The Scripture: James 4:1-10 (NIV)
Submit Yourselves to God
4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Most sin begins with pride.
- Obvious pride
- Subtle pride
- Deadly pride, which includes pretense to humility.
Low self-esteem is just pride inverted: One sets the standard so high he cannot achieve it.
In II Samuel 12 we see Nathan calling David out for his sin. "You are the man." David was so prideful he did not recognize his own sin. Deadly pride.
Pride makes everyone sick except the one who has it.
Have a pride problem?
1. Give God his throne back. (Daniel 19:23)
2. Crucify the carnal nature. Cannot do this on your own: let the Holy Spirit into your life.
Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus Christ.
Brief notes on the sermon of
Pastor Johnnie Blair
Sunday morning
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