Please open your Bibles to Romans 12. We're gonna read actually from verse one to verse three this morning. Romans 12, verse one. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, To everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dwelt to each one a measure of faith. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you would come and feed your sheep, that you would come and water these plants here, this vine that you created. I thank you. All of us share one thing in common, that you created us and you brought us here into this room, that we might find all of our hope in you and to center our lives on these great words. Amen. Please be seated. So we continue our studies in the Book of Romans. We've traveled all the way from chapter one to 11, and now we've tipped into the application section of the Book of Romans. The first part of the Book of Romans focuses on the predicament that man is in sin, lost, trapped in sin, unable to break the power of sin on his own power. without trusting in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's chapters one through 11. And as we come into chapter 12, we find ourselves applying the gospel of Jesus Christ. What do you do about this power of sin that has been broken? What happens to you and what does that look like in the church? And so what we find in chapter 12 to the end of the book is really a picture of the culture of the church that Jesus Christ has established. What does it look like? The power of sin has been broken, but there's still remaining sin. So the Apostle Paul delivers about 35 commandments in chapter 12 alone to direct the church for how to operate. It's the best employee manual for the church. And And it reads a little bit like that because it defines the kind of behavior, the kinds of heart attitudes. You know, I've been saying this, and I'll say it again. The culture of the Church of Jesus Christ is a superior culture. There's nothing better. There are no better commands. There's no better culture than the culture of the Church of Jesus Christ. But here, the focus this morning really has to do about how you think about yourself. He's already spoken about the fact that the believer presents his body as a living sacrifice, that he's broken away from the world's relationships, he's not conforming himself to this world, to this culture. but he's transformed by the renewing of his mind. But our focus this morning is really one single aspect, really from one phrase out of verse three, and it is this idea of thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. In one sense, this is a one-point sermon. You know, how do you think of yourself? Do you think more highly of yourself than you ought? In every area of life, not just in this church. As a father, as a husband, do you think more highly of yourself than you ought? As a child, you're growing up in your parents' home, do you think more highly of yourself than you ought? We have jobs, do you think more highly of yourself than you ought as an employee or as a church member? Do you think more highly of yourself than you ought, even in this church? Now there are many problems with preaching on the subject of pride, because really with every point, the person preaching is pretty much always looking himself in the mirror. Because pride is our deepest and greatest problem. And while God breaks the, original power of pride in the believer, God continues to chip away at his children to, well, to, like the song we sing, to pour contempt on all my pride. God desires to do that because pride gets us nowhere good. So all of this has to do with the transformation of the mind. And the fact that what God calls the church to is to humility, to pour contempt on all their pride. In other words, to be relieved of it progressively over time. Now, in the first two verses, it's very explicit that the Christian life involves the transformation of the mind. Something happens to your mind, and your mind changes, You're no longer conformed to this world, but you're transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that directly affects your pride. And you could think of it in terms of putting on the mind of Christ. When you put on the mind of Christ, what are you doing? And another way to say this, when you become a Christian, what are you doing? Nobody becomes a Christian without humbling themselves before God. Nobody can become a Christian unless they say, your will be done, Lord, not mine. No one becomes a Christian until they repent of their sins and recognize their weakness before God. The Christian enters the kingdom of heaven in humility. But as it turns out, that is the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ is the mind of humility, and that's why it's very clear. If you want to think like Christ, do you want to think like Christ? Here's what it looks like, Philippians 2.5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation taking on the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. To put on the mind of Christ is to put on a humble mind. And so this really is the essence of the Christian life. To become a Christian is not simply an intellectual experience. It's not just an intellectual understanding where you accept certain propositions. It's actually a transformation of the mind, which begins to change your heart. And this has to do with humility. In these verses, three through eight, Paul has shifted his focus on how the transformation of your mind plays out in the church community. And the first thing he mentions is how we think about ourselves. And I wanna stop on that one point and continue to develop it as we're together here this morning because That's the starting point of the renewed life in the body of Christ, how you think about yourself. Because, most likely, pride is at the root of almost every relational and spiritual problem. It really is at the heart of our greatest difficulties. So, in short, the Christian life begins with humility and that renewed mind, which has been humbled, creates a culture of humility. But there's a problem. Local church life, like every other part of your life, it doesn't create your pride, it just reveals your pride. And God meant it that way. He meant this church to reveal your pride and my pride as well because you need to be relieved of it because God wants to pour contempt on all your pride to relieve you from it. And so I thought it was very providential that we were in our catechism reading, we were in the fifth commandment. Well, I'll elaborate more on that later. But all of this has to do with presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Because the renewed mind is the mind that presents itself and the whole body to God. So this is what the renewed mind looks like in the church of Jesus Christ. But Paul, he starts with the individual And he also speaks of himself as an example. So he says, for I say through the grace given to me to everyone who's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. So in this verse, there are four occurrences of the word think or thinking. That's the subject, how you think, how you think about yourself. And so it appears over and over again. To think more highly of yourself, it's a very interesting Greek word that we understand the meaning of it. It's the word hyper, to hyperthink, to think of yourself hyper about yourself. So, instead of thinking soberly about yourself. Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? The Dunning-Kruger effect states that the less you know about something, the more confident you are. And in fact, this is based on studies of American students and Asian students and people from all over the world. And the American students have very high levels of confidence in their performance. Asian students have a very much lower confidence in their performance. Humility doesn't run very high in American students. They have high self-esteem. But as it turns out, they have low competence. So thinking more highly of yourself is actually a very common thing all over the map. But here the Apostle Paul is saying, think soberly. I think another way to think of that is he's saying, get a grip. Get a grip on yourself. And what makes our thinking sober thinking? And The Apostle Paul, he defines it, for I say through the grace given to me. In other words, he's thinking about his life in terms of sovereign grace. Everything he's received, he's received from the Lord. He's thinking about it in that terms. Through the grace given to me, that's an example of humility. The Apostle Paul knew that whatever gift he was given, it was given by God and by God alone. Now, I think it's important to say this. The Apostle Paul is not telling us to think poorly of ourselves. He says, don't think too highly of yourself. To think clearly about it. And what he's saying is, to recognize that whatever gift you have, whatever goodness, whatever wisdom, whatever brilliance you have, it's a gift of God. The apostle Paul, or I'm sorry, it was John the Baptist who said, a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. I think that's the idea. And Paul is actually demonstrating his own humility, recognizing that only God can make a person what he is. And in verse three, it says that, the gifts of grace, which we'll get into these gifts of grace next time. But they are given, do you see that word? Given, dealt, and they're grace. In other words, they come from the outside, they come from God. And the idea of this is communicated by the Apostle Paul in many places. In Romans 1-5, we already went over this when we began our study. Through him, we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith. In Galatians 1.15, Paul says that it pleased God to call him through his grace to reveal his son to me that I might preach to him among the Gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 3.5, he says that some water, some plants, some water, but God provides the increase. In other words, God is in control. And when you think about yourself, it's very important that you think soberly in that sense. You have sober thinking. He uses the term sober in contrast to, you guessed it, intoxicated, drunk. Don't be drunk on yourself. Don't think so highly of yourself that you're just drunk on your own thoughts. That's all that you've got in your head. So, but have sane thinking. Now in your outline, you'll see, I'm gonna try to develop this through a number of filters that we find in history and in scripture. And just the other day, I heard a story around our dinner table by some folks from New Zealand, in the history of New Zealand, about this matter. of pride and humility. In fact, we have three families from New Zealand here today. We met them when we were in New Zealand, Debra and I, when we were there last fall. It's such a joy that you guys are here. But in New Zealand, in the Maori culture, the original native culture, there was a culture of revenge, a culture of revenge, and of course, This thing, this type of thing happens all over the world. Tribal cultures, blood feuds, revenge killing, honor retaliation. You can find it in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia, Latin America, New Guinea. Missionaries bump into revenge cultures all the time, particularly when they go into tribal communities. And the reason it's, in pre-Christian communities, And it's actually less common in the West because of the influence of Christianity. But in 1835, some missionaries went to New Zealand, Alfred Brown and his wife, Mrs. Brown. But there was a little girl who was 12 years old who wanted to learn how to read. And so she made her way, to see Mrs. Brown and she knocked on the door and asked Mrs. Brown if she would teach her how to read. So she said yes and she also had some other students she was teaching to read and Mrs. Brown gave her a copy of a Maori gospel of Luke which had been translated and that's how she learned to read. She prized it so much she wore it around her neck. went home, her father originally rejected it, and then her father actually embraced the gospel and said, those are the words of truth from the one true God. So you have this little girl who was converted, her father was converted, but then there was a revenge attack on their tribe, and the children were transported out of the area to try to keep them safe, but the attackers came upon them, and these warriors killed them, and they beat this 12-year-old girl. Her name is Terori. They beat her to death and took her Bible as a prize, a booty, bragging about, you know, they didn't know what it was. They killed her with clubs and took away the Bible. The attackers went back to their tribe, and there was a slave in one of these tribes that knew how to read. And so the slave read the Gospel of Luke aloud, and they heard about forgiveness and the love of God. And they read things like, love your enemies and do good to them. And they read the words of Jesus, Father, forgive them. for they know not what they do. So that struck some of the leaders in that tribe, and then that book landed in the hands of other tribes, and then some of these Maori chiefs were repenting of their sins. And they put an end to their culture of warring and vengeance, and there was reconciliation. between many of these warring tribes. Why do I tell that story? It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that softens the pride of man and causes forgiveness and mercy. And actually there was a tremendous transformation of society, the gospel transforms cultures. The gospel transforms cultures in churches, and that's what Romans 12 is all about. And so the Apostle Paul says, do not think more highly of yourself than you ought in order to transform the culture of a local church in Rome and all the other churches. And so the culture of revenge ended, and it spread to the southern tribes because it began in the north. It started with a little girl who wanted to learn how to read. And it spread literacy throughout the land. There was a shift toward forgiveness and peace in the land. It was actually a wave of humility that began to transform society. So this is what the gospel does. And there are many illustrations of this in history. If you read missionary biographies, you'll find this type of thing happening where whole cultures are transformed, like it happened in New Zealand. But there are many illustrations in the Bible. Pride was the original sin of Lucifer. He wanted to be like God. It was pride in the garden. Eve wanted something better than God because of her pride. King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4, he was boasting about Babylon, is this not great Babylon which I have built? And the consequence was he temporarily lost his sanity and he lived like a wild animal until he finally humbled himself after many years. You have King Uzziah who 2nd Chronicles 26 he took upon himself the role of a priest even he was a civil magistrate and the two don't mix and he was struck with leprosy because he thought he was such a spiritual leader he wouldn't he wasn't given that authority you have the Pharisee and the tax collector you have the whole book of Judges every man does what's right in his own eyes this is nothing nothing short of pride you have the pride of exalting your favorite group. This happened in Corinth. Paul is writing from Corinth. And in Corinth, they were saying, I'm of Paul. No, I'm of Apollos. This is like pride, excessive pride in your leaders. There's the pride of thinking that you are indispensable. Which is probably why Peter said in 1 Peter, 5.5, he said, clothe yourselves with humility. He said, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. And that's the whole idea of not thinking more highly of yourself than you are. You've got these stories all through the Bible. You have the rebellion of Miriam and Aaron against Moses. You have in number 16, the rebellion of Korah and Dathan and Abiram. They thought more highly of themselves than they ought to think, and they caused tremendous disruption among the people of God. And frankly, that usually is pretty much the thing that causes disruption among the people of God. Somebody's thinking more highly of himself than he ought to think. But Romans 12 really calls for various manifestations of love in the church, but it begins with how I think about myself and how you think about yourself. He begins with the individual, and then he begins to elaborate on the way that the church is supposed to operate corporately among themselves. I wanna give you some principles here of this and see what God does to deal with pride. And the first is that God has designed that pride is dealt with first in the home. And that's why you have the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it might be well with you. So God has designed the home to be the very first place to deal with pride in children. And one of the great tragedies is when parents do not deal with pride in their children. And you could turn it around. It's also a tragedy when parents don't deal with their own pride when they're dealing with their children. It's very important, you who are raising children, that you come alongside your children to help them honor and obey authority. Because if they don't get it in your home, they're gonna bang their head against the wall for the rest of their life until they finally humble themselves before the authorities that God gives them. Okay, I'll say it like this. Honoring parents is God's training regimen for all of life. And the Bible makes it very clear that obedient children will be strong. Obedient children in their youth will be strong, and successful children in their adulthood. Securing honor and obedience, it makes children strong. Resistance makes children strong. It's a little bit like lifting weights. It's the resistance that makes you strong. It's a little bit like forging metal. You heat that metal up until it's red hot, and then you pound that metal, and with every blow, the metal gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And God has designed the parent-child relationship to make children strong. And parents have to take responsibility for that. And parents are given responsibility to help their children take dominion over their desires. That's your job. We live in a world where people think that you should never throw shade on anything or redirect anyone, but that's not. That's not the world that God has really designed. You know what it says about a man without self-control? His walls fall down. And you don't want your children to be like that. And the child raising process, dealing with pride, tempers those children. And so parents need to discipline their children's pride so that they can actually take dominion over their desires and take dominion over their pride to learn how to pour contempt on all their pride when they are thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think. Now, you know, the reformers believed, and I do, that the honor of father and mother is is really sort of a touchstone for all of what the Bible says about other relationships of honor. Because everyone is always under some authority. Nobody ever escapes authority. And so you better learn how to live with it, you know, peacefully. But, you know, you have government authorities. You have police authorities, you have teachers, you have elders of churches, you have people who are older than you, you have wiser people than you in your life. First of all, we honor God. And I think the prioritization is we honor God, we honor our fathers and mothers. And then there are various other kinds of honor. You don't owe your boss the same honor that you owe your parent. There's a prioritization. And I realize they're very complex relationships to deal with, and I don't wanna deal with all those, but I just wanna say that everyone is under authority, and when you have pride in your heart, you're gonna blow up your relationships with your authorities. That's how it works. And it really begins with parents. You know, let's talk about, you know, when a child disappears when there's work to do. A child who pretends not to hear. A child who argues with their parents. A child who corrects their parents. A child who yells at their parents. A child who screams at their parents. A child who interrupts their parents. These are all manifestations of pride. And parents need to understand what's happening in the room. And they need to carefully and gently and wisely redirect their pride. A child who rolls his eyes when offered guidance or correction is manifesting pride. The child who contradicts his siblings and his parents and is always correcting all the details of the stories. These are just manifestations of pride. You have the comparison junkie in your house, maybe. The child who says, well, the other parents, you know, let their kids do this. Why don't you? Comparisons. Well, implying that their parents are so backward. Well, in God's providence, God gave you those parents. They're the ones you need to submit to, not somebody else's parents. You know, you have children who think their parents don't know what they're talking about. You have You have children who reject the counsel of their parents when it's time to get married. You know, these cause tremendous disruptions in families. And a lot of it goes back to children who never really learn to honor their parents. And as a result, it's easier to dishonor others. It's easier to be disappointed with others. It's easier to reject the counsel of actual authorities and older experienced people in your life. It's easier to job hop, it's easier to church hop because a person never learned to listen to authority. You know, I was in Portugal with preaching a few weeks ago and Kevin Swanson was talking about the fifth commandment And he said something that really struck me. He said, why is it that we have Lady Gaga and Eminem and the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan? Why, why do we have that? Because children did not honor their father and mother. They didn't listen to their parents. And I think largely that's true. The progressions of culture often are fomented from homes. The problems in churches are often fomented by people who became adults and they never learn how to honor authority. It's just such a critical thing. In fact, on the plane on the way over to Portugal, it was all night flight, and I watched a documentary on Bob Dylan, and he was interviewed, he's being interviewed by the press probably when he was 20 years old or something, and he said in the interview, we need to get rid of the people with no hair. Some of you understand what I'm talking about. But what he was saying is that it's the people with hair, the young people that you need to listen to. It's the old people. And when I heard him say that, I thought of 2 Kings 2.21, where Elisha was mocked by these 40 youths, and they were saying, you know, get out of here, you baldhead. Get out of here, you baldhead. They said it twice. And then two female bearers came out of the woods and killed them all, okay? It's the idea of rejecting the counsel of the elders. Society goes off the rails when you do that. You know, there's this movement about called gentle parenting. I don't know if you've heard about it. It's a very disordered picture of authorities. At our conference, I had a guy who just wrote a book about it called Gentle Parenting. But pride manifests itself when you're raising children. And so, you parents out there, just keep watching. Children, just recognize God put you with your parents so that he would make you stronger. And God would make you stronger through them by their resisting your will from time to time. Now they should do it under the, the power of the Holy Spirit with the love and the joy and the peace and the patience of the Spirit. But they should do it out of love. It's a good thing when your parents tell you no. Let's talk about another area of pride, pride manifesting itself in work. Pride manifests itself in work in a lot of different ways. When you're defensive, when you receive feedback. That's usually pride. Assuming that you deserve raises and promotions but your bosses really don't, that can be a manifestation of pride. Always wanting to get the credit, undermining colleagues, wasting time on your computer during work hours. You've exalted yourself over your duties that you were given to do. And frankly, you know, it's hard, it's hard to work with people who are proud. In fact, if you, you know, most effective CEOs, they're really, many of them, they're not proud people because they listen. They listen to the people under them. They realize they don't know everything. They have a direction. that they're going, but the best leaders always have their ears open. But pride shuts a man's ears. Let's talk about spiritual pride in the church. Of course, there are all kinds of ways. Here's one way. You've been a Christian, for a long time, and you go to church, you're there pretty regularly, but you don't really feel much need for the Word of God. You're not that hungry, really, for the Word of God. And it's possible, you know, pride can rise up in the oldest, you know, most mature Christian. to think that they're no longer needy of the word of God. It might manifest in different ways. You don't need the prayer meetings that much. You don't need to flock to the teaching when it's announced that something is gonna be taught about. That is often just nothing but spiritual pride. It could be other things, but pride in the church makes relationships difficult, it makes people unteachable, it makes people unforgiving, it makes them divisive. But congregants don't have a corner on pride. Pastors deal with pride all the time. Manifestations of pride in pastors, fear of man, self-promotion, refusal to admit fault, authoritarian leadership, walking around with hurt feelings because so-and-so doesn't like you, you got criticized. Could be spiritual superiority. you know, comparing ministries. There's always somebody with a bigger and better ministry than yours. So you can, you know, in your pride, you can walk around hurt because you don't have, you know, what somebody down the street might have, you know. Let's talk about pride in husbands. Let's get off this pastor thing. Stuart Scott wrote a book, called The Exemplary Husband, and he spends at length talking about pride in husbands, and so he provides a list, and I'm just gonna read a few things from the list, pride in husbands, see if any of these connect with husbands. By the way, As I read these, it'll be obvious this isn't just for husbands. A lack of gratitude in general. Anger. A proud person is often an angry person. It can include outbursts of anger and withdrawing or pouting or frustration. Next, seeing yourself better than others. A proud person is usually on top looking down at other people. Having an inflated view of your importance, of your gifts, of your abilities. Or being focused on the lack of your gifts and your abilities. Some proud people, they may not come across proud at all because they're always down on themselves, but it's just another backhanded evidence of pride. Talking too much. People who talk too much often do it because they think what they have to say is just so pivotal. Seeking, Seeking independence and control. Some proud people find it difficult working under someone. Being consumed with what others think. Being devastated or angered by criticism. Being unteachable. A lack of service. Proud people may not serve because they're not thinking of others. Lack of compassion. Lack of admitting when you're wrong. Lack of asking for forgiveness. Resisting authority or being disrespectful. Minimizing your own sins and shortcomings. Maximizing others' sins and shortcomings. Anybody ever done that? Being impatient or irritable with others. Being jealous or envious. And then he, of course, thankfully flips to what humility looks like. I don't know if this is better for us. Being thankful and grateful in general for what others have done. Being patient. Seeing yourself as no better than others. You know, a humble person understands the sinfulness of his own heart. Being a good listener. Being gladly submissive and obedient to those who are in authority. Being thankful for criticism and reproof. Having a teachable spirit. Humble people realize they don't know everything. Quickness of admitting when you're wrong. Humble people have no problem saying I was wrong. You're right, thank you for telling me. A quickness in granting or asking for forgiveness. Being genuinely glad for others' success rather than envious. So, these are manifestations of pride in all of us. in one way or another. It's so interesting that in this world, God has created so many situations that reveal pride in us. When you're growing up as a child, God uses that to reveal pride in a child. When parents are raising children, God uses that to reveal pride in the parent. It happens in all the different levels. Now, I think that there are different ways that God deals with pride. For one thing, God's mercy is greater than our pride. But there are always consequences to pride, earthly consequences to pride. Moses was prevented from entering the promised land because of pride. Pride turned Nebuchadnezzar into an animal. Pride made Peter turn his back on the Lord because of a servant girl. Proverbs 11.2 says, when pride comes, then comes shame, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 13.10 says, pride brings strife. Proverbs 16.18 says, pride brings destruction. Obadiah 1.3 says, pride deceives the proud. This is one thing Jonathan Edwards made a big deal about in one of his works. He said, the problem with pride is that it blinds you from your own pride. It's so true. But what does God do with pride in Proverbs 8.13? Pride and arrogance and the evil way I hate. There's six things that the Lord hates. One of them is a proud look. Jesus said whoever exalts himself will be humbled. In Proverbs 15, 25, the Lord will destroy the house of the proud. In Job 35, 12, God does not answer the proud. In Psalm 119, 21, God rebukes the proud. Well, I could go on. There are many, many ways to understand this. But what God has done for his people, those who have turned their hearts toward him, he forgives them of their pride. And they're presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. in the church of Jesus Christ, but God is not done with them yet. He's not done with their pride. He has broken their incurable addiction to pride, but there's still remaining pride. And so God gives children to parents, believers to churches, in order to deal with remaining pride. And that's why The Apostle Paul begins with pride. He begins with the individual in the creation of the culture of a church of Jesus Christ. And he says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think soberly. Back to New Zealand and the story of this little 12-year-old girl, Terori, who was killed and her Bible and the transformation of revenge culture in that country. Deborah and I were back in a museum, a large display of Maori culture. And the government actually wants to bring back Maori culture. And it's very clear in the displays. Enormous amounts of money, public money, were spent to create this museum. But what you have is a society that's turning away from humble culture back to a proud culture, back to pagan culture, back to a revenge culture. And so they were promoting the Maori revenge culture in that museum. It was really remarkable to see that. But To think like Jesus Christ, to have the mind of Christ, is to have the mind of humility. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying. And thus begins this beautiful description of the superior culture of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are, you know, almost three dozen commands that will help us to continue to shape the culture in this local church here. And that culture begins by the mercies of God and a person who has presented themselves, presented their bodies as living sacrifices, and they're no longer conforming themselves to the world, but they're being transformed by the renewing of their minds. So let's keep making progress and let us not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your mercies. I thank you that it is your tender mercies that allows us to live in this world, continuing to help us with our weaknesses, to pour contempt on all our pride through the various experiences that you give us. I pray, Father, especially for these parents, I pray you give them great success, that they would help their children moderate their desires, coming alongside to help them, to direct them in ways that are so much better, that these children would trust their parents and their wisdom and their authority. Father, I pray that you would create a culture of sober thinking for these families in this church and for all of us, Lord. Lord, we recognize we have so much remaining pride, and so we pray that you would reveal it to us, painful as it might be, because we know, Lord, that it's best to pour contempt on our pride. Amen.