Pleasing God Over Man

You'll hold up your Bible, like we always do, and we'll say Heavenly Father, I'm grateful for your word.

It's a rod and it pulls me back in and keeps me aligned where I need to be.

It's a hammer.

It hammers on my heart and gets rid of any stony heart.

It keeps me moldable.

It's a sword in which I fight the devil through prayer.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

It separates soul from spirit.

It separates flesh from your will and I do your will.

And it's a light.

It illuminates my path and I refuse to exit early.

I won't miss an exit.

I'm in line with you, lord, all the days of my life.

In Jesus' name, amen, you may be seated Well tonight.

I just wanted to share a message entitled Pleasing God Over man.

Pleasing God Over man, and it's really such an honor to get to preach from this pulpit that belongs to my dad.

That belongs to my dad.

I mean not this very pulpit.

I don't know about this one.

This is just kind of a tide me over until we get something more stable and more you know, with more oomph.

But but you know what I'm talking about.

This, this place it's, you know, and so I was just thinking over all the things that God has done in our lives and in the church's history.

You know, and just today I was reflecting back and it's Selena's birthday tomorrow.

So we celebrated.

We began the celebration early, we went out of town, we had some really good family time where we were reminiscing as a family and you know my dad likes to reminisce.

As he's preaching right, all these old builder stories start coming out.

He starts talking about the CB radio this morning and I thought he was going to go through his CB radio handles.

Is anybody old enough to remember CB handles?

I think he was sail kitty.

It came from like a, you know, roadkill in the road right Run over a cat and my uncle, you know his funeral's tomorrow.

He was an over the road trucker.

He was known as the Texas Rolling Stones.

So anyways, but I won't bring up back the CB radio tonight.

But let's just talk about pleasing God over man.

You know, every day we face decisions on pleasing God.

You know it's so easy to just slip into pleasing man and what man wants and all of the pools that we have, maybe the obligations at your job, maybe the obligations from your family, and you really you skip a day or two or three of prayer, and it's those responsibilities can yank you right out of where you're supposed to be.

Those responsibilities can yank you right out of where you're supposed to be.

And so tonight I hope that we all get free from the fear of disappointing people and we instead fear God and we grab a hold of what he needs us to do in order to accomplish what he needs us to accomplish in these last days.

Amen.

And so my foundation scripture is going to be Hebrews 13, verse five through seven.

I've read this many, many times, reminiscing of going all the way back to a prayer meeting in 1999.

It was our last prayer meeting in the Baptist church and we were facing losing that building and not knowing where we were going to be.

We didn't have another place, another building lined up for that.

Following Sunday it was our last.

And so I read this as a prophecy, and I'm going to read it a little bit different tonight.

But it says to verse seven, hebrews 13, seven, in the Amplified Classic let your character or moral disposition be free from the love of money, the craving for earthly possessions, and be satisfied with your present circumstances.

That does not mean that, like you know, you're driving an old beat up Ford Taurus right now, that you're not supposed to reach out and believe God for something better.

That's not what that's talking about, but just be grateful for what you have right now, you know.

Be grateful that you have a roof over your head right now.

Amen, for he, god himself, has said I will not in any way fail you, nor give you up, nor leave you without support.

I will not, I will not, I will not.

The triple enunciation right there Amen Of God, amen of God.

In any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake, nor let you down or relax my hold on you.

Assuredly not.

And before we go on any further, I wasn't going to bring this up, but there's a brand new song on the radio.

I like Christian radio.

I don't know about you, but I grew up listening to old, you know, ksbj, way back when they first came on the air.

But anyway, there's a worship song.

Now that's out, it's brand new, and they're begging God to not please, god, don't give up on me, don't give up on me, god Don't give up on me.

And that's the chorus, and that's the bridge, and that's the whole song really, and it's like, hey, we don't have to beg God to do something he's never going to do.

He's never going to give up on you.

I don't care what you've done, I don't care what mistakes you've made, he's never going to give up on you.

And it says this right here in his word.

And so we have that revelation here.

I'm not bragging, I'm not braggadocious, I'm just saying all of us need to grab a hold of this revelation.

And you need to know with assuredly.

It says assuredly not.

He's never going to leave you helpless.

And so verse 6, so we can take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say what?

What do we say?

The Lord is my helper.

I will not be seized with alarm, I will not fear or dread or be terrified, for what can man do to me?

And so that just stuck out to me the very first time I ever read this in the Amplified Bible what can man do to me?

And so that's something in my life that's just stuck with me, and I'll say that out loud all the time.

What can man do?

We're facing a situation where flesh is involved.

What can man do to me?

You know like we'll just stand up in faith, selena and I.

And what can man do to us?

And in verse seven it says to remember your leaders and superiors and authority who, of living the outcome of their well-spent lives and imitate their faith, their conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider bestower.

Thank you for the amplified hallelujah.

We're going to lean our whole entire human personality on God and absolute trust and confidence in his power, wisdom and goodness.

You know the ones.

You know I was thinking about my dad today, and so you know I've brought this up before just growing up, all of the different decisions, and we're going to talk about a few of those and a few of mine as well.

But just when we're making decisions to please God over man, and I just I'm grateful reading this scripture of growing up in a household where both my parents would pray in the morning and so my dad would get lost, especially when we lived in Corpus, things were really good for half a second and then really bad there for a lot, you know a lot of the time, and he would just be back there in the screened in area and back of the house, uh, praying and reading his Bible and making all kinds of notes, and I tell you that stuck with me and so, uh, I believe when I was 14 or 15, we had a prophet staying in our house with us and he took me to office Depot and he bought me this really nice pen and a and a notebook and it just like not that I had never taken notes before, but just that was my.

To this day I still have that, it's by my bed and that's where I take notes, and that same notebook from all those years ago and it's filled with what God has revealed to me, and my dad had notebook after notebook, after notebook of those.

And so you know, every now and then I'll take a peek, but you know, sometimes he'll record, he'll just prophesy over himself, he'll record into like a little recorder.

I don't know why he still uses that and not his phone, but anyways, habits, right, anyways.

So let's go on.

And just here are three easy ways to please God, and number one it's in our lifestyle.

I just wanted to start.

When John, chapter eight, verse 28, and Jesus is talking, he says when you lift up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself.

But as my father taught me, I speak these things and he who sent me is with me.

The father has not left me alone, for I always everybody say always Always do those things that please him.

And he spoke these words, and many, right away, many believed in him.

And so what was Jesus saying?

His lifestyle backed up.

It was backed up by what he saw the father do and what he heard the father say.

And he never said anything that the father didn't say.

And the father has not left me alone, so, and I always do the things that please him.

So there was never a time when Jesus just acted out in the flesh and did something that he wanted to do.

No, he always followed the will of his father, and so he is our example.

And so if Jesus did it, we can too.

And so Jesus maximized his fruitfulness, and it's a stretching, you know.

I'm just going gonna quote Ephesians 4.13.

So we all come into the unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to a perfect man, to a measure of the stature of the fullness in Christ.

That's what we're pushing for, amen.

We're stretching.

So our lifestyle needs to back up.

It'd be backed up by what we believe, but what we say and what we do is so important and so there can't be a gap in that.

Amen.

And so the first way we please God is with our lifestyle.

And so how did Jesus, when he was walking the earth, when he was the son of man, how did he know what the father was saying?

Was he thinking back to being in heaven with the father?

No, he still had a prayer life, and so we still.

We obviously it's not optional.

Your prayer life is not optional and I know that that's pretty much every point I mean sorry, that's every in every message of my dad lately.

Your prayer life is somewhere in there.

He's either preaching the whole message on prayer or he's making a point on prayer.

Right, he just got finished preaching that series two series ago on prayer and it's such a blessing.

And I've been reading, you know, we went to Selena and I went to the Supernatural Leadership Conference at Mark Hankins and Pastor Mark's son Aaron was preaching on leadership's son Aaron was preaching on leadership and he was preaching on prayer and he preached out of this book, power Through Prayer from EM Bounds, and I just I bought a copy and I started reading it, and this particular copy has no copyright.

So I don't know when this is.

I don't really know much about the author because it's not in here either, and so I just trusted Pastor Aaron.

I would trust him with anything, you know, with anything and everything.

And so I just started reading and I just can tell by reading it.

It's a really old book and so I just thought I would read you some of the quotes that have blessed me so far.

It's from EM Bounds and it's really to like leaders.

In fact I'll read you one if I can find it.

I broke the other microphone right before church started so I get to preach with the handheld.

Thank God it wasn't my dad's mic, because that's really expensive, but anyways it'll go to the shop.

They'll repair it for free in Jesus' name, by faith.

Here's one quote Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much Death to self and crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul.

Crucified preaching only can give life.

Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man.

So I thought that was really good.

And so what the church needs today is not more machinery you could put technology now.

It's not more machinery or better machinery, it's not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use, men of power, men, of mighty men in prayer.

The Holy Ghost did not flow through methods, but through men.

He does not come on machinery, but he comes on man.

He does not anoint plans, but he anoints men of power.

Amen, and so it.

Just that just sticks out to me, because so so much we want god to anoint our plans.

Lord, this is.

You know.

We'll think of some great scheme, and then you're praying God's will over that, and maybe he's leading you a different direction.

You don't even realize it, because what you've allowed yourself to daydream about has become like a stronghold in your life, and so that can be a good thing and that can be a bad thing if it's not the will of God.

But when we're in our prayer life, he's able to make these changes.

And in our prayer life is so important to include our worship time.

You know, if this was the only worship time I had in a week, I would be.

I would be dried up and shriveled up.

But no, I'm.

I'm worshiping every day.

Amen.

Our worship leaders, they take time to worship the Lord every day.

So they're not dry, they're not crusty, they're not.

They have something to give.

Amen, and then you can tell that they have something to give.

It's the anointing on the inside and it's grows out of their private devotional Right.

And so one more E in boundsaching never edifies a prayerless soul.

So the word, the word, the word, the word is not the answer if you're not, if you don't have a prayer life to back it up, in other words, if you don't have a time where you initiate and begin to do this word right here and you just fill up on the word, the word, the word.

You know we talk a lot behind the scenes because we only have so many opportunities to get the word into you, especially like right now.

You can tell there's a whole lot less people in the room than there was this morning, right, and so we had our heavy hitter in this morning and he was bringing it this morning.

So, and he, that was a wonderful message my dad brought, but I mean just Claire's bringing really good content to all the parents.

But it's not all the parents, not all the parents signed up, right?

I'm not making you feel bad if you're a parent and you hadn't been, but it's just so good content.

We're always talking about how to get more word, but if you're not applying the word of God, that we're already, that's already in front of you.

Then more word and more word and more word is not the answer, right, and so you have.

You have to go home on your own and and don't miss, and don't skip the watering process and allow the word in your prayer life.

And maybe you know again, with the podcast is so simple to download and you can, you can listen to podcasts.

I'm telling you if you really, truly you can even get.

It's so easy now.

The app will read you the Bible while you're going down the road.

Now I strongly suggest you actually read the Bible.

But I'm just saying, if you've gotten out of the house and it's too late already, at least do that.

Don't just turn on secular radio or talk radio and get consumed by that.

You can be consumed by the word of God right there from your phone.

Amen, hallelujah.

And so point number two of ways to please God is by our faith.

You know Hebrews 11, 6, but without faith it is impossible to please God, for when you come to him you must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Did I quote that right Praise the Lord, I did.

I might know a little bit of the word Hallelujah Without faith, it is impossible.

So we must engage our faith in order to please God, must engage our faith in order to please God.

And so, and when you're, when you've engaged your faith, it's going to help you.

Because with those decisions, like I said, every day you're faced with a decision whether to please God or please man.

And so here's, you know just, I'm not any more busy than you are, I'm not.

You know our schedule, we, we, we're always talking about it's, you know, a little bit crazy, but it's the Holy Spirit that's allowing us to take on these extra things.

My God votes.

It's like waking up and we have a new job, except we have all of our old duties as well.

Right, and so, um, and?

But it's God that's doing that, and rarely does God ever take something away when he adds something.

So you're growing, and so you're able to grow into the next phase of what God has for us.

And but I'm telling you, what we're going through is no different than what you're going through in your personal life, and so you have to.

I'm just going to use this minor example, but my uncle, ray, passed away this last weekend.

My dad talked about that this morning, but his funeral is tomorrow at 10 AM and so I'm I'm like do I need, do we need, to drop everything and go?

Who's going to represent our family?

I know my parents can't go and this, this is the only uncle that I can remember, you know not not going to the funeral, and so this is a little bit of a big deal.

We weren't super close, but we were close enough.

He's still family and but you know, I would have had to miss this position right here, or gone early or waking up in the middle of the night to make that trip, and none of that is going to happen.

And because I'm right where God needs me to be right, and so I'm doing what God's called me to do.

And so sometimes for you to say yes to something, you've got to say no to something else, and there's always going to be somebody that's disappointed in that decision.

Right, somebody's going to feel like they got the short end of the stick.

But if I'm telling you, if you're not moved by man's emotions, not that you're uh, not that you don't have any sympathy or empathy, you know, like or love, but just you can simply tell, you know, tell a person, what what you have going on?

And so I'm going to use brother Pete.

He's somewhere here tonight.

He's in the lobby, in the lobby duty Hi, brother Pete.

And so, uh, but brother Pete has worked with us so many years that I don't even if he's not here on a Sunday night.

I know that he's not at home watching the Texas A&M U of H basketball game that he didn't all of a sudden become a huge college basketball fan and worried about the Sweet 16.

I barely know what I'm talking about.

In that game tonight.

Anybody follow sports more than I do.

It's just anyways.

What's that?

Was that earlier today?

Okay, it's literally right now.

What's the score?

No, I'm just kidding.

Asian is back there watching it.

No, I'm just kidding.

So, uh, but I know that.

What was I saying, brother Pete?

I know that Brother Pete's just not sitting at home watching the game.

You know he's always going to tell me, but he shouldn't have to tell me because I trust him to be here when we need him.

And so I think last week they were enjoying some time away in San Antonio and he tells me this story.

He just turns to Irma and says is it okay if we just drop everything and get back for Sunday, because he had already told me and made arrangements that he wouldn't be here.

And he drops everything and comes anyways, and that's just integrity, that's just him following the Holy Spirit.

I don't have a reason in the natural to have to have him here, but he was just following the Holy Spirit, and so wouldn't it be nice if we had relationships everywhere in our life that when we make a decision, uh, we were not questioned by it Like where were you, you know?

And so, uh, I needed you to be, you know, at this wedding or this, you know, whatever.

And so, um, we make decisions every day to say yes to the will of God.

That might disappoint people, and it's just, it's the way it is.

And but don't you want to please God more than man?

Don't you want to be delivered from that guilt and that shame and that?

You know that feeling that we get when we can't please every single person in our life.

And and so it's through faith, it's by faith that we please God, and so it's through faith, it's by faith that we please God, and so he is a rewarder of all of those who diligently seek him, and so he's rewarding you and you know that he is rewarding you in every area, so there's nothing that he's holding back from you.

And so I would never preach about pizza dreams to y'all.

Last night, I mean, but I had a pizza dream last night that lasted like the whole night and it's really funny, and I could just be detailed on and on and on, but I just preached.

The crux of the dream was that my dad and I were on a missions trip, like we used to do overseas, and somebody slipped what looked like a passport into his bag and and then we had to go through security.

In this dream, you know, and uh, and the security goddess pulled us out and we had to open up his bag and there's, and then, and they're like sir, like you know, we were alerted over this, this passport, but they didn't call it a passport, but it looked to me it just looked like a passport, but it was, sir, I don't think you realize what you have.

It had already been given to us, so they can't steal it from us, they can't take it back, but it's priceless, it's worth all this.

And so in the next part of the dream, I figured out that you could Apple Pay with it all of this.

And so in the next part of the dream, I figured out that you could Apple pay with it.

So I went into a jewelry store and I said, what's the most expensive piece of jewelry you have?

And I scanned it and I bought Selena a necklace, you know, a million dollar necklace, or whatever.

And the next part of the dream, we're going up the service elevator, this glass elevator, all the way hundreds of floors up to the most expensive hotel in the world, and there we are in the, in the uh, the nicest suite, and my family's coming to meet us there.

So we can figure out, because money is now no longer an object, we have it all.

So, like I was the next part of the dream, I'm like paying off my mortgage on the computer and figuring out how to scan this little document, and it was like ding, everything that we, and we're like strategizing, like what do we do now?

Because you know?

And then, and I woke up from that dream and I realized we really do, money is not an object, we have everything that we need right here, and, and so we should never lack for money, we should never lack for anything.

And with the calling comes the supply, and no, it's not automatic, but we're believing God for anything.

And with the calling comes the supply, and no, it's not automatic, but we're believing God for it.

And he's never left us hanging, he's never left us with an alert right.

And so, like your, your life should reflect that too.

And um, I know, that was a little bit funny of a dream.

But, just like we, we already have it, we are, we already possess it.

It's like welcome to this life, amen.

And so it's.

How do we please God?

We please him in our lifestyle and with our faith and with our decisions.

If you'll turn next to Matthew, chapter eight, I'll start in verse 21.

And he's talking about Peter, and it says then another of his disciples said to him Lord, let me first go.

So Jesus was calling his disciples to him, right?

So this one had this excuse and that had the next excuse, and Peter's like Lord, let me first go and bury my father.

And then, in verse 22, but Jesus said to him follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.

And so, in other words, so Jesus knew that if he would allow Peter to go back to his old lifestyle, that he might be pressured to take on his dad's business and to you know by all of his relatives hey, you left this hanging and you can't leave.

What are you doing?

And they were on a mission right the very next moment.

They're on a boat together going across.

And so Peter would have missed that, and so he might've missed his day of visitation, he might've missed this whole ministry and got sucked back in to pleasing people instead of pleasing God.

And Jesus knew exactly where Peter should go, and so he said hey, follow me.

And you know, in another story he was telling Peter hey, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.

And so he changed his language so that he's speaking the language of a fisherman, and he used that analogy to reach Peter as well.

And so, you know, I think back once again to that time in Corpus.

And so you know, my dad tells that story so well that we've packed up the moving van and literally the rider truck is backed into the driveway.

We're done loading it and I'm sitting in the driver's seat.

You know, let's see 10 years old at the time, and not that I was going to drive, but I'm just obsessed with big trucks and cars and stuff.

And just and hear this.

The gentleman from the church, from the pastoral staff, comes over and tries to talk my dad out of leaving.

We're already packed up.

I mean, all we have to do is start the truck and drive away.

And you know, john, this is not the will of God, and you know.

And he says well, brother, if that's true, then I would have to follow you the rest of my life and have you tell me every little thing.

If you know, and my dad tells that story, and so to this day, that man is a very if I said his name you would recognize him.

He preaches in a lot of different churches and it doesn't mean that he's a bad person or a false prophet or any of those things.

He just was really.

He really felt that it wasn't God's will for us to leave Corpus.

But I can tell you assuredly now you know hindsight as well that it definitely was.

I would be a whole different person if we didn't leave right then and get back to Houston.

I had so many things happen right away that I needed to get back here, even though I enjoyed living in Corpus.

It was really easy.

I was making straight A's and I was not.

I didn't even have to study very hard and all of those things.

That schooling was not the same as back here.

I got back here and it was a little bit of a struggle to catch up.

I had never seen a fraction before and it was like wow, fractions.

They were almost done with them.

I had to go to tutoring and all of that.

But then that was halfway through the fourth grade.

So in the fifth grade I had Mrs Ruth, where Carol and I were together in the fifth grade.

But that changed my life.

That school teacher saw a gift in me that nobody else did and I got to help her set up all the film strips and lay out all the extension cords and all of that and I got to rewind the film.

That was a really big deal but I was just kind of her techie change the bulb and the projector, the overhead projector Anybody remember overhead projectors?

Okay, anyways, we've been delivered.

Thank you, pro presenter.

Anyways.

But yeah, like just just that kind of started my tech life and just I started working at Lakewood and the television department and everything changed for me and if I would have waited another year in Corpus, I don't know where I would be today, and so God would have had to do some fast forwarding and some.

You know he's the best editor, he really is.

And so maybe you feel like, feel like that, like you've missed his will or you've missed a step, or you've missed an exit, or you've gone a different direction.

I just encourage you tonight to just go back to the last, go back to the last thing he told you and try to accomplish that.

But you do that through prayer.

Yes, you're doing something, but it's also a prayerful thing.

Like Lord, I missed you along the way.

Where did I miss it?

And he'll show you, he'll reveal to you where he needs you to.

You know the spout where the glory pours out, like my dad was talking about the spout just getting under and in his presence and in back into his will.

And it's not something that you have to struggle with, it's not something that you have to, you know, beg and plead and cry, and you know, just ask.

It's just simple.

You know, he who lacks wisdom, let him ask.

It's just, it's a simple thing, amen.

And so I added a number four here at the end because I was thinking about Peter.

I was thinking about I always I preach about Peter a lot, but I was thinking.

You know, here's Peter needing a little bit of a stronger encouragement there at the beginning, and I just added by being quick to forgive.

You know, here's another way we can please God is being quick to forgive.

And I kind of forgotten that Peter was the one in Matthew 18, 21.

Let's put it up on the screen here it says then Peter came to him and said Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him?

Up to seven times.

And Jesus made him do some math, right.

He says I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven right, 490 times right In a day, right?

So you know, made him do some math, number one.

But here's Peter.

It just kind of I don't really realize that it was.

I don't know why this got past me, that it was Peter, that here you have somebody that's the gruffest, the person that's opening their mouth without thinking the most right.

You know he's a little bit of the slowest to respond right.

And so and I say that humbly because sometimes the reason why I preach about Peter a lot is because I relate to Peter.

Who else relates a little bit to Peter being a little bit gruff sometimes, maybe not, you know, have it all together.

And you, you know, he's, one time after another he's offending other people and here he's worried about having to forgive others.

Right, and so I just that made me laugh.

But if we'll be quick to forgive, look at all the things that God can do.

That's how you can please.

God is by being quick to forgive.

So you know.

And then you know, later on, in the garden of Gethsemane, there's, there's Peter again, jesus asked him, goes back to Peter, james and John three different times hey, pray, you know, this is a really serious time, can you pray?

And no, they're too wore out and they fall asleep every time.

And so what happens?

The soldiers come to get Jesus.

There, peter is sleeping.

He wakes up in a stupor and grabs his sword and cuts off Malchus's ear.

And what does Jesus do?

He just I think I preached this last time but he, just, he.

He put Malchus's ear back together.

Why did he do that?

So that it would erase all evidence that Peter did anything wrong.

Peter didn't even ask for forgiveness yet.

He didn't say oops or nothing.

Jesus is like put that thing away.

And he grabbed ahold of this ear, stuck it right back on Malchus, and that just you know.

Can you imagine what?

What can he be charged with?

He goes back and says this guy cut my ear off, let's, you know.

Let's hang them, let's stone them, let's whatever.

No, well, you have two ears.

What happened, you know?

I don't even see a scar.

What's going on?

There is literally no evidence that Peter made any did anything wrong.

Just in that moment, jesus took all the consequences away of making a boo-boo, amen.

And so I just encourage you to be quick to forgive, and unforgiveness will pull you way out of the will of God, but it also, unforgiveness, holds you back from accomplishing what God needs you to accomplish.

It holds you back.

You know the things that God's trying to pour into you.

You have that bitterness and that stoniness in your heart and it's not moldable, it's not malleable, it's not, it's not.

You're not able to twist and to turn and to do what God wants you to do, because you're all hung up and worried about something that, where somebody wronged you, you know it's kind of like driving on the freeway preaching to myself, you know, like a road rage type of a situation.

It, you know it, yes, it of a situation.

It, you know it.

Yes, it's dangerous, but it costs you time to worry about that other driver.

You know who?

Who's just driving.

They're just getting from point A to point B, and so, uh, I have much less of that now in my life, and just I also, uh, did some work to my truck, so it's about twice as fast, and so if I ever have any situation, gas pedal is my friend anyways.

But you understand what I'm saying.

Just don't allow unforgiveness to hold you back and to stop you from accomplishing what he needs us to accomplish.

Amen.