1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:24,000
Therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn, and let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Let's go to God in prayer.

2
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:50,000
Father, as we dive into the wonder of your Word, that you have inspired, that you have preserved, that you have given to us in clarity and in our own language, may we see your greatness, may we see your glory, and may we humble ourselves before your mighty hand.

3
00:00:50,000 --> 00:01:00,000
Help us to trust in you, to hope in you, and to see your goodness in our lives. It's in your Son's name we pray. Amen.

4
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:09,000
So every, at least every child that I have, and some children that I have been familiar with, they all go through this phase.

5
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:19,000
They can walk and they can talk, but they're very, very young, and maybe you've experienced this, this phase that says, "I can do it all by myself."

6
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:30,000
Right? And the reality is that most of them cannot do it by themselves, and it doesn't matter how much you try to explain to them, or help them, right?

7
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:48,000
The response is, "I can do this all by myself." Pride at its heart is us saying, not maybe to our parents, but to those around us, or to God, that I can do it all by myself.

8
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:53,000
And we are experts at identifying pride in other people, right?

9
00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:02,000
It's easy to look back through history and identify people who have gone wrong because in their pride they said, "I've got this handle," and it turns out that they didn't.

10
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Or to look into the world of politics and say, "Well, you look at that politician. Look at how great and how proud they are."

11
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:23,000
C.S. Lewis and Mare Christianity in his chapter entitled, "The Greatest Sin," speaking about pride, says that the more pride we have in our hearts, the more easily we recognize it.

12
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:38,000
And I think this is important, dislike it in others. And so I want to begin with a reminder that pride is not just out there for others, but it is here and it's a struggle in our hearts.

13
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:54,000
And I want us to know, as we begin, what pride looks like, because the way pride works in its deceitful, dangerous destruction that it brings into our life is that oftentimes when we hear about pride, we say, "Well, that's not really the kind of pride I have."

14
00:02:54,000 --> 00:03:05,000
He's talking about a different kind of pride. Or we just turn ourselves to others and go, "Man, you know who really could use some input and maybe some guidance in regard to pride?"

15
00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:22,000
Not me, but I know some people who can. You see, pride in its deceitfulness, if we are not clear about what pride is, we find ourselves in this circle of justification where we say, "It's not about me. It's about somebody else."

16
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:34,000
You see, there's different kinds of pride, and Scripture is very clear in Proverbs 8 that there's a kind of pride that God hates. And the kind of pride God hates is not the kind of satisfaction that God hates.

17
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000
The kind of satisfaction that comes when we do something well, and we say, "I've accomplished this." And we look at that and say, "Isn't that wonderful?" Right?

18
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:55,000
Through God's strength and through the gifts that He's given me, I've been able to do this. Pride is not the joy we express in the accomplishments of somebody we love. Right?

19
00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:03,000
The kind of pride we're talking about comes from sort of this self-conceit. And it is sin, and God hates it,

20
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:10,000
because it builds between us a wall. As C.S. Lewis says in that same chapter in "Mere Christianity,"

21
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:18,000
there's no way we can look up when we're always looking at ourselves or looking down on others.

22
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:32,000
So I would define pride like this. It's the sinful elevation of self that blinds us to God. It sets us against others. It is, by nature, competitive. And what you find is that

23
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:42,000
it makes us less. It destroys what we are created to be. And pride at its heart is rooted in competition,

24
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:51,000
having more or being better or being greater than someone or something else. In Daniel chapter 4,

25
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:56,000
we're going to walk through Nebuchadnezzar's story this morning, and we're going to see how pride deceives us,

26
00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:01,000
how pride is dangerous, and how pride destroys. And so we're going to start with the deceitfulness

27
00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:10,000
of pride. And as we dive into the deceitfulness of pride, I want us to sort of think about pride

28
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:16,000
in its deceit as one of those foggy days where we can't see much that's in front of us.

29
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:23,000
A couple of years ago, we were in Vermont for a little bit of a vacation, and we had just eaten some pizza.

30
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:30,000
And in this little town, there is a road that goes over the mountain. And at the top of the mountain,

31
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:35,000
usually you can look out and see out over the valley. It was just about sunset.

32
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:42,000
And because it was the middle of summer, sunset really late, and so it had been kind of foggy and rainy all day long.

33
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,000
And so I said, "Well, it looks like it's kind of clearing up. The weather map looks like it's clearing up.

34
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:51,000
Let's drive to the top of this mountain so we can watch the sunset together."

35
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:56,000
You know, so we're going to go up and look out over the Champlain Valley and see the sunset.

36
00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:04,000
The glory and the joy of God's creation. And I have a history of telling people, "Hey, let's go to the top of this mountain and see something cool."

37
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:12,000
And never once has it turned out to be okay. So we start driving up this, and this road is in part gravel.

38
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:17,000
There's like a couple little places that is paved at the top. There's a mile that is paved.

39
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:23,000
It's the steepest paved mile in America. The road's closed in the winter. There's no guardrails.

40
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:32,000
And as we go up this mountain, instead of climbing above all of the fog and everything, it just got more and more foggy.

41
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:40,000
In fact, it's probably one of the foggiest situations that I have ever been in. So much so, right, you basically had to turn off your headlights

42
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:48,000
because as they shot against the fog, it didn't matter high beam, low beam, or the fog lights that our car had, like you still couldn't see anything.

43
00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:58,000
A lot of people in the car, we won't name names, are like, "Is this really a good idea? Should we be going up this road right now?"

44
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:10,000
And that fog, like you could see nothing. Barely could see the road. You see, living in pride is like trying to drive to the top of that mountain in dense fog.

45
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:17,000
And pride, in that situation for me, I can drive anywhere at any time, right, blinds me to the danger.

46
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:25,000
The same way pride blinds us to the danger of life and to the destruction it brings into our lives.

47
00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:43,000
You see, pride deceives by creating a false belief in us. We trust our own abilities and our own strength and our own resources over God, and it distorts how we see God, and it distorts how we see others.

48
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:49,000
And pride deceives in a couple of different ways. One way pride deceives is it makes our victories bigger.

49
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:58,000
I was talking to some people this past week about fishing, and I said the thing I love about fishing is you can go fishing and catch two fish like this,

50
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:06,000
but by the time you get home, you can turn them into something like this, right? And what pride does, it does exactly that in our lives.

51
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:16,000
It takes our victories, and it makes them bigger. And the other thing that pride does is it makes our failures smaller.

52
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:25,000
So we make our good qualities, we inflate them, while minimizing and hiding our brokenness, and it also erases the contributions of others, right?

53
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:35,000
I did it all by myself. And as a result, pride changes our focus, our mission, and our seeking of what is good and right.

54
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:46,000
Our mission becomes solely self. Our purpose becomes to build ourselves up, and our search for what is right is replaced by searching for what we want.

55
00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:55,000
We're going to see that in the life of Nebuchadnezzar, right? We look through where we've seen Nebuchadnezzar in these first three chapters going into chapter 4,

56
00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:01,000
and it becomes apparent pretty quickly that Nebuchadnezzar is not the most humble person in the world, right?

57
00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:09,000
He chooses the best of the best as he takes captives. When he has a dream and nobody can give him the right answer at first,

58
00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:16,000
he says, "I'll just kill them all and replace them." And that dream which shows him that his kingdom will one day end,

59
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:22,000
instead of listening to the message of God, despite acknowledging the fact the message was in fact from God.

60
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:29,000
In chapter 3, he fights that dream by building a giant statue instead of just the head being gold,

61
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:36,000
in an attempt to make himself seem greater and be eternal. And Scripture doesn't say this about the statue in Daniel chapter 3,

62
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:41,000
but I imagine it looked pretty similar to Nebuchadnezzar, right?

63
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:47,000
He builds a giant gold statue and seeks to have everyone worship it.

64
00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:53,000
So we've gotten some clues that he may not be the most humble man in the world.

65
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:57,000
Let's take a look at Daniel chapter 4.

66
00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:59,000
Here's what we find in verse 4.

67
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:05,000
"I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house, prospering in my palace."

68
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:10,000
Now we'll come back to what happens next in a moment, but it begins with,

69
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:15,000
"I'm comfortable in my house, and I am prospering," right?

70
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,000
Life is good. Things are going great, as we'll see in a minute.

71
00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:23,000
It's because I'm such a great man, and we've seen the seeds of pride,

72
00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:28,000
and in a moment we're going to see the fruit of pride.

73
00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:32,000
We're going to sort of zip forward almost an entire year to verse 29.

74
00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:36,000
"At the end of twelve months," he, speaking of Nebuchadnezzar,

75
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:43,000
"was walking on the roof of the royal palace in Babylon, and the king answered and said,

76
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:51,000
"Is this not great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence,

77
00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:56,000
for the glory of my majesty?"

78
00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:02,000
And that answer either is that maybe he's answering as he's thinking about this dream that happened a year ago,

79
00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:06,000
that he'll be torn down like a beast of the field, and he goes,

80
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:10,000
"Oh, look at what I have built." Or maybe he's just talking to himself, right?

81
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,000
"Self, is not this the biggest and best city that you've ever seen? Of course it is self.

82
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:19,000
You've done a great job building this self. No one will ever tear it down.

83
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:22,000
You're doing a great job."

84
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:28,000
You see, we said pride is deceitful, and it changes our focus and our mission and our pursuit of what is good and right.

85
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:31,000
Here it is in Nebuchadnezzar's life.

86
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:38,000
While Nebuchadnezzar has contributed to the rise and the glory of Babylon, it's not only been him.

87
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:47,000
There are others who have come before him for more than a thousand years.

88
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:55,000
And what you find is pride deceives us, and it maximizes self, and it diminishes the work of others.

89
00:11:55,000 --> 00:12:03,000
And even though his empire, built by another, brought to prosperity by his father in a resurgence of Babylonian power,

90
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:09,000
he has minimized all the contributions of everybody but himself.

91
00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,000
Now that's his focus. Look at his mission.

92
00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:20,000
I'm going to read a long section of this. Daniel, in this account, right, we hear about the dream, we hear about the dream again,

93
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:27,000
and we hear about the dream and its interpretation. I'm going to read verses 19 down through 25.

94
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:34,000
Then Daniel, so he's had this dream. Daniel is coming to interpret it, but we will see what God's purpose is for Nebuchadnezzar

95
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:39,000
and how he has abandoned it and sought to chase his own agenda rather than righteousness.

96
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:42,980
Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed.

97
00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:48,000
And for a while his thoughts alarmed him. This is where he has been asked to interpret the dream.

98
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:54,000
The king answered and said, "Belteshazzar, let not the dream or its interpretation alarm you."

99
00:12:54,000 --> 00:13:02,000
And Belteshazzar answered and said, "My Lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for its enemies."

100
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:07,000
When you hear words like that about what you have just dreamed, you know it's not going to be good.

101
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:14,000
The tree you saw, which is Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which grew and became strong, so its top reached to the heavens,

102
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:19,000
and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, whose leaves were beautiful, its fruit was abundant,

103
00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:25,000
and in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field found shade,

104
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:31,000
and whose branches the birds of the heavens lived. It is you, O king, who have grown and become strong.

105
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:38,000
Your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens, your dominion to the ends of the earth.

106
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:43,000
And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven, saying,

107
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:49,000
this is the decree of God, chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave a stump of its roots in the earth,

108
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,000
bound with a band of iron and bronze in the tender grass of the field,

109
00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:58,000
and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field,

110
00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:03,000
till seven periods of time pass over him. This is the interpretation.

111
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:08,000
O king, it is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my Lord the king,

112
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:13,000
that you shall be driven from among men. Your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field,

113
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:17,000
you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, you shall be wet with the dew of heaven,

114
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:23,000
and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High

115
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:28,000
rules the kingdoms of men and gives it to whom he will.

116
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:36,000
Now, in these verses, one of the things that we see is the purpose of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom.

117
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:44,000
In this picture that he has of the tree, his purpose, both in verse 12 and in verse 21,

118
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:48,000
is to bring good things to the people that he governs, right?

119
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:54,000
The tree is Nebuchadnezzar, the animals are his subjects, and under the tree of his rule,

120
00:14:54,000 --> 00:15:00,000
they find a home, they find food, they find protection under the rule of the Babylonian government.

121
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:07,000
Now, there is in this, I think, a fascinating theology of what government is supposed to do,

122
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:15,000
but like we have done, Nebuchadnezzar twists it to serve the governing rather than to protect the governed.

123
00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:22,000
He has been seeking his own good instead of what is good and right, so he has shifted his focus to himself.

124
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:29,000
His purpose has become twisted to get as much as he can rather than caring for others.

125
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:36,000
He has also abandoned what is good and right. Therefore, this is Daniel's summary,

126
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:42,000
"O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you. Break off your sins," another way of saying that is "repent,"

127
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:48,000
"by practicing righteousness," "and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed,"

128
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:52,000
"that there may be a lengthening of your prosperity."

129
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:56,000
And there is this phrase that is repeated three times throughout the chapter,

130
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:05,000
that God gives the kingdom to who he will, ultimately for his purposes, but we in our pride seek our own.

131
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:12,000
The pride, the focus, and the mission that Nebuchadnezzar has left to seek himself.

132
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:18,000
He's rewrote what he is supposed to be doing, giving credit to himself for what God has given.

133
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:23,000
And here's the reality: without the humbling work of God, we're all little Nebuchadnezzars.

134
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:30,000
We all lose our purpose, our focus, and we stop seeking righteousness.

135
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:37,000
So in all the cars that we generally take on long trips, we have this orange hammer, and it's called a life hammer.

136
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:44,000
It comes in a little case, and it's for when you go over a long bridge or you're driving by the water,

137
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:50,000
and although the likelihood of this happening is zero, the big problem is if your car goes into the water,

138
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:55,000
you've got to be able to open a door, and with electronic locks and electronic windows,

139
00:16:55,000 --> 00:17:01,000
so you have something to break the window, equalize the pressure, swim out of your car, and to cut your seat belt.

140
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:08,000
You have this little life hammer sitting there so that if we are ever trapped, there is a way of escape.

141
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:18,000
And the beauty of what God has done for us, for you and I, when we are trapped in our pride, in the fog,

142
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:26,000
and in the place where we can't escape from, He has given us a hammer in which to break through the fog,

143
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:31,000
to break through the windows that are holding us back, to cut the restraints of our pride.

144
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:41,000
And it's so simple that it sounds silly, but the reality is it's an earth-shaking blow to our pride, and that is simply gratitude.

145
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:50,000
When we begin to thank God, we stop rewriting our story for what I have done, and we see what God has done.

146
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:56,000
It breaks up this rejection of correction that we have in our life. I don't need to hear this.

147
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:01,000
And as we thank God, we realize that yes, I do need Him.

148
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:18,000
And so if we are those people, the little Nebuchadnezzars, the practical application of breaking through the fog, freeing us from our pride, is by going to God in gratitude.

149
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:28,000
And not just in general, "I thank you for this day," but speaking and writing down and sharing specific things that God has done for us.

150
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:39,000
Gratitude shifts our focus from what we have done to what God has done to what He is doing, and in His promises we see what He has promised to do.

151
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:51,000
And so if you want to break through the fog of pride, you must first of all cultivate in your life the practice of gratitude. Let's see the danger of pride.

152
00:18:51,000 --> 00:19:00,000
There is one vice, C.S. Lewis says, of which no man in the world is free, which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else,

153
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:08,000
and which hardly any people except Christians ever imagine they are guilty of themselves, and that is pride.

154
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:16,000
And it's not just that pride makes everything foggy, it's what we crash into as we travel through that fog.

155
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:24,000
You see, pride keeps us from seeing reality. Let me give you the reality of what's happening in Daniel chapter 4.

156
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:35,000
To the end, that the living, the Most High God rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, and he sets it over even the lowliest of men.

157
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:50,000
Until you know that the Most High God rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, one more time. Until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to who he will.

158
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:59,000
The reality is this, that God is sovereign, and he is in control even over the kingdoms of men, including the mighty kingdoms of Babylon.

159
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:11,000
But Nebuchadnezzar, in his pride, has been kept from that reality and thinks that it's all about him. We also find that pride separates us from others.

160
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:22,000
"Is this not great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of our majesty?"

161
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:28,000
And so pride blinds us to the reality that God is in control. It minimizes the contributions of others.

162
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:34,000
Here's where pride gets really dangerous, because it keeps us from seeing the warnings that God has given to us.

163
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:38,000
You see, Nebuchadnezzar is familiar with the one true God.

164
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:46,000
At the end of Daniel chapter 2, he says, "As truly your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings, the revealer of mysteries,

165
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:51,000
and you have been able to reveal this mystery." Daniel chapter 3.

166
00:20:51,000 --> 00:21:01,000
"Therefore I make a decree, any people or nation or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn from limb,

167
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:07,000
and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way."

168
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:13,000
In this dream that Nebuchadnezzar is given, and Daniel interprets, he's given another warning.

169
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:19,000
That if you continue in your pride, your tree will be cut down.

170
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:25,000
And because of his pride, Nebuchadnezzar has missed every warning in his driving off the cliff.

171
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:31,000
And if you even want to dive a little deeper into Daniel chapter 4, you see that at the beginning this dream troubles him.

172
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:38,000
It's another warning. He sees Daniel's reaction and his hesitancy to reveal the dream. Another warning.

173
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:47,000
He hears the interpretation, and it changes nothing, right? Pride puts our foot to the floor in the midst of the fog of our delusions,

174
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:56,000
and drives us right toward the bridge that is completely out. And pride ultimately keeps us from that which would save us.

175
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:02,000
All he had to do was acknowledge God. In verse 34, "And he doesn't do that until everything falls apart."

176
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:12,000
We think about the Pharisee in Luke 18. "I thank you that I am not like other men."

177
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:17,000
So we talked a moment ago about driving through the fog. There's one other time where I remember driving through dense fog.

178
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:22,000
In fact, I didn't even have my driver's license yet. I had my learner's permit.

179
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:27,000
And we were going to a church men's thing, first thing on a Saturday morning.

180
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:33,000
And I was excited to be able to drive, and then we got in the car, and it was the densest fog.

181
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,000
I mean, I don't know if it was dense, but in my memory it was very, very dense.

182
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:45,000
We picked up one of the guys from church. So it was dad and myself and this other guy, and we're driving through the fog.

183
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:51,000
And I can only imagine that their blood pressure was up because you've got a 15-year-old driving a car for the next 20 miles.

184
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,000
And you can't see anything, and nobody has their headlights on.

185
00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:00,000
And if you're not hitting your brake lights and you're driving a gray car, you're essentially invisible.

186
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:06,000
And so what happens, right? All of a sudden, you've got like a passenger seat driver and a backseat driver who's like,

187
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,000
"I think I see a car up there. There's brake lights! Brake lights! Brake lights!"

188
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:17,000
It just gets louder and louder as you see the brake lights approaching. Right? That's what we need.

189
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:25,000
We need that community of people who surrounds us. Right? Gratitude helps us break through pride as we focus on God.

190
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:34,000
But our brothers and sisters in Christ who sit next to us as we travel this life, who can see our blind spots,

191
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:41,000
who eyes pick up things that we may have missed or have taken for granted.

192
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:52,000
And so who has permission in your life to talk to you gently and in Christ about those areas where we're missing things?

193
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:57,000
Are we regularly confessing our brokenness?

194
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:05,000
Do we have people around us who will watch out for comparison and resentment and needing to be noticed?

195
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:14,000
And pride symptoms aren't always, "I'm better than," like that focus of pride on ourselves may be the other way around, right?

196
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:21,000
Focus so much on self that it leads us into discouragement and despair and anxiety that I can't do it, I can't face it,

197
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:29,000
face it, I am not strong enough. Just another form of pride. I'm at the center. God's out there.

198
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:36,000
One form of pride says, "I don't need him." The other form of pride says, "I'm too broken. He can never help me."

199
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,000
And so what we find is not only do we need gratitude to break through pride,

200
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:46,000
we need brothers and sisters in Christ who can help us and walk with us and see our blind spots.

201
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:56,000
You see, pride destroys. And one of the reasons we minimize sometimes the danger of pride is because the inevitable judgment isn't always immediate.

202
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:05,000
Right? You rob a bank, you're caught usually very quickly. You drive 25 miles an hour over the speed limit in front of a state trooper, right?

203
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:15,000
Your judgment comes pretty quickly. But pride sometimes we say, "Oh, they're confident. They're just good at what they do."

204
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:26,000
Pride often in our lives seems even socially acceptable or without consequence until we come up against something bigger and stronger than us.

205
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:32,000
And God sometimes punishes us or stops our pride by saying, "Stop that."

206
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,000
But sometimes He takes away those things that we are trusting in.

207
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:44,000
And then what happens here in Daniel 4, God simply lets Daniel find out, not Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar find out what happens without him.

208
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:51,000
He says, "I've given you power, prestige, wealth, and even your mind, and without it you are nothing."

209
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:56,000
And so this is what happens to Nebuchadnezzar.

210
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:01,000
God says, "If you want to be without me and trust yourselves, here's where you end up."

211
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,000
Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar.

212
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:11,000
He was driven from among men. He ate grass like an ox. His body was wet with the dew of heaven.

213
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:17,000
Till his hair grew as long as eagle feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws.

214
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:21,000
He goes from being the tree to living under a tree.

215
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:28,000
From providing food to eating grass. From elegant clothes to long hair.

216
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:33,000
You see, the one who refused to honor God's glory loses his own glory.

217
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Refusing to share because he seeks to get more for himself, he becomes poorer.

218
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:49,000
However, he outwardly becomes outwardly what his heart has been spiritually and inwardly a beast.

219
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,000
That's from Sinclair Ferguson.

220
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:56,000
God essentially says, "If you want to do it by yourself, fine. Good luck."

221
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:09,000
And while this boast is still on his lips, God's judgment falls, and pride the mask is torn away, and God exposes who he really is.

222
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:20,000
Oftentimes, our hearts tend to run like Nebuchadnezzar's toward ourselves.

223
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:33,000
And so, the call here is to do what Nebuchadnezzar was called to do: lift our eyes.

224
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000
Alright, that's a turning point in verse 34: "I lift my eyes to the heavens."

225
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:45,000
You see, pride always destroys. God humbles, but not to leave us broken, but to restore us.

226
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:58,000
And there is a remarkable contrast here, because Nebuchadnezzar is forced into humility, but Christ willingly humbles himself in order to save us.

227
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:07,000
And so, here we are, fighting the enemy we can't beat, and God is the one who restores. At the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar,

228
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:15,000
I lifted my eyes to the heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him who lives forever,

229
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:22,000
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

230
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:30,000
While pride ultimately deceives and leads to danger, and eventually destruction, God does the opposite.

231
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:36,000
Right? It's through this judgment that Nebuchadnezzar is restored. Not just restored,

232
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:42,000
but transformed. If you go back to the very beginning of this chapter, verse one.

233
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:50,000
These are Nebuchadnezzar's words. "King Nebuchadnezzar to all people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you.

234
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:56,000
It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.

235
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:05,000
How great are his signs! How mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation."

236
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:12,000
It's clear from Nebuchadnezzar's words that he views the discipline of God as a reason to rejoice.

237
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:22,000
Seven years eating grass, without a haircut, without a manicure, living in the rain and the elements.

238
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:29,000
He views this as a blessing from God because God has transformed him.

239
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:34,000
Prides would say, "I don't deserve all this." Humility will say, "Look what God has done."

240
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:41,000
"In your time of brokenness." And so I want to remind you that pride deceives.

241
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:45,000
And we break through that window with gratitude. Pride is dangerous.

242
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:49,000
And so we seek those who can spot for us and watch out for us.

243
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:58,000
And that while pride destroys, God restores. He humbles the proud and restores the humble.

244
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:03,000
What's remarkable is that the same king who humbled Nebuchadnezzar

245
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:10,000
is the king that came and humbled himself for us so that we can be restored to sanity,

246
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:16,000
and our humanity can be restored, and we can live in eternal praise.

247
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:20,000
God's grace ultimately is greater than our pride.

248
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:25,000
There's a remarkable similarity in the New Testament to what happens in Nebuchadnezzar.

249
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:32,000
In Luke 8, you find a demon-possessed man living in the tombs without clothes,

250
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,000
fighting everyone who comes near.

251
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:40,000
Jesus comes, restores this man, gives him back his mind, casts out his demons,

252
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:45,000
and he sends him home and he says this, "Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you."

253
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:50,000
And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

254
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Look at the restoration of the king in his words in verse 2.

255
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:03,000
It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.

256
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:13,000
Not just proclaimed to his town, but proclaimed to every people, language in the world that the Babylonian Empire touched.

257
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:22,000
God can restore you. And so the question we have this morning is will we proclaim him instead of ourselves? Let's pray.

258
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:29,000
Father, thank you for your grace. Thank you that you are the God who disciplines, and you are also the God who restores.

259
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:35,000
So we ask that you would restore our souls, that we would walk in gratitude with our brothers and sisters in Christ,

260
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:42,000
lifting our eyes to you rather than seeking our own purposes, our own mission, and our own way of walking.

261
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:50,000
May you guide us in the paths of righteousness for the glory of your name. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.