Religious Pride
About this sermon
In “Religious Pride,” Pastor Dean Odle presents a Scripture-centered message about pride and humility, the condition of the church, prayer. Drawing especially from Romans 12, Romans 7, 1 Corinthians 10, Luke 18, the teaching emphasizes that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. Odle connects that foundation with the conviction that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle focuses on gratitude while working through Romans 12. The message argues that thankfulness remembers God’s mercy and guards the heart from entitlement and complaint. It connects this with the conviction that salvation is presented as God’s work in Christ that produces a changed life and continuing faith. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on grace and mercy while working through Romans 7. The message argues that God’s grace forgives and also trains believers to leave sin and live in obedience. It connects this with the conviction that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the condition of the church while working through Luke 18. The message argues that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise. It connects this with the conviction that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on divine judgment while working through Matthew 7. The message argues that God’s judgment is treated as righteous, certain, and a reason to repent while mercy is offered. It connects this with the conviction that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. The practical emphasis is to trust God’s promises and refuse decisions governed by fear.
Odle focuses on endurance while working through Galatians 6, Revelation 12. The message argues that faithful endurance is necessary when obedience brings testing, opposition, or suffering. It connects this with the conviction that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on prayer. The message argues that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. It connects this with the conviction that God’s judgment is treated as righteous, certain, and a reason to repent while mercy is offered. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on pride and humility while working through Ecclesiastes 7, James 4, Mark 7. The message argues that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. It connects this with the conviction that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. The practical emphasis is to practice patient, truthful love in relationships and conflict.
Odle focuses on pride and humility while working through Isaiah 13, Malachi 4. The message argues that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. It connects this with the conviction that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
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- 0:00:00
god we thank you for your presence we thank you for your glory we thank you we have access lord to you into your presence by the blood of jesus we're thankful lord that you're merciful that you forgive sins and wash them away we're thankful lord that you have a plan for us for each of us lord we thank you that you are real that you died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead and you're alive forevermore and we are thankful lord today that we can know you we can worship the one true god the creator of heaven and earth we're thankful that you're not like allah you're a god of love and mercy and forgiveness your the truth the way the truth and the life and we we love you today we exalt you today we praise you today in jesus name we pray amen hallelujah glory to god well good to have everyone here this morning we welcome those listening by shoutcast radio those listening my blog talk radio welcome you to fire and grace church this morning um i do have a message this morning for you i told nancy i don't know if we're going to call it the continuation of the soulless christian or not but could be i guess because this is part of the part of the problem but i'm going to address some some issues in our church this morning and not just in our church i guess anybody listening across the world this is a common problem that's in christians lives and our church does not have this all together just yet we got a long way to go i do you do i assure you that we have a long way to go on this issue but what we're going to talk about this morning look at from the scriptures is religious pride religious pride and it manifests itself in some real interesting ways it's a sneaky little snake they can hide behind the most pious and religious uh platitudes or whatever you want to call them but it can hide in the heart of a christian of a sincere christian religious pride you know i was just thinking while we're in worship a minute ago if we could all go back to the day in the sense of our humility on the day we got saved because on the day we truly were born again the day we were truly saved we had a revelation if you really got saved you had a revelation that you were a sinner
- 0:03:00
you had a revelation that there was nothing in you that could save you that's why you had you look to jesus and when you believe that jesus christ the messiah when you believe that he died on the cross for your sins because you were a sinner and he died there to save you from your sin and you realized you couldn't save yourself that you had to have a savior to wash your sin away and to give you the hope of eternal life in heaven and you believed that he rose from the dead and you were born again and you felt the peace of god come into your soul and you felt the love of god come into your soul and your spirit and you felt the presence of god receive you and love you and forgive you at that moment as a baby christian you didn't really have any spiritual knowledge you didn't really have anything to be proud about you weren't proud of your spiritual gifts you weren't proud of your you weren't you weren't thinking about your status in life whether you're rich or poor you weren't thinking about you know how good you've been no you were all you were thinking about is jesus just forgave me of all these horrible things i've done and i didn't deserve it and the revelation that before you were ever born that he took your sin in his body as he suffered on the cross [Music] that he became sin he took all of our sins on him and that revelation was precious to us then wasn't but then something happens you know all babies are cute and innocent aren't they precious cute innocent little babies and then they start growing up they start growing up and they start thinking for themselves and all of that's got to happen right but what starts happening almost immediately attitudes you know a two-year-old usually starts with mine mine mine right but christians are no different oh but then let us get a little older in the lord and start getting some knowledge right all of a sudden we know more than other people all of a sudden we're better than other people we're superior to other people because we know a little more
- 0:06:01
maybe than another christian or another person that's why the scripture says knowledge puffs up all right oh and then don't let us get baptized in the holy spirit in the gift of tongues and start operating in the gifts then we really think we're something oh don't let that happen in church now let god use us in the gifts of the spirit in church oh don't dare let it happen that we lay hands on somebody and pray for them in jesus name and they get healed oh boy we've just become the greatest christian on the face of the earth in our own minds right and then we graduate a little further because we think we begin to think well i'm getting my act together in this place or that place i'm a lot better than i used to be and it's good we should improve we should grow we should mature we should become overcomers we there's things once we become a christian that of course we should stop doing you know from things when we that we did when we were unsaved and we should improve the problem is with us is that when we start improving or making changes or getting better or living a holier life or a more obedient life we begin to get pretty satisfied with ourselves we began to get pretty feeling pretty good about ourselves right and then we began to think that now you know we can look at others and start trying to fix them okay to a degree we're supposed to try to help people but that's usually not what it turns into all right now i'm going to read some scriptures this morning because we're going to look at the subject of religious pride but i want to read just several passages before i make a whole lot of comment i'm going to try to not make a whole lot of comment on the scriptures that i'm going to read here this morning just to set the stage but let's start off i want you to turn to romans chapter 12 romans chapter 12. and actually you know in this series of the soulless christian we dealt with romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2 a few weeks ago we didn't get to verse 3.
- 0:09:02
everybody get there romans 12. let's read from verse 1 but we're going to go to verse 3 and focus in on verse 3. i beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of god that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto god which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of god you know we've been talking about that over the last few weeks about proving what is the will of god by dividing what is soulish emotional what is intellectual uh what is you know in your soul versus what comes from the holy spirit and the word of god and what the holy spirit is saying and doing so we've been talking about that when you talk about presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice living a holy life presenting yourself to the lord and living for him now see all that's good and all that's part of it but he didn't stop there verse 3 is kind of the next step we need to look at once you get your act together a little bit you're in danger of falling into religious pride and that's why the next verse he says this for i say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as god has dealt to every man the measure of faith so immediately he jumps right to this i'm gonna i'm gonna charge every man every woman every person every christian i'm going to charge you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think but to think soberly can i just say a short word here i don't care how much you think you have it together you don't have it together the apostle paul put it this way in philippians chapter 3 when he said i count not myself to have already apprehended this thing but i am pursuing the high calling of god in christ jesus right now if the apostle paul could say i don't have it all yet the man who was called up to heaven and heard unspeakable words that he could not even come back here and tell us about the man who had the crippled walk and the blind sea and the dead rays and everything else who planted uh most of the churches of the of the of the new testament who wrote most of the new testament said i don't have it all together here's another thing i'm going to say about the apostle paul here before we go
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