Build the Future Ep #3
by Raymond Sloan
June 15, 2022 · Cornerstone Apostolic Church (Chattanooga, TN)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Luke 14:7-11, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/raymond-sloan--build-the-future-ep-3
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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so good to see all of you out tonight honored that you're here we are building for the future again i'll back up this is if anybody has not or or still is please this is a great resource great resource all right listen pastor i don't i know that there's a lot of things that you can read and watch and there's probably a billion and eight podcasts and 40 million books you could read but this one i highly recommend trying to help you trying to help you okay it's worth the investment all right the next i bought another one we'll start pretty soon on basic economics by thomas sowell it's a 840 page book well i'm joking i did buy that book but not for here but anyway anybody have this reading it is it whipping you or what it's pretty good yeah okay keep reading keep reading until you finish it all right uh i need some help um come on buddy come on come on you can help pins and papers up here we are on lesson three the first one does anybody recall oh you said that so cynically yeah it was cynical cynicism what does that mean somebody not sin is in them but cynicism what does it mean yeah don't trust folk no confidence in folks that about right okay that's a good definite last week what'd we talk about compromise yeah last week was compromise i noticed that some of you left out of here hobbling i did i know tonight it will be worse tonight's lesson is on pride and not 2022 news media pride remove that okay is that all right everybody good with that all right we got enough papers guys handouts if not you'll have to share with somebody around you okay we are the the real quickly these are seven things you didn't see coming but it happens to everybody becoming a cynic uh compromising on things pride is an incredibly powerful thing that can overwhelm overrun if you will thank you gentlemen um and you'll find out tonight in our lesson that uh you can learn a whole lot about pride jesus understood pride there's a lot of great biblical stories and references concerning pride let's begin tonight with bible is that okay thank you all right uh luke 14 luke 14 verse number seven ethan you got that buddy on your paper stand as loud as you can with your outside voice read that for me please stand and read it for me can you see it very good listen up guys hold on a second y'all following everybody got it luke 14 verse 7. go wait a minute everybody here trying to give you confidence loud man go that when he that obeys he cometh he may say unto thee friend go up higher thank you ethan this this is a familiar so notice on your screen that the letters are in red which indicates in the king james what most likely this would have come from the mouth of christ okay from jesus i i if you read the whole context of luke 14 you'll notice here that jesus is spending an incredible amount of time with his followers trying to help them to understand the let's say this way the power of power okay and in this parable give me just a moment before we go through through ten here in this parable the the idea here is if you are invited to a wedding he uses that as the scenario this could be any event agreed and and you think that when you walk in the door that you deserve to sit in the high place and you head that direction and sit down here's the question number one do you really think that you deserve the high place and if you do think that you deserve the high place that is a clear indication of what attitude pride well okay let's say maybe it's that you think that you're all of that in a box of cracker jacks that you have technically arrived and everybody should think of you in a certain way is that that's basically pride wow i just said it another way i was trying to clarify it for all of us because if you in your brain in your heart and yourself thank you to be more than you are and you go sit in the high place and the the one who put together this feast this wedding this ceremony whatever it is comes to you what is he going to say if he doesn't have room for you in that high place excuse me sir what are you doing who do you think you are you need to get up that chair is not yours you need to go and sit down there in the low part i've got this one already called for you in this story you see it they're supposed to sit here now who's embarrassed you and who probably the host and probably if it's a wedding the bride and then the groom and probably if it's the wedding and the bride in the groom and then her family and all and everybody's going oh he thought he was all that why didn't you sit down there what's that i mean for weeks after this event what's everybody going to be doing in the market am i right everybody say pride are you too proud to say pride pride the story here the evidence that is here is what when you go into this ceremony wedding whatever it is you instead of going to the high place go to the low place you position yourself in the place that you can enjoy the ceremony is that simple enough but in the event that you sit in the low place and the one who is hosting this celebration comes to you and says hey uh you're logan why are you down here come up thither sit in the high part now what happened to the same scenario what just transpired so you gather up with all you fake humility and whale i suppose i can if i me honey i'm gonna go sit up here oh she come oh you know what i'm saying here's the thing if the one who puts that together that's the host bids you to come to another higher location something has just transpired you now have risen above anybody else's expectations but you did not do that who did the host did that now in the market what are they going to say about you aren't you the one you must be oh wow yeah you got to sit what was it like to sit up there huh what was it like to sit up there with dakota i mean it must have been something else well not you it's another dakota i'm just happy to use that name okay here's the question number one what do you think of what comes into your brain when you hear the word pride huh go ahead i can hear you go ahead arrogance wow there's a big word that we use often anyone else puffed up self-praise sure what else anybody anybody proud that that you're so humble that you're you're pretty proud full of your humility and you know i'm very humble person praise my holy name when you think when you think of the word pride it kind of puts a taste in your mouth kinda now is there a right kind of pride is there what is that godly pride okay we just wait we just went there yeah we did what is godly pride we'll call it that what would that be we'll call it righteous pride how's that what is that okay yeah and you're proud of that how about proud of your children or grandchildren is that okay it depends on what i mean all of us are like yeah i'm proud of my kids and then you're like whoa i don't to what degree and then you've got this gray area you're like i'm i'm proud i'm proud that my children are very humble um it just doesn't fit so pride helped me now tonight pride is one of those things that we have a very challenging opportunity to explain how do you explain being proud to your kids they just want a baseball game or they just they just won the the here we go they just won the uh the bible quiz tournament now how are they supposed to respond but prideful everybody in here is just freaking out right now i don't i don't know if i need to be happy prideful glad or humble or you're just not sure christian how did it feel oh never mind i was going to say when you won the bible quiz tournament i didn't i was asking a question it felt real good right that when you answered that's right now here's the point here's the point we all have a challenging difficulty with pride and there's no one in here that wants to talk about pride but you can all define pride good and bad right and wrong i think it's okay to be proud of your children to the degree that you can help them but if it ever raises them above then what have you done now you've made a creature you've made issues cannot cannot can i be corrected 2022 to say not everyone is a winner everybody may deserve a trophy but not everybody gets a trophy it's just an example stay with me number two what does pride mean to you and why does it mean that what is pride to you is it okay in your mind have you settled the fact that you can be proud of some things you just have to put guards up you have to guard yourself you got to consider if i'm not using the example in luke 14 you have to consider where you're going to go sit that okay you got to consider what's going on now when you're trying to teach your children a lesson on pride how do you do that i mean really how do you teach your children about pride humiliate them is that what you said humble them humble them humiliate them say that's what i said oh you know they said i mean boy if you're humiliated what happens to pride am i right of course again we're in 2022. now you can raise up as a victim and become more proud of the fact that you were hurt and now you can overcome it and then the movie's made over you see all that kind of can i'm going to make that up but we all have an understanding of pride and what it means hang on to me for just a moment here do you ever feel as you as if you deserve more than you have received or have you ever felt as though someone has taken advantage of you have you ever felt as if you deserve more this is something that we all challenge ourselves with for an example uh any uh newlyweds in here been married less than a year let's see okay yeah okay very good um how what size house do you live in presently ethan little two-bedroom with a bath living kitcheny parking thing is that about right okay are you going to live there your whole life why not you're going to run out of space so what is that then don't put anything else in it okay here we go when you're newly married for i'm using that as an example only you got to tolerate a whole lot of things you can't start out as newlyweds of having everything that your parents have you can't although you can own a home and you can maybe even be better off than your parents the fact is that if you feel that you deserve it then we have what we call in our generation an entitlement generation and if you feel entitled to it then what what's going to happen now some of y'all are like get me up there hand me the mic i mean you may have met these folk on your job or or you may have met these folk in a store or in a in a group or something or in a ball game or something because listen to me carefully there is nothing i want y'all to hear me for a second there is nothing wrong with teaching your children to work hard work for what they get nothing wrong with that listen to me if you can teach your children to work hard gather their check lay on their bed at night knowing they worked and they can close their eyes and they can say you know what that's a good feeling i don't know that i'll ever forget buying my first pair of shoes with the money that i made from working man i cleaned them and wiped them and wore them and then cleaned them and wiped them and wore them and i was just like this is so cool i just paid eight dollars for my own shoes and they were new they were in a plastic bag called chuck taylors any old folk remember those yeah then when i was in in high school and got my real job making two dollars and ninety cents an hour i bought my first pair of spot builds those are the best shoes in the world i still talk about those my kids are looking at me like what are those and i tell them it's the greatest shoe ever built because i bought them with my own money and then i went to camp with them and i was so say it proud of them that i wouldn't even play ball y'all know i can't play no no i i can't i can't get out there what these what you gonna ask me about these i mean i'm talking about that's like when a kid when stephen used to get new shoes man it was the funniest thing to watch they run faster shoes watch me dad well that looks about the same as the last one no it's not of course you can't crush his dreams right sometimes we feel like we deserve things just because well just because everybody else has them have you ever been denied a job that you thought you deserved and then you see the person who got it you're like wait a minute i deserve this job they don't am i just talking about myself here stay with me a moment it we'll go into number four what is to you what is humiliation embarrassment what else humiliation or as brother naked the humbling of something what is humiliation what size that's all cruel being cut down to size that's what it means right it's his story in luke 14 is it not realizing the truth hurts realizing and pride begins to settle in and and what has anybody notice on your paper here i don't even have the verse about pride cometh well y'all know that one so nobody wants to fall you got to watch pride here's the fact though humiliation is a tool that many people use to check your pride y'all might get mad at me but i used to use i did i use this as a dad there's a lot of tools in my toolbox when i was raising my kids and humiliation was one of them you can't humiliate your kids you think i can't i go pick up my daughter with my pants up to here huh yo what's that going to do to her sister eunice what i'm talking about big old hat on or something my daughter's telling are you kidding i don't even know who ken esta all of a sudden you're going to go to spanish on me come on you may understand humiliation i do it on purpose i could whistle at her on a soccer field and she'd hear me a mile away and she didn't mind it out there but boy when it was concert for the girls choir and i'd whistle the same in a church and then she's like nobody else knew up there until they saw you go doing that that i'm your dad here's my point can you learn lessons with that does it hurt again i realize that in our current culture nobody deserves to be stand to stand out to be hurt to be mistreated everybody deserves a fair shake everybody deserves to be heard and i i know what our culture is doing listen to me i i i have to be careful here but i want you to understand what the spirit is saying in the scripture there will come a day when every single person that has ever breathed will stand before the judge and give an account now who is going to stand there at that moment it's called the great white throne judgment and who is going to say now wait a minute didn't i do and didn't i what's he going to say will you do you think for a moment you'll be humiliated there is it going to matter so we want to think that everybody deserves and everybody's entitled to and the fact the bible doesn't teach that at all in fact from the get-go in the beginning god created we've talked about this multiple times what did god do in the beginning once he created let there be fool now he went separated he distinctly made this and he distinctly made that oh don't let me get sidetracked today problem is is in our culture and our generation what's happening is they're trying to blur all of those distinctions to where it's just one melting pot and that's not the way god is there's a whole lot wheats and tears anybody heard those goats not cheese sheep huh there's a whole lot of things you can read about in the scripture that talks about this and that and how that separation was going to come that is not to say that he's going to simply be mean what does he do with us when he breathed life into adam what was he giving him it was giving him life and the ability to do what that's right to make a choice and so jesus here luke for example is saying look when you're invited to a wedding don't go to the high place go to the low place let the one of the wedding bring you up higher that will demonstrate the value that you have now again in our culture many of us don't truly understand the purpose and meaning of that but i'm telling you what god is trying to instruct us as friend is the power of becoming humble before the lord pride can sneak up on you yes it can it's one of those things for an example that the author writes about if you haven't read him reading both chapters on it's incredibly interesting how the humanity thinks a whole lot more of themselves i want to i want to make a couple of statements and you can you don't have to even look left or right you can look at me have you ever filled out a job application and kind of told the truth don't answer well unless you want to um um i've had people say come and help me on one of my jobs and then the next time that yeah i was telling him i i know how to do audio and video i go you empty boxes oh yeah but i was out there with you see okay what does this piece do um i got i'm gonna go get this phone call i'll be back i'm gonna answer i'm right but that's on their resume now i had one guy tell me i know how to make this and i went how do you know how to make that well i did them with you no you didn't you carried the boxes over here yeah but nobody else has to know that what was he doing to his pride here's i said man i hope you get that job yeah i do too pays good good because i know it's about to happen boom and then i can stand there and go yes you should have worked a little longer okay hang on to me man look here does gratitude number five does gratitude help you feel better or worse about your situation somebody tell me what what is gratitude thankfulness does it help you feel better or worse about your situation there's something that that again i read i try to read i try to comprehend things and a lot of the self-help there's a lot of self-help material out there you may notice that i often wonder who writes this do they have self-help are they like in a self-help committee and they like you know i wrote this you want to read it yeah can i read yours and they're all like passing i don't know trying to help one another but what happens in a self-help book is what they try to help you deal with things you're going through problems whatever and it's trying to shed light on things listen to me one of the greatest ways to overcome pride arrogance in your life is to simply pause and give thanks for what you have gratitude will change your spirit of pride i am telling you gratitude will war against pride not if you're standing there saying i'm so thankful i'm me and not you but when you begin to hey somebody listen to them carefully if you've never seen poverty you've only seen it on hollywood's version that's been edited and it's got a green screen background to kind of drop it in if you've never if you've never seen poverty and you think you're all of that i'd challenge you go look at poverty go walk amongst it it'll change everything about you those of you been on a mission field you understand i'm saying huh when you walk into a room and there's no food there's no sheets on a bed there's no bed they're sleeping on a blanket on the floor they don't have electricity no running water does anybody understand i'm saying have anybody ever seen that what does that do to you lord i'm thankful god i'm so thankful lord i'm so thankful there lauren over when she was in haiti i'll use her since she's not in here to defend herself um we went michelle and i went last year and sam we were there and the orphanage that they helped a lot it was amazing to watch those kids interact with each other they don't have even anything of family is that right sam no family but that we took them shoes and took some clothes and things to them and one of the most interesting things was how that a couple of the kids were actually helping the other kids try shoes on remember that and then there was other kids that were doing what they were complaining about the shoes these are these are like church shoes or something and that's what they were they were leather uh stride rights or whatever you know but that kind of shoe for for kids and a couple of them were like man these are old people's shoes and sam and i looking at one another like did i just hear what i thought i heard kids ain't got nothing to even rub together to call anything and all of a sudden they have value i deserve different than this am i right sam's first thing he said he of course they don't you know do english real well and my english is terrible so sam just did it in english and and he said you know what these kids need to do they need to go to a poor area and i went they don't get much more than this here's the point he was making you can be the poorest but still be prideful you know what i'm saying because that same day tell me i'm wrong that same day we took rice and food over to another orphanage and they were literally skin and bones sam said we need to bring that group of orphans over here and in my mind i'm seeing this contrast even in that environment i'm like lord this is just then a human nature in other words you have to work on your pride and it will sneak up on you and it will begin to drive you into places you did not intend to go and if you become ungrateful and unthankful i'm here to tell you friend pride is coming right next to you because if you literally think that you deserve more than what you have you just judged god you just judged god god evidently you don't know what i need you don't know enough to be able to take care of me and what's god going to say okay let's see what you got and now what are you gonna do now guess what's coming around the corner that holy spirit before understand this you better wake up in the morning with gratitude in your heart lord i am thankful i don't deserve i am thankful help me lord to have an attitude of thankfulness so that pride doesn't come pounding on my door trying to get in uncheck pride number six will blind you because you will feel better about yourself than others uncheck pride here's one for you then and it's for all of us if you will when you see somebody come into the church house even and they're they're they don't dress like you or they don't drive what you drive or they don't have an apparent they don't have the money that you have how do you reach out to that person is that a fair question do you instantly judge them this is i'll be honest this is something i have to continuously and constantly work on with me having been missionaries i don't i don't mind saying i've seen some ugly stuff and i could very quickly say man if they just try harder or if they and it might be that's all the answer is but who am i as the old folk used to say except for the grace of god i would be all worse off than they this came full circle to me one time my wife and i were in the dominican and we went out to one of the haitian villages they invited us to eat but we had already eaten so we were able to to kindly back away and when we got over to their little house it was half a core fourth the size of the stage was their house and she cooked outside under a piece of tin that was over her head with a fire and she offered us food i looked at michelle i said lord help me never complain about how food is fixed i even i even ate a bite or two of it i had to pray hard over it and i had to check myself because my my little tummy wouldn't do well with that kind of stuff don't look at me like that yours wouldn't either and only my wife went to a ladies thing there and she didn't want to embarrass anybody so she took the plate with her to get in the car to take the ladies that were riding with her home so she had a covered plate to take which was very kind and that mean that meant that pastor's wife invested in the missionary's wife and she just she was elated that michelle would take the plate and shell every intention of getting it home and throwing it away you don't know what you don't know it's fish they don't they're nowhere around water so you're like lo and behold in her mind she and i discussed it in her mind she's like it was so kind of her to send that with me but i don't know that i could eat it and these two or three other ladies are in the car with her she's taking them back to their little pueblo little community and she doesn't hear lauren lauren's back there but she doesn't hear her she looks in the mirror and lauren has eaten every bit of that food no we we laughed about that but michelle said baby the lord checked my spirit and prove to me he could take care of us through our daughter because she didn't have any limits or boundaries unchecked pride will blind you i'm asking you how do you keep your pride in check number seven i'm not i'm just i'm trying to teach my lesson do you ever struggle with jealousy pride produces an attitude of entitlement which produces jealousy and jealousy will destroy you jealousy will tie your hands behind your back and will remove the worship capability from your spirit listen carefully if you're jealous of somebody else because of what they've been asked to do or things that they're doing or places they're going or jobs they have or clothes they wear if you're jealous of that listen carefully it will gnaw a hole in your heart and every bit of gratitude and thankfulness will simply fade away jealousy will strike you down quickly now the interesting thing about jealousy is this when the bible talks about your god what does it call him a what a jealous god does anybody understand that concept why is it that god can be jealous but it's a danger for you and i it's what yeah okay but if god is jealous what does that term mean let's look at it real quickly i watch the clock what does it mean that god's a jealous god well i mean yeah that's right but by by a definition what does it mean that he's a jealous god does that mean he i didn't get that i don't know who they think i am everything you own is from god and if you're giving it to somebody else he looked at you and said the nerve you didn't do that that didn't come from you and now you're giving that praise you're not going to the house of god instead you're going there hmm you're mad at somebody i blessed in the church because you're not getting it or it's not wait a minute it is of his good reward that he gives and takes away but job said blessed why because job understood if he lost everything he had it did not come from the hand of the enemy it came from the finger of god do everything you've got to do to him don't take his life that's the only way job could ever have been approached by what was to befall him because god had already god had already qualified him have you considered my servant wow what a testimony god justify qualified him and instantly what does the enemy say yes but in other words i have lurked and i have slithered and i have crawled about trying to get to him and there's nothing i even tried to hit his pride i tried to hit his arrogance i tried to hit his energy i tried on all this and no he wasn't god's like that's because he serves me do you struggle with jealousy i'm asking you tonight you might want to do some soul searching number eight how do you deal here's a here's one how do you deal with other people's success how do you deal with other people's success their accomplishments how do you deal with that you're what do you or does it make you mad does it upset you again jesus knew the attitude of humanity and jesus was very clear about his parable there was a guy that had sheep one of them went astray he went found it brought it back and everybody rejoiced a lady had coins she dropped one while she was counting them in her house what'd she do lit a candle she swept everywhere then what on and on you can read these accounts that these parables these stories jesus has given and why is he giving them because he is trying to get people to understand look if you'll rejoice when they're rejoicing and you'll come up next to them and you'll help them when they're struggling you can accomplish more now here's the challenge here's the the challenge that we have as humans is don't we all have our own problems i mean there's probably not many in here that would say you know what i'm problem free philosophy kabooba gachata whatever they wanted right did i just tell them myself i don't know i read that on snap face but anyway the fact is the fact is is that all of us in here have those kinds of struggles you know sometimes we can become very indignant at people that have everything and yet they give away stuff to the poor to the needy and we're like well what are they trying to say you know i don't want to get political in here but it's always interesting when the when the the politics comes on the scene and they're they're having an election or there's a you know a debate or whatever and they always bring out how much that politician makes and how much they give and it's always funny that i hear one of these guys say you know what it's good to support and then they they go and they check their finances and one of them gave like 12 to a charity and and i'm sure it was a good twelve dollars the point is is that everybody begins to look on what you've given to decide or not whether you're a charitable person you know i've used this scenario a million times in my ministry it's always interesting how humans use the phrase man that guy will give you the shirt off his why is his goodness depending on his shirt now i know what we're trying to say is that he'll do for you but why does he need to do for you what if god's blessing him he's becoming successful do you deserve part of his success huh the the my what my mom dad used to talk about in the shopping center or in the grocery store right there at the checkout is all those tabloids and that's just great reading i i didn't i didn't realize that so many people were just messed up near death and i'm like they don't look near death well now yeah the artwork looks pretty how to lose 145 pounds in three days that's called surgery you can make a million and two dollars by just simply doing this and i'm going i've already done that look through your attic you may find something that's worth and i'm like i don't even have an addict okay here's my point we're all interested in the failures of others because it does what to you and i makes us what makes us feel better elevate ourselves well we're not as bad as they are oh i thought i had it bad you know the guy the guy he he only made 40 million dollars last year i can't believe it you know he made 40 mil my heart's broken for it well it's relative because the year before he made 620 million so you know what he's probably is sad we don't see it that way do we you know i'm trying not to get sidetracked here because my clock's running but it's very interesting how that we all live in seasons in our lives agreed we do we we have seasons of life uh some of us are empty nesters you know when people look for an example at the kind of car i drive it's a little white convertible out here they're like must be nice and i'm like you have four children where are you going to put them kids oh well now i'd say well then you you you get here you go you get to the place and then maybe you can i mean it's probably cheaper than yours but i'm judged by it years ago i had a sweet dear pastor's wife across the table at me and say to me i'd driven six hours to get to their church to help them with their building product program and she said pastor you don't understand where i'm coming from you drive a car you live in a house and i'm sitting there listening to her pastor's wife pastor's sitting there he's just shaking his head because of what she's saying i said you're right sis you're absolutely right i said i tell you what i reached in my pocket took out the keys to the truck and i slid them across the table to her and i said that truck is now yours take it she scooted him back she said i can't take your truck i said sure i want you to know you can have it she's looking at me pastor's looking at me i said do you want to know anything about the truck that you're going to be driving i'll be glad to share it with you so that you can tell people she just kind of went what do you mean she was very upset i said first of all the truck needs four new tires it's about twelve hundred dollars do you have that to put on them well no but you want my truck gasoline or fuel diesel is what it was is about six dollars a gallon do you have enough to put diesel fuel in it to drop well no i don't have that much money but you still want my truck and she sits back and she looks at me i said let me explain something to you do you know where this truck came from she said no sir i said evidently you did because you just judged me about my vehicle so i'm going to help you understand this there were thousands and thousands of teenagers across north america that had car washes bake cells walkathons they sold things they had they raised money for a program called sheaves for christ and with that money they donate money so that missionaries can have vehicles so that i can drive six hours to come up here and look you in the eye and say i love you and i'm glad you're here building a church and i came in the vehicle that they bought for me and she looked at me and she started shaking and crying and she slid the keys across she said i'm sorry i said no what you are is you're ungrateful she said how can you say that you see how i live and i said that's exactly right but if it weren't for god where would you live because in that church or homeless folk they don't even have a place they don't have a bridge to live under and i said look how better off you are than they should you be thankful for where you are and what god's done and help them she said pastor will you please take your truck back i said well i got to get home and i stood up and she was crying he was crying i went and hugged them both and i said i love you guys but if you ever ever can't celebrate with someone else's success you know what that's going to do to you the devil is going to stand here all day long and he's going to throw jabs at you and if you're not able to celebrate with someone else's blessings the enemy doesn't have to do anything but let you just talk and think and all this stuff be the lie just unfolds number nine is love still the most powerful force in your life what's the bible say about love it does what with fear those fear out cast out fear is love still in your life do you still love the things of god do you still love the mercies of god do you still love the patience the long-sufferingness of god do you still love the the fact that he still loves you does it still move you to just even imagine that he would allow you to come to church is anybody warm sitting in here aren't you thankful though that your roof over your head what if we had to lean to outside how many would have come to church yeah somebody the other day said hey why don't we just shut off the electricity and all that and see who come worship i tell you who'd come worship i'd be here i mean i sweat every sunday in the air out of the air it'll matter to me the point i'm making is this i've been in that i've stood on the street corners in the rain i've stood i've sat in a church where you couldn't see one another i preached from a lantern before that said on the pulpit am i right couldn't see anybody out in the crowd nobody but boy there was a hundred miles an hour that was a drum they don't have instruments no electricity in the place and i'm trying to read my ethic i mean i got my paper up i'm trying to read finally i said lord it's going to have to be you because you made the fire that's in that lamp and the oil they're burning it by and the lord said get out of the way and here it went point i'm making is this is you better love the things of god the things of life pride will destroy you and if you don't deal with pride listen carefully if you do not deal with pride it will deal with you and you will sit by the by the sideline and you will idly watch life pass you by and all the bitterness and all the junk that the enemy is going to throw at you is going to steal your joy and it's going to rob you of your salvation i'm telling you as much as cynicism will as much as compromise will as much as pride will do the same things number 10 describe your relationships with others when it comes to encouraging and seeing them flourish how do you help some someone become more successful than you flourish in their ministry ask some of these young preacher guys or some of these young folks and i tell i pray to god that you are more successful than i i've said that to my kids a million times i want you to be more successful than i am why because in my life i had a marvin tedrick that poured into me he didn't think i would amount to anything but i called him the night that god called me to preach and i said brother tedrick i've got to tell you something god's called me to preach in his emphysema he's i could hear him on the phone brother raymond i don't doubt it i said what do you mean he said i knew that god had something special for you and i'm sitting on the other end of that phone about to die i was so incredibly hurt because he was hurting but that man believed in me and poured into me my dear friend brother filled a priest who would i be my little old grandma i talk about a lot my grandpa my mom and dad i'm telling you friend people have poured into you and the shame on us if we let pride and arrogance lift us to a place that we can't rejoice when somebody's rejoicing somebody comes in and i know what you do and i do when you come in and god's blessed you with a vehicle or with clothes or a place to work you know whatever a new job you're trying to be you're trying to be humble about it that new car you got yeah yeah i got and here we go tell me if i'm lying yeah yeah what it was well they had this deal and this and i got on the list and there's the only way i could get is this and this and this and you gotta you're justifying it i'm just standing there saying man i'm glad thankful that god's blessed you with that you mean you mean i'm not being out of sort no because i may be broke down in mine and i need a ride tell you one of the most humbling experiences is to run out of gas anybody ever done that yeah i used to be the run out of gas king my suburban asteroid and sarah when they get back they'll just look at me go because they were making joyful noise while i was sitting on the side of the road they're riding with me down to the utc campus we ran out of gas so take a picture i'm gonna break that phone well it's just a picture no it's not well it drawn went don't take a picture she put the phone in her purse she's like didn't you know you was at it say something out say i want you to ask me again about no idea if i'd have known it was going to run out of gas guess what i wouldn't have done it the gas can set a quarter quarter tank and i'm like man i can go thousand miles on a quarter tank of prayer i used to love to run out of gas in high school so i did it all the time you know at two dollars nine cents an hour i was making and here's the assuming the position ready for it side of the road people pass by and honk what are you doing i'm dumb i'm running out of gas need a ride yeah it's back there no but i'll give you a lift no i deserve to be humiliated and walk out here listen to me carefully if your relationship with others is based on the fact that you have risen higher above them you need to check your relationships first corinthians 13 charity suffereth long and is kind charity envious not charity vaunteth not itself it's not puffed up does not behave itself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth of sins hopeth all things endureth all things charity never faileth whether there be prophecies they'll fail where there be tongues they'll cease whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away but if you love charity that's in your heart because you have dealt with your pride i think paul understood this and why he could simply say you know what i have to just have to somehow decide within myself how to physically mentally emotionally and however lee it is to die every day because i'm telling you paul had one of the most incredible incredible testimonies of anybody that you and i could ever read about agreed saw that killed destroyed stopped the church threw people in jail months later turns around and comes out and now he's preaching and every day he stand there and look at him and say you know what except for the grace of god i would right now right now i would be in a devil's hell would you stand with me next week guys it's a little less a little less burdensome next week's lesson we're going to talk about didn't see it coming we're going to talk about burnout because burnout can affect us agreed you've seen it affect people before and they lose out everything that's what we're going to talk about next sunday dakota come on man please help me out our first week we talked about that our cynicism can cause us to to lose faith to to not believe in what god is trying to do it can it can arrive doubt can come out of that if you ever doubt the plan of god what have you done again you've removed god from his position and you've decided that you could run it better when you do that basically all of those times that you died on a cross which you did not all those times that you gave everything you had which you did not you are saying that it was enough and that him dying on a cross for real didn't matter and we talked about compromise and how that as we begin to think of things and things that we used to have as convictions and things that once drove us or helped us or developed us we we then began to look at them differently and now you know hell can't be that wrong because nobody talks about it anymore so evidently it's not that bad when the truth is it's as eternal as heaven and all of us want to go to heaven compromise tonight pride in my humble opinion pride is the greatest destruction to the apostolic because i have seen people that god has healed god has delivered god has raised i have people that god has literally brought out of the grave if you will should have been dead and their pride lift them up to a place to where no longer do they allow god to work in their lives but instead their arrogance smells so bad nobody wants to be around them so this is what i want to ask you to do it's 12 after eight for those of clock watchers and i want i want to ask you is there anybody wants to come tonight do a little heart check on your pride because if we really want revival again we're talking about building for the future and if we're going to do that we've got to get our cynicism our compromise and our pride in check would you come would you spend a few moments just praying and asking god for some guidance lord i i want to come tonight god with humbleness i want to i want to be in a position lord where i'm not lifted up or puffed up within myself but instead i'm i'm coming lord and i'm just grateful i'm thankful come on you know how to pray would you pray god help me to deal with my pride help me lord not to be prideful dear god to to where it will destroy me or it will it will cause me lord to stumble or somebody around me to stumble come on somebody needs to do a heart check god help my pride help me lord to understand that your plan is what's pushing me along and helping and leading me every day it is your mercy it is your grace oh come on if somebody just want to talk to the lord a bit lord i i want to know god that i'm i'm okay with you and that my pride hasn't taken me down a road that's going to destroy me lord i i i'm so sorry god please forgive me lord if i've lifted myself up in the name of jesus i simply lord want to be used in your love in your hand and your plan for this generation come on somebody find it figure it out how to deal with your pride it starts with gratitude give him thanks lord i'm thankful for what you've done what you allowed me to do where you've allowed me to go who you allowed me to know and the things god that you've allowed me to be involved in i'm thankful for that i'm thankful lord for two eyes that i can see i'm thankful for feet that i can walk lord for hands that i can reach i'm thankful for that come on thankful for the little things lord i'm thankful for the big things that's right come on let a heart of gratitude swell up within you lord jesus i'm believing you lord for great things come on we can justify all the feelings we want all the things we want but if we can't give them to god then pride is going to be lifted up come on in the name of jesus some of y'all some of us tonight we need to revisit the cross we need to revisit the altar where we lay things down and say lord i turn loose of it it is yours i don't want pride to destroy me lord god i don't want pride to drive me lord down the wrong path in the name of jesus i'm thankful lord just to know you to have fellowship with you to know that you know my name to know god that you have my well-being in your mind that's right in the name of jesus in the name of jesus i do love you i do trust you lord and my soul says yes to you in jesus name be glorified be glorified now if you could would you slip up next to somebody in the church and pray with them god help them come on that's right we're going to bear one another help one another tonight the name of jesus god speak into their life i pray give them the courage they need to make right choices lord in good decisions give them lord the strength they need dear dear god to walk up right before you in this hour come on pray church open your mouth pray i do believe lord but help thou my unbelief help me tonight oh god to stay connected to you to search for you to understand you to comprehend your ways your spirit lord the things you're doing in this hour come on that's right in the name of jesus the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus i bless the lord tonight i worship the lord right now i magnify you king of glory i magnify you oh that's right come on pray for one another lord bless my friend tonight lord my brother my sister anoint them god i pray help us lord to deal with our pride help us jesus hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah jesus we magnify your name holy one you are glorious you are excellent lord you are mighty to save jesus you are mighty to save jesus lord bless i pray a cornerstone apostolic church let us find favor in your eyes let us find favor in our community helpless god i pray every step we take forward as a church lord we thank you for the strength to do it the provision lord to make it happen help us oh god to understand lord what it's going to take in these hours that we live jesus we thank you we thank you lord go with us god the remainder of the week help us lord to be found being faithful to the things of god loving you and serving you help us oh god i pray lord let us check ourselves and make sure lord that our spirits dear god are in the right place our attitudes lord are in the proper perspective the name of jesus will come lord again this week in loving you and serving and blessing your name thy kingdom come jesus thy will be done on earth that is in heaven in the name of jesus we pray somebody say in jesus name come on in jesus name i love you all thank you for being in the house of the lord tonight