Be Humble – Him More, Me Less

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

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

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

Job 41 · chapter mention

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

Luke 18 · chapter mention

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.