Pride is subtle, it seldom, if ever, comes to us waving its hands in the air shouting, “Look out! Look out! Here comes pride!” Two weeks ago, I spoke of how even we as pastors run the risk of slipping into pride without even knowing, sometimes to such an extreme that we mistake our pride for humility. The only cure to pride is a healthy dose of humility, and yet like a small child, we intensely dislike that taste of the medicine we so desperately need. To the point that we stubbornly refuse to take it, until our mouths are pried open and the medicine swiftly sent down our throats. We are slow to humble ourselves, and fail to make it a daily practice. I speak here from personal experience, when I wake in the mornings, my first action should be to get out of bed and immediately go to my knees praying for God to keep my heart from pride and bathe it in humility. Yet, truthfully, I have never done this. God, however, is gracious, long-suffering and patient, there is forgiveness, and the new opportunity to change my ways.
The question then is what can we do at the start of every day, and especially on Sundays, to ward off pride and humble ourselves? What ingredients do we need to make ourselves a slice of humble pie, which should be eaten each morning?
1.) Cultivate an ever-decreasing view and opinion of yourself, and an ever-increasing view and understanding of God.
Your morning starts as per usual, standing in front of the basin, razor in hand, removing yesterday’s stubble. The shaving process completed you rinse your face, look in the mirror, and for a brief moment allow yourself to bask in your own magnificence. (The degree of magnificence seems to decrease with age!)
Stop, be careful, for you were created not to bask in your own magnificence every morning, but rather to bow before the One who is Magnificent. Don’t forget that the day will come when your existence upon the earth shall come to an end as swiftly as yesterday’s stubble, and then you shall truly see just how much your opinion of yourself stacks up against the God of all glory!
One of pride’s chief weapons is to cause us to think of ourselves as greater, higher and better than what we really are. It will seek to fool us into thinking that we are only a few rungs lower on the ladder from God. This pride, if left unchecked will cause us to have an inflated view of ourselves. This increasing view, this over-estimation of ourselves comes at a cost, for as we inflate ourselves to being greater than what we truly are, we decrease and demote God, to being lesser than what He truly is. The result, we promote ourselves to God, and demote God to our errand-boy, personal servant and genie, who is there to satisfy our every desire, whim and wish.
I have been reading through the book of Isaiah, and found myself laid-low, cut down like a tree, by one simple verse: “Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?” (Isaiah 2:22)
This passage is preceded by a lengthy section speaking about the terror and judgement that God shall bring against the proud, of God’s infinite glory and splendour, and man’s worthlessness in comparison. It concludes with that soul piercing, pride crushing verse. It is a verse that haunts my thoughts for it is saying to me, “Of what account are you, how great is your splendour and majesty, how mighty is your power, how great is your magnificence, when you cannot even provide for yourself the very simplest of things, your next breath! Take away one thing, one simple thing, oxygen and that is it, there you lie gasping for breath, after a few moments your body will be lying there, blue, limp, dead. Oh, how great you are!”
The first step, the first ingredient needed to humble ourselves is that we must seek to cultivate an ever-increasing view of God and an ever-decreasing view of ourselves. Let us make it our daily ambition to gain an accurate view of who God truly is, and who we are by comparison. We must allow the sheer majesty, glory, splendour, power and magnificence of God, to cause us have our faces buried in the dust like Isaiah, Daniel and John, fearing for our very lives, but rejoicing that we have found favour in His sight. To speak to our hearts as we stand in front of that mirror in the morning, “I was created to worship, not before the throne of self, but before the one who is enthroned between the cherubim, the God of Glory. How shall I worship Him today?”
2.) A daily realisation that it is not because of who you are, but because of who God is.
Aaron is one of those characters in the Bible that is somewhat of a mystery to me, he is a misfit, a troublemaker, a man easily swayed by the influence of others and an idolater. Yet God uses him powerfully, he is the first High Priest, and his family line becomes the priestly line. A man who made, fashioned with his own hand the golden calf, who led the nation in idolatry, whilst standing next to mountain with the presence of God upon it, is exalted by God to just about the highest office in all of Israel!
Aaron, is in many respects the Old Testament version of Saul, for Saul too is a misfit, a violent opponent of the Christian Church, seeking to silence Christians, and in the process mislead others, turning them away from the true Messiah, back to the Law of bondage, sin and death. Yet, God radically changes both of these men, and we can clearly say that God could not have chosen these men based on who they were, or what they had done.
Think back to what happens shortly after the golden calf debacle. Moses makes that very brave request to see the glory of God, and God graciously provides Moses with that glimpse. As God does this so He declares to Moses, who He, God is, and as God declares this so we hear the reason for which Aaron is still alive, in fact the reason as to why any of us are still alive and have not been utterly consumed in God’s wrath.
“The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5-7)
It is because of who God is that Aaron is still standing, it is because of who God is that Aaron is then made High Priest. It is because of the fact that God is mercy and grace, because He is slow to anger, a God of patience, because He is love and is faithful and forgiving.
Consider who you are today as a believer in Christ, consider who you are today as a messenger of God, called to serve in His church as a shepherd. You are who you are, where you are and what you are, not because of who you are, or what you have done, but rather because of who God is, and what God has done.
We are all Aarons, faithless misfits who hearts are quick to run after idols. Daily giving God more than sufficient reason for Him to justly consume us in His wrath, and yet because of who He is, He relents, shows grace, and uses us to the glory of His name! We must, also, be careful. Just as the declaration of who God is contains so much hope and joy for us, it also comes with a warning, God will not tolerate sin forever, He will punish it, and He will discipline us should we fail to deal with it, rooting it out of our lives. God will not contend with man forever.
The second step, the second ingredient in humility, is to constantly remind ourselves of who we are, of who He is and how it is that we have become to be who and what we are. This alone should give us sufficient cause each and every morning to be filled with praise and adoration of Him who called us to Himself, made us His own, and entrusted us with His Gospel. As we prasie and adore Him, let us then also pray that He may, through His Spirit, help us to root out sin and pride so that we can live in greater obedience to Him.
More ingredients to follow later in the week.....
