The Cure for Your 'I' Problem

How many of you watched last Sunday night, Nick Wilenda do the tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon? How many of you watched that? It was, yeah, those of you who saw that were just like, un, it was just absolutely nerve-wracking. I saw it, I was riveted to it, partly because I remember when he was at the boardwalk and he climbed up the ferris wheel at the boardwalk, and I actually was down there on the beach and I took some video with my iPhone because he climbed up and then he walked on it while it was turning. And I actually took my youngest son and we went down there and we watched him do this. No safety net, no, like, you know, support line or anything like that. We were just in awe.

I later tried this and was arrested, but that's unimportant right now. But we were just stunned. When he walked across the Grand Canyon, I mean, I felt like I could hardly watch. I actually was watching this on my iPhone and they had a GoPro camera pointed down from Nick Wilenda as he was looking down at his feet, tightrope walking. I mean, it was, I was actually speaking all week at a conference and the intros were all happening on Sunday night and I was supposed to get up and kind of introduce my series and while they're all, the MC is talking about what's going to happen this week, I'm watching this live on my phone. And so he keeps saying things like, and we're going to have so and so lead worship and I'm going, oh no, you know, while I'm watching this and it was in my, my heart was just in my throat.

But another reason I love this was because for Father's Day, this last year, a couple of weeks ago, my oldest son, Jonathan and his awesome wife, Kelly gave me Nick Wilenda's latest book. It's called Balance, Balancing Faith in Life and it turns out that he's a very outspoken Christian and he talks about his faith in the book. And you know what he says? His biggest struggle in life is not walking on a tightrope. He says his biggest struggle in life is pride because he says, look, I am a circus performer and that means that my job is to hype myself, to get the spotlight on myself. That is how he puts bread on his family's table. And so he says as a Christian, he struggles with where does healthy ambition turn into pride? And that is a great question because that is the toughest balancing act of all.

So let's talk about it. Grab your message notes. The Art of Living Well is the series in the book of Proverbs that we're actually going to conclude next weekend. Today, The Cure for Your Eye Problem, How to Stop Sabotaging Your Life. We all have an eye problem, the toughest balancing act in life and it's one word, pride. And I don't mean just healthy self-confidence. I mean pride in the negative sense, egotism. Over and over, the Bible says things like Proverbs 11:2. In fact, what I'd like you to do is look at the first verse at the top of your notes, Proverbs 11:2, and let's read this out loud together. "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." 1700 years ago, St. Augustine said, "Pride is pregnant with every other sin." Pride is the mother of all sins. Pride sabotages your life and lets you get into all kinds of trouble. And we all have a problem with pride. None of us can say, "I used to be proud. Glad that's over." You know, "Now I'm pretty humble because that would be proud." All of us struggle with is me included, but still some of you are thinking, "You know, I don't really need to hear this message, actually. I'm not a very prideful person. I think I'm good."

Well, let's take the pride test. And this is from the staff at Mars Hill Church in Seattle because everybody's proud just in different ways and it's so easy to be able to point out pride in somebody else and be blind to your own weak spots. So I wanted to take this test. There's 10 questions and I want you to keep score in your head or maybe you can just kind of write down a little tally with hash marks at the top of your notes. So there's one point for every yes answer, okay? And so we'll compare scores here at the end. So just kind of give yourself one point for every question.

Number one, do you secretly long for attention? You kind of like want to get attention. Now some of you do this by trying to perform. You know, you're a circus performer. You're always on. Some of you do this by being really dramatic. You kind of have the spiritual gift of freaking out over everything. And so people are always rushing up to you trying to calm you down, right? Some of you are always needy and you've mastered the art of looking pathetic, right? And down. And so people come up to you, is there something wrong? Yes, yes, how did you know? Well, the billboard on your face kind of called attention to that, right? So you long for attention.

Number two, do you become jealous or critical of people who succeed? I can't believe somebody, you don't rejoice with them. I can't believe what they got. They didn't deserve that. That's not even fair. What about me? How in the world? And so you maybe blog about it. You Facebook, you Twitter, it's all, we're all in a culture of so much criticism, so much negativity about anybody who succeeds. Number three, do you always have to win? No matter what you are doing, you must win. Yeah, nervous laughter here. I realized I had an issue with this when I started cheating at Candyland with my kids. I kid you not, my wife literally caught me cheating at Candyland, stacking the deck so that I would win. Now, what? There's no pot of money, you know? There's no reward. There's no trophy. ESPN is not going to do highlights about this in a dramatic Candyland move. René schlepfer today. But I must win, you know, because I'm a winner. It's just sick.

Number four, do you have a pattern of lying? Listen to that, the whole temperature of the room changed on this question. What I mean is this, underneath lying is often pride because lying is usually, I'm going to be seen, you know, in a favorable light. I want people to be impressed with me, so I'm going to lie even if it's about something little. Yeah, it only took me three hours to drive the Tahoe, you know? Even though it took you three and a half, but you're going to say it only took me three because people will think you're better, right? It's kind of weird, these patterns of lying that we can get into even over little things.

Number five, do you have a hard time acknowledging you were wrong? You don't confess sin, you have to get caught. And even when you get caught, you put up a fight. You shift blame, you get emotional. You say, "I don't like the way you showed me my sin." You change the subject from your transgression to their tactic. Very tricky, that's pride. Number six, do you have a lot of conflicts with other people? Do you find yourself thinking sometimes, "Man, I am like surrounded by contentious people. I am always getting into arguments. Why do I have so many of these people in my life?" Well, what's the common denominator? You know, sometimes there's a lot of conflicts with others if you're proud.

Number seven, do you cut in line at the store, right? There's long lines at Costco or the grocery store and you're looking around, you're looking, looking, looking. You can see them maybe starting to open another line. If it happens, you're going to be ready to go and they open it and you attack! And you cut right in front of the old lady or whatever. Why? Because you're more important than her. You've got busy stuff to do. Or, Highway One, the construction, where the lanes change. You're the one who drives in the third lane until it turns into the shoulder and you keep going up until everybody's merged in and you cut in right in front of everybody. Why? You're important than everybody you just passed, right? "I'm very important. I've got important places to go. I have significant things to do. You can all wait." You know, that's pride.

Number eight, do you get upset when other people do not honor your achievements? They didn't even say thank you. They didn't even send a card saying, "Hey, thank you. Nobody ever honors me." Number nine, do you tend toward an attitude of entitlement? "Hey, I deserve what I've got. I've worked hard. I've made a sacrifice. This is what I have coming to me." Or, do you have an attitude of thankfulness? Like, "Yeah, what I deserve, I don't really want what I deserve because I deserve hell. And so I'm just kind of grateful for whatever I get." And then number ten, do you honestly feel you are basically superior to others? Now, you wouldn't put this on your Facebook page, right? You know, tell us a little bit about yourself. "Well, I'm better than everyone." But in your heart, secretly, if you honestly admit this, there really is some kind of a smugness, some kind of a superiority thinking, "You know what? Most people are pretty stupid. And I'm pretty smart." You know? Most people are not exactly a gift to humanity. And I kind of am. You know? I mean, secretly on the inside, is that what you think about yourself?

Okay, now let's score this, right? By the way, this is from Mars Hill Church. Their staff put this together, so don't think I'm picking on any of you. This is from a church up in Seattle. But we had ten questions, and you gave yourself one point for every question, right? So here's how we're going to score this. If you scored one to ten, you're proud, all right? And if you scored zero, you are very proud. So that is your score, okay? Because we all face this. So here's three questions for curing my eye problem. First, we've got to diagnose it, right? What is pride, after all? What really is it? What are we talking about here? How does Proverbs define it? Well, there's three things. If you look at all the verses in Proverbs about pride, the pride that Proverbs tells us about pride.

Number one, pride is needing to feel better than others. Pride is needing to feel better than others. We're always comparing ourselves to other people and in our minds making ourselves look better. But Proverbs 11:12 says, "A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue." So a prideful person derives his neighbor. Why? Because we all have a need to feel better than them. Us versus them. Religious versus non-religious or whatever. C.S. Lewis, famous author, author of Chronicles of Narnia and Scrooge letters and so on, he says, "Pride gets no pleasure in having something." Pride only derives happiness from having more than the other person. Proud people aren't really proud of being successful or intelligent or good-looking. They're proud of having more success, more intelligence, and more good looks than those around them.

Pride wants to accrue a resume, right? You know, we have a couple of, we have three children, a couple of them are young adults right now in their early 20s, and then we have one who's going to be a sophomore in high school. So we're very familiar with what guidance counselors tell high school students. And they tell them things like, "Look, get into a lot of clubs and get onto like the newspaper staff and do community service projects, and you gotta take AP classes and get good grades." But it's interesting because it's not really for the benefit of the kid, like the stuff that they're interested in that's going to grow them as a person. Why do they tell them to do all that stuff? Why? College. So they can get into college because it looks good. It makes them look like a good, worthwhile risk on a college application. Now I guess that's okay for high school students going into college, it kind of makes sense. But what if you live your whole life like that? What if everything you do, every friend you associate with, the car you drive, the neighborhood you live in is all sort of picked in order to make you look good so you can kind of like advance up the rung of worth whilness. It's showing other people, "You count, you're important." You see what I'm talking about?

Second thing the Bible says is pride is constantly aware of itself. Pride is constantly being aware of myself. The proud self is constantly aware of itself. How am I performing? How am I doing? How am I being treated? A proud self is always aware of itself. Look at Proverbs 13:10. Again, let's read this verse out loud together. Let me hear you say this. Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. It says wisdom is found in those who take advice. But proud people can't do that. Let's say you and a friend are hanging a picture at his house. And he pounds in a nail to hang the picture and you go, "I think that nail's a little too high." Now you're talking about the nail. You're talking about the wall. You're talking about the picture. But a proud person always thinks it's about their ego. A humble person's going to say, "Thanks, you really think so? Thanks for that advice." But somebody really struggles with pride is going to say, "Don't tell me how to hang a picture. You're always so critical." The proud person's always thinking of their own ego. Why? Because they're constantly trying to prove their worth.

Arthur Miller, who's a great American playwright, had a great description of this. One of his characters in his play that really stood for himself said, "For years I looked at life like I was trying to prove a case in court." Trying to prove what a good son you are, or what a good husband you are, or whatever. And you feel like you're the person on trial about to be judged, to be condemned or acquitted, constantly making the case for your worth before the bench. No matter where you go, you're always kind of arguing and presenting evidence for the case that you're worthwhile. You're amassing evidence, constantly worrying about what the judge, maybe God, or the jury, your friends and associates, really thinks of you. And this can lead to such depression if you feel like you're always on trial and presenting evidence that you're something. You know, we tend to think of proud people as kind of swaggering jerks, but often when you or I have low self-esteem, and that's often the symptom of pride that I have honestly in my life, you're concentrating on yourself still. You're thinking about yourself. You're thinking about what a failure you are, but you're still thinking about yourself.

The person with an inferiority complex is just as absorbed with themselves as a person with a superiority complex. And you know why? You still feel like you're on trial. That everything you do is evidence for or against you. The only difference between you and the person with a superiority complex is that in your mind you're losing the trial. But you wouldn't be constantly thinking, "I'm not good. I'm nothing. I'm really no good," unless you were just as self-absorbed as the person we normally call proud. It's the same system. It's the same courtroom. And this is why it's a symptom of pride, and I've struggled with this in my life. Listen, this sermon is like a sermon I'm preaching to myself that you're welcome to listen in on, okay? But, like so many of my sermons, but this is why there's this wild swing in my life, and maybe you can relate to this, between kind of feeling too superior and then feeling too inferior. It's like, how can that be? How can somebody kind of be like egotistical at one moment, like, "I'm really something." And then the next moment they're going, "I'm so stupid. I'm so dumb." Because they're both pride. You're not going from pride to humility. You're just going from one kind of proud to another kind of proud. And this is why we can make this swing.

And then third, pride is making myself God of my own world. And what I mean by this is making yourself the center of the universe, right? Taking God's position at the center of your life. Interesting, there's several Hebrew words used for the word "pride" in Proverbs, and they're all translated pride in English, but there's different words in Hebrew. Follow me here. One of the words used in Proverbs 15:25 and 16:19 is the Hebrew word for "Supreme Majesty." The Bible says, "The tendency of every human heart is to be its own supreme being." We want to call our own shots. We want to be the center of the universe. It's like this verse says, Proverbs 28:26. And let me have you read this again out loud together. And even if you're watching on video in the venue service, everybody in venue, let's read this out loud too. This is so important. Here we go. "He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe." So that's what pride is. But why is pride foolish? Like, maybe it's a little annoying, but why is it really that bad? Well, the next question is why is pride bad?

The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Now, is this not true? You ever seen that? Kind of a cocky, self-assured, prideful person, "I know what I'm doing," and boom, you know, they fall down. How many of you have ever experienced this in your own life, if you're really truly honest, right? Man, there are so many millions of examples I could give of idiocy in this regard in my own life. But one I was thinking about last night when we were talking about this was one Christmas, my sister was visiting from Oregon with my brother-in-law. They're two kids, and you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes I put myself in that courtroom, and you feel like you're kind of on trial maybe a little bit with your family, even if they're not being judgmental of you at all. You kind of feel like I want to impress them. And so we wanted to make them a nice meal and everything, and the day after Christmas, I got to go shopping to do some returns, and I go with my brother-in-law, because the rest of the family was out doing some Black Friday shopping, and we just had to do some returns.

So we go out together to the mall here, to the Capitola Mall, and I'm wearing one of my new Christmas shirts, I feel like I'm looking pretty good. And here's what I think to myself. I think to myself, "I kind of, I hope, I hope some people recognize me in the mall." Because that'll really show my brother-in-law that I'm kind of something here. I'm kind of a big deal. And I kind of want him to know that. So, doesn't always happen, but I hope it happens this time, so it gets the illusion that I'm really something. So we go to the mall, and sure enough, "Hi Pastor René, hi Pastor René. Hey, Pastor René, nice shirt, nice new shirt, Pastor René." And I'm just looking back, you cringe sometimes, and I'm going, "Hey, how's the life of kids?" "What's up, my man? Looking good. Check you out." Swaggering through the... And my brother-in-law's just been used, kind of watching all this happen, and we get out to the parking lot, and I didn't know if he noticed, because he didn't say anything, so of course, I have to kind of bring it up, somehow. And I'm like, "Yeah, one of the things about living in such a small town, it's good, but I don't know if you notice, but I do get recognized a lot. I do." "Kind of the cross I have to bear." And Jim goes, "Yeah, that was pretty impressive, Mr. Extra-Large." And he leans over, and my brand new shirt had a size sticker that was running all the way down the whole shirt, and the whole thing. And he just slowly peels it off. And I'm like, "Never mind!" "Pride would really doth go before destruction," and I've learned that in my own life, right? But I take solace in this, it happens to other people, too.

For example, let me show you this great video that we saw on YouTube the other day. This is a great one. Great example of this. Basketball game, Europe, last second, the away team wins, they start to celebrate. One problem, there's a fraction of a second left on the clock. So watch what happens next. Six-tenths of a second left. Watch this, now watch these replays. This guy just heaves this ball up, banks it in. Look at the clock, one second, there's zero seconds now left. And I want you to watch the other teams, they're celebrating. We are awesome, we're amazing! Wait, what is happening? The ball is in the air. Wait, but what, did that count? Uh-oh. And the classic is the coach's face. We just won the game, we just won! Wait, what? What was that? Oh no! Yes, pride really doth lead to destruction, right? But why does pride lead to such ruin? Well, there's a couple of reasons. First there's a practical reason, and that's the proud person just doesn't learn from mistakes, right? A proud person doesn't learn from criticism.

Love this verse, Proverbs 21:4, "Hottie eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked are sin." The lamp of the wicked, that probably means, commentators think what that means is this, at night you can only see by the light of your lamp, right? And so if that lamp gives off yellow light, everything's yellow. If your lamp is red, everything's red, know what I mean? So what it's saying is pride colors and distorts everything we see. You can't admit when you're wrong, you can't admit your own weaknesses, you've got to maintain an image of yourself because pride keeps you out of touch with reality. But there's a much deeper reason that pride leads to destruction, and you could call it a cosmic reason, Proverbs 15:25, "The Lord tears down the proud man's house, but keeps the widow's boundaries intact." This is just one example of an incredibly important theme in the Bible. Over and over, all through the Bible, New Testament, Old Testament, keeps saying God loves the widow, God loves the poor, God loves the outsider, God loves the weak, He's for the fatherless, and He's against the proud, against them.

In Ireland, there's a port where the Titanic had its last port of call, and there's a plaque there with a big picture of the ship, and underneath that there's a caption. It was something that was said when the Titanic left that dock. "Even God could not sink this ship." That was not a good idea at all, not a good idea. When you're proud, you're on a collision course with God. Now, I'm not saying God sank the Titanic, but I'm saying it serves as a metaphor for hubris, doesn't it? When you're proud, you're on a collision course with God. The most haunting verse in Scripture is found several places, like James 4:6, and 1 Peter 5:5. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. That summarizes all the verses and Proverbs on pride. God opposes the proud. That means you pick a fight with God when you're proud. That means if I insist on my way, my best, my fame, my glory, the living God of the universe will stand in direct opposition to me. Now, that is pretty intense. And you've got to go, why is that? Why does God oppose the proud because he hates me? No, God is good. He loves you. And he wants you to be healthy and whole and happy and joyful, and the people around you to be healthy, whole, happy, joyful. And God's plan A for you to grow in that kind of character is humility. That's plan A, humility. But if you choose not to go with plan A, God goes with plan B, which is humiliation, right? But I've got to tell you, plan A is a lot better than plan B, right?

Here's another way to put it, the foundation of personal peace is realizing two facts. Number one, there is a God. And number two, it's not me. I am not the center of the universe, right? God, not. So what's the antidote? What's the cure for pride on page two of your notes? Well, listen, if pride gives birth to death, pride is the mother of all sins, pregnant with all sins, as Augustine said. If pride gives birth to death, then humility gives birth to life. When you humble yourself before God, look at the next verse, "The fear of the Lord teaches wisdom. Humility precedes honor." Now, you know I've mentioned Tim Keller and his work on Proverbs a lot in this series, and here again he has just got some great insight. He points out that there's two parts to this proverb. Look at the last part first. Humility comes before honor. Remember I said earlier that one of the words translated pride from Hebrew means supreme majesty. You want supreme majesty? This is an interesting word. This is the Hebrew word for supreme glory. So this is saying something amazing. Only if you're not after supreme majesty for yourself do you find supreme glory. Only if you're not after importance do you find the glory that never fades.

This is saying one of the solutions to pride is to find the glory that only the humble get. There's a glory. There's a substance. There's a significance that isn't attained. It isn't argued for. It's not one. It's just a gift. And it only comes to the humble. Jesus said all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. It does not matter who you are or what you've done or how impressive you are or how much you've done or how little you've done. If you come to God in humility and say, "God, forgive me," then at that moment God in Christ looks at you and values you above all the gold and silver and precious metals and superachievers on the planet. It's not based on your performance at all. At all. All you need is need. All you need is nothing. You just have to admit you need it. And that is so hard for us proud people. But it takes humility to get this glory.

Now some of you are thinking, "Okay, I get it. Be humble and in church here that kind of makes sense." Yeah, humility is the path to glory. God exalts those who are humble. But some of you are going, "That's great, but I see the value of that." But the problem is every day I get out into the world in school or work or whatever and I get sucked back into the courtroom. And I find myself kind of spinning, trying to prove myself to the judge and jury again that I'm a person of consequence. And I find myself constantly thinking about what impression am I making? What can I do to make a better impression? And what do I do about that problem? Well, the answer to that is found in the first part of this verse, "The fear of the Lord teaches you wisdom." Now that doesn't mean you're afraid of God. We talked about this earlier in the series. It means you're in reverent awe of God and what He has chosen to do for you. It means you go, "I have fear of the Lord. Only God is my judge. He's my only judge. He's the only one who has a right to judge me. And the only one who has a right to judge me has chosen to love me unconditionally."

The more you own that, the less you will find yourself worrying about being on trial because therefore there is now no condemnation in Christ. The verdict is in. The case is closed. And you are accepted by God's grace through Christ if you in humility will simply receive that gift. And so again, as Tim Keller points out, I can use the joy of the gospel to erode the power of pride. Because now, for example, I want to go out and help people. I want to sign up for the blood drive, for the Red Cross. I hope you do. Why? Because it's a good thing to do and I want to help people, not because I'm thinking it might look good on my resume. You know? That pastor, Tim Keller, it's interesting to me because I really admire him, but he says he really struggles with this. He says probably every day he finds himself stuck back in the courtroom kind of wondering, "I wonder what people think of me?" And he says he actually keeps a piece of paper in his wallet. It's business card sized. And he says he looks at it probably once a day, every day of his life.

And I want to show you what he says is on his card. It says, "Are you anxious? Are you afraid of how you look? Are you getting down on yourself? Are you being critical of other people? Are you getting devastated by criticism? Are you looking down on anybody?" And then he has one single line at the bottom and it's this, "Court is adjourned." Court is adjourned because the judge has already decided, because Jesus took your penalty. There's no condemnation. And that is the key. You know, if you want to grow in humility, don't focus on humility. I'm going to focus on humility. I'm so glad I heard this message. I'm going to work on it this week and I'm going to be more humble, you know? But that's still all about me, which is pride. You say, "Well, then how do you grow in humility?" You think about somebody else. And his name is Jesus.

You focus on Jesus. Look at the life of Christ. Read with me those last verses. You don't have to read it aloud, but just kind of scan those while I read aloud. "Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." I mean, Jesus went from affluence to poverty. He went from hearing angels sing, "Glory, glory, glory, holy, holy, holy," to hearing the crowds yell, "Crucify, crucify, crucify." "Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." You and I are going to spend eternity thinking about that because it is so overwhelming. So let's take some time to think about it right now. As you pray with me, let's bow our heads.

Just with our heads bowed, rather than being depressed and thinking about how proud you are and so stupid, whatever, don't think about that. Think about the name that is above every other name. Heavenly Father, as we get ready now to sing the name of Jesus, we want to confess, God, that pride is a sin of ours and that humility is a miracle. So please forgive us of that sin. Thank you for your forgiveness of that sin and allow us to begin to experience the miracle of humility, of becoming like Christ, the creator of heaven and earth and our humble servant, in whose name we pray. Amen.