Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church - Pride test

Here's the link of the video we saw last night:

http://marshill.com/2011/02/08/quiz-time-the-pride-test-sermon-notes-luke-61

Take the test: (what lifestyle are you committed to?)

1.      Are you seeking the input of those around you to affirm humility and to identify arrogance? If you are not seeking, then you are accepting

2.      Are you actively cultivating humility? If you are not cultivating, you are not harvesting.

3.      Are you filling your day with excuses? Excuses are the enemy of true transformation.

 

What is your besetting sin? Let’s peal it back

Anger (dba, impatience and frustration):

I get angry because………….People are not doing what I want, when I want and how I want it done. They are not performing to my expectations, needs and demands. I have set the standard, and in my eyes it is a reasonable standard, and you need to meet that level and velocity of work.

 

Comfort:

I want peace and quiet, I don’t want arguments, to be bothered with contributing to the home. As the leader of this house, I should come home and everything be taken care of. As the wife, I have labored with the kids all day and when you get home I expect, no, demand help. As a single, I want to come home and expect the phone not to ring – for just 30 FREAKING MINUTES! I expect something that I believe is completely reasonable. I demand something that is good and godly to demand. I want something so much that I will sin if I don’t get it.

 

Envy

You have something I want. I deserve it. I worked harder for that raise or promotion, I deserve a new kitchen or remodeled bathroom because…[whatever]. I want something that God has given to someone else and I believe that He made a mistake in not giving it to me.

Bitterness

That should never have happened. They should never have gotten away with it. God was not just in the punishment that they ultimately got. I have determined that it was not enough and that even death and hell is not sufficient for what you did to me. God was wrong, He was too merciful to you and I reserve the right to continue to hold this offense against you, against me, or against God.

Recent: the George Zimmerman // Trayvon Martin decision. Everyone knows the right answer, and that they have a better decision than the 6 jurors who were sitting in the court room and heard the evidence.

 

Fear of Man

Pride is a self-focused world view. Humility is a God-centered life. If I am self-focused, I need others to affirm and confirm my merit, my importance, my value. Therefore it is not an over active humbleness that feeds a fear of man but an over-active self-focus.

 

C. S. Lewis, said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

 

Ungratefulness

Gratefulness comes from being thankful to someone for something. If we are not thinking about God and what he has done, we will not cultivate gratefulness. Our self-centered nature does not take the time to meditate on what a great need we have and what a great gift we have been given and what a great God gave it. Then if we don’t do that with God, how will we ever be grateful then for the smaller gifts that others have given us.

 

Lust

Lust is a complex confluence of desires - comfort, self-control, envy, but the axel holding these together is pride. I want more than God has given me, I am not satisfied with what God has given me, and I want to be wanted by others. Each of those makes a statement that we know things better than God.

 

And finally from last night:

Definition of the Gospel – John Calvin,

 

Without the gospel, everything is useless and vain; without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinner justified,
the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free.

It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe. It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone.  For, he was sold, to buy us back; captive, to deliver us; condemned, to absolve us; he was made a curse for our blessing, [a] sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair; he died for our life; so that by him fury is made gentle,
wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal.

In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune. For all these things which were to be the weapons of the devil in his battle against us, and the sting of death to pierce us, are turned for us into exercises which we can turn to our profit.

If we are able to boast with the apostle, saying, O hell, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? it is because by the Spirit of Christ promised to the elect, we live no longer, but Christ lives in us; and we are by the same Spirit seated among those who are in heaven, so that for us the world is no more, even while our conversation is in it; but we are content in all things, whether country, place, condition, clothing, meat, and all such things.

And we are comforted in tribulation, joyful in sorrow, glorying under vituperation [bitter railing and condemnation], abounding in poverty, warmed in our nakedness, patient amongst evils, living in death.

Also from last night:

The gospel is not just a sequence of steps (say, the "Four Laws" of Campus Crusade or the "Six Biblical Truths" of Quest for Joy).Those are essential. But what makes the gospel "good news" is that it connects a person with the "unsearchable riches of Christ."

There is nothing in itself that makes "forgiveness of sins" good news. Whether being forgiven is good news depends on what it leads to. You could walk out of a courtroom innocent of a crime and get killed on the street. Forgiveness may or may not lead to joy. Even escaping hell is not in itself the good news we long for - not if we find heaven to be massively boring.

 

Nor is justification in itself good news. Where does it lead? That is the question. Whether justification will be good news, depends on the award we receive because of our imputed righteousness. What do we receive because we are counted righteous in Christ? The answer is fellowship with Jesus.

Forgiveness of sins and justification are good news because they remove obstacles to the only lasting, all-satisfying source of joy: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not merely the means of our rescue from damnation; he is the goal of our salvation. If he is not satisfying to be with, there is no salvation. He is not merely the rope that pulls us from the threatening waves; he is the solid beach under our feet, and the air in our lungs, and the beat of our heart, and the warm sun on our skin, and the song in our ears, and the arms of our beloved.

Full text in blog

 

 

 

 

 

  

From last night:

Understanding the Gospel Produces Humility

According to Scripture, God deliberately designed the gospel in such a way as to strip me of pride and leave me without any grounds for boasting in myself whatsoever. This is actually a wonderful mercy from God, for pride is at the root of all my sin. Pride produced the first sin in the Garden, and pride always precedes every sinful stumbling in my life. Therefore, if I am to experience deliverance from sin, I must be delivered from the pride that produces it. Thankfully, the gospel is engineered to accomplish this deliverance.

            Preaching the gospel to myself each day mounts a powerful assault against my pride and serves to establish humility in its place. Nothing suffocates my pride more than daily reminders regarding the glory of my God, the gravity of my sins, and the crucifixion of God’s own son in my place. Also, the gracious love of God, lavished on me because of Christ’s death, is always humbling to remember, especially when viewed against the backdrop of the Hell I deserve.

            Pride wilts in the atmosphere of the gospel; and the more pride is mortified within me, the less frequent are my moments of sinful contention with God and with others. Conversely, humility grows lushly in the atmosphere of the gospel, and the more humility flourished with me, the more I experience God’s grace alone with the strengthening His grace provides. Additionally, such humility intensifies my passion for God and causes my heart increasingly to thrill whenever He is praised.

Milton Vincent, A Gospel Premier (P 27-28) emphasis mine

 

     The Gospel and Humility are inextricable linked. They are dance partners in an intricate, worshipful dance before heaven’s throne. The gospel leads humility around the floor in smooth and graceful choreography while humility continues to point back to her partner.

    

      Humility is both a product of growing in the gospel as well as catalyst that God uses in our understanding of and growth in the gospel

Salvation is wholly of grace, not only undeserved but undesired by us until God is pleased to awaken us to a sense of our need of it. And then we find everything prepared that our wants require or our wishes conceive; yea, that He has done exceedingly beyond what we could either ask or think.

Salvation is wholly of the Lord and bears those signatures of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness which distinguish all His works from the puny imitations of men. It is every way worthy of Himself, a great, a free, a full, a sure salvation.

It is great whether we consider the objects (miserable, hell-deserving sinners), the end (the restoration of such alienated creatures to His image and favor, to immortal life and happiness) or the means (the incarnation, humiliation, sufferings and death of His beloved Son). It is free, without exception of persons or cases, without any conditions or qualifications, but such as He, Himself, performs in them and bestows upon them.

— John Newton
"The Consolation" in Works of John Newton

Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold. -Thomas Jefferson