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00:01 Um, I was going to, um, start with a 10-minute introduction on acrostics in
00:07 Esther. Um, but I'm going to leave it be because, um, I don't think I have the
00:12 time. Um, the main thing I would like to wanted to highlight is actually that a lot of people always say and and um,
00:19 Greg Wilton um, last week, my seminary lecturer said that God is never written in the book of Esther. Well, I was here
00:26 to prove my seminary lecturer wrong. Um it is written five times and it's written in the form of acrostics. Now I
00:32 was going to explain to you how acrostics work but u as I said I I I don't really have a time but it's it's a
00:37 form of alliteration. So you just have to trust me. If you want to know more about about it, you can come and see me after the service and I explain to you
00:44 how acrostics work and how actually the word God is written in Hebrew through a
00:50 form of alliteration very secretly in a coded way. Doesn't change us spiritually. Uh but it's written in the
00:57 book of Esther about five times. The main reason I wanted to highlight this this is because I felt amazingly joyful
01:05 when my seminary lecturer came up here and said it doesn't exist and I knew better than him. Um I I was sitting over
01:11 there and I put on a big smile and Dylan was sitting over there and he messaged me, Masimo, I can see your smile from
01:18 over here and uh uh it was it was terrible because I was reflecting over this week. I was like wow I I really
01:25 have a proud heart. uh uh uh I was sitting there just because of technicality I can feel so joyful in my
01:31 heart and and it was really working on me um because even though today's uh um sermon title is um the man the king
01:38 delights to honor what it truly is it is actually a sermon on pride. Um so before
01:45 we get into this I want to tell you what we're going to do today. We're going to go through a pride test. Well you're
01:50 going to go through a pride test. I've gone through it the whole week. Um, and after that, what we're going to do is
01:55 I'm going to talk to you about the character of pride. I'm going to talk to you about the deadliness of pride. And
02:00 then hopefully we have some time to talk about the cure for pride. So before we start, let me just u commit this time to
02:06 Lord in prayer. Um, Father Lord, I just um um bring this time to you Lord. I I I
02:13 pray for conviction Lord. May you convict your people, convict hearts, Lord. Bring people to repentance, oh
02:19 Lord. May you use me as your mouthpiece, oh Lord. May you give me grace to speak clearly and speak your word truthfully.
02:26 And I pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, pride test. Um what I'm going to
02:34 do is I'm going to ask you guys 10 questions and every time you feel you're guilty of that, you count yourself one
02:40 point and at the end uh what we're going to do is we're going to have a scoring system and um we will see how we do.
02:48 Let's start with the first question. Do you long for attention?
02:54 Are you one of those people who is People are laughing already. Okay, one
02:59 point. Um Um Do you long for attention? Are you being really dramatic? Are are you one of those people whose spiritual
03:05 gift is freaking out? You know, are you are you an overly big personality? Do
03:11 you like to, you know, come into the center of the room? You're you're overly vocal. You're needy. You're clingy.
03:17 You're overly emotional. Are you one of these people? Do you long for attention?
03:23 Next one. Do you become jealous or critical of people who succeed? Um, are you one of these people who go
03:30 around saying, "Oh, I can't believe he got that. I can't believe he got her.
03:35 Uh, does he really deserve her? Um, that's not fair. If I had the
03:41 opportunities that this person had, I would do much better." Are you one of those people? Um, or are you always
03:47 negative? Are you always criticizing? Uh are you one of those people who become jealous or critical of people who
03:53 succeed? Next question. Do you always have to win? Um you can't lose. You rather not
04:00 play a game than uh than lose at it. You know, you even cheat at board games uh u
04:06 because you just can't lose because you want to have that ESPN highlight of the Monopoly game move of the month, you
04:12 know. Um um are you one of those people who can't lose? Next one. Do you have a
04:17 pattern of lying? Now, if you right now think you don't lie, you just lied. Um um um everybody
04:25 lies. Um and because lying actually works like this. The most common form of lying works like this. Um you are going
04:33 to know something. You think about somebody else and you think you are going to know something about me which
04:39 is going to put me standing not in a very favorable light. So, I'm going to say something to make myself look just a
04:46 tiny bit better or I'm going to say something to to not reveal the truth about me to you. Um, I'm going to say
04:52 something to make somebody else look a little bit worse. And even it's just a little thing. Uh, we do that. Um, in the
04:58 Western world they call it hypocrisy and everybody's guilt guilty of it. Here we call it saving face and everybody's
05:04 guilty of it. Um, it's the same thing. We do it. We lie all the time to preserve our character to make sure that
05:10 other people don't really know who we truly are. So, do you have a pattern of lying?
05:17 Next one. Do you have a hard time acknowledging that you are wrong?
05:23 You never confess your sin. You need to get caught. And even when
05:28 you get caught, you put up a fight. You're one of those people who starts to blame shift. You know, somebody tells
05:34 you about how sinful you are and then you go around. I don't like the way you told me about my sin. You know, you you
05:40 use that technique of of of of changing the subject to how the person has approached you rather than to say that
05:46 you're sorry and and it's very tricky and and you do that or you you give excuses like I'm just human.
05:53 I'm just human. Uh um or you say things like um it's not what no one is perfect.
06:02 Yeah, you use that and uh it's not really an apology. It's actually an excuse. So, are you a person who has a
06:08 hard time acknowledging that you're wrong? Uh, we come to the next one. Do
06:13 you have a lot of conflicts with other people? We all know that the pride or the proud
06:19 people will conflict with other proud people, right? There's no we know that I mean pride and pride clashes together
06:26 conflict. There will also be humble people who will collide with proud people. We see that in Jesus, right?
06:33 He's very humble and he always has conflicts with the Pharisees who are who are extremely proud. So even the humble
06:39 have conflict with the proud. We never see the humble fighting with the humble, do we? I mean, we never sit here like,
06:46 "Yo, those humble people really going at it again." You know, we we should really get rid of those humble people. You
06:51 know, they're screaming at each other, tearing each other's hair out. No, that the humble people, they when they
06:56 conflict with other or come in contact with other humble people, they there's no conflict. So if you're here and you
07:02 have a conflict with a lot of people, maybe you're the humble person. Maybe
07:07 most likely you're the proud person. So do you have a lot of conflict with other
07:13 people? How about this? Do you cut in line at the store or at the junction? Are you one of those people who drives
07:19 on the road and the very last moment you cut in? Now we know those people, right? Those people who says, "I've got
07:25 significant places to be. I'm more important than anybody down this road. You know, I've got I've got my time is
07:32 more important. You're one of those people. Or do you double park? I'm going to let my convenience is more important
07:39 than that person's inconvenience. And then you say, but I put my phone number there. That person rather call me to
07:45 make me move my car, right? Because my convenience is more important than somebody else's inconvenience. Are you
07:51 one of those people? Next one. Do you get upset when people don't honor your
07:57 achievement? Nobody cares what I do. Nobody ever says thank you. Nobody
08:04 appreciates me. Or in ministry, I work and work for this church and nobody ever
08:10 says thank you. Nobody ever says nobody appreciates me. You know, and then we
08:16 realize that we're supposed to wait for that day when Jesus says, "Thank you,
08:21 good and faithful servant." So, are you one of those people who who get upset when nobody honors your achievement?
08:29 Do you have a sense of entitlement? I deserve this. I deserve it because
08:35 that's my family background. Or I deserve this because I'm of that race. Or I deserve this because I I worked for
08:41 it really hard. You know, you have this sense of entitlement.
08:47 Or are you one of those people who's thankful for everything that you receive? Because truly the only thing we
08:52 really deserve is hell and everything else is a gift of God, is it not? And we
08:57 should be thankful for it. Do you have a sense of entitlement?
09:03 How about the last one? Do you honestly feel you do not need a Bible study group or accountability
09:10 group? I can do life on my own.
09:15 I go to church. I read my Bible. You know, I I sing worship songs. That's all
09:22 I need. I don't need anybody to hold me accountable. I can do that. I don't need anybody to point out sin in my life. I
09:28 don't need anybody to pray for me. I don't need to study the the the Bible in community.
09:34 Are you one of those people? Because honestly, for me, I I couldn't do and
09:39 it's a bit sidetracked, but I couldn't do without my friends in the H2O. I couldn't I I I need those people to to
09:46 remind me of my sin. I need them to pray for me. I need them I need my friends there to encourage me.
09:53 I need them. I I I'm too wretched to go through life on my own without having people who hold me accountable to my
09:59 character. I'm not able. So 10 questions. How do we do? Let me
10:07 give you guys the scoring system. 1 to 10. You're proud.
10:13 I've got one more. Zero. You're very proud. And if you're here right now and you're
10:19 happy that you did not score zero, add one more to your count. All right? So,
10:24 all I'm trying to say is that we are all prideful. We are all guilty of that sin.
10:31 So, let's let let's see what the text has for us today and what we can learn about the character of pride. And to do
10:36 that, let me just give you guys a a quick rundown again on on what happened. U Morai saves the king. That happens in
10:42 chapter two. And in chapter 3, instead of us seeing Morai being elevated, we're
10:48 seeing Haman getting promoted. Now, it wasn't because Mori uh uh saved the king
10:53 that Haman got promoted, but the the author who who wrote um Esther wanted to play it off to kind of show the irony
10:60 that is behind Esther. That one person uh uh does an achievement for God and the other person gets elevated. It's
11:06 supposed to um emphasize that that perennial feud that was going on between
11:11 um Morai and Haman. Haman is introduced to us as an anagite. Uh Morai is
11:19 introduced to us as a Benjamite. And it's supposed to remind us of of the feud that was going on between the
11:24 Amalachites and the Benjamites. It was in 1 and 2 Samuel we hear where Saul who was a Benjamite is supposed to kill off
11:30 all the Amalachites. And uh he didn't do so. He kept one king alive. King Agak alive um which is where Haman comes
11:39 from. So um and God said that he would bring um enmity between those two u
11:45 people groups and um um we see that right here in the book of Esther and actually in during the Purim festival in
11:51 in Israel when when when people take out um the book of Esther and they read it every time the word uh uh Mori is said
11:58 everybody cheers. They like whistles and they all cheer and they read out the book and Mori they all cheer and uh every time Haman uh name is mentioned
12:05 everybody boos you know and then they they do that and they read through the whole book of Esther every year. It's a it's a funny event. You can Google it or
12:11 YouTube it. You can see those little festivals going on. So anyways, Mori saves the king. Haman gets promoted and
12:18 Mori refuses to bow. Um it gets Haman really really angry. It gets him so
12:25 angry. Now it shows us something about Haman because actually what happened was the king decreed a law that everybody
12:33 should bow down. It's very strange because usually people in position like Haman would naturally
12:39 receive honor, naturally receive respect and people would naturally bow down to them. But Haman must have been such a a
12:46 terrible obnoxious person that people didn't really want to bow down to him that the lord the the king had to
12:52 ultimately decree a law. So it shows about the character of Haman who is the villain and and today we're going to
12:58 focus a lot on the villain. So what is it that we can learn from from from Haman and how he reacts? Well,
13:05 in 35 we read that he got so upset that
13:11 Mori did not bow down. And why is it? It's because he is ultimately totally
13:18 consumed with self. that one person not bowing down to him reminded him of the
13:26 fact that actually nobody really has that much respect for him. I think CS
13:31 Lewis says it best when he says pride is ruthless sleepless unsmiling
13:38 concentration on self. It's ruthless sleepless unsmiling
13:45 concentration on the self. Ham was so focused on self. It hurt him so much.
13:50 much. It got him so angry that not only did he want to kill Mori, he also wanted
13:56 to kill the whole Jewish nation. Which brings me to the second point. Pride
14:02 coupled with power brings oppression and injustice.
14:08 You see, because he had the power and because he was prideful, he did not only
14:14 want to go against Mori, he wanted to go against the whole Jewish nation. We see
14:19 that same similar example earlier on when the king when Vashi doesn't want to
14:25 come out and and and hurts the pride of the king. Ultimately a law is decreed
14:30 that all women have to honor their husband regardless whether the husband is worthy of honor or not. Again pride
14:37 coupled with power brought oppression to a whole group of people. And we see that
14:42 today in politics. We see that today in in nations. every single big war that we had in the world is probably because
14:48 somebody had pride and was in a position of power.
14:54 So most likely if you're sitting here and you are in a position of power and
15:01 you have pride there's a very high chance that you might be oppressing
15:07 people or causing injustice to people. Let us think about the foreign workers
15:13 that we have in this country. Let's just think about the foreign help that we have.
15:18 Are we treating them right? Are we using our position of power to help them?
15:26 Or are we giving them below minimum wage salaries for inhumane working hours?
15:33 Things we would rebel against if our non-Christian bosses would give us the same thing.
15:41 Are we using our pride and our power because we think we are better than them because they are here because they need
15:47 the money? Are we using it to oppress people and cause injustice?
15:54 How about the next one? Pride robs joy. We can see in 59. It's not part of the text today, but what happened was the
16:01 queen invited Haman to come down uh uh for a dinner. Now, she didn't he didn't
16:07 know that there was something behind that thought. Um, but he was full of joy. He was happy. I'm the only one that
16:13 the king is inviting for that dinner. I'm the only one. And he was so happy. And then suddenly he walked out. And we
16:18 read it in 59. He walked out and he saw Morai not bowing down to him again. And
16:24 again he became angry. Whatever joy he had, whatever happiness his head had was just robbed immediately because he he
16:31 saw that one person who didn't live up and didn't honor him and and and ate into his pride and suddenly all the joy
16:36 was gone. Now, why might that be?
16:42 It's because pride, which is the last point here, makes everything a means to an end.
16:50 Pride does not let us enjoy things for what they are in itself.
16:55 Again, CS Lewis says this. He says, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it
17:04 than the next man." We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good-looking, but
17:11 they're not. They're not proud of that. They are proud of being richer
17:18 or cleverer or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally
17:23 rich or clever or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about.
17:30 It is the comparison that makes you proud. the pleasure of being above the
17:37 rest. So you're not proud of something, you're proud that that something elevates you above somebody else. Pride
17:45 in itself seeks to elevate you above others. And that's why it makes everything you do a means to the end of
17:53 elevation of self. You you cannot enjoy anything for what
17:58 it is by itself. That's what pride does. It robs you of that joy.
18:04 And we have ultimately two formats of it. We have the
18:10 superiority effect of pride which we all know is the people who are you know chest up, head up, they walk around,
18:17 they boast and and and you look at them and you can see they're proudful uh prideful and they're proud and what
18:22 actually happened is they they have set these standards right they have they have done these things where they could set themselves above somebody else and
18:29 they have achieved in doing it and they feel good about it.
18:34 Well, there is an inferiority part of pride as well. It's the people who set
18:40 the same standards but don't achieve it. And then suddenly they feel terrible.
18:48 They feel worthless. They don't want to continue the next day.
18:54 They're ashamed. They cannot stand the fact that they have not achieved that and and everybody
19:00 will look down on them. They feel miserable. It kind of happened to Haman, right? After he had to parade
19:08 around Mori, which we'll talk about later, and he went back home mourning.
19:14 Go home mourning. Um, a famous writer talks about suicide.
19:20 He says that most of the time suicide is a is a form of pride.
19:25 A lot of times it's saying that I'm too good to deal with the bad tomorrow.
19:31 A good writer said it's modified self-love. There's an inferiority part of pride.
19:40 You know why? Because true humility is not really thinking less of yourself.
19:46 It's thinking of yourself less. That's what true humility is. It's not
19:52 thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.
19:57 So we look we we explored the character of pride and and and and how how it works and how it permeates and and how
20:03 there's an a superiority complex of pride and there's an inferiority complex of pride.
20:09 Let's look at the deadliness of pride and and and for that I I have a little story here which I would like to read to
20:15 you. Um, and it comes um from an actual conversation recorded on channel 106 um
20:21 of the marine marine time emergency frequency of the Galatian coast in Spain
20:26 between the Spaniards and the Americans on the 16th October 1997
20:32 apparently has just been recently released. And um so it's a conversation between the Spaniards and the Americans
20:37 and I'm I'm going to try to put on a Spanish accent when I read to Spanish people and then we're going to have the Americans and I'm going to just speak
20:43 normal. Um, all right. Um, all right. Here we go. The Spaniards first. This is A853.
20:51 Please alter your heading 15° to the south to avoid collision. You're headed straight for us at a distance of 245
20:59 nautical miles. The Americans, we suggest you alter your course 15° to the
21:04 north to avoid collision. Negative. Repeat. Please turn 15° south to avoid
21:10 collision. This is captain of the ship of the United States of America speaking. We
21:15 request that you turn 15 degrees north to avoid collision. We do not consider that doable nor convenient. Please turn
21:23 15° to the south to avoid colliding with us. This is Captain Richard James Howard
21:29 speaking in command of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln of the United States
21:34 of Navy, the second largest warship in the American fleet. We are escorted by
21:40 two gunboats, six destroyers, five battleships, four submarines, and a number of other support vessels. I do
21:47 not suggest I order you to change your heading 15° to the north. If you do not
21:52 comply, we will take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of this vessel. Please obey immediately and
22:01 remove yourself from our course. the Spanish reply. This is Juan Manuel Talas
22:08 Alagantara speaking. We are two people.
22:13 We are escorted by our dog, food, two beer, and a canary who's taking a siesta.
22:19 We have the support of the radio station, Candena de laoru, and channel 106 of the emergency marine time
22:26 frequency. We aren't going to turn anywhere. We do not have the slightest clue about where we rank in the Spanish
22:32 affairs. You can take whatever measures you please or do whatever you want to guarantee the safety of your very very
22:38 large vessel that is going to crash into the rocks of the Spanish coast. Seeing as we're speaking from land,
22:48 we are the lighthouse A853 on the Galatian coast.
22:53 So, we insist once again and we recommend you do the most sensible thing and change your heading 15° south to
23:00 avoid collision.
23:06 Frequency died. Pride can be deadly.
23:12 This this naval officer almost crashed into the coast because he was thinking
23:18 that he's the biggest man around. He failed to see what was actually going on. Kind of what how Haman failed to see
23:26 what was going on when he was asked what the king should do with a man whom
23:32 he delights to honor. But let's let's talk about the deadliness of pride. Why why is pride really so deadly?
23:40 Well, pride is hidden.
23:47 Pride hides itself behind good things. Oops.
23:52 Pride hides itself behind good things. Pride is hidden. We We can't really see pride.
23:58 How many of you, when I was doing the pride test just now, were thinking about somebody else?
24:07 Yeah. It hides itself in there too, right? Yeah. And and and the main reason
24:12 it it's so dangerous compared to other sins, let's compare it to to other sins. And I I say there are three major sins
24:18 that we all that that world has. And I get it out of 1 John 2:16. It says for
24:23 all that is in the world. It's the desire of the flesh which is lust, the desire of the eyes, which is
24:29 materialism, and the pride of life, which is pride. And it's actually the reason of the fall, is it not? Because
24:35 we see it also in Genesis 3:6. So we see that lust which is the good the the the
24:40 when the woman saw that the tree was good for food which is the lust. It was delight to the eyes which is
24:46 materialism. Why is desire of the eyes and delight to the eyes materialism? Because I see it I want it. So that's
24:52 why it is materialism and the tree that was to be desired to make one wise which is pride. We have the three major sins
25:01 in this world. And I'm telling you that pride is the most dangerous and the most deadly one of them all. And the one
25:09 number one reason is because it is hidden. You see, when we have a problem
25:15 with lust, it's overt, right? Nobody wakes up in the morning, looks to the
25:20 left, and like you're not my wife. You know, it doesn't happen. We we know
25:26 we know when we are scrolling on the wrong pages. We know when our hand is going to places it's not supposed to go. So lust is overt. We we know when we are
25:33 sinning. The same thing happens with materialism. We know when we're embassing. We know when we are stealing.
25:39 We know when we're committing fraud. I mean nobody wakes up in the morning, checks their bank account. It's like
25:44 $2.6 billion. Where did they come from? It must be a generous donation, you
25:51 know? I mean I mean nobody nobody does that, right? So, so, so we all know when we're embassing, we all know when we're
25:56 committing fraud. I mean, it's only a select few who get such kind of donations. You know, for the rest of us,
26:02 we know what happened. Yeah. So, so, so materialism, it it's overt. But pride,
26:09 pride hides itself. You can never see it. Everybody has it. You see, those people that you were thinking about
26:15 during the pride test, do they know that they have pride? They probably don't.
26:22 So pride is hidden. Pride hides itself behind something good.
26:29 See why? While humility sees glory and wants to praise it, pride sees glory and
26:38 wants to possess it. It takes everything good and it and it twists it into
26:43 something bad. Pride turns ambition selfish. It perverts sexual desires into
26:50 unspeakable lust. It interprets net worth as selfworth.
26:55 It affects the wound of grief and loss with the bacteria of bitterness. And it
27:02 twists competition into conquest. Pride takes something good, hides behind
27:09 it, and makes it evil.
27:16 The second reason why pride is such such a dangerous sin, it's the only sin that
27:25 will keep us from repentance. It's the only sin that will keep us from
27:31 repentance. It's the only sin that will come up and say, "I do not need Jesus.
27:37 I can I can work for my righteousness. I do not need to confess my sin.
27:46 It's the only sin that will keep us from repentance. Now, I said it's deadly or
27:54 it's it's it's so terrible it will kill you. Actually, let me say correctly. It will not kill you.
27:59 Pride will keep you dead. That's the problem.
28:05 Pride will prevent you from becoming alive.
28:13 We all know the story of the prodical son. It's the typical story of pride where at
28:21 the very end, so for those of you who do not know the story, a a son wanted the father's inheritance, wasted all away,
28:28 came back to the father, humbled himself, the father received him, and he joined the party with the father. But
28:36 the older brother who did everything good, who did everything right,
28:41 refused to join the party. He was too proud.
28:47 Pride kept him away of the party. Is pride going to keep us away from the
28:53 feast that God has prepared for us?
28:58 Pride stop this older brother? will stop us from becoming alive.
29:06 So pride is hidden. Pride keeps us from
29:12 repentance. That's why pride is so very very deadly.
29:18 C. Lewis wrote, "Pride is what made the devil the devil. But actually, it's what
29:23 made an angel a devil, is it not?
29:28 Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.
29:35 The complete anti-God state of mind.
29:41 Pride is the petri dish on which sin feeds.
29:48 Everything springs out that pride that we have. Pride is going to keep us from becoming alive.
29:56 So how do we cure it? How do we cure pride?
30:03 How do we get rid of it? We all have it. We We know it.
30:09 Do we pray more? Do we read our Bibles more?
30:15 Do we serve more? Do we do more good works? Is that the cure for pride? It will
30:21 definitely help with lust. Religiosity always helps with lust and it helps with materialism. Will it help
30:28 with pride? Because we see the Pharisees, don't we? We see the Pharisees, they they prayed.
30:36 They read their Bibles. They were doing good works, but they were the most proud people
30:42 around. I have this picture here that reminds us of that that parable of of of the tax
30:48 collector and the Pharisee. the Pharisee who who raised his hands and prayed, "Dear Lord,
30:55 thank you that I'm better than a tax collector.
31:01 Thank you that you set me above him."
31:06 So ultimately, these things are good. I'm not saying they're bad. Good. You should read your Bibles. You should come
31:12 to church. You should pray. You should do good works. But will it really stop us from
31:20 having pride? Religiosity is one of the main thing that feeds in our pride, is it not? Because we come to church, we
31:26 want to show everybody how good we are. It's a problem.
31:32 So let's look at the text. Um again, four points on the plot.
31:37 Haman plots against Morai and tells the king that there are people that disobey him. I'm just trying to illustrate what
31:43 happened uh uh throughout the story. and Haman actually. So he's saying that this
31:49 group of people who are going against you and um I would like to kill them and they will give you money and Haman gives
31:54 him some bribe for for that as well. And um then Haman plans to hang Morai. What
31:59 he actually does he um he gets so upset with Morai that he goes and tells his family and he actually tells his family
32:05 that all the wealth I have, everything I own is is is worthless unless Morai is not around anymore. As
32:13 long as I see Morai, whatever I have does not count. And he gets so upset. His family suggests that he should bring
32:18 a build a gallow and hang him. And he does that. He's up all night. He's building a gallow. At the same time, the
32:24 king is up all night and he can't sleep. He's restless. And he has this this this
32:29 book of Chronicles read to him. And where he reminds himself where he's reminded that Mori saved him
32:37 and and he wants to honor Mori. And um then when the when the when the
32:43 king it's morning time, Haman coincidentally walks into uh uh the court and uh as the story goes um he's
32:51 being asked up by the king and the king asks him what should be done for the man the king
32:58 the lights to honor what should be done for that man and and Haman being so proud and being so self-
33:07 conssumed thinks the king is talking about him
33:14 and he's happy. He's full of joys, you know, because that's all he wants. He
33:19 wants somebody as important as the king to show love and affection to him in
33:26 such a way that everybody else will know because what we all want, we all want to
33:34 have the praise of the praiseworthy, right? I think it's Tolken who says the
33:41 satisfaction there's no greater satisfaction than the praise of the praiseworthy.
33:47 There's no greater sat satisfaction. We want everybody who we think the world of. We want them to think the world of
33:54 us. We want them to think that we are
33:59 amazing. And that's exactly what happens. And it feeds into Haman's pride as he thinks that the king is talking
34:06 about him. So he suggests this. He says, "Put your royal robes
34:11 around that man." And we we need to know the significance of that. You see, when when in second s
34:19 first and second Samuel when when uh Jonathan put the royal robes around
34:24 David, he was saying, "You should be king. Let me share my wardrobe with
34:31 you." Same thing when the pharaoh put his royal robes over Joseph. He was saying
34:36 you now have the authority of the king and everybody else can see it.
34:42 It shows a amazing satisfaction and everybody else will know it. And then he
34:48 says you should put him on a on a on a horse with a crown which shows the picture of a a
34:54 conquering king. It shows a picture of victory.
35:01 And then you should have somebody else walk in front of the person
35:06 and have somebody else lead them to the gates.
35:12 He was so self- consumed. He wanted all that. He wanted everybody else to see
35:18 it. But was he wrong? I mean I mean aren't we all like that? Don't we all want the praise of the praiseworthy?
35:25 I think we do. And it's because we are designed that way. We are made in such a way that we want
35:32 the approval of somebody who's praiseworthy. So pride in itself actually has the
35:40 right attitude, does it not? It wants to receive approval.
35:48 Pride heist has the right attitude but seeks the wrong king.
35:56 It seeks the wrong king.
36:03 The Bible says this, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And that's exactly what happened to Hammon.
36:12 He exalted himself, right? He he wanted to have all this praise. He want to have all this glory given onto him. And what
36:18 happened to him is he was humbled. He was the one who ended up having to
36:25 put those ropes on Mori. He had to go and he was one who's
36:32 raising Morai up on that horse. He was the one who had to then walk in
36:38 front of Mori and give him all the honor.
36:45 He had to do that. Walking in front of him, giving him all the honor, leading him to the gates.
36:52 The verse, that's how it looked like. The verse continues and it says, "And he
37:00 who humbles himself will be exalted."
37:08 There is no greater incidence in the history of mankind
37:15 where one humbled himself more.
37:21 In Philippians 2, we read that Christ,
37:27 who was God humbled himself
37:33 into a human body.
37:39 He lived a sinless life and he died
37:45 on the cross. He was obedient even onto the cross and he died for you and me. He
37:52 shed his blood. And and Philippians 2 says that because of that very fact he
37:58 was raised. He was raised to the highest possible
38:05 position. He was raised with his name above every name. He became king above every king.
38:15 He was exalted to the most high.
38:22 Which king do we want to get a praise from?
38:28 Who do we think is the most praiseworthy?
38:33 You see, when we make ourselves king and we want
38:42 to make our vision the approval of ourselves, we must realize that we are sinful
38:48 people and our life ambition will be a sinful
38:54 endeavor. If we take other people of this broken
38:59 world and make them kings of our lives and and we do. There are lots of people that we want them to think the world of
39:05 us and we we place them in this position and we live our lives in such a way that
39:11 they are pleased and we seek their approval. We must realize that they too are sinful and our life ambition again
39:18 is a sinful sinful endeavor. There's only one person who we should
39:26 make king. He is the most praiseworthy.
39:32 He is the name above every name. And he is holy.
39:39 He is holy. And if we make our life ambition
39:46 to seek his approval, it will be a holy endeavor.
39:54 It will be a holy endeavor. You see
39:59 that king, he's present here today.
40:05 He's here and he wants to share in the royal robes
40:11 that he has. He wants to clothe you with
40:17 righteousness. He wants to raise you onto victory.
40:25 He wants to walk before you. He wants to lead you.
40:33 And he wants to give you the greatest honor any man can receive and that is to
40:39 become to get to the pearly gates to stand in the presence of God for
40:46 eternity. He only has one question.
40:52 Will you make me king?
41:00 So how do we respond? How do we respond as a people?
41:09 The Bible says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It actually
41:14 means approved by God are the poor in spirit and not the proud.
41:23 So my question is, can we together be men and women
41:30 the king the lights to honor? Let us pray.
41:38 [Music] Father, we come before you with
41:45 proud hearts. Lord, we we are proud.
41:50 We need you in our lives to to crush it. There there are so many areas where
41:55 where we don't even know that we are proud. Father, I I pray that you bring people
42:01 into our lives who who who point it out to us, who walk alongside with us, who
42:07 pray for us, who care for us, who love us so much that they will share the truth with us.
42:13 Father, I I pray that you break our hearts that we may fall on our knees
42:21 and rid ourselves of of that pride that that stops us from repentance, that stops us from coming to you.
42:31 Father, we we want to make Christ our king.
42:38 We want the praise of the most praiseworthy
42:44 and we want to make our lives an ambition and endeavor of seeking that approval.
42:51 And Lord, you you you're here. You you're giving us to us and we give you all praise and all glory and honor to that.
43:00 So Christ be our king. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
