Live Free with Josh Howerton - How to Kill the Sin of Pride | Pastor Josh Howerton

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Have you ever thought about how pride can quietly ruin our lives and relationships? In the first episode of the Live Free with Josh Howerton Podcast, we dive into the effects of pride and humility, kicking off the Kingslayers sermon series.   We start by reflecting on the powerful moments from a recent Night of Prayer and Worship at Lakepointe Church, where we saw God move in amazing ways. This sets the tone for our discussion, where we look at Nebuchadnezzar's story in Daniel 4 and how pride brought him down. We talk about how pride is the ultimate "Kingslayer" and how it’s just as dangerous for us today.   Along the way, we discuss how pride plays a role in marriage, entitlement, and even anxiety. We explore how these issues can stem from a sense of self-importance and how humility can transform our relationships and mental well-being. Throughout the episode, we offer practical ways to fight pride, focusing on gratitude, humility, and spiritual practices like prayer and worship. We also highlight the importance of community, service, and having a servant’s heart—just like Jesus did.   By the end of the episode, we hope you'll be inspired to embrace humility, experience true freedom, and connect with the Lakepointe community. If you're ready to build deeper relationships, join a Life Group at Lakepointe Church—learn more at https://lakepointe.church/groups/   - STAY CONNECTED -    Website: https://www.lakepointe.church/  Facebook: https://lp.social/facebook  Instagram: https://lp.social/instagram  To support this ministry and help us continue to reach more people with the Gospel, click here: https://lakepointe.church/give

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And our prayer is these deep dive conversations about the Word of God equip you to live free in Christ. This is a test drive and we'll decide whether or not to do more seasons based on engagement. So if this is helpful to you, if you could rate, review, or share, that will help us to know what's helpful. For more digital content, visit lakepoint.church slash live free. And now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to a brand new episode.

It is official. It is now, this is the first episode of the Live Free podcast. Guys, the people have spoken, and we are here with the podcast. Populi Box Day. No longer a test drive. In the words of Elon Musk. And so welcome to the Live Free podcast with Pastor Josh Howard Zenn. My name is Carlos.

I'm here with Pastor Tim Smith. how are you guys doing? Man, I'm still riding on the glory of prayer and worship night. It was amazing. Yeah, man. It was special. Oh, man. Special.

What a unique night. It was powerful. Yeah. I was just going to say, I mean, you live a long time to see that many people come to a prayer meeting. Yeah. To pray and to be prayed for. Yeah. It's just mind-blowing, man.

I'm so grateful to be a part of the Lake Point family. Dude, watching that, like one of my favorite things to, see is we're standing backstage and it's like an hour before the service there's a thousand people there who show up to pray for the prayer meeting and then you're watching I don't know some people heard this there was a Minnesota Vikings player and his dad that drove got up a 3 a m drove from Minnesota to come down did you know that I did see a photo of you saw that yeah yeah yeah drove to come down with his dad to the I guess he church online social media Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were there last night. Amazing. Minnesota, from the very cold to a pretty cold night here in Texas. Yeah, yeah. He came to warp and got disappointed. He was the guy in short sleeves. Yeah, yeah. Shorts, yeah, that's right.

That's right. Man, and then I know this is not what the podcast is about, but it was like there were a couple moments, like when we gave people a chance if they were living in slavery, and they wanted freedom from a strong. the campus we were at the sound of audible weeping and wailing like hearing people crying out i can't live this way anymore yeah and just begging god those are repentance tears it was beautiful man and people experiencing freedom i mean god working in that particular moment there's just something

really powerful happening and people are just man there's a shout of prayers and and just uh joy it was amazing the beauty for me i just say this to you guys just as a father to have my kids in that room. Yeah. To watch that, to be normal. Yeah. That's right. For people to cry out, to confess their sin, to receive hope.

That's right. To be prayed for. Yeah. What a gift. That's right. I just say that as a dad. I don't know that there's any greater joy that I could have than my kids to be in the room to experience the presence of the Lord like that.

I just, man, what an amazing gift. I know. Yeah. Both our girls were there. And this morning, I wake up and walk in the kitchen. They got worship music on my 13 and 10-year-old. It's like last night, they just couldn't stop telling stories about things they saw and stuff they noticed. And it's normalizing things that ought to be normal, but are abnormal.

It's interesting. I've actually, Brooke and I, we've been sitting in the young adults slash student section recently. Man, look at this guy. I mean, I guess. Bro, okay. I don't know if I should share this. but maybe the next side. Now, well, somebody, somebody stopped me yesterday and they said,

did you get carded? What do you mean? No, no, no, no, no. You got age carded. No, no, no. Well, I felt something that I have not felt before. This is, he was, he was an eighth grader. Okay.

And he came in with a big smile. He said, man, he said something like this. He said, my mom really appreciates you. But I just, that's just not something I'm used to. I'm kind of not used to somebody saying, like, he's a young guy. And I'm like, oh, hey, great, great. Good to meet you. Hey, my mom is somebody that really appreciates you.

And I'm like, great. Awesome. Thank you so much. I'm like, honestly, that made me feel something like, this is a little different. I'm 30. 33. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Anyways. Me and Tim have been getting that for a few years. Okay. Some of us many, many years. Yeah. Okay, well, man, great. Hey, if somebody's new listener or viewer, Welcome. Live free podcast. Josh, I just want to give you a little bit of time to explain, hey, what are we doing here? What is this about? I know in the past we've explained a little bit of a test drive. It's now official. So, yep, like you said, the people have spoken. We honestly have been really surprised by the strength of response. So I'll just say this, man, you know, keep it going. We always, we're always evaluating what we do. And what's the, our little metric is what's the eternal return on investment of our time? And so, now we'd be, we'll be.

watching this. The reason we initially tester of this is people are obviously consuming enormous amounts of content. And very frankly, I only get about 20% of what I prepare into a message. And so it was a way our real heart is to take people deeper into the scriptures. If I'm just being super raw, part of the reason, if I'm peeling behind the curtain that we want to do this, is we want to model for people what a healthy life group discussion looks like what does it look like for like three Christians who are trying to follow Jesus to open up the word and talk about being disciples together. Yeah. The reason we call it live free is what we say right now is Lake Point is a movement for all people to know God, find freedom, to discover calling,

make a difference. And when we open the word of God and we follow the son of God, that is how we are empowered to live free. And so that's our goal. Yeah. Let's kind of go into it and we'll have fun doing it. Yeah. Yeah, man, we say for church online, we don't want to people to be spiritual consumers. We want them to be active participants. And so I think when it comes to podcasting, this is my hope for this podcast, really. My prayer is that when people tune in, they can say, hey, if they can do it, I can do it with friends, family members. I can have these discussion conversations. Joy and Guru would be a part of a disciples. Yeah. All close. So actually, last night, there was a young guy, man, I'm not remember a name. There was a younger guy who

essentially they started listening he started listening to what is now the artist now known as live free and essentially what his life group does he's got a men's life group they meet at Starbucks somewhere down in Dallas before work they listen to the sermon they listen to live free and they're reading the scriptures together and they walk in and talk about it like hey man if you want to start a life group that's a great way to do it that's it that's amazing iron sharpening iron that's called well hey Let's dive in. It's official, the free podcast.

We are starting a new sermon series called King Slayer. By the way, I love the title, man. Very strong title. Amazing title. Fun fact, there was another runner-up for the title. Do you remember what it was? I remember like six. Okay.

People would be shocked. Listen, people would be shocked how hard do we work on series titles. This is a good title, man. It's a good title. I like this title. What do you remember? What do you remember? It was kill or be killed.

That's a pretty good title. We thought about kill or be killed. We thought about Mortal Kombat. But my mom wouldn't let me play that game as a kid. Shout it to the 80s babies. Is that what it is? 80s babies. 80s baby.

Oh, that's it. 90s, 90s, yeah. And then I, here's a, here's a fun one. Mortal Convags. Yeah. I ordered. I ordered a vintage Mortal Kombat T-shirt.

And for about five minutes thought about preaching the first week of the series in it to make the point. Yeah. So people don't, don't know that. Here's where the initial title came from. And then we'll talk about King's, and what the theological implication is. The original title, Kill or Be Killed, that comes from a John Owen quote. John Owen, Puritan Theologian, he wrote a book called Theortification of Sin.

It's a very good book, honestly, I read in college. And he's got a quote in there that says, always be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. And so the concept is that a Christian is always in a mortal combat situation with their sin. That's good. Either you are going to kill your sin, or your sin is going to kill you. It will kill your family. it will kill your faith. It will kill your joy.

So to make the point, you know, it's like, as a preacher, I'm trying to do stuff that's like, they'll remember. Yeah. They'll make it sticky. So I thought about the Mortal Kombat T-shirt, but I figured the mom as a leg point might not appreciate it. Did you ever play Mortal Kombat? I wouldn't allow him. Bro, my conscience was too fragile.

No, no, no, no. I mean, I was 40 years old when Mortal Kombat comeback. So that would make me, and, you know, I'm just saying you. You were 40 and 90. You weren't 40 in 1990s. Okay, maybe. Mid-30s, mid-30s. I played Street Fighter.

Did you play that? Oh, dude. It's like the cleaner version. I, to this day, you know, this little, they make those tiny little vintage gaming systems now that are this big. They have a Nintendo and a Super Nintendo.

Okay. For Christmas two years ago, I quote unquote, got Eliana one of those. That's great. Very generous of you. What a great. Very thoughtful.

What an example. And it has Street Fighter 2 on it. And I play with the girls still. We'll get in and play. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's Mortal Kombat. Wait, you're right.

Street Fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, that was much better finish him than mine. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Okay. So you want to talk about Kingslars?

I do. I do. Daniel, Chapter 4. Wait, wait, can I explain the series time? Oh, yeah, you're right. Please do. You're just, I'm talking too much. I'm sorry.

The whole thing is about humility, and so we'll get there in a second. We'll get there in a second. But I do need to explain the series title. So series title, Kingslayers. We feel a burden more and more to when we're doing teaching series. We want a more and more make them expository, exegetical series. We're just teaching three sections of the scripture. So the scripture is telling us what to teach instead of us going to the scriptures and finding

what we want to teach. So what this is is this going to be a series this teaches through a cross section of the Old Testament kings. And here's the concept is that all of the kings in the Old Testament, these are men who are anointed by God. They are blessed by God. They have positions that God has given them of incredible influence. But every single king in the Old Testament was taken out by a different species of sin. So they had everything. But the thing that they could not protect themselves from was the ultimate king sloth.

sin. And then if you want to get really cool that when you get to the New Testament and you trace that scarlet throughout the gospel through through the New Testament, sin is the ultimate kingslayer because it was sin that killed Jesus. Sin is the ultimate king slayers. The Romans didn't kill Jesus. The Jews didn't kill Jesus. I killed Jesus. We killed our sin killed Jesus. So kingslayers. And then we're applying it to people going, hey man, I don't care how blessed you are. I don't care how talented you are. You know, I don't care how anointed by God you are. Sin is a king slayer. It is crouching at your door and it desires

to have you and it can take you out. So the whole series each week is essentially a seven, six deadly sins of the 21st century and how to protect ourselves from them. That's good man. That's going to be great. That's powerful. That makes me one. I'm excited about it. That makes me like the title obviously so much more.

That's great. Well, this week talking about that one king slayer called pride. Pride. And man, let's start with Daniel chapter four. This is a different kind of story here in the Old Testament. Very interesting. I want to hear your thoughts on just overall impression, Daniel chapter four.

What you got, man. Did you look at it? I've read through it. He's got it memorized. Stop. It's, uh, Tim brought his Tim Smith branded Bible. Stop. I do have a Bible.

I was going to say anything. Do have my Bible. No, because, you know, because it's such a good Bible, man. It is beautiful. You guys go ahead. and mock my Bible. Stop, man, I'm boise. This, you know, I did read, and it's a fascinating, I mean, it's a fascinating tale.

I mean, of a man who is at the best of times. And obviously, he writes back, and he's of sound mind. That's right. But then we go down to the depths of, I mean, literally, it's almost hard to take in. A person could be so upside down mentally. That's right. I mean, it's amazing story. That's right.

I know we're going to get into it. Did you know what? Keep going. Just keep going. For onlookers, we just had a power search. And so we're trying to pretend that we're just peeing up from exactly where we were. Give it our best shot. But we're going to splice it.

Keep going. Did you know what language Daniel chapter four was written? It's Aramaic, isn't it? It was Aramaic. Yeah. So this is very random. But interestingly enough, so Old Testament, you know, people know this. Old Testament was written in.

Hebrew, primarily. But this particular book, Daniel, chapters one, chapter one was written in Hebrew, chapter two to seven in Aramaic, and in chapter eight through 12 Hebrew. So there's a sense in which Aramaic, this is a little geeky, but Aramaic was the language that was spoken in the Babylonian and Persian empires. And so the author here wants to make sure, hey, we'll write it in a way that other people, not just people that are Hebrew can understand it. And so there's a theme there of the heart of God for the nations.

That's right. Interesting. You've also got, here's a couple other fun little nuggets that didn't make it into the message. So number one, obviously for people who are unfamiliar, whole story of Daniel is Daniel, little Jewish kid. Honestly, he's a victim of human trafficking is what happens. Nebuchadnezzar comes in, conquers Jerusalem.

People of Israel under the judgment of God, they get taken into slavery. Modern day Babylon, ancient Babylon equals modern day Iraq. So little Jewish dude in modern day Iraq, that's not awesome. Fun fact, a lot of people think that part of the reason it's written in Aramaic is because Nebuchadnezzar obviously personally wrote some of the things there. So Nebuchadnezzar, that would make Nebuchadnezzar the first non-Jewish author of any part of the scriptures. So that's a little fun fact. Other little fun facts. Obviously the book of Revelation, so you got Babylon.

Yep. Where are you going there? At some point out, but keep going. So the book of Revelation, we've got the ancient civilization of Babylon. The book of Revelation refers to Babylon as a spirit, a spirit of Babylon. So it talks about Babylon. And it's very interesting. There are a lot of things that were going on in ancient Babylon that have resurfaced all throughout history.

Kind of a cool one that did not make it into the message in full. Have you guys heard the whole thing about Saddam Hussein? So this is fascinating, dude. So Saddam Hussein, obviously, you know, narcissistic, insane dictator killed a lot of people in Iraq. Saddam Hussein. believed and was very outspoken, he believed that he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar. Throughout his reign, he modeled what he did off of ancient King Nebuchadnezzar. To this day, this is actually a fascinating YouTube video. I watched in message prep.

You can go on and like there are Bible scholars who have traveled to the site of ancient Babylon. some of the ruins of ancient Babylon are still there. There's a Bible prophecy said it would never be rebuilt. So this is really interesting. Bible prophecy, God says, never going to be rebuilt. Saddam Hussein is like, I'm the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar. I'm going to rebuild it. You can go to modern Babylon.

And there are parts where Saddam Hussein was beginning to reconstruct ancient Babylon with some of the ziggurats. He did exactly what Nebuchadnezzar did. Nebuchadnezzar did. put his inscribed his name on the bricks. Saddam Hussein inscribed his name on the bricks. Nebuchadnezzar makes a 90-foot golden statue of him. You got a pride issue if you build a 90-foot golden statue of you. True.

So Saddam Hussein did the same thing. So it's very interesting. If you start asking, man, why are the same things still happening throughout history? Because the same spirits are still working. Yeah. So that stuff's real. Yeah. So those are some little fun facts.

Amazing. It's interesting. And if you mentioned Revelations, Revelations and Daniel, they have, if you've read both of them, very different kind of books. It's called apocalyptic literature. They have similar themes, imagery, prophetic content. They both talk about kingdoms and scrolls, the same spirits at work before, still work today. Basically, that's the point. As you read Daniel chapter four, you see this theme, Nabokin Nezor becomes prideful. And he becomes like a beast. And he becomes like a beast. That's right. God humbles him by telling him, I am Lord, you are not. God is king.

Yeah. Then when you look at the scripture overall, you see Satan was a fallen angel. Yeah. That becomes prideful. In the book of Revelation, Satan is portrayed as a beast. God humbles him through Jesus because Jesus defeats the beast. And Jesus says, I am Lord, you are not Jesus is king. Bro.

Nobody takes the place of Jesus as king. Great. You want to go a layer deeper? Let's go. So here's another, so Isaiah, 13 or 14 or 14. 14. 14. Isaiah 14.

Yeah. So Isaiah 14 that describes the fall of Satan. That's what most Bible scholars say Isaiah 14 is referring to. O Lucifer, Morning Star, U.Fal, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's a theological term. There's a few different terms. Typological fulfillment, double fulfillment, dual prophecy, prophetic foreshadowing. There's different terms where some Old Testament prophecies, they have two fulfillments.

they'll have an immediate and physical fulfillment in the time where the prophet writes it. But then it has another spiritual eschatological means in times. Eschatological or Christological. That's obviously about Christ fulfillment. Isaiah 14, most Bible scholars say, is both about Satan and Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So the double fulfillment is Nebuchadnezzar. and Satan. Wow. And so it's like, hey man, same spirits, you know, at work behind the kingdoms. Isaiah 14 is an amazing passage. Isaiah 1412 is that passage that you're, you know, recalling. And I know you guys have read it.

But like what it does is it sets up, obviously, what scholars tell us a lot about Isaiah 14 is it's, it's the posture of Satan's heart. before obviously he begins to try and take over. And it's an amazing language. He says this in 13, I will ascend to heaven. I'm going to go up. I will set my throne. My throne's going to be higher than your throne.

I'm going to sit on the Mount of Assembly, which is basically saying I'm going to be above everything. 14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. The whole picture of Isaiah 14, which is the picture that you're teaching me right now about Nebuchadnezzar, it's an exalted, prideful place where we put ourselves before God. And this is the definition of pride, isn't it?

It was like where we put ourselves above the most high God himself. That's right. Amazing. Yeah, it says, yeah. Nabokanezer is typically portrayed as like the villain. It's kind of like nobody, you know, obviously nobody wants to be like him. But it's just, it's interesting. Talking about this, he wrestled with the same.

sin that you and I wrestle with. Exactly. Yeah. It's the sin of pride. And it's interesting to see the way God engages somebody like Nabokin Nezor. There's different ways, different interactions, but then you also see God's mercy in Nabokin Nezor's life. In the Bible, whenever the word beast, interesting life is used, the word beast is typically refers to somebody that's in power or an authority that rebels against God. And in this case, Nabokin Nezor, the Bible says, becomes like a beast. he starts acting like that's Daniel chapter chapter four but then whenever he repents and acknowledges God so here's somebody in authority saying you are king you are God I am not God restores him and so again that speaks to the mercy of God that if if you and I here as we continue to talk about

pride if we're wrestling with pride whatever that looks like there is hope you are not far from the mercy of God yeah that's exactly right so it's really interesting you know in the scriptures you'll see People, proverbs will talk about like two different tests. There's the poverty test, but then there's the prosperity test. And most people only think about the poverty ones. I've gone through a hard time. That's a test. I'm being, that's a trial.

Prosperity is a very dangerous. You're in a day. It's not wrong, you know, it's not, but it's dangerous. There's that proverb that says, give me neither poverty nor riches. There's a reason for that. And it's very interesting if you watch in the Old Testament, you see it in Nebuchadnezzar, and then if you watch, you see it in your life. And then, you know, we're all, we're leaders.

You see it and you see it in organizations too. Sure. Is there's like, there's this cycle. And that this is a dangerous cycle. The cycle is somebody starts low or a person, an organization, whoever it is, they start low. And then the Bible says that God gives grace. to the humble. So they start low. Well, God pours out grace. Then with that grace comes blessing. With that blessing, then, man, God begins to lift you up. The Bible says that. That God lifts the humble.

So then God lifts you up. So then somebody's lifted up. Now, here's what gets dangerous is God will lift up their circumstances, but then it'll go to this next phase where their heart becomes lifted up. Nebuchadnezzar says he's looking down on his kingdom and he's going, look at what my hands did. So they had a lifted up position and it becomes a lifted apart. And that's when you're in trouble because the cycle goes to the next thing. God opposes the proud. When you become proud, you pick a fight with God. Yeah.

And so then God opposes the proud. Whenever that happens, usually somebody is not usually always. They're going to wander into sin. They're no longer in submission. of God. They're doing their own thing, their own way. And then judgment comes. So like, really, you get to this spot where, hey, man, it's your choice. Are you going to do humility or humiliation? Wow. You pick, you pick, because God is not going to give his glory to another. The Bible says, you pick humility or humiliation. It feels like the, in our culture,

let's bring it back to our culture here. The air we breathe is pride. In fact, what our culture calls pride, the Bible calls sin. And if you think about the way it plays out, and I'd love to discuss that for a second, just different ways it plays out in our culture out there and then in here, what's normal in our culture today, you know, we're a culture that says, hey, promote yourself. Yeah, yeah. Jesus says, deny yourself. Our culture says, seek success. Jesus says, seek to serve. Yeah. Our culture says it's about how much you get. So go get it. Jesus says, no, it's about how much you give. Our culture says be proud of who you are, stand up, show everybody.

It's all about you. And then you look at what Jesus says. He says, it is not about you. You walk in freedom until you walk in humility. And so what are some ways that you guys would say, pride is such a, it's a term that can be interpreted in so many different ways. It's just kind of an ambiguous term. Let's bring it down to what's really practical.

How does it play out? What are some of those ways that we, that pride is. manifests itself, but sometimes we don't even realize it. Well, I think, you know, one of the things that, just in my own life, that kind of, when I know that my heart's getting inflated, right, that goes is entitlement begins to creep in instead of gratitude. Yes. And I think for anyone, and I think it's in Nebuchadnezzar's life, right?

I mean, at some point when we begin to think that we deserve something because of the posture of our life because of knowledge or skill or riches, entitlement begins to creep in. And I think what God would rather have in our heart, obviously in the posture of our worship is gratitude. So when gratitude goes down and entitlement goes up, that's a warning sign for me in my own life. And you see that in a hundred different ways, right?

you know, in regard to your marriage, what you think you deserve, you know, where you get to park. I'm just calling out, where you get to sit on airplanes. I mean, there's a lot of big things and little things that begin to reflect that all of a sudden because of my position or who I am or what I've achieved, that all of a sudden I deserve something. Yeah. And man, where that gets really, really difficult then is when suffering comes, what do you do? Yeah. Because when a hard thing comes, like if your heart is already turned inward into you, just almost always you're going to turn away from the Lord. And I just think, man, again, entitlement is a really important dashboard indicator.

Wow. Tim, how do you know, just if that's okay? how do you know if somebody's like, man, am I entitled? Like, how can I know if there is a little bit of that in my heart? Well, I think, you know, it's like trying to be, I mean, again, to me, what replaces entitlement is gratitude. And so, I mean, again, where you combat pride is in the place of spiritual formation, you know. And again, it's not, it's not complex. It's just hard.

It's getting up every day and meeting the Lord and the Word and submitting to that word. is prayer is an act of dependence, not independence. So anytime anyone's praying, they're beginning to posture their heart to be in submission to the Lord. So where entitlement begins to creep in is when I find myself ungrateful for the common graces that the Lord has given me. For the common graces. I got up today and, you know, I live in a great house with a great family. and I went to my closet and picked out clothes and I went to the gym and my body was sort of working today. And that's a common grace.

I mean, there's a hundred things that all of a sudden that, man, if I begin missing those things, then all of a sudden I just say to you is, man, my attitude begins to begin to project on other people. I need you to do more things for me rather than me walking around going, man, I'm so grateful for the good things that God's given to me. So for me, that's just always, man, where is my gratitude for you and for the other people around me and the common graces that God has given me? And how do I treat those people? Yeah. Right. That's an early indicator. That's good. Man, you know, Carlos, you were talking about just how pervasive it is.

So if you start, this really struck me a message prep this week. So Isaiah 14, Satan, what gets Satan kicked out of heaven is pride. He didn't want to worship. He wanted to be worshipped. He didn't want to do God's will. He wanted God to do his will. So it's pride. So then honestly, you start thinking like, oh, pride was the first sin ever committed.

Yeah. Honestly, I'd never heard that, but it struck me this week. Oh, that was the first sin ever committed was pride. Then you go, okay, well, if Satan's root sin is pride, and the Bible says that Satan is right now the God of this world, then you start going, man, it's very interesting. if you look at the world, it's all about self-self-suff. Well, that's because we live under the rule of Satan right now, influencing the kingdoms of this world and the systems. And his root sin is pride.

Like, just as you talk about us all self-actualization, you know, self-care, self-love. That's right. There's no self-denial, no, no, no, no, die-to-self. We have a whole month of the calendar, pride month. We celebrate the thing that is the root. sin underneath all those other things. Yeah. Well, that's because it comes from the father, the father of this world.

Yeah. John, why is being so self-obsessed so dangerous? Well, Tim hits some other thing. Number one, I don't want to pick a fight with God. Right. Like, honestly, I don't think people, that in message prep this week, that probably landed on me more than anything else. That's huge.

When I, it says God opposes the proud. That's right. So when I become proud, I'm putting myself in competition with the living Almighty God that's the Lord of hosts. Because he says, my glory, I will not give to another. So number one, you pick a fight with God. That feels like a real bad idea. You will not win. You're not going to win that.

Number two, you know, you got a promise from the scriptures. Hey, man, your choice, humility or humiliation. You see that in Nebuchadnezzar. That's right. Because he didn't choose humility. God gives him humiliation. He becomes like a literary. He's like a furry for seven years.

And, you know, so this is what this is. So you get humiliation. Very frankly, man, especially like, especially for, this is for everybody, but especially for men, pride destroys relationships and families. You know, the book of James says that it is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. So when we choose humility, you know, Jesus was a person of, humility. He took the form of a servant. Even though he was God, Philippians 2, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Satan's the exact opposite. So when we choose humility,

we're pulling the culture of heaven down into our lives and families. When we choose pride, we're pulling the culture of hell up into our lives and families. So this is a little helpful thing, a diagnostic. If you look at marriages, all the best marriages is that humility is the characteristic. So you're going to have one of three kinds of relationships. If you have two spouses, if you have a proud spouse and a proud spouse, the whole marriage is a battle. It's, I want my will. I want my will. Let's fight. Okay. It's not man and wife. It's man versus wife. If you have one proud person and one humble person, it feels a little more like abuse. It's like she always gets run over or he always gets run over. This person asserts their will. This person, you know,

gives up there. So it feels like abuse. But when you have a marriage that's a humble person and a humble person, it doesn't feel like a battle. It doesn't feel like abuse. It feels like a blessing. And you just start going, okay, that's why Ephesians 5 says, hey, submit to one another. That's right. And it just, you know, you want to have a great marriage and a great family. Become a humble man.

Become a humble father. Become a humble husband or wife. So I think it destroys relationships as well. Tim, I'm curious. How long have you been married? 32 years. Talk a little bit about how, you know, all that wisdom that you got because I need it. And then I'm here to take notes for me. Well, the most important thing you always need to remember when someone talks about being wise in marriage is the most, the best and wisest choice I made was who I married.

Amen. So I'm married to a good and godly wife. That's right. Who has been very gracious to me. But one of the things is I think as men, we just all know, if there's a place where practically our pride might manifest itself, it's in our marriage. And I think Lynette's been gracious to me. I did learn, the one thing I have learned about pride in marriage is when we had discussions early in our marriage, I wanted to win those discussions. Discussions.

Discussions, you know, that's code for fights. That does not work. It does not work. So write that down, Carlis. 33 years. On it. It's very important. But like when she would approach me about something, the reason I know pride was so much in my heart,

what I would evaluate is whether her expectations were fair. That was my first, I'm just saying to you guys, my first inclination is, is that even fair for you to say, rather than, as a humble man, evaluating whether or not my own character had done what I said I was going to do? And it changed our marriage when I just learned, man, probably I need to check myself first. This whole idea of being mutually submissive begins with us evaluating our own hearts to be humble. And I've messed that up more times than I want to tell you guys. But I did learn, I have learned that, man, again, if I start with myself, if I start with trying to humble myself so that I can actually listen to her rather than trying to speak so that I win an argument.

that generally that goes better for the marriage. And again, it's the kind of, I mean, at the end of the day, what I want and what she wants is a peaceful, unified home. Yeah. And, but the only way that happens is, is that there's two people who are deferring one to another in mutual submission, which is what you said. That's right.

And, man, I'm still growing in that, to be honest. It's interesting how marriage exposes that pride. You know, before you're single, I'm a pretty humble guy, I think. And then you're married and you're like, ah, what's going on? And then you start, you know, asking those questions. And you realize, man, there's a lot of pride in my heart. Yeah, when you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, man, it's easy to feel humble. Is that right?

Yeah. It's easy to feel. Yeah. Okay. So how do you kill it? So God does not want you to manage your pride. He wants you to kill it. How do you do that?

Yeah. You want to go for it? Look, man, I got five, four, five, six little simple things that I wrote down. I've already mentioned one, I think men for any of us who want to kill our pride, commit to the basics of spiritual formations. In other words, you have to read the Bible. You have to confess your sin. You have to pray.

I think you need to be in community. You've got to figure out how to worship something that's more than just your accolades. I think just as important as that is find a place, a relationship, a group, where transparency is welcome, where you can be honest about, where you are because I think we all know pretending is exhausting. That's right. It is. And we need a place where, again, as simple as it is, where the Bible says to confess our

sins one to another, where I can be honest about where I'm failing is incredibly important to us living a long life of humility. Almost nothing will crucify your pride faster than that right there. I agree. It's kind of like that thing of you can either be impressive or you can be known, but you can't be both. Can't be both. And when you find this, you know, I got a group of guys that it's like there's not something they don't know.

There's not much pride in those relationships. I think one of the places that, again, in my own life where pride has shown itself is pride loves control. So I encourage people all the time. Learn how to release something. Learn how to release, get something out of your hands, your finances, responsibilities, the remote control. Whatever it is, I'm just saying, you've got to learn how to release things because pride manifests itself in control. And that's an important thing for us. And oftentimes with control comes anxiety. That's right. With desiring to control everything. It's interesting in 1st Peter 5, verse 5, it says this, I'm just going to read it.

All of you clothe yourself with humility toward one another because, quote, God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. verse six says humble yourself therefore under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time everything we're talking about and then literally verse seven right next to that verse says cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you now this is this is not always the case with anxiety but sometimes anxiety basically says I can fix all my problems I need to take care of my life ultimately it is under my control I need to control everything I can handle it and then God says no no you need to let go you don't need to handle this, you need to surrender it. Man, there's an interesting story.

So Martin Luther, a Protestant reformer. His best friend was a guy named Philip Melanchthon. What a name, by the way. That's a great name. I mean, in the 1500s, that was probably like, that's a name. I don't have a good name. I don't know.

I was going to do something. Ashton, I don't know. Whatever. So his best friend, Philip Melanthin. And apparently, Philip was really struggled with anxiety. tremendous amount of fear, worry, anxiety. There's an incredible story that Philip Melanchin records about Martin Luther

where he's like, he's wigging out and he's unloading, because these guys thought they were going to get killed by the Catholic Church. And he's really like, oh, you know. And he tells a story of Martin Luther putting his arm around him and saying, let Philip cease to rule the world. Wow.

In other words, just give up control, man. Like, hey, man, well, you just, you don't have to control everything. You're not that important, that powerful. That's right. So I think that's a very wise biblical application, Carlos, of the connection between pride control and anxiety. That's a high correlation. Hey, man. Let Carlos, let Josh, let Tim cease to rule the world.

Amen. Yeah. You keep going on. Yeah, two or three more practical things. I think I'm trying to learn how to ask more questions than make more statements. So like one of the indicators of pride in your life. is that in every conversation that you're in, you're declaring things rather than maybe asking questions

to try and, you know, invite other people in. It's very practical, but it's one of those things. I just encourage everyone evaluate. How many questions do you ask? Because if you're a person who never ask a question, you might really love your thoughts. You want to talk about how the might, because I think that's connected to the How the Mighty Fall thing.

Yeah. So wait. You go. You go. I'll go and then you dovetail here. Totally. So we were talking about this off. This is true for leaders and organizations.

So it's like success. Success breeds pride. Pride breeds complacency. You stop asking questions. Complacency breeds failure. So it's nothing fails like success. That's right. So it's like to your point, Tim, it's like, man, what a humble person does is they're hungry.

Give me wisdom. That's Proverbs one, I think, get wisdom. It's the first principle of wisdom. Get it. Go ask somebody. Go ask somebody. And when you become arrogant and proud, you stop being hungry. You stop asking questions.

That's a great way for your life to fall apart. It's also a great way for your organization to stop failing or stop winning. I agree. And look, I'll just rant on this just for a minute. Jim Collins wrote two books, Good to Great. and then his other book is How the Mighty Have Fallen. He tells the story in Good to Great. He basically describes what a level five leader is.

And he describes a level five leader is someone who looks out the window versus someone who looks in the mirror. That's right. And so I don't know if you guys remember this, but he says, but man, great leaders, these guys who, all these companies that he studied, studied 30 companies over a long period of time, He said what marked all these great leaders was humility, is their ability to look in the mirror and take responsibility rather than looking out the window and basically casting blame on everyone. He tells a great story about this.

He says one of the CEOs, I'll spare you all the details, but one of the CEOs that he studied, his company didn't go good to great. It went great to good and kept declining. But he says that the thing about this particular CEO was, is that every time someone gave him bad news, he responded in such a way that ultimately he trained people not to tell him bad news. Wow. He was so prideful that every time someone in his company came in to try and give him a reality of where the company was.

This was a brilliant man, by the way. It was a brilliant man. But he responded in such a way that they just stopped coming. So here it is. The very information that this man needs to make the decisions to lead his company, where he thinks he needs to go. He can't get because his pride has shut the door from him getting the very feedback that he needs. Can I? So like, I'll give a story example and about some other guys.

So it was earlier this month, there's a pastor named Chris Hodges that we know, Pastor Chris, Church of the Highlands, a generational leader. For those who don't know, Church of Islands of Birmingham, Alabama, that is probably one of the two fastest growing church plants in church history. That's not an exaggeration. Reach incredible number of people. And, you know, church can be large and dead. That ain't church of the highlands. They're making disciples.

They're full of the spirit. I mean, they're doing great work. So Pastor Chris, he's, I don't know how old he is. He's got a good decade or two on me. And he reaches out through somebody else. and he starts asking me questions. Wow. And I'm like, what is happening?

And then he asked, I think I talked about this on another podcast where he was like, hey, why don't you come in? And I'd love to, and I got there. And I'm there. I brought two pages of questions to ask him. Peppered me with questions. And I was embarrassed. I'm like, what in the way?

This is the, but then I left going, that's why he's who he is. Because he has what you just said. The posture of his heart is humility. He's so, he's a humble man. Yeah. I'll give you another one. And if I love, I love telling stories about humble people. If you all got any, you can chip in.

It's funny because if I can interrupt you for a second. Pastor Chris, he, I remember listening to him and he spoke about John and Maxwell, how he's the same way. He's the, the leadership guru of our time. Basically, he should know everything by now. And Pastor Chris mentioned how he was in a room with John Maxwell. Everybody's super smart. room and John Maxwell's got like a notepad ready to ask everybody, hey, what have you learned

recently that I need to learn? And he's writing down notes. And so at that point, he's like, man, I thought this would be the guy. We're here to learn from you, not the other way around. And he's learning from everybody. Life family leadership. Humility succeeds. Pride fails. So, you know, it's like another humble, great leader. He doesn't know who Bob Russell is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bob Russell, another pastor, uh, was pastor at Southeast Christian. Not a huge church. I mean, in the 90s, they were reaching like 25,000 people for Christ.

One of the best churches back then, now Pastor Kyle Ildeman is a wonderful man. Back then what people would say is, that's the best kept secret in America. Nobody knew who they were. When I was 16, I've told that story before. I won't retell it about going and asking him all these questions, and he took time.

Well, when I was done, and I left a two-hour lunch with Bob Russell, pastor of the second largest church in America at that time. I was 16 years old. I was in more than even more of a nobody than I'm now. And when I'm done, I'm walking out and his assistant said, do you know what he just did? And I was like, yes, man, it was amazing. He took two hours with a 16 year old kid. And she was like, no, no, do you know what he gave up to? And I was like, no, what do you mean? Well, it was September 2001 when a year earlier we had scheduled the lunch, he didn't even tell me this. He had gotten called that morning. It was right after 9-11.

He had gotten called that morning to be on a nationally syndicated TV show to give an interview about the events. But in his head, he told his assistant, I scheduled this lunch with that young man and a righteous man swears to his own hurt and he does not change. Wow. And he gave up being on a national television show to sit with a 16-year-old nobody and answer questions. And think about the humility of that, there's no such thing as a little person.

So it's like, hey, God elevates people who are willing to lower themselves. He just doesn't. That's good. I'm sorry. We interrupted you to. No, no, yeah. Keep telling us how to kill pride. As we interrupt you every time.

No, that's okay. ourselves. Let me tell you what I think. All right, I got two more quick ones. One is, man, just in the relationships that are closest to you, try and always be the first one to apologize. It's just a practice. I heard someone say one time that humility is more about your habits than it is an attitude. That if you do the right things for long enough, then all of a sudden the attitude comes, but you've got to make the right thing a habit. And I just, I mean, I just say that to you guys is always be the first one to apologize because what that generates and creates in you is it creates in you a heart that God can bless, right? That's one more. Tim, what if somebody would say, man, but what they did is probably like they have like 80% of the fault. And I just did this little thing. What would you say to that person?

Well, what I always say is like, yeah, but the relationship has to be more important than the victory, you know, in that situation. and a humble heart will always, in the long arc of things, is going to win past the who did what, right? And so to me, I just think it's always trying to posture your heart to apologize so that you can get to a place where then practically you can work out, hey, man, how can we do better on this business deal? How can we do better in this work relationship? But again, man, somebody's got to go first.

And I'm just saying if you want to be a humble person, a kind of person that God can bless, always strive to be the first to apologize, particularly in relationships that are closest to you. I would just say your wife needs that and your kids need to see you lead in that. Can I just say that? Yeah, man. Apologize to your kids. Exactly.

I think that's really important. And then last but not least, going back to one of the first things I said in regard to entitlement, if you can honor the boundaries of other people, what I've seen. in my life and what I've seen in the lives of people that I've been around who struggled with pride is, man, they ran over people's boundaries. And so, you know, like, sometimes you just need to be sensitive to people's boundaries, whatever that looks like practically. And if you've never thought that anybody had any boundaries, then probably you need to check

yourself. Anyway, that's my practical list. Best thing I've heard on this is C.S. Lewis, going back to your your conversation a minute ago, Pastor Josh. C.S. Lewis said this about pride. He said, as long as you're a pride, as long as you're full of pride, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people. And of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

And then you obviously, that's right from the passage we're talking about. If you'll notice Nebuchadnezzar starts chapter four, it says on his rooftop looking down at the kingdom he built. He ends the chapter. It says, I lifted my eyes to the most high. That's exactly what you just said. When you're looking down, you can't be looking up. And he starts looking down and he ends looking up. Any other thoughts, Josh, on just, man, this is how to kill pride.

This is what to do with it. Two things that struck me is, number one, I think we already talk about prayer. Worship is the exact opposite of pride. Agree. With pride, I'm seeking to be, I want the attention for me. With worship, we're giving it away. I'll say something like what I tell my kid, let me give a quick disclaimer. I'm going to use the word hell real quick.

We tell our kids we don't use the cuss word, but we do use the Bible word. I'm going to use the Bible word. So just go with me for a second here. This was really struck me. So Satan did not, it specifically says he did not want to worship. He wanted to be worshipped. That's what gets him kicked out of heaven. And so when we worship and when we want to be worshipped, pride, we're pulling hell down.

When we worship, and this is where I'm using the Bible word, not the cuss word. I mean this literally. When we worship, we're saying hell no. Hell no. We're saying heaven, yes. Heaven yes. I'm giving glory up. That's great.

Hell no. I don't want that in my life. I don't want pride in my life. I don't want God. So as hell no, heaven, yes, that's what happens when we worship. You'll notice this. C.J. Mahaney said this in an old book called Humility. I read it like 20 years ago.

He said, here's all humility is. It's just agreeing with the cross. That's all you're doing. The cross is looking at you saying, your sin was so bad that it required the death of the son of God to atone for. When we agree with the cross, if you look at the Apostle Paul, by the way,

this will get confused, being a humble person does not mean that you're a pushover. The Apostle Paul was a bold, assertive man. That's a really good clarification. It's not what it means. In fact, what you'll notice about very humble people is when they see something in the Word of God, their heart is in submission to it.

And their faces are set like Flint. They can look at everybody else in the whole world and say, you're wrong and he's right to the Lord. and so that, you know, they're very, you know, but if you watch the Apostle, Paul, it's really interesting. What he says about himself in the sequence of his books, it feels like, my little joke, it feels like a reverse testimony. He starts saying, man, you know, I'm the least of all the apostles.

And then he's like, oh, man, you know, I'm the least of all the saints. And then the last thing he writes is, I'm the chief of all sinners. Wow. And I'm progression. He's progressing down. Exactly. And what it is is the longer I'm a Christian and the more my eyes look up, the more I'm like, man, there is a big distance between me and the Almighty.

And you see yourself as lower and lower and lower. But the grace is the cross gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. That's good. That's good. The only other thing I'd say is, and I'll make it as a specific biblical application. So Philippians 2, our model of humility is Jesus. That's right. And Philippians 2 says that what Jesus did,

he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, which is remarkable because he was God. But he, quote, took the form of a servant. So you think, I'm going to go on a date with Jana here in about 20 minutes. We'll have a server at our restaurant. That person is equal to me. But what a server does is they choose to treat my needs as more significant than their own.

That's right. That's what a servant is. Great. So, like, I'll just brag on, you know, I think about a guy, I think about a guy like Mike Whitrock. Yeah. Serves over it, and it leads an eighth grade boys life group, I think. His guys in his group probably have no idea.

Mike Whitrock is the CEO of one of the largest companies in America. But he walks in there and he opens his Bible, puts a serving towel over his arm. and he washes the feet of eighth grade boys teaching them the word of God how to be men. And when you choose to put yourself in a place of service, one, there's a joy that comes with it because there's a joy that comes with humility. There's nothing like serving somebody. But two, it crucifies pride in you. And so this is not, this is not self-serving. It's not whatever. You need biblically, you are commanded to and you need. to find your place of service in the body of Christ.

When you do that, you are just like Jesus, taking the form of a servant. Beautiful. And watching people around you. So shameless plug, man, if you're part of Lake Point, you need to do the tech serve to 20411. And find the place of service. God has designed you to walk in

so that you can operate in a place of humility and crucify your pride. What do you all think? I think it's amazing. I think, I mean, just the whole time you're talking, I'm thinking about that Philippian 2 passage. Paul is saying, man, don't merely look out for your own interests, but also look out for the interest of others, right? Do nothing from selfishness or vain conceit, but with humility of mind, I mean, with humility of mind. Yeah.

You serve. It's beautiful. That's it. I think that's it. I think of Jesus before he was crucified, being with his disciples in that room. you know, he says all authority and power has been given to me. And what he does next is basically he gets a towel, gets on his knees. And he starts doing something that was for the lowest of the lowest slave at the time, something that would have been perhaps embarrassing.

Here's Jesus, the rabbi, the master, serving his disciples by cleaning and washing their feet. I mean, at the end of the day, this is, Jesus literally says in that passage, I'm doing this so that now you go and do the same. That's right. And so that's what we want to do by the grace of God. we want to grow in our likeness to Jesus. Amen. Yeah. Amen.

Man, that's a good word. Any other thoughts before we wrap? I think, man, that was a way to, that was a good word. I think we got it, man. Kingslayer. Kingslayer week one. Week one. Live free podcast.

Pastor Tim, would you please pray for us? I'd be happy to. Lord, we bless you and we do. We humble ourselves under your mighty and good and patient hand and say, God, thank you for grace. God, we pray. Just even as we read this word, I pray that this word would read us. And where we need convincing and convicting and changing, God, we want to give you permission to move in our life. And Lord, let your word be active in our life this week to make us more like you bent down and bent over and serving you and worshiping you and submitted to you. We love you

and bless you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks for joining us. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our Lake Point Church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all the digital resources of LakePoint, visit lakepoint.church slash live free.