Superiority and self-righteousness are difficult for human beings to recognize in themselves. Jesus attacks these issues harder than anything else because he knows the potential damage that can be done.
Jesus tells a story about the up-side-down nature of the kingdom of God, where the religious person who looks good on the outside is blind, unloving, and very, very far away from God; and the person who is despised by society has a humility that keeps him right at the heart of God’s life and love.
This Sunday we look at this story Jesus told to those who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.
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Full Sermon Script
Welcome, I’m Matt vanCleave, one of the pastors at Blue Oaks.
We’re going to start today by looking at a story Jesus told about pride.
It’s in Luke 18, starting at verse 9:
Then Jesus told this story to some who had trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector.
The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’
I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”
Luke 18:9-14
There’s a pattern we see throughout Jesus’ teachings: he takes what the world teaches and he flips it upside down.
You see, our world says, “Honor yourself. Lift yourself up. Exalt yourself.”
Jesus says, “The proud will be humbled, and the humble will be honored.”
Now, as a church, we’re trying to build a community based on the reality that you reach greatness not by climbing up a ladder; but by descending down it. We descend into greatness.
We’re trying to build a community based on the truths that we find in Scripture; truths like financial security comes to those who have enough trust in God that they become amazingly generous, that they come to actually trust that Jesus really knew what he was talking about when he said, “It’s better to give than to receive.”
We’re trying to build this kind of community, and in order to do that, part of what needs to happen is, we need to fight the way we’re conditioned by this world.
Let’s look at Luke 18, starting at verse 9 again:
Then Jesus told this story to some who had trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Luke 18:9
Jesus tells this story to people who believed they were righteous based on their own effort.
You see, the religious leaders had a problem with Jesus’ teachings because they were trying to use the biblical laws to demonstrate their righteousness; whereas Jesus would flip the law to be about what was happening in their hearts.
The classic litmus test of someone’s spiritual development is: does what we’re doing lead us into love for God and love for other people, or does it lead us out of love for God and other people?
Let me give you a few examples in our day.
First of all, think about Steve.
Steve was angry: angry with his family, angry with his friends and neighbors, angry with the people he worked with. He was even angry with the people he had gone to church with his whole life.
Steve got into fights with people all the time about politics. He carried grudges for years. He never forgot a hurt. There were people from his neighborhood, work and church that he wouldn’t speak to.
People outside the church wouldn’t put up with him because he was obnoxious, but inside the church his obnoxiousness and anger was regarded somehow as a passion for the truth, and he was thought of as a spiritual leader.
Cindy was the most feared person in the church.
She was a master of guilt and manipulation. She led a Bible study for women. It was very clear that all women were welcome, but they were only welcome to stay if they did everything she told them to do.
She was involved in a lot of people’s lives in the church; but she didn’t really love them. She wanted to control them.
She had been in the church her whole life, but she didn’t learn how to love.
At home, she was the boss; though, ironically, she believed theologically that the husband was the head of the household.
So in her home her husband was the spiritual leader because she said he was, and God help him if he didn’t lead the way she wanted him to.
She was regarded in the church as a spiritual leader. Women looked up to her and thought that’s what they should be.
Jonathan was a leader and a blogger who viewed himself as a defender of the truth, and he enjoyed shredding other people who disagreed with any of his positions.
And he didn’t just rip into them, he would deliberately twist around everything they said to make it look as bad as possible. He would attack their motives, even when he didn’t know what their motives were.
He knew a lot of information, even a lot of information about the Bible, but instead of making him more loving, it made him more proud. It made him arrogant. He would slander the truth in the name of defending the truth.
And he was thought of as spiritual leader. People would mistake his information for wisdom.
Now, I could go on to describe many more of these types of people, but let me tell you why I describe them.
I describe these people because something has bothered me for a long time. And it’s not just that these kinds of people exist. I mean, we all struggle. It’s not just that these people exist in churches. Churches are places for people who struggle.
What really bothers me is that in church after church these people are not thought of as weaker Christian brothers and sisters who need help.
These people are looked up to as examples of what it means to be spiritual leaders. They’re often what other people in the church think they’re supposed to become.
And when sensible people get turned off by these examples of spiritual leadership, they think, “There must be something wrong with me. I must not really want to grow spiritually.”
In Luke 18 we have these religious people who took their practice of spirituality very seriously, and the result of it was they despised everyone else. Their ability to love other people was not increasing.
So now, Jesus wants to try to get past the defenses of these kinds of people; so he tells a story.
“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector.
The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
Luke 18:10-12
So we have this proud Pharisee who was one of the religious elite in that day, a spiritual athlete to the people in that culture.
He’s saying, “I have more than fulfilled the requirements. I’m doing extra credit in the field of spirituality.”
He examined himself, and he said, “I’m not an adulterer, I’m not a cheater, I’m engaged in spiritual practices, and I tithe.”
But the one thing he missed was pride. He despised others.
So that’s the Pharisee in Jesus’ story. And then Jesus says:
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’
Luke 18:13
Now, you have to understand, in that day, a tax collector was the moral equivalent of a drug dealer or of a wife abuser. He would be shunned by all respectable people. He was an untouchable.
He’s not standing up in the front of the temple, so everyone can see how righteous he is.
The best he can bring himself to do is just say, “Have mercy on me. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”
Now, to this point, as Jesus is telling this story, you need to understand, in that setting, to his listeners, there is no doubt in their minds about who the good guy is in the story.
They’re all waiting for the tax collector, the evil-doer, the traitor to the people of Israel, to get the axe in the story.
Then Jesus points to the wrong guy. Jesus points to the Pharisee, and Jesus says, “You know, this Pharisee over here. This Pharisee says that he and the tax collector are in two different categories, and he’s right. He’s just confused about who is in which category.”
He points to the tax collector, and he says, “This corrupt, greedy, sleazy, scum of the earth, he’s okay in God’s sight. He who casts himself on the mercy of the court, he’s okay.”
“This other one, who is so virtuous and so religious and so self-righteous, who can give all the right answers and who is so cold and so arrogant, he is not okay in the sight of God.”
Now, you have to understand the shock that would go through the crowd when they heard this story. This is not the way the story is supposed to end; because the Pharisee looked like the godly man to everyone there.
You see, this Pharisee believes all the right stuff. He has all the right values. He lives a moral life, and Jesus says he’s disgusting in the face of God because he has no love: no love for God, and no love for people.
He’s in this kind of secret club of insiders who don’t welcome sinners. He doesn’t embrace people who are outside.
The irony of this is, he is the biggest sinner of them all, but he doesn’t even see it.
The truth about most religious leaders in Jesus’ day, and the truth about this man was he was more damaged by his righteousness than the sinner was damaged by his sin.
His pride caused him to miss the mark of true spirituality.
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Now, if you take your faith seriously, pride is a major danger.
So, for the next couple minutes I’m going to run through a few categories of pride to get you thinking about how pride may take root in your life.
One form of pride the writers of Scripture talk about is
self-preoccupation
or narcissism. These are people who are focused on their image.
Let me give you a few ideas to see if this fits you.
If, when you’re looking at pictures, you pretend like you are looking at other people in the picture, but really you’re just looking at yourself. You’re checking to see if it’s a good picture of you. Maybe you’re better looking than you thought were.
Or maybe this is you if you work out more than a few times a week; or when you’re working out, you can’t stop looking at yourself in the mirror.
Or if it takes you more than an hour to fix your hair and make-up and get dressed in the morning, you may have this problem.
Or if you exaggerate the truth about yourself to make yourself look better than you really are.
Another form of pride the writers of Scripture talk about is
stubbornness.
One who is often reproved yet remains stubborn will suddenly be broken beyond healing.
Proverbs 29:1
What’s going on here is they’re stubborn because their pride won’t allow them to receive reproof or correction.
If this is you, when you’re in a conflict, you may find yourself saying, “I don’t have anything to apologize for.”
The problem you face is you just can’t stop defending yourself.
Someone shows you an error or a flaw in your character, and you evade it, or deny it, or blame it on someone else. You can’t acknowledge the presence of blemishes in your life because of pride.
And this gets real deep. The problem is, if you’re dealing with a defensive person and you point out to him or her that he or she is defensive, what do they do? They defend themselves. It’s very difficult to get past this.
If this is you, one of the interesting things about you is you’ve never actually been wrong in your life. It’s an interesting thing.
Another form of pride is
controlling.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:21
Instead of trying to control or climb the ladder, we are instructed to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
But controlling people have difficulty doing this.
If you’re a controlling person, your motto is, “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” You have a difficult time handing the reins over to someone else.
Alright, the last one I’ll give you, and this is painful, but it’s so much fun,
judging.
Matthew 7:1 says:
Do not judge so that you may not be judged.
Matthew 7:1
Now, if this is you, then the world is a movie and you’ve been called to be the critic.
One of your favorite phrases is, “It may not be any of my business, but.”
Now, understand, what’s behind this one is not simply that you evaluate things, because evaluation and discernment are very important. This is a failure to be for someone. You’re not really for the person you’re talking about.
Okay, so those are some of the categories to get you thinking about how pride may be taking root in your life.
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Now, how do we deal with pride?
First of all, you need to
acknowledge your pride.
I’m just going to talk about two things, and the first is acknowledge your pride.
President Lincoln once got caught up in a situation where he made a political decision motivated by his own pride. He wanted to please a politician, so he issued a command to transfer certain regiments.
When the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, received the order, he refused to carry it out. He said the President was a fool.
Lincoln was told what Stanton said, and he replied, “If Stanton said I’m a fool, then I must be, for he is nearly always right. I’ll see for myself.” As the two men talked, the President quickly realized his decision was a serious mistake, and without hesitation he withdrew it.
Acknowledge your pride.
You may want to ask some people you trust about how pride is rooted in your life, because pride is woven so deeply into our culture. We breathe it all the time.
Mohammed Ali, one of the best boxers in history was famous for saying: “I am the greatest.” It was kind of his motto. We live in that kind of world.
Acknowledge your own pride, acknowledge it yourself, acknowledge it to God, and you will need to talk about it with another person. You will need to have someone else that can help you root this out of you.
This is deadly serious business, especially for people who are serious about following Christ, because it’s so easy when I begin to do things, like pray or read the Bible or share my faith, to get off-track by beginning to think, “Well, now I’m becoming righteous.”
Alright, acknowledge your pride; and then Jesus says very clearly,
humble yourself.
How do we do that?
I’ll give you a kind of pop quiz.
How do we humble ourselves in the real world? I’m going to give you a real-life situation and I want you to reflect on what you would do as a follower of Christ in the real world.
Someone compliments you on the way you look. Now you’re trying to be humble, how do you respond?
Option number one: You look down at the ground, shuffle your feet and say, “I’m not really attractive; it’s just that the light in here is pretty dim.”
Sounds like a humble thing, right?
Option number two: Boldly speak the truth by saying, “I’m very interested. Tell me more, and let us celebrate this good news together.”
It’s just the truth in love. Let me have it.
Option number three: In order to correct their superficial focus on physical appearance you quote Proverbs 11:22, “A beautiful woman lacking discretion and modesty is like a fine gold ring in a pig’s snout.”
That would pretty much eliminate any future compliments.
Option number four: You say something like, “You’re giving me a big head. Get behind me, Satan!”
Very direct and to the point.
Or option number five: Smile, say thank you, and be quiet.
You see, humility, which is what we’re called to cultivate, is not about convincing yourself that you’re unattractive or that you’re incompetent. People get very confused on this. It’s not about beating yourself up, or trying to make yourself into nothing.
Sometimes people will pray, “God, just make me nothing.” If God wanted to make you nothing, he could have done that. God is perfectly capable of making nothing. That was not his plan for you; and it’s not a modest thing to pray that.
Humility has to do with a kind of submitted willingness. Or, another way of thinking about it is: it’s a kind of healthy, self-forgetfulness.
You’ll know you’ve begun to make progress in the area of humility when you find that you get so enabled by the Holy Spirit to live in the moment that you’re not preoccupied with yourself anymore.
When you’re with someone, you’re truly with them, and you’re not wondering how they can benefit you, or if there’s someone else in the room that could benefit you more. You’re just simply with them, loving them.
Humble people are not people who are cutting themselves down all the time. They’re simply people who have been empowered by God to love their neighbors the way they love themselves; to be as happy when a neighbor succeeds as when they succeed. That’s how you know you’re on the road to humility.
In Matthew 6, Jesus talks about how to cultivate humility. He talks to people who wrestle with pride; people who do religious things.
He says, “Here’s what you do: Go ahead and fast. Fasting can be a helpful thing. But when you fast, don’t let anyone know you’re doing it.”
“Go ahead and give to the poor. Go ahead and give money to God. Give money, but as you do it, don’t let people know you’re doing it.”
“Go ahead and pray, but as you pray, don’t let people know you’re doing it.”
In other words, do good things, but keep them secret. Don’t give in to the temptation to go around and impress other people.
I think it would be good if we could practice this kind of secrecy.
Because you’ll discover you can live without impressing people; and you’ll begin to be liberated. You’ll begin to be freed of this terrible addiction of having to make other people think the right thing about you.
So in closing, I’m going to run through a few scenarios where you may be tempted to say something to draw attention to yourself this week. Instead, let’s just make a commitment together that we’re going to use these situations as opportunities to grow in humility.
Sometime this week, you’re going to be tempted to impress someone with your accomplishments, or with your spirituality, or with your maturity, or something very impressive that you’ve done or said. It’s almost a conditioned response. You’re going to be tempted to make yourself look a little better than you are.
When you tell someone about something you saw on TV, you’re going to be tempted to preface it with the statement, “I don’t really watch TV, but…”
So they don’t think you just sit around and watch TV all day, you’re going to be tempted to say something to manage someone’s impression of you.
Instead, this week we’re going to see this as an opportunity to grow in humility.
Sometime this week you’re going to be tempted to judge someone.
You’re going to be tempted to judge someone who did the wrong thing, or said the wrong thing, or posted the wrong thing, and it’s just going to feel so good to tell someone else about this thing that someone did that you didn’t like.
But when that temptation comes, we’re going to remember what Jesus teaches about the various forms that pride takes, and we’re going to see this as an opportunity to grow in humility.
This week you’re going to have an opportunity to submit to someone else. You’re going to be sitting in the family room, and the remote control is going to be equally distant between you and someone else.
There’s going to be a baseball game on and there’s going to be a ‘disease-of-the-week’ movie on.
You don’t want to grow in humility that bad, do you?
You see, this is our chance to follow Jesus and be freed from the stupidity and painfulness and vanity of going through life trying to make sure other people think the right things about us.
I want to close with this. The single most important thing we can do to humble ourselves is to simply:
offer acts of servanthood.
Because the reality is, sometimes we’re like the Pharisee in this story Jesus told.
Thank God I’m not an idiot like that guy.
Thank God I don’t believe the things he believes.
Thank God I don’t look like her or dress like her.
Thank God I don’t have a job like him.
Thank God I’m not poor like her.
Thank God I’m a good person, I have a healthy family, I don’t cheat, I don’t lust, I give money to charity.
I mean, sometimes we’re like the Pharisee in the story.
And I think the most important way to find humility, which is the only way we’ll be exalted, is to serve people.
And there are a ton of opportunities to serve people, we just have to open our eyes to see them.
Here is the truth: Every time you serve, you’re following Jesus. No act of service will ever be lost.
Many very impressive actions by very powerful, important people will one day burn up like straw and be forgotten.
But no act of servanthood in the name of Jesus, not the smallest cup of cold water given to the least of these will be lost, because life the way Jesus intended it to be lived looks a whole lot different than the world.
The way of Jesus is the way:
Where the great is a servant.
Where the first is a slave.
Where those who lose their lives find them.
Where the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of this world.
Where strength is perfected in weakness.
Where those who exalt themselves are humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted.
That’s life the way God intended it to be lived.
Alright, let me pray for you.
Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA