God Hates Pride and is Attracted to Humility
By Pastor Matt Black
18 March
2007
Lord’s Day morning
Isaiah 66:1-2
Introduction: Open your Bibles to Isaiah 66:1-2. The title of this morning’s message is “God Hates Pride and is Attracted to Humility”.[1]
Isaiah 66:1-2, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
We come to this passage and we see a group of people—the Israelites who delighted more in God’s Temple than they did in God. They became spiritual showmen. God led them to build the Temple—it was all “made” by His “hand” to point these people back to God. Instead they wore their ceremonies as a badge. They looked to the Temple as a badge. God graciously redeemed a group of unworthy sinners, and put His Temple among them, and they thought it was because they were special. Their pride was blocking the glory of God!! Their very worship to God was what was holding revival back. They were proud!
I. The Dangers of Pride
1. Satanic origins.
Of all the sins ever committed, pride has the longest history. The history of pride precedes Adam and Eve. Pride would appear to be the very first sin ever committed. We see this in Isaiah 14 where we are informed of Lucifer’s motivation. Led by Lucifer, powerful angelic creatures possessing beauty and glory far beyond our comprehension, arrogantly desired recognition and status equal to God Himself, and God swiftly and severely judged them.
2. The essence of all sin.
Pride is not only the first sin, but it appears to be the essence of all sin. Pride is the most serious sin.
1. Proverbs 6:17—the proud man heads the list of abominations God hates.
2. The divine perspective of Pride: Proverbs 16:5, “Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.” Stronger language for sin cannot be found.
3. Proverbs 8:13, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”
What do you hate? Typically we confine the word “hate” to the trivial, or at least I do.
Scripture never trivializes God’s holy hatred of sin. In our more reflective moments we to some degree share God’s hatred of certain sins. So, we hate abortion. We hate child abuse. We hate the destruction of the family. Regardless of what we hate—you and I hate nothing like God hates pride!
Charles Bridges, “Pride lifts up the heart against God—it contends for supremacy with him”. That is the essence of pride—contending for the supremacy with Him! Bridges continues to write, “How unseemly is this sin for a creature so utterly dependent and so fearfully guilty, yet proud in heart.”
A proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God.
A proud person attempts to rob God of the glory only He is worthy to receive.
Pride has countless forms it would appear, but only end, that being self-glorification.
God throughout Scripture presents Himself as actively opposed to the proud. In fact 1 Peter 5:5 tells us, “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” (Present-tense-continuous)…
John Calvin, “God cannot bear with seeing His glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree. So intolerable to him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those who by praising themselves obscure His glory as far as they can”.
1. It appears pride can stop a revival. At least that would be Jonathan Edwards’ observation. Edwards contributes the premature end of the Great Awakening to “undiscerned spiritual pride.” He concluded with regret that “the single greatest cause of the miscarriage of revival was pride.”
2. Pride undermines the unity of the Spirit.
3. Pride ultimately can divide a church.
4. Pride breeds quarrels and strife.
5. Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Every time you see someone fall—every time you fall, the root issue is PRIDE!
Mike Renihan, “Pride ruins pastors and churches more than any other thing. It is more insidious in the church than radon in the home.”
We should be sobered at the potential effect of pride. We must diligently put our pride to death!
Let’s not flatter ourselves this morning—to differing degrees we are all proud. We are all vulnerable to pride. And we are normally more perceptive of pride in others than we are in ourselves. I know I am. I see your pride. Your pride is always obvious to me. It is my pride that I am all too blind to.
You do not have to ask yourself if pride exists in your heart. We must ask WHERE it exists and how it is expressed. You and I have as much tendency to pride as anyone and everyone else.
We all gather here this morning in great need of illumination and discernment and conviction as relates to the presence and the power of pride in our hearts because this poison resides in our soul. We need discernment to perceive where it is and how it expressed.
And the good news this morning is that God knows our hearts and He can reveal the pride that holds back His blessing. As we see in Jeremiah 17:10, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins.” We ought to say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139-23-24).
II. The Promise of Humility.
Isaiah 66:2, “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor [humble] and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth”.
God does not have eyes, but he uses this metaphor in order to draw our attention to this rare quality that He singles out as capturing His attention.
Humility captures His attention.
Nothing escapes His notice, but one thing captures His gaze. He is aware of all things, but He is searching for one thing. Isaiah 66:2, “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor [humble] and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
Note there is no command here. We are not commanded to be humble, but it is held out to us as divinely attractive.
God is not only passionately opposed to pride, He is decisively drawn to humility. The one who is omniscient, the One who is omni-aware is specifically and personally attentive to the humble.
The mighty hand of God that will crush the proud on the Last Day is the same almighty hand that supports and upholds and exalts and personally takes care of all those who are cast down before God. God opposes the proud (warning), but He gives grace to the humble (promise).
Perceiving the perils of pride is not enough, we must also embrace the promise of humility, but be aware that momentary inspiration or mere education is not sufficient. You may be challenged by these warnings and inspirited by the promises. All that is nothing more than mere education, and it is not sufficient. There must be specific application of truth.
We must hot stop short by simply admiring or desiring humility. That’s not enough. Why? Because it is possible to admire humility while remaining proud! Just attending a men’s prayer breakfast will not make you humble. Now attending a prayer breakfast is quite important, and we need to exhort one another to holiness, but it will not make you humble. In fact attending this morning at this prayer breakfast could add to the pride that you came with!
Biblical knowledge comes with directions on the outside of the package: “Handle with care” and “Apply generously to your life”. With all Biblical knowledge there must be very specific, purposeful application to the life for their to be the death of pride and birth of humility.
One preacher said that at every stage and every sphere of life and Christian discipleship that pride is our greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.
III. Purposeful and Practical Applications.
Without purposeful application, there will never be genuine transformation and true cultivation of humility. The following in other words are “ways to tremble at His Word”. These are lifetime practices.
A. Study the Attributes of God—especially the incommunicable attributes. These are His attributes that God does not share with anyone. These are usually the attributes that generate questions from younger children.
Illustration: Our children assume that whatever the question, you and I have the answer. Children will ask: How did God begin? When did God begin? Or I got this one the other night from Kristen, “Daddy how can Jesus and God both be God?” Thinking on God’s attributes are unfathomable. They are beyond our reach. They are beyond our realm of thinking. Think back to when God began. You can’t. Because God didn’t begin!
Note in verse one of Isaiah 66, God is revealing His greatness. God in other words is revealing His majesty, His incommunicable attributes. Isaiah 66:1, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool…” Dwell on God’s power and majesty, and it will lead you to humility! God is infinite and independent!
1. He is infinite –that is, He is omnipotent—omniscient—He is omnipresent—omni in other words, means infinite—He’s not confined by a body. He’s everywhere. He is free from all limitations. He is everywhere equally present! There is no place that God is not always fully present. Listen, I can be only in one place, and even there I am not always fully present! But God is everywhere equally present!
2. He is also independent. He doesn’t need anybody. He exists of Himself. In Him we live and move and have our being. But God exists in Himself! At this point, we are swimming in the deep end of the pool theologically.
R. C. Sproul says, “The grand difference between a created being and an infinite being is precisely this—apart from God I cannot exist; apart from me, God does exist. God does not need me in order for Him to be. I do need God in order for me to be. This is the difference between a self existent being and a dependent being. We are dependent. We are fragile. We cannot live without air, without water, without food. No human being has the power of being within himself. Our life is lived between two hospitals. We need a support system from birth to death to sustain life. We are like flowers that bloom and then wither and fade. This…” Sproul says, “…is how we differ from God. God does not wither. God does not fade. God is not fragile”.
Matthew Henry said, “The greatest and best man in the world must say, ‘by the grace of God I am what I am,’ but God simply says absolutely, ‘I am that I am’”.
The effect of thinking on God’s attributes—His majesty and power on high is humility!
Jonathan Edwards said that “the saints in glory are so much employed in praise because #1, they are perfect in humility, and #2, they have so great a sense of the infinite distance between them and God”.
The more we are aware of this distance that we experience, the more humility we will experience, and the more praise and joy we will express. So I recommend as part of your spiritual diet, you study the attributes of God.
B. Secondly, each day you and I need to survey the Cross on which the Prince of glory died!
Don Carson relates an interview that he conducted and led with Carl Henry. At the time Mr. Henry was in his seventies. Carson asked him how he remained humble for so many decades. And this is how Mr. Henry responded, “How can anyone be arrogant when he stands beside the Cross?”
What is it that makes us so humble when we stand beside the Cross? It is there that we hear the scream of the One who suffered damnation for us.
Listen, if you could peal back the dimension we are in and peer into hell, you would hear the soul-piercing screams of the damned. You would look into their faces and see contortions of misery and pain. You would look into eyes that were horrified with panic and the most severe form of anguish. Look into that face of the one in hell, and realize you rightly deserve to exchange places with that one in hell. Put yourself in that flame of excruciating torture and terror. Put yourself there for 5 billion years, and you have begun the first second.
Remember in order for you to go to Heaven, Jesus saw you in hell. He looked at your contorted face and the eons of terror that was stored up for you. He looked at all that, and based on nothing that you have done, Jesus Christ was damned to hell for you!!!
Please turn to Matthew 27:46. I want you to listen closely to the cry of the damned. I want you to notice that it is not your cry. It ought to be your cry. It ought to be my cry. But listen closely to the scream of the one who was damned. We look at the figure of the Son of God on that Cross. He has been in total darkness for three hours. It is not an eclipse of the sun, but a supernatural atmospheric darkness that confirmation of the judgment of God. The full fury of the wrath of God for you, for me is being unleashed on Christ. He is totally alone. Now you and I have never been totally alone. Those in hell will be totally alone—no one will care for them—and Christ put himself in this place—your place, and my place
In this darkness we can only see the Cross by the flickering light of the soldiers torches. We step closer to the cross and we watch and listen.
Suddenly, we see the Face of the Lord, and His face is contorted in a display of anguish more horrible than anything we’ve ever seen. He can restrain Himself no longer. Listen to the cry of the One who was damned for you, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
This tortured cry from our dying Saviour ought to shock our conscience and so stagger our mind that we fall at Christ’s feet in humility. That should have been our cry!
Christ suffered in your hell. Fall before Him! Love Him! Worship Him! The enemy of pride cannot survive when you live near the Cross.
C. Drink in the Doctrines of Grace.
We do not have much time—but always, always, always, always remember that God’s love for you is based on nothing in you! God loves you because He loves you. It has nothing to do with your performance. It has nothing to do with how you feel. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what you deserve. Turn over to Romans 8 and verses 28 and following.
God loves you because He elected to love you. You will not suffer one ounce of condemnation. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
You did nothing for Christ to choose you. You did nothing and can do nothing to add to the work of Christ on the Cross. You can do nothing to deserve the Paradise that is awaiting you even now. Grace! Grace! Grace!!!!!!! Drink in God’s grace! Christ elected you—He melted your heart and made you willing—He died for you—He intercedes for you—He “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24)! “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
Why does He love me? Why does He love you? He loves us and saves us not based on anything He sees in us. What He sees in us is repulsive. It ought to humble us. Paul looked at himself and he was repulsed. He said “O wretched man that I am”. John looked at himself, and he was repulsed. He said “if we say we have no sin, we make God a liar”. Isaiah looked at himself, and he was repulsed. He said, “Woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
Why does God love you? Because of His own free, sovereign, infinite, eternal, unchanging, and amazing grace!!!! As we close, look at Romans 8:28 and following.
Romans 8:28ff, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. 34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.[ARE YOU SUFFERING TRIALS THAT SEEM LIKE GOD HAS FORGOTTEN YOU?] 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Why does God love you? It’s not based on your performance. It is based on Christ performance. The only thing you need to do is live a life of humility and cling to the cross!
D. Examine and Scrutinize your life and motives.
Do you do anything in your life to impress people? Is that ever your motive? That is the sin in you that God hates the same way He hates the murder of a baby in the mother’s womb.
Do you think you are irreplaceable in anything you do? Can I tell you something? You and I are all expendable and we can all be easily be replaced. Don’t think so highly of yourself. There is coming a day when everything you own will belong to someone else unless the Lord comes before you die. Someone else will do your job. Prepare to be replaced.
If you think you are so great, remember Saul! Saul was head and shoulders in height and stature above all in Israel, yet he was “little in his own eyes” (1 Samuel 15:17), but there came a time when he got full of himself! God can so easily just go out there and choose a David! God will bless a little David.
How can you be a David and not a Saul?
1. Remember indwelling sin remains. The most serious of all sins and the essence of all sin is pride. Pride is present and active, and waiting to express itself. So…
2. As soon as you awaken in the morning you and I need to acknowledge our dependence upon God. You should do this aloud. We need to confess that we are vulnerable to pride, specifically in the form of self-sufficiency. How can we do this? Express your dependence upon God! Acknowledge it outloud. Regardless of how you feel, you need to do this. Tradition tells us that when Daniel prayed he would lie flat down with his face to the floor. That’s a good posture to help you remember that you are nothing. This prayer to begin the day is essentially a battle cry that you will be warring against your pride and you will be cultivating and struggling for God-dependence and humility through the day.
3. Then you need to continually be thankful in every situation because thankfulness is not a soil in which pride will easily grow. Rejoice in the Lord always. Now matter what you are going through, remember what you deserve. No matter how bad a day you are having remember the words of Thomas Watson, “Your sufferings are not so great as your sins: Put these two in the balance and see which weighs the heaviest.” We can rejoice in our salvation even when we are greatly afflicted because we realize how much worse we deserve for all the sins we’ve committed against God. Be responsive to God’s grace. An ungrateful person is a proud person. Whatever joy you receive in a day is far more than you deserve and whatever suffering you receive in a day is far LESS than you deserve.
4. Each day begin you need to begin your day with the Spiritual disciplines of prayer, the study of God’s Word, and Worship. Edwards said that the first thing he would do each day is make his soul happy in God. He would not begin one task until he was sufficiently happy in God. Prayer and Scripture meditation is a daily declaration of my need for Him.
5. Seize your commute for meditation and memorization of Scripture. Turn off the radio. Take off the headphones if you are riding the train. Get good sermons. Let it be totally silent if possible in the car as you meditate on God. Seize all mundane moments so that they might be opportunities for the Spirit to seize you! The seizing of the Spirit should be a way of life for you. It is the true experience of humility and dependence upon the Spirit.
6. Remember that worry is a form of pride. Worry is a form of self sufficiency. It is repulsive to God. So is turning to distraction so that you will not worry. When hard things happen, you need to be at perfect rest in the hands of a Sovereign God. Don’t tremble at circumstances! Tremble at His Word! That is true humility. That is the one God’s gaze is attracted to.
Conclusion: There is a dangerous self-sufficiency that rages within us. It opposes God at its core. This pride keeps us from depending on God. We need to realize we are nothing without Him. In Him we live and move and have our being. God hates pride, but He is attracted to humility. Cast yourself down on the One who cast Himself on the cross. God will lift you up if you will constantly fall at His feet. Let go of all your concerns and put them into God’s hands. He is mighty. He cannot fail. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. His warning never fail, and His promises are never, never broken. 1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:”
Who is God’s gaze attracted to? Isaiah 66:2, “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
Closing Hymn: 243 When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
[1] The majority of this manuscript is based on the message (2007 Shepherd’s Conference) and book by CJ Mahaney: Humility: True Greatness (Multnomah Press: Sisters, OR, 2005).