Don't' Let Pride Get In The Way 03-17-2023

The speaker discusses the topic of pride and how it can hinder relationships and cause problems. He shares personal experiences and quotes from the Bible to emphasize the negative effects of pride. He encourages listeners to humble themselves and let go of their ego. Pride is described as self-centered and hateful to God. The speaker acknowledges his own struggles with pride and urges others to recognize and overcome it. Good morning everybody good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning Brother Ray, it's good to see you. Hope everything's going good Hey man, good morning Jim good to see you. Good to see you. Hey man, hey y'all I'm sorry about my post. Good morning, good morning. My post yesterday I played that song that I did on my live and I guess TikTok let the video play but they took away the audio part so oh well what can you do. Good morning brother good to see you this morning. Good morning TLVS4. Good to see you. It's really Heidi. Ms. Heidi how are you doing this morning? Good morning. Good morning. Sister Cindy good morning. Good to see you this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Hello. Hello. Hello. The Lord's Garden. I like that. The Lord's Garden. I like that one. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Just look not you. There you go. Good morning. Ms. Karen. Tony Brown. Someone. Heather. Heather Keenan. I worked with somebody with that last name Keenan. Medical device. Interesting. Good morning. Good to see you this morning. Is that Clo Grace 501? Good morning. Good morning. Good to see all of you this morning. This morning I like to talk about. Good morning you this morning. Pride. Pride. I know that yesterday we talked about not complaining. We talked about not missing the blessings and not complaining. But you know what was almost in my way with regards to what I was complaining about was this. It was my pride. And how many of us struggle with pride? I'm sure no one is exempt from this. We've all struggled with that pride. You know you might have gotten into a debate with a spouse. You really believe that you were correct in your assessment. And you were just going to say this sermon was on point. It wasn't on point for all of us. But you believe that your message was so on point that you refuse to surrender to the other person. Have you ever been there? Come on. Every day. Miss Stacy is honest there. She said this is something I deal with every day. And I do too. I do too. And pride is one of those things that makes us miss out on our blessings. Pride. And some of us are more prideful than others. You know I was in a meeting one day. Counseling. Pre-marriage counseling. And one of the individuals said you know I've got a problem with his Facebook. I said well what is the problem? Well he's got all these relationships on there of other women. I said well why is that a bad thing? She said well I just don't want him on there. If he's committed to me he's committed to me. I said okay what would you like him to do? She said I would like him to remove that before we get married. Good morning. Good morning. And I said okay. And I looked at him and I said well what do you think? Do you think you should remove? He goes I'm not going to remove them. I shouldn't have to if she trusts me. And I couldn't help but seeing the pride in the room. He was saying I am not going to remove those. Good morning. TPHOA. He said I am not going to remove those and I could see his pride. And matter of fact, good morning Joshua, the rest of the conversation was around this Facebook. And the rest of the conversation and Miss Debbie was in the room. You could see the pride. Now let's not judge this person because I guarantee you all of us once again I reiterate all of us have had that spirit of pride where we were not going to be moved. We might have did it with our parents. Our kids might have done it with us. But I guarantee you we get prideful. So yesterday's conversation, thank you, yesterday's conversation I was operating in the spirit of pride. Remember yesterday? I was complaining. I said I'm not going to complain. But what was what was moving that? It was pride. I was in my mindset that this company owes me. This company, you know, I brought so much value to them and they owe me. Now if they owe a bill or not, that's not the point here. The point is my mindset is that I was operating in the spirit of pride. I was angry and I wanted results. I wanted them to yield to what I wanted. Title Gym, don't let pride get in the way. Don't let pride get in the way. Let's start there. Don't let pride get in the way. Do you know pride is a sin? Turn your Bibles to the book of Proverbs 21.4. Pride is a sin. Proverbs 21.4. And you know what? Before I read this, I'm going to pray. Don't let pride get in the way. And we all, oh my my my, some of you right now might be struggling with some pride. You refuse to humble yourself. Some of you are struggling with pride. You refuse to say I'm sorry or I apologize, forgive me. Some of you are struggling with pride. You don't think you need to do that at work. Good morning, good morning, Sister Kim. Some of you say, oh I'm above that. I don't need that. See this is the problem. We shouldn't have all that pride. Look it's Proverbs 21.4. Let's see what that says. 21.4. Father God, I thank you. I praise you. I honor you that you woke me up this morning. I thank you Lord for blessing me to see another day. And Lord, I thank you that you would just bless us as we read your word, Father God. We thank you. We praise you. We honor you. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, look what Proverbs 21.4 says. A haunted look is a proud, a haunted look, a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked are sins. Pride is a sin. When we have that pride that we will not humble ourselves to say I'm sorry. And do you know, watch this, watch this. Somebody said, how do you deal with toxic abusive people? Stay away from them. Stay away from them. You said I might be married to them. Just, just radio silence. You said they might be my neighbor. Radio silence. Don't give room to the devil. Don't go, don't let the sun go down on your anger, but do not let pride creep in there. I have known families who have had a falling out and years and years have gone by without talking to each other. Because why? Pride. You know how we get, you know how we get. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, they owe me an apology. I'm not going to say anything to them. I'm not going to say anything to them. Now, what I mean by good. Thank you. Thank you so much. What do I mean by, uh, don't, don't ignore that. What I'm saying is do not get caught up in the mundane conversations when it comes to pride. If they're abusive, ignore them, ignore them. Don't get caught up in it because they're just looking for a fight, but do not please forgive me. That's Proverbs 21, four Proverbs 21, four. We're saying that pride is a sin, a haunting look, a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked are sin. Pride. I, I, I, I'm telling you, y'all, I'll tell you a story. Let me tell you a story real quick. Watch this. Let me show you how pastor Paul got caught up in major pride. Watch this. I have an early nineties Bronco. Some of you know this story. I have an early nineties Bronco. And this Bronco I bought and I, I, I really liked the Bronco. I've always liked Broncos, Ford Broncos. And it, um, wasn't running right. So by suggestion, someone told me about a young man who was a mechanic. We're talking about pride here. I'll give you an illustration of pride. It was brought to my attention, a young man that was a mechanic. And so I took it over there and he let, he worked on his property. So I took it over there and I told him, thank you so much. I told him what I needed to do, what I wanted to do with this Bronco. He always said, I can fix it. I said, well, you come highly recommend. No problem. He had a barn, he had cars everywhere. It was nice and neat, had all the tools and, and, and just, I was very pleased with the conversation. So I left my Bronco there. Well, I, I, I want to say about two or three months went by and my Bronco hadn't been returned. However, I told the individual, no rush, no rush. You'd go ahead and keep it. Take your time. We're talking about pride here. Y'all. All right. We're talking about pride. I said, take your time. So another month goes by another month goes by. So about the fifth or sixth month, you remember Josh, about the fifth or sixth month, I decided to go over and show up at his property. And there is my beautiful, pristine Bronco sitting out of field with weeds and growing up and the windows rolled down. And we had a couple of storms. He was busy. He didn't even know I was on the property. So I went over and looked in it and there is parts, radiator parts laying on the seat. And I like, really? No, I didn't get mad. I finally walked over to his barn where he was working at shop and started talking to him. Well, he assured me that I will get it done soon, but he's been really busy. And because of the pandemic parts have been short, so on, et cetera. Long story short, he never finished it. I had to go over there. I had to get AAA because the inside was full of, you know, uh, uh, dried up dust and dirt where rain had gotten into it. Folks. This is a pristine Bronco. This is, this is a beautiful Bronco. And so you get in it and you'll be amazed how beautiful it is. And I was really hurt that this guy just had no, uh, respect for my property. Pride was coming in. And I remember literally, I would, I literally was like, basically my friend, I, I told him, I can't believe you did this. I have no respect for, and I just do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And pride and pride and pride was there. And so I remember making a post and some of you saw it. We're talking about pride here, y'all. And I remember making a post talking about this young man. So I got over it, got the Bronco back, neither here nor there. Well, one day I'm at church. How did you react to response to how did he act to my response? You'll see. So one day I went to church and I spoke on pride, how pride is a dangerous thing, how pride creates a fall, how pride creates separation, how pride creates anger, how pride creates, uh, uh, bitterness, how pride takes root in your spirit and causes you to, to, to, to, to, to, to act out of character because what pride. After church, somebody said, I need to speak to you. I said, okay. So we went in the office and this individual said, you know, I was disappointed in you. I said, well, why are you disappointed in me? He said, well, my cousin, who I recommended that worked on your Bronco said that you just chewed him out. That you said this, you said, now I didn't, I wasn't disrespectful. I didn't use any curse words, but I was very firm in my delivery. When I let this young man know that he dropped the ball on his responsibility. So I let one, as this young man was telling me this in my office, I leaned back in my chair and folks, I'm telling you right now, I got pride. I automatically was telling myself that guy deserved my wrath. That guy deserved to be put in place that guy. And I was formulating the list in my mind, why I wasn't going to apologize because the young man in my office, after the sermon was demanding an apology. Well, he said, I believe you should apologize. I got defensive. I did. I was like, how dare you? And I kept telling him, I said, man, you don't know what my Bronco looked like before it got there. Then the young man in my office said, no, no, I went over there and looked at it because I went to go see my cousin. I go, you saw it in the worst state. I remember bickering. I remember like angry with this guy taking up for his cousin who dropped the ball and his lack of responsibility with regards to fixing my car. And he had it for several months, not just weeks, several months. And I received it worse than I, it was received worse. I gave it to him in pristine condition. I received it in poor condition externally. And I remember in my office looking there and I was angry and God just, bam, right there in the office. God literally shook my spirit and said, how are you going to preach about pride when pride is sitting right here in this room? I got pow-pows again. Amen. Wild thing is he did deserve it, but even if he did, we are called to be different. The verse we read yesterday, we are called to be different. Amen. There are a lot of folks in your life that deserve your wrath. Let's be honest. There's a lot of folks in your life to deserve to hear what you've got to say. There's a lot of folks in your life that deserve there's a lot of folks. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh and he wants to talk to you. The young man on the phone, his pride set in, I could tell because there was a delay. The gentleman in my office said, no, no, you need to talk to him. He needs to talk to you right now. So he got on the phone and I said, you know what? I want to apologize that I got angry with you. I want to apologize that I made a post about it. And would you please forgive me? And he said at that very moment with a delay, he said, and he was dealing with his own pride. He said with a delay, I accept your apology. There was a relief. There was a blessing because I did not let pride get in the way. Now, let me be honest. Please let me be transparent. Don't think good old pastor Paul has not on different events, been prideful and would not be moved. Let me repeat that. Don't think good old pastor Paul, pat on the back, does the right thing. No, no, no, no. There have been times when pride set in and I was not going to be moved. I'm not proud of that. I'm just stating the facts. Maybe you, you, you, you, maybe you all don't know about that. Maybe you, you always humble yourself, but there are times when pastor Paul. We'll stand firm on what he believes because of pride and will not be removed. He will not be moved. We'll stand firm on what he believes because of pride and will not be removed. And you know, the outcome of that was always the worst. Do you know, I never felt good about that. Do you know that it, it, it, it, it create a separation because why that pride, even the company I'm dealing with, I'm going to send an email off on Monday. Please forgive me. If this is your decision, there is nothing I can do. I wish you all the best of luck when it comes to your device. I'm not going to let pride get in the way. It almost does, but pride is a sin. Let's look at Proverbs 6, 16. Pride is a sin. Proverbs 6, 16. Please forgive me. Proverbs 16, 5. Proverbs 16, 5. Pride is a sin and we struggle with it. So sorry. Proverbs 16, 5. Thank you, brother Ray. I'm so sorry. Everyone proud, proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Let me, let me say it again. Everyone proud in heart is abomination to the Lord. Did you hear that? When you are proud in heart, when you refuse to be moved, when you will not humble yourself, we got some problems. When you refuse to say, I'm sorry, I apologize. We got some problems. When you refuse to, to, to, uh, now, now don't get me wrong. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Cause I read it and I want to make sure I responded to this. You can be proud of your child. You can be proud of your husband. We're not, we're not, you know, that, that is when you say that you are saying, I appreciate them. I'm proud of my kids. Meaning I, I, I appreciate them. I respect them. I love them. You know, they're good, hard workers. They're honest kids. I'm proud of them in that sense. But we're talking about a pride where you refuse to, to, to, to, to humble yourselves because you think you're too good. Amen. Proud isn't in heart is not the pride of others. It's not, it's amen. I concur. You can be proud of, of, of a family member. You can be proud of the work you've done. You can be proud of, of your church. You can be proud of your pastor. Thank you so much. That's okay. That's just saying, I love them. I admire them. I appreciate them. I thank you. I met a man yesterday who came and over to Ace Hardware. I helped him get his propane. And, and, and, and, uh, uh, uh, he, he said, I love my pastor. He goes, we were, we were caught up in drugs and me and my wife. And he preached a sermon. And from that day, we've been drug free for, for 24 months. He goes, and I'm so proud of my pastor because he lives that life. That that's nothing wrong with that. But if he would have said something like, you know, my pastor was preaching a sermon and, and, and, and, and, uh, uh, he said something and I didn't like it. So I'm not going back to that church anymore because I didn't like what he was preaching. Well, what was he preaching? Well, he was, he was preaching out of, you know, this, uh, the Bible. And he said this, this, this, and I disagree with that. I said, well, was it the truth? Well, I don't, it was in the Bible, but I just don't accept it. That's pride. That's pride. Even with Miss Debbie, I've had to humble myself. We get in a little debate, little argument. You know, I'm a man. And I remember going at least two days mad at each other and all I needed to do was say, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I was being prideful, but what I want, what was I trying to do? I was trying to bully my point. I was trying to somehow push my agenda. See that kind of pride folks. That's the kind of pride that gets us in trouble. And there's a lot of people in church that are prideful. There's a lot of people in church that are prideful. They don't want to be told anything. They don't want to be instructed. They don't want the, the, the word to be preached. Why? Because of pride and because there's the ego. I like that. It's all about the ego. Yeah. The ego. See, pride is self-centered. I don't know if y'all get that. When you are saying pride is involved, it's self-centered. When you're self-centered, you're taking God off the throne and you're putting yourself on the throne. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Did I step on some toes? See, pride is self-centered. It's about me. And we live in a very proud culture. We're self-centered. This is even now, I look at people, people nowadays, they, they, they, they don't want to say, thank you. They don't want to say you're welcome. They've almost gotten to the point where they believe you owe them. Watch this. Proverbs eight, Proverbs eight. Proverbs eight, you know, uh, uh, uh, pride is hateful to Christ. Proverbs eight, 12 Proverbs, eight, 12. Pride is hateful to Christ. Proverbs eight, 12, and 13. Let's look what it says. Let's look what it says. Proverbs eight, 12, and 13, I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance, and the evil of evil way. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way. Each one of us, I look in the workforce, I look at people at this organization I'm with. For the most point, there's, there's some good folks, but even, even the people that I'm working with, I look at the people that I'm working with. I look at the people that I'm working with, I look at the people that I'm For the most point, there's, there's some good folks, but even at the place I'm at, you got pride, what do I mean by that? You got the older guys, they don't do certain things. Cause they feel, well, I don't got to do that. That's pride. Do you got some of the younger folks are there? I don't have to do that. That's pride. But in all reality, we get paid per hour to do what the job is told us to do. In all reality. And I repeat, some of you have jobs that you do not want to humble yourselves and do what you've been called to do, pride. And pride is destructive. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Sister Kimmi said, thinking too highly of ourselves. How many of us are guilty? Sometimes we think a little too highly of ourselves. Even Jesus said, I came not to be served. I came to serve. Jesus humbled himself. As unto a servant became like one of us, but sometimes we think higher ourselves. I'm too good for that. You know, I'm very blessed. I had a mother and father that blessed me with a good life. We can all be that way. My mother and father blessed me with a good life. We had a nice house. We wore nice clothes. We traveled, we ate, we, we had a very good life. I don't have a sad story. My parents made a great, uh, or gave me a great advantage. Oh, let me check the time. My mother and father gave me a great advantage in life, but do you know what? My parents used to say, don't ever forget where you came from. Don't ever forget where you come from. And I tell you what, my mother would make me to break that pride that I might have. My mother would make me go on there and clean toilets. Oh yeah. I'd be in there with the, the, the, uh, comment with the brush. I remember on a couple of occasions, she had me at gloves on cleaning it by hand. Good morning, Lambert. Good morning. Lamb rail. Why she wanted to make sure I was never prideful that I didn't think I was too good. I didn't think too high of myself because when you started thinking high of yourself, you're in the pool of pride comment. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes Ajax, my mother made me wash those clothes. I used to have to even iron my dad's shirts. Yeah. I can iron, wash, clean, keep house. I think praise be to God. I can't cook worth who, but I can keep a clean house pride. But do you know what? What happens with unchecked pride, a fall when there's unchecked pride, there's going to be a fall when you allow pride to manifest, there's going to be destruction. When you allow pride to take credit, the predicates, well, I can't even enunciate this morning. When you let pride take the lead, there is going to be a fall. Yeah. Unchecked. And that's another thing. When someone tells you you're being prideful, somebody said, are you married? Yes, I am married. Almost 30 years married to a beautiful woman named Miss Debbie, but pride. It is the thing that destroys us as a people. It's a thing or a spirit of pride destroys us as Christians and pride and pride can not go unchecked, but we need to get the spirit of pride out of our life and give no room to the devil. Pride. It's just watch this Leviticus, Leviticus 26, 19, Leviticus 26, 19. And I will break the pride of your power and I will make your heaven as an iron and your earth as brass pride. You know, I have seen some incredible pride with people and I'm not, I'm not picking on people with money. That's not the case, but I have seen people that had enough money to buy what they want and they were dealing with pride. Anybody met people like that? They had so much money. They had pride that they felt they could buy and do whatever they want. Why? Because of the pride of their money. Their, their, their God was their money. Yeah. I met the owner of this particular ACE young man. He has 11 of them. Wait, I think they said 11. He owns 11 ACEs. He's a young man. He's probably late thirties, owns 11 ACE hardware stores, but you want to know what impressed me about him? His humility, his humility. He even said to me, and I have never had a boss say this to me. He said, well, I, we are blessed to have you here. His humility. Now here's the interesting thing. I keep hearing from the, my other coworkers that this is a consistent pattern that he presents his humility and no pride. Matter of fact, the fact that he's a young man, he's a young man. Let's switch over to that. Instead of us being prideful, we should be grateful. Instead of us getting caught up in our pride, we should be grateful and be thanking God. Cause that's what I see out of this young man at ACE. He's thanking God that he owns ACEs. He's thanking God that he's been put in this position. He's not prideful because he's got some stuff. He's, he's, he's thankful because God has given him some stuff. We need to be grateful. Don't allow pride to get into your, your, your, your, your narrative. Don't let pride, folks, even some preachers can be proud. Oh, oh yeah. There are some pastors that will say, you can't tell me nothing. They almost present a case that they're above correction. That's pride. I'm speaking the truth, y'all. You've never attended a church or met a preacher or pastor. I'm not all, we're not saying all, brother, haven't you pastor Scott, right? I'm not saying all, but I'm saying I have met some preachers, pastors, ministers that when you tried to correct them or so with humility, show them in the word, their fault. And you were going to the book of Matthew to, you know, when you go to your brother, if you have a problem, he's sinned against you, you go to him. And they, they turn their nose up real quick. Let me, let me respond to this, this individual right here. I lost a 30 year marriage because I wanted him to be humble and what we've accomplished. So then the, the, the, the pride, not on your part, I'm assuming on his part, the pride set in, y'all accomplished some things in life, but then it all fell apart because pride was present. That's what I mean, y'all. Pride. We can't let that be there. We must, we must, we must say that we are all on the, under the authority of the Lord almighty. And if we need to render an apology, I was wrong. And you know what? Can I be honest? And I'm not saying this because you wrote this sister. I'm saying this because you wrote this sister. I'm not saying this because you wrote this sister, I'm saying this because you wrote this sister, I'm saying this because you wrote this sister. I'm not saying this because you wrote this sister, I'm saying this because you wrote this sister, I'm saying this because you wrote this sister. This is my observation. And if anyone disagrees with me, I'm fine with that. But I believe in my personal opinion, in all humility, men are the most prideful people. That's just me because why I'm a man and I have a lot of pride. Ooh, that's so hard saying I was wrong. It is hard. It is hard, but men, this is why this is an observation. Now we're just an observation. This is why when the gospel is preached, most of the time, the woman will be the first one to surrender to the message. This is why on any given church, more women attend than men. Why? Because men have this spirit of pride as if we don't need help. And that's an observation. I'm not, I wouldn't, I wouldn't teach that as a doctrine. I wouldn't teach that as, as, as a message from the pulpit. That is just Paulology and my observation, but we deal with pride, men. And that pride makes us self-centered. Even my kids, watch this parents, watch this, watch this. Even my kids, if I'm wrong, women do also. No, no, no, there's no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not excluding. I'm just saying the majority, everybody struggles with pride, but I'm just saying in my observation, out of the two genders, men struggle with pride the most. Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, 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let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me Let's talk about forgiveness on Monday. He was still holding on pride because pride causes you to think differently, act different, react different. It takes the center point of stage. It self centers on self. But Miss Debbie was free. And she's got a smile on her face. And so it's been 30 years. And because that day, she did not let that spirit of pride take lead position. She's free from its clutches. Pride. Usually I say sin, but we'll use it this phrase for pride. Pride takes you farther than you want to go. Pride keeps you longer than you want to stay. Pride charges you more than you're willing to pay. Pride. So I asked you this morning, as you start your day, don't allow pride to be what defines you today. Don't allow pride to get in the way of what God has for you today. Don't let pride cause your relationships to go by the wayside. I like what you just said. Stay humble. Don't think highly of yourself. Don't exalt yourself. But in all things, lift the Lord up. Praise God. Honor Him. If someone comments or somebody gives you a compliment today, I want you to say, by the grace of God. If someone says, man, you got a good job, or man, you got a nice house, or I love your car. Man, I love that outfit. Praise be to God. He gave it to me. That's all you got to do. Praise God. Somebody might say, boy, you spoke a great sermon. May God get all the glory. It had nothing to do with me. That's all we got to do. And if we would do that, folks, there'll be a joy in your heart, a peace that surpasses understanding, and you'll be effectively used by God. All right, everybody. I got to get going. It is 7.20. I got to get going. I got to finish getting ready. I got to head on over to Ace Hardware. And yesterday, a young man came in yesterday at Ace Hardware who recognized me. I haven't said anything to anybody at Ace Hardware. I don't really say anything. But this kid recognized me. And he said, oh, man, Pastor Paul. And all my colleagues are right there, and they're looking like, and the way the kid was coming off, he introduced me to his grandmother and this and that, so on, et cetera. But the way this kid's coming off, like, you know, I don't know. It was just really weird. And so when he left, people were like, well, how does that kid know you? Oh, no, he probably seen me around. I'm not sure. But, you know, I don't know. And so it was pretty funny. But I got a giggle out of that. But, y'all, stay blessed. Remember, God is for you. Keep your focus on the cross. Don't get caught up in self. Because we are just here for a short moment. We are like a vapor, according to Scripture. We're like a vapor, and then we're gone. Don't waste the precious time that we have with nonsense. Don't waste your time. I want you to be the salt and the light and be used by God. Father God, we thank you. Lord, I know there's some questions. I know there were some prayer requests. I know there's some things that people wanted. But, Lord, you know, you know what I needed to say today, because, God, you gave it to me with regards to pride. And, Lord, I struggle with my own pride. I struggle with my own issues of pride. I pray that you would forgive me of those. But, Lord, I pray that you would always give me that gentle reminder by way of the Spirit that if I do step out of pocket, out of line, that you would just discipline me. For, Lord, I know that you discipline whom you love. And, Lord, I pray that for each one of us that we not have that spirit of pride, but we have that spirit of love and a sound mind. That we give you all the praise. That we give you all the glory. Lord, I pray that we would just honor you in everything that we do, no matter what it is. And, Father, we thank you. We praise you. And we honor you. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, everybody. God bless you. Have a great day. Remember, the Lord loves you. Take care.