Thank you for being with us this morning.
And I'm, I'm thrilled to know that we have some special
friends over here on the left side, about six or seven young
adults that are sitting over here and first time here.
So welcome. Glad you're with us and anyone
else that's here. Glad you're with us as well.
And we don't say it often enough, but there are connection
cards in the back of the seats in front of you.
We would love to connect with you and all it takes is you
filling out one of those connection cards, putting that
in either the black boxes or the big grey box back in the middle
and give us an opportunity to get to know you, greet you and
speak with you. So if you would do that, that'd
be great. So today I get the honor to
speak to you. Pastor Alex began this series.
Be humble and humility in Unity was the first week and thinking
of others first was the second week.
And today if, if I was to title this, it is just simply more of
him and less than me. More of him and less of me.
So Pastor Alex is out. I actually had to think he and
him and Megan are sick right now.
But he was supposed to be in Guatemala and some things
happened and some things changed that trip and they were not able
to go. And praise be to God that he was
able to do what he does for Miss Lewis, not Hillary, but
Annabelle. Little Annabelle Lewis ended up
having some surgery 2 days ago. She was supposed to be in
Guatemala. Imagine having a surgery in a
third world country. And so we were able to pray.
She's doing well, she's in the hospital.
Continue to pray for the Lewis family.
But God knew what he was doing and he stopped them from going
to Guatemala, probably in my mind because of a couple of
reasons. But one of the main reasons is
little myth. Little Annabelle needed to be
home during this time. So pray for Kevin and Hillary
Lewis and and her children and being part of that.
So again today, more of him, less of me, if you would stand
to your feet, we're going to read the word of God.
We stand for those of you that are new.
We stand in honor of the word of God for what it represents, that
if the word of God is infallible, 100% accurate and
true, and we stand in honor of that.
So I know we don't always do this, but I'm going to ask you
to read with me. We're going to be in second
Philippians, Philippians chapter 2 again, reading verses one
through 11. And so I'm going to ask you to
read with me along this. So it says, therefore, if there
is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of
love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection
and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same
mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one
purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or
empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as
more important than yourselves. Do not merely look good.
I was seeing if you were saying it of the interest of others.
Good. All right, so let's start with
verse 5 and read it loud. Have this attitude in
yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He
existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the
cross. For this reason also God highly
exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every
name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of
those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the Father. Can you say Amen?
Amen. You may be seated.
Be humble. Be humble.
I'm going to throw you a little curve today, Pastor Bob.
I wrestled with this a little bit because I'm not sure this
was probably ever been preached on here at this church, but I'm
going to preach on starting the opposite of humility and I'm
going to throw out a word called leviathan.
Has anybody ever heard of the word Leviathan?
Mythology says that it was a great sea creature, a great
beast of the oceans, and that the leviathan actually had no
nothing that could take it out. It was it was bigger, stronger,
more powerful than anything else upon the earth.
It would go along the depths of the oceans, but also come about
just underneath the the water lines.
And when it would see a boat or something, they say it would
rear its big head up and it would take it out and everything
would be destroyed, right. So the leviathan being something
very powerful, a powerful force, a spiritual opposition.
And again, the the leviathan just disrupts everything, right.
So I, I should have had a picture up to get that image of
you think of it as a big serpent, like 100,000 times
bigger than like an Anaconda, right?
It's like massive. So I asked God why on earth I
was going to be preaching about the Leviathan today, and he said
there is a reason. And so he directed me to the
book of Job, chapter 41, 41 and you can read that at a later
time. But again, the Leviathan spirit
is the focus of what we're going to start with because it is the
exact opposite of humility. Again, a powerful force of
spiritual opposition that distorts truth, hinders
communication, blocks a person's relationship with God, and
creates division. So there's a few scriptures I
highlighted out of the entire chapter of 41.
Verse 2 states can you put a hook in him?
That was a question mark. Can you put a hook in him?
The reality is no. Verses 7 and 8, can you fill his
skin with harpoons or his head with Spears?
Lay a hand on him. Remember that battle, and I love
the Scripture because it says, remember that battle because you
will not do it again, because the Leviathan is that big and
that strong. Verse 13 says who can strip him
of his armor? Verse 18 says his sneeze, that
sneeze we just had. His sneeze flashes forth light
out of its nostrils. Verse 19, out of its mouth goes
burning torches, sparks of fire leap forth.
Verse 33 says no one, nothing is like him.
Do you get the picture? Leviathan, powerful, strong,
nothing can take him out. The reason why it's about the
opposite of humility is in verse 34 it simply says he is the king
of the pride of the sons of pride.
Pride is the exact opposite of humility.
Why did God want to bring us into the understanding of the
Leviathan this morning? Because we must come to the
understanding that within every one of us as human beings, there
is pride within us. Every one of us.
There's not one that is exempt. There is a form of pride in some
manner, some way. I'm able to disciple some some
young adults and some young men, able to do marriage counseling
with some various couples. And inevitably, almost at all
times, pride is a key source of why there's problems and
tribulations and things going on.
Typically there's something there for my wife and I.
My wife is an A type personality.
I am a strong B to an A type personality.
And sometimes we don't even realize what we're arguing about
because we just don't want the other one to win.
And many times we've even looked at each other a little bit later
and said, what were we even talking about?
I don't remember, but it really comes back to the point of pride
that I can't let her win and she can't let me win.
And she asked if I was going to tell a story about her from our
travels this week. We travelled back to Oklahoma
this week for a funeral of a cousin.
I typically do all the driving typically because I just don't
like how she drives. And there was a point in time
that when we're talking about things that she thinks that
she's a race car driver and she will not let anyone pass her.
So if she's going 90 miles an hour and somebody's going to
pass her, she will speed up to 100 if she has to.
And so I jokingly say that and she knows I love her And, and
it's a joke, even though she does scare me.
We jokingly talk about that because of the fact that as
human beings and as mankind, each and every one of us has
something in our lives that we have pride in.
Sometimes it's good pride, sometimes it's pride in our
children and our grandchildren, and sometimes we're excited
about what they're becoming and who's happening and things like
that. But many times that can also
take the form of a bad pride in the fact that we're haughty and
spirited about it, that no one's like us, no one's like our
grandchildren, our children, nothing's like that.
And it becomes a haughty spirit. Pride is the exact opposite of
humility for many reasons. Again, in Job 4134, pride is the
leviathan spirit and it is roaming upon this earth.
Proverbs 16 and eight says pride goes before destruction and a
haughty spirit before stumbling. I've even had to check my spirit
this week, Cody, and say if I'm having troubles right now, why
Is it because I have pride and that pride is causing me not to
maybe ask for help or not to seek God's direction, but try to
do it myself? What is causing that stumbling
block? What is causing those arguments
between our spouses, our children, our families, our
friends? Probably a form of pride because
the Leviathan spirit is very strong, very powerful.
We just heard it in Joe 41. Its scales not even when can
penetrate it is so mighty and strong, its teeth are so vast
that nothing can be can be removed from it.
The strength of its of its of its body and its form is so
massive and strong that we as human and mankind, we do not
have the strength and ability to fight this battle.
Matter of fact, I would go out to say this pride thing is
actually probably biblically called a principality.
Have you ever heard that? Remember the scripture that says
we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against evil, evil rulers.
I believe in my heart that pride is so vast upon this world.
It is a principality that we are fighting and must fight against.
So why are we talking about it today?
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before by
stumbling. Pride distorts truth and twist
scripture to suit its own agenda.
I've caught myself miss Jackie many times trying to pull out
one scripture out of a chapter and try to utilize that
scripture to justify what I'm saying and what I'm doing.
When in reality, when you look at the whole content of
scripture, it doesn't say that at all.
How many of us are doing those very same things?
The Leviathan spirit does that. It creates a spiritual barrier.
It hinders prayer, worship, the ability to receive the Holy
Spirit. The Leviathan spirit in our
lives causes us not to focus our lives on prayer.
We have a hard time praying. We don't read the Bible every
day because other things get in its place.
Why? Because we have to accomplish
all the things we're supposed to accomplish, all these things
happening. Psalms 10 and four says in his
pride the wicked man does not seek him in all his thoughts.
There is no room for God. Did you get that?
If you are prideful, you are not seeking God.
You can't have both. You're either prideful or you're
humble. Pride promotes self will, wants
everything to be ours for ourselves, hard and hard.
We've heard that the last couple of weeks from Pastor Alex.
Pride stops you from asking for help.
Woo, sorry, I need to pull the dagger out of myself because
that one hits home. Sometimes I get so prideful that
I want to do everything with excellence and I want to do
everything so well that sometimes I just need to say
help, help me. I need help.
I can't do this alone. I don't have the right answers,
I don't have the right ways. I need help.
I need Pastor Brad to help me pick up a table sometimes
because I'm getting older and I can't do it by myself.
I need help, but pride gets in the way sometimes and it causes
me to fumble, causes me to stumble, it causes me to go the
wrong direction. Paul includes pride among the
sins of the characterized the last days.
We're in the last days. With all my heart.
I believe that people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, boastful and proud. According to Second Timothy 32,
pride, the Leviathan spirit, it's not a simple thing.
It is a powerful principality that goes against all that God
stands for. I just said it a minute ago.
I'll say it again. Ephesians 612 For we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, which
includes pride against powers, against the rulers of darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
And we do not have the power amongst ourselves to battle the
Leviathan spirit. The good thing is, humility is
the destroyer of pride. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes
it's not easy. But humility is the destroyer of
pride, and it brings us into the realm of godliness.
Humility and repentance is crucial to destroy the spirit of
Leviathan, humble ourselves before the Lord Jesus Christ to
accept his salvation and blood of Jesus Christ for me as I am a
Sinner, but also to humble myself to my family and my
friends of my church and my and my own family.
To say I'm sorry for the word that I spoke to you or I'm sorry
about the attitude that I've I displayed.
It wasn't about you, but I took it out on you to be able to
humble ourselves enough to seek repentance not just from God,
but from others. Humility seats God's power.
For in Joe 41, in the middle of all these things about how great
and mighty the Leviathan is, there is 2 scripture in there
that says, but I created all things, the visible and the
invisible, and I am more power than all the things that we're
mentioning. God is God and I am not.
And I need to humble myself to let his power be strong and let
his power flow through me in such a way that it removes my
mindset and my character and my being from the prideful ways of
thinking that I'm always right and I know how to do everything
and I don't need anybody else's help or opinions.
It takes me out of that to humble myself over here to say
help me. Does anybody watch movies?
I apologize. My wife asked me if I was going
to use a sports theme and I really wasn't.
But this movie just hit me. Remember the Titans?
Do you remember that movie? Remember the Titans?
Remember when they were in that final game at halftime and they
were getting beat bad? You remember the little girl
that walked up to her daddy and said, daddy, now is not the time
to be prideful. If we're going to win this game,
you got to get some help because what you're doing isn't working.
It's not time to be prideful. And he walks in that locker room
and looks at the head coach and says he's kicking behind in and
I don't know what to do. I need your help.
And then they won, right? Where's your pride today?
Are you too prideful to ask someone else for their thoughts
or opinions? Are you too prideful to listen
to what those are and maybe realize that there may be some
truth behind that? Humility creates spiritual
disciplines. Are you praying?
Are you reading God's word or is it a forgotten thing sometimes
and you're skipping days? I've challenged myself, Missy
and I actually challenged each other that we're reading the
Bible together as a couple. And there's some days that I'm
like, oh, I've got so much going on.
I've got too much time. And God smacked me around a
little bit like a like a daddy would probably smacked me on the
behind a little bit and said what's most important, me and my
word or your To Do List. And we have made it a challenge
of ourselves to make sure that the word of God is one of the
first things that we're putting into ourselves so that we can
read and understand the truth of what God has for us.
But I had to humble myself to remember that my To Do List is
not the most important thing, that my relationship with my
heavenly Father is the most important thing.
And I can't help other people that are in my life.
I can't serve you as a church. I can't do all that I'm supposed
to do if I'm not putting my priorities in the right place
and making sure that my relationship with God Almighty,
I must humble myself to be able to do that.
Humility creates a reliance on the word of God's truth.
Again, not taking one scripture out to justify my bad attitude,
but to look at the content of the whole scripture, the whole
chapter, the whole scripture to understand that I have a bad
attitude and that I need to relinquish that in humility to
God to be changing me into what He wants me to be.
The opposite of humility is pride, but the destroyer of
pride is humility. James 46 says God opposes the
proud but gives grace to the humble.
So in Philippians 2 we find Jesus Christ in verses 5 through
8 humbling Himself, not comparing Himself.
Our fact, I'm going to read the scripture very quickly because
of time. You'll see it on the screen in
Colossians chapter 115 through 20.
We're going to read about Jesus Christ.
It says He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of
all creation. For by Him all things were
created both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and
invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or a third
authorities, all things have been created through Him and for
Him. He is before all things and in
Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body of
the Church, and He is the beginning, the first born from
the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in
everything. For it was the Father's good
pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him and through Him to
reconcile all things to Him, having made peace through the
blood of His cross, through Him I say, whether things on earth
or things in heaven. Now when you hear that Jesus
Christ created all things for him, through Him and by Him,
don't you think He would have the ability to say I'm good and
I'm God? But yet in verses 5 through 8 we
hear that he emptied himself from the deity.
I guess the the deity portion of all the available aspects of it.
I don't believe he poured himself out from being God.
I believe he was fully God and fully man.
But when it says he emptied himself from being God, he
emptied himself from all the opportunities that being a deity
created. He didn't take on the fashion of
look at me, look at me, look at me.
But he became a servant to us by becoming a man.
Matter of fact, I'm going to tell you he, he is so amazing
and it challenges me so much that he humbled himself to
actually kneel before his disciples and wash their feet.
My wife's smiling because she understands that feet gross me
out. And I've wrestled with God and
thank be to God he changed this. But two or three weeks ago he
said, you're going to bring up one of your disciples and you're
going to wash their feet on stage.
And I was like, oh Lord, that is gross.
I cannot do that. That is not of me.
I can't do that. And God said, do you want to be
humble or you want to be prideful?
Do you want to follow me or you don't want to do it your own
way? Now thank God that Pastor Alex
talked about washing a feet last week and said I don't have to do
it. But when I look at you and smile
and say gross feet gross me out. I that was probably the heart.
I could eat anything on the earth but touch your feet.
Not going to do it unless God said go wash Cody Anderson's
feet because he's your disciple and you need to teach him
something. Then I would have to humble
myself and fall upon my knees and say, Lord, you got to help
me through this because I'm a puke.
But if that's what you want me to do, I will do all things that
you call me to do. I will humble myself and rid
myself of pride to be able to do the actions that you call me to
do to change someone's life. Jesus Christ did that very
thing. If Jesus, the Son of God, can
humble himself to fulfill the plan of God, then why can't we?
Being humble means having a heart of repentance, being in
right standings with relationships that are around
us. Being humble leads to a lack of
offensiveness or offensiveness or being offended or offended.
I don't have to be offended when I know who I am in God, when I
know who God is and I know how He created me to be and the
talents He's given me to be, and He's called me to be what I am
and how I am as long as I am humbling myself to fulfill the
will of the Father instead of my own will.
Then when someone says you're a loser, I can say no, I'm
victorious. When someone says you're never
going to make anything out of your life, I can say I'm already
a Son of God. When someone says your marriage
is never going to do anything, I can say, yeah, it is because
God's teaching me how to be a man of God and how to love my
wife. When I know who God is and I
know who I am. And God, your opinions, I'm
sorry, don't matter. So why are other people's
opinions mattering to you? Is that a prideful thing or is
that a humility thing? That's the question.
Humility leads to understanding of God's Word in such a manner
that we actually seek it out. Like a big old 20 ounce steak.
If you don't like steak, I'm sorry.
I love steak, but when you seek out the Word of God that you
want to dine on it and you want to eat it and you want to chew
it and you want to just just feel the essence of all that it
is and all that it has. And you seek after the Word of
God in such a manner that when you digest it, you know it is
transforming you from the inside out.
And then I am a new creation. Why?
Because I am digesting the Word of God and I am seeking after
what He has for me. I am able to humble myself
before Him, and humility causes us to be the best version of
what God has called us to be. Not being the best version of
what I think I should be, Cody, but being the best version of
what God has called me to be according to His Word, according
to all that He is giving us and wanting us to be, I can be the
best version that God has called and ordained me to be.
So let's go over a few other opportunities of stories of the
Bible. We just talked about Jesus
humbling himself and and doing the great things for God.
Let's talk about Daniel. Daniel, continue to pray even
though the world says stop. You must do what the king says.
Stop praying. There is no praying.
Daniel kept praying even to the point of being thrown in the
lion's den. He kept praying.
I have no doubt when they were throwing them in the lion's den,
he was praying. Oh, Lord, help me right now.
But he continued. Why?
Because he humbled himself to know that what God called him to
do is far greater than what man calls him to do, and that his
future is so much brighter and so much brilliant and amazing
when he's following the will of the Father than when he's
following his own desires and his own passions.
Joseph being thrown in the pit, being sold, being a slave, being
lost from his family, but then coming to realize later that God
ordained the moment and opportunity.
Why? So that he could be the savior
of the Jewish nation. He humbled himself to take what
God gave him, gave forgiveness to his brothers when they came
back. I don't know about you, but my
pride would have stepped in and said, OK, don't kill him, but I
want you to hurt him a little bit.
That probably would have been me, but Joseph cried and said
they're my brothers and what they did, they did not do out of
their own conceit and pride. They did because God allowed it
to happen so that I could be in the right place at the right
time to do what God wanted me to do and save the nation.
The Pharisee in the public and in Luke, Luke chapter 18, you've
got the Pharisee, the religious 1 standing up, quoting
scripture, praying really loud, saying all the these and the
thou's to make themselves sound really great.
And you got the public then over hiding in the corner, kneeling
on their knees, beating their chest, saying, I am a Sinner.
I'm not even worthy to be in this temple.
I'm not even I'm not even worthy to be breathing.
But you give me breath, you give me life and I come to you
humbly, heavenly Father, to ask for your Holy Spirit to move in
my life. Forgive me for my sins, forgive
me for my past and change me. Isn't that so much better than
standing over here saying, Yep, I got it all going on.
I know things you don't. I don't know about you.
I've spent my times of my life in this place.
God is calling us to do go to this place to fall upon our
knees, to humble ourselves before God in such a way that he
can use us. We have John the Baptist, one of
the great prophets that that began doing his work and he
looked at his own disciples and said less of me, more of him.
Go follow him. Years and years of teaching
these guys, teaching his disciples.
But when Jesus came on the scene and the Spirit of God came on
the scene, he said I'm nothing. He's everything.
Go follow him. That's who's going to change
your life. That's who's going to make you
whole. That's who's going to really
make you into the man and woman that you are to be.
We had the woman with the issue of blood.
One of my favorite stories because when you think about
humility, you see a woman getting down on her hands and
knees, not caring about the ridicule of those that are
around her. People probably needing her to
get her out of the way so they could get closer to God.
But she crawled upon her hands and knees.
Why? Because she just wanted to get a
touch off her fingertips of Jesus Christ.
She just, she just wanted a touch.
And she knew by faith that even that little touch would
transform her life. How many of us are the ones
standing in the crowd pushing each other around, wanting to
get an eyeful and an earful but not wanting to get close enough
to actually have an experience with Jesus Christ?
What about the 10 lepers that came to Jesus and asked to be
healed and he sent them back and said go back to the go back to
the priest and show yourselves and as they went they were
healed. 1 turned when they saw the healing take place and went
back to Jesus. The other nine went and
fulfilled what they were told. They went to the priest, but
then they went back to their lives.
They went back home. Now this is not going to be in,
you're going to find this in Scripture.
This is my own interpretation. I believe that they were healed
from leprosy just as the Bible says.
But I believe that those nine people that went on to their
lives to get back to normal, if there was a finger missing or an
ear missing or something else missing, I believe they went
back to their lives with those things still missing.
But they were healed from the disease of leprosy and it was no
more. Are we those nine that get so
caught up in our actions and our To Do List and our things that
that we we are OK with some things being failed in us and we
just keep going on day by day? Or are we the one that came back
to Jesus Christ and turned around and came back and knelt
before the King of kings and the Lord of Lords and begin
worshiping him and Jesus looked at him and said thy faith has
made you whole. In my interpretation, Shane
Stone 101, I believe that he was not just made whole on a
spiritual realm through salvation and through Jesus
Christ. Of that I believe that if there
was a finger missing or an earlobe missing or something
gone, I believe Jesus said you are now complete and you are now
whole made back into what I created you to be.
Are we the 9 going about our day to days or are we the one?
Is the Leviathan spirit within us individually that we are so
prideful that we look around this room and say this message
is for everyone else instead of saying God, is this message for
me? Is it an opportunity for you to
say God's calling me to come to an altar of prayer and to pray,
but I'm too prideful to get out of my Pew because I'm worried
about what someone else is going to say?
Or would you rather come to a king of kings and the Lord of
Lords and be made whole and be made complete to be transformed?
You may need Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior to save you
from your sins and to bring you into the Kingdom of God.
You may have a state of depression in your mindset right
now that is just bogging you down and depression is just
beating you and it's that spirit that is just holding you back
and you need freedom from that this morning.
You may need a healing from God in your body, in your mind.
I don't know what your need is, but God does.
And I know that if we will just humble ourselves and come to an
altar of prayer and seek his face and lay things at the foot
of the cross and lay things at his feet and say you are the
strong one. I cannot handle Leviathan.
I cannot handle my my pains and my struggles.
I can't handle these things, but you can.
He said take my yoke. My yoke is easy, but yet we
still go through life holding on to all the baggage and God is
saying, humble yourselves before me, the Lord God, and release it
into my hands and let me transform you.
They're going to begin singing. I speak Jesus, the altars are
open. I would urge you to listen to
the voice of God, and I would urge you to humble yourselves
before the Almighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords, for
everything God has is so much greater than everything you
could ever do on your own.