Sheryl Brady - The Pitfalls of Pride

I’m actually going to read today from the Passion Translation. I’m going to go to Proverbs 20:1-4. If you’re able to stand for the reading of the Word, we’d like you to stand with us. Proverbs 20:1, verse 1 says, «It is as easy for God to steer a king’s heart for His purposes as it is for Him to direct the course of a stream. But you may think you’re right all the time, but God thoroughly examines our motives. It pleases God more when we demonstrate godliness and justice than when we merely offer Him a sacrifice. Arrogance, superiority, and pride are the fruits of wickedness and the true definition of sin.» I told the early crowd this morning, «I am so grateful for the presence of God that we are experiencing, even releasing all the way back to the first of the year. I am so grateful for that, and I don’t take one minute of it for granted. When you have something to be grateful for, if you’ve ever experienced some kind of crazy favor and you’re like, 'God, don’t let me miss it, ' that’s kind of how I feel every Sunday—God, just don’t let us mess this up. We want you to have Your way. We want you to come in the room, and I want You to touch people. We want You to receive our worship. We don’t want even the slightest thing to mess us up.» And then God began to put Scripture in my heart about pride, and that word pride stood out to me. I’m going to talk about pride because pride would love to mess us up. It would love to mess up your marriage, your children, your destiny, your future; it’s a pitfall. But today we’re going to talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of pride. I don’t expect you to say «Amen» out loud, but you might as well say it now. «Spirit of God, have Your way in this house.» I just know what You put in my heart, and I’m going to deliver it. I thank You for giving the people the grace to receive it. I’m just the mailman; You’re actually the one who wrote this letter. We open our hearts; we just got through telling You, «Yes,» and that’s not going to change. When we sit down, we want You to find us, to touch us, and to instruct us because we want You to increase us. We want to fulfill our kingdom assignment on the earth, and I thank You for Your Word today that’s going to help us and empower us to do that in the name of Jesus. Somebody shout, «Amen!» On your way down, just touch somebody and tell them, «The pitfalls of pride.» The pitfalls of pride. I started recapping; I’m a recap person, I like to recap. I started thinking about all of the incredible ministry that we have had in this place. My mind last night went all the way back to New Year’s Eve and just how awesome God has been to us. And then I remember telling us that this is going to be a year of great growth in our lives, and I remember speaking from the subject, «Devote yourselves to grow yourselves.» That’s what’s happening around here; we can feel it. You can feel it in the atmosphere when 350 people show up at 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning—not a Saturday night—and they come and march around, pray, and worship in this building. That’s called devotion. The disciples were devout men; you didn’t just get the title of disciple. You had to have something in you that was devoted to Christ. So we have been devoting ourselves to grow ourselves. Then Bishop Jakes came and started talking about that empty space, and how we had to allow God to come to us—not like we had all the answers—but saying, «God, listen, I’m available. I just need You to sit on my life. I need You to brood over us.» And he started talking to us about just coming before God saying, «I need You to have Your way in my life.» Then Pastor YPJ came in and he started talking about how God can’t help some of us because we’re so used to hustling for everything. We say we trust Him, but if He doesn’t come through when we want Him to quickly enough, we jump out and hustle our way into victory. The problem with that is if you don’t get the victory from God, then you just don’t know who to praise. You won’t know if you’re praising God or praising your hustle, and then people become proud of their hustle. God has just been talking to us; it’s so on point. And Pastor Gruber, all the way from South Africa, who we didn’t even plan on being here, came in and started preaching about how God blesses reality. He was talking about how we stand over here and say we start out here but don’t hit the target correctly. The reason we don’t hit the target correctly is because we’re not honest. He said we’re right here; this is not our reality; this is our fantasy. He was saying God doesn’t bless fantasy; God blesses reality.