In this message I examine pride and immodesty in men. I address to matters of pride which the father and son relationship reveals. Further, I speak to the subject of pride and male immodesty. When most of us hear the word, “immodesty,” we think of women. However, the Bible does speak of how men are immodest. It’s source is pride, which is revealed in the father son relationship. 

Well, Bill, what a great story of a father walking with his sons and the power that that is and the beautiful forethought that that father had and how God used it. When a son walks with his father, there are things that will happen that no one can anticipate like that. What a great example. Well, I'd like to speak about this whole matter of fathers and sons and what Christianity looks like in a father and in a son. Yesterday we talked about these two words that really explain fatherhood and the first word was love and the second word was delight, but I want to give you a third word tonight and it's the word humility and I like to read this passage of Scripture here in Proverbs chapter 30 which reads there's a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.

There's a generation that is pure in its own eyes yet is not washed from its filthiness. There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes, and their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords and whose fangs are like knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men. Let's pray. Oh Lord we pray that you would open up your word to our hearts.

We know that without the work of your Holy Spirit tonight that all will fall to the ground. And so we pray that you would come and glorify your son tonight. To our hearts that He would He would have such glory in our hearts and that we would find our way down this road that you put us on even further tonight that you would help us. We need your help. Amen.

So this passage of Scripture really speaks of pride and there are a number of things to recognize here. You see that word generation? The word generation here used in this text has to do with the period of time. It has to do with a way of living in a particular historical season. So he's talking about a culture.

He's talking about a culture where there is a cursing of fathers, there's not blessing of mothers, they're pure in their own eyes, they're not washed from their filthiness, oh how lofty are their eyes. And if you see how the language can be mapped through these verses. You find the mouth and the eyes and the eyelids are just outward expressions of dishonor and pride. That's what you have. You have a season where it's just normal for people to be that way.

I believe we live in a season of time, in a generation, in a historical moment where there's the sense of honor and authority has been lost. And so I believe that Solomon is speaking of our times here. And he's speaking of the presence of pride in the souls of an entire generation. Now the heart of the Gospel is completely contrary to that. The heart of the Gospel is that God humbles men's hearts so that they turn to God through Jesus Christ.

And If you've not really embraced the Gospel unless you've humbled yourself before God, you cannot say that you have embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ unless or until you've humbled yourself and seen yourself who you really are, and that is a sinner who is hopelessly lost without the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the repentance and the faith that leads one to Jesus Christ. And so no one really enters into the kingdom of heaven, becoming a child of God, until they say, Lord be merciful to me, a sinner. Until they say, not my will, but thine be done. That is the essence of humility. It sets aside one's own agenda for the agenda of another and that's the essence of humility.

And so the the heart of a Christian is a subdued heart before God and he's being transformed into the image of his Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus said I'm gentle and I'm humble in heart And so the heart of Christianity in terms of the heart of a man as it exists there is a heart of humility. And you know, Isaac Watts captured God's zeal to heal man of his pride and his self-sufficiency in his hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, where he said, When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. This is the heart of a Christian. He goes on in that song where he says, forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God.

And then he says this, all the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood. So you have all these vain things that charm the heart of a man and you have his pride and the true Christian knows that God has called him to pour contempt on all of his pride. And so what the Gospel does is that it humbles a man and it tenderizes him, it changes him. Now, why have I introduced this kind of a session with that and here's why. One of the greatest blessings of the father-son relationship is that it exposes pride and that exposure works to heal that man of his pride, which is stealing his love and his joy and his peace.

Because the prideful man is almost always an angry man. You know, men struggle with anger, we all know that. But happy is the man who's taught of the Lord to pour contempt on all of his pride. The father-son relationship pours contempt on the pride of a father and it also pours contempt on the pride of a boy. And that's the subject that I want to deal with tonight.

Now what I'd like to cover are these points here. There are four of them and the first is that God designed the father-son relationship to reveal pride. We're going to talk about that first. Secondly, we're going to speak about how God deals with pride. And thirdly, we're going to talk about how fathers and sons can identify pride and I want to bring you the instruction of two men, one from the past, Jonathan Edwards from the 18th century and from Stuart Scott who's a modern theologian and his comments on pride from a book called The Exemplary Husband that he wrote which is a very helpful book.

So let's begin with, and then finally, I want to bring a biblical illustration of how pride manifests itself in men from 1 Timothy 2 particularly verse 8 but we're going to try to understand that text in its context so we can grasp the meaning of it. So let's go to this first point here and that is that God has designed the father-son relationship to reveal pride. Both fathers and sons in their relationship during their course of life are either brought to humility or they are either brought to increasing levels of pride and anger and insolence and failure. That's what happens to men. And God designed the father-son relationship this way.

He ordained that this relationship would be a formational relationship for both father and son. We often think of the father-son relationship as only being formational for a son. Not true. Not true at all. God designed it to have a dual role of sanctification to be a blessing to that father as well.

I was talking to somebody about this, I think it was yesterday, and he said that father and son, sonship is a mutual beat-down of pride. How about that? It's a mutual, you can write that down. The father-son relationship is a mutual beat-down of pride. Absolutely it is.

And it's the Lord who designed life to deliver man from his pride. Did you know that? That God brought you into this world and he would bring you a swirl of things and a hail of things and he would bring you wins and troubles and all kinds of experiences in order to help you to learn what it means to pour contempt on all of your pride. And we often have rose-colored glasses when it comes to relationships. You know, that starts when you first told your baby, doesn't it?

And you know, you just can't believe it. And you have all these rose-colored glasses kind of thoughts that come as a result of that. You know, it's really wonderful to have a brother or a sister. But as you go on in that relationship, you find that that relationship is stretching. And the father-son relationship is like that.

When you get married, you see how wonderful it is, but you also find out that it's a, it too is a formational relationship. That marriage is actually designed to change you. You know, I really resonate with what Gary Thomas said in his book, The Sacred Marriage. He says, marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without anesthetic. How about that?

And the father and son relationship is really the theater through which fathers and sons pride is revealed. And so when the Bible tells sons, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, honor your father and mother, it's a call to that son to recognize his pride and to humble himself to see it resident in his heart, to show him how God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. God gave a father and a mother to show him that, to teach him how good God is and how all of his laws are good, that he does give grace to the humble, but he also resists the proud. And when the Bible tells fathers, don't exasperate your children, it's a call for fathers to humble themselves and to be wary of how their pride can cause them to be harsh and angry and uncaring and relentless to their children. And so God uses this relationship to humble both fathers and their sons.

Now, dishonor and disobedience can bring a man to self-righteous indignation and pride. When a father sees dishonor and disobedience it can inflame him with self-righteous indignation and pride. It often does that and At lunch today somebody said that there's nothing that pushes the pride button in a man than dishonor and disobedience, there's a pride button in every man and there's a lot of ways you can push, there are a lot of ways you can push that button and dishonor and disobedience can inflame pride in a man. And also when a man has a son, you know, it's humbling to him because it really shows him how helpless he is. He realizes he can't control that boy's heart and it makes him cry out to God.

It shows him how powerless he is to change anything and so what fatherhood does is it drives man to his knees because He has such good desires for a son and he knows that he can't force them. And so it drives him to his knees and he cries out to God. And he knows that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And that humbles a man. And that's a good thing for a man to be humbled like that and if you're a son you know that having a father can be a really humbling experience because every father, every father redirects his son and every father engages his son in things that humble him and every father asks his son to do things he doesn't want to do, and that's the plan of God in that boy's life.

And that son needs to understand that that is the pathway to victory for him, that he would humble himself before his father, and that he would recognize how powerful and good and blessed it is that there's something in his life to pour contempt on all of his pride. Every boy needs contempt poured on his pride. So, God designed the father-son relationship to reveal pride. That's the first thing I want to lay down as a foundational principle. And then secondly, I'd like to talk about how God deals with pride.

Now, as we consider how God deals with pride, we need to understand why God deals with pride the way that he does. Now, pride is the root of all sin and it's the bottom of every single rebellion against God. You know, pride is so destructive. It's the sin of Lucifer as he rebelled against God. Pride is why it is that we have sin in this world today.

But we need to understand that pride is a man killer. You know, there are several man killers that every man needs to understand. Fear is a mankiller, lust is a mankiller, anger is a mankiller, you know, abdication, entertainment, games, dishonor, disorderliness, These are mankillers, but pride is at the bottom of every mankiller. And the Bible says that the proud man does not seek God. In Psalm 10 verse 4, we read, the wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God.

God is in none of his thoughts. Pride is the most dangerous thing because it fundamentally rejects the authority of God. And pride makes you self-indulgent. Pride makes you self-willed. Pride makes you self-opinionated.

Pride makes you self-flattering. It makes you self-reliant. It makes you self-serving. And you end up with a world full of self. The prideful people actually end up alone.

And this is one of the great curses of pride. Let's talk about what pride does to a man. Now it does many things to a man and we have various illustrations of what happens to a man and we have very specific teaching about it as well. Moses was prevented from entering into the Promised Land because of pride. Pride kept Joshua from seeking God at Ai and they lost in battle.

Pride turned Nebuchadnezzar into an animal. Pride made Peter turn his back on the Lord before a servant girl after he had said he would not deny the Lord but he did it, he denied the Lord three times. All these things have their root in pride. Pride destroys a man. In Proverbs 11 2 we read, when pride comes then comes shame.

In Proverbs 13, 10, we learn that pride brings strife. In Proverbs 16, 18, pride brings destruction. In Jeremiah 3, 17, pride hurts others. In Obadiah 1, 3, pride deceives the proud. You know, Jonathan Edwards says that pride is a self-deceiving sin.

The pride keeps you from seeing the pride. That's how dangerous it is. All throughout scripture, we see that God blesses the humble. God gives more grace James 4-6 therefore he says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And that's why Solomon said that a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit.

It's better. It's just better. It's better for everything. And so this is what pride does to a man. What does God do with pride?

Well first of all God hates pride. In Proverbs 8 13 Solomon says, pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate." God abominates pride. He says in Proverbs, these six things the Lord hates, yes seven, are an abomination to him. And what do you think is the first in the list? A proud look.

God hates a proud look. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, said Jesus in Matthew 23. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. The Lord will destroy the house of the proud says Proverbs 15 25. God does not answer the proud in Job 35 12.

God destroys pride in Jeremiah 13 9. God rebukes the proud in Psalm 119 verse 21. God destroys the house of the proud in Proverbs 15-25. The eyes of the lofty shall be humbled so says Isaiah in Isaiah 5 15. The hottie will be humbled says Isaiah 10 33.

Hottiness will be laid low says Isaiah 13 11 and even the lofty city the proud people in a city will be laid low as well in Isaiah 26 verse 5. Jeremiah chapter 50 31 says, the Lord is against the haughty ones. In Leviticus 26, 19, we learn that pride brings humiliation. In Proverbs 13, we learn that God does not leave pride unpunished. That passage is terrifying.

We need to understand what God does with pride. That's what God does. That's how dangerous it is. And that's how danger, that's why it's so dangerous for a father to fall into pride as he is dealing with his son, and how dangerous it is for a son to fall into pride as he's responding to his father. It's dangerous because you have set yourself against Almighty God and God alone.

And you may think as a son, you may think that you're looking at your father, but think again, it's Almighty God that stands behind your father. Now let's talk about how fathers and sons can identify pride as the third element here and I'd like to talk about Jonathan Edwards on pride. Jonathan Edwards wrote a remarkable treatise called Undetected spiritual pride, one cause of failure in times of revival. He's talking about a time when God was pouring out a spirit during the Great Awakening and he's talking about undetected pride in the people that are part of that revival. They are being revived but there's undetected pride in them and that's always the case with us.

There's always undetected pride in us and it causes great damage particularly in a time of an awakening and in time of revival. Here's what Edwards says, the first and worst cause of errors that abound in our day and age is spiritual pride. This is the main door into which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of Christ. It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgment. He's talking about people who are zealous for God in a time of revival and there's this inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit and it's the smoke of pride coming into the heart of a person who's doing religious things and I think that includes fathers who are trying to lead their children in the way of the Lord.

He said, pride is the main handle with which the devil gets a hold to do mischief in people's lives. And he identifies particular things about pride that you can use to identify it. First of all, pride is the great fault finder. Pride always tries to find fault in other people and looks with laughter or contempt or with, you know, lofty eyes on other people. He says that pride often manifests itself in ministering in a harsh spirit, ministering in a harsh spirit.

A father can be working with his son and ministering to his son with a harsh spirit. And Edwards says that's a manifestation of pride. He says that it manifests itself in putting on pretenses, in other words trying to just provide an external aura, an external appearance of things in his life, you know, and to speak even, he talks about speaking in a different way, using a different voice, kind of like using your God voice when you pray. He says that pride takes offense easily. He says that presumption before God and man is an evidence of pride.

Where a man is presumptuous, in other words, he's self-confident and bold in his judgments about everything. He thinks he knows everything about everything and he thinks he knows everything about everybody just like Job's friends did. Job's friends thought they understood what was wrong with Job. Guess what? They didn't have a clue and they were his friends.

Presumption before God and man. He says it also manifests itself when you're hungry for attention or when you're neglecting others. Those are Jonathan Edwards evidences of pride and I throw those out there just to sort of let them percolate, you know, are there any of these things operating in our lives and it's so critical that we understand that whether you're a father or a son, are any of these things operating? These things are dangerous And the next example I want to bring is from Stuart Scott. Here's a book entitled The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott, he's a professor at Southern Seminary, and he has a section on pride that really is remarkable and I'm just going to read the various manifestations of pride that he identifies in this book.

I'm going to go fast, I'm going to go fast because I just want us to be prayerful and impressionable about this whole matter. I don't know what ones of these should fall on anyone, but the truth is they probably will fall on everyone. You know, somebody once said that if sin was blue, every word that you ever said would have a tint of blue because our sin nature has affected us so profoundly. There really isn't anything we do with perfection Because sin has affected everything and this is why we need the perfect righteous obedience of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness because you can't ever get it right. Every word we say is tainted in some way.

Number one, complaining against or passing judgment on God. A proud person says, look what God has done to me after all I've done for Him. Number two, a lack of gratitude in general. Proud people usually think they deserve what is good. Number three, anger.

A proud person is an angry person. Number four, seeing yourself is better than others. Number five, having an inflated view of your importance, gifts and abilities. Number six, being focused on the lack of your gifts and abilities. Number seven, perfectionism.

Number eight, talking too much. Number nine, talking too much about yourself. Number 10, seeking independence and control. Number 11, being consumed with what others think. Number 12, being devastated or angered by criticism.

Number 13, being unteachable. Number 14, being sarcastic, hurtful, degrading. Number 15, lack of service. Number 16, a lack of compassion. Number 17, being defensive or blame-shifting.

Number 18, a lack of admitting when you're wrong. 19, a lack of asking forgiveness. 20, a lack of biblical prayer. 21, resisting authority or being disrespectful, number 22, voicing preferences or opinions when not asked, Number 23, minimizing your own sin and shortcomings. Number 24, maximizing others' sin and shortcomings.

Number 25, being impatient or irritable with others. Number 26, being jealous or envious. Number 27, using others. Number 28, being deceitful by covering up sins, faults and mistakes. Number 29, using attention getting tactics.

Number 30, not having close relationships. There are many ways that pride manifests itself in us. I'd like to give you an illustration. This is a biblical illustration. And that illustration is found in 1 Timothy chapter 2.

I'm going to put it up on the screen. And in order to help us to understand the contours and the context and the flow of this passage. As you can see, I've highlighted a couple of words here. We begin with the word, therefore, in verse 1 in 1 Timothy 2, therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is the good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." And then he turns his attention on men in verse 8. I desire therefore that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubt and doubting. In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing but which is proper for women professing godliness with good works." Now, I want us to understand this where how verse 8 should be understood and then also in verse 9 when there's this instruction about modesty of women because they're related. And notice the word therefore at the beginning.

At the very beginning of his instruction to men, he uses this word therefore and he uses this word because he's continuing the previous thought and the previous thought that the Apostle Paul has been dealing with is the public life of the church and their attitude toward unbelievers and the impact on the spread of the gospel. And Paul is calling the church in this chapter to humility for the sake of the gospel. And he's calling men to humility, and he's calling to women to humility. And so first he exhorts the men, he says, I exhort therefore that supplications, prayers, and intercessions, and giving thanks, be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority." And then Paul states the reason why we ought to love our neighbors and why we ought to pray, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior." So then, after stating this, the Apostle, he identifies the most important reason for his writing these things. And he's writing these things so that men would be saved through the knowledge of the truth.

Do you see that phrase there? So that they would come to the knowledge of the truth. The truth that Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man, that he gave himself as a ransom for sinners. So this element, there are elements of pride that exist in a church that hinder the progress of the communication of the truth that Jesus saves sinners and there's only one way to God and that's through Jesus Christ. So that's the context of what he's speaking of.

Verse 4 he says, God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. So everything that's here assumes that the gospel is at stake here. And so these things must take place so that men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And Paul is saying that men are to pray and women are to dress in a way that displays the humility of those who follow Jesus Christ and it's done through a spirit of modesty. And so if you get down to the narrower context here, Paul, he's focusing in on humility and pride and he's implying that men and women may hinder the spread of the gospel through their immodesty, through their lack of humility, through their pride.

And so verse 8 sets the stage for this teaching which will take us to the instruction on women's clothing. And so he says, I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So Paul wants men to pray in the church with a spirit of humility, not with a spirit of wrath. And he's saying that pride in men standing up and praying when they have anger in their hearts, it hinders the progress of the gospel. And it restrains the communication of the truth that there's one mediator between God and man because when men are proud they'll do religious things, they'll stand up and pray, but their hearts are proud.

That's the thing that Paul is saying here and so he's saying that men can lift up their hands in prayer and not have humility and here Paul he's writing to the pastor of the Church of Ephesus. This is a real church and their behaviors in that church that are disrupting the spread of the gospel and there are men who are doing religious things, they're doing what they should do, they're praying but they're harboring anger and there are also women who are dressing for attention and they're vying, they're fighting for leadership in the church. Those two things are happening in the Ephesian church and the Apostle Paul is instructing this young pastor what he ought to teach in the church. And so these things are just disrupting the peace of the church. Now, both men and women are displaying postures of pride.

Now, men are praying but they're praying with wrath and they're lifting up holy hands but it's fake in some ways and he's confronting that. There's this outward manifestation in prayer and I think we learn here that it's legitimate for men to lift up their hands in prayer. Now I know this is controversial in our day, we've lifted up our hands here in this place. Some maybe have experienced manifestations where they're thinking I'm never going to lift up my hands in worship again. What we were doing before was so fake.

And so, but you don't want to go, you know, to these extremes. Paul doesn't want us to go to the extremes. And so he's saying that there, it's legitimate to do this. Now, there to lift up holy hands, now there are two biblical words for holy And the most often used word for holy is the word hagios and it means set apart, distinct, different, set apart for God, that's not the word that Paul uses here. He uses a different word hosios which means purity, doesn't mean separation, it means purity And so he's focusing here on the purity of that man's hands which are a reflection of the purity of his heart.

His hands are unstained and that doesn't mean that they're perfect, but it means that his heart is pure before the Lord. He's repentant of his anger, he's repentant of his pride, and he's really before God genuinely, and he's lifting up holy hands. And so that's what we see here and he's holding up hands without wrath and the New King James Version translates it wrath or doubting, in other translations it's wrath and dissension. So this has to do with a man who has wrath or dissension in his heart and he's praying in self-righteous pride, okay? So that's what's happening here in this passage.

And so Paul is talking about men who in pride they raise up their hands to pray but they harbor a critical spirit and a divisive spirit and there's bitterness in the background of their hearts. They're executing their religious duty but it's with a spirit of pride. And, you know, these are men who are not tenderhearted and forgiving of one another. And so this is how God is desiring his people to operate in the church. And then we get to in verse 9, in like manner, also that women adorn themselves.

And so he's saying that women also express their pride through the way that they dress in trying to get attention to themselves. So that's what this passage is all about. Greg Nichols explains the context this way. He does not want the men to mouth off and he does not want the women to show off. So that's what's happening here.

Now, when most people read this passage, they get very dialed in on the part about modesty in women's clothing and they walk through this passage and as they ought to and they deal with this matter of how women ought to dress which is a reflection of their humility as opposed to their pride. And so Modesty here is something that begins in the heart and that's what Paul is trying to explain. Now, whenever you hear, you know, people talk about this passage, it usually goes to modesty and usually get a checklist for women for how they should dress. Have you ever experienced that? That that really kind of becomes the focus of the passage.

Well, that's not what I'm going to focus on now here. I would like to talk about the ways that pride expresses itself differently in men and women. We know how it expresses itself in women and it's spoken of right here in verse 9. But I think we backtrack to verse 8 and speak about how pride manifests itself in men. And, you know, we know that there are differences in men and women.

We know men are distracted by clothing that draws attention of their eyes and it causes lust and, you know, female immodesty is more likely to cause, you know, lust in men. What women look at men and they look at them differently. So we have these checklists for women's modesty. I'm going to give you a checklist for men's modesty. And checklists are dangerous Because just because you see something on the checklist, doesn't actually mean that the source of it is pride.

But I want us to consider these things. I want us to consider the depth of pride and how it manifests itself in our lives. And I'd like for us as men just to consider how does pride express itself in outward form and I'm just going to give you a number of things here to deal with. I want to talk about immodesty in men. How do, you know, if women display their immodesty through their clothing, there must be parallels in men's lives as well.

Now, he's given us one example. It's a representative example. It's how men, they're kind of beating their chests and acting like big shots in the church. And they're praying but their hearts are far from God. So that's one example.

But pride expresses itself in, let's just take the matter of dress. You know, men may dress in such a way in order to display their muscles. They might do that in order to express their pride, to show everyone just how strong they are. Now, you also might find the corollary of it like you may find it, it may possibly happen that as a man grows older and his weight shifts, he might dress differently than he did when he was 28 years old. You know, like his shirts might get bigger or longer, you know.

Men express pride in different ways, don't they? And men may put on cologne for one reason or another. Men might put on cologne to draw women. They might do it for that purpose. Every man should ask himself, why am I wearing cologne?

I'm not making a case against cologne, but I am making a case for what is it in a man that makes him want to wear cologne. What is it? What is he trying to do? And does pride lie at the bottom of it? And I don't think we should go around sniffing all over the place saying, well, there's a proud man, you know, hey, look, I saw that guy's muscle, man, he must be so proud.

Or what about the fat guy, you know, his shirt's bigger and longer than they ever were, what's that? I saw him 20 years ago, he didn't dress like that then, this must be pride." Well, I don't know. But every man needs to ask himself, why am I doing, what am I doing, what I'm doing? You know, some men might wear tight pants to draw attention and therefore, you know, try to make an impression, you know. I recently spoke to a man who confessed to me that when he was a swimmer in college that he refused to wear a Speedo and he wore, he bucked the system and he wore swim trunks and he said that it was his pride that made him do it.

And I thought, you know, in this case his pride did him good, you know. I thought, maybe we should make a top ten list of how pride can work together for good, you know. I think that's the first list, that's first at the top of the list in my mind. You know, a man might, when he's talking to a woman, he might look at her and talk at her in a way that's immodest, that it really is a manifestation of his pride and he's misusing the divine purpose of his tongue and he's using his words to draw a woman to himself for maybe sexual gratification or for friendship or some unmet need in his soul. The way we talk can be a manifestation of pride to women.

It might be tools and toys. You know, every man can relate, you know, how nice it is to get nice tools and nice toys to get the praises of men. Again, I'm not making a case, you know, for buying crummy tools or buying crummy cars. I'm not making a case for that. I'm just saying that we do things for reasons and we have to ask our self why are we doing those things.

We might be generous in order to trumpet our generosity. You may never know why that man is so generous. It might be because there's been a work of God in his heart, but it may be because he just wants to be known, he wants to be acknowledged as a generous man, and he has the resources to do it. So now everybody looks at him as like a generous man. You know, everyone understands the crisis that men go through when they go to buy a car.

You know, you're always trying to figure out, you know, why do I want that car? Why am I tempted to spend way more than I have on that car? But you might be tempted to look at the man who's driving around in an $80, 000 car and say, well, that's a proud man. He's just trying to prove how cool he is. But the problem is, you know, the guy with the 1987 Mazda might be the prouder man because he's doing that to trumpet his humility.

So you can't tell. You can't really tell on the outside. Only a man can know on the inside. And when a man is relating with his son or a son is relating with his father, He should know what's going on inside. He needs to know whether it's pride and self-exaltation that's driving him because it is so dangerous to be driven by pride in any area of life.

Now the problem with pride is it runs so deep and it affects everything that we do. And that's why whenever we discover manifestations of pride, our only hope is to throw ourselves on the cross of Jesus Christ because our pride runs so deep you'll never get to the bottom of it. You know, you might want to have really attention-grabbing prayer, you know, I mean, I'm sorry, hair, attention-grabbing hair because you just want to be so different. And so, men just should ask, why am I doing what I'm doing? And, you know, I'm not making arguments against looking nice and, you know, ironing your pants or shining your shoes or wearing nice shoes.

I'm not making any arguments against that at all. I want to be very clear about that. But we need to recognize this, pride wells up in the heart of man and it expresses itself in so many ways. And one of the primary ways it expresses itself is in that father-son relationship. And I just want us all together to consider how our manifestations of pride expressing themselves in our relationships as fathers and sons.

You know, every father is tempted to try to make his son do stuff just to make him look good. Every father is tempted with that and he doesn't want his son to say that or look that way but it's really it's his pride. Again that's not an argument against a father commanding his son to do particular things that are good and will make him successful and be a blessing to him. I'm not making an argument against commanding your son. But I am asking us to consider why are we commanding Him?

Is it for the glory of God or is it for our own glory? So here's my main point, I think you've got it and that is the father-son relationship is designed to expose pride in both father and son. David spoke of how this happens. He says, pride serves as their necklace. It's just all over them.

And they scoff and they speak wickedly and they speak loftily in Psalm 76 verses 6 through 8. So, so there you have it. God designed the father-son relationship to reveal pride. God deals with pride. He is going to deal with every manifestation of pride in every boy and every man's heart and that there are ways to identify pride and I pray that we'll somehow understand our pride and be able to repent of it, maybe even tonight, maybe even a father needs to repent to his son because of particular things that he's done out of pride.

Or maybe a son should repent to his father for particular things he said or done that have come right from that smoke of the pit of darkness entering into his soul. Hey, some of you sons need to go to your fathers and repent. Some of you need to go say, Father, I have sinned against you. Please forgive me. And some of you fathers may need to say the same thing, that you've neglected your son, that you've not loved him like you should, that you've done things for your own glory and for his life rather than for the glory of God.

And when repentance takes place between Father and Son, there's such a sweetness that flows in. It's always the pathway to joy and I pray that God gives that to us here in this place, that he would send us off this mountain with more joy than we came up here with because we repented of our sins. Repentance is always the pathway to joy and may the Lord, may the Lord deal with us in that. Now, I can't leave these texts and this subject without finally landing in one single place and that is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. The bad news is that everything we do is laced with pride.

The bad news is that we have no hope to stand before a holy God, But the good news is that God sent his son who was never proud, he never rebelled against his father, he never did anything except for the glory of the Godhead. And his obedience, according to the Gospel, his obedience was imputed to the prideful disobedience of repentance centers This is the glory of the Gospel, is that men are hopelessly lost in their pride, and I mean hopelessly. You can repent of every element of pride that you're aware of that manifests in your life and you can never get to the bottom of it. You're hopelessly lost in pride. Your pride is deeper than your ability to even have a sensibility of it.

And that's why God sent his son. You are hopeless in your sins and God will destroy you in your pride if you don't turn to his son and repent of your sins and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. There is no hope unless God imputes the righteousness of his Son upon you so that when God the Father looks at you, what does he see? He sees the righteousness of the perfection of the humility of his son and when he looks at you, he looks at you through the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's how God saves sinners and that's how God deals with proud men like you and I.

Would you pray with me? Lord we pray that you would unravel pride in our relationships as fathers and sons, that you would manifest the glory and beauty of the gospel, That you would send men down this hill happier than they've ever been because they've confessed and did not deny. And that they poured contempt on all their pride. Lord, I pray that tonight you would just pour contempt on all of our pride, that you would just pour it out all over in this room, that you would rain it down and our pride would be covered with the righteousness of the humility of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thank you.