Key points
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1Pride corrupts good deeds by replacing God-honoring motives with self-serving ones.
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2Jesus uses the word 'perfect' (Greek: telios) to mean reaching our intended end — an attainable goal of completeness in Him, not sinless flawlessness.
“on our way to perfection, we tend to only want people to see how perfect we look, not who's actually perfecting us”
Illustration
A spyglass used to illustrate how God's concept of perfection works — light, extension, and completion
Illustration
Two graphs showing spikes in depression, self-harm, and suicide beginning around 2012–2013, correlated with the rise of Instagram
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3The three symptoms of pride are: living for applause, doing good only to be seen as good, and feeling accepted through attention — illustrated vividly in the story of Cain.
“We are most like Satan when we are most prideful”
“the sin of pride is only identifiable by you and God”
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4Pride is not new; it is the sin that got Satan cast out of heaven, and we are most like Satan when we are most prideful.
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5The first solution to pride is to search your soul — inviting God to examine your motives through honest, dangerous prayer.
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6The second solution is to do good to be good, not to be seen — choosing humility over the applause of the world.
“a life of pride will only ever care about what the world thinks about you. A life fully submitted to God in humility only ever cares about how God sees you”
A story from life
Story about Pastor Vern Wiggers, the preacher's grandfather-in-law, who pastored for 65 years, built his first church by hand, and shaped much of this sermon's content
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7The third solution is to do good in private, trusting that God — who is always present and sees everything — will reward what no human audience ever witnesses.
“There is always someone with you in private, and his name is Jesus”
Application
Pastor Hunter's challenge is direct and practical: this week, do something good for someone who can do nothing good for you in return — and tell no one about it. This is the antidote to the pride that quietly poisons our motives. Before you act, pray the searching prayer of Psalm 139 and honestly ask: am I doing this to be seen, or simply to be good? Flip the instinct that wants to parade good deeds and conceal sin. Instead, bring your sin and your struggles into the light before God, and let your acts of kindness stay hidden. The reward you are trusting in is not a like, a comment, or a public recognition — it is the Father's eyes, which see everything, and His voice one day saying, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'
