He'll turn with us to 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, continuing this series on waging war, verses 15 through 17. If you would stand this morning in the honor of the reading of God's word. This is part five, part six tonight, and that will conclude this section on verses 15 through 17. The text reads, do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, Love for the Father is not in him, because everything that belongs to the world, and then he defines what belongs to the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's lifestyle, my translation reads, I'm going to preach the pride in possessions, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world, be assured of this, with its lust, is passing away. But the one who does God's will remains or abides forever. Let us pray. Father, how we need to learn these truths this morning. Lord, I know they're a battle for my own heart as well as many that are here to worship today. God, give us greater love for you than for the temporal that is around us. May you be our chief delight. May we have no regrets in that. Lord, help us today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. In this section that we've been going through, I've not highlighted it, but I want to do so this morning. He has been, in verses 12-17, that's section 12-17 and we're in 15-17, but in this section all together, He has been assuring them of their state of salvation. He's been assuring them of their state of salvation in God, but now he is admonishing us to reject all love of the world. And for our present position, 15 through 17, he is saying the reader must not love the world and what is in it. Worldly loves are to be rejected, to war against, to fight against, to do everything to stamp out. to cut the root, to deal with the root, to figure out what it is that's causing lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of possessions. It is a heart issue. The world, yes, out there is evil, but it works together with the heart that is here to spawn us to get into the things that are forbidden. And so we must war against this. We must war against our own hearts because they are most apt or prone to wonder. Now, this morning, we're going to deal specifically with this third area. We've had lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes, but I want to now begin to deal with the pride of one's possessions. And then tonight, we will deal with the passing fancies of the world, and they are passing. There's two specific things that I see in this phrase, pride of possessions. There's two specific things that must be fought against. And very simply, pride. That's one. Two, the pride of possessions. So those two things we must wage war against. And each one of us deals with the concept of pride in some aspect of our lives. It starts at birth and it comes out at different issues and areas in our life. Pride is always lurking its vile head to take control of us. So we must fight pride, but we also must fight this concept of the pride of possessions. It seems to me, and I can be wrong in this issue here, and this is my persuasion. I have some others that would state the same, but I do offer it as my take, and so you don't have to go with it. But I do see a progression. I do see a progression of lust of flesh, lust of eyes, pride of possessions. And don't get tripped up with the pride of possessions part. If yours says pride of lifestyle, we'll define that before we're done. But I do see a progression here. And I see that the lust of the flesh being one stage, the lust of the eyes being a next stage, and then the pride of possessions being a third stage. And I see the third stage, when we get caught in that area, is greatly more difficult to return back to God from that one than from the first one. You're all bad, they're all sin, they will all trip you up, but there just seems to be a consistent message from Jesus in the New Testament that wealth, possession, pride of possession, it becomes greatly hard to enter the kingdom when you get caught up in those things. And I'll bring those out when we get there, but I just want to let you know in the beginning that my bent is that this third area, the one we're dealing with this morning, makes it increasingly difficult to return back to God and be a great servant of God. It's hard to break away from possessions. Try not to use this name much just because it's hard, but Snockenberg, I read a lot, and here's his quote on this, and I want to read it because it is good. The way back to God is more difficult and the delusion greater than it is with the desire of the flesh and the eyes. So, Snokenberg's saying basically the same thing. It is more difficult and the delusion is greater. You say, how could the delusion be greater? I don't have time to flush this out, just hear it. But the delusion is greater because what happens with the pride of possessions is when the possessions begin to increase, and there's a lot of them and a lot of financial prosperity, then what we do to justify our carnality is we attribute all of our blessings to God, and we attribute that it is His generous hand, and we never see a sense of denying ourself, we just keep hanging on to the possession. Did you catch any of that? I got all of these things must be the blessing of God could be the cursing of the devil It could be the very thing that turns your heart from God It could be the very thing that keeps you from being a servant of God because you're so bound to what you possess Now, I'll give you a disclaimer, and my disclaimer is this. I will say much negatively about possessions. Don't read too much into that. Critics will, but nevertheless, try not to read too much into that. I understand we have to have possessions. I'm glad that you all have clothes this morning. I'm glad that you didn't walk from Bowie this morning. You wouldn't be here yet. So I'm glad that we do have vehicles, that type of thing. But let your conscience speak to you, because possessions get out of control, and we become prideful about them. Maybe talk about a house, maybe talk about a car, but listen in the context of Scripture. You understand enough to know that we have to have something of which to live with. Many years ago, Dr. Estep did not have hymn for class. But he wrote a great book on a subject that I like, church history, the Anabaptist movement back in the 1500s. And I want to give you a perspective, and this is my introduction perspective. But it's a guy that I like to read about, and his name's Michael Sattler. And what I like about Michael Sattler is, is that he is one of those men, and there's thousands of them, but he's one of those men who is willing to give up everything for Christ with an unwillingness to recant. And that ought to be the heart of the Christian, that it's not the Christian's goal in life to have as many possessions as they can, but the goal in life is to bring glory and honor to the Lord who bought them. Now, I'm going to read this, and it's going to sound strange to you, but I think it's biblical, normal Christianity. On the spring in May 1527, Michael Sattler was sentenced to death at the imperial city of Rottenburg on the Neckar River. The sentence read this. There's a written sentence in Michael Sattler's life. Here it is. Michael Sattler shall be committed to the executioner. shall take him to the square, and there first cut out his tongue, and then forge him fast to a wagon, and there with glowing iron tongs twice tear pieces from his body. Then on the way to the site of execution, five times more as a buff, ripping the flesh from his body, and then there to burn his body to powder as an arch heretic. That was his sentence. Now I skip to the end, and it reads like this. After being bound to a ladder with ropes and pushed into the fire. So here he is, bound to a ladder, strapped down and tied, and he's pushed into the fire. What does the Christian who has the foundation of Christ in his life do when he's bound to a ladder and he's pushed into the fire? How do we respond? Do we say, Oh God, how could you let this happen? God, why me? I love you. Why are you letting this happen? Oh God, why are you not coming and intervening? A lot of people would respond that way. Michael Sattler says this, he admonished the people, the judges and the mayor to repent and be converted. Being pushed into fire? Repent! Trust Christ! Repent! Why? How can you do that when you're being pushed into the fires? You can do that when Christ is the heart's desire, is the passion of your life. Then he prays this. Here's his prayer. Almighty, eternal God, Thou art the way and the truth. Because I have not been shown to be an error, I will with thy help to this day testify to the truth, and I will seal it with my own blood." He had told those around him beforehand that if a martyr's death was bearable, that he would give the thumbs-up sign in the midst of the fire. As soon as the ropes on his wrist were burned, Sattler raised two forefingers of his hands, giving the promised signal to the brethren that a martyr's death was bearable. Then the assembled crowd heard coming from his seared lips, Father, I commend my spirit into thy hands. And then, after several attempts were made to get Sattler's wife to recant her faith in Christ with no avail, they took her, they tied her, they dumped her in the river and drowned her to death. They died with nothing but Christ and had everything. Amazing, is it not? You say, well that was a different time. Yep, and it's still true. Christ is worth it all. What do we brag about? What do we boast about? Stuff. Let us look at our text today in verse 16, the pride of one's possessions. First off, the word pride. I want to spend a little bit of time with pride, I want to spend a little bit of time with possession, and then I want to close with those two things together. Last week we looked at lust, there was 38 references. This week with pride, this particular word, just a couple of references. But let me give you definitions to start with on the word pride. And our first definition reads this way. It is, in regard to one's possessions, a false pride. And I use this definition because it's right and because it communicates what John's communicating here. It is the pride that has, it's a false pride, it's a pride that has not a foundation on which to stand. So the pride in possession is that sense of arrogance where pride wells up because I have obtained something, but the very thing that we obtain is temporal and just in a matter of time it shall be gone. You need help understanding. Years ago, I had to have this new truck that was coming out, and it was a color that had never been made. It was Bimini Blue. Bimini Blue. Nobody had one. And the first few trucks arrived in Hempstead, Texas, and I had to get the first one. And I remember getting that truck. I remember being so proud of that truck. Man, my head swelled up this big. And I remember being down on the coast doing some saltwater fishing, and we was at a campsite, and people kept walking by. Where'd you get that truck? I've never seen that color before." I smiled. Oh, look at my truck. Isn't it great? A man just swelled up within me. I've got the only Bimini blue truck. That is false pride. Three months later, they already came out with a new color I didn't have. and mine was already beginning to fade. Have you been there? We're more shallow than that. If you think trucks have a value because they cost so much money these days, we do the same thing even with cell phones. Did you see my new cover? Look, it's bright and flowery and it's beautiful. Everybody swooned over the cover of my phone. And next week, I shall get another cover because it's already fading. It's that sense of a welling up and bragging about that which is very temporal. We have no foundation for our bragging because the very thing of which we brag about, we will not even remember tomorrow. And much of us spend much of our life bragging about these things. And this is the astounding part to me in this definition is, is I hear people all the time in church life in the regards to the gospel. I don't have the gift of evangelism, pastor. I don't have the ability to communicate. I don't have the ability to talk to other people. Strap that answer that you give to the preacher, strap that on yourself when you get your new car. I can't tell anybody I got a new car. I don't have the ability to communicate. I can't tell anybody I got this new phone and I got this new TV, 101-inch plasma screen. I can't tell anybody. I don't have the gift of communication. Are we listening? But however, when we come to something as eternal and foundational as the gospel of the cross of Calvary, all of a sudden, I don't have the gift. We use the trump card. I don't have the gift. Look, it's not a matter of a gift. It's a matter of a foundational understanding to an eternal matter. Let us talk about the things that we love. Let us be able to boast in that which matters. state of pride or arrogance, but with the implication of a complete lack of basis for such an attitude. Arrogance with a complete lack of basis for such an attitude. Does not take long. Look around in the world. Look around in your mirror, at your own house, and find the very things that we boasting and how there's such a lack of validity to our boasting. I think about even in my own life the things that I boasted of. I still remember the time that I caught that seven and a half pound bass. I have it mounted on driftwood where it can sit on the coffee table. It was beautiful. Paid $110 for that mount. Caught it in January in the snot grass pond down from the house. Boy, I was proud. Told all of my friends. The last time I was at home over in the dusty corridor of the corner of my mother's house, there it is all covered in dust and the fins are falling off of it because it is deteriorating and now, frankly, it looks ugly. It was the pride of my life the day that I caught it. It's amazing the things that we have pride over. Pride is a perverse attitude of mind Pride is a perverse attitude of mind making us forget our dependence on God and leading to self-glorification. Pride, say again, is a perverse attitude. Pride in and of itself, pride with possessions, is a perverse attitude of mind. But notice what it does. It makes us forget our dependence upon God. That's what it does. Notice even in the history of the working of society, whenever national calamity comes, whenever buildings fall, whenever wars start out, if there were to be a Great Depression, if there was to be the power outage in America, if something large and catastrophic, a tsunami, an earthquake, Something that would shake our lives, you see people fleeing and running to the church because all of a sudden their temporal stability has been shaken and they need something greater, so they all run to church. You see in this definition that those that have pride and have pride in possessions, it changes their mind in such a way they forget their dependence on God. Think about it. When you have all the money you think you need, when you have all the updated vehicles that you need, the updated house and all the possessions where you can put your flesh in a situation of comfort, it makes it easier for you to come to the conclusion that you don't need God. So I'm getting along just fine. I got food in the refrigerator, got food on the table, got a nice car to drive, I've got a nice house to live in. I'm doing all right on my own! What a tragedy. And then when something shakes, we say, oh goodness, my house can't help me with this. My car can't help me with this. My cell phone's not even working today. I can't get a signal. What do I do? And so those temporal things, we find there's no basis in our bragging. And in those times of crisis, we see that truly our dependence ought to be in God. Help us with these things. Everyone in this room, including myself, we are guilty of this. We put so much emphasis in the external things that we possess. We lusted in the flesh. We lusted with the eyes. Now we have it and we brag in it and we don't even realize how much we have already turned from God in this issue. Old Testament passage. Let me give you two in Proverbs and one in Habakkuk. In Proverbs 21, you can turn there if you'd like, this word pride. Proverbs 21 and 24. It does not speak of pride in many contexts in a positive light unless it has to do with boasting in the cross of Calvary or something like that, but here in Proverbs you see The proud and the arrogant person named Macher acts with excessive pride. And then also you find this word Proverbs 25 in verse 6. 25 and 6, very clear from Solomon here. Don't brag about yourself before the king and don't stand in the place of the great. So he recommends or demonstrates to us not to be bragging and placing ourself higher than we ought. But perhaps the most revealing to me was this one in Habakkuk. Habakkuk. You may have a little trouble finding it. It's after Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum and then Habakkuk. Habakkuk 2 and verse 5. You might want to underline it, put a star beside it, pray through it daily. It may help you. Habakkuk 2, 5 says this, Moreover, wine betrays. An arrogant man is never at rest. Now you think about that in the context of the sermon we're looking at in 1 John. I'm going to finish reading the text here in a second, but the arrogant man is never at rest. Pride demands a constant longing to be able to self-satisfy more. In the sense of possessions, we're never at rest. Because when you get the Bimini blue truck, you have to get the next one that comes out in three months. Or when you get this next cell phone cover, you got to get the next cell phone cover. It's never at rest. It's always got to be going. That's what happens when you work with temporal. It always runs out quickly. And so you got a one up and it's getting to the point in our generation of 21st century technology. You got a one up every 30 minutes because it's happening that fast. So there's never a sense of rest, a sense for the arrogant or the pride and the pride and possessions know not how to sit on their knees like I had the joy and the privilege of on Saturday morning, sitting before our chairs on our knees with the windows open and listening to the birds sing and they outdid us by above and beyond measure. I was sitting there thinking, wow, what a glorious glimpse of heaven. But see, when you're caught up in the pride of possessions, you have not time to notice things like that. The arrogant man is never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol. And like death, he is never satisfied. Death is never satisfied. People are dying every day. He gathers all the nations to himself. He collects all the peoples for himself, but yet he is never satisfied. I know not the name, I know not the story. I saw the clip on the front page. Man makes $300 million a year, still not satisfied. $300 million a year, will not satisfy. He had so much money, he paid $30 million for an apartment, and he paid $6,000 for a shower curtain. I don't know why they put that there, but $6,000 for a shower curtain seems extreme to me. Nevertheless, all of those possessions and a $6,000 shower curtain will not give you rest. May keep your floor dry. That's the best you're gonna get this morning. Okay. All right, let's go to the New Testament on this word of pride. James chapter 4 verse 16. James chapter 4 verse 16. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, and what does he say? All such boasting is evil. All of this boasting in the carnal, temporalness of the world, all of this arrogant, self-centered boasting is evil. Thus, as 1 John said, not of the Father, not from the Father. It is from this world system of thought. constantly are putting upon us and pressing upon us things and stuff. You want examples in a sense? We live in a world now where it's almost like it is forced from the world to the moms and dads and people that kids have to have A, B, C, and D, and if they don't have these things, then you're a corrupt parent. Amen, anybody? It's almost like you're some outer space person if you don't buy all of these things. If your kid is four years old and doesn't have a cell phone yet, you're messed up. Where do they get this stuff? Where is this? We have to have all of this stuff. It comes from a worldly, self-centered, carnal mindset. I assure you, you will live. Kids, you will survive. If you never have a cell phone for the rest of your life, you can live. You don't have to live on the phone. I never had one. Look how it turned out. Bad example. This sense of I have to have things. This pride of the world putting so much value on stuff, but look at it. How much value is in the material object? How do you determine value? Look at it, analyze it. What's its lasting worth? What's its value in heaven? When the fire is turned hot, how long will it last? Everything will be tried by fire. That which is of the world will be consumed and be no more. Only those things that are eternal shall remain. You know this, even from the passage Skip read. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your heart is, there shall your treasure be also. What gives you delight? Where does your joy come from? Your emotions are up when you have the new car, they're up when you have the new house, they're up when you have the new clothes, they're up when you get the new shoes. All life is good when you get what you want, but when you can't have that what you want, then you fall into a depression. Something's out of order. Something is devastatingly out of order. When you can have joy and contentment no matter what you possess worldly, then you're on the right track. Can you find contentment and joy just to sit in quietness with thy God? Say, I don't know about that. I pray and encourage that you can. For times like that, I don't know if the Lord's been impressing this upon me lately, but there are little glimpses of heaven when you can just sit with your God. You can just sit with Him and you can enjoy it. It's great delight and joy. I found it. If you'd be quiet at church even, people get nervous. It's almost like we're scared to be with him. Are you? Would it upset you to be on a deserted island with nothing but God? This may be a difficult statement, but I think some of us would be upset when we see God in heaven in all of His glory. Alright, next, possessions. There's two words, so the next one is possessions. Here it is. I don't want to spend much time in Greek here. I know you're not here for a Greek lesson, but there's a word called zoe. It means life. You see it in the context many times with eternal life. And the word that is used there is zoe. That's not the word that's used here, and that's why you'll find some translations that translate it possessions, and I will translate it possessions as well, because I think it is right, and I'll show you why. But the word we have here is a word called bios. It's a different word, bios. Look over in 1 John 3.17. You'll find the same word used and you'll kind of get the gist of it here. I want you to see that it is possessions. So 1 John 3.17, just right across the page or turn one page, you should be close there. And you'll see it, he says in verse 17, if anyone has the world's goods, if anyone has the world's things, possessions, you see your brother in need, shut off his compassion from him, how can the love of God reside in him? But there's the same word. You see one that has the world's goods, the world's things are possessions. Now look over in the Gospels for a moment. Mark and Luke is all I wanna look at, but in the Gospel of Mark, In chapter 12 and verse 44 he says, 12 and 44 he says, For they all gave..." Let's start back in 43. "...summoning his disciples, he said to them, I assure you, the poor widow put in more than all those giving to the temple treasury." Why is it that she gave more? Verse 44. They all gave out of their surplus. They have a whole bunch of money, a whole bunch of things, a whole bunch of stuff, and they gave out of that amount, maybe a small amount out of their large amount. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she possessed. Everything she owned, every possession she had, she gave it. There's our same word. That's why I say the pride of possessions. This lady, everything she possessed, she gave unto the Lord. And so it is this arrogance, this false pride in those material things that we possess. And this is why I think it becomes greatly difficult and binding and for you a necessity to adhere to the message. Because material possessions can, it's like the weeds, they get around your heart, they choke out the Word and they turn you away from God. And so possessions can be a very dangerous thing. Do you find for your life, one of the ways you can mandate this, do you find for your life that it's easy to give things away? Do you find that it's easy when you see need that you can take the material object and you can freely give with no strings attached? You say, well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. The things that we try to hold on to, you'll find that we have pride in those possessions. All these possessions are temporal. We ought to be able to freely give them, even to this woman. This is all I have, and she gave it all. She had a high view of God. But these possessions can choke us, and Jesus speaks of this. Look in Mark 10, verse 23. Mark 10 and 23 says, Jesus looked around and he said to his disciples, How hard is it for those who have wealth, have possessions, who have things, to enter the kingdom of God? The disciples, they were astonished at his words. And again, they're like, man, this is hard stuff. How could this be? He says again to them, children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. For those who have put pride in the possession and their things, it becomes greatly difficult to enter God's kingdom. Why? Why? Why? Because in order to enter the kingdom, I have to deny self, and I have to take and put these things behind, and Christ has to be first. Well, even for a rich young ruler who thinks he's got all of his life religiously in order, he comes to a point of having to sell everything in order to follow Jesus, and he says, no, my goods are of more value than God. And he walked away sad. Now turn to the Gospel of Luke and several texts here. Luke 6 and verse 24. Luke 6 and 24. But woe to you who are rich, because you have received your comfort. Woe to you who are rich, because you have received your comfort. And I'm just going to work through Luke very quickly. Luke 11, verse 41. Luke 11 and 41. But give to charity what is within, and then everything is clean for you. About this matter of giving and hypocritical Pharisees, he commands them to give of their possessions. Luke 12, verse 15. Luke 12, we can pick up in verse 13. is not in the abundance of his possessions. Life does not equal how much you have, materialistically speaking. In other words, the guy on the paper with $300 million may not know a thing about life. The amount of possessions does not determine life. Relationship with God determines life. Michael Sattler knew what life was. Eternal, on the other side, world without end, in the ages to come, those who have a grasp of heaven, as they said of Augustine, he must have eternity stamped on his eyeballs, because he could see the eternal ramifications of things. They're in life, but if you take and you invest everything you have in this world with its stuff, you don't know a thing about life, because you're going to die, and you're going to go to hell, and you're going to have none of it for all of eternity. Boy, there's an exchange. Live for everything this world has to offer, die and go to hell and get none of it. Live for God and a passion for God and die and get all of it. You see, the world says you're a fool. You turn away from all of this stuff to devote yourself to prayer and fasting and scripture and church and truth. What a crazy person. You can do all of these fun things. You turn and look them in the eye and say, it won't be fun in hell, but we have found a love with God and it's worth it all. Worldliness, Luke. At the end, verse 33, you find it again. Sell all your possessions, give to the poor. Make money bags for yourselves that won't grow old. An inexhaustible treasure in heaven where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 14, verses 12 through 14, He said to the one who has invited Him, when you give a lunch or a dinner, don't invite your friends and your brothers and your relatives, your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. Take and give food away. Invite all of those to come. Fellowship and eat. Give. It's a sense of not being tied to the possession. Luke 16 and 9. Two more references. 16 and 9, you'll find And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous money so that when it fails, and it will, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings. And then you find that passage we're familiar with in Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus. You remember some of the phrases there. He had all of his while he was on earth, but now Lazarus has his that he's crossed over the river. What are we saying in all of this? Put those two things together. Pride, pride of possessions, you put those together and you find that many times in our life we get trapped into boasting and being prideful of those things that we have. How does it work? We have a lust of the flesh and our flesh wants it. Then we have the lust of the eyes and we see it and we start trying to how we can apprehend it to gratify the flesh. And then when we get it, We brag because we finally got it in order that we can make somebody else feel lesser, that we can make ourselves feel better, and that is a low view of our identity in Christ. You don't need stuff to make yourself look better to God. You don't need things that God would say, oh, now I like him, or oh, now I love him, because he has this stuff. Our identity ought to be found in our relationship with Christ. If I'm burnt at the stake like Michael Sadler, or whether I'm in some other position, our identity ought to be found in our love for Christ. It is an issue of the heart. The evilness of the lust culminates into the boasting of the possession. Here is my quote on this. It is a venomous, venomous meaning poisonous, it is a venomous cycle to spend half of one's life trying to obtain things and spending the other half of the life bragging that we have them. It is a venomous, venomous cycle. In 1 John, As we look at this passage, Jesus warns us of this, or John does. Verse 15, do not love the world. That is the command. And these three things we've looked at, He has shown us what is in this world that we are to be warring against. Why has the Lord told us this? Why has the Lord told us this? The Lord has told you this for your good. Because if you invest in all that is temporal, you will come up greatly shortchanged in the end. He has told you this for your good. And perhaps tonight we could also see the positive here is these things of the world, the lusts that are in it, they are passing away. And in heaven, you won't lust of the flesh and of the eyes and have pride and possessions. We war against it now. And we ought to war against it because we've been shown that we need to war against it. But in heaven, you won't have to fight this war any longer. You won't. Because the desire of your heart, the glory of God will be given in full measure. And so let us press forward for that. Lastly, in closing, for a sense of a challenge to you, let me just ask you to examine your own heart. What is it that gives you most delight? What is it that you speak freely about on a regular basis? What is it that comes naturally easy for you to talk about? What is it in your daily activity, even tomorrow, is your day gonna be consumed with those things you want, those things you have, those things you want to tell your friends about? If you do, bow down in prayer, by yourself in your prayer closet or wherever it is that you pray. When you pray, does your mind immediately run to those things and that stuff? When you get down to pray, are you still trying to figure out how to do something else to your house, something else to your car? I've got to do this, I've got to add this, I've got to put this on, I've got to do all of these things, and your prayer gets so distracted? Then therein you find you have pride in that possession. Then you take up war. How can we destroy this thing? How can we cut this root? How is it that I can have more pride in the cross? How can I be, in a sense, like Luther? Luther, what is your theology? My theology is the cross. I say, or the Apostle Paul said, I boast in nothing except the cross. How is it that I can have pride in that? My Savior died on Calvary. How can I have pride and boast in that? Truth has been given, as Psalms 119.89 says, your word is forever. It is fixed in heaven. Boast in that. Boast in the things of God the eternal. not in the things that are temporal, that are only passing fancies to turn our hearts from God. Let us pray this morning. Well, this is the conclusion of part five of our Waging War series, and tonight, or on the part six, we will spend our time finishing up on the passingness of the world and the way in which I intend to do that is by looking at the book of Ecclesiastes and learning about the vanity of things and stuff and life and labors and riches and possessions. Solomon speaks very clearly to these matters, but he also gives us a great principle, a great pearl of truth in the end. And so I would encourage you to listen to part six as part six will be the final of this series on waging war. And I think that it will kind of bring everything together and help you immensely. I know that it's been a blessing for myself and I think that it's been a blessing for those here in our church. So I encourage you to, when you have time, sit down and listen and be attentive to the things of God that you would tune into part six. And I just trust that God would grant you understanding and that understanding would spawn you to reformulate your life or refocus your life into a vision that would be pleasing unto God. So Lord bless you and keep you. Amen.