WHAT EVER BECAME OF SIN?

Lenten Series: The Seven Deadly Sins: Pride

A sermon based on Luke 18: 9-14

Preached by Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

On a sunny day in September, 1972, a stern-face, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street corner in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrians hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, intone loudly the single word "GUILTY!"
Then, without any change of expression, he would resume his stiff stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture.  Then, again, the inexorable raising of the arm, the pointing, and the solemn pronouncing of the one word "GUILTY!"(1)

Members of the lunch hour crowd would stare as they passed by at the strange performance.  They would stop for a moment, look away, glance at each other, look back at the man, and then hurry on their ways. One man, turning to another, exclaimed: "But how did he know?"   

Are we all guilty?  And, if so, of what?  and before whom?  and can we ever straighten it out?    These are questions that begin the book by the great Psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger, who once asked: “Whatever Became of Sin.”  In a society that STILL FEELS GUILTY but no longer understands why; we are a people who talk less and less about sin; especially our own.   Of course, I might be somewhat willing to talk about “your sin”, but when it comes to DEALING WITH THE THINGS WE PERSONALLY NEED TO CONFESS or work out in our own lives, most all of us live in a state of constant denial.

THE WORSE SIN OF ALL

WE ARE NOT THE FIRST PEOPLE TO HAVE DIFFICULTY TAKING ABOUT OUR SINS.  In one of his great parables, Jesus told us a lot about sin.  He did not give us a scientific analysis, but HE GAVE US A STORY.  This classic biblical story not only tells us what it MEANS TO BE A SINNER, it also tells us WHAT IS THE WORSE SIN OF ALL. 

What do you think is THE WORSE SIN OF ALL?  Would you say MURDER?  Would you say HATE?  Well, that one didn’t make the top ten.  Would you say it was something more practical like THEFT, disobeying parents or lying?  WHAT IS THE WORSE sin of all?  Some of you MAY ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA, but in order to help us consider this topic, LET’S LOOK at this story from Jesus for a moment.  It’s found in Luke 18: 9-14 in ONE OF TWO PARABLES Jesus told about prayer.  

But first, we need a review.  In the FIRST PARABLE about prayer in Luke 18: 1-8,  we can find WHAT WE EXPECT JESUS TO SAY.  He tells about A WIDOW WHO KEPT COMING TO A JUDGE for help even though he kept telling her to get lost.  But this helpless widow was persistent.  She never gave up.   FINALLY, because the judge was simply TIRED OF LISTENING TO HER COMPLAINTS and even though he was not a believer, nor a very good fellow, he gave in to her and granted her request for help.  

With such a story about prayer, Jesus taught his disciples that just AS THIS WOMAN KEPT ON ASKING, WE SHOULD KEPT PRAYING.  We should keep on praying and believing in faith, because God is much more willing to do right by us.  OUR GOD IS NOT AN UNBELIEVING, UNJUST JUDGE, but he is our willing, caring and faithful heavenly father who wants to do for us, more than we sometimes want to do for ourselves.    This was the FIRST PERSPECTIVE Jesus gave on prayer.  Be faithful.  NEVER GIVE UP.  Do not lose heart.   EXPECT THAT GOD IS ON YOUR SIDE and wants to do right just as much as you do.

NOW COMES THE SECOND LESSON about prayer.  You remember the story don’t you?  It’s ABOUT TWO MEN WHO WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE to pray; one being a Pharisee, or a very religious fellow, and the other being Tax Collector, someone other though of in the lowest human terms.  In the story, IT IS THE PHARISEE WHO IS THE “STAR” of the story.   He is the one who “stands by himself” and prays, “THANK GOD, I’M NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE.  I fast.  I give my tithe.  I do all the “right” things.  But now, in contrast, JESUS TELLS US OF THE TAX COLLECTOR.  The tax collector prays in a whole different way.   This tax collector stands far off from others.  He will not even hold his head up to pray, but KEEPS IT BOWED while he beats his chest he says: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

ABOUT THIS SECOND PERSON; both in how he prays and what he prays, that Jesus says; “I tell you, THIS MAN WENT DOWN TO HIS HOME JUSTIFIED rather than the other.”   The story ends up being a particular, much needed lesson in prayer.   Learning to pray, says Jesus is much less about the newest techniques, but learning to pray is much MORE ABOUT WHO WE ARE WHEN WE PRAY.   Prayer is much MORE THAN THE WORDS of prayer, about being the right kind of pray-ER.    

Right at the very beginning of THE SECOND PARABLE Jesus tells us that THIS PARABLE IS MEANT SPECIFICALLY FOR PEOPLE who have a very SERIOUS PROBLEM that can INTERFERE with their prayer life.   The people who have the greatest problem in prayer do two things wrong:  THEY “TRUST IN THEMSELVES that they were “righteous” enough already, and at the same time, they trust in themselves, as THEY ARE LOOKING DOWN ON OTHERS, regarding them “with contempt.” 

SIN WITH A NAME ON IT

Can you see how this lesson about prayer FITS RIGHT INTO OUR OPENING DISCUSSION about sin?    Sin is not always what we think it is.  Sin is NOT HALF AS MUCH ABOUT THE THINGS WE DO WRONG as much as it is about THE KIND OF PERSON WE ARE when we do wrong.    Even behind a lot of good words and right deeds, we can still be a sinner; and worse of all we might not even be able to see or realize it.    In fact, some of the WORSE SINNERS are all dressed up in their Sunday best. 

DO YOU SEE WHAT JESUS IS SAYING?  THE GREATEST THREAT TO LIVING A LIFE OF PRAYER as a disciple of Jesus Christ, is NOT WHAT WE DO OR HAVE DONE WRONG, but the GREATEST THREAT to our being Christian is IN WHAT WE THINK ABOUT OURSELVES.  WHEN WE THINK WE ARE BETTER THAN SOMEONE ELSE; when we think WE ARE ALL RIGHT and others are all wrong; and worse of all, when we think that WE OURSELVES ARE RIGHTEOUS ENOUGH to stand before God on our own merit, making up our religion by our own rules; this is the WORSE SIN OF ALL. 

Of course THERE IS A NAME FOR THIS “WORSE SIN of all.”   When you THINK YOU ARE A GOOD person; and when you LOOK DOWN on others, you are engaging it what the church and THE BIBLE TEACH TO BE “THE ROOT SIN”, that is the SOURCE OF ALL OTHER SINS, the sin of pride, or vainglory. 

Pride?  What does that word CONJURE UP IN YOUR MIND? 

Of course we can SEE THE SIN OF PRIDE IN THIS PHARISEE who went to the temple and prayed, thanking God he was BETTER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE.”  But CAN WE SEE THE SIN OF PRIDE or VAINGLORY IN OURSELVES?  

One picture of pride that comes to my mind is the great boasting boxer, Muhammad Ali.   Remember him---the guy that said he “floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.”  Ali had just won another boxing title and on the airplane fly home, the stewardess politely said to him, "You need to fasten your seat belt." To which Ali replied, "Superman don't need no seat belt." To which the stewardess politely responded, "AND SUPERMAN DOESN'T NEED AN AIRPLANE EITHER; PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT."

We can all see a certain amount of pride in ourselves, and some of it appears rather harmless.  But CAN WE also SEE how DANGEROUS PRIDE can become?  Can we see that pride is not just in the WRONG THINKING we have about ourselves, but that the most dangerous forms of pride hide in the  GOOD DEEDS or the GOOD LIFE we say we live?   Can we see sin right in middle of our own little Garden of Eden we have worked to build for ourselves?

Scripture tells us that this root sin was RIGHT THERE IN THE GARDEN of Eden FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.  Didn’t you see it in Adam and Eve?   The classic story tells that God had given Adam and Eve everything in a wonderful paradise and expected only one thing in return: they were to REMEMBER THAT HE WAS GOD AND THEY WEREN’T.  As Humans, they were to remember their limits, even with all their beautiful human potential, and THEY WERE NOT TO PARTAKE IN THE FRUIT of the forbidden tree that was put there to remind them they were not God.   That sounded like a good deal.  All this for one little rule.  But this tree kept bugging them.  Adam and Eve must have thought to themselves, just as we think to ourselves; AREN’T WE GOOD ENOUGH TO HAVE THAT TREE TOO?  Can’t we have our cake and eat it too?  And when they BEGAN TO THINK THEY WERE GOOD ENOUGH, good enough to start living life by THEIR OWN RULES, it was then that Adam and Eve LET THEIR OWN PRIDE TAKE OVER and partook in the forbidden fruit.   Thus, pride has been there, right from the beginning and it is what turns us all into sinners.  

BUT PRIDE IS NOT ALL A BAD THING, IS IT?   Don’t we like to take “pride” in our work?  Don’t we like to try to GET OUR CHILDREN TO TAKE “PRIDE” in who they are?  Isn’t one of LIFE’S GREATEST PROBLEMS that we let our SELF-ESTEEM GET TOO LOW?  I mean look at this POOR GUY IN JESUS’ PARABLE.  There he is “beating himself on the chest” THINKING HE’S NO GOOD TO ANYBODY, not even to God.  What good is that?  Can’t a certain amount of pride about our lives BE A GOOD THING?   The Bible does say, doesn’t it, that we should love our neighbor, AS WE LOVE OURSELVES?  Is pride really all that wrong?

C. S. LEWIS, who is in the news lately with the release of the Chronicles of Narnia, was not only a DEVOTED CHRISTIAN, but was also an Oxford Scholar.  AS A ENGLISH SCHOLAR, once said, “When we say in English that a man is “proud of his son, or his father, or his school, or regiment, and it may be asked whether pride in this sense is a sin.  I THINK IT DEPENDS on what, exactly, WE MEAN BY “PROUD OF”.

Girolamo Savonarola was one of the GREAT PREACHERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. He preached in the great CATHEDRAL OF FLORENCE, Italy, which contained a magnificent marble statue of the blessed virgin Mary.  When Savonarola STARTED PREACHING at this great cathedral, he noticed one day AN ELDERLY WOMAN PRAYING before this statue of Mary. He then began to notice that it was HER HABIT to come every day and pray before the statue.

SAVONAROLA REMARKED one day to an elderly priest who had been serving in the cathedral for many years, "LOOK HOW DEVOTED and earnest this woman is. Every day she comes and offers prayers to the blessed Mother of Jesus. WHAT A MARVELOUS ACT OF FAITH." But the elderly priest replied, "DO NOT BE DECEIVED by what you see. Many years ago WHEN THE SCULPTOR NEEDED A MODEL TO POSE for this statue of the blessed Mother, HE HIRED a BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN to sit for him. This devout worshiper you see here everyday is that young woman. SHE IS WORSHIPING WHO SHE USED TO BE."

The Oxford Dictionary defines pride as an "UNDULY HIGH OPINION OF ONE'S OWN QUALITIES, MERITS, that is, AN ARROGANT BEARING." In other words, PRIDE IS SELF-LOVE, a centeredness upon self, that does more than expresses a simple love and respect for oneself, but it is a self-love that says, "I'M BETTER THAN YOU."  It is the kind of pride of  that GETS STUCK ON ONESELF and ones own opinion so much that they CAN’T LET IT GO and won’t give in and  EVERYONE ELSE IS EXPECTED TO PAY HOMAGE to them, what they think, what they’ve done and who they are.  That is selfish, destructive, and evil pride.

Now before you think that pride is not SOMETHING YOU AND I WOULD EVER DO because you and I are Christians, let me remind you what else is said about Pride: Pride is SOMETIMES CALLED THE CHRISTIAN’S SIN.  It is called the Christian sin exactly BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENS in Jesus’ parable.  IT IS THE RIGHTEOUS MAN, or at least the man who thinks he righteous, WHO GOES HOME UNJUSTIFIED, while IT IS THE SINNER, who knows that HE IS IN NO WAY RIGHTEOUS, who goes home being made just.  Why does this happen?  How does pride and self-righteousness get into the way of being truly righteous?  HOW DOES OUR OWN SELFISH PRIDE become the worse sin of all?

CHRISTLIKE HUMILTY OVERCOMES PRIDE

Let me answer this right away: PRIDE IS THE SIN OF THE RIGHTEOUS PERSON, not because they try to be good or righteous.  Pride is the sin of the righteous person BECAUSE SIN HAS AFFECTED AND INFECTED EVERYMAN, every woman, every person.  Pride IS THE WORSE SIN, not because it is “worse” than other sins, but because IT IS THE ONE SIN WE ARE ALL MOST LIKELY TO SUCCUMB and SURRENDER TO. 

HOW DO WE COMMIT THE SIN OF PRIDE?   This is the easy part.  Our text tells us straight up.  Jesus told this parable about the Pharisee who was prideful to “some who trusted in themselves.”   At the very core of selfish human pride is one dreadful for of false worship: THE IDOLATRY OF THE SELF.   When we put SELF ON THE THRONE OF OUR LIFE, our own opinions; our own actions; and our own feelings matter most.   WHEN WHAT WE THINK, SAY AND DO MATTERS MOST AND WHAT GOD SAYS MATTERS LESS, then we have broken the FIRST AND SECOND COMMANDMENTS: “You shall have no other gods besides me…”  and “You shall not make for yourself an idol…you shall not bow down to them…

So, PRIDE IS THE GREATEST SIN because it puts “YOU” ON THE THRONE and that is one place no one belongs except God.   When life must revolve around you: When you are IN A FAMILY and ONLY YOUR OPINION MATTERS…You are on the throne.  When you are IN A COMMUNITY and ONLY YOUR OPINION MATTERS… you are on the throne.  When you ARE IN A CHURCH and only YOUR OPINION MATTERS… again, you have placed yourself on the throne and you have displaced God.  WHEN IT IS ABOUT YOU… YOU… YOU… and not about him, him, him and not about others too… then you have STEPPED ACROSS THE LINE and MOVED INTO IDOL WORSHIP, which is self-destructive of the person God has made you to be.

Now, to the PENULTIMATE QUESTION: HOW DO WE PREVENT PRIDE and how can we stop “sin” at its source?  Well, let me be honest with you and say that WE CAN’T.  In this world where we all live post-paradise, after Adam and Eve, there is no way that we can prevent pride or sin from creeping into our lives.  We are sinners.  Even after we become Christians, WE ARE STILL SINNERS.  Christians do sometimes behave badly too.  KNOWING CHRIST should redeem and shape our behavior, but it does not stop us from being sinners.  We can, through Christ’s power, overcome certain sins, but we can never overcome all sin.  The sin we can overcome doesn’t happen all at once either.  Overcoming sin in us IS A PROCESS and it is a work of the Spirit.  It is a process that takes time with God and EFFORT ON OUR PART.  Yes, I know we sometimes don’t like to admit that WE MUST HAVE WORKS with our faith, but that is exactly what the Scripture says: faith without works is dead, being alone.  We are not saved by works, but OUR FAITH MUST WORK OR what we have is DEAD faith; and dead faith is no good at all.

THE KIND OF WORK that helps us overcome pride should come as no surprise.  It is the work of humility revealed in the humility of Jesus on the cross.  IN CHRIST, WE SEE BOTH WHAT PRIDE DOES AND HOW IT IS OVERCOME.   In his story we see how HUMAN SIN PUT JESUS ON THE CROSS, and HOW JESUS RESPONDS TO HUMAN SIN with his own self-chosen humility.   In Philipians 2, Paul describes the way Jesus modeled the kind of humility that defeats pride, because Jesus “was in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God something that should be exploited and he emptied himself…taking the form of a slave…humbling himself and being obedient unto death…”    Paul says that we should have “this mind which was also in Jesus Christ.”   The ONLY WAY TO STOP THE GROWTH OF DANGEROUS AND DESTRUCTIVE PRIDE is to practice the humility of Jesus Christ.

Understanding how “humility” works against the growth of dangerous pride, CONSIDER ONCE MORE THE PARABLE of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  The PHARISEE SAW NO NEED in himself.  He saw no need to repent; and he also had NO NEED OF OTHERS.  And WHAT DO WE SEE HIM DOING but also worshipping all “alone”.  WE SEE HIM GOING HOME WITHOUT GOD’S WORK OF GRACE in his heart because he only sees his life as between him and God alone.  On the other hand, the TAX COLLECTOR entered the worship place with a completely DIFFERENT ATTITUDE.  He held nothing back and humbled himself before God, admitting that he was just one of many sinners crying out: God be merciful to me, a sinner!    ONLY HE WENT HOME JUSTIFIED, having God’s work fully accomplished in his life.   

Don’t miss the real difference in the two.  It is only THE ONE WHO COULD SEE THAT HE WAS NO BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE that only received the gift of grace and forgiveness.  IT was not WRONG that prevented God’s saving work, but it THE INABILITY TO SEE WE ARE ALL WRONG in our own ways that prevented God’s saving work.  Living together in Humility opens the door of our hearts to God.  The PRIDE of standing above, beyond or being better than others SHUTS THE DOOR of our hearts and hinders God’s work.

At Christmas a few years ago, THE YOUTH AT OUR CHURCH GAVE A WONDERFUL LITTLE PLAY about the challenge some city cousins had getting to know and appreciate their country cousins.  It was hilarious.   Let me tell you a SIMILAR TRUE STORY.   A CITY BOY VISITED HIS COUSIN WHO LIVED ON A FARM in the country for the first time. The city boy had never seen wheat growing in a field. It was an impressive sight for him, the WHEAT GOLDEN BROWN AND READY for harvesting. He noticed that SOME OF THE WHEAT STOOD TALL in the field, whereas SOME OF IT WAS BENT LOW, touching the ground. The city boy said to his cousin, "I bet the ONES STANDING TALL ARE THE BEST ONES, aren't they?"

His cousin smiled knowingly and reached over and PLUCKED THE HEAD of one of the tall-standing wheat stalks and one that was bent to the ground. HE RUBBED EACH OF THEM and the city boy saw that the TALL ONE WAS ALMOST EMPTY of seeds. But the one BENT TO THE GROUND WAS FULL, FULL OF THE PROMISE of a very rich harvest. 

That’s how God sees the richness of our humility too.  TRUE HUMILITY, as Scot McKnight says, DOES NOT COME FROM BECOMING OBSESSED WITH OUR SINS; this produces guilt, not grace.   It was not his sins that captured the Tax Collector’s mind, but it was God’s mercy.   TRUE HUMILITY COMES FROM SEEING GOD’S MERCY THAT IS GREATER THAN ALL OUR SIN, as the song says.  You can only honestly face yourself as a sinner when you know that God will be merciful to you.  Mercy works to humble us because GOD’S LOVE IS NOT BASED ON WHO YOU ARE NOR WHO YOU AREN’T.  God’s love is only based on who God is.  This is what makes God’s love and mercy most humbling:  IT IS COMPLETELY UNCONDITIONAL.  In the Bible, it is not being uniquely loved by God that saves us, but it is being loved by God’s unique love; a God who loves us like God’s loves everyone else.  That is not only the most humbling to us, it is also what is most saving, most redeeming and the greatest piece of “humble pie” you’ll ever eat. 

Truly enjoy the humility of God’s mercy and you will lose, “ALL YOUR GUILTY STAINS” and you will also lose the hardest stain of all ---YOUR PRIDE!     Amen.