Dealing With Pride 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Dealing With Pride 1. He will be reading out of Acts 12:20-25.

These parents that are always bailing out their children are only deepening the pride that’s in their heart. There is appeasement that is constantly going on because we want to keep them happy. God is more interested in the character of your children than he is the comforter.

Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we welcome you to the Hopeworth Having radio program. We’re going to be in Acts chapter 12 but this time we’re moving to verse 20 through 25 and we’re going to talk about dealing with pride.

Is there anything that is constantly attacking us like pride? We have to remember that pride is always trying to swell up. We see this in the life of Herod and I want you to see how the Lord teaches us to deal with pride not only in our hearts but also being able to make sure that we deal with pride in the hearts of others.

So let’s begin our study today. Perhaps the most destructive word in any language is the word pride. It was pride that damned Satan and his angels. It is pride that has destroyed many churches, families, and individuals.

The Bible says for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but it is of the world. Pride leads to spiritual defeat. The book of Proverbs reminds us that there are six things that the Lord hates.

Seven that are an abomination to him. He tells us that one of those things that God hates is haughty eyes. D .L. Moody was a great evangelist of the 18th century. historians have said that he was a man who literally took the nation of England and the nation of America by each hand and shook them for God.

He said one time in his sermon that God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves. Again, the book of Proverbs tells us that when pride comes then comes shame. But with the lowly or the humble is wisdom.

In our text today in Acts chapter 12 verse 20 through 25 we are learning how we can deal with pride. I know that the immediate reaction might be I don’t have any pride, Mike. Well friends, here we go.

We need to address pride. The truth is it doesn’t matter whether it’s the pastor, the people. We’re all struggling with pride. We’re all working through it, and when we come to our text, we are introduced to a man whose name is Herod.

Herod was appointed by Rome to rule over the province of Judea. He is referred to as Herod the King. He was the grandson of Herod the Great, who had murdered his father, Aristobulus. Herod the Great was a blood -thirsty ruler.

You might remember in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, in verse 16, when our Lord and Savior was born, that the Bible says that Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious.

And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem, and in all the region who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had been ascertained from the wise men. So Herod’s grandfather was a murderous man, but the Herod that we’re introduced in chapter 12 is not Herod the Great, it’s Herod the King.

You recall in our study a few weeks ago that Herod, that he had set up 16 soldiers to guard Peter in prison. Remember that he had begun to persecute the church, and he was upset that the advancement of the Gospel was making such a impact in the community, so he had James slain, murdered.

He threw Peter in jail with 16 guards around him. God demonstrating his power sent one angel to free Peter, reminding us that there is no power of mankind that can thwart God’s plan. There is nothing in this world that can stop the advancement of the Gospel of the Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ. There are times that you and I feel the oppression and maybe the persecution of others upon us that somehow it might hinder the advancement of the kingdom of Christ, but I assure you that God is sovereign and that he is in control.

And to help us understand that, I remind you of what the Psalmist said in Psalm chapter two. In Psalm chapter two, verse two, after the question had been asked, why do the nations rage or why do the heathen rage and the people plot a vain thing and the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds and pieces and cast away their cords from us.

Note verse four, what is God’s response? He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. “‘The Lord shall hold them in derision. “‘Then he shall speak to them in his wrath “‘and distress them in his deep displeasure.'” The point is that it’s very laughable to God that finite man would even try to stop the advancement of his purposes and his causes upon this earth.

And so when we come to Acts chapter 12 and we begin to close out this chapter, we are reminded that God is giving to his church more evidence of his sovereignty over everything that the church faces.

Yes, the church had lost one of its leaders to martyrdom. And yes, the church had witnessed one of its leaders thrown in jail and the angel set him free. And now we see in Acts chapter 12 that we have a king who has lost control of his emotions.

We pick up in verse 20 of chapter 12 of the book of Acts. The Bible says, now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyree and Sedan, but they came to him with one accord and having made blast the king’s personal aid, their friend, they asked for peace because their country was supplied with food by the king’s country.

So on a set day, Herod arrayed in royal peril, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting the voice of a God and not of a man. And then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God.

And he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem and he returned from Jerusalem. And when they had fulfilled their ministry and they also took with them, John, whose surname was Mark, how do we deal with pride?

I want you to notice the progress of pride. In verses 20 through 22, we see how pride can progress in our lives, how it can take hold of our hearts and lead us down a path that is destructive. The book of Proverbs tells us again in Proverbs 21 .4 that a haughty look, a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked are sin.

What is this progress? I think the first thing that begins to initiate pride in each of our heart is anger. It’s anger. Would you note again in the text, the Bible says that Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyree and Sedan.

I did all the research and I could. and there is no one that really understands what this anger was about, and why he was so upset with these groups of people, but he had this attitude of anger that had begun to take deep root into his heart.

And it laid the seeds of pride, and it began to control his choices and his thoughts and his decisions in life, and as a result, he saw himself as an invincible person, a person who could just decide whatever he wanted and he could destroy whoever he wanted and he could take life if he wanted to take life.

He could attack whoever he wanted to attack. It was the attitude of anger that had never been resolved in Herod’s heart. The Bible reminds us that human anger does not achieve God’s righteous purpose.

There’s something about anger in our hearts that the Scriptures remind all fathers to not provoke their children unto anger. It’s anger that is never dealt with that can lead our children to be arrogant, arrogant, prideful, young people who could care less about God and want nothing to do with loving Jesus.

The Bible says a fool utters all his anger, but a wise man keeps it back and steals it. It’s essential in your life that whether it’s you, your children, family, friends within the church, doesn’t matter what the scenario, their circumstance, that you do not let anger to be the bed seed of pride in your heart.

Too many believers have unresolved anger in their hearts. Too many believers have not come to grips with what is really causing these emotional outbursts in my life. What are these things that are clouding my thoughts and affecting my decision making?

Many times God is calling us to come to the foot of the cross and to confess that anger to him and to see his redemptive work in our hearts and bring those matters to the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be something in the past.

It may be something in the present. It may be something that you’re seeing about to happen in the future. But whatever it is that is rooting anger in your life, God is calling you to address it. We like to suppress our emotions.

We like to deny it. But God is calling you to confess it to him. When you come before the Lord Jesus Christ and you are transparent and you bring these matters, these issues, these unresolved thoughts in your heart, then you bring them to Christ.

God’s work, God’s grace begins to be effective in your life. We not only see that the progress of pride is anger, but it’s appeasement. Look in verse 21 of the text. You note that the scripture says, so on a set day Herod, a raid in royal apparel, sat on his throne and he gave an oration to them.

Recall that Herod was angry with Tyree and Sadan. He had leverage on them because he was the one that provided food to them and they realized that even though this individual was not emotionally stable and he was not someone that they could rely upon, he was not a trustworthy person, they would have to make an agreement with him for the sake of the people.

And so they began to appease him and they began to feed his ego. They began to give him things that he wanted. Remember, I’ve taught you in the past that whenever you read the scriptures, you’re getting snapshots.

You’re getting, if you will, kind of a picture of what is taking place. Sometimes all the details are not there, but what we do understand is that there was this negotiation that went on between verse 20 and 21 and the resolution or the agreement was that they would appease Herod and they would give him royal apparel and he would sit on a throne and he would be able to stand before a large crowd and this large crowd,

no matter what he said, no matter how horrible his speech was, they were going to give him whatever he wanted. They would clap. They would praise him. They would respond in a way. that fed his ego. That’s what happens when we live in a context of always wanting everything in our life, demanding that people appease us, demanding that it be our way or the highway, insisting that we get what we deserve,

that we take the approach that somehow we are worthy of these things, this royal apparel, that we are somehow given things that we demand in our life. What happens is that pride begins to emerge and we begin to think that we’re really something.

When everybody around us is pretending because they’re appeasing us, they’re trying to keep us from having an emotional blow -up, they spend their entire life walking on ice around us, afraid to upset us, and always giving us exactly what we want.

But we don’t get upset. Some people find themselves in relationships like that. Sad to say, some parents have attempted to raise their children like this. And they wonder what’s wrong with Johnny. When you spend your life giving Johnny everything that he wants and trying to appease him with all of his selfish desires, it is no wonder that he grows up self -absorbed.

It’s no wonder that he feeds off the appeasement of other, which build more and more pride in his heart. I know that you love your little Johnny. And I want to give you some advice. Number one, don’t let the grandparents raise little Johnny.

Amen. Grandparents aren’t designed to raise children. I know some of you have to, and we certainly are praying for you, but somehow you’ve got to get out of grandpa mode and you’ve got to get into mom mode or dad mode and that when this child does something wrong, we’ve got to deal with it, we’ve got to address it, because if you just keep on handing them a sucker or you keep on handing them candy and you keep on handing them a Mountain Dew,

hoping that it will appease them and make them happy and like you, you’re going to raise up a child that is going to be destructive in society. Are you with me? Number two, this is just Mike Sanders’ parental advice to you, okay?

And you say, okay. is do not wait till your children are 16 to realize there’s a problem. The greatest truth every parent could learn is that their child is born a sinner in need of a savior. At the very heart of every child is this heart that is deceitful, a heart that is destructive.

The Bible says who can know it. Sometimes people say to me, they say, pastor, I’m gonna follow my heart. And I say, please don’t. You follow your heart and you may go down the wrong path because your heart doesn’t always know what’s best.

But I tell you that you don’t build your life on your feelings, you don’t build your life on your emotions. You build your life on the truth and the promises of God. And when you understand that your child is a sinner in need of a savior and little Johnny.

I mean, you don’t have to have a training session on how to have a meltdown at Target and how to lose your senses, fall on the ground, kick and scream, yell. I mean, no mom and dad saying, let me teach Johnny how to do that, right?

Can’t get them everything that they want. You gotta learn, teach them to work for it. You gotta learn to teach them to be humble and teach them to make effort and that everything’s not gonna be handed to them in their life.

Can I give another piece of advice? Like I wouldn’t, right? Some of you have grown children. Are you with me? This is where you’re gonna get mad at me, okay? Don’t worry, I am capable of dodging the tomatoes.

Would you quit veiling out your kids? Would you quit veiling them out? Your kids need to learn to not trust you, but trust the Lord. They need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ for their hope, their strength, and their help, and these parents that are always covering and making up and bailing out their children are only deepening the pride that’s in their heart and they think that they are worthy of it and they deserve it and they are very much in this progress of pride that we see in the life of Herod in that there is not only unresolved anger that has never been dealt with,

there is appeasement that is constantly going on because we want to keep them happy. God is more interested in the character of your children than he is the comfort of your children. And God is more interested in the holiness of your children than he is in the happiness of your children.

And let me just throw this out there. I know it’s just a lot. a lot of stuff flooding in my mind at heart right now. But think about that prodigal son’s father. He had the capacity, the ability to step in at any point while his son was walking down the hog pen trail, getting ready to bottom out into that he would live with the hogs and the pigs.

Dad could have stepped in any time, paid the bills, covered the debts, but he never did. Because God was doing an effective work in the life of that young man, and he would have never came to himself until he bottomed up, and there is many a young person that’ll never look to Jesus until they’re flat on their back.

But yet you keep jumping in. You’re the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna save the day. You’re gonna make that one difference when you are really only. slowing the process of God’s redemptive work in the heart of that child.

Not only do we see anger and appeasement, but we see adoration as part of this progress of pride. We jump down to verse 22 of chapter 12. The Bible says, the people kept shouting the voice of a god and not of a man as Herod was putting on this show as he was making this orientation as he was declaring this speech.

Who knows what he was talking about? It was so irrelevant and insignificant that Luke does not even record the substance of what he said, but rather reminds us that he was a raid and royal apparel. And according to the historian, the Jewish historian Josephus, he was wearing a garment that was made of silver.

It was flashy, it was dynamic, and so he was putting on this show and the people were shouting, it is a god. He’s a god, not even a man. They began to adore him, flatter him. They began to give him words of praise that were not even appropriate for the moment, but elevated him in his own mind thinking that he was superior to everyone and that he was above even god himself.

I need to drop a word. This idea that if our kids show up to a ball game they deserve a trophy. Time magazine put out an article and said this generation is called the self -esteem generation. Like no other generation, they have been told how wonderful they are and they believe it.

And they are shocked when they have to show up. to work they are shocked that they have to have evaluations and they have to have progress reports and they are shocked when they receive critique in the real world about their job performance because they have been told all that all their life that they were so wonderful and they just showed up to a t -ball game and all of a sudden were handed out medals and trophies to them telling them they’re the greatest thing since peanut butter and you say peanut butter I know it’s sliced bread but I like peanut butter and my point to you is be careful that you yourself are not only emerging yourself in the adoration of others but that you are giving it out so much that it is really not authentic and it is really not worthy and that you are feeding the beast of pride in the hearts of yourself as well as others Life is not gonna be everything’s wonderful every day.

There’s true challenges, there’s true suffering, there’s true sorrow in this world, and what we have to teach our young people is how to endure, how to power through, how to look to God in these moments of sufferings and difficulties and that life cannot always be where you’re on a stage and you’re receiving adoration and you’re receiving accolades, yes, when you achieve something, yes, when you accomplish,

we celebrate your good work, we celebrate God’s good work in your heart, but my friends, when you’re done, we need you to get out there and make a difference. Because every day is not a graduation ceremony.

And every day is not a T -ball game with trophies and medals and candy. So we see this adoration unfolding in the heart of Herod which only feeds his pride in his life, and I want you to note the punishment of pride in verse 23.

The Bible says, then immediately, then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him. Now why? Because he did not give glory to God. The Bible says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

We see first the messenger of punishment. It was an angel, and sometimes God sends angels to be his instruments of judgment. I found Acts chapter 12 to be an interesting chapter because we saw in Acts chapter 12, verse 7 through 11, that there was a delivering angel that delivered Peter out of prison, and then we saw in verse 15.

15, there was a personal angel, remember I taught you a few weeks ago that in Judaism, they believed that every person is assigned an angel. And when the young lady came to the door and Peter was knocking, wanting to let them know that he had been set free, she went back to tell the folks that were praying and they said, no, you just saw his angel.

Not a angel, but his angel because they believed in their heart that every person was assigned an angel. Jesus affirmed this truth in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18 when he reminded us that we are to receive the little children unto him and that we are to allow the little children to come to him and that we are to never offend or hurt these little children, why?

Because their angel is before the throne of God. You’re free. day. So God reminds us that yes, we do have an angel signed to us. Some of you have probably been assigned many angels because of your behavior and your risk -taking and some of the choices.

The Lord decided we better send 10 ,000 angels to take care of that person. But there are not only delivering angels, personal angels, but I want you to know there was a death angel. In verse 23, the angel immediately struck Herod and I want you to see the motive because he did not give glory to God.

The crime for which God would judge Herod was he would not give glory to God. Remember what the scriptures teach us, that God gives more grace. The Bible says, therefore it says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

God opposes every heart that lifts itself above him and towards him. God opposes pride in the life of every individual, but the heart that is humble before God, he keeps pouring grace upon grace upon grace on that individual.

You say, why is it that that person seems to have so much grace manifested in their life? It may be that they are humbly coming before God on a daily and moment by moment basis receiving the grace of God because he responds to humble art.

We got to remember that God is always working, and he is calling us to walk humbly before him. And that means we need to remember that pride can be our downfall. So we hope what you’re learning here in Acts chapter 12 about pride will continue to help you and all of us together to deal with pride in our hearts.

You may not have ever read our book called Dynamic Devotions. It’s available on HopeworthHaving .com and this is just a series of devotions day by day that you can read, be inspired, and encouraged. Make sure that you go to the website and that you make that selection and any donation of any amount will send you a copy of that book to you so you can continue to grow in your faith.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.