August 28, 2016—The 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon on Proverbs 25:6-8

Theme: The Power or Pride

It’s Curse

It’s Cure

First Lesson: Proverbs 25:6-8

Second Lesson: James 2:1-13

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Hymns: CW 458, 392, 397, 319

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Dear Friends in Christ,

Sometimes the results of pride can be a little humorous, as long as that is it doesn’t happen to you. The soccer goalie makes an amazing save! He dives to block the ball from going into the goal. Then He jumps up and looks at the crowd and literally pats himself on the chest, while right behind him the still spinning ball slowly goes across the now undefended goal line.

Other times pride causes horrible tragedy. They said the Titanic was ‘unsinkable.’ So when radio messages came in of icebergs in the sea lanes, they kept sailing at full speed. And even the iceberg put a hole along its side, the chairman of the Titanic’s company insisted the captain keep sailing which only made the ship sink all the quicker. Add in enough life boats for only half the passengers, remember it’s unsinkable and more than 1500 people drown because of human pride.

Pride is powerfully destructive. It has bankrupted companies, lost battles, toppled kingdoms and careers, ended friendships, ruined marriages and doomed countless souls. Today’s lessons confront us with the horrible Power of Pride so that we might see Pride’s Curse, but most of all, cling to Its Cure.

Using language from the royal court 3,000 years ago, our first lesson warns against pride: Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and do not claim a place among great men; it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here," than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman.

Exalt yourself means to lift yourself up, or as we might say: to think highly of yourself, to point yourself and who you are or what you can do. One Bible translation captures the thought this way: Don’t brag about yourself before the king (HCSB). The reason people would brag before a king is so that they could get something from the king: money, power or position. Pride, greed and selfishness all go together as pride says: “Hey of course I should I get that, after all I deserve it!”

Now I don’t think any of us are going to go around bragging about our accomplishments in front of a king’s throne to try to get some favor. And yet these verses still speak right to you and me. After all, we are always in the presence of God, the great King who sees and knows everything, including how the sin of pride that stains your heart and mine and shows itself in so many ways.

To acknowledge we have gifts and talents and to be grateful for them is not wrong. But I think we know how easily we can start to view good blessings with the pride that things we have earned and deserved, the pride that forgets all that we have, including our life and abilities all come as a gift from God. When that happens, bragging about what we’ve done isn’t far behind.

Of course pride has a great way of making it so much easier to see prides and faults in others, but overlook what’s wrong with ourselves. It’s a lot easier after all, to point out Donald Trump’s arrogance or a coworkers bragging than to take an honest look at the sinful pride lurking in our own hearts!

Pride can also take the shape of craving attention and pity by focusing on what we don’t have and complaining instead of counting our blessings.

Pride makes us slow to admit we were wrong and even slower to want to apologize for it. In fact, we even have a saying for admitting you’re wrong: “swallowing your pride.” And its pride makes it hard for us to let go and forgive when others have wronged us.

Pride goes with jealousy and envy. It’s pride that makes us upset when the other person gets the bigger piece of cake, the better place on the team, the job promotion, the bigger fish as pride screams: I deserve better! Pride also stands behind the impatience that comes when we’re stuck in a line, or with that person who wants some of our time, because pride thinks: my time is more valuable than theirs.

Pride is what can lead us to be angry with God and doubt his care for us when things go wrong in our lives. For sinful pride is so powerful, it even dares to say I deserve better and I know better than the all knowing, all powerful Creator and sustainer of the universe!

Martin Luther once spoke of pride as the mother of all sin. Pride was at the heart of the very first sin. The devil’s temptation to Adam and Eve was not “here’s some yummy fruit”, but this: when you eat of it, you will be like God. In other words, don’t listen to God, you be god for yourself and you call your own shots!

Such horrible pride still stands behind every sin. Pride makes us want to be god for ourselves and call our own shots when we don’t agree with the commands God gave in His word for our good! Every sin amounts to the pride of saying I want my way instead of your way God. Its sinful pride that makes us want to resist what Jesus teaches us about humbly putting others first. Sinful pride shouts, but then I might miss out on something I really want!

And if for some reason, we don’t think our sin of pride is so bad, then we’d do well to listen to what Luther said about that: No one is more arrogant than the fellow who dares to say that he is free of all arrogance. After all, to say otherwise is to disagree with God who says that we all have sinned!

How great is the power of pride’s curse that it causes so much sin and trouble! And how great is the punishment it deserves! Pride and all its sin earns us an eternal humbling in the everlasting shame of hell. And we can get ourselves out the eternal ruin sin deserves no more than we can get rid of our old sinful heart’s temptation toward pride.

But what we couldn’t do, God did! The power of sinful pride met its match in the One we’ve come to worship today, the One who is greater than us, the One who gives to us the cure for deadly disease of sinful pride that sickens our souls to death. And that Cure is none other than Himself. The Cure is Jesus!

For the eternal and glorious Lord, who made and holds all things together chose to serve and save his fallen creatures! He who lives in uninterrupted majesty and glory that is His right as God, He chose to give it up for a time, because He did not think of Himself, but about what was best for us! He who is outside of time, chose to have a birthday. He who present everywhere, chose to wrapped in cloths and placed in a manger! The glorious Son of God came into this world not demanding a golden palace, but was content with a stable and a poor Jewish family. Jesus came in the true humility that is the opposite of sinful pride. Jesus came putting others first, even the sinful, prideful human beings who were by nature His enemies.

Jesus never said I deserve better, even though He did! Jesus did not say I deserve better when He went hungry in the wilderness or when His own people laughed at Him and rejected Him. He did not say I deserve better, when he had disciples who were slow to learn just like we are, disciples who were argued about which one of them was greatest even as their Lord and Master prepared to do the work of a servant and wash their feet.

Jesus lived His entire life free from even the slightest trace of sinful pride, impatience, jealousy and hey look at me, that you and I know too all well in our world and in ourselves. His disciples wanted Jesus to soak up the glory in Capernaum, but He humbly turned aside to teach and preach in the little villages. When the crowd offered Jesus an earthly crown, He turned away from it and took the path led only to a crown of thorns!

Few things hurt our pride as much as getting blamed for something you didn’t do! But Jesus humbly accepts the guilty verdict He did not deserve, and all without complaint! He only deserves life and glory volunteered to take our place and on the cross suffer the hell and death for every second of our pride, every time we were slow so I was wrong. And though sinful pride can make us slow to forgive, even while dying Jesus forgave those Roman soldiers, and you and me too!

Jesus is even humble in his death! The Egyptian Kings made wonders of the world for their graves, but God made Man who dies in our place in the greatest act of love is buried in a borrowed tomb! But He does not stay there, but rises again in glory to prove He has won the victory over the sin of human pride: the victory over hell and death!

In Jesus, we have the Cure for the guilt of our sinful pride. For He alone takes away the foul stain of our sin with His cleansing blood and He alone covers our failure to humbly put others first with His own spotless record of humble service.

In Jesus, we also have the Cure to living a life ruled by sinful pride. The old Lenten hymn teaches how: When I survey the wondrous cross one which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. When we look at Jesus suffering that horrible hell and death on the cross, we start to see just how horrible we really are of ourselves, how bad our sin and pride is that it caused that, the death of God in our human flesh. So let us survey the wondrous cross of Jesus and pour contempt on our pride, be ashamed of and confess our sinful pride and selfishness.

But then once again survey the wondrous cross of Jesus and see Him suffering all that, not because He is forced to, but because He wants to, because He thinks only of you and saving you from death so that you will live with him in joy! See how His perfect love and humble service has saved you, forgiven you and changed you as He raised you up to faith in Him. And then again pour contempt on all our pride, praying: “Lord help me to live more like you, humbly following your word, putting others first, fighting down pride in humble service so that through my life others might see not me, but you and your amazing love that saves!

Look to Jesus as the Cure for sinful pride. See Jesus, the Greatest King who chose to give Himself for you, so that in His promises to you in Baptism, Bible and the Lord’s Supper He speaks to us that phrase in our reading: Come up here. Yes, Jesus, the King of kings says to you Come up here into the forgiving arms of your God who gives you every spiritual blessing: forgiveness of sins, peace, and a place in the family of God. And then know one day he will also say to you: “Come up here, to the place I earned and prepared for you. Come up here to my heavenly banquet hall and the endless joy and end celebration of my eternal home!”

See that Jesus has not given us what we actually deserve, but only what He earned for us. And let that glorious message raise you up again to humbly live for Jesus each day. Amen.

Lord, increase our faith. Amen.

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