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We are starting a new series called Kingslayers. The concept is this: all of the Old Testament 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 these kings was taken out by a specific species of sin—something that could not be protected against.
The ultimate Kingslayer is sin itself. 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.
If you are a Christian, you need to know this: you are part of the royal family. You have been transferred from a domain of darkness and brought into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father. The scriptures say that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation—we have been made Kings and Priests unto God.
Here is 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 will study one of the "six deadly sins of the 21st century" and how to fight it.
Before we dive into King Nebuchadnezzar's story, let me give you a comparison. Years ago, my father was on a work trip in Louisville, Kentucky, staying in a hotel with college students. In the morning, the front desk called to check on guests because college students in the hotel were passing out in their rooms. My father thought he was just tired, so he said yes and hung up. That was the last thing he remembered. He woke up with an ambulance outside his hotel room.
What almost killed him? Carbon monoxide poisoning. It is tasteless, odorless, colorless. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing. But you wake up dead.
Pride is exactly like that. 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. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and your marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead.
Pride is the final boss of all the sins. It's you and pride. Kill or be killed.
Let's look at King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4. He was the 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 Iran and down to Saudi Arabia. Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt—all of this was King Nebuchadnezzar's personal real estate portfolio.
That's not all. Two chapters before this passage, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. News flash: if you have a 90-foot golden statue of you, you have a pride problem. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down to this golden statue and worship him as a God.
Here's what God does. First, God sends Nebuchadnezzar dreams—just showing him, "Hey man, your kingdom isn't all that. Your kingdom's not going to last forever. There's going to be a kingdom that comes that actually does last, and it's not yours."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the dreams. So God sends him a messenger. Daniel, full of the Spirit, comes and 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 God sends a disaster.
Heads up warning: 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. If you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
I felt like the Holy Spirit gave me this to tell some of you: 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, as the king was walking on the roof of his palace in Babylon, he said in his heart:
Now watch 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 were on his lips, a voice came from heaven. The King of Kings gave Nebuchadnezzar a decree. He said:
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 years 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 had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like an ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. He went from the palace to eating his lawn for seven years. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.
Let's do some theology. The Bible tells us—in Isaiah chapter 14, Ezekiel, and the Book of Revelation—that the original sin ever committed in all of creation was pride. Satan was kicked out of heaven because of pride.
Satan did not want to worship God. He wanted to be worshiped as God.
Satan did not want to kneel before the throne of God. He wanted to ascend to the throne of God.
Satan did not want to be given decrees to obey. He wanted to give decrees for others to obey.
Because of his pride, God kicked him out of heaven. He 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.
Now think about this: 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 that you breathe is a world inundated with pride—Me, Myself, and I.
I just have to point this out: Why do you think we have a pride month but we don't have 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, and he is all about pride.
Here's what Satan does as the father of lies: he repackages evil things as good things and good things as evil things.
Satan has taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as good things like:
We take selfies, not "us-ies." In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. 24 billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has actually given birth to a whole new category of death in our culture. Forty-two people per year die from what's called "Death by Selfie"—people falling into the Grand Canyon, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all because they were focused on getting the perfect picture of themselves.
The Book of Proverbs says this: Things go wrong in your life when you start making everything about you and what you want. You want everybody to see you. You want to build your kingdom. You want to fulfill your desires. Stuff goes wrong because of how God designed the universe.
Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
What does pride kill? First, pride will kill your relationship with God.
Let me define pride so we can defeat it. When you spell the word pride, there's a letter right in the middle: the letter I. What pride is, is putting 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 what pride does is turn your trinity into Me, Myself, and I.
And this is very unwise. The Bible says:
God opposes the proud.
The second we become proud and try to make our lives, our marriages, our families, our churches, our world about us—suddenly you are trying to put yourself in the place of God. You turn God into your opponent. Do you want to pick a fight with the Living God? Bad idea.
God says: the second you become proud, you turn me into your enemy. I promise the last thing you want to do is that. You can't have intimacy and conflict at the same time.
Number two: Pride will kill every relationship that you hold dear.
I had someone on my message prep team—a guy in his 50s—who said: "Man, I always thought I was humble until I had a family." And it's true. When you're single and younger, and you can do whatever you want whenever you want however you want, it's a little easier to feel humble. But start getting people around you, and it's like: oh man, this is different.
What does the Book of James say about this?
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Look at every conflict you ever have. Somewhere in that conflict is somebody's pride going, "Me, Mine, My, I." You're blocking what I want.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear.
Let me do some quick marriage counseling. Pastor Mark Driscoll points out three types of relationships, and every relationship you have is going to be one of these:
When you have a proud person and a proud person in a marriage, your marriage is going to feel like a battle. I want and I want, and no one will ever give. It's constantly a battle.
When you have a humble person and a proud person in a marriage, your marriage is going to feel like abuse. The same person always gets what they want. The same person always has to give up what they want. So one person always feels run over.
When you have a humble person and a humble person in a marriage, the whole relationship feels like a blessing. How can I bless you? How can I serve you?
Hey dads: walk into your homes. Before you get out of the truck, 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?"
Hey wives: do the same. "How can I serve and bless my husband? How can I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
Number three: Pride will kill your future.
If you are a young man or a young woman, what I will say in the next minutes may be the most important thing you hear. If you're a person with a few years on you, I need you to help me attest to the reality of what I'm saying.
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. Let me explain why the Bible is right and we are dumb:
If you have money but never got wisdom, you will lose all your money in your foolishness.
If you have fame but didn't get wisdom along the way, you'll eventually just be famous for doing stupid or evil things.
If you have power but along the way you didn't get wisdom—which comes from the fear of God and walking with wise people—if you have power but not wisdom, you'll just hurt people with your power.
Wisdom is more valuable than any of these things.
If you are a young man or a young woman, you must get this: The whole Book of Proverbs is just a dad sitting down with his son going, "Let me help you flourish and blossom in your life." That's all the Book of Proverbs is.
Here's the first rule this wise dad tells his son. He goes: "Son, rule number one in all of life—the beginning of wisdom is this:
[Section continues to next part...]
You can't get where you want to be until you know where you are. Throughout the Bible, people, nations, kings, and churches all go through the same cycle. You need to identify where you are in this cycle so you can get where you want to be.
The cycle starts with humility. God is always looking for someone humble who says, "God, it's all about you. Could I just use everything I am and have to lift you up?" The Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Wherever God finds humility, He pours out grace—unmerited favor. And the Bible says that those who humble themselves will be exalted. God lifts up humble people.
Then you have a critical choice: Will you worship God and give thanks for the blessings that came from His hand? This is the dangerous point. If you don't give thanks, something shifts. You become lifted up in your heart. You start taking credit for what God has done. You begin thinking, "Look at what I created by my hand. My glory. My power."
But here's the problem: The Bible says God opposes the proud. So wherever God once poured out grace on you, He now brings opposition. You've picked 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: Because Nebuchadnezzar would not choose humility, God had to do humiliation. God will not share His glory with another person. He does humiliation not because He hates you, but so He can take you back to humility.
You have a choice: humility or humiliation. God will ensure you choose one or the other.
Notice where Nebuchadnezzar's eyes were before and after God's judgment. Before the seven years of humiliation, when he was walking on the roof of his palace in pride, he said, "Isn't this the great Babylon I've built?" Nebuchadnezzar was looking down at people.
But after God humbled him, watch where his eyes went: "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 believes it's all about themselves is actually crazy. God says no—history is His story. That's why we call it "history." The second you align yourself with that reality, you return to sanity.
I want to help you look up at the holiness of God so you can figure out how much we all fall short—and how to get back into humility. We're going to use the Ten Commandments as a ten-question test. They reflect the holy character of the living God.
Commandment One: You shall have no other gods before me. Have you ever treated anything in your life as more important than the living God? The answer for every single person is yes. You're 0 for 1.
Commandment Two: 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 felt like your net worth equals your self-worth? Like you're just one more dollar away from finally having peace? Or one purchase away from happiness? You're 0 for 2.
Commandment Three: You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. You're going to break this one before you leave our parking lot. You're 0 for 3.
Commandment Four: Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Who actually does this? Chick-fil-A. That's about it. I know some of you have been on work trips breaking the Sabbath, then driven by Chick-fil-A, gotten frustrated they're closed, and broken the third commandment while trying to break the fourth. You're 0 for 4.
Commandment Five: Honor your father and mother. Whether you're three or thirty years old, you're out on this one. It's real quiet in here because everyone knows it. You're 0 for 5.
Commandment Six: You shall not kill. But remember, Jesus said that even if you've hated somebody in your heart, you've committed murder. Have you ever been in a game when a ref blew a call? Have you ever been driving in the left lane behind someone going slow and hated them in your heart? You've broken this commandment. You're 0 for 6.
Commandment Seven: You shall not commit adultery. But Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that if you've lusted after someone in your heart—pornography, a movie, a book—if you've sexualized anyone who isn't your spouse, Jesus says you've committed adultery in your heart. You're 0 for 7.
Commandment Eight: You shall not steal. Some of you say, "I never steal." But today you'll go home and log into your parents' Netflix account. Or I can't go into a restaurant in Dallas without seeing LakePointe pens everywhere—pens we don't give away. You're a commandment breaker. And many of you checked a box this week saying, "I have read all the terms and conditions" without actually reading them. You're a liar and a thief. You're 0 for 8.
Commandment Nine: You shall not bear false witness. You're a commandment breaker on this one too. You're 0 for 9.
Commandment Ten: You shall not covet. Have you ever wanted something God gave to somebody else? We call that HGTV. Or for some of you, Shields or Bass Pro. You're 0 for 10.
Every honest person here is 0 for 10. You owe on all ten counts. But here's the good news: It's not that the good people are in and the bad people are out with God. It's that the humble people are in and the proud people are out.
It's not the righteous people versus the unrighteous people. It's about who recognizes they can't earn their way into a right relationship with God. When you acknowledge in humility that you have not been good enough, that you can't make it on your own—that's when the gospel becomes your hope.
Jesus came to fulfill all the law, all the rules that you did not fulfill. The second you place your faith in Him, God imputes His righteousness to you. He covers you with the perfect righteousness of Jesus. When God looks at you, He doesn't see your messed-up self—He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said it exactly like this: "For all those who exalt themselves, thinking they're really good and righteous, they're going to be humbled at 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."
Look up. See how small you are. That's where freedom begins.
Some of you are realizing right now that you have never, and will never, 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. 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 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, I'm going to count to three, and I want you to raise your hand in the air. Something solidifies in you spiritually when you respond physically.
One. God loves you. Two. You came here for a reason today. Three. Lift your hand in the air. Bold faith. Raise them up and keep them up.
We are starting a new series called Kingslayers. The concept is this: all of the Old Testament 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 these kings was taken out by a specific species of sin—something that could not be protected against.
The ultimate Kingslayer is sin itself. 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.
If you are a Christian, you need to know this: you are part of the royal family. You have been transferred from a domain of darkness and brought into a kingdom of light. You have the King of Kings as your Father. The scriptures say that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation—we have been made Kings and Priests unto God.
Here is 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 will study one of the "six deadly sins of the 21st century" and how to fight it.
Before we dive into King Nebuchadnezzar's story, let me give you a comparison. Years ago, my father was on a work trip in Louisville, Kentucky, staying in a hotel with college students. In the morning, the front desk called to check on guests because college students in the hotel were passing out in their rooms. My father thought he was just tired, so he said yes and hung up. That was the last thing he remembered. He woke up with an ambulance outside his hotel room.
What almost killed him? Carbon monoxide poisoning. It is tasteless, odorless, colorless. You feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing. But you wake up dead.
Pride is exactly like that. 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. Your soul will wake up dead. Your family and your marriage will wake up dead. Your relationship with the Living God will wake up dead.
Pride is the final boss of all the sins. It's you and pride. Kill or be killed.
Let's look at King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4. He was the 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 Iran and down to Saudi Arabia. Iraq, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt—all of this was King Nebuchadnezzar's personal real estate portfolio.
That's not all. Two chapters before this passage, King Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot golden statue of himself. News flash: if you have a 90-foot golden statue of you, you have a pride problem. He demanded that everybody in the kingdom bow down to this golden statue and worship him as a God.
Here's what God does. First, God sends Nebuchadnezzar dreams—just showing him, "Hey man, your kingdom isn't all that. Your kingdom's not going to last forever. There's going to be a kingdom that comes that actually does last, and it's not yours."
But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen to the dreams. So God sends him a messenger. Daniel, full of the Spirit, comes and 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 God sends a disaster.
Heads up warning: 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. If you won't listen to the messenger, God will put you in a mess.
I felt like the Holy Spirit gave me this to tell some of you: 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, as the king was walking on the roof of his palace in Babylon, he said in his heart:
Now watch 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 were on his lips, a voice came from heaven. The King of Kings gave Nebuchadnezzar a decree. He said:
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 years 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 had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like an ox. He essentially took on the mind of an animal. He went from the palace to eating his lawn for seven years. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.
Let's do some theology. The Bible tells us—in Isaiah chapter 14, Ezekiel, and the Book of Revelation—that the original sin ever committed in all of creation was pride. Satan was kicked out of heaven because of pride.
Satan did not want to worship God. He wanted to be worshiped as God.
Satan did not want to kneel before the throne of God. He wanted to ascend to the throne of God.
Satan did not want to be given decrees to obey. He wanted to give decrees for others to obey.
Because of his pride, God kicked him out of heaven. He 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.
Now think about this: 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 that you breathe is a world inundated with pride—Me, Myself, and I.
I just have to point this out: Why do you think we have a pride month but we don't have 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, and he is all about pride.
Here's what Satan does as the father of lies: he repackages evil things as good things and good things as evil things.
Satan has taken the wicked sin of pride and marketed it as good things like:
We take selfies, not "us-ies." In fact, 90 million selfies are taken every day. 24 billion selfies were uploaded to Google last year. This has actually given birth to a whole new category of death in our culture. Forty-two people per year die from what's called "Death by Selfie"—people falling into the Grand Canyon, backing up in front of railroad tracks, all because they were focused on getting the perfect picture of themselves.
The Book of Proverbs says this: Things go wrong in your life when you start making everything about you and what you want. You want everybody to see you. You want to build your kingdom. You want to fulfill your desires. Stuff goes wrong because of how God designed the universe.
Pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride will lead to two things in your life: humiliation and death.
What does pride kill? First, pride will kill your relationship with God.
Let me define pride so we can defeat it. When you spell the word pride, there's a letter right in the middle: the letter I. What pride is, is putting 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 what pride does is turn your trinity into Me, Myself, and I.
And this is very unwise. The Bible says:
God opposes the proud.
The second we become proud and try to make our lives, our marriages, our families, our churches, our world about us—suddenly you are trying to put yourself in the place of God. You turn God into your opponent. Do you want to pick a fight with the Living God? Bad idea.
God says: the second you become proud, you turn me into your enemy. I promise the last thing you want to do is that. You can't have intimacy and conflict at the same time.
Number two: Pride will kill every relationship that you hold dear.
I had someone on my message prep team—a guy in his 50s—who said: "Man, I always thought I was humble until I had a family." And it's true. When you're single and younger, and you can do whatever you want whenever you want however you want, it's a little easier to feel humble. But start getting people around you, and it's like: oh man, this is different.
What does the Book of James say about this?
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Look at every conflict you ever have. Somewhere in that conflict is somebody's pride going, "Me, Mine, My, I." You're blocking what I want.
Pride will kill every relationship you hold dear.
Let me do some quick marriage counseling. Pastor Mark Driscoll points out three types of relationships, and every relationship you have is going to be one of these:
When you have a proud person and a proud person in a marriage, your marriage is going to feel like a battle. I want and I want, and no one will ever give. It's constantly a battle.
When you have a humble person and a proud person in a marriage, your marriage is going to feel like abuse. The same person always gets what they want. The same person always has to give up what they want. So one person always feels run over.
When you have a humble person and a humble person in a marriage, the whole relationship feels like a blessing. How can I bless you? How can I serve you?
Hey dads: walk into your homes. Before you get out of the truck, 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?"
Hey wives: do the same. "How can I serve and bless my husband? How can I put what you want ahead of what I want?"
When you do that, your whole relationship begins to feel like a blessing.
Number three: Pride will kill your future.
If you are a young man or a young woman, what I will say in the next minutes may be the most important thing you hear. If you're a person with a few years on you, I need you to help me attest to the reality of what I'm saying.
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. Let me explain why the Bible is right and we are dumb:
If you have money but never got wisdom, you will lose all your money in your foolishness.
If you have fame but didn't get wisdom along the way, you'll eventually just be famous for doing stupid or evil things.
If you have power but along the way you didn't get wisdom—which comes from the fear of God and walking with wise people—if you have power but not wisdom, you'll just hurt people with your power.
Wisdom is more valuable than any of these things.
If you are a young man or a young woman, you must get this: The whole Book of Proverbs is just a dad sitting down with his son going, "Let me help you flourish and blossom in your life." That's all the Book of Proverbs is.
Here's the first rule this wise dad tells his son. He goes: "Son, rule number one in all of life—the beginning of wisdom is this:
[Section continues to next part...]
You can't get where you want to be until you know where you are. Throughout the Bible, people, nations, kings, and churches all go through the same cycle. You need to identify where you are in this cycle so you can get where you want to be.
The cycle starts with humility. God is always looking for someone humble who says, "God, it's all about you. Could I just use everything I am and have to lift you up?" The Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Wherever God finds humility, He pours out grace—unmerited favor. And the Bible says that those who humble themselves will be exalted. God lifts up humble people.
Then you have a critical choice: Will you worship God and give thanks for the blessings that came from His hand? This is the dangerous point. If you don't give thanks, something shifts. You become lifted up in your heart. You start taking credit for what God has done. You begin thinking, "Look at what I created by my hand. My glory. My power."
But here's the problem: The Bible says God opposes the proud. So wherever God once poured out grace on you, He now brings opposition. You've picked 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: Because Nebuchadnezzar would not choose humility, God had to do humiliation. God will not share His glory with another person. He does humiliation not because He hates you, but so He can take you back to humility.
You have a choice: humility or humiliation. God will ensure you choose one or the other.
Notice where Nebuchadnezzar's eyes were before and after God's judgment. Before the seven years of humiliation, when he was walking on the roof of his palace in pride, he said, "Isn't this the great Babylon I've built?" Nebuchadnezzar was looking down at people.
But after God humbled him, watch where his eyes went: "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 believes it's all about themselves is actually crazy. God says no—history is His story. That's why we call it "history." The second you align yourself with that reality, you return to sanity.
I want to help you look up at the holiness of God so you can figure out how much we all fall short—and how to get back into humility. We're going to use the Ten Commandments as a ten-question test. They reflect the holy character of the living God.
Commandment One: You shall have no other gods before me. Have you ever treated anything in your life as more important than the living God? The answer for every single person is yes. You're 0 for 1.
Commandment Two: 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 felt like your net worth equals your self-worth? Like you're just one more dollar away from finally having peace? Or one purchase away from happiness? You're 0 for 2.
Commandment Three: You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. You're going to break this one before you leave our parking lot. You're 0 for 3.
Commandment Four: Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Who actually does this? Chick-fil-A. That's about it. I know some of you have been on work trips breaking the Sabbath, then driven by Chick-fil-A, gotten frustrated they're closed, and broken the third commandment while trying to break the fourth. You're 0 for 4.
Commandment Five: Honor your father and mother. Whether you're three or thirty years old, you're out on this one. It's real quiet in here because everyone knows it. You're 0 for 5.
Commandment Six: You shall not kill. But remember, Jesus said that even if you've hated somebody in your heart, you've committed murder. Have you ever been in a game when a ref blew a call? Have you ever been driving in the left lane behind someone going slow and hated them in your heart? You've broken this commandment. You're 0 for 6.
Commandment Seven: You shall not commit adultery. But Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that if you've lusted after someone in your heart—pornography, a movie, a book—if you've sexualized anyone who isn't your spouse, Jesus says you've committed adultery in your heart. You're 0 for 7.
Commandment Eight: You shall not steal. Some of you say, "I never steal." But today you'll go home and log into your parents' Netflix account. Or I can't go into a restaurant in Dallas without seeing LakePointe pens everywhere—pens we don't give away. You're a commandment breaker. And many of you checked a box this week saying, "I have read all the terms and conditions" without actually reading them. You're a liar and a thief. You're 0 for 8.
Commandment Nine: You shall not bear false witness. You're a commandment breaker on this one too. You're 0 for 9.
Commandment Ten: You shall not covet. Have you ever wanted something God gave to somebody else? We call that HGTV. Or for some of you, Shields or Bass Pro. You're 0 for 10.
Every honest person here is 0 for 10. You owe on all ten counts. But here's the good news: It's not that the good people are in and the bad people are out with God. It's that the humble people are in and the proud people are out.
It's not the righteous people versus the unrighteous people. It's about who recognizes they can't earn their way into a right relationship with God. When you acknowledge in humility that you have not been good enough, that you can't make it on your own—that's when the gospel becomes your hope.
Jesus came to fulfill all the law, all the rules that you did not fulfill. The second you place your faith in Him, God imputes His righteousness to you. He covers you with the perfect righteousness of Jesus. When God looks at you, He doesn't see your messed-up self—He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said it exactly like this: "For all those who exalt themselves, thinking they're really good and righteous, they're going to be humbled at 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."
Look up. See how small you are. That's where freedom begins.
Some of you are realizing right now that you have never, and will never, 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. 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 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, I'm going to count to three, and I want you to raise your hand in the air. Something solidifies in you spiritually when you respond physically.
One. God loves you. Two. You came here for a reason today. Three. Lift your hand in the air. Bold faith. Raise them up and keep them up.
