Don't Get Cocky

[0:00] John chapter 13, verse 36. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?

[0:11] ! Jesus answered him, where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.

[0:28] Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, amen, amen, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

[0:44] That is the sobering word of the Lord. Thanks, Peter. You may be seated. Thank you, praise team. Thank you once again for good music that brings our hearts to Jesus. Thank you.

[1:05] Yeah, you know I'm a geek, and I have no shame in saying it. And one of my favorite fictional movies, Star Wars, episode four, A New Hope.

[1:19] Tie fighters are attacking the Millennium Falcon, piloted by his greatness, Han Solo, and the mighty Chewbacca, the Wookie.

[1:31] Han and Luke Skywalker manned the cannons to fight them off. Now, if you know anything about tie fighters, you know they're very fast, hard to hit.

[1:44] And Luke keeps missing. And he's getting frustrated. Because he's not playing a video game. Their lives are at stake here. Finally, Luke gets off a shot, and he gets one.

[2:02] And he turns, and he yells at Han, Hey! I got one! And Han's reply becomes classic in the annals of geekness.

[2:13] He swivels around in his chair. Looks him in the eye. Great kid! Don't get cocky! And he whirms around. That has been meaned and mined and everything.

[2:28] I mean, great kid, don't get cocky. Now, some believe now, in the Star Wars lore, some believe that that attitude is what kept Luke from becoming his father, Darth Vader.

[2:47] Humility. Don't get cocky. AI. I asked AI what this was all about.

[3:00] AI says, Don't get cocky means to not become overly confident or arrogant. Especially in a way that is irritating or presumptuous.

[3:12] And to avoid acting as if you are superior or know everything. AI.

[3:25] You see, cockiness is a real temptation. And as Christians, you have to understand something. We are most vulnerable to the devil's attacks right after God, in his matchless grace, has given us a great victory in some way.

[3:46] Maybe he used you in church or in ministry in a beautiful way. Maybe you resisted a temptation. Maybe one that normally trips you up.

[3:58] But this time, by the grace of God, you resisted. Maybe you witnessed to someone about Jesus. Maybe you got an excellent grade or on a paper or an exam.

[4:10] Or got into the school you wanted. Maybe it was a promotion at work or recognition for a job well done. Now, if as Christians, we take to heart what Paul says in Colossians 3.17, Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything of the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

[4:34] If we take that seriously, who gets the glory? Now, it's certainly right to thank people. Come on now.

[4:44] Let's be clear. It's right to thank people and reasonable to appreciate when people give you a compliment or recognize you. But I say again, who gets the glory? And too often, we're all glory hounds.

[4:59] And that's where spiritual overconfidence begins to seep in. We get cocky. And if you allow cockiness to set in, it will lead to a fall.

[5:11] Just ask Peter. But it can be avoided. Let me ask you a question. Do you see cockiness in you? Peter is at case study on this subject.

[5:30] Now, where are we? You remember we're in the upper room discourse. This is likely, it seems to be the night before Jesus was betrayed.

[5:41] He's doing a lot of teaching. Interesting, our Lord has said in verse 33 to the disciples that they cannot come where he is going. And Peter gets, that doesn't set well with Peter.

[5:57] He's one of those Christians who wants everything explained to them. They have to know everything. They don't like mystery. God got to explain himself.

[6:09] And so Peter is pushing in on Jesus. Yeah, he's probably a little self-righteous. Especially when you look at Matthew's records of what happens here. All four Gospels talk about the betrayer of Peter.

[6:24] All four. It's like God wants us to really understand this. And not miss this. It humbled Peter for the rest of his life. I'm sure in a profound way.

[6:35] But it's for us to understand and get it clear. Because we're in danger. First thing I want you to understand here is that the spiritually overconfident lack understanding.

[6:50] Now, so Simon Peter acts again. I mean, Jesus has said he's going away up in verse 33. Now, Peter comes back and says, hold it now. Let's be clear.

[7:00] Where are you going? You got to make it clear. Jesus was leaving this world to return to the glory via the cross and resurrection.

[7:14] The Jews didn't understand this. He told them the same thing, that he was going away. And he had told them. And they sarcastically said, is he going to kill himself? But he told them, you will die in your sins.

[7:28] What a destruction that is. They will die in their sins for rejecting Jesus. But the disciples still didn't get it either. Peter's question is logical, isn't it?

[7:40] It's logical. It's something I don't understand. You say you're going away. But we don't understand where you're going. Can you be a bit more specific?

[7:53] Lord, where are you going? All the talk about the father and going to the father had not sunk in to Peter's heart. That goes to the point that the spiritually overconfident lack understanding of the Lord's ways because they are spiritually immature.

[8:11] So don't be too hard on that guy. Don't be too hard on Peter. Peter was a babe in Christ. And we all got to start some way. The issue is, don't stay a babe. Because no one comes to Jesus fully grown.

[8:27] True Peter had been living with Jesus for three years and learning from Jesus for three years. Hmm. Maybe he could have been a little more mature. I don't know. But he's not.

[8:41] And at times, if you read the Gospels, at times, our Lord seems to be a little frustrated with his disciples lack of understanding. I'll just give you a couple hints of that. Matthew 8, 26 and 27.

[8:53] He said to them, Why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith. Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. And they marveled, because they thought they were going to drown in the sea.

[9:05] What sort of man is this that even winds and sea obey him? Oh, you of little faith, he says to them. In Luke chapter 9, where they were passing a village of the Samaritans, and the Samaritans refused to allow them to come in.

[9:22] And James and John got up indignant about that. Don't you know who he is? And who we are with him, by the way. And he got indignant. And so they asked him, verse 54, Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did?

[9:45] Lord, should we wipe them out? They heathen. Let's kill them. Verse 55, 56 says, He turned and rebuked them and said, You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.

[10:05] For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. Jesus was always correcting them.

[10:16] That's just two examples of him correcting them for their lack of understanding. So Peter here is displaying continual lack of understanding.

[10:27] He's a spiritual babe. He's immature. Yet Jesus is patient with babes. Don't you know that we all have so much to learn?

[10:41] And one of the things we don't know fully is ourselves. I know myself. No, you don't. So sadly, we can think we know more than we actually do.

[10:56] And that is when we are the most dangerous. When you think you know more. I've met a lot of Christians like that. I've been one myself. I hope I've learned something by now.

[11:07] After over 40 years. I hope I'm getting it. When we think we know the most, we are the most dangerous. I remember in seminary, after we had finished three semesters of New Testament Greek, I slogged my way through and God was merciful.

[11:29] My professor turned to all of us and said, You all know just enough to be dangerous. And we're setting you loose on the church.

[11:40] Pray. He wanted us to keep learning. And that's the posture of a true disciple of Jesus. That's our posture. Always eager to learn more of the truth of God in Christ.

[11:55] Is that you? Have you become satisfied with your current state of knowledge and understanding of the Christian faith? Are you satisfied with what you know about Jesus?

[12:08] Now listen, I'm talking about experiential knowledge. I'm not talking about just facts. You've got to know facts, by the way. But I'm talking about knowing God. Are you satisfied with where you are spiritually in your growth and development?

[12:22] Or are you hungry? Are you hungry? Are you hungry for Jesus? Are you hungry to know more? Lord, teach me. Lord, you sang it a minute ago.

[12:32] I hope it was a prayer. I surrender all. That is the posture of a disciple. That is a posture of someone who says, I ain't there yet. Lord, teach me.

[12:42] Take me. Use me. Amen. Amen. Knowing Jesus, the glorious Savior, is meant to only make us want more of him.

[12:59] So where are you? Do you recognize your lack of understanding? Second, the spiritually overconfident tend to boast about their abilities.

[13:17] I love Peter. He's my boy. He is adamant that he will die for Jesus. Matthew records it this way.

[13:29] Matthew 26, 33. Peter answered him, though they all fall away. He's talking about the other disciples. He's pointing back to the other ten because Judas is gone.

[13:39] He says, though they all fall away. All those scrubs fall away. All those babes in Jesus. Though they all fall away.

[13:52] I will never fall away. In other words, I will never fall away from or reject faith in you, Jesus.

[14:03] I will never stray from you, Jesus. It's funny that we get our English word scandalized from the word fall away in that text.

[14:16] You see, there are people who are scandalized by Jesus. Christians who will name him as their Lord and Savior.

[14:27] But when the truth of his word connects with culture and his way doesn't quite fit in with the culture's way, they are scandalized.

[14:39] You mean Jesus' view of sexuality is not the same view as our culture's view of sexuality? You mean Jesus' view of life is not the culture's view?

[14:54] Jesus' view of everything, really. Doesn't match our culture? And people get scandalized by Christians who named disciples of Jesus, get scandalized.

[15:06] And what happens when you are scandalized? You go silent. But there's no doubt in Peter's words.

[15:18] No room for weakness. No humility. He knows himself. He believes not in Christ, but in his ability. His commitment. His grit.

[15:29] And I say to you, family, that this is death. Listen, I don't know why Peter felt so confident. I really don't know why. His track record was not very pristine.

[15:42] Jesus at one time called Peter the devil. Get thee behind me, Satan. Who was he talking to? Peter. But that's a mark of spiritual cockiness.

[15:56] We are not in touch with reality about our own weakness. And God's word warns us.

[16:08] Romans 12, 3. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

[16:24] You see, when you think more highly of yourself than you ought, you're not sober, but you're drunk. You're drunk on your own self-esteem.

[16:36] Your own self-worth. Your own ability to get the job done. Which is nothing but a setup for a fall. The devil loves where you are.

[16:48] He wants you right there in your overconfidence. Because he will put you now in positions of pressure or compromise, and you will think, I got this.

[17:03] Sometimes we tend to forget that whatever benefits and gifts and resources and abilities that we have are all a grace gift from God.

[17:13] 1 Corinthians 4, 7. Paul says at the end, what do you have that you did not receive? If you then received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

[17:26] What you have. Anything that you have. Giftedness, whatever it is. It's been given to you by the grace of God. And so he says in 2 Corinthians 10, 12, at the end of that verse, But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.

[17:52] You see, Peter believed he was more faithful than any other disciples. It's a warning for us not to compare ourselves to each other. Because, I'm going to be honest with you, when I compare myself with you, I look pretty good.

[18:08] You see, I think I do anyway. On occasion, I look bad. But I love me too much to always look bad.

[18:20] So when I compare myself with you and you compare yourself with me, we probably come out pretty good. Peter thought he was more faithful because he looked at the other disciples and said, You know something, James?

[18:32] James ain't all bad. I know James. I've been living with these boys for how many? Three years now. Oh, Thaddeus? Yeah, Thaddeus is a trip.

[18:44] He was comparing and saying, You know something? I am Peter the Great, baby. Can I ask you some questions now? I know.

[18:56] You know what's coming, Carl. When you hear about a Christian or a Christian leader who has fallen, do you shake your head, canceling them in your heart, as if you would never have done that?

[19:14] Does your heart go out to them in compassion, praying for God's grace on them? I'm not saying we shouldn't hold people to accountability.

[19:28] I'm not saying that at all. But where's the heart attitude? When we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, we look at someone else who falls and says, You know something? I'm better than that.

[19:40] He's just weak. Thus, holy fear sees your heart because you realize you really are not better than them.

[19:57] Never say what you will never do. The spiritually overconfident ignore the Lord's warnings. Our Lord will speak to our overconfidence.

[20:13] And that's not harsh. That's not wrong. He's not crushing you or abusing you by telling you you're a mess. He's showing grace to you.

[20:25] He's not just wanting you to get light on your own. He wants to teach you. And me. He wants us to know.

[20:36] You can't handle that. Don't go there. Stop. I can see the Lord looking Peter straight in the eye.

[20:47] Holding his gaze. Will you lay down your life for me? Or better, yeah. Here's how it really goes literally.

[21:00] The life of you. Your life. For me? You will lay down? That's the original language. That's the sentence of the original Greek language.

[21:11] The emphasis is on your life. He's confronting Peter with his love of self. Your life?

[21:25] Your life? You're going to lay down your life for me? Oh, man. I wish I hadn't read that in the Greek, gosh.

[21:42] Because that's what's most important to us, isn't it? My life. What I want. It's my turn now. And rightly so, our lives should be important to us.

[21:56] But sin comes in and makes us orient ourselves around what is good and comfortable and right for me. See, I become focused on what's right for me.

[22:12] That's why I warn people when they talk about you can't love your neighbor until you learn to love yourself. I always warn them. Focus on loving yourself.

[22:23] You probably won't get to neighbor too fast. And you certainly won't get to God. Because God never told you to love yourself. It's a given. What the two greatest commandments, Jesus, he broke down the ten commandments and said, and they come down to two great ones.

[22:41] Love God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then he said, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. He took for granted that you loved yourself.

[22:53] What he had the problem with and what we all should be thinking about is, do I love God? And do I love my neighbor? You see, listen, listen. Peter, Jesus did not die so you can learn to love yourself more.

[23:06] That was not his primary purpose. Maybe a little bit in there might have happened. But that was not what the gospel teaches. But psychology teaches that, I think, or somewhere.

[23:17] We heard it from somewhere. I don't know. Somebody said it and we all jumped on it. I don't know. The gospel teaches us to love God and to love our neighbor.

[23:30] You see, Peter's story is proof that we all know how to love ourselves. Self-preservation is love for self.

[23:42] Pain avoidance is love for self. Not wrong, necessarily. It's not wrong to want to avoid pain. Come on, people.

[23:53] We're not crazy. But if avoidance of pain and avoidance of suffering in the name of Jesus causes you to compromise the truth or to throw other people under the bus, you have become toxic.

[24:15] Peter, the apostle, will throw Jesus under the bus. He will deny Jesus to save his own skin. And here's the irony of this.

[24:28] He will deny the life to save his life. Be careful what you say.

[24:41] I would never do that. We all have a breaking point. Pray that the enemy does not jump on it. Pray.

[24:55] Peter will fail again. This time in Galatians 2. Don't put that up. We won't read it. Galatians 2. Paul will confront him about his failure there. But our Lord is reaching out to Peter before it happens to let him know, Peter, you love you more than you love me.

[25:11] He's trying to tell him. He even times it for him. Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. He even times out the betrayal.

[25:22] He's talking about that night. Before the rooster crows that night, you will deny me three times, Peter. He's timing it out. Not once, not twice, three. And we know for a fact that Peter didn't take the warning to heart.

[25:37] The overconfident don't listen to the warnings. Why do we know Peter didn't take it to account? Because he didn't fall down and pray and ask Jesus for grace to help him.

[25:52] You know what Peter did? I'm Peter. I can imagine Peter. He starts shaking his head and mumbling. Come on, Jesus. Not me. No, Jesus. Not.

[26:02] No. You're wrong about me. You're wrong about me, Jesus. I'll show you, Jesus. You're wrong about me. You'll see. But then in the back of his mind, somewhere, somewhere in the back, way back there somewhere, something said, has Jesus ever been wrong?

[26:23] In the back, somewhere back there somewhere. I can imagine the internal conflict he was starting to have a little bit here. No, no, not me, but Jesus has never been.

[26:37] But he wouldn't admit it. Y'all see, his pride won't let him admit it. Y'all know anybody like Peter?

[26:48] I'm just asking. How many times have you wanted to show others what you can do? How many times have you wanted to prove others that they were wrong about you?

[27:00] How many times have you wanted to show Jesus what you can do? Don't ignore the warnings that God gives us in his word.

[27:14] He is never wrong. Hear me. Please listen. He is never wrong. Even about you. Well, what can we do?

[27:27] To keep from being spiritually overconfident and falling. Phil Reichen is helpful here in this book, When You Pray. Ways to keep from falling when you're being tempted to be overconfident.

[27:45] One, tell another Christian who can pray for you and hold you accountable. When you're feeling like the enemy is coming in and he's tempting you and you're feeling the need to strut your stuff and, you know, you'll get your...

[27:57] Go get some help. Ask somebody to pray for you. He mentions number two. Flee temptation. Avoidance is a good idea. Stay out of situations you know can trip you up.

[28:10] Spiritually overconfident people always tell themselves, I can handle it. Okay. Let me give an illustration. Let's just say.

[28:23] Let's just say, you know, you were in school and college, whatever, and you got an alcohol and you just got really into that. And now that's a real... That became an issue. You know, you got a little bit connected to alcohol, stronger than you need to be, or any other substance for that matter, or any other thing that you got connected to that you shouldn't be connected to, right?

[28:48] You're feeling, use the A word, addicted a bit. Listen to Uncle Ravcath, come on. If you know you have a problem with alcohol, why are you going to the bar?

[29:04] Why are you going to happy hour with your co-workers? If you know you have a problem with something, why do we keep putting ourselves in the middle of it? Now, sometimes you can't avoid something.

[29:14] Some things you can't avoid. Something. But then you got to have this extra prayer needed there and accountability. But most of the time, we can avoid places and things that we should, that we know.

[29:26] We'll trip us up. And we keep telling ourselves, I can handle it. When I worked in the psych hospital, we would have patients at gamblers, sometimes it's patients.

[29:44] And they would come down. And, you know, these guys, bad. And we played pool. I played pool with them. And every... I had to stop playing pool with some of those guys.

[29:55] You know why? Because that's what... That was their hustle. And they were trying to get me, their therapist. Come on, Kev.

[30:07] Let me, you know, just... Let's put something down. You know, you know. Make it interesting. If you know that's your hustle. If you know that's your temptation, why are you there?

[30:20] I mean, there are all kinds of places and things. Y'all know you a little bit. What... Where are you most tempted? Let's be honest.

[30:33] Was pornography your thing? Then why are you watching rated R movies that are explicit on sexuality? It's a good movie. I gotta see it.

[30:43] No, you don't. You sitting up there fantasizing, watching these two folk go off on the screen. And you sitting there and you know you got a problem.

[30:55] And you said, I can handle it. I can handle it. I can... Spiritually cocky. And it's gonna come down on you eventually. The Lord's gonna...

[31:06] The Lord loves you too much to let you live there. If you never saw another movie to the day you died, you miss nothing.

[31:19] If you have Jesus, you miss nothing. I'm just trying to... I'm just trying to be practical, okay? I'm trying to... Come down somebody's street. I hope I found you somewhere in there.

[31:31] So stay out of situations. All right. Stay out of situations. But you know something? There was one more. There was... Oh, no. There's two more. Jesus taught us this one. Number three. When facing temptation, have scripture ready to remind yourself how to deal with this area of your life.

[31:51] Do you understand how powerful the word of God is? Jesus is so powerful that when our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the eternal one himself, was being tempted by the devil, all he did was quote scripture.

[32:05] That's all he did. Actually, Deuteronomy for the most part. He just quoted scripture. For the most part. Well, I saw him too. He just kept... And the devil just...

[32:15] Boom. Boom. Boom. Oh, I'm done with this. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. But how do you resist him? Not by grit. Not by trying harder alone.

[32:31] Trying is good. God is not against your work. He's not against effort. He's not against trying harder. He's against earning. You're trying harder.

[32:41] Don't earn you nothing. Your work doesn't earn you anything. What needs to happen is you need to go back to the word of God. Before... If you know you're weak in a certain area, start...

[32:54] Go to the word now before the temptation comes. So you're ready. You are locked and loaded. That's for you, Derek. You're ready with the word of God.

[33:08] Family. Do not be ignorant of scripture, please. But there's one last thing and then we're done. And this is a good one.

[33:18] This is really good. And see, because three years prior to this, Peter heard Jesus the Lord say this. Lead us not into temptation.

[33:31] But deliver us from evil. That was the Lord's prayer. The Lord had taught Peter and the disciples what to do.

[33:42] What they needed to know about temptation. And what he told them was this. Pray. Pray. Beforehand, pray.

[33:55] Asking God. Later that night. Later this very night here. Our Lord will come back to that again. With Peter. And he's not going to get it.

[34:08] Jesus has said, y'all, I've got to pray right now. And I want you to come. Peter, James, and John, come with me and pray with me. Okay. You guys stay right there and pray. I'm going to go over here and pray.

[34:19] Here's Luke 22. When he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. He said it again.

[34:31] Twice. That's Luke 22.40. He said it again in verse 46. Because he kept finding them sleeping. Instead of praying, they were sleeping.

[34:42] Family. Are we setting ourselves up for our spiritual overconfidence? For spiritual cockiness? For a spiritual fall?

[34:54] Are we setting ourselves up because instead of praying, we're sleeping? The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, reminds us that we have a strong, cunning, and creative enemy.

[35:13] When we are spiritually overconfident, we forget that. And when you forget how powerful and sneaky and deceitful and tricky that the devil is, that's when he will trip you up.

[35:32] And you have to pray because you have to remember something about yourself. And that is that though you are a saint of God, though you are a holy one of the Lord, though you are a child of God, that is who you are.

[35:46] That is your identity. You are a new creation in Christ. If you have surrendered yourself to Jesus, that is who you are. But you're still susceptible to sin.

[36:00] You got to remember that. You're still in the flesh. And there's still too much of sin about us. That will never go away until we see Jesus.

[36:14] You got to remember how weak you really are. Peter forgot how frail and weak he was. We're all subject to sin. We're all subject to fall when tempted.

[36:26] Something about a temptation can grab a hold of you and get a piece of your desires, a piece of your heart. And that's what happens. That's what temptation does. It gets a piece of you.

[36:38] It's not meant, it don't have your whole heart because you belong to Christ, but it'll get a piece of it. And your wants and your desires and your plans is to get a piece. And yank on it.

[36:53] And so we're all subject to fall. And so Jesus is tempting us, teaching us to pray. Deliver us from evil. Or it could be evil one.

[37:06] I tend to favor evil one translation. Deliver us from the evil one. An early church, African church father by the name of Origen, church father in Alexandria, Egypt, commenting on this passage of deliver us from evil.

[37:26] He says, unless the Savior is bidding us to pray for impossible things, it seems to me worth inquiring, how are we bidding to pray that we do not enter into temptation? When the whole life of men upon earth is a time of temptation.

[37:40] Let us therefore pray to be delivered from temptation, not by not being tempted, but by not being overcome when we are tempted.

[37:56] That's the gist of what Jesus is saying to us in the Lord's prayer. He's telling us to pray that we will not be overcome when the moment of temptation comes from the evil one, that we will not fall.

[38:08] Lord, give me strength. Give me grace. Give me life. That's why I won't fall.

[38:23] Because I know me. I know that much about me. I'm weak. Now here's the thing. It's striking. This is very striking.

[38:34] This blew me away. It's ironic, even, that Peter is focusing on what he can do for Jesus. He's willing to die for Jesus.

[38:49] Yet, in 24 hours, Jesus is going to die for him. His act of doing for Peter and us is infinitely more important and more powerful and more useful than anything that Peter or you and I could ever do for Jesus.

[39:14] What would Jesus do? Okay. Okay. That's talking about what I'm going to do. That's what that's supposed to mean. What am I going to do?

[39:26] I'm okay with that. But you better back up first and say, what did Jesus do? What did Jesus do for me that now empowers me to do for him?

[39:40] The focus must always be on what Jesus has done. To keep from falling into spiritual overconfidence, the most important thing for us to remember is what Jesus did for us and why we needed him to do it.

[39:58] Not just what he did, Brother BB. Not just what he, but why did I need that? You see, we can talk historically about Jesus of Nazareth dying on the cross.

[40:09] That's a historic fact. We can go outside the Bible and prove that. But if that's all you got, what does the cross mean to you?

[40:21] Why was it necessary, Bruce? Why was it necessary, Greg? Why was it necessary, Jerry? Why did he have to do it? Why? And when you connect the why to your life, explosion of glory and power and hope and humility.

[40:46] you won't be able to help yourself. I got to pray. I have to call out because I'm just, I'm just a, Reese's pieces away from being spiritually cocky, for being overconfident, for thinking I got it together.

[41:05] I'm Peter. Don't look at Peter sideways. He's us. See, no Christian wants to believe that he could deny Jesus or she could deny Jesus at a moment of intense pressure.

[41:18] No one wants to believe that about themselves. I don't want to believe that. But you have to remember that you're capable of denying him under pressure. And we do.

[41:30] You do do that. When you choose the easy way or the more comfortable way other than the way of Christ, you just deny Jesus. Jesus. We must call out for grace, family.

[41:43] His grace and his presence to stand every day. We need his empowering, sustaining grace. But in order to have it, in order to really walk in it, we have to tell ourselves.

[42:00] We have to admit to ourselves. We have to admit to our Lord. We have to admit to one another that we are weak in faith. We can resolve and weak in courage.

[42:12] It's okay to admit it. As long as you believe in yourself, you serve a false God. You. Find me, open the Bible and find me anywhere where Jesus says, believe in yourself.

[42:28] And we tell our children that all the time. Now listen. I'd rather tell my children to believe in God, to believe in Jesus, and let him build their self-esteem.

[42:41] Let him give them a Christ-esteem. Listen, when you are satisfied in Jesus, you'll be satisfied in who you are. When you know Jesus and you recognize who he, what he has done for you, who he has made you, you won't have to worry about self-esteem anymore.

[42:59] He won't have to worry about that. The problem is, we don't accept or understand who we are in him. That's why we need such self-esteem so much.

[43:11] And people gotta build us up all the time. And you can't be a loser. You can't lose ever. You gotta always win and get a prize for trying. Because we allow those situations to identify, to become our identity.

[43:29] I lost, so I'm a loser. No, you're not. You're a child of God. And tell me, who loses when you're a child of God?

[43:41] When you call Jesus elder brother and the living God of creation is your Holy Father, tell me, what do you lose if you lose a game? Or if you lose a job even?

[43:53] If, come on somebody, our identity's in the wrong place. And so our self-esteem has always been to be built up. I think our Lord gave Paul the most comforting words to those who admit their inability.

[44:14] My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in your strength. My power is made perfect when you got it all together.

[44:31] You know that's not right. My power is made perfect in weakness. And so what did Paul say after that?

[44:42] Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content, that means pleased, with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

[44:57] For when I am weak, then I am strong. Ha! And we tell people, focus on your strengths. Not altogether wrong, but you see where it can be messed up.

[45:13] spiritual overconfidence, spiritual cockiness, thinking more highly of yourself.

[45:27] is pride. Pride. I've been privileged to meet a lot of military people.

[45:41] And I got to be close to a one-star general, retired one-star general in D.C. He's a dear man, Jim Hutchinson. He's a PCA pastor. And he's trying to get me and join the National Guard.

[45:52] And he wanted me to be a chaplain like him. And I was like, I'm trying to play in the church, Jim. I can't do that. So we hung out for a while. It was really cool. But I love generals and colonels. Those guys, man, you know, they work hard.

[46:04] There's one colonel I remember hearing about. He was in his office and he was on the phone and somebody said, hey, sir, a private here to see you.

[46:15] And so the general was at this desk and he wanted to make himself look good. He wanted to, you know, impress the private. He was a general, but he still needed more. So he pretended he was talking to the president on the phone.

[46:30] So the private comes in. He says, yes, Mr. President. Yes, sir. Yeah, we'll take care of that, Mr. President. Oh, one second, sir. Hey, can you give me a second? I'm talking to you. I'll be done in a minute.

[46:41] Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I will take care of it. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. Thank you, sir. And he hangs up the phone. He sits back in his chair with his medals and things.

[46:52] So, son, what can I do for you? Private says, I'm here to install your phone. That's what happens when you try to puff yourself up.

[47:11] You will get burned. You will get outed. Only when you are weak in Jesus are you truly strong.

[47:22] Beware. Don't get cocky. Father, please, allow your word to find us and the truth of your scriptures and may we see Jesus.

[47:35] He's the only one who is perfect. The only one who never had the wrong opinion of himself. His opinion of himself was perfect. He knew who he was. He knows.

[47:45] Lord Jesus, you know who you are. Lord, you are the mighty one. Help us. Help us, your children, your silly children who we so often get caught up in our own stuff.

[47:59] Help us, Lord. Help us to know how weak we are without you and help us to know how strong we are if we rely upon you. So, Lord, teach us your way.

[48:12] More than anything, make us a people of prayer who stand upon your word even as we pray so we can stand against the devil and all temptations that come our way.

[48:25] Thank you for loving us in spite of how messed up we are. Thank you you didn't save us because we've done righteousness or will do righteousness. Thank you that you saved us that you might make us righteous.

[48:39] And one day, Lord Jesus, you will perfect us. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.