Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
it is warm all right you guys i do have a word for you just some things i want to share i may not get too radical we'll see because you know what i'm going to say this we have we we have kind of a dichotomy in being a christian and what a dichotomy is for those of you maybe may not know what that means it means two things that seem like they're opposite yet they they work together and what i want to talk about is both boldness and humility now sometimes i think pride and arrogance gets mistaken for boldness but sometimes boldness is called pride and arrogance right but i was just reading some stuff last night just reading some things in the gospels and i was just thinking about you know what god is looking for more than anything else with especially with his people i mean he knows that the world's gonna be the world you know you can't get you know jesus said that we were fishers of men so he looked at the lost as fish as some you know fish is a symbol a fish is going to be a fish right and a fisherman's a fisherman they're two different entities you can't expect a fish to act like a fisherman right he's got to be born again he's got to become a new creature he's got to be completely transformed into something else that's what you know you can't expect a goat to be a sheep right goats can't be sheep until they've been had a supernatural experience and they've been changed into a new creature that's what being born again is about right so we can't expect that but god does expect from his people two things he expects us to be bold in sharing the gospel and sharing the truth of the word of god and sharing what jesus has said and what the apostles have said and what all the prophets have said he wants us to be bold and confident in our faith and not afraid of people and not afraid of what people will think and not afraid of you know what people will say or even what people might do in persecution god doesn't want us to be afraid he wants us to be bold and outspoken but also with a heart of humility now humility doesn't always come out of your mouth it doesn't always sound like humility when you say certain things you have to say but humility and we're going to look at some of the things because here's what the bible says everybody knows this scripture right in the book of james right in the book of james says this well no first peter i think well it says in first peter five and it says it in james two but first peter five god makes it very clear god gives what grace to the humble but he resists the proud now let me give you a definition of pride you want a definition of pride a simple definition pride is thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think
christians get into pride more than anything else between them and god by thinking that because god has said certain things in his word that he owes us forgiveness or he owes us blessing or he owes us and we start getting in the attitude well god you owe us so i don't have to keep a humble broken contrite heart that trembles and has the fear of god in it and that's where we get we get our most problems when we get pride now let me say this too the world out there they might the bible might call them fish and they might call them goats and they might call them heathen and might even call them wicked and they might even call them evil that's what the bible calls but i'll tell you this much god loves them and wants them to be saved and he's given them an ability to sniff out pride in a believer boy they smell it quick and they don't like it i'm telling you they'll recognize arrogance and pride in a believer quicker than other believers will recognize [Music] and let me tell you here's the thing the pride that the christians have to be careful of and this one thing and it's subtle it gets in our hearts it gets in our minds but that because we're saved and washed in the blood of the lamb that somehow we're better than somebody out here that that's not and if that attitude it gets in there well i'm saved i'm not like them instead of having the attitude of you know what i'm privileged and blessed the only thing that makes me different is the mercy of god that opened my eyes because i was just like them and even now i struggle with the same things that they struggle with out there so i'm no better i just have jesus and i want them to have jesus and i don't want to come across as arrogant that i think i'm better amen see here's a good thing for christians if we get this down in us we're just beggars who found some bread they hadn't found the bread yet we're just trying to show them where the bread is but we're all beggars because we all have sinned we've all broken god's law and we all deserve judgment and damnation in hell forever that's what we deserve everybody we've all uh blasphemed god we've broken listen i can prove to you just about everybody's broken all the ten commandments almost you've either done it outwardly or you've done it in your heart right we could go down the list thou shalt have no other gods before me oh boy has there been times we put other things in front of god that's idolatry you don't just have to bow down to a statue of mary to commit our dollars right
graven images boy we've all had things in our house but it shouldn't be in our houses right no graven images right we could go down the list murder well you know what we may not have killed somebody may not have had an abortion but guess what have you hated your brother in your heart your murder right adultery well maybe we hadn't cheated on a spouse before but guess what if we looked and continued looking and continued looking and continued looking at the opposite sex and lusting after them then the bible says jesus said we've committed adultery in our heart right thou shalt not covet one of them that what is coveting desiring what somebody else has and feeling upset that you don't have it oh boy a lot of people miss that one don't they but that's in the ten commandments right now shall never bear false witness anybody ever told a lie on somebody else right which one am i missing here for some reason i feel like i'm missing one oh remember the sabbath and keep it holy now granted we don't have to keep saturday as a sabbath anymore because paul said in colossians that we're not held to any particular day but there should be a day that you set aside to worship god you should go to church you should worship god together with people how many people don't care seem to care about that anymore you know what i mean church even for christians it's amazing me i see it on facebook and i hear people his church is optional it seems well i don't have to go to church to be saved really true you might can make it to heaven i hate to see what god's going to say i ask you why you hated his bride why you didn't want to hang out with with the bride of christ you know i'm saying i know there's some bad churches but you know what no excuse find some believers and hang out with them right so we've all broken the ten commandments and the bible says if we break god's law then what what do we deserve condemnation death punishment judgment hell forever so everybody look at me just say this out loud i deserve i deserve eternal damnation eternal damnation the only reason i'm not going to get that the only reason i'm not going to get that because of what jesus did jesus god use me i'm just a beggar that found bread trying to convince these other beggars that they need that bread of life and if you keep that attitude that you deserve it that you deserve what they're going to get if they don't turn to jesus i mean that is the fact jesus is the only salvation the blood of jesus is the only way to be forgiven of sin you have to have faith in the blood
of jesus you have to be willing to repent and turn from your sins and walk with god to the best of your ability to be saved it's not automatic it's not universalism it's not universal salvation it's not everybody's going to make it there is a heaven there is a hell some people are going to hell and some people are going to heaven and jesus said narrow is the way and few there be that go into life into heaven and he said but many there be that's going to go through the wide gate of destruction but that is not the desire of god's heart god said he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance so god's heart even though he's going to judge the wicked and he's going to judge those who never turn to jesus and he's going to judge them for their sins and according to the law that's not his desire and so even within god even though god is both bold and strong and perfect in judgment and pure perfect injustice his desire in his heart there's humility in his heart because even the most vile sinner out there that's cursing his name that hates his guts that that defies god mocks god i'm having people mock god on my facebook pages now more than ever just moth god right and you know what god looks at them and there's a side of him that's angry and says you know what boy you don't know who you're dealing with here but then there's this other side of him as the father's heart that says you know what though i want him i want him to be saved i want him to know my son jesus christ i want his sins to be washed away i want him to know the joy of salvation you know i want him to know what i know and i remember when i came to jesus in 1987 when i really came back to the lord wholeheartedly what motivated me to share the gospel with people and to tell people about jesus and to tell people what jesus done in my life and and even to go to to israel and go to mauritius and go to africa and stand out in monkey park and preach and and you know pastor churches and start churches and all these things it didn't have anything to do with wanting to be somebody if i wanted to be somebody i would have went to southwestern theological seminary in fort worth texas and got a doctorate degree and be pastoring a mega church somewhere you can play your cards right in the religious world and have a cushy job okay but what motivated me was i knew that people needed to know what i knew people needed to find what i found that i found true forgiveness true repentance a true relationship with jesus a true that i didn't i was overwhelmed when i realized when god opened my eyes i was overwhelmed at how blind i was i mean totally blind deceived by the devil living in all kinds of sin and thinking i was god was okay with me deceived completely deceived and then the light came on jesus turned the light on he used my boss that i worked with to do it and the light came on and i saw my sin i saw see you have a
lot of people think they're saved and they've never even realized they were lost they've never realized they were a sinner they never realized they needed to listen you you can't convince somebody to take chemotherapy until you convince them they have cancer and the church world has not convinced the the the unsaved that they've broken the law of god and that they're living and walking in death and that they need the the remedy they need the cure and the cure is jesus the blood of jesus they need to know him and walk with him and i remember when my eyes were open to that and i i realized that i was lost i was deceived i was blinded and i was on my way to hell for all eternity that's when you get saved and when you're when you when you're broken down and you're humbled by god you realize i'm a sinner i deserve it see the moment we think we deserve heaven and we deserve eternal life and we deserve blessing and we deserve all this because we're a pretty good person we've missed the whole point of the gospel we're not listening to the holy spirit at all because the holy spirit always going to try to bring humility and the fear of the lord in our hearts to realize i don't deserve god's forgiveness i don't deserve his mercy i don't deserve his that jesus died on the cross for my sins he didn't do anything wrong and yet he died and took my sin in his body on the tree for me and i don't so so when all that became real to me and i decided i'm turning from my sin and i'm giving jesus my life the right way when i did that what what when jesus filled my heart with peace and with joy and the joy of salvation and the peace of god and the love of god and the holy spirit filled me i i couldn't help but tell people about it i had to tell my best friends and my brother and my mom and my sister and people on the street i had to tell them i had to let me ask you something do you feel that do you feel that anymore i mean we're having a hard time getting these things passed out i don't just sit here going are you motivated are you motivated to reach somebody because of what god did in your life [Music] see there's a lot of people out here there's people starting ministries to reach people so that they can basically so that they can become successful i mean really it's a business they would never say it to you but the ministry is a business getting a person in the ministry
is the more they can get the more they feel successful and then that's why you know you want to know when you know that a minister or a pastor or some minister or some evangelistic minister you want to know when you know it's just a business is when you see the issues of salvation like repentance and intimacy with god and uh dealing with sin dealing with and when you start seeing the compromise and the watering down it's a business because the motivation to get someone out of sin and into a real relationship with jesus has been lost somewhere and i'm telling you for a lot of christians in ministry it's a business or it's an ego thing they really are not motivated anymore by the humility and by what motivates god and so [Applause] i mean there's goodness there's quite a few things i want you to oh gosh i don't even know now i'm just totally off my my scriptures here just go let's just look at it let's go to um go to first peter five so we can see it kind of a long introduction huh you all ready first peter 5. verse 1 [Music] he says the elders which are among you i exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of christ and also of the partaker of the glory that shall be revealed feed the flock of god which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint not because somebody forced you to but willingly not for filthy lucra not for money oh boy but of a ready mind neither is being lords over god's heritage but being examples to the flock i don't like these ceo pastors don't like them at all sorry their job is to be an example if they sit in an office all day long and send send all their assistant pastors out to do everything are they being examples to the flock you get what i'm saying there's plenty of ways to illustrate these things right let's keep going
he says after he says be an example to the flock verse 4 he says when the chief shepherd jesus shall appear you shall receive a crown of glory that faith is not away likewise you younger submit yourselves unto the elder ye all of you be subject one to another and look at what he says here and be clothed with humility for god resisted the proud and gives grace to the humble humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time humble yourself casting all your care upon him and let me just say this keep reading here he says be sober i'm gonna show you something he says be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about whom seeking whom he may devour whom resists steadfast in the faith knowing the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world now notice that he talks about humility here in the context of resisting the devil and being able to do warfare why because it's so through jesus right because what got lucifer kicked out of heaven pride do you think you can defeat the devil in your life if you get into pride remember pride i wanted to remind you for the christian the pride is a subtle thing it creeps in i am not like them or i know more than them i'm more enlightened than them i'm more knowledgeable than them i'm more holy than them i got news for you i don't care how holy you are you're not holy enough right because if you could be holy enough by yourself then why do you need jesus why do you need to walk in the light and the blood of jesus to continually cleanse you if you are holy enough so we everybody can say this i'm not holy enough i'm not holding them so we need to quit worrying about and letting that creep in our heads i'm better than someone else then go to luke 18 you'll see it illustrated jesus illustrates it really well here luke 18. [Applause] the lord we thank you for this tree right here it's wonderful but luke 18 let's look at this y'all with me verse 9 and he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others oh boy come on now i'm gonna stop right here for a second jesus told a parable to the pharisees
who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others this is the most dangerous thing for a christian to do is to begin to think oh well i'm righteous and begin to look down and literally have disdain for unsaved lost people or somebody who's not living like you now it doesn't mean we condone evil i don't like homosexuality it's evil it's a sin i don't like people who support abortion or are push abortions that's evil it's darkness you know what i'm saying but i don't look at myself as better than them i i know something that's better and i know someone who's better but i know they need to know him and you know what i know that i was like them i know that their sin is damning them to hell and my sin back in the day was damning me to hell so we're still the same i'm just for i'm just down a different road and i'm hoping they get on the road i get on i'm hoping they find jesus but it's not out of i'm better i'm not better because you know what if i get the attitude that i'm better that i'm superior that i'm righteous because i'm righteous and know jesus that i can just despise other people then what's going to happen to me the bible says god begins to resist the proud and pride goes before a fall so what's going to happen to me is that i'm going to be actually in obadiah it says the pride of your heart has deceived you so pride begins to deceive you you'll go into deception then pride is always going to precede a fall you're going to fall and guess where you're going to be right doing stuff that's going to damn you to hell and you're going to be in the same boat with that with that unsaved person that you condemned or that you despised that you thought you were better than you understand so jesus let's read it and he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others two men went up into the temple to pray the one a pharisee and the other republican the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself so this is how the pharisee the righteous man the man who was trying to be holy and godly and biblical and everything this is how he prayed now listen to this y'all he said god so hitting him talking to god doing it god i thank you that i am not as other men are oh boy first mistake all right he says i thank thee that i am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this even as this pathetic republicans praying over here beside me he even points out a guy right he says i fast twice in the week and i give tithes of all that i possess and the republicans standing afar off
and listen this the public can stand in the far off would not lift up so much as his eyes and unto heaven but smote upon his breath saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself shall be brought down obeys means brought down to the ground and he that humbles himself will be exalted the first place you have to humble yourself is before god the second place is before your brothers and sisters and the third place is before the world even the unsaved [Music] you know i'm dealing right now there's a guy that i became friends friends with on facebook he's a total heathen unsaved unbeliever doesn't believe anything foul mouth i mean he he he his one of his pastimes is to go he's in ohio and up in the philadelphia he goes to new york and all this he's an author and he goes all over the place and he loves to find street preachers to mock and help him that's his that's his fun but he likes me now y'all know what i put on facebook i'm not i'm not timid but he likes me you know why because one time i posted an article that said both the religious that the religious right and the liberal left they're both wrong that got his attention he read the whole thing and he was like well now here's a christian that understands here's a christian that's not just riding the conservative religious republican right boat and understands it's a bunch of evil people and evil ideas and evil practices even within the republican party right so that got his attention so we had a conversation so we became friends on facebook now guess what i have to do with him he's had all the arrogant preachers all the the street preachers that he heckles and everything just go at him but i'm real gentle with him i'm real gentle with him i give him a little bit at a time and do you know something the other day now here's an unbeliever wanted me to send him my books and promise he would read them and now we're having a discussion about end time prophecy because he sees it happening and i started discussing some things and he says well you know i don't believe this he said the antichrist stuff he said that's real interesting i said well it's happening right now man and he was like well you know i don't believe that i said well it's going to be hard to miss because it's coming you see what i'm saying but here's a guy who heckled and mocked preachers if i would have despised him see and he commented on my page going are you going to be in new york sometimes so i can come heckle and mock you that's how our conversation started
right you know what i told him i said i'd love for you to come you see what i'm saying just i i don't look at myself his name's dale i don't look at myself as better than dale i actually feel kind of brokenhearted for him and i don't know his whole story i don't know everything he's been through but he's rough man he is rough around the edges i think he was even in professional wrestling for a time and i mean he he writes about the old wrestlers and stuff he writes books he writes horrible grotesque horror books and stuff he even said well i can't send you most of what i write but i'll send you something send you something less offensive but you get what i'm saying i'm having a conversation now with a hardened mocking resisting unbelieving lost person not because i backed away from what i believed or softened it or anything but i was gentle with him i was humble with him he he brought up one day i said something about we were talking and he said something about how completely opposite we were that you know i was the good guy and he was the evil guy and i said no i said dale we're both evil i said we both have this the desire to do horrible things are in both of us i said the only thing that makes me different from you is that i found jesus and jesus forgave me and washed that stuff away but the desire still there i said that's only oh i said only his holy spirit in me holds helps hold me back from doing everything you want you talk about doing i said nothing makes me better than you i just i just have help and you need that help and you know what he received that he listened to that but if i just went you ugly rotten scoundrel center man you know there's nothing there's no hope for you you see what i'm saying we will we still be having a conversation now about a year later [Music] and and the lord woke me up the other morning and i got up real early and uh and i was praying and he came to mind and what's wild he came to mind and i started praying for him and it was that same evening that he started talking to me about end time prophecy he never has before so this is what i'm getting at humble luke 18. republican just looked at himself as lord be merciful to me what is mercy somebody give me a definition of mercy not getting what you deserve that's a good not getting what you deserved here's here's another one i think from the strong's it would be undeserved kindness and favor
undeserved forgiveness [Music] see there's an interesting verse y'all want to look at a really interesting verse that if you don't really take it in this context you won't make sense to you go to psalm 130 [Music] and i know that barbecue's starting to smell good in it i love being out here do y'all like it sorry psalm 130. everybody there i want you to see this one because this is a this is a verse that'll puzzle you unless you understand what i'm talking about about keeping a humble contrite heart toward the lord a heart that respects god fears god right because this is not the attitude of most of the church most of the church out here lives in fornication and adultery and pornography and hating people and despising people they they go to these big churches and then little churches and charismatic churches and pentecostal churches and and they think you know what i'm i'm better than that person because they don't go to church but they're living in sin too and they think well you know i just because i go to church and i talk to god once a week and i'm forgiven and you know they got all these ideas of how what makes them righteous and what makes them right with god and there's this little verse right here we're gonna read from verse one but he says this he says out of the depths have i cried unto thee oh lord lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications if thou lord should mark iniquities o lord who shall stand but look at verse four is the one i'm talking about but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared what wouldn't you think that forgiveness and the fear of god have no correlation if i'm forgiven if god forgives me then we're cool right no let me tell you here's the attitude because i it's i'm going to tell you it's in me i stand in awe and tremble that god will forgive me not that god owes me or that god has to that just that's what blows me away is that god whenever i got to use that credit card right there so you either have an attitude that god owes you forgiveness and that it should be it's just automatic
or you tread lightly whenever you got to use that credit card because your heart's humble and it's broken and it understands i don't deserve this i really deserve god's judgment and wrath when i sin but i can come here and say god have mercy on me as sinner forgive me help me to not do this and he goes there is forgiveness with you lord that you may be feared i mean you gotta you gotta look at it as the picture of this you're guilty right you you smashed somebody's car with your car and then you fled the scene of the accident but it was on videotape along with your the tag of your car right plain view so you're guilty you're busted you you left the scene of an accident anybody know that serious problem you're going to jail you're going to pay some hefty fines right you are trembling but you know you got to go and stand before a judge you're going to have your day in court right and you're going to stand before judge and you're trembling because you know what you deserve but there's word out there that this judge sometimes just decides out of the blue he just decides each case and he decides to have mercy once in a while so you know that but you know you deserve to go to jail you deserve the the fun and probably have your license yanked for a while whatever they do now you deserve it but jesus you go in there and you go well i know this judge sometimes forgives sometimes i don't know but you go in there with a humble heart if you think about this if you walked into that courtroom with your chest stuck out you know what i hear judge that you forgive people when they do these things you just need to forgive me because i'm a good guy you say what do you think judge gonna do the book he's gonna look at you go wow you come up here thinking i owe you something but the person that comes in there and a head down and says you know what i know what i deserve judge i i deserve the fine i deserve to go to jail i deserve i did wrong i know i did wrong i'm just i'm i'm praying you have mercy on me see there's a fear and a respect to that authority of that judge and that's when true forgiveness can come that's when the judge can go you know what this person is humble this person is humble i can give them grace there's a lot of people out there thinking they're getting grace they're not getting grace
god doesn't just give grace to anybody this is what we got to get in our heads it's not just some great i said this in my book grace is not some mystical force in the universe that god just rains down indiscriminately on everybody who thinks that they deserve it no grace is given to did we just read it grace is given to the humble [Music] grace is not automatic there's a lot of people thinking they're forgiving right now thinking that they're walking in grace and mercy and guess what sit faith marie sit on the blanket thank you did y'all are y'all getting this and let me just show you this if you understand this and you're you know this and you're doing this in your life and you've checked yourself and you're making sure you're not being arrogant and prideful toward god remember the pharisee god he's addressing god he's not addressing anybody god i thank you i'm not like other people here's what i do i'm righteous i go to church i pay my tithe i i fast and god's looking at him going you're not leaving here forgiven you're not leaving here with grace you're not leaving here justified mr holy man in your own eyes but the guy who said came in with his head down and said wouldn't he lift his head up and said be merciful to me the word be even using the word merciful means i know i don't deserve this but god please forgive me and jesus said that man went down from there justified having given grace boy if we get anything out of this today grace grace doesn't come because you visit a church grace doesn't come to you because you pay your tithes or or fast twice in a week or even you even because you pray grace comes when you are humble and you are you're humble and you're broken about your sins and you don't look at yourself as better than other people that you need god you know you need god's mercy and that you deserve judgment and wrath and you need mercy and so you're not entering his courtroom arrogantly but here's the good news when you leave that courtroom forgiven and walking in humility you can boldly share with other people that you found forgiveness through humility and repentance and that god is merciful if you're humble if i hear people talk about all the time god's grace mercy but it's if if if if you're humble if you're willing to be
obedient if you're willing to admit you don't deserve it you hadn't earned it no matter how good you think you've been amen humility and boldness you can have both you can do both keep a humble heart toward god and toward other people be bold in proclaiming the truth being humble doesn't mean you're weak you hear me all right let's pray hallelujah father in heaven we thank you so much for this day i thank you for this church i thank you for every person here those that didn't make it we bless them we pray over lord i pray as a pastor over everyone here everyone that didn't make it i pray for your your touch your hand to be upon them your healing virtue to go to bill and susan and their foot issues and what's going on with them where we pray for your healing power to flow we pray god for your truth and that you will just bring this into us because lord i know if our church is humble lord that you will give us grace and you won't resist us and we won't fall the lord i know you've given us the holy spirit not just to be quiet but to be boldly to boldly proclaim the word of god to both the saved and the unsaved so lord help us have humility and boldness at the same time and god we thank you that you're merciful that you're patient that you're loving that you're kind but that you give grace to the humble not just to anyone help us proclaim the gospel in the right way and people will be saved lord we pray it today in jesus name amen amen