The Great Sin - Mere Christianity Book 3 Chapter 8 - Episode 21

What do you think the greatest sin anyone could commit? Watch this week's episode to hear about C.S. Lewis' take on the answer.

Also, my computer fan turned on during recording and I couldn't edit it out enough - sorry for the audio disturbance!

...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...

1 Peter 3:15

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Transcript

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What do you think is the worst sin that anyone could ever commit? Lots of things probably come to mind pretty quickly. Murder, hurting a child, lying and cheating? Without a doubt, those are all horrific sins. But C.S. Lewis says they're not the worst sin we humans can commit. Now consider yourself warned. This is a sin that every single one of us struggles with. If you're just joining us, we are working through C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity chapter by chapter. We have moved from asking whether God exists to whether Jesus is who he claimed to be. And now we are looking at Christian behavior, how Christians are called to live and why. Because it's one thing to know, do this, don't do this, but understanding the why behind is so much more valuable for our own depth of faith, but also to be able to answer questions from others who genuinely don't know and want to know why. Now back to the topic at hand. We are talking about the greatest sin there is. What Lewis says is the center of Christian morality and the utmost evil. Pride. Later we will talk about its opposite, humility. But for now, let's get a better understanding of what pride actually is and why it's so terrible. Pride is completely anti-God. It is thinking of yourself, only yourself, and believing yourself better than all others. If you think you're better than everyone else, eventually you won't stop at just humans, just comparing yourself to humans. We will arrive at the point where we think we know better than God, can make better decisions and judgments than God, and even want the praise that rightfully belongs to God. Now, even though a person might not say, I'm better than God, they will absolutely think I should get my way. Who does that sound like? He said, I will make myself like the Most High, the one we Christians call Satan. His pride made him what he is. Once in a high position among the angels, Satan became infested with pride, ultimately leading to his complete descending into evil. The path of pride will always lead away from God, because there is no being better than the Almighty, all-good creator of this world. And that segues into Lewis' next point about this vice. Pride is essentially competitive. The proud man or woman will never be satisfied with being one of the best, one of the richest, one of the admired. Pride has the person never stopping until they are the most, the one and only. It's not enough to have a nice, big, expensive house. It has to be the best, most expensive house in the neighborhood and has to win Lawn of the Month every month. It's not enough that your kid gets good grades and accepted into a good school. They have to have a 4.0, be valedictorian, perfect ACT score and a full ride to an Ivy League school. Lewis says it is the comparison that makes you proud. Being rich doesn't make the proud man happy. But being richer than somebody else might do it though, temporarily. Interestingly, Lewis says that some of the other vices, like drunkenness or unchastity, can actually bring people together sometimes. Even though it's not for good or moral reasons, they'll get together and laugh and even be genuinely friendly. Pride, however, never will bring anyone together because pride is enmity. Enmity is the foundational state of being an enemy, but not just any enemy. A deeply rooted, actively oppositional, full of hatred, hostile, and desiring your ill-will enemy. But pride doesn't just cause enmity between humans, which is terrible itself, and sadly, we can witness that playing out in front of our eyes every day right now. Like we said earlier, it causes enmity between the person and God. If we are proud, then we think we are the best. Therefore, how could we ever truly love and worship a God who must be better than us? Lewis says, there are some who claim to be Christians, but who are so steeped in pride that they are actually worshiping a God of their own making, an imaginary God who approves of them and thinks they are far better than other ordinary people. Jesus actually says something about these so-called Christians in the Bible. He warns that there will be people who look religious, moral, good even, and do impressive things in his name, yet never truly know him. And to those proud hypocrites, he will say, Depart from me, I never knew you. These people knew about and believed in God and Jesus, but not really. Because truly following after God should make us humble, not swolling with pride as we rattle off the list of all the things we've done for him. Then that is the test, Lewis says, that we can know we're not eaten up with pride. When you think about God, a being in his presence, do you forget about yourself? You become as a worm next to the God of the universe? Don't get the wrong idea. Humility is not thinking you're worthless, but rather that God is worth all. That's a good test to see. Are you submitted to God or are you standing before Him as an enemy? Lewis wants us to be aware that pride is a spiritual cancer. He says that our enemy Satan actually doesn't care so much if we overcome the other vices and become more virtuous. Just as long as we are proud about it and think we're better than others. He knows that's the thing that keeps us spiritually dying. Lewis actually wrote a whole other book about this concept called The Screwtape Letters. It's one of my top favorite books of all time. It's written in an interesting way. A senior demon is writing letters to his nephew, giving him advice on how to attempt and torture the human he's assigned to. It's pretty short, so if you can, I highly recommend giving it a read or a listen. At this point in the chapter, Lewis talks about four misunderstandings regarding pride, so let's take a look at those. First, being praised for something and having a pleasant feeling about it is not necessarily pride. Maybe you used your gifts and talents and accomplished a task well. Or for whatever reason, someone you love and cherish compliments you and it makes you feel all warm inside. This feeling pleased at having done well, or that being seen by the one you wanted to please, is different than pride, as long as it doesn't turn into thinking I'm such a good person because I did this thing, or thinking I'm a better person than Susie Q over there because of what I did. Lewis goes on to explain that this pride is different than the more simple vanity, and that vanity is only concerned with getting the praise, admiration, and attention from others. Whereas the proud man thinks himself so far above everyone else that this praise from others is not even a blip on his radar because other people are so insignificant and simple to him. Now, this doesn't mean that vanity is okay and fine to have. It's not. We should not be desiring praise, and it certainly shouldn't be a driving force for us to do anything. Lewis just points out that it is still not as far gone as pride. The second misunderstanding is having pride about others. So being proud of your children, proud of who your father is, or proud of what your friend has done. This is not generally the sin of pride we're talking about. Now, I mean, we've all heard people who name-drop all the time, their well-known friends or relatives in positions of power. Do you know who my father is? So the difference here is clear. A warm-hearted admiration for the ones we love. The key, Lewis says, is as long as that pride or admiration is not more than your admiration for God. You're not falling into the sin of pride. Third misunderstanding: pride is not a sin in God's eyes because he's just uptight and jealous or proud or has a sensitive ego. No, he knows what's best for us, and that is to truly know him. Knowing him will automatically make us humble, relieved, and at peace. In Lewis's words, it's our own sense of dignity which has made us restless and unhappy because it's a false self. Knowing God is like a drink of cold water in the desert. The fourth and last misunderstanding about pride is the mark of a truly humble person. Most of us imagine a humble person as someone constantly putting themselves down, self-deprecating. But Lewis says that's wrong. A truly humble person probably won't even strike you as humble. They certainly won't be constantly talking about their humility. They'll simply be interested in you. I hope you understand a bit better now why Lewis says this sin is the worst. You can be doing all the right and good things, but still be on the wrong path because in your heart it's all about you. And so at least I'm better than so-and-so. Lewis says the first step in acquiring this precious humility is realizing you're proud. He says if you think you're not conceited, it means you're very conceited indeed. Most of us don't recognize pride because we imagine it looking like arrogance. But Lewis says pride often shows up as comparison. We compare our intelligence, our parenting, our politics, our appearance, our theology, our success. And whenever we need to come out ahead, pride is already at work. So what do you think? If our boy Jack here is right about pride, I ask you, where does it exist in you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Over the next few episodes, we will wrap up this section of the book, learning about the last three of the seven virtues, what are known as the theological virtues. They are faith, hope, and love. Though he presents them in reverse order, starting with charity, aka love. As always, guys, I am so grateful that you're here. I'm praying for you, and I hope that this episode helped you in some way. If it did, or even if it challenged you, please share it with a friend and have a conversation because the truth is always worth knowing and sharing. I'll see you next time. God bless.