—— Pastor Ken Claytor | "The Origin Of Pride" | (follow along) | Aug. 18, 2024

• Deuteronomy 8:1-20
  • ↪ Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

THE ORIGIN OF PRIDE

• What is pride?
  • Pride is the cancer of the soul.
  • Inordinate self esteem; an unreasonable conceit of ones own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank or elevation in office, which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve and often in the contempt of others.
• Pride is also..
  • 1. boastful
  • 2. haughtiness
  • 3. arrogance
  • 4. superiority.
• Pride is the lifting up of self while pushing others down. Thinking too little of others and of God.

WHERE DOES PRIDE COME FROM?

• Pride comes from Satan himself.
• Isaiah 14:12-15
  • ↪ How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.
• Ezekiel 28:15-17
  • ↪ You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.
• Pride was there with the original sin.
• Genesis 3:3-5
  • ↪ But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
• Most believe pride is the root behind all sin.
• Psalm 10:4
  • ↪ In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
• Romans 12:3
  • ↪ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
• When our pride puffs up, God will bring us low.
• 1 Peter 5:6
  • ↪ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
• Romans 12:16
  • ↪ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
• Do not be divided over anything. (skin color, job position, how a person votes, etc)
• Treat each person you meet fairly and like family. We are all family under God.
• Philippians 2:3
  • ↪ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves
• Pray the renouncing pride prayer: x