By and large, naturally, most of us are pretty selfish. The thing is, that selfishness is an attribute we most often see in other people, not ourselves. So ‘self’ is an opaque veil that shrouds our hearts. So the question is – what can we do about it?

I’m really excited today because we’re kicking off a new series or theme if you like for our programs over the next couple of weeks. And this is what I’ve called it, ‘How To Get Over Yourself And Live A Life That Counts’.

It’s a bit of a mouthful but as I was praying about what to share with you over these coming weeks the Lord really laid it on my heart that more and more in this world we’ve been taught to be individuals rather than communities. And that focus on self, it just contributes to something that each of us already has going on inside us – selfishness.

A natural part of who you and I are is that we like to look after ourselves. You know, up there with the primary instincts. Enough air, enough water and food and shelter and safety. But once we get beyond those, we can become focused on our comfort and prestige and power and what other people think of us and getting our own way.

And before we know it we’ve become our own little tyrant. Our own little tin pot god whom we worship and whose appetite for more can never be satisfied. And what makes this even worse, what makes our pride even more ugly is that we only ever think of other people as being proud and selfish, never ourselves.

It seems that the veil of self over our hearts is opaque. Hard, brittle, painful, yes, but something that we can’t easily see for ourselves.

For much of my life the natural beat of my heart was constrained by this veil of self. I was very much my own tin pot little god and my appetite for recognition and wealth and winning could never be satisfied. I was touchy and sensitive. I was overly, unhealthily concerned with what other people thought of me.

I had almost no close relationships because my self, my pride and arrogance and haughtiness squashed them. And whilst back then I didn’t really know, the biggest thing I needed to be set free from was me. And that’s exactly what God did.

Now it’s a work in progress, I haven’t arrived yet. I don’t think any of us can say that we’re never selfish and never proud. Nevertheless God did a mighty work in me. Just after I gave my life to Christ, a decade and a half ago, a dear woman in her 70’s back then gave me a book.

It was the very first book I ever read as a Christian. And looking back now with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, it was absolutely the best book I could ever had read. It was called The Pursuit of God by A W Tozer and it was something that he wrote about this issue of self that God used to begin His mighty work of freedom in my life.

Now I’ve paraphrased some of the words of Tozer on self to bring them into today’s language but let me share them with you because they are powerful indeed. Have a listen:

Self, writes Tozer, is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can only be removed in spiritual experience. Never by mere instruction, you can’t instruct leprosy out of your system, can you? No, there has to be a healing and it’s the same with the insidious disease of self. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free.

We must invite the cross of Christ to do it’s deadly work within us. We must bring our self’s sins to the cross for judgement. We must prepare ourselves from the ordeal of suffering, in some measure, like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pilate.

Because remember, when we talk of removing the veil of self that shrouds our hearts we’re using a picture, and although that picture may seem poetical, almost pleasant, actually there’s nothing pleasant about it at all.

In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue. It is composed of the sentient quivering stuff of which our very beings consist and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and to make us bleed.

To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross at all and the death, no death at all. It’s never fun to die, to rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made, can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross will do to every man, woman and child to set them free.

I want to warn you”, writes Tozer, “To be aware of tinkering around the edges of your inner life in some vain hope that you yourself can remove the veil, it just doesn’t work. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and to trust, our part is to confess, forsake and repudiate the self life and then to counter it as crucified.

But be careful to distinguish between a mere lazy acceptance from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work of the cross being done in us. We dare not rest content with a neat little doctrine of self crucifixion. No, insist that the work of the cross be done in you and it will be done.

The cross is rough and it’s deadly but it’s affective. It does not keep it’s victim hanging there forever, there comes a moment when it’s work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection, glory and power. The pains forgotten for the joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual experience the presence of the living God.

Isn’t that powerful stuff? And through those words I believe that God puts His finger on our self life, yours and mine. Listen again to Paul’s words, the Apostle Paul, Gods own word on the death of self and the resurrection to our new life that God’s planned for us. Romans chapter 6, verse 3:

Don’t you know that all of us who’ve been baptised into Christ were baptised into His death. Therefore we’ve been buried with Him by baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.

If we’ve been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of our sin may be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is free from sin but if we’ve died with Christ we believe that we also live with Him.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over us.

See God wants us to die to self and rise again to a new life. A life of freedom in Christ. And it’s in that sense that the title or the theme of this series of programs is absolutely true. We desperately need to get over ourselves so we can live a life that really counts.

Because let me tell you from first hand experience and I have to tell you, I’m a past master on self and pride and arrogance that the veil of self that hangs over our hearts really does obscure God. And not only God but life. Vibrant, fresh and wonderful life.

How can we have such a life, the life that after all we want for ourselves, when we’re busy stomping on other people? When we’re getting our own way. When we’re so worried about what other people think and when we spend most of our time being annoyed at other people because they don’t do what we want them to.

How can we have such a fresh, vibrant, new resurrection life that Jesus came to give us when we’re so wrapped up in ourselves? Come on, how can we? Let me get right in your face with the word of God. We can only have the life that Jesus came to give us if we would take ourself to the cross. The old person. The old flesh. And die to self as Christ died for our sins.

That’s exactly what God’s Word says.

Pride is an ugly thing. We see it so often in other people but the reality is, we rarely if ever see it in ourselves. That’s not to say it’s not there – just that we don’t notice it. So – what is pride, what does it look like? What can we do about it?

This week on the program we’re looking at pride and selfishness. Not someone else’s pride and selfishness, easy to point the finger isn’t it? He’s proud, she’s selfish. No, no, our own pride, our own selfishness, yours and mine.

The theme of the programs over this next few weeks is, ‘How To Get Over Yourself And Live A Life That Counts’. See, we all suffer from pride and selfishness to some degree. And those things are like shackles and chains that imprison us in our own lonely little castle. That’s why God detests them. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5. It says:

All of you must clothe yourselves in humility for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

So, the formula for having God oppose us 100% of the time is to be proud. And I don’t know about you but pushing in the opposite direction to God, pushing against God instead of with Him, that’s not a contest I want to be in for very long. It’s got to be exhausting and there’s no way to win.

Pride, arrogance, haughtiness, question is, what are they? What do they look like when I’m being proud, when you’re being proud? What exactly is it that we’re doing? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today on the program.

There’s a fabulous story in the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah. And for me, it explains pride better than any other. It’s ostensibly about the king of Babylon. Now Babylon back then was the world power. A bit like the U.S. is today. The dominant power, the super power with a mighty army.

And Babylon had taken Gods people into captivity, that’s what the Book of Isaiah is all about. But this same story in Isaiah chapter 14 is pretty much well accepted as the story of how satan tried to take on God. It explains why the devil is a fallen angel and it all has to do with pride.

Have a listen to it. Oh, by the way, I’m going to do something different, I don’t often do this. I’m using the Message Translation because as a story it’s so much easier to read from that translation. And when Isaiah talks about Jacob, that’s the name he’s using for Gods chosen people, the remnant of Israel.

And what Gods talking about to His people here is, even though they’re in captivity, He’s going to bring them home. Impossible though that may seem because of the power and the might of Babylon, God is going to restore the fortunes and the homes and the land of the blessing of Israel.

Anyhow, you have the background, now let’s have a listen to what God has to say to the king of Babylon. This story which paints such a powerful picture of this thing we call pride. Beginning at Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12:

What a comedown this is O Babylon. Daystar, son of dawn. Flat on your face in the underworld mud. You famous for flattening nations. You said to yourself, ‘I’ll climb to heaven. I’ll set my throne over the stars of God. I’ll run the assembly of angels that meets on a sacred mountain. I’ll climb to the top of the clouds. I’ll take over as king of the universe.

But you didn’t make it did you? Instead of climbing up, you came down. Down with the underground dead. Down into the abyss of the pit. People will stare and muse, ‘can this be the one who terrorised the earth and it’s kingdoms? Turned the earth into a moonscape. Wasted it’s cities. Shut prisoners into a living death.

Other kings will get a decent burial, honoured with eulogies, placed in a tomb. But you, you’re dumped in a ditch unburied like a stray dog or cat. Covered with rotting bodies and murdered corpses. Your dead body desecrated, mutilated, no state funeral for you. You’ve left your land in ruins, left a legacy of massacre. The progeny of your evil life will never be named. Oblivion!

What was the sin of Babylon’s king? Simple. He tried to set himself up above God and above everyone else. In all his pomp and power he forgot he was just a man and that God is God and that no one, no one can oppose God.

Babylon took Gods people into slavery. They were treated brutally, why? Because the king of Babylon had the power, because he could. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t loving. It wasn’t compassion. It wasn’t kind. None of those things. It was just that the king of Babylon had all the power, he lived like a king and he abused his slaves. Have another listen to this succinct portrayal of pride and arrogance:

You said to yourself, ‘I’ll climb to heaven. I’ll set my throne over the stars of God. I’ll run the assembly of angels. I’ll climb to the top of the clouds. I’ll take over as the king of the universe.

That says it all, doesn’t it? That, my friend, is the anatomy of pride. To set ourselves above God. To set ourselves above other people. It’s the exact opposite of what God calls us to. It’s the root of all of our rebellion against God and can I tell you, I so relate to this. It’s how I lived the first 36 years of my life.

I figured I didn’t need God, what for? I was clever enough, I figured out how to make plenty of money with the skills I’d acquired along the way. And let me tell you, I was prepared to walk over the top of anyone and everyone to get to where I was going.

So, we don’t have to be the king of Babylon to do this, to think that we can set ourselves above God and above other people. Just ordinary, every day little people like you and me are prone to this sin of pride as well. The arrogance of always thinking we’re right and because other people don’t see things quite our way, that they’re wrong.

There’s something, there’s something inside us that wants to rise up and to win. To beat the other guy. To get our way. To make sure we’re comfortable. And what that’s about is setting ourselves, our needs, our wants, our opinions, our comfort above God and above others.

That, that is what pride and arrogance and selfishness are and I don’t think that you or I need too much of an imagination to think through the circumstances and the situations in which we do that, day after day after day after day.

It started when we were children. I remember my mother would sometimes cut a cake in half, one half for my sister, the other half for me. And both of us would immediately set to work to determine if, by any chance, one piece of cake was a millimetre bigger than the other piece of cake.

And it wasn’t just about getting the larger slice of cake, it was about making sure that my sister didn’t get it. That she didn’t win. That was the most important bit.

Will you notice with me please the results of the pride of the king of Babylon. Will you notice with me please how God reacts to this guy? Have another listen:

Other kings will get a decent burial, honoured with eulogies and placed in a tomb. But your body will dumped in a ditch, unburied. Like a stray dog or cat. Covered with rotting bodies and murdered corpses. Your dead body desecrated and mutilated. No state funeral for you. You’ve left your land in ruins. You’ve left a legacy of a massacre. The progeny of your evil life will never be named. Oblivion!

See, what does that tell you and what does that tell me about how God responds to our pride? It’s not good news, is it? If we want God to appose us then be proud, be arrogant, be selfish. But if we want God on our side then there needs to be another way. And there is. Jesus said it like this, Matthew chapter 5, verse 5:

Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

In some respects, it’s okay to be proud. I’m proud of my children. That’s a good thing. But pride has it’s ugly side. And here’s the thing. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That’s worth thinking about.

You and I don’t have to look very far to see how ugly pride is. The devastating impact it has on the world, on nations, on people, even on children. There’s a sad and ugly case in the news locally where I live, not too far back. It was about a young boy who committed suicide. It seemed that he’d been bullied at school, bullied by some other boys, bullied online.

And during the coronial inquest the coroner was told that not only was this boy gentle, not only did he not fight back but the bullying and the beatings were known to the staff at the school and so, it was alleged, they’d done nothing to address it.

Now if all of that’s true then not only did those doing the bullying show the ugliest possible side and this thing we call pride but the system, the establishment that should have protected this young man, apparently did nothing to bring these boys to account.

If all those things are true, what a terrible indictment on our society. Have we gone so far that we just acquiesce and accept the ugliness and the horror of pride? Now you may think that it’s an extreme example but it only appears extreme because the young man in question took his life, because the truth is coming out in an inquiry and it’s being reported in the news and we’re talking about it.

Had the lad not taken his own life it would have gone unreported and unnoticed by the likes of you and me.

I guess, when you look at it like that, the impact of this whole pride thing starts to make sense. It’s having a sad and ugly impact on peoples lives all over the world. In the work place, you know, people abusing positions of power, setting themselves up above other human beings. Using the hierarchy to dominate and suppress and manipulate.

There’s a difference between a manager and a petty bureaucrat isn’t there? At home where parents set themselves up over their children. Where husband sets himself up over his wife or the older brother over the younger brother. The list goes on.

That’s not to say there aren’t hierarchies in this world and that we don’t have to come under authority. Of course we do. But there’s a difference between legitimate authority and the power game that’s born out of pride.

That’s what we’re going to be looking at today. And we discover the answer by taking a look at why it is that God opposes the proud. Why is it that God doesn’t like pride? It’s one of the greatest bits of wisdom that you and I will ever find. Comes to us from the Old Testament book of Proverbs. And today there are three particular verses on pride that leap out at me. The first one is Proverbs chapter 15, verse 25, that says:

The Lord tears down the house of the proud but maintains the widow’s boundaries.

Now, that’s really interesting ‘cause it tells us a huge amount about who God is. From a human perspective, we have this natural expectation that because God is powerful, God is the God of the powerful and not the God of the weak.

Now we probably kind of know that’s not true but in our heart of hearts, it’s kind of what we believe. But here, in this Scripture, it’s clear that God sometimes is exactly the opposite of what we expect. The widow’s the one who most often gets ignored in this world.

In fact I just had a letter from a widow not so long ago. She listens to our programs. She’s not well and in a lot of physical pain and she was making the point that no one from her Church takes the time to visit her or call her or pray with her. Pretty sad isn’t it?

And yet Gods heart isn’t for the proud. Not the people that we value through our worldly eyes. God’s heart is for the lonely widow, to give her practical help and assistance. He opposes the proud but maintains the widow’s boundaries.

It tells me a lot about why God is against our pride. Because of His love for each one of us and when push comes to shove, God will protect the weak and the powerless and the marginalised because of this enormous love.

Whenever you or I exercise pride it is inevitably against someone. We inevitably assert our selfishness over their needs and that is the opposite of love. It is so the opposite of who God is and what Gods all about.

And you know, the very next verse that follows the one we just read is this. Proverbs chapter 15, verse 26:

Evil plans are an abomination to the Lord but gracious words are pure.

Interesting because the very next thing that naturally flows out of our pride is evil plans and then evil deeds. It makes so much sense doesn’t it? It’s so obvious now why it is that God is against our pride. And that’s why it also says, in Proverbs chapter 16, verse 19:

It is better to be a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.

We are much better off living a life in love amongst the poor than to be one of the proud who has wealth. And this is something that God tells us over and over again. Listen to these proverbs:

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.

Better is a dinner of vegetables where there is love than a fatted ox and hatred with it.

Better is a little with righteousness than large incomes with injustice.

As you and I look at our lives I wonder where it is that we’ve allowed pride to creep in. I wonder where it is that we’ve sided with the proud to divide the spoils rather than have a lowly spirit and been amongst the poor.

There’s a tendency for us to want to hang around wealthy people and successful people and have some of their success, you know, rub off on us. Natural, it’s human but it’s not Gods way. For me, becoming involved in ministry, this is a lesson that I had to learn before God could use me in the way He does.

We actually don’t need the world’s recognition, you know. We actually don’t need to be praised and pat on the back all the time. We don’t need to win and to be on top and to have our way and for people to think well of us.

In fact, since I’ve realised that, can I tell you? I’ve had so much freedom and peace. Sometimes people will make, what I think, are wrong decisions. I might advice them or counsel them or try to influence them but at the end of the day it’s not my job to control other people and if they make what I think is a wrong decision, well I hand it over to God.

There’s no point in me exercising my pride to win because sometimes handing things over to God, showing genuine humility and trust in Him, that’s exactly what’s required. It’s more valuable than winning. Certainly there’s more peace in it.

My friend, God opposes our pride because our pride hurts other people. God opposes our pride because it naturally sets itself up against God. God opposes our pride because He’s a God of love. He is opposed to pride because pride hurts those whom He loves. It is so logical and so obvious when we look at this through His word.

So I want to encourage you to be honest with yourself. To root out the pride, to address the things that are hurting others in what you say and what you do and how you behave towards them. God is love and that … that’s why He hates pride.

Nobody likes a ‘know-it-all’. They’re the people who only stop talking long enough to figure out what they’re going to say next. And it turns out that that sort of pride – not only stunts our growth, but hurts other people.

Lets face it, nobody likes a ‘know-it-all’. You know the sort of person, it doesn’t matter what suggestion you make to them, it doesn’t matter what the subject is, they know it all. They have a better way. They simply will not learn from anyone else.

Now, its great for people to be confident and competent at what they do but there’s a line that we can step over and when we do that, when we step over that line, we become a ‘know it all’. Know it alls always talks and never listens.

Now they may stop talking for a while to let other people talk but they’re not actually listening. They don’t need to because they know it all. They don’t need to take anything anyone else says on board because, well, they already know it.

We all have that sort of thing going on to a greater or lesser extent. I mean we dismiss other people’s views and knowledge and wisdom because somehow, to learn from them implies that we must have been wrong in the first place.

And it hurts sometimes to think that we’re wrong or we didn’t know enough or we didn’t have the maturity to handle a situation. Other people’s knowledge and wisdom and ability can make us feel inadequate and so we shut them down. We deal with it by telling the world and telling ourselves that we know it all.

Over the course of this week on the program we’ve been examining one of the most insidious emotional diseases going around. It’s the disease of pride. That’s why I’ve called this little series of programs, ‘How To Get Over Yourself And Live A Life That Counts’.

A bit in your face I know but there’s an incredible freedom and liberty that starts to happen in our lives when we finally stop trying to serve a little tin pot god of self. When we let go of that and we stop caring so much about what other people think and start living to please God.

You’ll hear me say this over and over and over again, the biggest thing God ever set me free from was me. And whilst that setting free remains a work in progress for God, I can tell you, the day I stopped having to win and stopped having to be right and stopped having to be seen to be the best and stopped having to have the lime light, it was like being released from a lifetime prison sentence.

One of the biggest problems of pride is that we’re so insecure. We simply can’t be told anything or taught anything. We’re so touchy, we can’t take criticism or instruction. Interesting but one of the most powerful wisdom books in the Bible starts off in dealing with this very issue.

It turns out that unless we deal with this element of pride in our lives we can’t grow in wisdom. I don’t know about you but wisdom is something that I want. And yet, unless we have a teachable spirit then the door to our hearts and minds is shut and wisdom is locked out. Wisdom just can’t get in.

The Book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon. One of the wisest men that ever walked the earth. He went to God and asked God for wisdom. Solomon was King David’s son and he succeeded his father of the throne of Israel. And one day, early on, he was praying. Have a listen to what he asked God for. 1 Kings chapter 3, verse 5 to 13:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and God said, ‘ask what I should give you’, and Solomon said, ‘you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant, my father David because he walked before you in faithfulness and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart towards you and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne today.

And now O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David although I’m only a little child. I do not know how to go or how to come in and your servant is in the midst of people whom you have chosen. A great people, so numerous they can’t be numbered or counted.

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people. Able to discern between good and evil. For who can govern this, your people?

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this so God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself a long life or riches or for the life of your enemies but you have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right. I now do according to your word.

Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind. No one like you has been before and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also all that you have not asked for, both riches and honour in your life. No other king shall compare to you.’”

Here’s young Solomon, instead of going to God in pride and asking for wealth. He went to God in humility and asked Him for wisdom. And so God gave him not only wisdom but wealth as well. So when Solomon is much older and much wiser, he writes down much of his wisdom in the Book of Proverbs.

Have a listen to how he kicks off the Book of Proverbs. He actually talks about how to get wisdom. Proverbs chapter 1, verses 7 to 9:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear my child, your father’s instruction and do not reject your mother’s teaching for they are a fair garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

Do you see how pride and wisdom are mutually exclusive? And it all begins with humility, the fear of the Lord, a right fear, respecting and honouring God. And that’s the exact opposite to the fools who despise wisdom and instruction.

And then he comes up with this instruction to the young men, presumably to his sons. Listen to your mother and your father. Now we all know that, as teenagers, we pushed the boundaries there and we roll our eyes when our mother’s and father’s told us things. This pride is what locks us out of learning and it’s a sign of immaturity and the sad thing is that so many people never grow up.

They go to their graves stunted and stupid because their heart was closed, because they knew it all. This is what Solomon goes on to say in that same chapter. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 20:

Wisdom cries out in the street, in the square she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out. At the entrance of the city gate she speaks. ‘How long O simple ones will you love being simple? How long will you scoff as delight in your scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof, I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make my words known to you.

What a picture of pride, scoffers and fools who hate knowledge. See, pride keeps us simple. Pride stunts our growth. Pride is what makes us ugly. And we deal with that when we bow our lives down to God. When we fear God in a right way because what happens then is that He opens our hearts to receive instruction and wisdom and reproof.

What’s reproof? It’s rebuke and reprimand. We’re going to pick up on that tomorrow on the program. It’s when we have a teachable heart that we grow as people and the thing is, to accept instruction, to learn from other people, it means that we have to accept, deep down, that we don’t know it all, that we have something to learn.

I am firmly convinced that the thing that sets some people apart to achieve great things isn’t necessarily their natural talent because each one of us has some natural talent in something. The thing that sets people apart for greatness is a teachable spirit. A heart open to correction and learning and receiving.

If there were just one thing you and I could do to get over ourselves, just one, then I would suggest it be this one thing. To decide from this moment on to have a teachable spirit. It’s time to get over ourselves so we can live a life that counts.

Every nation, every society, every family has to have some system of authority. And by and large – we accept that, we don’t mind it … unless and until we disagree with those in authority. Then it’s on for young and old. And the reason for that, is pride.

Over the course of this week and again next week on the program we’re taking a look at perhaps one of the most destructive diseases going around these days. It’s the disease of pride. Pride’s ugly. Pride is about me setting myself up above you. It’s about me winning and you losing. It’s about me getting the lime light and you not. It’s about me being a know it all and you knowing nothing.

Pride is about one person setting themselves up above, well, not only other people but above God as well. A few days ago on the program we read these words from God to the arrogant king of Babylon in the Old Testament, from Isaiah chapter 14:

What a come down this O Babylon. Flat on your face in the underworld mud. You, famous for flattening nations. You said to yourself, ‘I’ll climb to the heavens, I’ll set my throne over the stars of God, I’ll run the assembly of angels that meets on a sacred mountain, I’ll climb to the top of the clouds, I’ll take over as the king of the universe.

But you didn’t make it did you? And see, that’s the whole point. Ultimately our pride leads to our destruction. Yesterday on the program we chatted about one aspect of pride. It’s that ‘know it all’ attitude. What happens when our hearts are shut, when we’re not prepared to receive instruction or correction.

Today I want to pick up on that and take it one step further. Today we’re going to chat about authority in our lives. Specifically our submission to authority. Again, perhaps not quite the sort of thing we want to talk about but actually, it’s incredibly important.

You know authority isn’t really a problem in our lives until we disagree with the decisions and instructions of those who are placed in authority over us. Now, different cultures handle authority in different ways. In part, Asia, Korea for instance, China, people take authority very seriously because the mind set is quite hierarchical.

I remember asking one young Korean student who’d been visiting Australia for three months to learn English, what were the biggest cultural differences between Australia and Korea that he noticed? He thought for a moment and then he answered, “In Korea we honour mother and father”.

And that’s the point. In the west where most of us live in relative freedom in so called advance democracies, we’ve become a bit belligerent about authority. People routinely undermine their bosses. Children routinely rebel against their parents. And what amazes me is that sometimes parents just seem to accept that. ‘Oh, I can’t control my teenagers’ is something you often hear.

Yeah, those teenage years can be hard but each of my three at some point in their growing up and rebellion is a natural part of that process for most, each one of them got this from me, this very simple ultimatum. If you don’t like the rules in this house, if you want to do your own thing, that’s fine, go and live somewhere else but while you live under this roof with the provision that your mother and I give you, you will do what we say.

Now that may seem a bit old fashioned but I was deadly serious and they knew it. Now, do we all want to live in some prison like society where rulers lord it over common people? Of course we don’t but in order for a country, a society, a community, a Church, a family, whatever the grouping is, in order for them to function there needs to be some system of authority.

And as I said, by and large, we’re pretty happy with that until we disagree with whoever’s in authority over us. Then, then it’s on for young and old. We complain. We rebel. We go slow. We grumble in our hearts. We resist. We undermine. You’ve done it, I’ve done it, we’ve seen it in the workplace, we know how destructive it is. And it’s all because of pride.

If someone disagrees with us then, quite simply, they must be wrong. If a decision doesn’t suit us, then it must be wrong. Well, it might be. The question is, does our bad behaviour make it any better? Have a listen to this whole discussion of pride and authority in a letter that the Apostle Peter writes to the early Christian Church.

It’s great stuff because, my friend, it’s time to get over ourselves when it comes to submitting to authority. It begins in the letter of 1 Peter chapter 5, at verse 1. He writes:

I exalt the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the over sight, not under compulsion but willingly as God would have you do it. Not for some sordid gain but eagerly. Don’t lord it over those in your charge but be examples to your flock.

In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders and all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that He may exalt you in due time.

Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings.

Now this is really interesting. Okay, it’s written in a different time and in a different culture and a couple of those verses though we’ve looked at before.

God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

And verse 8:

Discipline yourselves and keep alert. Because like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour.

They’re pretty well known verses, they’re often quoted. In fact we’ve looked at both of them, on the program, in the last week or so. But so often they’re quoted out of context. The context in this passage is submission to authority.

There are some very clear instructions on good leadership here but that’s not what I want to focus on today. The bit of instruction that’s relevant to us, in this discussion, is the bit that says:

Accept authority from the elders. All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

Humility is the exact opposite of pride and God’s calling us here to clothe ourselves in humility and the way we do that is to accept the authority of those put over us. Note, there’s no escape clause here. There’s no qualification like, “accept the authority if you agree or if it suits you or if it’s convenient or if you feel like it.”

Humility equals accepting authority especially when we don’t agree with it. Well, what if it’s immoral or illegal? Well most of the time it’s not. 99% of the time that’s not what’s going on. Accepting authority is about humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God and His reward is that He will exalt us when, in due time, in His time, when it’s the right time.

Even though I’m the leader, the CEO of this ministry Christianityworks that produces and distributes these radio programs around the world, I am subject to the authority of the board of the ministry. They’re all very different people. Most of the time we agree. Sometimes we don’t and when we don’t the group makes a decision.

It is my job then to implement that decision enthusiastically. Not grumbling to the staff. Not saying to them, “Well, you know, I think we should go this way but the board wants to go that way. I don’t agree but I guess we have to do as we’re told.”

Not like that but with joy in my heart. Clothed in humility. Leading our team in the direction that the board has decided whether or not I agree. And if the board was wrong and I was right, you know something, God would honour that. God would take that glad submission and He will exalt us in His due time.

This is not the world’s way but so often the world’s way is ugly. I believe it’s time to get over ourselves so we can live a life that counts.