What I Say When I Preach To Myself

foreign what you're supposed to say In This Moment I've been to a lot of conferences and I know that you're supposed to come to the pulpit and say just before brother Mangan called me my right hand began to tingle and involuntarily begin to write the notes for my sermon today I know you're supposed to say something like some mythical Beast came and delivered a parchment to my office and it had a word from it and you'll never believe when I looked at the bottom it said sincerely Jesus and I knew that I was the man to preach just prior to brother Mangan calling I've heard all of that and I've sat there and said dude that never happens to me I get called to a meeting I take every sermon I've got I lay 40 of them out on the bed 10 minutes before I have to leave I finally just pick one and say I hope it's a blessing I've come today to preach to people like that if you just don't have quite that spiritual walk where God Hand delivers you every message you preach I've come to preach to people who at nine o'clock on Sunday morning finally just say well Jesus this is all I've got it's me and you and we're going for it that's who I've come to preach to today everybody else you're welcome to stay if you can fold your Superman cape and put it away so the rest of us don't trip over it you're welcome to stay and listen to us foreign Matthew chapter 28 I want to say it is a privilege and a joy to be here today and to preach the word of the Lord and certainly I give honor to the men who are on this platform and to what's already been done today has already been incredible and awesome and I'm not just saying this I could leave right now and just be as happy as I could be after that message but it's great to be here thank you Mangan family shock family the Pentecostals of Alexandria who do an unbelievable job with your guest and Conference participants I know that one of the requirements for the office of a bishop is that if a man desires the office of a bishop should be given to hospitality I'm certainly no scholar and I'm sure there's no way to have like 5 000 Bishops in a church but certainly if you could just bishop or however you say that an entire congregation this would be one of them because they are given to hospitality thank you Matthew chapter 28 and verse 16. then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them and when they saw him they worshiped him but some doubted and Jesus came and spake unto them saying all power is given unto me in heaven and in Earth go ye therefore and teach All Nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even until the end of the world amen today I would just like to share with you for a little bit on this subject what I say when I preach to myself there are times that I preach to myself now I know we we like to we we like to portray the idea that we just do fine all the time and that we really don't need anything we are the ones who share the gospel and we preach to our congregations and teach them but they're sometimes I have to get off in the corner and just preach to myself

and I'm just going to share with you today what I say when I preach to myself put your Bibles down beside you that'll free up your hands and let's raise them together in this sanctuary Lord I pray that you would anoint and inspire me today to preach the already anointed and inspired word let it go forth with power let it have impact let it do the work that you have intended it to do May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight O Lord my strength and my redeemer and I'll give you praise for this in Jesus name everybody say in Jesus name come on let's call on the name that is above every name in Jesus name in Jesus name Jesus name before you're seated turn to everybody on either on both sides front and back four people all the way around you shake their hand look them right in the eye say if you plan on sitting by me you're going to have to help this man preach when the story of the empty tomb reached the Jewish authorities they became desperately worried because all of their planning all of their scheming all of the things they had tried to do to shut down Jesus and his influence was about to be undone in one single moment when the report came from the tomb that had been sealed and guarded that he was now gone that he had risen they knew something had to be done if word of this got out he would be more popular than he had ever been his cause would go forth and there would be nothing they could do to stop it so they did the only thing they knew to do they paid the guards big money to tell a story about how the disciples had come and stolen the body of Jesus they had to somehow create a scenario whereby he was gone but without resurrection power they had to create the feeling that something had been done by the disciples to create and to further the myth of a resurrection they did everything they could they used treachery to lay hold on him they used illegality to try him they use slander to charge him before Pilate and they used bribery to try to silence the truth about him but the truth is they couldn't stop him he had risen and he was alive it all comes down to this the Roman proverb is Magna s Veritas at prevalent which just simply means great is the truth and it will prevail I'm glad to know today that I stand in this Pulpit because there is a great truth that did Prevail Jesus is Alive now I know it's not very exciting to you now but it's very exciting to me that he is alive the 11 disciples leave that moment and they go to a mountain in Galilee where Jesus had instructed them to go when they saw him their automatic response was to worship some of them had the response of Doubt but they nevertheless went to meet him and it was in this moment standing there in the presence of Jesus with all of their fears and frustrations and the doubts and confusions that were heavy in their heart over what had just transpired and what would happen that Jesus begins to talk to his disciples and he first tells them I'm going to assure you that I have all power all power is given unto me in heaven and in Earth you don't have to worry about what's coming you just know that I've got all power it's all in my hand he made one of the Magnificent and great statements of all time when he told them all power is given unto me in heaven and in Earth and then he followed it with the commission go ye therefore and teach

All Nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Ghost he told them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature 11 of them he was asking them to do something that he in fact had not done in his human Ministry when he was walking the Earth he had gone over to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee back to Jerusalem it was just a small piece of ground that he covered and he's looking at these 11 saying all power is given to me in heaven and Earth but I'm asking you to go do what I have never done it was big it was awesome it was Dawning it was huge and for those 11 men standing there it must have seemed like an impossibility but then he spoke these words and lo I am with you always even to the end of the world I grew up in Arkansas I grew up in Northeast Arkansas in a town called Blytheville and when I was growing up there we were surrounded by cotton fields and because of my unique upbringing and my unique experience in the cotton fields of Arkansas have an unbelievable ability to translate the Bible so if the King James doesn't make sense to you let me just give you Steve warman's Third Edition unabridged Bible commentary not yet available in bookstores lo I Am with You alway he was not saying like the old guy was afraid to fly in the plane they asked him why and he said because Jesus said lo I Am With You Always that's not what he was saying he was saying Lo by the way I Am With You Always even to the end of the world what I say when I preach to myself is this your job may be too big for you but Jesus is with you the task before you may seem like an impossibility but you can do it Jesus is with you I just come to tell everybody gathered in this room today there is something on your side that is greater than any force that will ever come against you that is more awesome than anything that will ever come into your life and that is the fact that Jesus is with us 11 guys go to all the world how can we do that because I've got all power and by the way when you go I will be with you hey they must have known it was true if they knew anything they knew it was true because they knew that this man who was standing in front of them said I've got all the power in heaven and earth I am God manifest in flesh and I'm the same one who went three Hebrew children wouldn't bow to Nebuchadnezzar's music and found themselves thrown into a fiery furnace by the time they got there and Nebuchadnezzar looked in instead of three wilted fried Hebrew boys he said there's four loose and walking around and the fourth one looks like the Son of God and I've got news for you Nebuchadnezzar he not only looks like it he is because if you stand up for him he'll stand up for you all right I said if you'll stand up for him he'll stand up for you by the way I'm with you there are times when I think I'm all by myself that's when I have to preach to myself and say Steve straighten up it's all right Jesus is with you you're not by yourself there are times when it feels like I'm the only one but that's when I know there's a power on the other side Hallelujah that's coming on my behalf I've got Jesus with me I'm here to tell you Jesus is with you how can we preach the gospel Jesus Is With Us how can I Pastor that church Jesus is with us some of you are Church Planters and when you set up your 25 chairs on Sunday I want you to set every one of them up and say Jesus is with me Jesus is with me Jesus is with me I don't know who's coming today but Jesus is with me I don't know if we'll get enough offering to pay the rent but Jesus is with me I can do this because he promised I'll go with you to the end Jesus is with me

do you want to help me preach turn to everybody and just tell them Jesus is with you go do it Jesus is with you preach the gospel Jesus is with you everybody say number one Jesus is with me I have several points to the messages I preach to myself I won't share all of them here today but number one Jesus is with me the second thing I say when I preach to myself comes from the book of Deuteronomy we find Moses has had a word of blessing for each tribe and now he looks at the whole nation and viewing it in the light of the eternity in which he is about to enter he begins to feel a sense that I need to reinforce to this nation the goodness of God and just how great God is and one of those magnificent scenes in the close of Moses life he begins to talk to the nation about how great their God is as soon as Moses touches on the thing of the greatness of God it's almost like his language begins to fail him and his tongue can't quite spit it out just the right way because God is so great how can you even talk about him and tell how great he is from a human mouth from a human body and Moses in talking to them he makes a try he makes an effort Moses begins to tell them that there is no God likened to the god of jeshuren he rides upon the heaven and his help and his Excellency in the sky he was telling them your God is great he's big he's high he's in the high places he's on top of everything and we believe that he is high and lifted up no matter how high you ascend you're going to find that God is there the scriptures point this out to us when it tells us that we abide under the shadow of the almighty and the shadow of his wing is over us so we understand clearly that he's in the high places and if you read the Bible very much you may come to an ideal that God only is in high places because as you read scripture and you march it through you'll find Mountain places is where he does great things Mountain Top experiences are all through the scripture you'll find errat where Noah's Ark landed you'll find Carmel where Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal you'll find Harmon where Jesus was transfigured of where Moses received commission at the burning bush you'll find Moriah where God provided Abraham a ram as a substitute for his son Mariah where Solomon Solomon built his Temple Nebo where Moses viewed the promised land Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments and if you're not careful you'll think God is only in the high places of life and Moses is carrying this through when he says your God is high he rides High he's in his Excellence he's in the high places and then all of the sudden it's as if Moses says wait a minute these people are not going to always be on top of everything so I need to point this out and then comes the awesome verse Deuteronomy 33 27 the Eternal God Is Thy Refuge and underneath are the Everlasting Arms if you were to go to your library and if you're really really an anointed preacher you don't look this up on the laptop you don't go to a website to really really get this you got to put on a back brace you have to put on a back brace and go to the Bookshelf and pull off a Strong's Concordance boom set it over on the desk open it up and you'll find out the word underneath is a Hebrew word talketh which simply means bottom God is Not only at the top he's also at the bottom so when I preach to myself I say to myself you may fall but you will not fall through because at the Bottom of Everything Is God hallelujah underneath are the Everlasting Arms so the next time you tackle a task that

is too big for you and you think this is going to be the undoing of me this will be my failure I'll never get up from this you just understand the Eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the Everlasting Arms Of God you may fall but you will not fall through he's a receiver that never drops a pass he never lets anybody down he's at the bottom of it all Hallelujah I'm not always at the top there are many days I am at the bottom but I've got a word for myself God is at the bottom when you've gone as far down as you can go when you think you can't make it another day when you're in the depths of Despair and depression when you walk out of your church on Sunday and you're tempted to gather up your family and get in the car and just keep driving and never even pay them the visit to come back again you just remember I may be at the bottom but God's around here somewhere because underneath are the Everlasting Arms God is at the bottom Hallelujah I'm glad I've got that kind of a guy I'm glad he's a God who not only lives in the high places but he's in the Low Places he's at the bottom of it all underneath everything I do undergirding everything I am or the Everlasting Arms Of God it's gonna be all right God is at the bottom I said he's at the bottom everybody say number two God is at the bottom that's what I say when I preach to myself Jesus is with me come on help me preach Jesus is with me God is at the bottom it's going to be all right because he's at the bottom third thing I say when I preach to myself found in the book of Romans chapter 12. verse 3 in the last phrase God has dealt to every man the measure of faith I want to point out a couple of things about faith first of all I want you to understand that faith is important let me back up and say it again because I I just said faith is important it and I got one right and somebody on the front row did nod and I do and thank you I do appreciate that David well we just just kind of sat here and I don't want to be bitter because the last thing you want is a bitter preacher so we're going to back it up and we're gonna do it again all right you ready are you ready see I don't think you're ready here it is faith is important faith is important the reason I know faith is important is because the Lord said Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not and when you are converted strengthen your brethren now in that moment when Jesus knew that Satan desired Simon Peter I would think he would only be praying for the most important thing for Peter and in that moment Jesus did not say Simon Peter Satan has desired to have you that he may shift you as we so I have prayed that your church tithe will continue to be at an all-time high he did not say I've prayed that you wouldn't lose your ability to preach he did not say I pray that things will always go well with you and there'll be smooth days ahead of you he said I've prayed that your faith won't fail you because ladies and gentlemen Jesus near that the most important thing for Simon Peter is that he would have faith because even if everything fell apart if he had his faith he would be back that's how he could be the messenger of the Church of the day of Pentecost after he had cursed in the courtyard because although he lost everything including his dignity the one thing he had left was enough Faith to come back and try it

again Hallelujah and I'm glad today to know that I've got faith faith faith faith faith so say it again say faith is important faith is important that's right because in the bottom line in the final analysis you can take everything else away from me you can take away my home you can take away my car you can take away my clothes you can strip me of everything and leave me standing in the middle of a road in a third world country all by myself oh I won't be by myself though Jesus will be with me and if I got my faith I will be back Hallelujah so faith is important now this part of my sermon is a three-part three-part part faith is important second thing I want to point out to you about faith is it doesn't take very much just as long as you possess some faith Matthew 17 20. Jesus said if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you shall say unto this mountain remove hints to Yonder place and it shall remove and then this passage is awesome and nothing shall be impossible unto you ladies and gentlemen I know you know this but if you have faith you pull it from impossibility to possibility all it takes is a little faith to put it in the possibility column today while sister Mangan was preaching we pulled some things over him into the possibility column you don't have to have much you just have to have some he said if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed a grain of mustard seed in those days was proverbial for smallness it was a slogan of the day it was something people talked about when they wanted to talk about something small tiny insignificant they would talk about a grain of mustard seed and Jesus said if you have that Faith you can speak to a mountain and it'll be removed and nothing will be impossible for you if you have that Faith Like a grain of mustard seed and I appreciate the fact that it was small but I also want to point out the fact that it was a tiny Speck in the hand that was planted into the Earth and the beauty of the Mustard Seed was not that the finished product was so Grand and glorious because the mustard tree would not get very big it was the fact that this tiny Speck was put down into the Earth and it fought its way through the roots and the rocks and the soil and the wind and the rain until it finally appeared on the surface of the Earth and then it grew up through the animals and the beasts that would come to try to destroy him it just kept going and it just kept growing and Jesus said if you got faith that can make it through the stuff then you can say to a mountain be removed and nothing will be impossible unto you if you've got faith that can go through the rocks and the rot and The Roots and the wind and the rain and the soil and some of you are here today and you've been convinced that because your tree is not very big you don't have much faith I rebuke that in the name of Jesus people don't know the journey that you made to get here I'm here to celebrate the journey that you made your faith is seen not in the finished product but by the process what it took for you to get where you are I celebrate that faith today that faith so faith is important it doesn't take much faith if it's determined faith if it's conquering faith if it's Faith that'll go through the stuff if it's face that Faith that'll grow up through the soil it will be all right the third thing I want to point out to you about this verse is God sees the end from the beginning the Bible tells us a I make known the end from the beginning from ancient times what is still to come my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please Peter wrote but beloved be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day God sees the end from the beginning he sees everything at once he knows everything at one time God is never caught by surprise

that's why you never find God curled up in a fetal position because he knows it all he's not caught by surprise he's got it all together he sees the end from the beginning and if God is the one who according to Romans chapter 12 and verse 3 measures to every man The Measure of Faith and he knows how important faith is so important that Jesus would only pray that Simon Peter's Faith would not fail and he knows that you need some faith not a lot but some so that nothing will be impossible for you and he sees everything at one time and sees the end from the beginning then God Must Have Known what I would go through today tomorrow next week next month next year and when it came time to deal out the faith he said I'm going to give you the measure of faith I'm going to give you the faith that you need for everything that you will face in your life so when I preach to myself I say to myself I have faith for this I have faith for this because God who knew me before I was ever born who knew what I'd faced before my parents ever met that God is the one who gives to every man The Measure of Faith I have the measure of faith for everything that'll come my way I've got the measure of faith for everything I'll face in my life it's already been put in Me by God so when I preach to myself I say to myself don't you ever look at any situation and say I wish I had faith for this no you've got faith for this God has already put it in you so rise up and go do it I have faith for this foreign Hallelujah I just want to tell you God knows what you're going through God knew it before you knew it God knew it before you were born and he's put faith in you somewhere you just gotta find it and bring it out the broken relationship you've got faith for that the protracted illness you have faith for that the parent that you finally had to put in the nursing home and you walked away said I never dreamed I'd have to do that you've got faith for that when somebody hurts you even in the church you've got faith for that when you have a child who isn't doing right you've got faith for that at the loss of a loved one you've got faith for that if you got an elder board that is stingy you got faith for that if you got a board that's trying to put you out you've got faith for that if you're pastoring a whole mission church you've got faith for that if you're pastoring a 70 year old church you've got faith for that God knew what you would do he knew what you would face and he's put the faith in you there has been given and to every man the measure of faith I vote we start preaching to ourselves we preach to them but let's preach to us I'm not talking about the sermon on Sunday when everything's going wrong and they couldn't keep up the words with the song and the audio didn't do right and the sound system wasn't right I'm not talking about that sermon the one that involves the word reprobate repeatedly on the way home you know reprobates reprobates River the only legal cuss word for a preacher you know just replaces wish I had another church where they may wish they had another preacher so I'm talking about preaching to yourself and say I have a God who is Underneath It All and if I get to a big hairy audacious goal that is so big I don't think I can do it I got one word Jesus is with me and I've got the faith that I need to take this through and then it might not hurt to get your Bible out thank you Bible readers have to be the happiest people on the face of the Earth get your Bible out it looks like this the Bible not it's it's not it's not the magazine at the checkout stand it's the Bible not the Reader's Digest that comes in the mail it's the Bible not the book that changes color every year that comes from headquarters I'm talking about the Bible the the b-i-b-l-e the black book you just get it out and you just look at the Devil you just look at yourself and you just say I can handle this because I've got faith for this I've got a God that's on my side he's underneath everything Jesus is with me and it's gonna be all right and then when you face fear you just open up your Bible and say second Timothy 1 7 for God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind when you're facing overwhelming opposition you just

say Psalm 20 and 7 some trust in chariots and some in horses but we will remember the name of the Lord Our God you just tell your enemy there is no weapon formed against me that shall prosper you tell them when the enemy comes in as a flood the spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him when you don't have enough you say my God shall supply all my need according to his riches in glory you say I was young and now I'm old and I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor exceed begging bread you say the angel of the Lord in campus round about them that fear Him and delivereth them Hallelujah and my favorite one bless it be God who daily loathe me with benefits I'm telling you the worst day of your life is loaded with benefit the worst day you've ever faced has got benefit in it somewhere God I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna go on I'm going to preach the gospel I'm going to Pastor that church I'm gonna do the thing that seems too big for me because I know you're with me you're underneath it all and you've given me Faith for this I can do it stand with me please David went to face Goliath solid tried to strap his armor on him and it didn't work just didn't fit something about trying to carry somebody else's armor just doesn't feel right because if you have been designed for a certain battle then God has to give you certain weapons for that certain battle you can't go you can't go to your destiny moment carrying somebody else's stuff so you have to have something for yourself a lot of times we try to straddle people with what we want them to take but God has a specific battle for you and you're going to have to go out there with what he's provided for you so David said Saul I'm sorry I can't take this it's it's cumbersome it's not right it's uncomfortable it it's too heavy let me take what I know he goes out with a sling and on his way to the valley of Eli he picks up five smooth stones from the brook all my life I've been in church I've heard preachers tell about five smooth Stones I've heard stories I've heard them tell what it represented he picked it was somehow prophetic he picked up five smooth Stones because there was one for every letter of the name of the coming Messiah j-e-s-u-s that sounds good I'll take that some of them said oh he picked up five Stones because he had Four Brothers Goliath had four brothers and David was going to go out there and not only take care of Goliath he's going to go ahead and clear the whole family while he was in and that sounds really good too really good preaching but I'm going to tell you today why David picked up five stones from the brook this is revelation folks I'm what is about to happen in this place I'm not sure there's ever been a because of the times that that this has happened what I'm about to declare to you is so great and powerful and revelatory that I would only do it in a setting like this where there are ministers and seasoned people because a new convert couldn't handle this some some guy off the street if you had guests in a service they would they would run out of freight it's so unbelievable are you ready to hear it you're not ready come on no no I'm not going to tell you every head bowed every eye closed nobody looking around us

are you ready I need to know you're ready I'm feeling very insecure so just lean forward a little bit just lean forward like this to let me know you're ready the reason David picked up five stones from the brook in case he missed with the first one he'd have four more chances oh I'm weak when you bring that kind of Revelation out of a human body you can hardly take it the point is that God never sends you without giving you more than enough to win the victim you better believe it when you face the giant he's given you what you need and more you're gonna win the victory I've got Jesus on my side God is at the bottom I got faith for this I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it the next time you face a challenge that's too big for you the next time you face a giant that you know you can't beat on your own power you are not to say this is the undoing of me I'm gonna throw in the towel I'm gonna quit you ought to stand up and say God must have a lot of confidence in me or he wouldn't put this in my life because the thing that made David become king in the eyes of the people was his victory over Goliath God had anointed him in private but it was until he beat the giant that the ladies hit the street and sang Saul is slaying thousands but David ten thousands I'm just telling you you're going to leave here you're gonna face the biggest battle of your life but you're packed up your bag and because of the times and you're going with more than enough Jesus is with you God's under it all and I've got faith for this I'll do it in Jesus name