Thoughts Habits and Happiness — Romans 12

0:00 We're gonna open up in prayer first. Lord, we do come before you and we thank you for this day. We thank you for the love that you have for us. It's an unending love and it's an undeserved love, Lord. So we thank you for granting that to us.

0:16 Lord, I just pray for this message today that you will guide me in the words that that I'm going to use and open up the hearts of the people here to receive the message that you have already led them toward, and we just pray these and... These things in Jesus' name. So if you look behind me, what I do here is is is I have the title of of today's today's talk, today's sermon. It's thoughts, Habits and Happiness. Breaking the chains of pride that bind us to an out out of control spiral that leads to separation and possibly eternal separation from God.

0:59 Alright. So, Sammy and I were driving to to do a wedding wedding feast on Friday and we were chatting in the car and and Samuel said, you know you know mister Bob, I I think this is how it went. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sam, but he said, you know, Bob, you know, humility is the absence of pride. Humility is the absence of pride. Right?

1:19 And, I'm going to agree with that, that humility is the absence of pride. Let me hold on a second now because some of you haven't been here. For the last four weeks we've been going through a series and the focus on the series is pride and humility. So, what I plan to do today is I plan to continue on that. I'm going to remind you of what some of the speakers have said and then I'm going to give you what I think is a process to help us get rid of pride or lower pride so humility increases.

1:55 Alright? So that's what I'm planning to do today. So what I want to do is I want to help us create an environment where we can reduce pride. Okay? So, the first thing I want to do is I brought some props today.

2:15 Alright. So I'm going to take something out of here and you're going to tell me whose message it reminds reminds you of. Alright, so we're doing a quick review, I think it's going to be quick, of the last four messages because I think all of that information is appropriate. Alright, so the big reveal. So who's who said Mason?

2:44 Who who whose message does this remind you of? Joey, whose whose message does it remind you of? Mister Boss's. Why does this remind you of mister Boss's message? Lettering jacket.

2:55 Because it's his letterman jacket. Right? So mister Denzel, can I call you Denzel, mister Boss? So so Denzel wanted to wanted to make sure that he gave us a definition of pride. Philip, what was that?

3:08 A version of me that is bigger than what you do. So pride is thinking of myself more than I should. Right? A version of me that is bigger than what it is. Right?

3:18 So this right here, this letterman jacket right here, I could show it off. Right? '81, that's when I graduated, so yeah, I'm old. These are all of the letters that I won right here. I've got a couple of letters on the back.

3:30 Back then they also gave JV letters and they're on the front. So this is a symbol of some awards that I won, but this isn't me. The jacket isn't me. Alright? So we can go to a point when it comes to pride where we worship ourselves.

3:48 Alright? When we think of us as these awards or we think of us as this jacket or we think of us, hey, I was all Ohio in football, that is an award I won but that's not me. Okay? Now, if I tend to boast about these are my awards, it's all about this jacket, right? When the jacket no longer fits, what happens?

4:12 When the jacket no longer fits, then what what are we gonna use next? So the point here is, right, so pride is thinking of ourselves higher than we should and we don't have a... The birthday girl's coming in Andy so she's interrupting. Now she's hiding back there. So we don't want to worship ourselves.

4:44 So pride, I think we could add to that that it is worshipping ourselves. Then we get to Mr. Hilton, right? Andy hit the bricks. That's how I look at that message, hit the bricks.

4:56 I don't know how many times I've experienced experienced the same thing as well. So for those of you that weren't here, Andy's son... Where's he at? Andy's son Worth, the guy with the boot on was cutting grass and he was cutting grass and he hit a brick. Right?

5:13 The brick... When you hit a brick with a lawnmower, what happens Zach? It ricochets, it ruins. And Andy, two days later, whatever it was later, did the same thing. After he was upset a little bit, probably with Worth for doing that, he did the same thing.

5:28 How many times does that happen in our life? Hopefully, hopefully we're adults enough to understand that, you know what, it's gonna come back to haunt us. Right? Raise your hand if it comes back to haunt you. I know I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna say something and I know it's gonna come back to haunt me.

5:44 Right, Nancy? It's gonna come back to haunt me. So I've got to be very careful. But what that does is it... I think is what it does is it helps us to understand blind spots.

5:53 It helps us to understand blind spots. And so I love... He brought Psalm one thirty nine. Right? Psalm one thirty nine verses twenty three and twenty four, Search me, God.

6:04 Right? Self awareness doesn't exist. Self awareness doesn't exist. We are not aware of our self unless some points it out into us. And we can go through these experiences of hitting bricks and then all of a sudden we can become more aware, it's just exposing our blind spots.

6:20 A couple years ago, maybe a year ago I did a message where we talked about blind spots. So we got to be aware of blind spots with our pride. Then JC came up and JC gave you or told you this quote from CS Lewis. Now I had to write it down because I know JC had a trouble remembering it. Here's what CS Lewis says, right?

6:44 Again we're talking about humility and pride. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. So the first thing I'm gonna do here, I wanna actually go to the Bible here and let's go to Romans chapter 12 verse three. Okay. Romans chapter 12 verse three.

7:25 Says, for by the grace given to me, I told everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought. He should think instead, think sensibly as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. I tell you among you, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought. Right? That word esteem.

7:50 Right? You heard this word and and Christianity, I cringe when I hear the word self esteem because I think I understand self esteem but I hear some people criticizing self esteem. I think this verse right here shows us that we are supposed to have some esteem. We're supposed to identify who we are, but the key is to be really reasonable about who we are. See, we are created in the image and likeness of God.

8:13 We were created for good works that God prepared us in advance. Christ came down from heaven and died for us. We are valuable. We do have some worth. Alright?

8:26 So there is esteem. But the key here is we have to do an analysis of that. Who am I? Right? If we run out into the world and we don't understand who we are, then we might have too much self esteem.

8:41 We might think of ourselves higher than we ought. We need to really sit down on a daily basis and understand who we are. Alright? We we need to we need to often often we need to go to the Lord and say, reveal in me Lord, reveal in me if there's anything in me that I need to be aware of. Alright, and then Mason Bingham, yeah there you go.

9:36 Our pride should reduce. So... And and then I I always think... When I think of that, I always think of James chapter four verse eight. Right?

9:47 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. So if we put into practice drawing near to God, we're exalting God. Right? Because we're putting him before us. We understand that he deserves.

9:59 Right? He is the preeminence. He is above everything. He is above us. When we build this relationship with God, when we build this relationship, we are actually understanding that we are exalting Him and we are thinking of our self less.

10:17 Thinking of our self less. Alright. So thoughts, habits, and happiness. So how do we take this? How do we take all this information?

10:29 Right? We have pride. We have pride. We want to increase our humility, but we're prideful people. The thing that I think that we need to do is we need to take an understanding of who we are.

10:40 Like I said earlier, we need to understand who we are. And so what I would say in order to understand who we are, the first thing that we need to take into account are our thoughts. All right? Now, about two years ago, I was up here giving a message on thoughts. So in June 06/13/2021, I had a message that that was the glory of God is man fully alive.

11:12 And what that did is it focused on our our thoughts, our thinking, our thinking processes. Right? And we we we want... The the point there was we wanted to capture every thought. We wanted to capture every thought.

11:26 Now now look look, alright, human behavior. We have 60 to 70,000 thoughts that go through our mind on a daily basis. You heard right. 60 to 70,000 thoughts that go through our mind on a daily basis. Now listen to this.

11:43 90% of those we thought about yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before the day before yesterday. All the way back to when we were of the age of reason. Alright. We are... Prop number two.

12:03 We are burdened down with a backpack that is full of thoughts that we have been embracing and battling ever since we were old enough to understand and recognize that thoughts exist, which I would say is the age of reason. And and we can see that, we can find that in book of James. I'm not sure if that's my next slide, but we'll get it up there if it is. Yeah. Okay.

12:31 Now, so we need to understand that. Things that we do in our daily life are as a result of things that happened all the way back to when we were eight year... I'll say the eight year old is is the age of reason. We have this burden on our shoulders because we're fighting that battle all the time. Now here's an interesting piece too, and this this is truth.

12:52 Not only is it scientific truth, I'm gonna show that it's biblical truth, is the thoughts that we have, we believe they are truth. We believe they are real. Alright? It's just a genetic thing. It's the way we were created.

13:07 I have a thought, I'm gonna believe that it's true. And understand, if I have a thought and I believe it's the... And I believe it's truth, what is that? Pride. Right?

13:18 It's a little bit of pride. So we have to understand that we have these thoughts that go through our mind and we're constantly battling these thoughts. A majority of these a majority of these thoughts are negative thoughts. We really need to take a hold of these thoughts that are coming through our mind and we need to consider them. We need to look at them.

13:41 We need to see how they're affecting us. So here's the verse in Proverbs twenty one twelve. All a person's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart. So what we think here in our frontal lobe, our prefrontal cortex where thinking occurs, you guys could come on in. Not gonna disturb me.

14:06 All right. So everything that goes on, we we believe it to be true. So these thoughts that we have, we we believe them to be true. Okay? And then again, if we if we go back to that message that I had two years ago, I talked about second Corinthians chapter 10 verses three and five.

14:41 So again, I use the CSB Christian standard... What is that? The CSB? What's that? There you go.

14:52 Here we go. For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. Since the weapons of warfare are not of the flesh, but are the... Are powerful through God, for the for the demolition of strongholds, we we we demolish arguments. And every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

15:22 Right, so these thoughts that hamper our, that come into our mind and the thoughts, these thoughts that that put us on a track that we may not want to go on and these thoughts that cause us to actually thinking less of ourselves rather than thinking of our self less, can put us on a track on a track to destruction. So we're told to take captive every thought. This, we are not fighting a battle against each other, even though it might seem, if I have pride and you have pride. Andy and I did this when we were backpacking one time together. Right?

15:57 I thought I had the answer, he thought he had the answer. And you know what? We battled it until we saw a bear. And then we realized that it was more important to avoid the bear than it was to continue with the argument, right? Or was it an argument?

16:09 It was a discussion. You don't even remember, do you? I just remember the bear. You just remember the bear. You just remember the bear, that's right.

16:19 But that's the thing, right, because we believe that our thoughts are right. We need to take them captive. We need to understand what we're thinking. We need to dissect it. We need to unpack it.

16:28 We need to take it apart and say is this true, is this real? Right, do an assessment of our self, it's going to help us understand who we are, it's gonna help us to have some esteem, but not esteeming ourselves higher than we ought. All right, thoughts. Okay, and then we come back to this one thirty nine twenty three and twenty four. So like I said, self awareness doesn't exist.

16:53 But you know what? The the power of the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to help us understand where we are. So we have to ask God, search search me, God, and know my heart. Alright? Right?

17:10 Know my heart. Where is my heart? What direction is my heart in? Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.

17:23 Alright? So we have these thoughts that are going through our mind every day, 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts. We're carrying burdens from back when we were eight years old. Every day, every day continually we're being brought back to that. We need to unleash ourself from this burden that we carry around.

17:42 How do we do it? We give it to the Lord, we reassess, we take captive these thoughts and we understand who we really are in Christ. We understand what the direction that God has created for us and we can unburden ourselves from these things that happened back ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Now, now some of you some of you aren't quite as old as me. Right?

18:10 So these are my, this is the size of my burdens. I think this is 110 liters, all right? This is the size of my burden. I've been carrying these around ever since I was eight years old, all right? And these thoughts still cause me pain, they cause me anxiousness, they cause me problems and as a result of these pain, sometimes I'm not the best version of myself and I'm not really serving God the way I'm supposed to.

18:35 Now you young folks, MC I'm looking at you and other other young ones out here, this is the size of your burdens. Alright? It's a lot easier, it's a lot easier to clean this one out, wouldn't you say? It's a lot easier to clean this one out than to clean this one out. So don't wait until you're my age Ben, before you decide to start cleaning out the backpack.

18:55 Start right now, understand what you've been through in your life, the thoughts that you're going through, take those thoughts captive and put yourself onto the path that God is calling you to. Here's another thing too. Right? If we're thinking more of our... Of ourselves, which is what the definition of the definition of pride is, and I am I am a worshiping me, then can I really be doing what God has called me to do?

19:25 I submit the answer is no. Can I do some of it? Possibly. Does the power of the Holy Spirit guide me to do things when when the when the Holy Spirit thinks I should? Absolutely.

19:37 But the best thing for me to do is to take a look at my thoughts, take them captive, understand them, and then deal with them. Because it's important to deal with those... With that trauma. Right, Andy? We don't want that trauma sticking around in our mind because those are the burdens that we carry.

20:07 So Philippians four eight, right? Planter. So if we really wanna take control of our thoughts, what we need to do is we need to find a quiet place. And I think we need to understand this verse or memorize it the way that I have. Right?

20:22 Whatever is pure, whatever is praiseworthy, whatever is loving, whatever is admirable, whatever is noble, whatever is true, whatever is excellent, whatever is real, think about these things. This is where our thoughts should be on these right here. And we're told, we're told in Philippians that that is what we are supposed to do. Okay? So that again, it'll help help give us a fresh slate, it'll help us clean our mind, it'll help us identify what thoughts we need to get rid of.

20:54 Okay. Now, now we're gonna talk about habits. So that that's the first one. Right? The first one is thoughts.

21:00 Now we're gonna talk about habits. Right? All of these, all of these, our thoughts and our habits pour into us that is what causes us to separate from each other, and it is a cause of separating from Christ. Right? So when that pride builds up.

21:14 And then we have these habits. Alright? Do you realize... Okay. So I told you that, you know, 90% of your thoughts you were thinking about yesterday.

21:23 Now here's... Try this one on for size. 50 to 60% of everything that you do on a daily basis is a habit. 50 to 60% of what you do, you did the day before. So we are living a life of habits.

21:38 We are living a life where we're burdened from these thoughts, we're burdened from these thoughts that are going on in our mind, trauma, dealing with trauma, and then we've created habits. So a lot of people create habits to get rid of the trauma. It's called self medication. Right, people go out and they drink because they want to get rid of these thoughts that are in their mind and it becomes a habit. And alcohol is also addicting and so are other drugs.

22:02 Alright, here's one for you. You know, it blows my mind, so a little bit of a pause here, because this is a little bit of a habit. So, heroin. First of all, heroin. Think of heroin, thinking of fentanyl, right?

22:22 Why would somebody put fentanyl in heroin if they're already getting a great high, because they're self medicating, from heroin? So we have this hormone, it's called happiness hormone. The happiness hormone is dopamine. We increase the amount of dopamine in our brain because the dopamine floods our brain in happy juice, right? That's dopamine.

22:46 If you shoot heroin, it increases the amount of dopamine in your brain by 1000%. 1000% is the amount of increase in dopamine. Alright? And it becomes a high that these people wanna chase, that's why they put fentanyl in it because you can never get that high again. So they're trying to increase the drug release in their body so that they can increase that happiness hormone.

23:14 Right? It becomes a habit and it also becomes an addiction. So what we do is we have these habits that we've created in our lives and we follow them every day and some of them lead to destruction. We have to identify those that lead to destructions. Alright?

23:35 Change your habits, change your life. Change your habits, change your life. Okay? You want to be closer to God like James says? Change your habits.

23:45 Get closer to God. How do get closer to God? Open up the Bible. Every day. Every morning.

23:48 Open it up. Take a look at it. Change your habits. Change your life. This is from a pastor, Greg Groeschel.

23:59 I love this. Successful people do consistently what others do occasionally. Successful people do consistently what others do occasionally. Successful people do consistently what others do occasionally. Let's take a look at the Lord Jesus Christ.

24:14 Did he ever say, oh my gosh, there's way too many people around here. Got... You know, I'm I'm taking these these fishes and these loaves and I'm making them enough for 5,000 people to eat. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

24:27 No. We see that he goes to prayer. How many different verses do we see what the habit of our Lord was? He went to prayer. He was building that relationship with the the heavenly father, his heavenly father.

24:43 It was a habit. Right? Change your habits, change your life. You want to get rid of pride? Change your habits.

24:51 They change your life. This is something that you have to do. Right? You know what? I could stand up here all day and say, look, look Mason, this is me or this is me.

25:04 This is you. You don't want to carry this burden. You're a big strong guy. You don't want to carry this burden. You want to deal with your burden, you want to deal with it now.

25:11 Alright? You can choose to do that by creating a habit so that you can get rid of these burdens and you can get closer to Christ or you can choose not to. Right? This is a decision that you have to make. Are you going to change your habits?

25:51 Well, it reminds you of Jimmy John's. I'm gonna say it reminds you, you reap what you sow, right? Wouldn't you say, you reap what you sow? When you do what you do, you get what you got. I got this.

26:08 I did what I did and now I'm carrying this burden around for the rest of my life trying to knock it off little by little slowly and surely. When you do what you do, you get what you got. Alright. Heard this the other day. I heard this the other day and I thought I'd bring it to you.

26:24 Alright. So one thing I didn't mention is that no action starts without a thought. Before an action could ever occur, you have to have a thought. Alright. There's only two things that causes something to happen, either a thought or a reaction.

26:39 So a thought creates an action. Listen to this. Sow a thought, okay we've got this idea right here. When you do what you do, you get what you got. When we think about you reap what you sow, sow a thought, reap an action.

26:52 Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Right? We start doing this action over and over again, it becomes a habit. Sow a habit, it becomes character.

27:03 Alright, the more of this habit, this habit that you get into, it shows what your character is. Again, you could have bad habits and you're gonna have bad character or you could have good habits and you're good gonna character. Alright, so a character reap a destiny. Alright, so when we put all of these things together, our thoughts and our habits actually are who we are and actually create the direction that we're going and if we want to, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. Alright, I need to stand up and make a change.

27:38 I can't just sit and see what's going to happen. I need to take control of my life, I need to make a change so that my pride is decreased. So that my pride is decreased. And you know, you guys know me. You guys have known me, most of you have known me ever since I got saved, right back in 1985.

28:01 I've been going to the same church ever since then. And I still have way too much pride. And I could give you so many examples of pride and I might give you one here in a little bit, But I'm a prideful person. I am a prideful person. Right?

28:17 So I really need to adjust my habits. I need to take a look at what I'm doing. I need to make changes when I need to make changes. Now look at this. Whatever you do, do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people.

28:33 Colossians. Right? So when we create these habits, what we wanna do is we wanna create biblical habits. We want to go out and do what we're supposed to do so that we can grow closer to God. Right?

28:45 Whatever you do, do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people. Right? And the Lord knows our heart. The Lord knows what our heart is. So we have to make that focus and we have to make these habits that are glorifying to God.

29:01 Not glorifying to ourselves, right? Not glorifying... Where'd that jacket go? Did I throw it away? I put it back.

29:08 Right, not glorifying ourselves, but glorifying God. Those are the habits that we need to move into. Alright. So this is a great habit. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice.

29:29 So in order for the Lord to hear your voice in the morning, what do you have to do? Okay, wake up, then what? You have to speak to him, right? He doesn't hear your voice if you don't speak to him. You know, one of the one of the first things that Guy Guy Meiling told me, and again, those of you that aren't from around here don't know who Guy Meiling is, but Guy Meiling was definitely very important in my growth as a believer.

29:57 But he he taught me the importance of having a daily quiet time. Right? Taught me the importance of having... Every morning I start the day in God's word. I didn't follow that my entire life.

30:09 Right? That was a habit that I created. And then when I started traveling, it was very difficult. Okay. I chose.

30:18 I was almost going to make an excuse. We know I don't... I read no excuses. Right, MC? I almost made an excuse.

30:25 I chose not to do in the morning everything that I needed to do in order for God to guide me for the day. Alright? I made that choice. But what we need to do is we need to make a commitment to ourselves and we need to make it a habit. Every morning when I get up, I'm gonna spend time with the Lord.

30:54 When you go to Chick fil A and you say thank you, what's their response? My pleasure. Alright. You guys, did I tell you this one before? All right.

31:02 So Truett Cathy, who was the president of Chick fil A says we're going to change the culture. Whenever somebody says thank you staff, you say it was my pleasure or my pleasure. How long did it take from the first time Truett Cathy said that in Orlando, Florida at the Marriott before he came back and said we have achieved it, we are now saying my pleasure. How long did it take? Give me an idea.

31:32 Five years. That's a good guess. It's wrong, but it's good. Five and a half years. Ten years.

31:36 It took ten years before Truett Cathy said, we've accomplished that objective. Why do I bring this up? Because habits are tough to change. When we're carrying around baggage with our thoughts and with our habits, they become tough to change. We have to realize, you know what, I'm going to get up and use my app, whatever app you have, I'm going open up the Bible and I'm going to go to the Word of God.

31:59 You know, if you do it one day and you don't do it the next day, don't beat yourself up. Purpose so that the next day you do it. Get up a little bit early. Right? And these are habits, we start with simple habits, we change our lives, right?

32:14 We increase by 1% a day, we're 36% better by the end of the year. Alright? If we increase 1% by every day. So this is what we need to do. Alright?

32:25 The Lord needs to hear our voice in the morning. We need to make it a habit. The next thing is, after dismissing the crowds, he went up to... He went up on the mountain by himself to pray, well into the night, and he was there alone. A habit that Jesus had.

32:42 Right? He just got done with the crowd and he was going to pray. Right? That is a great option. When you get done doing, so right, in all actuality, when I'm done with this, should pray.

32:58 That's what I should do. Right? It's gonna give me energy. Right? That's what it's going to do.

33:03 So we need to create these habits in ourselves. Now, so we talked about thoughts, we talked about habits, we're going to talk about happiness. All right? All right, I missed this slide up, so don't... See where it says, How do we delight in the Lord?

33:17 Forget about that one. All right, JC Schroeder came to the young group. Right? What did he ask you? For God, the Lord wants us to be happy.

33:31 Samuel, what was the answer? The Lord wants us to be happy. He created us to be happy. We're supposed to be happy. Okay?

33:47 So when I when I originally thought of Christianity, the picture that was played in my mind was a pious event. Right? Pious, holy, spiritual. Right? Meaning no fun, no happiness, no joy.

34:09 But the fact of the matter is is that God, Christ, they they want us to be happy. Right? We are created we are created to to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Right? We are created to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

34:29 That is the Westminster Smaller Catechism. What is the purpose of man? Okay? To glorify God and to love him forever. So if we take a look at this verse, delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

34:43 Delight in the Lord. So we are need to be happy in the Lord. So this is one of those habits that we need to engage with. We need to be happy with the Lord. We need to delight in the Lord.

34:55 We need to take delight in him. We're told here to take the delight in the Lord and he will give you he will give you the desires of your heart. Right? Now what that means is that my desires right now may not be the desires that the Lord wants me to have, but if I grow that relationship, I think of the Lord every day, I spend time with the Lord every day, all of a sudden I'm in alignment with God. When I'm in alignment with God, the desires of my heart are in alignment with his.

35:23 As a result of that, he is giving me the desires of my heart because we are in alignment. Make sense? Right? So that's what we need to do. We need to pursue that delight in the Lord.

35:40 Right? There's a dog and it's an aggressive dog. And it has something that you want. Let's say it's got my wallet, right? The dog's got my wallet, it's an aggressive dog, I'm not gonna bend down there and pick that wallet up because I'm afraid that the dog's gonna bite my hand.

35:53 And what's gonna happen after that? So I got a hotdog, right? I just left Sammy's graduation party, I got a hotdog, I throw the hotdog down, that hotdog's gonna want that hotdog more than he wants my wallet. That hotdog's gonna taste better than what my wallet tastes. All right?

36:11 So it's the same thing here. If these we habits, if we are prideful, how do we get rid of the pride? Well, we have to replace it. All right? And what I'm saying is we replace our thought process to delight in the Lord, not to be focused on ourselves, not to worship ourselves.

36:38 Again, change happens slowly, but we need to drive a stake in the ground and say, alright, right now, I'm gonna choose to delight in the Lord. Alright, so for those of you that are... That have pride issues, I'll my give story. So this was about a month ago, I think. About a month ago, I'm at home and there's a cupboard that's open.

37:00 All right? You know where this is going right there? Nowhere good, right? So the cupboard is open. So I take a picture of it.

37:14 I'm not thinking of anything, I send it to everybody in my house. Yeah. And I say, I did not raise you like this. It was a miserable couple of days after that, I'll tell you that. Right?

37:31 I'm like, really? It's a cupboard that's open. I guess I should have just kept my mouth shut and shut it myself. Because I would have been... It would have been better for relationship with my wife, it would have been better with relationship with my daughters, with my son, if I would have just kept my mouth shut and closed it.

37:47 But I had too much pride. I didn't raise you like this. We don't leave cupboards open. How... Okay.

37:53 Andy. That was you? He doesn't even live there. Alright. You close it.

38:00 How long do you think it was before I left the cupboard open? Right? I'm in a hurry, right? Because we give ourselves more grace, right? We always give ourselves more grace, Andy talked about that.

38:12 We give ourselves more grace. I'm gonna be upset with you about a cupboard. Come on, Bob. Right? So that led to a lot of unhappiness.

38:28 Relationships are broken as a result of pride. All right? So we chained with this pride to having not very good relationships. Because we put ourself first, right? When we consider that this is me, I'm more valuable than you.

38:54 Right, that's pride, we put our self first and it doesn't lead to happiness. It does not lead to happiness. The most miserable times of my week are when Nancy and I leave and it's a contentious time. And you know what? Most of the time it's a result of pride.

39:11 Alright, I'm not going to say whose pride, but it's a result of pride. Alright? So we do need to understand that. So how do we delight in the Lord? So there's a process here.

39:22 Right? There's a process here. How do we delight in the Lord? First of all, go to Him intimately, on purpose. Go to him every day.

39:30 Right? James four verse eight. Go to him every day. The next one, intentionally think about him. Colossians three two.

39:40 Let's go to Colossians three two. Colossians three chapter two. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. So our mind needs to intentionally go to him every day. It has to become a habit.

40:02 That that's... Those are the thoughts that need to enter our mind continuously. On set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. Then look forward to begin with him. Psalm sixteen eleven.

40:22 Psalm sixteen eleven. You reveal the path of life to me. In your presence is abundant joy. At your right hand are eternal pleasures. Let me read that again.

40:40 You reveal, Lord, you reveal the path of life to me. In your presence is abundant joy. Joy and happiness, they're synonymous. They mean the same thing. Joy and happiness, when we're with the Lord.

40:52 So that's how we increase, that's how we we delight in the Lord. Now, if you took a look at if you took a look at the the title of this, you you would see that the last one says, and maybe eternal separation. So pride creates a separation. My pride caused an argument with my family about the cupboard that separated us for a while until somebody was able to apologize and come back and move forward. That's a separation of relationships.

41:22 All right? But I talked about possibly even eternal separation from God. All right? The biggest reason in my opinion, why people choose to ignore God's calling is because of pride. We think of ourselves higher than we ought.

41:45 Right? We think of ourselves as the jacket, not as the individual. I don't need God. I've overcome all of these things in my life. Right?

41:56 Take a look at what I'm carrying. I overcome it. I overcame it. I don't need God. So pride, in my opinion, is what causes us not to choose to have a relationship with God.

42:10 Take a look at this. Romans eight ten. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit gives life because of righteousness. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead. You know, that's the greatest paradox in the Christian church.

42:31 We don't live until we are dead. We need to die to self, right? Mason talked about this. We need to die to self. That's what we need to do.

42:42 And unless we understand that we will be eternally separated from God, unless we make a choice to have a relationship with him, we are allowing our pride to separate us from the greatest gift that we could ever have. And that greatest gift is eternal security with Jesus Christ. And when this earth ends and the new one is here, if you wanna be with Jesus, you need to get rid of your pride and you need to get on your knees and you need to go to the cross and you need to confess your sins, ask for forgiveness, and enter the life that Christ created for you. It's so difficult to do with pride. That's what he's asking us to do.

43:36 He desires that relationship with us. Do you desire that relationship with him? Or are you going to allow pride, your choice, to separate you from the great things that we will receive as a result of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. If you have any questions about that, I'm happy to chat with you. Let's close in prayer.

44:36 So bless us today, Lord. I ask you to bless the graduation party for Sammy. Hold the hold the weather off. We do not want any wet hot dog buns. So Lord, ask you to to bless that bless that experience today, and we pray in Jesus' name.

44:49 Amen.