Hello, and welcome to Saturday Scripture Gold!Thank you for taking time out of your busy weekend to drop by! I recently ran across this article, which I'd like to share with you as an introduction to our message:
The folks from the Freakanomics blog were running a Q&A for their popular podcast, and their listeners were particularly interested in one question: "Why do people feel compelled to answer questions that they do not know the answer to?" Or "Why is it so hard to say, 'I don't know'?"
It seemed to strike a chord with their listeners. The Freakanomics guys argued that it's "practically forbidden in the business world to say that you don't know the answer to a question, lest you be deemed incompetent or irrelevant."
One of the listeners wrote in and called it "Male Answer Disorder (MAD)—where men seem compelled to always have an answer for everything."
-freakonomics.com, January 4, 2012, STEPHEN J. DUBNER
How does this relate to the rest of us? Let me put it this way. For many of us, we start out on our Christian walk doing just fine. We are focused on God, and are fully committed to Him. Then, before you know it, pride begins to rise up. It prevents us from being all God wants us to be by blinding us to His ways. It starts tempting us to believe that we know better than He does. If we leave choose to ignore it, pride will change our attitude toward God and the direction He has chosen for us to take.
What is pride? Pride causes us to act "out of selfish ambition or vain conceit" (Philippians 2:3). The Greek here has the word "glory" in it. We all have a choice between self-glory and God's glory. The proud person lives for his own glory, for self-glory. But in his letter to the Philippian Christians Paul tells us, on 5 different occasions, that all glory belongs to God and His Christ (Philippians 1:11; 2:11; 3:21; 4:19,20).
It becomes obvious that pride is idolatry. The proud person erects an idol to him or herself. He looks in the mirror every morning and sings, "How Great Thou Art." Pride is arrogant self-worship. It is the sin of exalting oneself and placing one's own interests above the interests of God and others. Pride craves the admiration and even adoration that properly belongs to God alone. As an example, when we read Isaiah it appears that it was pride that led Satan to rebel against God (Isaiah 14:12-15).
Be aware of this...pride does not and cannot share the limelight! Pride deludes its victims into believing they have no equals and drives them to criticize anyone who takes recognition away from them. The proud are in love with themselves and seek to call attention to their admirable qualities.
Pride too often keeps us from seeing the truth about ourselves: that we are sinners who need to repent. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is observed by devout Jews throughout the world. Recently, when asked why he was not at the local synagogue, one self-righteous Jew retorted, "I have done nothing for which I must atone." This attitude is neither new nor unique. Jesus had harsh things to say about the Pharisees because their pride kept them from seeing their sin and their need for a Savior (Luke 18:10-14).
Our pride can also drive us to depend on ourselves and not on another for salvation. Pride leads us to try and earn our salvation by doing good works so that the Father owes us eternal life. But this is not in the plan of God. Rather, He requires that we humble ourselves, that we confess our sins, that we acknowledge our total inability to live righteous lives, and that we depend for our salvation only on His grace. Quoting from Proverbs, the Apostle Peter can say, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5).
So what can we do about "pride?" Is there a remedy? Fortunately, for us, there is! It is called "humility." The Bible tells us that instead of pride, we are to be filled with humility (Philippians 2:3). Instead of self-glory, we are to seek the glory of God. Of course, the Lord Jesus is our perfect example here. If there ever was someone who lived a life of humility, it was Jesus (Philippians 2:6-8).
What humility, what perfect humility. Jesus was and is and always will be God. Yet, He emptied Himself for a while of the glory that is eternally His. He Who was and is and always will be almighty God "made himself nothing." He Who was and is and always will be almighty God came to earth as a man. He Who was and is and always will be almighty God came to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
For believers, true humility starts with an awareness of our sin and sinful nature. When the Prophet Isaiah went up into the temple to pray, he discovered that his sin made him unacceptable (Isaiah 6:5). While Isaiah realized his own inadequacies and unacceptableness, he also discovered the grace of God which made him acceptable. God provided cleansing from his sin (Isaiah 6:6-7).
Thus, after having cleansed Isaiah, the Lord then appointed him to proclaim the Word of the Lord (Isaiah 6:6-7). The Lord teaches us here that apart from His grace towards us in Christ, we are nothing. It is humbling to know that apart from Christ all that we have and all that we do counts for nothing (Philippians 3:7-8, 4:13).
In closing today, we all have a choice. We have a choice between pride or humility, self-glory or God's glory. Which do you choose?
Let's pray:
O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for thy names sake. Amen
Until next time...
Have a blessed week!
Bibi
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