Sermon Tone Analysis

Grace: The Pride of Christianity

This week we will explore the surprising connection between God’s grace and humility, along with the great enemy of God’s grace, human pride.

I hope you are ready to examine a lot of scripture today!

This week we will explore the connection between God’s grace and humility.

I want to start by sharing with you a true story about how humility can evoke God’s grace.

I want to start by sharing with you a true story about how humility can evoke God’s grace.

There once was a prideful man named Manasseh.

I say man but his story actually starts with him as a 12 year old king.

You can actually read his story in .

You might say this pride issue ran in his DNA - as his father Hezekiah also had a struggle with pride.

Like father, like son - dad experienced God’s wrath which created the opportunity for dad to be humbled, dad made the choice to humble himself and God then demonstrated kindness or grace towards Hezekiah.

Like most of us we learn by experience, so Manasseh felt like he too needed to learn the less of humility.

As I stated already Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king and he reigned for 55 years - not bad for a 12 year old.

The easiest way to describe Manasseh is by this simple sentence, “he did evil in the sight of the Lord.”

For example, he took his children and offered them as burnt offerings for other gods.

He then set up a training center teaching people the proper way to make these sacrifices and then employed people to establish the burnt offering franchises throughout the kingdom.

Yet with these unbelievable evil practices, somehow this man found a way to win God’s affection.

Somehow this man, that if I were being honest, even after he told me he had turned his life over to God, I would still have a difficult time hanging-out with, this man somehow captured the very heart and attention of God.

Would you like to know how he did it?

Actually, I have already given you the answer, but just in case you missed it he captured the Father’s grace and mercy by humbling himself before God.

The other day I was reaching out to some folks with a question - “How could I avoid paying the stupid tax?”

Buried deep in the Chronicles of Israel is the story of a despicable king, guilty of such things.

Yet he captured the Father’s grace and mercy by humbling himself before God.

His name is Manasseh; you can read about him in .

In the space of one chapter, King Manasseh was transformed from a man who provoked God to anger, to one who caught God’s attention because of his humble heart.

There is a lesson here for every student of Jesus.

It’s not that Manasseh simply experienced God’s mercy; he provoked it.

Do you know what the “Stupid Tax” is?

It is when you pay for something that you did not have to pay for, because you were either a) to proud to ask for help or b) not willing to learn from the mistakes of others, or from your own mistakes from the past.

I unfortunately have had my share of paying way to much “Stupid Tax”.

Manasseh could have avoided paying the “Stupid Tax” if he had only learned from his father, but instead he decided to be a Darwin Award winner and it cost him.

The Assyrian king raided Jerusalem, came to Manasseh ring in hand, and physically placed the ring through Manasseh’s nose, and dragged him out of Jerusalem by the nose to Babylon.

Now we could chose to have a similar experience with Manasseh in order to experience God’s grace.

Typically this means we go through life saying, “I don’t need no god.

I can do it on my own.”

We can puff ourselves up with pride, standing back in amazement at all we have been able to accomplish on our own.

Or we could choose to humble ourselves and admit the reality, we could not have accomplished all that we have accomplished without God’s interaction.

The choice is ours.

God already knows that eventually, given enough pain, our knees will bend and we will confess that He is Lord and we are not.

The question that remains for each of us is how much pain are we willing to endure?

Either way God demonstrates grace.

He shows His kindness by giving us the power to make our own choices.

And He shows us kindness by ending the pain and suffering once we humble ourselves during the pain and suffering.

King Manasseh was transformed from a man who provoked God to anger, to one who caught God’s attention because of his humble heart.

There is a lesson here for every student of Jesus.

It’s not that Manasseh simply experienced God’s mercy; he provoked it.

The Father loves humility.

It turns his head.

Jesus tried again and again to share this secret pathway to God’s heart: “the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus demonstrated humility as he lived in the low places of Israel’s society.

He portrayed children as exemplars of humble trust in the Father’s care.

He derided self-sufficiency.

The truth about grace in today’s sermon - The Father loves humility.

Humility is the path to the Father’s heart.

t turns his head.

Jesus tried again and again to share this secret pathway to God’s heart: “the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus demonstrated humility as he lived in the low places of Israel’s society.

He portrayed children as exemplars of humble trust in the Father’s care.

He derided self-sufficiency.

Jesus demonstrates for us the path to the Father’s heart when He humbles Himself being born in a stinking stable, when He preaches to the masses, when He touches the untouchable, when He washes the feet of the disciples and when He takes His place upon the cross.

Manasseh’s story provides us hope, especially for those who feel like they have done so much wrong in the world that there is no way possible to capture the heart and attention of God, but there is a possibility and it comes through a humble heart.

God’s grace is revealed in 4 ways through Manasseh.

Even in all of Manasseh’s wickedness, God still speaks to Manasseh.

God knows how to bring us out of our pit of stupidity.

He can turn up the temperature to help us make the choice to humble ourselves.

Our hearts can move God’s heart.

Our example can influence future generations.

So let me say it again, just so we are clear about the truth about grace this week - God’s gives grace to the humble.

Now we also know that God extends grace to the proud in hope that the proud will see the foolishness of their pride.

It is through grace that extends the opportunity for you and I to come clean when we have been acting foolishly.

It is grace when God continues to speak to us, hoping to help us confess our mistakes, rather than wiping the dust off His feet and walking away.

So let me say it again, just so we are clear about the truth about grace this week - God’s gives grace to the humble.

Now we also know that God extends grace to the proud in hope that the proud will see the foolishness of their pride.

It is through grace that extends the opportunity for you and I to come clean when we have been acting foolishly.

It is grace when God continues to speak to us, hoping to help us confess our mistakes, rather than wiping the dust off His feet and walking away.

As we have heard earlier today, in 3 different scripture passages, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

(Three times!

, , and .)

· Even in the midst of gross iniquity, God is still speaking (v.

10): Even after a long list of rebellious acts against God, the text reveals that God was still reaching out to Manasseh.

If you’ve been told that God hides from your sin, you’ve been misled.

Our sin is one of the very reasons God continues to reach out to us.

He loves us and refuses to give up on us.

But it's not just that his love reaches down; a humble heart reaches up.

In my earliest years, I attended a Christian school.

I remember second grade distinctly because the “character theme” one month was humility.

At the end of that month, in an assembly before the entire school, I was named the winner of the “Humility Award,” but then they took it away from me because I actually accepted the award!

OK, perhaps the story is not true, but it does illustrate the conflicting ideas Christians entertain regarding what it means to be humble.

Where do we get our ideas about humility?

If God gives grace to the humble, how can I eagerly pursue his best for me without falling into mere self-interest?

Both Peter and James quoted the Old Testament, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

They latched on to this teaching from .

It must be important.

First, it tells us that God gives grace.

Fair enough.

Isn’t that what God is supposed to do?

But this verse also tells us that God gives grace to certain kinds of people—humble people.

Finally, it also tells us that God can withhold grace from another kind of people—the proud.

Keep in mind that Peter and James were writing to believers.

There is