Pride

So we're talking about kryptonite and the things that draw our strength, that draw our power away from our power source. And with Superman, it's kind of as he gets near to kryptonite, you can see his strength diminishes. And the longer he's around it, the more it's diminished.

And if he stayed around it, he would die. He wouldn't just become mortal. He would die. And for Christians, it's not that as we stay around it, it's that our kryptonite actually draws us away from our power source. Kryptonite is almost tempting for us.

It's stuff that like takes us and says, man, you don't need God. Man, you don't need him. You can do it on your own. And the further and further and further it draws us towards kryptonite and it draws us away from the power of the living God, the less strength that we have, the weaker our flesh becomes, our spirit dies, and eventually it leads to death. Death, actual death, separation eternally from the God that we love and that loves us dearly.

So today I am talking about one that hits me close to home and has hit me close to home for a long time and one that God continues to work on. It's funny, every time Leon sends me a list and says, hey, you want to preach on one of these? God always leads me to the one that he knows I need to hear the most first. And so like what you guys don't understand is for the last two weeks as I've been studying, God is working on me. He's like on me.

It's like, yeah, this is the reason that you're going to be speaking on this. You need to hear this. And he just works on me and works on me and convicts me and convicts me. And man, there's days it's a struggle. And then there's when the end of it comes and you just give in and you submit yourself to God.

Man, you just you get this energy and you get this strength about you and you can walk around like Superman. So today we are talking about pride. Pride is the OG of kryptonites. It is like the original gangsta of kryptonites. Pride is what got Eve because she wanted to be like God.

Pride is what got Adam in the same trouble that Eve got in. And Satan's sitting there going, I didn't say a word. I didn't say a word. I didn't say a word. And they said, no, we want to be like God.

We want to have knowledge like God has. We want to be able to see what God sees instead of understanding that the reason that it was there was protection. Their pride got a hold of them and they gave into it and then they got separated from God. They went from walking in a garden, having conversations with God, naked, no reason to hide a thing, to hiding, to staying in the darkness, afraid when they heard God's voice. Instead of it being a beckoning shepherd's voice that they would run to like sheep, they hid.

And God said, why are you hiding from me? And it's because they had given in to pride. Pride is also what caused Lucifer to fall. Here's an angel that fell. He was top of the army and he fell because he wanted to be God.

He got to the point where he said, I want more than just being an angel. I want more than the power that just comes with this. I want to be you. I want your power. I want your authority.

I want your knowledge. And so he fell. This goes back, guys. Like pride is the originator. Pride is the problem that most of us have.

And the deal is this. Pride will kill you forever. Like eternally kill you. It is most likely, it is the sin, it is the kryptonite most likely to keep you from crying out to God. Because you think you're okay.

But God, I go to church every Sunday. We had this discussion on Wednesday night. But God, I go to church every Sunday. I'm good. But hey God, I'm in the children's ministry.

I'm good. Hey God, I've done this. I've done that. But God says, are you drawing to me? Are you coming to me?

Do you, will you admit, will you accept the fact that you need me? And there's many of us in this room who won't admit it. We refuse to submit to the authority of the most high God. We refuse to say, God, not only do I need you, I need more than you. I am incapable of living my life.

There is nothing I can do separate from the most high God. How many people here think, like, I got it. I'm good. Raise a hand. There's four or five of you who are holding your hands down right now that are thinking, I really do.

I'm pretty good. The point where you get to you think that you got it, the point you get to where you think you're good, is the moment that you are going to fall. It happens every single time. Pride comes before the fall. It came before the fall for Lucifer.

It came before the fall for Eve. It came before the fall for Adam. And if you go through God's word, it is one after another. Pride comes before the fall. Pride comes before the fall.

Pride comes before the fall. And these men of God, mighty men of God, fall flat on their faces because they get to a point where they say, I'm good. I can handle this. I can be close to kryptonite. It's okay.

I got it at this point. See, the thing about Superman, he knows better, right? The moment he finds himself around kryptonite, he flees. He knows if I get close to that, I'm going down. And there is nothing I can do.

If I allow myself to get close to that, I'm done. I lose my power. And our problem is, we think it's fun to dance with sin. We think it's cool to jump. Oh, look, I'm going to go over here just for a little bit, Lord.

Oh, I'm good. I can make it back. We walk the line. And we think it's cool. We think it's all right.

We think we're going to be okay. Someday, you're going to straddle the line. And you're going to go a little too far. And you won't make it back. Your pride will get the best of you.

And you will find yourself over here and you'll go, I really don't feel any different, God. Things seem to be going okay. And then you slide a little bit further away. And a little bit further away. And a little bit further away.

Until you have separated yourself from your power source. See, guys, literally, there is nothing you can do without God. Without God, you don't breathe. You cease to exist. If God had not breathed breath into your body, you're not here.

You think that job you have is because you earned it. Your pride wants you to tell, I got it. It's me. No, God gave you that job because he cares for you because he wants to meet your needs. And the moment that you begin to become ungrateful for what God has done and you begin to think, it's me, it's me, it's me, is the moment all that goes away.

You know, our God, our God is a God. He's a healer. He's a doctor. He's a healer. He's a healer.

He, he's a God for the sick. The problem is there's a whole bunch of sick people who don't think they're sick, and if you don't think you're sick, do you go to the doctor? If you're like me, you avoid the doctor at all costs until you absolutely have to go. You avoid the dentist. All that, all that, like, preventative stuff.

Who cares if I gotta have, like, four teeth pulled? I'm not going. I see, uh-uh. Keep me away until my teeth are gone. You can give me some dentures.

I'm good. Doctor's the same way, right? Like, you're walking around hurting for days, and finally you're like, I gotta go to the doctor. But you won't even admit it. You're walking around with a pimp lip.

You okay? Oh, I'm good. They put you on a walker and you still act like you okay. Like, do you need to go to the doctor? No, I'm good.

I'm good. No pain here. But that's us. Like, that's what God sees. He looks around and he sees this group of people that he loves and cares for, and he's like, Why won't you guys just admit you need me?

Why can't you just admit without me you don't even exist? You can't survive without me. And that's our pride welling up inside of us. How many people here like Billy Graham? Raise your hand.

Everybody, everybody, yeah. So, Seth was sharing the other night about some stuff with Billy Graham, and I'm a massive Billy Graham fan. One thing I think people don't understand, I had the opportunity to go hear him when I was younger on a couple of occasions in Denver, Mile High Stadium, packed out 100,000 people listening to Billy Graham. They forget Billy Graham was fire and brimstone. The man came with grace at the end, but his message was fire and brimstone.

Last week, Pastor talked about how much God hates lying. This week, I'm going to tell you something else. God hates, capital H, capital A, capital T, capital E, capital S, hates pride. This is what Billy Graham had to say about God hating sin. We in the church have failed to remind this generation that while God is love, he also has the capacity to hate.

He hates sin, and he will judge it with the fierceness of his wrath. This generation is schooled in the teaching about an indulgent, soft-hearted God whose judgments are uncertain and who coddles those who break his commandments. This generation finds it difficult to believe that God hates sin. I tell you that God hates sin, just as a father hates a rattlesnake that threatens the safety and life of his child. God loathes evil and diabolic forces that would pull people down to godless eternity, just as a mother hates a venomous spider that is found playing on the soft, warm flesh of her baby.

It is his love for man, his compassion for the human race that prompts God to hate sin with such a vengeance. He gave heaven's finest that we might have the best, and he loathes with a holy abhorrence anything that would hinder our being reconciled to him. Proverbs 6, 16 through 19. These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among the brethren.

It is not a coincidence that proudness or pride or arrogance is the first thing mentioned in this list. It is because it leads to all the rest. Your pride will lead you down a slippery slope of a whole bunch of different kryptonites. It is because of your pride that you lie a lot. We had this conversation Wednesday night.

Like, what have we lied about? Like, well, we want everybody to think that we have our life together. That was pretty much central theme for all of us in the room. Like, we don't want them to see my four-year-old who punched a kid in school the other day. That's real.

And then punched him again, even after he got in trouble the first time. We don't want people to see that. Lord forbid that your children are not perfect. Public service announcement, your children are not perfect. If you think your kids are perfect, that's your pride.

And your pride will not only lead to your demise, but it will lead to their demise. Because if all you do is puff them up and puff them up and puff them up, and you refuse to teach them about humility, then they're going to walk around prideful from a very young age. I see it all the time. I see pride in my son, and it doesn't matter how many times I discipline him. Still defiant, still prideful.

I'm like, I am going to literally beat you until the pride comes out. God hates pride. I hate pride. And then I have to walk back into my room and take a deep breath. And remember, God is also love.

God hates pride. That means, guess what? We should hate pride. It means when that begins to enter into our heart, when we begin to feel like we've got it, we begin to feel like, man, this is good. I'm good.

I'm real good, as a matter of fact. The moment that begins to happen, there should be this conviction in our hearts, and we should find ourselves on our knees weeping before God, saying, please forgive me, Lord, for exalting myself. When we find ourselves looking at other people thinking, man, I'm glad I don't look like them. I'm glad I'm in shape. I'm glad I got muscles.

I'm glad I have the discipline to go work out. Look at that guy over there. That's pride. Straight up pride. When we look around and we see somebody else and we think, man, they don't have a master's degree.

I don't even know if they're made out of the eighth grade. You hear the way they talk? Straight up. That's pride. Because newsflash, that person you're talking about was created by God.

God, that is one of his sons or daughters. That is a priest or a priestess. That is a queen. And the way that you just looked at them, guess who you're looking at? God.

You're saying, yeah, I know you did okay with me, but Lord, you made a mistake over there. You should have done more with that person's teeth. You should have given Chris some more hair. You should have given Chris some more discipline so he'd get up and go work out more often so he'd be in shape. Maybe you should have made Chris a little taller, Lord.

His stature is lacking. I really can't respect somebody that I have to look down at. But it's legit. We think these little thoughts are like, oh, that's harmless. No, that's saying, no, Lord, I got this figured out.

You didn't do your job right. That's saying I am better than this other person based fully on my own opinion. Guys, I've been a part of some ministries up in Harrisonburg with my wife. My father-in-law was a pastor there. There are some men and women in there who didn't make it out of like the fourth grade.

And I've seen those people walk in the power of the God that would blow everyone in this room away. And left those of us... Who were educated and well-spoken, sitting there with our jaws on the floor, wondering how in the world is he doing that? And it's because the Holy Spirit said, I choose him. You can take your education, you can take your vocabulary, I'm going to use him.

And guess what? God did that from the beginning. He didn't go, he, God didn't go choose like the aristocrats who were well-schooled and had been speaking in front of people their whole lives. He said, I'm going to go pick me up some fishermen. I'm going to use them.

Can you imagine the people who heard Peter when he got filled with the Holy Ghost and was out there preaching the gospel full-on, full-bore, totally courageous? They were like, wasn't he, like, catching fish a couple years ago? Like, who is that dude? He doesn't look like he belongs. How is he speaking like that?

But it's our pride that wells up in us, and God hates it. Pride is deceptive. It is so deceptive. We can go back to Adam and Eve and Lucifer who just thought, man, I just want to be a little smarter. I just want to be a little bit wiser.

It deceived them. They begin to think it was okay to think that way. It was going to be okay if they had that knowledge. If you're sitting there right now, and you're listening to this, and you think, eh, this message isn't for me, you're the one that's for the most. That's for real.

I'm not joking. I'm smiling because I know. Like, when you think this message isn't for me, that's when God is saying this message is for you, and you, and you, and you. And I'm not pointing at anybody in particular. I'll point at myself.

Real pride, this is where it is so destructive. This is where it's so deceptful. Deceptive, just made up my own word. Deceptive is that it is a declaration of independence from God. When your pride wells up, and you think you got it, you think you have it figured out, here's what you're saying.

Peace, God. I got it. Let me sign my own declaration of independence, Lord. Here you go. I've signed it.

We're good. I'm going to go off on my own. I'm going to figure this out. My giftings are enough. My education is enough.

My abilities, my physical abilities are enough. I'm good, Lord. And we actually believe it. That's the worst part. That's why it's so deceptive is because we actually, deep down, we believe we're good.

All you have to do is go back to Billy Graham and listen. He's not a fuzzy-wuzzy God. He's gracious, he's loving, and he's caring. And because he's those things, he hates pride. He hates sin.

He hates lying. He hates those things because he knows all they do is draw us further and further and further away from him. And he is our absolute life source. He is what gives us power. It is his Holy Spirit running through us that allows us to do anything.

Well, I'll be all right. When I get to the end and I stand before God, I'm sure he's going to have some stuff, you know. I got a few things in my closet that he'll see and he'll bring up. But I'm good. I'm going to heaven, Lord.

I'm going. I'm good. God doesn't just hate pride. He opposes. He is in opposition of the proud.

But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, this is James 4, 6 in the ESV. See, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourself, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. See, God, when you start lifting yourself up, when you start thinking, I'm good, it's not that he just hates it. He doesn't just sit back and watch. He is an active participator. He opposes you.

He says, you think you're good? You think you're big stuff? You are now in opposition of the most high God. So instead of now drawing power, instead of now this being your life source, you are now fighting with and against your own power source. You have now severed yourself from the power source and God says, not only do I hate the pride, I am going to humble you.

Let me tell you, it is a whole lot better to be on your face before God, humbling yourself, than it is to find yourself humbled by God. Because the humbling process that you go through, man, it's painful. It is not easy. You know, we see, if you go into the word, let's just take a quick look at Jericho. This is how powerful our God is.

They didn't throw anything at those walls. They just walked around them. And God said, poof, you opposed me. He sent an entire army with a king. And he said, nope, don't send your best warriors out front.

Put your musicians out front and head to the battlefield. Before they even got there, the opposing army was done. Not one standing. Not one standing. They showed up and were like, I like working for this guy.

That's his power though. And we get caught up in what Billy Graham was talking about, this soft, fluffy God. And we should. We should know we have a God that loves us enough that he hates pride because he knows it draws us away from him. How many people have gone through this cycle in their life doing really well?

Eh, we're kind of reading the Bible, kind of thinking about God coming to church once or twice a month. Something really bad happens. And we run back to church for three, four, five weeks straight. We are on the front row praising and worshiping God. We're on our face at night crying out to God.

Save me, God. Save me, God. Change these circumstances. God, why are you allowing this to happen to me? So God comes in, does a miraculous thing in your life.

All of a sudden your finances are back where they were. Whoop. And all of a sudden we're back to where, eh. It's all right. I made it to church once last month.

I've opened my Bible twice in the last 65 days. Praise, worship, eh. And God's like, do you forget already who put you up here? Do you forget already that I'm the one that exalted you? I'm the one that pulled you out of your circumstance?

You should be on your knees before God the same as you are in the low places when you get to the high places. And you should be thanking him for where he's put you and not looking at yourself in the mirror going, good job. You did a good job. That's the reason that a lot of these positive speakers, these motivational speakers, get people in trouble. It's like, hey, go look at yourself in the mirror and pat yourself on the back and say, you're good.

Look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, I'm a good guy. And so we build ourself up and we walk around with all this pride. And God's like, you might want to cut it down three or four notches because you're starting to tread on some thin ice. And I don't just hate that pride. I'm going to oppose you.

I know in my life, there are, I could go back and give you so many examples. Let's see if we did these people, kids! And how much? Of pride in my life, and when Lord humbled me, I came out of high school into a, I was a really small fish in a puddle. Overseas at a department of his school, there was, we had 346 kids, 7th through 12th grade, my graduating class was 38.

Sure, it was no, it was not a problem at all to play four sports, be the captain of all of them. Half the kids didn't even play the American sport, so I was good. Had good grades, did good on the SATs, got to the Naval Academy. Walked into my room, met my roommates, realized in about 30 seconds, those dudes are smart and I am dumb. How did I get myself here?

I thought I got a, this is old school, I got a 1310 on my SATs. Both of my roommates, 16 hundredths. Both of them were perfect SAT scores. One of them was a prior nuke in the Navy, stupid smart. People are like, what do you mean by that?

I mean like he made me look stupid every time he opened his mouth, that's how smart he was. My other roommate in California, he was a water polo player. We'd walk in, we were both taking the same courses, we'd walk in, we'd sit down to do homework. 20 minutes later that dude's up, headed out. He's like, I'm gonna go swim around for a while.

I'm like, you done? He's like, oh yeah, it's just easy. Sitting there going, I'm on like still problem one. You help? Like how did you do that?

God humbled me, quick. And he continued. It only got worse at the Academy. When I left there, I was low. He brought me low.

Because man, when I got into the Academy, I thought I was something. My family thought I was something. We all thought I was special. When I chose to leave, Chris was not so special anymore. Still crawling out of the black sheep of the family.

God humbles you. He says, go ahead, think your big stuff. I'll just put you in this room with these two guys. And that's just the beginning. That's where I start.

And if you don't learn it, if you don't humble yourself, I'm gonna keep going. And he does. He opposes it. Proverbs 16, 5. Everyone who is prideful at heart is an abomination to the Lord.

See, do you hear that flip? Not just is pride an abomination to the Lord. Those who are proud are an abomination to the Lord. We love to say, God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. Right here, God's saying, if you're proud, you are an abomination to me.

He still loves you, but you're an abomination. You are now in opposition of me. And I don't play games. And the more and the more and the more and the more that we give in to pride, the further and further and further it pulls us away from God. Which brings us to pride brings division.

You want to talk about being humbled? I get here, I was, I woke up at three o'clock this morning at this nervous energy. I told Leon this morning, I haven't felt this nervous in a while. Like, this is even more nervous than I'm normally nervous before I get to preach. So nervous that I ran out and did not print out your note cards for this morning.

Like, I realized halfway through praise and worship practice, I was like, oh, like, dang. That for me is a mistake. Like, that's like, I messed up. Sorry, Leon. Like, thanks for letting me preach, and I messed up already.

Pride brings division. Pride divides. Not only does pride divide us from God, it divides us from each other. It will divide you from your spouse. It will divide you from your parents.

It will divide you from the other believers around you who need to be around you. When you think you're better than everybody else in the room for whatever reason, it will divide you. When you walk in thinking, I'm the gift to the world in this room, and I am the one that carries the mantle of the Holy Spirit, and I am the one who has the most knowledge of the Bible, so you guys can just sit back and listen, let me educate. They know it. They know it right away, and you know what that does?

They're like, I'm out. I may still be sitting here, but I'm out, and they won't come back. You won't be able to minister to them. You won't be able to care for them, because they see this prideful, arrogant person, and they wonder, what's up with that? The single greatest thing that Satan can accomplish is to cause division.

The Bible says he is the father of lies. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So what better way for this to happen than for him to deceive us into doing it ourselves? I mean, we like to put ourselves on an island. It's like, I can do this on my own.

I don't need God. Don't need y'all. And so we divide ourselves. We take and we put ourselves out on an island, and it's nothing but trouble. Then the storms come.

The hurricanes hit. The typhoons hit. The earthquakes hit. And we wonder, Lord, where are you? Why is this happening?

I need help. And God says, well, you got on a boat, and you went out, and you found an island, and you're by yourself, and you sank the boat. And so now you're going to have to weather this storm on your own until you humble yourself, and you come running back to me. Proverbs 13.10.

I put this on my Facebook page a little bit earlier this week because it hit me so much. This is the NLT. Pride leads to conflict. Those who take advice are wise. There is another version of this that says, where there is strife or conflict, there is pride.

I like that version. Like, we always tend to think like the conflict is the other person's fault, or the conflict is just Satan attacking. Instead of looking in the mirror and going, why is this happening? Because you're arrogant. Because you're prideful.

When that dude came up to you and said, hey, brother, man, I think I got a word for you. You know, I'd like to share something with you. Are you open to hearing this? Oh, man, I'm good. I'm good.

Lord's got me. He'll tell me in his time. He was trying to through that person. Like, he uses his people. If you got, if you're having issues in your marriage, if there's conflict in your marriage, guess what?

Men especially. Speaking to you because I'm a man. If there are issues in your marriage, go look in the mirror and find out where you're being prideful. Find out where humility is not. Find out where you need to bow a little bit to God.

Because what happens is we think we know the answer. We think we've got it figured out. And so the first thing that we do is we isolate God. And the second thing that we do is we isolate our spouse. Oh, no, you're wrong.

You can't possibly be thinking I'm in the wrong. You can't possibly be thinking that I'm too big for my britches. You need to go look in the mirror. The moment that you do that, that's pride. That's pride.

Because humility in that situation, when you're having conflict with somebody, is to not look at them and go, I see what you're doing. It's to look at yourself and say, God, can you please show me where I am wrong? Show me what I need to do with me to change this situation. Because It's If there is conflict, there is pride. That's the Bible.

That's not Chris. That's not like Chris, chapter 5, verse 3. That is Proverbs. That is Jesus speaking. That is God through Solomon saying, here is a wise proverb to you.

If you listen to me, then you can get rid of the conflict in your relationships. You can get rid of the conflict in your church. You can get rid of the conflict in your home. You have issues, humble yourself. Humble yourself.

It's amazing what God will do in another person when you humble yourself. Seriously. Like, we want to make the change. We think we know how to fix this. We think we know what's best.

But when we humble ourself and we say, hey, Lord, can you work on me? Can you just fix me? Can you show me what I'm doing? Can you show me where my heart is wrong? Can you show me what I need to change?

He works on the other person. He will work on them. You don't have to tell God to go to work on somebody. He already knows. But we like to raise our hand.

Hey, God, God, God. Yep. I'm right here. Teacher's pet. Uh-huh.

My mom brown knows her. She needs help. Hey, God, you probably don't know this. My wife, whoo, this is all sarcastic. She needs, yeah, it's a good thing I only have a 20-minute ride car to the airport after church.

She's got four days to cool off. But it's so true. Lord, I know what she needs. I know what she needs. Pick me.

Pick me. Let me tell you. And so there's conflict. And we divide. We push away God because we think we know what's best.

And then we push away other people in our lives. And that's why there's conflict. That's why we're butting heads. And every time you come and there's conflict, you get further and further and further apart until eventually you go so far that there's no coming back. And then it takes God to step in and bring miraculous reconciliation.

Don't go that far. Next is pride brings dishonor. Matthew 23, 12. And I'm only going to read the first half of this verse at first, and then we'll hit the second half here in just a minute. The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Whoever exalt himself will be humbled. Here we go again. Back to God being the opposition. God will correct you. If you exalt yourself, if you think you're great, he's going to humble you.

It's not questioned. It's not maybe. It's if you exalt yourself, if you think you have it figured out, it's coming. If you're out there right now and you think your life is great, everything's great, and you're doing perfect, and there's no fault with you, you might want to start looking in the rearview mirror. It's coming.

Oh, nothing could go wrong. I got it. My job is great. My marriage is great. My kids, they're angels.

Bank account. I got savings. I'm just warning you. He hates pride. He hates the proud.

And he will humble you. That is a promise. That is a guarantee from God's word. That's from his mouth. God breathed perfect, inerrant word of God says, if you exalt yourself, you'll be humbled.

If you separate yourself from your power source, you will lose it. You will find yourself separated from that power source, and you will find yourself dead. You will find yourself in a dark, dark place. Pride brings destruction. The Lord tears down the house of the proud, but maintains the boundaries of the widow.

Proverbs 15, 25. He, like, when it comes to pride, he does not mess around. He doesn't mess around. When you exalt yourself, I'm going to humble you. Not only am I going to humble you, this is going to be painful because I will destroy your house.

I will take away the things that are most precious to you. I will take away the things where you are finding security. I will take away the things that are drawing you away from me. The things that you think you built, I'll destroy it. Humble yourself before me.

Like, man, those widows that are in a low place, that are crying out to God, that are mourning. And if you've read any of the Bible and you know the widows, they were taken care of. It's not like they went out and got jobs when their husbands passed away. It's not like they got riches to live off of. Like, man, there was a time of mourning for years.

And God says, if you are like them, if you are humble and contrite and in mourning, if you will fall on your knees before me, I will protect you. But if you're proud, if you exalt yourself, if you separate yourself from me, I will destroy your house. Let's talk about some symptoms of pride now. And then we'll close here in just a second. These are just really easy.

You can jot these down and then go home and pray about them. Neglecting God's word and neglecting prayer. See, the moment that you think you've got it figured out and you don't need to read the word to get instruction, the moment that you say, Lord, I don't need to read your Bible, you're telling God, I don't need to hear from you. I don't need instruction from you. I'm good.

In fact, I'm great. And the moment you stop praying is the moment that you say, you know what, Lord, I don't need to come to you with my problems anymore. I'll figure them out on my own. I don't need to find myself intercessing. I don't need to find myself on the floor weeping in front of you.

I just figure it out on my own. Neglecting others. Guys, here's the deal. There is no one on this planet that is not precious to God. Not one.

Not a single one. And so when we neglect others, when we don't humble ourselves and help others and take care of others, when we think, oh, I'm too good for that person, or, wow, they are low. Like, I'm not, I can't, there's nothing I can do about them, Lord. When we neglect others, you're neglecting God. The least of these.

As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. So when you're neglecting others, you're prideful. There is something there. There is something inside of you that is telling you are too good or better than everybody else. This is a good one.

The inability to admit you are wrong or that you are at fault. If every time you have a conversation with somebody, you're in the right, you are wrong. If every time you talk to your spouse and you get in an argument with your spouse, you think you're right, you're wrong. So, men, especially you guys, if you have an issue submitting to authority, like, if you struggle to submit to authority, whether it is biblical authority, whether it's spiritual authority, whether it's authority in the house, whether it's authority at work, if you're not. If you're not.

If you are struggling to submit to people who have been placed over you, you have a pride issue. You're a know-it-all. That's a hard one. Critical of others, but not yourself. If you can't look in the mirror and be critical of yourself, if you can't get before God and be critical of yourself and ask Him to give you a critique of your own, but you are willing to point the finger at everybody else, you have a pride issue.

Defensiveness. If every time someone comes to you, you're defensive, you have a pride issue. This is like the Oscars. Subtle music. Eventually, he's going to drown me out, and two guys are going to come on stage and, like, hurt me off.

I'm almost done, so it's all good. If you have a superficial heart, like if you're superficial, if all you care about is how you look and what you look like and the clothes you wear and the cars you drive and the house you live in, if that is how you value yourself and you value others, you're proud. If you're afraid to walk out in the morning, women, without your makeup on because the neighbor might see you, I'm just being real. Just being real. If you go surf way down at 76th Street because you don't want people at 1st Street to see how you really surf, got a pride issue.

But, guys, here's the beautiful thing. There's a solution to all this. The redemption from God, our salvation is not based on us being perfect. It is based upon his grace. And his grace, as he said earlier, he gives to the humble.

It's those of us who find ourselves contrite and humble before God that he gives his grace to. So there's people here today who have been struggling. They keep wondering, why do I keep coming up against this wall? Why do I keep coming up against this wall? Why am I still having problems in my marriage?

Why am I facing this thing over and over and over again? Find yourself in a place of humility. If you think you're the most spiritual, if you think you are the smartest, if you think any of these things, find yourself in a place of humility and allow God to pour out his grace upon you and allow God to energize you, allow him to fill you with his spirit so that you can show love to the people around you. He says he gives grace and even exalts the humble. He doesn't just leave you down there.

He picks you up and he exalts you when you're humble because he knows that you will turn towards him, that you will give the glory and the honor to God. If the praise team wants to come up, I'll finish this real quick. No praise team. Never mind. Leon said no.

Last one and then I'll let Leon come out and finish this out. If you're here today and you don't know God, and you wonder why your life has been struggling, you wonder why every time you think you're doing okay something happens, you wonder why all these things are going wrong. I won't promise you an easy life or a perfect life, but I will tell you this, that when you are close to the power source, when you have God and the Holy Spirit flowing through you, then when you encounter trials and tribulations, when you encounter the enemy, you can overcome them. But man, when you are alone, when you are full on alone, and you're wrapping your arms around the kryptonite, and you are okay with being proud, and you are okay with doing it on your own, you are being opposed by the Most High God. So I would encourage you today, allow him to give you the strength that you need.

Allow him to minister to your heart. Allow him to reconcile you with those people that are around you. Humble yourself before God and allow him to exalt you. Don't exalt yourself. It only puts you in a much, much lower place.

Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. I thank you that this word is sharper than any two-edged sword. But I thank you for the conviction that it has brought me over the last few days, as I've studied it out, just conviction upon conviction, about where I am lacking in humility. Lord, I am grateful for your grace.

I am thankful that you are willing, when we find ourselves on our face before you, to lean down, to pick us up, to wrap your arms around us, and to guard us, Lord. Lord, I pray that we wouldn't leave here the same today. Lord, that our pride would be set down when we walk out that door. Lord, that we would take this and apply it to our hearts, to our lives throughout the week. Lord, let find us a humble group, a humble people before you, Lord.

In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.