Servanthood Leadership!

You're listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message from Justin Carpenter. I say,

I know how to turn the cheek. Don't worry. I'm

friends with him. He won't get offended. I may have

just offended half the room. I'm sorry. You know, ladies,

you know men don't grow up right like inside, We're

still like twelve year old. Sorry, my twelve year old

came out. We are living in very interesting times right now.

Scripture says everything that can be shaken will be shaken, right,

and I don't think is that better? There we go,

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. We are

watching a season of exposure in the body of Christ

that is intensifying. It will continue to intensify. This is

still the I believe with all my heart speaking about

the body of Christ. I can't talk the body of

Christ as a whole. This is the beginning of a

lot of exposure. It's not because God hates us, it's

not because he's like the Godfather with a hammer. But

he steps in at different times in history because he

gets for his name's sake, He steps in and Jeremiah

twenty three, and I said, this first service, Jeremiah twenty

three has been on my heart for a scripture that

I think gives kind of a snapshot of what he's

doing with the leadership and the Body of Christ. I

don't know if you all saw, but if you're familiar

with Morning Star Ministries, Rick Joyner Chris Reid resigned Monday

as the CEO and president of that ministry. There had

been some adultery in his marriage, and then there was

another situation that has become public in the last week.

I have some minister friends that are actually close to him,

one in particular, and I texted him and checked up

on him because I knew it would be heavy on

his heart. When we watch leaders fall, we can get jaded,

we can get ticked off at the church, and we

can find ourselves in a spiritual ditch. Spiritually, and if

we're not careful, you can end up questioning yourself into atheism,

because that's where deconstruction leads. It does. Now, what I

did not just say is you're not allowed to question

unhealthy leadership spiritual abuse. You know, over the last several months,

we've seen several leaders get exposed for some really jacked

up stuff and God's cleaning house. It says he starts

first with his elders, right. It says, not many of

you should desire to be a teacher because you're held

to higher accountability. And God is purifying his bride. I

don't believe he's coming back for a beat up bride.

I think he's purifying the bride. I don't think that

we look anything like Joel's army, yet we will. And

I know my heart breaks for watching so many leaders

fall because I don't think these guys started out whenever

they did in their ministries and be like, I'm gonna

screw this up really good. I don't. I don't think

that typically happens. I think compromise is a very slow burn.

I think compromise happens one little step at a time.

And if you don't have people around you that you've

actually allowed into your life close, you can end up

living on an island unto yourself. The body of Christ,

local church body was never designed to be led by

one leader. It's always been a plurality. If you look

at the Apostle paul As, they established churches in these

different you know, Corinth and Ephesis in these different places.

The very first thing they did was establish an eldership.

And there's one thing interesting about the eldership. When they

would establish it, there was no voting because it's not

a democracy, it's a monarchy. We have a king, and

so that's why our eldership doesn't vote. Either we all

agree or we don't move forward. And God is purifying

the body right now. But in Jeremiah twenty three it says,

woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep

of my pastor, declares the Lord. And if you jump

down there a little bit, he goes, you've scattered my flock,

and I've driven them away. You've not attended to them. Now. Interesting,

if you look in the Gospels, when Jesus is talking

to Peter, he says, if you love me, feed my lambs.

Do you love me? What feed my sheep? He says,

tend my sheep. And I think we've had a very

twisted perspective of what it means to be a sheper

because Peter was an elder. Peter was a shepherd, and

Peter was an apostle. Y'all with me, and so regardless

of where you fall as a elder, deacon, overseer or

fivefold ministry. We're all called to shepherd and we're called

to be healthy, and this is not a time in

the body of Christ to have secrets. Y'all with me.

We're seeing exposure in every mountain of influence possible right now.

Who would have thought four years ago we would say

that all the conspiracy theorists would be proven right, There's

just one problem, We're running out of conspiracies. Oh no, okay,

I'm not hump stumps. I don't want to get in trouble.

But the reality is everything that can be shaken will

be shaken. Anything in your life that's being shaken right

now means it does not belong in your life, do

you hear me? I think we're positioned on the other

side of this to be extremely healthy, to actually look

the way we're supposed to look, which means like Jesus

and not ourselves. I think one of the greatest giants

in the church is humanism masquerading as spirituality. I'll let

you chew on that for a second, but I want

to talk to you a little bit about servanthood leadership.

It's actually one of our core values that cross kingdom

and we had an elder and Tuesday we had a

fourteen hour day before we left, and then I went

into the office for a couple hours twelve hour day. Sorry,

I had a fourteen By Wednesday morning, I had fourteen

hours done out of the work week. But the elders

and the deacons meant and we were talking, and one

of the things we talked about was getting core values

off of the wall and into conversation. Why are core

values important? Because core values are how you build your culture.

Are y'all with me? You have vision, you have mission,

but then you have your core values. And you see

that amazing Cross Kingdom Vision board back there, and you

see all the different things on there. But our core

values are what helps protect a healthy kingdom culture, and

it's what helps build that culture. And we want to

get these core values like honor and generosity and servanthood,

leadership off of the walls and in conversations and actually

acknowledging them as we're seeing them displayed. Does that make sense?

So you you either have a culture by design or

you end up with culture by default. I don't know

about y'all, but I don't want a culture by default.

One of the beauties of planting a church from ground

up is I don't have to walk into somebody else's

religious mess, and we can establish a proper foundation in

the Kingdom and and then build based off of that vision.

For those of you that are new, I never wanted

a shepherd ever, wasn't even in the like. I was

wrestled to the ground by the Lord to plant the church.

And uh. And I told Lisa early on when we

first got married, we'll we'll celebrate our twenty fifth anniversary

this December and h and I told her. I was like,

don't worry. I never want to do missions and I

never want a pastor. And She's like, and then here

we are. But you understand, the way into the Kingdom

of Heaven is the cross. That means, to the degree

that you lose your life, you'll find it. But if

you don't embrace the cross, you're fooling yourself with your

spirituality because you have a counterfeit spirituality at that point

at best. And one of the things the Lord's dealing

with is how polluted the pure Gospel of the Kingdom

has gotten. What we've actually made the gospel, We've made

it a narcissistic gospel instead of people when God leads

them into a new place or a new church, which

the average person stays at a church about five years,

and then they go someplace else. Sometimes that's the Lord.

Sometimes that's just because people got butt hurt and they're

going to pack up their baggage and go to the

next place until they find their spot they want. But

a healthy perspective of servanthood leadership is actually not about you.

It's not about me. Aren't you all so excited that

you're here this morning? But we've had such a narcissistic gospel,

and we've cheapened the reality of repentance and bearing your

cross daily. And then we look around the American church

and wonder why there's no power and authority in it.

We wonder why the prophetic movement is in shambles and

why we don't have profits. Like prophets of old when

they came into town, there was the fear of the Lord,

because you knew whatever that prophet said was actually from

the Lord and not him trying to fatten his social

media numbers or his pocket book, or read your soul

and prophesy your own desires back to you, as if

the Lord had anything to do with that. Adam Grant,

who's an organizational psychologist, gave a TED talk in November

of twenty sixteen on givers and takers and he found

and this was also in the nonprofit realm as well,

so this wasn't just marketplace business. This was across the board.

He found that nineteen percent of the population are takers,

twenty five percent or givers, and fifty six percent or matchers.

What do I mean by matchers? I'll scratch your back

if you scratch mine. Now, if these numbers are accurate

within the Kingdom of Heaven, the body of Christ today,

how does that match up with how we're supposed to

be living in the kingdom And how being a taker

and focused on getting and getting and getting and getting

and not serving, how does that line up with true

spirituality of taking up your cross, denying yourself daily and

following him. One of the dangers of givers is they

burn out. They constantly give, give, give some of you,

Like if you're a nurse or in the medical field,

you can get what is called caretaker fatigue. Anybody, anybody

hit the wall from just constantly pouring out and constantly

giving NonStop. You hit a wall, so you have to.

And I know the word self care is like a

buzzword and can be really narcissistic, but there is legitimate

self care. And what I mean by self care is

you actually spend time with the lords. You're in the words,

you're praying, you're fasting, you're you're walking in the spiritual

discipline to strengthen your spiritual life with Him. And I

want to tell you that there's difficult times ahead of us,

regardless of what happens in a few months with politics.

I know what I'm sorry about that, I know what

I want to see happen. But I also am not

naive to the fact that there are certain things in

motion right now in our country that no human being

can fix. And so it's also a burden on my

heart that we are prepared for the time to come

that we are not up there. Jesus is not up

there y'all, biting his fingernails right now wondering what to

do next. He's not even naive of what you're gonna

do ten years from now, because he's already there with

you at this moment. He's with your great grandchildren right now.

Because he is outside of time, Heaven exists inside of him.

The universe is expanding at the speed of light, and

it's inside of him. But here we are little clay

bodies running around on planet Earth, sometimes thinking that the

world revolves around us. Now, this psychologist recommends getting rid

of all the takers from a because he's an organizational psychologist,

and he talks about how detrimental, how toxic a taker

is to culture in a business or a nonprofit even

he said, and I actually listened to this Ted talk

a couple of times because I wanted to memorize a

few points. Now, I would not say getting rid of

takers is necessarily a kingdom perspective. My heart would be

to see those nineteen percent takers become givers, become servants.

Think about this God becomes flesh and then he stoops

down with a towel and washes the feet of the

very ones he created. And the only reason we're holding

together right now is because of the power of his word.

And yet he lives by example. He literally gets down

and washes our feet the Creator. And we get bent

out of shape because somebody said something bad to us.

We get bent out of shape because we didn't get

our favorite parking spot. Folks, grow the heck up. It

is time to grow up. It is time for us

to step into a mature place in Jesus. The Gospel

is all about you in one breath, and it's nothing

about you in the other breath. Greater love than that

no man has in this that he should lay his

life down, outdo each other with honor, live at peace

with everyone, unless they disagree with you on social media. No,

that's not what he said. See the word is our

plumb line. I don't care how many spiritual encounters you've had.

I don't care if you've been to the throne room.

The elders of Israel eight with the God of Israel

and went back down the mountain and had Aaron, the

prophet of God, build a golden calf. So don't think

one encounter is going to change you forever. Don't think

one encounter with the Lord totally removes your responsibility to

choose righteousness daily. Matthew twenty three to eleven. The greatest

among you shall be your servant servanthood leadership. That means

the elders and the deacons, and wherever you serve. Do

you understand hear me. When you serve, you're not doing

me any favors. Y'all with me. When you're serving, you're

not doing the leadership any favors. Now, before you get

hurt and misunderstood or you misunderstand me. When you serve,

you're being obedient to the word of God, you're actually

doing what Jesus called you to do. I'm not interesting

in you volunteering and thinking you're doing me a favor.

I want to know what God created you for and

then walk alongside of you and actually help you fulfill

the purpose for why you were born. There's a huge

difference in that, and it's called destiny. And your destiny

is inside of people, not buildings. Your destiny's not out there,

it's not on social media, it's nowhere else. But your

destiny is inside of people. And people get upset because

they say, oh, the favor of God is on my life,

but no one's recognizing it. Then that means it's not

time to step into what you think it's time to

step into. Because when you increase with the favor of

God and the favor of man, that actually tells you

you have the green light to step forward into what

He's called you to, and the worst thing in the

world is for you to step into a place you

don't have the character to sustain. We're watching what happens

with that. We're watching the topple of leadership in the

body of Christ because they lived as orphans. They chose

to live based out of their gift and not allow

the Lord to bring deep roots in Jesus in true

transformation and maturation. And then we end up in a mess,

y'all with me John thirteen twelve to seventeen. When he

had washed their feet, he put on his outer garments

and resumed his place. He said to them, do you

understand what I've done to you? You call me teacher

and lord, and you're right, for so I am. If

I then your lord and teacher have washed your feet,

you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I've

given you this example that you should also do just

as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say

to you, a servant is not greater than his master,

nor a messenger greater than the one who sent me

or sent him. If you know these things, blessed are

you if you do them, y'all. Moses was the most

humble man on the earth, and he wrote that seems

kind of arrogant, doesn't it, except for the fact was

he was simply agreeing with what God said about him.

So what's humility? Agreeing fully with God on what he

says about you? And some of you don't think you're

worth anything, and he says you are, and that's false humility.

Servant Leaders for Sea, Great Servants for Sea Needs Genesis

thirty nine eight. But he refused and said to his

master's wife, behold, because of me, my master has no

concern about anything in the house, and he's put everything

that he has in my charge. This is Joseph. And

interesting about Joseph, it didn't matter what happened to him,

he would rise to the top wherever he was, even

in prison. He even told his brothers, hey, I Some

people suspect that if he wouldn't have talked about his

dreams of his brothers and his parents bowing down to him,

it may have gone a little different for him. I

don't know, but he recognized this. He said, God put

me here. Now, how many of you, looking at Joseph's

life could go through what he went through and still

keep serving people, And even in prison, believe that God

would get you to your destination because He is not limited.

We cannot have great faith without great surrender. That has

been a theme marching through my mind. I've been meditating

on it for weeks. You cannot have great faith without

great surrender. That means we become familiar with the splinters

on the cross that we pick up daily. But the

Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and

gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of

the prison. Notice that it's not just having favor with God,

but it's God giving you favor with man. You don't

need self promotion or self ambition or these false motives

when you truly trust the Lord to get you where

you need to get to. I already said this way.

When you're where God wants you, he will get you

where He needs you. And that's one of the reasons

why you have transportations in the spirit. Elijah Nathan, he

baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch, comes out of the water. Boom,

he blinks, He's forty miles down the road. Suddenly they

were all to the other side of the lake. You

understand what's going on there, right? I have never transported geographically.

I've never blinked my eyes and been someplace else that

would be awesome. I've had four trips in the last

month and fifteen hundred miles on the road, and I

don't know how many air miles, and I wouldn't mind

a transportation or two here and there. But Joseph understood,

He understood, and he stayed humble. Y'all bear with me, Okay,

who fought who in here was in like World War two, Vietnam? Anybody?

Anybody in Vietnam or worl War two. Nobody. There's something

in that generation, and there was that we don't have,

and we are in real danger of losing things in

the next generation if we don't start honoring elders. And

I don't mean elders in the age, but I mean

like literal age elders. And if you're here and you're retired,

you're not retired because you have a responsibility in the

kingdom to teach younger people. And we are living in

one of the most fatherless generations ever. So I'm asking y'all,

if you're a retirement age to be willing to step

up and start sewing into the next generation. I went back,

but I guess last Sunday I visited the church I

grew up in Grace Baptist in Kankakee, Illinois, and flew

out after taking coal to Kentucky. And I went there

and they don't have a youth group anymore. I don't

have a youth pastor when I was there in the nineties,

there were the youth group had eighty kids. I mean

as a good sized youth group. And yeah, we we

can lose things so quick by just forgetting losing focus,

not staying not staying focused on the tasks in front

of us and what the Lord's called us to do.

We can we can say it's somebody else's job, y'all

when when you see me running around and doing different

things in here, it's not because I want to. It's

because we don't have anybody covering that position that day,

and either one of us do it or it doesn't

get done. Now it's gotten a lot better. And y'all

know about the give us six Imagine if everybody in

here just served six Sundays, you wouldn't serve six Sundays.

If everybody was willing to serve six times. Are y'all

with me. We're having some growing up talk here. I

don't give a flip about seeker friendly stuff. That's what

put the church in the mess. The in because too

many ministers don't have the backbone to speak truth. That

was the most pastor away. I can say that servant

leaders are self starters. Genesis thirty nine to twenty three.

The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything

that was in Joseph's charge because the Lord was with him,

and whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed. Y'all

you in business, are you an entrepreneur? You have business

ideas and you want to see business succeed, then you

need to make Jesus your CEO, not you with Jesus sprinkles,

because his his witty inventions, his ideas. If he gives

you something to stuart and you steward it. The law

of promotion in the Kingdom is be faithful and a

little wh'll make you faithful and much guaranteed. But if

you're not faithful with what you have, why in the

world is he going to give you more? In fact,

Scripture says that what you do have, he'll take away

and give it to somebody. Else. I don't know about y'all,

but I want to be a wise Stuart in every

area of my life, not just my good looks or

my height. Number four. Servant leaders are humble and teachable

one Peter five six. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty

hand of God, so that at the proper time you

may exalt yourself. Now that ex hollon what translations that

at the proper time He may exalt you. Trust the

timing of your promotion. Your gift will always take you

to place as your character cannot sustain. So you need

to be more focused on your character than you are

your gift. And I promise you if you are, your

gift will grow whatever it is, whatever gifts you have,

they will grow because God knows that you can be

entrusted with a higher level of that one Peter five five.

I've likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.

Clothe yourselves, all of you with humility toward one another,

For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Let me tell you something. When we see abuses in

the church, we historically like Arminianism and Calvinism. Two extremes right.

Typically on all of these theological viewpoints, the balance is

usually right in the middle. But throughout church history we've

gone from here and everybody's like, we're gonna fix this

shoom out of the park. And there are things that

are being fixed right now. There are things God's highlighting.

He's highlighting how many ministers have been busted for spiritual

abuse in recent months. I mean, Dallas has got a

huge target on it. Every time you turn around another

because God is judging the mega are the U I

said it for service, can't think of it. God is

dealing with the celebrity preacher, the rock star mindset. Listen

at least and I laugh all the time because so

many times we forget that were shepherds. And I don't

mean in a bad way, but like we don't take

ourselves that serious in case she hadn't figured it out.

But it's like, you know what, if I wasn't doing

what I was doing right now, I'm not so naive

to think God would not raise up somebody else because

I know I'm not that special. I know he loves me,

I'm always his favorite. But the reality is, I said, yes,

do you understand if you're wrestling with obedience right now

in your life to the Lord in an area that

he's spotlighting in this moment, and you're stiff arming him.

You have no idea what the ripple effect of your

yes is. Eight years ago, I literally was on the floor.

I was on the floor in my office and I

got up and I finally surrendered to do this. And

when I we mean I was on the floor, I

was bawling. I mean it was ugly crying. Snot bawling,

and not that my snot was in a ball, but

you know what I mean. And so I was really

just really crying. And I got up and in my

heart I just said, okay, Lord, I'm ready to past her.

And I was like, you idiot, what did you just

say that for? And I came home that day it

was early twenty sixteen, and I told Lisa, said we

got a plan a church, And to my surprise, he

looked at me and goes, okay. I was like, what'd

you do with my wife? But the point is the

ripple effect of a yes. So many amazing things are

coming out of that ripple effect that I know would

not have. So where's your yes? What are you not

willing to say yes over you know, the worst thing

in the world would be to stand before him. Becky

laughs and I cry, what in the world? And to

stand before him thinking that you were successful on earth?

And he says, you never did what I called you to,

but you judged all of your success from worldly standards,

earthly thinking, and then what was lost? You understand, every

single one of you are created uniquely by God in

his image. So that means every single one of you

carry a part of who God is uniquely that nobody

else carries. And you've uniquely been called to do something

that nobody else can do as good as you because

you were designed by your creator to do that. And

when you don't allow the Lord to bring you into

a place of maturation, you are robbing the world of

a fuller view of who the Father is. Matthew twenty

three to twelve. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever

humbles himself will be exalted Philippians two three. Do nothing

from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others

more significant than yourselves. So what does that mean? You're

not a taker? That means you're a giver. In fact, statistically,

when it comes to making money, like they found out,

if you're in a in sales, givers are at the

bottom of producing in sales because they want to give, give, give,

and help all the other sales people and all that.

But then strangely, givers are actually at the top too.

But this is what they found that when there's givers

in an organization that the health of that organization is

totally different. But the moment a taker comes in, all

the givers stop living your life at the expense of others.

Because you don't know who you are. You live like

an orphan. So you fight tooth and nail to get

everything you can, and then you fight two places what

you have to do to maintain its good servant leaders

show understanding to others in pain. Relational leadership can't be faked.

Relationship has to be over assignment. I tell all of

our people, I care more about your marriage. I care

more about your relationship with Jesus than anything you do

in this ministry. And I mean that with all my

heart to all of our staff, all the others, all

the deacons. I care more about a person's individual emotional,

spiritual health first and foremost the health of their marriage,

the health of their kids, household, because those are priority.

Those are your number one ministry. Your family is your

number one ministry. Isaiah forty two to three. A bruised reed.

He will not break in a faintly burning wick, he

will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. What

does that say means? He's not the Godfather? When you

come in and you've been broken, and you are barely,

you're just a little, a tiny, this little light of mine,

You're just a tiny little light. Guess what he's there.

He's gentle, he's compassionate, he's forgiving. It says, mercy triumphs

over judgment. We want mercy when we screw up, but

we want judgment when people come against us. Come on,

oh Lord, have mercy on me. Fry them? Yea, the

disc lord. Do you want us to call fire down

from heaven? Y'all? Y'all get that right, Peter, He's ready

to call fire down from heaven and burn the whole

flip and city up. You thought you were having a

bad day, Could you imagine if he would have gotten

his way? Who Well, that's what it sounded like when

Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come

with her also weeping. He was deeply moved in his

spirit and greatly troubled, and he said where have you

laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see

uh uh when you when you actually dig into this.

This is John eleven when it says he was deeply

moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. There was this

frustration and anger towards death that he had in that moment.

And of course so many people were full of unbelief.

They're you know, oh he's been you know, he's gonna stink.

And so the Jews said, see how he loved him,

But some of them said, could not he open the

eyes of the blind man also have kept this man

from dying. But he had compassion, And over and over

and over, Jesus, who is the perfect example of a servant,

was moved with compassion. Every time he healed, He was

moved with compassion, every time he raised the dead. He

was moved with compassion every time he did a sign

or a miracle. The compassion of the Lord is way

more powerful than you think. Don't be an angry intercessor

don't be an angry prayer. Minister, be moved with the

compassion of the Lord. Weep with those that weep, be

joyful with those that are joyful, and comfort others with

the comfort that you have been comforted with. You give

away what you get. So this week, y'all, whatever you're getting,

whatever revelation, whatever the Holy Spirit sang to you this morning,

give it away. Ask the Lord. Hey, Lord, who do

you want me to talk to? Hey, there's a taker.

Come here. We're gonna turn you into a giver. All right,

I'm gonna start landing here. Servant leaders plan for the

future Genesis forty one forty six to forty nine. Joseph

was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh, Pharaoh,

king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence

of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.

And this is where he planned for the seven years

of plentiful I said this first service, y'all, to be

a home builder. And you tend to think when prosperity hits,

like when the economy is good and the market's thriving.

And I was building houses and custom homes and making money,

and was young and had new cars and new home

and all that. You don't think it's going to end.

And my spending matched my thought of it's not going

to end. And then O seven hit and all of

a sudden I was like, man, I guess I could

have been a little more conservative. And it went through

the wringer, and honestly, it didn't have to be that

bad stewardship. It's in every area of our life, not

you know, our time, our gifting, our resources. But he prepared.

He saved Egypt. He saved Israel because they took from

that seven years of plentiful Can I encourage y'all? This

is not thus saith the Lord, but I want to

encourage you this time of prosperity that we're in in

our country. I know things are a little jacked up

right now because Uncle Joe, but he can't be blamed

from all the inflation. We hadn't had a conservative very

long time. Our debt right now it's about one point

five trillion dollars a year to service the interest of

the debt of our nation. So now that I offended

everybody in the room, my encouragement is be wise, ask

the Lord how to plan for the future, because there

are some resets coming that we're going to have to

walk through. I don't know when. I'm not going to

tell you. I know when. If I did and he

said tell you, I would, But I don't know exactly.

But I know this that there are turbulent times ahead

of us, and I know that we were created to

prosper through them and to be a light and to

be salt to die world. And so I believe wholeheartedly

if we'll grab a hold of the heart of the

Lord and stay in a place of humility and be

teachable and love well, not with a narcissistic love, but

love well, then we're actually positioned to see the greatest

outpouring before his return. And I believe that with every

fiber of my being. I actually believe that it's started

and it's slowly ramping up. And I believe that this

move of God's not going to look like any of

the other moves of God, because this move of God's

not going to have one person's name on it, but

it's gonna have many people, many faces, because Ephesians four

says there's one body, not many one. So we better

get used to getting along on planet Earth because we're

going to have to deal with each other in eternity.

So if there's somebody you're sitting over here because you

don't want to sit next to them, get over it,

because you're gonna have to because God odd sense of humor.

Their mansion is probably gonna be right next to years

in heaven. Unity people. One one more point and I'm

gonna I'm gonna have to finish this next time. Servant

leaders show action. They don't just talk. Talk is cheap,

it's show and tell. In the Kingdom, Paul said, Hey,

I don't care what they're saying. I want to know

what power they're moving in, because the kingdom is not

in talk, but in power. You understand the the the

Kingdom of Darkness is destroyed with power, but it's ruled

with authority, meaning the Kingdom of Heaven's ruled. Kingdoms are

plundered with power, but they're governed with authority, and that

that government comes out of the spiritual water tables of

the nation. So when we're spiritually bankrupt, guess what those

leaders are rising up out of that same level of

spirituality in a country. And you wonder why we got

a bunch of jack legs in the White House, Hello,

because we have been spiritually bankrupt. Are y' all with me?

If you can't figure it out? I'm not really trust

really trustworthy of a lot of politicians these days, and

neither should you be. I'll leave it at that. Hopefully

we don't get flagged. Last one, sir, servant, leaders, show loyalty.

Don't be a judas. And Pharaoh said to his servants,

can we find a man like this? And whom is

the spirit of God? Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since

God has shown you all this, there is none so

discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over

my house, and all my people shall order themselves as

you command. Isn't it interesting? Over and over and over

in the scriptures when Israel was handed over to their enemy,

God said, serve your enemy. So this whole new Covenant

idea of loving your enemy is not really new if

you actually read through the old Covenant and capture his heart.

Jesus fulfilled the law right, He fulfilled the law with

more freedom than most of you are walking in today.

Think about that. What six hundred and thirty seven? I mean,

there was a law for a law, and then they

hit Babylonian captivity, and they start adding all the traditions

of men, and then they take the traditions of men

and raise it up to the same level of scripture.

And that's what Jesus was addressing with the Pharisees and

the Sadducees. You hypocrites, he says, you search the world

to find a proselyte, and when you do, you make

them twice the sun of hell. You are. Now that's

not secret friendly speaking, is it? Okay? Give me grace,

give me three more minutes. All right, thank you, I

appreciate it, Sir. I am land and I can hear

the smoke of the wheels. Servant leaders know how to

cultivate trust. In other words, if you're gonna be a leader,

you're gonna have humility. You live with people, and that

means your process is open. You're not hiding anything in

darkness because you've chosen to live in the light. And

that's why I like, if Lisa and I have an argument,

I will tell you all about it the very next Sunday,

because I literally want my entire life into the light.

If I live in the light, the enemy can't do

anything with me. It's only when I start to hide

and try to hide my process because all of a

sudden I have the fear of man, or I have

the fear of rejection, or I have the fear of

what you're going to look at? Oh my goodness, or

the shepherd did this? Yeah, people, I'm human. You gotta

forgive me, You gotta love me. I promise you, if

you hang around me long enough, you're gonna get irritated

with me. Right, hon, But guess what part of the

beauty of living in the Kingdom of Heaven is us

learning how to hit into each other? I go, man,

I love you. How can I pray for you? Not

live in a life of offense? And pack up? I'm

going to another church. Well great, you go to the

other but hurt church. Are you all with me? And

I'm not calling any other local churches but hurt churches.

But I'm saying, is that's what we do. The average

person spends five years to church, five years? Well where'd

they go? Why'd they go? You want this platform? You

can have it because it's not what you think. Guaranteed

you don't take phone calls at two am? All right? Tears?

Who I'm wound up? Today. I was at the beach

for a couple of days, so I was grounding in

the sand and water. So I'm charged servant leaders communicate

with clear and brave communication. Do you all understand that

most businesses that fall apart, most churches that have splits,

it's all because there wasn't clear, brave communication when it

needed to happen, because somebody was afraid to hurt somebody, y'all.

I love straight to the point people, but I also

love when they can get over it too. Right, Like

Sean and I we don't agree on something, Guess what

happens He tells me, I think that's a horrible idea,

and he'll pretty much say it just like that. But

I love him. We're friends. He's my friend before an

elder relationship over assignment, and I know he's got the

best interest at heart for this ministry and for me.

So if he says, hey, I think that's stupid, I'll go, well,

expend one why you think that's stupid? And then I

go back to him and I go, well, I think

what you said was stupid. No plan all right? Good

servant leaders will all always keep a constant, clear communication

line with their boss listen, y'all. Whether you're a part

of this community or you're in business. What are teacher? Firefighter? Please,

it doesn't matter. People are not mind readers. I have

a prophetic gift, but I don't always know what you're thinking,

nor do I want in your heads. I have enough

to deal with here, so please don't have conversations about me,

and fill in those conversations in your own head. Come

to me, have brave communication, because I guarantee you, if

you take something wrong or get offended, it's probably because

of your perception of it. And if it's not I

will own up to it and say, please forgive me. Well,

I not Anthony. Anthony. I had a little discussion tuesday,

and I said, please forgive me. I shouldn't have said that.

It's true. We're human. Hopefully my friendship had and changed

with them. I don't think it's been a few days.

I haven't seen you. But the point is, no one

is perfect, y'all. We have to stop thinking that because

we come into a church community that everybody like just

supernaturally flies into their pants in the morning, their hair

just flows back perfectly. No, y'all are a hot mess,

and so am I last point, servant leaders know which

kingdom they are of and how to operate in it.

John eighteen thirty six. Jesus answered, my kingdom is not

of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,

my servants would have been fighting that I might not

be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is

not from the world. Rom At six sixteen says, do

you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone

as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom

you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or

of obedience, which leads to righteousness. So hey, if you

have sin in your life, if you're tempted to go sin,

remember that path, that highway leads to death. So then

when you lose all your relationships and you lose everything else,

and then you go, I don't know what happened, because

sin leads to death, and it starts with desire. If

you don't discipline your temptations, those temptations become actions. Those

actions become strongholds, and those strongholds wreak havoc in your life.

Last scripture Luke twenty two twenty five to twenty six,

and he said to them. The kings of the gentiles

exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them

are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let

the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the

leader as one who serves. So at the end of

the day, we serve because we're being obedient to the Lord.

And Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments.

So love actually looks like something right. And we want

to step into a place of servant leadership in this

community to where we're not serving for others to look

at us, we're not serving, we're not volunteering, we're serving.

This is about calling and destiny. This isn't about volunteering

and making somebody else happy that you're doing something. Get

over that nonsense. It's immaturity. We are servants in the kingdom.

We have a king that we're serving, and we have

a kingdom that we're advancing. And y'all are called to

advance the kingdom, to do the work work in the ministry,

to serve, not justin, not Lisa, nobody else. You're serving

the Lord. Do everything unto him. I promise you all,

if you'll do it, unto him. When you have bad days,

things aren't going well, there's miscommunication, you're getting jacked within

your thought life. You're not gonna blame people. You're not

gonna shoot at them, you're not gonna backstab them. Get offended,

pack your stuff up and go home. You're gonna go

to Jesus because he's your king, he's your father, and

you're gonna allow the Holy Spirit to bring comfort and

truth and do your heart and clear your stinking thinking up.

All right, let's stand up. Thank you for listening. For

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