Arrogance is Poisonous

9/30/12 “Things I’ve Learned in 30 Years: Arrogance is Poisonous” Luke 22:21-23; 31-34; 54-62
I. Introduction
A. These 30 years have been a time of learning and realizing for me. And so I’m going to take most of the next two months to talk about things I’ve learned from the Lord along the way.
B. This means that these sermons will be somewhat autobiographical.
C. My story
1. Until 1997 I thought I was leading a very successful Christian life.
2. Then God began to show me that the criteria I was using to come to that evaluation was very flawed and incomplete.
3. I realized I was using a very narrow list of criteria in evaluating my own devotion. There were a lot of things I wasn’t including in the evaluation process, like:
a. A broken and contrite spirit
b. A heart of compassion for the lost
c. A mind set on eternity and not on this earth
d. A love that compels
e. A heart of forgiveness toward sinners (Jesus was the Friend of sinners)
f. Considering others as better than myself
g. A constant, keen awareness that apart from Him I can do nothing
4. My besetting sin is arrogance. I’ve known this for longer than 30 years.
5. Arrogance is the only disease that makes everyone sick except the person who has it.
6. But I didn’t realize how poisonous it is.
D. Distinction between the arrogance of the non-believer and the arrogance of the believer.
1. Obviously they’re related. But they’re not identical.
E. I know this is not everyone’s problem. Many have the opposite problem. Primarily today I am telling a story of what God showed me. If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn’t, don’t.
II. Read Luke 22:21-23; 31-34; 54-62
III. We’re going to talk mainly about Peter this morning, but there is arrogance all over the place in the Bible.
A. There’s the arrogance of Job.
1. Never mentioned, but it’s obvious from God’s response in Job 38-40.
a. What do you know? Who are you to criticize Me? How can you argue with the Creator?
b. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)
2. Job put his hand over his mouth when God had spoken. That’s sort of what happened to me.
B. There’s the arrogance of David.
1. In Psalm 30:6 he confesses his pride: “I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall not be moved.’”
2. If we had heard him say this, we wouldn’t have thought he was being proud or self-righteous. This is David, a godly man. He knows his strength comes from God. After all, he goes on to say it: “By Your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong.”
3. And yet his awareness of God’s strength was subtly evolving into pride and self-assurance.
4. And just as God had to send a thorn in the flesh to Paul to keep him from becoming conceited, God had to hide His face from David, to plunge him into godly desperation: “You hid your face; I was dismayed!”
IV. Peter
A. You remember the story of Peter’s denial of the Lord. He had confidently declared, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Doesn’t that sound like a godly statement! Who (besides Jesus) would have ever thought at the time that it was an evil statement!
B. Satan is so subtle. He can make sin look so godly. He can make poison look so healthy.
C. There can be so much pride in “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back...”
D. “And he went out and wept bitterly.” — a bitterness not only over his denials, but over the humiliation of having denied Jesus after making such self-confident promises.
V. Sold out to Jesus?
A. The day I became a Christian, I remember being outraged over those who weren’t sold out. I thought I was in a special group: sold out for Jesus. And for the next 27 years I lived in the conviction that I was sold out to Jesus but that most Christians weren’t. And my vision as a pastor was to create a church of sold-out Christians who would be a challenge and an inspiration to the rest of the body of Christ.

B. Now, of course, I understand the very real danger of not being sold out to Christ, of being lukewarm in our faith, in being double-minded (James 1:8) and wavering back and forth. But there is also an opposite danger, there is a problem that goes along with being sold out to Jesus. Not that there’s actually a danger of being sold out to Jesus, but there is certainly a danger in thinking you are sold out to Jesus.
C. In short, like Peter I discovered I was not nearly as sold out to Jesus as I thought.
VI. The Sinfulness of a Can-do Attitude
A. There’s a similar story — a story Peter knew — in Exodus 24:7 when Moses took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the Israelites, they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” But of course as it turned out they weren’t obedient.
1. In Joshua 24:16-19 when Moses’ replacement renewed the covenant with the next generation of Israelites, the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods... we will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” But Joshua knew better. He said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.”
2. Paul says it this way in 1Cor.10:12: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” There is a problem with thinking we stand.
B. For the first part of my Christian life, God gave me a passion to do His will.
1. The problem is that I gloried in that passion. It was a gift, but I took pride in it. It came from outside of me, but I thought of it as bubbling up from within.
2. “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1Corinthians 4:7)
3. This is why it’s hard for the rich to enter the kingdom: their success goes to their head and they think they’re really something. Even the blessings of God can go to the head.
C. It’s a great thing to want to be obedient. But how in the world can I be confident that I can be obedient without the Lord? Sheer determination will never do it. I need help. I can’t do it myself.
D. Remember Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18:9ff.?
1. The Pharisee’s prayer started with thanks. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
2. Who can argue with giving thanks? But there is a very fine line between being blessed and being self-assured.
3. Jesus commended the example of the tax collector, who, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
4. He’s the one who went down to his house justified, rather than the Pharisee.
5. You’ve heard about the SS teacher who taught his class about this story of the Pharisee & Publican and then closed in prayer saying, “Thank you, God, that we're not like that Pharisee.”
VII. I realized that God would rather have a humble flop than a successful egotist.
A. I believe this is the reason behind most of my failures. I needed to fail.
B. I needed to become meek and poor in spirit.
C. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven... Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt.5:3-5)
1. That’s the kind of success God wants!
VIII. Thank God that He is so gracious in dealing with our sin.
A. Peter had to go through his betrayal.
1. Jesus had said to him: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”
2. Well, Jesus is praying for us too. Even now He is supervising the project of remaking us.
3. He didn’t hate Peter for what he did. Jesus didn’t just receive him back, He drew him back.
4. And then He uses Peter: “And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers...feed My lambs, tend My sheep, feed my sheep.” (John 21:15ff.)
5. And in the end Peter was so much more useful to the Lord than when he was saying, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”
6. Peter was never a humble man. But by God’s grace he became a humbled man.