"Foundations" Chapel Series: Pastor Layne Schranz | Highlands College Chapel

uh it is great to be with you today if you guys could turn the house lights up they're gonna need to take lots of notes they're gonna need to see their their notepads and uh you better buckle up so get it out get it ready we are closing out the foundations series hasn't it been amazing so far it's been fantastic and i'm honored to get to close it out with you and i i feel like the lord has directed us to to maybe what is the most important not not ranking the messages from the people but from a principal standpoint maybe god is wanting us to end with maybe what is most important when it comes to foundations and that is our motive what is your motive is your motive as jesse so beautifully led us in worship is your motive to be successful is your motive to be in ministry quote unquote is your motive to grow an influence is your motive to make money is your motive to have a job like what is your motive why are you here and why are you learning this thing called ministry what is that the core of it proverbs 16 2 says that god weighs our motives in other words he's paying attention you might be doing all the right things on the outside but you could be doing all the wrong things on the inside and it's important and he's weighing that he's paying attention to that when you waste something you you look to see where it is and if it's not where it needs to be you you make some changes and then there are people that have all the right motives yet don't do any of the right things and that's why we have highlands college we want to teach you all the right things and and that is our responsibility as a school is to give you all the tools that you need to be successful to have a job in ministry to gain influence for the kingdom we're going to give you the tools to do it but we can't give you his motive so my prayer today is that you will through the scriptures and a spiritual principle a theological principle if you want the the name of the theological principle it's called sonship which means just like mankind it means men and women sonship means sons and daughters that's that's the spiritual principle we're going to talk about but what i want to get to is is the foundation the motive and i think if we weigh our motive against this principle called sonship we will always be able to check ourselves and i will submit to you today that in my 20 years at church of the highlands there are times when my motive went from pure to impure where my motive went from kingdom focused to me focused and this principle is what has always brought me back this principle is what has been my foundation for 20 years on staff and full-time ministry at church of the highlands because it is a reminder of what my motive should be romans 8 16 through 17 we're gonna hit a lot of scripture today so just write down the reference and hold on for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are god's children his sons and daughters and since we are his children we are his heirs everybody say heirs in fact together with christ we are heirs of god's glory another translation says we are co-heirs with christ that means we are going to receive what he receives that's pretty amazing but if we are to share in his glory uh oh this is not good we must also share in his suffering it's not all gonna be picture perfect and beautiful hey first semesters or maybe maybe even four semesters anybody not from the south welcome to your first hurricane any but did anybody did it keep you up last night i mean nobody like you guys sleep really hard like like there is no wind like what blows me away about a hurricane is just the constant it just doesn't let up it just stays the same and we're getting we're getting a fraction of what it was when it hit louisiana last night was a fraction of it but if you were up last night you just you felt the the wind and the rain just pound and pound without relenting okay there are going to be moments in your ministry life where it will not relent and you feel overwhelmed and you feel like there is no way out but what you are going to see tomorrow is the sun will shine the humidity will be gone and it will be the most beautiful seven days that you've experienced in alabama this year after the storm but there is suffering in in all of this colossians 3 22-24 i'll read it out of the message paraphrase servants do what you're told by your earthly masters in in other words employees do what you're told by your bosses okay so if you're working at a church you're you're gonna be an employee and don't just do the minimum that will get you by do your best work from the heart for your real master is not your boss if you work at chick-fil-a your real master is not your manager if you work at starbucks your real master is not corporate headquarters it doesn't matter where you work if it's at a church or in the in the secular workplace you work for your real master for god why how confident that you will get paid in full when you get your paycheck no every first and fifteenth no once a month no when will you get your paycheck you will get what is coming to you when you receive your inheritance everybody say inheritance keep in mind always that the ultimate master you are serving is jesus christ the solemn servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible remember you're being weighed your motives are being weighed being a follower of jesus doesn't cover up bad work i pray that god helps you if you think ministry is an easy career like i want to be in ministry because it looks so fun i want to be in ministry because my youth pastor just had a blast all the time that's what i want to do i see my my parents go to work and they're miserable every day my youth pastor was laughing every day so i want to do what he does fair warning it's not what it what it seems i grew up in colorado springs colorado at the base of the rocky mountains beautiful rocky mountains is a great city when i was basically a year old my dad bought a tow truck and started a towing and recovery business in colorado spring so as i grew up as a little boy it was so cool to have tow trucks as a part of our family it was a family business it was 24 hours a day seven days a week helping people in need sounds like ministry to me i can remember waking up some mornings in our house and coming downstairs and there would be a strange family sleeping in the living room on the floor on the couches and that meant that my dad picked someone up that night whose car had broken down and rather than make him get a hotel at four in the morning they just came over to the house with them that was normal to me watching my my parents just take care of people and it was it was pretty cool because as a little boy trucks are cool and fun and if you've ever seen the movie cars that was my life because not only did my dad have a towing business tow mater my dad also raced cars so we had mcqueen in the garage and tomato in the driveway praise god yeah some of the some of the guys like oh yeah i mean it was the perfect boyhood childhood like it was amazing and i would i would i would just long for the day that i would get to run the controls on the tow truck and lift the car up or load the car up and it was just fascinating to me my dad would wake me up in the middle of the night sometimes hey i got to go on a call you want to go with me and i would always go with him and my dad doesn't talk and it's the middle of the night and i'd be 8 10 12 years old and i would just sleep and this is back in the day when trucks had what we call a bench seat you guys probably have never seen a bench seat this is before seat belts okay so i would just lay on the bench seat next to my dad and sleep the whole time but i was i was a part of the business i loved the business in my early teenage years i would work my summers and my school breaks i would work at our shop and i'd learn how to fix the trucks and i just long for the day when i would drive tow trucks i was 13 years old when my dad had had driven across the rockies over to salt lake city utah with a good semi on the back of our tow truck and swapped it out with a broken down semi for one of our customers and we were driving back my dad had been up for 36 hours and he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer he said okay lane it's your turn i was 13 years old the first time i drove a semi pulling a semi on the interstate talk about doing something you should go to jail for like i mean i look back i think my dad was crazy but i was so proud because i when i was little i'd sit in his lap and steer and and i would sit on a milk crate in the semi and i'd shift the gears it has a 13 speed transmission with two speed rear ends that means 26 forward gears and here i was 13 years old on the interstate i-25 headed east back to colorado springs freaking out but really excited at the same time well as i got older and i started to work in the business i don't know if any of you have parents like this my dad treated me worse paid me less had higher expectations of me than anybody else i don't know if anybody could identify with that that my dad i see some nods i see some hands going like like i was not going to get anything because of my last name let's just say it that way it was going to be tough and he was going to make sure that i learned the business and i learned the hard way and that i paid my dues and and that nothing was going to be handed to me and i didn't mind so for many years i i was responsible for the trucks i i had to drive the oldest truck in the fleet the one that was most broken down the one that was most worn out i had to i had to repair the trucks when other guys were out making money i was fixing the trucks that they had broken tow trucks break too you know and i had to clean the shop and i had to clean the shop bathroom so just let your mind go there for a second a tow truck shop bathroom all right the bathroom was in what was a mobile home that had flipped over on the interstate that my dad had flipped back over and they left it with us they never paid for it and so we turned it into an office so our bathroom is a former mobile home bathroom that has been upside down at some point and is now right side up and has become our office and that's where i am cleaning the toilet at the tow truck shop whatever you imagined i promise you you didn't even get close other employees would even make fun of me or disagree with me they would have attitudes i would see them mistreat our customers and and here's the deal no matter what i was doing if i was cleaning the toilet or having an argument with another employee i always had the best attitude and carried myself differently than all the other employees why what was my motive my motive was not my paycheck there were many years i didn't get paid at all my motive was not for influence or success my motive was for my inheritance because someday i'll own the oldest truck so that's still my truck someday the the drivers with attitudes i'm gonna be their boss right someday i'm gonna own that nasty bathroom so i need to take care of it now because someday it's going to be mine i hope you guys are getting the revelation here so i was not living my life as an employee paycheck to paycheck i was not living my life as a servant to the boss i was living my life as a son i was living my life as an heir galatians 3 26 through 4 7. it's one paragraph in scripture i have no idea there's why there's a chapter break but this explains it so beautifully for you are all children of god through faith in jesus christ and all who have been united with christ and baptism have put on christ like putting on new clothes there is no longer a jew or a gentile slave or free an employee or a volunteer follow that male or female for you are all one in christ jesus and now that you belong to christ you are a are the true children of abraham you are his okay guys this is really good news that we are co-heirs with christ that everything christ receives we will receive you said heirs like it's punishment okay let's try again you are his and god's promise to abraham belongs to you think of it this way if a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up even though they actually own everything the father had i can promise you there were days where i felt like a slave i was like he is making me do this for free he's never gonna let up on me he's being hard on me i i i am doing all of this work like it doesn't matter that you're an heir the work still has to get done okay so there's still there are still hard days they have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set and that's the way it was with us before christ came we were like children we were like slaves employees to the basic spiritual principles of this world but when the right time came god sent his son born of a woman subject to the law god sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children and because we are his children god has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts prompting us to call out abba father now you are no longer a slave you're no longer an employee you're no longer in a volunteer you're no longer a student but god's own child and since you are his child god has made you his boom there it is we are heirs so let that be the foundation of our motives especially when the storms come especially when we got to clean the toilet in the shop especially when nobody notices especially when we're not getting paid especially when we're putting in the extra effort going the extra mile doing the things that nobody sees that's when we have to check our motive i'm going to give you 10 things that that an air is motivated by to make sure our foundation is set correctly and i i would encourage you that you keep a hold of these 10 things like i have because i constantly and it will happen today as i teach you and reminded of areas i got to check my motive i might have a few of these doing well and i might have a few of these doing not so well because all of us have a propensity to naturally slide towards selfishness which puts us in the wrong motive number one heirs are motivated by family see heirs think family over issues there was lots of issues in the towing business there was lots of disagreement with me and my dad i'm a different generation as i got into my 20s and i started to run the company and work with him side by side our disagreements increased because he saw things differently than i have and so you could maybe imagine that trying to work with one of your parents that you're gonna you're gonna clash from time to time but we never put those disagreements we never put those issues over family and that's how how we need to operate within the church we're going to have disagreements i think i've shared this uh with the first semesters in in in the first week that all the times i've wanted to leave ministry were because of another staff member not all the times there are two other times most of the times we're because of a disagreement with another staff member but you have to as an heir put family over issue because there will always always be issues i think siblings kind of handle this better than than spouses i wish that that more spouses would realize that they need to put family over issues right and some of you have unfortunately experienced divorce in your own home and it's pretty rare that a brother or sister or brother and brother sister and sister would just say you know what i'm never talking to you again i have a younger sister i was horribly mean to her but she still loves me like we never thought about disowning each other and i know there are some families there's some dysfunction and all that but for the most part siblings kind of stay siblings throughout their lives because they put family over issues blood thicker than water right and we need to look at ministry in the same way because i promise you issues are coming they're coming first corinthians 1 10 i appeal to you dear brothers and sisters by the authority of our lord jesus christ to live in harmony with each other let there be no divisions in the church rather be of one mind united in thought and purpose why is paul writing that to the corinthian church there must have been some issues that is a corrective letter he is correcting something that is in existence in the church and that is not is not going to change we are going to have disagreements but we have to learn to live in harmony we have to learn to be motivated by family number two heirs are motivated by relationship relationship because of the security of their relationship heirs are willing to share their hearts and feelings with the father or their boss without fear of retribution or punishment like there's so many times that that that what i was going through i could have just kept it a secret for my dad but i just told him because i had security in the relationship one time i i crashed his brand new truck i did i had to drive the old trucks but one day i got to drive his brand new truck and i thought i was so cool i had my arm out the window i'm cruising down nevada avenue and colorado springs not paying attention to the station wagon in front of me that is sitting still i was going like 45 miles an hour and plowed through that station wagon thank god i did not kill the driver in that car but i had to get on the radio and call in hey f18 to base please call the police like worst radio call ever right i just destroyed my dad's truck but never once never once did i think he was gonna punish me or fire me was he gonna hold me accountable yes i had to pay for all the damages out of my own pocket i had to do all the repair work myself like there was accountability there were things that were going to happen but i didn't think he was going to disown me and cut off the relationship it wasn't even about my job it was about is he going to disown me no because there's security there we know relationship is important as jesus spent so much time with his disciples in matthew 16 18 he tells peter i tell you that you're peter and on this rock on you buddy i'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it in a couple of verses later i think five verses later he tells the same peter get behind me satan so obviously relationship was gonna win out even when peter makes mistakes you know you messed up when jesus calls you the devil right i mean that's a bad day muhammad it's a bad day if pastor mark calls you the devil that you you messed up right like like serious infraction and yet jesus knew he was gonna do it and yet jesus still said i believe in you and then peter preaches the first message in the church that we're all a part of today called the new testament church number three heirs are motivated to grow improve and get better heirs are motivated to grow imper improve and get better growing not maintaining there's going to be times in your life where you can just get by where you can just maintain oh i'm comfortable in what i'm doing i'm comfortable in my role i'm getting pretty good at my role as jesse said i'm getting successful in my role and so i'm going to relax and i'm going to maintain if there is anything that i have seen in our pastor over 20 years is that he refuses to stop growing personally i have watched pastor chris grow for 32 years because he was my youth pastor when i was 17 years old and he is a relentless grower like constantly bettering himself growing spiritually growing even in his skill set growing in his calling and it is a great example for all of us to remember to grow the success of what we're a part of is more important than maintaining it or the paycheck that we get from it so if you catch yourself as you get into ministry as you get placed i pray that you do i pray that it's full time i pray that that you get compensated for it you have to be very careful that you don't switch into this maintenance mode because now you're getting paid just as success as jesse said is an enemy to your relationship with god payment is an enemy to your calling i have seen more people literally step out of ministry the day they stepped into full-time ministry the moment they started getting paid to do what they already did before ministry left them because their motive was no longer the ministry their motive was the paycheck so you want to be motivated to grow constantly get better constantly reminding yourself of the call it's not about the paycheck it's not about what time you get off work how many hours i worked i'm thankful for the towing business being 24 7. i'm thankful that the the first time i worked 24 hours straight i was 16 years old the longest day i ever worked in the towing business was 36 hours driving a tow truck in a blizzard in colorado i was young then and i was proud of it now it would kill me but anyways i'm glad i grew up in an environment that never counted hours if you get in ministry and you count hours i would submit to you you're not in ministry you're in a job because the motive the motive the foundation is messed up oh i'm doing this so i can have benefits i'm doing this so i can buy a house i'm doing this so i can get a better car i'm doing this dot dot dot and it will steal ministry right out of you luke 16 12 jesus said if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property who will give you property of your own number four you're not gonna like this one because i don't like it but it's real heirs are motivated to embrace correction heirs are motivated to embrace correction i don't like this part when you're a parent and you've probably heard your parents maybe even say this as they were disciplining you or before they i am not doing this to you i am doing this for you okay you have heard that but it's so true when you really love your child you want to discipline them so that they they will live better lives down the road so that their character will be developed so that they can make better decisions but as you are being disciplined you think it's terrible and it's miserable and they hate me and and i don't ever want to experience this and you have to learn to embrace correction correction is not rejection here's the problem in my life it always feels like rejection always because i'm a human i would much rather pastor chris tell me i'm awesome than correct me it would feel better i mean i'm a people person i i just love people i'm i'm kind of a cheerleader in my in my attitude i love cheering people on i love people being successful i love helping people find their calling and and step into it i love lifting other people up so it never feels good when i get corrected ever it always feels like rejection but it is not and you have to trust god that it is not correction is redirection not rejection it's redirection so you want to be teachable hebrews 12 7 says endure hardship as discipline god is treating you as sons as daughters as heirs for what son or daughter is not disciplined by his father it's real there have been times i i can tell you story after story after story after story i'll start with the first time i ever preached at church of the highlands pastor chris was preaching every sunday night he was preaching every wednesday night we had a we had wednesday every every wednesday for 10 years until 2011 when we went to first wednesday but anyways we were in a living room at a house over in vestavia hills and that's where we did wednesday night services so the first service he did not preach at was a wednesday night at the sorelle's house and i got to preach i'm so excited this is going to be awesome i i just i have this word in my heart about the adoptive love of god the father i had at that moment a two-year-old adopted daughter ashlynn who's getting married this saturday help me lord i don't want to cry i i i told some of these guys i haven't cried so i have this message and so my daughter is the example of the adoptive love my love for her and i'm and i'm preaching in this living room there's a hundred people packed in there on on like white stackable like lawn furniture like that's we're packed in the room i'm preaching people are saying amen people are crying i'm crying like people afterwards some of them even lied to me and said that's the greatest message i've ever heard like like just don't ever tell a pastor that all right it'll mess with us anyways so i i couldn't wait to give pastor chris the cassette tape that was a cassette tape recording as pastor chris here you know when he got back i said here's my message i'd love for you to listen to it i'd love for you to give me some feedback i didn't mean that at all like what i wanted was some praise i would love for you to to be proud of me i'd love for you to tell me how awesome i am and i would love for you to know you can trust me when you leave all right i got this like come on and so we met a couple days later and he opened up a notepad lots of notes and i was like oh yeah i blessed him i blessed him this might sound familiar because his pastor did the same thing to him back when he was my youth pastor all those notes were everything i did wrong he was like don't start like this you shouldn't open a message like that you should have done this i'm like oh my goodness it all felt like rejection and then he even said when you said this that's not even in the bible that's called heresy oh that was awesome that was awesome but what what what did pat what did pastor chris see in me a loser no he saw somebody he needed to trust the next time that he needed to get better that he needed to see grow and i had to embrace that correction that felt like rejection but it was actually redirection and i had to know that it was for me not against me and so great leaders learn heirs learn to embrace that correction write this quote down the level of leadership you can attain is directly related to the amount of correction you can embrace if you always push back on it if you always reject it you are not going to gain leadership you have to embrace it i did not say enjoy it because i still don't enjoy it by the way 20 years later i don't enjoy it pastor chris had to correct me on something this past sunday yeah that's two days ago people after 20 years i'm still learning i'm still having to embrace right it still doesn't feel good but i have to embrace that number five i gotta move heirs are motivated to raise the bar motivated to raise the bar in other words heirs hold themselves to a higher standard i wanted my dad to hand me that business because i deserved it not because of my last name so i wanted to raise my own bar i wanted to be the best driver i wanted to be the best with the employees i wanted to be the best at repairing the trucks i wanted to know the books i wanted to know the accounting i wanted to know dispatch i wanted to know every area of the business so that i was deserving of my inheritance so i raised the my own bar and you can do the same thing first corinthians 10 23-24 i have the right to do anything you say but not everything is beneficial i have the right to do anything but not everything is constructive no one should seek their own good but the good of others i think a lot of times me included we think oh this is okay i can do this god will still love me god will still forgive me and paul's saying yeah but it's not constructive yeah but it's not beneficial so why would you do it here's the thing highlands college every one of us we need to be an example not because of a student handbook whatever that says why don't you take it up to a whole nother level why don't you decide you know what i don't care if anybody sees it i'm going to live to a higher standard so i ask you a very tough question i think you should write it down are you living a life worth emulating that's a tough one are you living a life worth emulating if everyone in hc does what you do does it benefit the kingdom if everybody did what you do does it benefit the kingdom if they watch what you watch listen to what you listen use language that you use gossip like you gossip like whatever it is does it benefit the kingdom i would love it if just like i was raising the bar because i wanted to be deserving of the company that all of us including myself y'all i'm preaching to me too i asked to ask that question too am i living a life worth emulating if all of our church was doing what i do is it good for the kingdom i'm not preaching at you i'm preaching to me too like these are questions that we need to ask ourselves number six heirs are motivated to honor heirs are motivated to honor fathers are never perfect my dad was not perfect pastor chris is not perfect but heirs will honor you honor because of the position not because of the personality you honor because of the position not because of their performance we don't only honor pastor chris when he preaches a message that i like don't only honor pastor chris when he gives me good feedback instead of criticism or correction no we we honor because of the position he holds we we honor the president of the united states not because of the person but because of the office and as pastor chris taught so so clearly in our honor series but then also at one big chapel when we started off the year with highlands college evening is that honor is more about us than it is the person that we're giving it to because it positions our heart it checks our motive in first corinthians 3 paul describes himself as a servant because people were lifting him up and they were debating whether paul was better than apollos stephen furtick better than than bishop jakes like like elevating these men of god and comparing these men of god and paul said stop it i'm just a servant but then when paul writes a letter to someone he's leading timothy first timothy 5 17 the same guy that says stop elevating me i'm just a servant when he is teaching a younger leader he says this the elders who direct the affairs of the church well that's actually paul so he's talking about me are worthy of double honor especially those whose work is preaching and teaching which is paul so he's telling the church don't elevate me but he's telling another leader that he's developing hey you need to give me double honor because it's not what paul needed it's what timothy needed to give honor is powerful when you give it it's dangerous when you need it it's healthy for our motives to honor and heirs they'll honor in all directions if you only honor up that's not honor at all in the towing business we used some pretty rough language for what that is i'll just do this that was maybe the symbol of what that was and you can kind of figure that out if you if you only honor up that's that's climbing the ladder that's positional that's not the true heart of a christian no we honor we honor in all directions we honor those that are our peers we honor those that we might be leading we honor people heirs talk about us not about me like like we honor romans 12 10 be devoted to one another in love honor one another above yourselves number seven heirs are motivated to stay there were some rough days in the towing business let me tell you 36 hours in a blizzard that's a rough day crashing my dad's truck that's a rough day there are days i wanted to quit there have been rough days at church of the highlands many of them many of them one of them was after a student retreat in 2003 i think it it was i was the youth pastor then and we had about uh 200 students go off to springville camp for a retreat and it was powerful and god moved and and and just i think over 150 students got baptized in the holy spirit it was amazing and and literally that same week there was a 17-page paper written about pastor chris talked about that and but what he didn't what he didn't explain is my emotions of that over a hundred students parents told him they couldn't come back to our youth ministry i was the youth pastor i felt like a failure i felt like the whole world was coming after us because this wasn't this wasn't a group of satan worshippers writing this paper no this was a group of christians writing this paper i wanted to quit so bad pastor chris didn't blame me at all but i felt the blame i felt like it was my fault because it was student ministry and now all of a sudden more than half of our youth group is gone to never return they're not coming back it was it was terrible and i wanted to quit and i felt like the whole world was coming after pastor chris after me and yet heirs are motivated to stay will you run away when time gets to get difficult will you leave your ministry will you leave your wife your husband your family your church like like time tough times are coming john 10 11-13 i am the good shepherd this is the words of jesus the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep the hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep so when he sees the wolf coming he abandons the sheep and runs away then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it the man runs away because he is a hired hand he's doing it for a paycheck and he cares nothing for the sheep so a true test of an error is if you care for the sheep more than you care for yourself will you stay in the tough times will you stay when the grass is greener on the other side employees will leave for the next best thing better benefits better pay better city cooler city better night scene number eight heirs are motivated to trust motivated to trust i got to just fly through this i wish i would have done better managing my time here if i was giving myself feedback i blew it on the clock all right heirs are motivated to trust trusting in in the biblical term is submitting okay we don't like that term in in american english it has a negative connotation but i had a military a former uh fighter pilot who is an executive pastor at a church uh in virginia beach and he said he said lane our language in the military or at least in the navy for the pilots of f-18s that land on aircraft carriers for submission their languages disagree and commit disagree and commit so there's lots of times in church ministry we have we have creative meetings we have lead team meetings we meet with pastor chris and he wants ideas and feedback and we give our ideas and feedback and a lot of it and then sometimes what my idea was doesn't happen so then i have a choice am i going to trust that the idea that was taken and the play that was called is the right play or am i going to hold on to that and reject that and not trust that god put leadership in place for a reason and that i can trust i can disagree and commit which means when you leave the meeting and someone else's idea is the one that we're running then it becomes our idea rather than i'm like macy can you believe they they didn't agree with me like my idea was way better like would you just do you think we should like get a little party together and criticize the decision that was made like no no no we disagree and commit employees will constantly question authority heirs will trust authority now that does not mean if you have authority in your life that is evil or asking you to do something unbiblical i'm not saying you you trust with a blanket i am just saying in a normal environment you just trust because god has set that up jesus was clear about designated authority rejecting it is rejecting him romans 13 1 let everyone be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which god established the authorities that have exist have been established by god number nine heirs are motivated to adjust motivated to adjust an heir will take responsibility for a mistake and make an adjustment rather than give an excuse i'm a good excuse giver i always have an excuse if i do something wrong i promise you it's a natural response for us to give an excuse jesus tells the story i won't get into it it's in luke chapter 14 from 17 all the way through 23 where the master sends out an invitation to the wedding banquet and everybody gives an excuse and they keep giving excuses and keep giving excuses and at the end of the day he's like you get anybody here because what the master is interested in what god is interested in is his house being full he cares about the results more than your excuse so get it done don't tell me why it's not happening don't come back with all these reasons well they got this and they got that and this one uh-uh fill the house fill the party let's go no more excuses number 10 heirs are motivated to build the house build the house heirs will bond new people to the house not themselves that's huge because selfishly we want people to connect to us but kingdom wise we want people to connect to the body we want to build god's house it is not about us paul warned in acts chapter 20 verse 30 even from your own number men will distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after themselves distort the truth they're not going to lie but they're going to they're going to twist it their motives are going to be wrong and they're going to try to attach people to themselves heirs understand the vision of the house came before we did randy's towing was there when i was a year old i had nothing to do with building that company until later on church of the highlands was in pastor chris and tammy's hearts long before i ever moved from colorado springs to be here in 2001 like an heir understands that building the house is more important than building themselves heirs don't try to change the vision they build on the vision now obviously i am not in the towing business anymore i am where god called me to be but i am i am about building church of the highlands not lane trans i am about building god's kingdom not my kingdom i'm about building you and your calling and your future and and what god has for you more than i'm about myself looking good or or being good or being looked up to that doesn't matter to me at all what i care about is you doing what god has called and created you to do one last scripture and we'll close philippians 2 20 through 22 paul bragging on a young leader timothy says i have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare remember caring about the sheep he's speaking to the church at philippi so timothy cares for the people for everyone looks out for his own interests everybody has selfish motives not those of christ jesus air motives but you know that timothy has proved himself because as an heir as a son as a daughter with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel god i pray for every student here i pray for that motive i pray for myself god god would you please remind me when my motives get off track and i shift from from air to lane from air to selfish from sun to image god help all of us check our motive make sure that we stay pure motivated by the right thing and that is your kingdom god and god i pray that every student holds on to this in the toughest days in their ministry careers and their lives ahead that they would know that their payment for what they do is not on this earth it's not a salary it's not a benefit package it's not a business card with a youth pastor title on it it's not a position in ministry but their inheritance is in heaven treasures in heaven may we always be motivated by our inheritance god not what's here on this earth but what is there in heaven we thank you for it pray over them with it bless them in jesus name amen and amen

Channel: Highlands College

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Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: cAOUA14QWOY

Length: 46min 30sec (2790 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 01 2021