Before you read this blog read Proverbs 27 and ask God to reveal his truth to you.

At least seven separate passages of scripture communicate the same message using slightly different wording:

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Psalm 138:6; Proverbs 3:34; Proverbs 29:23; Matthew 23:12; Luke 1:52; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5

This is no coincidence. We know that “all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16) and when the same message is communicated over and over throughout scripture, we should take note!

In fact, this message about pride and humility is a consistent message throughout the entirety of the Bible. The very narrative of scripture revolves around the highest and most praiseworthy (God) coming to earth as a newborn baby in the poorest of circumstances, living a blameless life, and being killed for it so that he could pay for the sins of those who did not deserve it.

If we’re not actively fleeing pride and pursuing humility, we’re missing the point.

But no one ever said the path to humility would be easy. In fact, many passages liken this process to dying (Galatians 5:24, Luke 9:23, Romans 12:1). Humanity is generally in the business of self preservation, so this is an especially perilous task.

It should then come as no surprise that God has provided instructions for how to be humble and not proud – and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

In Proverbs 27, God uses the wisdom he granted to King Solomon to give us a three-step roadmap away from pride and to humility. It may not be obvious at first, because the text doesn’t say, “Here’s a three-step roadmap…” But the truth is there.

Verse 1 says, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”

Verse 2 says, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”

Then, 19 verses later, verse 21 provides the third step by saying, “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.”

Let’s unpack these a little bit.

Accomplishments, assets, and qualities can all serve as key ingredients in pride. We take pride in what we have done. We take pride in what we have to show for it. And we take pride in the ways we perceive ourselves to be of value, whether that’s physical appearance, strength, speed, intelligence, ambition, kindness, or any other number of qualities.

Verses 1, 2, and 21 represents three levels of pride that we should constantly seek to overcome in order to find humility.

Verse 1 is the most basic: Don’t boast about tomorrow. Don’t brag about things that haven’t even happened yet. This level of pride betrays a level of arrogance that even the world recognizes as prideful. It is the height of naivete to brag about things that haven’t happened yet. Any mature person who has experienced life can likely identify many instances off the top of their own heads where they had strongly believed something was going to happen and it didn’t. Few things are more embarrassing than having to walk back grandiose statements about what you were going to do, when it doesn’t actually happen.

If boasting about tomorrow is a prime example of arrogant foolishness, then choosing never to do it represents mastery over the most basic (and easily avoidable) level of pride.

Verse 2 describes a more challenging discipline that almost everyone does or has struggled with at some point: Let another praise you, and not your own mouth. How tempting is it to say good things about yourself in a conversation?

I confess that I struggle with this. A few weeks ago I replaced a toilet in my home, and I couldn’t wait to tell others about it. Yes, it was a somewhat interesting story, and fun conversations resulted, but to what extent was I motivated by a desire to show myself as a “competent” handyman around the home?

When I share the gospel with a stranger, I’m excited to tell my friends about it later. We should, by the way, both share the gospel, and share stories of gospel-centered interactions with our Christian brothers and sisters. It’s edifying, encouraging, and it is an easy way for us to goad one another on. But the question I must ask myself is, am I telling my brothers and sisters in Christ about this to encourage them, and so that we can praise God together, or so that I can look good?

Our motivations matter. The things we do out of a motivation to serve ourselves will profit us nothing in eternity, but will be burned away like chaff.

Proverbs 4:23-27 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”

We must guard our hearts. We must be vigilant. No, it’s not wrong for us to tell a story that happens to cast us in a positive light, but that should never be our intent. Let another praise you, and not your own mouth.

Verse 21 represents the most difficult challenge, and one that not all people may experience. “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.”

A man is tested by his praise. Not all people receive praise. Some people may go their entire lives without hearing a positive word spoken about themselves by another person. Even the successful, the intelligent, the beautiful, the athletic might not hear praise often.

But there are a few who are very successful, very intelligent, very beautiful, very athletic, very rich, or very anything that produces praise from the lips of other people. Some of them may hear their own praise quite regularly. Perhaps they hear it all the time.

Nothing could be more dangerous.

Anyone with a little common sense should be able to recognize that if they’re the only one saying good things about themselves, that they may not be “all that.” James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” It is an indisputable truth that whatever success, whatever “greatness” we as humans posses comes from God.

Are you smart? Praise God! He made you that way. Are you beautiful? Praise God! He made you that way. Are you rich? Praise God! He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he gives and he takes away. Are you successful? Praise God! He established your steps.

Yet, when person after person offers us their praise, it becomes so easy to become deceived and to start believing what they’re saying.

This is the seminal temptation, it is what Eve faced in the Garden of Eden, the temptation to see herself as greater than God, more specifically, to see her own judgement as superior to God’s.

Sadly, all of mankind has fallen prey to this temptation, the whispering lie that, “You know better than God. It is not God who defines good, but you.”

Thankfully, there has been one exception, one Man who answered lies with truth, and temptation with faithfulness, and his name is Jesus. None of us, on our own, can stand up to temptation. None of us, of our own strength, can pass the test of praise from the lips of others.

Without the salvation afforded me by the blood of Jesus, without the self control given to me by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, praise will corrupt me and push me to believe the lie that I am great and worthy of praise.

So the only way to fight it, the only effective, reliable way to ground myself, to guard my heart, to reject pride, and to seek humility is to praise God! If ever you should receive a compliment, if you’re ever told how well you did something, or how good you look, then give praise to the Lord! He alone is worthy of praise, and he alone can rescue you from the clutches of arrogance, pride, foolishness, and the demise that surely follows each of these.

Proverbs 27 conveniently breaks the struggle against pride into three easy-to-follow steps, but the truth is, there’s one easy step to be humble: keep your eyes locked on Jesus. In the view of his majesty, glory, goodness, and grace, it is simply impossible to be anything but humble.