Rooting Out Hidden Pride – James 4:11-17
August 7, 2016Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
Sometimes pride is obvious. Like the following ad from the “Strictly Personals” section of New York magazine, placed by one woman:
“Strikingly Beautiful—Ivy League graduate. Playful, passionate, perceptive, elegant, bright, articulate, original in mind, unique in spirit. I possess a rare balance of beauty and depth, sophistication and earthiness, seriousness and a love of fun. Professionally successful, perfectly capable of being self-sufficient and independent, but I won’t be truly content until we find each other….”
But at other times pride is subtle and disguises itself to appear as something good. James 4:11-17 addresses the less obvious forms of pride. Forms that may appear as virtues.
Last week’s text delineated how we are to humble ourselves before God. In this week’s text, James begins addressing some of the ways his audience lived in pride—ways we might be tempted to live in pride—and calls them to root them out. The first is that pride that masks itself as righteousness as it judges others. The second, that pride of presuming that our lives are our own to do with as we please.
The Lord calls us to come, and we gather in response before the Lord to worship.