We have really covered quite a bit of ground for the last two evenings. On the subject of pride. Going all the way from the origins of pride from the first evening to last night, talking a little bit about the business of selfism and self-love and what I’d like to do this evening as I promised you last night is to discuss some of the pitfalls of pride particularly in relation to leadership. Then we also want to go from there to discuss some of the differences between self-love and Christian love and then finally this evening we are going to discuss how to get rid of pride, if you have detected this beast in your life, and finally a little bit about the true nature of humility. One of the things that we want to talk about we talk about pride in leadership is the word ambition. Ambition, I believe has the potential to be a very good quality or a very dangerous quality depending upon whether our ambition is rooted in God and His purposes or whether it’s rooted in our own self-interest or self-aggrandizement.
And in this matter of leadership, the first thing we want to discuss is how does one become a leader. Who puts a person in leadership. Some of you may have leadership potential in your lives, you may have some ambition, perhaps, with regards to leadership in the future and what I would like to caution those of you who fit that category against this evening is the danger of assuming leadership. I’d like to have a few of you look up some scriptures for me this evening, could you look up Daniel 4:30 for us; would you look up Exodus, Chapter 5:2; would you look up Ester 6:6 and if you would look up Proverbs 16:8, I think that’s all. One of the best books that I’ve ever read on the subject of leadership, was a book that was very simply titled, “Spiritual Leadership” maybe some of you have read it, it’s written by a real man of God, named J. Oswald Sanders. In his book on leadership, he discusses the difference between one who deliberately lays a hold of leadership and one who is extruded into leadership.
Now I would guess that there are a couple of you who do not know what extruded means so I am going to illustrate to you what the word extruded means. Have you ever seen one of those cookie makers, it’s kind of like a long, metal cylinder, with a push lever on it and you just took a whole bunch of dough and you crammed it into this metal cylinder and then you push into the back of it and then it would cut off cookies onto the cookie pan. Something that is extruded, is something that is pushed through some kind of a narrow opening, it’s forced through. Those cookies, that dough, is being extruded out of the cookie maker onto the pan. And that’s the way that God wants us to move into leadership. Not to go and aggressively, ambitiously, deliberately lay a hold of leadership but rather to wait until God extrudes us into leadership. Does that make sense?
Let me read you a couple of scriptures here. The three most famous kings of Israel were Saul, David and Solomon in that order. God selected every one of those men to be leaders; none of them selected themselves. In fact, let me read you some interesting scriptures that will give you an idea of what I am talking about in regard to this business of being extruded into leadership. First of all, Saul. And Saul answered and said, “Am I not a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel. And my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin, wherefore then speakest thou me?” 1st Samuel 9:21. That was Saul’s attitude when he was approached to be a leader. Wherefore speakest thou to me? Who am I? Oh, Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto. 2nd Samuel 7:18 “Who am I, Oh Lord God.” And then, Solomon, “And now Oh Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant King instead of David my father, and I am but a little child, I know not how to go out or how to come in. 1st. Kings 3:7. Three of the greatest leaders in Israel’s history, saying, “Wherefore then speakest thou to me”; “Who am I, Oh Lord God, I am but a child, I know not how to go in or to go out.” They were extruded, or pushed, or pressured by God in his spirit into leadership.
A. W. Toner said that a true and faithful leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead but who is forced into a position of leadership of the internal press of the Holy Spirit and the external press of the situation. A true leader will have no desire to lord it over God’s heritage but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing and altogether as ready to follow as to lead with the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared. Do you know many people like that?
Let’s look at Mark 10. Mark 10:35-44, “James and John the sons of Zebedee” How would you like to have a dad whose name was Zebedee? It’s about as bad as having a wife whose name is Gomer. That was Hosea’s wife’s name. The only thing worse I can think of is having a wife named Gomer and a father named Zebedee. “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come into him (Jesus) saying, “Master, we would thou shouldest do for us whatever so we shall desire.” Can you imagine that? Was I telling you last night that I was hoping that there was an archive in heaven with film clips? I hope that when I get to heaven that somewhere the Lord has kept this archives of film clips from history, especially Biblical history because there are certain events that I would like to see. This is one of them. I’d like to see, I don’t know, I wonder if Jesus was sitting in a room in a house as a guest, you know, maybe he was praying or maybe he was eating by himself or I don’t know what he was doing and James and John come in and say, “Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.”
That’s something that just cracks me up. You know; they’ve watched him perform all these miracles and do all these neat things and they thought, hey, we’ve got to get in on this. He said unto them, because He was so kind and magnanimous, “What would ye that I should do for you?” They were so humble. And they said unto Him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on they right hand and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. Going up to the Son of God and saying that when we get to heaven I want to sit on you left hand, and I want to sit on your right hand – we just have this little request. The Lord was so good; I wonder what must have really been going through his mind at that time, I think he probably expected their knock on the door.
But Jesus was so wise, he handled a situation like this so well, he could have just kicked them out and told them to go suck a rock or something like that. But Jesus said unto them, “You know not what you ask. Can you drink of the cup that I drink of? And be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with and they said unto him, we can. Sure, they didn’t understand what his cup was at all nor did they understand what his baptism was. They didn’t know what in the heck he was talking about but whatever it was they were sure they could do it. They matured very, very fast. And Jesus said unto them, ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give;” Now think about that.
Today, most people are in a position of leadership even if they don’t have the authority to grant certain favors and permission and perks, like to come across as though they do anyway. Oh, you want to sit on my right hand and left hand, well, I don’t think that will be any problem. They know darn well that they’ve got to go and negotiate it or work it out with somebody else but they want to create the illusion that they are far more powerful and full of a lot more authority than they really are. But not Jesus, he said that, “its not for me to give but it will be given to them for whom it is prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John. You know why because if James and John were on Jesus’ right and left hand what about the ten, sitting at his feet maybe. Rather have chairs on either side, you know the disciples were, they were so funny, they always had this idea that they had to, you know, they had to somehow do something practical with their feelings or desires. It reminds me of the time when Peter was up with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
There’s Moses and Elijah talking with the Lord and there’s all this heavy thing going on up there and Jesus glowing and all that and Jesus says, “I think it would be good if we built three tabernacles up here.” Peter. Right, what did I say? Jesus. Oh, no. Peter said that. Almost sounds like he must have been Catholic after all. But the ten were much displeased with James and John, and Jesus began to sense the tension in the situation and so in verse 42,”But Jesus called them to him and saith unto them, “Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and their great ones exercise authority upon them.”
Talking about the Romans and their hierarchical structure and all this pomp and circumstance that went along with Roman rule. “But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefiest, shall be servant of all.” How do you think they felt about that at that time, do you think it got real quiet in the room and I don’t think he said it with a harsh or cynical tone, I just think he gathered them together and he said “Listen, this is the way the world operates, this is the way society operates but this isn’t the way that the kingdom of God operates because the kingdom of God is almost always opposite to the way this world operates. The greatest in the kingdom of God is the servant of all. Their concept of greatness and authority and power was totally wrong. They associated position with greatness and Jesus didn’t, he said, the less you have and the more you give the greater you are. Not the more you receive but the more you give. That’s what makes you great in heaven. Of-course, God Himself, the greatest giver in the Universe. For God so loved the world…
Let’s look at another passage in the book of Luke, Jesus talked a lot about leadership by the way and about how we move into leadership. Luke 14:7-11: “And Jesus put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room but when thou art bidden go and sit down in the lowest room that when he that bade thee cometh he may say unto thee, friend go up higher, then shalt thou have worshiped in the presence of them that sit at meat with them. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
Its such a practical picture; such a practical story. And Jesus was sharing this with the Pharisees whom he had seen, time after time after time. In similar circumstances move right up to the head table to the highest room and seek out relevant audiences. To be noticed, to be seen by people that are “special”. And Jesus said, ‘that’s not the way the kingdom of God operates.’ It’s going to be very embarrassing if you come and sit at this table and you’re talking with all of these famous people as though you’re a pretty important person to be invited to sit at the head table it’s like some of these banquets you know the whole gospel business is really big on head tables, which, incidentally, I find most uncomfortable. And they’ve got all of the leaders there, sitting at this head table facing you know all the everybody else and you come up and you sit down at this head table and suddenly the person whose putting on the meeting and taps you on the shoulder after everybody has seen you sit down there and says excuse me but this seat is for someone else, you’ll have to find another seat, embarrassing. But then, Jesus is saying, just as that is embarrassing because you have exalted yourself, so, it is honor, if you go and find the humble spot, you know the little corner with all the little folks and then the big important hot shot of the party of the program comes and says, we’d like you to come join us at the head table. Then everybody at your table starts whispering, buzz, buzz, buzz. And I think that we should always feel just a little bit sheepish, just a little bit embarrassed when somebody comes to take us to the head table. Never flamboyant as if we deserved to be there, as if we belonged there.
You know what I think? I think when we get to heaven that some of the people that you and I think are going to be in the front rows of the grandstand. We’re going to be looking at the special seats, expecting to see the Billy Graham’s and all the big shots. We’re going to start looking for them, “hey, were in the world, where’s Billy, where’s so and so” and we’re going to find them seated in the fifth or sixth rows and we’ll be looking at these funny people in the first few rows, scratching our heads trying to figure out who in the world are they? Some little old granny, sitting in there in the front row, well through fifty years of intercession she was responsible for two hundred thousand converts, no body knew it but the lord because she never told anybody. There are going to be all kinds of little people that we never paid any attention to, we never knew their names, but the lord wasn’t missing anything, he was recording everything and when everything was tallied up they got the highest scores. So I don’t know whom that right and left-hand seat are prepared for but whoever it is rest assured they earned it. The moral of this story is as far as leadership is concerned, don’t move up the table, wait until you are asked.
If you come into a school program like this saying hey, you know, I’m smarter than the leaders of this school and they’ve got me washing toilets, I’m in there washing dishes every day and I’ve got more on the ball than any of them have, well, that’s the best way I know of to keep washing toilets and pots and pans. If the Lord calls you for a time to wash some pots of either variety do it with all your might. Proverbs 27:1-2 we read, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” In other words, don’t go around telling everybody what you are going to do tomorrow because you don’t know what you are going to do tomorrow. “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” You don’t need to go around letting everybody know what your pedigree is. Hi. My name is Jim Rice. I have a Master’s degree in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate divinity. I also have graduated from Fuller School of World Missions, that is, Cross Cultural Communications, Theology, Homiletics, Greek. I’ve pastored a church for the past for years, it’s the largest church in Austin Texas and I have been written up, our particular church attendance techniques have been written up in Eternity Magazine, and you might want to write them for the July Issue. Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth. A stranger and not thine own lips.
That’s really good advice. We always come across more gracefully and better in the end if somebody else recommends us, if somebody else praises us, if somebody else talks well of us. And let me say this, if you are something special, if you are good, if you character is holy, and clean, and righteous and you’ve a lot going for you, you don’t need to promote yourself, people will notice it, and people will talk about you, and will talk about your ministry. You don’t ever have to promote yourself. It’s ugly, it’s tawdry, and it’s un-Christlike. 1st. Timothy 3:6: We read about the dangers of lifting a novice into leadership to quickly. We’ll go back to the beginning of chapter three. “This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife; vigilant, sober; of good behavior; given to hospitality; apt to teach; not given to wine…..” So you want to be a bishop, huh. What happened to all these bishops? Ha, ha, ha, not given to wine. Every bishop I know is given to wine. “…no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;” Let’s go back to the beginning. This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work because if a man desires the office of a bishop he must be blameless, the husband of one wife; vigilant, sober; of good behavior; given to hospitality; apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre or money, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;”
Want to be a bishop? Who wants to be a bishop now? Whew. You know what we do; you know how we chose our bishops or deacons, elders? They’re nominated by the congregation. Oh, I think Mr. Bill Smith, he’s a nice guy. I’d like to submit his name for nomination. And Fred Carlson, he’s quite a good man, head of the church for ten years, nice guy, good bowler, so and so and so and so. And what do we do? The congregation votes on people. Who they like the best. No longer, or rarely anymore, do we go down this list and see if the leader or the potential leader matches this list. And today, as often as not, the people who are in positions of spiritual authority violate fifty percent of the things on this list. Regardless, our leaders come to us as the result of having won a popularity contest. “For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” Makes sense doesn’t it. “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”
Real good earthly practical advice. You don’t take somebody who just got saved because they’ve got a neat personality, and they are wealthy, and influential and put them into a position of spiritual leadership because the great temptation is that they are going to be lifted up with pride and they’ll be damaged.” Did God put Moses right into leadership? Did he put Paul right into leadership? Did he put Peter right into leadership? Did he move right into leadership? Himself, Jesus? What do you think that says? If these guys spent their time on the back side of the desert, spent their time in a quiet place. It means that true leadership is something that has to develop, it takes time. Character isn’t produced overnight. And a good leader isn’t simply somebody whose got administrative skills and a charismatic personality. A good leader may have those things but what a good leader will always have is a good character. You can’t be spiritually mature if you got saved last month.
Francis Schaefer said, “Quietness and peace before God are more important than any influence a position may seem to give for we must stay in step with God to have the power of the Holy Spirit.” A place of leadership or a place of authority must not be too big or too active for our present spiritual condition. Let me say this again. We all think we want more authority. We want a higher place in God. A higher ministry. We want to be noticed. But what happens if a position is either too big, too high, or too busy and too active for our present spiritual condition. Pretty soon, we’re destroyed by circumstances. All of our whole bout life, our quiet time, everything, is just washed right out the window. We are not solid enough or strong enough spiritually to handle such a busy position of leadership. Or all the power and the recognition that a position gives. I don’t want recognition, too much of it, before I can handle it. It’s like asking for a cup of acid to drink. You know what I’m saying. Don’t require or request or ask for too big or too active a position of leadership before your spiritual condition is ready for it. And see, generally, we don’t know when we are ready for it that’s why it’s best for us to be extruded or forced into leadership. Let God push us into that position when He knows we’re ready. And generally, when God thinks we’re ready we never, never run.
The best leaders are the people who say, I can’t do it. Do you remember that scripture, Joseph and Pharaoh? When Joseph was confronted by Pharaoh and Pharaoh said, I hear you have the power to interpret dreams, and Joseph says, I cannot do it. I cannot do it but there is a God in heaven….Somebody comes to us and says, I hear you can do this and you’ve got all this potential for leadership and so forth, what should we say? I cannot do it…but there is a God in heaven and if he wants me to do it, I will do it. Schaefer goes on to say, “Someone whom God has been using marvelously in a certain place, in a certain ministry, at a certain level, then takes it upon himself to move into a larger place and thus loses his quietness with God. Ten years later, he may have a huge organization but the power will be gone and he’s no a part of the real battle in his generation. I think that’s profound. And this is the scary thing. That it’s possible today for us to be successful in the flesh. It’s possible for us to assume a position or a role in leadership, and according to the standards of the world make it. God didn’t lift us up to a higher place because he saw we weren’t ready for it yet.
He would have maybe taken us up to that same place but a lot slower so our authority increased as our character increased. But we take it upon ourselves to move into a new position, maybe somebody else has even asked us, but without really praying too much about it, we say, “Yeah, we’ll do it.” Ten years later, we may have a huge organization, lots of money coming in, lots of activities, lots of programs, lots of employees, lots of ministry going on, but the will be no power. It will be a shell, it will be a machine, there will be no power, there will be a form of Godliness but there will be no power. There’s a lot of those big monuments to men’s ego and their false steps in the church today. There are big, huge churches, lot’s of people attending them, beautiful choir’s lots of programs, but no power. And it’s easy for us to mistake quantitative success with spiritual success.
You might want to jot down a couple of scriptures, let’s read them. James 4:10 “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Humble yourselves in the sight of….you know what kind of prayers we pray? Oh, God humble me. Make me humble. That’s not what the bible says. Anywhere. It says you humble yourselves. How is God going to make you humble? Ask me about what happened the third service, two Sunday’s ago. What happened? Oh, you’ll find out in one of those archive films. There are a few tapes, I think I’d want to erase too. That would be one of them. No, I actually think it was a matter of the Lord.. It was just one of those accidents.it seems to always happen in that church though; maybe there’s a curse on the platform or something. 1st. Peter 5:5-6, “Likewise, ye younger submit yourselves to the elders” I always tell my wife that, she’s four and a half years younger than me. “Likewise, ye younger submit yourselves to the elder. Ye all of you be subject one to the other” that’s what she always tells me “and be clothed with humility for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time.” That’s such a beautiful picture in that verse. Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God. It makes it easy doesn’t it? We see the mighty hand of God; it’s easy to humble ourselves under it. I mean it’s only an idiot who’s not going to. You see the mighty hand of God hanging around. First thing you’re going to do is get down and enceinte. God is not going to swat anybody but for those who will humble themselves, he will lift them up and exalt them. He will exalt you, in due time.
There’s not only individual pride; there’s organizational pride. I haven’t forgotten you folks and your verses; I’m going to have you read those to us in a minute. Under organizational pride, we have the “see what we have built syndrome” and the “do your own thing syndrome”. The “see what we have built syndrome” is when you come as a guest speaker to a church and the pastor grabs you by the arm and says let me show you our new sanctuary, five billion dollars for those fantastic chandeliers and notice the revolving platform that we have here and outside I’d like to show you our prayer tower, and now the front you’ll notice that its entirely glass, $5000.00 for every panel. Affluence and vanity. We see that today in many Christian organizations. Affluence and vanity.
There’s nothing wrong with having things, I mean, Solomon did. God really laid it on him. God gave it to him. So, you know. God did that once. He can do it again. So, somebody’s got some goods. That’s all right with me, so long as God gave it to them. What happens is that sometimes we forget where those things came from and we think that we produced all of this, this whole kingdom by the might of our own power. Like a certain Babylonian king that we’ll read about. And then, organizationally, there’s also the “do your own thing” syndrome. Where people become very petty and very isolationist, very elitist, they don’t want to co-operate with any other organizations in the body of Christ. They have their own programs and they do them well, they have their own policies and they begin to compete with other elements of the body of Christ to see whose the most spit and polish, whose the most efficient. And they become very independent instead of interdependent; they become independent. Daniel 4:30.
Read loud, slowly and clear please. “He said, is not this the great Babylon I have built as a royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” Now, who is that? Nebuchadnezzar is a Persian name, in case, any body cares. Nebuchadnezzar built the most beautiful, the most advanced, sophisticated city in the world, at that time. In fact, to this day, Babylon to this day still has quite a reputation. The hanging gardens of Babylon – it was quite, quite a place. I’d be interested in seeing it in one of those archive films, just to see it. But one day, Nebuchadnezzar walks out on the roof of the palace – which of-course looks out over the whole city. Just looks around probably at sunrise or sunset, you know when it’s just all the shadows are cast just right, you know pulls out his camera, and takes a few shots you know, for a scrap book. What a job. Is this not Babylon, which I have built by my own cleverness, my own charisma, my fund raising ability, my contacts, my experience.
Now, have you ever met anybody who talked like that? Probably not but those kind of thoughts in one form or another are circulating around in a lot of people’s minds today. Is not this the great first Christian church of Kalamazoo that I have built with my fantastic oratory and my great scheme to send buses out to the neighborhoods and bring children into Sunday school? Have I not built up the attendance with these magnificent programs? Or is this not the great “Go ye, into all the world missionary society” or the great such and such organization. But you get the point. You remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? How many of you remember what happened to him? What happened to him? Eaten by worms. You must have had a bad dream right about then. Isn’t he the one who lost his kingdom until he realized that God had given it to him? Yeah, that’s true but what else happened to him in the meantime. He became an animal. Well, almost, he became like one. He lost his mind. Yeah, he lost his ball bearings didn’t he? While he was, you know, up there surveying the scene, you know and doing this kind of thing, pretty soon, he started going, and pretty soon his nails began to grow like birds, feathers, and he starts crawling on all fours and eating grass. I think the vice-president of Babylon was very careful with his words, probably never went out unto the roof, but God then came and restored the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar after that and after that Nebuchadnezzar was very careful with his words. Very careful to give praise where praise was really due.
Exodus 5:2. Now, I’m giving you what we’ve got here are examples of various leaders in the Bible, who were prideful leaders and what happened to them. Okay, next one. “Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go. I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” Who is the Lord that I should..I don’t know the Lord and he certainly didn’t did he. I mean he really needed to get saved. Who is the Lord that I should let Israel go? Moses came in, said the Lord says, the Lord of the Universe says let my people go. Well, whose the Lord. I thought I was. I don’t know the Lord. Well, God visited Pharaoh too didn’t he? I mean they had frogs and flies and bloody rivers and all kinds of other things. What is the next one? Esther 6:6. “And Haman came in. And the king said to him.” Oh, this is a good story, read this real loud, “what is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor. And Haman says to himself, who would the king desire to honor more than me?” I love it. Great. This is almost as good as the disciples. This is a funny story. Esther disappearing in front of Job. Esther 6:6, “Let me read this again.” Verse 5: “And the king’s servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, ‘Let him come in.’ So, Haman came in and the King said unto him what shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor?” Now, Haman, now he didn’t say anything verbally, he was too politically astute to do that but it says now, “Haman thought in his heart to whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself.” Ah, you know what happened to Haman don’t you? He did, he got hung up in the end. On the gallows that he had built for the man of God, Mordecai. “Who would the king delight to do honor to, more than myself?”
We laugh at things like this because it’s, because there’s such blatant pride there but in lesser forms, in more subtle ways, we have to beware that similar thoughts and attitudes, don’t creep into our own hearts and minds. All right. Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” You think those illustrations we’ve just given would tend to verify that. What’s a haughty spirit? A haughty spirit? Oh, it’s this sort of a thing, that kind of an attitude. Over-bearing, arrogant. The Pharisees were the same way. You know. The sort of sashayed around town in Jerusalem, you know with their little curls, black capes sort of blowing in the wind. Not bothering to help old ladies across the street or anything like that but coming up maybe and kissing babies. They remind me of some politicians today. Full of fraudulence and pompous arrogance. Thinking of themselves higher than they ought to, as Paul would say. Okay, those are some of the pitfalls of pride. We could talk a little more about that but I sense in my spirit, my stomach and my legs that we are running out of time. You can tell that this is my last lecture.
Let’s talk just a bit about the differences between Christian love and self-love. You remember what, a little bit about what we talked about concerning self- love and what self-love was and particularly as it was for me, this one particular book. But the differences between Christianity and selfism go beyond theories on the self and self-love. We know, selfish people and selfist theoreticians, whether they work for the Playboy Empire, or whether they work for EST or whether they work for hotshot religious people. That their theories about the self differ from the Bible, one what’s to exalt the self and the other says that the self needs to be put to death. So I don’t live but Christ lives in me. And self-love, there are also different theories between selfism and Christianity on self-love and what it is and what it isn’t. In self- love human potential people take it way beyond, they make it Godlike, they deify this thing. You love yourself because you deserve to be worshiped and God says you should lover yourself because I made you, and you’re created in my image, you’re worth something, you’re unique. Interesting thing here.
When you think of the great commandment that Jesus gave to us there’s a beautiful, built-in, protective mechanism as far as self-love, the Lord says, Love the Lord Thy God with all your heart, strength, soul and mind. I never get that in the right order anymore so I don’t try anymore. And you’re to love your neighbor as yourself. So, Jesus is saying. Yes, you should love yourself but love your neighbor as yourself. So, the more you love yourself, the more you love your neighbor. The more you begin to appreciate what God has made you, the more you can appreciate what God has made of others. So you can love yourself. Self-love is scriptural but it never becomes greater than your love for your neighbor. When it does, it becomes selfishness. But Christianity and selfism also differs sharply on the nature of love.
Ayn Rand, on in her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, gives us the selfist viewpoint on the nature of love. She says, “The objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness. The objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. The basic social principle of the objectivist ethics, which is her terminology for selfishness, rational selfishness, is that just as life is an end in itself so every living human being is an end in himself not the means to the end or of the welfare of others and therefore every man must live for his own sake. Neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means the achievement of his own happiness is man’s moral purpose.” That is what you call the pride of life. In St. John 2:16, we are told in on uncertain terms, “The pride of life is not of the body.” She goes on to say “love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure that one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.”
Robert Ringer in his book, “Looking Out for Number One”, elaborates on this, he elaborates on a lot of things.
Saying, he puts it this way, “You will always act selfishly, no matter how vehemently you resist or protest to the contrary because such action is automatic. You have no choice in the matter.” Well, that’s what we’re told by a lot of theological textbooks today. I’m glad that that’s not what we read in this book. If sin were natural, why would a lie detector work? If sin was natural, why don’t we feel guilt or remorse? Sin is the most unnatural thing in the world. Ringer says, “Simple reasoning tells you that you must regard the interest of others though not all others in order to obtain your objectives.” I read this to you; I think the other night. About how human beings represent potential values to you, in business, personal relationships, objects, remember. And the rational individual understands that to harvest those values, he must be willing to fill certain needs of others. Like this husband who came home, you know to the wife, and said, you know, you’re just looking so nice today. Not meaning it but wanting to kind of butter her up so he could get what he wanted. “To harvest those values he must willing to fill certain needs of others and in this way the most rationally selfish is also the most giving person.” So, maybe what we ought to do is rename this whole approach and call it, manipulation.
The most selfish, I don’t know how you can be rationally selfish, selfishness is irrational, the most selfish person is also the most manipulative person. The words how to use and exploit other people. And that’s exactly what they are unabashedly teaching you how to do today in a lot of these self help programs be they Christian or secular “Christian”. Robert Ringer, stated in an article once that he is often asked in TV talk programs this question, “You aren’t really interested in helping others, are you?” And he answers, “Yes, I do have very deep feelings for many people. Mainly, those individuals who add something of value to my life and thus contribute to my happiness. If by helping, the question means giving something for nothing, then I am definitely not interested in helping anyone.” Then, I shared with you, I think yesterday, his, what he calls in his book, “You won’t get credit for it theory”. Simply stated, don’t do something for the reason that it’s quote, the right thing to do, if there’s no benefit to be derived from it. Let me leave you a quote from Christopher Lash’s book. “Love as self-sacrifice or self-abasement, meaning as submission to a higher loyalty, these sublimation strike the therapeutic sensibility as intolerably oppressive, offensive to common sense and injurious to personal health and well-being.
To liberate humanity from such outmoded ideas of love and duty has become the mission of the post-Freudian therapies and particularly of their converts and popularizes for whom mental health means the overthrow of inhibitions and the immediate gratification of every impulse. Self-love means that we deify ourselves, that we worship ourselves, that we get whatever we want out of life at all costs and that other human beings are lemons only to be squeezed. These selfist theoreticians have no concept of agape love, of a totally giving love, of a disinterested benevolence. Of a love that gives without any strings attached, of a love that’s unconditional, they don’t understand that God derives pleasure not out of receiving but out of giving, and that God created you and I for the sole purpose of giving to us, not receiving from us.
There have been people who said, you know, God doesn’t want us to be selfish, does he? No. He commands us not to be selfish, doesn’t he? Yes. Well, in the beginning God had all these angelic hosts surrounding his throne, worshiping him day and night, right? Right. So, isn’t it selfish of him to create a whole world full of people for the purpose of praising him? He just couldn’t get enough of it, could he? Well, God didn’t create the world for that purpose. The Bible doesn’t say God created us in order to praise him that’s ridiculous. The Bible says that we were created for his pleasure. And God is love; the Bible tells us and that love is agape, love. A disinterested benevolence a total giving kind of love with no strings attached, unconditional.
The trinity before the creation of the world, was like a deep reservoir full of love that was just overflowing and God created you and I to serve as further receptacles for the overflow of his love. God created you and I in order that he might give to us. That he might have someone else to love and to give and to share with. That’s the big difference between that kind of love, Christian love, and selfish love. And it makes self-love look as puny and ugly as it really is. God wants us to love in a manner that he does. And while it’s true that we need to have a healthy, Godly love for ourselves. It’s not to run to excess. And as I mentioned earlier, if it does, it should be controlled at this stage by the command to love one’s neighbors, oneself. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “A proud man is always looking down on people and as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” Think about that.
Quickly here. I’m not going to get to a lot of things I wanted to. I want to talk to you about the conquest of pride. We talked about the pitfalls of pride, relative to leadership. We talked about the bondage of pride, the weight of pride the addiction of pride, the paralysis of pride, the origin of pride. Now we want to talk about the conquest of pride. That’s what we’re really interested in. Okay, we agree with you now, George. Pride is rotten, it’s ugly, and we don’t want anything to do with it in our lives. But, how do we get rid of it. Well, I told you a little bit about my three-part pride removal program. I generally charge an exorbitant fee for this seminar. Now this is copyrighted material.
So you want to get rid of your pride. What’s the next thing to do? There it is. Three R pride removal program. The revelation, the reaction, the recording. The revelation. I’ve seen this happen in YWAM schools. Many, many times. I’ve had this period of openness and brokenness. Have you heard about that? Openness and brokenness is what this is all about. The revelation. You’ve discovered that there is pride in your life and the Lord starts speaking to you about it and you want to get rid of it and you hate it. So, how do you get rid of it. Well, what most people think the first step is to provide people with a great revelation of who they really are. We come before the group. We’ve been proud. And the way to get rid of pride is to come and say I’m not really who you think I am. Thus starts, thus begins the revelation.
Did you watch that program with me on Aloha Paradise when that was still on for that series, I don’t know. There’s this television program, it’s kind of a take off program called the Love Boat, you know that one. But this one was land based, it wasn’t on a boat, it was land based in this resort in Hawaii. Debbie Reynolds was the star. I guess you probably think I watch a lot of TV. I just remember things that I’m looking at them I think Oh boy, that might be a good illustration. That will illustrate that point. Now this is over years and years and years you understand. Anyway, what they have is there’s this resort in Hawaii and people come to this resort sort of like this love boat thing and they meet people and they fall in love and then the programs over they say good-bye, their engaged and then they’re going to get married. Well, and they’ll have like different little segments, they’ll have like three little vignettes, within the same, within the half hour program.
You know, they just keep focusing on one and then they’ll go to another and they just keep bringing these stories along. Well, in this first episode or vignette, you are introduced to this woman who is, she’s lying on the chaise lounge, by this pool. And, I’m trying to think of a way to describe her. She was, she was just perfect. Beautiful, flowing hair, just really nice figure, just this voluptuous beauty, lying there, this water nymph. The problem was that every time a man would come and try to get to know her or introduce himself she would ignore him. She would just read her book. She just didn’t want to have anything to do with anybody. Obviously, very full of herself, you know, just wearing her glasses, looking wealthy and sensual. So the proprietors of this resort said gosh, we’ve got to get her together with somebody, you know, she’s going to be here for several weeks and you know she needs somebody to sit with at lunch and dinner and you know, they’re always into this matchmaking stuff anyway. Then, this guy walks in up to the outdoor bar that’s near the pool side, one of these kind of guys that has his shirt open down to his navel, big hairy chest, big medallion, you know just kind of swaggers around, leans on the counter and you know if there’s women around, he’ll go, you know, Telly Savalas type, Hi Babe, Ford Sales are going to go down rather than up. Anyway, you can see the wheels start turning, in these proprietors’ heads, and they’re thinking that this guy and this girl are just made for each other. And so, they take him over and say we want to introduce you to some young lady and you know he pretends, no, and they say, oh, she’s really beautiful and he says, oh, well, why not. So he goes over there and she doesn’t, she thinks it’s just another guy, so she won’t look up so finally she does, and here’s this real macho man and she gets all flustered, she spills her drink on her book, and there’s obviously sparks there, they really go for each other.
What happens for the rest of the episode is that they try to get these two together and they plan a lunch at a certain time and he’s supposed to show up and she’s supposed to show up, and they’ve fixed up their table real romantic and all that and nobody comes, nobody shows up and they don’t know why. And what they do is they show her in her room by herself all worried and fretting and you really don’t know why it is. You know maybe she’s just too embarrassed to meet him, maybe he’s just too macho. And then it shows him in his room, you know wringing his hands in his room and he just hasn’t got the guts to go to meet her, maybe she’s just too beautiful. And you don’t know quite what’s going on but they, you know, the staff of this resort, keep trying all these sneaky things to try to get them together, and you’re sensing that there’s some underlying problem that you don’t quite fully understand. Finally, near the end of the program, it shows this woman sitting in her bungalow, fit to kill and all of a sudden she surprises everybody by pulling of her wig, and here’s this matted gross looking hair and she begins to take off her make up and then she begins to remove other things, articles and so forth, until suddenly her anatomy is diminished to the point where you know she is not what you though she was, and then it pans over to this guys bungalow. He pulls off his hairpiece, he’s bald. And then he unbuttons his shirt, you know he’s got this big chest, he’s got this thing wrapped around his stomach, he pulls it off his whole chest falls down to his stomach. They’re a couple of losers who made themselves up to look like the end of the world. And it shows them backing out of their bungalows and backing into each other. And they look at each other and they say, you’re – you’re.
If that isn’t a dead ringer for most YWAM openness and brokenness sessions. We’ve got somebody who thinks, gosh, I’ve got this pride in my life, I’ve got to get rid of this pride and the way to do it and the way to do it is to come up and say, “Look at that.” And there’s this big revelation. I am this rotten and horrible, degenerate, and I can’t do anything and it goes on and on and on and we thin if we can just strip ourselves, think of everything, every stupid thing that we’ve ever said and done and if we reveal that openly front a crowd of people then that’s going to take away our pride. That’s the revelation. The reaction. Part two. You have to do all three of these if you want to get rid of your pride. The reaction, It’s what I call exaggerated lowliness. Exaggerated lowliness. You’ve been a big shot, strutting around and trying to impress everybody with your wealth and your and all that you possess and all that you’ve done and all that you are. And suddenly, you’re convicted of your pride, what’s the way to get rid of pride but to start to swing to the opposite extreme. To do just the opposite of everything you were doing before. For example, you’ve been some kind of a proud hotshot driving around in a Lincoln Continental or a Mercedes, then you’ll go and buy a dented sixty- three falcon with bald tires and tool around in that. If you’ve been living in some kind of a palatial home or at least something substantial then you’ll decide to go and move into a modified chicken coupe. If you’ve been wearing Christian Dior shirts or shoes, designer jeans or Gucci loafers then you’ll go out and buy a loincloth with suspenders and thongs. If you’ve been eating out at swank restaurants, like Diamond Jim’s or the velvet turtle or some place like that, now all you’re going to do is eat occasional TV dinners, plain hamburgers and high protein dog biscuits. It’s the reaction…
Program, the recording is what I call righteous, repetitious reminders. Its called verbal penance. Verbal penance and it goes something like this. You’re proud. You want to get rid of it. I am proud, pride stinks, therefore I stink. I am dirt. I am proud, pride stinks. I am dirt. I am proud, pride stinks, therefore I stink. And your favorite hymn is, What a Worm am I. That’s the recording. Ok, lets all repeat it, I am proud, pride stinks, therefore I stink. I am dirt. I am proud, pride stinks. I am dirt. I am proud, pride stinks, therefore I stink. Now did that help?
And when you put the revelation, the reaction and the recording together, you can’t miss. Prides going to heal. Right? Wrong? The Lord knows how to take care of us. We’ve got pride in our lives and we’re unwilling to deal with that pride, the Lord can help us along if He needs to. My parents were, well, a number of years ago. I was very little, my brother was even littler, and we were attending a church in southern California called the University Bible Church, which was where I was saved many years ago. And my brother Don and I were in the Christmas program at the church. Sunday school Christmas program. We all had our little parts and our little roles some of us shepherds, were donkeys, some of us were angels. My brother was an angel. He wasn’t very old at all, he must have been four or five, and he had the curliest hair you’ve ever seen in your life, great big blue eyes and curly blond hair and this angel suit on and I had gone out. They had to older kids first and then they had the younger kids. My brother went out, about that high, this platform and suddenly there suddenly looks like millions of people out there looking at him, there’s all of these lights and he has this line to say from the book of Luke. He comes up to the microphone and he just looks funny and so people and he kind of freezes because there’s the lights and there’s all these people looking and he forgets his line. He didn’t have much to say but he even forgot that. And he’s just standing there with his wings short of drooping trying to figure out what to say. And people out in the audience start snickering and laughing you know, not to be rude but because it’s funny. And he gets burnt, he doesn’t know what to do, he’s embarrassed. And so he looks out at the congregation for a while and suddenly he goes..
Right in the middle the Sunday School Christmas Program, this little angel pulling his ears out and sticking his tongue out at the whole church. My mother and dad sliding down on the church pew people hey George that your son up there. Let me tell you something, that’s just the thing the type of thing that God can arrange for proud parents. I’m not saying my parent’s had..I was too young to understand when they were having problems with pride in those days. But that’s the kind of thing that God can arranges. And I could tell you a lot of stories like that tonight. God is very gracious to arrange certain circumstances in our lives should we be having difficulties in the area of pride. Sometimes we think that this whole matter of dying to self is really a matter of routine or matter of fact exercise. And we know that it’s something we need to do. It’s something that needs to be accomplished. Somehow we are aware of the fact that if pride is going to exit our lives. We’re going to be done with it forever. We’re going to have to get on with this business with dying to self.
Dying to self is not easy. In fact, you cannot die to yourself without God’s help. And Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. And we think, gee, I want to be Jesus’ disciple so we go into the garage and we get out some hammers and nails and we start nailing the cross. If you take a good look at this procession of most Christians heading up the Calvary road look at what they are dragging behind them, these self-made crosses. They’re amazing devices. I’ll show you what they look like. That’s what they used to look like. But today, we have designer crosses. Nice smooth edges. Initials. We also have nice padded footrests here. Armrests are nice and padded. Then we have up here, remote control television set, so we won’t get too bored while we are there and then we have some of our helpers that offers us a sock dipped in Coca Cola, or Dr. Pepper, to quench our thirst.
Spend a couple hours up there kind of reclining, relaxing in the sun, you know we have sky glasses on of-course. Get down after a few hours, start walking around, looking for speaking engagements to speak on the resurrection light. Problem is our message is rather hollow. How can you preach on the resurrection light if you’ve never died? When you and I build our own crosses that’s what they look like. You and I are not proficient at the art of self- execution. We don’t know for sure what it’s going to take to bring us to our end. Only the Lord knows that. And it’s going to be our cross. Because Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. But He is the master cross manufacturer; He’s the master builder. And He’s knows how to build crosses that are going to get the job done. That will finish you off completely. So let him do it. Let me say something about humility. For those of us who seek humility, who try to find humility for its own sake; will never find it. Because humility like joy and like unity is elusive when it is sought for its own sake. Humility is a by-product of a focus, off of ourselves and on to our source. It comes automatically when we get our minds on Jesus.
When the Bible says, humble yourselves beneath the mighty hand of God. What it’s basically saying recognize what God is and who you are. And get your eyes off of you as a creature as the created and on to the Creator in His greatness. The true end of humility is a focus on reality, it is self-forgetfulness. As C. S. Lewis said, “The first step to humility is to forget that you are proud.”
Let’s turn in closing here to Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. That I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgement and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.” Let’s make our boast in the Lord. Let’s be proud in God. And if we’re going to glory, let’s glory in this. That we understand and that we know the true and the living God. And when we start focusing our eyes on him, when we turn our eyes upon Jesus, and we look full in his wonderful face, then the things of this earth will grow strangely dim. And the light of his glory and grace. Humility is a by-product. We cannot become humble by trying to become humble but when we focus on his glory and grace and our attention is riveted on him we automatically receive humility as a by-product. It happens without us even trying to make it happen. Don’t try to make humility happen, it will happen by getting your focus. The focus of your attention on Jesus Christ. Let us pray.
Father, we realize as you told us our hearts were deceitful and desperately and who could know them. Father, we need you to reveal ourselves to us. We need to see our hearts as you see them; we need your perspective, because pride is so deceiving. It’s so easy to be proud and not know that we are. Oh, God deliver us from this great sin, from this poison that will cause us to miss you’re maximum. Help us Lord to find the lowest seats and allow you to exalt us in due time. Father, I pray that the principles and the issues that we’ve discussed here might be brought to our attention as we need them. That you would penetrate these truths down deep into our hearts by your Holy Spirit. And, oh God, I pray that you remind us that there are no short cuts, there are no pride removal programs. There’s only the discipline of spending those hours in quiet and solitude before you and coming to see you as you really are. Lord and as we bask in the overflow of your brilliance, your radiance and your glory, our pride, our accomplishments, or ambitions and the things of this world will grow strangely dim. Father, we don’t care where we sit in heaven, it’s just such a privilege to be a part of your household wherever we are. Thank you for welcoming us. And being a Father to us and for loving us even though we are so unlovely so often. We love you Lord and praise your name tonight in loving-kindness. In Jesus Name. Amen.