Gateway Church Live | “Simply Human” by Pastor Robert | Nov 7–8

[Applause] [Music] hey everyone i tell you that was amazing just a moment ago i'm at the south lake campus with just two as we honored our veterans it just moves me every time to think uh of how much here in america we love our veterans and we love you so much and especially at gateway church i love your patriotism at gateway church i love that you know that we owe the freedom that we have to men and women who serve in our military and so thank you again veterans thank you very much well what a week i know you're all wondering what i'm going to say i'm wondering what i'm going to say i will say that i was uh you know i love nature and we have a place in the country and so one evening i was sitting in a it's called a deer stand and i just like to watch the deer and watch nature and sun was going down setting and and deer out there and just a beautiful evening but i was just in turmoil you know on the inside one report another report and this report and that report and you know we're gonna have to wait 10 days three days 11 days and all the stuff you know and i finally just said to the lord lord i just i can't handle it i just cannot handle it and he said i can i can i can handle it so i i told the lord well lord that's i'm giving it to you because i'm tired of carrying this stuff and so uh i will say that i did ask the lord for a scripture and uh one of our apostolic elders james robinson who's here called me with a scripture romans 8 28 all things work together for good which was in my message last weekend but the lord the scripture the lord gave me he took me back he said remember the scripture that i gave you for 2020. so this was before we knew about the pandemic this was january 1st the lord gave me the scripture second chronicles 7 14. if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways i will hear from heaven forgive their sin and heal their land and that's the scripture i think we still need to pray i think we need to pray for our nation and the great thing is there's an if and there's a then in that verse if my people will pray then i will doesn't even say i might it says i will hear from heaven and so i think we can trust god i i um i know who um the president's going to be um and well i should say this way i know who the president of the president's is going to be his name is jesus so that's the that's the key is we're going to stand for that so let's trust the lord and let's walk in peace and let's trust the lord okay and let's continue to pray uh i a friend of mine said to me the other day i was talking on the phone a pastor friend he said you know i'm thinking the next time that we have a a world pandemic worldwide pandemic and a presidential election in the same year i'm going to do better so none of us knew i would like for someone to unplug 2020 and plug it back in and see if there's a see if we could restart it so but all right so we are finishing our our series today uh four-week series called perfect or perfected i just want to remind you what the lord has said and done and i want to encourage you that if you missed a message go back and listen to it because we talked about we started talking about perfectionism and that we could never be perfect and jesus said you shall be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect he had to be referring to the work on the cross it's the only way we could be perfect like god in heaven is we talked about stress and how stress affects us and other people put weights on us and things happen put weights on us we talked about that we talked about good enough that god called creation good and that every good and perfect gift comes from above so we talked about that so today i want to talk to you about simply human and this is something god's been doing in my life literally for years but especially the last three years god has been dealing with me about just being simply human now i'm going to give you some terms and you might think uh with like one of these terms even you might think well it doesn't relate to me but as i explain the concept of it i think it relates to all of us all right so i want you to think about these terms and we'll go through them each as points but superhuman subhuman are simply human superhuman subhuman or simply human in other words do you see yourself sometimes as a superhuman now all of us would say no i don't then why do you keep taking on more than you should why do you keep overworking and over committing if you don't see yourself as a superhuman sometimes or do you see yourself as a subhuman you say no i don't in other words less than human sub means below like a submarine marine means water sub means blow it goes below the water so you see yourself sometimes as below other humans and you might say no i don't do that well then why do you beat yourself up every time you make a mistake or do something wrong if you're simply a human so this is something that god's been dealing with me about in my life and that's why i want to help you today with this about being simply human all right so i'm going to read you a passage out of philippians 2. it's one of my favorite passages i'm not reading the whole passage i memorized it shortly after i got saved but i'm going to read it out of the message version because i really like the way the message says it so philippians 2 verse 5 think of yourselves the way christ jesus thought of himself he had equal status with god but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what not at all when the time came he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave became human now watch this phrase this is one reason i chose this passage i really like this phrase how the message says it having become human he stayed human having become human he stayed human it was an incredibly humbling process he didn't claim special privileges instead he lived a selfless obedient life and then died a selfless obedient death and the worst kind of death at that a crucifixion all right so we're gonna go through these three terms all right so number one we are not super human now i know you would say i know i'm not superhuman i'm telling you though we act like it sometimes by the things we take on but we're not super human so let's go back look at verse six verse six sorry about that my i've been dealing with junk all week how many of you been dealing with either allergies or junk and stuff or okay bless you in jesus name verse six he had equal status with god but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what okay if there ever was a superman it was jesus right i mean when i see the movies there there they're about jesus you know the the guy is not from this world uh he can fly something else so i don't remember jesus flying in acts chapter one when he ascended into heaven he did he went up right right in front of him he ascended into heaven he just didn't fly around all the time with a cape but he can fly he can walk on water he can raise dead people he'll blind people from birth i mean if there was ever a superman on the earth it's jesus he's if there was ever a superhuman it was jesus right although he was had equal status with god he didn't cling to it in other words even though he he was superhuman he became a human and he stayed human think about all the times he was a human think about when jesus i mean when satan tempting him took him up on top of the temple and told him jump off and quoted psalm 91 to him you know the angels will protect you he quoted scripture back and said no we're not going to tempt god but he also knew the laws of gravity he knew he was a human he became a human and he stayed a human he lived within that the the limitations of being a human although he had great power and great authority now he used his power and authority though but he only used his power and authority to help people when i was growing up there was a tv show that i liked a lot called bonanza anybody remember bonanza and i love the cartwrights because they were good people and i loved ben cartwright because he had a lot of power but he used that power to always help people there was always an underdog a guy that people were trying to drive off his land or something and ben cartwright said no you can stay on the land because ben cartwright says you can stay on the land you know there's something about jesus that he's walking around he knows he's a human but he also knows that god has anointed him with the holy spirit he's got the power of god working through him and he can help anybody he wants at any time i like that but he knew he was a human let me just show you a couple of scriptures about his humanity luke 5 16 so he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed why because he knew as a human i need pray prayer i need to pray matthew 4 2 when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterward he was hungry humans get hungry after fasting normal matthew 8 24 suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea so that the boat was covered with the waves but he was asleep human sleep he he slept when he was tired he ate when he was hungry he prayed as often as he could because he knew he was a human so he lived on this earth 33 and a half years as a human although he was the only superhuman but he still lived as a human now why is all this important because of where we started philippians 2 verse 5 think of yourselves the way christ jesus thought of himself how did he think of himself he thought of himself as a human now again i i know that we would say past robert i don't have any problem thinking of myself as a superhuman but i think we all do i think we say yes way too much i think we commit to way too much i think we overwork there are times uh in in my life there have been times when i've been sick like even dealing with stuff this last week but i've been sick on the weekend very very sick and still preached because i have to i've thought to myself before other people can be sick i can't be sick i i have to be there i have to lead this meeting i have to do this and then all these opportunities saying yes to everything it's it's it's thinking somehow that i can be superhuman and this is something god's had to work with and deal with and i'm telling you i guarantee you you might not use the word superhuman but you've said yes way too much to things and we over commit and we overwork um years ago you know we didn't have video messages we didn't have it where i could speak once or twice on the weekend and record it and play it we didn't have other campuses and uh but even then when we did have other campuses then for some reason every easter i felt like i should preach all the services live and on easter a few years ago we would have two on friday night three on saturday night and then we had four on sunday in other words rather than our normal three we added a sunrise service the the staff member that suggested that has been fired by the way no i'm joking but i just remember sitting in the meeting and it coming up wouldn't it be great to have a sunrise service yes and then when it actually got here it wasn't great so um and there were only seven people here you know so it just wasn't great but i preached so that was two friday night three saturday that's five and four son that's nine nine messages in three days now unless you've spoken you you may not fully relate to how much energy that takes out of you but then i'm just telling you how i think sometimes being super super human then i get on a plane on monday and i flew to australia close to the ends of the earth and i spoke for planet shakers in a conference and i spoke for hillsong in a conference and then i spoke for hillsong for the weekend and they have a whole bunch of services and we set out a new campus brian houston and i and i spoke for that and we did this we and by that week i was getting a my great headache was getting worse and worse and worse and by monday after speaking in two conferences and all weekend plus nine services at gateway the weekend before for our easter services which is like super bowl for a pastor the headache had gotten worse and worse and worse and the medicine i was taking for and i had a doctor in the church coming to the hotel room trying to help me giving me shots doing all this stuff but by then an ulcer had developed and i and i started bleeding internally now that's not two years ago that was not in my stomach that bleeding problem but this was in 2012 and i end up in the hospital we go into the hospital to check in and i literally walk into this little admitting room and while they're trying to check get my information i pass out and the buzzers start going off and all that debbie's in the waiting room and the next thing they she sees is they're taking me through on a gurney you know through putting the oxygen mask on and and they got everything they got the bleeding stopped and all but here's the point superhuman i can do it i can preach all nine i can get on an airplane fly 24 hours i can preach in a conference five times in a day two conferences oh yes i can do that yes seven seven weekend services yes i can do that you can't and the only reason i'm sharing a personal illustration with you is i don't have your illustrations i don't live your life but something's happened to you and you've burned out you've worn yourself out you've worn yourself down and i just want you to know you are not superhuman you can't do it jesus became a human having become a human listen to this he stayed a human he stayed a human so number one we're not superhuman here's number two we're not sub human under or below being a human verse seven when the time came he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave became human okay so he becomes a servant and this word is bond servant new king james it's slave here but it actually means slave an enslaved person it's it's it's unbelievable the the what this word means and jesus became that but was he still a son he was and did he ever struggle with knowing even though he became a human and came to serve he didn't come to be served but he came to serve did he ever struggle with being a son knowing he was a son never never struggled with it even the temptation when satan comes to him was if you remember if you are the son of god well jesus never even argued with anybody because he knew he was a son so when i talk about being sub-human i am talking about that sometimes we feel like we're worse than others but here's the main reason we feel like we're worse than others are less than others here's the main reason because we feel like we're less than a son or a daughter that's the problem the problem is not comparing yourself with someone else and feeling less than the problem is feeling less than a son or daughter of christ a son or a daughter of god that's where the problem comes in when you begin to feel like you're less than someone else then you're actually feeling like i'm less than a son or a daughter because all sons all daughters are equal to god all there's no jew or gentile there's no male or female there's no freer slave in christ we're all equal before god so there's a problem because we begin to feel like we're worse then what we do is we look at our our um performance i've i've had this tendency my whole life to look at others and feel like uh i'm just not as good as i'm you know i've told you all before debbie is this wonderful person and i came into our marriage very scarred and and it wasn't very long into it i thought i married mother teresa and it's and i just always felt less than felt not worthy i'd get around other people feel not worthy think about my past and i'd feel not worthy i'm just wondering think about this i've been saved this favor will be 40 years now and yet every now and then the enemy still reminds me of my past i'm just being vulnerable with you what about you there's a tendency in all of us to feel like we're worse than others do you remember the the story in the bible of the pharisee and the prostitute a prostitute comes and she anoints the feet of jesus the bible says with her tears and she wiped his feet with her hair dried her tears with the hair of her head so she's she's washing his feet with her tears and the pharisee looks down on her and and thinks who's this woman i mean if if this man were really a prophet you know he'd know what kind of woman is touching him and of course jesus says the guy's thinking boy if he were a prophet and jesus said hey i want to talk to you he was a prophet you know but here's the point the pharisee thought he was better than superhuman the prostitute thought she was worse than subhuman and jesus tells a parable to say nope they're both the same you all are both the same you're both lacking when it comes to my father and you're lacking the exact same amount actually even though you think it's more and you think it's less you're likely the same okay so i want to say something that it's one of those statements that i hope stays with you and you never forget this statement there's a pharisee and a prostitute in all of us there are times when all of us think we're better than other people people who aren't like us people who don't vote like us people who don't have the same values that we have or maybe not even a christian worldview we think we're better than well we try to push that thought out immediately but i'm just telling you the thought comes in our minds but then there are other times we think we're worse than the whole point of this message is i want to keep driving at home we're not super and we're not sub we're simple we're not super humans we're not sub-humans we're simply humans we're just humans we're all on the same level uh mike briskey's sitting on the front row here mike works with me over with in my office now when i say that todd pastor todd is the executive senior pastor of the whole church the whole staff everything all of gateway church under me mike a few years ago i brought him into my office to manage my office all that comes into my office my schedule all the requests things like that mike and i started being friends years ago some of you know some of you know before mike came on staff he came on staff in about 2004 in our marriage and family department but before that 15 years he was a professional golfer played on the pga tour and so we met when he was playing on the pga tour and became friends the very first service we ever had mike and judy attended that service and he took off that weekend which you know for him a weekend is uh his income you know so he took off to be in the very first service so we've been friends for a long time and a few years ago and i realized i need a high level person executive in my office just my part to run all this i just knew mike would be perfect but i even thought then i may struggle a little bit he and i talked about it i may struggle mike because we've been friends for so long with asking you to serve me and he said we don't need to struggle with that i mean i'm i'm great doing that you know that's that's not a problem you know so i mean i'm thinking to myself sometimes i'm thinking okay i'm i'm asking a guy who beat tiger in 97. you know uh but you get past that but the thing is i have a guy and i'll tell you most of you know a consultant that i meet with that is a psychologist and he's a leadership consultant and so it's to help better serve you and to better serve the body of christ so we're talking one time about this and he said there's something robert we need to deal with about this he said um would it be easier for you to ask mike to get you a bottle of water or for you to get up and get mike a bottle of water and i said will be easier for me to get up and get michael bottle water then ask him to get me a bottle of water and he said okay i'm going to ask you a question and i want you the first thing that he said and i don't know how he sets this up he's he's the voodoo or something i don't know but he said he said i'm gonna ask you a question and what's gonna come in your mind is something we need to deal with so i want you to say what comes to your mind and i said okay and he said why why is it tough for you to have him serve you and not tough for you to serve him and i just i immediately carry my mind and i said i just don't i don't want to say it i don't want to say what kicked my mind and he said no i want you to say it because we need to deal with it and i said okay it's because he's better than i am he said what do you mean better i said i know him i know his character i know his integrity i've known him for over 20 years i know him he's just a better person than i am and then i said this mike has never struggled with what i've struggled with and so he said to me so mike's not a human and i said no he's a human he said well then he struggled you see how you get this see the problem was not here's what here's what this guy said to me he said robert the problem is not how you see mike the problem is how you see yourself that's the problem that's what we need to talk about because you see yourself as worse than other people because you know what you struggle with but you don't know what they've struggled with you don't know so we're not super human we're not sub-human here's point number three we are simply human we're just simply human uh philippians two verse eight having become human he stayed human it was an incredibly humbling process he didn't claim special privileges instead he lived a selfless obedient life and then died a selfless obedient death and the worst kind of death at that a crucifixion so what's the key just being human well the key is right there to live a selfless obedient life and to die a selfless obedient death even crucifixion in other words died itself how many times did jesus say if you're going to follow me i need to take up your cross and follow me take up your cross see we think you know jesus went to the cross so i wouldn't have to i don't know why though he says yeah but you've got to cross too i need you to die also and i need you to die every day so for me to be human means that i'm going to make mistakes i'm not going to beat myself up when i make a mistake because i'm not subhuman i'm not worse than other people i'm going to allow myself to make mistakes i'm not going to strive for perfection i'm going to just trust that i'm just a human when i i know this seems almost so simple oversimplified that some of you are thinking i've never had a problem pastor robert knowing i was just a human but i'm talking about this striving for perfection and beating yourself up every time you make a mistake that means that you feel like you should be more than human but humans make mistakes i was talking with a couple a while back and they were going through some marriage difficulties and we were talking about it and i said to him um you know what kind of people go through uh the problems that y'all are going through and one of them said um [Music] outgoing people i said no uh one of them said uh what about um high d people no uh what about overachievers no entrepreneurs know i see you know what kind of people deal with the problems y'all are dealing with they said no i said humans humans do so we've got this thing in our minds that somehow we're super human but we're not super human as christians we struggle with things i've got to come to place where i rest in grace now i want to make another statement that might blow your way guilt and shame take more people out than sin does guilt and shame take more christians out than sin because it's the way we think of ourselves and if you're ever going to overcome any weakness or any sin you're only going to overcome it through grace it's got to be done through grace there are 1189 chapters in the bible moses took up two chapters of the bible arguing with god two chapters out of 1189 he takes up two chapters arguing telling god he's not good enough to do what god needs him to do exodus 4 1 moses answered and said but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice suppose they say the lord has not appeared to you exodus 4 10 then moses said the lord o my lord i'm not eloquent i love this neither before nor since you've spoken to your servant i couldn't talk before and i can't talk now i'm slow of speech and slow of tongue exodus 4 13 but he said oh my lord please sin by the hand of whomever else you may sin in other words send anyone else but me and then i love this one exodus 3 11 moses said to god who am i that i should go to pharaoh and then i should bring the children of israel out of egypt who am i that i should do this now let me just tell you in essence what god said here's what god said who are you who are you son the question is not who are you the question is who i am and that was his answer by the way you remember he said this moses said whom shall i say sent me he said you tell them i am sent you i am that i am the problem is not who you are the problem is who i am and there's no problem with me i i all i need you to do is just take that stupid stick and pick it up when i tell you to that's all i need i just need someone to carry a stick i can part the red sea i can turn the water into blood i can do it all moses i really don't need you that much i just need you to show up and i can take care of it so i'm going to tell you about another conversation i had with this uh consultant and um i i said to him one time not so ever every stupid insecure thought i have i talk to him about because i want to get it out if there's a root there you know so i said to him one day i said i said um i've been wanting to ask you about the way people see me and he said i've been wanting to talk to you about that i thought well that's good i think so i said well some people don't don't know me at all they don't even know me some people see me as a pastor some see people see me as a pastor of a large church or influential church but i said some people and this is hard for me to understand but some people see me as a famous person and some people even see me as a celebrity and i don't know how to deal with that and then he said to me well that's something we really need to dive into it's going to take us a while and we're almost out of time he said let's start here next time we meet okay here's the problem here's what you need to know we meet every three months so i have to wait three months we get back together we're doing some small talk i'm thinking yeah yeah i don't care about your dog let's talk let's talk let's get into our session here okay so i said hey i want to start where we left off last time he's and here's what he says where'd we leave off you hadn't been thinking about this for three months so i said i was telling you that i'm i i'm having a problem and i don't understand why it affects me how people see me i need to know what what is what does it matter how people see me how does it affect me what was that matter just like that and he said oh it doesn't matter at all how people see you [Laughter] i waited three months for that that's what we didn't have enough time to cover and that's what he said to me robert it doesn't matter at all how people see you it matters how god sees you and it matters how you see yourself he said i just want to ask you a question you're the theologian how does god see you and this is about two or three years ago before i even thought about this series and i i just said to him he sees me as perfect he said uh-huh and how do you see you and i said extremely flawed and he said that's why it's going to take us a while to talk about this i'm telling you don't try to be a superhero superhuman don't see yourself as subhuman worse than others you're just simply human listen and that's good enough for god it's good enough for god but you're just a human i want you to bow your heads and close your eyes and every week we just ask the holy spirit what are you saying through this message to me so ask him holy spirit what are you saying to me through this message just ask him normally there's an impression that comes to your heart and your mind and then i really love it when you can take it into your quiet time during the week and you review the message and you say lord remind me oh i remember now these three points we're not super human we're not subhuman we're simply human so lord where do i think of myself sometimes as superhuman and over commit and over work and over try to overachieve and where do i think of myself as subhuman that no one else struggles in this area and i'm a horrible person but lord help me to just be simply human and know that you love me just like i am and you can use me because of what christ did on the cross for me we we so love you i so love you you are the most mature group of people i've ever met in christ and i mean that with all of my heart you are phenomenal but i don't want the enemy to take us out with guilt and shame and perfectionism and striving and stress i want us just to relax we're humans and god loves us he's perfected us by grace and he uses us to help other people all the time satan doesn't want you to think that you're good enough to help someone else but because of grace you are we need to be spreading the kingdom of god on this earth helping other people i want to pray for you lord i just pray for my brothers and sisters and i pray in jesus name that you'll take the truths of this series that we are not perfect human beings but we have been perfected by the perfect work of christ on the cross in jesus name amen amen amen would you stand with me please i love this message by pastor robert such great clarity for us to understand and if i think about it as i applied to myself i i have that problem i have a problem i i have a tendency to feel like i can do it all i can i can do it all and i say yes to much more than i should and i'm so grateful of the centering reminder from him that all god asks of us is just to be human just to be ourselves that was always enough but i wonder how you feel i wonder if maybe we could pray for you if maybe you if you fall into the trap that i fall into where i think i can do it all i try i don't get there and then i make myself less than human or sub-human does that happen to you if it does i want to pray for you would you would you let me pray for you if that's affecting you in your life in some fashion or if you need prayer about anything today let me pray for you this this morning father we come to you this morning because as your children we're so grateful that you knew our beginnings and our ends right from the beginning and even in that moment you called it enough your grace is sufficient for us we're so grateful for your understanding what a loving and understanding god you are god i pray that every person under the sound of my voice would know the physical and tangible love and forgiveness that you extend to every one of us help us to be patient with ourselves and to understand that you accept us fully and to run toward you with our challenges and not away from you and i pray lord that anybody who might have a financial difficulty of uh personal difficulty and be in need of healing of intervention of any kind that you would meet them at their place of need and bless them in jesus name amen amen okay i have two announcements for you before you head out i want you to know about operation christmas child uh the boxes that we get to fill up and bless kids with don't you feel a little bit like we've been stuck inside and we want to help in the craziness over the last nine ten months so this is a great way to bless children that are in need and so you can pick up boxes if you're here if you're joining us online you can go to our website gatewaypeople.com and look on the front page for ways to give at christmas time so we'd love you to join us in blessing many children around the world and then pastor robert's book for those of you here it's out in the lobby for only ten dollars you can grab it there online if you text store the word store to 7 10 10 you can order the books from there so as you go one more time i want to say to our veterans your church family loves you and thank you and to all of all of god's church bless you and have a great day bye bye [Music] you

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

Views: 63,817

Keywords: Gateway Church, Pastor Robert Morris, Robert Morris Sermon, Gateway Church Live, Perfectionism, God is Good

Id: uA-0BdKRPUA

Length: 42min 0sec (2520 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020