In today's sermon, Pastor Pan pointed out in verse 3 (of Philippians 2) that Paul wanted to address our issue of pride.
Christ's Example of Humility
2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Thought it would be good to bring in what I read on pride and avarice recently (from the book Killjoys)
It was mentioned that pride comes in mainly six forms
Building Up: Self-Exaltation, Self-Promotion, and Self-Justification
Tearing Down: Self-Degradation, Self-Demotion, and Self-Condemnation
First, pride puts on the smug face of self-exaltation when success comes its way. Self-exaltation takes credit for the good things in our lives. Second, self-promotion is an extension of self-exaltation because it puts those good things forward so that others will give us credit for them. Third, self-justification is more specific in that it focuses on taking credit for morally good works as a way of being right before God or in the sight of others. Taking credit for being in the right makes it more likely that we will blame others for being in the wrong.
Self-degradation, self-demotion, and self-condemnation all come when the shoe is on the other less fortunate foot. They emerge as we stew over our losses and others’ successes. Rather than raising a toast to successes, these three forms of pride throw a lavish pity party. First, where self-exaltation elevates and builds up the self, self-degradation is a form of demolition which tears down the self. Second, self-demotion throws a public and pathetic party to highlight the fact that we have performed worse than others, we have it worse than others, or we have less than others. Self-demotion plans the funeral for our ego. Why would we want others to see these things? Ironically, self-demotion can be a sneaky form of self-promotion because we’re actually fishing for the affirmation and reassurance we believe we deserve. Third, self-condemnation passes judgment on us when we fall short of our own standards. Sometimes we carry out the painful judgment on ourselves. We can mentally replay poor performances in order to beat ourselves up over our failures. Self-condemnation does not feel vindicated in the sight of others, but feels shame for falling short.
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