The Doorway to Grace

00:02 He's my Lord. Thank you, Brother Aaron, for those songs this morning leading us in worship. It's a wonderful thing to be here in the house of the Lord this morning. And I want to just say I appreciate appreciation to each one who helped with Bible school this past week. It was an enjoyable week again. It seems like these Bible schools roll around pretty fast anymore. 00:22 But I know the children enjoyed it and appreciate the committee that worked at it again this year and those who really put their shoulders to the plow and their nose to the grindstone and did such a good job in pulling it off again this year. And we're still in medieval times here. 00:44 So bear with us on that. If you're a visitor this morning, that's part of this is not our normal church attire. But anyway, we have the drama this evening, unfortunately, because this is an off Sunday for us. We will not be able to be here this evening. We have a family reunion planned for this evening, this afternoon, this evening. So please, we beg you to have us excused. 01:05 All right. If you would turn in your copies of the Scriptures to the book of James. Last time I preached, we preached on the subject of grace. What is it? It's God at work in the heart and life. God's Spirit moving in and upon our hearts to accomplish His purposes in us and through us. 01:26 And we outlined that there are at least four areas that grace functions, and there are many, many more. But we pointed out four, and that is grace for salvation. By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For you are His workmanship created in Christ unto good works. 01:47 And then there's grace for our station in life, and that is to what God has called us to be and what He has called us to be and the gifts that He has given to us and the place He's called us to serve and the role that He has called us to fill in our Christian life is a gift of grace. 02:06 And we saw that in the life of the Apostle Paul as he said, "I am by the grace of God. I am what I am." And we can say that this morning. By the grace of God, we are what we are. And so there's grace for our station in life. Then thirdly, there's grace for our service. Grace for service. 02:27 That we may serve God acceptably with godly fear, the book of Hebrews says. So there's grace for our service. We talked a little bit about the gifts that God gives to His children to work in the church and to work in His kingdom. And those are grace gifts that when God moves upon the heart anytime, 02:47 brothers and sisters, that God moves upon our heart and is active in our lives to accomplish His purposes, it is a gift and a work of grace. And then finally, we talked about grace for our service. Grace for our... yeah. No, that was the third thing. Grace for our strength. 03:07 Whether it be dying grace or living grace or overcoming grace or equipping grace or relational grace, grace, whatever grace that we need is customized, tailor-made for the hour of temptation, for the hour of trial, the hour of difficulty. And when God shows up and moves on our hearts, 03:27 it is a work of grace. Now, I want to talk to you this morning about the pathway or the doorway to grace. Because there is a simple fact that grace can be... well, the Bible says that we can fall from grace. We can receive the grace of God in vain. 03:46 And we can have the grace of God made ineffective in our lives. So how does that happen? And so we turn our attention to what James had to say in the book of James, chapter four. Begin reading at verse six. But He gives more grace. 04:06 How many of you need more grace this morning? Amen? We need more grace. Need it for today. Need it for... needed it yesterday. Needed it today. Well, need it tomorrow as well. And He gives more grace, and we need that grace from our Lord. Therefore, He says, in view of the fact that He gives more grace, He says... 04:28 and this is how you lose grace and how you find grace. He says, "God resists the proud but gives grace to the..." what? 04:43 Humble. 04:44 Humble. God resists the proud. The word resist means to arrange against like an army in battle order. It means to oppose. And so God is arranged against the proud. But He gives grace: salvation grace, 05:04 station grace, serving grace, strength grace, equipping grace. He gives His grace daily, hourly, moment by moment to those who are humble, to the humbled. And so therefore, submit to God, verse seven. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 05:24 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. 05:44 Now, for a long time, I didn't understand the concept of this passage. And we're not going to unpack the whole passage this morning just looking at this thing of God resisting the proud and giving grace to the humble. But this is the doorway. This is the doorway into blessing. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God. 06:05 Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." And so we find that this is the doorway into grace: the humbling, the submitting, the cleansing, the purifying, the lament, the mourn, the weeping, and again, humbling. 06:24 And then we find out that that's how God's riches are activated in our lives is not by throwing a party but by humbling ourselves before Him and finding our rightful place under His authority. Now, I found a little... 06:39 a number of years ago, I found a little list that was rather intriguing: how to be perfectly miserable. Number one, think about yourself. How many of you think about yourself regularly? Yeah? Well, it doesn't help you much. Number two, talk about yourself. 07:00 Number three, use the personal pronoun "I" as often as possible in your conversation. Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others. In other words, I wonder what that person's thinking about me. Listen greedily to what people say about you. Insist on consideration and respect. 07:22 Demand agreement with your own views on everything. Salt if people are not grateful to you for favors shown them. Never forget a service you have rendered. Expect to be appreciated. Be suspicious. Be sensitive to slights. Be jealous and envious. 07:43 Never forget a criticism and trust nobody but yourself. And you will be perfectly miserable. Now, what those all things those have in common is that they're all a result of pride. Pride is about me, my, mine, and what I want, what I need, what I'm looking for. 08:05 And you can take the most humble-looking person who can be still filled with much, much pride because their attention and focus is on self rather than on God and on others. Now, if we're going to receive grace, we're going to have to lay that stuff aside. And because God resists the proud, He stands arranged against them. 08:27 He will oppose them, those whose lives are defined by pride. But He gives more grace to the humble. He gives grace for conviction and repentance and conversion and character and service and consolation. 08:42 Whatever state you are at, God working in your life to accomplish His purpose is a work of grace that is activated by repenting of pride and humbling ourselves under the hand of God. Now, what is humility and what is pride? Pride is the root of all kinds of things. 09:02 It is the attitude of self-sufficiency, self-will, and selfishness. It literally means in the Greek to appear over, to appear over. Or in other words, we call it looking down on somebody, looking down on people. When you appear over, you're looking down. 09:20 And so that's the biblical definition of pride: to appear over. It has the idea of self-sufficiency, self-will, self-interest, selfishness, and self-centeredness. 09:33 Humility, on the other hand, is simply the recognition of the attitude of recognition of my need for God and for others. You see, you can be humble in relationship to God and say, "Lord, I need You." And that's one thing. But then you need humility in relationship to others as well, 09:53 saying, "I need You as God's gift of grace to work in my life as well." And so there's humility toward God and humility towards man, towards one another. And we need them both, both recognizing our own sense of need. And this is difficult in an era, in a day where we have no needs. 10:14 We are pretty well self-sufficient. We're self-contained. We don't need anybody to help us. And we like to live that way. But part of growing in grace is the grace needed to receive from one another and the grace needed to give to one another as God has given to us. 10:35 Now, I want to show you a couple of things. So we're going to turn to a number of passages this morning. So turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter six. Because what I want to show you is that it is very possible for grace to have been activated and then for grace for us to fail that grace. 10:57 So grace is available, but we may fail to access that grace. So 2 Corinthians, chapter six, verse one, "We then, as workers together with Him, also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain." How do you receive the grace of God in vain? 11:20 Well, I'm not exactly sure what all that means and what all that verse has to say other than just that it warns us that it is possible to receive the grace of God and then the grace of God to no longer be active in our lives. The word "vain" there means empty, means empty. 11:38 It is possible for us to receive the grace of God, to function in that grace, and then to have that grace become empty and distant from us. How is that? Because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. 11:55 So when there's pride in our lives and arrogance and a condescending attitude and a self-centered motivation and a peering down at others, then we can actually lose the grace of God. Now, you say, 12:15 "Let's talk about that some more." Well, turn in your Bibles to Galatians, chapter five, verse four. Can a person lose the grace of God? Well, Galatians, chapter five, verse four, "You have become estranged from Christ. 12:33 You who attempt to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. For we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." Now, this message is not primarily about whether or not a person can lose their salvation. 12:53 But it is interesting that he does talk here about falling from grace. In other words, you started out with grace and you understood the grace of God for salvation, but you stopped there. And you didn't go for more grace because pride kicks in and says, 13:14 "You know, I need God to save me. But God, I got it from here. I'm good from here on. And so I'll let you know if I need something from you." And quite frankly, that's how many of us live our Christian lives, if that can even be called a Christian life. "God, I know I need your grace to save me. 13:35 But as far as where I serve, how I serve, and then I know if I need the strength, your strength for the big stuff. But other than that, I've got it. I've pretty much got it, God." And then God withdraws Himself, His grace, not in different ways and different times. But grace becomes deactivated in our lives. 13:55 And so these people, they said, "We know that you're saved by grace. But then you got to go back and keep keeping the law. You're kept by works. You're kept by... you're saved by grace, kept by works." And Paul says, "No, no, no, no, no. The same grace that saves you is the same grace that keeps you. 14:15 It's activated and continues to be activated by faith in the person and finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and by humility that says, 'I need God in every area of my life.'" You see, it is not biblical that the Lord helps those who help themselves. 14:34 It is biblical that the Lord helps those who cannot help themselves and who recognize that they cannot help themselves. And they call upon Him for strength. Now, there's one other passage that I want to refer to. And that is in Hebrews, chapter... 14:56 let's see... chapter 12, verse 15. Hebrews 12:15, 14 and 15, "Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully." There's again a warning. Looking carefully. There's a warning here. "Looking carefully. 15:16 Lest anyone fall short of the grace of God." There you have it again. Falling short, receiving it in vain, falling from. "Lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. And by this, many become defiled." It's interesting that the lack of grace, 15:37 falling short of grace, is linked to the root of bitterness, the root of bitterness. 15:44 And basically, the root of bitterness is this: I do not have enough or I am not able or willing to extend to my fellow man that which I have received from God. 16:04 And so it's a little bit like a pipeline 16:13 that if you have a pipeline and you have a source coming into that pipeline that then feeds out a whole bunch of different directions. When the pipeline gets plugged in one of those feeder lines, it backs up the whole system. That's what Jesus had in mind when He said, 16:34 "Unless you are willing to forgive those who trespass against you, I will not forgive you, your trespasses." So it's not just that it backs it up a little bit. You know, I got a little bit of bitterness toward this fellow over here. And I'll just keep nursing that. And but the love will keep flowing to everybody else. Oh, no, it doesn't work that way. 16:54 It restricts the flow, restricts the flow. And so it's interesting here that falling short of the grace of God is related to bitterness and the pride that goes along with bitterness, which says, "Your sin against me is greater than my sin against God," which then is an act and an attitude of pride. 17:17 Brother Aaron shared it with us this morning. Our sin against the Lord is great and horrible if we understood it. 17:29 And when I will not forgive my brother or sister, then what I'm saying is that your sin against me is greater than my sin against God because God was willing to forgive me, but I'm not willing to forgive you. And it backs up the whole system. And grace becomes restricted. 17:52 So pride, pride cuts off the flow of grace. God's response to pride, well, we've already seen it here in our text verse. God resists the proud but gives grace unto the humble. So what does the Scripture say about pride? 18:08 Scripture says in Proverbs 8:13, "Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate." Proverbs 8:15-25 says, "The Lord will destroy the house of the proud." Remember, He sets His army against and opposes the proud. The Lord will destroy the house of the proud. 18:29 Proverbs 16:5, "Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join hand or though they join forces, He shall not be unpunished." Luke, chapter one, "He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree." 1 Timothy, 18:51 chapter three, verse six, in the qualifications for leadership and pastoral leadership in the church says that he should not be a minister, should not be a novice. "Lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." Psalm 12:3 and 4, 19:09 "The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud things who have said, 'With our tongue will we prevail. Our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us?'" Pride, pride. We don't need God. We don't need others. We are self-sufficient without Him. Now, where does that come from? 19:30 Go to the Old Testament and let's look at where the root of this comes from. Where is the root of pride? Go to Isaiah, chapter 14. Isaiah, chapter 14. 19:44 And you can probably, some of you can probably guess where we're going with this because Isaiah 14 is the account of the destruction of Lucifer. Why was Lucifer evicted from heaven? It says in chapter 14, verse 12, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. 20:05 How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations. For you have said in your heart, 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. 20:25 I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol.'" You see, He allowed His beauty, the beauty that was God given, a gift of grace to Lucifer. He allowed that beauty to become a vain thing, a vain thing. 20:46 And Ezekiel, chapter 28. Turn over to that yet quickly. Ezekiel 28, verse 17. We know also this is a parallel passage to the Isaiah 14 passage. We see Lucifer and Satan in his pristine estate. Exodus or Ezekiel 28:11, 21:08 "Moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God.'" Now, this is being addressed to the king of Tyre. But what's actually being done here is He is addressing the spirit behind the king of Tyre, which was Lucifer and Satan. 21:27 So God says of him, "You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, the diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. 21:47 The workmanships of your timbers and pipes was created for you on the day you were created." Some people look at this and say that Satan was probably the worship leader in heaven. He talks about the timbers and the pipes and Lucifer having access to those things, 22:09 which would put in perspective a lot of the music issues of evil music that has plagued our world since for many, many years because Satan desires worship. He desires music, music dedicated to him, music that makes him glorified. 22:29 And so then he says, "You were the anointed cherub who covers," verse 14, "I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones. 22:41 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you." Yes, this was a work and a gift of grace that God had made this Lucifer a primary leader in the angelic world. "By the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within and you sinned. 23:03 Therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. 23:21 I laid you before kings that they might gaze at you." And you could go on and read more. So what we're talking about here is the sin of pride. Where does it come from? It comes from Satan. It comes from Lucifer. And Jesus said of the Pharisees, 23:42 "You are of your father, the devil, because of your pride, because of your lies, and because of your murderous heart." And God is still resisting the proud. In fact, you can go through a lot of people's sins. I'm going to just do that just briefly. 24:03 If you go back to Genesis, chapter four, and look at Cain, look at Cain. And what cut him off from God was his prideful, arrogant rebellion. So in Genesis, chapter four, verse three, you know the account how God had told them to bring sacrifices. 24:24 And we don't have record of that. He told them what kind of sacrifices to bring. But we believe that God had given them the evidence and the example of offering a blood sacrifice. And so in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 24:43 And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. I think maybe Cain had found this list of how to be perfectly miserable. I think maybe Cain had kind of invented that. 25:05 And so he was guilty of self-will. "I will come to God in the way that I want to come to God, not in the way that God tells me to come." Verse five, he fell into anger. Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. He started sulking and pouting. 25:25 He was proud. He was proud. I don't know if this implies that Cain would have had to go to Abel to get one of his sheep. I'm not sure. I won't go quite there. 25:39 But at any rate, he wasn't about to show Abel that his sacrifice was in any way inferior to Cain's himself. And then his final appeal was in verse six. "So the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? 25:59 And if you do not well, do well. Sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.'" That was Cain's opportunity to repent and to humble himself. All he would have had to do to humble himself is to say, "Yes, Lord. 26:18 Yes, Lord." Two of the most difficult words for the carnal man to say, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. I come into agreement with you. I come under your authority, Lord God. I'm going to bring my attitude. I'm going to bring my offering. I'm going to bring my relationship with my brother. I'm going to bring it all under your authority and say, 26:37 'Yes, Lord, 26:38 because I know that I need you and I know that I have to have you or I am nothing.'" His rebellion was his answer. Now, Cain talked with Abel, his brother. And it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. 27:01 Verse eight, his pride resulted in the hatred and murder. Verse nine, it led to lying to God. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" He said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" "Sure, Cain, you knew where he was. You buried him under a pile of rocks. And yes, you are your brother's keeper. 27:21 You should know and be accountable for your brother." But he didn't need Abel either. Didn't need God. Didn't need Abel. And so God said, "I'm going to just let you live according to the end result of your choices." And so in verse twelve, God said, "When you till the ground, 27:40 it shall no longer yield its strengths to you. A fugitive and a vagabond, you shall be on the earth." A fugitive and a vagabond. You're going to be cut off, Cain. And Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Surely you have driven me out this day from the face of the ground. I shall be hidden from your face." Remember, 28:02 James, God resists the proud. He, like an army arrayed against the proud, opposes them at every step. "I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond from the earth. 28:19 And it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me." And the Lord then made a deal with Cain to protect him in some way. Nebuchadnezzar was another example. Herod was another example. Acts 12, verse 23, Herod gave a great speech and had a rounding standing ovation, applause. 28:41 And God attacked him on the spot. The Bible says he had worms that ate him from the inside out, I guess from the inside out. Why? Because he gave not glory to God. He gave not glory to God. God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble. 29:01 So what are the manifestations of pride in our lives? Some things that we do that we may not think about as being manifestations of pride, but they are. 29:17 One thing that is done is for a person who can never be wrong. You know anybody like that? Never be wrong. They'll never say, "I'm sorry." Well, they don't have to say, "I'm sorry," because they're never wrong. If you're never wrong, you don't have to say, "You're sorry. Please forgive me," because your problem was not your problem. 29:36 It was the other person's problem who took offense in a way that you didn't mean to. And that happens. But it is possible that there is an attitude in some of us, in some people, not picking on anybody in particular. 29:52 I'm talking about myself, that when I cannot admit that I am wrong is an example of pride. In Chuck Colson's book, Born Again, which is about his experiences in the White House with President Nixon during Watergate, Colson says that one of Nixon's problems was he could never admit he was wrong in anything. 30:13 One of the reasons politicians can't admit they're wrong is because if they do, they're going to have a trail of lawyers on their tail to sue the socks off of them and throw them in jail or an equivalent for a president. He can never admit he was wrong in anything. In fact, Colson said that even when Nixon obviously had a cold, his nose was running, his face was red, 30:31 he's sneezing, and had all the symptoms of a cold, he would never admit it. He could not show any weakness. Sound like anybody you know? Sound like maybe somebody else knows about you? Well, that's not all. Drawing attention to self, I, I, I. 30:51 And 30:54 it was said of Nixon, I think it was Nixon, that he had to be he had to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. So in other words, he could go to a wedding and it was about him. And he'd go to a funeral and it was about him. Everything was about him, about me, I, I, I. 31:16 Number two, number three, anger and bitterness are a result of pride, anger and bitterness. How dare they do this to me? How dare they do this to me? How dare they do this? I don't deserve this and maybe you don't. 31:35 But the focus then is upon us and what we deserve or what we don't deserve or what we think we deserve or what we think we don't deserve, rather than saying, "God, what is it that you're trying to make me? What are you trying to teach me? What is it that you're trying to form and fashion in me?" And this is a lot easier to say than to do. 31:56 A lot easier said than done. But be careful if you find yourself angry and bitterness because they had no right to do that to me. Now, here's another one, inferiority. An inferiority complex can be a sign of pride. You've heard me say this before. 32:15 Inferiority, a focus of attention on self and my weaknesses. You probably heard me, some of you heard me use this illustration before. I talked to a lady one time. She was one of our ministry teams. And she said, "I don't like to go to other places in Sunday school because when I walk in the room, 32:33 I feel like everybody's looking at me." And so I said, "Well, you really are proud, aren't you? 32:40 To think that everybody would be looking at you when you walk in a room." "Well, they might not like what I have on or they might." "Well, do you think they even notice?" "No. But there's one thing about being conscious and aware of our surroundings and so on. 32:55 But a person who's governed by inferiority and fear can be a sign of pride, pride. It's about self. It's about me. It's about my way, my approval, approval of me. Strife, demanding my own way. 33:15 If you go back there to the book of James in chapter four, he says, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members you lust and do not have? You murder and covenant cannot obtain. You fight and war." Yeah. Why? 33:34 Because the attention is on self. So strife, strife can be a form of pride. "Only by pride comes contention," Proverbs says. "But with the well-advised is wisdom." Arrogance, looking down on others who are different from me. Yes, 33:53 we have people that are different, different color, different race, different religion, different this or that, different way of speaking, different way of addressing life. And sometimes we just get our chin up and we say, "God, I thank you that I'm not like the Baptists." Or, "I thank you that I'm not like the Catholics." Or, 34:13 "I thank you that I'm not." And rather than having sympathy and empathy and care for a person's soul, we thank God for what we are not like. May I remind you of the man, the Pharisee and the sinner who went into the temple to pray. And the sinner just smote himself on the breast, 34:35 say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner," while the Pharisee was praying, "Oh, God, I thank you that I'm not like this sinner over here." And we can be thankful that we're not living in sin because but that's a gift of grace. It's not because we're so great. That's the difference. It's not because we're so well-taught that we're so great. 34:56 We're white. We're Anglo. 35:01 We've got it all together. We're Mennonites. We're Anabaptists. It's not that. Anything that we have is a gift of grace. And I just want that to be shared. 35:11 It's a totally different attitude than saying, "God, I thank you that I'm not like." Some people have to have name brands, name brands on their shirts and on their clothes and on their 35:27 I had a name brand coat one time that I wasn't proud at all from it. It was a good coat. It was a coat that I needed. It was a coat that kind of I kind of liked it. And I bought it in the thrift store. Now, somebody could come along and say, "Brother Todd has to wear a name brand clothes." You don't know that because you can't see my heart. But the fact of the matter was, 35:48 it was on sale in a thrift store. And it lasted me a long time. I still wear it sometimes. But where I have to have this, I have to have this article from this fashion engineer and this name brand and this and you say, 36:09 "What's the point?" Because I want to look good to others rather than I want to look good to God. And if it happens to have a name label on it, praise God. But it doesn't have to have. That's my point. Appearing above others, appearing above others, being above correction. 36:30 How many of you remember when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up in 1983, '86? I remember where I was. We were pastoring a little mission church out in Oregon. And according to the New York Times, I believe it was, yeah, the New York Times put it frankly, why that space shuttle blew up. 36:52 "The ultimate cause of the space shuttle disaster was pride. A group of top managers failed to listen carefully to the warnings of those down the line who were concerned about the operational reliability of certain parts of the booster rocket under conditions of abnormal stress. 37:13 The people in charge were confident that they knew best and that they should not change the launch schedules. And they were wrong." Not allowing ourselves to be corrected, not allowing ourselves to be approachable. Materialism, 37:34 measuring my value by the amount of stuff and money I possess, modesty, immodesty. At the root of immodesty is a spirit of pride which wants attention for myself, for my body, for my lack of clothing, adequate clothing. 37:54 Emphasis on possessions, emphasis on comfort, satisfying my flesh, emphasis on rights. You have no right to do that to me. Seeing self through position rather than through service. Well, I am at this position in my company or this position in the church or this position in the community. 38:16 And therefore, that's who I am. No, that's not who you are. That's what you do. But who I am needs to be humble and approachable or God will resist us. Needing to be noticed, standing out, being different for the sake of being noticed, being different just to be different. 38:38 I ponder on those people who make statements by strange appearance, strange appearance. Now, it's more common today to see people with strangely colored hair. But it always makes me wonder, wonder why that person has that strange colored hair. I wonder what's going on inside of them. 38:59 And not to necessarily judge them and say, "I think you're crazy or whatever." I may think that, but I try not to let that out. Or it's different not to be offensive. But I think what because a lot of those people who want to make a statement also want to fit in. 39:21 And so young people are especially like this sometimes. They want to fit in, but they want to be different. So it's a matter of who do you want to fit in with and who do you want to be different from? And why is it important to be different? And why is it important to fit in? Because we get something out of it, some sort of affirmation. 39:41 Rather than coming to God and saying, "God, I may not like the way that you did this, but I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it." And I say, "God, whatever you did with this, whether it be well, the Lord hadn't planned to share this. 40:01 But the Lord allowed me in my youth to have severe acne. 40:08 God, I don't like this. And my parents did everything we could to try to overcome it. Don't like it. But God, well, deal with it. God, I may not like the way that you did this, but it's okay. It's okay. I come under. I'll humble myself. And submit myself to you." And so there's 101, 40:29 1,001 different things that we can draw attention to ourselves in one way or another. But to just come to the place, brothers and sisters, and I know this is hard, especially for young people. When you get to be a grandpa, it's like, "I am what I am by the grace of God." And you can either like it or not like it. It's not going to change who I am. 40:51 I'll change what I do, how I come across. I can do a lot of changing. But I am who I am. And it doesn't matter as much. But when you're young, it seems to matter. And that's okay to a certain degree. We have peers. We have peer pressure, which is another can be another step of pride, 41:12 blending into the demands and standards of the world, needing to be acknowledged, not able to deflect praise. Corey Tenboom told the story of a woodpecker. There's a little fable or a little parable. This woodpecker was pecking away. And as he pecked away on this old tree trunk, a thunderstorm came in and blew through. 41:34 And that tree trunk got hit by lightning. And the woodpecker flew off. He said, "Man, look what I just did." Pride, pride. Somebody told me about a rabbi and a New England minister. The New England minister, he said he was so proud that one of his ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. 41:53 The other one, the Jew said, the rabbi said, "That's nothing. My ancestors signed the Ten Commandments." So many different ways that we try to get up there, make ourselves a little bit more important. And why is that so important? Why is it so important to us? 42:13 A gopher and a rabbit. 42:18 No, it's a beaver, a beaver and a rabbit. We're looking up at the Hoover Dam. And the beaver said, "I didn't build it, but it was based on a design of mine." Again, why does it have to be such? Why does it have to be such? Spiritual pride, 42:37 thinking myself to be more spiritual than others, closer to God, more holy, 42:48 more knowledgeable, more talented, more gifted. And God resists us. He resists the proud. How do you access grace? By repenting of pride and humbling ourselves, coming to God, saying, "God, I need you. 43:10 I can't even walk," the songwriter said, "without you holding my hand. I can't even get out of bed because you're the one that gives me the gift of life and breath. I know nothing without you. I can do nothing without you. Everything I have, even my very sanity, 43:32 is a gift from God, a gift of grace." Let's pray. Lord, there's so much pride in us. Even in our biblically oriented dress, we can be proud. 43:52 We can be proud in plain clothes. We can be proud in driving a Junker instead of a Cadillac. There's pride on both sides of the road. There's ditches on both sides of the road. 44:04 Father, I pray that you, by your Spirit, will show us the pride in our own hearts, not to identify the pride in somebody else's heart, but to identify the pride in my heart, to repent, to humble myself. 44:23 And then we'll have the grace to resist the devil. And we'll have the grace that he will flee from us. In Jesus' name. Amen.