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We are starting a new series called Kingslayers. During this series, we'll be preaching through the lives of Old Testament kings and exploring a central concept: all of these kings had the blessing of God, the anointing of God, and the power of God. They were lifted up with thrones chosen by God, yet every one of them was taken out by something—a specific species of sin that could not be protected against.
The ultimate King Slayer is sin. When we move to the New Testament, we discover that sin is the ultimate King Slayer because it was not the Jews or Romans who killed Jesus—it was our sin. Sin killed Jesus.
If you're a Christian, you need to know this: you are part of the royal family. You have been transferred from a domain of darkness into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father, and the scriptures say we are now a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We have been made Kings and Priests unto God.
Here's your situation: you have the blessing of God, the anointing of God, the favor of God, and the hope of heaven. But you also have an enemy. Sin is crouching at your door—it desires to have you, and it is a King Slayer. If you do not kill it, it will kill you. This is a mortal combat situation: kill or be killed.
Today we're looking at the sin of pride—the final boss of all sins. Pride is so dangerous because it is a sin where you will see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, and taste nothing. You will have no idea it is rotting out your soul. But if you do not kill it, it will kill you.
Consider carbon monoxide poisoning: it's tasteless, odorless, invisible. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing—but you wake up dead. Pride works the same way. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead.
King Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the largest empire that had ever existed—the Babylonian Empire. His palace grounds stretched more than 2,500 acres. The Babylonian Empire stretched from Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea in the east, encompassing what is now Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. This was his personal real estate portfolio.
Before the events we're about to read, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down to this statue and worship him as a god. If you have a 90-foot golden statue of yourself, you have a pride problem.
God responded to Nebuchadnezzar's pride with a progressive pattern:
This is exactly what God does in your life. He will send you a message. If you won't listen to the message, He will send you a messenger. If you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
Twelve months later, as the king walked on the roof of his palace, he said in his heart: > "Is this not the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my Majesty?"
Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven: "King Nebuchadnezzar, your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox. Seven years will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is Sovereign over all kingdoms on Earth."
It happened exactly as decreed. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven, his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails became like the claws of a bird.
According to Isaiah 14, Ezekiel, and Revelation, the original sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven was pride. Satan did not want to worship God; he wanted to be worshiped as God. He did not want to kneel before the throne of God; he wanted to ascend to that throne. He did not want to obey decrees; he wanted to give decrees.
Because of his pride, God cast Satan out of heaven in an instant. Satan picked a fight with the Living God—a very stupid thing to do.
Pride is in the middle of Satan's spiritual DNA: It's All About Me. Myself. And I. That's the fake, counterfeit trinity—me, myself, and I.
Satan's original sin is pride, and the Bible says that right now this entire world is lorded over by the father of lies. Satan is the god of this world. Because pride is Satan's DNA and Satan rules over this world right now, the air you breathe is inundated with pride: me, myself, and I.
Consider this: Why do we have a pride month but not a repentance month? Why do we have a pride month but not a humility month? Why is there a pride month but not a worship month? Because you live in a world lorded over by the father of lies who is all about pride.
Satan, as the father of lies, repackages evil things as good things and good things as evil things. He has taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as positive things like:
We take selfies, not selves. In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. 24 billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has even given birth to a category of death in our culture: 42 people per year die from death by selfie—falling off cliffs, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all while trying to get the perfect picture.
Look at the word "pride." Right in the middle is the letter I. When you put you, me, and I in the center of everything, you create that fake counterfeit demonic trinity. God wants us to live for the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But pride turns your trinity into Me, Myself, and I.
The Bible says: > "God opposes the proud."
The second you become proud and try to make your life, marriage, family, church, and world about you, you position yourself against God. You turn God into your opponent. You cannot have intimacy and conflict at the same time. The last thing you want to do is pick a fight with a living God.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear. When you're single and can do whatever you want whenever you want, it's easier to feel humble. But the moment you have a family and people around you, relationships have a way of humbling you.
The Book of James explains the source of conflict: > "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?"
Every conflict contains someone's pride—someone's me, mine, my, I—blocking what someone else wants.
Pastor Mark Driscoll identifies three types of relationships, each determined by how much pride is present:
Proud person + Proud person: The marriage feels like a battle. "I want" and "I want"—no one ever gives, so it's constantly a struggle.
Humble person + Proud person: The relationship feels like abuse. The same person always gets what they want; the same person always has to give up what they want. The other person feels constantly run over.
Humble person + Humble person: The relationship feels like a blessing. "How can I bless you?" "How can I serve you?"
For fathers: Walk into your homes and pray, "Father, help me walk in and be a servant to my wife and my children. How can I serve today as the leader of this home?"
For wives: "How could I serve and bless my husband? How could I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
The Book of Proverbs says: > "Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
I want to tell you about something special that happened this week. Two years ago at our prayer and worship night, we prayed for a prodigal son who was enslaved to addiction. Last year at prayer and worship night, we praised God that he had given his life to Christ and was in rehab. This year, he was standing next to us worshiping God. To God be the glory.
I consider prayer and worship to be Lakepointe's new year. So welcome to the New Year.
If you're brand new here, I want to invite you into something important. God has put a miracle in motion through your decision to follow Him, but the scriptures say you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You need a spiritual family—it doesn't have to be Lakepointe, but it does have to be a church. We have a next steps class this weekend where we help you take your next steps in your relationship with God and get you into a spiritual family. Text the word "next" to 204411 if you haven't done this yet.
We're starting a new series today called Kingslayers. Here's the concept: all the Old Testament kings we'll study had the blessing of God, the anointing of God, and the power of God. They had a throne chosen by God. But every single one of them was taken out by a specific sin—one that everything else they had could not protect them from.
When we fast forward to the New Testament, we discover that sin is the ultimate kingslayer. The Jews did not kill Jesus. The Romans did not kill Jesus. You killed Jesus, and I killed Jesus. Our sin killed Jesus.
Let me apply this to you. If you're a Christian, you're part of the royal family. You've been transferred from a domain of darkness into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father. The scriptures say we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. The King James literally says we have been made kings and priests unto God.
Here's your situation right now: you have the blessing of God, the anointing of God, the favor of God, and the hope of heaven. But watch this—you have an enemy. Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, and it is a kingslayer. If you do not kill it, it will kill you. This is a mortal combat situation: kill or be killed.
Each week of this series, we'll study one of the six deadly sins of the 21st century and how to fight it.
Before I tell you what sin takes out King Nebuchadnezzar, let me tell you about my father. Years ago, he was on a work trip to Louisville, Kentucky, in a hotel with college students. In the morning, the hotel front desk called reporting that college students were passing out in their rooms. My dad said everything was fine and went back to sleep. That's the last thing he remembers.
He woke up in an ambulance outside the hotel. What almost killed him? Carbon monoxide poisoning. It's tasteless, odorless, colorless. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing—but you wake up dead.
The sin we're looking at today is pride, and it's so dangerous for exactly this reason. It's a sin where you will see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing. You will have no idea it's rotting out your soul. But if you do not kill it, it will kill you. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead. It is the final boss of all sins. Kill or be killed. It's you and pride.
Let me give you context on King Nebuchadnezzar. At the time of our passage, he was king of the largest empire that had ever existed—the Babylonian Empire. His palace grounds stretched more than 2,500 acres. His kingdom stretched from Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Caspian Sea. Modern-day Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were all part of his kingdom. Some of you are impressed with a 28-acre ranch in West Texas; King Nebuchadnezzar says that's cute.
Remember, Daniel was taken from Israel as almost a victim of human trafficking and exported to Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Two chapters before our passage, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. If you have a 90-foot golden statue of you, you have a pride problem. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down and worship him as a god.
Here's what happens: God doesn't just destroy Nebuchadnezzar immediately. Instead, God gives him a series of warnings.
First, God sends him dreams. He shows Nebuchadnezzar, "Hey man, you're a king, but you're not all that. Your kingdom won't last forever. There's a kingdom coming that does last forever, and it's not yours."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the dreams.
So second, God sends him a messenger—Daniel, full of the Spirit of God. Daniel tells him, "This is what God's saying to you. You need to humble yourself before the Living God."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the messenger either.
So third, God puts him in a mess. This is exactly what God will do in your life. He will send you a message. If you won't listen to the message, He will send you a messenger. And if you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to say this to someone here: I'm the messenger, and God is saying this to you right now—repent of your pride so I don't have to put you in a mess.
Twelve months later, King Nebuchadnezzar is walking on the roof of his palace in Babylon. Listen to his own words:
"Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?"
Even as the words are on his lips, a voice comes from heaven. God speaks a decree. Just as Nebuchadnezzar, as king, had always given decrees, now the King of Kings is giving Nebuchadnezzar a decree:
"Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and you will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes."
What was said about Nebuchadnezzar came to pass. He was driven away from people. He ate grass like an ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. For seven years, he lived this way—his body drenched with the dew of heaven, his hair growing like feathers of an eagle, his nails like the claws of a bird.
Let me do some theology here. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel that the original sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven was pride. Satan did not want to worship God; he wanted to be worshiped as God. He didn't want to kneel before the Throne of God; he wanted to ascend to it. He didn't want to obey decrees; he wanted to give them.
Because of his pride, God cast Satan out of heaven in one second. Think about that: Satan picked a fight with the Living God. That's a very stupid thing to do.
Pride is the first sin ever committed in all of creation. It's in the middle of Satan's spiritual DNA. It's all about me, myself, and I—the fake, counterfeit trinity.
Satan's original sin is pride, and the Bible says this entire world right now is lorded over by the father of lies. Satan is the god of this world. Because pride is Satan's DNA, and Satan rules over this world for now, the air you breathe is a world inundated with pride: me, myself, and I.
Just point this out: why do we have a pride month but not a repentance month? Why do we have a pride month but not a humility month? Why is there a pride month but no worship month? Because you live in a world lorded over by a father of lies who is all about pride.
Satan, as the father of lies, takes evil things and repackages them as good things, and good things as evil. He's taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as good things: self-esteem, self-expression, self-love, self-care, self-actualization.
We take selfies, not pictures of Jesus. In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. Twenty-four billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has given birth to a whole new category of death: "death by selfie." Forty-two people per year die taking selfies—falling into the Grand Canyon, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all while trying to get the perfect shot.
The Book of Proverbs says:
"Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
Let me show you something. Look at the word "pride." What strikes you? Right in the middle of pride is the letter I. What pride is, is when you put you, me, I in the center of everything. Pride creates a fake counterfeit demonic trinity. God wants us to live for the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But pride turns your trinity into me, myself, and I. This is very unwise.
Here's what the Bible says:
"God opposes the proud."
The second you become proud and try to make your life, your marriage, your family, your church, your world about you, you're trying to put yourself in the place of God. You turn God into your opponent. Do you want to pick a fight with a living God? Bad idea. The second you become proud, God becomes your enemy. And I promise you, the last thing you want is that. You can't have intimacy and conflict at the same time.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear. I have a team that helps me with message prep, and one guy—a man in his 50s—said, "Man, I always thought I was humble until I had a family." When you can do whatever you want whenever you want however you want, it's easier to feel humble. But start getting people around you, and it's different.
Look at what the Book of James says:
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? You desire something but you don't have it, so you kill."
Every conflict you ever have contains somebody's pride—me, mine, my, I—blocking what you want.
Let me offer some marriage counseling. Pastor Mark Driscoll identifies three types of relationships, each determined by how much pride is present:
Proud person + Proud person: The marriage feels like a battle. "I want" and "I want"—no one ever gives, so it's constantly a struggle.
Humble person + Proud person: The relationship feels like abuse. The same person always gets what they want; the same person always has to give up what they want. The other person feels constantly run over.
Humble person + Humble person: The relationship feels like a blessing. "How can I bless you?" "How can I serve you?"
For fathers: Walk into your homes and pray, "Father, help me walk in and be a servant to my wife and my children. How can I serve today as the leader of this home?"
For wives: "How could I serve and bless my husband? How could I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
If you are a young man or young woman, what I'm about to say may be the most important thing you hear. Pride will rob every part of the future that you want to have in your life.
The Book of Proverbs says that getting wisdom is more valuable than getting money, fame, power, beauty—anything else. We don't think that way, but here's why the Bible is right and we are wrong:
Wisdom is more valuable than any of these things.
The whole Book of Proverbs is just a dad sitting down with his son saying, "Let me help you flourish and blossom in your life." That's all it is. The wise dad tells his son rule number one...
You are somewhere in the pride cycle right now, and you need to figure out where you are so that you can get where you want to be. Throughout the Bible, people, nations, kings, and churches go through this same cycle. The key is recognizing your position so you can move toward humility and God's grace.
The cycle starts with humility. God is always looking for someone who humbly says, "God, it's all about you. Could I just use everything I am and have to lift you up?" The Bible says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Wherever God finds humility, He pours out grace. Grace is unmerited favor. When God pours out grace, those who humble themselves will be exalted. God lifts up humble people.
But here's where the danger lies: at that point, you have a choice. Will you worship God and give thanks for the blessings that came from His hand? Or will you take credit for what God has done?
When you're lifted up in your life but fail to give God credit, you become lifted up in your heart. You start saying, "Look at what I created. By my hand. My glory. My power." This is exactly what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.
But the Bible says: God opposes the proud. So wherever God used to be pouring out grace on you, now He's bringing opposition. You're picking a fight with the living God—and that's a bad idea. You're going to lose.
When you turn God into your opposition, here's what happens: God had to do humiliation. Because Nebuchadnezzar would not choose humility, God had to humble him.
You are somewhere in this cycle right now. You have a choice: Will you humble yourself, or will God have to do humiliation? God will not share His glory with another person. He's not going to do it.
God does the humiliation—not because He hates you, but so that He can take you back to humility. And then you repent your way back into God, saying, "It's about you and your kingdom. Everything I am and everything I have is to lift up your name and advance your purposes."
Watch where Nebuchadnezzar's eyes are before God judges him and after. Before the humiliation, the King was walking on the roof of the Royal Palace of Babylon. He said, "Isn't this the great Babylon I've built?" Nebuchadnezzar was on a roof looking down at people.
But after God humbled him: "At the end of that time I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity was restored."
If you will raise your eyes towards heaven, your sanity will be restored. Any person who thinks they're all that and thinks it's all about you, yourself, and you—you're crazy. God's saying, "No, no. History is His story. That's why we call it history." The second you align yourself with that reality, you're back in sanity.
I want to help you look up at the holiness of God so you can figure out how much we fall short and get back into humility. I'm going to give you a ten-question test. The ten questions are the Ten Commandments—they reflect the holy character of the living God.
When you look up at God's holy character and then figure out where you stand in relation to His holiness, you'll understand where you are.
First Commandment: There is only one God. You shall have no other gods before me. Have you ever treated anything in your life as if it was more important than the living God? The answer for every single person is yes. You're 0 for 1.
Second Commandment: You shall not make for yourself a graven image. Have you ever looked to something created for what only the Creator can give you—joy, peace, purpose? Have you thought, "I'm just one more dollar away from finally having peace"? Have you felt like you're one purchase away from happiness, trying to keep up with the Joneses? Don't keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses are going to hell. You're 0 for 2.
Third Commandment: You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. You're going to break this one before you get out of any parking lot. You're 0 for 3.
Fourth Commandment: Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Who actually does this? Chick-fil-A is the only one. There are a lot of you who have literally been on work trips on a Sabbath, breaking the fourth commandment. You'll drive by a Chick-fil-A, get hungry, realize they're closed, and then break the third commandment because you're frustrated. You're over for 4.
Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and mother. Whether you're three or thirty, you're out on this one. You're out for 5.
Sixth Commandment: You shall not kill. But remember, Jesus said even if you've hated somebody in your heart, you've committed murder. Have you ever been in a game when a ref blows a big call? You've broken the sixth commandment. You're hating them in your heart. You're 0 for 6.
Seventh Commandment: You shall not commit adultery. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, even if you've lusted after somebody in your heart—pornography, a movie, a book, any time you're sexualizing somebody who is not your spouse—Jesus says that's adultery in your heart. You're 0 for 7.
Eighth Commandment: You shall not lie. You're calling yourself truthful? This week you checked a box that said, "I have read all the terms and conditions." You didn't read that thing. You're lying. You're a commandment breaker. You're 0 for 8.
Ninth Commandment: You shall not steal. You think you never steal? You log into your parents' Netflix account. You take Lakepointe pens. We have a real high Lakepointe pen bill because y'all are a bunch of thieves. You're 0 for 9.
Tenth Commandment: You shall not covet. Have you ever wanted something God gave to somebody else? We call that HGTV. That's coveting. You're 0 for 10.
What we just did is look up at the holy character of God. Right now, any honest person in this room is 0 for 10. But I have really good news.
It's not that good people are in and bad people are out with God. It's not that righteous people are in and unrighteous people are out. It's that humble people are in and proud people are out.
Jesus said: "All those who exalt themselves, who think they're really good and righteous, they're going to be humbled when they get before the judgment seat. But those who humble themselves and say, 'God, I don't got this, and I need your help,' they're going to be exalted."
It's the people who think they can be good enough who are out. But when you acknowledge in humility that you have not been good enough, that you can't earn your way into a right relationship with God—that's when everything changes.
The second you place your faith in Jesus, the Bible says God imputes His righteousness to you. He covers you with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. When God looks at you, He doesn't see your messed-up self. He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
That's the best news you're ever going to hear. Jesus came to fulfill all the law, all the rules that you did not fulfill, so that the second you put your faith in Him, God's righteousness covers you.
Some of you are realizing right now that you have never earned and never will earn your way into a right relationship with God. You're realizing that you need to place your faith in Jesus and cross a line of faith for a relationship with Him.
If that's you, I want to give you a chance to do that right now. Pray this prayer from a sincere heart in your seat:
God, I know I'm a sinner and I know I have lived for other things besides you first. But I believe that you died for my sin. I believe that somehow, in some way, the cross counted for me. I believe that you rose from the dead and that Jesus lives to give life to anybody that would call on His name.
From this day forward, as best as I know how, I will live for you first. I receive the free gift of forgiveness—forgiveness apart from anything I've ever done. Thank you, God, for adopting me as a son or a daughter.
If you prayed that prayer and you're crossing a line of faith today, raise your hand. Let something solidify in you spiritually by responding physically. Lift your hand in the air. Bold faith right now.
We are starting a new series called Kingslayers. During this series, we'll be preaching through the lives of Old Testament kings and exploring a central concept: all of these kings had the blessing of God, the anointing of God, and the power of God. They were lifted up with thrones chosen by God, yet every one of them was taken out by something—a specific species of sin that could not be protected against.
The ultimate King Slayer is sin. When we move to the New Testament, we discover that sin is the ultimate King Slayer because it was not the Jews or Romans who killed Jesus—it was our sin. Sin killed Jesus.
If you're a Christian, you need to know this: you are part of the royal family. You have been transferred from a domain of darkness into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father, and the scriptures say we are now a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We have been made Kings and Priests unto God.
Here's your situation: you have the blessing of God, the anointing of God, the favor of God, and the hope of heaven. But you also have an enemy. Sin is crouching at your door—it desires to have you, and it is a King Slayer. If you do not kill it, it will kill you. This is a mortal combat situation: kill or be killed.
Today we're looking at the sin of pride—the final boss of all sins. Pride is so dangerous because it is a sin where you will see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, and taste nothing. You will have no idea it is rotting out your soul. But if you do not kill it, it will kill you.
Consider carbon monoxide poisoning: it's tasteless, odorless, invisible. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing—but you wake up dead. Pride works the same way. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead.
King Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the largest empire that had ever existed—the Babylonian Empire. His palace grounds stretched more than 2,500 acres. The Babylonian Empire stretched from Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea in the east, encompassing what is now Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. This was his personal real estate portfolio.
Before the events we're about to read, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down to this statue and worship him as a god. If you have a 90-foot golden statue of yourself, you have a pride problem.
God responded to Nebuchadnezzar's pride with a progressive pattern:
This is exactly what God does in your life. He will send you a message. If you won't listen to the message, He will send you a messenger. If you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
Twelve months later, as the king walked on the roof of his palace, he said in his heart: > "Is this not the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my Majesty?"
Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven: "King Nebuchadnezzar, your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox. Seven years will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is Sovereign over all kingdoms on Earth."
It happened exactly as decreed. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven, his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails became like the claws of a bird.
According to Isaiah 14, Ezekiel, and Revelation, the original sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven was pride. Satan did not want to worship God; he wanted to be worshiped as God. He did not want to kneel before the throne of God; he wanted to ascend to that throne. He did not want to obey decrees; he wanted to give decrees.
Because of his pride, God cast Satan out of heaven in an instant. Satan picked a fight with the Living God—a very stupid thing to do.
Pride is in the middle of Satan's spiritual DNA: It's All About Me. Myself. And I. That's the fake, counterfeit trinity—me, myself, and I.
Satan's original sin is pride, and the Bible says that right now this entire world is lorded over by the father of lies. Satan is the god of this world. Because pride is Satan's DNA and Satan rules over this world right now, the air you breathe is inundated with pride: me, myself, and I.
Consider this: Why do we have a pride month but not a repentance month? Why do we have a pride month but not a humility month? Why is there a pride month but not a worship month? Because you live in a world lorded over by the father of lies who is all about pride.
Satan, as the father of lies, repackages evil things as good things and good things as evil things. He has taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as positive things like:
We take selfies, not selves. In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. 24 billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has even given birth to a category of death in our culture: 42 people per year die from death by selfie—falling off cliffs, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all while trying to get the perfect picture.
Look at the word "pride." Right in the middle is the letter I. When you put you, me, and I in the center of everything, you create that fake counterfeit demonic trinity. God wants us to live for the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But pride turns your trinity into Me, Myself, and I.
The Bible says: > "God opposes the proud."
The second you become proud and try to make your life, marriage, family, church, and world about you, you position yourself against God. You turn God into your opponent. You cannot have intimacy and conflict at the same time. The last thing you want to do is pick a fight with a living God.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear. When you're single and can do whatever you want whenever you want, it's easier to feel humble. But the moment you have a family and people around you, relationships have a way of humbling you.
The Book of James explains the source of conflict: > "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?"
Every conflict contains someone's pride—someone's me, mine, my, I—blocking what someone else wants.
Pastor Mark Driscoll identifies three types of relationships, each determined by how much pride is present:
Proud person + Proud person: The marriage feels like a battle. "I want" and "I want"—no one ever gives, so it's constantly a struggle.
Humble person + Proud person: The relationship feels like abuse. The same person always gets what they want; the same person always has to give up what they want. The other person feels constantly run over.
Humble person + Humble person: The relationship feels like a blessing. "How can I bless you?" "How can I serve you?"
For fathers: Walk into your homes and pray, "Father, help me walk in and be a servant to my wife and my children. How can I serve today as the leader of this home?"
For wives: "How could I serve and bless my husband? How could I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
The Book of Proverbs says: > "Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
I want to tell you about something special that happened this week. Two years ago at our prayer and worship night, we prayed for a prodigal son who was enslaved to addiction. Last year at prayer and worship night, we praised God that he had given his life to Christ and was in rehab. This year, he was standing next to us worshiping God. To God be the glory.
I consider prayer and worship to be Lakepointe's new year. So welcome to the New Year.
If you're brand new here, I want to invite you into something important. God has put a miracle in motion through your decision to follow Him, but the scriptures say you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You need a spiritual family—it doesn't have to be Lakepointe, but it does have to be a church. We have a next steps class this weekend where we help you take your next steps in your relationship with God and get you into a spiritual family. Text the word "next" to 204411 if you haven't done this yet.
We're starting a new series today called Kingslayers. Here's the concept: all the Old Testament kings we'll study had the blessing of God, the anointing of God, and the power of God. They had a throne chosen by God. But every single one of them was taken out by a specific sin—one that everything else they had could not protect them from.
When we fast forward to the New Testament, we discover that sin is the ultimate kingslayer. The Jews did not kill Jesus. The Romans did not kill Jesus. You killed Jesus, and I killed Jesus. Our sin killed Jesus.
Let me apply this to you. If you're a Christian, you're part of the royal family. You've been transferred from a domain of darkness into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father. The scriptures say we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. The King James literally says we have been made kings and priests unto God.
Here's your situation right now: you have the blessing of God, the anointing of God, the favor of God, and the hope of heaven. But watch this—you have an enemy. Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, and it is a kingslayer. If you do not kill it, it will kill you. This is a mortal combat situation: kill or be killed.
Each week of this series, we'll study one of the six deadly sins of the 21st century and how to fight it.
Before I tell you what sin takes out King Nebuchadnezzar, let me tell you about my father. Years ago, he was on a work trip to Louisville, Kentucky, in a hotel with college students. In the morning, the hotel front desk called reporting that college students were passing out in their rooms. My dad said everything was fine and went back to sleep. That's the last thing he remembers.
He woke up in an ambulance outside the hotel. What almost killed him? Carbon monoxide poisoning. It's tasteless, odorless, colorless. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing—but you wake up dead.
The sin we're looking at today is pride, and it's so dangerous for exactly this reason. It's a sin where you will see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing. You will have no idea it's rotting out your soul. But if you do not kill it, it will kill you. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead. It is the final boss of all sins. Kill or be killed. It's you and pride.
Let me give you context on King Nebuchadnezzar. At the time of our passage, he was king of the largest empire that had ever existed—the Babylonian Empire. His palace grounds stretched more than 2,500 acres. His kingdom stretched from Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Caspian Sea. Modern-day Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were all part of his kingdom. Some of you are impressed with a 28-acre ranch in West Texas; King Nebuchadnezzar says that's cute.
Remember, Daniel was taken from Israel as almost a victim of human trafficking and exported to Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Two chapters before our passage, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. If you have a 90-foot golden statue of you, you have a pride problem. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down and worship him as a god.
Here's what happens: God doesn't just destroy Nebuchadnezzar immediately. Instead, God gives him a series of warnings.
First, God sends him dreams. He shows Nebuchadnezzar, "Hey man, you're a king, but you're not all that. Your kingdom won't last forever. There's a kingdom coming that does last forever, and it's not yours."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the dreams.
So second, God sends him a messenger—Daniel, full of the Spirit of God. Daniel tells him, "This is what God's saying to you. You need to humble yourself before the Living God."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the messenger either.
So third, God puts him in a mess. This is exactly what God will do in your life. He will send you a message. If you won't listen to the message, He will send you a messenger. And if you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to say this to someone here: I'm the messenger, and God is saying this to you right now—repent of your pride so I don't have to put you in a mess.
Twelve months later, King Nebuchadnezzar is walking on the roof of his palace in Babylon. Listen to his own words:
"Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?"
Even as the words are on his lips, a voice comes from heaven. God speaks a decree. Just as Nebuchadnezzar, as king, had always given decrees, now the King of Kings is giving Nebuchadnezzar a decree:
"Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and you will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes."
What was said about Nebuchadnezzar came to pass. He was driven away from people. He ate grass like an ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. For seven years, he lived this way—his body drenched with the dew of heaven, his hair growing like feathers of an eagle, his nails like the claws of a bird.
Let me do some theology here. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel that the original sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven was pride. Satan did not want to worship God; he wanted to be worshiped as God. He didn't want to kneel before the Throne of God; he wanted to ascend to it. He didn't want to obey decrees; he wanted to give them.
Because of his pride, God cast Satan out of heaven in one second. Think about that: Satan picked a fight with the Living God. That's a very stupid thing to do.
Pride is the first sin ever committed in all of creation. It's in the middle of Satan's spiritual DNA. It's all about me, myself, and I—the fake, counterfeit trinity.
Satan's original sin is pride, and the Bible says this entire world right now is lorded over by the father of lies. Satan is the god of this world. Because pride is Satan's DNA, and Satan rules over this world for now, the air you breathe is a world inundated with pride: me, myself, and I.
Just point this out: why do we have a pride month but not a repentance month? Why do we have a pride month but not a humility month? Why is there a pride month but no worship month? Because you live in a world lorded over by a father of lies who is all about pride.
Satan, as the father of lies, takes evil things and repackages them as good things, and good things as evil. He's taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as good things: self-esteem, self-expression, self-love, self-care, self-actualization.
We take selfies, not pictures of Jesus. In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. Twenty-four billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has given birth to a whole new category of death: "death by selfie." Forty-two people per year die taking selfies—falling into the Grand Canyon, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all while trying to get the perfect shot.
The Book of Proverbs says:
"Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
Let me show you something. Look at the word "pride." What strikes you? Right in the middle of pride is the letter I. What pride is, is when you put you, me, I in the center of everything. Pride creates a fake counterfeit demonic trinity. God wants us to live for the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But pride turns your trinity into me, myself, and I. This is very unwise.
Here's what the Bible says:
"God opposes the proud."
The second you become proud and try to make your life, your marriage, your family, your church, your world about you, you're trying to put yourself in the place of God. You turn God into your opponent. Do you want to pick a fight with a living God? Bad idea. The second you become proud, God becomes your enemy. And I promise you, the last thing you want is that. You can't have intimacy and conflict at the same time.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear. I have a team that helps me with message prep, and one guy—a man in his 50s—said, "Man, I always thought I was humble until I had a family." When you can do whatever you want whenever you want however you want, it's easier to feel humble. But start getting people around you, and it's different.
Look at what the Book of James says:
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? You desire something but you don't have it, so you kill."
Every conflict you ever have contains somebody's pride—me, mine, my, I—blocking what you want.
Let me offer some marriage counseling. Pastor Mark Driscoll identifies three types of relationships, each determined by how much pride is present:
Proud person + Proud person: The marriage feels like a battle. "I want" and "I want"—no one ever gives, so it's constantly a struggle.
Humble person + Proud person: The relationship feels like abuse. The same person always gets what they want; the same person always has to give up what they want. The other person feels constantly run over.
Humble person + Humble person: The relationship feels like a blessing. "How can I bless you?" "How can I serve you?"
For fathers: Walk into your homes and pray, "Father, help me walk in and be a servant to my wife and my children. How can I serve today as the leader of this home?"
For wives: "How could I serve and bless my husband? How could I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
If you are a young man or young woman, what I'm about to say may be the most important thing you hear. Pride will rob every part of the future that you want to have in your life.
The Book of Proverbs says that getting wisdom is more valuable than getting money, fame, power, beauty—anything else. We don't think that way, but here's why the Bible is right and we are wrong:
Wisdom is more valuable than any of these things.
The whole Book of Proverbs is just a dad sitting down with his son saying, "Let me help you flourish and blossom in your life." That's all it is. The wise dad tells his son rule number one...
You are somewhere in the pride cycle right now, and you need to figure out where you are so that you can get where you want to be. Throughout the Bible, people, nations, kings, and churches go through this same cycle. The key is recognizing your position so you can move toward humility and God's grace.
The cycle starts with humility. God is always looking for someone who humbly says, "God, it's all about you. Could I just use everything I am and have to lift you up?" The Bible says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Wherever God finds humility, He pours out grace. Grace is unmerited favor. When God pours out grace, those who humble themselves will be exalted. God lifts up humble people.
But here's where the danger lies: at that point, you have a choice. Will you worship God and give thanks for the blessings that came from His hand? Or will you take credit for what God has done?
When you're lifted up in your life but fail to give God credit, you become lifted up in your heart. You start saying, "Look at what I created. By my hand. My glory. My power." This is exactly what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.
But the Bible says: God opposes the proud. So wherever God used to be pouring out grace on you, now He's bringing opposition. You're picking a fight with the living God—and that's a bad idea. You're going to lose.
When you turn God into your opposition, here's what happens: God had to do humiliation. Because Nebuchadnezzar would not choose humility, God had to humble him.
You are somewhere in this cycle right now. You have a choice: Will you humble yourself, or will God have to do humiliation? God will not share His glory with another person. He's not going to do it.
God does the humiliation—not because He hates you, but so that He can take you back to humility. And then you repent your way back into God, saying, "It's about you and your kingdom. Everything I am and everything I have is to lift up your name and advance your purposes."
Watch where Nebuchadnezzar's eyes are before God judges him and after. Before the humiliation, the King was walking on the roof of the Royal Palace of Babylon. He said, "Isn't this the great Babylon I've built?" Nebuchadnezzar was on a roof looking down at people.
But after God humbled him: "At the end of that time I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity was restored."
If you will raise your eyes towards heaven, your sanity will be restored. Any person who thinks they're all that and thinks it's all about you, yourself, and you—you're crazy. God's saying, "No, no. History is His story. That's why we call it history." The second you align yourself with that reality, you're back in sanity.
I want to help you look up at the holiness of God so you can figure out how much we fall short and get back into humility. I'm going to give you a ten-question test. The ten questions are the Ten Commandments—they reflect the holy character of the living God.
When you look up at God's holy character and then figure out where you stand in relation to His holiness, you'll understand where you are.
First Commandment: There is only one God. You shall have no other gods before me. Have you ever treated anything in your life as if it was more important than the living God? The answer for every single person is yes. You're 0 for 1.
Second Commandment: You shall not make for yourself a graven image. Have you ever looked to something created for what only the Creator can give you—joy, peace, purpose? Have you thought, "I'm just one more dollar away from finally having peace"? Have you felt like you're one purchase away from happiness, trying to keep up with the Joneses? Don't keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses are going to hell. You're 0 for 2.
Third Commandment: You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. You're going to break this one before you get out of any parking lot. You're 0 for 3.
Fourth Commandment: Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Who actually does this? Chick-fil-A is the only one. There are a lot of you who have literally been on work trips on a Sabbath, breaking the fourth commandment. You'll drive by a Chick-fil-A, get hungry, realize they're closed, and then break the third commandment because you're frustrated. You're over for 4.
Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and mother. Whether you're three or thirty, you're out on this one. You're out for 5.
Sixth Commandment: You shall not kill. But remember, Jesus said even if you've hated somebody in your heart, you've committed murder. Have you ever been in a game when a ref blows a big call? You've broken the sixth commandment. You're hating them in your heart. You're 0 for 6.
Seventh Commandment: You shall not commit adultery. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, even if you've lusted after somebody in your heart—pornography, a movie, a book, any time you're sexualizing somebody who is not your spouse—Jesus says that's adultery in your heart. You're 0 for 7.
Eighth Commandment: You shall not lie. You're calling yourself truthful? This week you checked a box that said, "I have read all the terms and conditions." You didn't read that thing. You're lying. You're a commandment breaker. You're 0 for 8.
Ninth Commandment: You shall not steal. You think you never steal? You log into your parents' Netflix account. You take Lakepointe pens. We have a real high Lakepointe pen bill because y'all are a bunch of thieves. You're 0 for 9.
Tenth Commandment: You shall not covet. Have you ever wanted something God gave to somebody else? We call that HGTV. That's coveting. You're 0 for 10.
What we just did is look up at the holy character of God. Right now, any honest person in this room is 0 for 10. But I have really good news.
It's not that good people are in and bad people are out with God. It's not that righteous people are in and unrighteous people are out. It's that humble people are in and proud people are out.
Jesus said: "All those who exalt themselves, who think they're really good and righteous, they're going to be humbled when they get before the judgment seat. But those who humble themselves and say, 'God, I don't got this, and I need your help,' they're going to be exalted."
It's the people who think they can be good enough who are out. But when you acknowledge in humility that you have not been good enough, that you can't earn your way into a right relationship with God—that's when everything changes.
The second you place your faith in Jesus, the Bible says God imputes His righteousness to you. He covers you with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. When God looks at you, He doesn't see your messed-up self. He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
That's the best news you're ever going to hear. Jesus came to fulfill all the law, all the rules that you did not fulfill, so that the second you put your faith in Him, God's righteousness covers you.
Some of you are realizing right now that you have never earned and never will earn your way into a right relationship with God. You're realizing that you need to place your faith in Jesus and cross a line of faith for a relationship with Him.
If that's you, I want to give you a chance to do that right now. Pray this prayer from a sincere heart in your seat:
God, I know I'm a sinner and I know I have lived for other things besides you first. But I believe that you died for my sin. I believe that somehow, in some way, the cross counted for me. I believe that you rose from the dead and that Jesus lives to give life to anybody that would call on His name.
From this day forward, as best as I know how, I will live for you first. I receive the free gift of forgiveness—forgiveness apart from anything I've ever done. Thank you, God, for adopting me as a son or a daughter.
If you prayed that prayer and you're crossing a line of faith today, raise your hand. Let something solidify in you spiritually by responding physically. Lift your hand in the air. Bold faith right now.
