Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #217 When Pride Blocks Revival: Finding Humility and Grace

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#217 When Pride Blocks Revival: Finding Humility and Grace · The OneCry Podcast

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  Music.
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  Life and breakthroughs have come with some element of fasting.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  So welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with my brother in Christ, Bill Eliff, here today.
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  That you'd give us a few minutes on a car ride or maybe a quiet place or on
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  a walk, wherever you are, to talk about prayer, to talk about revival and awakening,
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  things that I know Bill and I are fired up about and that God shaped our lives through.
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  And today, I think it's a cornerstone message in light of this.
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  And I don't know, Bill, have you ever been around a person that,
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  honestly, and we can all do this, I always call them the person that wants to
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  be known in the setting that takes over.
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  Well, I really have. And one guy just drives me nuts about that that I get around.
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  And I've been dealing with him for 73 years.
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  Yeah, right, right. It's me. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. You just think that there
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  would come a point where you'd just be done with this besetting sin of pride.
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  But it's just, I think we're going to fight it till we die, probably.
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  Yeah, no doubt. Well, I always kid around. I was a coach, you know,
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  before God called me into ministry.
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  And in the coaching world, you'd always say, he's a topper.
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  No matter how big your story was, no matter how great a story of a game was,
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  there's always a guy that's the topper.
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  You know, he'd always, you know, at some point probably making it up,
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  you know, so he could top the last story.
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  But I remember the Lord used that in my life to say, hey, that's that's innate in you, Kyle.
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  You want to find your way to the top. And yet, and what the scripture does and
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  what Jesus modeled is that if you want to be a leader, you work your way to
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  the bottom, you know, to be a servant.
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  So, man, I know in light of 73 years of battling that and leading through that
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  and in light of awakening and revival, man, let's talk about the elephant in
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  the room and in our heart.
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  Let's talk about pride. Well, and I'll tell you why.
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  I'll tell our listeners why we're doing this today.
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  And we want to focus on one little verse that's found three times in the Bible.
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  James 4, 6, it says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
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  And I'll tell you why we're doing it is early this morning, I got up as I normally
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  do to meet with the Lord, and I just felt dry and distant.
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  And I just realized, you know, it's been a few days since I've heard anything fresh from the Lord.
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  And I was going to prepare for our taping of this podcast, and I just got before the Lord.
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  And once again, he reminded me of this culprit called pride.
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  I will tell you a little story. Years ago, in 1986, we had this group called
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  Life Action that I would later serve with.
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  Come to our church in Norman, Oklahoma for a two-week meeting.
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  And Dale Faisenfeld, the founder of that, was still alive and was preaching that meeting.
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  And I said on the front row, our church was really needy.
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  We were in a real crisis for the soul of that church and a real battle.
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  And I just, man, I just said, God, we've got to have you. We need a movement here.
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  And I sit on the front row, Kyle, and I said, Lord, I want you to begin right here.
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  I don't want you to go to the second row or the third row. I want you to just,
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  if you would be so kind, just do it in me.
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  And I don't know how far we were into those two weeks.
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  But one night, the Lord just said, okay, Bill.
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  And he started, in my spirit, just asking me a series of questions like, Bill,
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  you know why you're so upset when your wife doesn't even remember the sermon
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  you preached, you know, on the way home from church?
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  And why didn't she tell you how great it was and what you did? That's pride.
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  You know why you always weave yourself in the conversation and you want to make
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  sure that everybody knows that how good you did and what you've accomplished? That's pride.
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  And I'm telling you, it was and I got down on my knees and then I got down on my face.
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  Del was preaching and I got down on my face and I don't know how long it lasted.
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  It seemed like hours, but of course it wasn't. but the Lord took me through
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  the most intensive journey.
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  Examination that I have maybe ever been through about this.
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  And I'll never forget it. It was bittersweet because it was grueling.
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  It was just hard because he showed me how much of my life was just filled with pride.
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  But it was precious. You know, it wasn't when the Lord convicts.
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  It may be painful, but it's not merciless.
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  He does that with an intent to restore and to redeem and to teach.
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  And so it was the most precious thing. And I have really never gotten over that.
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  And I saw for the first time in my life that pride is the mother of all sin.
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  You know, pride is the big I, right? I mean, they'll used to say P-R-I-D-E.
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  And that I in the middle is the foundation of it all.
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  Pride is I know better than God. Pride is I want my way more than God.
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  And so when you trace any sin back to its root, its root is in that pride.
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  So, Kyle, I want you to think with me just for our listeners.
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  What are some of the sins that come out of the root of pride?
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  If you think about this, for instance, I think about unforgiveness.
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  And and you say well that's just
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  somebody does something to me it hurts me and i
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  have a right you know to hold on to
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  that and i want to i want to make them pay and all that that comes and it can
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  turn into bitterness if you hold on to it too long which absolutely can destroy
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  life for a whole life can destroy life well the bottom of that is pride it's i i have rights,
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  You know, I want I don't deserve to be treated like that. How dare she say that to me?
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  Right. And all of that is just pride, pride, pride. And, you know,
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  Jesus, they said it to him.
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  They accused him. They lambasted him.
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  And yet, like a lamb, he didn't open his mouth and he constantly forgave them.
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  Even on the cross, he forgave them.
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  So that's one issue that's at the heart of the sin of forgiveness. It's just pride. Yeah.
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  Yeah, it makes me think, Bill, as you're saying that, I'm reminded of how often
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  God shows me that I want to be in control.
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  Yeah. And I remember COVID, you know, as a pastor, and one of the hardest parts
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  of leading through that moment is coming to the realization,
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  which was true, is I'm not in control.
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  You know and and and what god had
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  to remind me and show me that say kyle this is a pride
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  issue you know that that you want you
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  want to be the one that can ultimately make the decision you want to be the
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  master of your own soul you know you're going to be the one that charts the
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  course for your destiny but the i don't want that i would never say that but
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  i want to but i want to live like that.
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  And you don't think about the connection. One time, Holly and I were coming
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  away from a state meeting of some kind, and this guy had preached.
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  And honestly, he was kind of a really obnoxious guy to me in the way that he carried himself.
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  And I would say a proud guy. You know, and and and so I and he cut corners in ministry and I knew it.
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  And yet he was being exalted. He was getting this opportunity to preach to the state.
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  And I was kind of just mumbling about that with my wife.
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  And Holly said, I had just preached on jealousy the week before.
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  And Holly said, I didn't know you're jealous of him.
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  I said, I'm not jealous of him. And she said, well, you preached last week that
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  jealousy springs out of the pride.
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  It says, I want what they have. And how dare they get that instead of me?
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  But it's just pride. It's this heart of me. I want me. I want to be exalted.
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  And we could just go through. Honestly, you think of any sin that you struggle with. Gossip.
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  What is that? That's pulling somebody down so that you can look better.
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  I mean, when you say, you know, can you believe she did that?
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  It's like, I would never do that.
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  And so it's exalting yourself, hatred, anger, bitterness, you know,
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  always exalting yourself, always comparing.
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  You know, here's one that'll get you, Kyle, and that is a man-pleasing, man-fearing spirit.
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  The Lord really taught me this lesson in Norman O'Komey. He taught me a lot
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  when I was in Norman in the 80s.
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  And because I always prided myself as a peacemaker, that if I got in a situation,
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  And I could usually, you know, get people to kind of settle down and be at peace.
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  But what I was doing a lot of time was not confronting issues that need to be confronted.
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  And the reason I wasn't confronting them is that I wanted to be liked by everybody.
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  And what is that? That's pride. The heart of a man-fearing, man-pleasing spirit.
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  I remember I had this guy in my church that was just really causing trouble.
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  And he stood up in this meeting and did it once again. You know,
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  it was like a business meeting, which is the bane of church.
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  And he said something and just, you know, darkness came over the whole room
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  and it just torpedoed everything. And I went in my study and I said,
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  Lord, what are we going to do about this guy?
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  And he said, Bill, you know why he's doing that?
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  It's because you're letting him be the pastor of the church.
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  And the reason you're doing that is because you want to be liked by everybody.
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  And the reason you're doing that is pride.
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  Are you willing to just say what I want you to say, even if some people don't like you?
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  And just, you know, not worry about people's opinions and et cetera. So, yeah.
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  We could go on and on about that, but I would say to all of our listeners and
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  to you and me that if they're having a struggle right now with any sin,
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  just walk it back and you'll find that there's pride there.
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  Now, there's something interesting that that verse says about pride, Kyle.
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  It says, God resists the proud.
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  And I heard an illustration by a leader from Campus Crusade one time.
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  And he said, you know, these linemen for pro football, they're just massive.
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  They start eating them raw meat in the third grade, and they're 350 pounds with no body fat.
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  And just imagine getting, let's say you're an offensive lineman and a defensive
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  lineman, and he looks at you and says,
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  you say, I'm going to resist you today, you say to this defensive lineman.
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  And I'm going to punch you. I'm going to try to claw your, I'd like to try to
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  break one of your appendages.
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  And so for the next 60 minutes, this 350-pound lineman is opposing you.
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  But he said, now imagine this. He said, imagine you get up on Monday and you
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  get down on your all fours and you're ready to go raise your family,
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  run your business. and you look up and across the line, there's God.
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  And God says, son, I'm going to oppose you today.
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  I'm going to resist you. You say, well, God, I thought we were friends.
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  I'm your child. I'm your son. I'm your daughter, you know, whatever it is.
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  And God says, yeah, you are, but I'm going to oppose you because you want to do this yourself.
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  And I have not given up on the possibility that you will learn that that's not the way this works.
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  Just think about that. I mean, this is a real Bible verse.
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  God resists the proud.
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  That's a real thing and a reality.
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  But listen to this flip side of this. but God gives grace.
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  In fact, it's an intensive little phrase. It's like he pours out grace to,
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  on the humble. So let's look at two words in that.
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  First of all, what's humility?
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  And my buddy, Dale Faisenfeld, before he died, always used to describe humility
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  as admitting your sin and acknowledging your need.
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  The proud man never does that. He's always self-sufficient. He's got it. He's in control.
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  Well, let me do that. I can handle that. I'll take that. Let me be in charge of that.
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  Let me finish your sentences because you can't apparently do it well enough. That's the proud man.
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  And he never admits his sin.
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  You know, proud men hardly ever ask for forgiveness.
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  But a humble man admits his sin and acknowledges his need constantly.
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  That's one way of saying what humility is.
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  God says, now look at this other word, God resists the proud,
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  but he gives grace to the humble.
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  There's different ways and shades of what grace is. How would you describe grace?
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  Yes. I think mercy is when God doesn't give us what we deserve.
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  Right. Grace is when God goes beyond that and gives us something we could never earn.
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  Yeah. You know, it's where God just lavishes on us like, hey,
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  it's not that we just don't deserve this is that God goes, yeah,
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  but I'm going to do you one better.
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  I'm going to go beyond that and I'm going to pour out something on you that you could never earn.
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  Yeah. And we often see it translated as undeserved favor, you know.
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  And again, some guys in my past,
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  describe that a little more, that there's two parts of the grace of God.
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  There's the undeserved favor, God just giving you what you don't deserve.
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  But then, you know, Paul says, I am what I am by the grace of God.
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  His grace worked in me, you know. So there's another definition of grace we could say.
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  It's this divine quality that God gives.
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  That gives us the desire and the power to do what God asks us to do.
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  So in other words, I don't have the desire to obey God. I don't have the ability
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  to obey God. God says, I'm going to give you grace.
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  I'm going to give you grace. I'm going to give you what you don't have.
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  And it's a divine enabling is another way to say that.
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  So here's a proud man who says, I got this. You know, I can handle this.
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  God says, OK, go ahead and see how good that goes.
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  Let's just let's just let's just watch what happens when self is in control.
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  But then the humble man who says, God, I can't.
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  I can't do this. I can't. I don't know how to love my wife. I don't know how to raise my kids.
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  I don't know how to handle my finances.
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  I don't have I don't know how to do my job. I don't know how to think right.
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  I don't know how to talk right. And he has that spirit about him of humility,
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  this humble, broken spirit.
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  And he comes to the Lord and God says, okay, that's the guy that I am going to pour out grace.
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  I'm going to give him a greater measure of grace than the next guy that will
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  give him the desire to obey me,
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  but also the ability to obey me, that he wouldn't have any other way but by
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  the grace of God. Isn't that a beautiful thought? It is.
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  Yeah, you have to think that a proud man is already full of himself. Yeah.
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  But a humble man has emptied himself, which avails him for grace,
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  for God to pour out grace. So I remember I heard early in ministry,
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  Steve Gaines, our buddy, said one time, when pride walks in, Jesus walks out.
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  And it just stuck in my mind and spirit.
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  And I thought, boy, that's a true statement because there's not room.
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  For the Lord in that moment, because our pride has filled the moment,
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  the stage and all those things.
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  And I just encourage our listeners today and thinking all you just said.
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  I think you mentioned that moment where you're face down. You know,
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  that was a breakthrough in your battle against pride. Now, you still have to wrestle.
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  But that was a breakthrough place.
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  Yeah, breakthrough. I had that. Same. You heard me tell a story many times.
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  God called me to a 21-day fast, ready to hear from God every day,
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  thinking I'm going to wake up to manna each morning.
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  And for 19 days, I had never felt more distant from God than in my life.
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  It was, I'm hungry and I'm not hearing from God.
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  And what God did for 19 days now, he got real quiet so I could hear real clear.
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  And on the 19th day, I woke up way early in the morning, came to the church and I laid at the altar.
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  And I was just devastated. Like, what's going on, God?
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  Is there something that I've done that's quenched? I don't understand what I'm experiencing.
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  And that morning, the Lord came to me and said, Kyle, do you want to see your pride?
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  And just in my spirit, he showed me the root of pride that grew out of my heart.
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  And God showed me specific in that moment. Kyle, let me show you pride in your preaching.
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  Kyle, let me show you pride in your ministry. Let me show you pride in your
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  marriage. Like in, God, let me show you pray.
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  And he went down and I was finally could see it.
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  And then I was disgusted by it.
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  And I realized that, hey, this is a core issue in me.
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  And I repented and God cut away and I repented and God cut away until I was
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  finally clean. And I've told you this before, I remember that morning.
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  I was in 19 days now and heard a word from the Lord. But now God is as clear
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  as me and you talking to me about my pride. And I asked the Lord,
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  I said, Lord, where do we go from here?
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  You know, and I just felt in my spirit, God say to me, we'll start all over tomorrow morning.
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  Because these things, they grow. They grow and I have to put to death.
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  Well, that was a breakthrough place.
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  That was a moment that changed the war, made me aware of what's going on.
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  And so I'd pray for our listeners that you'd have your breakthrough moment in
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  your personal war against pride.
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  Well, you know, and honestly, there are some tools.
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  Fasting. It's interesting that David said, no less than King David, who is a model of this.
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  He said in Psalm, I believe it's Psalm 35, 13, I humbled my soul.
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  And I think your soul is your mind and your emotions and your will.
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  So my mind is, you know, unrenewed and my emotions are untamed a lot of times. And my will is unbroken.
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  And I'm just, I just, that part of me, which is the flesh is the carnal,
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  the soulish part of me is the part that if I'm not careful and not listening
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  to the spirit that rules my life.
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  And causes all this garbage to come out, how did David humble it?
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  He humbled it through fasting.
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  And so fasting was depriving yourself of the things you wanted in order to just
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  bring that under control.
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  And there's something powerful of that. And I think you and I both would,
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  although fasting is not the key to everything, I think you and I would both
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  say that probably most of our most significant spiritual experiences in life
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  and breakthroughs have come with some element of fasting involved in them.
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  And so that's a key.
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  I was on a mission trip in Brazil.
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  And believe it or not, I don't know how this happened.
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  And I was in the back of an orange truck, and we were out in this orange grove,
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  and there was this great, godly, old missionary. His name was Carlos Gruber. He was a Latvin.
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  And he had been a part of the Latvian movement that came to southern Brazil.
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  And they literally, a group of Christians were sent out by persecution and came
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  to southern Brazil and established.
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  It was totally uncivilized and built a Christian community and went out everywhere sharing gospel.
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  And real revival came from those Latvian. Well, Gruber was a boy when that happened,
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  and he grew out of that movement.
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  And we were in the back of that orange truck, and he took a little sheet of
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  paper, and I had it for years. I lost it somewhere in a mood.
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  He said, I said, I said, Brother Carlos, what would you tell me?
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  I was a young pastor about, you know, life and ministry.
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  And he wrote these words, stay on your knees and stay humble.
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  That's all he said. stay on your knees and stay humble.
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  And if I could say one thing to us, I would say stay on your knees,
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  which means stay in the presence of God, right?
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  Because you can't really draw near to the Lord and get into his presence and be proud.
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  You know, it deals with pride pretty quick.
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  So that means the daily reading, the daily drawing near,
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  the daily communing, the daily repenting and saying, like David,
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  search me, O God, and show me my heart and show me if there's any wicked,
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  hurtful way in me and then lead me in the everlasting way.
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  And so that constant spiritual examination, not a morose human kind of thing,
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  but getting before the Lord, saying, God, show me.
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  I want your kind of convicting in every place. Honestly, I'll tell you that
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  it's one of the things I did this morning.
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  I just said I was writing in my prayer book and I said, Lord,
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  would you show me any sin in my life that I don't see that I'm just not I'm not dialing into it?
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  And he answered that prayer and it was so beautiful.
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  And I was so grateful to him for doing that.
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  So stay on your knees and stay humble, which is what? Admit your sin.
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  Don't blame God. Don't say, well, if my wife wasn't in my job,
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  if my boss wouldn't do this and I wouldn't act that way.
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  No, you just acknowledge your sin and be constantly admitting your need.
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  And Spurgeon, they said there were, I think it was 18 steps that he would take
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  from where he was to the pulpit.
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  And in each step, this is told, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's told a lot.
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  Spurgeon would say with each step, I believe in the Holy Spirit.
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  I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Now, what was he saying?
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  He was saying, I don't believe in me. I believe in you, God,
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  and your power in me and through me to do what only you can do.
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  So that dependency is the recognition of a humble heart.
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  Man, I think, Bill, this is more the process than we got time in one episode.
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  And I'm thinking about our listeners today and my own heart,
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  honestly, sitting here taking the right evaluation.
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  Again, going, Lord, where is the vine or the branch of pride pruning up again?
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  Where does it need to be cut away? What parts of me is allowed space for that to grow?
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  And so I wonder if, Bill, you could lead us into a moment where we could start a process.
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  It ain't going to happen just in the midst of this episode. that maybe starts
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  the process of rending our hearts, not our garments.
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  You know, like getting way down inside. That's what I would say to our listeners.
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  Hey, that part of you that promotes pride, it ain't surface level.
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  It's guttural. You know, it's way down in there. You get below it all.
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  A lot of times, you said well, Bill, A lot of times we see the outworking of
• 29:46
  some action or response or something, but it takes time to come down to to realize
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  the reason I acted that way, did that, thought that, all those.
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  It's because way down in here, this is about me. This is all about me.
• 29:59
  It touched my pride. It touched that nerve of pride. And one final thing before
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  we pray, and that is, remember this, that the author of all temptation is Satan himself.
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  And the reason he was cast from heaven was pride. Wow. That's very clear in the scripture.
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  And his temptation.
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  In the garden was, eat that apple. You'll be like God.
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  So it was like, it was, you know, you want to take over and start making your
• 30:34
  own decisions, then walk away from God.
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  And he knew that that pride and that sin would separate them from the presence
• 30:43
  of God, which was their source of life.
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  And all hell broke loose when that happened.
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  So let's pray together for a minute. I'm going to ask all of our listeners to,
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  if you're able to bow your head or just stop for a moment,
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  maybe you're driving and you can't stop, or maybe you could pull over on the
• 31:06
  side of the road and just take a deep breath.
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  And I wonder as we begin praying, if you would pray David's prayer of Psalm
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  139, And search me, O God.
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  Search me, O God. And help me see any wicked way. We could say any root of pride that's there.
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  Just ask him right now and then listen carefully.
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  And think for a moment about the sins that you struggle with the most.
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  By the way, you know, this prevailing sin of pornography and moral impurity
• 32:02
  that's in our churches everywhere and in our world, you know what's at the heart of that?
• 32:08
  Why we can't get over that? It's pride.
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  You can't overcome that without grace.
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  And if you won't admit your sin and acknowledge your need and get honest with
• 32:20
  the Lord and with some other people, then you're never going to get grace.
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  I'll fix this myself, God. I just don't want anybody else to know what a sinner I am.
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  God says, okay, give it a shot.
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  And we keep being unable to overcome it.
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  Well, just admit your sin, acknowledge your need, humble yourself.
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  So, Father, I pray that you would, I pray that you do a deeper than usual work today.
• 32:59
  In this moment, we're on this podcast. I pray, Father, that you would turn your precious,
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  all-knowing, all-searching spotlight of your Holy Spirit on our souls.
• 33:20
  And just show us what we can handle, Lord.
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  And give us the grace to not ignore it, not resist it,
• 33:32
  not cast it off blaming others, but Father, just to admit our sin and acknowledge our need.
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  And Lord, if we need to go to somebody and share this with them,
• 33:50
  that would be a step, Lord, of humbling ourselves so that we might receive more of the grace of God.
• 33:59
  And I pray for every listener, Lord, as we humble ourselves,
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  I pray, Father, that you would pour out your grace. Lord, I know you do.
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  You've done it for me so many thousands of times.
• 34:18
  And it's the best, Lord. And I always think, why have I been covering this?
• 34:24
  Why have I been hiding this?
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  Why have I not been aware of this? And so, Father,
• 34:30
  I pray that you would pour out your grace on them and show them that this is
• 34:37
  a way to live, to live with, to walk humbly before our God.
• 34:44
  And so, Lord, do a work in us. Just take us from that proud heart to a humble
• 34:51
  spirit that receives your favor and your blessing.
• 34:55
  And, Father, is a perfect representation of you.
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  We're showing the world the nature of Jesus who humbled himself from heaven
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  and came to earth to die for us.
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  So, Lord, we ask for that and we pray it for your glory and for your sake. In Jesus' name, amen.
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  Amen. Man, Bill, thanks for leading us into that conversation of thought.
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  And man, I really encourage our listeners to take some time with these truths
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  and let the Holy Spirit turn the light on and help you.
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  And you said it earlier, man, it might hurt, but God's not.
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  His end goal is not to harm us. It's to heal us.
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  It's to set us free from this. So lean in and let the Lord do that work.
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  If this has blessed you or helped you, why don't you share it with somebody?
• 35:46
  Take a second, send it to a friend, maybe somebody on staff,
• 35:50
  and let some others know about it.
• 35:53
  And again, next week, we'd be humbled to have another opportunity to speak to
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  you about these things that we believe is in God's heart in light of awakening
• 36:01
  and revival in our nation and among the nations.
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  So we hope you have a great week. See you soon.