Pride Goes Before Destruction | Proverbs 16:18

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Well, good morning, South. Good morning, Nathan. Thank you, Heather. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Nathan. I have the pleasure of working here with our students. Today we are continuing our series in the book of Proverbs. We’re gonna be in Proverbs chapter 16 today. But before we jump in, let me pray over our time again, and especially for my heart as we step into this.

Father Would you remind us of your presence?

Would you show us something new about you today? God, would you speak during this time? Would you transform each and every one of us? Would you change our hearts from the inside out? Would you change where we put our focus and where we put our attention? We thank you for your goodness and your love and your mercy that you’ve given to us time and time again.

In Jesus’ name. Amen. This week marks the beginning of a new school year. Sorry to remind you guys but it’s the beginning of a new school year, which means a time of transition for the kids and the students here at South. Maybe that means transitioning to a new classroom, maybe a new teacher, maybe some new classmates, some new friends that you can meet, maybe even a new school.

All that transition can be very exciting or very nerve-wracking, maybe a little bit of both. For me, my eighth grade year, I attended a school that had about 50 people per grade. My ninth grade year, I attended a school that had about 500 people per grade. This was a big transition, but one that I was very much excited for, mostly ’cause I didn’t have to wear uniforms anymore but also because there were different clubs and activities that I could take part in.

My high school had this club called The Spear that I really wanted to join. It was a sports journalism club where we would write articles for the school online newspaper, and then we would also broadcast a lot of the sporting events. At the time, I wanted to go into sports journalism for a career, so this was super interesting to me.

I really wanted to join The Spear, so I did, and I had to figure out, what am I gonna write articles about? Now, that year was a particularly contentious presidential election, as if most of them aren’t contentious. And I thought to myself, “You know who everyone wants to hear politics from? You know who the people really trust, the people who they need to hear from this individual?

You know who that is? 15-year-old freshman in high school, Nathan Holmes.”

So I wrote a political column that I titled Presenting the Whole Election, as if I really knew more of what’s going on in this election than anybody else. And so I wrote these articles and as I wrote it, I said a lot of controversial statements, a lot of statements that at the time I wholeheartedly believed in, but ones that now I reflect back on and am thankful they no longer exist on the internet.

But I wrote these things down ’cause I thought I was 100% accurate, did not miss at all. Everything I said was right, and everybody needed to believe everything that I said. Later in the school year, a couple of seniors, including one of the seniors in charge of the entire club, wrote an article called Discussions for Change, Volume One.

They wanted to make this a series about some of the systemic issues they saw here in America, things that they wanted to be changed. Now, as I reflect on some of the points they brought up, they made a lot of interesting points. It’s at least worth a conversation, at least worth a discussion, but 15-year-old freshman Nathan did not like what these two seniors wrote.

So did I mind my business and keep my mouth shut? No. That would’ve been the wise thing to do. But no, instead I wrote an article in response, and I thought I tore apart everything they said, bashed their opinions, showed that I was so much smarter than them, that they knew nothing and that I knew everything.

This brings us to our proverb for today, Proverbs 16 verse 18: “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Now what we see in this proverb is that pride goes before destruction. I was very clearly living in pride. I was very full of myself. I could do nothing wrong except for most of the things I did.

But at the time, I thought I could do nothing wrong, and that pride goes before destruction, so naturally, what destruction did I face? Did these seniors kick me out of the club? Did they throw me in a locker? Did they treat me poorly? Did they call me names? Did I lose friends? I’m seeing some nods over here.

I could have benefited from some of that maybe, but that’s not what happened. I actually didn’t face any destruction at all from them. They took down their article and had no response. Something we’ve said throughout this series is that proverbs are short, pithy sayings. They’re memorable sayings.

Last week, Dan said they were dense sayings about how the world generally works. They are principles, not promises. So most of the time, pride does go before destruction, and a haughty spirit does go before a fall. But occasionally, we get away with our own pride. I got away with my own pride, and you may be wondering, how did I get away from this mistreatment from the seniors?

I was not the only person from my family attending the school. I had an older sister who was a senior, and all those senior boys wanted to date my older sister So if they were nice to me, maybe I’d put in a good word with her, and they’d have a chance. They were unsuccessful. But this proverb, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall,” it’s likely one you’ve heard before.

Maybe you’ve quoted it to someone. Maybe it’s been quoted to you. What does this proverb mean? There’s four terms we see here: pride, destruction, a haughty spirit, and a fall. This is actually parallelism. We see this throughout Hebrew poetry. Parallelism is connections. So you see connections either in theme or in grammar throughout the Psalms, throughout Proverbs, throughout Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, even in the Book of Job.

And so here we’re seeing connections in theme. Not so much in the Hebrew grammar, but this also isn’t in Hebrew, so that wouldn’t benefit us much. But in the theme, we’re seeing a lotta connections. Pride and a haughty spirit are very similar, and then destruction and a fall are very similar, and we’re supposed to link the two together.

Essentially, that is a long way of me saying it’s saying the same thing twice. It’s saying pride goes before destruction, pride goes before destruction, just in a slightly different way. Now, typically when we define pride, don’t write this down, but typically when we define pride, we define it as thinking too highly of oneself.

I don’t hate the definition. I just wanna tweak it a little bit. So let’s define pride as thinking improperly of oneself. I’ll explain why I’m making that tweak here in a bit. But pride is thinking improperly of oneself. So if pride is thinking improperly of oneself, that goes before destruction. So what is this destruction?

I have it defined using a quote on a mug that Theresa sent me. “If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.” Destruction is the consequences of our prideful actions. It’s the natural course of our actions that when we do this, then it leads to this. Now, I didn’t face any destruction from those two seniors, but I did encounter plenty of destruction elsewhere in my life.

Because I was so full of myself, because I thought I was always right and I never did anything wrong, I would start a lot of arguments with a lot of people. Now, however many arguments you think I started, think more and you’re probably closer. And so I would start arguments with all my family and all of my friends, and you know what’s a great way to put a strain on a relationship?

To constantly argue with them. And so I had a lot of strained familial relationships, and I lost a lot of friends because I was so full of myself because my pride went before my own destruction. We see this destruction being the consequences of our prideful actions throughout the Bible. Specifically, there’s a man named Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel, and this guy, as we like to call him in student ministry, Nebby Chad, he has a lot of pride.

He’s very full of himself. And in Daniel Chapter 2, he has this dream. He’s the king of Babylon. This is the biggest empire in all of the world at the time, and he’s that guy. Everybody looks at him and they’re like, “Man, Nebuchadnezzar’s the best. He’s the coolest.” Everyone wants to be like him.

And so he’s very full of himself, and he has this dream about a statue with four different elements to it, and Daniel interprets it and tells him, “Hey, there are gonna be three other nations after you. There are gonna be three other empires after you. You’re just one of the many empires.” Kinda putting him in his place.

And you would think that would show him, “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t be so full of myself. Maybe I’m not that guy.” You would think that he would learn and wouldn’t need to be retaught this lesson. But just like us, Nebuchadnezzar is a human and often needs to learn the same thing 17 and a half times, maybe more, maybe 18, before he actually learns it.

So Nebuchadnezzar then builds a gold statue of himself. He has people make this very large statue and tells the people, “Hey, bow down and worship this statue of me.” Now, of course, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not chill with this idea, so he threw them in a fiery furnace. Natural reaction, god saved them from this moment, and you would think that this would teach Nebuchadnezzar his lesson, and he would say, “You know what?

I’m not that guy. God is the one worth worshiping, and I shouldn’t have the people worship me.” You would think that he would learn humility. But just like us, Nebuchadnezzar takes a little bit of a while to learn. So he’s again very full of himself in Daniel chapter four, and God says, “Okay, here’s how this is gonna work.

I’m gonna make you like a cow.” Not like a magic trick where he turns him into a cow, zippity-zap-zop or whatever. Instead, he’s gonna make him like a cow. He is going to be out in the fields eating grass for years, and that is how he’s gonna survive. And so Nebuchadnezzar, for seven years, spends his time eating grass out in the field like an ox or like a cow, and he actually learns his lesson this time.

He says at the end of Daniel chapter four, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just.” How many of his ways? Let’s try that again. How many of his ways? All. There we go. Thank you. And those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.

So Nebuchadnezzar, by the end of his reign, by the end of his time, we see that he has learned humility. He has learned his place. And we talk about humility whenever we talk about pride. But what really is that? What is humility? We get a little bit of a hint in the proverb right after the one that we read.

We see pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud. Again, we see these connections in theme. A haughty spirit to now lowly in spirit. Instead, they’re contrasting this time. So he’s saying it’s better to be lowly in spirit.

So I’m supposed to be lowly in spirit, then, in order to be humble. Does that mean I just think lowly of myself or think poorly of myself? Is that what humility is? Paul says in Romans 12, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.”

What is sober judgment? If thinking too highly is right here, is sober judgment here there? I don’t know where sober judgment is. He continues on later in the chapter, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position.” So associate with people down here, so I need to think of myself as down here, right?

I need to think lowly of myself, right? He says in Philippians, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves.” So I’m supposed to say others are up here and I’m down here. I’m supposed to think of myself poorly, right? I hope you’re sensing a little bit of sarcasm in my voice.

In Matthew and in several times actually in, in the Bible, Jesus is asked, “What is the greatest commandment out of them all?” And he says, “I’ll give you two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. Is– And the second is like it.

Love your neighbor,” what? “Yourself.” “As yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” So we’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourself. That means that we’re not supposed to necessarily think of ourselves poorly, right? Every time I’ve taught this passage to students, I get the same question.

It’s a new student each time. Maybe it’s multiple students. But this question gets asked without fail every single time. What if I don’t love myself? What if I don’t love myself? I shared with you that when I was in high school, I thought way too highly of myself. But at the same time, I had no self-esteem.

I wouldn’t dare talk to a girl that I was interested in because I couldn’t fathom that somebody could actually care for me, that somebody could actually like me or even dare love me for who I was. I hated myself. I was one of these students asking this question, “What if I don’t love myself?” So humility can’t be thinking poorly of oneself, because I did that, and I was not humble.

Still am not most of the time . Try to work on it, jesus, when he’s asked Jesus at the beginning of his ministry he gets baptized, and as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Jesus is told right at the beginning of his ministry, “This is who you are. You are the Son of God.” And he already knew that, but the people needed to know that, and he knew who he was. Jesus didn’t think poorly of himself.

He knew, “I am the Son of God. I am loved, and God is well pleased with me.” Throughout his ministry, he would say time and time again that he was the Son of God, and that’s what people had beef with. That was their problem. They said, “That is blasphemy.” And at one point, the Pharisees pull him aside, and they accuse him of blasphemy.

And Jesus says in response, “Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy? Because I said, ‘I am God’s Son?’ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.” So Jesus knows who he is. Jesus is not questioning if he is the Son of God. He’s not thinking lowly of himself. But Jesus was completely humble. Jesus didn’t think poorly of himself, and yet Jesus was completely humble.

If we come back to Philippians chapter two, there’s a whole section on Jesus’ humility and on what it looks like for Jesus to be humble, and right before that it says this: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,” we read this before, “not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

So he’s saying your focus should not be on your own interests. Your focus should be on the interests of others, on the needs of others. C.S. Lewis once said, “Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man, he will be what most people call humble nowadays. He will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person who’s always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.”

So it’s not gonna be someone who thinks super lowly of themselves Per- probably all you’ll think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. He will not be thinking about humility. He will not be thinking about himself at all. This idea was later summarized by other authors as this: true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.

It’s hard to remember that correctly, because the words are just shifted around, but the two are very different things. When we are thinking less of ourselves, we are thinking poorly about ourselves, we are thinking lowly of ourselves, we’re thinking improperly of ourselves. But when we are thinking of ourselves less, that means we’re just not thinking about ourselves.

Our focus and our attention is not on us, it is on others. Tim Keller once said, “A truly humble gospel– gospel humble person is not a self-hating person or a self-loving person, but a self-forgetful person.” So it’s not someone who thinks too lowly of themselves, and a self-loving person is someone who’s obsessed with themselves.

Like Narcissus just staring in his reflection, “Oh, I’m so perfect. I have no flaws. I do everything right. I love myself.” Now again, we’re called to love ourselves. It said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” But that’s different. That is a self-obsession. Earlier, I said that pride was thinking improperly of oneself.

And when we’re thinking improperly of ourselves, we think about ourselves all the time. We play this comparison game where we say, “Oh, I’m so much better than them. Look at how they are in their job. I do it so much better than they do. Look at how they parent. Look at how they are with their siblings or their friends.

I’m so much smarter than them, so much better than them. Stronger, I’m faster, I’m better, I’m smarter.” We say, “Oh, I’m so much higher than them.” The focus is all about me. Me. I’m this, I’m that, I’m this. But when we flip it around, we compare the other way as well. “Look at the way they are with their kids.

The kids are so obedient, and they’re so loving and kind. I’m a terrible parent. Nobody could love me. I make all the wrong choices. Everything I do is terrible. I am unworthy. I’m unlovable. I’m not good at my job. I’m a terrible person.” Where’s the focus? Me. That’s pride. Because it’s all about me My focus, my attention, my thinking, it’s all centered on myself.

Jesus was humble because he wasn’t focused on himself. Early on in his ministry, there’s a wedding that he attends. And on the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

Now, a wedding festival for them would last a week, so this is a big deal to run out of wine on day three. They are very clearly unprepared for this festival, and that is a big point of shame in this community. This couple is really not in a good spot. And Mary looks to Jesus and says, “They have no more wine.”

He wasn’t in charge of the wine, so I don’t know why you’re telling him. But she gives him, the mom look, like- … you’re gonna do it And so he responds to her, “Woman, why do you involve me?” Now, he’s not referring to his mother derogatorily. This was a common way of referring to someone back then, and so I don’t want us to get hung up there.

But he says, “Why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus knows that the second he does this miracle, all the attention shifts to him. Nobody’s thinking about the couple getting married. You notice their names are not written down in the story. The focus is no longer on this celebration of this marriage.

It’s now all on Jesus, because they’re gonna say, “There was no more wine, and now there’s a whole bunch of wine. How did that happen? I didn’t see them stop at a store on the way here or anything.” And so Jesus says, “My hour has not yet come,” because this isn’t about him. He’s there to celebrate this couple.

And he performs the miracle out of a, a moment of honoring his mother’s wishes and his mother’s command, but Jesus wasn’t thinking about himself in this moment. He was thinking about the couple celebrating their wedding. Jesus knew who he was, but he thought about others more often than he did about himself.

He wasn’t focused on himself. He was focused on others. He wasn’t thinking too highly or too lowly of himself, but he was thinking just rightly. He knew who he was. He was just thinking about others more often than he thought about himself. In the story of Goldilocks, this young girl, this child decides, “Hey, I’m gonna break and enter into somebody’s home.”

Where are her parents? I do not know. I didn’t write the story. But she decides, “I’m gonna break into a home owned by three bears.” How do three bears own a home? I don’t know. Do they have Social Security numbers? How did that mortgage work? I don’t know. I didn’t write the story. But she breaks into this house, and she’s hungry.

There’s three bowls of porridge on the table, so she goes to Papa Bear’s bowl, and it’s too hot. Too hot. Goes to Mama Bear’s bowl. Too cold. But Baby Bear’s bowl, just She’s tired and she wants to go sit down, so she goes to Papa Bear’s chair and it’s too firm. Too firm. Mama Bear’s chair, too soft.

Too soft. But Baby Bear’s chair, just right. The invitation today that I have for us is not to think too highly or too lowly of ourselves, but to think just rightly, and then to stop thinking about ourselves. This invitation is called confident humility. Confident humility. It’s described by Dr. Adam Grant this way: “Confidence and humility are often seen as opposites, but if you reflect on the leaders you admire most, chances are that they embody both of these qualities in tandem.

I call it confident humility. Confident humility is being secure enough in your expertise and strengths to admit your ignorance and weaknesses.” So confident humility is recognizing, hey, this is an area where I thrive, where I love to serve, where I love to work, what I do. I love to engage in this.

And I’m confident enough to say, “Hey, I thrive and I do well here,” to tell you that I suck at that. That is an area that if I touch it, it’s gonna go poorly, that is not something that you want me a part of. It’s recognizing our strengths and our expertise and also recognizing our ignorance and our weaknesses and our areas of growth.

So I’ve broken this term confident humility down into four points. This first one, know who you are. Someone living in confident humility knows their strengths and their weaknesses. They know who they are. On the screen are a few different tests that you can take to learn a little bit more about yourself.

These are not tests to learn facts about yourself. I would hope that facts about yourself, that how old you are, where you’re born, different– what– however you spend your days. I would hope that you know that about yourself but these are personality tests. These help you learn more about what makes you tick, about the things that you really love and the things that you really don’t love.

The Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs, the DiSC assessment, StrengthsFinder. You can take a lot of spiritual gifts tests online. I would encourage you to engage with one of these if you haven’t already. Learn a little bit more about who you are. Ask a family member or a friend, or hopefully multiple family members and friends, “Hey, what is it about me where I really thrive?”

What do I love to do? What do you see in me where you go, “Yeah, that is God working in and through you”? What’s a fruit of the Spirit that you see in me that I really engage with well? Learn about who you are. Look up Bible verses that, that talk about who you are, about your identity in God, like the song Who You Say I Am that we sang earlier.

Learn more about who you are. But while you learn about who you are, you also have to learn who you are not. Because if we only learn who we are, then we tend to maybe add some other things in there that it’s oh yeah, I am this and I am that and I can do these things, and that is not always true. Ask a family member or a friend not only, “Hey, where do I really thrive?”

But, “Hey, what’s something that I maybe think that I’m good at that I’m not?” Ask a friend, “Hey, what’s a fruit of the spirit that I could really grow in, that I really could benefit from asking God for some help here?” What are some areas of life where you would like to see growth and encouragement and change from me?

The Hebrew word to know is yada. Aaron mentioned this word a few weeks ago. That the God of the universe knows every teensy little thing about you. That He knows all of the really good things that you’ve done, all the ways that you’ve made someone smile. He knows your whole life’s journey, all the things that you look back on.

He knows all of why the lights are being this way But God knows everything about you. He knows all the really good things, and He knows all the really terrible things. He knows all the areas of life where you’ve maybe assumed that you knew what you were doing and you clearly did not. He knows all the mistakes you’ve made, all the mistakes you will ever make.

He knows all the people you’ve hurt, all the ways you’ve made them cry. He knows all the things you’ve done that have grieved Him and others, and He loves you

The God of the universe knows everything about you, and he loves you And if the God who created you says that you are lovable and he has given you love, who are you to say otherwise? Do you have higher standards than God? That’s what I told God when I was in high school, “God, I know that you love me, but I have higher standards than you.

I can’t love myself.” But the God of the universe, who knows everything about me, he loves me, and he calls me to love who I am. So love who you are. And as you come to know who you are and to know who are– who you are not, to know all the areas where you really thrive and the areas where you do not, he calls you to love who you are.

Paul gives this analogy in 1 Corinthians of the church being the human body. He says this, “Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

Each and every one of us serves a purpose, and we each have value to the South community, to your family, to your friends, to the people that you live life with. Not all of it. You’re not the entire human body. You are a human body, but in this analogy, you’re not the entire body, but you serve a purpose.

Because I’m not a hand, I do not belong to the body. Feet are vital. Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body. Well, ears are important. Each and every one of you is important, and you serve a purpose in the kingdom of God. And what happens is either we don’t think that we serve that purpose, or we think we serve too much of that purpose.

We think we do more things there than what is actually true. This is something that I wrestle with. I like to think that I have a lot more giftings than I actually do. I especially like to think that I’m a handyman and that I can fix all sorts of things In reality, YouTube bails me out. But recently, we had these lights in the student center that for years we had these four-foot twos that whenever they would get hit by a ball, which happens more often than you would want it to, they would fall down and shatter, and there would be glass everywhere.

And it was something we just dealt with for years. We didn’t like it, but it would take a lot of work to change out the fixtures, and we didn’t even know if it was possible. And one day I said, “I have had enough. I’m gonna change these lights.” Now, wisdom would tell you that we have a facility manager here at South named Mel, who’s wonderful, and he knows how to do this, and I should talk to Mel and see if he can help me.

Wisdom would also tell you that we have someone here at South named Lee, who’s a licensed electrician, who knows how to do this, and I should ask him for help. But I said, “No, I got this.” “I know what I’m doing.” I did not know who I was not. I said, “I am the eye and the foot and the hand and all the things.” So after an embarrassing amount of trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s and all the home department stores, I successfully got lights that did not work how we wanted them to and put them up not according to the proper codes, and all of it had to be redone My pride led to destruction in that moment, the destruction being everything had to be redone.

So we do have to know who we are not. We cannot think that we are the entire parts of the body here, but we serve a purpose. And as you come to know who you are, to know who you are not, and as you learn to love who you are, to love the person that God created, what you find is that as you start to think just rightly about yourself, you s- tend to stop thinking about yourselves.

When we think just rightly about ourselves, we end up not thinking about ourselves at all. It’s a lot like your stomach or really any of your organs. When they operate as they should, you don’t think about them. They’re just doing their thing. They’re doing what they’re supposed to. When your stomach is processing food as it’s supposed to, you don’t think about what it’s doing ’cause it’s just taking food in and leading it out the right direction, and everything is as it should be.

But when your stomach is off, that’s all you can think about because something is clearly digesting way too fast or way too slow or in the wrong direction or something is up. And it becomes something that you think about all the time. When we think too highly about ourselves, we think about us all the time because something is off.

Something is not right. When we think too lowly about ourselves, we think about ourselves all the time because something is off. Something is just not right. But when we think just rightly about ourselves, when we know who we are, when we know who we are not, and when we love who we are, we don’t need to think about ourselves.

We don’t need to play the comparison game ’cause I know who I am. I know who I am not. And I love who I am And so as we come to know who we are, to know who we are not, and to love who we are, we’re called to not think about ourselves. We’re called instead to love our neighbors. As I invite the worship team back up to close, Booker T.

Washington once said that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. The life of joy, the life of humility, the life of confident humility is the life who knows who they are, the life who knows who they are not, the person who loves who they are, and the person who loves their neighbor as they love themselves.

The worship team’s gonna play a song in a moment. This is a song that you may have heard before. It’s new here to the South community though. But this song is a reflective song about the things that matter. It calls us to take our mind off of ourselves and instead put our mind on others, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Because as we come to know who we are, as we come to know who we are not, and as we come to love who we are, we’re not called to stay self-obsessed. We’re not called to think about ourselves. We’re called to live for our neighbors. We’re called to love our neighbors, to put their interests above ours. We’re called to the things that matter.

Let’s reflect.