Today, we are beginning a new series entitled “Greatness:  The Life of Israel’s Greatest King and How Yours Can Be Better!”  If you’re new, we studied the Book of 1^st Samuel last year.  We actually broke it up into two different series.  The first one was called “Kingmaker: The Qualities of a Godly Influencer,” and it took us from the beginning of 1^stSamuel all the way through the end of chapter 16 when Samuel secretly anointed David to be the next King of Israel.

We then took a break from Samuel and studied the book of 2 Peter, but when we returned to 1^st Samuel, we did so with a new focus.  We called the second series in 1^st Samuel “Align: Ordering Your Life With God.”  That series actually took us through 2^nd Samuel chapter one.  Originally, 1^st and 2^nd Samuel were one book.  Jewish scribes found it difficult to handle a scroll that big, so they broke it up into two separate books, and thus, we now have 1^st and 2^nd Samuel rather than just having one book called Samuel.

However, back in October, after Dan preached the last sermon in “Align,” we once again paused our study of Samuel.  We did so to spend a couple of months walking through the essential doctrines of the faith that fundamentally shape our relationship with God and how and what we should be doing as His church.  Therefore, being we’ve been away from the story for a few months, and because some of you are brand new to it, let me give you a super-fast summary of the key things that set the context for where we are picking things back up today.

Israel begged Samuel (the prophet of God to Israel and a judge over Israel) to get God to give them a king.  Samuel warned them over and over again that it was a terrible idea and that they should trust God to be their king, but they wouldn’t listen.  Finally, God judged Israel’s faithlessness and gave them what they asked for, and his name was Saul.  Even though Samuel had already anointed Saul to be king, when it came time for the leaders of the tribes of Israel to come together at Mizpah and officially acknowledge the man God was calling to be king, Saul faithlessly hid himself in the luggage (1 Samuel 10:22)!

Soon thereafter, the Ammonites invaded Jabesh-gilead.  When they sent word to Saul, whom you would think was busy uniting the tribes, organizing his government, building an army, and appointing emissaries to establish trade relationships with other nations, they instead found him coming in from plowing his fields with oxen (1 Samuel 11:5).  It sounds like a romantic idea that the king would be out plowing fields but it’s actually a terrible idea because he was clearly not at all focused on doing what a king was supposed to be doing.  No king should have time to plow fields, not because he’s too important as a person to do manual labor, but because his job is too important and too demanding to spend daylight hours on anything other than the job of running his country!

However, when word got to Saul about what happened, the Bible says the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he went and did his job.  He quickly organized an army and went and defeated the Ammonites.  As a result, the leaders of the tribes of Israel once again gathered together, but this time, it was to renew their commitment to Saul as their king with sincere enthusiasm and a great deal of optimism.

From there, you would think the story was getting ready to be a truly glorious story, but you quickly find out that’s not the case at all.  The more you read, the more you realize the insecurity that led Saul to hide in the baggage was an insecurity he just couldn’t shake.  It was this insecurity that fed his narcissism, and his narcissism, in turn, fed his insecurity until his entire life was a massive walking disaster headed straight for destruction.

Along the way, God told Samuel he would not allow Saul and his descendants to rule Israel and instructed Samuel to anoint a different man to be the next king of Israel.  That’s why we meet David in 1 Samuel 16 and why things got crazier and crazier with Saul.  Without retelling the story, just know that Samuel never announced David as the next king, and all David ever did was faithfully and fully serve Saul.  Yet, time and time again, Saul betrayed David and even tried to kill David; however, all David ever did was forgive him!

Now, David was in no way innocent in his relationship with God.  David had a period in his life where he reacted to his circumstances with total faithless fear and panic, and it cost a bunch of people their lives.  However, David never once did anything to undermine Saul’s leadership over Israel.  Despite knowing God had anointed him to be the next king of Israel, David served Saul wholeheartedly and did everything possible to make Saul and Israel great!  Sadly, however, nothing David or even Saul’s favorite son Jonathan ever said or did could convince Saul to trust David.  David even intentionally passed on two very clear opportunities to kill Saul.  Saul knew about both of them and how easy it would have been for David to do it, but he still refused to see David as anything but a threat he couldn’t trust.

Finally, the end came, and the judgment of God on Saul was executed.  While David and his army were off rescuing their families from the Amalekites who had invaded their city, the Philistines attacked and decisively defeated Saul and his army.  In the process, Saul and all but one of his sons were killed.  You would think that when David heard Saul had been killed, he would rejoice, but he didn’t.  He wept.  David and all his men tore their clothes and mourned.  It was a terrible day for Israel.  If you truly loved God and your nation, you couldn’t celebrate anything that had taken place.  It was all horrible.  God’s judgment had not just fallen on Saul, but just as Samuel told them it would happen, it had also fallen on all of Israel.  As a result, David was broken.  David loved Saul and the people of Israel so much so that he put his life on the line for them, even when they had no knowledge of it!

But David also knew he had been anointed to be the next king of Israel.  So, what should he do next?  Saul and his sons, whom you would reasonably imagine to be considered the next king, were all dead.  Meanwhile, David was living in a city given to him by the Philistine King and doing so with the people who had essentially been run off by Saul and the other tribes of Israel because they didn’t pay their debts or were just so high-maintenance nobody really wanted them around!  David didn’t have the movers and shakers of the tribes aligned with him; he had the people the movers and shakers didn’t want around!

Adding to the chaos was the fact that Samuel, the person the Israelites had always looked to as a leader, had been dead for a while.  There was no recognizable governmental structure or even a basic system for the 12 tribes to make collective decisions, and the Philistines had just significantly increased their military dominance of the region.  In other words, Israel looked like it was on the brink of total destruction.  There is no way things could have been any worse.  Saul’s leadership had left Israel in a complete and total disaster.  They were in a far worse condition than they had ever been.  As bad as things had occasionally got when they functioned as a confederation of tribes under the leadership of different judges, they at least had some kind of national identity and leadership to move them forward.  However, after 40 years of Saul running things in Israel, they were left with nothing but complete chaos.  No leader wants to leave things worse than when they found it, but that’s exactly what Saul did.  The nation of Israel was a dumpster fire, yet David knew God had chosen him to be the next king.  So, what did David and Israel do next?

This is where we reenter the book of Samuel.  I’m going to walk you through the story in 2 Samuel 2, and then, like we will do every time we study a narrative in the Old Testament, I will spend the rest of our time discussing what I think the New Testament allows us to learn from it.  Ultimately, everything in the Old Testament is meant to take us to Jesus and the New Covenant we have in Him; therefore, any life application we want to make from an Old Testament story needs to be done with full knowledge of how the New Testament presents that application.

For instance, I can’t preach that because David and other leaders in the Old Testament had more than one wife, I can have more than one.  The reason is that the New Testament makes it very clear nobody should have more than one spouse.  However, I can say I should forgive others as David forgave Saul, not because David did it but because Jesus made it very clear that we are to forgive others as God has forgiven us!  Finally, back in December, we talked about the various teachings on tithing in the Old Testament and the reason I can be so confident that we were called to at least tithe to our local church and give over above that to other things that further the cause of Christ in our community and around the world.  The reason is that we have clearer statements from Jesus that call us to be more liberal and cheerful givers than anybody in the Old Testament, and we have way better promises from Jesus that should motivate us to do it as well!  The priority of the local church and the financial principles we read about in the New Testament assure me that I can and should preach that every Christian should at least be tithing to their local church.

In other words, before I conclude how an Old Testament narrative should influence my life and faith, I first need to make sure it’s an application supported by the teachings of the New Testament, which reveal the Gospel that was still a mystery in the Old Testament.

So, let’s begin by reading 2 Samuel 2 and ensuring we understand the narrative; then, we can discuss what we should learn from it.

After David and his men had publicly mourned Saul, the Bible says this is what happened.

1 After this David inquired of the LORD, "Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?" And the LORD said to him, "Go up." David said, "To which shall I go up?" And he said, "To Hebron." 2 So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 3 And David brought up his men who were with him, everyone with his household, and they lived in the towns of Hebron.

It should be noted that David was part of the tribe of Judah, and in 1 Samuel 30, he sent the elders of Judah some of the spoils of war from his defeat of the Amalekites.  Therefore, David had clearly already demonstrated his loyalty to the tribe of Judah and a genuine desire to make sure they were protected and provided for.  Given the sincerity of his support and his years of successful military leadership under Saul, it’s no surprise that in the total chaos of Israel, the Elders of Judah anointed David as king over their tribe.  The Bible says,

 4 And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. When they told David, "It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul," 5 David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh-gilead and said to them, "May you be blessed by the LORD, because you showed this loyalty to Saul your lord and buried him. 6 Now may the LORD show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. And I will do good to you because you have done this thing. 7 Now therefore let your hands be strong, and be valiant, for Saul your lord is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me king over them."

 “Through his marriage with Abigail, David had already established ties with the Calebites who controlled the region around Hebron. In addition, he had sent shares of the plunder from his victory over the Amalekites to many towns in the south (1 Sam 30:26–31), climaxing in Hebron (v. 31). … The Jabeshites showed gratitude for Saul’s rescuing them by in turn rescuing his corpse and that of his son Jonathan and giving them a decent burial … The entire message is fraught with diplomatic overtones.”¹Hoffner, H. A., Jr. (2015). 1 & 2 Samuel (Vol. 2, pp. 161–168). Lexham Press.

“Jabesh-gilead is first mentioned in Judg. 21, when the Israelites put to the sword nearly all of its inhabitants as punishment for refusing to join in the punitive war against the Benjaminites and Gibeah (vv. 8–12); the four hundred virgins who survived the slaughter were subsequently given as wives to the remaining Benjaminite men so that tribe would not cease to exist (v. 4).  Shortly after Saul was anointed as Israel’s first king the nation’s sovereignty was challenged when Nahash the Ammonite attacked Jabesh-gilead. … Saul forcefully rallied Israel (11:6–7) and thereby gathered a large force, the news of which elated Jabesh-gilead (vv. 9–10). Saul’s victory over the Ammonites by means of a dawn attack after a forced march (v. 11) authenticated his kingship in the eyes of many (vv. 12–15).  Jabesh-gilead also figured in events that followed Saul’s death. In their triumph over Saul at Mt. Gilboa, the Philistines beheaded him and hung his body and those of his sons on the city wall of Beth-shan (1 Sam. 31:8–10). Upon hearing of this disgrace the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead travelled nearly 63 km. (39 mi.) by night to retrieve the bodies for cremation and burial at Jabesh (vv. 11–13). Upon being anointed king over Judah, David sent greetings to the people of Jabesh-gilead lauding their act of loyalty to Saul (2 Sam. 2:4b–7); some scholars regard this as an attempt to gain their support for his kingship.”²Myers, A. C. (1987). In The Eerdmans Bible dictionary (p. 544). Eerdmans.

“The first recorded act of his reign was to hold out an olive-branch to Jabesh Gilead, the heartland of support for the house of Saul. Commending them for their loyalty to Saul, he quietly invited their confirmation of his accession as king over Judah (2:4–7). The next time we see David, civil war had been in progress for ‘a long time’ (3:1); six sons had been born to him in Hebron, including the ill-fated Amnon and Absalom, and events were about to propel him to the throne of a united Israel.”³Keddie, G. J. (1990). Triumph of the King: The Message of 2 Samuel (pp. 27–29). Evangelical Press.

Meanwhile, Abner, the fierce warrior and commander of Saul’s army, and Ish-bosheth, a worthless son of Saul who apparently never went anywhere near a battlefield, survived.  The Bible says,

8 But Abner the son of Ner, commander of Saul's army, took Ish-bosheth the son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim, 9 and he made him king over Gilead and the Ashurites and Jezreel and Ephraim and Benjamin and all Israel. 10 Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David. 11 And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

So, basically, Abner, who was feared by pretty much everybody in Israel except David, forced the elders of all the other tribes to accept Ish-bosheth as their King, meaning Abner was functionally their King.  Ish-bosheth was nothing more than a puppet for Abner.  Now, I’m not going to tell you the story of what happened to Ish-bosheth today, but obviously, if he ended up only reigning for two years, it’s because he ended up dying.  Spoiler alert—he was murdered, but I’ll tell you that crazy story when we get to it in chapter 4.  However, for now, you need to know that the nation of Israel had two kings.  David is ruling over Judah from Hebron and a former son of Saul named Ish-bosheth was ruling the rest of the tribes of Israel from Mahanaim.

Last, verse eleven reminds the readers that David ruled from Hebron for seven years. It is not that it took seven years for David to become King over all of Israel, but rather that the city of Jerusalem didn’t belong to the Israelites at this point in history. So David ruled from there for seven years, five of which were over Judah and the rest of Israel, but the first two were exclusively over Judah.

“He set up Saul’s last son, Ish-Bosheth (literally, ‘son of shame’), as a puppet-king in Mahanaim.”⁴Keddie, G. J. (1990). Triumph of the King: The Message of 2 Samuel (p. 29). Evangelical Press.

“So Ish-Bosheth became king; in theory over all Israel (9), but in reality over a limited area. No doubt the Philistines were now the real masters of the central areas of Israel, especially the tribal regions of Ephraim and Benjamin. Ish-Bosheth’s main area of control was east of the River Jordan (Gilead), and his capital Mahanaim was there … Still, Ephraim and Benjamin and some other groups (9) recognized him as king, despite the realities of the situation.⁵Payne, D. F. (1994). 1 and 2 Samuel. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 322). Inter-Varsity Press.

“Since he was not killed in the battle of Mount Gilboa, Ishbaal may have been too young to fight, or he may have been a coward or at least someone whom his father would consider more of a liability in battle than an asset. This trait appears clearly in his cowering before Abner in their confrontation over the concubine Rizpah (2 Sam 3:6–11). … The location of his capital, Mahanaim in Transjordan, was determined by its remoteness from the home base of the Philistines. It was less vulnerable to attack by Philistine forces not only because of the distance, but also because the troops would have to ford the Jordan under arrow and sling-stone fire by Israelites on the heights on the eastern shore.⁶Hoffner, H. A., Jr. (2015). 1 & 2 Samuel (Vol. 2, pp. 169–173). Lexham Press.

No matter your interpretation of the timeline of when Ish-bosheth became King over all the other tribes of Israel, we know that eventually, tensions between the two Kingdoms started to get super intense.  Instead of working together to fight the Philistines, they ended up at war with each other, and here’s how it all got started.

 12 Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. 13 And Joab the son of Zeruiah and the servants of David went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool. 14 And Abner said to Joab, "Let the young men arise and compete before us." And Joab said, "Let them arise." 15 Then they arose and passed over by number, twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. 16 And each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his opponent's side, so they fell down together. Therefore that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is at Gibeon.

 You read that right.  All 24 men died.  What an utter waste!  Instead of meeting to discuss how they could find some common ground by working together to fight the Philistines, they instead created a tournament of death with no defined outcome for the victor!

If their team won, what did that even mean?  Was David supposed to abdicate his throne because Joab’s twelve guys lost?  One might argue that Ish-bosheth had no real say as King; therefore, whatever Abner wanted to do would be how things went anyway.  But I seriously cannot imagine David would have ever agreed to those terms, much less empowered Joab to make such terms!  So, to me, the only logical conclusion we can make about this is that you had two prideful, arrogant leaders attempting to prove their warriors were better than the other guy’s warriors, and thus, their leadership was better than the other guy’s leadership.  Arrogance leads us to complete and utter childish behavior that, more often than not, ends bad; and this definitely ended bad … really bad!  The arrogance that led Joab and Abner to send 12 men into a stupid contest of death with no potential for a constructive outcome seemingly motivated the arrogance of a young man with all kinds of potential to do something terribly foolish as well.  The Bible says,

 17 And the battle was very fierce that day. And Abner and the men of Israel were beaten before the servants of David. 18 And the three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle. 19 And Asahel pursued Abner, and as he went, he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. 20 Then Abner looked behind him and said, "Is it you, Asahel?" And he answered, "It is I." 21 Abner said to him, "Turn aside to your right hand or to your left, and seize one of the young men and take his spoil." But Asahel would not turn aside from following him.

 Apparently, they were passing by some of Abner’s warriors who had already been killed.  Therefore, Abner appealed to Asahel to stop chasing him, take advantage of the victory he and his brother Joab had already achieved, and start gathering the spoils of their defeat.  Don’t mistake Abner’s appeal as Abner being afraid of Asahel.  Abner respected Joab as a leader and thus respected Joab’s family, so he didn’t want to have to kill Asahel.  However, if Asahel could catch up to Abner, something Abner knew would eventually happen, he would most certainly kill Asahel, which could potentially significantly ramp up the war between the house of David and Saul.  The defeat of Abner’s army had seemingly been enough to humble him down enough to start using some wisdom!  Listen to God’s Word,

22 And Abner said again to Asahel, "Turn aside from following me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How then could I lift up my face to your brother Joab?" 23 But he refused to turn aside. Therefore Abner struck him in the stomach with the butt of his spear, so that the spear came out at his back. And he fell there and died where he was. And all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died, stood still.

 Scholars note that the butt of the spears also had a point, and thus why Abner was able to drive it all the way through Asahel backward.  But the more significant point here is that when all of Joab’s men who were pursuing Abner finally caught up to where Abner and Asahel had fought, they found Asahel dead in a decisive way.  As one of Joab’s brothers and a significant athlete, Asahel would have been somebody everybody looked up to, so it was a huge deal when they found him with a spear stuck all the way through him!

 24 But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner. And as the sun was going down they came to the hill of Ammah, which lies before Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon. 25 And the people of Benjamin gathered themselves together behind Abner and became one group and took their stand on the top of a hill. 26 Then Abner called to Joab, "Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you tell your people to turn from the pursuit of their brothers?"

 Now, how ironic is this?  Abner, who started this entire mess by getting his men to march off and instigate Joab and his men to respond; who then initiated this ridiculous fight to death between their men, is now the guy talking with some sense!  Despite the fact it was his arrogance that started this entire disastrous event, he is nonetheless correct in his appeal to Joab to order his men to stop killing their Jewish brothers.  Standing on high ground with the men of Benjamin behind him would certainly strike some sense into Joab and make him realize the fight, which so far was going widely in Joab’s favor, was getting ready to become pretty risky.  In other words, Joab was now hit with some “humble pie” to get him thinking more clearly.  Here’s what happened,

 27 And Joab said, "As God lives, if you had not spoken, surely the men would not have given up the pursuit of their brothers until the morning." 28 So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the men stopped and pursued Israel no more, nor did they fight anymore. 29 And Abner and his men went all that night through the Arabah. They crossed the Jordan, and marching the whole morning, they came to Mahanaim. 30 Joab returned from the pursuit of Abner. And when he had gathered all the people together, there were missing from David's servants nineteen men besides Asahel. 31 But the servants of David had struck down of Benjamin 360 of Abner's men. 32 And they took up Asahel and buried him in the tomb of his father, which was at Bethlehem. And Joab and his men marched all night, and the day broke upon them at Hebron.

This wasn’t just a bad day for Asahel and his fellow warriors that died.  It wasn’t just a bad day for the Benjamites who fought with Abner and died.  It wasn’t just a horrible day for the families of the warriors whose loved ones didn’t come home.  It was also a horrible day for the entire nation.  Rather than uniting to fight their common enemy, they instead ended up killing each other and, as a result, set things into motion that led to an extended civil war in Israel.  Instead of fighting their real enemy, they treated each other as enemies, and it created wounds that, if you keep reading the Old Testament, one could argue were still causing problems for Israel long after David was dead and gone.

But why did this happen, and what can we learn from it?  Many things led up to the events in 2 Samuel 2, but to me, nothing is more prominently consistent than flat-out arrogance.  Saul was an incredibly arrogant leader.  Sadly, the most accurate summary of Saul’s life was that he had all the talent in the world, but his extremely arrogant narcissism fueled his massive insecurity, and it destroyed him and his Kingdom.  However, that testimony of arrogance didn’t stop with Saul.

This was an utter shellacking of Abner and his army that, ironically, Abner arrogantly invited on himself!  Joab wasn’t innocent in this either.  Rather than protecting his fellow Jewish brother from his own arrogance, Joab arrogantly responded to Abner’s challenge, not with the confrontation that they were in no way acting like God’s people, and thus, they needed to get things worked out.  Instead, he attempted to prove he was the bigger man with the better army and sent twelve men to be killed with Abner’s twelve!  Abner and Joab’s arrogance then resulted in hundreds of men dying.  The most convicting thing in all of this for Joab should have been that his arrogant response to Abner’s arrogance is why his brother Asahel’s youthful arrogance got himself killed, but sadly, as you will see next week, Joab never saw things that way.  Joab never understood that the situation leading to Asahel’s death would have never happened had he not arrogantly conceded to Abner’s challenge!

Nonetheless, Asahel’s youthful arrogance blinded his ability to have enough self-awareness to know that just because he could outrun Abner didn’t mean he could also beat Abner in a fight.  I have a friend who spent over a decade as a Navy SEAL.  He finished on SEAL Team Six.  Even though I was a Division 1 college athlete who could have likely outrun him in a sprint and possibly been better than him in organized sports, if we were put into a hand-to-hand combat situation with each other or any other form of combat for that matter, I would quickly lose to him 100% of the time!

In the same way, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know Abner had the reputation of being one of the fiercest battle-tested warriors in all of Israel.  Asahel didn’t stand a chance against Abner, and Abner tried to stop him.  So, you can’t blame Abner for defending himself and killing Asahel. Still, none of this would have ever happened if Abner, out of his arrogance, had not instigated this thing in the first place and if Joab hadn’t responded to Abner out of his arrogance.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, one day, a son of David would write down a lot of thoughts on the subject of arrogance, thoughts that if Saul, Abner, Joab, and Asahel had truly put to heart, could have rescued them from a lot of terrible decisions that created huge messes for themselves and cost a lot people their lives.  Solomon wrote,

2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. (Proverbs 11:2)

5 Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished. (Proverbs 16:5)

18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.  19 It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud. (Proverbs 16:18-19)

12 Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. (Proverbs 26:12)

23 One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. (Proverbs 29:23)

But here’s the problem: we all deal with pride and arrogance.  As a matter of fact, if you don’t think you struggle with pride and arrogance, it’s likely because you’re so blinded by pride and arrogance that you no longer have the ability to be self-aware enough to recognize it.  So, what do we do about it?

Let me give you three New Testament keys for understanding and battling pride and arrogance in your own life.

The first key is to,

 Never forget that no matter how successful or talented you become, you are powerless before God and the universe He created us to live in.

As God said to Job,

1 "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?  2 Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?  3 Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words?  4 Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever?  5 Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? (Job 41:1-5)

 It’s why Peter wrote,

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, (1 Peter 5:5b-6)

There’s an absolute ton of Scripture that should remind us of this truth. You could almost open any page of a Bible, and you would surely soon find one.But it’s incredible how fast we forget to live with a proper fear of the Lord, and thus, it’s no surprise that we think we are somehow an exception to the rule.

We live as if God is there for our agenda instead of us being there for HIS; as if somehow He is our servant instead of us being His; as if this world belongs to us instead of Him; as if our glory is the purpose of our existence instead of His!

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

The second key for understanding and battling pride and arrogance in your own life is to,

Remember that you will not be judged on how well you feel you successfully achieved what you felt was right but rather how well you walked in what He says is right!

We all typically have a hard time imagining that God could disagree with our observations of our perceived success.Therefore, when it comes to our pride and arrogance, we think the way we feel about ourselves must be accurate, and thus, if we see ourselves to be humble, it must be true!  But here’s the deal.  We are not the judge of our lives—He is!  Again, there is an absolute ton of Scripture on this, but just to give you a quick sample, flip back to 1 Peter,

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:14-19)

 Knowing this should leave us not trusting ourselves to define our measure of pride and arrogance and certainly not its opposites-love and humility!It’s being fully convinced of this second truth that should drive us to constantly live in step three,

 The third key for understanding and battling pride and arrogance in your own life is to,

 Study God’s Word, paying special attention to Christ’s life and teachings, to see what true love and humility look like. This will help you recognize what doesn’t measure up in your life and give you the ultimate motivation to want to live a life of His love and humility.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

 There is so much we could unpack here, but all I want to do today is point out the most prominent and applicable truth related to today’s subject.The one who had no sin took upon Himself the consequences of our sin even though most of us would constantly reject Him!  He even died for the sins of the people who mocked Him, beat and tortured Him, and then crucified Him, all while having the power to totally destroy all those who were doing this to Him.

 However, the key to understanding the significance of what Paul is writing here is that Christ was not acting humble so that He could accomplish something. He genuinely had no issue with laying aside His right to be honored as the eternal Son of God so that He could rescue us from our sinful, foolish rebellion against God! In other words, humility wasn’t a method to feed his pride and arrogance.

 Have you ever met a person of significant influence who was working really hard to “act” humble? That’s what I’m getting at here.  Jesus wasn’t “acting.”  He wasn’t taking the advice of His publicists or manager to make sure His social media posts and interactions with others convinced people He was humble so that they would like Him more.  Jesus wasn’t trying to convince anybody that He was humble, but rather, He literally, in every way, came to serve us by doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and He did it for no other reason than His love for us and His love for the Father.  For Jesus, humility wasn’t a method for Him to get glory from others but rather why He, who truly deserved to be glorified, could lay that aside and genuinely give Himself entirely to the task of rescuing us into God’s glory!  This is just one example of a mountain of passages in Scripture that you can read that demonstrate the depths of true love and humility and thus give your actions, and more importantly, your heart, a clear standard for the Holy Spirit of God to walk you into.

 Now, here’s the irony of this passage.Christ truly had no motive to get glory because, as the eternal Son of God, He fully lives for the Glory of the Father; however, in doing so, He will be honored for who He is—the eternal God who is worthy of all praise!  Look at what Paul says next in the passage,

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

 Now, let me be clear: Jesus didn’t earn the right to be glorified as God.Paul has already told us Christ laid that right aside so that He could accomplish His mission of being the propitiation of our sin.  As we studied last year, the Bible says that God has always fully been and always fully will be three and one simultaneously.  That is, God has eternally been and will eternally be The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, meaning Jesus, who has eternally been the Son, has always had the right to be honored as such.  Therefore, He had to lay that right aside, something He did with genuineness so that He could pay the penalty of our sin.  However, that genuine loving service to us doesn’t take away from who He is but rather shines more light on it, and as such, the Father, who sent the Son to die for us, has guaranteed no one will ever again misunderstand who His eternal Son is and how He by His very nature is to be praised!  Jesus will never again be spat on or disregarded but bowed down to in complete honor and praise for who He is—GOD!

This takes us straight to our challenge, a challenge that is essential for us to truly have our pride and arrogance transformed into love and humility.

 Challenge

Is your life defined by a proper response to HIS glory or an effort to get glory?

It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that causes us to live our lives bowed down to HIM!  It is in the understanding of who He is and what He did that we find ourselves fully surrendered to Him.  I have been rescued into His marvelous life entirely by HIS death.  There is, therefore, no room left for me to think of myself as anyone less or greater than anyone else because He is the only one worthy of praise, and thus why, every knee will bow before Him as they confess that He is GOD!

So, when it comes to dealing with our own pride and arrogance, understand this: it gets really hard to live with pride and arrogance when you can’t do anything but bow to your knees and worship Him!  It’s hard to be consumed by your own glory when you are overwhelmed by His.  It is hard to be consumed with what you think people owe you when all you can think about is what you owe Him!  It’s hard to live your life with an expectation of how you should be respected and praised by others when you can’t bring yourself up off the floor in utter homage to HIM!  What praise do I possibly deserve if I’m standing in His presence?  How could I boast about anything after I realize that everything He has given me is greater than anything I could ever achieve and that everything He has given me is given to me because I could never achieve it or deserve it?

 Whether it’s what you're attempting to get from your marriage, your parents, your friends,  your children, your job, or just from the mirror, is the effort, passion, and worry of your life an attempt to get glory, or is it a response to His?

As long as your life is lived to get glory, you will live enslaved to pride and arrogance.  But, if you open your eyes to what true glory looks like, HIS GLORY, then you will be so busy worshiping Him that you no longer have the mental or emotional space to try and get it from others!