Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Sanctuary. It's great to have you with us as always.
And for those of you who are joining for the very first time, let me just take a moment to say welcome.
Now, you know, as people, we have a lot of pride. We're very proud of a lot of things.
You know, overcoming challenges, solving problems, facing fears, accomplishing goals, you know, attaining certain educational markers or life markers or being selected for certain jobs, right?
And I'm the first to admit, as a veteran, you know, veterans, we all carry around an awful lot of pride, don't we?
Now, we're not alone in this either, are we? We're seeing more and more of it out in the world today.
And we're seeing pride on all fronts. And it's getting to get real ugly out there, isn't it?
That's what we're going to be talking about today.
You know, for many people, the things we're most proud of often become the things that we define ourselves with, right?
For some, it's their education. Oh, I have this degree or that degree or all these certifications.
You know, for others, it's that professional or, you know, field that they're in, the profession that they hold.
You know, I'm a lawyer, I'm a police officer, I'm a judge, a doctor, a nurse, a pastor, a Marine, a soldier, a sailor, an airman, and so on and so forth and on and on and on.
And it's what they talk about. It's what the conversations center around, right?
However, this really isn't what we should be allowing to define us.
You know, let me let me change the scripture a little bit. Take a look at take a look at it this way.
Take away those degrees. Take away those certifications. Who are you?
Take away those jobs. You know, those professions. Again, who are you?
Take a second. That's actually a good question to write down for those of you who are taking notes.
You know, if I was you right now, I'd be writing down who am I?
You see, we limit ourselves. We limit ourselves to these tags. We limit ourselves to these labels.
But that isn't who you're supposed to be at your core. There is a point where pride becomes sin.
Now, make no mistake about it. We blindly fall into that trap because we slap on these labels and we try to use them to define who we are.
And pride, pride is what ends up pulling us away from God.
The very thing that we're like, oh, this is so great. And it's what pulls us away.
And this goes all the way back to the fall in Genesis.
You know, pride is one of the tools that Satan used to trip us up because pride is that card that we pull out.
When someone tries to prove us wrong on something, when we get called out on things, right?
Proverbs 16, verse 18, the Bible says pride goes before destruction and haughtiness before a fall.
Why? Well, let's start by breaking down the definition of what pride is.
You know, in pride, it's an excessively high opinion of oneself, conceit, arrogance, or as Oxford puts it,
a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements,
the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated or from qualities or possessions that are wildly, excuse me, widely admired.
Proverbs 29, verse 23, puts it like this. Pride brings a person low.
Pride brings a person low. You see, being proud in and of itself is just fine. It's perfectly all right.
We can be proud of things. There are certain things that you should be proud of.
However, there is a point when you cross the line and start becoming your own idol.
And let's face it, most of us don't even realize it when we're doing it. We don't know that we've gone that far.
We become narcissists. Here's an example for you.
You know, how about that thought or that ideal that says work just can't get along without you?
You know, we've all been there or we all know that person where, you know,
they just insist that they have to carry the weight of the world when they're at work and that it just wouldn't function without them.
You know, let me remind you just how wrong you are. You die today, someone will be hired to replace you by the end of the week.
Don't let work become another idol either.
Enjoy the time you get off because 10 years from now, your employer won't remember and won't care what days you took off.
But your family, they will. They will remember all the things you missed, all the things that you couldn't attend
because either your work or your self-pride was allowed to take priority.
Here's another example. That person is always so quick to call out others on their mistakes, but they won't admit their own.
You know, another one, those who like to talk about how they're so humble. Oh, you know, I do this and I do that.
And in my humble opinion, the fact of the matter is they aren't.
People who are truly humble don't have to point it out. They don't have to call attention to it
because it's already recognized by others around them.
You know, people who are resistant to receiving help or, you know, being critiqued.
The list goes on and on.
And when you think about it, there's an awful lot of conflict out there today, isn't there?
We all know those people who seem to gravitate towards it.
They're always at odds with others.
You know, things just never seem to be going right.
Now, I'm not talking about like you're every day frustrated.
You know, life's going to be frustrating sometimes, but you know, there's those people that they just they gravitate towards it.
They make it the center of everything, right?
They're so negative.
You know, they're always at odds with others, and it all comes down to a matter of pride.
There is not a single argument, conflict, or fight in the history of mankind that hasn't started
because of someone's pride being offended at some point.
Because pride convinces us that we're better than we are.
That we are more entitled than we are.
If you turn to Luke chapter 18 verses 9 through 14.
So Luke 18, 9 through 14, the Bible tells us that the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
And let's take a look at it real quick.
So again, that's Luke 18 verses 9 through 14.
And it says, To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable.
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed,
God, I thank you that I am not like the other people.
Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.
But the tax collector stood at a distance.
He would not even look up to heaven.
But beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
I tell you that this man rather than the other went home justified before God.
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
You see, the Pharisee was so proud.
He was so prideful that he didn't realize that everything that he had just said was totally wrong.
He placed himself so high on the pedestal, he didn't realize just how far he was from God.
And this is because he, just like the rest of us, was blinded to his own faults.
Just like in Ephesians 2 verses 11 through 13, when the Jews and the Gentiles both viewed themselves as superior to one another
and still failed to see where they were failing themselves.
They failed to see their own sin, where they were going wrong.
And when this happens, people start to think that they're untouchable.
You know, it's no different today than it was back then.
People start to think that they're untouchable, that they're entitled to certain treatments.
That certain sins are now permissible because they've quote unquote earned it.
You know, as many of you know, I spent a part of my life in law enforcement and working in the criminal justice community for years.
I could tell you there's something to the stereotype of people trying to use their job as an escape clause.
You know, oh, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I know the mayor, my spouse is a cop, my parent pays your wages, I'll have you fired.
You know, we like to think that these are things that are just said in TV shows and movies, but they're not.
These are actual things that law enforcement officers hear.
And I'll tell you, these things don't get these people off.
You know, often they push harder and it's not uncommon for them to end up with even more charges.
Even going back to my time in the military, you know, here's something that anyone in the military who's ever stood duty or worked in military law enforcement has said at least once.
Don't confuse your rank with my authority.
That's a popular one.
It's used as a punchline on a lot of jokes, but you know, in the military, you know, we like to say, you know, the duty has no friends and it's true.
You're in a position of authority there. You have a certain task that you have to uphold.
You know, you have a certain job that you have to do.
The people still try to weasel their way out. They don't want to admit to their own mistakes, their own shortcomings.
See, here's here's when the problem comes into play.
We fall into the same trap just like Samson did.
In Judges Chapter 15, verses 14 through 19, the Lord's strength was placed upon Samson, right?
Samson was blessed.
And he went through because of this and he killed a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone.
And after he did this, he touted, you know, he tutored his own horn.
You know, he's beating his own chest.
It's like, look at all that I've done.
This is all me.
I did this.
He took the Lord's glory.
And even at a certain point, you know, he started to wallow in his own self pity because he was thirsty.
And he didn't have a drink delivered to him fast enough for his liking.
He's like, oh, you know, I did all this. Am I not worthy?
You know, a little pity party, trying to make others feel sorry for him.
You know, speaking out as if he was so great and mighty that the Lord himself needed to actually cater to him, bend the knee to him.
I'll tell you right now, right now, none of us is that high and mighty.
We all bend our knee to the Lord.
Every tongue will profess as biblical, right?
We know this.
You see, he failed to see that the credit and the glory, the blessing of his strength and everything that he was able to do.
He was all to the glory of the Lord.
And just as he was a force to be reckoned with, he soon saw that he was knocked down.
He was taken off that pedestal.
He wasn't just taken down a peg.
He was taken off the horse completely.
You see, when people believe that they're in that high place, they're quick to anger when things aren't going to their liking or they're not going the way that they want.
The slightest thing is seen as a threat and their pride is wounded.
Oh, what was me?
Numbers, Chapter 22, Verse 29.
The Bible shows exactly how people respond to this.
So Numbers 22, Verse 29, the Bible says, You have made a fool of me.
If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.
Pride is indeed a dangerous thing.
Not only do we allow ourselves to be hurt, but it drives us to wanting to hurt others or worse.
Remember, the Bible does tell us, you know, if you harbor hatred in your heart for your brother or your sister, you've committed murder in your heart.
Keeping that in mind, add alcohol or some other substance to the situation and you suddenly find yourself with a ticking time bomb on your hands, right?
It's going to get real ugly real fast.
Pride takes us away from God.
It hurts our relationship with him.
Psalm 10, Verse 11, the Bible says, He says to himself, God will never notice.
He covers his face and never sees.
The prideful are so blinded by their own sin.
I said they think that they're entitled to suddenly start doing these things that they weren't allowed to before because of their elevated status that they feel that they're in, right?
That God is suddenly just going to turn away from it and not see it.
But that's not the case.
Pride and God are incompatible.
They do not go together.
And when that pride boost us up and we become so arrogant and so entitled that we believe we're so great and we deserve all this stuff.
Well, quite simply, we've become an idol to ourselves.
We don't see the disconnect between ourselves and God.
It's a tough pill to swallow, but guess what?
We all need to swallow that at some point.
See, we think we could do it all.
And that others need us to do things for them.
It's all about us at that point.
You know, that whole, you know, world of me.
And this goes against God's character.
Instead, we need to realize that God does all things that we do, you know, just like the Philippians.
It says, you know, I can do all things through Christ strengthens me.
Right.
It's because God does all these things.
God empowers us.
God gives us a strength and we need him.
We don't do it.
It's not us.
It is God working through us.
We cannot allow our pride, our sin to keep us from repenting of it.
We had to talk to Jesus.
Now, you know, this is hard.
It could be very hard.
Tough.
It could be downright embarrassing.
However, it's what we're called to do.
Second Corinthians, Chapter seven, verse 11.
After the church had repented and taken Paul's corrective action, Paul commended their growth.
The Bible says, See what this godly sorrow has produced in you.
What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves.
What indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern.
What readiness to see justice done.
At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent of this matter.
You see, when we recognize our sin or our pride gets called out by others, right, we have to stop and we have to evaluate.
As Christians, we need to take that wake up call and we need to take a good long look.
We need to hear that critique, that criticism and look at it not as a threat, but as an opportunity to grow.
Because we all have room to grow.
We all have room to mature.
And sometimes there are growing pains.
But even though that pain is there, there is still growth.
And with that growth, this is an indication that you're becoming a mature Christian.
We all have areas that we need to mature in.
We're more mature in one area than we are in another.
So we all have room for growth.
And when this happens, we need to thank Jesus not only for guiding us through the change that we needed in our lives and helping us to get through this,
but for helping us to learn from it as well.
Our struggles and Jesus helping us in them.
That's where we start to find our testimony.
Our testimony, the things that Jesus has done in our lives, the things that we get to share with others.
It's like, you know what, hey, I did this, I was messing up and Jesus helped me through.
Shining that light in the darkness, right?
Henry Newman identifies three lies that the enemy tries to convince us of when they're attacking our pride.
Three things.
One, we are what we have.
You know, you have that house, those cars, you know, the clothes, you know, all the stuff, the video games.
Nope.
Two, we are what we do.
This goes back to that profession, that job, right?
This is what I do for a living.
Is that who you are?
Nope.
And three, we are what others say we are.
Oh, a lot of pride gets in there, right?
Trying to live up to the standards of others.
Trying to do all the things that the influencers say that we should be doing.
You know, this is what the cool kids are doing.
The reality is, that's not true either.
We are who God says we are.
Let me say that again.
We are who God says we are.
As Christians, we should be defined as children of God.
And this is in our words and our deeds for the world to see.
After all, at the end of your time here on earth, the only thing that will define you is whether or not you believed and have given yourself over as a follower of Jesus Christ.
Because nobody else will be standing there with you before the Father.
Not your friends, not your mom, not your dad, not your dog, not your cat, not that platoon sergeant you had years ago.
It will be you and him.
So I encourage you all, spend some time in reflection.
Look deep down inside and find that pride that we all have, because we all have pride in there.
When you find it, even if you're having trouble finding it, ask Jesus for help with that too.
But ask Jesus to help with the changes you need in your heart.
Ask Jesus to guide you through the changes that you need to make in your life, so that his light shines for others to see.
Remember, you are loved and you are blessed. Now go and be the church.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all. God bless.