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I've got a question for you this morning. Have you ever met or interacted with somebody who's not very self-aware? Have you engaged somebody who uh who lives in blissful ignorance? Maybe that's another way to put it. You know what I'm talking about? Now, let's be honest, we all have moments where we struggle with this, right? You can probably think to times where you were ignorant of something and you're just going along, not really realizing what's going on. Because the truth is we all have struggle with this. We have moments when we struggle with not being self-aware and we have things that we would call blind spots. I uh I have a friend in Australia, and a number of years ago, she was telling us a story about how she was uh catching the train down from where we lived on the central coast. She was telling this story to a group of us, catching the train from the central coast where we lived down to Sydney for for I can't remember if it was for college or if it was for work. She did both down there. But anyway, she's catching the train down, and it's a pretty long ride. It's about an hour and a half, okay? From from point A to point B. And she was running late for the train, and so she's rushed to the train station, realizes when she gets down to the platform that she really needs to go to the bathroom, and so she has to use, quickly use the bathroom that's there on the train station, which is never a nice experience. So she quickly does that, gets out to the platform. Thankfully, the train hasn't come, she waits there for a minute, and then she gets on the train, you know, finds a spot, gets on the train, goes down to Sydney, and then she's standing there, getting ready to get off the train when finally somebody reaches over, taps her on the shoulder, and whispers in her ear and says, Hey, excuse me, but your dress is tucked into your underwear. And at that point, of course, she's ready to like fall through the ground with embarrassment. Uh, but she's telling us later on that with tears in her eyes, laughing, because she's so like it had been such a funny experience, because you know, that was typical for my friend. That was like something that she would do, just all these crazy things. And and again, this is just one in a whole list of crazy stories that she would tell us, and she would laugh about it pretty well. But sometimes things that we're not aware of are harmful. So there is unharmful things, there are things that are harmful, and today I'd like to consider something that I believe actually is harmful, okay? We're gonna talk about something that I think may be a blind spot for all of us, and I want you to at least consider that. I want you to at least consider that this area that we're gonna talk about is a potential blind spot for you, for all of us. And rather than just jumping in and describing the struggle, what I'd like to do is actually defer to C.S. Lewis and something he wrote in Mere Christianity that really articulates well the topic that we're gonna cover today. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna read this quote, it'll be on the screen as well, from Mere Christianity. It says this there is one vice of which no man in the world is free, which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else, and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I've heard people admit that they are bad tempered or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I've ever heard anyone who is not a Christian accuse himself of this vice, and at the same time, I very seldom met anyone who is not a Christian who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is pride or self-conceit. And the virtue opposite it is in Christian morals is called humility. I want to ask you to just consider with me this morning, to be self-aware enough this morning to consider that you and I, we all personally struggle with pride. This self-conceit, pride in some formal face. Like this is one of those things that takes on many different faces, right? Pride can look like a myriad of different things. It can obviously sound like somebody boasting and being like, hey, you know, look at me, I've got all this going on. But it also can sometimes be insidious and below the surface level and sound like humility, wrapped up as, you know, pride wrapped up as humility, and that's not healthy either. And so I want you to at least consider with me that you personally struggle with pride, whether you're a Christian or you're not a Christian, it's something that we all battle with, and it takes on many different faces. It's it's sneaky. Maybe that's a good way to think about it. It hides beneath the surface level. And what you're gonna see as we get into our material this morning is that this pride is the antithesis of, the opposite to, true wisdom. True wisdom is what we're we're delving into here in our series in 1 Corinthians. So we've we've taken this undertaking to uh go through the book of 1 Corinthians as a church. And that's gonna take us a while to kind of work our way through the book of 1 Corinthians. And rather than saying, hey, we're gonna do a you know a series for the whole semester on 1 Corinthians, we're gonna break it up into segments and say, hey, what is the theme of these few chapters? What is being said to us in these few chapters? And in the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians, what you find is there's this idea of wisdom and true wisdom. And so that's what we're titling this series. And in particular, as we look today, what we're gonna see is last week we talked about wisdom that's found in relationships, in unity. But this week what we're gonna look at is wisdom and the true source of wisdom. And so as we get to the scriptures, which I'd encourage all of you to grab a Bible at this point, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, as we head there, I want to kind of give you some uh direction as we get ready to read the text this morning. So, 1 Corinthians, again, I would encourage you to read along. We will have the words on the screen, but sometimes it's better to just read it in front of you. You can kind of go back and look at it a little bit more as we're going along. So, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and as you're turning there, I just want to encourage you with this. I want you to see that this scripture we're reading this morning, and this is gonna sound a little strange, but I want you to think of it kind of like a cake, okay? I know that sounds weird, but think of it like this. When you see a cake, and it's a nice cake, right, sitting there in front of you on the table or the bench or whatever, the countertop, and it's ready to eat, it looks good. You start to eat it with your eyes before you eat it in person, right? That's normal, okay? And so you can enjoy the cake before you're actually even eating it. But then the best way to eat a cake is not to try and eat the whole thing because you're gonna get sick if you it's too rich, there's too much to it. And so you take a sliver of that cake and enjoy it. You uh you savor every mouthful of it. And so today I want you to kind of picture what we're about to do as like a cake. And the reason for that is we're gonna cover verse 18 through 31, and there is a ton of good stuff in that. It's like looking at a cake. So as we read through, look at it and be like, man, that's cool. Yeah, I like that. And as we're reading, think of those things. But then we're gonna hone in on just a few things. We're not gonna get the whole the whole thing this morning. We're just gonna take a sliver and enjoy it. But I would encourage you that you can come back all this week and enjoy it. You can come and keep eating cake all week, okay? So I would encourage you with that. I know it's a weird analogy, but just to stick with me. I really would encourage you to not just see this as a text that we blast through and you're like, okay, thanks goodness we've got the first book out of the way. No, come back and enjoy it throughout this week. Okay, so 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18 is where we're reading. And as we read, I'd encourage you to uh look to a couple of things. This scripture speaks to both the wisdom of God and the pride of men. So as we read that, just think about the pride of men versus the wisdom of God. Verse 18, let's read. And we'll just go through to verse 25 for now. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God's power to us who are being saved. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts. Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish? For since in God's wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believed through the foolishness of the message preached. For the Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles. Yet to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. Because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. There are a couple of key words that I'd like to point you towards that happen pretty early in the text. If you go back to that very first verse in verse 18, it says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God's power to those who are being saved. We have these themes of power and wisdom, and it's talking about what is the source of true power and wisdom. And as we've read the text, especially the middle portion, we've been reminded that pride inhibits us from looking to God for power and wisdom, and instead we look to ourselves. If you're taking notes this morning, that's your first fill in the blank. Pride inhibits us from looking to God for power and wisdom, and instead, the what we do instead of looking to God is we look to ourselves. Now, why do I say that? Well, if you go back into the text, that middle section, it starts talking about wise people. It talks about the philosopher, the scholar, the debater. Now, these are people with education, these are people with talents and resources, and these people that we look at and we're like, oh yeah, that's wise. But the text says that worldly wisdom is foolish. Why does it say that? Why does it tackle it at that angle? It's because they're not looking to God, instead, they're looking to themselves. Now, I was thinking at this point in the message, I'd love to give you guys an example of what that looks like. And so I was thinking about different examples. And I was like, we've got a perfect example for this in the New Testament of what this pride and denying God what it looks like. If you go to the New Testament, you see Jesus in the New Testament interacting with these guys who are the religious leaders. You guys tracking with me? You know what I'm talking about? These Jews, these uh some of them were Pharisees, some of them were religious leaders and Sadducees. He's got all these like really religious people, the Jews, the leaders of the Jews at the time. And these guys had incredible minds and abilities to take in information. Okay, so they would memorize whole sections of the Old Testament. Now, I don't know about you, but the Old Testament's long, like there's a lot in there. Like they would memorize whole books of the Bible, like Isaiah. They would memorize that whole portion of Scripture and be able to quote it off to you. And the funny thing is, you think about a book of Isaiah, it actually talks a lot prophetically about the Messiah. And here is the Messiah standing in front of them, and they don't recognize him. In their pride, they don't see Jesus. Jesus talked Jesus addressed this to them. Uh John chapter 5, verse 38, he says, You don't have his word, talking about God, his word living in you, because you don't believe the one he sent. You pour over the scriptures. This is scary. You pour over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about me. And you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. What a scary scripture, guys, as we read that. Like this thought that we may know the scriptures, we may know, we may know the Bible well, and yet in our pride not know Christ. That last verse there said, and you are not willing to come to me so that you may not have life. Another way that we could put that is you're not willing to humble yourselves and come to me. Now, one of the reasons we struggle to come to God is because it seems backwards to us. In God's kingdom, there is an inversion of what seems normal. You guys know what I'm talking about? There's this continual three theme throughout scriptures where things are just kind of turned on their heads. For example, we have this thought that the last shall be first. And we say that in church circles. Oh, yeah, the last shall be first. Think about that. What does that mean? Like, I mean, that's kind of if you're in first, that doesn't feel good, right? Like, I mean, what does that mean? And then you've got another scripture, like, blessed are you if you're persecuted. I don't feel very blessed if I'm persecuted. Like, that's that's an inversion of normal thinking. And again, here we have an inversion of normal thinking because it says, what is foolish to those with worldly wisdom, is actually wisdom. What is foolish? The cross is actually wisdom. And he's saying, hey, it's a stumbling block. People look at this and they can't get over that hurdle. Why is the cross a stumbling block? The cross is a stumbling block because the concept, the idea that the highest deity to exist in the world, God, sovereign over everything, the creator of everything, the all-powerful being, the creator God, that he would come as a man. That's a stumbling block to start with, but not just come as a man, live a life, and then allow his created beings, the ones that he created, to kill him. That is a stumbling block. People can't get over that. And that's why Paul, inspired by God, says here in the text, hey, this is a stumbling block. It's foolishness for people because they look at the cross and they're like, I can't, I can't figure that out in my own mind, in my own wisdom. And yet, this as Christians is exactly what we believe. If you're not a Christian in the room, that's what we believe. We stake our lives on it. We call it the gospel. And it's clearly articulated here that the gospel, looking to Christ, is true wisdom. We see this outlined specifically in verse 24. Again, that text was so rich, but verse 24, let's focus in on that one. Verse 24 says this yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. Guys, that's a powerful phrase right there. Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. For those who are mathematicians in the room, you may just appreciate it thinking of it like this: Christ equals God's power and God's wisdom. If you want to know what God's wisdom looks like, if you're like, what is the most powerful being in the universe? What does it look like for him to display his wisdom? You don't have to wonder. You can look to Jesus. Look to the plan of salvation, look to the fact that he came and he's been working throughout all of history, through all the Old Testament and on through the rest of history. That is true wisdom. If you wonder, hey, what is the power of God, this most powerful being who's created everything, what is the very essence of his power look like displayed? Look to Jesus. You see him come and be incarnated, become a man, and then you see him die and rise again. Look to the cross, look to that empty tomb, because we see wisdom and power here. Christ equals wisdom and power. So now that we're seeing what is truly wise and powerful, that is Christ, hopefully we're also seeing what is not wise and powerful, us, right? We have to come to terms with the truth that none of us are powerful and that none of us are wise. If we believe we're wise, we're just fooling ourselves. True power and wisdom are only found in Christ. Only found in Christ. And we're gonna see that as we continue to read on in the text, as it gets re-articulated this same thought. Verse 26, let's read it together. We're gonna read through the end here of this section. Brothers, consider your calling. Not many are wise from a human perspective, not many are powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing, to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one can boast in his presence. But it is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that, as it is written, the one who boasts must boast in the Lord. Now, if you're not sure of our position before God and our position in life, our lot in life, I hope that you're seeing it as it's restated here again. Because as we read verse 26 through 29 here, we're reminded again that God is everything and we are nothing. It it ends this thought. It's talking about, you know, again, those who have noble birth and those who think that they're wise, all of this stuff, and he says at the end in verse 29, no one can boast in his presence. Now, when it says no one, it means no one, okay? And I want you to think about that for a moment because I think uh sometimes we we we hold people up to a higher position than they really deserve. Think of the most powerful person that you can picture, or maybe the most wise person or the most kind person in history. Think of anybody from human history and hold them up next to Jesus just for a moment in your mind. Do they compare to him? They should have nothing in your mind. If they if that's not the view that you have of Jesus, is seeing them as nothing next to him. I'd challenge you that your view of Jesus is too small. He is everything. We, even the best of us, are nothing. Now there's much more to this scripture than just us using it to beat our ego into obliteration, okay? I promise you that. Because this scripture is also telling us of the beauty, it's proclaiming the beautiful truth of Christ. It's this simultaneous action of saying, you are nothing and Christ is everything. You are nothing and Christ is everything. The scripture just doesn't tell us to turn our eyes from ourselves, it tells us to turn to Christ. It's like there's a landscape in front of you. You've got this big, nasty city in front of you, and then over to the side are some beautiful mountains. The call is to turn our gaze from looking to ourselves to looking to that other scene. You can't look at the other scene without turning from the first scene. And much in the same way, you and I need to turn our gaze from worldly wisdom to looking to Christ for wisdom and power because he is the epitome of those things. So when we look to Jesus, what do we see? I think this is a really good question to ask. If by his grace we start to turn our gaze and to fix our eyes on Jesus, what happens? What do we see? Well, let's go back to verse 30 and look at that that that particular passage again. It says, but it is from him, God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. There's a ton in this verse, but what I want you to look at is the very first part. It says, but it is from him, it is let's change that, but it is from God that you are in Christ. What I want you to see, first of all, is that when we look to Jesus, we see that he is the one who has called us into relationship. He's the one who calls us into relationship. It says that you are called by God to be in Christ. Now, let's just pause here for a second and talk about that phrase in Christ. What does that mean? Again, it's it's an interesting phrase, and as Christians, we're like, oh yeah, that kind of means you're a Christian, right? Like, what does that mean to be in Christ? Well, let's talk about that for a second. It means that when we are in Christ, we move from being in sin to being in relationship with God. We meet move from being, you know, out of relationship with God to being into relationship with God. We we also, maybe a different way to think about it is this you move now and are adopted into God's family. And that's an amazing truth. Think about that. You go from from this place over here where you are uh it tells us that we are aliens and strangers, or even as bad as saying that we are. We are enemies of God to not just being okay with God. Yeah, we made up, we're good. No, you're actually a part of his family. Guys, that's an amazing truth. It also means that you are now, you now have a resolution for your past, that you have meaning for your life in the present, and that you have hope for the future in Jesus. That's what it means to be in Christ. It's an awesome place to be in Christ. So, how is it possible to be in Christ? How is it possible for us to engage in this? And what I'd like to point you towards is that Jesus is the one who provides the means for this relationship. It's not like Jesus is standing there and he's saying, Hey, I want to call you into a relationship. You and me, hey, let's get into a relationship. He also provides the means for that because between us and God is this chasm that we cannot cross ourselves. Sin, we talk about this every week, right? Sin is this divide, this huge chasm between us and God. And the only way for us to be back into a right place with God is not just for him to call out to us, but to also provide the means for us to be back into a right relationship with us. So when it says there in the text, I'll reread it for us. Verse 30, but it is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Those are some big churchy words, but what they mean is that Jesus created a bridge between us and him. And this is the gospel. This is what we believe as Christians. We believe that without God we are separated, but with God we can have relationship. I want to be as clear as possible here. If we believe in our hearts and confess with our house that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Not you might be saved, you will be saved. And that's the truth that we believe. If that's new, fresh news to you today, my challenge to you is to respond to that message. And we'll talk about that a little bit more here in a second. But I just want to say to you guys, even in that Romans 10 passage that says, if you believe in your hearts, confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, that God raised him from the dead. That passage is packed full of wisdom and power. Think about the power that God raised him from the dead. That if you would turn from him, you would be saved. There's wisdom and power all over that particular phrase. But what it takes from us is surrender. It's humility, it's coming to Christ and saying, God, I'm laying before you, I have nothing, and without you, I have nothing. Honestly, it's just the realization of the facts. Turning away from our own blind spot and turning to God. Jesus is power, Jesus is wisdom. So what does it look like practically for us to change our perspective from looking to ourselves to looking to God, looking to Christ for his wisdom and his power? Like in a practical sense, day in, day out, what does the rubber hit the road look like for this? I think that's a hard question to answer. Because, like C.S. Lewis was saying earlier in that quote I read, that it's it's easier for us to see these issues in other people than it is for ourselves, right? Like, you know, I we can be talking and I can be like, oh yeah, this person struggles here, here, and here, and here. And like myself, like, I got struggles, but it's hard for me to list those out. The reality is that this is hard, and and and it's only the Holy Spirit working in us, working in our lives, really bringing to light those things. And my prayer is that even this morning, that as I'm speaking and as we get some time to respond here in the next few minutes, that you would have an ability to really allow God to speak to you and say, this is the area that I want to work on in your lives. So let's get specific here. Let's talk through just a couple of examples. And again, these are just examples. There are a ton of examples we could use, but I'm going to pick on three. The first one is marriage. If you're married, imagine with me that in your marriage uh things have grown cold. Things are hard between you and your spouse. There's a coldness, there's a resentment, there's a disunity and a fracturing of what was beautiful is now broken in a lot of ways. Your communication's not good. The relationship is cold. And in that moment, if you look to yourself or if you look to the world for wisdom, you will be told that you are not getting your needs met. You'll be told that you don't deserve this, that you need to look out for number one. And what I would say to you, if you were to take that pride and say, God, I need help. I don't want to look that way anymore. I want to look to you for your help in my marriage. Because I've been looking to my own wisdom and it's not working. What that would then sound like is this Jesus, I'm gonna look to you because you have loved and served me, and I'm called to love and to serve my spouse, even when they're not reciprocating. Ephesians 5 tells me that Christ loved and served the Christ loved and served the church to the point of death. I'm not dead yet, but I'm gonna continue to serve and to love you in spite of this difficulty, and I'm gonna continue to love and serve my spouse in spite of this difficulty. That's just one example. Another quick example. Anxiety. Let's say that you're stressed, and you may have very good reason for that. You may have poor health, maybe financially things are not going well, maybe you've lost your job, you're unemployed, maybe you've got a relationship that's not working out very well, and you have anxiety in your heart, there's stress, there's strain in your heart, and wisdom, your own wisdom in that moment, says to you, I have every right to be worried, to be concerned, and to wallow in this. It feels good to just sit here in my stress, in my worry. And that's helping me right now process that. And he is on his throne today. As God, as I look to you, I believe that you're on your throne and that you're in control of all things. That you're not freaking out in heaven, you're not stressed about this particular situation or circumstance. And I'm going to submit to you, God. I'm going to submit to you and say that you're in control of all things. I need help because I am stressed. But God, would I rest in you today? Because you are bigger than this. You created the universe, and you're able to look after me because you are a good God. Third example, guilt. Maybe there's some sin in your past. Maybe there's some sin in your present. Maybe it's something habitually that you're struggling with. An addiction that continues to come back and be a struggle. And as you're struggling with that, pride and worldly wisdom sounds like this. I'm worthless. I'm useless. I'm unlovable. And that's what you're preaching to yourself. But if you were to turn your eyes and say, I'm going to keep looking to myself for solutions and answers with this stuff, but rather you were to turn your eyes to Christ this morning and look to him for his wisdom and for his power. My prayer is that you would begin to say that I am forgiven. Yes, I am terrible, but I am forgiven. And nothing can separate me from God's love. And today I'm going to walk in his love and I'm going to walk submitted to him because I need him. I have hope and a future with God. Those are just some quick examples of what turning from our own worldly wisdom to Christ's wisdom sounds like. So what about you? What is it for you? Where are your blind spots and where is pride hiding out? Where are you looking to yourself or something other than God for answers in your life? Maybe that's the easiest way to think about it. Because I've got news for you, tried and tested in my own life, that when we look to our own wisdom, when we look to our own solutions in any of life, we find that that well, whatever it is, is dry. By God's grace, let us turn, let us run from self-centered pride towards Christ's given wisdom today. So how do we know that we're looking to Christ in all of life? What's the evidence of that? What does that look like? There are, I think, several evidences we could talk about today, but I want to go to the one that's uh articulated very clearly for us in the text. The text tells us that the best indicator of submission to God and his wisdom is worship. Worship. If you go back to the text, let's reread it. The last verse there. Well, we'll read 30 and 31. But it is from Him, that is God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us. Our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that, as it is written, and this is a quote from the Old Testament from Jeremiah chapter 9, he says, the one who boasts must boast in the Lord. Boasting is worship. When we're boasting in Jesus, that's worship. That's us saying, He is big, he is good, he is great and glorious. He's helped me in my marriage, he's helped me in my singleness, he's helped me in my struggle and my addiction, he's helped me in my anxiety. He is the one I boast in, not myself. Not my own quick fixes that I've tried and failed in. Galatians 6 14 puts this really nicely. It's just another quick, quick text I would turn you towards. It says this But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross and I to the world. What a rich text. But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. May that be our prayer this morning. Our time together here this morning is simply a call for us to turn from looking to ourselves in pride to looking to Christ in humility. To turn from fake wisdom to real wisdom, to turn from fake power to real power. And for some of you, you need to make this step for the very first time. I'm going to assume that in a room with this many people in it, that some of you guys are not Christians. I mean, just statistically, I'm hoping that some of you are not Christians, and you're hearing this message, this truth, that you're hearing that what you may consider as foolish is actually the most wise thing that you would ever hear. That Jesus came and he died for your sins so that you could be in right relationship with him. And so for some of you, you need to make this turn from looking to yourself, looking to the world for wisdom, to looking to Christ for wisdom for the very first time. And if you make that decision, the best decision you will ever make, the biggest decision, parents, just a quick note to you, pray for your kids to make this decision. Because it is the biggest decision they will make, bigger than their school, bigger than who they marry is whether or not they will follow Christ. And if you're in this room here today, I would just invite you, and you and you haven't made this decision before, I would really encourage you, consider it today. Because, yes, it may sound foolish that we believe in this God that came as a baby at Christmas time. Well, not exactly Christmas time, we're not going to get into that now. But this baby who came as a little baby human being, lived a life, died, submitted to the creatures that he'd created so that we could be in a restored relationship. That may sound foolish, but it is the best news you will ever hear. And it is the only way that you'll be right with God. I know that that isn't a popular message to preach. It doesn't sound very tolerant, but the truth is there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ. For others of you, you need to make this turn for the hundredth time, maybe the thousandth time. As Christians, we continue to struggle, and we've talked about this before. We continue to look to ourselves at times. We have like different pockets of our lives that we're like, ooh, I've got wisdom here. I've got I've got ideas and plans, and we don't look and we don't submit them to God. We don't give them to God. And so the call is this morning, would you allow God to continue this process? This isn't a lifelong process, right? We call it sanctification. It's the process of God continuing to chip away at us and turn us into the masterpieces that He's working on. And some of us, we're on pause right now because we're not in pride, we're not letting God chip away at parts of our lives. Sometimes that process feels good, oftentimes it feels terrible. But God's working on all of us. And I really encourage you, what is it today? What is the area of pride? What is your blind spot today that you need to look at and say, God, I'm looking to myself here. I need you. I want to look to you in this area. And as you do that, I'm sure that worship, that boasting is going to flow out of you. So the call is the same. Christian, non-Christian alike this morning. The call is to turn to Christ. In what ways are you looking to yourself or to others to give you worldly wisdom? What do you need to surrender to Christ so that you can experience real, true wisdom and power, even today and this week? Let me pray for you guys. Pray for myself. God, we all need help. Myself included. With this blind spot that we have in this area of pride, God, oftentimes, unconsciously, we don't realize that we're setting ourselves up against you. As we try and figure out things in our own strength and in our own wisdom of which we have none. God, would you remind us today of our need for you? God, it may sound foolish that without the cross we have nothing, but that is truth, that is reality. As Christians, as a group of Christians, we believe that together and we worship you, we celebrate that today. That which is foolish. Because God, in that foolishness we find great power and great wisdom. God, I pray that whatever area in this room today that we are struggling and looking to pride, looking to ourselves, I pray that you would turn our hearts in that area today. God, this is a continual process. There continues to be things in all of our lives where you are just chipping away, working at and leading us to be the men and the women that you've called us to be. So God, would you help us today to be submitted and surrendered to your working? God, even now as we have just a longer time than usual to reflect and respond in worship. God, I pray that we wouldn't move quickly through this time, but rather we would allow you to do your work. And God, help us to know how to allow you to just be working. Help us to be submitted to your leading and your guiding. We trust you, God, we need you even in this time of response. Thank you. Amen.