In the sermon 'Dealing with Pride' by Peter Allison, the speaker explores the sin of pride, its origins, and its pervasive impact on humanity. He starts by discussing the first sin of pride, which led to Satan's fall and subsequently, the fall of humanity. Pride is described as a foundational sin that disguises itself in actions, attitudes, and even virtuous deeds. It leads to prayerlessness, a sense of self-sufficiency, and ultimately, separation from God. The sermon underscores the destructive nature of pride, noting that it leads to division, strife, and fruitlessness in the church. In contrast, Jesus Christ is presented as the epitome of humility, having given up His divine rights to serve humanity. His life and sacrificial death provide the ultimate deliverance from pride. The resurrection of Christ is highlighted as the assurance of victory over sin and pride, inviting believers to mortify pride and seek righteousness in Christ. The sermon concludes with a call for believers to rely on Christ's righteousness and grace to overcome pride.

Please turn with me this morning in your Bibles to Proverbs, Chapter 16. We looked at the first nine verses last week. I'd like to this morning look back at two verses, verses 5 and 6. Hear the word of the Lord. Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.

Though they join forces, none will go unpunished. In mercy and truth, Atonement is provided for iniquity. And by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. Thus far the reading of God's Word, may He add His blessing to it and may he be praised. Almighty Heavenly Father, sanctify us by your Word.

Your Word is truth. And send your Holy Spirit to open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of your Word, to prepare our hearts that we may receive your Word with meekness, and Father bring forth fruit we ask through this instruction today in Jesus name we pray amen Sin is the reason that Christ died. This is a weekend, a time when we often are reminded or remember the death and the resurrection of Christ. Actually, Christ's resurrection is the reason that we meet every week on the first day of the week to celebrate, to remember His resurrection. Christ, the Lamb of God, died at the same time that The Passover lamb was sacrificed on the evening of the 14th day of the first month, which in the year that Christ died was on Thursday in that particular week.

He died as our Passover lamb to take away the sin of the world. Have you thought about that very first sin? God made the world perfect without sin. He looked at everything He made and it was good. It was very good.

But the very first sin that corrupted the world that He made was pride. Satan desired to be like God. Satan desired to exalt himself and lift himself up to be like God, to be self-sufficient, to need no one, To not even need God. In Isaiah we read, Chapter 14, How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will ascend into the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to hell, to the pits, to the sides of the pit." That was the very first sin. When we read about in Genesis 3 of St. Incoming to Adam and Eve before they had sinned, St. In had already rebelled, had already shown his pride in desiring to be like God.

Now the first nine verses I mentioned last week form a chiasm, at least I think I mentioned. And the opening and the closing, if I didn't I meant to, and the opening and the closing of this chiasm, remember a chiasm is a literary structure that is symmetric, it's balanced, the start and the end, and what's right next to the start and What's right next to the start and what's right next to the end and so on and it all points to what's in the middle? Where it's emphasizing what's in the middle And so this first nine verses formed this chiasm that open and close with affirmation of man's responsibility and God's sovereignty over all things even over the plans of men. But the center of this chiasm, the point of emphasis is verse 5. Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.

Though hand join hand, he will not be unpunished. See, pride is a foundational sin. It's not only the first sin That corrupted the world God made But it's a foundational sin It's the sin that condemned the devil as we've seen in fact Paul told Timothy that he shouldn't ordain elders that were young men who were novices as elders lest they fall into the same same sin as the devil Satan fall into pride But just like Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light and so deceive many, so pride, The sin of Satan comes in many disguises and deceives many. So we want to look this morning at first the disguises of pride. How does it appear?

Pride can be seen in action, and it can be an expression of our mouth. Psalm 17 says, They are enclosed in their own fat with their mouth. They speak proudly. Psalm 31 speaks about lying lips being put to silence, which speak grievous things proudly." Proverbs 16 speaks about a proud look. And Psalm 36 says, ask God, Let not the foot of pride come against me.

Let not the hand of the wicked remove me." There it's referring to an action. Or Psalm 119, David says, The proud have dug pits for me. There is an action of pride. And Job speaks about the proud helpers do stoop, proud helpers, people whose actions are prideful. Actions are prideful.

But pride can also be an attitude of the heart with which we do outwardly good things. The Old Testament tells us the story of Hezekiah and the pride that was in his heart and what he did as a result of the pride. Now what he did wasn't all that wrong, but the text speaks of the pride in His heart. And the wrath of God came upon Him because of pride that was in His heart. See, pride is this foundational sin that leads to many other sins.

Pride in the heart is the foundation or the companion of many other sins. The proud have forged a lie against Me. You have rebuked the proud that are cursed, David says in Psalm 119, which do err from Your commandments. Pride is the foundation, and it leads to other sins, but it's also the companion of sins and it comes hidden as the foundation of sins or disguised as the companion of sins hidden in under sin other sins and So anytime we transgress the law of God, we are, in a sense, lifting ourselves up above God, just like Satan did in his pride, saying, in essence, that we know better than what God does, that our will for us, what we want to do, is more important than God's will for us, which is His precepts. You see, that's the essence of pride.

Satan lifted himself up. He wanted to be like God. And anytime we sin, anytime we break any of the laws of God, we are saying that we don't need God, that we are the captain of our life and the master of our own destiny. Pride that self-sufficiency that says we don't need God leads to prayerlessness. Because in prayer we come humbly recognizing that we are not sufficient to do anything, that without Christ we can do nothing.

And so without prayer, which is where we ask for the things that we need, we can't hope to receive the resources, the tools, the armor that we need to battle our ancient foe and our own sinful nature in this world. These tools, these resources, these riches in Christ are ours for the asking. They are promised that Jesus promised that if we ask anything of the Father in His name, He would do it. And if we ask anything of the Father in Jesus' name, that He would give it to us. There is both promising to do for us and to give to us anything that we need, according to His will, to live in holiness before Him.

James says we don't have these things because we don't ask. You see, it's pride that's disguised under prayerlessness. We don't pray as we ought. And so without the armor of the Holy Spirit, without the armor of God, without the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we are weak. We are weak in our flesh.

We are powerless against the attacks of Satan. We are powerless against temptation and all forms of sin. That's why pride is said to go before destruction and arrogance before the fall. Pride also deceives our own heart, and it keeps us in sin. Obadiah told Edom in his oracle against them that Pride had deceived their heart into thinking that they were secure in the mountains that they lived in.

These mountains would protect them. They were impenetrable to anybody. And in the same way, Pride deceives us into thinking that the sins that beset us aren't really sins, or that we will somehow escape the judgment of our sin. That we're the exception. That our sin won't hurt us.

You see, pride is the foundation of many sins and the companion of many other sins. Why do people often lie, for example? We read in Psalm 119 about the proud forged a lie. Why do people often lie? Isn't it driving, pride driving them to lie, to keep another sin hidden?

David murdered Uriah to keep his adultery hidden. Keep it from being exposed. Why? Because of pride drove him to hide his adultery instead of confessing it. Not only is pride disguised as the foundation of other sins and disguised as the companion of sins, but Pride can also be disguised in outward obedience.

And it can be disguised in the gifts of the Spirit, the true gifts of the Spirit. Take any good deed, for example. Any act of obedience, even this preaching of the gospel, the true gospel. Paul told the Philippians that some people preach it out of selfish ambition, out of pride, a desire to promote themselves. And so, see, pride can be disguised in outward obedience.

We can hide under the umbrella of almost any virtuous act. We can read the Bible and be moved to pride at our knowledge of the Bible. We can pray and be moved to pride at our spirituality in praying so much. God has given His church, God has given us His body, many gifts, a great diversity of gifts for the edification of His body. But the very exercise of those good gifts that He has given to the church for the edification of the body.

They can be the occasion of pride when we exercise those gifts for our own good, to be well thought of by others instead of for the good of others. A good gift, exercised that we might be well thought of and not exercised solely for the good of others. And where there are great gifts, where God has richly blessed in pouring out His gift, Satan is sure to be there tempting saints to pride. In fact, you could say that the greatest gifts are the greatest temptation to pride. Paul was given great gifts of revelation.

He was caught up into the third heaven and saw things that, He said, no one could see, ought to see. But He was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to buffet him lest, Paul said, he should be exalted above measure. He said it twice. God gave him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan himself that in the midst of having a very great gift of God, he should be exalted and fall into pride. Pride in the gifts of the Spirit leads us to envy other people's gifts.

The feeling of being left out or diminished when the Lord uses the gifts He has given to other people to bless His people. Pride is envious of those gifts. This is especially a temptation for those to whom great gifts have been given. Those to whom great gifts have been given need to remember that we are only stewards of the gifts the Lord has given us. They're His gifts.

They're His work. And He will one day return and ask us to give an account of how we have used what He's entrusted to us. Have we used the gifts that He has given to us for His glory or our own glory? Has His church benefited to the greatest possible extent from the gifts that He has given to us for the good of the body, for the nourishing and edifying of one another? Or has our pride stunted the use of our gifts and their usefulness in Christ's church?

See, even humility, a grace of the Lord, can be the occasion of pride if we are proud of our own humility. Pride can also be distinguished in privileges. The privilege of success. The Lord blesses our labors. When he blesses the gifts he has given to us.

People are edified and helped. There is an abundance of fruit that is brought forth Can lead us? Pride can lead us to take want to take credit for for that work But we have to remember who is it that equipped us for that work? Whose power is it that enables us to do that work? It's from Christ.

It's His Holy Spirit working in us. It's His Holy Spirit that has equipped us. It's His grace that has given to us any gift that we have. Jesus sent out the seventy disciples and they came back and He gave them authority over the demons and the serpents and diseases and they came back rejoicing they said Lord even the demons are subject to us and and what was Jesus answer to them Jesus answer was to inform them that it was He who gave them the power over the demons. And that they ought to, instead of rejoicing that the demons were subject to them, they ought to rejoice that their names were written in heaven.

Pride can also come disguised in the privilege of blessing. When we receive a special blessing, a sign of God's presence, an extra measure of comfort. Pride is liable to be right there and rear its ugly head and suggest that maybe that's because God loves us more than others or because we somehow are better than others, that we've received this blessing, that we've done better, that we've somehow earned the Lord's blessing, this favor, this special favor. Humility would lead us to a sense of our own unworthiness, even of God's special favor. And pray that He does give to us Those special favors, that special presence of His Holy Spirit when we pray, that assurance of His love, that comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Pray that He does give those to us. Because those blessings do indeed signify His grace in our life. They are the means of assurance. But we need to remember at the same time that we are not worthy of those blessings. God isn't giving them to us because we've been good and we've earned them.

They're His grace. And these blessings should lead to greater labor, to further faithfulness, and not to basking in them and becoming at ease in Zion as Amos speaks of. And so these are just some of the disguises of pride. But pride brings destruction, as our text also said. Everyone proud and hard is an abomination to the Lord.

God hates pride. God hates pride no matter how it is disguised. Pride leads the list of the six or seven things in Deuteronomy 6 that God hates. God hates a proud look. That's the first thing on the list that God hates.

God hates pride and pride brings destruction. When pride sneaks in, It leads to thinking that our gift That our gifts are more important than other gifts or they're better Than some other someone else's gifts and that brings partiality and That brings the vision and strife and contention into Christ's church. And that's why in Romans 12, when Paul is beginning his discussion of using our gifts in the church, he prefaces that discussion, that exhortation to use our gifts according to the grace that God has given to us. He prefaces that discussion with a warning against pride. Not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think but to think soberly Because pride in the use of our gifts leads to fruitlessness in those gifts Because God opposes the proud but He gives grace to the humble.

And when God opposes us, All of our efforts are useless. It's like the Egyptian army. This is the greatest army on the face of the earth an innumerable company on chariots and yet they were powerless against a helpless people of Israel who had no weapons no chariots no horses no swords no spears They were powerless against them because God, they recognized God, was opposed to them. And God was working against them and God was taking the wills of their chariot off. And so pride in the use of our gifts renders those gifts useless, fruitless.

Pride not only prevents our gifts from being a blessing in the church, but it prevents us from benefiting from other people's gifts. If we look down on others, we're not going to be able to profit from the gifts God has given them. And so where pride is, the church withers. That, this text says, is certain. Though hand join hand is what that literally says though hand join hand Though men join together against God It's like the game Minded me looking at This reminded me of that game that children play, I don't know, maybe some of us play it too, from time to time called Red Rover.

Where you have two teams, and one team calls through the other team to send someone over. And that team holds their hands together, they lock arms, and they dare that person from the other team to break through their chain of arms. That's what this is saying, though hand join hand, Though men join together, none will go unpunished. Though men join hands together, they are no match against the purpose and the decree of Almighty God. To bring to pass what He has decreed.

And He has decreed destruction against pride in all of its forms. Job recognized that. He said that he divides the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites the proud. The Lord, the Proverb says, will destroy the house of the proud, but establish the border of the widow. The Lord will cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things." Psalm 94, "...Lift up yourself, you judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud." Isaiah 25 says, "...He shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, as He that swims spread forth His hands to swim, and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoil of their hands." God will bring down the pride.

The pride, that much, is absolutely certain. He has decreed destruction against pride in all of its disguises, in all of its forms. But the good news this morning is that God has provided a way of deliverance from pride. He has not left us to be destroyed by our pride, because which of us can say we have no pride? But in mercy and truth, God has provided a way of escape.

God has provided a way of escape. God has provided a way of deliverance through Jesus Christ. See it is Christ in his death who has borne the punishment of our pride. He died to bear God's wrath for this very sin which God abominates. Christ lived on this earth as we do, in human flesh, without pride.

By His grace, He provides deliverance to us. You see, pride demands its rights, but Christ gave up His rights as the Creator God to take to Himself a human body and a soul, and to live on earth with us like us. He who had the right to heaven, the right To be God, who is God, gave up that right. Gave up. Gave it up for us.

Pride compares itself with others, and feels worthy of honor and recognition. The proud heart feels that it's worthy of honor. But Christ, who from all eternity had the glory and the majesty of the Father, because Philippians says, He being in the form of God. Christ had from all eternity the majesty and the glory of God the Father. He made Himself with no reputation.

He veiled His glory and He took the form of a servant. Pride keeps others at arms length. Christ left heaven to dwell among us as sinners, To be Emmanuel, God with us. Pride is protective of its time and of its reputation. Christ sacrificed his time to heal the sick, to free the demon possessed, to teach the ignorant.

He gave up his reputation and he ate with tax collectors and sinners. Pride desires to be served. Christ came not to be served, but to serve. Pride desires to be a success. To have a life that is known, but Christ gave up His life, that we might have life everlasting.

Pride desires to be recognized and appreciated. Christ came riding on a donkey. He had no form or beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows. And we didn't esteem Him.

Pride desires to cover sin so no one knows about it. And if it does ever grudgingly, hesitatingly, if it's ever forced to confess sin, it does so in generalities. It has a hard time confessing specific sins. But Christ, who had no sin of His own whatsoever, who was sinless, He took the guilt of our sin upon Himself. He took the legal responsibility of our sin.

He became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He publicly suffered in great shame and humiliation, the wrath of God under the taunts and the gaze of His enemies as He bore the wrath of God for our sin. He publicly took our sin. Pride waits for others to come and ask forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or a conflict in a relationship. But Christ loved us before we ever loved Him.

Christ died for us while we were yet in our sins. Christ died for the ungodly. See, pride has a critical fault-finding spirit that looks at everyone else's fault with a microscope and its own faults with a telescope. But Christ, who is without sin, is compassionate with us in our sin. He is faithful to forgive our sin.

He's quick to forgive it. And He does so immediately. Have you ever thought about that? Forgiving somebody that's sinned against you can be hard. It can take time.

When have we ever gone to Christ to confess our sins, and it never took him time to think about it. He forgives our sins when we confess them. And he does so immediately. He has removed our sin from us as far as the east is from the west and he remembers it no more. Oh, it's not that his mind is faulty.

It's not that he has a chemo brain or anything else like that, or old age. He chooses not to remember our sins and to hold them against us. Pride is quick to blame others. But Jesus took the guilt of our sin on Himself. Pride wants to prove that it is right.

But Jesus was silent before his accusers. As a lamb being led to the slaughter, he did not answer them a word. Pride is blind to the true condition of its own heart. But Christ is the light that shows us the condition of our heart. And He calls us to walk in the light.

Pride is wounded when others are promoted or appreciated or recognized. But Christ invites us and allows us to reign with Him. Having been crucified with Christ, buried with Him in baptism, we are raised with Him by faith and reign with Him. Revelation speaks of the saints, His people, reigning with Him. We have been seated in the heavenlies with Christ and reign with Him.

Let this Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Let me just read that full passage in Philippians. I'm sure some of you, maybe many of you have it memorized. That this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man." Philippians 2 verse 8. "...and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. How do we know that Jesus has conquered sin and death? How do we know that Jesus Christ is the deliverance, is our deliverance from our pride? How do we know that we have been delivered from destruction, from God's righteous wrath for our pride? How do we know?

We know because Jesus rose again from the dead. The grave could not hold Him because He had defeated sin. He paid the penalty of our sin. And therefore, the grave could not hold him. It had no legal title to him.

By the fear of the Lord, one departs from pride. And in Christ, our righteousness, we too are delivered from pride. Do you know that deliverance from pride? Have you ever known that deliverance from pride? It was our pride for which he died.

If you have never known deliverance from that pride, if you have never known what it is to mortify that pride and to have victory over it, It may be because you have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted in Him and leaned on His righteousness and not our own. But if you have known that victory over pride that is in Jesus Christ, that deliverance from it that comes in Christ, then I urge you and exhort you to continue looking to Jesus Christ who is our example, who is our righteousness. And every time we fail, for we will, to confess our sin and to seek his forgiveness and to seek at his throne of grace every tool every resource every privilege that he has made available to us for putting to death the sin of pride. Let us pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning For the your deliverance that you have wrought that we might be delivered from art the sin of our own pride For you have appeased the wrath of God against us.

And we rejoice this morning that the grave could not hold you, but that you rose again from the dead, leaving the grave clothes behind. You have been raised incorruptible, been raised to glory. Been raised to glory. And you, the captain of our salvation, will bring many sons to glory with you. May our eyes be upon you.

May you give us eyes of faith to look to you, to trust in your righteousness and not in our own filthy rags, to have that mind that was in you, in us as well. To seek to serve. And by your grace to mortify the pride that is still within us. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.