Sermon Tone Analysis

*Finding and Fighting Sin’s Weapon of Mass Destruction (1 Peter 5:5-8)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on September 9, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

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Tuesday of this week is September 11, a day when six years ago our unaware and unsuspecting country was attacked by those who had been living among us, and we were awakened to an enemy within.

This week as the media rehashes the events that transpired, I want you to think beyond the physical enemy and terror and threat to a comparable /spiritual/ enemy and threat with great potential for harm in your life and in the life of a church.

The sin we’re going to look at may indeed be sin’s favorite weapon of mass destruction.

This WMD can cause more spiritual damage than any terrorist can cause physical damage.

This weapon of our enemy has heat-seeking, armor-piercing, soul-destroying power.

Like a sniper taking out unsuspecting civilians, the ammunition used by our adversary has been taking out unwary Christians.

Like spiritual anthrax, it poisons and chokes and spreads and kills.

Like a terrorist bomb in a crowded church or building, the explosive nature of this sin can cause equal or greater spiritual damage and carnage in our lives and has been known to rip through churches, sometimes causing near irreparable destruction.

To use a biblical analogy, it tears apart like a lion would tear apart its prey.

In 1 Peter 5, Peter uses a real and vivid threat known to his readers in a time when Roman emperors would allow roaring hungry lions in coliseums to literally tear Christians apart in front of thousands of spectators, for entertainment.

He goes beyond this fear that 1st century Christians had to a spiritual danger and enemy who would love to do the same with them spiritually.

I want to do the same with the 21st century fear and vivid threat known to American Christians since 9~/11, and use this to point to a spiritual reality and danger and enemy we dare not ignore.

The problem is this war cannot be won by more security and intelligence.

Increasing border patrol or laws will never stop it.

It’s invisible and almost impossible to kill in this life, and it’s not from another country, it doesn’t have to be smuggled in – in fact this threat is in this room at this very moment.

You can’t see it, usually until it’s too late.

This is something on the inside of all of us.

Our greatest threat is not from Al Qaeda, and it’s not even from Satan – our greatest threat and problem is our self.

Our adversary doesn’t have to plant any weapon there, he only has to try and detonate what’s already there, and he has had plenty of training and target practice and has used this tactic stealthily and successfully and victoriously on the battlefield of human hearts all over the world.

This morning we’re going to look at what God’s Word has to say about pride.

 

1 Peter 5:5-8 (NKJV) \\ /5 //Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”//

\\ 6 //Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,// \\ 7 //casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.//

\\ 8 //Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour./

\\ The week before last I had an opportunity to do a devotional for the Christian school staff and leadership and I shared these things with them and I really felt the Lord’s work in that and was encouraged to share this with all of you as well.

This passage has been on my heart ever since I came here – this was one of the first passages we studied in our elder’s meetings when I came here.

This is urgent for us to hear, first of all, because it is the Word of our Living God.

There is no particular person in mind as I prepared this study (my own heart and sin are plenty motivation enough), nor have I noticed this to be a major epidemic here, any more than another church struggles to pursue humility.

But this study is urgent because I know how pervasive and poisonous and powerful it is when pride takes hold, and I know the selfishness and pride in the recesses of my own heart.

Verse 8 warns us to be alert, to be vigilant, to be watchful, and in the context of this passage, it seems that one of the primary ways our enemy wants to devour us like a roaring lion is through pride.

It’s ironic that a group of lions are actually called a pride of lions, because this passage speaks of pride in those who become prey to a roaring lion, a prowling enemy.

The devil would love to have us for lunch, and would love to add our church to his hunting trophies

 

John Stott has written: “At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.”[1]

America has in recent years declared a war on terror, but we’ve learned it’s another matter to actually root it out.

It’s one thing to recognize the severity of pride, or even to declare war on pride, it’s another matter to root it out, and we have to be able to find it before we can fight it.

OUTLINE:

#. *God’s Hatred of Pride*

#. *God’s Help for Pride*

 

/First, I want you to see God’s hatred of pride/

Verse 5 says “GOD RESISTS THE PROUD” – another translation has “God is against the proud” – NASB “God opposes the proud”

 

God is actively opposing the proud, present tense verb, continual constant active resistance and opposition

 

The verb is in the Greek middle voice, emphasizing God /Himself /is against pride in all its forms.

Notice it’s not just pride in general, God opposes /proud people/.

If you are not continually resisting pride in your own life, God will be resisting you, and the rest of the verse makes clear there is grace and blessing that He only gives to the humble.

A lack of fighting pride in your life results in a lack of grace in your life.

If you do not see personal pride as your enemy, you may soon have God as your enemy.

This is a war fought inside – our sins of pride and selfishness may be manifested outwardly, but that is only after we lose the battle on the inside.

Being a friend with the world, thinking the way the world does, in its selfishness and pride, is a serious sin to God, and we can never blame circumstances or others for our sin.

James 4:1-16 (NKJV) \\ 1 Where do wars and fights come from among you?

Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

\\ 2 You lust and do not have.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and war …

4 Adulterers and adulteresses!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity [NASB “hostility toward”] with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

\\ 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

\\ 6 But He gives more grace.

Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

Verse 6 is verbatim with 1 Peter 5:5 and both are a quotation from the Greek text of Proverbs.

Let’s look at some of the other things Solomon wrote in the context of Proverbs to see if I am being too strong when I speak of God’s hatred of pride

 

Proverbs 6:16-17 (NKJV) \\ 16 These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: \\ 17 A proud look [other versions have “haughty eyes” or “arrogant eyes”]

 

Not just the actions, but the attitude behind it, is the #1 thing that the Lord hates, that He abhors, that He abominates

 

Proverbs 8:13 (NKJV) \\ 13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate.

\\ \\

Proverbs 16:5 (NKJV) \\ 5 Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord … none will go unpunished.

\\ \\

God’s strongest language is used of this sin of even heart pride

 

Proverbs 16:18 (NKJV) \\ 18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.

\\ \\

Before destruction comes by our adversary, the devil, before any man or woman of God falls, there is haughtiness and pride

-          Pride was in some way involved in the original fall of mankind, when Satan tempted Eve in the garden with “you will be like God”

-          Pride in fact appears to be involved in the fall of the devil himself, the very first sin in the universe (Isa.

14)

-          Pride appears first in the list of sins God hates, and it was listed first in the list of “seven deadly sins” according to medieval theologians of centuries past

-          John Stott has written that pride “is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sin.”[2]

Andrew Murray called pride ‘the root of every sin and evil’[3]

Rotten apples come in all different types, but pride is at the core of our manifold varieties of rotten deeds; pride is at the root of every bad tree that bears bad fruit.

“Jonathan Edwards called pride ‘the worst viper that is in the heart’ and ‘the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ’; he ranked pride as the most difficult sin to root out, and ‘the most, hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts.’

… In his sermons and in his vast writings he constantly warned against pride, especially spiritual pride, which he viewed as the greatest cause of the premature ending of the Great Awakening …

 

[C.J. Mahaney writes that] Pride also undermines unity and can ultimately divide a church.

Show me a church where there’s division, where there’s quarreling, and I’ll show you a church where there’s pride.

Pride also brings down leaders.

‘Pride ruins pastors and churches more than any other thing,’ Mike Renihan has written.

‘It is more insidious in the church than radon in the home.’”[4]

Peter was serious when he tells us to be alert for this enemy.

Our church here has seen God’s kind providence and blessing in many ways.

There’s been a lot of changes in the past year, with a new young pastor coming in, we have a new building that required new debt from last year, we have a lot of new families and new people that have come, we have a new addition of a wonderful Christian school on our campus everyday, a lot of new things around campus that have been graciously provided by the school, and some of the things I’ve preached have been new to some.

The fact that with all these new things and changes, God has blessed and grown and preserved unity and been so clearly at work here is only due to God’s sheer mercy which we should praise Him for.

/But we must also be watchful and vigilant and be alert and guarding our hearts against pride toward those in the church and against those outside these walls, because it is precisely because of these blessings that we are a prime target for our prowling enemy who hates seeing what’s going on here and would love to either devour us, or use pride to cause us to devour each other.

/

 

Like a lion stalking his prey, which he wants to separate from the rest of the pack for better attacks, if we become separated from the unity and fellowship of the body, we are prone to pride’s attack.

The devil would love to interfere with God’s work here, to devour us by separation, strife, selfish thoughts, sinful attitudes, second-guessing the leadership, complaining about some of the changes or the school or the new building or a decision that was made without asking your input, looking down on others in the body for whatever reason, any sort of dissension or disunity.

He would love to destroy us with conflicts, gossip, or tensions between groups in the church, homeschoolers vs. non-homeschoolers, young people vs. older people, new families vs. longstanding members, PCS vs. GCBC – an “us vs. them” mentality; i.e., “I can’t believe /they /did this, or moved /my /stuff” or on Sunday, I can’t believe so-and-so is sitting in my seat, etc.

There could be controversies over music styles, preferences, things that you think should be done differently at the church, or if changes come thinking “how dare they change this – it’s always been done that way, don’t they know who I am?”

And the list goes on and on.

We would never say it out loud, but our actions say that “from /me /and to me and for me are all things”

 

If you are someone who finds yourself murmuring and grumbling proudly in your heart, remember that God refers to pride even in the heart as an abomination, and it was because of this type of sin that on more than one occasion he wiped out a whole bunch of Israelites in the wilderness.

*DEFINITION OF PRIDE: *‘The mindset of self … a focus on self and the service of self, a pursuit of self-recognition and self-exaltation, and a desire to control and use all things for self.’[5]

Biblical synonyms: vainglory, conceit, boasting, arrogance, loftiness, presumption, haughtiness, being puffed up, high-mindedness, scoffing, and self-seeking.

MANIFESTATIONS OF PRIDE (/From Pride to Humility, /by Stuart Scott, 6-10)

*Click Here to Purchase Online*

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Complaining against or passing judgment on God (Num.