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Well, good morning. It's great to see you guys. It's a fun day for me personally. I have a lot of family here, which is kind of fun to get to talk about pride in front of your family. Some of you guys got that. But actually, I've got my brother and his family, and my sister and her family, and my parents here this morning, so it's a pretty cool experience for me. We got to go watch a little Longhorn basketball yesterday afternoon, hook them, and uh they did play really well and won. And then uh got to enjoy some good food together last night and getting to hang out some today. It's Super Bowl Sunday. Who's gonna win?

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Broncos.

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Because that my parents are from uh Colorado, I heard Broncos pretty strongly right here. But I don't know. We'll see what happens. It's gonna be an interesting game. Um, at least there'll be some interesting commercials. So um we're uh we're we are really are um in a neat opportunity today as far as like starting a new series and what I think God wants to share with us. And if you're a guest of point, let me just quickly say welcome. We're glad that you're a guest today. And in fact, we have a gift for you at the connection point when you leave the room on your way out. If you just stop by and pick that up, we'd love to give that to you. Um But uh the more you spend time around us here at Point, and we like to say this fairly often, the more you realize that none of us have it all together, none of none of us have it all figured out. We're all works in progress. And so today as we start a new series, I just want to confess that as a pastor, I've really wrestled with the truth that I'm gonna teach you uh today. Because as always, I would say to you, you don't need to hear my opinion. You need to hear God's word. You need to hear what God has to say about our lives and about who he is and about who we are and how things are supposed to go. Um, my opinion is exactly that, my opinion, and you could have your opinion. But when we look to God's word, it's like, okay, God, uh, you're really pushing us here, really challenging us here. The beautiful thing is that in this room, there is much grace because we're all at different stages in our walk with God. Uh, some of us are brand new and just figuring it out. Some of us have been walking with God for a long time, but wherever we are, we all need God's grace, don't we? We all need God's help to take the next step in our spiritual maturity and our obedience to Christ. And it's a beautiful thing, it's a really cool thing, and I love the diversity of this room, rich and poor and young and old and different or young and older. Um, I don't want to be offensive or anything, right? Uh, but uh there are all different walks of life in this room, but we all have a common need. His name's Jesus, okay? And if you're a seeker, if you're just checking things out and you're trying to explore faith, um, I want you to know that even if when you come to faith, you still need Jesus to live out the faith that we've been called to walk in. So as I was um praying this week and preparing, I read a story. Uh there was a man, 34-year-old man, uh, who lived near Omaha, Nebraska. Anybody been to Nebraska? Okay. Uh there's a man who's 34 years old, lived near Omaha, Nebraska, and he had a pet snake. Anybody else have pet snakes? Okay, I'm not your friend if you have a pet. I'm just kidding. Um, I don't like snakes, all right? I don't I'm not friendly with snakes. But my my dad, for some reason, he has an affinity towards snakes. He likes to pick them up. I don't like to pick them up. Um, but I'm I'm not a friend of snakes. And this guy had a pet python, and uh, and he basically would carry this python around his neighborhood, and he would walk up to his neighbor's house, and his friends, I'm like, you know, just like showing their kids this python, he'd put it around their necks, he'd let it slither on their trampolines, he'd let them play with it, and he would do this regularly. Well, he was walking down through his neighborhood not long ago, and uh his friend was with him, and as he was walking, this python uh suddenly started to constrict around his neck. And the man's face went red, and then he passed out, and then he fell on the ground, and uh his friend, before they could do anything about it, this python actually killed the man. Crazy, huh? And I was thinking about this story as like, wow, like, see, this is exactly why you shouldn't have a pet snake to begin with, right? Duh. But this this snake, I mean, literally, he thought that he had this thing mastered, but in reality, the snake was sizing him up and mastering him. Right? Now that's a good parallel. You know where I'm going, right? Because I'm a pastor. You gotta use this story to go somewhere. Listen, that's how sin is in our life. Sometimes we're just playing with a sin, thinking it's this thing we've got mastered, but in reality, it's mastering us. And there are things in our lives that we struggle with, and we think they're really not a big deal. They're just really not a big issue. I've got this, I can handle this, I can deal with this. I mean, things like hey, it's just a white lie. Anybody ever said that? It's just a little lie. It's not gonna hurt anyone. That's called sin management. Here's the problem: sin kills, it destroys our lives. Sin is not something you play with, it's not a toy to be tinkered with, it's actually something that will kill us. That's what scripture says that sin, when it gives full birth, when it matures, it will grow into death. And sin actually separates us from God. It is, it is not something to just take lightly. But let's be honest, as human beings, we are sinners, and we would prefer, many times I would prefer, to just try to continue to manage sin rather than to try to kill it and do away with it before it kills me. So here's the thing. As I was praying about what God wants us to learn this year, I felt very compelled to do this series for the next seven weeks on seven deadly sins. You guys heard that phrase before? If you've been around church, you may have heard the seven deadly sins. And starting all the way back into the fourth century, uh, these seven deadly sins, these seven vices have been discussed, talked about. And uh they're really just seven areas where we as people, as human beings, can struggle, where we get tempted, we fall into temptation. And so I thought, hey, look, let's let's look at these seven areas and let's make sure that we are not falling into the trap in these areas and letting ourselves be killed, letting ourselves be uh put into a situation where we are not being utilized for the maximum good of our lives that God's given us. And so, in light of that, we're gonna do this the sin, these, uh, these, the series of these seven sins. And and by the way, if you see something up here you don't like, like that doesn't mean you can take that week off, okay? So I encourage you to be here every single week, all right? It also doesn't mean if you're like giving your husband an elbow right now saying, yeah, that was you, like that's not a good idea either, okay? Start with yourself, all right? But all of us can struggle with these things. And here's the thing uh I want us to understand that uh this is a very difficult issue when we start talking about sin because I know it's not popular. I know it's not popular to say, hey, this is a sin problem, we've got this issue, we're broken, we're messed up, we're jacked up, whatever language you want to use. It's not popular to say that, but it is true. And to help us kind of springboard into the series, I want you guys to open your Bibles up to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And this is going to be the theme verse from which we will kind of leap into these seven areas and think about how each one of them play out in our lives. And here's the cool thing. I want you guys, when the series is over, not to be thinking about sin, but I want you to be thinking about the Savior who rescues us from sin. That's my hope is that at the end of this series, your worship for Jesus would increase and your sin would decrease. That's what I'm praying for, okay? That's what I'm praying for in my own heart, in my own life. Since we're jumping right into 1 Corinthians chapter 10, let me just give you a quick synopsis of where we're going, because I don't like to just take a verse out of context without telling you a little bit of where it lands. It's important to understand scripture, uh, needs to be translated, needs to be understood and looked at through the lens of its context. So uh if you've never read the book of 1 Corinthians, I encourage you to do it. We, in fact, I like to say we we dare you to read the scripture and see if it doesn't change your life. It will, okay? It's powerful. But if you read the book of 1 Corinthians, it's a letter that was written to these people in Corinth. Uh, and Corinth was like the Las Vegas of its day. All right? It was Sin City. Uh, there was tremendous amounts of promiscuity, uh, there was tremendous amounts of of um of money that was being exchanged for uh pornography, for uh for prostitution. Uh there was a lot of uh idols that were being worshipped there. The number one uh Greek god that was worshipped, there were statues throughout the city was Aphrodite, um goddess of uh of love and war. So we we we see like that that this city was pretty messed up. It was pretty um it was pretty pagan, if that's the right word to think. And so here it is that God, in the midst of that, which I love, he raises up a church, a people for himself in the midst of this chaos, right? It's so cool how even in an unlikely place like Corinth, that God would still raise up for himself a people who would worship him, who would follow him, who would trust him. And so this church is established in Corinth, and Paul is writing to them to give them some practical instructions on how to be the people, be the church that God's called them to be. And if you've read the book of 1 Corinthians, you know that it was a messed up place. Because even though you've put your trust in Christ, you still struggle with sin, don't you? Even if you put your hope in Christ, even though this church was really like growing and some things were happening that were good, some really bad stuff was going on there too. Uh, let me just give you a little bit of flavor of what I mean. Uh, when you start to read the book of 1 Corinthians, what you'll find is that Paul initially he addresses disunity and discord, which, by the way, is interesting when you consider what else he mentions that discord and disunity is like first on his list. He says, you guys need to work together, you need to come together. There's these factions, there's these disconnects, there's divisions among you. That's not a good thing. That's high on God's priority list because he wants his church to be unified. He wants his picture of the gospel to go out, and it can't go out if the church is disunified. So he addresses that. He also addresses uh prostitution that's going on inside the church. Not people outside the church, but inside the church. He addresses a man who's sleeping with a family member. It's not appropriate. And so he addresses that. And he also addresses the fact that the church is just kind of saying it's no big deal. Just letting the sin go. And so he says you need to discipline that. You need to you need to bring him back into repentance. You need to restore him, but you need to also like be willing to discipline him if he's out of line. So he's addressing all these different issues that are going on in the Corinthian church. There's other things, but just I'll leave it at that. And we get to chapter 10, and he's actually digging in on the issue of idolatry. He's really going after the fact that these guys are still struggling with idolatry. And he uses an illustration from the Old Testament about the people of Israel and how even though God did all these miracles for them, their hearts were still turned to worship other things, to still pursue other things. God provides for them, and yet they still worship other idols. And so when I read this, I want you to understand that context that Paul has been talking about these sins and these struggles and these temptations that they have been facing. And he says this in verse 12. Read this along with me on the screen if you don't have a Bible in front of you. So whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and he will allow, he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it. You guys heard that verse before? Sometimes this verse is paraphrased, and some people will say, God will not give you more than you can handle. You ever heard that? That's not true, okay? Just so you know. God will many times allow things to happen in our lives that are more than we can handle. But they're not more than he can handle. It's not more than he can handle in our lives. And so he is strong enough to deal with the issues that we're facing. He's strong enough to deal with the marriage problems, the finances, the struggles. If you think that God won't give you more than you can handle, you're gonna get really bitter and angry at God when life doesn't go well for you. But we're not guaranteed to get a free pass out of hardships or trials or suffering, right? In fact, it's through those many times God uses them to grow us and to cause us to depend and look to Him. But I want you to know that He is giving us a warning and He's giving us an encouragement in this verse, these two verses. He's giving us a warning. Hey, listen, be careful. Don't think that you got this, don't think that you got this all figured out. You know, my son not long ago, I taught him how to ride a bike. Uh he learned to ride at three. He's always been kind of ahead of the curve. And if you guys have ever taught a little kid to ride a bike, um it's a little it's a lot of fun to do that, but at some point they say, let go of me. I want to do this, right? Because they think they got it. And you know they ain't got it, right? And so here's my son, he's like, I got it. He's doing his thing, and he's like, let go, dad, I got it, you know. And I let go and he's like right over onto the street. And the funny thing is, is he did that like four times before he's like, okay, wait, just tell me when you let go when you think I'm ready. Because it was just like, let go, pfft, let go, pfft. I mean, it's over and over, right? But that's exactly us. We think we got it, and then we go in the ditch. We fall over, we fall into temptation. So Paul warns them, but he also gives them an encouragement. He says, Even when you struggle, God is faithful. Everybody say God is faithful. That's a good news, right? That's good news this morning. God is faithful even when we struggle. God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but he will provide a way out. He will provide a way out. We don't always look for the way out, but he will provide a way out of temptation. So we don't have to succumb to it. We don't have to give into it, which again, as I said earlier, will ultimately lead us to death. Now, I I just I didn't expect this to be a part of the sermon this morning, but the more I prepared this week, the more I realized that there's something that needs to be said at the beginning of a sermon like this, where we're gonna really attack some external behavior issues. You know what I'm talking about? Some of these things that are going on like greed and lust and envy, those things are things that sometimes we just want to attack from the outside. And even Paul is addressing this issue when we come, but as human beings, we all naturally fall into the trap of license or legalism. Legalism or license, okay? Now let me just briefly explain what I mean by that. Um, all of us will either lean into legalism, which is the idea that if I am good enough, as in if I obey the laws that God has given me, or even the own laws that I've made up, or laws that somebody else has made up, if I obey those laws, if I obey those rules, if I check the box and say I have done those things, then I get accepted by God. Anybody ever been there? God accepts me based on my performance. That's kind of the underlying current of this thing. That if I can do the right thing, I can go to church enough, I can say the right thing, I can get God to love me, to accept me. That's called legalism. And in fact, what typically happens if you're a legalist in that road and you think I get accepted because of my performance, you'll start to try to impose your standards on everybody else. It's not just about your own heart, but then you'll start to say, no, wait, you gotta do it too, and you gotta do it too. And part of that's because we actually enjoy as legalists liking to watch other people fail and flounder. We're gonna come back to that. That's good. I'm telling you, that's good stuff right there. We like to see other people fli fail and flounder when we feel good about ourselves because we we puff ourselves up through performance. And so legalism can start to creep into our hearts when we talk about external behavior, and we can assume, well, hey, if I can just not do these things, then God will love me and accept me. And that's the motivation that we go off of. And I can just tell you right now, that's a terrible motivation. It's a really bad motivation. And here's why, because it's me centered. Okay? I gotta leave that alone because we'll come back to that. So, the legalist, which is what the Pharisees were, which is what happens a lot of times in the church today, is we take we take a set of rules and we say, if we can just obey these rules, then God will like us, God will accept us. But the other option that sometimes creeps in is not legalism, but it's license. Now, when you get a license to do something, um, you get a license, you get permission to do it. So sometimes when I think about license, it's the idea that, hey, God has saved me, he's forgiven me, now I can do whatever I want. Has anybody ever been there? If he's forgiven me and I'm going to heaven now, then hey, let's have a party. Let's just go for this thing. This is awesome. I can do whatever I want. Now, this is the attitude, really, that I know better than God how to run my life. I know better than God how to do the things that require that are required in life. I can call the shots. I'm smarter than God, I'm wiser than God. This is incredibly dangerous, isn't it? When we say things like, I'm in charge. God, you don't really understand my past or my pain or my issues. You don't really understand me. I know better than you do. And so we can pursue our own way, and that's called license. Another thing, word, maybe it's the word we don't use a lot, but licentiousness. Even this idea we kind of really go out into liberalities of just enjoying and hedonism and pursuing the pleasures of this life and assuming, again, God gives us a free pass because Jesus died for my sin. And that's a danger. That's a pitfall. Because guess what? Even if you're a saved follower of Jesus, sin can still kill you. It can still be incredibly destructive in your life. It can still ruin your marriage, it can still ruin the way that you live your life, and it can lead you down a path of pain and suffering. The Proverbs are very plain about that, right? There's two paths one to foolishness, one to wisdom. The foolish path leads to death. Sin. That's where it leads to death. So what's interesting is that these are two fruit that really come from the same root. You guys know what that root is? Pride. Two fruit that still come from the same root. Another way to say it is these are really two issues, uh, two sides of the same coin. Because in both of these, whether it be the legalist or it be the licentious person, the licensed person, you're both basically saying, God, I'm in charge. I can earn my way to heaven by my good works, it's all about me. Or I want to do whatever I want, it's all about me. I'm calling the shots. Are you with me? So here's the thing. I think this is interesting because the first sin we need to attack this morning is the issue of pride. The first sin that will ruin your life, that will take you out, that will kill you, is the sin of pride. And it's it's because it is the taproot, it is the undercurrent of all the other sins in your life. It is the one that is working undercurrent over and over, it's working overtime in your life to take you out. Now, can I be honest as a pastor that no one has ever come to me before and said, Um, Pastor, I have a pride problem. Can you help me? Nobody. No, I've never had anyone come and say I have a pride problem. They've said other things. I've got some marriage issues, I've got some financial issues, I've got some trust issues, I've got some anxiety issues, I've got some struggles with my sexuality. I've heard all these different things, but nobody ever says, I've I've got a pride problem. What's interesting is as you biblically counsel people, every one of those issues you will find that underneath all that is pride. You will. You dig into it, it's pride. And so in our lives, this thing is subversive, it's subtle, but it is incredibly deadly. It's dangerous. Now, just think about it for a second in scripture how important this issue of pride is. Anyone know why Satan was kicked out of heaven? Pride, yeah, that's right. Anyone know why Adam and Eve chose to eat a fruit from a tree they weren't supposed to eat from? Pride, right? They said, God, we know better than you do. Yeah, they believed the lie of the devil who wanted to prey on their pride because he's prideful being. He wanted to be worshipped, right? How about anybody know why Abraham decides to circumvent God's process and plan when God promises him uh you know many generations and he goes to his wife's maidservant to uh to impregnate her so that he can have a descendant? What do you think drove that decision? Pride, right? God, you can't figure this out. I gotta figure this out. Pride was there. What about Samson? You guys remember the story of Samson, the strong man, the buff dude, right? Pride. That's what happens. Pride got into his uh mind and heart. What about Saul, King Saul? Pride, right? He didn't want to obey God. He wanted to do his own thing, he wanted to go his own way. What about David who commits adultery and then murder? Pride. Here's the point. Yeah, there were other sins involved, but at the core of each of those stories is the issue of pride. And at the core of each of our stories is the issue of pride. Pride is incredibly difficult to diagnose in our own heart. But it's there. It's there. It's why we wear certain clothes, it's why we drive certain cars, it's why we live in certain houses. Usually most of those things are not because it takes care of our needs, it's because we have to have a certain level of status to appear a certain way to a certain group of people. Because that's called pride. That's what the scripture reminds us of. And notice in this passage where it says in 1 Corinthians 10 12, he says, Be careful when you think you're standing firm, right? So when you're standing firm, be careful that what You don't fall. So he's he's already hitting on this issue of pride and how easy it is to become self-reliant, self-focused. It's all about me, it's all about my thing. Um, because my dad's here, I can tell this story. But my dad, when he was um younger, they um took a bunch of boys out to go camping. And again, I probably will butcher the story, but I loved listening to him tell this story when I was a kid. And uh when they were out, I told you earlier he liked snakes. And as they were out in the camping, they were hiking, and uh at some point during the hike, they sat down, and one kid sat down on a stump, it was a rotten stump, right? And out of that stump came a copperhead snake. Has anybody seen a copperhead before? Uh and basically what happens at that point is my dad's like moves the boy, and that would have been great if that was the end of the story, although it wouldn't have made a cool story later on. But he decides he's gonna pick the snake up, and he's gonna show the other boys the snake, right? So he picks the snake up, and now he's got a copper head in his hand, and he's carrying this copperhead, and they've got it, they've got to hike back down to their vehicles, to their place where they're going, and he hikes back down, and a whole while that little snake is just wriggling, just wriggling and wriggling and wriggling. And slowly but surely that snake was able to get its head out just far enough to get a fang in right there, and turn around, bite down. And you know what my dad did? He threw it in the floorboard of the car, right? And you know what the driver of the car did? He jumped out with the car still going. And later after that, they got my dad to the the doctor, the hospital, and as they looked at the the hand, the thumb, what was interesting is that everywhere the venom touched, it turned black. And I was just thinking about that this week in light of them coming. Like, isn't that how pride is? We think we got a hold on it. But actually it's got us. And then it clamps down and then slowly it starts to rot our flesh, rot our hearts. Pride is a dangerous thing. You know why? Because it says in first in Proverbs 16, 18 that pride comes before destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall. Pride comes before destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall. If you've seen someone who's prideful, just kind of back off and say, I'm just gonna wait because you're getting ready to have some bad stuff coming. And I'm not talking about karma here, okay? I'm saying that when you choose to be a prideful person, especially if you're a follower of Jesus, he loves you too much to let you walk in your independence, your snobbery towards him. He will bring humility into your life. Because here's the thing pride is an inflated view of self and a deflated view of God. If you want to know what pride is, just as a working definition, there's a lot of people I've heard that you've given me different definitions of pride, but I just think this is helpful for me. Pride is an inflated view of self and a deflated view of others, of God. Um, any of you guys ever watch Animal Planet? Have you ever seen that big bullfrog during mating season? That puffs himself up, you know, to make himself look cool for the ladies. Right? Or have you ever seen the guy that comes out of the gym? He's walking like this, right? Trying to look cool for the ladies. Listen. Funny pictures. All right, sorry. Pride. Alright, we puff ourselves up. The idea that Paul is using in this book of 1 Corinthians, he's talking about pride as something that puffs up. It's inflated. What's interesting about that, you know, it's like it's it's an empty inflation, it's just air. But it's inflated. And Paul, of course, is saying, be careful, be aware of that. Watch out for that. And all throughout the scripture, we're reminded be careful of pride. Be guarded against pride. Because pride is the sin beneath every other sin. You want to know why you envy other people's stuff? Pride. You want to know why you stress and freak out and worry when things aren't going well? Pride. You want to know why you lie? Pride. You want to know why you're greedy? Pride. It's there. There's really three things that I think show me how pride is in my own life. Just three that sort of are umbrellas for many other things. There's probably more stuff in this, but these are three that God really showed me in my own heart this week. Number one, we compare ourselves to others. Pride leads us to comparison with others. Comparing our stuff, comparing our looks, comparing our talents, comparing our abilities, comparing our families, the number of kids we have, comparing this. We compare everything. We compare, we compare, compare. That's the culture we live in, right? We're always comparing. And even in a Christian sense, even in a religious sense, even with a moral sense, we will compare ourselves. I learned a phrase or an idea when I was younger called cultural holiness. And that's where we kind of get our sense of, are we really walking with God? Are we really a good Christian by looking around and saying, okay, who's worse than me? Who's not doing as good as I am? And so we use that to sort of compare ourselves to everyone else. That's all driven by pride, isn't it? We compare. Man, that is brutal. You want to talk about going to depression. Spend all your time comparing yourself to everyone else. That'll put you in depression in a hurry. When you don't look a certain way, you don't have certain things. But the second thing I see that this is kind of another step of that is competing with others. All of a sudden it becomes a competition. It's not just about comparing yourself, but now I gotta beat, I gotta one-up people. Some of you guys know I'm talking about. It's like we're sitting at the table having a discussion, we've always got to tell the one-up story, right? We're competing with everybody. Everybody's in competition with us. What are we competing for? Acceptance, love, value, worth. And even in the church, again, we sometimes are competing for God's love, God's acceptance. And God's saying that that's not how you get it. But we compete. Um I gotta tell you a quick story. Uh last week, I was out at a prayer retreat with a bunch of pastors. Can I just tell you that one place where pride is very evident is with a bunch of pastors in a room. Now, and I'm gonna be completely honest, my heart too, okay? You get a bunch of pastors in the room, well, the first question is they all walk around and how big's your church? How many people are you running? What you guys building? Right? It's silliness. It's it's so silly. But pastors are just as susceptible to pride as anybody. And so we compete with one another. And there was a moment at the end of the prayer time where God was really working on my heart. We'd had some great prayer time together, and the guy stands up and he says something that I've said to a crowd before. He said, Listen, if you're sitting here today and you really need prayer for something, and there was something that was weighing my heart down, I was burdened. He said, If you need prayer for something, I want you to stay seated, and I want everybody who feels like they can give right now, that's in a good place right now, healthy place right now, that doesn't feel called uh to receive. I want you to get up and I want you to go to somebody who needs to receive prayer right now and pray for them. Can I just tell you that in that moment, pride reared its ugly head in me? And every it was everything in me that said, get up and go and help somebody else. Because you need to do that. You don't want anybody to see that you're weak, that you need to receive right now. But you know what God said? He said, Stay seated. And I said, Okay, God, I'm gonna fight you on this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna surrender. So I stayed seated. And in that room, as some men came over and started talking to me and praying for me, I just received, you know, it was humbling, but it was good. It's good for my heart. It's a good reminder that I need Jesus just as much as anybody. I need help just as much as anybody. Listen, men in the room, can I just tell you something, men? We need to ask God to break through our pride. We are prideful, prideful creatures, aren't we? We don't want anybody's help. We don't want anybody to know what's really going on. We need God's help to break through this issue of pride. The last one, not only do we compare, not only to compete with one another, but we also control. We try to control. We try to control our circumstances, we try to control others, we try to control issues, we try to fix things. And again, remember what I said earlier. The best way to think about this is, you know, when we stress and we we are when we're freaking out and we're worried, what we're saying to God is that God, we don't think you're big enough to handle this thing. I can but I I gotta put it on me. Which is pride. You guys get the point? Pride is dangerous. So here's the here's the question. How do we get a what's the way out of pride? What's the way out of the pride? How do we overcome pride? We've talked about all these ins and outs and the perils of pride, but what how do we actually overcome pride? That's the goal of this series. Well, let me tell you what it's not. It's not me walking around saying, I'm really bad, I'm really ugly, I'm really terrible, I really stink. Like that's kind of the Ewar syndrome, right? Whoa is me, I'm so bad. Some of you are like, I don't watch one of the poo anymore. I know, that's okay. But I think it just captures this idea that sometimes we just kind of get where we're just talking down about ourselves, and we're just beating ourselves up with our words, and we're just saying all these things bad about ourselves as if that's humility. You know what? That's just as prideful as saying, I'm the greatest. That's just as prideful as Muhammad Ali saying, hey, I'm Superman, right? To which his flight attendant said Superman doesn't need a seatbelt, right? So here's the thing. In our lives, it's not just that we try to press ourselves down, but you remember the definition of pride? Pride is an inflated view of self and a deflated view of God. We need to inverse those two things if we are going to be humble people. Are you tracking? We've got to inverse those things, which means we need an accurate view of God. I said that most of us when we talk about external behavior issues, we talk about license and we talk about legalism. Let me give you an alternative to those. It's called lordship. It's not license and it's not legalism, it's called lordship. Now, some of you guys in the room, you'll thought, oh man, he's just going through the back door to get me to try to obey some rules. See, it's just a different form of legalism. He's getting ready to start preaching. No, if you think that you don't understand our Lord. You don't understand who Jesus is. But I will say to you in 1 Peter 5, verse 6, it says this: humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, so that he may exalt you at the proper time. And he says this in the context of a message to some leaders. He's just calling it to elders. He's saying, elders, you leaders of the church, you need to humble yourself before God. And he also is telling them in this same passage to be self-controlled and alert because the enemy's prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He's saying, listen, guys, if you want to really experience the life I have for you, you'll be able to lead well and serve well, you got to humble yourself. But notice what he's saying, you're humble yourself too. To what? God's mighty hand. When we see God rightly, we will see ourselves honestly. We will start to see ourselves honestly. Which means we will no longer have to compare ourselves to other people to get our worth or our value or identity. Which means we will no longer have to compete with others, which means we will no longer have to try to control our circumstances, but we'll see the mighty hand of God, his sovereignty, his goodness, his grace, his mercy. And we will be able to say, that's where my worth is found, that's where my security is found, that's where my strength is found, that's where my hope is found. Not in my performance, but in Christ's performance. In fact, Philippians chapter 2. Hang with me. Philippians chapter 2, one of the most beautiful passages where we see what humility really is all about. Verse 5 says this in in Philippians chapter 2. This is about Jesus. It says, Make your own attitude, that of Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when he had come as a man in his external form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Are you hearing this morning from what the scripture is saying? He is saying that God hadn't asked us to do something he doesn't understand because Jesus understands what it's like to humble himself. He became a person, he became a human being, he put on flesh. He is God, he is on his throne, he steps down, he becomes a servant, he becomes a slave, he makes himself nothing. The world is saying, promote yourself, Jesus is saying, promote me. The world is saying it's all about you, and God is saying, no, it's all about me. And when you seek me, when you pursue me, when you elevate me, you will find meaning and purpose that you're longing for. You will find the satisfaction that you cannot find. And here's the beautiful thing is that he knows we're gonna struggle with this. So why did Jesus come out to begin with? To combat the pride that's in our hearts that says we can save ourselves. To combat the pride in our hearts that says that we can earn our way to salvation. To combat, why? Because he knew we were gonna fail on that and we needed a savior. And Jesus, when he surrendered, he ultimately surrendered to death on a cross. And that's how we are saved. And I don't want to ever get over that. Because that's how we stay humble. We stay humble and we stay hungry when we recognize that salvation is not in us, but in him. That the thing that we want most in this life is not a bigger house, a bigger, a better car, a better clothes, a better job, a prettier wife. It's none of those things at the end of the day are gonna satisfy like Jesus, our Lord. And notice what he says at the end of that. Jesus humbles himself. And it says this it says that one day, catch this, one day, every knee will bow. Over the earth, under the earth, on the earth. I mean, he's not leaving anybody out. That means that every wealthy person, powerful person, prestigious person on this planet, well, guess what? One day they're all gonna bow their knee before Jesus. That means every athlete, superstar, that means every actor, that means every musician, that means every smart person, the smartest of the smart who've started every company, every single one of those people are gonna bow down before Jesus one day. They are. It's not like an option, it's gonna happen. And when we see him rightly, when we understand he is the Lord of the heavens and earth, wow, I feel small. But that's a good place. Because even though I'm small, he still loves me. Even though I'm insignificant, even though when I get on an airplane and I fly and I see those little ant cars and those people walking around down there, and I'm like, wow, we're tiny. And we think we're so big and so awesome. And God says, But I still love you. In fact, I came down and made myself a servant, a slave, and died for you. That's how much I love you. That's how much you mean to me. Have you ever received the gift of salvation? Have you? Have you ever received the gift that Jesus offers that gets us off of the treadmill of pride and puts us in a place of experiencing life? You see, here's the thing. Some of you right now, you're thinking, I'm so glad so-and-so is hearing this. Some of you are also saying, man, I'm just ready for this to be over. Right? I I know that. I know my own heart. Just because there's a way out doesn't mean that you're gonna walk through that door today. But my prayer is that every person in this room would begin to walk in freedom. And it says in Romans 10, verse 9, this is the starting point. This is the starting point for your walk away from pride and into true humility. He says that everyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's the starting point. And that invitation, that way out, is available to everyone. Or you can continue to crawl in the darkness of your pride, not realizing that the whole time there's a python around your neck that's getting ready to take you out. Not realizing that you are on a path to destruction, not realizing that you think I can fix my marriage, I can handle my sexuality, I can handle my finances, God, I can handle my issues. I'm not really comparing myself to them, I'm not really competing with them, I'm not really trying to control them. And all the while the Holy Spirit's saying, Come, find freedom, find hope, find life. You know, is another passage where he says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If we will humble ourselves, man, he will meet us in that. But if you choose, and I choose to be prideful, he says, talk to the hand. I'm waiting. I love you, but you're prideful. You think you can do it, you can't.