September 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Pride hides in plain sight. It creeps into our thoughts, our relationships, and even our faith — often without us realizing it. In this episode, host Jon Delger, the Multiplication Pastor, and Logan Bailey, the Family Pastor at Peace Church, take an honest look at the roots of pride, how it shows up in our own lives, and what it means to bring it into the light of the gospel. Together, we’ll explore how humility is not weakness but freedom, and how Christ calls us to lay down our pride so we can walk in true dependence on Him.
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(00:08):
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them toPeace Church dot CC slash
questions. Hey, welcome to, That's a good
question. The place where we answer
(00:28):
questions about the Christian faith in plain language.
I'm John, and I'm here today with Logan.
Logan Bailey, family pastor hereat Peace Church.
And excited to get to answer some more great questions about
the Christian faith. So we are in Part 2, episode 2
of our three-part series called Sins We Keep in the Dark.
(00:49):
So we've got lots of questions along the lines of these three
different topics that we're talking about.
Decide to group them together and cover them.
These are sins that we tend to not talk about and we want to.
So we keep them in the dark. We want to instead bring light
to them, bring them out into thelight and talk about them.
So last time we talked about lust a little bit.
Not as light hearted of an episode as we normally have, a
(01:11):
little bit more of a serious episode.
Very. Serious.
Yeah. That's a tough one.
Hope that you are sending in questions about that because I
think we left a lot unanswered. Be happy to come back to that
topic again. But today we are talking about
the topic that everyone loves totalk about, the topic that
nobody thinks that they themselves struggle with.
(01:33):
Pride but everyone else struggles with.
That's right if you think that everyone else in your life
struggles with it, but not you. You probably.
Do you might be wrong? Yeah, no, you and I were going
back and forth just thinking about thinking pride is kind of
at the root of all sin. And so if you have sin in your
life, that in in essence is pride bearing fruit in your life
(01:55):
in some way. It's some words that different
people's church history has given it.
Is is unbelief or idolatry a pride?
Again, making you know self righteousness, focusing on you
and your abilities and boasting in yourself rather than in
Christ. Right.
Actually I got my notes here about give you a quick people
(02:17):
who have said that pride is the root of all sins.
So St. Agustin said that pride is the
root of all sin. Aquinas said that pride is the
root of all sin. CS Lewis said that pride is the
root of all sin. Luther says that it was
unbelief. Calvin says that it was
idolatry. OK, but we could say that, you
(02:37):
know, really at the what we're just talking about it.
So pride is kind of like on the surface level how it plays out.
You can say that underneath thatis the failure to believe the
truth about God or the truth about yourself.
And so that's how we get to, I think, Calvin, and seeing
unbelief or idolatry. I missed my opportunity to give
a book review in my last in thislast episode, so I will take
(02:57):
advantage of it now. Glittering Vices is a good book
that's out there. Just pride thinking of
traditionally it's been seen as classically the seven deadly
sins and it's at the heart of the seven deadly sins.
And Glittering Vices is just a good book that kind of weeds
those out a bit and tries to better understand what they
practically look like in our lives.
(03:19):
So. Pride, Pride.
All right, so let's talk about why it's in the dark so much.
So what are some examples of that?
Yeah. Yeah, I think just zoom out.
We can get really specific, but you zoom out, you have the clear
kind of overly ambitious or kindof overly self confident plain
(03:42):
sight pride where we can think of people in our lives that are
that. And then there's this also kind
of insidious version of pride that comes out in more of like a
false humility, like a like a belittling of yourself, which is
a belittling of one of, you know, God's, you know, maiden,
the image of God, you know, you're a good creation of the
(04:06):
Lords. And so belittling that it's
like, OK, both of those come outof a pridefulness in ourselves.
Yeah. So those, I think that's really
important. I think we don't think about
both of those a lot. So there's the on the one hand,
the self glorifying side, that'sall that's a good one.
The other one, the self deprecating side.
But actually, they're both pride.
They both come out of this, thiskind of rejection of the Lord in
(04:32):
his proper place and you in yourproper place, viewing yourself
rightly, right? This is that classic CS Lewis
quote that you know what I'm trying to go for?
You know what it is? That classic quote?
You, you know it. You know?
It, you know, it humility here it is here it is, you know,
humility is not thinking less ofyourself, but it's thinking of
(04:55):
yourself less. Classic line.
And I would actually, I would I,I think biblically, I, I think
of it's, it was either First Corinthians or Second
Corinthians. I shouldn't write it down but
1111. 3011 you know that. About the verse 1131 in one of
the Corinthian letters, but if we judged ourselves truly, we
(05:18):
would not be judged in in the context of examining yourself
before taking communion and trying to identify sins in your
life and and bring giving those to the Lord.
But just that verse. But if we judged ourselves truly
rightly, I think humility is more on seeing yourself properly
and in your proper place and Godin his proper place on the
throne of your life. That's I think getting at
(05:41):
humility. Like what is it?
Because it's not just thinking of yourself less as if you never
think of yourself ever. That's not true humility either.
I mean, obviously CS Lewis's quote is very poetic and very
true, but I just it's, it's viewing yourself rightly.
So then pride would be an assortment of examples of not
(06:03):
viewing yourself rightly or not viewing God rightly, right?
Right, And that's why I think, you know, some, some theologians
throughout history have said that it's unbelief or idolatry
because that's, that's exactly what you're talking about, right
or wrong belief about who God isand about who we are.
And you go back to the, the beginning of pride, really
Satan, right? Satan's pride, Satan's sin is
pride. And that's what results in him,
(06:23):
fawn from heaven, becoming the arch nemesis of God's people.
He wrongly thought that he should be on the same level as
God. Yeah.
And that's kind of what we do when we're prideful.
That is what we do when we're prideful.
We don't want to say it that way, but.
Even when we go the route of like self pity, which Christ has
(06:44):
pity on us and that's one of themost amazing things in the good
news that he actually was mindful of our affliction in our
sin and wanted to free us from. So it's not like pity is this
bad word, but like self pity in like the deprecation kind of our
self, even the former pride thatis self deprecating or like
belittling God's good creation, you know, false humility even
(07:05):
that pride is putting yourself on God's throne in a way because
you're saying I actually view this better.
I have a better view of perspective on the situation
than God does. And so I can say these things
about myself that are not true, that you see in false humility
moments. Like you guys say more about
that. I thought we'd actually talk
about the self glorifying side first, but now I think.
(07:26):
Well, that's the one that's obvious, right?
That's the one that's annoying. To you all know who that person
is in your life, right? I happen to be sitting next to
the person. I'm just kidding.
Well, if you don't, it's a classic line again.
But if you don't know someone, then it could be you, you know?
That's exactly right. If you don't know who the
prideful person is in your friend circle right, it is
probably you. It's worth talking about
(07:48):
boasting in the wrong things. It's worth talking about that
that that form of pride. But the more insidious version
is that false humility that doeskind of put ourselves on the
throne. And and so to try to flesh out,
I'll just take a shot at like why that's the case, trying to
picture it. It's kind of like, you know, so
if you, we've all been in the situation where we're like
(08:10):
having a pity party, right? We're feeling bad for ourselves,
but we're really saying in thosemoments as we're saying I
deserve better. That's what you're really saying
underneath it, right? You're saying I feel bad for
myself and other people should feel bad for me because I
actually deserve. Better.
So it's it's this upside down version of actually I'm still,
you're still making much of yourself more than you should,
(08:31):
but then you're feeling bad because you you're not actually
getting what you think you deserve.
Yeah, yeah, there's so many examples to give, I feel like of
pride. And I think that's why people
rightly call it the root of all sin, because there's so many
ways to illustrate putting yourself on the throne, kicking
(08:57):
God out of it, viewing yourself wrongly, viewing God wrongly.
There's just so many things that.
And let me I want I want to go further.
We should illustrate like the sowhen because somebody could be
saying, well, I don't say that about myself in a pity party.
I say that I'm the worst. I say that.
I'm terrible but. When you're saying, when you're
saying that, what are you actually thinking underneath it?
And you're saying I'm the worst,I'm terrible.
(09:20):
When you're saying those things,it's like you're saying you
know, poor, poor me, which is still a.
Me, it's still. A very me focused thing.
So you really haven't gotten away from the thing.
And like you said, it's still a wrong view of yourself before
God. Are the right view of ourselves
before God is that God is the King and that we are his
(09:40):
creation made in his image and that we have value because of
it, not a value that's higher than God's, not a value that's
way down in the dumps. But you know, so having that
right view when we distort that.And God centers us, right?
Like we have a king, he is on the throne.
Even just saying that and thinking about that kind of
centers you in a good place of, OK, well, I, I am who I am in
(10:03):
relation to who he is. That's where my identity is
found. Oh, we could talk about identity
too. I mean, OK, one more book
recommendation, Tim Keller, freedom of self forgetfulness,
kind of getting after that idea of of humility.
I mean, there's other things that Martin Lloyd Jones has a
(10:24):
book on spiritual depression called Spiritual depression.
And but he makes the point in that even that some people
aren't introspective at all and they ought to be more.
But some people are way too introspective and they're
sinning and overthinking of, youknow, overthinking about
themselves. And some people need to hear,
(10:46):
you should probably think about how you're being prideful and
boasting yourself. Some people need to hear, hey,
stop thinking so much about yourself, you know, and focus on
those around you. And there's so many verses in
the Bible about pursuing the, you know, out doing one another
in love, which is sacrificial and selfless and focused on the
other. Think of others more highly than
yourselves, not to say belittle yourself, but just focus on
(11:08):
other people and how the Lord wants to use you in their lives.
Yeah, totally. So.
Oh, but. Freedom of self, forgetfulness.
Oh yeah, I'm all over the place.Not your fault.
Freedom of self, forgetfulness, thinking of identity, the fact
that we say and and think of Godbeing on the throne helps align
us in, in knowing who we are, which is then kind of like a
(11:32):
direct attack on pride in our lives and having that identity
wrapped up in God being on the throne.
He is your creator. Few things help align you more
than that, because then that's your identity.
And so it doesn't matter what person ABC or D says about you
because you can always go back to, well, God says this about
me. Like I actually don't care what,
(11:54):
like what you think of me. Nice to know, right?
But nice. Yeah.
And there might be something I can learn from it.
Yeah, but God thinks this about me, so I can always go back on
that. And a good example of that.
That reminds me of that story book that we used to.
I got remember this from where we were kids.
What's the name of the the guy there?
It's like these puppets and there's the dots that they put
on each other. Do you know what I'm talking?
(12:16):
About There's a door in the backof my mind that you're opening,
man, that I haven't opened. The news you're going to say
I'll look up the name. Just a crass example of if
you're trying to learn tennis and everyone on your team says
that you're bad at tennis, but you're like your favorite tennis
athlete that plays in Wimbledon or whatever comes and checks out
(12:38):
your practice and he walks up toyou and says, you know, John,
you're actually pretty good at tennis.
I think you're a good tennis player.
Now that like this professional athlete that I've esteem very
highly. He said that about me.
I don't care what you say about me because whatever what he said
about me, that's just kind of like a kind of more down to
earth example of why our identity in Christ is so
(13:00):
practical and impactful because you can always go back to well,
but this is what he said. I, I esteem him so highly and he
thinks this about me. So it's not just self esteem,
wishful thinking. No, that's not true.
I, I can build this identity formyself.
Like, you know what actually matters what other people think
of you, but you need to think about the right people and the
right people are like your creator.
(13:21):
First off, those people closest to you, their opinions.
You should care about what they what they think and use them to
help you grow into the man or woman you should be.
Yeah, Amen. I looked it up.
All right. It's it's a Max Lucado book.
It's it's called You Are Special.
And the little characters are called the Wimex.
(13:41):
OK, I don't know. Maybe I just dated myself, or
maybe I just don't know what. That is, you have.
No idea. Yeah, that's OK.
I get it. That's fair.
All right. Well, weird reference that
nobody knows what I'm talking about, but.
Back to pride. Yeah, yeah.
Back to pride. Back to pride.
We can another way of describingthe dichotomy.
Pride can be I'm the best or it can be I'm the worst.
(14:03):
And both are prideful. I'm the best would be taking
credit from God. Yeah.
It's like, really, you don't want to talk about the the whole
team here, the captain of the team that, you know, the one
that's empowering you, right. And then I'm the worst,
obviously belittling God's good creation or lying, That's a it
could be a lot like false humility.
(14:24):
Lying. Yeah, that could be that.
Totally. So let's bring in some scripture
passages that speak to this clearly.
One that speaks very clear and simply is this.
This comes from James 46. God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble. That's actually James quoting
the Old Testament. As he does.
(14:44):
All right, this one's from FirstCorinthians chapter 1.
I think this one always kind of puts us in our place as
believers. Paul says.
For consider your calling, brothers.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish inthe world to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
(15:05):
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even
things that are not, to bring tonothing, things that are, so
that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
God didn't choose us because we were great.
Actually, maybe He chose us because we are not so great.
And maybe this is a stretch, butI, I have recently read about
(15:28):
the just the Exodus story, whichis the, it's, it's just one of
the most formational stories in our world.
Just that God rescued Israelitesfrom slavery in Egypt.
The deliverance that happened there, they weren't given the 10
commandments until after. So if they couldn't pride
(15:49):
themselves in deserving it. And.
There's so much more to say on that, that note, but just this
idea of it was their pride, their subsequent, subsequent
pride that was a blemish on the whole story as far as as their
their role in it. I got their pride or lack of
belief, right view of themselves, all of that.
(16:11):
But it's just a really powerful note that they were given the 10
commandments after being saved, not the other way around, where
they were given the commandmentsand then had to obey them
perfectly and then they were given the freedom and the
redemption. It was no God comes in and God
redeems and God saves, Jesus saves by the blood of the Lamb,
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and you can't. You can't boasting yourself in
that. Like the gospel doesn't give you
room to do that. You have to say Christ is the
one that saves. And then out of gratitude, which
is a powerful place to live in, you live out of gratitude from
there. Pride doesn't really flourish in
(16:53):
gratitude, so it dies in that environment.
Right, right. So like we've been saying, pride
comes out of this place of a wrong view of who we are and who
God is. Humility then comes out of a
place of having a right view of who God is and who we are.
And the gratitude piece, I thinkis huge.
I one thing I think of is I justrecently preached on Psalm 5.
(17:16):
And so this is the text I'm going to use to make this point.
But you could go to a lot of different places in, in the
Scripture. But Psalm 5 talks about God
being holy, God hating evil. But then you have to kind of ask
the question. So then how is this author
praising God if God is going to make everything right and punish
every sin, Because isn't David sinful?
(17:39):
David's the author, clearly David was sinful.
So then how is it that we can say with exclamation points, God
hates evil, he will repay every wrong if we've committed wrongs?
Like how can we then pray for God to right the wrongs?
And in Psalm 5, verse seven, he says, but I like everyone else,
but evil people will bear their guilt and I'm evil, but I
(18:03):
through the abundance of your steadfast love will enter your
house. I will bow down towards your
holy temple in fear of you. Verse 8, lead me, O Lord, in
your righteousness. So he's not saying, Nope, I
actually haven't sinned. I am already righteous, but it's
I know I'm not righteous in my own.
I need your righteousness, Lord,lead me in it and your abundant
(18:27):
steadfast love has covered me literally.
It says in verse 11, spread yourprotection over them.
We that's what we have in the cross of Christ is his his
protection, his redemption. It's his righteousness that's
applied to us because I mean verse 5 or verse 10 and Psalm 5,
it says make them bear their guilt.
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That's the heartbeat of the Psalm.
Guilt should be punished. Guilt will be punished.
Jesus is saying every guilt willbe punished.
You will either bear your own guilt or I will bear your guilt.
That's the gospel. We live in gratitude of that.
That's how we can have humility.That's how pride dies in our
lives as we we come to that place of realizing the the
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righteousness of Christ is what saves us.
But from there, what Satan does is he shames us and makes us,
you know, accuses us of our guilt and makes us think that
it's still on our shoulders and makes us think we now need to be
the ones to bear this guilt on the cross.
It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Satan is tricking you into
thinking you're the one that saves you again.
(19:33):
Now this is pride again. Like we have to keep going back
to that gospel truth of when we recognize sin in our lives as
Christians, recognize it, confess it, repent it, and then
give it, give it to Jesus and get on with pursuing him and
being LED in his righteousness. Don't get tricked into that that
cycle of shame and guilt and believe in the lie that, yeah,
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Christ died for most of your sins, but these ones you have to
carry and bear on the cross. No, he died.
No, that classic him it is well with my soul.
Not in part, not in part, but the.
Whole. Yeah, totally.
All right, so getting really practical.
Trying to try. We'll try.
(20:14):
Our best how? What does humility actually look
like in day-to-day life? Yeah, I, I think of Romans 13,
seven, it says paid all, what isowed to them, taxes to whom
taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom
respect is owed, and honor to whom honor is owed.
There's just this. I think humility has a lot to do
(20:34):
with just doing things rightly, viewing people rightly and then
you get we've already mentioned it, but in Philippians Paul
talks about view others. You're going to mess up the
words, but like more important than yourself, you know, focus
on them, focus on those around you.
Be a vibrant part of your community and loving like
Christ, being selfless, being like him and out man, you can
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get into like priorities of it'swhen Jesus told the rich young
ruler to sell all his things. None of us should read that and
go should I sell all my things? Like absolutely not.
Because you have what you you have a mortgage and and that
your family lives in that house and you have a school that you
send your kids to that you mightpay for or you have
(21:21):
responsibilities in your community to to tithe, for
example, would be an obvious oneof like you have priorities in
your life that the Lord has given you to attend to.
You have responsibilities that the Lord's given you.
You need to address those first and then you can give and give
abundantly. But you, you have
responsibility. If you're a father, you can't
(21:43):
just be like, I'm called to go to missions and then leave your
family behind. Like, OK, well, your priorities
are out of whack now. You might be called to move with
your family or you might be called to get a new mortgage and
get a new house, a smaller house.
But all that to say, like you have a priority list, you have
responsibilities. You need to address those.
So you're saying even with these?
(22:05):
Even with these really good calls from the Lord, you can't
just think about yourself, you have to think about how it
affects other. People, yeah, just put things in
their. Rightful, yeah.
Put things in their rightful place.
I think humility starts doing things rightly.
And so you need to think about, well, what is the Lord called me
to? And then do those things and try
to do it well. And sure, yeah.
If you focus so much on what am I humble?
(22:27):
Am I humble? Am I humble like you?
Probably won't be because you'rethinking about it too hard.
What you should be thinking on is what's the Lord calling you
to? Do well, this is, it's funny
that you say that because I think this is one of the tricky
things about humility is that itcan really, you can make your
humility into a performance veryeasily.
It's, it's, it's actually a really tricky thing, I think to,
(22:48):
to be very carefully humble. It's kind of, it's kind of hard,
though. It's almost like the more you
think about it, the more difficult it becomes in some
ways. But also you have to think about
it. You can't not think about it.
For me, I think some ways that Itry to check myself.
And by the way, Logan and I are not here to tell you that we're
the most humble people in the world.
(23:09):
That doesn't. No, you're the best, Sean.
Actually, I'm the best of being humble.
That's what I'm here to tell you.
But I try to check myself by asking myself some questions
like, all right, in this situation, am I thinking about
other people or only myself? Or today, how much have I
thought about other people instead of myself?
(23:30):
Or, you know, there's some, thismight sound really cheesy, but
there's some situations when I go into them, I, I actually will
stop and say a short prayer and I'll say, Lord, help me to be a
blessing to the other people at this event or situation or
whatever. Help me to bring them joy.
You know, so I'm not and trying to just make myself not think
(23:50):
about it's just all about me andme getting joy out of whatever
this thing is that I'm going into, but actually me being a
blessing to other people. How can I do that?
Which will wind up being the most joyful thing for you?
Totally. That's that's one of the great
ironies of it, actually. The less you think about
yourself, the less you be all about trying to make yourself
happy. It tends to make you.
Happier one reason among many ofmy social media is just killing
(24:13):
us just the way it brings depression because of it brings
this like comparison game and a focus on yourself and how are
you presenting yourself like this hyper version of that that
that can really get you out of whack.
Yeah, totally. Another really, this is just I,
I think some of the pride stuff is actually just really it's
(24:35):
just old ancient wisdom. So I think of some of just the
things that I grew up hearing from my dad or my dad.
Here's one from my father-in-law.
He likes to say all the time, ifyou have to tell me what you
are, it's probably what you're not.
I think it's a great line of just like when people come in
and start telling you I'm so good at this or I'm, I'm like
(24:55):
this. Usually people who, who have to
describe to you all the time, like who they are, what they're
like. It's usually 'cause they're
telling you a story like that, they feel like they need to
prove to you this thing or they're maybe describing
something that's totally untrue.I think usually humility looks
like, show me, don't tell me. You just let people see kind of
who you are and what you're like.
(25:16):
I have one of the things that I get to do as family pastor is
work with a student ministry. And there's, it's just a
recurring theme I see and what alot of high schoolers struggle
with especially, but because they want, you know, they're,
they want to know who they are and they want to be liked.
(25:38):
And, and, you know, it's like this trap of, yeah, it's OK to
think about that. But then you think too much
about it. And now it's, you know, the
cycle of, of pride, even if it has the form of insecurity and
things. But one thing that I, I, I want
them to know is just a helpful tip for life.
(25:58):
And biblical wisdom is, in essence, living life well.
Like you want to be wise. And what the Bible's getting at
when it gets to what that wisdomis how to live well, right?
Yeah. And so much of what we're
talking about is like Proverbs, right?
This is like Proverbs kind of stuff.
Yeah. Wisdom, how to live well.
And so like a, a, a tip, you know how to, it's a tip I have
for them is to, I heard recentlywas don't try to be impressive
(26:21):
and interesting, but be impressed and interested in
others. Yeah, totally.
And you're going to wind up being more humble at the end of
that road and actually just focusing on the people around
you instead of like what you said of like trying to tell this
story and get people to like this version of you that you're
creating. It's like, no, just lean into
the identity God gives you and be interested in those.
(26:43):
Around you. I, I remember actually as a
young man kind of come into the realization and I don't know
what got me there, but I, I remember one time just sitting
and thinking and realizing the people that I think are the most
impressive are actually the people that seem most interested
in me. Like when we're in a
conversation that they don't like, talk a bunch about
themselves. If they come to me and they're
(27:03):
like, Hey, John, how, how's thisgoing?
And I heard this and Oh man, that's so great.
I'm so excited for you that you're doing that or that's
happening in your life. The people that I, that I am and
I'm and I always walk away thinking, wow, that person's
like Jesus, that. Person's awesome.
That person's like Jesus, they care about me.
Yeah. Yeah, they care about me.
I also find myself thinking they're like, really?
(27:24):
They come across really confident.
It's because they're just not focused on themselves.
They just come in to talk about you.
The. Full kind of roundabout version
of that too would be then they are like, how can I help with
that? And like they're willing to
sacrifice for your benefit. Like that's, you know, that's a
picture of church community. A person who's really confident
and who is really comfortable with themselves, that's who we
want to, we want to be that. But those people usually come
(27:46):
across very helpful towards other people, very encouraging
towards other people because they they feel comfortable with
who they are. They don't feel like they got to
talk about themselves all the time.
They just feel like they're comfortable with who they are.
So they can just come in and tell you really positive,
encouraging. Things it goes back about.
Unity. Piece of I know who I am in
Christ. I don't need I don't need your
affirmation. Affirmation is nice to get.
(28:08):
I don't need your affirmation and that in fact, if you have a
robust identity in in the Lord and who he says you are, if you
don't get affirmation you need and you feel like you need, you
can still move on because you have that identity in Christ.
And if you get insults or, you know, accusations or you know
what I'm trying to say of like attacks on your character, you,
you can actually get beyond those as well because you have
(28:30):
that identity in Christ and not,we're making it sound easy.
I know you don't know the book, but this springs back.
This is totally the Max locator book that I'm talking about.
That's awesome. Childhood life is hard though,
Like it's not easy and you'll have days where you're, you're
down in the dumps and we need, that's why we need the goth and
Martin Luther was asked like, why do you preach the gospel
every week? And he's like, because you
forget by Sunday, like we need the gospel, we need daily
(28:51):
reminders of it. And it's, it is hard to we live
in a sinful world. We have sinful natures that vie
for that throne still and peoplesinning against us and life's
heart. And there's days where you feel
pretty depressed and sad, and it's OK to be sad.
And that's why we need the gospel in those moments.
(29:12):
Speaking of the gospel, I think this is a great way to maybe
wind up our main conversation and pivot to the lightning
round. But here's here's Philippians 2
famous passage, probably the most famous passage in the Bible
on the topic of humility, Paul says.
I think I've tried to reference it twice.
You were you were referencing it.
Yeah, but we might as well just read at least a portion of it.
This is Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 3.
(29:33):
Do nothing from selfish ambitionor conceit, but in humility
count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only tohis own interests, but also to
the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves
which is yours in Christ Jesus, and then it's going to lay out
Jesus as the perfect example of humility.
Says who, though He was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
(29:55):
taking the form of a servant. Being born in likeness of men
and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
So Jesus is the perfect example of not needing to to say here I
am and I'm God and I'm the greatest, even though he could
have because it's totally true. Instead, he was humble and he
(30:17):
came and even submitted himself to the point of dying on a cross
for our sin. And that's the good news of the
gospel. So if you are today hearing this
and you were realizing that you are prideful, whether in the
self glorifying kind or the selfdeprecating kind, the yeah.
Welcome to the club. We have jackets.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for that sin.
(30:39):
His blood covers it if you put your faith in Him and praise the
Lord. Lightning totally.
Lightning, let's do it. Question number one, can I call
out pride in others? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Unqualified. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, that comes best inrelationship that you're not,
you're not the Holy Spirit. You're actually a very bad Holy
(30:59):
Spirit. I'm a very bad Holy Spirit, but
I do think we are called to helpsee sin in each other.
But if it's pride, you're calling out the Holy Spirit.
Better move than the heart of your brother or sister because
he or she probably won't see it if you have to call it out.
May the Lord move in those moments and may you use, you
know, wisdom and be led by the Lord in in bringing it up and
(31:22):
may it be in, you know, the context of a relationship.
But. It also makes me think right
away of the log in your own eye versus speck in your brother's
eye kind of situation of pride is one of those things.
Be sure that you are dealing with it in your own life first.
If you're listening to this episode and thinking about
somebody else who should listen to this episode, maybe, maybe
(31:44):
think about yourself first before yeah, forwarding it to
them. But so yes, you're you're right.
You can you can call. Out and actually that's where it
says before you point out the speck, right?
So it's not saying don't point out the speck.
There's a speck in your eye. You want to know if you are my
loving brother, But my point too, like you're not the Holy
Spirit. There might be something in that
(32:05):
person's life that the Holy Spirit is working on and you
might see a difference in you want to be addressed sooner than
what the Holy Spirit is trying to address it.
And so it just might not be goodtiming in that person's life.
And again, there's wisdom in that.
And so, yes, but with a lot of nuance.
Because. Right, you're just as jacked up
(32:27):
and sinful as the next person. Right #2 What's wrong with being
proud of my work or my kids the way we use that word is
interesting, isn't it? Because we say that is a good
thing, right? We should be proud of, and yet
pride is usually. Negative, which we could say
it's always wrong to be proud. Yeah, in every way, shape and
(32:50):
form of the word, but we can't because the Bible actually uses
it in a positive light. And and and it's clear the
difference of what we've been talking about with taking God
off the throne and putting myself there, not viewing myself
rightly to how the Bible uses itin in these verses.
So First Corinthians 12 or 112, it says Paul says for our boast.
(33:13):
Is this so he's boasting. I thought I was told the boast,
right. But he said it's our boast.
Is this the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved
in the world with simplicity andgodly sincerity, not by earthly
wisdom, but by the grace of God.So that's that's boasting.
Yeah, in their own actions, but they're attributing those
(33:37):
actions to the grace of God. That's living in gratitude.
That's living in a right alignment with who God is on the
throne and recognizing how His grace has saved you and is
working in you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So that's like a recognition of seeing yourself rightly and
boasting in on the Lord's moving.
And it's not a removal of yourself in the equation, but
(33:58):
it's seeing yourself right in the equation.
But then this one's trickier. 2nd Corinthians 7 four, Paul
says, I am acting with great boldness towards you.
I have great pride in you. I am filled with comfort in all
our affliction. I am overflowing with joy.
So Paul clears a sentence and I have great pride in you, Period.
(34:24):
What do we do with that? Because are we saying that pride
in every shape and form of how we understand it is always
wrong? Or are we saying there's some
nuance there? We are saying self righteousness
is wrong, removing God from the throne is wrong.
Like all the things we've said, we still would stand by.
But there is this sense in beingcontent and comforted by how God
(34:51):
is working. And it's not removing yourself
from the equation. It's not removing joy from your
heart and your kids, but it's celebrating what God is doing in
and through you and your kid andyour children and your family
and those around you. Yeah, it makes me.
It reminds me of the you ever heard?
It ain't bragging if it's true. Maybe it's more like it ain't
(35:11):
bragging if God did it. Yeah, if it's viewing the
situation rightly if it's you and myself, rightly if it's
viewing my. Child.
In relation to me and God, Yeah,yeah.
All right. Logan, we have one more question
that you're not going to have time to answer, but I'm going to
ask you and we're going to here it is.
OK, I'm ready. You're nervous?
(35:32):
Yeah. Is Jesus Jewish?
Jeez. OK.
And if so, why aren't we? I don't have time.
You don't have time to answer that question, but it's a really
good question. We're going to have to come back
to it. All right, future episode, we're
coming back to it. All right, everyone, thanks for
spending time with us here, talking about pride and
humility. Have an awesome week.
(35:52):
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them toPeace Church dot CC slash
questions. Hey, welcome to, That's a good
question. The place where we answer
(00:28):
questions about the Christian faith in plain language.
I'm John, and I'm here today with Logan.
Logan Bailey, family pastor hereat Peace Church.
And excited to get to answer some more great questions about
the Christian faith. So we are in Part 2, episode 2
of our three-part series called Sins We Keep in the Dark.
(00:49):
So we've got lots of questions along the lines of these three
different topics that we're talking about.
Decide to group them together and cover them.
These are sins that we tend to not talk about and we want to.
So we keep them in the dark. We want to instead bring light
to them, bring them out into thelight and talk about them.
So last time we talked about lust a little bit.
Not as light hearted of an episode as we normally have, a
(01:11):
little bit more of a serious episode.
Very. Serious.
Yeah. That's a tough one.
Hope that you are sending in questions about that because I
think we left a lot unanswered. Be happy to come back to that
topic again. But today we are talking about
the topic that everyone loves totalk about, the topic that
nobody thinks that they themselves struggle with.
(01:33):
Pride but everyone else struggles with.
That's right if you think that everyone else in your life
struggles with it, but not you. You probably.
Do you might be wrong? Yeah, no, you and I were going
back and forth just thinking about thinking pride is kind of
at the root of all sin. And so if you have sin in your
life, that in in essence is pride bearing fruit in your life
(01:55):
in some way. It's some words that different
people's church history has given it.
Is is unbelief or idolatry a pride?
Again, making you know self righteousness, focusing on you
and your abilities and boasting in yourself rather than in
Christ. Right.
Actually I got my notes here about give you a quick people
(02:17):
who have said that pride is the root of all sins.
So St. Agustin said that pride is the
root of all sin. Aquinas said that pride is the
root of all sin. CS Lewis said that pride is the
root of all sin. Luther says that it was
unbelief. Calvin says that it was
idolatry. OK, but we could say that, you
(02:37):
know, really at the what we're just talking about it.
So pride is kind of like on the surface level how it plays out.
You can say that underneath thatis the failure to believe the
truth about God or the truth about yourself.
And so that's how we get to, I think, Calvin, and seeing
unbelief or idolatry. I missed my opportunity to give
a book review in my last in thislast episode, so I will take
(02:57):
advantage of it now. Glittering Vices is a good book
that's out there. Just pride thinking of
traditionally it's been seen as classically the seven deadly
sins and it's at the heart of the seven deadly sins.
And Glittering Vices is just a good book that kind of weeds
those out a bit and tries to better understand what they
practically look like in our lives.
(03:19):
So. Pride, Pride.
All right, so let's talk about why it's in the dark so much.
So what are some examples of that?
Yeah. Yeah, I think just zoom out.
We can get really specific, but you zoom out, you have the clear
kind of overly ambitious or kindof overly self confident plain
(03:42):
sight pride where we can think of people in our lives that are
that. And then there's this also kind
of insidious version of pride that comes out in more of like a
false humility, like a like a belittling of yourself, which is
a belittling of one of, you know, God's, you know, maiden,
the image of God, you know, you're a good creation of the
(04:06):
Lords. And so belittling that it's
like, OK, both of those come outof a pridefulness in ourselves.
Yeah. So those, I think that's really
important. I think we don't think about
both of those a lot. So there's the on the one hand,
the self glorifying side, that'sall that's a good one.
The other one, the self deprecating side.
But actually, they're both pride.
They both come out of this, thiskind of rejection of the Lord in
(04:32):
his proper place and you in yourproper place, viewing yourself
rightly, right? This is that classic CS Lewis
quote that you know what I'm trying to go for?
You know what it is? That classic quote?
You, you know it. You know?
It, you know, it humility here it is here it is, you know,
humility is not thinking less ofyourself, but it's thinking of
(04:55):
yourself less. Classic line.
And I would actually, I would I,I think biblically, I, I think
of it's, it was either First Corinthians or Second
Corinthians. I shouldn't write it down but
1111. 3011 you know that. About the verse 1131 in one of
the Corinthian letters, but if we judged ourselves truly, we
(05:18):
would not be judged in in the context of examining yourself
before taking communion and trying to identify sins in your
life and and bring giving those to the Lord.
But just that verse. But if we judged ourselves truly
rightly, I think humility is more on seeing yourself properly
and in your proper place and Godin his proper place on the
throne of your life. That's I think getting at
(05:41):
humility. Like what is it?
Because it's not just thinking of yourself less as if you never
think of yourself ever. That's not true humility either.
I mean, obviously CS Lewis's quote is very poetic and very
true, but I just it's, it's viewing yourself rightly.
So then pride would be an assortment of examples of not
(06:03):
viewing yourself rightly or not viewing God rightly, right?
Right, And that's why I think, you know, some, some theologians
throughout history have said that it's unbelief or idolatry
because that's, that's exactly what you're talking about, right
or wrong belief about who God isand about who we are.
And you go back to the, the beginning of pride, really
Satan, right? Satan's pride, Satan's sin is
pride. And that's what results in him,
(06:23):
fawn from heaven, becoming the arch nemesis of God's people.
He wrongly thought that he should be on the same level as
God. Yeah.
And that's kind of what we do when we're prideful.
That is what we do when we're prideful.
We don't want to say it that way, but.
Even when we go the route of like self pity, which Christ has
(06:44):
pity on us and that's one of themost amazing things in the good
news that he actually was mindful of our affliction in our
sin and wanted to free us from. So it's not like pity is this
bad word, but like self pity in like the deprecation kind of our
self, even the former pride thatis self deprecating or like
belittling God's good creation, you know, false humility even
(07:05):
that pride is putting yourself on God's throne in a way because
you're saying I actually view this better.
I have a better view of perspective on the situation
than God does. And so I can say these things
about myself that are not true, that you see in false humility
moments. Like you guys say more about
that. I thought we'd actually talk
about the self glorifying side first, but now I think.
(07:26):
Well, that's the one that's obvious, right?
That's the one that's annoying. To you all know who that person
is in your life, right? I happen to be sitting next to
the person. I'm just kidding.
Well, if you don't, it's a classic line again.
But if you don't know someone, then it could be you, you know?
That's exactly right. If you don't know who the
prideful person is in your friend circle right, it is
probably you. It's worth talking about
(07:48):
boasting in the wrong things. It's worth talking about that
that that form of pride. But the more insidious version
is that false humility that doeskind of put ourselves on the
throne. And and so to try to flesh out,
I'll just take a shot at like why that's the case, trying to
picture it. It's kind of like, you know, so
if you, we've all been in the situation where we're like
(08:10):
having a pity party, right? We're feeling bad for ourselves,
but we're really saying in thosemoments as we're saying I
deserve better. That's what you're really saying
underneath it, right? You're saying I feel bad for
myself and other people should feel bad for me because I
actually deserve. Better.
So it's it's this upside down version of actually I'm still,
you're still making much of yourself more than you should,
(08:31):
but then you're feeling bad because you you're not actually
getting what you think you deserve.
Yeah, yeah, there's so many examples to give, I feel like of
pride. And I think that's why people
rightly call it the root of all sin, because there's so many
ways to illustrate putting yourself on the throne, kicking
(08:57):
God out of it, viewing yourself wrongly, viewing God wrongly.
There's just so many things that.
And let me I want I want to go further.
We should illustrate like the sowhen because somebody could be
saying, well, I don't say that about myself in a pity party.
I say that I'm the worst. I say that.
I'm terrible but. When you're saying, when you're
saying that, what are you actually thinking underneath it?
And you're saying I'm the worst,I'm terrible.
(09:20):
When you're saying those things,it's like you're saying you
know, poor, poor me, which is still a.
Me, it's still. A very me focused thing.
So you really haven't gotten away from the thing.
And like you said, it's still a wrong view of yourself before
God. Are the right view of ourselves
before God is that God is the King and that we are his
(09:40):
creation made in his image and that we have value because of
it, not a value that's higher than God's, not a value that's
way down in the dumps. But you know, so having that
right view when we distort that.And God centers us, right?
Like we have a king, he is on the throne.
Even just saying that and thinking about that kind of
centers you in a good place of, OK, well, I, I am who I am in
(10:03):
relation to who he is. That's where my identity is
found. Oh, we could talk about identity
too. I mean, OK, one more book
recommendation, Tim Keller, freedom of self forgetfulness,
kind of getting after that idea of of humility.
I mean, there's other things that Martin Lloyd Jones has a
(10:24):
book on spiritual depression called Spiritual depression.
And but he makes the point in that even that some people
aren't introspective at all and they ought to be more.
But some people are way too introspective and they're
sinning and overthinking of, youknow, overthinking about
themselves. And some people need to hear,
(10:46):
you should probably think about how you're being prideful and
boasting yourself. Some people need to hear, hey,
stop thinking so much about yourself, you know, and focus on
those around you. And there's so many verses in
the Bible about pursuing the, you know, out doing one another
in love, which is sacrificial and selfless and focused on the
other. Think of others more highly than
yourselves, not to say belittle yourself, but just focus on
(11:08):
other people and how the Lord wants to use you in their lives.
Yeah, totally. So.
Oh, but. Freedom of self, forgetfulness.
Oh yeah, I'm all over the place.Not your fault.
Freedom of self, forgetfulness, thinking of identity, the fact
that we say and and think of Godbeing on the throne helps align
us in, in knowing who we are, which is then kind of like a
(11:32):
direct attack on pride in our lives and having that identity
wrapped up in God being on the throne.
He is your creator. Few things help align you more
than that, because then that's your identity.
And so it doesn't matter what person ABC or D says about you
because you can always go back to, well, God says this about
me. Like I actually don't care what,
(11:54):
like what you think of me. Nice to know, right?
But nice. Yeah.
And there might be something I can learn from it.
Yeah, but God thinks this about me, so I can always go back on
that. And a good example of that.
That reminds me of that story book that we used to.
I got remember this from where we were kids.
What's the name of the the guy there?
It's like these puppets and there's the dots that they put
on each other. Do you know what I'm talking?
(12:16):
About There's a door in the backof my mind that you're opening,
man, that I haven't opened. The news you're going to say
I'll look up the name. Just a crass example of if
you're trying to learn tennis and everyone on your team says
that you're bad at tennis, but you're like your favorite tennis
athlete that plays in Wimbledon or whatever comes and checks out
(12:38):
your practice and he walks up toyou and says, you know, John,
you're actually pretty good at tennis.
I think you're a good tennis player.
Now that like this professional athlete that I've esteem very
highly. He said that about me.
I don't care what you say about me because whatever what he said
about me, that's just kind of like a kind of more down to
earth example of why our identity in Christ is so
(13:00):
practical and impactful because you can always go back to well,
but this is what he said. I, I esteem him so highly and he
thinks this about me. So it's not just self esteem,
wishful thinking. No, that's not true.
I, I can build this identity formyself.
Like, you know what actually matters what other people think
of you, but you need to think about the right people and the
right people are like your creator.
(13:21):
First off, those people closest to you, their opinions.
You should care about what they what they think and use them to
help you grow into the man or woman you should be.
Yeah, Amen. I looked it up.
All right. It's it's a Max Lucado book.
It's it's called You Are Special.
And the little characters are called the Wimex.
(13:41):
OK, I don't know. Maybe I just dated myself, or
maybe I just don't know what. That is, you have.
No idea. Yeah, that's OK.
I get it. That's fair.
All right. Well, weird reference that
nobody knows what I'm talking about, but.
Back to pride. Yeah, yeah.
Back to pride. Back to pride.
We can another way of describingthe dichotomy.
Pride can be I'm the best or it can be I'm the worst.
(14:03):
And both are prideful. I'm the best would be taking
credit from God. Yeah.
It's like, really, you don't want to talk about the the whole
team here, the captain of the team that, you know, the one
that's empowering you, right. And then I'm the worst,
obviously belittling God's good creation or lying, That's a it
could be a lot like false humility.
(14:24):
Lying. Yeah, that could be that.
Totally. So let's bring in some scripture
passages that speak to this clearly.
One that speaks very clear and simply is this.
This comes from James 46. God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble. That's actually James quoting
the Old Testament. As he does.
(14:44):
All right, this one's from FirstCorinthians chapter 1.
I think this one always kind of puts us in our place as
believers. Paul says.
For consider your calling, brothers.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish inthe world to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
(15:05):
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even
things that are not, to bring tonothing, things that are, so
that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
God didn't choose us because we were great.
Actually, maybe He chose us because we are not so great.
And maybe this is a stretch, butI, I have recently read about
(15:28):
the just the Exodus story, whichis the, it's, it's just one of
the most formational stories in our world.
Just that God rescued Israelitesfrom slavery in Egypt.
The deliverance that happened there, they weren't given the 10
commandments until after. So if they couldn't pride
(15:49):
themselves in deserving it. And.
There's so much more to say on that, that note, but just this
idea of it was their pride, their subsequent, subsequent
pride that was a blemish on the whole story as far as as their
their role in it. I got their pride or lack of
belief, right view of themselves, all of that.
(16:11):
But it's just a really powerful note that they were given the 10
commandments after being saved, not the other way around, where
they were given the commandmentsand then had to obey them
perfectly and then they were given the freedom and the
redemption. It was no God comes in and God
redeems and God saves, Jesus saves by the blood of the Lamb,
(16:31):
and you can't. You can't boasting yourself in
that. Like the gospel doesn't give you
room to do that. You have to say Christ is the
one that saves. And then out of gratitude, which
is a powerful place to live in, you live out of gratitude from
there. Pride doesn't really flourish in
(16:53):
gratitude, so it dies in that environment.
Right, right. So like we've been saying, pride
comes out of this place of a wrong view of who we are and who
God is. Humility then comes out of a
place of having a right view of who God is and who we are.
And the gratitude piece, I thinkis huge.
I one thing I think of is I justrecently preached on Psalm 5.
(17:16):
And so this is the text I'm going to use to make this point.
But you could go to a lot of different places in, in the
Scripture. But Psalm 5 talks about God
being holy, God hating evil. But then you have to kind of ask
the question. So then how is this author
praising God if God is going to make everything right and punish
every sin, Because isn't David sinful?
(17:39):
David's the author, clearly David was sinful.
So then how is it that we can say with exclamation points, God
hates evil, he will repay every wrong if we've committed wrongs?
Like how can we then pray for God to right the wrongs?
And in Psalm 5, verse seven, he says, but I like everyone else,
but evil people will bear their guilt and I'm evil, but I
(18:03):
through the abundance of your steadfast love will enter your
house. I will bow down towards your
holy temple in fear of you. Verse 8, lead me, O Lord, in
your righteousness. So he's not saying, Nope, I
actually haven't sinned. I am already righteous, but it's
I know I'm not righteous in my own.
I need your righteousness, Lord,lead me in it and your abundant
(18:27):
steadfast love has covered me literally.
It says in verse 11, spread yourprotection over them.
We that's what we have in the cross of Christ is his his
protection, his redemption. It's his righteousness that's
applied to us because I mean verse 5 or verse 10 and Psalm 5,
it says make them bear their guilt.
(18:49):
That's the heartbeat of the Psalm.
Guilt should be punished. Guilt will be punished.
Jesus is saying every guilt willbe punished.
You will either bear your own guilt or I will bear your guilt.
That's the gospel. We live in gratitude of that.
That's how we can have humility.That's how pride dies in our
lives as we we come to that place of realizing the the
(19:11):
righteousness of Christ is what saves us.
But from there, what Satan does is he shames us and makes us,
you know, accuses us of our guilt and makes us think that
it's still on our shoulders and makes us think we now need to be
the ones to bear this guilt on the cross.
It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Satan is tricking you into
thinking you're the one that saves you again.
(19:33):
Now this is pride again. Like we have to keep going back
to that gospel truth of when we recognize sin in our lives as
Christians, recognize it, confess it, repent it, and then
give it, give it to Jesus and get on with pursuing him and
being LED in his righteousness. Don't get tricked into that that
cycle of shame and guilt and believe in the lie that, yeah,
(19:53):
Christ died for most of your sins, but these ones you have to
carry and bear on the cross. No, he died.
No, that classic him it is well with my soul.
Not in part, not in part, but the.
Whole. Yeah, totally.
All right, so getting really practical.
Trying to try. We'll try.
(20:14):
Our best how? What does humility actually look
like in day-to-day life? Yeah, I, I think of Romans 13,
seven, it says paid all, what isowed to them, taxes to whom
taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom
respect is owed, and honor to whom honor is owed.
There's just this. I think humility has a lot to do
(20:34):
with just doing things rightly, viewing people rightly and then
you get we've already mentioned it, but in Philippians Paul
talks about view others. You're going to mess up the
words, but like more important than yourself, you know, focus
on them, focus on those around you.
Be a vibrant part of your community and loving like
Christ, being selfless, being like him and out man, you can
(20:57):
get into like priorities of it'swhen Jesus told the rich young
ruler to sell all his things. None of us should read that and
go should I sell all my things? Like absolutely not.
Because you have what you you have a mortgage and and that
your family lives in that house and you have a school that you
send your kids to that you mightpay for or you have
(21:21):
responsibilities in your community to to tithe, for
example, would be an obvious oneof like you have priorities in
your life that the Lord has given you to attend to.
You have responsibilities that the Lord's given you.
You need to address those first and then you can give and give
abundantly. But you, you have
responsibility. If you're a father, you can't
(21:43):
just be like, I'm called to go to missions and then leave your
family behind. Like, OK, well, your priorities
are out of whack now. You might be called to move with
your family or you might be called to get a new mortgage and
get a new house, a smaller house.
But all that to say, like you have a priority list, you have
responsibilities. You need to address those.
So you're saying even with these?
(22:05):
Even with these really good calls from the Lord, you can't
just think about yourself, you have to think about how it
affects other. People, yeah, just put things in
their. Rightful, yeah.
Put things in their rightful place.
I think humility starts doing things rightly.
And so you need to think about, well, what is the Lord called me
to? And then do those things and try
to do it well. And sure, yeah.
If you focus so much on what am I humble?
(22:27):
Am I humble? Am I humble like you?
Probably won't be because you'rethinking about it too hard.
What you should be thinking on is what's the Lord calling you
to? Do well, this is, it's funny
that you say that because I think this is one of the tricky
things about humility is that itcan really, you can make your
humility into a performance veryeasily.
It's, it's, it's actually a really tricky thing, I think to,
(22:48):
to be very carefully humble. It's kind of, it's kind of hard,
though. It's almost like the more you
think about it, the more difficult it becomes in some
ways. But also you have to think about
it. You can't not think about it.
For me, I think some ways that Itry to check myself.
And by the way, Logan and I are not here to tell you that we're
the most humble people in the world.
(23:09):
That doesn't. No, you're the best, Sean.
Actually, I'm the best of being humble.
That's what I'm here to tell you.
But I try to check myself by asking myself some questions
like, all right, in this situation, am I thinking about
other people or only myself? Or today, how much have I
thought about other people instead of myself?
(23:30):
Or, you know, there's some, thismight sound really cheesy, but
there's some situations when I go into them, I, I actually will
stop and say a short prayer and I'll say, Lord, help me to be a
blessing to the other people at this event or situation or
whatever. Help me to bring them joy.
You know, so I'm not and trying to just make myself not think
(23:50):
about it's just all about me andme getting joy out of whatever
this thing is that I'm going into, but actually me being a
blessing to other people. How can I do that?
Which will wind up being the most joyful thing for you?
Totally. That's that's one of the great
ironies of it, actually. The less you think about
yourself, the less you be all about trying to make yourself
happy. It tends to make you.
Happier one reason among many ofmy social media is just killing
(24:13):
us just the way it brings depression because of it brings
this like comparison game and a focus on yourself and how are
you presenting yourself like this hyper version of that that
that can really get you out of whack.
Yeah, totally. Another really, this is just I,
I think some of the pride stuff is actually just really it's
(24:35):
just old ancient wisdom. So I think of some of just the
things that I grew up hearing from my dad or my dad.
Here's one from my father-in-law.
He likes to say all the time, ifyou have to tell me what you
are, it's probably what you're not.
I think it's a great line of just like when people come in
and start telling you I'm so good at this or I'm, I'm like
(24:55):
this. Usually people who, who have to
describe to you all the time, like who they are, what they're
like. It's usually 'cause they're
telling you a story like that, they feel like they need to
prove to you this thing or they're maybe describing
something that's totally untrue.I think usually humility looks
like, show me, don't tell me. You just let people see kind of
who you are and what you're like.
(25:16):
I have one of the things that I get to do as family pastor is
work with a student ministry. And there's, it's just a
recurring theme I see and what alot of high schoolers struggle
with especially, but because they want, you know, they're,
they want to know who they are and they want to be liked.
(25:38):
And, and, you know, it's like this trap of, yeah, it's OK to
think about that. But then you think too much
about it. And now it's, you know, the
cycle of, of pride, even if it has the form of insecurity and
things. But one thing that I, I, I want
them to know is just a helpful tip for life.
(25:58):
And biblical wisdom is, in essence, living life well.
Like you want to be wise. And what the Bible's getting at
when it gets to what that wisdomis how to live well, right?
Yeah. And so much of what we're
talking about is like Proverbs, right?
This is like Proverbs kind of stuff.
Yeah. Wisdom, how to live well.
And so like a, a, a tip, you know how to, it's a tip I have
for them is to, I heard recentlywas don't try to be impressive
(26:21):
and interesting, but be impressed and interested in
others. Yeah, totally.
And you're going to wind up being more humble at the end of
that road and actually just focusing on the people around
you instead of like what you said of like trying to tell this
story and get people to like this version of you that you're
creating. It's like, no, just lean into
the identity God gives you and be interested in those.
(26:43):
Around you. I, I remember actually as a
young man kind of come into the realization and I don't know
what got me there, but I, I remember one time just sitting
and thinking and realizing the people that I think are the most
impressive are actually the people that seem most interested
in me. Like when we're in a
conversation that they don't like, talk a bunch about
themselves. If they come to me and they're
(27:03):
like, Hey, John, how, how's thisgoing?
And I heard this and Oh man, that's so great.
I'm so excited for you that you're doing that or that's
happening in your life. The people that I, that I am and
I'm and I always walk away thinking, wow, that person's
like Jesus, that. Person's awesome.
That person's like Jesus, they care about me.
Yeah. Yeah, they care about me.
I also find myself thinking they're like, really?
(27:24):
They come across really confident.
It's because they're just not focused on themselves.
They just come in to talk about you.
The. Full kind of roundabout version
of that too would be then they are like, how can I help with
that? And like they're willing to
sacrifice for your benefit. Like that's, you know, that's a
picture of church community. A person who's really confident
and who is really comfortable with themselves, that's who we
want to, we want to be that. But those people usually come
(27:46):
across very helpful towards other people, very encouraging
towards other people because they they feel comfortable with
who they are. They don't feel like they got to
talk about themselves all the time.
They just feel like they're comfortable with who they are.
So they can just come in and tell you really positive,
encouraging. Things it goes back about.
Unity. Piece of I know who I am in
Christ. I don't need I don't need your
affirmation. Affirmation is nice to get.
(28:08):
I don't need your affirmation and that in fact, if you have a
robust identity in in the Lord and who he says you are, if you
don't get affirmation you need and you feel like you need, you
can still move on because you have that identity in Christ.
And if you get insults or, you know, accusations or you know
what I'm trying to say of like attacks on your character, you,
you can actually get beyond those as well because you have
(28:30):
that identity in Christ and not,we're making it sound easy.
I know you don't know the book, but this springs back.
This is totally the Max locator book that I'm talking about.
That's awesome. Childhood life is hard though,
Like it's not easy and you'll have days where you're, you're
down in the dumps and we need, that's why we need the goth and
Martin Luther was asked like, why do you preach the gospel
every week? And he's like, because you
forget by Sunday, like we need the gospel, we need daily
(28:51):
reminders of it. And it's, it is hard to we live
in a sinful world. We have sinful natures that vie
for that throne still and peoplesinning against us and life's
heart. And there's days where you feel
pretty depressed and sad, and it's OK to be sad.
And that's why we need the gospel in those moments.
(29:12):
Speaking of the gospel, I think this is a great way to maybe
wind up our main conversation and pivot to the lightning
round. But here's here's Philippians 2
famous passage, probably the most famous passage in the Bible
on the topic of humility, Paul says.
I think I've tried to reference it twice.
You were you were referencing it.
Yeah, but we might as well just read at least a portion of it.
This is Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 3.
(29:33):
Do nothing from selfish ambitionor conceit, but in humility
count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only tohis own interests, but also to
the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves
which is yours in Christ Jesus, and then it's going to lay out
Jesus as the perfect example of humility.
Says who, though He was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
(29:55):
taking the form of a servant. Being born in likeness of men
and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
So Jesus is the perfect example of not needing to to say here I
am and I'm God and I'm the greatest, even though he could
have because it's totally true. Instead, he was humble and he
(30:17):
came and even submitted himself to the point of dying on a cross
for our sin. And that's the good news of the
gospel. So if you are today hearing this
and you were realizing that you are prideful, whether in the
self glorifying kind or the selfdeprecating kind, the yeah.
Welcome to the club. We have jackets.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for that sin.
(30:39):
His blood covers it if you put your faith in Him and praise the
Lord. Lightning totally.
Lightning, let's do it. Question number one, can I call
out pride in others? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Unqualified. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, that comes best inrelationship that you're not,
you're not the Holy Spirit. You're actually a very bad Holy
(30:59):
Spirit. I'm a very bad Holy Spirit, but
I do think we are called to helpsee sin in each other.
But if it's pride, you're calling out the Holy Spirit.
Better move than the heart of your brother or sister because
he or she probably won't see it if you have to call it out.
May the Lord move in those moments and may you use, you
know, wisdom and be led by the Lord in in bringing it up and
(31:22):
may it be in, you know, the context of a relationship.
But. It also makes me think right
away of the log in your own eye versus speck in your brother's
eye kind of situation of pride is one of those things.
Be sure that you are dealing with it in your own life first.
If you're listening to this episode and thinking about
somebody else who should listen to this episode, maybe, maybe
(31:44):
think about yourself first before yeah, forwarding it to
them. But so yes, you're you're right.
You can you can call. Out and actually that's where it
says before you point out the speck, right?
So it's not saying don't point out the speck.
There's a speck in your eye. You want to know if you are my
loving brother, But my point too, like you're not the Holy
Spirit. There might be something in that
(32:05):
person's life that the Holy Spirit is working on and you
might see a difference in you want to be addressed sooner than
what the Holy Spirit is trying to address it.
And so it just might not be goodtiming in that person's life.
And again, there's wisdom in that.
And so, yes, but with a lot of nuance.
Because. Right, you're just as jacked up
(32:27):
and sinful as the next person. Right #2 What's wrong with being
proud of my work or my kids the way we use that word is
interesting, isn't it? Because we say that is a good
thing, right? We should be proud of, and yet
pride is usually. Negative, which we could say
it's always wrong to be proud. Yeah, in every way, shape and
(32:50):
form of the word, but we can't because the Bible actually uses
it in a positive light. And and and it's clear the
difference of what we've been talking about with taking God
off the throne and putting myself there, not viewing myself
rightly to how the Bible uses itin in these verses.
So First Corinthians 12 or 112, it says Paul says for our boast.
(33:13):
Is this so he's boasting. I thought I was told the boast,
right. But he said it's our boast.
Is this the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved
in the world with simplicity andgodly sincerity, not by earthly
wisdom, but by the grace of God.So that's that's boasting.
Yeah, in their own actions, but they're attributing those
(33:37):
actions to the grace of God. That's living in gratitude.
That's living in a right alignment with who God is on the
throne and recognizing how His grace has saved you and is
working in you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So that's like a recognition of seeing yourself rightly and
boasting in on the Lord's moving.
And it's not a removal of yourself in the equation, but
(33:58):
it's seeing yourself right in the equation.
But then this one's trickier. 2nd Corinthians 7 four, Paul
says, I am acting with great boldness towards you.
I have great pride in you. I am filled with comfort in all
our affliction. I am overflowing with joy.
So Paul clears a sentence and I have great pride in you, Period.
(34:24):
What do we do with that? Because are we saying that pride
in every shape and form of how we understand it is always
wrong? Or are we saying there's some
nuance there? We are saying self righteousness
is wrong, removing God from the throne is wrong.
Like all the things we've said, we still would stand by.
But there is this sense in beingcontent and comforted by how God
(34:51):
is working. And it's not removing yourself
from the equation. It's not removing joy from your
heart and your kids, but it's celebrating what God is doing in
and through you and your kid andyour children and your family
and those around you. Yeah, it makes me.
It reminds me of the you ever heard?
It ain't bragging if it's true. Maybe it's more like it ain't
(35:11):
bragging if God did it. Yeah, if it's viewing the
situation rightly if it's you and myself, rightly if it's
viewing my. Child.
In relation to me and God, Yeah,yeah.
All right. Logan, we have one more question
that you're not going to have time to answer, but I'm going to
ask you and we're going to here it is.
OK, I'm ready. You're nervous?
(35:32):
Yeah. Is Jesus Jewish?
Jeez. OK.
And if so, why aren't we? I don't have time.
You don't have time to answer that question, but it's a really
good question. We're going to have to come back
to it. All right, future episode, we're
coming back to it. All right, everyone, thanks for
spending time with us here, talking about pride and
humility. Have an awesome week.
(35:52):
We'll see you next time.
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