Shane Idleman emphasizes the destructive nature of pride in marriage, explaining that God resists the proud but shows grace to the humble. He highlights how pride can lead to a hard heart, bitterness, and ultimately, divorce, while humility fosters healing and unity in relationships. Idleman encourages couples to recognize and repent of prideful attitudes, as humility is essential for receiving God's favor and grace in their marriages. He stresses the importance of being transparent and honest about struggles, as this openness allows God's grace to permeate their lives and relationships. Ultimately, he calls for a commitment to humility as the greatest gift to one's spouse and children.

Before we go into worship, I just want to share the consistent theme which you heard tonight is on pride, isn't it, and humility. And I was saturating my mind on these verses that we can put up from James this week and realize that actually God can resist the proud marriage. We often think God resists me, God resists you, but He also will resist the proud marriage. He won't bring that healing aspect of His grace. God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Look at these different translations. God is opposed to the proud and haughty, but continually gives the gift of grace to the humble who turn away from self-righteousness. God gives strength to those who are humble, but sets Himself against the proud and the haughty. So when it comes to marriage, that's why this topic of pride is so important and humility because it actually positions yourself to receive the favor of God upon your life, upon your prayers being answered, upon your marriage, or it'll actually, God can resist you and me when we're proud. We don't have God's aid, God's help, His covering over our marriage. Pride is both an attitude and a type of conduct. It includes the ideas of arrogance and also acting it out. It's cynical insensitivity to the needs of others and presumptuous. I'm presuming these things and it's about me and that's why it has to be repented of continually because it continually comes in. That's the filling of the Holy Spirit counteracts what pride is doing in our heart and the one thing that happens with a hard heart is it starts out not too hard, but then it gets harder and harder. It's like I give the men sometimes when I speak on this topic of the image of concrete. Have you ever poured concrete and 10 minutes in, it's 15 minutes in, 20, it's hard, but it's not that hard yet. You can still write your initials in it and as the hours go by, it becomes very hard and that's the danger, Christian, in our own hearts if we don't deal with it when God is convicting it because you're convicted like I am and when we ignore that conviction, that's where that hardness begins to continue to set in a haughty look. It's spiritual pride and it's closing the ears and the Bible would use the imagery of our look, a haughty look. You ever just look at your spouse a certain way or look at people a certain way and pride by closing the ears. They would close their ears, their hearts would grow hard and often, here's the biggie, often, it's pride in one or the other spouse that leads to divorce. I don't see too much divorce in those I know at this church where humility was ruling and reigning in the hearts of both spouses. Now, sometimes I understand there's grounds for a divorce. I believe God gives that out sometimes if that person's consistently unfaithful and just mocking the marriage covenant and you've tried all you can do and so I'm not downplaying that. I'm not downplaying we've had to counsel people through very abusive relationships and that's not healthy. So I do understand that, but most of the time, and even in those cases, it would be the pride of the man that was doing that and then also the pride in the woman, and the shoe fits on the other foot as well sometimes where the woman is the prideful one and it's the man trying and submitting to what God wants and so it's always pride at really the center of these issues. Crosswalk, a good website, said a hard heart is when this comes in, begins to come in bitterness and resentment. Anyone been there? Oh, boy, we can live there in our marriage because we're not taking our thoughts captive and if we don't, we become more bitter, more resentful and then also isolation. We isolate ourselves from God and others. We refuse to forgive. That really gets the heart hard because I know I'm supposed to do something, but I refuse it so because I'm refusing what I know to be true in God's Word, I'm actually resisting God. God resists me because now I'm proud and prideful and I'm not gonna forgive. How dare they? I'm gonna show them and God begins to resist us in this area. Matthew 19, eight, He said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, allowed divorce, but from the beginning it was not so. Mark, for they considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. Proverbs, blessed is the man who always fears, but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble and you can look in Hebrews, three times in the book of Hebrews, when you hear God's voice, harden not your heart. It's a call for us to repent of this hardness and I thought, you know, I wanna throw this out there. Well, Shane, how do I know? I mean, how do I know if I'm struggling with pride or if this is an area that I need to really take to the Lord? Well, it's actually pretty easy. Does what we said tonight upset you or break you? Are you sitting there with excuses and upset? And yeah, but they don't know what the situation I'm in. Yeah, but are you offended? Are you upset at what we've talked about tonight? Guess what? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you win the prize. There's some pride going on in there. And so, do we allow God to break us or do we continue to build up our hardness? Are you making excuses in your mind or are you focusing on changes that you need to make? I'm focusing on changes, especially when Tim talked about building up his wife. You know, I don't do that enough. I was, and you have to fight against how you were raised. Again, I was raised from a tough, tough dad and you don't cry, you don't show emotion, you don't tell people, they know you love them. You don't have to tell them. You don't have to tell people a good job. You should just do a good job. And so, you know, I've got to really go out of my way to encourage in that area. And I haven't been, and that flower and the rose, I don't think it's rose, but it's, I'm not a flower guy, whatever that's called. But the wilting, how many of us can relate to that? That's what happens. The flower's wilting, it's dying. What's the difference? What's the difference between those two flowers? Water. Water. Washing of the water with God's Word on our spouses. Bringing God's Word into their lives, into our hearts, that waters the plant, that waters that area, that waters their heart. So we're either speaking life, that was a great analogy, that even the pebble will hurt the butterfly. Are we speaking life into our marriages? So I'm just going to close with this thought. Look in the face of your kids, maybe this week your grandkids, and think about the end of your life. Do you really want pride to be your downfall? And maybe I see this more than others. I know Pastor Abram does as well, but when over the years, you know, doing hospital visits or visiting people in hospice, I leave there just often, many times frustrated, sad, just can't believe that even there at the end of the life, holding onto that pride, they're going to die with that pride. They've ruined their marriage. Their kids don't want to talk to them anymore. And yet, they die. They take it to their grave. And I don't want to be that person. I don't know about you, but I don't want pride to be my downfall. I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret that I didn't humble myself more. Look your children in the eyes as well. Did you know that the greatest gift you can give your kids is humility? The greatest gift. I'm convinced, you know, we're going to have three teenagers here shortly and two more on their way to be teenagers. And I used to think before we had kids that it was living as close to the Bible as I could. And don't get me wrong, that's our goal. We should do that. But with that often can come a spiritual pride, haughty look, and we use the scriptures to beat them up or beat others up or impress. But when your kids can see humility, humility that you own it, that you repent, that you're the first to say, hey, that was wrong. Look at the Bible. And I didn't act that way. It says, anger worketh not the righteousness of man. And I let that really get, I'm going to, with the grace of God, would you pray for me? I'm going to work on this area. And the humility that it just, the children come alive, the marriage comes alive because you're not resisting. God's not resisting you. He gives grace to the humble. The grace permeates your house. It will permeate your marriage. Pride is destructive. It is deadly. It is damning. What keeps people from receiving Jesus? Pride. So the battlefield of marriage is littered with the corpses of pride. If indifference has slain its thousands, pride has slain its 10 thousands. And we have to root it out just like cancer. And one thing I do appreciate about West Side Christian Fellowship is when you come here, you don't have to hide or fake it. Praise God. Praise God. Isn't that true? Isn't that true? We don't want people to walk in and think they've got it all together and they talk the language. Oh brother, I'm doing great. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And their wife says, who's this guy? But you can be real here. You don't have to fake it, right? We struggle with things and we're honest about things and that's why God is moving in amazing ways is because there's honesty and transparency. God actually was gracious to the humble. He was, even those caught in sexual sin or those caught in sin, He was gracious to those. It was the hypocrite, the hypocrite that really received the strongest rebukes from our Lord. And so again, God resists the proud, fights against, holds back. Is there something God might be holding back in your life? Maybe deliverance? Maybe healing? Maybe being set free? Maybe restoration? I mean, you name it. God can resist the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. So the worship team's gonna come up and I'm gonna close in prayer right now with a very specific prayer. God, I pray that You would show us what true biblical humility looks like. God, what does it really mean to humble ourselves before our spouse, before others, to put them first? Lord, and I pray that the hardness of the hearts that are in this room, Lord, even including mine, if hardnesses is crept in, that we would leave it here tonight. We would bring it to this altar. We would pray that our marriages are strengthened and that the enemy will not win. What he is trying to divide, You would unite. Where he's sowing discord among us, You would begin to bring unity and harmony, all because of the wonderful word humility and submission to You. And not resisting us, but actually showering us with Your grace. And we pray this in Jesus' precious name. Amen, amen. ♪ This is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ This is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ Your holy presence ♪ ♪ Living in me ♪ ♪ This is my daily bread ♪ ♪ This is my daily bread ♪ ♪ Your very word spoken to me ♪ ♪ And I, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You ♪ ♪ This is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ This is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ Your holy presence ♪ ♪ Living in me ♪ ♪ This is my daily bread ♪ ♪ This is my daily bread ♪ ♪ Your very word spoken to me ♪ ♪ And I, I'm desperate for You, Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, without You Jesus ♪ ♪ And I, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, oh I'm lost without You ♪ ♪ Jesus, I'm lost without You ♪ ♪ And I'm desperate for You Jesus, oh I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ I'm desperate for You Lord, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ So lost without You, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ Sing and I, and I, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, lost without You, lost without You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm desperate for You, for only You, sing and I ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, this is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ This is the air I breathe, this is the air I breathe ♪ ♪ Lord, You're very well spoken to me ♪ ♪ This is my daily bread, this is my daily bread, oh Lord ♪ ♪ You're very well spoken to me ♪ ♪ And I, I'm desperate for You, and I, I'm desperate for You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, one more time, one more time ♪ ♪ And I, I'm so lost, I'm desperate for You, so desperate for You, so lost without You ♪ ♪ And I, I'm lost without You, I'm lost without You, lost without You ♪ ♪ If all I have is You, I have all I need, oh I have all I need in You, Jesus ♪ ♪ I have all I need in You, Jesus ♪ ♪ You're all I need, You're all I need, You fulfill the deepest longing, Jesus, Jesus ♪