Month: June 2023

The End of Pride

Today is the end of the month of June, or as it has come to be called, Pride Month.

Though many people celebrate this month to show pride in their lifestyle, I am glad it’s over. For one, it’s a public celebration of sins which God calls abominations (Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 22:5, 1 Corinthians 6:9, etc.). But second, the very name, “Pride Month,” gets something very wrong; it exalts that which the Church has long considered to be one of the “deadly sins,” namely: pride.

What is pride? The dictionary has two different definitions. The first one sounds good: “A sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect.”* This is the kind of pride used in the country song, “I’m Proud To Be An American” or in expressions about a sports victory, a good test score at school, or raising happy and successful children. This kind of pride rejoices that God made us in his image as the pinnacle of creation, and sent his Son to die for us. Pride in this sense is better than its opposite: shame.

Unfortunately, pride has a second definition, which is “Arrogant or disdainful conduct or treatment; haughtiness.”* This is overweening pride, the kind in which a person thinks of him or herself as better than others, or even better than God. This is the kind of pride that God detests.

The Bible is full of condemnations against sinful pride. Here are just a few of the many pronouncements:  Proverb 8:13 – “Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.”; Proverbs 11:2 – “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.”; Proverbs 29:23 – “One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.”; 2 Samuel 2:28 – “You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.” Jesus himself warned in  Mark 7:21-23 -“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Take note that pride is ranked with murder and immorality as defiling a person.

The Bible gives us examples of people who let pride puff themselves up and paid the price for it

1.  Adam and Eve. Why did they disobey God’s one prohibition and eat the forbidden fruit? The tempter framed it as able to make them “be like God,”   (Genesis 3:5). 1 John 2:16 calls this sin, the pride of life.” And what was the penalty for the pride of wanting to be like God? Only banishment from paradise, suffering, and death.

2. Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel 4, the Babylonian king learns the pitfalls of pride the hard way. He begins by surveying his magnificent city and says, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” God immediately rebuked him, and caused him to go mad, crawl like an ox and eat grass. Finally, after being duly humbled and restored to sanity, the king summed up his ordeal by saying, “and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (4:37).

3. Theudas. In Acts 5:36, the Pharisee Gamaliel, spoke of a false Messiah who paid the price for puffing himself up: “For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.”

Truly, these example prove that Proverbs 16:18 is correct when it proclaims: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

But why does God treat pride so harshly? Because we sin when we look at ourselves as not needing God. Basically, we put ourselves in God’s place, attributing our accomplishments to our own wisdom and strength, rather than praising God for what he has done for us. Psalm 10:4 says, “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.'” In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther explained the First Commandment as meaning we are to recognize that all good comes from God. To look elsewhere (such as to ourselves), is to make a god out of that other thing.

Paul warned against this sinful pride when he wrote, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight” (Romans 12:16″ and “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). He affirmed that true Christian love seeks what is good for the other person in humility: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant” (1 Corinthian 13:4).

Today, the world is full of pride, whether celebrated in parades, boasted in the number of “likes” on social media sites, or shown by conspicuous consumption of high priced things. Isaiah warns that the day will come when all our markers of self-exalting pride will be stripped away. He says, “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (2:11), and “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless” (13:11).

Fortunately, we sinners – who are also guilty of pride – have a way out. The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk point the way in his book: “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” And what is the faith by which we shall live? Simply this: faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, who did not grasp onto the pride which he deserved as the eternal God, but humbled himself to become man and die for our sins. By faith in him all our sins- even pride – are forgiven.

One day, all human pride will end as we stand before the throne of God at the final judgment. We will hear proclaimed the name of our Savior, and then “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). Some will bow in joy, others in terror. but all will bow humbly, as we realize that we can boast of nothing in ourselves before the Almighty God (1 Corinthians 1:29). That’s when pride shall meet its final end.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen

Read: Daniel 4:28-37; 1 Corinthians 1:28-31; Ephesians 2:8-10.

*American heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition.

**Also known as “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood, 1983.

Free At Last!

Our nation is about to observe its newest federal holiday: Juneteenth. Although the federal holiday is only two years old, various states and localities have celebrated Juneteenth since 1866. The celebration commemorates the day, June 19th (=June-teenth), 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for the slaves in Texas, just two months after the end of the Civil War. Although Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) had already announced the end of slavery in the rebellious states, it was up to the Union army to conquer those states and enforce the proclamation. General Granger’s declaration is considered the final step in that process.

At first, the commemorations took place in churches, especially in Texas, but then they spread to other locales and other venues. In 1980 it became a state holiday in Texas, and in 2021 a federal holiday.

It is right to celebrate freedom.  We celebrate our freedom from Great Britain every July 4th. We sing it in our national anthem in the closing words, “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” We often say, “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” (Not to be confused with the phrase, “Buy one, get one free!”) Our Constitution’s Bill of Rights enshrines our God-given freedoms of religion, speech, press, etc. and Franklin Roosevelt is remembered for his speech in 1941 that announced his desire for four universal freedoms: of speech, of religion, from fear, and from want. There is something innate within us that yearns to be free from oppression, coercion, and control. We want to be free to “do our own thing,” whatever that thing may be.

Unfortunately, the same impulse for political freedom can also be our undoing, when it leads us to do things harmful to ourselves and others by breaking the laws of nature, society, and God.

1. Nature’s laws are equal-opportunity restrictions. Everyone is bound by gravity and the necessities of air, food, and water. I may be free to do so, but if I use drugs, jump from a tall building, or crash my car into  a tree, I will suffer the natural consequences of my actions.  Wisdom is knowing how and when to exercise my freedom in ways that do no harm to anyone, myself included.

2. Society’s laws. Because people don’t always use good judgment in using their freedoms, or outright misuse them, society has to regulate our actions to protect us from each other. Traffic regulations, contract law, and laws against abuse, assault, theft and murder are examples of rules that limit our actions for the benefit of everyone. Although these days we are being over-regulated by an ever-increasing bureaucracy, government has a God-given responsibility to restrain evil (Romans 13:4).

3. God’s laws. These are the most important laws of all, yet the ones we have broken from the very beginning. The first law God gave Adam and Eve was not to eat from one forbidden tree, but their desire to be free from any such rule brought sin into the world, resulting in the punishment of pain and death. Mankind’s rebellion did not end there, but has continued on in every person of every generation ever since. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. . .”

No one would desire to be a slave, owned and controlled by someone else, but when we sin, we become slaves to sin. This is obvious when we indulge our desires with alcohol, drugs, pornography, or gambling, because addictions are a form of slavery. But it is just as true for every sin which binds us to the world. The Apostle Paul warns in Romans 6 that Christians are not to become slaves to sin by submitting to it, for they have been freed from that bondage by their baptism into Christ. Ultimately, we will either be slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness.  As Romans 6:18 says, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Slaves to righteousness? We humans rebel against those words. Why would we exchange one f0rm of slavery for another? Didn’t Jesus promise us freedom from oppression (Luke 4:18)? Didn’t he say, “. . .  you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)? Yes, he did. But note the context for his promises:  In Luke 4 he promised freedom from oppression, which is release from sin’s bondage. And in John 8, his promise of freedom is contingent on us knowing the truth. And how do we know the truth? He gives us the answer in verse 31: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth . . .”  So being set free means to be obedient to Christ.

I once heard an analogy about freedom and slavery. Think of a train. It is a powerful machine, capable of great speeds and strength, able to pull heavy loads from one place to another. The train is “free” to perform as it was designed to do – as long as it remains on the tracks. But, if you remove the train from its tracks, the train will just bog down in the dirt and not go anywhere. It loses its freedom. Likewise, when people are on the tracks of God’s commandments, they are free to live as God designed them to live; but when they try to live off the seemingly confining “tracks” laid down by our Creator, they become mired in sin.

The Jewish leaders who confronted Jesus in John 8 were offended when he promised to set them free. They objected, claiming to never having been slaves. They forgot that as a nation, they had been enslaved numerous times before, and had to be liberated by God. They were enslaved in Egypt until the Exodus; they were imprisoned by the Babylonians who destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple; the Greeks conquered them and oppressed them under Antiochus Epiphanes; and in Jesus’ day, they chafed under Roman rule. Now, their ultimate Deliverer stood before them, offering them the greatest freedom of all – from sin and death – yet they failed to recognize their bondage.

That’s the same problem people face today. Thinking themselves to be wise, they become fools (Romans 1:22); thinking themselves to be free from God’s moral restraints, they become even more enslaved. Let us recognize those areas of our lives where we have allowed sin to enslave us, and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth (John 16:13) and thereby set us free to be the people of God he wants us to be.

Ultimately, Christ will raise us to new life unshackled to a mortal body bound by the curse of sin and death. No more slavery to sin or to the oppressors of this world.

Then, we can join in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who ended his famous “I Have a Dream” speech with the exultation: “Free at last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”*

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Romans 6

*Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream”, August 28,1963 at the Mall in Washington, D.C.