Gateway Church Live | “Don’t Flatter Yourself” by Pastor James Morris | November 15

thank you thank you thank you very much it's so exciting to be here with you it's so exciting to be able to have the opportunity and privilege to preach here today and i'm just thrilled i i feel like this is family so and thanks dad for the introduction have you guys noticed that sometimes there is one particular person in the family that seems like all the stories points towards them when i was preparing for this week i actually realized that's me and if you don't know who that is it may be you and so i started thinking about it and i was like my listen i have two siblings josh and elaine and out of all the stories my dad's told i've been told on way more than both of them put together my mom spoke here at pink she told on me my wife spoke here in pink she told me my brothers preached here he told on me my sister preached here and she told on me my brother-in-law preached her and he told on me so i thought i'd write down all the lists today and tell you my side of the story of what i think happened i'm just joking i do love my family very very much uh and it's exciting to be able to do ministry with them to be able to uh be focused on just loving people loving you but doing that as a family let me introduce my wife my beautiful amazing wife bridget morris we have three kids parker mitchell and bray parker is eight mitchell is six and bray is four so two boys and a little girl they are not here today they are with nana which is bridget's mom so bridget's mom is taking care of them for us a little bit about us and our family is uh we live on a couple acres we actually had to sacrif we did live in keller we kind of sacrificed the commute and moved farther away so that we could move out on a couple acres we have two cows we have some sheep uh oh no we had some sheep until one of them attacked bridget and then they had to go we have some ducks and we have two uh guard dogs kind of they're supposed to be livestock guardian dogs but really they're just barking machines and one is named blue the other one is belle so together we have bluebell and then we have lots of chickens and a little story about me and bridget is there was probably a time that i realized you know what it'd probably better to live farther away on a couple acres than to experience what we were before so we lived in a subdivision and in that subdivision we had a house that had very small property lines on it so to give you a picture of it so our house was here our neighbor's house was a corner lot and no backyard faced the side of our yard our house was elevated a little bit there was a fence but since the it was elevated the fence was on their side of property so it was a very low fence we used that side of the house to keep all of our chickens so we had chickens all on the side of the house and we used that as what was we called a chicken run and so what i had also learned is in the winter whenever it's times like this that if the chickens have more light then they will produce more eggs and so what i had done is i had done a string of lights and put spotlights all out there so that the chickens would lay more eggs and so it was like this time of the year to where it starts getting darker earlier and i had realized i had not gotten the eggs now the neighbors that back our house they had actually moved out new neighbors moved in and they had been remodeling the house and so i had not seen them they weren't living there and so i got very used to not having neighbors and so one night i had realized i had not gotten the eggs yet and i had already made myself very comfortable for the evening meaning i was in my boxer briefs so here i am in my underwear and think i'm just going to run out get the eggs real fast to come back in i slip on my cowboy boots and just go and walk right out there to get my eggs for the evening i have just my boots my now remember i said picture this with me don't picture this too much so i walk out with my basket and my boots on and i walk right through all the spotlights there and i am getting the eggs when suddenly i hear voices this is in my head this is the neighbors they just walked out and they have decided they're going to visit their house so they walk out with them their kids and their friends i thought this is not a good way to meet my neighbors for the first time so here i am hiding behind the egg basket over there just trying to be as still as i can so they don't know because who wants to be that person that just walks out obviously you have to say something you're only 15 feet away from each other and say well howdy hello neighbor it's nice to meet you i love what you've done with the place so i was strategizing on a way out of this and so i realized you know what maybe if i sneak around i can climb over the front fence drop down run across and nobody will know something else about that our house is that our house tended to be the place where all the neighborhood kids loved to play so they would just play all on the street there and there would be kids there parents would come out bring lawn chairs sit on the street and just enjoy the kids playing but i thought it's dark nobody will see so i slither through doing a little army crawl climb the fence drop down take off running across the front of the yard when i didn't think about it but i had four motion lights i run inside and say the bridge and she could tell i'm very frazzled and looking very distraught and she said what is wrong with you and this what i said we got to move you don't want to be that guy that gets the letters from the hoa deal mr morris please wear pants think of the children so now we live out on a couple acres a little farther away and we've enjoyed that lifestyle but with that said the title of the message today is don't flatter yourself don't flatter yourself and the inspiration of this message comes from first corinthians and we are going to end in first corinthians but there is a uh model that first corinthians show and so really really we're going to end on talking about honor but the very first point is uh the very first point is don't flatter so title the message is don't fly to yourself the first point is don't flatter so it was a another i told you my eight-year-old son it was another church service similar to this and we were all sitting on the front row this was when he was probably about three years old and uh so we're all in the front row it's one of those moments that the service gets a little bit quieter you're seeing what the holy spirit's doing my son sitting right there in the front row he is standing on the chair he gives his foot a little stomp cups his hands over this mouth and yells boring there's a kid that doesn't struggle struggle with flattery right there that is why he's with nana today but we are not to be living in the world of flattery we're to be living in a world of honor how often but how often times do we see flattery instead of honor but we are called to live with honor instead of flattery let me read what the bible says about flattery proverbs 20 19 says he who goes about as a tale bear reveals secrets therefore do not associate with one who flatters with his lips 26 28 says a flattery mouth works ruin and then 28 23 says he who rebukes a man will find more favor afterward than he who flatters with his tongue so what is flattery flattery is praising somebody else but for your own personal gain it's when we're praising somebody else it's like worshiping somebody else but you're doing it for your own personal gain and maybe that personal gain is just because you're looking to be liked maybe it's so that you're looking for a promotion maybe it's looking for a cell whatever it is it's doing something for the other person and flattering them but for your own sake i was talking to two individuals that worked at a corporation uh a business and they were a little bit offended with each other but one of them was telling me said you know i called this meeting with this other person and we have this entire meeting i go over all these details with them and at the end of the meeting i said uh was this meeting beneficial to you it was a long pause five seconds probably felt like 30 seconds when suddenly the other employee says nope nope this was not so uh then when they're telling me this they said what couldn't they have released just flattered me but see the thing is we should not be looking to flatter other people nor should we be looking to flatter ourselves but to be flattered now with that said the guy that said nope he probably could have been more encouraging than he was because we're not called to flatter but we are called to encourage meaning to put courage in so what is the difference between flattery and encouragement flattery is an insincere compliment but for your own personal gain when encouragement is a sincere compliment but it's for the other person's gain it's so that the other person can benefit from it so as we are talking to people we need to be assessing in ourselves saying is this for them or is this for me am i doing this for their sake or am i doing this for my sake and if you're flattering somebody for a promotion or whatever it is check your motive we if listen if man puts you into a position then man can take you out of that position but if god puts you in a position then only god can take you out of that position so we need to be encouraging but not people of flattery see how i shared earlier how my dad always told stories on me but now i get to do it to my kids and it's a lovely thing so back to my kids uh parker and mitchell parker's now eight mitchell is six parker uh and uh the whole family was at a restaurant one evening and there was some country music on and on in this country music one of the phrases or lyrics for this song said what's a guy gotta do to get a girl in this town my eight-year-old said uh i don't know what a guy has to do to get a girl in this town my six-year-old said i do you gotta do something nice for her so i know i already probably need to be coaching my six-year-old the difference between flattery and encouraging to make sure that he is very encouraging but not necessarily erring on the flattery side so number one is don't flatter yourself number two is to speak truth we are to speak truth colossians 3 verse 9 says do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him so it says do not lie to one another because you have put off the old man we have put off the old man and we are not to be people of deceit people who lie but we should be people of honesty i think it's unique how sometimes we can even disguise lying as even saying well that that's just a little white lie that that's just a little white lie i just did that as a little white lie as if that's just like a little angel lie you know that lie that lie has a little halo over it i just lie to you so much because i just love you so much that's it but we are to be people of honesty people that speak truth and when i say that we should be people that speak truth let me just clarify i am not saying that that means that we should be people that just say the first thing that comes to our mind we've met some of those people right and that can be dangerous you need to steward your words i remember when i was like probably about 14 years old my dad had a friend and he had some land out probably four hours away from here so we were out there there's my dad my brother and i and him and so we are at that land and we drive into town we go into this little gas station convenience store and i go ahead and walk in there's probably six seven people in there when i go in there i notice that there's a guy behind the cash register wearing a very unique shirt i'm not going to say like what it is in case one of you is wearing it but i'm looking at him no i'm joking but he was wearing a very unique shirt and so the guy that was our friend he's just one of those big guys with a big personality that makes a scene wherever he goes it seems and so all of a sudden he comes in the door has a cowbell on it he swings open the door and makes a big scene everybody sees him and all of a sudden he looks right at the guy behind the cash register and goes wow are those back in style already oh and then the people that were in the uh in there were just also like picking up cheetos like they were seriously in interested in the ingredients just sitting there laughing but he was being what he thought honest probably but it was hurtful we we need to be kind and gentle ephesians um yeah 4 15 says but speaking truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head christ with all truth we share we need to share it with love everything that we're sharing we need to make sure that this is covered in love that we're not sharing it to be hurtful we're not sharing it to be mean but we are honest truthful people but we share every truth in love so why why why do we need why is it so important to speak truth i know like we'd say well yeah it's in the bible but why is it so important to speak truth john 14 6 says jesus said to him i am the way the truth in the life no one comes to the father except through me you see jesus says i am the truth not just i am some truth i am the truth it's our job to tell people about the ultimate truth jesus christ that's our job to tell people about truth jesus but if we don't have a reputation of telling truth then who's going to believe us whenever we tell them about the ultimate truth jesus christ and we are representing him and if he is true then it is very important that we speak truth to people that whenever people hear something that you a testimony or whatever that they could say no matter what it is they could say you know what i'm going to believe them because i have never ever known that person to lie to me i've never known that person to be deceitful in any way that person always always in love shared the truth so i'm gonna believe him whenever we share the truth then people can believe us if we have a reputation of sharing truth so i told you uh we live out on a couple acres we did this farm like this not farm but lord garden outside and we planted last year a bunch of tomatoes and tomato plants and so we planted all these tomato plants and the thing about planting a bunch of tomato plants that if you take care of them you get a lot of tomatoes and so here we had this abundance of tomatoes and we realized you know there's only so much you can do with tomatoes it's not like every evening you're like hey kids let's all sit down and eat 30 tomatoes together there's just no need it's not that good and so we had all these tomatoes and so we started getting creative with the recipes of what how to use tomatoes and so we bridget and i we started making our very own ketchup and we did a few batches we explored it and we made our own ketchup we thought we nailed it we made some pretty incredible ketchup we thought and so some of you know my dad is quite the ketchup connoisseur he loves ketchup so one day he was over at our house and so i was all excited i'm proud of this ketchup to share this new made ketchup with him and so he sits down i put some ketchup on his plate and also he takes the bite and says hmm james um this this ketchup is without a doubt after all the ketchup i've ever tasted for sure the worst ketchup i have ever had how could you say that no i worked hard on that ketchup but then i realized a couple days later i opened up the fridge and there's two bottles of ketchup and a label on the ground and what i realized is that we had actually tried to make one version of super healthy ketchup bridget's way more healthier than i so we made one ketchup version with no sugar none of the good stuff in it and that ketchup truly was horrible and that happened to be the ketchup i gave my dad i didn't know that but i as i think about it now like i'm grateful he would tell me the truth and how much more does that strengthen his testimony whenever he's sharing about the ultimate truth because he is known as a and has a reputation of somebody that speaks truth and so when we speak truth then people can trust us and believe us even more when we share about the ultimate truth jesus christ so number one don't flatter number two speak truth and number three is to honor and so as we're looking at honor and i told you that uh first corinthians was the inspiration of this message these three points uh was first corinthians so we're going to dive into that to what i believe is a key to the area of honor but what is honor we look at the greek root word of honor it means to respect another definition for it is to esteem so when we honor we respect we esteem now if you're like me i don't really use the word esteem in my daily vocabulary i don't just say you know what i really esteem my morning coffee what you steam it no i esteem it so i had to look up the definition of a steam esteem means to put value on when we esteem something we have placed a value on it so when we honor somebody we place value on them when we honor somebody we respect them and so that's what honoring when we honor somebody means and so let me ask who should we be honoring first peter 2 17 says honor all people so whoever is in all that's who you should be honoring we should be honoring all people so regardless of their age their gender their race their finances the way you meet them how you meet them no matter who it is it's our job to honor all people to treat them with respect and to place value on them we place value by on them and that by doing so we are honoring them now with that there are some people that the scripture says we're supposed to actually give more honor to or an additional portion of honor a double portion for example first timothy 5 17 says let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially those who labor in the word in doctrine so there are some people that we actually we honor everybody but there's some people that we give double honor to that we give more honor to and the bible goes on to different people that we give more honor to are spiritual elders widows spouses older people jewish people governmental leaders there's a lot of scriptures on giving honor to our father and mother we're to give honor to our parents and so why why give honor to people there's a blessing with honor we're not to live in a world of flattery we're to live in a world of honor but there's a blessing from god when we honor for instance whenever it talks about honoring your parents it says that it will be well with you and you will have long life well luckily it'll be well with you and long life because if you have just have long life then and it's not well with you that's probably not as good but when we honor our parents it will be well with us and we will be given long life when we honor as god has told us to there's a blessing there so who's the ultimate honor go to the ultimate honor belongs to the lord the ultimate honor belongs to god and if we're placing value on what he said we're respecting what he says if he tells us to honor all people if he tells us to honor these people then actually by honoring them it's a form of honoring god and so we can actually put an emphasis on honoring people and by doing so we could be honoring god by doing that so we are to be people of honor the uh i mentioned that the uh message came from first corinthians and so first corinthians is a book that paul writes it's a very uh one at that point a book it was considered a letter that he wrote to the church of corinth and it was a very corrective letter and out of all the letters he wrote is one of the most corrective letters that he wrote and so he was writing a letter to them to to speak very honest truth in some areas some of the areas he covered was disunity doubting his authority fornication marital status eating meat from idol worship husband and wife relationship the lord's table which turned into a picnic misuse of spiritual gifts not walking in love so here he is writing this letter to them and i found it so encouraging when the lord showed this to me that i wanted to share it with you just encourage you but this is how he starts the letter here he is writing this letter but the first thing he does it starts with loving on them with honoring them so first corinthians 1 verse 4 says i thank my god always concerning you for the grace of god which was given to you by christ jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge even as the testimony of christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift eagerly waiting for the revelation of our lord jesus christ who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our lord jesus christ what he says listen when i when i think about you church of corinth i'm i'm excited i thank god for you there's been no gift in you that has been left out i'm so grateful for you and here's the key when honoring somebody is not to just just as paul did he didn't just focus on the natural but he looked at them and he saw what god saw in them and so when we need to honor somebody picture lord how do you see this person lord do you love this person you care so much about this person lord you're you have not limited them from giftings they have an open door to you and so when we're honoring people whether even if sometimes there's somebody that you work with or whatever that seems difficult to honor we don't have to shower them with flattery but we can actually say lord show me how you see them lord i want to honor well but lord give me the eyes to see what you see in them and you can speak that into them you can treat them with honor and respect and value by seeing them in a different light seeing them in god's light and that has changed the way that i'm able to honor some people and i think if we just can focus on lord how do you see these people then we can we can change the world we can honor all people we can honor the people that god has put in our lives and told us to do this in doing this what paul is doing is he is speaking truth but he's starting off in love he is surrounding the truth with genuine love for the people it goes back to a statement that sometimes you hear people say that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and in this he is showing them i really care about you not only do i care about you but god cares about you i care about you so much so we're supposed to honor all people all people a little story is uh bridget and i were at a family dinner and with my parents and we were walking out of the restaurant and we see i saw this person that i could tell had experienced some hard times and so i'm holding bridget's hand and i said hold on bridget wait watch this she said what i said my dad is about to walk over give that person one hundred dollars tell them about jesus and just love on them well he did he walked over there told him about jesus he gave him a hundred dollars and just gave him a big hug told and just they it was beautiful but he said how did you know that i said because it's not it's because that's who he is it's not just what he does it's who he is he is somebody that honors all people he sees the value on every single person and all of us can see the value that god has placed on every person so with that i want to pray with you if you don't mind just closing your eyes taking a moment with the lord and saying lord what are you saying to me through this message holy spirit speak to me some of you may feel like i feel like i've messed up my opportunity to honor some specific person or in this area but just start today honor people [Music] for some of you i feel like god may put a specific person in your life and give you the strategy and the ways in which you could honor them to give you the eyes to see them the way that god sees them and then how that will change your actions your words and how you talk to them and everything lord give us your heart for people that we may be people of honesty that don't flatter but we encourage people we will be people that set it our face on making sure that we honor people lord we thank you lord we thank you for your goodness and what you're doing in every single person here at gateway in jesus name amen amen i want to invite you to stand with us if you would please as you that can we thank pastor james again thank you for that message james [Music] and i want to invite you now i know james just prayed in a response i want to invite you to respond but i want to do this i want to just ask you to close your eyes for a second i know we just prayed maybe the lord wasn't done doing a work in you maybe you've you've made that response to this message maybe the issue of honor is a is a significant thing in your life you know this this season in our country there's there's a lot of questions about honor and how that happens and how it's done and i just want to invite us as believers to receive what the lord has to say about honor i want to invite you to think right now and ask the lord god is there anything else that you're doing in my life and you need prayer for that today maybe you're you're you're dealing with a significant relational issue maybe you're dealing with a financial issue maybe just the season has you burdened i want to pray for you i just want to ask you that's you eyes are closed just would you raise your hand and let me know if you need prayer just lift your hands up the lord knows he knows your prayer i'm not going to do anything to embarrass you i just want to pray for you and i know the lord sees you the lord knows what's going on in your life and so god i pray right now for every hand raised who are saying there's there's an issue in my life today god and i need you to show up god i need you to make yourself known in this area of my life god i pray you do that today i thank you as we worship you for all of your glory and majesty i thank you god that we know you are a personal god to us you see every hand raised you know every issue present in every life and so god would you meet that need would you meet us where we are today lord bring your answer or bring your perspective lord if it's a time delayed of your answer help us to see what you're doing in our lives right now god i pray your blessing on your people bring your answer i pray in jesus name amen amen listen i want to encourage you too if you want someone to pray with you you can text that prayer to 7 10 10 and as you leave today we have prayer tables out in the lobby you can have someone pray with you as you go today but we've got a couple more announcements before we go yes just a few more announcements okay if you are doing operation christmas child shoe boxes you have this weekend and next to turn those in so you can turn those in out there in the front also you can go online to find out how to fill a shoebox also do not forget you do not want to miss our night of worship at all campuses six o'clock tonight so we want to see you there and then finally the last one is oh yes our build team were you inspired by all the build team volunteers so if you have decided after seeing all the volunteers that you know you want to serve at gateway church either text serve to 7 10 10 or you can find a bill team member out in the front and ask them about becoming part of the build team we love you jesus loves you go and have a great [Music] [Music] week [Music] so [Music] you

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Length: 40min 35sec (2435 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 15 2020