I was pondering this from A Gospel Primer for Christians yesterday.
“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. … 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 serve 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.”
He points to a few important ways that the gospel undercuts my pride, which is a source of many/most of my sins. My sin was so awful that its forgiveness required the death of God’s own Son. Yet He loved me in my unloveable condition. My pride & His gracious love put Jesus on the Cross. I have nothing about which to boast- except Christ.
“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 flourishes within me, the more I experience God’s grace along 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.”
You can tell whether the gospel is being preached and believed or not by the level of pride and demandingness in a congregation or person’s life. This is part of the problem with Joel Osteen (and other prosperity teachers). They demand things from God that He has not promised. Their doctrines promote pride and selfishness- which are diametrically opposed to the sound living produced by sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel.
It is this pride which drives the fights and battles we find in James 4. They have made good things ultimate things (as Keller would say). The cure is to humble yourself before God. The gospel is God’s means to humble us (and how it plays out in providence). As humbled people, we submit to God rather than clamor for our way. We become gentle as we plead for others to submit to God’s way.
I suspect we could all use more gospel humility.
Cavman Considers 