Here is the auto transcript from this week’s sermon on the Pride: Abstinence is not deliverance

So, I'm going to do my best to stay in my pastoral side and a little bit less in my

apostolic side as we jump into a series of looking at the seven virtues to combat the

seven deadly sins.

But before we jump into that today, let's go in prayer to the Lord.

We've had a lot of people, I don't know if it's long COVID, if it's sinusitis, whatever,

but we've had a lot of people who they'll be healthy for a week and then they'll just

spiral right back down into whatever it is and be down again.

So we have like six to seven families that are currently still fighting whatever it is.

Some of them it's been called COVID, some of it's been called flu, some of it's been

called sinusitis, yet all the symptoms are the same.

So I don't know, but we'll find out.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for the opportunity to come together in this place.

We thank you for Westmore Community Church.

We thank you for Pastor Glenn and for the team.

Thank you for allowing us to be welcomed into their family, to be a part of their family,

Lord.

And today we lift up not only their family, but our family who are struggling with illnesses,

Lord, this ongoing thing.

And while we don't know exactly what it is, we know that you're the author of all things

and you're the healer and that you do.

And so we lift up the Hollomans and we lift up all those who are just continuously wrestling

with this illness, Lord.

And we're just asking for you by your power, by your spirit, by your might, for your adoration

that you would reach into their homes, to their bodies, to their heads, wherever the

ailment is, Lord, and that you would remove it by your power and your spirit.

For it's in the name of Yeshua we come before you.

Amen and amen.

So this week we got a prayer request from a brother named Virgil who was a part of our

church and he had scheduled to go in for cancer surgery.

He had already had the scans.

The scans had already shown that there was cancer.

He had already had scheduled that he was going to go in and they were going to remove this

cancer from his body.

And he sent an update.

Hey, I'm just kind of waiting.

I'm waking up and I'm in pain and I need you to pray for the pain from the surgery.

And the doctor comes in while we're praying for that, the doctor comes in and the doctor

says, very confused, "We opened you up and there was no cancer."

And yet this clearly shows, I'm not a medical professional, but they got to go through a

lot of school.

I've been talking a lot.

Am I right, Genoway?

People got to go through a lot of school.

You got to be learned, like learned.

And yet clearly there was cancer.

But yet when they opened him up the cancer was gone.

And so today we just rejoice with the Lord for his healing, for his miracles.

And so today as we start into this series, I know it's going to be a heavy series.

Anytime you start talking about pride and lust and greed and gluttony, anytime you start

talking about somebody's pizza or you start talking about somebody's arrogance, you start

talking about how people think of things, I know it's going to be heavy.

I understand that.

But the truth is, is that God wants to heal.

God wants to set free and God wants to empower you by his Holy Spirit.

And if you're carrying around your demons and your baggage and your luggage and you're

unwilling to release that to the Lord, whatever it might be, how can he fill you with his

spirit?

How can he make you who he called you to be?

And so today we're going to start a series where we're going to talk about things that

the world wants to normalize, but the Bible tells us that we are to flee from.

We don't come here on Saturdays and you don't go to church on Sundays to fill your social

need.

If you do, then it's the wrong place at the wrong time.

There's an element of filling your social need, but we come to church on Saturday and

Sunday to feel and experience and meet with a holy God, the God of all creation, the God

of the universe, to have his power in his presence through his word and through his

spirit fill our hearts.

And when we come, we come with our wounds, we come with our brokenness, we come with

our hurts and our most intimate of struggles.

Some of us are looking for hope and many of us believe that this is just the normal.

I believe that the Bible is true.

I believe that Jesus' words are true.

I believe that the apostles' testimony of Jesus and the things they saw are true.

So I believe that in this room, just like the pages of scripture, you can be set free,

you can overcome, and whatever you're struggling with in this room today, that is not the normal

and that is not what God wants for you.

God wants more.

He wants more for each and every one of us.

I have good news today, church, that if we war together as a family on mission, if we

war together with Jesus as the general, you can overcome all things.

If you war together without Jesus, it's going to be like all the current American political

wars.

They have no end.

Best war ever, both sides of the aisle.

The war will never end.

There has never been a war that God hasn't fought, that God hasn't won.

God wins 100% of the time.

He is the greatest cleanup hitter.

He is the greatest quarterback.

He is the greatest three-point shooter.

He is the greatest cook.

Whatever you like, whatever your thing is, he's the greatest of all time.

Today I want to start a series, not because I want you to spiral into guilt, shame, and

condemnation, because in Christ there is no guilt, shame, and condemnation.

I am not here to bring guilt, shame, and condemnation onto you.

I'm here to let you know that the Bible says that there's hope that whatever guilt, shame,

and condemnation you feel can be removed.

If we war together against the apathy, against the lies of the adversary, against our flesh,

if we war together throughout this series, I believe we can get to a place where we can

lay down our struggles and allow God to take up that war.

And when that happens, Katie, bar the door.

Because the Scripture says when he walked into the synagogue that he preached with authority,

yet he had no degree.

The Scripture says when he taught and he closed up, he cast out demons.

In a synagogue?

On the Sabbath?

What?

No.

Yeah, yeah, he cast out demons.

He taught with authority.

So when we get to a place where we can lay down ourselves, submit ourselves to the power

of the Holy Spirit, to the fact that Jesus is God, he is Lord, he has bought us, he has

paid for us, Katie, bar the door.

Because it isn't gonna be a beautiful sermon, it isn't gonna be eloquent words, I'm not

gonna be able to regurgitate the Greek that Brent does, even though I've listened to the

sermons four to five times.

Tell us, tell us, tell all.

But I don't need to be eloquent.

I need to be submitted to the power and the presence of the Lord, and that's exactly what

you need too.

See, we're no different.

Yes, I get to stand here and I get to speak.

But the same Spirit that lives in me lives in you.

The same power that lives in me lives in you.

And when we can channel into that, Katie, bar the door.

Today we're gonna look at pride.

I actually didn't have a plan of not announcing which ones we were gonna do until last week

when Brent said, "I just hope Chris doesn't do it so we can see who shows up and who doesn't

show up."

Not exactly true, 'cause we have multiple families who are sick, so we can't just project

onto them and be like, "Oh, they didn't show up because they have a pride issue."

Church, everybody in this room has a pride issue.

This is why I started with this one, because it's one that literally all of us have.

We can look around the room and we can be like, "Ooh, who reacted?

Oh, Rebecca, you're one of the most meek people I know, but you have a pride issue."

You know how I know?

'Cause the Bible says that we all have pride.

We all wrestle against pride.

Pride is the root of all evil.

And evil is everything that wants to move us away from the good and the graciousness

that God intends for us.

The good that Brent keeps talking about with that word, "Tell us."

The fullness of what God has created us to be.

I don't believe that I've met anybody in this church who is walking in the fullness of what

God has for them or wants for them, and I include myself in that.

We might be moving in that direction, but I don't believe we're all there, church.

I don't believe we've arrived, and I don't believe we ever will arrive, because I believe

the power of God is something that grows in us.

It's something that becomes alive in us, and the more you get involved in it, the more

you get with the Lord, the more he does, the more he does, the more you'll see.

I don't know anybody in this room who's been a part of or witnessed a Pentecost-type moment

where all these nations, tribes, and tongues are sitting in a room and they're all just

doing their service.

They're all doing their thing.

They know it's the Macarena.

They get to put hand up, hand up, hand down, hand down.

They know what the process of the service was, and all of a sudden, God's like, "Well,

I'm going to change it up on you.

I promised you it was coming."

I don't know anybody who's ever experienced that.

When we talk about pride, it's easy to point out people like me.

I'm a type A. Nobody in this room thinks that I don't struggle with pride.

Watch your mouth.

He was smiling real big, like, "Brent, this is why you have elders.

This is why you have elders."

When you look at a person who's a type A personality, somebody who is not afraid to run into a fire,

somebody who's not afraid of a challenge, a Stephen Whitley type of guy, like, "I will

be there."

Like, "How high?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got this."

That type of person.

You know those people, they wrestle with pride.

They wrestle with arrogance.

They wrestle with, "I can do this.

I'm the chief of those."

But the most dangerous people I have ever met and ever experienced were the ones who

walked in what I call false humility.

Oh, man.

But they abused that for selfishness, to fill their ego, to fill their pride.

So you may not be like me.

You may not just be...I'm a walking billboard for every day I wrestle with pride.

I wrestle with those issues.

I've been honest from the pulpit for years.

This is my cross to bear.

And while I sometimes remain abstinent, I haven't been fully delivered.

But I believe pride is our greatest adversary, not necessarily the devil.

Pride shapes everything we do.

Everything.

It's a lens by which we see the world.

We see interactions.

Yet the Bible says, "God hates pride."

Hates pride.

It's a pretty strong word.

Hates pride.

So why is pride our greatest adversary?

Because pride blinds us from all of our sin.

Pride is so good at making it seem like in any conflict, it was always the other person.

If there's a conflict with Trollin and I, I've gotten to a place by the power of the

Lord that I'm immediately looking at what is the Lord trying to teach me, not why am

I here to prove that you're wrong.

Anybody who's been a part of the roots base of Christianity for any time knows that mid-Roshing,

we went through the terminology, and it's really just used in the messianic terms, the

corner of Christianity, as a healthier way, healthier term, to just argue with each other.

To verbally beat somebody into submission with why your understanding is greater than

theirs.

Pride.

Because the more I learn, the more I know, the more I study, the more I realize I don't

know a blessed thing.

And it is by the grace of God that there's been any type of revelation.

It's by the grace of God that I can write a sermon.

By the grace of God, when I send a sermon to Brant and say, "Hey, make sure I'm not

too far out in the weeds," he doesn't come back like all of my school was with red letters

everywhere.

These aren't the good red letters.

This isn't Jesus talking here.

This is like, "Oh, that's wrong.

That's wrong.

That's wrong."

That's a revelation from God.

That's not because I'm skilled.

I'm not skilled.

The world is built off pride.

We're to take pride in what we do.

I did this.

Why do we only take pride in the things that we do well?

I'm the greatest intellectual donkey ever, said no one.

I'm the greatest Scrabble player ever.

I've heard that.

Ian plays a lot of Scrabble.

He knows a lot of words.

He knows a lot of things.

But nobody wants to stand up and say, "I'm the greatest hypocrite.

Look at what I built.

I built a city on sexual sin.

I built a city on arrogance.

I built a city on myself."

I don't hear people running around putting that on their Facebook profile.

Why?

Because we're blinded to our pride.

Pride is all about yourself.

It places a higher importance on me than you.

Look around the room.

If you place a higher importance of who you are than you do on the value of somebody else

in this room, can you imagine with all the people in this room how convoluted?

We can't get on mission because we're all on our own mission.

And if we're trying to go this way and somebody else is trying to go that way, we are a ship.

We're a church that just literally tossed about in the waves.

It's chaos.

It's self-devotion, self-justification, self-glory, and self-ish.

Sorry, that tone was definitely more apostolic.

My apologies.

Pride twists and distorts who's important.

In this church, you are more important than me.

Why do I feel that way?

Because God sent me here to serve you.

And so your needs matter.

Your health matters.

Your marriages matter.

I place a higher importance on you than I do on my own self.

And I understand there's got to be boundaries, and I'm still figuring those out.

But that hasn't always been how this church or many churches operate.

Church not the Lord's anointed.

I used to have that thought.

They can come talk to me.

I don't need to go talk to them.

They can call me.

I don't need to call them.

None of us have ever done that.

Just me.

This is just a, this is my confessional time.

Pride is the exact opposite of righteousness.

It actually creates a contempt for God and God's plan for the world.

I've recognized just that concept in relationship because when I look at my spouse in our relationship,

when I allow myself to get to a place where I say, "Well, the problem is all her," I actually

create a mentality and a spirit of contempt for my bride.

It's very hard to come back from that.

Anybody who's been in those relationships, friendships, church, that's why churchhood

is so prevalent.

We create contempt out of our pride for those in God's family.

Dare I say it for where most of us have come from, we've created contempt against the Baptist

and against the Pentecostals and against the Catholics.

We have bore false witness all over the Catholics.

Out of pride.

And yet the same person who died for us to be set free from our own pride died for them.

And we somehow act like we're special.

We're all God's children.

If you didn't pick up on the response song from the last series, last couple of months,

we did a song called "Worthy of It All."

We did it over and over and over again.

Actually, I had somebody on the worship team last week say, "Are you going to switch the

worship song or the response song?"

It was intentional.

And the reason why is as you go through and you look at the Gospel of Hebrews and you

look at the testimony of the writer of Hebrews about Jesus as a high priest and our role

in the kingdom and how all these things fit, Genesis to Revelation, one thing should be

revealed out of all of that if you missed anything else.

And that is that He alone is worthy of it all.

Not Brent, not Chris, not any other person.

He.

He alone was able to walk through the pieces.

Oh, that's not a New Testament thing, right?

Where do we see that?

Oh, right, that covenant with Abraham.

He alone is worthy.

See, sometimes our pride tells us that our walk, our works, they justify.

We would say that it doesn't, but that's exactly how we live.

And a little, just a tiny bit of pride.

We're doing the sourdough experiment.

Just a little bit of sourdough.

Boom.

That's some huge bread.

You would think that stuff was GMO.

I've never seen bread that big.

So when you look at the very tangible, real thing, a little bit of pride, a little bit

of yeast will pop up, a little bit of the old will suffocate out the new.

A little bit, just a little bit.

Proverbs 8.13 says, "To fear the Lord is to hate evil.

I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."

Proverbs 11.2, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."

Proverbs 16.5, "The Lord detests all the proud of heart.

Be sure of this, they will not go unpunished."

Proverbs 16.18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall."

I've heard a lot of people listen to a lot of different teachings on pride and deadly

sins and everybody's like, "Hey, you really have to wrestle against your flesh.

You have to wrestle against your flesh.

You have to wrestle against your flesh."

Yes, you do need to wrestle against your flesh.

But Proverbs says that the Lord hates pride multiple times.

And there's many other scripture verses.

I just like being in the Proverbs.

So if the Lord is opposed to the prideful, your greatest opponent when you're walking

in pride is actually not even yourself.

God has become your opponent because he is opposed to who you have become.

So now your issue is with God.

Oh, where do we see that?

Wasn't there a created being who decided that the delegated authority that was given

to him by the power and the might of Yahweh was his?

Oh, I remember that story.

And it shaped everything.

Even before there was an apple, even before there was an age old debate whether it was

the man who sinned or the woman who sinned, there was this guy named Lucifer or girl named

Lucy known as Hasatan, the Satan, the adversary, the devil, the roaring lion, not the lion

from the tribe of Judah.

And he was given a gift.

He was given delegated authority.

He was given power.

He was given might.

And somewhere in there, pride crept in and he said, I don't need you.

This is mine.

I don't need you.

This is mine.

I can do all things.

And he went to war in the heavenly realm against Yahweh.

And that war is one that we still see going on today.

Pride leads to blindness, destruction, and evil.

God is opposed to the proud.

You do not want God as your opponent.

I can promise you this.

This is like if I was going to go and I was going to try to do some sort of like CrossFit

thing because I know that's super popular right now, I would not choose Riley or Steven

to be the people who I would go against.

It's that kind of thing.

Like they're in shape.

I am not.

You don't want to go up against God.

God is in perfect shape.

He is perfect.

He has a perfect track record.

And we're like, hey, we're just going to go up against God?

But how many of us think about that?

That because God is opposed to our pride, that God actually becomes an opposition to

us when we're walking in our own prideful nature.

James 4, 6, but he gives us more grace.

That is why the scripture says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

So we can combat our pride with humility.

And when we walk in humility, now this is not humility.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

That's false humility.

Humility is that you understand that maybe you were wrong in this situation.

Maybe you said something you shouldn't have.

Maybe you acted something.

Maybe you said what you needed to say, but it was in the wrong tone.

And that you truly can recognize the harm you've caused somebody.

There is many times where I have had to apologize to people who I believed I was 100% in the

right in what I said, but I was 100% convinced I said it with the wrong tone.

Verse Peter 5, 5, "Young men, in the same way, be submissive to those who are older.

All of you clothe yourself with humility towards one another because God opposes the proud,

but gives grace to the humble."

Oh, there's that grace word again.

We all need a little bit more grace.

We all need a little bit more compassion and mercy.

Luke 14, 11, "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself

will be exalted."

If you exalt yourself, the best you have is whatever you can obtain here.

My dad was worth 20-something million dollars.

I forget now what it was.

Had multiple businesses.

Really smart financially.

The housing market collapse that happened under George W. Bush.

He lost everything.

Now what I've seen my dad gain since then is I've seen him gain a deeper relationship

with the Lord.

This is just a very tangible counter to the cultural.

Whatever you can obtain here is what your pride can help you get.

Your pride cannot help you get a deeper relationship with the Lord.

That healing you so desperately want, pride can't do it.

Only God can.

Pride is opposed to what God wants.

See, this is weird because it's like the way up is actually the way down, and it's completely

the opposite, and humble yourself.

And, well, I can't be humble because, you know, everybody around me tells me how good

of a baseball player is or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's the absolute right time to be humble.

Exalt yourself, and you'll end up down the road of death.

Pride leads to all manners of sin.

It flips the economy and the trajectory of God's kingdom into a counterfeit.

Guys, everything we see around us is counterfeit.

Up is down, down is up.

Our job is to help the Lord's prayer.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So we are actually ambassadors on this earth for Christ.

One of our jobs is to actually help bring the kingdom of God to the earth.

You cannot do that by acting out of Lucifer's kingdom.

You're bringing the wrong kingdom to the kingdom that's already here.

And you're running a race that will kill you, destroy you, and leave you empty inside.

The apostle Paul gives us an example in 1 Corinthians 5 of people in the church operating

in pride.

Now remember, this never happens today.

This only happened back then.

I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you, something

that even the pagans don't do.

We do not like pagans.

We come from the corner of Christianity where we do not like pagans.

Everything is pagan.

Everything is cruel when you're part of that team.

Everything is pagan.

Pagan police.

Everything is pagan.

We don't even know what the word means.

Pagans in biblical time were people who were basically preppers living out in the middle

of the woods.

That's what biblical time preppers were.

And there's been multiple different terminology of pagans at different point in time.

But we don't like anything that's pagan.

So Paul says that in the church of Corinth that they were doing things that even the

pagans wouldn't do.

There's no mention about Easter or Christmas in here.

It's sexual immorality.

That would never take place in the Christian church today.

We don't ever see that.

I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.

You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning.

Turn a blind eye to sexual immorality?

Whose kingdom are we working for?

I'm sorry to step on your toes, but they're size 15.

I'm clumsy.

Even though I'm not with you in person.

Paul felt so strongly about what was happening, he literally DM'd them.

He was like, "I can't show up at your house right now, but I'm going to send you a DM."

He slid in their DMs and he was like, "Uh-uh."

Nope.

Even though I'm not with you in person, I'm there with you in spirit.

And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man in the name of

the Lord Jesus.

You must call a meeting at the church.

I will be present with you in spirit and so will the power of the Lord Jesus.

Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature

will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day of the Lord returns.

It's not about whether you like what's going on in here.

It's about that you would be saved on the day the Lord returns.

When you were cast out of Israel, when you went through the Matthew 18 process, it wasn't

so that we could have this fellowship.

It was so that you could be brought back into fellowship.

So why are we still so worried about God trying to cut us off when God's trying to restore

us?

He says, "If you can lay it down now, if you can deal with it now, I can save you and I

can be with you on the day I return.

But if you won't deal with it now, on the day I return, I'll say, 'Depart from me.

I do not know you.'"

What do you want now?

A bunch of friends or a bunch of family who will say, "No.

We're not doing that here."

And guess what?

Not only are we not doing that here, we're going to walk with you until it's not abstinence,

it's deliverance, and it's gone.

And we're going to love you.

And you're going to want to run away from your church for whatever reason you make up.

But God says, "Stay.

Go to war.

Let's get it done because when I come back, I'm coming for a bride that is spotless."

And we think just because we put bleach on our white clothes that God doesn't see the

stains.

Pride leads to all manners of sin.

The church is to be a place where we call out sin, where we repent and we're made whole.

It becomes popular to preach on leadership topics.

There's podcasts.

There's all these different things.

All these books.

"Find Your Peace."

"Inner Peace."

"Abide."

All these cool things.

And there's nothing wrong with those.

But there's a method that is tried and true.

With all those conferences, all the millions and millions of dollars spent on book sales

and I tithed to TBN so I could get my blessing.

And yet we're still spiraling and we're still cycling.

We're still spiraling and we're still cycling.

But the Bible gave us the key and it was free.

I know we don't like this song because we want to get all theologically in the weeds,

but it was the overwhelming, never-ending love of God.

We'll leave out the other terminology for a later time.

That's why he gave it to us.

You guys want to know what it is?

It's not a secret.

I was going to play with you for a second.

Mysteries revealed.

You want to know?

I've got the blueprint.

I've got the secret.

But it's not a secret.

If you open the Bible and you read the Bible, it's not a secret.

It was given to all, those who know, those who don't care.

It was given to all people and it says, "Repent."

There it is.

"Repent."

The first key is to truly repent.

This isn't like what my seven-year-old likes to do.

My wife has never done this to me and I've never done it to her.

My seven-year-old is not in the room so I can say that.

"I ain't sorry."

You ain't sorry?

That's not repentance.

Repentance is to actually make a change.

You're giving lip service when you're like, "I'm sorry.

Morgan, I'm sorry, but I'm going to do it tomorrow."

That ain't repentance.

That's arrogance.

You don't respect this person.

You don't respect them at all.

You have a higher self-worth than you have of them.

I should have locked my screen.

It's like flipping back on.

Brent, I'm getting older.

You have to acknowledge them.

You have to confess them.

Then you have to ask for forgiveness in them.

And guess what?

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and over again and expect

a different result.

So if you've already repented, if you already asked for forgiveness and you're still getting

the same result, then the key there is you must change something.

Turning away from pride in yourself means turning to Christ in His righteousness.

It means that we are telling Christ that we want to see ourself and see others the way

that He sees them, not the things we see.

Wouldn't it be awesome if we got to a place in our culture where we saw the good in people

rather than immediately seeing the flaws?

"Oh, that guy's pants are too high.

Oh, did you see what she was wearing?"

We're immediately programmed to find fault with other people.

This helps us make us feel better about ourselves.

It's not about yourself feeling better.

It's about being the light of Christ to other people.

And if we were all doing that, you wouldn't have to sit there and look at yourself in

the mirror and say, "I'm beautiful.

I'm funny.

I'm smart.

It's going to be a good day."

Other people would help build you up.

The Spirit of God would fill you, and you wouldn't have those deficiencies.

You wouldn't have that need, that pride, that loathing.

First you have to acknowledge.

One of the reasons a lot of people don't repent is that they refuse to acknowledge there's

a problem.

And let's just be honest, that's fake too, because you already know there's a problem.

When you're looking at your screen late at night, you know you're in trouble.

You know if your spouse catches you, you're in deep doo-doo.

You know what's happening.

You know when you eat too much and your belly is like, "Oh, I feel miserable.

I need to go to the toilet."

You already know there's a problem, whatever it is.

Whatever your pride has caused you to do, you already know it's an issue.

But you have to first acknowledge it's an issue.

You can repent, and it's false repentance if you can't acknowledge it.

It's like, "Well, I repented of looking at pornography.

I repented."

But it's not an issue to you.

If it's not an issue to you, you're destined to go right back and do it again.

You have to acknowledge there's a problem.

You have to confess, number two.

You have to confess.

You have to get it out.

"Lord, I'm sorry.

You already knew that we were all sinners, but I'm sorry I let you down.

I'm sorry I let you down."

You have to ask for forgiveness.

"Lord, will you please forgive me?

People, will you please forgive me?"

You have to ask.

It's not enough just to ask the Lord for forgiveness.

If you have harmed somebody, your offering is worthless.

Put it on the stairs.

Don't come through the doors.

Go solve the problem.

You owe somebody an apology.

If we actually apologized and took that approach with other people, and we let our pride fall

off and we walked in humility, think of how awesome our relationships would be.

Everybody in this room knows you're going to fail.

They look around at each other and say, "Everybody knows you're going to fail.

There is no expectation that you're not going to fail."

So when somebody fails us, we're like, "Oh my gosh, you harmed me."

No, I'm sorry, that's nonsense.

You already knew they were going to screw up.

And you already knew you were going to screw up.

It's time to stop playing fake.

Because if we play fake here, somehow we've convinced ourselves that God sees and God's

involved in this charade.

God's sitting up there and he's like, "I'm about to take the Xbox away again."

No, you can't watch Bluey.

This isn't about guilt, shame, and condemnation, church.

I'm not here to shame you.

I'm not here to make you feel guilty.

If you feel guilty or if you feel that pressing, that's the urge of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not here to condemn you.

I love you.

I've made it abundantly clear.

There's nothing you could ever testify about in this church that would shock me and make

me walk away from you.

Because I've probably already heard it from people who've attended the church over eight

years.

You'd be amazed at the things I've heard.

So I'm not here to pass judgment and condemn you.

I'm here to love you because the Bible loves you.

Jesus loves you.

All the Hebrew people were brought together by a God who loved.

He doesn't love your sin, but he loves you.

And he wants to heal you, lead you, guide you.

Your heavenly Father died so you could live.

And he's asking you to die to your sins and to your flesh so that he can be made whole

in you so that you can live.

Most people in this room, you're not living.

And abstinence isn't deliverance.

I'm going to say that a thousand times over the next seven weeks.

Abstinence is the first.

It's just really the start.

It's the fact that you've confessed your sins, you've asked for forgiveness.

Now I'm going to abstain to the best of my ability from going back into that practice.

I grew up in the days where it was like, you know how we can make sure that we don't have

extra marital, you know, early sex?

Be abstinent.

If that's all it is, you will toil and you will struggle the rest of your life.

Whether it's a sexual sin, whether it's food, whether it's pride, whether it's whatever

it is.

Abstinence is not deliverance.

You absolutely have the power to abstain.

You have the power to abstain.

A lot of you abstain from all kinds of stuff.

There's things in this world that you would never take part of.

It doesn't even have an interest in you, whatever.

You have no problem abstaining.

I have no problem in abstaining from going to elementary school.

Do I get a star?

It's not the same thing.

Abstinence is the first part that you can control.

It is your works.

You control your works.

Deliverance is a gift.

It's a gift that only God can do.

When you're abstinent, you put yourself in a place to be able to have what you were filling

with whatever your pride was telling you.

Lower that so that God can download and reveal to you his spirit, his power, and then comes

deliverance.

People are like, "Oh, I want to be delivered."

You're not even trying to be abstinent.

God's sitting there like, "You want me to deliver you from something that you really

seem to enjoy?

That seems to be your God, but you want me, the other God, to come in and take that away

from you while you're still worshiping with the other God?

Oh, is that how that works?"

When true deliverance comes, whatever that pride is, whatever that temptation is, it's

no more.

It's no more.

When you're truly delivered, when God gives you that gift, it's not a thing.

You can drive by a bar if it's alcohol.

You can drive by a bar and it doesn't worry you.

You can drink a beer and it doesn't cause a problem.

People are like, "I've been sober for 25 years."

Praise the Lord you've been abstinent.

I believe God wants you to be delivered.

I believe he wants you to be able to be in a room with your temptation and you can walk

away and be like, "Nice try, devil.

I got Jesus.

I don't need you."

Humility brings God's grace and blessing.

This is how we attack our pride.

1 Peter 5, 6 says, "Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God and he may lift

you up in due time."

Proverbs 18, 12 says, "Before his downfall, a man's heart is proud, but humility comes

with honor."

Honor, wisdom, those are things we want.

Those are things the Bible says are good.

Proverbs 11, 2, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."

We all want wisdom.

Nobody wants to be disgraced.

Pride brings disgrace.

Humility isn't a weakness.

I was talking with one of the deacons, the worship team, you can come back.

They all looked up at the confidence monitor.

They're like, "Oh my goodness gracious, he's been delivered from long sermons."

Just you wait.

I haven't even begun to preach yet.

Humility isn't weakness and it's not mediocrity.

I was talking with one of our deacons not too long ago and he was talking about like,

"I really struggle because like men, you know, men we want to be builders.

We want to be strong.

We want to do these things."

I'm like, "You got to combat that with humility."

And he's like, "But when I think of humility, I think of just like you're a weak, like whatever,

like uh."

Humility isn't weakness and it's not mediocrity.

But speaking disparagingly about yourself or it's talking down to who you are, projecting

that out into your character and your nature.

That's not humility either.

God doesn't think that you're a horrible human being.

He loves you.

So why are you speaking death over yourself?

Why are you letting people define you?

Why are you letting your friends or your ex-husbands or your ex-wives or your current husbands or

your current wives, they don't define you.

God defines you.

And the moment we start to look at each other and we start to project on each other our

hurts and our faults and our pride and our shame and our guilt, we lose sight of the

fact that God is alive.

He's alive in you and he wants to do something and nobody can take that away.

Submission isn't passive, it's active.

Submission isn't just sitting here and saying like, "Oh, when God's ready to do something,

we'll do it."

No, you have to actively participate in submitting to the will of God, not the will of yourself.

It is an active thing you do.

You're submitting to God's leadership saying that, "I believe in you.

I see you.

I understand and I know you're alive.

You can do what you want.

Have me."

We all say, "He named me out of night.

Call me.

Call me to be a preacher.

Call me to be a pastor."

What if he called you to just walk in humility?

What if he called you to just lay down your burdens?

What if he just called you to cast your cares?

We live in a house and then we don't like our house and so we decide we're going to

go to another house, but we're bringing the same demons to the same house.

Why don't you just stay in the house you were in?

God wants you to be free.

Pride is embedded in this world.

If you're struggling with sin in this world today, if the sins of this world are in you,

if you're wrestling with them, if pride is your wrestle, we all have it.

Some are wrestling with it.

Some have just moved in with it.

If you're wrestling with it, repentance is the key.

Humility is the key.

You cannot combat pride without repentance.

You cannot be set free while you still accept that this is where I'm going to be.

This is all God has for me.

If you continue to walk in pride of self, in agreement that you cannot be set free and

that you cannot come before the Lord and you cannot submit, then He cannot refine you.

And if He cannot refine you, He cannot make you the fullness of what He's called you to

be.

And so today as we sing our response song, I ask you, how long are you going to be the

God of your pride?

How long are you going to walk in it and try to combat it with your flesh, which is already

proven to be inadequate for that war?

How long and how many times is God going to have to say, "I'm here and I care?

I'm here and I care."

How long until you lay it down?

I understand there's no altar here, and that's a real Christian thing to do.

Oh, we come to the altar and it's just emotional.

It's not emotional.

It's a physical practice to come before the Lord, get down on your knees and say, "At

some point in time I finally understood that I don't have it, but you do.

And physically I come before you and I bow down and I say, 'I need you to set me free

from the bitterness.

I need you to set me free from my self-pride.

Because I haven't been able to do it.

My works haven't been able to do it.

I still fall back.

I still fall short."

God has never fallen short.

So why do you keep acting like He's you?

We're all who sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Everybody in this room has sinned.

That's okay.

We understand that.

But God wants to heal you.

My words can't heal you.

I'm not eloquent enough.

I'm not good enough.

But He is.

So as they sing this song today, you have the same choice that has existed throughout

the history of time.

Are you going to hold it or are you going to give it back?

Is the battle yours?

Is it still your battle?

Or is it God's?

I'm praying today for those of you who are wrestling that you're willing to give it back

to God.

Because as a guy who has been able to overcome certain things in the last year and a half

in my own life, once you give it to God, it's unlike anything you've ever experienced before.

I couldn't earn it.

I couldn't do it.

I don't deserve it.

But He refines by fire.

And sometimes it hurts.

But on the other side, it's awesome.

[music plays]