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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Who's. Ready for the Word of God this
evening. All right, two of you.
All right, everyone else, why don't you open up the First
Corinthians? That's why I don't normally ask
that. All right, First Corinthians
chapter #4 I don't ask you. We just give it to you, all
right? But I'll say, all joking aside,
I mean, the fact that you're ready to hear the Word is that
you're here tonight. Amen.
You came to the House of God. You logged in tonight if you
weren't able to be here. Thank you so much for that.
It's sure a pleasure to be able to be in the Word with you this
evening. I would tell you as a pastor,
sometimes the hardest people to be able to work with are the
ones who already know everything.
You know what I'm saying? It's not those who maybe are
struggling in their Christian walk or those who have more
growing to do. If we've learned anything on
Sunday morning the last few weeks, we've all got a lot more
growing to do, don't we, in our Christian life.
Just like the old children's song says, He's still working on
me to make me what I ought to be.
But the ones who are sometimes the most difficult to pastor and
sometimes it caused the most heartaches in the life of a
pastor are the ones who already believe they know everything
they need to know. Benjamin Franklin said this.
The proud hate pride in others. Think about that for a second.
The proud hate pride in others. And pride is a very, very
dangerous thing. And that's the exact problem
that we find here in the Corinthian church.
They are puffed up in their own conceit, thinking they are
something that they are not. It's not even the fact that they
are not godly. It's even beyond that.
It's that they think they are godly when they are not because
Paul has to first of all, deprogram them from thinking
that they are godly. They are doing well, they are
knowledgeable, they are wise. He has to remember, remind them
as he said, the beginning of chapter #3 you're babes in
Christ. You're, you're drinking milk.
You ought to be eating meat, but you don't know what you think
you know. So he's got to kind of break
them down a little bit before he starts to build them back up to
being what they need to be. Paul, in essence, is going to
have to burst their bubble. You ever had someone burst your
bubble before you ever had someone kind of put you in your
place? And I'm not even talking about
someone that maybe is doing it in a worldly way or someone
that's doing it out of their own pride or arrogance, but someone
that gave you a reality check. I remember I was in Bible
college and you know, when you're at any kind of college,
usually they have resident assistants, Ras, and usually
those are the better students. Those are the ones that follow
the rules and toe the line and all that type of thing.
And I remember meeting with Brother Jett.
Some of you might remember Jamie Jett.
He's preached here a couple times before at Liberty.
And one of the things I love about Brother Jett, he always
tells you what he's thinking. And I remember sitting in his
office and I've been in maybe a little bit of trouble and I want
to say what for because this is live, but I was in his office
and I was kind of being self deprecating as sometimes my
habit is. And I said, look, Brother Jet, I
know who I am. I know I'm not RA material.
And I kind of threw that out there as a way for him to say,
Oh no, no, Adam, really. No, you really are, you know,
you should be in RA someday. We just get this little thing
fixed and all of that. And he looked at me with those
loving eyes like only Brother Jet could say, as I said, you
know, I know I'm not RA material.
And he looked at me and says, you got that right.
Head deflated immediately. He popped the balloon.
He, he had me all of a sudden realized I wasn't who I thought
it was. By the way, he was right.
I wasn't RA material. I wasn't listening to the RA's I
had, let alone being able to tell other people what to do.
Sometimes we need someone with some godliness within them to be
able to tell us what we need. We we've talked about that a
little bit on Sunday night, didn't we?
About the prophet preaching confronts us about the things of
life that we need to know. Well, here tonight, Paul is
going to talk about this issue of Hey, Corinth.
You're not who you think you are and you're not where you think
you are. And so he's going to give him a
bit of a reality check and a message that I have titled
tonight. Paul bursts Corinths bubble.
So let's go ahead and read First
Corinthians chapter #4 we're going to read verses 6-7 and
eight tonight. And it says this and these
things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and
to Apollo's for your sakes, that you might learn in us not to
think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be
puffed up for one against another.
For who maketh thee to differ from another?
And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?
And if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou
hast not received it? Now ye are full, now ye are
rich. Ye have reigned as kings without
us. And I would to God ye did reign,
that we also might reign with you.
So what's happening to the people of Corinth here?
What is Paul trying to deflate within their own mind to try to
get them to the place where they need to be spiritually?
Well, I see two things tonight, and the first is this.
They were deceived by pride. These people of Corinth had been
deceived by pride. Paul sets out to deflate the
arrogance that these babes in Christ have blown up within
their own heads. And he starts with this phrase
right there in verse number six. He says, and these things,
brethren, and I just want to stop right there.
That's a phrase right there. It has a few words and then a
comma. And these things, brethren.
Now let me remind you something that I've talked to you about
before in the past when it comes to the issue of Bible
interpretation. When you're reading your Bible,
you're studying your Bible, you're trying to make sure you
rightly divide the word of truth, right?
That we don't read into what the word of God says, but we allow
the word of God to read us. So when you see something like
and these things, brethren, well, you have to ask yourself
the question, what things, what's Paul talking about here?
Because if we don't know the things that he's talking about,
then we don't really understand what he's trying to tell us.
So listen, when you're reading your Bible, and again, this is,
this is just free tonight. All right, I'm giving you this
at no charge tonight. When you're reading your Bible,
you're trying to go a certain distance in your Bible read.
You're trying to read a chapter, 2 chapters, 3 chapters, whatever
it may be. Don't get so caught up making
sure you reach the goal that you just plow through the reading
and you don't get what God is trying to tell you.
Now listen, I know you're not going to understand everything
from what you read. You know how I know that?
Because if you live to be 100 years old, you still wouldn't
get it all, would you? I mean, the Holy Spirit will
keep teaching you and guiding you and helping you, but there's
always something new to learn. If you could learn at all.
Could you imagine getting to a point in your Christian life
where you said, well, basically, I learned everything?
Those are the people I'm worried about.
Those are the people Paul's talking about here.
So if you get into your Bible reading and you see something
like that, well in these things, brethren will say, well what
things is Paul talking about? And so we read the rest of the
verse and he says, and these things, brethren, I have in a
figure transferred to myself and to Apollo's for your sake.
So he says, there's some things I want you to know about me and
Apollos. And I can't go all the way back
to the beginning, but we understand Apollos was another
preacher who had been very influential in Corinth.
Remember, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, I'm of
Christ. And so he says there's a figure
that I want you to understand about us that we've talked about
before. Well, what is it?
Well, I believe that if you go back to verse number one and
two, you'll see what it is. And this goes back to our
message before. So you might need to go back a
page. Just go back a few verses.
What does it say in verse number one and two?
Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and
stewards of the mysteries of God.
Moreover, it's required and stewards that a man be found
faithful. What did we see last week?
We are to be ministers and stewards.
Now, are those lofty positions, are people spending billions of
dollars on television advertisements to run as
stewards and ministers? No, They're spending that money
to be able to go to Washington, aren't they?
Or to be able to go to Beacon Hill.
No one's saying, you know, my name is Adam Rivero and I
approve this message. I'm running for minister.
Unless you're in Great Britain, I guess, your Prime Minister.
But that's a whole different thing, isn't it?
But the idea is this. That's a lowly position, being a
minister, being a steward. It's not up high, it's up low.
And So what is Paul saying? He's saying these things, the
issue of being a minister and steward.
He says I'm really referring to myself and Apollo's.
He said I'm not just telling you to be a minister.
I'm saying this, I'm a minister. I'm not just telling you to be a
steward. I'm a steward.
And he's trying to hammer this point across to the people that
they, yes, they may be in the ministry.
They may have a, a place out in front of other people, but
listen, they're no heroes. They're just doing that which
God has called him to do. By the way.
This is just something else that I, I want to give you this
tonight just to think about a, a little bit of a tangent here
this evening, but I'm so thankful for other pastors.
I'm thankful for missionaries. We're going to have some
missionaries here in a couple weeks.
We have our missions conference. We have another pastor who's
helped plant over 100 churches through his church and the
missionaries that have come from his church over here in the next
few weeks. I'm so thankful for them.
Pastors and missionaries, though, are not our heroes.
Say pastor, what are you talking about?
Sometimes if we're not careful in the course of a church, we
can build the culture of, well, we don't want sports stars to be
our heroes. And I'll wait till everyone
says, Amen. We don't need sports stars to be
our heroes. We don't need Hollywood stars to
be our heroes. We don't need recording artists
to be our heroes. We don't need influencers to be
our heroes. So we could actually take that
and say, well, you know who should be our heroes?
Missionaries and pastors and evangelists and and pastors
wives and and those are the people that need to be our
heroes. Now listen, should we be
thankful for them? Yes.
Should we look at them with respect?
I believe so. But what does Paul here say?
Can I put it this way? He says I'm no hero.
Don't lift me up. I'm a servant and I'm a
minister. The thing that I told you to do,
he says I got to do too. And it's easy to be behind a
pulpit. Listen, it's easy to stand
behind a pulpit and have people sit here and listen to you for
30 minutes. There it is, John.
I was waiting to would laugh first.
All right? Not 30.
Say, when was the last time you preached 30 minutes?
I don't know. I think.
I think it was when the AC went out a few months ago, and I knew
everyone's gonna walk out if I didn't stop after 30 minutes.
But you listen to me for 40 minutes, 50 minutes.
Tick, tick, tick, tick. All right?
If I'm not careful, that could make me build myself up.
And they will look at what all these people think of me.
But what is it? I'm just a minister and I'm just
a steward. We're all to be ministers and
stewards. And so he says this, these
things, brethren, I have a figure transferred to myself and
to Apollo's. For your sakes.
What did he want them to learn about this ministry and the
stewardship? He said that you might learn in
us not to think of men above that which is written, that not
one of you be puffed up one against another.
Paul basically says this, I want you to look at how humble I am
and you be humble. Now, first of all, that kind of
sounds like a little bit of a contradiction, doesn't it?
Like kind of like, say, hey everybody, see how humble I am?
That's like, well, you're probably not that humble if
you're telling everybody how humble you are.
Call that a humble brag, don't we?
That we want everyone to know I'm the most humblest person
you'll ever know, and I'm going to tell everybody about it.
That's not really humility. But that's not what Paul is
saying here. Paul oftentimes will say things
like this. In fact, he says it in chapter 4
verse #16 Look down a little bit in the column there in your
Bible. Wherefore I beseech you, be
followers of me. He actually says, I want you to
follow me. Now that shouldn't bother us
because in Chapter 11, and we're going to move a lot in our Bible
tonight. So I hope you got your Bibles
and you're ready for some exercise.
Go over to Chapter 11. Leave your ribbon there in
chapter 4, and then let's go to Chapter 11 and look at verse #1
Paul says this being ye followers of me and what
follows, even as I also am of Christ.
So Paul is very comfortable in saying this.
I want you to follow me, but the only way he can say that is if
he's following Christ. Now let me ask you tonight, is
there something within your life that you could rightly tell
people, hey, follow me. Is there something to be found
in your Christian life that you would be comfortable enough to
tell people follow me. Hey, you want to learn how to
share the gospel with someone? Follow me.
Do you want to learn how to be able to raise children in a
godly manner? Follow me.
Do you want to learn how to pray?
Follow me. Do you want to serve?
Follow me. Now again, that could sound very
presumptuous and it could sound very prideful.
Paul, listen, Paul's saying this by the inspiration of Holy
Spirit. So there's no pride here.
And if Paul could say this, I'm not saying that necessarily our
posture should be, hey, let me, let me teach you something and
going around trying to teach everybody everything.
But kind of what I found. If you're just a faithful
Christian and you just keep your head down and you do what God's
called you to do, there will be people that will come around and
say, hey, can you explain to me how I should read my Bible?
Can you help me with that? I've heard you give testimonies
before about your Bible reading. Will you talk to me about that?
You might even see someone on a Saturday morning.
We have outreach. You say, hey, can I partner up
with you today because I want to learn how to talk to somebody
about Jesus. By the way, you can't do that if
you don't come outreach on Saturday.
But they got a little bit of a nervous laugh there.
All right, but do you have a faith that others could follow?
Or would you say this? I hope nobody would follow my
faith, boy, I hope nobody would follow the way that I go.
I wouldn't want them to talk like I talk once I get out of
the church. I wouldn't want them to look at
the things that I look at once I get out of church.
I wouldn't want them to read the Bible as much as I read the
Bible when I get out of church because honestly, I don't read
my Bible between Sunday to Sunday.
I pick it up for church, I put it down and I'll pick it up
again till the next time I go to church.
Paul says this follow me, but not because I'm me, but follow
me because I'm trying to follow Christ.
And that's what he's saying here.
He says if you want a pattern of humility, follow me.
But he's not saying this in an arrogant way.
He has to be saying this in a way of humility.
He's telling these people that are so out of whack in Corinth.
He says this you, you, you think you are something and you're
not. So if you want to see humility,
look at me. And he's not even talking about
himself. He said look at Apollos.
He says we're the figures that you need to be following.
Could we even put it this way? He wasn't just preaching the
Word. He was living the Word.
He wasn't just getting up behind the pulpit and say thus sayeth
the Lord. You know, every time I point a
finger at you and say thus sayeth the Lord, there's three
fingers pointing back at me. I would say there's almost more
responsibility. Some of you were just trying
that. I've also thought about
preaching just doing this so that I don't have any fingers
pointed me. But that doesn't seem fair, does
it? But the idea is this, that if
I'm speaking from the pulpit and telling you thus, saith the
Lord, there's a greater responsibility to me to make
sure that I'm living it if I'm putting it out there to you.
Amen. All right.
And so here's Paul saying this. I need to be humble.
Our lives should be signposts
for unbelievers to see Christ, but our lives also should be
signposts for other Christians to learn how to be Christ.
Like that's what Paul is saying here.
Listen, don't, don't be proud. Listen.
Are you willing to be taught? Could you be taught by a Paul?
Could you be taught by Apollos? And that's what was so crazy
about it. And he even says it at the end
of the verse. He says, he says that no one of
you be popped up for one against another.
They're puffing up with somewhat about themselves, but they were
puffed up that there was the group that said, well, we like
Paul better and the other group says, well, we like Apollos
better. And he says, do you realize you
are carrying the flag for people Paul and Apollos in arrogance?
And neither of these guys are arrogant.
Neither of us are honored. He's saying, by what you're
doing by puffing yourself up. Well, this idea, what is what is
puffing up? What does that even mean?
We'll look at verse #18 drop down just a little bit.
Now some are puffed up as though I would not come unto you, but I
will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the
speech of them which are puffed up, but the power.
Look at chapter 5, verse 2. This is a problem they had in
court. The being puffed up and ye are
puffed up and you have not rather mourned that he had done
this deed might be taken away from among you.
We're going to see when we get to chapter #5 there was a man
who is in gross sexual immorality and what do they do?
Instead of making sure they, he took the steps they needed to
take to make sure that he repented, they kind of left him
in the church and they were puffed up about it.
They said, hey, listen, how listen, how liberal minded we
are. You can live any way you want.
You can be a member of this church.
Well, that's OK if the church belongs to you, but the church
belongs to Jesus Christ, and he's the one that decides what
the proper way of living is for a member of a church.
And so they were puffed up about this.
Well, what do we know about true love?
In fact, they would even say, well, you know, this is love and
this is what it is. Maybe they even said love is
love, which doesn't even mean anything because he can't define
the word by the word. That's a way for the world to
try to confuse what the Bible says about marriage between
being between one man and one woman for one lifetime.
But what do we see the Bible says about true love?
You could say that it says in First Corinthians 13 verse #4
that charity is not what puffed up.
It's not puffed up. These people thought they were
loving that. These people thought they had it
all. And, and what's Paul doing?
He's taking the needle to that balloon and he's just putting
holes in it. He's saying you aren't who you
think you are. Pride promised to make us
bigger, better and more important.
But typically it just makes us smaller and meaner.
It doesn't make us who we think it'll make us.
And then verse #8 he says this now year full or or rather verse
#7 he says, for who maketh thee to differ from another?
And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?
So he asked this question. He he says this.
Who made you different from one another?
If you want. You know, we think of Paul and
Apollo's, OK, they're different and you all are different.
Well, who is the one that made you different?
Can we put it this way? He's asking the people of
Corinth, who's the one that gave you the gifts and the talents
that you have in the first place, if you're going to be
proud and haughty about these things that you see in US or in
others. Who's the thing?
Who's the person who gave those things in the 1st place?
And we know it wasn't a person. We know it was God Almighty.
He says this, well, who made you a different from one another?
He says, What do you have that you didn't receive from God?
He says, what do you even think you've accomplished apart from
God? John 15 Five.
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I and Him the same, bringeth forth
much fruit. For without me you can do
certain things, but just not as much as others.
No, it says this, for without me you can do nothing.
He says what are you glorying in?
It's not of you in the first place.
What are you so puffed up about? There's nothing you have.
There's nothing that you are that you could have accomplished
on your own. Listen, you couldn't come into
this world on your own. You can't breathe on your own.
You can't do anything on your own.
It's only by the good graces of God that you and I can be who we
are. So why would we be so proud
about what we are when we're not who we are because of us?
Listen, I can't be proud of going to heaven, Ephesians 28
and 9, not of works, lest any man should boast.
If I can't boast of getting to heaven on my own, how on earth
can I boast about the things I can do on this earth on my own?
It's only because of him. He says stop being so prideful.
Stop being so prideful. Told you before I worked for the
Tampa Bay Lightning, they won a Stanley Cup.
And I'll tell you this, they never gave me a championship
ring. They never do.
You believe they don't give the sanitation crew A championship
ring? Could you imagine me walking
around the Saint Pete Times Forum in the bowels of the Saint
Pete Times Forum around 2:00 in the morning, which is what I
would usually have to do to get rid of everyone's trash out of
the form after a concert or after a game, as I was working
in the ministry. But I was working overnight just
to be able to put food on the table.
And could you imagine me tell it?
Listen, guys, I mean, I don't understand why they don't give
us championship rings. I mean, listen, we worked for
the Lightning. I mean, I don't see any of the
players around here at 2:00 in the morning.
This trash doesn't take out itself.
And someone walks up to me and just kind of slaps me a back of
the head and says, you think you had anything to do with what
they did. You pick up trash.
I said, well, but yeah, do a good job at it.
But I kind of feel the same way about us taking glory from the
Lord, from our own life. Someone gets saved.
Look at what we did. He it's almost as the Lord slaps
to the side heads. He said, yeah, I used you, but
you think you could have done that on your own, Lord?
Pretty good preacher. See how many views we're getting
online, It's in the dozens. Now we're going viral.
We're going viral. It's not a very contagious
virus, but we're going viral, right?
You know what you say? You think that's you?
Hey, Lord, doing pretty good in my ministry at the church.
I think people are starting to see how good I am at my
ministry. You think you had the strength
to get up this morning? You think you had the dexterity
to be able to get behind your wheel and drive and to be able
to get here and to articulate what you needed to to those
children. To be able to let the notes come
out of your mouth. To be able to sing so that you
could stand at the front door and shake people's hand and say
the right thing at the right moment that someone need to
hear. You think that was you?
Sure you were willing, Sure I used you.
But if I had taken my hand off of you and told you go ahead, do
it on your own, you'd be gone in a second.
And we start to think about how great we are.
Oh friend, pride kills. It kills, he says.
Now without it's receiving. Why does thou glory as if thou
is not receiving? He said.
He said, why? Why are you acting the way that
you are? Why would you carry yourself
this way? Why would you glory in yourself?
You. What Paul often had to reiterate
to the people of Corinth, he had to say this.
We've already read this before 1st Corinthians 131.
According as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in
the Lord. He said in Second Corinthians
chapter 10 verse 17, But let he that glorieth let him glory in
the Lord. Pride cuts ourselves off from
God, for who needs God if we're self-sufficient within
ourselves? Pride cuts ourselves off from
others, for who needs to be dependent upon others if in our
pride we are independent. And pride cuts ourselves off
from ourselves, for it does not permit us to face accurately our
own self, self evaluation of who we are in Christ.
If I'm going to glory in something, you can go all the
way back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah Chapter 9 verse 24.
But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth
and that he knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exercises
loving kindness, judgment, righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight. Say it, the Lord.
There's something to glory in that.
We can glory in our Lord. You could worship right there
and go through all of those words and all those beautiful
characteristics of our Lord, and you would never exhaust the
beautiful nature of our God. There's something to glory in.
There's something to glory. You know, we oftentimes we talk
about Bible study. We talk about the principle of
first mention. You've heard me say that before,
that sometimes we see the first mention of a word in the Bible.
It helps us understand how to interpret that word throughout
the rest of the Bible. And I actually was looking this
up today. I didn't realize this.
I would have thought the word pride would have been very early
on in the word of God. And I look for pride in all the
forms of the word of pride, like prideful.
But do you know the first time it's mentioned as Leviticus
2619? I will break the pride of your
power, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth is
brass. And God was telling Israel this.
If you do not, once you go into the promised land, do not follow
me and become prideful in your own selves, I'm going to have to
break you. Now listen that.
That sounds like a threat, but I will tell you it's God in his
loving kindness saying this. He says I will break you of your
pride before pride breaks you, because that's what it'll do.
I will break you of your pride before pride will break you.
You ever heard of a wild horse that needs to be broken?
Often times that's called the meeking of a horse, meeking a
horse and we hear that word meek and we don't think that's very
good, do we? We often use the term meek means
weak, right? But that's not what meek is
taking that horse and meeking it, taking that horse and
breaking it of its pride and its arrogance because that's what it
is. It's wild.
Listen to this, actually read this from a horse breeder today
because I I follow a lot of horse breeding blogs, probably
like you do, but big in that real big in that animal
husbandry is a passion. But that's probably why we have
a couple dozen views right there, all right?
But anyway, making a horse does not mean to strip the power from
the horse, but rather to harness the horse's power from a state
of wild independence to 1 of loyalty so that the horse could
be used as the master of the horse intended.
What does he have to do? Break us of our pride before
pride breaks us. And that first word of the use
pride and breaking is not an accident.
Why? Because God wants to meek us so
that we can be used for Him. So we start there with the
people at Corinth. They were deceived by pride.
But secondly, they were also deceived by position.
They were deceived by position. And what I love here in verse #8
is that Paul gives us what I would call some sanctified
sarcasm. I don't mind sarcasm.
In fact, I kind of like it, to be honest with you.
I have to be careful sometimes in the pulpit about laying on
the sarcasm a little bit too thick.
But I will say this. Paul uses some real sarcasm in
verse #8 he's not doing it again in an arrogant way because this
is inspired by the Holy Spirit. But what he's trying to do is
he's trying to put in front of them the lunacy of the way that
they're living. He's trying to show them how
absolutely crazy it is that they think that they are here, but
they are actually here. How that they think they are
doing so well, but they're actually doing so poorly.
Look at verse #8 He says now you are full, now you are rich.
You have reigned as kings without us.
I would to God He did reign that We also might reign with you.
Well, we'll find more context for this because you really have
to go later on to verse 10 and beyond.
And as we look at the next time we're together in this passage,
we'll see a little bit more about what he's talking about
here. But I will say he has this ID
says, hey, you're full. Now were they actually full?
No, you're rich. Were they actually rich?
No, you've reigned as kings without us.
Now, were they actually reigning as kings?
They thought they were all those things, but they were not those
things. And that's why Paul basically
says this, I wish we were doing as well as you're doing.
Remember you, you said Paul and Apollo's how, how great we are.
We're not even doing half as good as you all are because
you're full. You are rich.
You have reigned as kings. They had their position.
But Paul says this, I wish I had that position.
I wish I was doing as well as you.
You know, it's interesting, Paul later on in Second Timothy
chapter 2, verse 12 would say this.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
You know what Paul understood? You want a position.
It's not about being full and rich.
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
And I'm not saying you have to empty your bank account out
before you can finally be right with God.
I don't think the Bible teaches that.
But I'm talking about spiritual poverty in your life where you
realize I'm nothing without him. I can do nothing without Him.
There is nothing within me that is good and right apart from
what God has done within me in my heart and life.
In fact, my flesh is evil and wicked.
It's just the fact that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me now
that I have a fighting chance because greater is He that is in
me than He that is in the world. There's nothing within me that
that I can hang my hat on. But Paul says this, you're full,
you're rich, you've reigned as kings, but you don't understand
that that's not the way that you reign.
In fact, I would even put it this way, that God calls us in
this life to be able to be the ministers and servants because
someday there will be reigning to be had.
There will be a Kingdom someday. 2nd Revelation 20 verse 6 says
Blessed and holy is he that hath a part in the first
resurrection. On such the second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall
reign with him 1000 years. There will be a time to reign,
brethren, but it's not now. You know what we learn now.
It's not about finding a position, it's about having a
posture of humility. You know, right now is not about
finding a position, It's about having a posture of humility.
We say, well, pastor, I mean, that just doesn't make any sense
because obviously people have positions there.
There's a hierarchy in church. You have a pastor, you have
trustees and and you could have deacons, you'll have deacons
right now, but you could have deacons and there's leaders of
ministries. And so it doesn't even make
sense that you would say that there would be no positions.
And my answer that would be I didn't say that there were no
positions. Pastor is a God-given position.
Deacon is a God-given position. We understand that there has to
be hierarchy in church if there's to be decency in order.
I'm not talking about the hierarchy like the Catholic
Church and the the abomination that that is.
No, I'm not talking about that at all.
I'm just talking about if you have a ministry, there needs to
be someone in charge of that ministry.
If there's something going on, there probably ought to be
someone who knows what's that ministry is supposed to do so
that other people who are newer that ministry know what needs to
be done. What I'm saying is this is that
we don't need to be seeking a position.
We need to be seeking A posture. Say this, I'm not trying to see
how high I can get up the ladder.
By the way, the ladder at Liberty Baptist Church isn't
very high. We don't have many rungs on our
ladder. OK?
Even someone with, you know, a fear of heights could probably
get up the ladder of the rungs that we have here.
It's not very high, but it's amazing how many people want to
try to scale the ladder. Even preachers trying to scale
the ladder over other preachers, even though we're independent
preachers. Well, I have this many of my
church and I have this many of my church.
Do you know what I try to do when I go to a preacher's
meeting and people ask how many are at our church?
I try to avoid the answer all together.
What does it matter? What does it matter?
Are we just being faithful to Christ?
That's what really matters. No one says, hey, how how
faithful are the people at your church?
They want to know how many. You don't want to know how many
because they want to make sure they have more than we do.
And the times I've asked, it's because I want to know that we
had more than the other guy did. Because in my pride, if I'm not
careful, that could be what it is.
No, I'm just being honest with you.
But what does it matter to to posture this?
Lord, I'm just your servant and however many you put in front of
us, how many you put in these seats?
How many people were able to minister into our town?
I just want to be faithful to the ones you've put here.
I don't need a position. I don't need to be prideful
about it. I just need to be a servant.
I could go to 3rd John, and we're not going to go there
right now. But in 3rd John there was this
man named Diotrophes, and I believe that was the beginning
of the priestly Assumption, the idea of the priest gathering
power to himself to the exclusion of others.
Listen to what John said about Diotrophes.
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow
helpers to the truth. I wrote it to the Church.
But Diotrophes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them,
receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come, I will
remember his deeds which he doeth, praying against us with
malicious words, and not content therewith, neither does he
himself receive the brethren. So Can you imagine the apostle
John writing to the church and wanting to come to the church?
The apostle John, the one who lay on the bosom of Christ at
the Last Supper, he says, I want to come to your church, and I
want to talk to you. This man Diotrophy says We have
no part of you, John, we don't want to hear from you.
What did he do? He wanted the preeminence.
Can I tell you what kills churches faster than anything?
People that want preeminence, we're all servants.
We're all ministers. And again, you might say,
pastor, it's easy for you to say because you're the one that gets
to stand in front of us and talk for all the time, all the time
in the world. And the answer is, with that
comes a lot of responsibilities too.
And with that come a lot of heavy burdens too.
And I'm not asking you for pity and I'm asking you for sorrow.
I'm just saying it's not all that you think.
Well, if I got up there and I got to tell people for 40
minutes three times a week, I tell them what's going on, like,
well, you can, but there's some other things that come with
that. So what do we do?
We don't seek the position. What do we do?
Well, Psalm 75 versus 6 and seven says this promotion cometh
neither from the east nor from the West or from the South.
But God is the judge. He put it down one and set it up
another. You know what I was never
looking to do? Be a pastor.
That wasn't something that was on my radar, but God put it on
my radar. You know what I wasn't looking
to do? Plant a church in Boston.
They remind you, I live in Tampa, FL where all the people
from Boston came. You could have planted a church
in Boston, in Tampa and probably had it filled with Bostonians
that are snowbirds and the people who migrated down there.
To be honest with you, I wasn't looking for that, but it's what
God had. Every single one of us have to
get to the place where it's just listen, if I'm promoted or I'm
not, that's God's business. I just want to serve.
I want to help. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in
the House of the Lord, the psalmist said.
At least I'd be in the House of the Lord.
I'd be doing something. I'd be there and listen if the
Lord ever was to the place that had me in the place where maybe
later on in life, I don't know, but that I was retired and I
wasn't a pastor, I would tell you this, my joy and my desire
to be in the House of God wouldn't diminish at all.
And I'd be glad to shake hands when people came into the
building. I'd be glad to clean up.
In fact, I still do clean up. Plunge toilet.
I fixed the toilet a couple weeks ago.
That's why it's still messed up. But do you know you could fix a
toilet flapper with a paper clip?
Anybody know that? That's why it's still messed up.
All right. But it's all about just, hey, we
don't need a position. You know what his position needs
to be this high and lifted up and everything else just needs
to be us being low. I want to show you something
that will be done. Turn to Isaiah chapter 14.
Isaiah chapter #14 we're looking verse #12 Isaiah 14, verse 12.
People court were deceived by pride, and the people court were
deceived by position. Pride and position.
What says verse #12 How art thou fallen from heaven?
Oh, what's that next word? Lucifer, son of the morning, how
art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations?
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides
of the north. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.
And I've said it before that you can see that Satan has an eye
problem here, doesn't he? And not one of these, but the
letter, I, I, I, I, I, I will, I will, I will, I will.
What is he doing? He is deceived by pride and he's
deceived by position. Do you realize that Corinth fell
for literally Satan's oldest trick in the book, His oldest
trick that he first played upon himself was pride and power, and
he fell for it. But I'll tell you, you and I,
when we go towards pride and power and fall for it in a
different way, that there are consequences.
It's literally Satan's oldest tools to have you filled with
pride and to have you seek power.
Matthew 5 three says this. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Look, the Kingdom of earth is for those who are proud, but the
Kingdom of heaven are for those who are poor in spirit.
God has something for you if you are willing to put aside pride
and you are willing to put aside position.
I was 22 years old. I was a senior in college.
We had Bethany and that was it. And as I've told you before, I
was working probably 50 hours a week and going to school, work
40 hours a week at Kay Jewelers, and I was working another day,
day and a half a week shift at build-a-bear.
I'm not proud. Don't talk to me about it after
church, all right? Look, I knew what God had called
me to do, and I was going to make some money, all right?
So I don't want to talk to nobody about it after church.
But I'm being honest with you, all right?
That's what I was doing. And I got a couple calls from
Brother Jett, who knew I couldn't be an RA.
But I'd gotten better in a several ways.
And he said, there's a church in Chickasha, Chickasha, OK, that I
want you to preach at. I was a senior in college and
now I'm preaching at this church.
And they they wanted me to preach there.
I remember Diane and I and Bethany who was just, I mean,
so, so small. We drove out to Chickasha and
I'd preach in the morning and we'd stay in the missions house
in the afternoon. I'd preach at night.
I was so I couldn't preach my way out of a wet paper bag.
I remember preaching once and I was 3/4 through the message and,
and it was just about right near the end that I realized what the
message was about. Like, I just finally made the
connections about what the text was saying and I'm preaching and
I was like, that's it. That's it.
Like Eureka, I'd found it. I mean, I finally found the
point of the text while I was standing in the pulpit preaching
the word of God. It shouldn't have been for the
love or money, but I did that a few times.
And Speaking of money, they would give us a $200 love
offering. Now, that meant I could skip at
least a couple shifts at build-a-bear every month, which
was very helpful. That was a lot of money in
Oklahoma when we made somewhere around, I made somewhere around
$14,000 a year back then. So Deacon came up to me.
Brother Adam, could I talk to you?
Yes, Sir. And he took me off to the side
and he said this. Talk to some of the folks around
here. They'd like you to be the
pastor. All Right, Reverend, I could
feel it and listen. I knew there were problems
there, but I was like that woman that always looked at the man
said I can change him. I was like I could change these
people. And he laid it all out to me.
And the more he talked about it, the more I felt like this is it.
This is what God put me on this earth for.
And I was excited and I said, well, I can't answer you for
sure. I need to talk to my pastor.
That was Sam Davidson, some of you that know him.
And so I remember going to him and I said, brother Sam, here's
here's what it is. There's this church in Chickasha
that wants to take me as the pastor.
And I told him I'm ready, but I need to talk to you first.
What do you think? And I was sure he was going to
say, go in peace and serve the Lord and just kind of that's it.
And he looked at me and I kid you not, he said, there's a
fifth grade Sunday school class that needs a helper.
We're going to get you plugged in there.
And I thought, are you hearing me?
I went from being a pastor to a fifth grade boys class helper
didn't even make me the teacher. He made me the helper.
And in that moment, I thought, who are you, Sam Davison, to get
in the way of what God has for me.
I thank the Lord that over the next few days, he worked in my
heart, the Lord, not Sam Davison, but the Lord worked in
my heart saying, you know, brother Sam's been in the
ministry a long time. He knows that church in
Chickasha. He knows you got at least pray
about it and make sure that you're being cautious.
And listen, can I tell you, and I mean this with all sincerity.
I'm not trying to say this to to try to be dramatic, but like in
that church, I never would have been here.
You say why? Because you would have been in
Chickasha. No, I don't even think I'd be in
the ministry. I had no business pastoring that
church. I'll tell you.
It was appealing. Why appealed to my flesh.
I wasn't even at a Bible college.
I could be a pastor and I'm not even at a Bible college.
Think of what people would think about that.
And honestly, people probably think he has no business being a
pastor. But in my mind now, I would
never have articulated this, but the flesh chews on that, doesn't
it? The flesh thinks that's pretty
good and I'm pretty good. But I know this now, God
protected me from what could have been a ministry ending
decision, but I was very tempted to give in to pride and
position. Now, I'm not saying that God's
calling you to be a pastor somewhere.
That's not what I'm trying to tell you tonight.
But I will tell you this, pride and position, the lust of
position, the quest for pride, or rather I wouldn't say the
quest for pride, but the accumulation of pride in the
Spirit will be your downfall spiritually.
The church at Corinth, Paul says this.
I wish I was as good as you. You guys are really good in his
sanctified sarcasm. And we'll look more of what he
was talking about the next couple weeks about the trials
and tribulations he went through that they weren't ready to go
through because they were too rich, they were too full, and
they were reigning as kings. So I want to encourage you
tonight that pride is the thing that we hate in other people,
but we don't necessarily hate in ourselves and we don't
necessarily recognize in ourselves.
Lord, maybe you need to pray tonight.
Lord, show me any pride or arrogancy within my life.
Lord, help me to not seek a position, but to seek you.
And when you just seek Him, you know what?
He'll put you in places you never thought you would be when
you just patiently seek Him out. Can I tell you, in the 21 years
since I was offered that position, can I tell you that
God did things that I can't even describe for lack of time
tonight that never would have happened if I'd given in to
pride and position? And none of us, no matter who
you are or what your experience is, we must all make sure that
we avoid the same. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.