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This is a reading from First Peter
chapter five.

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So I exhort the elders among you,

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as a fellow elder
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ,

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as well as a partaker in the glory
that is going to be revealed.

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Shepherd the flock of God
that is among you.

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Exercising oversight not under compulsion,
but willingly, as God would have you,

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not for shameful gain, but eagerly
not domineering over those near charge,

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but being examples to the flock.

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And when the chief shepherd appears,
you will receive the unfading

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crown of glory.

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Likewise, you who are younger
be subject to the elders.

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Clothe yourselves, all of you,
with humility toward one another.

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For God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.

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Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God,

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so that at the proper time
he may exalt you.

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Casting all your anxieties on him,
because he cares for you.

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Be sober minded.

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Be watchful.

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Your adversary the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion,

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seeking someone to devour. Resist him.

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Firm in your faith,
knowing that the same kinds

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of suffering are being experienced
by your brotherhood throughout the world.

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And after
you have suffered a little while,

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the God of all grace, who has called you
to his eternal glory in Christ,

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will himself restore, confirm,

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strengthen, and establish you to him.

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Be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

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By Silvanus a faithful brother,
as I regard him, I have written briefly

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to you, exhorting and declaring
that this is the true grace of God.

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Stand firm in it.

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She who is at Babylon, who is likewise
chosen, sends you greetings.

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And so does Mark, my son.

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Greet one another with a kiss of love.

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Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

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Everybody,

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good morning
and welcome to Christ Community Chapel.

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My name is Joe.

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I'm one of the pastors here,
and I'm really glad that you've come.

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This is the last week of our

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ten week series
we've been calling Rise Up.

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We have spent this time
in the book of first Peter.

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And first Peter is a letter
that's written to, a church

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that is growing but in a hostile culture.

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We decided to spend ten weeks
in first Peter because it's so relevant.

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It seems like for us right
now, we're growing church in a culture

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that is anything
but friendly to our faith.

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But Peter does something interesting.

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He doesn't mention the culture.

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He doesn't seem like he's concerned with
what's going on out there with them.

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He is much more concerned
about what's going on in here with us.

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And if you're like me, it just seems like

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the culture needs to change
a lot more than I do read it.

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Just with all the things that are going on
in schools and universities and protests

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and, sexuality and crime and politics,
all of it, it just seems like it's a mess.

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But then I think Peter was writing
to a church in Rome, in ancient

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Rome was a much worse culture
with leaders like Nero and Caligula,

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and he doesn't mention them at all.

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Instead, he focuses on on the question,

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what does God want to do in you?

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I almost said,
what does God want to do through you?

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But that's not it.

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He wants to do something in you,
to make you into something

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beautiful, something glorious.

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He wants
you to reflect the very glory of God.

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The way the moon reflects
the glory of the sun.

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And then as Christians,
we become like leaven

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that works its way
through the whole lump of dough.

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Right.

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So if you have your Bibles, go ahead
and turn to First Peter chapter five.

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If you don't have a Bible,
you're not very familiar with the Bible.

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Don't worry about it.

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We're going to put the verses
up on the screen when I talk about them.

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If you want to hold something in your hand
and follow along with me, you can use

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one of our church Bibles
and it's on page 955

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and 956, in the Church Bible.

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We just had the passage read to us,
and the first four verses

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Peter addresses the leaders of the church.

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The word
that's translated elder is the Greek word

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presbyter us, which, actually
is kind of the modern day.

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The modern day equivalent is a pastor
or a leader of a church.

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And, it's interesting.

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He talks to people like me
the same way he talks to everybody,

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which is,
what does God want to do inside of me?

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And I don't want to

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spend much time on these four verses
because they don't pertain to most of you.

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But I want to make a couple of comments.

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One is that I find it super sobering.

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After pastoring this church
for like for over 30 years,

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that one day I will stand
in front of the chief Shepherd,

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who is Jesus, who loves you fiercely.

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Every single one of you loves

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you so fiercely that he came here

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and gave his life for you, right?

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And I'm going to give an account to Jesus
about how well I have loved you,

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cared for you, shepherded you.

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And that is sobering to me.

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So I want to ask you to do something.

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I want to ask you to pray
for the leadership of our church.

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Now more than ever.

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Pray for us,
because a lot can go wrong in our hearts.

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Just like a lot
can go wrong in your hearts.

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And I want to ask you
to pray for three things.

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Then I'm going to just point out in verses
two and three, verse two, it says,

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Shepherd the flock of God
that is among you, exercising oversight

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not under compulsion,
but willingly, as God would have you,

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not for shameful gain, but eagerly

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pray that we would count it a privilege

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and not a burden to serve,
that we'd wake up every morning

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excited about what we get to do,
and not feeling like we have to do it.

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The second and

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third thing in verse three,
he says, not domineering

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over those in your charge,
but being examples to the flock.

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Would you pray that we would be givers
and not takers?

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And there's a lot that can go into that.

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But just pray that.

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And then it says,

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as examples to the flock, pray
that we would become more like Jesus.

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Just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean

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that I'm becoming more like Jesus.

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So would you pray for those things?

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All right.

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Thanks.

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Enough about me. Let's talk about you.

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All right, here we go.

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This is what he says.

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He goes on to talk to all of us. Really?

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Beginning in verse five to verse nine.

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He says, likewise, you who are younger
be subject to the elders.

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Clothe yourselves, all of you,
with humility toward one another.

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For God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.

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Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God,

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so at the proper time he may exalt you,
casting

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all your anxieties on him,
because he cares for you.

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Be sober minded.

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Be watchful.

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Your adversary
the devil prowls around like a roaring

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lion, seeking someone to devour.

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Resist him.

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Firm in your faith,
knowing that the same kinds of sufferings

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are being experienced
by your brotherhood throughout the world.

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All right, here are the

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three points that I want to use
to kind of guide our time.

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The first is you have an enemy.

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You have an enemy.

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Second point is your enemy has a strategy.

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And the third point is
there's a way to stay safe.

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You have an enemy.
Your enemy has a strategy.

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There's a way to stay safe.

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First you have an enemy.

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Zach told us last week that a little more

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than a third of this letter
is about suffering.

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I actually had

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two people come up to me and say,
you're preaching this weekend, right?

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And I said, yeah.

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And they they said, it's
not about suffering, is it?

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I mean, it's like everybody's
heard enough about suffering.

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So I have good news
and bad news for everybody here.

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The good news is
this is not about suffering.

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The bad news is this is about the devil.

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All right.

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Now, I know it's weird
to talk about the devil, especially right

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after Halloween when there are horror
movies and costumes and,

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skeletons
hanging in people's yards and all of that.

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But there are two mistakes that people
make when it comes to the devil.

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One is to take him too lightly,
or even not even believe that he exists.

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When I say take him too lightly,
they're the movie, O brother.

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Where Art
thou is a movie that I really like.

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But in one part of that movie,
somebody asks the question, what?

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What's the devil look like?

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And George Clooney responds quickly.

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He says, oh, the devil himself is red
and scaly, has a bifurcated

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tail, and carries a half fork.

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And he said it
in such a way that it is very funny,

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but it takes him lightly.

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And there's no this is one of the things

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that the Bible uses imagery
about the devil.

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That is terrifying.

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Absolutely terrifying.

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Here it talks about him as a as a lion

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that's prowling around
seeking someone to devour.

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And another part, it talks about him
being the prince of the power of the air,

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another part, the God of this world,

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the person who talks the most about

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the devil in the Bible is Jesus.

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And it's always a mistake
to take something lightly

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that Jesus takes very seriously.

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You have a spiritual enemy

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and he is a formidable enemy.

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Do not take him lightly.

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But the other mistake that people make is

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giving the devil more credit

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to begin to see him all over the place

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and controlling different things
that he doesn't control. And

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the letter first, John the

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Apostle John is writing Christians,
and he says something great.

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He says, greater is he that is in
you than he that is in the world.

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And what John was telling him is,

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if you are a follower of Jesus,
the Holy Spirit is within you,

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and the Holy Spirit is way, way, way

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more powerful than the devil.

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My wife, Karen had a great

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aunt named
Aunt Vera, who lived in New York City,

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and Aunt Vera
was a self-proclaimed spiritist.

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She held seances and read tarot cards and,

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like, used the Ouija board to communicate

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with the spirits, told
people's fortunes or that.

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And, the family
didn't really think much about it

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until my in-laws,

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Dick and Carol Heasley, became Christians.

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They were the first Christians
in their whole family,

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and not

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long after they became
Christians and Vera came to visit.

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And she had come before here
in Ohio to visit.

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And, but this time

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they didn't even know whether she knew
they had become Christians.

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But she came to their house
and stopped at the threshold

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of their house of would not go in.

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She ended up
going around to the back of the house,

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sitting on a stoop and smoking cigarets.

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The whole time.

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No one knew why she didn't
go in the house.

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I have a theory, and my theory is greater.

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Is he that is in you

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than he that is in the world.

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Listen, you have an enemy.

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He is a formidable enemy.

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Don't take him lightly.

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Don't give him too much credit.

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You know, you know how we tell our kids,
don't take candy from strangers.

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We tell them that because we don't know
the intention of the stranger.

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Don't ever think that Satan
is offering you a little indulgence,

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a little sin, like a piece of candy.

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His intention is to completely devour you.

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You have an enemy.

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The second point is
your enemy has a strategy.

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Everyone's well.

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I get an email from a Nigerian prince
who needs my help

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in getting his fortune out of the country,

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and he offers me
an enormous amount of money to help him,

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and all I have to do is send him my bank
account number and he'll start the process

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right.

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You've
you've probably heard of this, right?

243
00:13:09,588 --> 00:13:12,591
It's it's called the Nigerian letter scam.

244
00:13:13,259 --> 00:13:15,828
And, Americans

245
00:13:15,828 --> 00:13:19,131
fall for it to the tune of $700,000

246
00:13:19,765 --> 00:13:22,768
a year. Why?

247
00:13:23,118 --> 00:13:25,187
Why does anybody fall for a con?

248
00:13:25,187 --> 00:13:28,791
Con artists would tell you
because of greed.

249
00:13:29,492 --> 00:13:32,461
A con artist would say it's very hard
to get somebody to fall

250
00:13:32,461 --> 00:13:36,332
for a con like that
unless there's a preexisting condition.

251
00:13:36,332 --> 00:13:37,967
In this case, great

252
00:13:39,451 --> 00:13:40,135
Peter says,

253
00:13:40,135 --> 00:13:44,123
Satan, the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion,

254
00:13:44,306 --> 00:13:48,561
seeking someone to devour,
someone to call from the herd.

255
00:13:49,461 --> 00:13:52,464
What is the preexisting condition

256
00:13:52,464 --> 00:13:55,467
that the devil is looking for?

257
00:13:55,501 --> 00:13:58,020
I think Peter tells us verses
five through seven.

258
00:13:58,020 --> 00:14:01,790
He says, likewise, you who are younger
be subject to the elders.

259
00:14:01,790 --> 00:14:04,910
Clothe yourselves, all of you,
with humility toward one another.

260
00:14:05,628 --> 00:14:08,814
For God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.

261
00:14:09,832 --> 00:14:12,868
Humble yourselves,
therefore under the mighty hand of God,

262
00:14:13,435 --> 00:14:15,871
so that the proper time he may exalt you,
casting

263
00:14:15,871 --> 00:14:20,042
all your anxieties on him,
because he cares for you.

264
00:14:20,042 --> 00:14:22,978
And right after that
he says, be sober minded.

265
00:14:22,978 --> 00:14:24,530
Watch out,

266
00:14:24,530 --> 00:14:26,849
the devil prowls around.

267
00:14:26,849 --> 00:14:28,617
He doesn't just change subjects.

268
00:14:28,617 --> 00:14:32,821
What he's doing is flowing from pride
and anxiety,

269
00:14:33,422 --> 00:14:36,108
right to being vulnerable to the devil.

270
00:14:37,142 --> 00:14:38,427
The preexisting

271
00:14:38,427 --> 00:14:43,132
condition that the devil is looking for
in all of us.

272
00:14:43,832 --> 00:14:46,552
One of them is pride.

273
00:14:46,552 --> 00:14:47,253
Pride.

274
00:14:47,253 --> 00:14:51,173
It says God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.

275
00:14:51,173 --> 00:14:54,960
Pride will keep you from experiencing
the grace of God.

276
00:14:55,477 --> 00:14:58,480
If without grace, you're a sitting duck.

277
00:14:59,882 --> 00:15:00,950
Period.

278
00:15:00,950 --> 00:15:04,253
The problem with pride
is that it comes in so many forms.

279
00:15:04,403 --> 00:15:05,237
One of the way it comes.

280
00:15:05,237 --> 00:15:08,240
Every once while I'll talk to somebody
and I'll say, if there is a heaven,

281
00:15:08,991 --> 00:15:10,259
how do you think you get there?

282
00:15:10,259 --> 00:15:14,129
And the person will say,
you know, I'm a pretty good person.

283
00:15:14,129 --> 00:15:15,481
I try really hard.

284
00:15:15,481 --> 00:15:18,200
I know I'm not perfect,
but I'm better than most people.

285
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,537
If that's
what's going on in your heart right now,

286
00:15:22,488 --> 00:15:25,224
then what you're saying is
you don't need a savior.

287
00:15:25,224 --> 00:15:28,310
You don't need grace,

288
00:15:29,244 --> 00:15:31,647
and that makes you extremely vulnerable.

289
00:15:32,698 --> 00:15:34,700
But I find that pride

290
00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:37,436
is something that weaves its way
through me

291
00:15:37,436 --> 00:15:41,190
and comes out in weird ways,
like just last Thursday,

292
00:15:41,190 --> 00:15:44,193
you know, Thursday
we serve a meal before the service.

293
00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:45,894
I gotten a plate of food.

294
00:15:45,894 --> 00:15:48,931
I was heading to my office
and both my hands were full.

295
00:15:48,931 --> 00:15:51,917
I was trying to open a door
without spilling stuff,

296
00:15:52,368 --> 00:15:55,170
and somebody came by and they said,
you need help.

297
00:15:55,170 --> 00:15:58,040
And I was like, no, I'm good,

298
00:15:58,040 --> 00:15:59,058
right?

299
00:15:59,058 --> 00:16:00,025
Why would I say that?

300
00:16:00,025 --> 00:16:03,028
Because even a little bit of grace

301
00:16:03,379 --> 00:16:05,848
is humbling

302
00:16:05,848 --> 00:16:08,851
and not so deep down

303
00:16:08,867 --> 00:16:11,637
I'm proud.

304
00:16:11,637 --> 00:16:13,522
Another, kind of pride

305
00:16:13,522 --> 00:16:17,643
that's really scary
because it makes so much sense is after

306
00:16:17,643 --> 00:16:20,696
you've been to become a Christian
and you've been a Christian

307
00:16:20,696 --> 00:16:22,915
for while you've gotten involved
with Bible studies, you've learned

308
00:16:22,915 --> 00:16:26,852
how to how to read the Bible,
how to pray, how to serve, how to give.

309
00:16:27,119 --> 00:16:28,921
And you're doing all those things.

310
00:16:28,921 --> 00:16:32,808
Then the thing you become vulnerable
to is spiritual pride.

311
00:16:33,742 --> 00:16:35,995
And it makes sense
because after you follow

312
00:16:35,995 --> 00:16:39,331
Jesus for a while, you're a better
person than you used to be.

313
00:16:40,315 --> 00:16:42,084
But the problem with spiritual pride is

314
00:16:42,084 --> 00:16:45,654
no one can correct you
because you have become the corrector,

315
00:16:46,555 --> 00:16:50,642
and no one can teach you
because you have become the teacher.

316
00:16:52,611 --> 00:16:54,947
What Peter says is, be careful

317
00:16:54,947 --> 00:16:59,218
because pride keeps you
from the grace of God,

318
00:16:59,218 --> 00:17:03,389
and grace is something you need
more than anything else in the world,

319
00:17:04,339 --> 00:17:07,342
and it is the one thing that will keep
you safe.

320
00:17:08,010 --> 00:17:10,612
The other thing he mentions is anxiety.

321
00:17:10,612 --> 00:17:14,400
He says cast all your anxieties on him
for he cares for you.

322
00:17:14,433 --> 00:17:17,419
We don't like to think of anxiety
as a sin,

323
00:17:18,053 --> 00:17:21,623
but anxiety
is the same kind of root system as pride.

324
00:17:22,491 --> 00:17:24,743
Last week, Zach gave an illustration.

325
00:17:24,743 --> 00:17:26,879
I thought it was a brilliant illustration.

326
00:17:26,879 --> 00:17:31,100
He talked about how a pilot flying
a plane will get on the intercom

327
00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:34,503
and tell all the passengers
that turbulence is coming in

328
00:17:34,503 --> 00:17:37,890
about 20 minutes,
and he does that so they'll be prepared.

329
00:17:37,890 --> 00:17:39,241
But he does it even more.

330
00:17:39,241 --> 00:17:41,210
So they will trust him,

331
00:17:42,327 --> 00:17:43,579
right?

332
00:17:43,579 --> 00:17:46,582
Jesus came to this earth,

333
00:17:47,032 --> 00:17:50,753
gave himself over to the cross,
and resurrected

334
00:17:50,753 --> 00:17:54,990
as the greatest act of love
the world has ever known.

335
00:17:56,508 --> 00:17:59,661
The Apostle Paul
writing to Christians in Rome.

336
00:17:59,661 --> 00:18:01,046
We were going through a difficult time.

337
00:18:01,046 --> 00:18:05,567
It might be, tempted to start to worry
and have anxiety.

338
00:18:06,018 --> 00:18:09,021
This is what he writes in Romans
chapter eight.

339
00:18:09,054 --> 00:18:13,459
He says he who did not spare his own son,
but gave him up for us all,

340
00:18:14,460 --> 00:18:17,096
will he not also freely with him

341
00:18:17,096 --> 00:18:20,099
give us all things?

342
00:18:20,249 --> 00:18:22,734
It's Paul saying, Paul is saying

343
00:18:22,734 --> 00:18:25,737
you can trust him

344
00:18:26,121 --> 00:18:27,022
isn't worrying.

345
00:18:27,022 --> 00:18:30,442
Anxiety is always a stab
at the integrity of God's love.

346
00:18:30,542 --> 00:18:33,529
You begin to doubt the love of God.

347
00:18:34,113 --> 00:18:36,782
You become vulnerable

348
00:18:36,782 --> 00:18:38,033
to the attack of the devil.

349
00:18:39,685 --> 00:18:41,386
So you have an enemy.

350
00:18:41,386 --> 00:18:44,873
Your enemy has a strategy, a way to start

351
00:18:44,873 --> 00:18:48,861
to call you away from the herd
and attack you.

352
00:18:48,861 --> 00:18:52,197
Now the question is,
how in the world do we stay safe?

353
00:18:53,132 --> 00:18:56,118
All right, let me start with pride.

354
00:18:56,185 --> 00:18:57,920
Pride is so relentless.

355
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:01,907
You know, I remember reading about
a pastor who wanted to work on humility.

356
00:19:01,907 --> 00:19:05,544
So he volunteered at a rescue mission
to mop the floors,

357
00:19:06,228 --> 00:19:09,231
and he was mopping the floor
in the middle of the night.

358
00:19:09,748 --> 00:19:13,202
And the thought occurred to him,
I have got to be

359
00:19:13,202 --> 00:19:16,972
the only pastor humble enough
in this whole town to do this.

360
00:19:17,639 --> 00:19:20,642
And the moment that thought hit his head,

361
00:19:20,726 --> 00:19:23,729
he dropped the mop, went home, went to bed
because he realized it wasn't working

362
00:19:24,630 --> 00:19:24,863
right.

363
00:19:25,831 --> 00:19:26,632
The reason I

364
00:19:26,632 --> 00:19:31,069
was thinking a lot about that, the reason
that didn't work, is because you can't,

365
00:19:31,069 --> 00:19:34,907
like, control when your pride is going

366
00:19:34,907 --> 00:19:37,910
to be is kind of going to pop its head up.

367
00:19:37,976 --> 00:19:40,262
You can't have it
in a controlled experiment.

368
00:19:40,262 --> 00:19:43,765
That's why Peter says, put on humility.

369
00:19:44,399 --> 00:19:46,068
I wore a sport coat today.

370
00:19:46,068 --> 00:19:50,489
Just so you see,
I consciously put this on this morning.

371
00:19:50,489 --> 00:19:55,527
You have to consciously put on humility
because you never know

372
00:19:56,395 --> 00:20:01,250
when your pride
is going to get kind of tagged.

373
00:20:02,034 --> 00:20:05,571
And let me just tell you this,
this is a really you know, whenever

374
00:20:06,321 --> 00:20:10,792
I preach or Zach preaches,
we spend all week thinking about this,

375
00:20:10,792 --> 00:20:14,763
and really we have to we have to preach
to ourselves before we preach it to you.

376
00:20:14,763 --> 00:20:17,149
And this has been a brutal week for me.

377
00:20:17,149 --> 00:20:17,749
Pride wise.

378
00:20:17,749 --> 00:20:19,067
I can just feel it,

379
00:20:19,067 --> 00:20:20,852
because one of the things,
let me tell you what you have to do.

380
00:20:20,852 --> 00:20:21,920
You have to.

381
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:23,605
If you're going to do battle with pride,

382
00:20:23,605 --> 00:20:27,259
you have to start trying
to recognize the little signs of pride.

383
00:20:27,259 --> 00:20:30,262
When you are comparing yourself
to other people,

384
00:20:31,129 --> 00:20:34,249
when you are mbes
what other people have or other people do.

385
00:20:34,249 --> 00:20:35,701
But this is the big one for me.

386
00:20:37,019 --> 00:20:39,688
When you get your feelings hurt.

387
00:20:39,688 --> 00:20:42,891
I remember hearing a pastor
say one time that your feelings

388
00:20:42,891 --> 00:20:45,894
don't get hurt, your pride gets hurt.

389
00:20:46,378 --> 00:20:50,899
And I've thought about that all week
and I've had opportunities to feel that.

390
00:20:51,683 --> 00:20:55,337
And I my feelings get hurt
when something doesn't go

391
00:20:55,337 --> 00:20:58,340
my way or somebody says
something or somebody leaves me out

392
00:20:58,557 --> 00:21:01,143
and I realize that's just pride
raising his head.

393
00:21:01,143 --> 00:21:04,012
This is what I want you to do
if you're going to put on humility.

394
00:21:04,012 --> 00:21:06,048
What what Peter's saying

395
00:21:06,048 --> 00:21:09,868
is at the beginning of the day,
you have to decide, wake up tomorrow.

396
00:21:09,901 --> 00:21:10,852
This is what I've been doing all week.

397
00:21:10,852 --> 00:21:15,707
Wake up tomorrow morning and say
to God, God, I want to put on humility

398
00:21:16,892 --> 00:21:19,227
like a like a coat, like a sweatshirt.

399
00:21:20,479 --> 00:21:20,979
And so I

400
00:21:20,979 --> 00:21:25,284
need to remind myself this morning,
I am not nearly as good as I think I am.

401
00:21:25,284 --> 00:21:28,337
You are way better than I imagined you

402
00:21:28,337 --> 00:21:31,340
are, and I need grace
more than anything in the world.

403
00:21:31,890 --> 00:21:36,111
So all day to day make me see my pride.

404
00:21:36,111 --> 00:21:40,399
When my pride is hurt,
I want you to pour grace in

405
00:21:41,249 --> 00:21:44,252
because I need grace more than anything.

406
00:21:44,336 --> 00:21:47,239
So humble me today

407
00:21:47,239 --> 00:21:50,242
so I can have more grace.

408
00:21:51,093 --> 00:21:53,578
I guarantee you pray that

409
00:21:53,578 --> 00:21:56,581
you will have a chance to be humble,

410
00:21:56,815 --> 00:21:59,368
which will give you a chance for grace.

411
00:21:59,368 --> 00:22:02,070
The other thing is anxiety and anxiety

412
00:22:02,070 --> 00:22:05,057
kind of stems from the same root system,

413
00:22:05,490 --> 00:22:10,812
because anxiety is really, for me,
an overconfidence in my own opinion.

414
00:22:10,812 --> 00:22:13,999
And that's when I worry,
when I think to myself, you know what?

415
00:22:13,999 --> 00:22:16,101
This is not
the way things should be going.

416
00:22:16,101 --> 00:22:19,104
And I tell God, listen,
I don't know what you're doing up there,

417
00:22:19,638 --> 00:22:22,524
but if you need some help, I'm here.

418
00:22:22,524 --> 00:22:23,191
Right?

419
00:22:23,191 --> 00:22:26,028
I got some ideas I need to tell God.

420
00:22:26,028 --> 00:22:28,263
Listen, things aren't going
the way I want them to go,

421
00:22:29,431 --> 00:22:30,716
but I know you love me.

422
00:22:30,716 --> 00:22:32,267
You have shown that through Jesus.

423
00:22:32,267 --> 00:22:35,871
I know you were wise, wiser than I am.

424
00:22:35,871 --> 00:22:38,423
I will trust you

425
00:22:38,423 --> 00:22:42,861
when you feel anxiety
start to come up inside of you.

426
00:22:42,861 --> 00:22:46,398
Think of God's wisdom
and throw your anxiety on him.

427
00:22:47,749 --> 00:22:52,471
When do you begin to worry
and you feel that rise up in you?

428
00:22:52,471 --> 00:22:57,292
Think of God's love for you
and throw your worry toward him,

429
00:22:58,427 --> 00:23:01,530
saying,
here we are at the end of First Peter

430
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:06,418
and all throughout this letter, Peter's
been asking the question, what does God

431
00:23:06,451 --> 00:23:07,769
want to do in you?

432
00:23:07,769 --> 00:23:11,807
He's talked a lot about emotional
suffering and physical suffering,

433
00:23:11,807 --> 00:23:16,461
and then he turns his attention
to the spiritual realm, and it reminds

434
00:23:16,461 --> 00:23:22,350
all these Christians who are a part
of a growing church in a hostile culture.

435
00:23:22,968 --> 00:23:23,819
You have an enemy,

436
00:23:25,187 --> 00:23:28,190
is a formidable enemy,

437
00:23:28,323 --> 00:23:31,493
but greater is he that is in you than he
that is in the world.

438
00:23:32,477 --> 00:23:37,132
But your enemy has a strategy
that involves pride and anxiety.

439
00:23:37,532 --> 00:23:40,202
But there's a way to stay safe.

440
00:23:40,202 --> 00:23:43,188
Humble yourself
under the mighty hand of God

441
00:23:43,705 --> 00:23:46,741
that he may exalt you at the proper time.

442
00:23:47,642 --> 00:23:50,429
My prayer is that God would fill

443
00:23:50,429 --> 00:23:53,432
you with his grace,

444
00:23:53,448 --> 00:23:55,767
for that he needs you to be humble.

445
00:23:55,767 --> 00:23:59,271
I pray that God would fill our church
with grace

446
00:24:00,655 --> 00:24:02,724
for that he needs us humble.

447
00:24:02,724 --> 00:24:05,393
Let's humble ourselves and be prepared

448
00:24:05,393 --> 00:24:08,880
for what God's going to do in us
and then through us.

449
00:24:09,147 --> 00:24:11,450
Would you pray with me,

450
00:24:11,450 --> 00:24:12,167
father in heaven?

451
00:24:12,167 --> 00:24:13,702
I'm grateful.

452
00:24:13,702 --> 00:24:17,823
I'm grateful that, you don't,
leave me just to continue to,

453
00:24:17,973 --> 00:24:20,959
try to puff myself up
and feel good about myself.

454
00:24:21,243 --> 00:24:23,778
But instead, you sent Jesus

455
00:24:23,778 --> 00:24:27,682
to live in my place and die my place
and resurrect so he could offer me grace.

456
00:24:28,650 --> 00:24:31,019
And more than anything,

457
00:24:31,019 --> 00:24:33,688
I need grace in my soul

458
00:24:33,688 --> 00:24:36,174
to heal me from the inside out.

459
00:24:36,174 --> 00:24:38,059
And that's true of everybody here.

460
00:24:38,059 --> 00:24:42,197
So I pray that you would do that in
whatever situation we're in and whatever,

461
00:24:43,381 --> 00:24:44,850
sin we are struggling with.

462
00:24:44,850 --> 00:24:47,853
I pray that you would pour out your grace

463
00:24:47,936 --> 00:24:51,356
so we could become
what you made us to become.

464
00:24:52,257 --> 00:24:55,260
We pray this in Jesus
name and for his sake.

465
00:24:55,310 --> 00:24:55,760
Amen.