[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 a.m. if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, find
[email protected] dot. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Growing up in the days of action movies and Marvel comic movies, one of the things that you will no doubt hear at some part of that is somebody, a superhero, a super villain, might have what is called a force field. And the whole point of a force field is to keep out the bad and to keep in the good. If you've ever seen maybe Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or as you can see on the screen behind me, the incredibles, a force field is something, again, used to keep out those things that are bad so you can enjoy the good. And I've thought before, like, as I look at the different attributes of superheroes, you know, maybe being able to fly, being able to swim through water as long as you wanted, or to have a force field. I think one of the ones, hands down, I would have picked is to have a force field where you could be in the middle of an awful situation. Force field. Your kids are fussing at you each other, force field. You know, like all these things to where you keep out the bad, right? But you're enjoying the good. And if you even notice in this picture, what you have is a family that's actually in the middle of a difficult situation, but they're smiling. Why? Because of that force field. And the reason I mention that over the past few weeks, we've been digging into the first chapter of the book of Philippians, where this theme is talked about over and over again. And it's choosing joy. And the power of joy is kind of like this force field is that when we choose Joy, what it does is it doesn't change the circumstance, but it kind of creates the. This barrier that no matter what, has our heart surrounded, if it's good, if it's bad, it doesn't matter what is surrounding us when we have that kind of joy. So if a bad situation happens, and when a bad situation happens, that Joy helps give us the right perspective on how to see it and handle it. But it's also when the good things happen, when good comes our way, when we have moments of success, you get that promotion, you get that job, you get noticed. What happens is it also allows you to understand that your source of fulfillment is ultimately in Christ. So, you know, it's not about you taking credit, but giving credit back to the father. And so, in the same way, Joy serves for us as a force field, keeping out the bad, but helping us understand and see the good. Today we're gonna talk about a word that is very heavy and in a word that in the middle of, by the way, a very joyous letter almost seems kind of random, but yet it has an amazing point. And it's this pride, and in a similar way, that joy surrounds our hearts and helps us to have the right perspective about things. Paul is going to talk about today that for each and every one of us, that if we clothe ourselves, if we surround ourselves with humility, then pride will not as easily make its way in. Now, I want to give you a little bit of context about how humility does, in fact, protect us from pride. As we look into this text. I want to give you some context to the book of Philippians, because if you're me and you maybe have felt this way, too as you've read this text before, you go from joy, joy, joy, joy, pride. And it kind of seems a little bit random, but here's why it's not random, is that even though this is, like, the most joyous letter ever written, Paul also understands that this church he loves so much that if pride makes its way in, that it's going to divide it.
In fact, one of the things that I was thinking about as I was getting this lesson ready is that the church in Philippi was growing around. The church in Philippi was Rome, where there was a lot of opportunities. Roads were leading out of Rome to so many places. So Paul knows if we can really get a deep gospel footprint in this town, things are going to blow up. It's going to spread.
And so the church is growing. There's so much opportunity. There's this atmosphere of opportunity there. And as I'm reading all of this, I keep thinking that's us. Like we are at a time that we talked about the very beginning of the year, that we're overflowing, where God is bringing us so many new families, but he's also bringing us so many opportunities. And while those things are good, I think through this letter, he's also letting us know here's what we have to be careful of to never let pride sneak its way, make its way in. Because what will happen is it will destroy things from the inside out.
And so, just as joy protects us, humility will protect us from pride. And here's the beauty of joy. When we allow humility to make its way into our hearts, pride does not stand a chance.
And this is not really the part of the lesson, usually where I, like, give the lesson from the beginning. And this isn't the lesson, by the way. But I do think we have to ask, why Paul? And why now? Why do we need to talk about pride at this point?
But it kind of makes more sense the more we see the residual effects of pride. And I could have listed way more than five, but these are just five that stick out to me as we answer the question. Why I talk about pride is number one.
Every single time in life, we try to lift ourselves up, we will always fall.
Go back to before Genesis, when Lucifer was like, hey, I want to make myself elevated. Equal to you, God, that star that you are, I want to be that and even more. What happened? Bam. Lowered. Do you remember Adam and Eve back when Eve was deceived by Satan? Satan said, hey, did God say, you really couldn't eat this fruit? See, what he really meant to say was, like, if you eat this fruit, you're gonna be elevated. You're gonna be just like me.
And so it was that idea of elevation and promotion that was like, well, okay. And so the fruit was taken of, and what happened? Bam.
That elevation that they thought they would experience, they were actually cast out of. But we see it in our own lives. Maybe you're a middle school boy, and you're in a starter jacket, and you're running as fast as you can around your middle school, and it's swooshing as you move your arms very quickly and you look to the left to see if she notices how fast you're running. And you're so focused on seeing if she notices that you hit a stop sign. Maybe that's just me, but you know, what I'm saying is. And the point I say that, is this. Every time, not sometimes, but every time we try to elevate ourselves, we fall. That's why the book of proverbs says this, that pride comes before the fall.
And the other danger of pride is this. Pride is so incredibly difficult to diagnose.
And I know this might sound odd, but pride is kind of like bad breath. It's really easy to tell that other people have it. It's just very difficult for you to tell you have it. And that's a bummer, because the quicker we are able to diagnose it, as we look in this text today, we're going to see that God is able to use us more. What I'm saying is, heaven can't use us if pride is inside of us. The other thing is this is, if you think about it, pride is the root of every single sin.
Go to proverbs six sometimes and just read all the different things that God hates. And by the way, when you look at that list of things God hates, the first one is what a proud, right? And proud looks. Haughty eyes. Or as my teacher growing up used to say, naughty eyes. That's haughty eyes. It's the idea of having this thought about what benefits me, what helps me. And if you think about those sins that are mentioned in proverbs six, but also ones that are not mentioned in proverbs six, every single root of them is pride. Think about this uncontrolled anger.
If I don't get my way, somebody's gonna have to pay for it, right? How about this one?
Lust.
My pleasure, my desire comes before God's priorities.
Laziness.
Someone else is gonna have to do it for me.
Envy, greed.
I'm gonna get what I want, even at the expense of other people.
And around and round and round we could go. Pride is the root cause of every sin. It's really a spiritual cancer that eats up any opportunity of humility and even opportunities of joy.
But the other thing is this, is that it puts us and pits us against God.
If humility puts God in your corner, pride puts God in the opposite corner against you.
And this verse is one of those verses that has always stuck out to me that just. It hits hard here.
And it's this, when it says, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
That. That is a tough one to digest for several reasons. One of those is we all have a battle with Satan.
We even have shirts that say, not today, Satan. And we think about that a lot. But do you see what this is saying? That you and I cannot resist Satan, the enemy, if God is resisting us.
But then the other part of this, he brings into it the relational and the social aspect that we're to have humility towards each other, which gets us to the main point of today's message. And it's this as Paul talks about pride and humility in chapter two, what he's referring to is the danger of pride making its way into a church. As that church is trying to grow.
Pride always, always, always divides. If you have pride in a marriage, it will divide that marriage. If you have pride in your family, it will divide that family. If you have pride in a job, it will divide that workplace in that atmosphere. But as he's talking about in this text, as a church, if pride at all, somewhere, somehow makes its way in, gets a foothold, it will destroy it from the inside out.
And so let's look at this as he gives us the example and the answer of how to handle that pride, and so we can make sure it doesn't make its way in. Look what he says. If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, I want to stop here for just a second. He is posing obvious statement after obvious statement after obvious statement on purpose. He's basically saying, hey, is there encouragement in Christ? Well, yeah. Do you feel comforted with love? Oh, yeah. Like, when it comes to walking with the spirit, do you feel like you're not walking alone but someone's with you? Well, of course. So he's giving obvious answer to the obvious question with each one. So then he gets to this point. He says, so complete my joy. What he's basically saying, you know, the joy that we were talking about that you have in difficult times and difficult circumstances, that you choose joy in those, your joy is still not complete. You have incomplete joyous if you don't have unity with one another.
And he begins to talk about what this looks like. He said, it's doing life. And looking at life like this. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
I think we know the definition of selfish ambition because the definition is really in the word. But conceit, the definition of that word means this vain glory. It's the idea of you elevating yourself. But it's for nothing. It shows nothing. It does nothing. It benefits nothing. It doesn't grow anything. It only hurts things. It divides things. It causes problems and things.
But then it says this, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.
So let each of you not look out to the interest of your own, but to the interest of others.
Isn't it amazing that when we get our minds off of ourselves, it helps us to serve better and to see the world better?
Coming from South Alabama, we dealt with a lot of hurricanes. And up here, I know we've dealt with a lot of tornadoes.
And whenever tornadoes have made their way through here and people's homes are destroyed, there's trees laying on people's homes, there's trees laying in people's yards. In those moments when you have picked up a chainsaw, you've put on your work gloves, and you're going house to house helping different people, you know what doesn't matter in those moments?
Your salary.
You don't care about the title you have.
You're not concerned as you cut the tree in someone else's yard thinking, hey, are they going to replace my chainsaw blade? Like, none of that is on your mind. Why? Because your mind is not on you.
That's what he's saying as he's talking to the church here, that if your mind is all about you, you can't see others the way you need to. That's why the church is never about, has never been about one person, a person or a personality. It's the church is the bride of Christ. So the church is all about Jesus.
And the moment it becomes something else, that's when that selfish ambition, that conceit, begin to make their way in. See, what he's trying to let them know is this, do not let a selfish attitude sneak its way in. It'll steal your joy. It'll be like a thief. And the closeness that's there, it'll interrupt it. But think about that phrase we mentioned earlier. Pride always divides.
It's kind of like that antelope that's chased by that lion, gets divided from the rest of the flock. And what happens?
It's conquered. And so in the same way that pride divides, that means if we are divided, the danger is we can also be what?
Conquered.
And so, just as unity is the key to strength, he's saying here, without humility, there can be no unity. Can't be.
So he says this to have this mind.
That phrase in the Greek really means a mental set.
It's almost like our translation. If you're a counselor, psychologist, what they call a neurological pathway. What do you think all the time? And here's why that matters. Remember a few weeks ago when we talked about when difficult times happen, that what we choose and how we impulsively handle those moments, choices don't stay choices. Choices become habits, and habits become who we are as people. And so, as you think about this, he's saying, have this mind, have this mental set. And what he's talking about is the way you think, not just about yourself, but also have the very mind of Christ will directly impact how you see other people and how you treat other people.
And think about it from just like a practical standpoint, if we routinely were to choose selfishness, we would always be suspicious of other people.
But if we routinely and always choose generosity and service, we will usually be more trustful of other people.
Again, the attitude, as the new american standard version says, or the mind of Christ, as we see in other texts. Why is it so important for us to have his mind and that mind?
Well, and this might seem like a odd statement, but our own thoughts, our own ability to reason, decide, figure things out, that is a very limited commodity. You've heard the phrase limited commodity before. It's the idea that it can run out. It's kind of like if I put a pie in here and said, all right, I'm going to put it in seven slices. Well, there's a bunch of you that are not going to get pie, right? It's a limited commodity. But if all of us decided to go to Red Robin and get bottomless steak fries, we could have as much as we wanted, right? What he's saying is that our thoughts are like that pie.
There's only so much you and I can process and think and know how to handle with what we think on our own. That's why he's saying you have to have the mind of someone else.
It's why we mentioned a few weeks ago that Paul, he made a choice to not count all the time, his disappointments, but his blessings. You know why? Because blessings don't run out of. That's what he said. He didn't say, to live is money, to live is fame. To live is even family. He said, to live is Christ and to die as gain that when you have that mind, it will never run out.
When you think about our thoughts, one thing I've heard, and maybe this is just applicable to men, that there's no such thing as multitasking. And I'm guilty of it. Sometimes I'll be on my phone and Lorna's like, are you listening to me? I was like, yeah. What did I say? You know what you said, you know, and it's one of those things, like, I try as best as I can, but truly, if I am trying to do two things at once, one thing is going to suffer, right? And that's what he's kind of getting at here, that if you have his mind and you're attached to his blessing, the goodness, the blessing is never going to wear out. And so now he gives the example if this were a sermon, this would be the analogy.
He says. So to encourage you to be humble, I'm going to pick the most humble example you could ever think of on the face of the earth to help us to keep humility at the forefront so pride doesn't make its way in. It says, and being in human form, he's talking about Jesus.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
He's saying, the cure for pride, the cure for selfish ambition, the cure for conceit, is you and I sitting at, looking up at, and having the attitude that we need to at the foot of the cross.
In fact, there's a statement I came across in getting ready for this message, and it said this, that there's a direct connection between our footing and our faith walk.
It's been said that to die on a cross was to die 10,000 deaths.
And the reason why they say that about the cross is because of how cruel and how painful the cross was and how humiliating the cross was.
Like, right after Jesus's back was just torn to shreds, he's put on a cross, and then to get breath, the back that was ripped to shreds, he pulls up on a big piece of wood that's opening it even more.
And I love the song we sang this morning, and I hope you notice the humility in the lines that we're in.
When I surveyed the wondrous cross and one of the byproducts that is mentioned in Isaac Watts song, when I survey the wondrous cross, what happens is, when we truly survey the cross, cross, he pours contempt on our pride.
Why does. And how does the cross have the ability to do that, to pour contempt on my pride?
Well, the cross is able to accomplish something that nothing else and no one else on this earth can accomplish. And it's this.
Only in the cross can we have humility and confidence at the exact same time.
I love that we gather around the Lord's supper table every week, and we do so, yes, partly because we read it in acts 27. But I also want. This is just my thought. Even if we weren't commanded to, I think we should, because nothing can help adjust a pride issue more than being at the foot of the cross.
And when you think about and really meditate on what happened at the cross, the humility comes into effect for me. And maybe you feel this way, too. Like if you had that picture up there of the cross and Jesus is on it, I'm like, that should be me. And it's almost like God shouting from heaven. Yeah, it should be.
And as I think about it, too, I also think I don't deserve that.
I'm also mindful of what I've done and who I am.
And so, yes, there is a humility that comes with it. But here's the thing.
Without the cross, humility really is just shame or maybe like, self degradation. But the cross also is amazing. The same place that you can look at and think, I'm not worthy because I'm not. I'm such a sinner because I am. At the same time, you look at it, and you walk away feeling so confident.
Because you look at it, you like, well, I'm able to offer a prayer right now that doesn't just hit the ceiling, and I'm able to sit around the table with my lord and savior. I have the opportunity and the promises that come with the Holy Spirit. He gives me the opportunity of salvation.
And so without the cross, that confidence, what it would be is pride. But we do have the cross. And because we have the cross, it's this amazing place where humility and confidence can both come together.
But the other thing I think about when we speak of pride here, especially in this text, we have to treat pride as a condition that always needs the footing of the cross. Again, there's a direct connection between our footing and our faith. And I'll give you to me, what is, I think, one of the best examples of this, and that's Luke 18. So I want to invite you to turn with me to Luke 18. We're going to read through this, and this is known as the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And if you look in verse nine, it says, he's telling this parable to some, which is kind of a funny phrase. We use that now. We'll say, now, what is this about? Well, it's for some people, you know, it's kind of like that. He says to some who trusted in themselves they were self righteous. And notice this. He doesn't say, oh, and also sometimes, no. He's saying that there's a direct connection between being self righteous, filled with pride, and treating other people with contempt.
And so when I was going through this text, enduring word, pointed out in one of their commentaries that the whole point of this parable is for the readers and the audience to ask themselves, am I the Pharisee or am I the tax collector?
And I don't know if y'all used to read it kind of like I did, which was showing the pride that I had in me. I would read it and be like, man, those pharisees, man, more people need to be like that. That text. That's pride. That's not how this was meant to be read. This was meant to be read. Am I the pharisee or am I the tax collector? So I guess, let's answer that question.
It says, two men went to the temple to pray. One was a pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The pharisee was standing by himself, and he prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men. Extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes.
But notice the tax collector, it says that he was standing where?
Afar off. And he wouldn't even look up to heaven, but instead beat his chest. And he said, God, have mercy on me, I'm a sinner.
He said, I tell you, this man went down to the house justified rather than the other. You see what he's saying? He said, both men went before the throne of God. Which tells us a few things. One of the things that this tells us, number one, and this is kind of an odd statement, I guess, that it is entirely possible to pray a prayer and have words, but actually just be praying about and praying to yourself, which is, I know, a very difficult self examination. But then the other part of what he's basically inviting us to see is that it's a lot about your footing.
Are you doing this to make sure other people know, hey, he did that. And that. His name's on that.
But the other part of it, again, is that self examination is trying to encourage us to think about, are we the Pharisee or the tax collector? And if we're to ask ourselves that question, is there a little bit of Pharisee in Andrew Itzen? Well, one of the ways that we'll be able to answer that question is this.
Am I doing what I'm doing just so other people can see it?
That's where the eyes. And I do this and I do that.
It's amazing. These men both went to the throne of God, but one walked away with something, and one left empty handed.
You know, we sang just a few minutes ago when I survey the wondrous cross.
And what I love about that song is it talks about that when we actually sit at the foot of the cross, we count things as loss, like everything else.
And then also the pride we have, contempt is poured on it. But when I read this text, too, the thing that he keeps saying is, hey, the key for you, as the church in Philippi, to keep the main thing, the main thing, which is Jesus Christ, is always going to be humility.
And the only thing that will protect you from pride is to see the cross rightly.
In fact, one of the quotes I have here is to see the cross rightly is to divide pride divisively. So if we don't see the cross rightly, pride will, in fact, divide.
So here's what I want us to do right now. Usually, of course, at the end of the lesson is the invitation. There still will be one of those. But I want us to survey the wondrous cross for just a second. And what I want to encourage you to do is for all of us to think about whatever pride it is in our lives right now that we're carrying, knowing that that pride can divide.
And I want us all individually to have our own prayers of asking God to deal with the pride that we have and for him to have his way in our hearts and to protect us with his humility. So I want to give some time for us to all pray and to bring before the foot of the cross whatever pride it is that we might have.
Paul goes on to talk about what happens as a result of not just thinking about, because we're going to talk about in just a second. The cross did not happen for us to merely admire it.
But he says, therefore, because of that humility, he was highly exalted.
Again, it's the paradox of the way up is down.
The phrase highly exalted is a very powerful greek phrase. It comes from the word hooper, where we also get our word hyper, like hyper speed.
And it's the idea of the utmost. But the only way this happens, hyper exalted, is through what? Humility. And I know this might be a weird way to put it, but I grew up in the days of watching Richie Rich, and in that movie, one of my favorite parts, he was like, hey, guys, have y'all ever ridden, you know, the kidapult, which is, we know to be a catapult, which is the idea of you sit in this thing and it shoots you way up into the air to where you land on this blob? Well, the only way you get shot into the air is if you get what? Pulled back. And so he's not saying, here, you just jump in the air. He's saying, do you want to jump in the air, or do you want to get shot over a wall? He's saying that the kind of life you can have only happens through humility.
And I mentioned this earlier, is that any time we're given an example like this, which is to me the most humble example we could ever have, which is that of a cross, we can have one of two different responses to that great example.
And I know great examples are challenging and hard. It's kind of like Mark Twain's quote when he says, nothing annoys me more than that of a really good example.
And what happens is a good example is like, you just realize how far off you are from that.
But when Paul goes to the cross as an example for us of humility, he is not wanting us to admire what happened on a cross.
Admiration can inspire a person, but it cannot enable a person that there's actually wrong responses to right examples. Maybe for some of us, what we've done is faked it.
We've faked a passion for the cross. We faked a passion for his word or whatever it might be, because we're going to talk about later how even the wisdom we have and the knowledge we have can be absolutely corrupted through pride.
Or maybe what it is, is we try to hurry up the process like we want to be there instantly. But again, that puts the focus on me. It takes a. So what is the right response? It's not admiration, but it's relationship.
A relationship with Jesus Christ with a great person that will not just inspire you, but that will also enable you. Look what he goes on to say.
So he exalted him, bestowed on him the name that is above every name, and says this so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Some translations say every knee will bow.
And I point that out to say, when it comes to that level of humility, he's basically saying, it's gonna happen now or it's gonna happen later. The question is not, will you recognize Jesus? Will you bow down to Jesus? A better question to ask is, when will you bow down to Jesus? When will you recognize Jesus? And I'll go ahead and just say what Paul's kind of trying to say here. The sooner you do that, the better.
Make it now.
We're gonna do it sometime.
We're gonna do it now or we're gonna do it later.
So when will we recognize Jesus?
What we've talked about as we dug into Philippians two today and looked at how pride divides us, that we have to control self's urges and pride's urges to take the credit, to take charge, and to make it about us.
We have to know that even though there might be wisdom there, there might be knowledge there, if pride is also present, it will corrupt that wisdom. It'll corrupt that knowledge.
But number three, that there's a direct connection between our footing and our faith. Walk the conceit that we carry, that vainglory. We have to keep bringing it to the foot of the cross.
So, this is the game of Njinga. And by the way, I got really nervous at the early service, because Robin was leading worship, and he kept getting really close to this with his hand. I was like, it's gonna happen. I just know. But anyway. Or the kids give, like, one of the kids is like, you know, but it stands.
But to me, this is a really vivid illustration of the dangers of pride.
And the way pride works is kind of like this game. So, the point of this game, right, you take pieces here from the bottom, the foundation, and you put it on top, right?
And the more you play, right, the more. Let's see, we'll get one from over here, because I don't trust my ability to do this in front of you all.
The higher you build the structure, it becomes taller, more impressive. But the reality is, while the higher it goes, the more holes begin to show up, and the more holes that begin to appear here also gives us a clue.
This kind of design is a problem that we start to build a tower to ourselves, because each block, it doesn't happen instantly. Like, you don't get here overnight. It's piece by piece, but each piece is vainglory.
And even though the structure might look very awesome to everyone else, it's got flaws, because over time, holes begin to appear. And again, the higher it gets, the what? The more unstable it becomes.
There's a poem, and I can't remember who said it. I was trying to look it up. Maybe that's the point, because he wanted to remain humble, but he didn't put his name on it. But it says this every day of my life.
Pride and I fight a war.
God supplies me with so much, but I keep grabbing for more.
I'm tempted by popularity, power, and gold.
I put myself in the spotlight, and when I do, I shove God out the door.
But my one heart's desire is to die.
To not preach one thing and then to live a lie.
But my prayer is that in all that I do, that nobody sees me but see straight through me to you.
You know, maybe you're here today, and you look at this, and you think, well, you know, if we were to keep building it. You know, I think about the motion that we sometimes have. If you play it and then it falls, you're like. You're trying to bring it back, and there's no bringing that thing back, right? But the reality is, with Christ, we can build again.
But maybe for some of you, that you see what your focus has been, where your heart has been, and you see the holes in your life, the facade. And yes, it might look good to everybody else, but it's just time before that crumbles.
And so maybe what you need is prayers of the church. Here we have our shepherds that stand every Sunday morning, early service and late service at all the exits to pray with you, to pray for you.
Maybe you're here today, and you've never made the decision to put on Christ in baptism, to have him living within you.
That joy that we've talked about, that is a fruit of the spirit. And when joy surrounds us, it doesn't matter what is surrounding us.
But I also want to encourage you to think about this. One of the most humble things you will ever be able to do is to walk to somebody and to mention to them what it is that you need prayers for. Not because you're getting it off your chest, but because you're doing what we talked about today. We're bringing it to the foot of the cross because there's a direct connection between our footing and our faith walk. So if you need prayers for anything today, please come to the foot of the cross while we stand and we sing this song together.
