Andrew Wommack | Self-Centeredness | 1st Service

I want to share something with you today that is probably not going to be one of those shouting sermons that everybody loves but it'll help you if you'll receive it and here in James chapter 3 and in verse 16 it says for we're envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work that is one of the most radical scriptures in the Bible you know what this is saying is that we're envy and strife is there is confusion you know the Bible says in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 that God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all of the churches of the Lord people today are seeking for peace and instead they've got confusion and anxiety and worry and they can't understand why and people are praying and asking God to give them peace and to take away their worry and yet the scripture says 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 2 it says grace and peace is multiplied unto you through the knowledge of him that has called you to glory and virtue Isaiah 26:3 says the Lord will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon him you don't get peace by praying for it asking for it fasting for it having someone lay hands on you and wave their hands over you you get it when your mind is stayed upon the Lord when you are thinking according to the Word of God and this says that we're envying and strife is there is confusion a lack of peace all of these things and it comes because people are not seeking the Lord and here's the point I'm wanting to get across out of that verse it says that basically envy and strife open up a door take anything that devil wants to do in your life and there are people praying for healing prosperity joy peace all of these things and yet they are operating in envy and strife and not only they themselves but we live in a culture where there is so much anger and there's so much division and we have learned to tolerate it you know I had a couple in what the churches that I pastored that they had lived in a nudist colony for three years before they came to our church and we led them to the Lord and they got born again but then after just a few months in our church he got this one guy got mad and he came and talked to me and he says I'm leaving this church this church is full of strife and he says I'm going back into the world and anyway I just got a little bold with this guy and I said you know what this church is full of strife and I said you're the source of all of it I said we had a lot of peace before you came here but they had lived in a nudist colony they told people that if you use soap that that was all carnal and devilish and you shouldn't use soap and man they could have used some soap and some perfume and some deodorant and they wouldn't eat their potatoes peeling them because the best part was the peel and so anybody who didn't need everything organic they just critic and they had criticism for everybody and they came in and sold strife and anyway I said yeah there's strife in this place and I said you're the source of it you've criticized everybody and everything in this church nobody lives up to your standards and and I wasn't prepared for what he did but the guy broke down crying and he says I'm the first person in the history of California that was indicted by the grand jury three times before I was 13 years old and he says I grew up in reformatories from the time I was five years old and he says if you were telling me to act like I'm healed when I feel sick I could do that because I felt well before but you're telling me that I'm supposed to love people I've never felt love in my life he didn't know what it was and my reason for bringing this out is to say that his standard of normal was just anger and bitterness and strife and criticism and it was normal for him and he didn't even realize what he was doing and brothers and sisters I'm saying that most of us don't have a clue what God intended our life to be like we live in a society where we pay hundred and hundreds of dollars per month they have hatred and killing and murder and strife pomp the end us and we see it on the news and it's now fashionable to criticize and fight and say things and hurt people and we don't realize that we're envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work not some of them every evil work you turn Satan loose in your life through strife you give him a free pass just like come and do your worst you know there's some of you that like Caroline was talking about when you moved into this place that there were spiders that were this big and stuff and you know what some people may not mind that but most of you don't like spiders and if you had spiders that big in your house you wouldn't live like that you would do something and it might not bother you today but tomorrow sometimes you just wouldn't live like that you wouldn't live with the Cobra under your bed maybe it doesn't bother you today but sooner or later you know most of you just draw the line I won't do that and yet you will allow strife we think that it's normal we think it's natural for kids to rebel and to get into strife and they're just going through growing pains this is not what the Bible teaches Indians strife opens up a door to every thing that Satan wants to do sickness poverty death anything you know I had a church that I went to in Corpus Christi Texas about 30 years ago and this church had just started believing that it was God's will to heal every person every time and they had been standing in two days before I got there they had a funeral for a high school boy who was in a coma for about two weeks and the church fasted and prayed and believed God for him to be healed and he died and they had his funeral two days before I got there and so the whole church was devastated and the pastor asked me to be able to minister to them and help them recover from this and so I went out with the family the parents of this boy every day during that weekend on Wednesday morning I finally got to the root of the problem and they were having so much strife in their home that the father and mother were talking about getting a divorce and the day that this boy had this accident it was because she had gotten so mad at him she yelled at him and says get out of this house and never come back and totally rejected him so at lunch he broke the school rules left the high school premises went over to a friend's house and they were playing with a gun and he shot himself in the head and was in a coma for two weeks and the church fasted and prayed and tried to believe God and couldn't understand why he died and yet that opened up a door to every evil work it was God's will for him to be well but God doesn't just override our decisions if you are living in strife and and envy and jealousy it just looses the devil on you quietness Presbyterian Church and I know some of you are thinking well you know I can't control anything about it you can't necessarily control everybody liking you but you can sure control how you feel about them you do not have to get in strife with anybody people hated Jesus and Jesus was God love personified and yet people hated him you can't control everybody else but you know what you can control 1000% how you feel about other people and some of you think well you don't know what they've done to me look at Jesus hanging on the cross they spit in his face they mocked him they did all of these things and he said Father forgive them for they know not what they do if Jesus could do that he told you the same works that he did you would do also you can forgive people you do not have to have any bitterness in your heart I've got thousands of people that hate me I've got thousands of blogs written about I'm the worst person in the world and I don't have a single thing against any person I'm not mad at anybody usually goes over about like that look over here in proverbs chapter 13 I'm going to show you what causes you to be angry what causes strife in your life in proverbs chapter 13 verse 10 you need to read this in your Bible you wouldn't believe this is in the Bible if you don't read it only by pride cometh contention but with the well-advised is wisdom only by pride in the Hebrew this means only by pride this means there is no other way and the contention if you look in Chapter 17 I believe it's verse 14 over here proverbs 17 14 the beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with so contention is just the beginning of strife so put that back together with proverbs 13 10 only by pride cometh contention the beginning of strife strife only begins through pride prides the only thing that causes strife it is not what other people do to you it is not your genes there's a lot of people will use don't understand our family we're all eight personalities we just can't control ourselves that's a lie while I was born with the temper well then you were born with the devil you can get it cast out on you well I had a guy come up to me a Mexican guy one time and he says I'm a proud Saucedo we just this is the way we are and I said you could be delivered from that there are certain personalities redheads what we just have a temper certain nationalities that this is the way we are well it's all wrong this says only by pride only it doesn't mean it's the leading cause it's not the major cause for certain types of personalities the only reason you are contentious which leads to strife is because of pride it's the only reason that's what the Bible says now I know that there's many people that don't let the Bible get in the way of what they believe and there's some of you that I don't care what the Bible says this is not what I believe well then that's the problem the Word of God isn't supreme in your life you were running your life and that's the reason you're in the message in you know there was a man that came up to me this has been 25 or 30 years ago I was preaching on this and I had a guy walk up and he stuck his finger right in my chest and he says look I've received a lot of good things through you and he says I respect you but you're wrong on this one he says I am one angry person he says I can't hardly have any friends I says I just get mad I'm violent he yells at people and he says but I'm not a proud person he says if anything I have such low self esteem he says I hate myself I don't think I'd do anything right and the problem there was that see he thought that pride is only thinking you're better than everybody else that's just one manifestation of pride it's like a stick if you have a stick it's got two ends on it and their opposite ends one end of pride is arrogance thinking you're better than everybody else but you know what the opposite end is low self-esteem a person who's an introvert a person who is shy and timid you are an extremely prideful person and I know many of them that's not pride pride in its simplest forms PR IDE the center wart letter is I pride is all about selfishness focus upon yourself and it doesn't matter if you think you're better than everybody else or if you think you're worse than everybody else you are absolutely self-centered so focused and I can say with this with conviction because I was a total introvert when I was in high school I couldn't look at a person in the face and talk to him I was in senior in high school and a man walked down the street and said good morning to me and he was two blocks down the street before and I was sitting in my car and finally I said good morning I was so introverted I couldn't function and I'm tell you exactly what was going on in me the reason I was shy and in verdun was because I was so self-centered and I was thinking what's this person gonna think about me am I gonna say something that's gonna make me look stupid am I gonna falter standing in front of a crowd like this I'd have just assumed you two killed me as to having me do this because I was afraid I'd say something stupid and I every time I get up I do say something stupid if you came looking for something wrong I got something for you this morning at Amen I am NOT the best vessel that God could have chosen but I'm saying I understand that people who are timid and shy they think well this is just my personality I know what it is you're absolutely self-centered you are thinking so much about yourself that you don't think about the other person like there are people sitting right in here today that God is forgiving you of your sins some of you've been healed delivered set free God's done miracles in your life it's just awesome and you've got things that could bless other people and yet if I was to ask you to come up here and share today immediately oh I'm not prepared and what are people gonna say I'm a not be able to get it out right and meself I you've got things that could change people's lives and yet you won't share it because you're worried about how you will be perceived what that is is absolute selfishness you could see another person's life change and yet you won't say something because of what they might think about you you know one time I had a man come to me and ask me something and he asked what the problem was and God showed me what the problem was and I knew exactly what to tell him but I knew he wasn't gonna like it I knew I ran a risk of losing a friend if I told him the truth and while I was sitting there debating about what I was going to say the Lord spoke to me and he says you don't have the right to reject this truth for him you ought to tell him the truth and if he's going to reject the truth let him reject it don't you reject it for him and it changed the way I thought and now I'll tell people the truth even if it cost me a friend if it costs me whatever but you know this is in our society today we live in a post-christian era it is antagonistic to the Bible and most of you know that if you were to stand up at work or in public and start speaking what the Bible says people are gonna criticize you people are gonna say you are absolute fool they're gonna say all kinds of things and did you know why most of us aren't more outspoken because of pride you are thinking about yourself why is everybody gonna think about me and so you refuse to tell people the truth you refuse to stand for the truth because it may cost you something amen or old me what I'm trying to do is to get you to see that what the Bible says only by pride comes contention it's absolutely true you may have to redefine pride but it's absolutely true it's only you thinking about yourself and self-centeredness that causes any strife in your life you know Moses I'm just for time sake I'm not going to turn over there but you can go to numbers chapter 12 and it talks about Miriam and Aaron Moses brother and sister came out against him because he had married a black woman and of course he was like a an Israeli he was a you know middle-eastern complexion and so is in interracial marriage and they criticized him and says has God spoken only by Moses and it says there in numbers chapter 12 verse 3 it says now Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth that is quite a statement we don't know exactly how many people were on the earth at that time but there was around 3 million Jews that came out of Egypt and they were the minority so there had to be over 3 million of Gyptians and then there were people that were living in the promised land there must have been at 10 million minimum 20 I don't know millions of people on this planet and Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth and guess who wrote that Moses Moses wrote I am the meekest man on the face of the earth see most people think that if you're truly meek then you just go around beat down and oh god I'm nothing and I heard a story about a church that took a vote to find out who the meekest man in the church was and they all agreed it was dear old brother so-and-so Salaam Sunday they gave him this great big pin it said humble on it and because he accepted it they took it away most people believe that if you're truly humble you'll never know it oh I'm so unworthy y'all just pray for me today I know I don't have a very good voice but God said make a joyful noise you know just pray for me and then they get up and they've had five years of operatic training it was all a religious con if you don't believe it go up to them in the grocery store during the week and say you know what I agree with you you really had a sorry voice and see if they say yes brother I mean they it was a it was we've been taught that meekness is weakness that's not true meekness is just singing about yourself what God says and if God was to say you're the meekest man in this church you would be prideful not to say it you would be exalting yourself you would be worried more about what people say than what God says humility is just not going above what God says about you but it's also not going below it's just having no opinion if God says something nice about you if he says you're the righteousness of God that you can do all things then it's pride on your part for you not to agree with that so anyway pride is just self-centeredness and this is how Satan causes strife and opens up a door to every evil work is when you get focused on yourself Jesus told us that we are supposed to be dead to ourself you know if you had a corpse in front of me here today you can spit on the corpse you could you could insult the corpse you could slap the corpse you could ignore the corpse and if it's a corpse it won't respond you know why you respond when people your buttons because you are dead to yourself you are so much a focus of your life that this person said this about me this person doesn't love me I wouldn't bother you if you didn't love yourself so much you know what I'm saying is foreign to the vast majority of Christians there's many Christians that especially ones that come to spirit-filled churches ones that preach victory which I believe that Jason Caroline Mitch preached victory here and things like that and there's a lot of people drawn to it because I'm going to be healed because my marriage is gonna be put back together because I'm going to prosper in things and all of those things are good but there's a lot of people that come to the Lord through spirit-filled ministry because it is all about you and you are using God as your little grocery cart to go up and down the aisles of heaven and get you everything you need and if God ever fails to heal you or prosper you you're out of here in a minute because it's still all about you and I'm telling you that is an inroad of Satan into your life and that's why people get so offended that's why people get so hurt you know I passed her to church and this man in this church he told people I was stealing money from the church which I didn't even take a salary from the church I did it free but he accused me of stealing money from the church he accused me of committing adultery accused me of lying stealing doing drugs getting drunk he just got mad and started accusing me of all kinds of stuff and so I went by to see this guy and talk to him and he yelled at me and screamed at me called me all kinds of names but you know what I knew I didn't do it and so I just forgave the guy he was an elder in my church and the next week I was I was in the habit that every time I drove by his business I'd stop him going in and say hi to him so Jamie and I were driving by his business and I stopped and I said I'm gonna go in talk to him and James says I'm staying in the car and I went in and talked to this guy and he was rude to me and he wasn't friendly the way he had been in the past and so anyway I came back out and sat in the car and I said man something's wrong he wasn't kind he it seems bothering him and Jamie just looked at me and she says don't you remember what he's been doing don't you remember what he said don't you remember and she had to remind me I'd forgotten I had forgotten I didn't get mad at him I wasn't hurt I'm not saying I'm perfect but I hadn't arrived but I've left I'm not like I used to be I used to be so self-centered that if somebody criticized me I just fell apart like a $2.00 suitcase I couldn't handle it because they don't love me you know what set me free was when I had an experience with the Lord March the 23rd 1968 and I got caught up into the presence of God and God showed me how much he loved me and once I knew how much God loved me I just don't really give a rip what you think God made us for acceptance there's something in every person that wants to be accepted but if you don't go to God and plug into him and have that intimate relationship with him then you become codependent upon everybody else's acceptance and we have to have their acceptance and that's the reason we won't stand up and speak the truth because somebody might dislike us because it might hurt us some way or another and that's how all of this selfishness comes in that's and that's the root of all pride that's the root of all evil you just throw open a door for anything the devil wants to do in your life when you get to where you love God and other people more than you love yourself and you don't care it doesn't matter whether you are the ones that's promoted or not you're out to build God's kingdom not your kingdom when you get to where you live for something bigger than yourself and when you quit being self-centered it just sets you free and I know that God laid this on my heart for all of the people who didn't come today certainly this wouldn't apply to anybody who's sitting here but I believe that this is this is something that the majority of Christians haven't dealt with they they just we've been brought up this way did you know that when you were born you came into this world 100% self-centered you could take a little baby and we got hundreds of people sitting in here today but if there's a little baby in this room it wouldn't matter if it was interrupting two things if it was keeping people from hearing the word he would a baby doesn't know that anybody else but them exist they will cry they will yell they'll scream they'll disturb the whole thing and it's the job of a parent to teach your children that you are not the center of the universe that the world does not revolve around you that you are it's in losing your life that you find life it's in denying yourself that you really live that's what we're supposed to do but instead you know I bet everyone I've you've seen somebody in a grocery store or something the little kids throwing a fit Bobby Bobby I want this no you ruined your supper you can't get this and yet if the kid was willing to throw a big enough fit and embarrass the parents the parent because they are self-centered and thinkers watch everybody thinking about me they're gonna think my kids are bred and so they will reward the kid for that instead of you know teaching them that no this is not a YAG and so in a sense they reward it it worked do it again harder and you know when you're two years old it's maybe forgivable but the problem is that I'm saying this in love I don't I probably will never get invited back over something like that but the problem is some of you 20 30 40 50 60 70 year old adult brats that if you don't get your way you're gonna fall in the floor you drive I'm just saying you need to pull your thumb out of your mouth and realize that there is something more important than you you need to learn to deny yourself and live for something bigger than you I've gotten involved in a lot of political things lately and man I'm getting a tremendous amount of flack over it but you know just like the bill that they passed in New York City where now you can take a baby that is nine months delivery an actual delivered baby and say I don't want it I want an abortion and you can let a live baby die and they just passed that and you know what there's Christians who won't even I mean you should have stood up for abortion against abortion in the first place but if nothing else once a child is born you're just gonna let it die most Christians aren't in agreement with that but most Christians are so self-centered so focused on themselves they are so in to enjoy in their movies and there are things on television that it's inconvenient for you you might have to miss a football game if you got involved just total self-centeredness indifference about anybody else it's wrong I'm telling you selfishness is an inroad of the devil and we all came into this world selfish you have to do something to quit being selfish first of all you have to realize that it's wrong and that's what I'm trying to present this morning and you have to have an experience with the Lord where you love God and other people more than you love yourself you're willing to lay down your life for somebody else to share the gospel and to see somebody else's life changed and I say this in love I know that I know this you guys are awesome I love you but there's many of you that I'm saying in love but you don't love anybody more than you love yourself it's all about what's easiest on you you wouldn't go out of your way to witness to somebody because they might criticize you you wouldn't stand it you know what the Bible says and you believe it but you wouldn't say it because somebody might not like you you selfish thing you got to get out of that you got to recognize that this is Satan self is Satan's landing zone it's his beachhead in your life if you get to where you aren't so in love with yourself and aren't promoting yourself and always thinking about yourself but you're thinking about God and others more than you think about yourself you just become like Teflon nothing can stick man people can insult you like I said I've got thousands of people that hate me and it doesn't keep me up at night I sleep good at night I don't care I had a guy walk up one time after I ministered and he just read me the riot act and was yelling at me and saying all these things and I said hey who died and made you God and he just stopped and looked at me says what are you saying I said you aren't God I said God loves me with all of my flaws and imperfections I just don't give a rip what you think and he said why you shouldn't I said I don't I said compared to God you're nobody and this is the way I live my life I know that God loves me and I'm not he doesn't love me because I do everything right he loves me because he is loved not because I'm lovely and I know that God loves me and I am secure in God's love and if you come up and tell me that you hated everything I said it's not gonna bless me I'm not gonna be happy over it but it will not keep me up it will not keep me from doing what I'm supposed to do I'm telling you when you are focused on yourself if you're all wrapped up in yourself you make a very small package and this is sad to say where most people even most Christians are living I talked to Jim Irwin I was in Vietnam when men walked on the moon so I missed that and I was always wanting to talk to somebody about this and when I met Jim Irwin an astronaut who walked on the moon I was on the television program with him I wanted to find out all about it and I was just pumping him for information and he totally changed my perspective because I thought that they just had such such technology that they shot that capsule towards the moon and it was perfect and he told me that they just threw that capsule towards the moon and every ten minutes for four days they had a course correction and sometimes they would be going 90 degrees opposite the moon and they would have to burn for ten seconds to get back other times it was just a fraction of a degree but that capsule went to the moon like this and then they had a 500-mile long landing strip to land on and when he got out of the lunar module and stepped his foot on the moon he was within five feet of missing a 500-mile landing strip it wasn't perfect but they got there and they got back and as he was telling me that the Lord spoke to me and he says that's the way it is when you're dealing with self it's not like you just say all right so if I deny you and boom you've got it and it's done no you just have to blast off and head in that direction and every 10 minutes for the rest of your life there's going to be a course correction some of you might repent this morning and say man I don't want to be that way and so you pray and say all right I'm denying self and then you go out there to get a book or a tape and the last one is taken by somebody else and you got a chance for a course correction you know what I'm gonna prefer you and you pull out of the parking lot and somebody else you know is wanting to go but no you you ought to go who are they to get in front of me you got a chance for a course correction but you know what you do have to blast off there are some of you that have never blast it off there's some of you that hadn't even reached the launching pad there's some people that honestly think but putting myself if I don't take care of me who will God you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness he will add everything else to you some of you are insecure because it is up to you to promote yourself it is up to you to make everything work when you come to the end of yourself and literally make yourself a living sacrifice and turn yourself over to God then God supernaturally starts working in your life and promoting you and doing things but it says in Romans 12:1 that you have to be a living sacrifice the problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps crawling off the altar it's not a one-time commitment it's something you make a commitment and then every minute for the rest of your days and you will make mistakes I've had people come up after I preached this and say would you please just cast selfishness out of me I can't as long as you're breathing you're gonna have it self the only way I can cast self out of use to kill you and then you'll never be selfish again but as long as you're alive you are gonna have to deal with this self-centeredness and it's an effort that has to be done over and over it has to be a living sacrifice so I'm just about out of time what I want to do is is I want to ask if you admit you know if you've already dealt with this and if you have really made an absolute unconditional you know total surrender to the Lord then I don't want you to respond to this even if you were way off track and if you have to make a huge course correction but if you've done it you just need to get back to doing the commitment that God has spoken to you but you know what we've got a lot of 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 year old adult brats in here that you are still just like a little kid it's all about you and somebody has said something about you or somebody has done something and you know what you need to humble yourself and you need to renounce making yourself God and you need to recognize that you need to you need somebody bigger than you to serve and so I'm making this kind of tough but if you would be willing to admit that you have not indented perfectly none of us have done it perfectly but if you have not even consciously recognized the problem isn't them and what they said about me the problem is what's inside of me that took so of so much offense by what other people have done and if you recognize that man you're guilty and the reason is because you just love yourself more than you love God and more than you love other people and if you're willing to admit that I'm gonna ask you to stand and admit you're an adult brat and let me pray for you and begin this process amen well everybody's head is up and your eyes are open I have people say well couldn't you have everybody bow their head why so that you wouldn't be you know self wouldn't suffer the embarrassment man we're crucifying selves I want you to do this while everybody's looking around so you get the maximum humiliation out and I tell you the Bible says that he's faithful and just to keep that which we commit no committing no keeping but when you make a commitment God is going to hold you to it and he'll do it in love he's not going to condemn you but you know today the rest of the day there will be an opportunity for a course correction there will be an opportunity for you to put God ahead of yourself to put somebody else ahead of yourself and it'll happen every day for the rest of your life doesn't mean you didn't really commit it just means it's a process so father right now for all of these who are standing I just thank you Father for them humbling themselves you said if we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that you will lift us up so father these people have humbled themselves in front of their brothers and sisters and admitted that we've been self-centered and we have not really dealt with this so father I just stand on your promise that father you are gonna lift us up above this you are gonna empower us and give us supernatural ability to live beyond ourselves to glorify you right now we just crawl up on that altar and we die to self we died of this selfishness we know it's a process but we begin the process right now we ask the fire of God to fall from heaven and consume these sacrifices father forgive us for being so selfish forgive us for the way we've been and we we draw on your supernatural ability and power to enable us and we are confident that you will correct us when we get off-course and draw us back to this for those who are sitting who have already made the decision but are off course father we just make a decision right now to get back and to exalt you to make you Lord and get off the throne of our life and let you rule and so father we thank you for it we agree and receive it in the name of Jesus man thanks for checking out this video click our logo to subscribe so you never have to miss a thing also check out our other social media pages if you want to stay up to date with everything that's happening at the Lakeside Church thanks for watching

Channel: the Lakeside Church

Views: 21,320

Rating: 4.8546715 out of 5

Keywords: 1. Power of Prayer

Id: RtHPiI0f_Z0

Length: 39min 27sec (2367 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2019