WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.540 So, we are in the summertime working through a series on the book of Proverbs where we 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:12.679 are looking at the most common vices and virtues that we see across the book of Proverbs. 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:17.199 And the reason we're doing this is because the mark of a heart that's been changed by 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:21.800 the grace of God is something more than just behavior modification. 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.640 It's that the grace of the gospel goes all the way down to the bottom, and it starts 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:30.440 to work back up through the heart, and we see us putting away the vices that God calls 00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:36.000 us to leave behind and putting on the virtues that God calls us to. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:41.320 And today, as you will have noticed from the reading, the most basic—we're dealing with 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:46.280 the most basic issue in Proverbs, and that's the problem of pride, which is the most basic 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:48.359 problem of the human being itself. 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:53.120 Now, in our late modern world, the 21st century world that we live in, especially in a place 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:58.320 like Edinburgh, all of you will know very well that in the public square, pride today 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:01.479 is presented as a virtue. 00:01:01.479 --> 00:01:05.719 But for thousands and thousands of years, both Christians and non-Christians alike 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:11.519 have all said the same thing, and you can know by empirical experience alone that pride 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:15.879 is not a virtue, pride is what's wrong, pride is the problem, pride is the fundamental issue 00:01:15.879 --> 00:01:17.560 with what's wrong with the world. 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:25.560 And Proverbs goes so far as to say that pride is in fact the power, it calls it, of destruction. 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:32.560 That pride can destroy a life, it can destroy a family, it can destroy a business, it can 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:36.960 destroy a society, it can destroy a church, it can get in the bones of a church and destroy 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:38.560 a church from the inside out. 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:43.560 And we're going to see the reason for that today is because pride actually, Proverbs 00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:46.939 teaches, blinds us to what is real. 00:01:46.939 --> 00:01:51.159 It creates an illusion and a fantasy life, and that's the main idea here in the book 00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:52.799 of Proverbs. 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:58.560 There's another way that Proverbs also hits modern people like us really hard, and that's, 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:04.079 Proverbs teaches that the only people who struggle with pride are people that were born 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:05.239 of a woman. 00:02:05.239 --> 00:02:09.079 Okay, so now that's a large group, the people born of a woman. 00:02:09.079 --> 00:02:13.759 It says in other words that there is no space at all for, even asking the question, do I 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:15.520 struggle with pride? 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:17.520 The question is only were you ever born? 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:20.960 And if you were, then pride is your issue. 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:22.320 That's what Proverbs says. 00:02:22.320 --> 00:02:25.520 It goes that far that it's a problem for all of us. 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:29.760 Charles Spurgeon, this is a paraphrase of what he says about it. 00:02:29.760 --> 00:02:33.080 Pride is a rich man's problem and the poor man too. 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.040 Pride spans every socioeconomic status. 00:02:36.040 --> 00:02:40.320 It spans every culture, every age, and every stage of life. 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:43.840 Pride gets into the bones of every person. 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:50.759 Female and female, every age, and Christianity comes today to say that pride destroys and 00:02:50.759 --> 00:02:52.800 that there's a way out. 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:55.280 There's a path back to reality. 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:58.360 And so let's see three things this morning, three questions. 00:02:58.360 --> 00:02:59.360 What is pride? 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:00.360 What is it? 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:02.240 The definition will spend most of our time there. 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:04.480 What's the opposite of pride? 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:05.480 And then how can we get it? 00:03:05.480 --> 00:03:06.480 How can we grow? 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:09.439 All right, so first, what is it? 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:11.719 What's pride? 00:03:11.719 --> 00:03:17.400 And we'll take a deep dive for a moment into the painful surgery of hearing what Proverbs 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:20.479 says about us and who we are. 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:28.400 The term pride in a text like chapter 8 verse 13 says pride is the way of evil. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:31.719 And that word pride there, the most common term that's used across the Old Testament 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:33.960 and in Proverbs is actually a metaphor. 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:36.680 It's very literally the word height. 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:40.079 So it says something like being tall is the way of evil. 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:46.560 Now I've believed that for years, for years and years, and I've known that, but I'm here 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:48.280 to tell you today that that's what it says. 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:52.400 Now, of course, it's talking about the inside. 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:57.040 It's using a metaphor and saying to be tall of heart is the way of evil. 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:02.520 And it says basically that pride is when you think you're six foot four on the inside, 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:05.480 but you're not even close to that. 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:07.160 That's the way Proverbs talks about pride. 00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:13.199 And it says that, well, that's the reason I should say that in 2923, for example, and 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:19.560 this is very common across Proverbs and the whole Bible, pride, height and heart brings 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:24.439 low, but being low and heart will get you, will bring you up, will bring you high. 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:28.959 And so that height metaphor runs throughout the whole Bible all the way into Jesus's mouth 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:34.199 and Matthew 23 when he says the exalted in heart will be made low, but the low and heart 00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:38.719 will be raised up so that height metaphor is the common way the whole Bible really talks 00:04:38.719 --> 00:04:39.719 about it. 00:04:39.719 --> 00:04:44.439 Now, we could stop right there and say that just the way the Bible chooses its metaphor 00:04:44.439 --> 00:04:50.599 really matters for today because for thousands of years across thousands of civilizations, 00:04:50.599 --> 00:04:57.240 as I mentioned, it's been common knowledge that pride will bring down an empire. 00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:04.639 And today in the Western mindset, actually, we're told, we're taught that the reason 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:08.400 we have problems in modern society is not because of pride, it's because of a lack of 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:09.960 pride. 00:05:09.960 --> 00:05:14.879 It's that if you want to fix the problems of the current order, actually you need to 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:16.519 have more pride, not less. 00:05:16.519 --> 00:05:21.319 And so whether you're dealing with a very common broken heart all the way to patterns 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:26.199 of criminality, the way that that is often treated in the contemporary world is actually 00:05:26.199 --> 00:05:30.920 to say, well, you need more self-esteem, you need more pride, you need to think more of 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.959 yourself, you need to stop listening what other people say about you and know that what 00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:37.839 you think is all that really matters. 00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:43.240 And that's a really attractive model because what it says is that bad deeds don't come 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:47.639 from who you are, they don't come from the inside out, they come from a lack of confidence. 00:05:47.639 --> 00:05:51.919 And so if you can have more confidence, more esteem, then you can put away the bad parts 00:05:51.919 --> 00:05:53.279 of society. 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:59.159 Now Proverbs comes and says, not only pride is what's fundamentally wrong with us, it 00:05:59.159 --> 00:06:04.879 also says that it is the natural condition of the human heart from birth. 00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:08.599 And let me give you three things that it says more specifically about pride. 00:06:08.599 --> 00:06:16.039 It says that pride creates in us a heart that is deceived, disordered, and divisive. 00:06:16.039 --> 00:06:21.319 So the first thing it tells us is we have a heart because of pride that is deceived. 00:06:21.319 --> 00:06:26.279 One of the most common ways that the Scriptures talk about it in Proverbs is through another 00:06:26.279 --> 00:06:31.560 metaphor having pride is to be quote, wise in your own eyes. 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:36.959 And that shows up in chapter 3, 5 to 8, really famous passage that we read, trust in the 00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:40.600 Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:42.480 We usually don't go past that part. 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:47.439 The next part says be not wise in your own eyes, meaning the opposite of trusting in 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.120 the Lord with all your heart is being prideful. 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:51.480 Be not wise in your own eyes. 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:57.199 And so it casts the language of pride there in a metaphor for vision. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:01.560 So it's saying not only is pride being tall of heart, but it's a certain way of seeing 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:03.959 the world, being wise in your own eyes. 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:10.120 In other words, pride is like putting on rose-tinted glasses, goggles, where you see the world 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:11.560 in one color. 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:16.439 And that one color that we see the world in according to Proverbs is entitlement. 00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:21.120 Being wise in your own eyes means wearing the glasses of entitlement and seeing the 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:24.000 world in all its ways through that lens. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.920 Now the illusion of entitlement says this, I'm my own master. 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:29.240 I'm my own master. 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:33.040 I'm in charge and I'm a self-made person. 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:38.639 And even more specifically than that, especially for today, the illusion of entitlement says, 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:45.639 I determined my own identity and all good things that come from me are because of me, 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:47.159 or come for me, I should say. 00:07:47.159 --> 00:07:49.079 All good things that happen to me are because of me. 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:53.360 I determined my own identity and what's good in my life is because I've made it happen. 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:54.360 I've determined it. 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:59.039 And that's what Proverbs says is the illusion of entitlement, of being wise in your own 00:07:59.039 --> 00:08:00.479 eyes. 00:08:00.479 --> 00:08:06.759 And that means that we are naturally self-deceived people from the time of our birth. 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:14.079 And the truth is this, that both our identity and almost everything that good that happens 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:17.039 in our life doesn't really come from us. 00:08:17.039 --> 00:08:20.560 Almost everything we have that's good in our life is what we've received. 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:23.279 We don't really determine who we are. 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:26.240 We don't determine where we were born and when we were born, who our parents are going 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:29.759 to be, our socioeconomic status, our race, our gender, none of it. 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:31.199 We don't determine any of it. 00:08:31.199 --> 00:08:36.840 And the truth is that we're not self-made people, but pride makes us put on these illusory goggles 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:38.879 that projects that we're self-made. 00:08:38.879 --> 00:08:45.120 That's why Paul in 1 Corinthians 4-7 says, what do you have people of God that you did 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:46.759 not receive? 00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:51.320 And so instead, Paul flips it around and says, no, everything you have has been given to 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:52.320 you. 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:53.320 You're not a self-made person. 00:08:53.320 --> 00:08:54.320 You've received it. 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:59.200 Now the second thing is we move from the eyes, vision down to the heart. 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:06.039 The other way Proverbs talks about pride is it says that we're also disordered. 00:09:06.039 --> 00:09:11.799 And the way that it gets at that is in a place like chapter 8, verse 13, pride and arrogance 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:15.120 are quote, the way of evil. 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:20.120 Now evil in the Bible in the Old Testament is a technical term. 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:25.159 It doesn't just mean the worst type of sins you can think about, you can imagine. 00:09:25.159 --> 00:09:30.399 Instead what evil means in the Old Testament is taking what God has made, creation order, 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:33.719 as we call it, and flipping it upside down, flipping it onside. 00:09:33.719 --> 00:09:35.199 That's the way of evil. 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.640 And so it says that pride is the way of evil. 00:09:37.640 --> 00:09:41.600 In other words, pride is the great distortion of reality. 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:46.200 It takes the order of things as God has put it and flips it on its head, an order that 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:47.360 we might be deceived. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:48.360 All right? 00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:50.200 So in other words, what does it mean? 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:54.960 It means it's when the heart says to God, it's when the heart says to God, you might 00:09:54.960 --> 00:09:57.600 have created me but you don't define me. 00:09:57.600 --> 00:09:58.600 I'm going to be my own master. 00:09:58.600 --> 00:09:59.600 I'm going to be my own God. 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:02.879 I'm going to determine who I am and how I'm going to live my life. 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:04.600 And that means that pride. 00:10:04.600 --> 00:10:07.120 That pride before God is the way of evil. 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:10.399 It is flipping the order of creation on its head. 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.399 Even though God made me, God tells me who I am. 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:15.399 God is first, I am second. 00:10:15.399 --> 00:10:20.159 When I say I'm going to determine who I am, how I live, then that's flipping everything 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:21.159 upside down. 00:10:21.159 --> 00:10:22.159 It's disordered. 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:25.720 Now, the Tower of Babel is the great example of this. 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:32.120 In the Bible, you remember in the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11, humanity wants 00:10:32.120 --> 00:10:37.320 to build a tower up to the heavens in order to actually displace God and kill God and 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:40.759 make God second, not first, but how do they do it? 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:45.120 They have to take all the things that God has given them as a gift in order to build 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:46.399 the tower in the first place. 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:51.320 They have to use their bodies and their intellectual capacity and their engineering gifts and the 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:55.759 bitumen and mortar and all the things that God blessed the world with in order to go 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:58.519 up to the heavens and slap God in the face. 00:10:58.519 --> 00:10:59.519 And that's pride. 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:04.559 Like Charles Spurgeon puts it like this, he says, pride, in other words, is like trying 00:11:04.559 --> 00:11:08.199 to stand on top of bursting bubbles. 00:11:08.199 --> 00:11:11.399 It's there's no, there's no reality under your feet. 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:12.399 It's illusory. 00:11:12.399 --> 00:11:13.840 It's flipped the world upside down. 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:18.600 It's living in a fantasy world, a disordered fantasy world and a deceived fantasy world. 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:23.079 And it's when we say, I'm going to take all the things that God has given me, the gifts 00:11:23.079 --> 00:11:25.480 of God, and I'm going to do what I want with them. 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:29.560 I'm going to take money, which God has blessed me with, and I'm going to decide where it 00:11:29.560 --> 00:11:30.560 goes. 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:34.120 I'm going to take, I'm going to take my work and my efforts and my success, which God 00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:36.639 has blessed me with, and I'm going to decide what to do with them. 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:40.680 I'm going to take sex, a gift of God, and I'm going to decide what to do with it. 00:11:40.680 --> 00:11:41.680 That's pride. 00:11:41.680 --> 00:11:47.360 It's the disordered reality that we see through when we put on the illusory goggles. 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:48.360 All right. 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:53.759 Thirdly and finally here is pride makes us divisive. 00:11:53.759 --> 00:12:00.480 Verse six, verse 16 to 19, that is the actual seven deadly sins. 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:05.600 So you'll hear in popular culture talk about the seven deadly sins that were developed 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:09.559 in the Middle Ages, but the Bible doesn't have the pop culture version. 00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:12.600 It has this version in chapter six, verses 16 to 19. 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:18.960 It says, there are six things the Lord hates, then seven that are an abomination to him. 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:21.759 That little literary phrase in Proverbs is important. 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:26.960 The commentators will say that whenever you see a, there are six things, no, there are 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:28.600 seven things. 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:30.120 Proverbs also does it with three and four. 00:12:30.120 --> 00:12:33.639 There are three things, no, there are four things. 00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:35.279 That's a literary device. 00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:39.799 And what it's doing is it's trying to say that the very first item introduced is the 00:12:39.799 --> 00:12:41.439 principal sin. 00:12:41.439 --> 00:12:42.759 What's wrong? 00:12:42.759 --> 00:12:48.480 And then items two through six are what flow from the principal sin, but item seven is 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.919 the great consequence of the sin. 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:56.799 So if you look at number one and number seven and six, 16 to 19, number one, haughty eyes. 00:12:56.799 --> 00:13:02.479 And haughty eyes is another metaphor in the Bible for pride, and it's the same idea of 00:13:02.479 --> 00:13:03.879 height. 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:08.439 Haughty eyes is the way I took all of my high school pictures with my eyes up and my 00:13:08.439 --> 00:13:11.079 chin lifted, you know, like this. 00:13:11.079 --> 00:13:13.399 That's what we all did when we were young, right? 00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:16.279 That's what haughty eyes means. 00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:20.000 Haughty eyes, pride, leads all the way to number seven. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.559 First number seven, one who sows discord among the brothers. 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:29.840 In other words, pride, one of the great results of pride, the great damage that it does to 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:31.960 the world is that it sows discord. 00:13:31.960 --> 00:13:33.639 It's divisive. 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:39.360 And the reason that it's divisive is because pride is fundamentally competitive. 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.360 That pride builds competition deep down in our heart where we're always competing with 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:44.360 other people. 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:45.360 Now, C.S. 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.320 Lewis has a great section on pride and mere Christianity. 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:52.320 And this is what he says about that, pride is by nature competitive. 00:13:52.320 --> 00:14:00.120 There's, when we're prideful, he writes, we have no pleasure in having a thing, something, 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:04.960 but only in having more of that thing than the next person. 00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:08.200 It's not that we're proud of being rich. 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:12.200 We're only proud of being more rich than the next person. 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:15.720 Our pleasure is not in what we have and what we are, but in what we have and what we are 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:18.480 compared to everybody else around us. 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:22.040 And so this is the result of pride's divisiveness. 00:14:22.040 --> 00:14:27.840 Pride's divisiveness steps into every room and sees the world in hierarchies. 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:33.200 So we step into every room, every community, every club, every clique, every group, and 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:35.879 we compare ourselves with other people. 00:14:35.879 --> 00:14:40.200 And we're testing each other, ranking each other in knowledge, beauty, fitness, esteem, 00:14:40.200 --> 00:14:45.399 popularity, wisdom, maturity, stage of life, and the list goes on and on. 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:52.120 And because of that competitiveness, actually pride does something to us that's the opposite 00:14:52.120 --> 00:14:54.639 of its intention. 00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:59.919 It actually makes us really fragile, and it gets our feelings hurt really easily and 00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:03.559 really often, because as soon as we're in a space where we see people that are greater 00:15:03.559 --> 00:15:06.319 than us, immediately we're broken by it. 00:15:06.319 --> 00:15:14.480 Or if we're, or if we have an inflated sense of self, and then somebody puts healthy criticism 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.440 into our ear, if we live in the illusion that we are self-made people, we can't hear it. 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:20.440 We can't hear criticism. 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:24.960 It crushes us, because we've built our own self. 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:29.840 And so to criticize that is to criticize most fundamentally who we are, and so we can't deal 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:33.840 with it, and that's what the divisiveness of pride does. 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:38.800 That's why the last thing here, one of the words that we read, chapter 3, verse 34, it 00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:46.319 shows up four times in Proverbs, is pride is described, the prideful person as the scornor, 00:15:46.319 --> 00:15:47.839 scornful one. 00:15:47.839 --> 00:15:54.359 Not really a word that we use very often anymore, but a scornor in Proverbs is a person who 00:15:54.359 --> 00:16:00.719 is angry because of arrogant competition with other people, who's fundamentally angry. 00:16:00.719 --> 00:16:03.319 It's a competitive, prideful person, a scornor. 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:09.440 Now, before we move on, I just to much briefer point two and three, I just want to mention 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:12.120 this, there is one more thing. 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:18.080 There's one more thing across Proverbs that we do see, and that's fundamental, and that's 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:22.680 that Proverbs teaches the outcome of pride is destruction. 00:16:22.680 --> 00:16:28.280 So you see this in chapter 11, verse 2, chapter 18, verse 12, that the way of pride leads 00:16:28.280 --> 00:16:30.760 to destruction. 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:37.360 The most famous example of what pride does to us ultimately is the case of Nebuchadnezzar 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:38.360 in the Old Testament. 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:45.360 Daniel chapter 4, 29 to 33, Nebuchadnezzar, he is the most powerful man, perhaps so far 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:49.080 in human history, but definitely at the time that he lived. 00:16:49.080 --> 00:16:54.279 He steps out onto his balcony, he looks over Babylon, his great empire, and he says, look 00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:55.519 what I've built. 00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:57.679 I'm a self-made man. 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:00.399 I'm the king of all the earth. 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:06.720 And God immediately strikes his mind to where he becomes like a beast. 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:09.720 He eats of the grass like cattle. 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:11.079 He acts like a bird. 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:13.400 He loses himself. 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:18.960 And you see, what the Bible is trying to point us to is that the ultimate consequence of 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:19.960 pride. 00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:25.599 You see, pride before God is a sin against creation order itself. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:30.279 It's flipping the world upside down, and that means it's saying to God, I don't want to 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:31.720 be what you've called me to be. 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:34.039 I don't want to be your image. 00:17:34.039 --> 00:17:35.799 I want to be more than that. 00:17:35.799 --> 00:17:37.599 I want to be God. 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:38.599 I want to be you. 00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:39.680 I want to take your place. 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:44.359 And so God, when Nebuchadnezzar stands up and says, I don't want to be the image of God, 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:45.359 that's just human. 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:46.359 I want to be more than that. 00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:48.000 I want to be God himself. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:51.000 Nebuchadnezzar says, I'll give you what God says to Nebuchadnezzar. 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:53.160 I'll give you what you want. 00:17:53.160 --> 00:17:59.000 And so God actually takes away his image from Nebuchadnezzar, and he becomes like a beast. 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:04.079 And you see, there's a close connection between the path of pride and beastliness and our 00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:05.279 humanity. 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:07.400 It makes us almost less than human. 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:11.920 It takes away what we really are, because what we really are is the image of God, not 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:13.480 God himself. 00:18:13.480 --> 00:18:17.599 And so that's how it ultimately flips creation order on its head, and that means that what 00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:22.039 we face in the problem of pride is a cosmic injustice. 00:18:22.039 --> 00:18:24.460 We've committed a cosmic sin against the Creator. 00:18:24.460 --> 00:18:28.720 We flipped the world on its head, and that means that we've created a breach of injustice 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:30.960 that is a deep chasm and a problem. 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:37.799 All right, secondly and very briefly, what's the opposite to come out of the hard words? 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:39.960 What's the opposite of pride? 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:44.000 Now all of you can answer that without looking, right? 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:45.000 It's well known. 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:46.720 We read it many times here. 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:52.680 Chapter 3, verse 34, instead of being proud to the humble, God gives favor. 00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:58.640 Chapter 11, verse 2, with pride there's disgrace, but in humility there's wisdom. 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:02.440 Chapter 18, verse 12, humility comes before honor in several more. 00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:08.400 The answer of the opposite of pride, of course, is humility, but the question is then what 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:09.759 is humility? 00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:11.920 What's biblical humility? 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:18.040 And remember the late modern mindset of the 21st century, the secular Western world we 00:19:18.040 --> 00:19:19.040 live in? 00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:24.960 It says that our problems come actually from thinking too little of ourselves. 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:28.720 And then Proverbs comes and says, no, here's the old wisdom, pride is thinking too much 00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:33.360 of yourself, and it's the great problem of human history. 00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:36.840 The modern world says you need more self-esteem, you need more confidence, you need to think 00:19:36.840 --> 00:19:42.640 less about what other people think about you and know that no one can define you. 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:44.480 Only you can define you. 00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:48.279 And so if you believe that, if you had that confidence, your self-worth comes from the 00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:50.720 inside out and never from anywhere else. 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:52.920 And that's how you can really overcome your problems in life. 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:58.120 Now it's tempting to say, well, the Bible must be saying the exact opposite of that. 00:19:58.120 --> 00:20:03.160 It must be saying that the way forward, the way of true happiness and peace in the midst 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:09.920 of this is actually to come and say, it's to come and say, I'm a nobody. 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.680 That's the way forward is to say, I have no self-worth. 00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:14.320 I don't want any of that. 00:20:14.320 --> 00:20:16.000 I want to be as low as possible. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.640 I want to be destroyed. 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:19.440 I want to be nobody. 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:22.800 But actually, the Bible doesn't do that. 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:24.480 It actually calls that out too. 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:29.119 It says that that's pride wearing the dress of humility. 00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:34.079 And we see that play out just one example how we know that's true. 00:20:34.079 --> 00:20:37.480 It's a form of self-centeredness because what it does is that when it gets into conversation 00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:44.359 with other people, we will self-deprecate in order to actually fish for compliments from 00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:45.359 other people. 00:20:45.359 --> 00:20:48.639 You know, we say that we're nobody in order that the next person says, no, no, no, you 00:20:48.639 --> 00:20:49.639 are. 00:20:49.639 --> 00:20:50.839 You're somebody. 00:20:50.839 --> 00:20:52.319 And that's actually pride. 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:53.519 It's not biblical humility. 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:57.200 It's pride disguised as humility. 00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:00.279 And the Bible instead holds two truths together. 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:01.919 And here they are. 00:21:01.919 --> 00:21:07.960 It cuts through all the noise of both of the West of everything that we hear in the late 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:08.960 modern world. 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:13.039 It says this, one, you are the image of God. 00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:14.039 You're the image of God. 00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:18.839 And so you bear God's image in the world unlike all the other creatures. 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:19.839 Are you worth it? 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:22.240 Are you worth something? 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:23.720 God has poured out his love on you. 00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:25.480 Yes, God says a massive yes. 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:28.000 You have a mint self-worth. 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:32.759 And at the same time, you are more morally bankrupt and corrupt from top to bottom than 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:34.519 you can ever imagine. 00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:35.880 You're ethically corrupted. 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:37.120 You're pride all the way down. 00:21:37.120 --> 00:21:38.519 You're broken and bent. 00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:42.079 And yet God looks at you and says you were worth it. 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:45.079 You're full of so much worth and dignity. 00:21:45.079 --> 00:21:47.000 Image of God and sin at the same time. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:48.880 And it cuts through both sides. 00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:52.560 It says no to both kinds of pride. 00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:54.040 And so what is biblical humility? 00:21:54.040 --> 00:21:55.840 And we can end the second point with just saying this. 00:21:55.840 --> 00:21:57.160 It's very easy. 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:02.120 Biblical humility is to quote a famous misquote of C.S. Lewis. 00:22:02.120 --> 00:22:06.120 He never said this, but people always say he did. 00:22:06.120 --> 00:22:12.400 Humility in the Bible is not thinking less of yourself, but it's thinking of yourself 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:13.920 less. 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.400 In other words, to put it in biblical language, biblical humility is simply this. 00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:20.000 It's love. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:26.519 Humility is when you love God and love other people to the point that you forget yourself 00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.160 in the midst of love. 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:32.640 It's loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor 00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:35.640 as yourself to the point where you stop thinking about yourself. 00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:37.000 And you're about other people. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:38.560 You're about God and you're about other people. 00:22:38.560 --> 00:22:39.560 It's as simple as that. 00:22:39.560 --> 00:22:40.560 That's biblical humility. 00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:47.060 And that's why in Philippians 2, we're told humility is when you count others more significant. 00:22:47.059 --> 00:22:49.079 When you lose yourself for the sake of others. 00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:54.720 Now thirdly and finally, how can we grow into this? 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.440 We've said already that the Bible teaches us. 00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:02.279 Human experience tells us the philosophy of all ages says the same thing. 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:04.399 Our problem is pride. 00:23:04.399 --> 00:23:05.399 And it's big. 00:23:05.399 --> 00:23:06.399 It's a huge problem. 00:23:06.399 --> 00:23:08.519 It's at the core of who we are. 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:15.559 And we can say on the one hand that that means we've got a great problem. 00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:20.639 And that great problem is that we have committed cosmic sin. 00:23:20.639 --> 00:23:22.119 We've disordered reality. 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:25.440 We've committed an injustice against God himself and our pride. 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:28.200 We flipped the order of creation upside down. 00:23:28.200 --> 00:23:31.679 And how are we going to heal the breach? 00:23:31.679 --> 00:23:34.179 What are we going to do about it? 00:23:34.179 --> 00:23:39.359 And then secondly, it gets worse because you say, well, the answer must surely be put on 00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:41.599 as much humility as possible. 00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:43.440 You know, bathe yourself in humility. 00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:48.640 But if you're like me and I've tried this, you know that you sit there and you try and 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:55.200 try and try to be humble and to move yourself, your heart away from self-centeredness and 00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:58.000 towards other people and towards God. 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:02.400 And you find yourself just running right back to the base to self-centeredness all over 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:04.160 again. 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:11.160 And you see, the answer cannot just be put on a lot of humility because number one, we're 00:24:11.160 --> 00:24:12.160 not good at it. 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:13.160 And we can't do it anyway. 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:16.480 And number two, even if you could, even if for the rest of your life you could just be 00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:22.080 humble, you would have the problem that you've already created a chasm of injustice before 00:24:22.080 --> 00:24:26.120 the Creator God with the pride you've already committed. 00:24:26.120 --> 00:24:27.759 And so what to do about it? 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:30.920 And this is what Proverbs says. 00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:32.840 And we'll close with this. 00:24:32.840 --> 00:24:36.920 Proverbs three, five to eight, the very famous text we read at the beginning. 00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:38.920 Trust in the Lord with all your heart. 00:24:38.920 --> 00:24:42.000 Lean not on your own understanding and all your ways, acknowledge him. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.240 He will make straight your path. 00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:46.359 Be not wise in your own eyes. 00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:47.519 Put away your pride. 00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:49.880 Be not wise in your own eyes. 00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:54.519 Trust in the Lord with all your heart in every aspect of who you are, acknowledge him and 00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:55.960 he will make your path straight. 00:24:55.960 --> 00:24:57.119 All right. 00:24:57.119 --> 00:25:00.160 Did you hear that? 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:05.960 Trust, you need to trust in the Lord with everything you are and all of who you are. 00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:09.880 Top to bottom, acknowledge him at all times and he can make your path straight. 00:25:09.880 --> 00:25:15.440 And then lastly it ends and says that would be healing to your flesh and refreshment 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:16.440 to your bones. 00:25:16.440 --> 00:25:20.880 Now, if you want to have healing to your flesh, refreshment to your bones, it says you need 00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:22.160 to give yourself to the Lord. 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:23.160 You need to trust. 00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:25.200 You need to have trust in every way. 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:30.600 And look, we've thrown the problem back a layer because it says trust in the Lord with 00:25:30.600 --> 00:25:31.600 all your heart. 00:25:31.600 --> 00:25:34.400 And you say, I've been trying to. 00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:37.640 And I can't, just like I can't put away my pride, I can't trust in the Lord with all 00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:38.640 my heart. 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:43.040 My heart is my flesh going to be healed and my bones be restored. 00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:52.200 And this is how, look, in the New Testament, in Philippians chapter two, the entire message 00:25:52.200 --> 00:26:00.840 and essence of Christianity itself, the good news, is framed in the language and speech 00:26:00.840 --> 00:26:03.400 of pride and humility. 00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:08.440 God comes to us in his gift and says, let me address you in this language exactly by 00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:13.600 telling you what makes Christianity unique in terms of pride and humility. 00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:14.600 And this is what it says. 00:26:14.600 --> 00:26:21.720 It says, in the face of our pride, and this is so important, that God chose to become 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:29.440 human, that he, we call this his humiliation, the humiliation of the Son of God in becoming 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:32.480 Jesus Christ is the ultimate humbling. 00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:38.960 He, God wanted, God the Son wanted to become humble for us. 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:43.400 And so he came to earth and it says that it, look, if you could trust in the Lord with 00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:50.559 all your heart, he would heal your flesh and give life to your bones again. 00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:54.799 Because we could not swallow our pride, Jesus Christ did. 00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:00.720 Because we could not heal our flesh, his flesh was crushed. 00:27:00.720 --> 00:27:07.600 He underwent, God the Son underwent in Jesus Christ the wrath of God himself for your pride, 00:27:07.600 --> 00:27:09.400 for our pride. 00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:12.360 This is the good news at the center of all of human history. 00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:17.539 It took him to the point of being judged by God the Father for our pride. 00:27:17.539 --> 00:27:18.600 And he set things to right. 00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:20.000 He closed the breach. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.740 He established justice. 00:27:21.740 --> 00:27:26.880 The cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ brings order to the disorder that our pride 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:28.960 has created in the world. 00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:31.960 And so we can come back now again. 00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:37.279 Lastly, let me in two minutes tell you three things to do. 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:42.440 One, come back to Proverbs 3, 3 to 5, 5 to 8 I should say. 00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:47.240 And when it says put away your pride and trust in the Lord, here's what it means. 00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:48.160 Trust in the Lord with all your heart. 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:53.960 It means, it doesn't mean, look, try your best to be as humble as possible over the rest 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:58.480 of your life and hope for the best that God would decide to heal you. 00:27:58.480 --> 00:27:59.480 That's not what it means. 00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:05.920 It said what it means is this, give yourself and your heart to Jesus Christ cross. 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:11.099 Trust in Christ himself with, give it to him. 00:28:11.099 --> 00:28:15.720 Give everything you are over to him and he can heal your bones. 00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:19.599 Say that I know I don't have the resources from within me to deal with the problem of 00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:20.599 pride. 00:28:20.599 --> 00:28:21.599 I can't become humble. 00:28:21.599 --> 00:28:26.200 I need, I need an, I need alien help, help that is outside of me. 00:28:26.200 --> 00:28:30.240 Trust in the Lord with all your heart means turn today to Jesus Christ. 00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:36.360 And today that might be, some of you here might be coming in curious from the streets 00:28:36.360 --> 00:28:37.600 today. 00:28:37.600 --> 00:28:42.880 That's an invitation to do that for the first time or for the millionth if you're a 50 year 00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:43.880 Christian. 00:28:43.880 --> 00:28:47.720 But today is the day to trust in Jesus Christ and give him your pride. 00:28:47.720 --> 00:28:49.440 Today's the day for all of us to do that. 00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:57.240 Today of three, then turn to God for help with a life of prayer. 00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:02.120 So I know that you can say, of course the application is going to be prayer. 00:29:02.120 --> 00:29:07.400 It seems to always be, but here's why. 00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:15.759 Prayer is the best thing that we have to daily turn our own selves away from ourselves. 00:29:15.759 --> 00:29:21.359 And the Bible gives us three things that can help humble us every single day as we step 00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:23.240 out the door to pray for. 00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:27.480 The first is to say, Lord, I'm a creature and you're the creator. 00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:28.920 I didn't make myself. 00:29:28.920 --> 00:29:31.279 I'm not a self made person. 00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:32.799 Almost all I have, I've received. 00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:33.920 It's a gift. 00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.599 The second thing to say is, Lord, I'm a sinner. 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:43.160 And the very fact that I'm breathing today is something more than I deserve. 00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:47.680 And then thirdly to say, I can't fix my problem. 00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:51.279 Jesus Christ, you humbled yourself to the point of swallowing my pride. 00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:53.920 So I can walk out the doors today with humility. 00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:58.640 Those are the three things to pray for every day to bring humility to the heart. 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:07.880 Lastly, make humility actually a spiritual discipline in your life by vowing and resolving 00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:16.200 to think about God and other people and serve God and other people more than you do yourself. 00:30:16.200 --> 00:30:22.920 Because action like that in our daily lives, even when we don't desire it becomes habit. 00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:28.200 And habit becomes disposition and disposition changes the will. 00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:32.600 And so Christ Jesus says to you today, if you believe and trust on him, that he swallowed 00:30:32.600 --> 00:30:36.480 your pride and gifted you in him humility. 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:41.880 He now says, put on the mind of Jesus Christ, which is humility, Philippians 2. 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:43.400 And so there's work to do. 00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:44.400 There is. 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:48.480 There's not to get a seat at the table of God's kingdom, but because you have one, there's 00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:49.480 work to do. 00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:52.319 So take up the discipline of humility. 00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:53.319 Put it on. 00:30:53.319 --> 00:30:54.319 You've got to do it. 00:30:54.319 --> 00:30:55.640 You've got to go for it. 00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:58.759 You've got to repent when you fail and get back up again and strive after it. 00:30:58.759 --> 00:31:00.680 That's what Paul calls us to. 00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:04.799 Here's a question to test if there's growth. 00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:08.639 This is the question I'm asking myself this week. 00:31:08.639 --> 00:31:18.559 Can I truly enjoy other people's success around me more today than when I first became a Christian? 00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:21.279 If I am, then I know that I'm slowly growing in this. 00:31:21.279 --> 00:31:27.879 Or secondly, my money, you know, true humility, growing humility starts to be willing to let 00:31:27.879 --> 00:31:30.680 go of their things more and more. 00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.799 Because it says I know that everything I have is the gift of God. 00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:38.799 And so can you gladly and generously and joyfully give away your stuff to God and people more 00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:41.159 today than when you first believed? 00:31:41.159 --> 00:31:42.159 All right. 00:31:42.159 --> 00:31:45.839 This is truly the last word. 00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:51.960 This is why Christ's refreshment of prideful bones is so important at a very practical 00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:54.839 level. 00:31:54.839 --> 00:32:01.279 Pride makes it so difficult to deal with reality. 00:32:01.279 --> 00:32:06.720 Because when pain and loss and crisis come into our lives, and it will, and maybe it 00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:12.279 already has and it is today for you, pride says in the midst of crisis, you know what, 00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:17.039 I have not gotten the good things in life that I deserve. 00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:21.319 And that means that pain and suffering becomes anger. 00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.000 And anger becomes more pain. 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:29.279 And that kind of pain can snowball into contempt for life itself. 00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:35.759 But when you trust in Jesus Christ, he shows us that we can instead save this in the midst 00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:37.559 of pain and loss. 00:32:37.559 --> 00:32:42.519 By the grace of God, the world is better than I deserve. 00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:48.000 And so when pain and loss come, even though it hurts, even though there's deep suffering 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:54.839 and crisis, you say, look, I know what I deserve and I know what I've received. 00:32:54.839 --> 00:32:56.680 And by the grace of God, it's more. 00:32:56.680 --> 00:32:58.480 It's more than I deserved. 00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:03.000 And that means that a humble heart actually has the practical power. 00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:07.880 The humble heart that comes through Christ alone has the practical power of giving you 00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:16.279 the great gifts of endurance, of patience, and joy in the midst of a very hard world. 00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:17.279 Let's pray together. 00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:23.480 Father, we ask now that you would give us the humility of heart that can only come through 00:33:23.480 --> 00:33:24.480 Jesus. 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:29.120 And we ask for a great gift of the Spirit today in that. 00:33:29.120 --> 00:33:34.200 And I pray, Father, for those who might be coming today to explore this gospel, we pray, 00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:38.319 Lord, that you would meet with them and show them who you are and reveal yourself. 00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:42.920 Lord, we pray for us to have believed this gospel for a long time, perhaps, that you 00:33:42.920 --> 00:33:51.079 would remove coldness and hardness of heart, perhaps, and refresh us with the depth of 00:33:51.079 --> 00:33:57.720 our pride problem and the great healing to our bones that is the humility of Jesus. 00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:00.240 And so we ask for this heart in Christ's name. 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:21.239 Amen.