Love Is Not Proud 1 Corinthians 13:4

Broadcast Dates: May 11-12, 2021 Steve DeWitt

All of my nieces and nephews are favorite nieces and nephews, so one of my favorites is Abby, the second child of my brother Scott. When Abby was around five years old, my brother had run into the store and Abby was sitting on her Mom Dani’s lap in the front seat while they waited. Dani watched as Abby was looking at herself in the rear view mirror. She looked at her face one way. She looked at her face another way. Finally she said, “Mommy, I like me.”

At least children are honest. As we get older we learn to hide those naked revelations of self-absorption. Hopefully it moderates but we always have plenty of inward, I like me. Even someone who obsesses over how much they don’t like themselves, even hate themselves, is displaying a destructive obsession with self. Where does all this self-obsession come from? One word: Pride.

Of everything said about love in 1 Corinthians 13, this is the core of our failure to agape. The presence of all the other characteristics of agape love flow from the degree to which pride is either dominant or not. It is a zero sum relationship. The more pride, the less agape. The more agape, the less pride. They cannot and will not cohabitate.

This is the core of whether we will love or not. Get this and we get all the others with it. Of all the messages from chapter 13, this is the hardest to speak on. I know a lot about pride because the battle with it is so much a part of my spiritual life. I posted on Facebook this week, “Would someone else please preach this message for me?” I had no takers. Apparently my Facebook friends struggle with pride too. Let’s read the text from 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;" (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

Our focus today is on Love does not boast; it is not arrogant. Arrogance. Boasting. These two appropriately go together because a sure sign that you think you are wonderful is that you try verbally to convince others of the same. The Greek words behind them are helpful. The word for arrogant means, to be puffed up; to be inflated. The word for boast also refers to air. It means to be a windbag; to blow and blather on about yourself. We might say, He is full of himself (arrogance) and he is full of hot air (boast). The one flows from the other.

Perhaps a helpful illustration of this is a balloon. Balloons make themselves appear bigger than they really are. What is required? The balloon needs to inflate itself [Steve inflates the balloon] and with an inflated sense of itself it can make a lot of noise about itself [Steve lets the air out of the balloon]. What is the difference between pride, boasting, and arrogance? Pride is like the air in the balloon. You can’t see it, but you see its effect. Arrogance is how pride looks to other people. It’s the awareness to others that we have an overestimation of our importance. Boasting is what pride sounds like when it talks about itself. Pride is the air. Arrogance is the inflation. Boasting is the sound.

Church services at First Church of Corinth looked a like a balloon festival. Chapter 12 shows that a big source of their pride was spiritual gifts. Remember that spiritual gifts are those

1 | P a g e enablements for ministry given to each Christian by the Holy Spirit. Some are more public. Some are more behind the scenes. At Corinth, those with public gifts had superiority complexes and those without had inferiority complexes. The assumption they made was that spiritual gifts indicated spiritual maturity. The more public or spectacular, the more they thought the person was spiritual. This inflated the publicly-gifted Christians’ sense of self-worth. In Corinth, those without the public gifts also had great self-absorption as seen in their resentment of those who had them. Both reveal pride.

It’s similar to what happened when James and John quietly approached Jesus asking to someday sit at His right hand and His left when He came into His kingdom (Mark 10:35ff). The other disciples were indignant that James and John would make such a request. Why? Likely they wanted to be at His right and left too.

It is always easy to identify pride in other people. It is much harder to see it in ourselves. In fact, ask yourself, Why does pride in other people bother me so much? Why do we not like it when we see people aspiring to sit at Jesus’ right hand or thinking they’ve already arrived there? Our own pride resents pride in other people.

Pride’s Prototype

While pride has many different expressions, it begins from the same place. The first ever expression of pride was not from a human but an angel. Satan was created by God. God created Satan more beautiful and gave him more authority than any other angel. His gifts of power and majesty were actually what led to his downfall.

• Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. (Ezekiel 28:17)

• You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ (Isaiah 14:13-14)

Somewhere in the dark recesses of the mind and will of the greatest angel ever created there came a thought, While I am the greatest of all angels, I want to be more. I want to be equal with God Himself.

The toughest instrument to play in any orchestra is second fiddle. Pride inflated his balloon. His beauty and majesty were his downfall because they inflated his sense of self and fed his desire for more glory. He wanted to be more. He wanted to be God.

It is interesting to consider how Satan tempted Eve. But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) How did Satan know this was a powerful temptation? His own heart followed the same destructive path – the desire to be like God; to be more than I am.

Pride is very aware of how it stands compared to others. This is why you can make a lot of money, but if you find out your colleague is making a little more, it bothers you so much. Pride is competitive. It competes for glory and praise. It was said of King Henry VIII that he wanted to be the child at every dedication, the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral. Pride wants all the attention. Pride inflates our balloon. Inflation leads to exaltation which leads to bloviation. Pride. Arrogance. Boasting.

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Why Love is Not Proud

While this is a message on pride, it really is a message on love and how love is not this way. Love is not arrogant. Love does not boast. How does love deflate pride?

Agape Love = Self-giving for the good and joy of another

People self-give for others and do so every day - moms for their children, soldiers for each other, civil servants for their community. However, true agape love that brings delight to God is different than mere human self-giving. As verses 1-3 point out, lots of people do lots of religious and moral things, but in the end they don’t mean anything to God.

True agape love seeks the good and joy of others because it has been humbled under the greatness of God in the glory of Christ’s self-giving on the cross for Jesus’ sake. Pride orients around self and wants to make self look good. Agape orients around the gospel and wants to make Christ look good. Their actions may be the same outwardly but their motivation is entirely different. Agape doesn’t feel the need to impress people or be viewed by others as better or even for other people to know about its self-giving. Agape’s audience is God.

Love is the death of self.

Who is the humblest person in our church? The truly humble Christian is the person who estimates themselves as being the worst sinner in the room. The one who actually thinks they are the proudest and the worst. How do we get there?

The cross. The cross and the gospel are God’s antidote to man’s pride. Jesus is the only man on earth who had the right to exalt Himself because He was the Son of God and King of the Universe. Yet, these rights that were His, He let go (Philippians 2) and made Himself a servant and died for sinners.

Here’s the irony, Jesus actually had something to boast about, but for Him it would be no exaggeration. In a way, God can’t boast because He can’t overestimate Himself. While He can’t boast, He can humble Himself which Jesus did.

Love is not self-exalting. Love is self-giving, self-deflating. This is why the Christian message rubs the natural man so wrong. Salvation from sin requires admission of guilt and repentance from sin, which the pride-filled man desperately doesn’t want to do. He wants to earn it by performance or knowledge or accomplishment. He wants to find his own way and his own truth, but Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through [him]. (John 14:6)

Agape love is not proud but the person with agape thinks they are. This is who pride and humility are so slippery. The humblest person in the room today is the one who if you asked them, would say, I am the worst sinner here. You might ask yourself, whose pride have you been thinking about during this message? If its yours and you feel sorrow over it, you might be humble. If its someone else, it is because you are proud.

It is a dangerous thing to speak on humility so how about I let someone else? I want to play a video clip from a Q and A session with pastors James MacDonald and CJ Mahaney. To set it up, the apostle Paul writes something confusing in 1 Timothy 1:15 (NIV), Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.

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How could Paul say he was the worst of all sinners?

Find video here: http://blog.harvestbiblefellowship.org/?p=1138 (If clicking this link doesn’t work, you can copy and paste this address into your web browser’s address bar and hit enter. It will take you to a blog by Pastor James MacDonald about the conversation in the video. The video is embedded in that blog. The part of the clip shown at Bethel begins at 1:33.)

The golden truth in there is that since I know my sin with greater clarity and intimacy than I can possibly know anyone else’s sin, when I am thinking rightly, in my estimation I am the worst sinner I know. No air in those balloons.

The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. (Jonathan Edwards, “Thoughts on the Revival,” Works (Edinburgh, 1979), Vol. 1, p. 398-400.)

Fighting Pride with Agape’s Power

The best way to humility is to hate our pride

I got this from somewhere. Until we see pride the way God does and hate it the way He does, we will not do the hard work humility requires. The fact of the matter is that God hates our pride. James 4:6 says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Proverbs 6:17 tells us that haughty eyes are one of seven things God hates.

Self doesn’t hate pride; self revels in it. This is why the battle is so hard and why pride is the core of all sins. If we are ever going to suppress pride, we have to hate it like God does. I want you to leave here today with a real bad attitude about your pride.

Strive for self-forgetfulness

Love doesn’t mean we don’t think about ourselves. Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 19:19) acknowledges a certain self-care and self-awareness. The humble person is the person in the room who isn’t caring that much if they get the attention, applause, gifts, kudos, status indicators, deference, focus, or anything else. They are self-giving for the good and joy of the others. They are happiest in the happiness of others. That is self- forgetfulness.

Strive for self-forgetfulness. Try to end the day having not worried too much about yourself.

Confess pride to God and others in specifics

Since we all have pride, it is a safe confession to make. Forgive me for my pride. Pride doesn’t want to get specific. It loves generalities. Fight that. Be specific. When you hear self-glory in your words or when you catch a whiff of your own attitude or when you embellish to make yourself look good, confess it right away to God specifically. If necessary, do the same to others. When I said ______, it was pride. When I treated you that way, it was pride on display. Please forgive me. Now all sin is a form of pride, so don’t be legalistic about this.

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But there are times for this. I recently went to some people in our church and confessed to them that pride had blinded me to damage I was doing in the way I related to them – some of the things coming up in 1 Corinthians 13 like, “insisting on its own way;” Failures to listen as I should; exercising authority in unhelpful ways. It’s easy to say, I was proud. Yeah, we all are. When we get specific, our pride resists it. Whatever our pride resists is probably the very thing we should do.

Wash others’ feet and don’t point out that you did to God or others

Pride wants attention for its humble actions. Look what I did! Look how amazingly humble I am. Look how selfless I am. Look at me! I like me! I am washing feet!

Think deeply about redemption and your personal responsibility in it

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to be saying to us, I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying. Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size. (John Stott)

Friends, think deeply and often about the cross. Think about what it means. Think about your contribution to the guilt Jesus bore. Think about the holiness of God. Think about Christ’s glory and humility. When we are there in our hearts and minds, we shrink to true size and now we are free to love with reckless abandon like He did.

Love is patient, kind, does not envy, and is not proud.

Additional Scripture (as indicated) taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

© Steve DeWitt, 2021. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include The Journey (http://thejourney.fm) or Bethel Church (http://www.bethelweb.org) website on the copied resource.

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