Welcome To Communion City | 9:30 am Worship

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] hello ncc family thank you so much for joining us here's what's happening at northview christian church ncc safe harbor and communion city if you wish to become a part of our ncce church online it's as simple as texting the word join to 334 539 pray or log on to the church website at nccfamily.org to find valuable information on how to join us as ncc family member we can't wait to connect with you ncc dothan did you know that our midweek virtual bible experience is now open to the public that's right we invite you to join us every wednesday night at 7 p.m for our midweek virtual bible experience if you're not in the dothan area you may join us via any of our social media platforms at the same time to experience the life-changing word of god please remember that for your safety we desire to observe the social distancing protocol while worshiping in the sanctuary therefore until further notice ncc safe harbor we ask that you please remember to register for all upcoming in-person services please help us to keep you safe are you watching on youtube do us a favor and hit that thumbs up and subscribe to this video if you're watching on facebook go ahead and hit that love like or share button or start a watch party hey ladies it's janita we're looking to update our woman refined database and we're looking to connect with you email us at therefonwomanncc gmail.com again that's the refund woman ncc gmail.com and we'll keep you updated on all things woman refined and don't forget to like us on facebook under our woman refined facebook page we're looking forward to connecting with you thank you so much for joining us and please enjoy the rest of our service [Music] good morning wake up wake up wake up hey listen do me a favor grab you your phone your smart device i know some of you were probably you are probably laying in bed got your bonnet on or your cup of coffee or you sitting outside or chilling grab your smart device and share this this morning i want to talk to us about how to cast your care and i'm gonna wait wait till we kind of get up there so i'm not gonna start teaching until we we get set but listen um again go and share this just hit share when you come on you keep hitting share um matter of fact comment in the comments good morning community hit share i want to share this this morning because uh i want to you know many times when as leaders and as uh as people of god we are surrounded by by by situations that are stressful you know one of the things about being in charge of anything that you get you get this bird's eye views the aerial view of all the people and all the things that are around you um and if you're wise to things of the spirit you see into the spirit realm so you're seeing spirits that are surrounding you and it could be stressful because you see it doesn't mean you have to say it and because it's there doesn't mean you have to try to move it sometimes god god allows things to happen and things to be in your um your purview or your scope so that you can grow and you can develop and so last night before i lay down this has been like a a matter of fact this is the beginning of a very hectic five days that my wife and i are going to be are traveling doing this and doing that uh and i laid down last night to kind of talk to the lord about the things i see and the things that i'm experiencing and the things that i have to deal with it there are um there's just there's business there's legalities there's all kind of stuff and the spirit of the lord brought to my my memory a simple scripture that i used to read all the time he's teaching this all the time and i want to share this with you i want to share with you this morning so again go and share this i'm watching the uh i want to make sure that there's a hundred of you on here because i'm gonna start teaching right at 100 you might want to make sure that you guys are getting this and i could share it okay we're creeping up that can still i'm going to start now and so what i want to do this morning is i want to get um teacher exegetical uh lesson or do a exegetical study on first peter chapter 5 verses 5 through 7 and the topic of today is is give it to him give it to him um now let me define this term exegetical it's not a it's not a deep word it's actually a term that's used in um theology for or a critical explanation or interpretation of a text and so in an exegetical well in a topical study we'll pick a topic and we go from scripture to the scripture and we'll search the topic out but in the exegetical study we'll we'll stay in one passage of scripture and we'll grab every topic that comes up in that passage of scripture on that discourse and we will listen to the the verb will exegete or we'll pull out of the text what's there and see what the holy spirit is trying to teach us in that passage of scripture so i want to begin this this morning father give us wisdom as we go into your word uh thank you that you're the loving god thank you that you the protecting god thank you that you're wise and you're all knowing you're ever present father speak to us educate our minds lord lighten all the lord in our souls calls us to to want to please you give us the will to please you the want to and then show us the how to so that god when we live our lives no one can bring a charge against us and say we wronged them and we will please you in all that we do god and our lives will be will be less burdened that's that's the goal for today is to get your people to the place where we're less burdened in jesus name amen and amen so what i want to do is i want to just jump in right quick in first peter chapter 5 verse 5 i want to read the whole thing to you then we'll go back and grab verse by verse or phrase by phrase and i want to just unpack this this morning the bible says likewise ye younger peter is writing this letter as a matter of fact let me pick up here peter is writing this letter to the churches and it's a general letter an epistle and uh if you if you were to google or when was first peter written you'll see different dates but the actual date of this letter is between the year ad62 and the year 1863 when the emperor domitian was ruling um i think peter we believe peter was martyred shortly after that matter of fact after he wrote ii peter um he was killed or crucified upside down um so he wrote this letter in the year 6263 and he wrote the letter because of of what was happening in the earth at the time uh it reads likewise you younger submit yourselves unto the elder ye all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility and he says for god resists the proud and gives grace to the humble verse six goes on to say humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time and then we'll wrap up with verse seven that says casting all your care upon him for he careth for you now i want to go back and and the reason i want to explain this is because um let me tell you where i am and as a leader um and as a person that that is is discreet um it's amazing how people when people have problems they come to us like i've counseled literally thousands of people over the course of my ministry and they'll come to me about things that are minor or things that are super major some things are are actionable which means that if they were to tell the police someone would go to jail and and some things are very personal so i counsel a lot of people's problems but what i learned over the years is that although people want their leaders to counsel them and they want to be able to freely speak and emote and even get in social media and unpack all their personal business if a leader says anything to anyone about what they're going through then that leader is considered to be immature or out of control or acting out of character the problem with that is and this is the first rule of christian um fellowship is your leaders are people too and if you watch this now if you want your leaders to be healthy and mentally mentally um whole you cannot expect them to keep everything in and not let something out you got it if you're looking for that type of leader that the only perfect leader is a dead one and that is why for the most part a leader like martin luther king when he was alive he was one of the most hated men of paul was taken he was one of the most hated men alive and after he died he was the most revered and loved because that's what we do the people of israel gave moses a hard time when he was leading them many times at one point they want to stone him many times let's go back to uh to egypt but after he died they wept so much so they were so distraught that god had to hide his body you got it so so um this issue of that i'm talking about this morning is something i took to bed with me last night and my question to the lord was this it was a simple question how much do we have to take in dealing with people as it relates to the burden and the pressure of evil people doing things to you but you can't say anything about it and that's what i'm dealing with this morning you may be in a situation where people are doing evil things to you it may be even members of your family they may be on your job it may be somewhere where they're just they're just being horrible to you and in order to please god you have to hold it in you can't say anything about it it's stressing you out um um if you many are sensed by the holy spirit that some of you are so stressed out all you're twitching your body is doing these twist things um you're going through a b vitamin deficiency because the stress is so unnerving by the way take a big complex vitamin for that but the key thing is to cast the care of the lord but to do that there's a build-up to this that peter walks us through he says i want to begin i want to go line by line he says likewise you younger submit yourselves unto the elder now when peter wrote this letter you have to understand that it was almost standard practice that church leaders were older and they and they served a younger congregation what it means is a lot of people who were in charge back then it wasn't they didn't just look at your gift and say because you have a gift they're going they're going to um promote you no but the way it worked was um you had to be a certain age to be called an elder you were literally an older person um as as we look at the life of timothy what we notice about timothy is that timothy uh as a young man um was put in charge of a church because paul had that much faith in his gift and faith in his uh character and as was silas who was a young person okay and so um these were the exceptions they were not the rule so you have you have the elders or the older people serving the younger so what paul is saying to them i'm sorry what peter's saying is um for those who are in charge he's saying listen you should expect that the people you're leading are submitted he's asking those who are led to submit to those who are leading the directive is younger people put yourself in a position to learn and to be led so that you can benefit from the wisdom listen to this from the wisdom of those around you and the wisdom of those above you i want to explain something to you and we live in a generation where when we talk about submission and we talk about authority and we talk about of someone being above you people take that personally but let me tell you about my own life 90 of the stuff i learned before i turned 50 years old i learned from other people people who are above me and people who are around me and a lot of situations are i learn from children from studying the lives of children or from going back and and um rethinking my own childhood or my own youth in light of the word of god the whole thing is in light of the word of god i listen to the older people in light of the word of god the people around me in light of the word of god there is no shame in submission matter of fact this word submission it will come up again the word submit simply means to place yourself under the authority or under the wisdom or under the tutelage or the mentorship of someone else discipleship and submission go hand in hand you can't be a disciple if you don't submit on the problem in the church today i believe one of the reasons we don't see that the church growing and being strong is that we don't practice discipleship because it's diff it's difficult to do it in the in the days that we live in to disciple people means you may have to fight them i'm not talking about literally fighting i'm talking about you have to go against what they want to do i remember they used to tell us man are we having bible study um we we need 100 attendance and everybody came and everybody came because the the word of the lord was given listen you need to be a bobster because there's some things we're going to teach that the whole church needs to learn nowadays it's like i'll be there i'll come if i want you can't tell me what to do but then when the pressure comes when something comes in a person's life then they look into leadership and say why are you not helping me well because the language i'm speaking you don't understand it because you didn't submit yourself it takes a submitted ear to hear wisdom now watch this now so and this may seem like like a for early in the morning like a very difficult lesson but you asked got some hard questions many of you watching today ask god why has this happened to me and what can i do to change this and god has given you the answer and the answer is i have so much to say to you i have so much to give to you but i need you to submit yourself the directive is put yourself in a position to learn and be led that position is called submission so what am i submitting to a person well it depends on your relationship with them but what the rule is is to submit to the wisdom of those who are either older or above you and the key thing is um do they have something to share if they have some kind of wisdom to offer then you submit yourself to receive it the trade-off the way i purchase wisdom i purchase wisdom with with submission okay um in this case as it relates to the elders of old um they had a kind of wisdom to offer of the younger people as it pertained to russia's living in the spirit and having the spirit benefit their lives in other words these people they weren't just older is that they had walked further with the lord they had walked longer with the lord um they spent their lives stumbling and bumbling and learning and growing and now they were able to take what they gathered along the way and pass it on to younger people i said listen when i was your age this is what i this this is the way it worked with me maybe different with you but this is what the lord wants so even paul when he was teaching along these same lines told the church he said let the older men teach the younger men let the older women teach the young women in the time we live in i mean there's a lot of shade being thrown you can't tell me nothing you're all fooled and it's easy to do that but but the people watch look out for the people who are being are promoted in the kingdom right now most of the worship leaders most of the pastors most of the people that you look to say man the hand of god is on their life if you follow that if you track their lives back to their youth they were either raised in church and they were submitted or they had hands laid on them or they submitted right now and they're properly connected to leadership and there's an honorary relationship in their lives the people who struggle the most are the people who are unsubmitted they don't honor anybody and they just they just want to uh promote this just the way i am and that's the way you're going to remain listen i'm telling you right now i'm to the place in my personal life where i'm only pouring in i'm only pouring into open vessels i got time to take your top off if you want to be poured into i believe you should be the one that you present your vessel to the lord so i want to be poured into you put yourself in a posture to learn and let god send a vessel to pour into you okay now the second part of that of the second phrasing that first peter five and five it says yea all of you be subject to one another so it begins by saying the younger being subject or being submitted to the older and then he goes he uses a different word he said yeah all of you be subject to one another what's interesting about this term or subject is that when you look at the greek it's the same word as the word submit i don't know why the uh translator used a different word but in the greek is this exact same word hyper or who potassium is the same word so he said he's saying first the older i mean the younger submit to the older then he says as a matter of fact all of you in your community all of you in your fellowship he said practice being subject or submitted to one another everyone submit yourselves to everyone why why would he tell us to make submission a part of our fellowship and our culture that's what he says he says i want you to honor one another and be open to each other's value each other's com our contribution study each other not for fault or for failure but study one another to see what gifting the person has and then he says submit to the gifting that they have if someone around you has a gift of organization and you are unorganized food and you just listen submit yourself to the gift of organization if a person around you has a gift of administration and you and you just don't know how to administrate anything submit to that if somebody around you has a gift of prophecy then listen to the prophetic words if someone is a teacher submit yourself and learn if someone is a pastor then be shepherded he's saying everyone should watch this and it doesn't just start it just doesn't stop what ministry gives if someone knows business and you don't learn from them what he's saying is let the entire culture and community of church be like a mentorship and protege relationship he says there's someone around you that knows what you don't know there's some you say i can google it you know i have a problem with some of the stuff that we google because i for example for example in a rush i googled this question when was the book of first peter written it's in my it's in my notes i mean i've preached this several times but in a rush i couldn't remember it was it was 69 a.d or or 6280 i knew it was one of the other well i wanted i saw both answers online the pastor how do you know 62 because by 69 peter had to be dead and you can't write letters when you did what i'm trying to say to you is because it's online does that mean it's right and so there are people around you that has legitimate knowledge they've done the work they've been to school they've had the hand of the lord upon them and you struggling to find out i just don't know how to uh or get the money from my first house there's someone in your circle that knows exactly how to secure funding i remember i was looking for i was trying to refinance the ranch and um interest rates were dropping and i was thinking man i i cannot find anyone to i wanted a personal relationship with with all the banker i don't like this loan officer thing and it dawned on me check this out my brother my baby brother is an investment banker and i never went to him so what i have to do i had to humble myself and go to my baby brother and say hey listen i'm trying to work this law and he walked me masterfully through the getting the money to refinance uh in a very professional way to fight refinance of the ranch what i'm saying to you is there's someone around you we practice if we practice submitting or subjecting ourselves to one another there's a lot of benefit in it the third phrase is this and be clothed with humility put that in the comments be clothed with humility and let me tell you why that's important because the terminology being used the bible has a lot of terminology that have been lost on us so let me let me break it down for you this is a word and i wish the world was shorter and i don't feel like it's too early in the morning for me to be of twisting my tongue trying to present uh uh pronounce these long greek words this is a long greek word probably have about four or five syllables but the word means it means to clothe yourself in the garment of a servant so when peter used the term uh clothe yourself and humility he was just throwing words out there he wasn't just trying to be creative in his speech he was literally saying he says um i need you to specifically put on this type of garment figuratively on your life he says he says see yourself putting on and this is terminology it's the it's the outer garment or the apron of a servant okay um and the reason the servant you've seen it before um in the old some of the old shows or movies um a person comes into work and the first thing they do is they grab the apron they throw it over themselves ah have you ever been to a waffle house the waffle house i know you all beat the waffle house right if you ever do waffle house you take they take the airplane to put it on it has the the waffle house logo but the reason they wear it is not to advertise waffle house and it's not so much for a uniform it's to protect the clothing under them it's called a service garment and sometimes stuff will spill on the garment you wipe it off and won't come all the way off but it's okay you finish your shift and then you wash it because it's a servant's garment it's a servant's apron that's what peter's saying peter's saying if you put on humility clothe yourself with humility if you put on humility as a servant's garment it reminds you to be submitted it reminds you that someone above you or around you has something from god i'll tell you what i learned you can ask god for a lot of things and he will give you every single thing you ask for watch this now if you're willing to receive it from the people he put it in because everything every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above but it don't fall out the sky a lot of stuff you asking god for he's giving it to people to give to you matter of fact i said 90 of the things you receive from the lord here's what he said give and it shall be given to you good measure press down shaking together running over he says shall men give into your bosom so you will sow and sow and god will give your harvest to people but if you're not humbly sometimes with our own mouth we kill our we kill the seed that we've sown sometimes with our attitude sometimes where you treat people i've had people i remember one time oh the spirit of the lord had me um the lord gave me a directive about about a particular individual and allah says this person is in trouble he said i want you to take up some of this money i've given to you um and i want you to sow this into them because they need to come through this season to get to the next season so i reached out i told my staff i said i'll call someone sometime i need to see him just send back a message uh what do you want and i'm like i want to see you well the response was tell pastor if he doesn't tell me what he wants i'm not coming i said good well and good months passed months passed the person i see the person pastor the staff said that you want to see me i said no i'm good no no i mean i just i can make it right i just need to know what it was i said i'm good and he said you're not gonna tell me what it is i said let me tell you this you missed the blessing by being smart at the mouth because because there was no trump change god had dropped a chunk of change in my hand and this person came in my heart because i heard that the person was struggling with to meet some kind of situation and the lord said just bless bless the person but the person the attitude robbed them of the blessing as a and you know i think i'm speaking when we're in the month of of of our fathers this is a father's day month i think there's a part of me as a father that's frustrated i'm frustrated that there's some people that don't have a father never had a father or had a father that was there but was not functional and a lot of people who have fathering or um gifts in their lives and they're so dishonorable about the father and gift that they were robbing themselves of development and they robbing themselves of blessing and inheritance do you know god can move on people to give you an inheritance that are not connected to you by blood do you know that the people around you and everybody ain't poor i'm here to tell you listen um um i remember when my mother came to live with me my mother says i want you to manage my money i think in myself well it can't be that much i mean you know you know because mom always lived real when i but mom's when i got mom's account i was like you got this kind of you get this kind of money and i asked i said how come i never knew this and she said because it was none of your business there are people around you that have enough supply to meet the need if you were just honorable okay so that when the bible says clothe yourself in humility it simply means watches now stop wearing in the spirit we're talking spiritually stop wearing your regular self and when you come into certain situations put on the apron of humility put on the apron of submission humility is the servant's garment put that in the comments humility is the servant's garment um it's the apron that we all should be ready to put on at any moment um my wife um is a specialist in hair and so when she she would notice something about my hair whatever she said you we we need to do this or we need to do that i submit to her why that's expertise in my house i'm a teacher i'm a husband but my wife submits to me because there's certain things i know about the things of god if i say the lord said if i say baby write this down the lord just spoke to me she's not going to question that because she knows i have a pattern of the lord hearing from me i mean from me and from the lord rather my question to you is who around you is the expert in the area that you need are you the expert in every area if you're the smartest person in your circle you're in the wrong circle if you're the smartest person if every room you walk into um um you're the smartest person in the room what it says to me is you're walking into the wrong rooms and you'll never learn you never grow beyond where you are the next statement that peter adds to this um this growing list of of directives is uh this one is it's informative he said god resists the proud the he says god resists the problem this word resists is a powerful greek word but it simply means to oppose that god actively opposes anyone that he considers proud but the word for proud uh is different from the other words for pride that i've seen in the bible this word um hyper ifanos uh hyper means over ifanos to what ifano um or means to shine it means to shine so it means to over shine if you flip it around it means to shine over or to overshadow to outdo or to upstage it says god resists he opposes he he fights against any matter of fact and this word for um opposes means literally to is um you have who potassium which is under um to uh arrange yourself under a person this is anti-tasso which means to arrange yourself against a person it's not just god resisting the proud it's god and his entire kingdom all of his assets in the earth his angels his people he will when you are proud god will align his whole army against you he's the lord of heaven's armies and he rules in the earth and when you are arrogant and proud god god aligns all the forces and let me tell you something about the lord god doesn't just need um a people he listen dogs will bark at you you go to the zoo to look the lions they roar at you when you are in arrogance god what god will have if all of creation against you you want to do something outside and you need sunshine it will rain if you need rain he'll give you sunshine he listen once you are arrogant he starts he gives you grace after a certain point he starts to fight against you to get you to put on that apron of humility all right in his resistance of those who think they're better than others or that they should always be first or front and center god uses every tool available to him i want to revisit the definition of proud listen to this definition it's someone who always has the mentality that they have to outshine others or they have to stand out they have to make others look small they're always the one that wants to outdo or to upstage they don't want anybody getting quote unquote the glory or or anybody getting credit they don't want anybody being complimented but them it has to be me and mine in the world we live in that sometimes everyone doesn't it but it says god resists the problem when you have that mentality god will fight you god will fight you god will revoke favor from your life god will god will blow on your money and it'll be like putting it in a bag with holes god listen you will sow and god god will hold your harvest till you get your heart right and there's a reason for what i'm gonna show you as we go along um the next part of it says let me read this in context and say god resist the proud the next part says but he gives grace to those who are humble or to those who lower themselves if you're just joining us i'm doing exegetical study in first peter chapter five verses five through seven the word the word exegetical means i'm going through every phrase and explaining exactly what the bible is saying and it's gonna flow from topic to topic as we see peter writing this letter to the church right before this is maybe less than a decade before he's um he's crucified peter um wants them to know how the church is to be run how we're to fellowship and establish culture god gives grace to those who humble themselves those who obey his directive humble people listen to me i think people misunderstand what humility is i want to talk some about it because a lot of when you're going to see peter going to talk about humility here in verse five and he's gonna pick up verse six and this he's gonna give verse six totally to talk about humility humble people live with their minds set to cater to the lord's wishes in every situation i wanna say that again humble people live with their minds set to cater to the lord in every situation it's not about you know um someone asked me one time to say how come you um how can you let people do so-and-so to you i was like they said don't you see what they do yes i do a lot of times when you when you're walking with the lord especially leadership if you're walking correctly with the lord you'll miss much he said well you vibe without me i do that i'm not you i i don't have the luxury of just freaking out when i want to now sometimes the the wall cracks and sometimes the dam breaks and sometimes it comes out but for the most part i'm supposed to be a vault before the lord the bible says a humble person's mindset is not about people it's about i want to please the lord pleasing god is the priority of a humble person humility me keeping myself in so god could come up me lowering myself so god could shine out john the baptist said when he saw jesus he said he must i must decrease and he must increase it has to be watched this has to be more of him and less of me that's the attitude of humility peter's entire discourse about submission subordination and humility is intended to position his readers to receive the grace of god the grace of god that's it humility's all humility is if you ever looked at a coronation when a king or queen is being crowned i don't they're the highest person in the land when the coronation is happening go back and look at any coronation in history there comes a point where the crown has to be placed on the head and nobody climbing ladders to put crowns on your head you have to bend your knee you are you bending the knee to the person with the crown no you're bending your knee to the moment you're bending your knee to the auspicious or um blessing of being the person in charge and and the first act of having the crime put on your head is you bend your knee is that you submit yourself to the moment you submit yourself to the order if you can't do that next let's see who's next this is the way it is and and and you know and one thing about pride let me tell you about pride pride pride stops his ears pride hardens his heart pride doesn't want to be told anything because pride think it knows but i'm going to tell you from i'm taking from a person who wrestled with pride early on god has ways of breaking you down that's my problem is pride what if you know it why don't you do something about it hit chase the pride to its root chase it or trace it to its root find out where it started sometimes what i found is pride is an overcompensation for fear yep people are afraid of being abused people afraid of being anybody going to do that to me and you know even even on the street that was you know a lot of people say they thought you know i thought you knew when i first came to dothan people just tell me i'm from beginner i said tell them don't have no ghetto you want to see some ghetto go out to liberty city listen i got some customer hearing gunshots that automatic weapons firing off i lost my fear they don't even scare you anymore you just hear that oh somebody go you even oh that's an ak oh that's that's a ar50 or that whatever man i got so accustomed to it i mean i mean you have to know to carry yourself on the street have to hand yourself you literally have to know when to run and when sometimes just drop and roll under a parked car and when the shooting stop just get up and take off and go home or if something's happening outside go inside you'll lock your door you have to know these things that's from be on the street and some people walk out hard you're not hard but you are scared and that pride right there god can't use it i'm speaking to somebody that pride right there is blocking you from receiving god's best okay watch this so you have to understand this thing about grace the entire purpose of submission and subordination humility is to get you into a position where god can place the crown of favor on your head watch this now and cause your life to do things that you never imagined it would do grace the word kyries in the greece in the greek is favor it's that's what it is it's favor it's acceptance it's kindness flowing from god and causing your life to flow together it makes you powerful in the spirit when you receive the grace of god the way it's supposed to rest on your life people look at you and say man this is some different stuff i remember years ago a friend of mine called me um he said cut your television on turn the tv in and and um tbn was doing a 30 year reel and they were showing um the major moments in the last 30 years and and um i said what did i miss they said they said can you rewind your tv i said yes i said i was taping the praise of the little program anyway they said rewind it and while we wanted i got to this little commercial is showing for the 30 years and they were showing preachers doing this it was bishop jakes and all these people and then here i was sitting with john gray and i made a statement a simple statement that made it 30-year real and my friend said to me he said i've never seen a person with such favor on their life i didn't even consider it to be favored i thought it was like whoa that's cool it was it's favor and if you want favor on your life it's a it's a natural byproduct of just choosing to be humble i want to give you a couple scriptures about the grace of god that i believe will help you in first corinthians chapter 15 verse 10. go take me there first corinthians 15 verse 10. paul says but whatever i am now is all because god poured out his special favor that's grace he poured his special favor on me and not without results this is one thing about the grace of god when god pours grace on you there will always be results grace will motivate you as paul is going to say right here he said if i have worked harder than any of the other apostles yet it was not i but god who was working through me by his grace he said when grace is ported upon you it motivates you to do things to try things to to go here to go there you um you it puts you in demand it puts you in demand and when grace puts you in the man it not only does it or put a demand on you it gives you the energy to meet the demand okay look at second corinthians chapter six and verse one second corinthians six and verse one is another scripture that actually talks about the grace of god it says as god's partners we beg you not to accept and here it is the marvelous gift of god's kindness here grace is called the kindness of god receiving the kindness of god and ignoring it why is god being kind to you because you're humble i don't you say well i think if grace is free then why you have to work for it you're missing the point humility is not working matter of fact humility is the cessation of work humility is saying i don't have to work so i just i just submit to god okay look at galatians 2 21 another scripture that talks about the grace of god you have to understand that only from a position of humility can you receive the grace of god paul said i do not treat the grace of god as meaningless like it's nothing like it makes no difference whether i have it or not he said for if keeping the law if working my way into favor with god was a thing he said then there would no be there would be no need for christ to die he said that's not what i see on the screen but you just got the heart ramsey version that's hard ramsey 221 no i'm kidding i i that that is me expanding the of text to show you what god is talking about it's not a thing you can't work your way into favor with god you can't be you can't boast you're into favor with god you can't you can't uh um um you know this there's a lot of ex relationship experts and and um go-getter gurus who are telling you how to do this how to do that man listen to me grace can do more than grind choose grace over grind if you have a choice okay now in first peter chapter 5 verse 6 peter goes on to say remember he ended verse 5 with humility and humility is so important he picks up and he gives a whole verse to humility he says humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time now this is what i want to pac unpack for you humble yourself under the mighty hand of god as we live our lives you have to understand something that as as people who belong to the lord the hand of god is always on your life the hand of god is always on your life it's that's that's the thing that god promised oh in the old testament the word yad is the word hand it's also the word power so if you watch this now when you see the word hand in scripture it is indicative of the power of a thing so the bible says that the children of israel under the hand of moses and aaron when they came out of egypt moses didn't have his hand on them but god gave him power to to rule over them and that's called yad the hand of god um um there was um the temple worship there was a leader who the bible says that god gave him he gave his sons and daughters under his hand for worship in the house or in the temple that again the authority and the power of that leader so when the bible says humble yourself under the mighty hand of god is saying when you humble yourself literally the power of god comes upon you when humility comes watch this as a calculated choice when when i'm when i become humble because i i i measure the moment i measure the benefit and i say i'm going to live a humble life it means watch us now that i intentionally lower myself to a place of authentic selflessness now i want to speak to that um i remember when when i read this i read humble seven i said lord humble me never ask god to humble you i'm gonna tell you why in a minute do never ask them to humble you don't do that if god says humble yourself make the decision to do it because if you say well pastor i just can't god can do it but i'm going to get to that in a minute here's the statement i'm making when when humility comes upon your life as your own calculated choice it means that you choose to lower lower yourself to a place of authentic selfish or selflessness selflessness is the opposite of selfishness in other words selflessness thinks about others while selfishness thinks of self okay it's always about me it's always about how it's going to affect me so you don't ever think about how people feel what people need how um how you know you get into situations it's always about you that is selfishness and that is a manifestation of pride self-centeredness is a manifestation of of a me first mentality in humility listen to this you don't think less of yourself you think of yourself less in humility you don't take you don't think less of yourself you don't think i'm nothing that's not humility that's false humility in humility you just think of yourself less you're so busy thinking about everybody else that the spirit of god has to remind you hey i need you to take some time off i i need you to to rest you need to stay in bed the holy spirit needs to be prompting you to rest he needs to be leading you besides still waters he needs he needs to be um leading you in green pastures because you're always thinking about other people your view of yourself must be balanced in other words you don't think too highly of yourself but you don't think too lowly of yourself in romans chapter 3 the apostle paul explains some of what peter's saying here when he talks about uh humble yourself under the hand of god romans chapter 12 verse 3 um paul says because of the privilege and authority god has given me i give each of you this warning he calls it a warning he says don't don't think you're better than you really are don't think you're better than you really are he says be honest in your evaluation of yourself measuring yourself by the faith god has given you and and many people argue about what this really means but i'm gonna give it to you like this paul says it's okay to know where you are at a certain time in your life if there many times man listen when i walk into the room um i walk into the room to preach and and uh this happens several times especially in taping and the person that got it before me to do the uh exhortation or to lead worship the power of god was so strong upon them and i feel like man i just need to let them finish this out and sometimes i've stood back and said keep them keep going for it sometimes they get to the end of what they're doing they say when i'm done then i have to come up and in the moment watches now my estimation of myself is i do what i'm anointed to do have you ever been in a worship service where you knew the pastor was not supposed to preach the worship was so high the power of god was flowing anybody made a service but you knew that the best thing that unless the pastor just said i'll let them fit because god is here one time bishop holcomb um um the honorable nate holcomb he was here with us at ncc and we had a psalmist up and she was ministering so powerfully the power of god fell into place she was singing drink from the water drink from the water and the power of god just fell in the church and it kept going on and on and i looked up at the time i was like man i got to stop him because i got to get bishop up there to preach and i'm out leaning to the bishop and i said bishop i'm sorry i'm gonna bring this to the ncaa bishop grab me by the arms and no no he said let it flow let it flow i said but you came all the way here to preach he said he said son i didn't come here to preach he said i came in for this very moment right here he says just let her go and she went through the and when she got done she apologized and he i said bishop do you want to say words and bishop got up and bishop said listen no need to apologize just listen to the lord he said if you want to be born again and he he did all the call people came up he said now if you want to hear me preach come tonight of course we came back and he preaches happy but i learned in that moment that you you have to evaluate yourself in the i mean what do i lend to this i mean you have to know who you are in the moment are you the student are you the teacher are you the employer are you the boss you can't be both you got it you have to know who you are and if you think it's a shame to be any of the things you're walking in pride and your pride is blocking you from the blessing of the lord when watches now when humility is forced on you forced humility is called humiliation it says watch this now it's what god uses humiliation to do is to shatter the illusion that you're better than others to shatter the illusion that you're more important than others to shatter the illusion that you don't need the lord to shatter the illusion that you could do what you want to without consequence god allows you to be humiliated and based on on your level of pride is a level of exposure god will allow you to be taken down to nothing not because he's angry with you it's because the whole purpose of your existence your life in the earth is to wear a crown god says i have a kingdom of kings and priests king and all the kings have to have the crown from the lord he crowns us with honor and glory and if you're too high to be crowned with honor and glory and you don't want to humble yourself god knows how to get their knees cut right down from under you and get you down low enough we could put a crown on your head he said i don't sound like a blessing well it's kind of is but in the moment it doesn't feel like it i've been there has there been anybody in the room has ever been humiliated where you didn't humble yourself and god uh your god god said i'll help you and you say look at the devil it's not the devil it was god trying to get you to the place where he could father you and give you benefit now the aim of god as i said is is to uh to get us to a place of humility so he can get favored to us he can grant us favor and he can honor us i want to give you a couple of scriptures to show this in proverbs 29 and 23 um solomon talked a lot in his wisdom about about honor about humility about the favor of god in proverbs 29 23 the bible says he rewrites pride ends in humiliation that's it we could close the book and go home pride always ends up in humiliation why humility always brings honor listen to what i just said pride ends in humiliation but every single time that you humble yourself honor comes and so i remember i was i was watching a situation where um this lady went off another lady in front of everyone the lady who who was insulted she turned she looked at all of us and she put her something in a person she just walked off she said nothing while she was walking up the person but was talking crazy behind her and i just stood there and watched it the wish she walked away and the people around me were like she crazy i slapped out of doneness i was just watching this and the spirit of god's dealing with here's what god says he says who was the stronger person in the moment and i said it seemed to me like the lady who was bold enough to just talk crazy to this other lady and god says no it takes more strength to walk away that stuck it takes more strength to walk away and no doubt in my mind if the scripture is true and we know it is pride ends in humiliation while humility brings honor because i'll tell you what happened in that moment all the wise people that saw what happened they start to talk afterwards it takes a little person to do what she did that's what they started saying that was very little of her only a few people thought it was cool i knew the fool's in the room but the people who had wisdom said that was very little pride ends and humiliation while humility brings honor in daniel chapter 4 verse 30 there's a story of king nebuchadnezzar god literally favored nebuchadnezzar to conquer the entire known world at the time he was the one that went into jerusalem destroyed the war tore down the temple burned the city took the most brilliant people back to babylon he was the one that god used to judge israel he was the one that jeremiah the prophets prophesied about but he got to a place the bible says um he got the place where the king spake and said is this not great babylon that i have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty that's a lot of minds and eyes isn't it but you got to watch yourself when you when your entire conversation is my mind i and me it's all about you all you see is you the the next verse says this 31 while the word was in the king's mouth that fell a voice from heaven saying o king nebuchadnezzar to thee it is spoken the kingdom is departed from thee now let me tell you something when god says the kingdom is departed from thee you could be standing right in the listen he's standing on improperly god says i just took it from you or you go well obviously no i'm still in it god can fire you leave you on the job and then let you watch your firing happen if your heart is not right and i don't tell you something you talk to any leader i've been fired and left on the job before but god was merciful to me i'll never forget it happened a couple times in my life god will fire you and leave you on the job where you unless you stick in the paycheck or whatever but the bottom line is your all your favor is gone oh no favor it's happened to me before and it changes why does god leave you in the job because watch this like he didn't he didn't uproot the tree just cut it down he wants it to grow again because his goal for your life is prosperity but if you think you're so full of yourself that you can have none of god the command is to be full of the spirit not to be full of yourself but to follow okay to be full of defecation bovine defecation okay look at verse 2 look it up and they shall drive thee here's what god says they shall drive thee from men give me new living translation i want to get some sense of this it says you will be driven from human society god is speaking to this king he's a king most powerful man in the world you will live in the fields with the wild animals and you will eat grass like a cow seven periods of time will pass um why you live this way now some people say seven years it wasn't seven years it was seven periods of time which at which adds up if you do the math the way they counted periods of time it adds up to 36 i mean um to three and a half years seven periods of time will pass you uh while you live this way until you learn watch this until you learn that the most high rules over the kingdoms of the world and he gives them to anyone he chooses that means god could have you up front today and in the background tomorrow it doesn't mean he loves you any less it means that it's somebody else's turn and it doesn't mean he's done with you it means that he wants you to the same way you you you soaked up the glory then you get back there so god saw god up to god god will glorify himself with you whether you are from whether in the lead or not and if you and if you have to be in charge if you have an attitude because well i i'm the better i'm the better whatever that's your attitude god can't use you you're proud and you need to be humbled and if you don't humble yourself god will help you out look at the next verse that same hour the judgment was fulfilled and nebuchadnezzar was driven from human society he ate grass like a cow and he was drenched with the dew of heaven he lived this way until his hair was as long as the eagle's feathers jesus and his nails were like birch claws i'm not gonna read the rest of that but you read this story later on after seven periods of time three and a half years he recovered himself his mind just came back to him and it came back when he when he was crawling on all fours and he says to himself you know what i'm not i'm not in charge of nothing it's the god of heaven he's the one and when he honored god and put god back in his position humble himself in listen and the miracle of that was not that he came back to his senses is that when he walked back into the palace smelling like outdoors for three and a half years and everybody knew he had lost his mind went crazy when he walked to the door people still bow to him as king that was the miracle of god god gave him his kingdom back and when you humble yourself i don't care when you humble yourself honor is the honor is the residual benefit of humility every single time when you humble yourself listen favor comes back to you people people look at you and say man you know i'm glad you said that because i was wondering what's going on with you so peter says back to first peter verse five verse uh chapter five verse six he says humble yourself under the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time in due time god is a god of timing there is a time to be lowered and there's a time to be elevated there's a time to be hidden and there's a time to be seen both positions are good to be lowered and to be elevated to be hidden to be seen these positions they're all good positions and they're all satisfying watch us now if the lord does it if the lord lowers you and you open your heart to him you will be you'll feel so blessed some stress and strain will lift up off of you if the lord hides you and your heart is towards god it will bless you and satisfy you if the lord elevates you and your heart is towards god you'll be blessed by it watch this now if the lord calls you to be seen and they put the spotlight on you and your heart is to us god is gonna bless you whether you're up or down whether you're in or out whether you're seen or unseen if your heart is true as god is we satisfying and beneficial to you our satisfaction and enjoyment should not come from being seen or being heard or being the head it should come from being from being in in the presence of god or being submitted to god your satisfaction should not be come from being in charge of being honored your satisfaction should come from the inner witness that you're pleasing god by what you're doing and you're serving his people one of the hardest things people don't talk about this one of the hardest things is to get older because the the generation come behind you it seems something like they're pushing you out of the way and you fight it it becomes it becomes a friction in your soul when you submit to god you say you know what this is the time of life i'm in and i have to start letting some things go as you start letting things go and not fighting with people's egos and all this stuff what begins to happen to you is a peace begins to overwhelm you and god begins to show you what's next in your life the reason that some of us don't can't see what's next is because we're grappling and trying to hold on to what was and if god is lowering you for the sake of closer relationship then accept it the blessing and the power and what i've found is it more your income can increase when god lowers you there are people that we all hear about right now they were famous in the nba in the nfl famous on hollywood we don't hear about them and they got more money now than when they were working ain't nothing like royalties listen listen to what we call it royalties you think royalties come from if it's a crown it's a crown of financial glory that god puts okay that's another lesson um the deepest fear and i must say this to many of us before i get to the main takeaway the deepest fear that we all have of humbling ourselves is that we do not want to be disadvantaged by it we fear being abused we fear being disrespected we fear being treated some kind of way and so watch this now and so because we understand it in the earth in this modern time people tend to interpret meekness as weakness so we fear it and i'ma tell you something listen to what i'm about to say leader that is led by fear is going to be abusive fear produces abuse fear produces pride fear produces greed um fear produces of the type of culture where nothing can grow fear it is it is it is the poison of culture when people are afraid honor can't dwell where there's fear all right so we the reason you don't want to humbly says because you're afraid so what do you do you say god's not giving me a spirit of fear do you trust god or not if god says god knows he understands that we're afraid of being abused we're afraid of becoming the doormat if we humble ourselves this is why almost every time humility is mentioned in scripture there's always a promise of elevation or being rewarded with promotion almost every single time if you go study humility all the way through scripture you see there's always humble yourself and i will exalt you humble yourself and i'm gonna take care of you humble yourself i'll promote you every single time and to prove this i'm gonna give you one two three four scriptures real fast look at proverbs eleven and two real real quickly problems eleven and two and i'm gonna go go through this problem scripture to show you this is the wisest man besides jesus that ever lived here's what prohibits what solomon said pride leads to disgrace but with humility comes wisdom here's a promise if you humble yourself god says i'ma give you wisdom i'm sure you what to do what to do when to do it where to do it with whom to do it and why i will even show you how that's that's what wisdom defines if you humble yourself if you lower yourself god said i'll open your eyes to see things you've never seen before i'll give you insight i'll give you understanding people look at you as if say man um man we need to go all the way to um to bethlehem if rather because the prophet is there or the king is there whoever is there to get wisdom because the um wisdom always dwells into humility look at proverbs 15 and 33 in proverbs 15 33 it says the fear of the lord teaches wisdom and listen to this it says humility i'm gonna add this because it's in the text humility always precedes honor do you want to be honored is it your goal to live an honorable life you started humility humility and honor they're the same thing in different realms or different seasons of life anything that's that's humble ends up being honored there's no there's no power that could stop it from happening because god wills it to be so that's the order of god the order of god is if you humble yourself you're going to be honored you're going to be respected your name is going to be called in places where your feet never stepped your name your reputation will proceed you if you be a humble person look at proverbs 22 and 4. and problems 22 and 4 says true humility notice now it says true humility because there's a thing called false humility where people pretend oh i'm nothing oh you know it wasn't me it was the lord you know he said no it was you it wasn't that good for it to be the lord it was you you could say thank you okay true humility not the false one and the fear of the lord leads to riches and honor and long life watch this now when i couple my humility with the fact that i'm humbling myself because i really respect god the bible says it always brings riches i'm all i will always be abundantly surprised people will sow into my humility people will watch this now people will honor my humility god will honor my humility by extending my life and you say well will i live longer no not necessarily but what is you you you may not have more days in your life but you certainly will have more life in your days let me say it again you may not have more days added to your life but you will certainly have more life added to your days okay in proverbs 13 and 10 it says this pride leads to conflict those who take advice are wise pride always leads to fights if you if there's a contention going on and it seems to me not ending it's pride and the worst fights that you ever see happening these people they don't like each other they have feels under the mccoys the reason they're fighting is because their pride isn't fighting if one person i'm gonna tell you something if one person in a conflict will humble themselves the conflict is over i'm gonna tell you why what we call a fight is when two people get in there and they have strategy and they're going to each other um i remember one time i was watching the situation unfold and this dude was just punching this other dude and the dude refused to hit him back but the dude tried punching me just blocking his punches and someone coming along said man break up this fight and and i could not help myself this is not a fight this dude is a bully and dude's like man you need to hush myself man you don't come over here with that junk because the difference between me and him is i will bust a cap in you and that put that immediately ended the whole skirmish now i wouldn't say it okay but the thing is a fight is when two people are fighting in that situation one guy just beat up another guy and i was ready to draw down on that situation because my thing is like no you're not gonna do that to me here's the thing pride leads to conflict if two if there's a fight if you if you're a person keep going to each other you wanna end the fight just humble yourself and don't respond you can't play tennis if someone hits the ball and no one hits it back it's not a game that's just somebody practicing let them practice their pride by themselves you practice humility there's always honor associated to it in luke chapter 14 and i'm almost done i've said it so much this morning i hope it's blessing you uh i hope i hope it's helping the sins i always look to uh the staff to make sure that now they give me a blow-by-blow of your uh responses in luke chapter 14 verse 7 i don't know what jesus begins to teach the bible says when jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table he gave them this advice now when jesus gives advice we take it here's what he said he said verse 8 he said um when you are invited to a wedding feast don't sit in the seat of honor what if someone who is more distinguished than you has already been invited the host will come and say give this person your seat guess whatever jesus said then you will be embarrassed you'll be humiliated that's false humility and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table in verse 10 he says instead take the lowest seat at the foot of the table when you come into the room get the sit in the back i know you i know you think you're god's man of faith and power sit in the back sit in the corner you know you put on your clergy call it you can walk in you're like can anybody study you become for the lord we didn't come for you you sit in the back he says take the lower seat at the foot of the table then when you hold when your whole sees you he will come and say friend we have a better place for you then you'll be honored in front of all the other guests look at verse verse 11 it says for those who exalt themselves will be humbled will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted every time i see that phrase be humble um i remember my friend uh pastor joshua bingham um when avengers or infinity wars came out i hadn't seen it yet and he posted on twitter he said um he said the hulk was humbled so now i had to go see the movie and so when the first scene of infinity was there's a there's a fight with uh uh thanos and the hawking when the hulk comes out i said man that's about to get beat down so we already celebrated the hulk because the whole thing is undefeated he gets mad he blows up in pride and he goes after he tears things up man and at first man i see he was beating thanos down and thanos was our little crew they were cool they wouldn't think none of it i'm thinking they're super cool and the hero being beat up and the hulk threw a punch and tennis grabbed it and from that moment he beat the hulk into such humility and submission that that for the rest of the movie hulk would not come out and the movie afterward hulk was still humiliated he would not make an appearance because he was shamed okay what i'm saying to you is this scripture ties to that those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted is the promise of the lord which brings me to my last point and i'm gonna use this time to do if you allow me to i will keep going and bring this last point because the entirety of my of this teaching came from me asking the lord a question how long how long i i i have a situation going as a legal battle that's been going on for seven or eight years and every time i think it's over here comes another um thing from the court and the and the person that's doing this it's like it's the the fabric thing that keeps stuff going and it's like it's it's just meaningless i'm spending tons of money in this in this court case and it's less it's so frustrating i have to minister on top of topic and it's so frustrating and i kept last night it came to a head and said god how long and as i waited on the holy spirit he took me to what i'm teaching you now and then the last part of it says casting first peter 5 7 casting all your care upon him for he cared for you casting all your care upon him for he cared for you i want to break down this language real quick and we'll be done casting your care terminology in scripture is not like we use today but i want to break down these words to give you language so you know exactly what the lord is telling you to do because this is what we call an actionable item this is something you have to commit to doing right now casting the care put that in the comments we're going to get to casting your cares the uh one our translation the new living translation put it on the screen it says give all your worries and cares to god for he cares about you two things stand out about this verse and one thing that stands out is the word cares is mentioned twice but there are two different greek words one is marimna the other one is milo marimna and milo and i'm going to explain them why it's important for you to know what they mean so casting care literally means taking your troubles to the lord take casting you cannot cast the care without praying you cannot cast the care without articulating it to the lord the terminology used is speaking righteousness of burdening someone with something that has been burdening you have you ever called a friend or just sick want to say hi and they go into this long thing about their child tell you about you their life is stressing you out it's just a lot you like when they get done talking you go that's a lot that's what casting your care is is you take everything that's on your heart instead of telling people that can't help you never share your problems with people that's not equipped to help you never never tell your personal uh never tell your friend rather your problem if they don't have solutions don't present questions if they can't give answers take it to the lord casting the care is i'm going to burden the lord with what burdens me every time it comes to me i'm going to talk to him about it this word care again describes something that has become such a distraction that's what marimna the english versions call it worries but really it's a distraction um it's distracting you from your life every time you try to go forward is this thing that keeps coming up admit i don't care what it is maybe it's an ex maybe it's a it's something or or someone pursuing it someone that's jealous i don't know what it is but they're pursuing use with some foolishness it's a major concern it becomes a problem to you the directive is watches now to offload it from yourself to the lord and peter is actually quoting psalm 5 and 22. matter of fact of psalm 55 22 i want to show you the original statement that was made so you could see what peter was pointing us to in psalm 55 and 22 the psalmist gives a directive on how to handle things that burden you here's what he says give your burdens to the lord literally give him to him and he will take care of you he will not permit the godly to slip and fall i don't care what they're doing or what they're saying if the only stress you will have is the stress you receive from not casting the burden or casting the care or offloading it on the lord it becomes a problem to you when you hold it for yourself and that's pride it's pride for you to hold on to something and say i'm not gonna give us the law i'm gonna show them i'm gonna take it no no that's pride and the enemy wants to bait you into a pride fight a conflict of pride give it to the lord humble yourself under the mighty hand of god say god you know what i'm tired of this this is just distracting i'm just and the lord will say to you i need you to start praying for the person praying for them yeah because it was only by you praying for them that you keep calls a fire upon their head and begin to melt them down the situation the the beginning of god dealing with your situation is you praying for the person that's bringing the conflict or bringing the stress or bring the pressure into your life the word melo when the bible says he cares for you he will take care of you that's what milo is the word means that god has a genuine concern for you and god has a serious interest in you listen to it again god the god of heaven the god that loves you has a genuine concern about what's happening to you say like god actually he doesn't care oh he cares he cares he understands that if you don't handle this right it could be your undoing it could damage your body it could blow you it could blow your mind out it could cause you to be emotionally crippled god understands it could either grow you up or take you down he's concerned for you he has a serious interest in you it's easy to ask if well if you're so concerned about me why you allow this to happen and i'll just give you the short answer the answer is simple god does not allow it don't forget that john 10 and 10 jesus said the thief covered not but to steal kill and destroy satan comes to he comes to steal comes the slow slowly comes to destroy he said i've come to give you everything i've come to you may have life and life more abundantly so you're dealing with a thief you're dealing with a murderer you deal with the devil that wants you out of the game so it's not that god is allowing it adam allowed it that's what happened we're adam's seed and adam allowed it and now god is is telling us how to counter it we connect to him we humble ourselves we let him take care of us we cast the care we offload the problem to him god this is your battle this is your problem let god handle it and when we do that the lord comes in and the lord takes care of it and you say well he's not taking care of it fast enough you don't understand that he begins in the spiritual realm god begins to handle it in the unseen realm and it works his way into the natural realm and what's happened i'm gonna tell you what we do listen to of the voice of a father you know sometimes i talk to people and people say you know you do you know me why why would i give you the wrong advice what is there to what's there for me to gain i'm just telling you how it works okay you taking matters into your own hand complicates the situation delays the process and allows your enemy the advantage for a season it allows the enemy to advantage because you got your hand your hands are too small to handle this you don't have the reach the scope the grasp the purview you don't have it you don't understand what's going on god is handling it by process let him be god because you're not okay now so i want to i want to skip through all of this and go down to this we go to god because god is forced and not against us and and there's so many scriptures that that to be read but i'm going to skip through all this i'm just going to read a couple things to you okay and i want to ask you this question instead of teaching the rest of this i'm going to ask this question what cares what distractions what concerns what problems what persecutions persecution is someone who keeps coming after you relentlessly what confusion what trouble do you need to cast on the lord today do you need to offload from yourself what's your situation what situation are you holding on to you haven't really given to the lord and when you give it to the lord you can't hold on to it you have to go that's god's concern you do what you can when you have to do it but that's god's concern what are you carrying right now that's too heavy for you is there a persistent enemy that keeps you tied up in court that keeps coming back something that won't die you cut off one head it grows too like hydra is there a misunderstanding that regardless how much you try to resolve it it's as if it never ends what is it is there something or someone hell bent on making your life miserable because they're miserable some sociopathic you've connected with some narcissists some ex some what's your situation then the answer is the cat delicious you humble yourself under the mighty hand of god and you cast the care you unburden yourself you unload it to the lord and you say god i need you to handle this because i can't it's too much and i'm not going to let it kill me i want to give you this it's a story about loading stress and anxiety i want to leave you with this story because it's the perfect stories the last scripture on my outline for those of you in the booth is first samuel chapter one verse nine we've heard the story so many times so hannah is married and back in those days a man can have more than one wife um for the sake of um replenishing the earth to have a larger family and hannah was barren her husband loved it but she was barren and so the other wife was having all the children and that thing burdened her because it affected the way she saw suffering and it lowered her status in the home and the bible says once after a sacrificial meal they went to the temple up to the tabernacle to do offering at the regular feast day hannah got up and went to pray [Music] she got it from the meal gotcha left the table and you went to pray eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the tabernacle the next verse says keep rolling because i want to read this all hannah was in deep anguish which means she was heavy with a burden and it was so heavy that it became super emotional for her she began to cry bitterly as she prayed to the lord she was crying and praying [Music] and she made this vow she said oh lord of heaven's armies if you look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son then i will give him back to you he'll be yours for his lifetime and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the lord his hair will never be cut he would have a nazarite vow as she was praying to the lord the priest eli watched her seeing her lips moving but hear no sound in other words this thing was so serious to her that she didn't even articulate it she was praying silently but moving her lips and he thought she had been drinking that's a drunk person and he says to her must you come here drunk throw away your wine he's out of rebuker and she said to him oh no sir he said i've not been drinking wine or anything stronger but i'm very watch this i'm very discouraged i'm very discouraged and because i'm so burdened and so discouraged i'm pouring out my heart to the lord don't think i'm a wicked woman if i've been praying out of great watches out of great anguish and sorrow in that case eli said go in peace may the god of israel grant the request you've asked of him and in verse 18 and she said thank you sir then she went back and began to eat again watch the lat i want you to see the last phrase and she was no longer sad why was she no longer sad because she got that thing up off of her unto god why are you depressed why are you sad why are you always so angry why is this why have you taken on a mean disposition why are you why are you bitter it's because you've never gotten that thing up off you and now it's stale and soured upon you and it sounded your heart it sounded your whole disposition it solved your life and the favor you used to have is gone and you just feel discouraged and like you feel useless and trapped it's even visiting your dreams why because you will not get it up off you let this thing humble you to the point of tears instead of making you angry your response is a wrong emotion plus i'm so mad about what they've done to me pride is that's called angry pride and i'm not proud of you listen to hear me this is what i'm telling you it's a if the the result of his anger then it's pride when you get to the place where you see it from god's point of view and you begin to to deal with the presence of god the emotion will change from anger even if it's still some some type of resentment to the way you've been treated the predominant emotion is going to be sadness you're going to be so this it'll just break you down and you weep before the lord and you lift it the thing lifts off off you see you think tears you said tears cleanse you it's not the tears that cleanse you it's the humility that brought the tears that really cleanses the heart but this of another day okay i pray that god spoke to you today i pray you heard the lord today may the lord cause the burden upon your life to be lifted in your life to take on new meaning and new strength in jesus name listen before i go of course today is communion city this is our offering uh um it's our regular services our offering time and i know we're tired of this online service but this is what we're doing and we're almost done it's almost almost to the end of it this major like this we could even see the train at the end of the tunnel okay watch this there are five ways to give and i would i would do a whole offering lesson but i don't need to because you know about the importance of your giving and many of you have slacked off when you're giving listen to me do not let the enemy trick you to enter into not giving to the lord every time you sow you schedule a harvest if you want to keep walking into harvest of your future keep sowing seed in the present sow from the abundance of from the from the little that you have and watch god multiply it and bring the harvest when it's necessary the five ways to give the on the screen if you're new to this then sow into this sow into the word that you heard today if it blessed you i mean the lord grant you the peace that he so willingly and so all lovingly wants to give you in jesus name i'll see you next time god bless you [Music] foreign so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign

Channel: Pastor Hart Ramsey

Views: 985

Rating: 4.9259257 out of 5

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Id: sLCErWe95Uc

Length: 82min 24sec (4944 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021