The late Jerry Bridges, the dear and beloved friend of our Church family, said this about the sin of pride in his book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate:

“One of the problems with pride is that we can see it in others but not in ourselves.”

In his chapter on the sin of pride, Jerry suggests that there are four especially grievous manifestations of pride that appear in the Church among God’s people: the pride of moral self-righteousness; the pride of correct doctrine; the pride of achievement; and the pride of an independent spirit.

I bring all of this up because it is this terrible sin of a haughty, prideful attitude that the Apostle Paul addresses in Romans 12:3. He says that no Christian should “ think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” And this is another way of saying that we should not be prideful.

Later, in 12:16, he addresses this subject again when he writes: “ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.”

This coming Lord’s Day we are going to examine these verses that exhort all of us to live in true humility. And we will discover that this beautiful Spirit-empowered virtue is one that flows from the infinitely deep well of God’s rich “ mercies” (v. 1) that we share equally in Christ Jesus. Those whose sins have been drowned in the “fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins” should be the humblest of all people on earth. I look forward to all that our Father will teach us from His Holy Word!