[0:00] Proverbs chapter number 11, I'm going to read verse number 2, and I'm going to ask you to read it with me. As we've got into a new section of the book of Proverbs, starting chapter number 10, where each chapter doesn't have a defined theme upon them, you can read several verses and they will change.
[0:15] And so I told you last time that I just read until I said, ouch. And this time I said more than ouch. This one is really, it's a topic that is very challenging to me, and it shouldn't be, but it most certainly is.
[0:28] We'll get into that. Proverbs chapter number 11, verse 2, I'll read, and I'm going to ask you to read it with me. When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom.
[0:39] Let's read that together. When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom. One more time. When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom.
[0:51] And each one of those three statements, that's what we're going to spend our time in tonight, is trying to have a better understanding of those. Here's a few ways that it gets restated throughout the book of Proverbs.
[1:02] In Proverbs chapter number 15, verse 33, The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, before honor is humility. The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.
[1:13] Proverbs 29, 23 says it like this, A man's pride shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit. A lot of connections between pride bringing us low, or the destruction, and that honor, or wisdom.
[1:28] Glory in God all come through humble spirits. Proverbs 18, 12, Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty, and before honor is humility. So this idea, when pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom, gets restated all throughout the book of Proverbs.
[1:44] I notice from traveling this weekend that most churches don't have the benefit of having people that are so quick giving verses on the screen. And we go through a lot of verses here at the church.
[1:56] In the church app, you can get the outlines, and that might help you follow along. Or you can see Miranda, church secretary, and get signed up for them. But when it comes to pride, there is no shortage of verses.
[2:06] But they all seem, they say, in many ways, the same thing, right? There's a connection between what pride is going to do for us, what happens when pride comes. Shame is going to come.
[2:17] If we want wisdom, there's only one path to wisdom. That is to go low. It's to be humbled in those things. And so I said, it's something that we should all be, that we struggle with, but there's no reason we should.
[2:29] I can make no good case in here why I should struggle with pride. Pride, it's just a very unattractive, it's not fashionable to say that. I mean, because none of us have anything that we should boast in, save the cross.
[2:42] And so in church, when we talk about it, not all of us would say, I should have no problem with this. But in everyday life, many of us would admit that it's something that we really do struggle with.
[2:52] I had a checkup a few months ago, and when the doctor said, are there anything in your life or your family that you're concerned with? If I was to be honest with her, I should have said pride. I got it from one of my great-grandfathers, you know, all the way back to Adam, and I'm really concerned about it.
[3:06] But that wasn't the kind of conversation she would want to have. But if we were to be honest, something that we should be aware of that we have is this battle of pride, and the Bible addresses it over and over again.
[3:19] Let's pray and then get into that first statement. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would be with us at this time, where I know that pride comes even in moments like this, Lord. And I don't want to become victim to it.
[3:32] Lord, I find that it comes so often in my life. And, Lord, I want to be only a mouthpiece for your word tonight. Nothing else, Lord. Your word has truth, and we need it so desperately.
[3:45] This is something that would want to bring us low and to destroy us. For people that need wisdom, Lord, and we're not going to have it when we're prideful. So, Lord, I ask that you would humble us tonight, Lord, that recognizing who you are would help us see who we are, and that we would be humble people that would look for you for direction and wisdom in our lives.
[4:08] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So, the first thing that was said there is, When pride cometh. And so, when pride cometh, pride cometh all throughout history. If you think for a moment and you go through the Bible, what's the first time we're going to see a reference to pride?
[4:22] Or in history, it's going to be there with Lucifer, right? And the book of Isaiah. And I'm sure it's been pointed out to you in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 13 to 14. And you probably at some point in your life read these verses and circled all the eyes in this passage.
[4:36] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.
[4:46] I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be the like the most high. The words of Lucifer here, that I will be something of myself. And so, as we look at when pride cometh through the Bible, because one of the best ways to get a definition of it is to see how it lives itself out.
[5:03] So, there's the first time that we see that exalting of I, over God. That creation would place itself over its creator. There's other times we'd see it. Obviously, with Cain and Abel, there would be pride at the root of that.
[5:16] But at the Tower of Babel, when we all know what they said, they said, we will make a name for ourselves. And so, not just I this time, but we. We are going to do something for ourselves. And it said that God looked down there upon them, showing that that was nothing in His sight.
[5:30] But in their pride, they thought they could build a world that would not require God. That they could protect themselves. They could build walls. And that because of doing that, they would not need God. Pride.
[5:41] We know that it was against Pharaoh that pride was the problem. It says in Exodus 10, 3, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Let my people go that they may serve me.
[5:51] And all the complicated mess of Pharaoh, what did it really boil down to? It was that a man in his pride would not humble himself before God. And think about all the problems that came.
[6:02] Think about all the shame that came. Think about how none of the honor that came or no wisdom came to him because he never humbled himself. It was available, but pride came and the Pharaoh, he refused to humble himself.
[6:15] Nabal in 1 Samuel chapter 25 verse 10, there's a story where David's servants come to him and they say, We protected you during this time. And what does he say? Here's some words of a prideful man in 1 Samuel 25 verse 10.
[6:28] And Nabal answered David's servant and said, Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Who is this king? Who is this David?
[6:38] He is nothing. These are the words of a prideful man. His wife had wisdom. His wife was humble. His wife knew something, but he didn't in his pride. And we know what happens to him, right?
[6:49] We know that he dies there and we see pride. We see the shame that came with him. And even in the crucifixion of Jesus, Mark chapter number 15, 9 and 10, But Pilate answered them saying, Will ye that I release unto you the king of the Jews?
[7:03] For you know that the chief priests have delivered him for envy. Just another way to say a pride. In their pride and this envy that they had, they had delivered up the Son of God, the Messiah they'd been waiting for.
[7:14] They couldn't see it. Right there in front of them, the Messiah they were waiting for. And what blinded them? What did Satan use in blinding them to darkness? Pride. Pride brings shame.
[7:25] Pride in many ways is the history of the world, isn't it? God offering himself to us, but us not recognizing. But not only the history of them, but we even see it in disciples. Not just in people like Nimrod, but even in the disciples' lives.
[7:40] Matthew 20, 20, Then came him to the mother of Zebedee, James and John, children of her sons, worshiping him, desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto him, What wilt thou? She saith unto them, Grant that these my two sons may sit, that one on the right hand, the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
[7:57] We've all had that moment when our mom spoke for us that we really didn't want. Now, this is quite the big one, isn't it? Where she comes there and she says, We're going to take over the Romans. You are going to set up a kingdom.
[8:08] And I want my sons to be on your right hand and your left hand. She was fighting for them. She wanted something for them. In her pride, she wanted something for them. And she did not know what she was asking for, what he came to do.
[8:20] And so we see it in people's lives. And any time we see something like that in the lives of the disciples, all of us have to say, It could be me, right? I could be in that. What am I missing out on? What things am I saying that sound like they make complete sense, but they're really just filled with pride?
[8:37] I'm going to list a few of these. If you're following along in the notes, A through Z, and I won't give all the references, but I have a reference for all of them. It comes from a book called, From Pride to Humility. So when pride cometh, there's a few examples in the Bible.
[8:49] When pride cometh in my life, in your life, it often shows up in a lack of gratitude or anger, seeing yourself better than somebody else, an inflated view of your importance and your gifts or abilities, being focused on your lack of gifts and abilities, perfectionism, talking too much about yourself, seeking independence or control, being consumed with others, what others think, being overly discouraged, devastated, or angered because of criticism, being unteachable and unapproachable, being sarcastic, hurtful, or degrading, a lack of service, a lack of compassion, being defensive or blame shifting, a lack of admitting when you are wrong, a lack of asking for forgiveness, resisting authority or being disrespectful, minimizing your own sin and shortcomings, maximizing other sins and shortcomings, being impatient or irritable with others, being jealous or envious, using others, being deceitful, pretending to be perfect by covering up our sins and faults and mistakes, using attention, getting tactics, never having close relationships.
[9:50] When we go through that list, you can see why people would say pride is at the root of all evil. If any of you are still standing after that list, congratulations, all right? Because I found myself in almost every word of that at different times in my life, pride showing itself in my life through those lists of things that the Bible brings up all the time.
[10:08] So we look at those examples and we try to answer what is pride. So the Bible would say it like this in Proverbs 8, 13, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. What is evil? Pride, arrogancy, and the evil way, and the forward of mouth, though I hate.
[10:22] Pride is evil. It's contrary to God. Paul says it in Philippians 3, 3, For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ and have no confidence in the flesh.
[10:34] If we were going to put it in maybe just a few words, we could say pride is having confidence in the flesh, having confidence in something outside of what Christ has done in our lives.
[10:44] Is that confidence? Or another way he says it in Romans 12, 3 is, For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith.
[11:00] To think of himself more highly than he ought to, to be elevated there. And are you and I willing to admit those times of real insecurity? I thought I would share one with you today.
[11:12] I could tell many of them. I could tell some that would be much more embarrassing to tell them. But the one that I often share with the teenagers is that you remember in middle school, I lived right across the road from middle school and I told that last week.
[11:23] But one of the things that I would do was on the basketball team, we were supposed to wear a tie sometimes to the basketball because basketball games, because basketball is serious business in Kentucky, all right?
[11:33] We weren't playing around. So middle schoolers would wear a tie on game days. But I was so afraid of showing up to middle school with a tie on when I wasn't supposed to be. So I just did the most logical thing.
[11:44] I would stand on my back porch with binoculars and I would look as my friends got out of their cars to see if they were wearing a tie. Because showing up at school in a tie would be far less embarrassing than being the kid on your back porch with binoculars looking at everybody.
[11:58] But I was scared. I mean, I would not walk in the middle school and be like, oh, we're not wearing ties, no big deal. Take it off. No, my life would have been over. I would have died. I would have had to go into a witness protection program if I would have ever done anything like that.
[12:12] And what are middle schoolers? Middle schoolers are the most honest versions of adults, right? They are who you are. Who you are in middle school, unless Christ has done a work in your life, you are still that person.
[12:24] Isn't that right, Morgans? You see it. They love working with middle schoolers. It's just the most honest version of us as adults that we just, we do so many things from insecurity. You know, you can find that same kid all around this place.
[12:37] Everywhere you go, there's somebody with binoculars saying, I don't want to look silly, so I'm going to dress silly like everybody else so that I don't look silly. So when we look at these things, it may not seem to be fashionable or insecurity.
[12:52] And so that's the same thing as pride. It seems to be more fashionable, but it's the same thing as pride. It's me wanting to think more highly of myself. I'm worried that you won't think of me on the level in which I want to be thought of.
[13:04] That's pride, right? You can call it something else. You can call it envy, but it gets different names, but it's a synonym for pride. So pride then is this overestimation of our self-importance in relation to God and others.
[13:18] And what does it do? It brings shame. That's what pride is, and it always brings shame. It's always going to be there. It never comes alone. It never forgets it. It never shows up at a party.
[13:29] It never shows up in your life and say, you know what? I forgot to bring shame with me this time. They're always together. When pride comes, we'll also bring shame. Verse 2, or continuing there, when pride cometh, then cometh shame.
[13:44] So what are some of these effects of pride? Proverbs 16, 18, pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better is it to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud.
[13:55] You see, pride will distort our decision-making abilities. Throughout the Bible, you see people making bad decisions because of pride in their lives. They can't see things clearly.
[14:05] Throughout your life, you may be able to recognize this. What is one of the only things worse than a fool in the Bible? Proverbs 16, 12, would be a proud fool, a person that can't even recognize the pride that is in their lives.
[14:17] And so, there's times in life where shame, it can be helpful for us or that it's told to be something that we shouldn't have. Shame is this painful emotion that's caused by an awareness of guilt.
[14:29] It's this painful emotion that's caused by an awareness of guilt. 1 Peter 4, 16 says, Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on his behalf.
[14:43] If you're suffering as a Christian, there is no guilt there. There should be no emotion of shame that is there because you haven't done anything to be ashamed of. If you're suffering as a Christian, you're suffering for the truth.
[14:55] But then there's another type of shame, 1 Corinthians 15, 34, Awake to righteousness and sin not, For some have not the knowledge of God and I speak this to your shame. And what is that shame?
[15:06] It's this painful emotion that's caused by an awareness of guilt. You've felt it in here before. I've felt it in here before. People talk about, people in our community without the gospel, they talk about different things in their lives and there's this awareness and I say, I'm guilty.
[15:21] There's a shame that is there. Pride, satisfaction with God. It's nothing more than grumbling or complaining for manna to say what God has given us is inadequate nourishment for our lives, that what God has given is not enough.
[15:37] We don't like what God has given us whether it be money or possession or appearance or personalities and so we want something better. 1 Timothy 6, 9, But they that which be rich shall fall in temptation and snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
[15:53] This insecurity that says that we are just not enough, that we're not satisfied, that this dissatisfaction with ourself is nothing more than a dissatisfaction with God. So pride, showing itself as insecurity, it's a sin against God.
[16:08] It brings shame in our lives. Insecurity is not sin primarily because it's an insult to our value though it is, but it's an insult to God's wisdom. It is to say, God, I know this is how you made me.
[16:20] I know this is a situation that you put me in, but I'm just not satisfied with you. I'm dissatisfied with you. And that's pride. And what pride is it? What is that going to do? It's going to bring shame in your life.
[16:31] It's going to lead you to making decisions that you're ashamed of because there's guilt, there's opportunity to do right, do wrong. Pride also will cause you to need justification from others.
[16:42] Insecurity reveals that we long for justification before people more than God. Righteousness is what pleases the Lord. But we would rather have something that would make other people jealous. And so pride makes us worry so much about what other people think about us.
[16:58] Saul's a great example of somebody who, in both ways, right? Saul shows us one day a way in which he could live, only wanting to be pleasing to the Lord, and next day fearing men.
[17:09] As kings, he shows us this dangerous fear before insecurity. He's a reminder. In 1 Samuel 15, verse 17, you'll see it's righteousness if we see God as big and us as small.
[17:20] And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? And so here's Saul who was little in his own sight, but God was big.
[17:34] He didn't need justification for others. Only what God thought about him is what matters. But then in 15, 24, and Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
[17:50] This approval that he needed from man, that pride, that justification from others, where he didn't just live for this audience of one, but in his pride, he says, I need to please everybody that is around me, and that brings shame on our lives.
[18:05] A justification by works. Insecurity shows that we're still in some way believing that our justification is based upon our own attributes and accomplishments, is that we're worried what other people we think that somehow that we are accomplishing something outside of Christ that really matters.
[18:21] Paul tells us to abandon finding our worth in anything outside of the cross, Philippians 3, 7, and 8. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ, yea doubtless, and I count all things but lost, for the excellency of knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.
[18:41] And so we inventory our lives and we often justify ourselves by things that really don't matter and that's pride. And so maybe you're living in the moment but what always comes with pride?
[18:52] Pride never comes along. Alone, pride always comes with what? Shame. And so just as those two are connected and God says they're connected and there's no way around it, maybe you're living in a season of pride, maybe you're dealing with one of those things and the shame hasn't yet caught up with it, but I promise you it is happening.
[19:09] Where there's pride there will be shame. But there's good news in this verse, right? Because that's not all that it said. It also says where there's humility there can be wisdom.
[19:19] Where there's lowly there is wisdom. And we're called to humility at every stage of our lives. Proverbs 6, 3, Do this now, my sons, and deliver thyself. When thou art come into the hand of thy friend, go humble thyselves and make sure thy friend.
[19:34] So what does it mean when you come into the hand of your friend? This is talking about in a time of debt when you have done something and now your life is in the hands of somebody else. And as a person who's snared by foolish debt, an agreement should be frantically the fight to be free of it.
[19:48] And so pride, it kind of compounds your financial problem. It says you find yourself at this place of financial debt, do whatever it takes, humble yourselves. How many of you would recognize that much of the problems that we place ourselves in comes from pride?
[20:03] Much of the financial problems that we place ourselves in come from pride. And the answer is not going to be an envelope system, which is good, if Dave Ramsey's listening. And the answer isn't going to come from anything else.
[20:13] What's it going to come from, it's going to be that we humble ourselves. And we say, I don't need all the things that I've told myself that I need, and that we need to frantically fight ourselves free of this, this saying, God, I just want what you would have for me.
[20:27] And wisdom can be found there, but it won't be found until we humble ourselves. Humility is essential to gaining wisdom. Proverbs 11, 2, When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with lowly is wisdom.
[20:38] There is no wisdom coming except to the lowly and to the humble. It's demanded by the Lord. Isaiah 66, 2, For all things hath made his hand made, and all those things hath been, saith the Lord.
[20:50] But this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. Who is the eyes of the Lord upon?
[21:00] It's that person that trembles at his word. What kind of person does that? A humble person, a lowly person, not a prideful person. You've spoken to people that you knew were prideful about God's word, and it was his water off a duck's back.
[21:16] The words of the Lord do nothing to us when we are prideful, and it is possible. God's wonderful invitation to us in Philippians 2, 5, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
[21:30] It's possible for us to have this mind of Christ. It's possible for us to live humble lives in a world that promotes pride, and it's essential to be in obedient service.
[21:40] It's said about Moses in Numbers 12, 3, that he was a meek man. It's said about our Savior in Zechariah 9, 9, that he would be humble, that he would ride in upon a donkey, that they should have been looking for a humble man.
[21:53] It's modeled by Jesus, Matthew 11, 29, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[22:05] We often get it backwards, and we think that humility would be a burden, but it's pride that's the burden. Following after Jesus and being humble, admitting that we are not the biggest person in the picture, that we are small and God is big, is the light thing to carry on life.
[22:21] But the burden is to say that we are the most important person in the story. And so what should it look like in our lives? What does humility and lowliness and wisdom look like in that everyday life?
[22:34] In the book of James, we get a picture of it. James 4, 14 says, it's speaking about our limited knowledge that we have. James 4, 14, whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life?
[22:47] It is even a vapor that appears for a little time that vanisheth away. It's recognizing how little that we really even know about our day and when it's going to end. We talk as if we're so confident, like we know so many things, but we don't know at all.
[23:03] We do not know what God has for us. We do not know if we have future ministry. We do not know about our plans. We know nothing. The most basic thing that a person would want to know is, will I get to do the thing that I say I'm going to do tomorrow?
[23:17] And not a single one of you in here know the answer to that. There's only one person. Only God knows about that. That alone ought to humble us. His knowledge is so much greater that we do not even know when our day is going to be.
[23:30] We do not know when our vapor is going to be. We can't tell you how many minutes or hours or days that we have. But regardless of that, we still boast, James 4, 13, go to now, ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and the buy and the sell and the gain.
[23:46] And so the Bible wasn't just trying to get us to talk different about the future, but it was teaching us to think different. That we make all these plans outside of God, but we don't recognize it that this boasting is sin.
[23:59] But now you rejoice in your boasting, all such rejoicing is evil. This living your life not humble before God, recognizing you don't know, it's not just a bad idea, but it's evil.
[24:12] And what did we say in the first verse? What's evil? Pride is evil. This is speaking pride in our lives. And so we should speak with humility and submission to God for that you ought to say, this is what you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.
[24:30] So it's more, and pastors say this many times, it's more than just tagging that on. You can't just sprinkle these words in your conversation and say everything is okay, but it's believing and knowing that, that there's nothing you're going to do unless it's the will of the Father.
[24:44] You're going to say, that's how we speak. Today or tomorrow, I'll do this or that if it's according to God's will. Not just only if He allows it, but only if that's what He wants of us. He wants to check.
[24:54] Some of us men, we joke, but not really joking, right? Somebody says, hey, do you want to do something? You're like, hey, I got to check with somebody. And we all know what you're going to do, right? You're going to go check with the other adult in your house and you're going to call your wife and say, do we have anything planned this coming Saturday?
[25:09] Can I do this? Because you want to know, is that according to the family's will, according to the family calendar, can I do this? And so you check with somebody. But James says that in everything in life, before you give an answer, you say, I want to make sure that it's in alignment with my Father's will, that I can't speak independently of Him.
[25:27] I know nothing except what the Father would let me know. And so we do not need to be wise in our own eyes. As the Bible tells us, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all that heart and lead not to that own understanding and all thy ways acknowledge Him and shall direct your paths.
[25:43] And we know that, but the verse after that is necessary for that to be true. Be not wise in thine own eyes, but fear the Lord and depart from evil. Proverbs 3, 7.
[25:54] Being not wise in your own eyes is necessary if you are going to be a person that has, that looks to God for understanding. And so let me give you a piece of fashion advice.
[26:06] Let me talk to you about what you should wear tomorrow as we end. All right? 1 Peter 5, 5, 5, 7. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another.
[26:19] And what does it say here with us? Would you read if you have that on the screen there? And be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and give the grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.
[26:39] Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Because this issue of pride is really a matter of trust. It's really a matter of casting what upon the Lord?
[26:50] Everything. Everything upon the Lord. Pride is keeping anything that belongs to be cast upon the Lord to yourself. It's making any decision. It's having any confidence in yourself outside of Him.
[27:02] It's this confidence in your flesh that is there. The care you have about your self-image, your identity, your position, and your worth, what are you supposed to do with it? You're supposed to cast it upon the Lord because He cares for you.
[27:15] We can trust Him. There's a love that He has for us that casts out fear. We can trust Him. And so what is the great way to fight pride in our lives? It's to trust God. It's to say, God, I don't have to justify myself in front of other people because I'm going to cast that burden of identity upon you.
[27:30] God, I don't have to do this or that. I don't have to lie to the people when I speak. I don't have to make myself look better because I'm going to take my self-worth. I'm going to cast it upon you. All the things in my life that I'm going to try to get from this world and all those things, I'm just going to put it on you.
[27:44] Because what comes with pride, it always comes what? Shame. And what will come and how are we going to get wisdom? It's going to be humility. Those two things are always connected. And I don't want shame upon my life.
[27:55] I don't want shame upon my family's life. But the lead with pride is to guarantee it. And if we want wisdom, then we need to humble ourselves. We need to be closed with humility. We need to make a decision every morning before God and say, God, I'm going to do this or I'm going to do this today, but I'm going to do it according to your will.
[28:13] And if you would allow me because you're the most important person in my life, Lord, and I look to you and I trust you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help every one of us.
[28:24] Pray that the Holy Spirit would lay this passage upon everyone's heart, Lord. Lord, as it lays upon my heart, where pride cometh and it comes on every corner. It comes throughout history.
[28:36] It comes at our jobs. It comes upon us, Lord. Even when we walk around this building, Lord, it comes to us in our homes. It is on every corner. And when we find it, Lord, we want to cast our cares upon you.
[28:48] We want to find our identity and our worth in you. And so, Lord, I pray that tonight those of us living with this pride that will bring shame will trade it in for humbleness and lowliness and the great reward of wisdom that is found.
[29:03] As we continue to pray, we have a few moments in here tonight. I would like for you to respond to the Lord. If God's telling you that you should respond and come to the altar, they most certainly do that. If he's speaking to you about a certain subject, say yes to him.
[29:16] But I want to assure you, according to God's word, those of us that continue in our pride, we will find shame. And those of us that want wisdom will guarantee to find it in loneliness.
[29:27] Thank you.