Click here to view the entire service
When original sin entered the human race, pride led the way. The Bible and history are riddled with examples of this greatest of all sinful vices. At the other end of the spectrum of human character is humility, a grace only God can produce in the heart of naturally proud sinners. James highlights these two character qualities in our passage for this morning. Both James and Peter quote from Proverbs 3:34…
Proverbs 3:34, Though He scoffs at the scoffers, Yet He gives grace to the afflicted (ESV – humble).
James quotes it in the context of dealing with the heart wars of pleasures and cravings that foment selfish conflict (not getting what you want), and then calling us adulteresses if we are world lovers rather than lovers of God. We ended last week with James 4:6a: God has grace that is greater than our sins. Then James points out God’s attitudes toward pride and humility. God’s goal is to strip us of our pride and bring us to heart humility.
James 4:6, But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”
Peter quotes Proverbs 3:34 in the context of serving one another. He says put on the apron of a servant, of humility:
1 Peter 5:5, You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.
We’re going to look at these two diametrically opposed heart attitudes this morning with the goal of God’s Word exposing our own hearts of pride and bringing us to that rich flow of grace that melts our hearts to humility. It is God’s grace that turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
GOD RESISTS THE PROUD
There is one thing the Bible is crystal clear on: God hates pride. God resists, opposes, despises, abominates, and finally will destroy pride. He takes His stand against proud people. That’s the word “resists.” The word for pride means to show yourself above others, an overweening estimate of your own merits and often treating others with contempt. Puritan commentator Thomas Manton wrote, “Of all sins God sets Himself to punish is the sin of pride…. Other sins are against God’s laws, this [pride] is against His Person and sovereignty.” God warns us over and over about pride.
Isaiah 2:17, The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,
Prov 8:13, The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way, And the perverted mouth, I hate.
Prov 16:5, Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.
Prov 16:18, Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
Prov 18:12, Before destruction the heart of man is haughty.
Prov 28:25, An arrogant man stirs up strife.
Prov 29:23, A man’s pride will bring him low.
Pride began with Satan. He was lifted up in pride and wanted to be like God. Isaiah 14:14, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Paul warns Timothy not to put a new convert in a position of leadership, lest he fall into the reproach and snare of the devil (1 Tim. 3:6). Satan’s appeal to Eve was that she could be like God. She and Adam took the bait and human pride was unleashed.
The Sodomites were destroyed because of their moral perversion of homosexuality, but underlying that sin was their flagrant pride. Ezekiel 16:50, “Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.” Pride was at the root of their sexual perversion. Interesting that today the LGBTQ movement is displayed in Pride Parades! Pride Month is June and Pride Day is June 28: flagrant pride of moral perversion.
In 2 Chronicles 26:16, King Uzziah’s heart was lifted up in pride. In defiance of God’s rule, he offered incense in the temple, which only the priests were permitted to do. God struck him down with leprosy to his dying day. “When pride comes, then comes dishonor,” Proverbs 11:2. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, that Babbly King of Babylon? He looked out over his kingdom and crowed like an arrogant rooster, “All this I have built by the might of my power and the glory of my majesty” (Daniel 4:30). Immediately God cut him down and sent him out with the cattle to eat grass like a beast until he finally exalted God and confessed, “He is able to humble those who walk in pride.” (Daniel 4:37).
Haman’s pride seethed in anger at Mordecai’s refusal to bow down to him, so he built a gallows in his back yard with plans to hang Mordecai. Guess who hung on those gallows? Esther 7:10, “So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.” In Acts 12:23 Herod stood before the people and they praised him as god. He was lifted up in pride and God struck him down and he died with worms. Remember what they said about the great Titanic? “Even God Himself could not sink this ship.”
At the root of every sin is this plague of pride. Jesus said in Mark 7:22, “From within, out of the heart proceed…pride.” Sin says I can do or say whatever I want. God has no business telling me what to do. This is the pride of our day. “I don’t need God. In fact, I don’t want God. I even hate God.” Psalm 10:4, “The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’”
Let’s put it briefly and boldly God is at war with pride! But what are the evidences of pride in our lives? Stuart Scott in his book, The Exemplary Husband, gives thirty examples. I’ll trim them down to just twenty. Pride is alive and kicking in our hearts when we grumble, fail to give thanks, react in anger or self-pity when we think we deserve better, self-talk, self-praise (Prov. 27:2 – “Let another praise you and not your own mouth), resent any criticism, tooting your horn when you do something good, can’t admit wrong, lack of prayer, impatient and irritable, resent other’s blessings, draw attention to yourself with sensual dress.1 Timothy 2:9, “I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly.” Pride is doing anything to make yourself the center of attention. Spurgeon said, “Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.”
Pride just infects every nook and cranny of our lives and we’ve got to be on the alert. God knows how to knock us down a notch or two. Years ago our sons were trying to jump some small hills in our backyard with their bicycles. I had a 350 Honda motorcycle, so I said, “Watch me. This is how you do it.” I got some air but immediately crashed into our neighbor’s fence with the wind knocked out of me, and certainly humbled.
You can be proud of your position, ability, wealth, possessions, knowledge, spiritual attainment, and especially your own righteousness. Remember the ridiculous Pharisee in the temple telling God how much better he was than that tax collector over there? Someone observed that we hear that story and then tell God how glad we are that we’re not like that Pharisee! Heart pride puts self above others and even above God. The proud man thinks, “I don’t have to bow to God. In fact, I don’t even think God exists. I’ll be my own god and make up my own mind.” God resists the proud. Count on it.
GOD GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE
Now we go to the other end of God’s dealing with sinners – He gives, keeps giving grace, inner motivation to live for Him, to repent of sin, to live for His glory, to the humble. We have to be really careful here, though, as we can be proud of our humility. A humble person doesn’t announce his humility or walk around trying to look humble. He just lives in submission to Christ and service to others.
Harry Ironside was bothered by his lack of humility, so a friend suggested he walk around Chicago carrying a sandwich board with the plan of salvation on it. He did just that, shouting out verses from the Bible. Back in his room he got to thinking how humbling that was. He thought, “There’s not another person in Chicago willing to do a thing like that.”
Isaiah 57:15 is a great verse that gives us a high view of God and a low view of us.
Isaiah 57:15, For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever (ESV – inhabits eternity), whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.
Only God is high and exalted. Humility means low and abased. That’s us. We’re here because of God. God keeps sustaining us and we will stand before God sometime soon. Knowing this makes us contrite and lowly. Puritan John Flavel said, “They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud.”
When a man or woman fully grasps they are God’s creatures, they depend completely on God for their existence. They grasp they have grievously sinned against their Creator God and cry out to Him for forgiveness through His Son. They keep an open, confessing heart to God and receive grace from God. They are humbled before God. The first beatitude is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The poor in spirit are fully aware that they have nothing to merit anything from God.
Humility is essential to true salvation. If the proud man even believes there is a God, he will try to bring all his self-righteous deeds with him through the narrow way that leads to life. You never come to Christ in your pride. You don’t get through the gate all bloated up with your own self. The spiritually dirt-poor sinner enters the gate with nothing in his hands! “By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one should boast.” Listen to that poor sinful thief on the cross with Christ, “Remember me” not “Remember all the good I’ve done.” God gives grace to the humble, and we know that even our humility and faith are part of the gift of grace. Without God’s grace pouring into our hearts, we would never humble ourselves to Christ’s rule and authority over our lives.
God calls us to walk in humility. Ephesians 4:2, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love.
In Matthew 23:12 Christ said, And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
Stuart Scott gives us a list of examples of humility. If you are a humble soul, you’ll trust God, accept His good providence in your life (that’s His mighty hand in 1 Peter 5:6), stay focused on pleasing Christ, pray regularly, praise God for His undeserved grace in saving you, have a thankful heart to God and others, esteem others above yourself, speak well of others, be teachable and receive criticism or correction, look for ways to serve without tooting your horn, refuse to wear your feelings on your sleeves, being easily “hurt”, be quick to admit wrong and ask forgiveness, refuse to hold bitterness against others, genuinely rejoice in the blessings of others, and so much more.
Let’s look at the best of all passages about humility.
Philippians 2:3-5, Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Humility isn’t all about me looking out for number one. Instead of “I’m not getting what I deserve,” humility says, “How can I bless and encourage this other person, even if they are treating me like dirt?” This takes that God-given grace flowing into your heart! Here’s someone putting you down with unkind remarks, hurtful accusations, and finally you fire one scorcher that puts him in his place. You go home and what is bothering you? “I can’t believe he said that. He can’t get away with that. He needs to eat humble pie if he ever expects me to treat him with respect.” Or if God’s grace is flowing like a river into your heart, you’ll be thinking, “Lord, I shouldn’t have said that. That wasn’t pleasing to You and I know it hurt him. Please forgive me and I’ve got to go and seek his forgiveness.” That’s humility. That’s when God opens the grace channel into your heart.
Paul describes Christ’s humility perfectly in the rest of this passage.
Philippians 2:6-8, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Christ humbled Himself to come into this world for sinners like you and me. He didn’t come in a golden carriage growing up in a grand castle wearing fancy clothes. He came as a Galilean peasant. He humbled Himself when He washed the feet of His disciples. But He really humbled Himself when he obeyed His Father all the way to the point of death, even the death of the cross. That’s humility. Christ calls us to, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, because I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
God is at war with the proud, but God gives grace to the humble. People who confess their need of Christ, who are spiritually dirt poor, who cry out to God for mercy and forgiveness, who live in dependence on Christ like Paul did, who know without Him they can do nothing, but with Him they can do all things, that’s humility. Be careful though. I think it was John MacArthur who said humility is that virtue when you think you’ve got it, it disappears. Don’t look at your humility. Look at your Lord. And I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said a humble person doesn’t think about his humility; he doesn’t think about himself at all.
George Whitefield and John Wesley opposed each other theologically. Whitefield was a Calvinist and Wesley was an Arminian. Wesley said some cruel things about Whitefield. Someone asked Whitefield if he thought he’d see Wesley in heaven. “I doubt it. Our brother will be so close to the throne, I doubt we’ll even see him.” That’s humility.