Ezekiel | Week 5 | Daniel Goulding | Full Service

When I first started serving in church, I got saved, I was 19 years old, Somebody got up on a stage one time and said, hey, we need high school leaders. And I was like, I don't know, I guess that would be cool. So I signed up. And you like fill out a paper, right? You fill out an application, you go through kind of an interview process to figure out like, okay, what are you gonna be good at? I'm And sitting here like, man, I'm awesome, they're gonna give me like some prestigious position.

You know what they asked me to do for the first year that I served? I set up and tore down chairs.

I was like, wait, that's it? They're like, yes, set them up and then when we're done, take them down and put them back in the closet. And then we'll see you next week and you do it again. And it was really actually a good thing for me. My heart needed a season of humility, right? Just serve in obscurity, it was good for me. God knew me. But what I didn't realize was that even in setting up chairs,

I was gonna have some issues I was gonna have to fight with because what ends up happening when you're 19 and you're broke, I'm driving a Kia with one door that's just dented in because I took the $1,200 from my insurance company instead of fixing it. I was like, wait, you'll just send me the money? Yeah, I'll take the money. I'll deal with the dent, that's fine. Right? So I don't have many opportunities to impress the young ladies in my life. And ironically, setting up chairs created a great platform for me to try to impress them, right? Because when Brian would go in the closet and he would come out with four chairs, I'd be like, I'm gonna carry six, right? So I'd walk in and I would get six chairs and it kind of ended up becoming this like competition.

And we would go back and forth and there was one night in particular where there was this big worship service we were doing. There weren't enough seats in the room. And I don't know if you've seen them, they have them a lot in churches, they're like these

things that hold the chairs. You put them in upside down, they have wheels on them, you can move them around. But you can perfectly slide your arm in and kind of pick up the chairs and carry them. And so I'm like, I'm just gonna put this competition to bed. I want all the girls being like, yo, dang, do you see Daniel? Like he was carrying like 500 chairs at once, right? Like I'm like, I'm gonna go for it. So I just go boom. I'm like full arms, both of them. Like the edges of my fingertips, I'm just coming out of this thing. Like I know about two steps in, there's no way I'm actually gonna be able to carry this and I probably should have asked for some help, but it was not gonna happen. So I'm just like trying to suffer through it. My hands are shaking.

I get to like the middle of the auditorium and mind you, I'm carrying like 400 metal chairs, there's probably like four chairs, but they're metal chairs, and we're in a room that has nothing but concrete on the floor, and at some point I finally like my legs give out and I just kind of throw these chairs forward and it just causes this massive commotion. Everybody turns around. The people that were gonna go to heaven that night were like, never mind, we're out. You know what mean? Like, I I ruined the whole thing. Like, it was just it was a colossal

failure. But I think it also visually represents exactly what will happen to you and I if we don't address the pride that all of us have in our hearts. Eventually it will build and it will build and it will build and it will become something that we'll see today in Ezekiel 29 that will be unsustainable

for us and eventually God will deal with it if you won't deal with it. Eventually it will come to a head if you don't bring it to a light and sometimes when it is brought to the light, the consequences are so much more

than what they have to be if we would just raise our hand and admit, hey, this is kind of where we are. Here's what we're gonna see today if you're taking notes. Here's the big idea I wanna spend the next few moments looking at. You and I have to learn to deal with pride or eventually pride will deal with us.

And what I've learned in my life is the consequences of confession are always less than the consequences of concealment. The things that you're dealing with in the secret that nobody knows about, that your pride is telling you you don't really need to address those things, take it from somebody who has walked through it,

those things will come to the light because God loves you. God has an incredible plan for you. And he knows what you're settling for is far from his best for you. And eventually if you don't deal with it, God will address it. Here's what we're gonna see in Ezekiel chapter 29.

It says on January 7, verse one, during the tenth year of King Jehoiakim's captivity,

this message came to me from the Lord. He says, Son of man, turn and face Egypt and prophesy against Pharaoh the king and all the people of Egypt. Let me just kinda catch you up if you're just joining us this morning. We're in the middle of a series walking through the book of Ezekiel. And the book of Ezekiel is a really interesting time in the history line of the nation of Israel, which was God's people. They were supposed to be a hope to the world, but they had become

really prideful nation. And they began to worship gods other than the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac. And what God had done is he said, okay, enough is enough. I have to teach you this lesson. And so he takes them into captivity. He allows the Babylonian government to come in and bring them into exile.

Ezekiel is a man who is kind of a voice piece to the nation of Israel. He's telling them about what's going to happen, and most of what the book of Ezekiel has been until this point

has been God addressing the sin in their life. He's been talking about why they're here, how long they're going to be here, what's going to happen to the nation of Israel, what's going to happen to Jerusalem, the destruction that's going to happen in the temple. Well, in Ezekiel chapter 29,

we're now twelve years into that captivity. We're twelve years into the nation of Israel living in Babylon. And Ezekiel has been learning a little bit about who God is. And what he's starting to understand is that God has a heart for all people.

God wants all of the world to know who he is. And what we're gonna see in this section is that what God was doing through Israel was yes, a lesson for them, but it was also supposed to be a warning to all the surrounding nations that God is real. And he's dealing with his people.

He's correcting his people, but he was hoping that all the surrounding nations would heed the warning. What we see again if you go back a couple of chapters before this, Ezekiel begins to talk to the nations around Israel. Right now this is not focused on Israel, it's focused on the surrounding nations.

But there's three chapters in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 29, thirty and thirty one that are specifically talking about Egypt. And it's not a good message. And this is a message that is a long time coming. If you will remember all the way back when Egypt or when Israel was in slavery,

It was the Egyptian people that enslaved them. There's a long standing history here. And Ezekiel is now told by God to turn and prophesy against Egypt and Pharaoh. And here's what his essential message is. In verse three he says, give them this message from the sovereign Lord. I am your enemy,

O Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great monster lurking in the streams of the Nile. Right? It doesn't start off good. Like this is not an encouraging message to hear. He says, for you have said, here's what he's guilty of. Here's what God is going to hold him accountable for. You have said the Nile River is mine.

I made it for myself. Notice this, right from the very beginning, the initial charge against Egypt, the charge against Pharaoh is that the very thing that God gave them to prosper them is now the thing that pharaoh is claiming he made.

Again, if you go study Egypt and how they were able to become the powerhouse of a nation that they were, it's almost exclusively because of their access to the Nile River. It gave them, it provided for them incredibly fertile farmland in an otherwise desolate area. They were able to create goods and crops and services,

but unlike the surrounding nations, it would somehow figure out the water thing, What Egypt had through the Nile River was they also had a means of exportating and exporting their goods to all the surrounding countries, therefore accumulating massive wealth and God gave it to them.

He says, Pharaoh, somehow you've gotten so prideful that the thing I gave you, you're now telling the people you created it? You made the Nile River? Like talk about an audacious claim.

He says you're going around telling people that you made this thing. And this friends is something that we can fall into the same places if we're not careful as well. Look at how the story continues. It says in verse four, here's what God's gonna do. Says, I will put my hooks in your jaws and I will drag you out of the land with fish sticking to your scales. I will leave you and all of your fish stranded in the wilderness to die.

You will lie unburied on the open ground for I have given you as food to the wild animals and birds. All the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. For to Israel, you were just a staff made of reeds. When Israel leaned on you, you splintered and broke and you stabbed her in the armpit.

And when she put her weight on you, you collapsed and her legs gave way.

What he's referencing here is how when Israel would go to Egypt for help, they would say that they were going to help them, but they would always fall short and Israel would use them as a crutch and it was a crutch that they were never supposed to lean on and he says, you've just done more damage to my people over time. So he says, therefore,

this is what the sovereign Lord says, I'm going to bring an army against you, O Egypt, and I will destroy both people and animals.

Here's why, verse nine is massively important. Why is God doing this? Why is God bringing and allowing destruction to come to Egypt? He says, because the land of Egypt is going to become a desolate wasteland so that all the Egyptians in there will know

that I am the Lord. Here's the why behind all of this. Right? We have to remember, it's not like God just likes to punitively punish people. God is in the business of correcting so that he can pursue people's heart. And he knows the people in Egypt

have no real need or understanding of the God of Israel because they've been sold a false God of pharaoh.

And he's going, you're not a God of any kind. So I'm gonna finally come in and allow this destruction to happen. Here's the final accusation. Here's where we wrap this part up. He says, because you said the Nile River is mine, I made it. I am now the enemy of both you and your river.

I will make the land of Egypt a totally desolate wasteland from Migdal to Aswan as far south as the border of Ethiopia. For forty years, not a soul will pass that way, neither people nor animals. It will be completely uninhabited. I will make Egypt desolate and it will be surrounded by other desolate nations.

Its cities will be empty and desolate for forty years, surrounded by other ruined cities. I will scatter the Egyptians to distant lands. God tells Egypt, he tells Pharaoh enough is enough.

God has allowed this to happen for generation after generation after generation. And finally with Pharaoh, the guy who is in charge now, his name is Hofra.

He says enough is enough. We are dealing with this. We are addressing this. I have tried to do this through gentle correction. I've tried to send new prophets. I've tried to allow people to say this. And have you learned this lesson through wisdom, but you refuse to do it? It's time for me to now step in.

Here's the thing that you and I have to see in this story, is that pride is something that goes at the very heart of who God is. Pride in us left unchecked is something that makes us an enemy of God because pride in its very nature, it actually hates

God because it says that I don't need him. I can be my own God. And the other thing we have to see about pride is that pride is a sin that God hates. And left unchecked in our lives, it will lead us down some really dangerous paths. And I'm telling you this morning,

if we don't deal with it, call it for what it is, address it, bring it into the light, allow God to deal with it, eventually it will become something that becomes unbearable and we will find ourselves in a position of going, man, did it really have to get this bad?

Again, I believe in this room that every single one of us, there's nobody exempt, if I asked you right now, hey, raise your hand if you struggle with pride. All of you who don't raise your hand, you would prove my point. To varying degrees, I'm telling you this week even in studying this,

like if you don't think you struggle with pride, ask your spouse. They will reveal the places you struggle with it. Right? I asked my wife, hey, where do you think I struggle with pride? I was like, woah, enough is enough. All right? I thought it was pretty awesome. But what I'm learning is that addressing pride,

it's a bit like illustration of peeling in onions, like you deal with one layer and then it's like, oh, there's a whole another layer behind it. And so here's what I want to do for the rest of our time this morning, is I want to go how do you and I make sure we don't end up being like Pharaoh?

How do we get ahead of our pride? How do we deal with our pride? How do we address our pride so that we don't have to become an enemy of God, become hostile to him to a point that he deals with it for us, understanding that the consequences of confession will always be less than consequences of concealment.

To address the things ourselves, to get ahead of it. Well, here's why I think sin or why pride is such a dangerous sin. There's two things that I want us to see if we're taking notes. The first one is this, part of why pride is so dangerous is because it's incredibly difficult to detect.

We can mask pride with all kinds of other things. Sometimes success is a really good mask for the pride that's what's really fueling it. Sometimes we go to the other end of the spectrum and it's massive insecurity,

and we feel insecurity and that's actually how we hide the pride that's in our life. The Bible says at some points that some of the anxiety that we deal with, the root of it is actually pride. It is self worship. It's believing that we're our own God. And what happens is if we leave pride undetected, it becomes dangerously

destructive because we'll see in a second, pride doesn't just stay at pride. Pride always attaches to other sins. It always attaches to other things and it gets us into a really, really dangerous cycle. It's why the book of Proverbs tells us this is God's heart towards pride. Proverbs 16 says that the Lord detests

the proud. God hates the proud. They will surely be punished. You have to see, friends, we have to get our heads wrapped around this to allow our hearts to have pride be there unchecked, unguarded and unbridled will put us against the God of the universe. It is an incredibly dangerous position

to be. C. S. Lewis has famously said talking about pride in the book, mere Christianity, he says that all these big things that we talk about, unchastity, sleeping with people outside of marriage, anger, greed, drunkenness,

all the external, the big sins that we like to address, he says all of those things are mere flea bites in comparison to pride. You have to remember it was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti God state of mind.

If there is one thing that says, what is the opposite of who God is? It's not necessarily evil as much as it is pride. Because pride will tell you that you're better than people around you. And ultimately it will convince you that you really don't have much of a need for God. It's why it becomes so dangerous.

So here's what I wanna do. Again, the working definition that I want us to use this morning when it comes to pride, because I don't think all pride is bad, right? Like my son won principal's

pride or something out of school. He got all straight A's and that was awesome, right? Like we're super proud of him. There's things that we can be excited about. I don't think that's sinful.

But again, where that goes into an unhealthy place and I think becomes sinful is when I begin to go, you know what? The reason he got straight As is because I worked with him every day after school. It's like his teachers aren't that great. He got those straight a's because of me.

Or this manifests itself on the other side or your kids are not doing so well. Then you go, man, my kids are struggling. That must mean I'm a failure. And we begin to attach our identity to it. So therefore, here's the definition I want to use for sinful pride. Where pride becomes an issue, where we have to address it, where I want us to search our hearts this morning is to go when we elevate ourselves above other people and ultimately we deny ourselves our need for God. Okay. This is where pride becomes sinful. As I look through scripture, I believe that pride like this manifests itself in three

different ways.

And again, I believe that all of us in this room, you will see yourself in here and if not, I'm telling you, you have the most pride in your heart of all of us. So here is the first type of pride that I see in scripture that we have to address. The first one that shows up is this I'm better than you pride.

Now this is a really subtle one because we don't just come out and say this, right? Otherwise you would have no friends, right? You can't just come out and say that you are better than people, but it's a really subtle thing. Once you start having kids, you're like, oh, we're way better parents than them. And then you look those other families, you're like, dang, dude, they do something every weekend, like they're definitely better parents than us. You know what I mean? There's like this stack ranking that happens as a parent. But again, the idea that I'm better than you is something that's really, really subtle.

It's the family member that comes and asks you for money, to ask you to borrow money. Asks me to borrow money. And my first thought is man, I budget my money every month. We save money, we live below our means,

and that you come to me with the audacity when you're out partying on Friday and Saturday nights to ask me to make your car payment, I'm better than you.

And again, I think that there's things that we can go, hey, how do we create healthy boundaries, but Christians we have to be really careful to not allow our hearts to go to the place that begins to say, I'm better than you. This week for me, one of the things that I had that God really addressed in my heart is I've been in full time vocational ministry for twelve years.

I've had friends during that time who were also in ministry

who got out of ministry. They went and started doing insurance. They got into car sales or doing real estate stuff. And the truth is, if I was honest with you and it pains me to even admit it, there's a part of me that feels like because I didn't leave ministry, I didn't sell out to go make a bunch of money,

that I'm better than those people. And it literally pains me to say it, and that left in my heart unchecked, it will lead me to some really dangerous places. There's a really famous story that Jesus told his disciples, it's a parable about two men that go to a temple one day to pray.

He says there is two guys that go to the temple. They go to pray. One of them is a tax collector. The worst of the worst, like the bottom feeder of all bottom feeders. Then there is a Pharisee,

the guy that you know that does everything right. He gives money to the church, he serves faithfully, he walks women across the street like he holds all the doors open, the best of the best. He says, and these two men walk into the temple to pray, and the Pharisee prays first. And the Pharisee says essentially,

God, I'm thankful that I'm not like that guy. And the Bible says that he prays a prayer to himself, that he has become so full of himself because of what he has done that he actually begins to pray to himself. He doesn't really have much of a need for God. But the tax collector,

he goes and he says, God, I know that I've made a mess of my life. I know that I've just made a bunch of mistakes and I've done things I never thought that I would do.

I just desperately need your grace. And Jesus turns to his disciples and he tells them in Luke chapter 18, here is the lesson of this parable, the story that Jesus uses. He says, I tell you, it's this sinner, it's not the Pharisee that returned home justified. Justified means made right before God.

Restored in the eyes of God. The one that was restored before God was not the Pharisee, it was the tax collector. And he says, for those who exalt themselves, they will be humbled. And those who humble themselves will be exalted. When God says that if you exalt yourself, you will be humbled,

it's a scary sentence if you really understand what he's talking about. If we refuse to admit that if we're honest with ourselves, that we go, we think that because of how we vote, how we behave, what we do with our money, how we've scheduled our lives that it somehow makes us better than the people around us.

We might unintentionally be exalting ourselves and making ourselves an enemy of God and he will at some point humble you. In a season of life where God is the one doing the humbling, it's usually not a fun season of life. We have the opportunity to deal with the pride in our life or

we will leave it to God to deal with it for us. And I'm telling you the consequences of confession are always less than the consequences of concealment.

So what about you? Where is it in your life that you've begun to believe that you're better than the people around you? I know you'll never admit it. It's a thought that you have with not many other people around. You might share it with your wife or your spouse every now and then but other than that, it's a pretty secret thing. I'm telling you it's subtle and if you don't deal with it and address it and acknowledge it, it might grow into something bigger. Here is the second type of pride I see in scripture that we have to deal with it. The second one is the I can handle it pride.

This is the I can do it on my own. I don't need anybody's help. You really struggle when somebody offers help that you're like, man, I don't know if I can do that. I like helping people. I don't necessarily like helping or being helped by others. Again, the root of that is pride. The inability to receive

people's help and assistance, the true root of it is pride. There's a story that Jesus tells his disciples recorded in a few of the different gospel accounts, but this is not a parable. It's not a story. Jesus would use stories a lot to make a point. But the story that he tells his disciples

about this concept of being able to hold it and handle life on your own, it's a real encounter. He has an encounter with this rich young man. This guy was really successful. He's built successful businesses. He's accumulated much wealth. And he goes, man, I've done all of this stuff.

And then he starts to realize that, well, I've got to do this God thing too. And so he figures out the chore chart that God has for him. He goes, look, I found the 10 commandments and I've checked all the boxes. I have done all of them. And he says, Jesus, what do I need to do to get to heaven?

And Jesus says it's really simple. Sell all of your possessions and follow me. Getting right to the core of the belief that this man had that I can do all this myself. I've been pretty successful, I'm pretty good at a lot of these things. I don't have much of a need for God. And Jesus in one sentence and one question

gets to the core of this young man's heart. And the Bible says that he walks away sad because he had many possessions. He was unwilling to walk away from the thing that was his identity, the thing that proves his worth and value and significance

in this world and Jesus in the book of Matthew turns to his disciples and he tells them this lesson, he says, Then Jesus, after this encounter said to his disciples, I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. He says I'll say it again,

it's actually easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Friends as Americans living in the Western world that we live in, I know when you hear rich person, you go, oh, he's talking about those people. No, no, no. He's talking about us sitting in this room.

He says it's harder for you and I to get into heaven than it is for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And the part that's really funny, you go watch like the prosperity preachers that are all about, you know, like wealth and prosperity, you should see the theological,

like, backflips they do to get this to say something other than what it really clearly says. They're like, well, the eye of the needle, that was a place in Jerusalem. There was like this really big thing and the camel had to bow the knee and it's really about bowing the knee to the king. It's like, no, no, no. Jesus plainly says, look, it's hard if you have a bunch of resources to open your heart and go, I have need. I need a savior. I need somebody to save me because you think you're your own God.

And he says, it's so hard. He looks around and goes, you see that camel? It would be easier for that camel to pass through the little hole that's in this needle. And the disciples reaction goes, what? That's impossible. And Jesus says exactly.

It is impossible with man, but it's possible with God. Why do I belabor the point? Because I'm telling you sitting in this room are a lot of you who God has answered some of your prayers and you've been given provision.

God has provided for you. He's blessed the things you've put your hands to. But if you're not careful, I'm telling you the thing that God has given you to bless you, to provide for you, for your family, for your coworkers, for your employees, for your community, to help support the church, to help support local missions,

the thing that God gave you like the Nile River, you will, with a heart unchecked begin to go, God didn't build this, I built this. I'm the one that mortgaged my house to finance this.

I'm the one that worked weekends. I'm the one that lived below my means and didn't go out and I saved. And the balance that I now see in my four zero one ks that's more like a two zero one ks right now, but like that thing, I did that. And I'm telling you, left unchecked, it will lead us into some really dangerous waters.

Because sure, you do and God partners with us and we do have to work and the Bible says that if you're worse than an unbeliever, if you're a sluggard and you don't work, right? We have to work,

but what we can't begin to do is to go, I did this. No, no, no. God gave us the breath to get up in the morning. He gave us the thoughts to start it. He gave us the ability. It was His provision that made it all possible.

And sitting in this room, all of us have a different number of talents that we've been asked to steward. God has given all of us in this room resources to manage and steward but we all have to remember you and I are not owners.

We are merely stewards of what God has given us. And when we begin to go, no, no, no, no, this is mine, the thing that you might be praying for, it very well could be the thing that is your undoing. Be careful where your heart will lead you. The Bible says it is above all things wicked.

So what do we do? This doesn't mean that money is bad and that money is evil. It's not saying that at all. Money is really amoral. Dave Ramsey always says it just makes you more of what you already are. Money isn't a bad thing,

but it's the love of money that will lead us into some really dangerous waters. Here is what we have to remember. Satan is just making carbon copies of the lie that he fell for all the way back in the beginning of time.

When it was just the angels in heaven, what was the essential lie that Satan fell for? He wanted to be like God, that God was holding something out from him. He had a heart that was so filled with pride that eventually it got him kicked out of heaven. So what does he do? He goes to Adam and Eve in the Garden Of Eden all the way back when God creates Adam and Eve. They're in the Garden Of Eden. He goes to them and he says,

God's withholding from you. God's keeping something from you. You know that tree he told you not to eat from? It's because he knows that you can be like him. You can do this on your own. You don't need to bend your knee to him. You don't need to acknowledge your need for a Savior. You don't need to be humble.

You can be your own God. And he convinces Adam and Eve to fall for the same lie that he fell for that he will try to convince all of us in this room to fall for today. But here is what I want us to see, the cycle that plays out in the Garden of Eden is the cycle that will play out in our lives if we are not careful.

Adam and Eve believe that maybe God is holding out from them. They begin to allow pride to take root in their heart and here is what pride will do. Here is the cycle that I want us to see. Pride will not just stay with pride. Pride will then get you to go and make decisions that are contrary to what God's best is for our life. The Bible calls that sin.

Making a decision that is contrary to God's best for our life. God says do this and you go, no, no, I can do this better. I'll do it on my own. We step outside of his plans.

We go, we're basically married in our hearts. We know it says that we're supposed to have sex inside the confines of a marriage, but it's like we're basically married in our hearts. We can do this ourselves. That seems very arbitrary. It seems really old school. So what do we do? We go and sin. But here's the problem with sin. What happened to Adam and Eve the moment they sinned?

They felt something that we as humans who were created in the image of God, the imago day, we were not meant to feel. This is where sin begins to do the really dangerous work in our life because sin always leads to shame. And you and I as humans, we don't know what to do with shame. And when we feel it,

it's where we continue to get into some really dangerous waters because what do Adam and Eve do in the Garden of Eden when they sin and they feel shame? Their knee jerk reaction is they understand that they're naked now and there's something that's between them and God. And their knee jerk reaction is to cover it up,

is to hide, to put a barrier between them and God as if God didn't see it, as if God didn't know what happened. Yet their instinct, our instinct will be to cover it up. I'm telling you, when you're sitting here, you are at a fork in the road, a really critical juncture.

Because this is the moment with humility that we can raise our hand and go, you know what, I made a mistake. I looked at something I shouldn't have looked at. I did something that I shouldn't have done. I'm raising my hand. I'm bringing it to the light and I'm gonna deal with it here.

But oftentimes that's not what we do. Oftentimes we rationalize things. We tell ourselves rational lies. And typically what we'll do is when we get there, when we get that place, instead of running back to God going, hey, made a mistake and allowing him to forgive us, allowing him to restore us,

we go back to the very thing that we did in the very beginning. We go, I can do this on my own. I can figure this out. We'll do this differently.

I know it doesn't feel the same when I come into church anymore, but maybe it's just because I'm maturing and I don't know, maybe something has changed and then what will happen is it will so much easier go to sin again. And the truth is the Bible says that you and I are supposed living as Christians, those who put our faith in Jesus and abundant life and the truth is

if we're honest in certain seasons our life just looks like spinning in this cycle going how do we ever get out of it. This friends is the trap that the enemy wants you and I to step into. This is the lie that pride doesn't tell you about.

This is what's behind it. This is the hook that's in the snare that if we're not careful we'll fall for. And it will require massive humility to raise our hand and say, I need to break the cycle. I need to bring it into the light. And for some of you that are here this morning, I hope you hear me.

God doesn't want you to continue to live and feel how you feel. And I know that you feel like you've made a mess of your life and that nobody is going to understand it and everybody is going to judge you and people are going to have to walk through some difficult things with you, but I promise you, if you bring it to the light, the consequences of confessing it,

they will be way less than continuing to hide it and cover it up and allowing it to grow and eventually it will come out to the light anyways, but the damage then will probably be 100 times more than what it is here.

And I know that there are some of us that are potentially sitting here this morning that are like, hey, this all sounds good, I'm going to send this message to my husband, he really needs to hear this, or like my neighbor, right, they need to hear this,

but not so much mean, it's great because that leads me to the last type of pride that I see in scripture. If I haven't gotten you yet, I'm going get you right here. This is the last type of pride that I see in scripture, it's the pride that says that, that doesn't apply to me. Really cool, cute ideas, I like the rhyming stuff, but like, yeah, it doesn't apply to me.

That, friends, is also one of the most dangerous places that we can be. The famous story in the Bible is about a guy named King David, and we tell the stories of King David like he's a hero. And again, he did have some heroic moments.

He did go and fight Goliath and he destroyed Goliath, but the part of the story that we don't tell is you know what David's motivation was to go and fight Goliath? Go read his story in the book of first Samuel. He asks four times

to four different groups of people. He goes, wait a minute, what do I get if I go and fight this knucklehead? You will become massively wealthy. You'll be tax exempt for the rest of his life. And the king was so desperate for Goliath to be destroyed that he was offering his own daughter

as an award to the man who would go and kill Goliath. He's like, wait, I get a girl and lots of money, four times he asks us and we hear the motivation that's in David's heart and he goes, alright, I'll do it. And David had a massive issue in his heart that said, you know what, the way that I feel,

it means more than anything else that's out there. And I know God has said all of these things, but I feel this way.

And we don't talk a lot about the issues of David's life that he didn't really deal with. And did he do some great things? Yes. And here's the irony. Here's the beauty for you and I, is he's written down in history as a man after God's own heart. But if you look at his life and you look at the subsequent lineage that he leaves,

the issue that he had with women that was never addressed, the massive lust issue of his heart, it caused carnage in his family, horrendous devastation in his line.

And I'm telling you if it's true about him, it's true about us as well. David became so convinced that he was above the rules, he was above the law, that when the nation of Israel was marching out to war, he knew that as the king, he was supposed to be the front of the line. He knew he was supposed to be the one to go first and lead the men into battle. But he said, no, no, no, it's not me. The palace is more comfortable. Those rules don't really apply to me.

And the problem is pride will not just stay with pride. Pride will lead you to be where David was because he didn't go where he was supposed to go. He ended up in a place he wasn't supposed to be. And he was standing on a balcony and he looked down and he saw something he wasn't supposed to see because he wasn't supposed to be there. And he sees a woman taking a bath.

And he goes, hey, I like that lady. And he sends a servant to get her and bring him to his house. And because he saw something he shouldn't have saw, he did something he shouldn't have done. And he gets her pregnant.

And what does he do? He plays out the cycle and he goes back to the Garden of Eden and goes I have to cover this up. I have to hide this. And he eventually kills this lady's husband that was a friend of his, trying to cover up something that you and I can't cover

up. You can't cover up your sin, we just have to deal with it. We have to address it. We have to bring it to the light because what lives and thrives and grows in the darkness, the good news is that it dies and it has no power over us in the light.

But if we are not careful, will just get stuck in this cycle. Here's my hope, as I hope in this room that we're all in there right now like, man, this is not very hope filled, and that all of us here to some degrees, we see the pride in our heart that we're having an honest assessment.

The most important question is now, okay, what do we do with it?

What do we do with it to make sure that we don't end up like the king of pharaoh, a man who literally becomes an enemy of God, who God goes enough is enough, I'm gonna allow an enemy to come in and destroy you and teach you a lesson in pain that you wouldn't learn in wisdom. What do we do? Well, luckily, there's another really prideful guy in the Bible named Peter,

who struggled with pride in all types of different ways,

who learned this lesson. He had been restored post major failure, and he records some of his thoughts that I think give us the keys of how do we fight pride. He says this in First Peter chapter five. He says, all of us, all of you, all of us in this room, we have to learn to dress ourselves in humility.

As we relate to one another, for God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Again, this is a really kind of interesting thing if we can see it. The antidote to pride is humility, and that's not rocket science, right? You're like, okay, I know that. It's like the opposite of pride is humility. But Peter says something interesting.

He says, dress yourselves in humility. He doesn't say learn to walk in humility. He says to dress yourselves in humility. Paul in the book of Colossians

in chapter two says that you and I have to learn to teach ourselves to put on humility. It's almost like this visual language of getting up in the morning, looking at our day, looking at our calendar and going, hey, I've got some business meetings I've got to go to. I know I need to wear a suit for this. I need to dress and be appropriate for the meeting that I'm in. Peter

and Paul encourage us that in our natural state, our natural inclination will be to lift ourselves up, to deny our need for God, and we have to wake up in the morning and go, no, no, no, you know what today is? Today I'm putting on humility.

I'm gonna put on the uniform that is that of the believer, which is one of a humble heart, that is one of somebody who is thinking of others before myself because I understand that this pride left unchecked, undealt with, it will eventually deal

with me. Now here is the beautiful part about this, as we learn to put on humility, as we learn to walk in this, we have the perfect example, friends, here is the hope, because the book of Romans uses the same language, this concept of putting on, of dressing ourselves

to fight the things in our life, but look at what the book of Romans tells us we're supposed to put on. Here's where these dots start to connect. It says instead, we have to clothe ourselves with the very presence

of Lord Jesus Christ and don't let yourself think about the ways to indulge your evil desires. Okay? How do you put on humility? How do we dress ourselves in the uniform as Christians of one of a humble heart? This is you have to learn to put on the presence of Jesus. What the heck does that mean?

Friends, I think if we're gonna win the battle of pride, win the battle of sin in our life, we have to stop just trying to white knuckle it. If you're in this room and you're struggling with pornography,

I'm telling you, software on your phone, it can help. It could be wisdom. Maybe you need to just go back and get a razor and get a little flip phone and stop having the temptation in your pocket. That could be wise.

But you and I will never win the battle of sin by just trying to white knuckle it and put systems in our place. We have to replace it with something better. We have to put on something different.

The way that we win the war of sin, whatever your struggle is, the reason we get up in the morning and we spend time intentionally with God, we open our Bibles, we pray, we listen to Him is because we know

that our natural state is to exalt ourselves, our natural state is to indulge our flesh, our natural state is to do whatever we wanna do.

But if we can learn to put on humility, put on Jesus, it's almost like this image of shoving our souls filled with the presence of Jesus going inside of me is the same spirit that rose Jesus from the grave. And the bible says something audacious. It says that you and I will never be put into a position of temptation.

That it will be so hard for us that we won't have a way out. Like that's crazy. That means that it's possible if we put on Jesus enough. We learn how to do this. We shove our souls so full of the presence of Jesus that we don't have to sin.

We don't have to just be a slave to this. We don't have to just get stuck in these cycles going, guess this is just my life. This is what I'm gonna be for the rest of my life. God says, no, no, no, I have a life for you that is beyond your wildest dreams, but it's going to come by doing the things that seem so contrary

and it's going to require massive humility. But here's again the incredible part, friends, is we have the person, the life of Jesus who walked this earth, who was the full embodiment of humility and his life is a perfect example of what we're asked

to do. I want to make this thing really practical for us. Philippians chapter two, Paul records what Jesus did, how he lived and he gives us some keys of how to walk in humility, how to fight against sin. He says this in Philippians two and here he says, don't be selfish, guys. Don't try to impress other people.

Just be humble. Think of other people better than yourselves. And then he says in verse four, don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others

too. Look at the four things that Paul tells us that Jesus did that if we learn to do, maybe just maybe the antidote to the pride that we deal with, the sin that we struggle with can be one. He says you have to learn to not be selfish. Don't just try to impress other people.

Think about what you're posting on social media. What's your motive if you're honest? Are you posting this because you really just wanna show people? You're trying to impress people.

Are you trying to show people, man, I'm better than them? I think it's subtle. He says, You and I have to think of other people as better than ourselves. And here's the most practical one of all, taking interest in other people.

One of the greatest antidotes to pride, one of the greatest ways that we go on the offensive against sin is we serve other people. We go and we serve people that have nothing that we can gain from them. We go, hey, you know what, I'm gonna meet your need. My natural desire is to have all of you serve me,

but I'm gonna do exactly what Jesus did. And I'm gonna choose to serve even though maybe my position, maybe my title, maybe all the people that report to you at work, maybe technically on an organization chart, they should be subservient to you.

But the way that you fight the pride that is so easily and naturally in our hearts as we go, no, no, no, I'm gonna serve them.

And look at what happens. Look at how Paul wraps this up in Philippians two talking about the life of Jesus. This is where this thing gets good. He says, you and I must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, remember Jesus was a human, but he was 100%

God. Even though he was God, he didn't think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and he was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God,

ultimately dying a criminal's death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names. It says that at the name of Jesus,

every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue declared that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Friends, Jesus knew

the only way that they're gonna preach this story two thousand years later in Queen Creek, Arizona is not to come in and go serve me. I'm God. I have all the authority. He showed us the path to the life that we want, the path to having our names lifted high and building a legacy

and making an impact on this side of heaven. It's found in doing the things that just seem so contrary to us, to humble ourselves, to serve other people. The uniforms that Christians have to wear, what the church has to be known as is those are the people who serve people, especially the people that disagree with them,

especially the people that don't believe like them, especially the people that don't behave like them, that don't think like them. Friends, we have the opportunity to be the solution to solve some of the divide that's happening in our nation. We have to stop remembering

that we were not supposed to just be a voting block that put politicians into office. And can we do that? Should we do that? Sure. But regardless

of how people think, regardless of how they behave, regardless of how they vote, we are called to serve them. And we don't do it because we're trying to make something of them, we do it because it's how we fight what is so naturally in our hearts. And if we're not careful, it will ensnare us and it will entrap us.

I'm telling you right now, if you don't deal with the pride and the sin in your life, it will get to a point where God will have to deal with it for you. The consequences of confession will always be less than the consequences of concealment. So Father, I ask God with every person that's in this place,

with eyes closed and heads bowed, that you would show us really practically the places in our life that we've just let sin and pride seep in. Where we've just become comfortable with something we're supposed to wage war with. That God that we've just allowed these things to be a part of our existence

even though we know it's gonna make us hostile to you, it's gonna make us an enemy of you. And eventually if we don't deal with it, you'll deal with it for us. And so Father, I pray that you would give us the boldness and the courage this morning to raise our hand and admit where we are,

to bring it to the light and deal with it so that we can walk in repentance, so that we can walk in the light and walk in union with you. And God for those that are here this morning, who have never made the first step, the ultimate act of humility,

of placing their faith in you, of acknowledging that they have on their own vices made a mess of their life. And no matter how much they try, no matter how much they strive, it just seems like it's never enough. And Father that's the lie of sin, is it will never satisfy.

It will never fully do what the promise of it is supposed to do. And Father for those of us in this room who've never placed our faith in Jesus, I pray that right now we would have a moment with you

and that we would do what the Bible tells us to do, to confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord. And when we do that, we are saved. And if that's you this morning, I want you to just pray a simple prayer with me right now in the quietness of your heart. Say, Jesus,

I ask for you to come into my heart, for you to take this mess that I've made, for you to give me your hope. God, I believe that you are who you say that you are. I ask for you to come into my heart and set me free. It is in the mighty name of Jesus that everybody said, amen.