Today we begin our annual Summer Sermon Series. Instead of looking at a particular passage verse-by-verse, as we usually do, we’ll take the months of June, July, and August to consider what the Bible says about a particular topic.

Our topic this summer is sins of the spirit. We’ll be considering common sins that affect our attitudes, our thoughts,  and our feelings. These are internal sins that often influence our behavior. Sins of the spirit may be happening internally without any evidence externally. Our behavior may be perfectly acceptable, all the while our hearts are corrupt, twisted, and diseased. We may be sitting in church, doing nothing sinful physically, yet in our minds, we may be committing horrible sins.

Controlling our behavior is often difficult, but it’s a lot easier than controlling our inner thoughts and feelings. Sins of the spirit are some of the most difficult sins to overcome. And yet we must strive to do so.

2 Corinthians 10:5  casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

As we consider these sins of the spirit, our goal should be that we evaluate our own hearts to see if we are guilty of these sins, and if so, we must seek to eliminate them from our lives. As with all sins, our hope and trust is in Christ to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Faith in Christ breaks the power of sin for believers. Jesus died to forgive these sins and to give us victory over them. God’s grace enables us to overcome these sins, and we should be striving to do so. We may be guilty of these sins, and we should be making efforts to reduce and eliminate such sins from our lives.

What are some sins of the spirit? We’re talking about sins like:

Pride, jealousy, judgmentalism, bitterness, unrighteous anger, greed, hypocrisy, blame-shifting, foolishness, laziness, pleasure-seeking, anxiety, discontentment, unthankfulness, lack of self-control, superficiality, impatience, irritability, and worldliness. We won’t get through this whole list this summer, but we’ll explore a good number of them—I hope about 12 or 13 of them before the end of the summer.

The goal in these messages is not merely to make us feel bad about our sins and failures. The goal is godliness, increased sanctification. The goal is that we are sensitive to these sins and recognize them when they appear in our own lives. If we are guilty of them, we must repent and seek to change. We must trust in the Lord to forgive us for these sins, and we must make every effort to overcome them and eliminate them from our lives.

I hope as we look at these sins, each one of us will be sensitive and introspective to see which ones apply to us.

And we’ll begin with the mother of all sins, the most deadly of all the deadly sins: PRIDE

Maybe you’ve seen those bumper stickers on cars that say “Proud parent of an honor roll student” or “The few, the proud, the Marines.” Around Independence Day, we hear the song “I’m proud to be an American.” We have pride in our country, our children, our soldiers, our homes, our cars, our careers, our achievements, and ourselves. We hardly give it a second thought; pride is ingrained within the human heart. We often think of pride as a good thing. Sign—“Proud dairy family”

Although it is seldom identified or even mentioned as sin in our world today, the Bible repeatedly condemns pride and warns us about all the negative results which flow from it.

Let’s consider what the Bible tells us about the sin of pride.