I want to talk to you today about one of the great problems of the human heart: pride. Pride comes in a variety of expressions, but I just want to talk about the pride that angles to get praise from people. It’s not just the sin of boasting, but it’s the inward motive of secretly lusting to be recognized, praised and admired by others.
I should probably say upfront that it’s not wrong to feel good when someone tells us we did a great job. When a dad praises his son for making a great catch in the baseball game, I think this falls more under the category of encouragement. We all do various things in life that people compliment us about. It’s okay to say thanks. Artists, for example, really value thoughtful praise for their work. It encourages them to keep going. As a pastor, I regularly receive nice compliments from people. It’s not wrong to be encouraged by it—I just need to make sure it doesn’t go to my head!
Problem
This becomes a problem when it controls our heart. When we are secretly driven to do all kinds of things to get people to notice, admire and praise us, we are treading on dangerous ground. If left unchecked, this innocent need for encouragement can turn into an inward hankering for others to worship us. We can find ourselves wanting to be honored as a god amongst men. And the Lord God will not share His glory with anyone. He says, “have no other gods before me”—and that includes making ourselves a god. Remember what happened to Herod?
Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last (Acts 12:20-23).
Every human being on earth loves praise and worship, but the objects of praise and worship vary. The message of the Bible is clear: Worship the Lord and only the Lord.
Human pride
That Christians can be guilty of spiritual pride is obvious. I was very aware of this ugly trait in myself for many years until it seemed to slowly be extracted—and I’m sure continues to be extracted! It’s one of those sins that is so subtle that we need to constantly test ourselves. If we fall apart when someone criticizes us, then there’s a good chance we are addicted to the praises of people.
This is not only a sin of people who like to be the center of attention or who have type A personalities. Not at all. Those who are quiet can be just as guilty. In fact, they might secretly enjoy being praised for their soft-spoken gentle spirit. Again, it’s a matter of inward motives that only the Lord knows.
Be aware of this ugly motive. If you are quick to say, “Oh, yeah, I’m not someone who would boast,” well, you just aren’t self-aware. This sinful desire to be praised runs deep in the human heart.
Society
Our entire society is built on systems that facilitate the reward of human praise. Everything is a completion. We care so much about who is the best, the fastest, the most beautiful, the biggest, the most skilled, the most intelligent. Think of the popularity of shows like American Idol. The pining for praise is so common that we don’t even recognize it.
Social media has become the absolute perfect platform to fish for praise. You can put a small piece of yourself out to the world, maybe something you created, or a picture of yourself, a renovation of your home, something you cooked, or whatever, and then the praises start coming in as people “like” your post. If you really want to be clever, post a picture of yourself and put in the caption, “I look ugly.” Watch what happens. A flurry of praise!
We can certainly post things with a right motive, but Jesus is cautioning us about wrong motives, especially regarding things like prayer, fasting and giving. These things can be done, not as expressions of worship to the Lord, but as performances to elicit praise. And God knows exactly why we do what we do. Here’s what Jesus taught about all this.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:5-6).
Peacocking
I’ve honestly seen a lot of this in my lifetime. My wife and I call it “peacocking.” It’s when someone is praying prayers—or some other religious expression—publicly as a performance to direct praise away from Jesus and onto themselves. It’s a form of showing off and the person is rarely aware that he or she is doing it. But everyone in the room uncomfortably feels it.
It’s unclear what people’s motives are at first in these public settings. But sometimes little clues emerge over time that reveal something is off. We see the person in public, praying what seems like a very spiritual prayer, and yet, the person’s lifestyle is sorely deficient of love. Or, in conversation with them, they have a tendency toward boasting about themselves. It becomes clear over time when someone thinks of themselves way more highly than they ought, and they seem to have a strong appetite for the praises of people. Their mouth reveals it.
I’m not encouraging us to judge people. We should always be slow to judge and quick to search our own hearts. Also, just because people have a public ministry doesn’t mean they are showing off. Jesus performed dramatic miracles, as did Peter and the other apostles. They weren’t showing off. Moses divided the Red Sea, and I think we can confidently say that he was not peacocking. Oftentimes, in fact, the reason some people are exalted to leadership is precisely because the Lord has purged their motives in secret. Though, it would be a mistake to think all famous Christians are free from spiritual pride. Many leaders pushed their way to the top out of a sinful drive to be praised by people. Only the Lord knows.
Remedy
The answer to the problem of our spiritual pride is not to avoid doing any kind of public prayer. The early Christians prayed together. If we are undeveloped in humility, it might be best to either focus more on listening during prayer meetings or to just be cautious in how you pray. I’ve heard many new Christians offer beautiful prayers of thankfulness done in humility. In fact, sometimes the reason we don’t pray out loud in a prayer meeting is because of spiritual pride. We want people to think we are more spiritual than we really are.
But it’s clear that Jesus is telling us that most of our praying should be done privately, just between us and the Father. In this practice of private prayer there’s an audience of only One. There’s no one around to impress with clever articulation, Bible knowledge, theological understanding, or even sweetness of oratory. It’s just not there. The motive to appear creative or smart feels ridiculous when praying alone, right? Our prayers in private tend to be different in that way. They are much more plain. Sometimes they are just the cries of a child.
There’s no use pretending to be spiritual to impress God. We know better. He knows us through and through. Private prayer humbles us. We realize who we are when there’s no one around to impress. We realize how boring we are, how empty. We come to grips with the fact that we aren’t the deep spiritual person others think we are. We feel our own depravity.
Now, the Lord does beautiful things in our private prayers, and He enables us to commune deeply at times. But anyone who is honest would confess that much of their private praying causes them to feel their spiritual poverty. As we devote ourselves to private prayer, the Lord slowly refines our motives and gives us a heart that burns to please Him above all else. We think less of ourselves and more of God.
Think of how Moses spent 40 years in the desert, or Paul three years in the desert of Arabia. The purification of motives is not something that just happens by a simple decision. Motives are refined over time and especially through spending time in the secret closet of prayer.
Go to your room
The exhortation Jesus gives in the text is simple: “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” I don’t think the instruction was meant to be taken literally, though sometimes it might be that we go into our room to pray. But many people don’t even have houses, and many don’t have houses with rooms that have doors to shut. It’s more of a principle. Jesus was telling us to pray in a place that eliminates the temptation to perform.
Pray in a private place.
That could be the shower. Or in the car. It could be in your bed early in the morning. It could be behind the building at work or out in the woods. It could be in your head. Or in the private pavilion of your journal. The point is that we should practice prayer privately to ensure that our reward is from the Father and not from people.
Reward
The word “reward” may seem a little strange to us. It’s hard to admit that we are seeking the reward of praise from people. But it just means that we do certain things to elicit compliments and admiration. Humans feed off of praise. And it’s a kind of reward.
The problem is that seeking praise from people and God do not mix well. One motive is to honor, praise, and worship the Heavenly Father. The other motive is to get people to honor, praise and worship us! Yikes! Spiritual pride is to steal the glory that belongs to God alone. That’s a serious and terrible thing that I hope we realize.
Jesus says that when we pray in secret to the Father there’s a reward in it from the Father. He doesn’t tell us what it is in these verses, but we know from the many other verses that the reward of genuine humble secret praying is closeness with God, spiritual joy, revelation, peace, and 1000 other good things. It is true that dying to the reward of being praised by people may be hard, but the reward of receiving our praise from the Father is greater than being praised by the entire planet. Amen.