Unburdened #4 - Living Without Pride
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues in Romans 8 looking at the seriousness of pride in our life and 3 assertions we can make to help us move towards humbleness.
Message Transcript
Hey, welcome it is great to be together again at Orchard Hill Butler County, Strip District, Wexford in the Gym, and in the Chapel socially distanced. Those of you worshiping at home or somewhere else, it is great just to be together. And as we continue just re-gathering this summer, I know many of you it will take more time for you to feel comfortable to come into a large gathering and I just want you to know we support that. If that is where you are, continue to worship at home. And some of you might fit into what have been called the vulnerable population - we especially want to encourage you to not return until we are certain of the direction of everything. But for those of you who are doing other things out and about, we are having socially distance worship, and it has been great just to be able to gather again in rooms and spend time worshiping, learning, and experiencing community together.
Let us take a moment and pray. Father, as we gather, I pray that you would help each one of us today just to understand your word better and to apply it to our lives. God, I pray that my words would reflect your word, in content and in tone, and an emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus name, amen.
So, I have been a pastor for almost 30 years. I do not like to say that because it kind of gives away my age, but I started my first church job in 1989. So, it has actually been 31 years to be exact. And in all that time I have had literally thousands of conversations with people. If you just go back and think about a typical week and then project that out, it is like literally thousands of conversations with people who have come in and had all kinds of different things that they have wanted to talk about. Sometimes it is the loss of somebody or something. Sometimes it is relational trouble or difficulty. Sometimes it is a blasé kind of feeling of their spiritual life.
But here is something that I can say to my memory. And that is, I have never had anybody in 31 years come and say to me, my pride is a problem. In fact, I have never had anybody say, I am proud and that is my spiritual issue. And yet, pride in the Bible is a huge deal. In fact, when we set up the series, we called it Unburdened. And we are talking about taking some things that are heavy out of our backpack of life and setting them on the side so that we do not have to carry them - living without condemnation. And my guess is many of us said, yes, you know what, that is really helpful. Then we talked about living without bondage, and what it means to live without the power of sin, overcoming us and dominating us. And my guess is many of us said that is helpful. Last week, we talked about living without despair - how we can groan in this world and yet still live without a sense of being overwhelmed by that despair. And again, my guess is many of you said that is helpful. And if you are a person who tracks and said, oh, today, we are talking about pride, you are probably like, okay, whatever.
But let me just give you a few verses that show you the significance of pride. And these are just a small sampling of the verses that we could use. Here are just a few, James 4:6 say this, "God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble." God opposes the proud. Jeremiah 9:23, "This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise boast in their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches..." And then it goes on to say, "...but let the one who boasts boast about this... that I am the Lord." In other words, do not be taken with your success, your wealth, do not be taken with your strength, do not be taken with your own wisdom, but know that the only way that you have real credibility ultimately is because of God. Proverbs 8:13, "To fear the Lord is to hate evil." And then he says, "I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior, and perverse speech." Proverbs 11:2 two says, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with humility comes wisdom." Proverbs 13:10, "Where there is strife, there is pride. But wisdom is found in those who take advice." That is an amazing verse because it says whenever there's people who are at odds, pride is one of the factors that makes that happen. In other words, if you have a family where there's disputes, and people do not get along, if you do not get along with somebody at work, what Proverbs 13:10 says is it is because of pride. And then Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."
So just taking those verses I would guess that that many of us would hear that and we would go okay, pride should be one of those issues that I should be concerned about in my life. Because getting rid of pride will help me have better relationships, avoid destruction, and it will help me not have God be opposed to me in my life. So, my question is, why at least for me in 31 years of being involved in church work, have I not had people come to me and say, can you help me defeat pride in my life? And I would guess, that one of the reasons is that our pride blinds us to our own pride.
We are so proud sometimes that we cannot even see how proud we are. Now, at first glance, Romans 8:26-30, which you heard read, does not appear as if it really addresses pride. But I think when you see what this addresses, you will see exactly how this addresses pride because there are three different assertions that if we make them it will help us address pride. Three realizations that if we say these things are true It will help us be somebody who will not live on that pride side, but more on the humble side.
The first is this and that is, we have to acknowledge that our weakness is God's strength. And here is where we see this, verse 26-27, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts and knows are the minds of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God." Now here's what that just very simply says, is that when you come up against something and you don't even know how to pray, you don't know what to do, when you feel overwhelmed by the process and the decision, that you can basically know that God's Spirit will intercede on your behalf. In other words, he will pray for you.
Now, sometimes people read this and they see the gift of tongues in this section of the Bible. And the gift of tongues is a gift, if you read in Acts, especially Acts 2, was a gift that God gave to people to be able to speak a known language to others that they didn't personally know so that others would go, wow, that's God. And then some would say that in 1 Corinthians and beyond, it is more of a private prayer language. And so here they will say, this is tongues. Now, this is not an impossible reading of this, but it is not a necessary reading of this. And what I mean by that, is that whether you read or see tongues in this, that ultimately this is saying that God's Spirit will do this praying for you, when you do not know how to pray. In other words, this is not necessitating any kind of special prayer language. What this is saying is, this is how God works.
And the reason that I say we have to see that our weakness is God's strength is because this idea of weakness is picked up several different times in Scripture. Here is one of them. This is 2 Corinthians 12:7 and following says, "But because of the surpassing great revelations, therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me." Now, this is the apostle Paul, basically saying that I had some kind of extreme difficulty. There has been a lot of debate about what the thorn in the flesh is. Some people see it as a person. Some people saw it as his eyesight. Some people saw it as other sickness. And the answer is we do not really know. He says three times, "I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.'" And what he is doing here is he is saying that God revealed to him very clearly that the way that God's strength is made clear is when our weakness is clear. But here is the thing. Many of us do not like the idea of being weak. In fact, what we want is we want to be strong, and we want God to give us strength so that we can always have victory instead of being able to acknowledge our weakness. But sometimes acknowledging weakness is the only way to get strength.
I was thinking about this the other day, because a while back, I had had to move some furniture and right now I have some young men living in my house, sons and another guy who is living with us. And if I want to move something, I have built in furniture movers, which is really kind of nice, because I can just say, hey, I need a hand and somebody will come give me a hand and we can move furniture. Now, what I need though, is I need to acknowledge that I cannot simply move the furniture by myself. Now I can try and some furniture I might be able to move. But if I am proud, what do I do? I say, I do not need any help. I have this. I am in charge of myself on this. And in doing that, I do not actually receive the help that I need.
Now, that is not probably the most significant example, but what we need to see is that when we acknowledge our weakness, we are actually inviting God's strength. And that the Christian life is not a journey from weakness to strength, but a journey from thinking we are strong to acknowledging we are weak. It is a downward progression of believing that I am good to knowing that I am the chief of sinners. In other words, it is saying I know that I am weak. The gospel is good news for those who know that they do not measure up Therefore, it is offensive to those who think they do. And when I am able to say I am weak, but that's when God is strong, that is when we step away from some of our pride. And what we see in Romans 8 is that God, the Father, is the one who is at work loving and knowing his people. God, the son, is interceding on behalf of the people who have an accusation against them, that is why there is no condemnation, and it is the Holy Spirit who prays for us in our weakness. And so, if we want to counter pride in our lives, one of the things that we have to do is acknowledge that when we are weak, he is strong.
Here is the second thing, and that is we have to acknowledge that our future is God's responsibility. This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to His purpose." And what this is ultimately saying is that God is at work, and God is going to bring about the ends that God wants and that those ends are good. And here is why I say that this is ultimately something that we need to acknowledge for pride. Because when my pride says I know how the future has to go and here's how God has to work it, and if God does not work this way, then God is not for me or God is not working. Then what I am doing is I am projecting my way of seeing the world onto the world and saying, this is how God has to work. And what we really need to do is acknowledge that the world does not have to be the way that we think it should be. In fact, sometimes good circumstances can be very harmful in our lives, and difficult circumstances can be helpful in our lives. Sometimes the very things we pray for, could drive a wedge between us and the very God that we pray to. God, who sees all says, I will work all things together for good. The future is my responsibility. But in order for you to encounter that, you actually have to trust me that I know what is best in a way that you do not know what is best.
I do not know if when you have gone to an amusement park or a carnival and gotten on a roller coaster, if you ever had a moment before you got on the roller coaster and you said, I hope that somebody checked this thing. Because you see the thing take off and you know, it does all these twists and turns and people are dangling out and you think, you know if something went wrong, that thing's going to fly off and I will go to my death. And then what do you do, if you are like most people, you get on the roller coaster, you have a good ride and you think that was great. But what did it require for you to get on the roller coaster? You had to say, I trust that somebody did maintenance, either some traveling carny that was in charge of this or somebody at the park that took care of this. And you said, that is what I trust if I get on a roller coaster.
Well, here is the thing, in your life, and my life, it is like we are on a roller coaster full of highs and lows, ups and downs, twists and turns. And God says, but if you trust me through all of it, I will bring you safely and fully to an end point that is for your good. But if you do not trust God, then you are just on a roller coaster not knowing that you can trust the end. That is what Romans 8:28 is talking about here with this incredible assurance. But our pride sometimes says I cannot trust that God is actually in charge or that God actually knows what he is doing enough to be trustworthy in this.
Martin Lloyd Jones in writing about this a generation ago said this, he said, "I believe that Paul had a special reason for using the term love, rather than the term believe at this point. One of the best ways whereby we can decide immediately, if we love God or not, is our reaction to adversity. There are many people who win trials when tribulations arise, feel that they have been let down." You see what he says? He says that God using the phrase here, those who have been called according to His purpose, and those who love Him, indicates that our heart is actually not so proud, that we say I cannot handle adversity.
Now, sometimes there is some ways that those of us who have been followers of Jesus can misunderstand kind of how God sees suffering. Some of us will think if we live with well enough, we can avoid all suffering. But Romans 8 is very clear that this is not the case. Verse 18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us." Verse 37, "Knowing all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither demons nor the present, nor angels, nor the past, the future, any other powers, can ever separate us from the love of God." And what frames this is he says this, "Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or swords, separate us from the love of God." In other words, even being faithful to God does not mean that we avoid difficulty. And one of the reasons that we insist on our life going a certain way sometimes is we say, God, if you love me, then these things will work out.
Sometimes, what we will do is we will assume that our suffering is a result of our sin. That the reason we suffer is because of the sinful choices we have made. Now to be fair, there is some suffering that is a result of our sinfulness. In other words, there are times that we will reap what we sow, that's Galatians six. In other words, we choose to do something and then we will pay a price for it. But in the Bible, without any question, not all suffering is a result of our sinfulness. There is suffering that is a result of living in a fallen world. And sometimes things happen that are not because of things that we have done or not done, but because of the world that we live in. And God takes those and he says, I am going to arrange all of these in a way that will bring about good. And then we have to understand that not every storm will lead to a rainbow.
I remember one of the first funerals that I was part of as a pastor. Again, this goes back a lot of years, but I remember, this woman had lost her husband, she did not lose him, he died. And so, when this husband died, I went to the funeral home and I was going to be part of officiating this funeral for the first time. And I remember standing there, and she was a Christian woman, and as she stood there, she was basically saying, I know that God is going to work all things together for good. I mean this was her husband of 35 years at the time. And she is saying, I know God has a plan. I trust God. I trust Jesus. And I remember as a younger pastor thinking, don't you need to grieve? Is not it okay to be sad, you do not need to go to Romans 8:28 on the day of your husband's funeral and act like you are happy about your husband dying. That is not what this is saying. What this is saying is that even when your spouse dies, even when something terrible happens in your life, that it is not outside of God's control.
I read one person, site, and pastor of another generation's outline of this kind of idea. And he said this, "We know that our bad things will turn for good. We know that our good things can never be taken from us, and that our best things are yet to come. Because we know that all things work together for good, we know our bad things will turn out for good, our good things will never be taken from us, and our best things are yet to come if we love God and are called according to His purpose."
And then here is the third assertion we need to make if we want to defeat pride in our own life, and that is our salvation is God's work. It is God's work from beginning to end. Verse 29-30, it says, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."
Certainly, this raises questions for many people because as soon as they hear this, they say, oh predestination, you said the "P" word. And you know, if you are in a life group, I know that many of you can have vigorous debates about what predestination is or is not. But here is the thing. I do not think here that Paul gave us this word, so that we could have a nice debate and have a nice theological system that we could all say, here is what I believe and I am right and you are wrong. In fact, that actually goes against pride. What he gave us this word for ultimately, I believe, and this concept of saying, listen, here is the purpose of salvation, that you would be conformed to my image. But here is the process, and that is I called people, I predestined them, I drew them, and I will glorify them. All of these words are in the past tense in the original language. Meaning that God says, I have already done it, I have already achieved it. This is not something that you do, something you earn, or something you make your own. This is something that I have done on your behalf. And because I have done it on your behalf, you do not have any reason to take pride in your position. Sometimes people's biggest objection to people of faith is that they look at people of faith and they say all the people I know of faith are so proud. They think they are right and everyone else is wrong. They think that they are better than everybody else. But when you understand salvation is God's work from beginning to end, what happens is, instead, you say, I know that I am a sinful person and it wasn't even that I figured it out and chose Jesus, it was that Jesus worked in my life in ways that I don't even fully understand.
Now, you may say, okay, that is something that you know has been around for a while, and theologians have debated, but the gospel message is ultimately tied to this very idea. And this is where the whole flow of Romans comes in - that we are sinful people, that we rebel against God, that even our goodness, our religion, read Romans two and three, the beginning of those chapters, fall short of what God wants. So even when we say I am going to do all the right things, we do not quite get there. But that our real standing is because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf, and not only that, but he is the one who draws us.
And this word predestined is interesting. I heard this, and I am not entirely certain because I did not verify all of this, most of this you will understand, but the use of the word predestined is what I am referring to here. But when Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, which is right in this time frame. You probably learned about this when Brutus led the revolt and 10 people came and assassinated Julius Caesar, and they were planning to take and divide the Roman Empire into 10 kingdoms that they would each have. And then what happened was that when they opened his will and testament, he had a statement and this is the part that I'm not hundred percent sure about, but I know that the history is right, but not the use of the word predestined.
He designated one of his nephews, who was in his early 20s, that was way off the political map of everybody, to be the person who inherited his entire kingdom. I mean, this is a college student sleeping on a futon with nothing to offer. And he said, this is who I choose to be in charge of my kingdom. And this is the man who became Caesar Augustus. And this is when you read your New Testament, and you hear about Caesar Augustus, and some of these things. This is the backstory. But what he did is he said supposedly that he predestined, this Caesar, who was not Caesar at the time, to be his sole heir. And so what possibly Paul is doing here is he's taking the same word that would have been in people's psyche of the day, and he's saying, just like he was predestined, who didn't have any claim to the throne, who hadn't done anything to earn it, who wasn't even on people's political landscape, and was given the opportunity to be in charge of the kingdom, you are being predestined to be the children of God. In other words, God has worked in your life in a way in which you do not get to say, I am good. That is why God chose me. I am moral. That is why I am part of what God has done in my life. That it is God's work from beginning to end.
Now, you may say, okay, so we have talked about a lot of things. How does this help me with pride? Isn't it just better to kind of think less of myself so that I am not as prideful? Well, CS Lewis once said this, he said that "Pride or humility is not to think less of yourself, but to think of yourself less." In other words, the way that we ultimately come to not be full of pride is not by trying to obsess about how we can think less about ourselves. Because that's really insecurity and insecurity is just another side of the coin of pride, where we are always saying, I am not enough, I am all these things, rather than saying that God has made me valuable because of what he did in Jesus Christ.
But it is coming to a point where we think of ourselves less, and here is how this plays out with these assertions. If you are able to say that my weakness is God's strength, then you are able to say, it is okay for me to be weak. I do not have to assert my strength. I do not have to demonstrate my strength. I do not have to make everybody think I am strong. I can say, God, I am not strong enough for what is in front of me. In fact, I do not even know how to pray. But your spirit will pray for me. You are able to say, my future is God's responsibility. And what that means is you do not take the weight of saying every decision is so heavy, that if I do not get it right, my life will not turn out. But instead, you are able to say, all things will work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. And so, I can look at my future, I can look at my life, I can look at everything that is going on, and I can say, I do not have to insist on how my life turns out. Because there is somebody, the God of the universe, who is in charge of everything, who is orchestrating things that will ultimately work out for my best, even when it does not seem like it to me right now. My bad things will turn out for good; my good things will end up being even better, and my best things can never be taken from me.
And then finally, we're able to say even my ultimate standing with God, my salvation is not about my effort, my performance, what I do or don't do, but it's about what Jesus Christ has done from eternity past, to the present, to eternity future. And as a result, there is nothing that I need to assert or be proud about. And you see if we are able to make those assertions, then what happens is we'll be able to say I can live without having to always try to prove myself, or make much of myself, or make myself strong, or look good. And then I will not end up on the side of having God being opposed to me or in relational turmoil because I am always trying to do something a certain way. In fact, what I will be able to do is say, very simply, that whatever good I have in my life is God's hand. And the things that do not seem good to me, God has not finished his work in it yet. And that allows me to approach this life with open hands, saying, God, this is your world. And I will trust you in it.
Now some of us hear this and some of these concepts sound foreign. Spirit praying for us, God working even in our worst things, and the idea that God has worked in foreknowness and predestined us to be conformed to his image. This is just a lot to take in. But here is what this passage is very clear about. And that is, if you are called according to God's purpose, if you are somebody who has acknowledged Jesus Christ as your Savior, then these things are true. But if you are not, and these things are not, and here is what that means. It means that your strength is the best you will ever do. It means that the good things you get now are the best things you will ever have. And it means that your moral record is the record you will have to stand on before the God of the universe.
And what salvation is, is coming to the point where you say, I am not strong enough, my record is not good enough, and I am not wise enough to know what the best thing is. So, God, I come to you and I want Jesus to be my savior, my substitute. And you can do that today, where you are by simply saying, God, I know that I have tried in my own strength, my own way, to save myself, to make much of myself. But today I acknowledge that Jesus Christ is my Savior, my substitute. And then you can begin the journey of saying, I will live without pride being a heavy burden in my life. By the way, this is not the kind of thing you do once. Pride will slip back into your life over and over again. And so, we must keep coming back to these affirmations and saying, my weakness is God's strength, my future is God's responsibility, and my salvation is all God's work.
Let us pray together. Father, we thank you just for a chance to understand a portion of Romans eight a little better and God I pray for me, I pray for each person who's listening, that you would help us to see how these great affirmations impact us to set aside our pride. And Father, we pray this in Jesus name, amen.
