When Napoleon Bonaparte was about to begin his campaign against Russia, someone tried to dissuade him and remarked, “Man proposes, but God disposes!” Whereupon Napoleon arrogantly replied, “I dispose as well as propose!” A Christian lady heard this blasphemous answer and said, “I believe this to be the turning point in Napoleon’s career. God cannot permit any of His creatures to arrogate to themselves His prerogatives with impunity.” And she was right. From that time Napoleon’s star began to wane and soon turn to darkness.

Napoleon committed what we would call the Great Sin, and with that particular title, this sin isn’t what you’d expect it to be. One chapter of C.S. Lewis’ book on morality, Chrisitan Behavior, is titled “The Great Sin.: We might imagine that it would deal with murder or adultery. Instead, it describes “pride,” or “self-conceit,” as the great sin. And the worst forms of this are not only the open pride of people, but the secret pride that apes humility, the devil grins at this sin for it’s his darling sin, hellbent on destroying the first commandment and making God a much lesser matter in the life of a person.

Yes, pride is the great sin, and some would say it’s the worst sin for it replaces God and gives way to a plethora of sins, yet what we will learn today is that God takes care of your worst sin by declaring you righteous through the merits and death of Christ. Therefore, with God’s gracious help we can heed the Scriptural admonition from 1 Peter 5, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”

(We pray…)

In evaluating the sin of pride and the response of God, we turn to the 75th Psalm, where we see a clear and concise assessment of the matter of Pride from the perspective of the Almighty. It is most likely that this Psalm was given by inspiration around the time that Israel looked to the north in dread, waiting for the impending invasion brought by the armies of Assyria.

A country here, a country there, one with siege tools, the other bracing for impact, both sides forgetting who’s really in charge. Our text admonishes both the gentile Assyrians, and the Jewish people. First to the Assyrians, “`I said to the boastful,`Do not deal boastfully,’ And to the wicked,`Do not lift up the horn. 5 Do not lift up your horn on high; Do not speak with a stiff neck.’ Sennacherib boasted so much about his gods and his armies. He, like a mighty Spanish bull, brandished his horns. Lifting up the horn refers to the horns of a hooved animal, the horn serving as a symbol of their strength—like a ram, or a bull, or an elk. Assyria raised their horns like a black bull chasing men arrayed in red running down the streets of Madrid, Spain. And God says, “no, you have no reason to boastfully raise your horns. Their stiff neck and powerful horns soon were forced to the ground when the Lord came and destroyed the whole Assyrian army, not even allowing them to shed an ounce of Judean blood.

Assyria had no reason to boast in themselves, and neither did Judah. Judah had this sobering reminder: your exaltation does not come from yourself or others. “For exaltation comes neither from the east Nor from the west nor from the south.” The east had nothing but nomadic tribes, the west hand nothing but sea, the south had Egypt which never helped Israel, and the north had their enemies. Judah can’t boast in human strength. Only their God. He is the One who judges. He is the one who brings one down and raises one up.

Now, from this account, we see that God levels all sorts of pride, and this Psalm paints a very general picture. Looking more specifically into the great sin of pride, this sin can take many ugly forms and examples. Our accompanying readings present two particular cases for us: one dealing with judgmental legalism, and the other with spiritual complacency.

In the case of the former, we come to our Gospel reading where we see the pride of the pharisees grossly impede the fulfillment of the obligation of love towards one’s neighbor. The Pharisees took so much pride in their rules and laws, and their fulfillment of them. They were such good people. I mean, just looked at how they kept the Sabbath. They really put those disciples in their place, “how dare you pick the wheat from the stalk. How dare you pinch the slightest morsel off.” They strained at the gnat here, and they did so intensely. It was so uncalled for that it was as if you told a kid they were going to hell for being impatient during the road trip when in reality all they did was scratch the outside of their nose in a spirit of absent mindedness as they watched the panorama go by.  Their pride had their priorities mixed up, and that’s what pride does. It blinds you to the things that really matter. “How dare they not live up to my standards! I’ll give them a piece of my mind.” But Jesus comes in with the crushing perspective, “do you remember when King David was running for his life and he ate the tabernacle bread, which only the priests could eat? Were the priests just going to let this poor man starve? I told my disciples to eat, and I am Lord of the sabbath.” Jesus shatters their pride by stating this in principle: Love is the fulfillment of the Law. Pride always gets in the way of loving one’s neighbor. One may say, “I’m so clean.” I wonder what they think of the dirty. Do they love them? “I’m such a hard worker!” I wonder what they’d say to the one who struggles with laziness? Would they be helpful or hurtful?

And then there’s the other case of pride, that of a more passive nature than the first, that of complacency. Our epistle reading brings this one to light. Many people today just do not care about God’s Word. They think that their lives and luxuries are more important than what God has for them. In Hebrews 4, the Lord holds out Israel as an example to us all. Israel was offered grace in the wilderness, and they said, “Nah, I’ll pass.” They did not care about God’s Word. If you don’t care to hear God’s Word and care to strive for what He wants from you, that’s pride. That is putting your desires over His. Hebrews charges the complacent to strive to enter God’s rest, that is keep coming to hear God’s Word for your salvation. Do this, or else that very same Word will expose you and your sinful thoughts for what they are. The Word is sharper than any double-edged sword, and it will cut open the heart of the pridefully complacent person. The sinner says, “nah, I won’t go to church. Don’t feel like it.” Hmm…how come? Let’s cut you open with God’s Word and see what’s wrong with you. I don’t feel like praying, obeying, or loving my neighbor. I’m sorry to hear that, let’s cut you open again and see that ugly pride that needs to be destroyed.

Pride very clearly is the great sin, and to illustrate one more time, consider this Danish fable. There was a young spider who lived in a large barn. One day, while crawling about on the ceiling, he looked down and saw a spot that seemed just perfect for a new home. So he came down on a thin filament of web until he reached that wonderful spot, and there he created a huge, beautiful web. He grew slick and prospered. One day, while walking about his domain, he saw that thin filament of web reaching up into the darkness above and thought to himself, I have no need of this, and so he cut it. The whole web, spider and all, came crashing to the ground and a big cow stepped on him. How much we are like that young spider. We are quick to declare independence from God—sometimes with pride, but always with tragic results.

No, there are no stiff necks and lifted horns that can or should be raised among us. There is no exaltation from us. There only is from God Himself.

Left to our own devices, we are at our lowest. We could go nowhere, nowhere important, on our own. And that is where God steps into play. God takes care of you in your darkest hours. When pride’s consequences come toppling down on you, like an Assyrian army storming down on you from the north, God comes into deliver you. When you cut your spider web, plummeting towards the floor to be crushed by the hoof of eternal destruction, a hand reached out and caught you. And who would ever want to catch a barn spider to save it from getting stepped on? Who would ever want to catch a rebellious loser to prevent them from going to hell? The gracious Lord, our God would. We did nothing to deserve this, Israel did nothing to be spared from Assyria, but God steps in and gives us the only matter we can boast about. He is our savior and redeemer. He gives us victory and gives us our only confidence.

The Lord has dealt with your great sin and has saved you from it. Pride was pinned to the cross, and its consequences no longer can destroy you, for Christ bore that for you. When our text says that the Lord God judges, pinning down and lifting, we spoke a lot about His pinning down, but what about His lifting up? How does God lift you up? Cut down in humility by the weight and despair brought on by your sinful pride, the judge lifts you up with a plea of innocence brought to you by your Savior Jesus. The Lord actively judges all, and He judges you as sin-free, and therefore you will not be punished. He gives you this verdict because of the humble lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus remained humble in every way on your behalf, and He offered that humble life in death to take away any chance an eternal future in hell for you. And so, for every time you’ve actively judged someone like a Pharisee, holding them to an unruly standard of your own making, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Sabbath rest, took the thoughts, words, and deeds of your unhealthy standard and nailed them to the tree of calvary. Whether it was a withholding of God’s truth because you didn’t want to hurt them or adding on to God’s truth in a spirit of unwarranted vengeance, the Lord of love, the greatest virtue, overcame your pride, the greatest vice, to declare to the Judge of glory, “I find no fault in them.”

And so, praise be to God that He has saved you in this was, and He has saved you to live under Him in His kingdom, to make use of His saving grace found in His Word and sacrament. For you see, the Lord is caring and concerning towards you, wishing for you to stay in the knowledge of the truth. He has ordained that the way to keep you in this is to give you His saving Word. He doesn’t want us to be complacent and eventually lose our Jesus’ given right to salvation. He doesn’t want us to cut the web from the barn ceiling to fall into eternal death again. Guarding against this complacency and pride, we go to God’s Word to hear the sweet comfort for our burdened hearts and minds. This Word of grace offers you the legal sentence that all your sins have been removed and that eternal rest is waiting for you in Jesus Christ our Lord. That rest is yours now, and it is so by faith in Christ. As we wait for it, the Lord of grace has given us His Word, not to rend you open this time, but to keep you centered in Christ’s love, working the forgiveness of sins and faith to grasp the gifts of eternal life and security.

And so, your greatest sin has been taken care of. In ourselves, there is no horn to raise on high. In ourselves, there is nothing to exalt us to worthiness and praise. In ourselves, there is no hope for a future. There is nothing to a spider falling to the floor, but there is everything in the hand that catches him. In the hands of our Lord, there is a horn to raise high. Jesus Christ is the horn of salvation that is brandished before our enemies—the devil, world, and flesh. In Jesus Christ, there is a bright hope for a future of limitless joy and peace in the Lord God, joy and peace we enjoy in part now! Joy and peace that will be made full in heaven. In Jesus Christ we have the hand that catches us and keeps us from hitting the floor. In Jesus Christ we have the external, objective assurance that He will exalt us. He will raise us up on eagles’ wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.

Remember then, God is judge, who brings one down and raises one up. And what is the distinction between the two outcomes? It is by faith that we trust that God has done something about our sinful pride. He has dealt with the dangerous, difficult, nasty, and great sin of pride. He pinned it to the cross of the humble lord and made an exchange with you, taking away the punishment for the haughty and giving you the reward for the humble. And in His resurrection from the dead, He showed to you who’s hand it is that has caught you and raises you on high. This is your God, the vice killer and Savior of this fallen world. He is yours by faith. Amen.