense. All this science and mathematics and whatnot. Well, until that last semester when I wouldn't have made it if it hadn't been for her working hard and making a lot of notes so I could study her notes because I didn't go to class.

Oh, I was supposed to say that. But I made it through. You know what? Thirteen years later, I had graduated from college, was the number one in my class. I could make steel better than anybody else on paper.

Went to work for the steel mill over here in Lorraine. And guess what? I learned how to actually make steel from a guy from West Virginia, hillbilly from West Virginia. He would have been proud to to call himself that, so I'm not using the derogatory term. A hillbilly from West Virginia who had an eighth grade education and did things on the radio and in the middle of the night that I can't repeat.

Okay. But the boy knew how to make steel and I had no idea how to do it when I graduated from college. So I can't take pride in being number one because he taught me more than I could have ever known. You know what I mean? And as I said, thirteen years later, I had my own operation.

8:51 Pride and failures

I'm not proud of that. It's amazing how those things that cause you to be proud eventually, you get humbled in. If you want humble, have children. Okay? You will find out very quickly two things.

Number one, that this was true. I didn't deserve all this because look at this little kid. I was once that little baby who had to have my diaper changed and a bottle stuck in me. I only knew how to do three things and they did they did. They just came natural.

Eat, poop, sleep. That's it. That's it. But yet, I grew up to be this guy. Right?

So I realized, you know what? My parents actually... But for them, I wouldn't have been anybody. I wouldn't have lived. And so then you start thinking, but for me, those kids wouldn't be anything.

And if you ever come come to that conclusion the wrong time. But for me, those kids wouldn't be anything. I'll tell you what, you wanna suffer and and have your pride humbled. Be in that position where your kids are in trouble, your kids are suffering, and you can't do anything about it. That'll humble you.

We can look at our accomplishments and say we have pride. We can also look at our failures and say we have pride. Okay? This this picture hurt me to even put it up there, but it really conveys the message. Can you see it well enough?

It's just a few little lines. Does that hurt you like it hurts me? Well, I hope it never hurts you like it hurts me because I did that more than I like to admit. I made somebody else feel small while I was being big, and I made them hurt. If you haven't done that yet, you probably will.

You probably will. You probably will spend some time doing something that you wish you were doing something else. As you look back, you look and say, you know what? I wish I'd have spent time doing this instead of that. I wish I'd have spent more time with my kids than with my job.

I wish I'd have spent more time with those friends instead of them. I wish I'd have spent more time working out instead of eating out. Right? Whatever it is, but we come to that and we have a failure. Okay?

You might have found that you were someplace when you should have been someplace else. I was supposed to be home on time. For me, it's leaving out a jet plane. Right? I'm in Newark and I'm not here to do something.

You can have your own reason for your failures. Okay? But this gives us sort of a broad range of them. But they're both associated with pride. In the case of their accomplishments, I try to maximize my input to that.

In the case of our failures, we try to minimize that. Right? I should have been there, but I couldn't be. I spent too much time, but I had to. I, you know, yelled them, but it was their fault.

Right? We minimize that to make ourselves look bigger. Right? It's all about me making me look bigger and other person look smaller in view of that. So so now we talked...

Got some examples. Okay. We have a dictionary definition. We got some examples of it. Let's talk a little bit about what the the Bible says.

I mean, that's probably what we're here for today. Right? So let me roll through 10 definitions or ten ten verses rather. I'm sorry. I'm gonna roll these quickly.

I'll put them up there so you don't have to copy them down. I'll put up the list and you can go search them for yourself to make sure that that I've got them got them right. But I want you to listen carefully. Listen carefully and stop me or... No.

Don't stop me. But at the end of it, I want you to tell me how many of them reflected pride in a positive light. Okay, now these are three verses from the New Testament, the times that that word is used, pride is used in the New Testament and seven from Proverbs. It's just a survey, there's more throughout scriptures, but let's start there and see where we get, okay. So Mark chapter seven verse 21 to 23 says, For from within, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all all these evil things come from within and defile a man.

First Timothy three, a part of verse two and six, a Bishop then overseer elder must be not a novice less being puffed up with pride. He fall into the same condemnation as the devil. First John two fifteen-sixteen says, do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the father or the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world. Proverbs chapter eight verse 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogance in the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.

Proverbs eleven:two, when pride comes, then comes shame. Proverbs thirteen ten, by pride comes nothing but strife. Proverbs fourteen three, in the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride. Sixteen eighteen, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. A proud...

Verse 21, 24, a proud and haughty man, scoffer, mocker of God is his name. He acts with arrogant pride. Finally, Proverbs twenty nine twenty three, a man's pride will bring him low. So there they all are with a little bit of a summary of each one of them. Okay.

Did anybody hear a positive thought there? O for 10. Okay. Now there's many others. I'm gonna bet you, you can look and you're gonna find O for whatever there is there.

15:42 Symptoms and results of pride

You you can't blame this on anybody else. It comes from within your own heart. Okay? It causes one to be puffed up or to get a big head. The love of the father is not in that person with pride, meaning the father God.

Okay? The rod of pride is in the mouth of a fool. He's so stuck with that. It's it's stuck in there. That that pride is stuck in the mouth of a fool.

Nobody... No. Anybody wants to be a fool. A mocker of God is the name of a proud man. He acts with arrogant pride.

That's like doubling down. Okay? The results of pride, it defiles a man. It makes him be known as unclean or dirty. He ends up with the same condemnation as the devil.

It's not of the father. It's of this world where pride comes from. Hate, evil, pride, and arrogance. That's what the Lord would like to do or like us to do. Pride comes, then comes shame.

Pride creates conflict or strife. Pride goes before destruction. Pride will bring a man low. Okay. So I don't need to belabor that point.

This is not like, you know, we can't wait to find pride. We can't wait to get pride. It's how do we get rid of pride. Right. That's the whole theme here.

So the results of pride, a disaster. The the conditions or symptoms of pride are basically a big me and a little God. Alright. We could do the same thing with the word proud. And you're gonna find the exact same thing.

You can take these verses, look them all up. Again, there's another 12, no positive thought. So think negative. Okay. I'm sorry.

We... That's what we're doing today. We're thinking negative about pride being proud. Okay. So it's no better.

And then let's look at these though. The results of pride or being proud would be that God resists the proud. Now James says that James four six. Bob probably has that one memorized. That's his favorite book.

Right? So but fear... And Peter resist... Peter doubles down and said, God resists the proud. Now if there's anything you want to be pushing against, a rock might be hard, a tree might be hard, but I would not recommend that you push against God.

He's gonna resist you as if you're proud. Okay? The Lord hates a proud look. The Lord will destroy the house of the proud. Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to God.

Now, it doesn't make you feel real good, does it? Doesn't make me feel good, but I would just recommend that pride and being proud are something we should be avoiding. I think that's what the scripture is trying to tell us. Let's go back to the beginning because I think this is where it all started or what we need to need to understand the best. Genesis chapter one.

Go to Genesis chapter one. We can read, I won't read them, but we can read the first 46 verses of chapter one and into chapter... Or verse 15 to chapter two, And you're gonna hear things like create, the Lord created, the Lord made, the Lord took, the Lord put, okay? The Lord said, and it was so, Okay? Very definitive statements.

We've all read this many times. Right? But but you... That's what you'll find in the first, I'll call it 46 verses of the Bible. The Lord did and it was so.

Y'all with me? Okay. Then we get here to chapter two verse 15. It says, then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden Of Eden to tend and to keep it. Some more, he took him, he put him, it happened.

Right? And then verse 16 says, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. He took, he put, and then he commanded. And then he says now, if this were to happen, then that.

If that, then this. Right? Or may maybe better way you put it is, when this happened, this is what the result is going to be. So the point is here, now he's commanding them, he's giving them direction, he's giving them, in a sense advice, he's giving them an I, you know, a choice. Don't miss that.

The Lord created. The Lord said it, and it was so. The Lord make, He put, He took. Now He commanded. But he left it for the man and the woman.

Actually, if I read my bible the way I read it, it says he commanded the man. Okay? And it was up to him to relay that to the woman. Now, he commanded. But he says when this happens, this will be a problem.

Now, that's a difference. All of a sudden, here's all this happening. The Lord is who he is and he is doing as he pleases. But then he sits the man down. So now listen to this.

Listen carefully. Do you see that tree right there? Don't eat of it. But he left it up to who? Okay.

21:46 God gave man a choice

Some of you might do this, might choose to do something different. No, he didn't do that. He sat the man down. He sat the man down and said, it's your choice. Now, how does that make sense?

The God of the universe commanded it all to be in... He said, let there be light and there was light. There'll be two lights. Right? All of that.

And he says, now, for you, I have something else. I have a command. Okay. And this command is for you to make a choice between what? Life and death.

Life and death. Now, not many decisions that we make every day are between life and death, but this one is between life and death. Okay, let's move forward to chapter three verse four. This this is moving along in the story, and then they're confronted with exactly what the Lord said was gonna happen. Exactly what he said.

Then the serpent said to the woman, you know, the serpent's tempting the woman. He's whispering in her ear, you will not surely die. This is not a life and death decision. A lie. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the women saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate. So here's the choice she has to make. She says, the scripture say that she saw it. How did she see that?

What had the Lord told her? Don't eat of it. But then she starts thinking in her own mind. She starts listening to somebody else. She starts wondering.

What if? Wait a minute. I can actually have this thought in my head. I could make this choice. The Lord didn't take it from, it's, have you ever done this?

I did this the other night. Debbie says, we're gonna have pizza, you gotta go pick it up. And I went to pick it up, and you know how they have that little cooler right there? The the pops in the cooler. And I don't usually drink Coca Cola, but I have this hankering for a Coca Cola.

I don't... I shouldn't drink Coca Cola. Right? But there it was. I know.

I resist that one. So I went out, put the pizza in the car, and there's the convenience store right across the parking lot. I could really use a Coca Cola. Well, I'm not gonna do that. I shouldn't do that.

And so I got in the car and I drove home. And the last store before I get home is what? Another convenience store. I need I, this car just went in by itself. And and in my, have you ever been like that?

It did it. There it was. Grabbed the Coca Cola, in the car went with me. In their mouths went this, they made a choice right then. Right?

It was between God or what do we call pride? I have a higher view of me than is true. I know better than God. Here it is right there. This is the source of pride.

The bottom line. The essence. The first instance and the basis of all pride. Maybe the basis of all sin, I'll just go that far, is I know better than God, and therefore, I have a higher view of me and my ability to know this and to think it out and to reason it, then I need to follow what God said. That's it right there.

So it's between God and me. That's pride. The verse goes or the chapter goes on, it says, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sew fig leaves together and made themselves covering. We're faced with a choice.

26:14 Choice leads to prideful thought

It says that they knew they were naked. Now, I don't know about you, but I... How could they not know? How could they not know? Well, I'm trying to figure this out.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking, wait a minute, what does it mean to be naked? I'm sorry. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or be lewd or anything. But what does it mean to be naked? There's nothing between me and you.

Right now, I have this shirt and another shirt and all the other apparel. There's nothing between me and you. I'm naked. If if you know my thoughts, if I've revealed them to you, this is why revealing things to people and confessing things before others is difficult. Because now you know my thoughts.

I'm naked before you. Now, this is not a hard concept to think about. Think about that time when you were young and you did that thing your mom and dad told you not to do. For example, they gave you the keys to the car the first time. Turned around with a tear in their eye and thought, oh, I hope to come back safe.

Right? But you went out and said, I know I'm not supposed to go over the speed limit, but this car will do a little bit more than what what I've seen before. I'm gonna find out just how far. How fast will it go? Who's...

Don't raise your hand. Your moms and dads are still here. Or that time that you went to that party and you what did you do? Did you drink when you weren't supposed to? Did you go skiing and smoke pot like you weren't supposed to like I did?

Did you get in that car after you were on your way home and think, man, I I can't get any farther away from my dad. I hope he can't smell it on me. There it is. You have had the same feeling as what they had. They were naked.

Oh, I hope you can't see it. I hope you can't hear it. I hope they didn't know about it. And you know what? My mom knew all about it.

She knew all about what I was going on because she had friends in town and they all told her what was going on and I hung out with the people that she hung. Your mom's like that. Right? So there they were naked. And then they were...

They want to cover up. I I gotta find some way to put something between me and God so he can't see. He doesn't know. I don't want him to... There it was.

Now, most decisions in life are not life and death. But there are decisions between God and me, and I'm not quite sure. And it starts out kinda gray. Can you see that just a little bit there? It it's a little bit gray, we're not quite sure, and it gets a little bit darker, and it gets a little bit darker, and pretty soon, we are way off.

This is how we walk in a walk as we we learned when we were talking about Ephesians. This is a walk of separation from God. When we make one choice at a time, bit by bit to follow me instead of God, that's when we walk and separate ourselves from God. It's a prideful mindset. Okay.

So, I'm about wrapping up here. We saw that there was a choice, temptation, and then a prideful attitude. There was a consequence to them taking this choice. There was the will of God had been demonstrated or told to them. Right?

And then they were tempted with comfort, food, desire, and control. Right? And Adam and Eve knew what the Lord had told them. You're gonna die. It means separation from God.

They felt it at the moment they had it. Now I understand it. I have something between me and guy... God. Okay?

They knew his will, but they decided to know their own heart and do what they thought was best. They went for the food. I mean, a girl's gotta eat. Right? That's a good excuse.

They went for what was pleasant. Said it was pleasant to the eyes. It looked good. It must have been like a really good, good looking. I don't know.

Was it big or was it small? Was it little? It must, I don't know. But it was this idea. It was the thought that made the difference.

And it was supposed to make him wise. I can be in control of what I wanna do. Not God. I can do it. I'll be just like him.

31:08 Jesus' temptations

Okay? Well, here's the Lord Jesus. If you remember, Matthew chapter four, he was basically fasted for forty days. You're forty days, you're hungry. Right?

So he was tempted as they were with food or comfort. And he said, no, man should not live by bread alone. He was tempted, throw yourself down off the tower and the angels will catch you. Maybe that was for pleasure, for fun. To see what would happen.

To see if this would really happen. I call that pleasure. He coulda had a desire. Nope. Don't tempt the Lord your God.

And then power. This whole... Look at the whole thing. It'll all be yours. And he said, no.

You you shall not worship any but the Lord your God. Okay. Then in the Garden Of Gethsemane, he prayed. Death was imminent. He he had both deaths.

Right? They they had a separation. Right? They didn't have a physical death when they ate the fruit, but they had a spiritual separation from God. He died a physical death.

And he was separated from the Lord. Okay? And he knew it was coming. And he still made the choice. Okay?

To do what? To know... He knew the will of God. It had been told him. But what did he do that was different?

He submitted himself to that will as opposed to taking his own will. Okay. We could talk a lot about that, but essentially it. So there is a life and death decision that you can make. Okay?

I'm sorry I bridged over from pride to the good news, but I'm sorry fellas for you. You'll have to move other places for the good news too. But the point is there is a life and death situation or a question for you to answer. Do you accept the cross as the payment for your sin? Okay.

Can we do like the Lord did and submit our will to his? It's not about me. It's about what He did. And therefore, just as the Lord did and demonstrated to us, not my will, but yours, Lord. Just like Eve said, my will.

And Adam said, he wasn't even deceived. My will. Can we say, your will. Your will be done. I submit my free choice to you and accept what you would have for me.

And then we get an opportunity to make these small decisions little at a time. The Lord never made a a bad decision. He was faithful to the end. And bit by bit, he demonstrated that he was who he was. Let's pray.

34:22 Prayer

We know that you've asked us to submit our will to yours. We do that today, Lord. And for those that haven't, we pray that they might. Lord, if it be if it be for us to do that, may we help. Lord, it's in your son's name that we're so thankful.

Amen.

Pride and Humility — Genesis 1-3

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Pride and Humility — Genesis 1-3

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