Protected from Pride (The Protection of Proverbs #4)
Open up your Bible with me to Proverbs chapter 3, verses 1 through 8, as we continue our series in the book of Proverbs.
Today we’re talking about a word called pride — and pride means different things to different people.
My guess is that some of you said something today like, “Dad, I’m so proud of you.” That is not the kind of pride we’re discussing. That’s an admiring sort of emotion, and it’s a good thing.
We’re talking about a different kind: an over-inflated view of ourselves based on our knowledge or our accomplishments.
“The Great Sin”
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis calls pride the great sin. He observes that there is no fault which makes a person more unpopular, and no fault we are more unconscious of in ourselves — and that the more we have of it, the more we dislike seeing it in others. The virtue opposite to it, he says, is humility. Pride leads to every other vice; it is, in his words, the complete anti-God state of mind.
But pride can also be far subtler than that.
My First Car
What was your first car?
Mine was a blue 1984 Mercury Marquis with leather interior. For a high school student, that was magnificent.
I’ll never forget driving along the highway one day, cruising at about sixty-five, when the car simply stopped. I pulled onto the shoulder and called my dad.
As it turns out, there’s this thing called a temperature gauge. And when the engine gets very hot, that is not good for the vehicle. We towed that car straight to the junkyard.
My dad was gracious in that moment. He did not remind me of all the times he’d told me to check the fluids every time I filled up, or to keep up with routine maintenance.
You see, I thought I knew a lot about car maintenance as a teenager. As it turns out, I did not. There was a subtle sense of pride in me — and that’s exactly what we’re talking about today.
Bad News and Good News
I have some genuinely bad news and some genuinely good news.
The bad news first: all of us deal with pride. Every one of us.
The good news: today’s passage gives us clear instructions for how to be protected from it.
Proverbs 3:1–8 says: My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
Father, thank you for this opportunity to gather. As we consider this passage, protect us from the pride that creeps into our lives. Protect me from pride this morning. Let your inspired word teach us something about you, and let it penetrate our hearts deeply. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Where, Who, and How
In these eight verses we’re going to find out where to find protection from pride, who gives it, and how to live a life protected from it.
Where: In the Scriptures
Verses 1 through 4 tell us we find protection from pride by remembering and meditating on the Scriptures — which means, first, that we have to know them.
Look at verse 1: Do not forget my teaching.
Last week I had the pleasure of teaching in our children’s ministry. If you’ve never been back there, the team does a wonderful job of helping our kids know the Scriptures. They start by reviewing last week’s passage. Then they watch a video about this week’s passage. Then an activity about this week’s passage. Then they read this week’s passage. Then they play a game about this week’s passage.
Repetition, over and over and over — because understanding Scripture is that important.
So how well do you know God’s word? How well do I know it? Some of us grew up memorizing Scripture in Sunday school or a children’s program. And then life gets busy. I can tell you I had considerably more time before four children than I do now. It’s a genuine struggle sometimes to sit down and truly learn and memorize.
A Warning for When Things Go Well
When I think of a moment in Scripture where it would have been easy to forget God’s word, the Israelites come to mind.
They had spent a great deal of time in the wilderness. And as they were being delivered out of it, what was the very first thing God said to them? Deuteronomy 8:1: Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply.
Notice the timing. Things were finally going well. And God knew that even a people who had depended on him for years and years would be tempted, precisely because things were going well, to neglect his commandments.
The historian Robert Conquest formulated three laws of politics, and the first one goes: everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
He isn’t talking about politics in the partisan sense. He means that people like you and me tend to resist radical change in the areas we know well. And when we think we understand something, we’re far less likely to dig into God’s word about it.
That plays out in daily life. When things are going well, we develop that over-inflated view of our own knowledge and ability. We start pointing to ourselves as the people who made all those good decisions.
Which is why verse 1 says: do not forget my teaching — especially when things are going well.
Knowing It Isn’t Enough
But the verse doesn’t stop there. It continues: let your heart keep my commandments.
It’s one thing to know God’s commandments. It’s another to carry them on your heart.
It’s easy to walk into church, hear a wonderful message, and walk back out feeling we’ve had our dose of Scripture for the week. In fact, I’d guess that eighty to ninety percent of what I’m sharing today is material you already knew before I said it.
Which is why Psalm 119 says: With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Quotable as a Movie
I’ve mentioned to some of you that I used to be a high school math teacher — and I taught during the era when a certain very quotable comedy was enormously popular.
Every single day my students came to math class, and I wanted to talk about math while they wanted to quote that movie. I hadn’t seen it. I had no idea what any of them were referring to, or why any of it was supposed to be funny.
Until finally I told my wife we needed to watch it. And soon enough I understood why my students found it so silly and so endlessly quotable — and eventually I could quote it as well as they could.
God desires his word to function like that in us: to know it, to repeat it, to care about it so much that we want to share it with others.
That’s what it means to keep his Scripture in our hearts. Because when we’re tempted toward those over-inflated thoughts about ourselves, we need an immediate reminder of who God is and who we are in relation to his goodness.
Scripture says in Matthew 12, and in many other places, that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So here’s the principle: a heart full of God’s commandments is less likely to fall into pride.
The Benefit of Living Under Authority
Verse 2 tells us there’s a benefit: it adds length of days and years of life and peace.
Being under God’s authority is where true joy is found.
In our household, when we’re helping our four kids understand what they should and shouldn’t do, we use an analogy: being inside the circle of obedience. We talk about how genuinely joyful it is to be inside that circle — which most of the time means doing what Mom and Dad have asked.
And speaking of that — when was the last time you looked carefully at the fifth commandment?
Most of us remember the opening: Honor your father and your mother. But there’s more to it. Exodus 20:12 continues: that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
God gives a reason for honoring those in authority over us — so that we may live in a state of genuine joy.
The world says: do what you want in order to be happy. God says: do what I say in order to live a joyous life.
The Speeding Ticket
Remember that 1984 Mercury I was bragging about?
One foggy morning I was driving it to school early to get extra help — with math, appropriately enough. I thought I had a fairly accurate view of my own driving ability and how well it aligned with the law.
A police officer thought otherwise. I was speeding, and I got my first ticket.
Kids, if you haven’t gotten one yet — it is not a good feeling. And it’s a particularly bad feeling to sit through an entire school day knowing that afterward you’ll drive that same car home, at or under the limit, and have to tell your parents.
My stomach hurt all day. And I had to work a couple of extra shifts at the restaurant to pay for it.
That was not where God wanted me to be, and it certainly wasn’t where I wanted to be. God wants us in a place of joy, under his authority. When we carry an over-inflated view of our own abilities and accomplishments, we end up in a place of hurt.
Who: God Gives the Protection
Verses 5 and 6 are, I suspect, the two verses in this whole series most likely to be underlined or highlighted in your Bible: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
For some people — and maybe this is you — all of this material in the Bible feels like rules and laws and to-do lists. Why do I have to do that? It doesn’t make sense.
It only makes sense once you realize who gives us protection from pride. That person is God.
He wants to protect you from pride. He gave these commandments for a reason. He wants to guide your path away from an over-inflated view of yourself.
And the passage gives two steps: trust and acknowledge him, and don’t lean on your own understanding.
Step One: Trust and Acknowledge
I love how Jeremiah 9 puts it. The Lord says: let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his riches — but let the one who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.
If pride is an over-inflated view of our own abilities, then trusting the one who protects us from pride is the antidote.
Rather than depending on and boasting in our own accomplishments, trusting and acknowledging God looks like remembering who he is and what we actually deserve. It also means remembering how much he loves us, and how deeply he desires justice and righteousness here on earth.
When all of that happens, it deflates the over-inflated balloon and suffocates our prideful intentions.
Step Two: Don’t Lean on Your Own Understanding
Some of us lean on our own understanding without even noticing.
We’re struggling with something and our first stop is the self-help section online, or at the bookstore. I’ve been there — maybe you have too.
Some of us went to an excellent college or through outstanding training, and so we assume we have the answers. And some of us simply think we know.
You Were a Fool Five Years Ago
Here’s an illustration I first heard from the pastor and author Tim Keller.
Think about yourself at thirteen years old. Some of you are right at thirteen.
Now think about yourself at fifteen. My guess is that at fifteen you looked back at your thirteen-year-old self and thought, what was I thinking?
Now think of yourself at twenty-five, looking back at fifteen. Same reaction.
Some of us are closer to fifty-five, looking back at twenty-five and thinking, what on earth was I thinking?
And Lord willing, if we reach eighty-five or a hundred and five, we’ll look back at our forty-year-old selves and conclude we knew very little.
So what’s the point? We were a fool five years ago — and we are one today.
Along the same lines, you’ve probably heard the phrase “God will never give you more than you can handle.” That is simply not true. This passage says something different: trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
How: Do Not Be Wise in Your Own Eyes
Verse 7 tells us first how not to do it: do not be wise in your own eyes.
We so often want to do God’s business for him. We want to be the expert.
What does that look like today? Frequently it looks like wanting to be the expert on social media. We want to be the ones with the answers on the latest issue — and when someone disagrees, we want to make sure they hear about it.
Some of us are remarkably forthcoming about how confident we are in our political preferences. We’re certain we’ve got the right candidate or the right position.
Don’t misunderstand me — if our aim is clearly rooted in Scripture, that’s a different matter. But if we’re honest, some of us just like to poke. That subtle comment at work. That subtle comment online. Just to see how many people affirm it, or to needle someone who thinks differently.
We want to be the expert.
Paul Had Every Reason to Brag
The good news is that God’s word also shows us the alternative — and Paul is a wonderful example.
If you’re not familiar with him, Paul was extraordinarily knowledgeable in the Jewish tradition. He knew everything a devout Jewish man was supposed to know and had done everything the right way. Right tribe. Right training. Every credential in order. If there were an all-star team, Paul would have made it.
And here’s what he wrote in Philippians 3:8: Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.
What That Means for Us
Living a life protected from pride means valuing our life in Christ more than being right about politics. More than being right about the latest controversy. More than even being right as a mom or a dad in front of our kids.
It means valuing Christ above getting the promotion at work. Above, as a student, seeing your name in the paper for the honor roll. Above the excitement of your child’s team winning on Monday night. Above the compliment from the neighbor about somehow keeping your lawn green through a drought.
Our identity — our real protection from pride — comes from knowing who Christ is.
The Eternal Stakes
But there’s an important caveat, because living free from pride has eternal ramifications.
That same Paul knew the gospel. He knew that we are more sinful than we could ever imagine — and yet more loved than we could ever hope.
Let me explain, and let me start with myself.
Preparing this message was genuinely difficult. A couple of weeks ago, in a typical moment of father-and-son frustration, one of my sons said to me: “Dad, you never say you’re sorry.”
My gut reaction was, I certainly do.
But he was right. He said “never,” and you know how that goes — but the simple fact that my son perceived it as rare told me there were prideful intentions in the way I was parenting him.
That prideful mentality — that sin in me, and that sin in you — carries eternal consequences. Isaiah 59:2 says that our iniquities have made a separation between us and our God, and our sins have hidden his face so that he does not hear.
Our pride is enormous. Some of us think it’s a small thing — like my thinking it was just a few miles per hour over the limit. But God’s word says our sin is more like an enormous pothole in the road. It creates a chasm between us and God.
More Loved Than We Could Ever Hope
So we are more sinful than we could ever imagine. And here is the wonderful news: we are more loved than we could ever hope.
Second Corinthians 5:21 says: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God knew that every single person reading this — exactly like me — would suffer from pride. And he loves us so much that he wants to protect us from the eternal consequences of that pride, and of every one of our sins.
Will you accept that gift today?
A Prayer
Father, thank you that knowing your word and impressing it upon our hearts is how you protect us from pride. Thank you for your Scripture, and for the example of Paul and others who show us a clear path for living free from it.
We ask your forgiveness for the pride and the sin in our lives that separates us from you. And we thank you for your Son Jesus, who washes our sins away — who covers the pothole, who covers the chasm, who covers the gap between us and you.
As we go from here, as we sing, and as we remember you in the bread and the cup and that washing away of sins, remind us — or perhaps let us know for the very first time — how much you love us. In Jesus’s name, amen.
