The Sin of Self-Righteousness

On May 17, 2015, I said that there were at least a dozen blogworthy quotes and moments in Disney's animated film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of those moments fits in nicely with the next section of President Uchtdorf's talk.

In the villain's song in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Judge Claude Frollo  spends a few moments singing about how righteous he is.

Beata Maria
You know I am a righteous man.
Of my virtue I am justly proud.

Beata Maria
You know I'm so much purer than.
The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.

Ironically, he sings this just before proving how vulgar, weak, and licentious he is.

In the Bible, Jesus ate with Simon, who also considered himself a righteous person. Meanwhile, a woman who was known to be a sinner cam and worshiped at Jesus' feet.

President Uchtdorf asked:

Which of these two people are we most like?

Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? . . .

Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin? . . .

Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?

While God would never want us to lose hope (and our situation is never truly hopeless), neither should we get too comfortable. We will never be so righteous that we should brag about how righteous we are, and many people are not quite as righteous as they think. Even when we are as righteous as we feel we can be, we shouldn't get cocky about it. Rather, we should confess our faults and weaknesses (and we will always have plenty of faults and weaknesses so long as we live), and pray for mercy and for help to overcome them. Even when we are righteous, instead of congratulating ourselves, we should continue to repent.

On the positive side, when we repent, we are forgiven and our sins are washed away. Ironically, we become clean by confessing how unclean we are. So, if we think we are already sufficiently righteous, we're not, but if we confess that we are unworthy sinners, God cleanses our sins and makes us worthy. It's incredibly ironic, but at the same time, it kind of makes sense. We can never measure up on our own, and when we admit that, God makes up the difference, but if we claim that we can measure up on our own, God lets us try, and that is when we fail.

Let us beware of the sin of self-righteousness and lay hold on the ironic gift of becoming clean by confessing our sins.