What can we learn from Katrina?

Who would have thought we would ever hear this phrase spoken on a radio news
report in America: “Today, about 25,000 refugees were moved from the Superdome in New Orleans
to the Astrodome in Houston.”

For days and days, we’ve watched the tragedy
continue to unfold in Mississippi and Louisiana and, if you are like me, you’ve wrestled with feelings
of shock and disbelief...feelings that, over the last five years, have become all too familiar.

We were barely into the new millennium when we saw towers falling in New York
City and planes crashing into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania farmland.
Followed by the Anthrax scare and sniper shootings.

We saw bombs over Baghdad and witnessed the ancient land of Abraham become a
war zone for his ancestors. You’d think we had seen enough, but then came the tsunami--a roaring wave that sucked life and innocence out to sea.

And now the results of Katrina. A city sitting in twenty feet of water. Citizens hacking
their way onto roofs and helicopters hovering over neighborhoods. Optimistic rescuers,
opportunistic looters, grateful people, resentful people—we have seen it all.

And many have seen it up close. Katrina came to Houston in the form of 50,000+
evacuees. Some of you are meeting them, feeding them, writing checks, and manning
shifts. And you, as much as any, have reason to wonder...What is going on here? 9/11,
Iraq, tsunami, Katrina. And I didn’t mention nor intend to minimize Hurricanes Dennis and Ivan
and Emily.
Jesus criticized the leaders of his day for
focusing on the weather and ignoring the
signals: “You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—
why can't you read the signs of
the times?” Matthew 16:2-3 (MSG).

What are we to learn from all of this?
I think we’d be wise to pay attention. There are some spiritual lessons that I think God
would want us to learn through this tragedy.
The first lesson we see is...

I. The Nature of Possessions: Temporary

As you’ve listened to evacuees and survivors, have you noticed their words? No one
laments a lost plasma television or submerged SUV. No one runs through the streets yelling,
“My cordless drill is missing” or “My golf clubs have washed away.” If they mourn, it is for people lost.
If they rejoice, it is for people found.

Could Jesus be reminding us that people matter more than possessions? In a land
where we have more malls than high schools, more debt than credit, more clothes to wear than we can wear,
could Christ be saying:
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist
in the abundance of his possessions"
(Luke 12:15)?

We see an entire riverboat casino washed up three blocks and placed on top of a
house in a neighborhood. You see demolished $60,000 cars that will never be driven again, hidden in debris. And in the background of our minds we hear the quiet echoes of Jesus saying, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

Raging hurricanes and broken levees have a way of prying our fingers off the stuff
we love. What was once most precious now means little; what we once ignored is now of
eternal significance.

Those that survived a horrendous scare of losing their precious life find that riches do not come in possessions -
they come in those that we love.

They were rich. Are you that rich?

If you lost everyhting - your job, career, home, friends around the corner - would you be that rich?

If not, you are holding things too tightly:

“Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so
obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life”
(1 Timothy 6:17-19 MSG).
Through Katrina, Christ tells us: stuff doesn’t matter; people do. Understand the
nature of possessions. Be equally clear on:

II. The Nature of People: Heros and Haters

We see the most incredible servants and stories of selflessness and sacrifice. We see people of the projects rescuing their neighbors, we see civil servants risking their lives for people they’ve never seen.

One six-year-old girl told about the helicopter man who plucked her off a third story porch and lifted her to safety.

That child will never know who that man is. He’ll never seek any applause. He saved her life... all in a day’s work. We saw humanity at its best.

And we saw humanity at its worst.

Looting. Fighting. We heard stories of rapes and robberies. Someone said, “The heavens declare the glory of God but the streets declare the sinfulness of man.” The video footage in New Orleans has confirmed the truthful-ness of that quote. Can you imagine not being able to sleep in the Superdome for fear of your saftey.

We are people of both dignity and depravity. The hurricane blew back more than roofs; it blew the mask off the nature of mankind. The main problem in the world is not Mother Nature, but human nature. Strip away the police barricades, blow down the fences, and the real self is revealed. We are barbaric to the core.

“The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” Genesis 6:5

We were born with a me-first mentality. You don’t have to teach your kids to argue.
They don’t have to be trained to demand their way. You don’t have to show them how to stomp their feet and pout, it is their nature... indeed it is all of our nature to do so.

“All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own” (Isaiah 53:6).

God’s chosen word for our fallen condition has three letters- s-I-n. Sin celebrates
the letter in the middle. “I”. Left to our own devices, we lead a godless, out of control life
of “...doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it” (Ephesians 2:3 MSG).

You don’t have to go to New Orleans to see the chaos. Because of sin, the husband ignores his wife, grown men
seduce the young. The young proposition the old. When you do what you want and I do what I want, humanity and
civility implodes.

And when the Katrinas of life blown in, our true nature is revealed and our deepest
need is unveiled: a need deeper than food, more permanent than firm levees. We need,
not a new system, but a new nature. We need to be changed from the inside out.
Which takes us to the third message of Katrina:

III. The Nature of God’s Grace: Inside Out

Much discussion revolves around the future of New Orleans. Will the city be restored? Repaired?
How long will it take? Who will pay for it? One thing is for certain: someone has to clean her up.

No one is suggesting otherwise. Everyone knows, someone has to go in a clean up the mess.

That is what God offers to do with us.
He comes into sin-flooded lives and washes
away the old. Paul reflected on his conversion and he wrote: “He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Our sins stand no chance against the fire hoses of God’s grace.

But he does more than cleanse us; he rebuilds us. In the form of his Holy Spirit, God moves in and starts a complete renovation project.

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your
wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3:20 MSG).

And what we can only dream of doing with New Orleans, God has done with soul after soul, and he will do so with you,
if you let him. The most disturbing stories from the last week are of those who refused to be rescued. Those who spent their final hours trapped in attics and rooms regretting the choice they’d made. They could have been saved. They could have gotten out... but they chose to stay.

Many paid a permanent price.
We don’t have to pay that price. What rescuers did for people on the Gulf Coast, God will do for you. He has entered your world. He has dropped a rope into your sin-swamped life. He will rescue, you simply need to do what that little girl did, let him lift you out.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord...” (Gen. 6:8).

Think of all the things Noah could not find because of the flood.
He could not find his neighborhood. He could not find his house.
He could not find the comforts of home or the people down the street--there was much he could not find.

But what he could find made all the difference.
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah found grace in the eyes of God.
If you have everything and no grace,
you have nothing.
If you have nothing but grace, you have everything.

Have you found grace? If not, I urge you to do what that little girl told us she did.
When the rescuer appeared on her porch, she grabbed him, pulled him close, and held on.
That’s all you need to do. And if you never have, and would like to, I urge you to reach for
the hand of your rescuer, Jesus Christ.
Your Redeemer lives, too. This hurricane can teach us to trust in Him.
When all seems lost He is our refuge, our strength, our salvation.

If you have already connected to God through Jesus Christ you may want to look at these lessons
from Katrina to evaluate your journey with Christ. You may want to talk to Him about the rebuilding
and renovation that still needs to take place in your life.
As we grow closer and closer to Christ each and everyday.

The table - part 3 "Take of the Bread"

Have you ever been at a BBQ and the burgers look like nasty little hockey pucks, and you say, “What is it?”
When Cathleen and I first got married, she began to cook and I asked that question many times, “What is that?”
If you have kids and you serve them any type of food, they say, “What is it? What is it?”
We were at a big salad bar and some things were not labeled there, and as we were in this buffet line, this woman in front of me said, “What is it?” What is it? That’s a good question. What is it? What is it?

The children of Israel were in Egyptian slavery; they were in Egyptian bondage. And Moses delivered them single-handedly, by the power of God, from Egyptian slavery. You might remember that God told Moses a death angel was going to pass over every household and strike dead the first born male child. He told Moses to tell his people to take an unblemished lamb, to sacrifice the lamb, and to apply the blood on the top of the door post. God said, “Moses, if my people do that, the death angel will pass over their homes sparing them.” And when the night came, the death angel did his deal. And Pharaoh let God’s people go.
So God’s people cruised around in the wilderness for a while. God performed miracle after miracle-parted the Red Sea, had this GPS system going on, guided them at night with fire in the sky, during the daytime with the cloud. God’s people, though, began to enter the moan zone. They began to grumble and murmur and whine. You know how to do that. I know how to do that. “We’re hungry. We wish we could eat the food back in Egypt, back in slavery.”

God did something that night. God rained bread out of heaven and it fell during the darkness. When the children of Israel got up, when they walked out of their tents, here’s what happened. Exodus 16:15,
“When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was.”

Do you know what it was? Manna. You know what manna means in Hebrew? “What is it?”
A bread-like substance that God dropped out of heaven. And then God told them this. God said, “Collect enough manna for the day.” God said, “Don’t even think about collecting manna for two, three, four days.” Some people just disregarded God and collected a bunch of manna. And the manna rotted. There was a stench about it; maggots got up all in it. Yuck! That’s bad stuff. God gave them just enough manna for the day. Manna was kind of like a sweet bread. And they would take it and make these tortilla-like things and eat it. God fed his people for 40 years, every day, with manna.
How many single women do we have here in the house? You’re a single woman? You might be saying, “You know what God…drop a manna from heaven in my life! I would like that!” Ha, ha! “And I hope he has a lot of money too!” Ha, ha!
That’s a crazy story isn’t it? I’ve also wondered why is that in the Bible? I mean, the details about that stuff. Maggots and all that? That’s very interesting.

Jump over to the New Testament with me. Jesus was on a roll. He’d just done the Hebrew happy meal miracle when he fed the 5,000. Remember that? He took all this bread and fish and multiplied it. People were full and they’d eaten so much food at this fish fry, and there were 12 baskets left over. The people were talking, “Hey, man, lets make Jesus king. He’s the man. Let’s elevate him where he needs to be.” And Jesus heard this vibe. He felt it and he ran away. He went across the sea to a place called Capernaum.
The crowd who’d eaten their fill the night before got up in the morning and they couldn’t find Jesus. They wanted another Hebrew happy meal miracle. So they chartered a bunch of boats and they cruised over to Capernaum, found this little synagogue, a little church, and who do you think was teaching in the church? Jesus. The place was jammed. I can just see the disciples on the front row, can’t you? “Yeah, preach it. Amen!” Jesus launches into this talk. Most important part of a talk, I think, is the introduction.

Well, Jesus does a strange introduction here. Do you know what he says to the people? “Hey, I know why you’re here. You’re stomachs are growling. You want another Hebrew happy meal. You want me to fill your stomachs again. That is why.” Can’t you imagine what the disciples were doing when Christ launched into this? They were probably going, “Jesus, this is not working. Let’s talk about something else. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit the earth.’ And let’s talk about love and grace. This is not working well, Jesus.”
Jesus was reading the crowd’s email. He knew they were all into hunger, physical hunger. Yet, Jesus turned the tide. You could feel his tenor as he talks about soulish hunger, spiritual hunger, a deeper hunger.
Well, let’s pick up this talk, this message that Christ was doing here in John 6:27. Here’s what Jesus said,
“Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

There’s a lot in that verse. The #1 title Christ gives himself was the Son of Man. He said, “I am the Son of Man.” Christ said that because he became man. The Bible says [John 1:14], “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

We don’t serve a sequestered savior. We serve someone who has been there. When the listeners heard Christ make this statement, they got all wigged out on this word “work.” “Work. Work. Oh, work. What kind of work? Work. I’ve got to work for it. Work. Work. W-O-R-K! Work!” Well, what Jesus said now, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures through eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” They missed the essence of it. It’s not work; it’s give.
Look at Verse 28, “Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’” What were they thinking about? They weren’t thinking about spiritual food here. They were thinking about their wants, their desires. They were saying, “Jesus, feed me, feed me, feed me.” And their stomachs would have expanded; their thighs would have gotten bigger. They were diet-driven people.
I’ve been in a series called “The Table.” We’ve been saying around here that the church is a table where people come to get fed. I’ve said that the pastor, the leader, the communicator is the dude with the food. The ultimate food deserves the ultimate presentation. We have two themes we think about every time we have church. We want to do what? We want to build believers and we want to serve seekers. We want to build believers and serve seekers. The ultimate food is what?
The bread of life.
[pick up piece of bread.] This is a multi-grain bread-$2.79
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. I am the cosmic carbohydrate.” He just slammed the Atkins diet right there, didn’t he? Well, these people were thinking about physical food and Christ is talking about spiritual food. They were thinking about their needs, their wants. But Christ got deeper. He again, read their email. He knew what the score really was.

Look at John 6:29, “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: (“Here’s the work of God,” Christ says) to believe in the one he has sent.’” “Believe in the one…” Jesus is talking about God. [The people were like] “God sent you? Believe? That’s believe? There’s nothing I can do? You mean, I can’t work my way in? I can’t get baptized enough or I can’t give enough money or I can’t do enough good works? You mean it’s not something I do? It’s not something I work for?”
The Bible says we’re not saved by works. What would life be like if you were saved by works? We’d go around boasting, “Oh, man, you know, I’m the man because I did this or that. Yeah!” Heaven would be a place like, “See my trophies over there? Yeah, that’s why I’m here man! Oh, woo.” But it’s just not that way. It’s about grace. It’s about grace. And here’s where a lot of people get tripped up.

Let me talk, for example, those who are investigating Christianity, those who are seeking. You might be saying, “Well, you know, I believe in the bread. Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life.’ I believe in the bread.” Yeah, you intellectually agree. “Whoa, there’s bread.” You might smell the bread. You might kind of taste it. Is that enough? Is that what the word “believe” means? Nope.
You believe me? Belief in Biblical times was a monster word. Belief in this context meant total assimilation. It means to do with Jesus what we do with bread. What do we do with bread? Is bread any good if we say, “Oh, I believe its bread. Smells like bread. Kind of looks like bread.” This bread doesn’t do jack unless I do what? Unless I eat the bread! Christ is saying that, like bread and like digestion, we take it and it becomes a part of us. We must do that with him, the bread of life.
In the book of John, Chapter 6, and throughout John, Jesus makes a bunch of “I am” statements. He said, “I am the light of the world.” Why did he say that? Light in the Bible represents truth. Jesus is truth. And light illuminates a path, a plan, a purpose for all of us.
Jesus said, “I am the gate.” He didn’t say, “I am just a….” He said, “I am the gate.” We get to God through Christ. He is the way. He is the gate. He wasn’t saying, “I am literally a gate and here’s the door knob.” No, no. He said I am the gate.
He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” That means he’s the meaning and the message that we all need.
He said, “I am the vine.” Well, branches can’t be branches unless they’re connected to a vine. Life is not really worth living unless we’re connected to Christ.
Jesus said, “I am the bread. I’m the source. I will satisfy, not physical hunger, but true soulish hunger forever and ever and ever.” Well, what happened? This audience, they were saying, “Okay. Hmm. You’re saying you’re Jesus; you’re saying you’re the Messiah.”
These people were pretty smart. [They knew the Midrash.] The Midrash was a Jewish commentary. And the Midrash said that Moses performed a miracle back when the children of Israel were free from Egyptian bondage. The Midrash says that Moses was the one that caused manna to drop from the heavens. And it also said that the Messiah would duplicate the miracles that Moses had done in his life. Now the Bible doesn’t say that, but the Midrash did.
So these Jews are going, “Okay, well, that’s pretty cool. I’ve been a part of the Hebrew happy meal miracle. And I guess now I’m just waiting for manna. This is going to drop from the sky. Jesus, show me some manna. Show me some sign. You’re saying, believe. Okay, I’ll believe. Show me. Show me the money! Show me the bread, I’m hungry. My stomach is growling. I’d like a bagel with some cream cheese, please.”

These people didn’t get it. Have you every talked to someone who’s been in a situation where you said to yourself, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t get it.” These people didn’t get it. The cosmic carbohydrate was right there. The bread of life was right there. They just did not get it.
John Chapter 6:32-35, He says, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven…”
Whoa! Now to us, that’s no big deal. “Oh, okay.” But back in Biblical times? Man, you didn’t mess around with the Big Mo! With Moses? No, no, no, no. You don’t mess with him. Jesus said [paraphrased], “It’s not Moses.” “It is my father”-see, Christ is pointing everybody the right way-“who gives you the true bread (hint, hint) from heaven.”

Verse 33-34, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread.’” They go back to their growling stomachs. I mean, I like to eat, but come on, man! Verse 35,
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’”
Here’s the word “believes” again. We yield our desires, our plans, our strength, our everything to Christ. That’s how we take the bread of life.

Now go back with me again in the Old Testament. Don’t forget Big Mo. Don’t forget God raining manna down from heaven. Don’t forget the foreshadowing of the lamb and the blood, because Jesus is the fulfillment of all of that. We’re in spiritual bondage. Jesus is our deliverer. If we feed on the bread of life, we can be set free from this stranglehold of sin. Jesus is the Lamb of God. He shed his blood on the cross for your sins and mine-something that’s totally outside of us. He gave his body as a living sacrifice so we could be free.

Manna came down from heaven in darkness. Jesus entered this world that was darkened by sin. He entered this world as a light, as a gate, as the way, the truth, and the life-as the source. That manna only temporarily satisfied. “Oh, okay, yummmm. Got some manna. I’m good for 24 hours.” Jesus said, “No, no, no, I’m talking forever, dude. Forever.”

But if you are a seeker, if you’re investigating Christianity, you’re here because of the aroma. It has led you here. It has drawn you here. Don’t just smell it. Don’t just say, “Oh, yeah, okay. Here’s some bread. That’s cool man. Nice bread.” No, no. Eat the bread of life. Eat the bread of life. That’s what you’re looking for.
See, a lot of you have that manna mentality. “Uh, man, if I make this amount of money, that’ll do it.” Well, you know, right now the maggots are already in that stuff. “Well, if I can hang out with this person, marry this person and….” You know that’s not going to do it. “Well, if I get this job and I can drive this or fly there….” Ugh!
Come on, man! It’s not going to work. You know it’s not working. Who are you trying to kid? It’s the bread of life. It’s the bread. You’re looking for the bread, and you don’t even know it. You’re like these people back in Christ’s day. They didn’t know what they were looking for. But that aroma drew them in.

In John 6:51, Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” We are what we eat. Is that right? That’s true physically and also spiritually. [The verse continues] “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
I’ll say it again. We receive him within, just like we receive food and drink. Because Jesus goes on and says this, he goes, “This bread is my flesh. And this wine, okay, is my blood. So go ahead and eat my flesh and drink my blood.” He was talking figuratively. He was talking in symbolism. When Jesus said, “I am the gate,” again, he’s not talking about a literal gate. This was a foreshadowing of his death, burial, and resurrection.

So we are what we eat? Have you eaten the bread of life? John 6:58, “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Maybe you’re a believer. Do you have that manna mentality? Or are you just kind of saying, “Feed me, feed me, feed, feed me?” It’s great to be fed. We’ve got to be fed. But we’ve got to be diet and exercise people! Because if we’re just diet people, our life will have a stench about us. We’ll be covered with maggots. We’ll never do what God wants us to do with the energy and the calories that these carbs give us. To serve, to reach out to the lost!

Maybe you’re a seeker. Maybe you’re investigating the claims of Christ. You need, today, just to tell God what he already knows-that you are sinner and in need of a savior, that you want to take the bread of life, that you realize there’s a gnawing, low-grade awareness that there’s a hunger down deep that’s never been satisfied.

You thought the first, you know, thousand or hundred thousand dollars would do it. You thought having sex with that person would do it. You thought doing that drug would do it. You thought living in that house would do it. But it’s not there. You need the bread. You need the bread. Jesus is not going to take the bread and force it down your throat. I can’t do that either. You’ve got to do it yourself. It’s your prerogative; it’s your call.
(video: www.visualrealityonline.com - vol. 8, "A Matter of Seconds")

The Table - part 2

Review:

Challenge of the church – The church is a table where people come to be fed
The Ultimate Food demands the ultimate presentation
Invest & Invite
talk to the chairs – mature believer, baby believer, and spiritual seeker
beautiful process
we hand out samples of the bread of life everyday
We must push away from the table and serve.
That's the call to the church – ultimate food, ultimate presentation

A LOST WORLD
Researchers indicate as many as 200 million men, women, and children are among the lost. To make it more real to us, as many as
7 out of 10 of the people we know are living outside, away from God.

“God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.” 2 Peter 3:9

Let's look over history's big picture and we see this theme of God's proactive intervention to rescue the lost. Whenever the people He created wandered deeper into the darkness, He didn't wait for them to come to their senses and return. He sent people out to bring His children back.
We see this reflected in Abraham when he rescued his nephew Lot from Sodom and Gomarrah. - in Moses when he returned to Egypt to bring the people of Israel out from bondage. We see it in the book of Judges as God sent rescuers again and again to deliver His people from the consequences of their sin and disobedience. We see it in David, and Daniel, and Nehemiah, and on and on...

Jesus is the ultimate illustration of God's redemptive love in action.
God sent His Son, as a human, knowing He would have to die, to reach out to the sin-darkened world. He determined this sacrifice was the price to pay for bringing us home to the Father. And none of us had to clean up our act 1st or attain some righteous standards.

Just believe.

The parables Jesus told in Luke 15 reinforce this theme of active, redemptive love. The woman sweeping her whole house and searching everywhere until she finds her 1 lost coin – which represents God's search for us – So does the shepherd, willing to leave the warm, safe fold with the 99 sheep in order to search the cold, dark, dangerous wilderness for one lost lamb.

God said, “He wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.”
But this theme of God's proactive intervention to rescue the lost doesn't end with Christ – it continues... it continues through all of us.

Committed Christ-followers are the primary instruments God uses to find lost people in our world. The local church, the people of God, are His 1st and foremost rescue squad. Now these that are lost aren't going to be found if we, the church, stay in some sort of holy huddle and hope they're found .
We must GO where they are and find them.

Look at what Luke 10 says,
“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out..." Luke 10:1-3

We have, I have and you have been appointed by Christ to GO out
and find them – to invest and invite.

WE ARE GOD'S RESCUE SQUAD
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

1st let's clarify something that confuses many believers. God doesn't call all believers to be evangelists. Evangelism is a spiritual gift. There's a pretty big difference between the spiritual gift of evangelism and simply sharing your faith.
Billy Graham has the spiritual gift of evangelism. He has been so effective with so many people b/c it's the Holy Spirit at work through his spiritual gift.

While most of us are not called to a gifted ministry of evangelism, all believers are called to be witnesses for Christ.
The role of every Christ-follower is to learn how to live it out.
Scripture is clear, look at 1 Peter 3:15,
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
We are to be a Voice of Hope

We are all called to be witnesses for Jesus. Witnessing is the method God uses to reach people in an everyday way. HOW?
Through those who we have some relational contact with. Those we work with, socialize with, hang out with, that we are related to, that we recently met.
We are all called to be witnesses, to share our story.

It's the call on each of our lives

How do we live out that call:

1st skill – nurture and develop your own relationship w/ God
If we aren't growing spiritually ourselves, we probably don't have anything worth sharing, nothing of eternal value w/ our spiritual seeking friends or family.
If we aren't spiritually healthy ourselves, we probably won't share – b/c we may even be embarrassed at how little positive influence Jesus is having in our own lives.
How do we nurture and develop our own relationship w/ God?
Pray, read, meditate, worship, fast, submit, serve...

2nd skill – get a grasp of culture
Communicating & living in a highly secular culture raises all kinds of boundaries between believers and non-believers. If we were sending you overseas to another culture as a missionary, you might get 2 yrs.
of language and culture training before you began ministry. Our situation here is no different. We must know what is going on around us to effectively communicate to lost people.

3rd skill – Build effective relationships
This is absolutely crucial. We must be able to spend time with and develop a trusting friendship with those that do not know Christ personally. HOW?
Hang out, be real, be transparent, have fun, care about, encourage, learn from, be selfless... (past messages, 'Live Beyond Myself' series; 'The Jedi Council' Star Wars series; book: 'Be A People Person' by John Maxwell)

4th skill – Share your faith
In developing friendships w/ seekers opportunities will arise to share your faith, your belief in God. We need to be able to do that. There will also come times when you 1st meet an individual, maybe at someone's b-day party, a work or school function, and in just a few moments of meeting them an opportunity may arise for you to share about the love of Christ. 1 Peter 3:15
Here's an EZ format to remember:

Share your story
- life before Christ
- how you came to know Christ
- life after Christ

Share God's story
- life w/out Christ
- life in Christ

5th skill – Nurture new believers
Just as a new parent has to learn how to care for and nurture their own child, we as believers need to learn how to nurture the spiritual growth and development of new followers of Christ.
This takes time, it takes patience, it takes a willingness to place that other persons needs above our own.
Hang out, talk about what God is doing in their lives, let them share, you listen, give help if needed, encourage...

This is the call each of us has – we are called to be witnesses – to share our faith, to share the love of Christ, to be a voice of hope.

The Table - part 1

We've all been to the mall. Somehow we seem to always find ourselves at the foodcourt. Depending on the day and how busy it is, you will find one or two resteraunts with an employee standing out in the busy walkway handing out samples of some sort. Why?
They want you to taste their food, they want you taste and see that it is good.
Then they hope you'll want it all, to become totally satisfied.
You know what we don't see those with the samples doing?
We don't see them walking around the tables of the foodcourt handing out samples to people already eating, to those who are already feed.

You know, “ that’s the challenge of the church,
“That is where so many churches are in our culture today!”
“We are feeding the already fed. We’re handing out samples to the already fed.

And all we have to do is walk about 15 or 20 feet out into the hungry crowds and hand the bread, the chicken, the samples to all the humans who are filing by. And we could invite them to the ultimate table, which happens to be the church, and, they could find and dine on the bread of life.”

The church is a table where people come to get fed.
Jesus said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life.”
We talk a lot about protein these days. But in God’s economy, complex carbohydrates are king. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”
The ultimate bread, the ultimate food, I think, demands the ultimate presentation.
And the challenge that we have as local churches in this culture, and also around the world, is to feed people.
It’s to build believers and serve seekers.
That’s a part of the purpose of the church. Say it with me.
It’s to build believers and serve seekers.

We have a hunk of people right now who are listening to my voice and you are Christ followers. You’ve stepped over the line. You’re in the family of God. One of the goals of FOCUS* - A Foursquare Church is to feed you; to feed you the bread of life.
I’m the chef. I’m the dude with the food. Food is the word.
Now, we also have a hunk of people here at FOCUS* who are seekers. And it’s our mandate, not only to build believers, but also to serve seekers.
What’s a seeker? A seeker is someone with no Biblical pre-knowledge.
A seeker is someone who has not stepped over the line.
A seeker is someone who could have grown up in church,
yet you’ve never, ever established a personal connection with God
through Jesus Christ.
At FOCUS* we are set up to reach both. We want to build believers and serve seekers. So to do that, we have the opportunity week in and week out to serve the bread of life. And the ultimate food deserves the ultimate presentation.
I’m not talking about paper napkins or plastic forks or Styrofoam cups or a weenie roast here. I’m talking about serving, in a creative and compelling way, the food, the bread of life.

Do you like to have people over to your house to eat? Do you like to? Cathleen and I do. We have people over all the time. It’s fun. It’s kind of sad, though, that entertaining is a lost art these days. A lot of people don’t want to do it.
THE INVITATION
When we invite people over to our home, what do we do? Well, we first of all ask them to come over. Call them up and say, “Hey, would you like to come over? Does your schedule fit?” And then we will ask them, “Okay, what kind of food do you like? What kind of food don’t you like?” And then, if they say yes, we set a time and a night.
Then what do we do? We work. Our family does the work. The guests don’t do the work. We do the work and clean the house-not that the house is not clean, but we clean it more. And we think about the food and we think about the ambiance. We’ll light some candles, turn on some soft music and serve the food in a compelling and imaginative way.
Now, when our family eats, when it’s just us, we don’t always do that. We oftentimes eat on paper plates and we use paper cups and napkins and all that. Sometimes the kids will burp now and then, throw some food. But before guests come over, man! We give our kids a pep talk. “Hey kids, no burping. No food fighting. Put your napkin in your lap.” It’s about the guests. It’s about other people.
Question: Are we compromising when we do that? Are we kind of watering down the food? Are we going soft when guests come over? No! We’re just being strategic. We’re being smart. We’re being, hopefully, good hosts and hostesses.

We [the church] have the opportunity to serve the bread of life, the cosmic carbohydrate, to a hungry world that’s filing by. What is the church to do?
Do we go over to the tables and feed the already fed, feed the already full?
Or do we step out into the crowds, into the elements, and serve the bread of life to all those people filing by in your life and mine?
When you entertain people, do you think about guests? Yes, you do. Well, every weekend we entertain people at FOCUS*. And we think about the family. Our church family does some incredible serving-all the servants here that help put this thing on-to help put this meal on. But also, we think about the guests. We think about the people who are outside the family of God.

We think about the people whose lives are falling apart. We think about the couple whose marriage is hanging in the balance. We think about the single adult who thinks there’s no direction, who is dealing with large levels of loneliness. We think about the student who has to deal w/ other kids. We think about all those people. We think about the table, because the church is the table. We think about the bread, because the bread is the word. We think about the dude with the food. And we think about who’s in the chairs. Who’s in the chairs?
This invitation is pretty important. John 4:34, Jesus said, “My food…is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” Jesus said, “My food … is to do the will of Him (that’s God) who sent me and to finish His work.” Entertaining takes work, doesn’t it? And I figured out that’s why a lot of people don’t do it, because it takes so much work. It’s like, “Man, let’s just go out to a restaurant!” And that’s cool. But to entertain, to think about the guests, to defer to them, and to serve the food in an imaginative and creative, compelling way? It takes a lot of work. You’ve got to get outside yourself to do that, don’t you? You’ve got to think about other people. You’ve got to think about the cuisine. You’ve got to think about the conversation. You’ve got to think about the context of the conversation and the cuisine, because you want the best meal possible. You want the best experience possible.
A strategy we've employed from the very beginning is to:
INVEST AND INVITE
We partner together - the people of the church, including leadership, invest into a relationship with a seeker, someone who hasn't crossed over that line yet.
We develop a trust and we invite them to church.
We partner together - as the people invite, the church leadership will do their part and we make a commitment to present the food - the bread of life, and the good news of Jesus Christ.

But I said to myself, “You know, I wonder if they are handing out the bread of life? I wonder if they’re out there in the heat handing out samples of the real meal? I wonder if they’re out there saying, ‘Hey, I want you to come to FOCUS*
I want you to get fed. I want you to experience this meal,’” which, incidentally, starts the moment you pull into the parking lot and the moment you drop your kids off. It continues when maybe you grab some coffee. And hopefully, it culminates when you walk in here and you’re focused on God. And when the word is opened, when the word is articulated, then the Holy Spirit does His thing. Then we’re fed, and the people who are hungry get fed. And then we push away from the table and serve others and we live beyond ourselves. Hopefully that’s what happens week in and week out. But it starts with you and me investing & inviting people to FOCUS*.
Whenever I develop a talk-you might call them sermons, or whatever- Because the church is the table where people come to get fed. And we also think about chairs.
Basically, three chairs. Every time we have a service here, there’s three chairs because a healthy church should be made up of thirds.
A third should be mature believers. A third should be baby believers, brand new Christians. And the other third should be spiritual seekers. I’m talking about skirt-chasing, cocaine-snorting, wheeling, dealing lost sinners. That’s the healthy church.
The church should be full of thirds, because, watch this now, if the mature are doing what they should be doing, what are they doing? They’re inviting their lost friends to FOCUS – A Foursquare Church! They’re serving them samples of the bread of life. They’re one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. And then these spiritual seekers are becoming Christ followers.
So the seekers are becoming Christ followers, they’re baby Christians. And then they’re becoming mature Christians as they push away from the table and serve. And you have this beautiful ecosystem going. You have this beautiful environment going. You have a healthy, full, and robust meal being served at a beautiful table.
I want to talk to the Christians for a second. What part are you playing in this process? You’re a believer; you’re a Christ follower. Are you really handing out samples of the bread of life to people that God has placed in your life? Who’s in your life right now that’s hungry? Names are popping out right now in your mind. A neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, or a family member. Someone you’ve just gotten to know. What are you doing about it?
“Well, Joe I need to know more.” No you don’t. If you know Christ personally, you know enough. Yeah, we all need to know more. That’s important, but you need to pray for those people. And pray for God, that he would give you the opportunity to share, to give those samples out to people who are so very hungry.
You see, we give out samples to people by the way we talk, by the places we go, by our language, by our business practices, by our attitude, by our actions. And as a Christian, have you forfeited the opportunity to really get out there and hand out samples of the bread of life by your behavior?

We have the opportunity to do that, to hand out samples of food. What are you doing in this process? Are you inviting people to Church? Because as a believer, that’s your food. That’s your food.

THE PRESENTATION
The invitation is a huge piece. But also, there’s the presentation as well. When we serve the food, we have to serve the food, as I said earlier, where people can get it and understand it. You know, we don’t just throw the food on the table and say, “Do with it what you want. Just throw the food, play in the food, we’re not going to give you utensils.”
No, no, no, we’re not going to do that. We want to show people and give them answers about how to take the food and receive the food. So every time we do something we think about the chairs.
We talk to the chairs
Earlier I said this, “Part of our purpose is what? To build believers and to serve seekers.” Right? To build believers and to serve seekers. And here’s the question, here’s the tension that should always be in the church. How much do you play something, do you angle something towards believers; and how much do you play something and angle something toward the seeker? I love that tension. That’s one of the reasons we plan with the team approach. That’s one of the reasons we talk to so many people. That’s one of the reasons we get input from so many different areas. Because it helps us to formulate these weekends that build believers and also serve seekers.
Here’s the challenge we have, though. And I’ll talk about this more next week. As you know,
Here’s what blows me away about the Houston Metro area. And I’ll develop this more next time. Houston has a number of Bible studies and churches that are diet driven. Diet-driven churches and Bible studies. In other words, they concentrate on the word of God. And they concentrate on studying the Bible. And they feed on Scripture, which we have to do. Oh, we have to dine on Scripture. Yet, what’s so odd is, these churches and Bible studies are diet driven.
Okay, hold that thought for a second.
What does the medical community say? If you want to live a long life, do what? Eat well, diet, and… What? I can’t quite hear you up here. Exercise! Diet and exercise!
Diet and exercise. So, it’s more than just diet.
Yet, for so many of these churches, even around our country, and Bible studies-it’s all about just the Bible. And [they say] if you, you know, eat the Bible, eat the Word, dine on the word, then that’s enough. Just a diet, diet, diet, diet, diet. Well, the Bible says from cover to cover it’s diet and what? Exercise! Diet and exercise. We have to eat the right food. Oh, we’ve got to get into the Word. We’ve got to study. We’ve got to break it down. We’ve got to know this stuff. But we’ve got to do it. We have got to do it.
And here is the call of our church and every church out there. Every church, every Bible study should be a diet and exercise entity. Feed on it. And then the food will give you the energy to do what? To push away from the table and get out there and do the stuff.
How do you build believers? Believers are fed. They consume the bread of life. They don’t just get fat. They don’t just sit there and say, “Feed me, feed me, feed me.” Because you can turn into, “Hey, hey, hey! I’m fat Albert!” You know? You can’t even see your feet any more you’re so spiritually fat.
But the challenge is we build believers. We feed believers, get them to push away from the table, and then exercise as they do what? Serve seekers! As they serve in the church and out of the church they serve seekers. And then the seekers come to the table, they get fed. And you have this beautiful process going on.
And here’s another thing that’s so fascinating about diet driven churches. One would think diet driven churches would reach a lot of people. But in my studying, they really don’t reach a lot of skirt-chasing, cocaine-snorting, hell-bound people. They don’t. Because what happens is they get eaten up with pride. And they become so fat they don’t know how to work out any more. And that’s again what’s so awesome about our Church. We’re a diet and exercise church. So we invite people, we prepare the food, and then we present the food before God in a creative and compelling way. We speak to the chairs.
And our kids have a blast – there's no childcare here – there's Children's Ministry going on!
One of the things we try to do, too, is we try to be consistently inconsistent. “Well, why do you try to do that?” We try to be consistently inconsistent because Jesus was consistently inconsistent. He never communicated the same way. His theology was the same, but his methodology changed. He drew in the sand, sat on a boat bow, picked up a child, pointed to a sower, and talked about a building falling over. He used parables, word pictures, and humor. He always changed. We want to be consistently inconsistent.
Well, I want our Church to be a “consistently inconsistent” church, you know? I want people to go, “What’s coming next. What kind of video, what kind of song? What kind of props, or backgrounds, What… what… WOW!” Consistently inconsistent. Being simple not simplistic. And serving a balanced diet as we serve the bread of life.

Let's hand out samples of the bread of life.

Let's Invest and Invite

Let's get that beautiful process going of reaching the lost and growing the kingdom.

Next week – part 2

On September 11, I challenge everyone here to bring someone with you, a seeker who hasn't crossed over that line yet. We (the Church)
will do our part – on Sep. 11, I am going to talk about consuming
the bread of life. That's what it means to hunger no more – as we consume Christ and let Him guide our lives.

Living Beyond Myself - Becoming a Body Builder

I'd like to begin today with a survey of the various types of lessons that you may have had in your lifetime. How many of you have ever taken some type of music lessons? How many have taken any swimming lessons? How about golf lessons? How many have ever taken dance lessons? Cooking lessons? Horseback riding? Tennis? Scuba diving? Underwater basket weaving?

You get the idea. Our society believes in continuing education. HCC - community college their catalog is incredible -- all the stuff that's in it. While all of these lessons are very good, there's one area of lessons that most of us has never had any public, formal training in. Yet it's the most important area of all. Relationships. We all need lessons on relationships. We all need lessons on loving.

I Corinthians 13:4 "Love is kind." What does that mean? Pres. Bush Sr. wanted a "kinder, gentler nation." What does it mean to be kind? Kindness is love in action. Phillips translation, "Love looks for a way of being constructive."
Circle "being constructive." Love looks for a way of improving somebody else's life. It builds people up.

Today we want to talk about How to Be a Body Builder.
Romans 15:2 says "We should consider the good of our neighbor and build up his character." How do I build up the people in my life?

This message today is for everybody. If you've been a teacher, a parent, a husband, a wife, a friend, if you work with business partners, if you go to school -- all of us have people around us we'd like to build up, that we'd like to bring out the best in.
To truly 'Live Beyond Myself' I have to come to the place where it's not all about me – and I have to do my best to bring out the best in others. That's 'Living Beyond Myself'

How do we do that?
1. GIVE THEM A PERSONAL CHALLENGE
Ephesians 4:1 "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Paul is urging people to make their life count. He's challenging them. He's saying don't waste your life. Be all that God made you to be. Make your life count. Why? Because we all need a cause, a project, to dare to dream BIG which calls forth the best in our lives. It strengthens us.

For twelve years the Green Bay Packers won only thirty percent of their games. By 1958 they were 1 - 10. They had a losing season for twelve years. Terrible team. Along came a guy named Vince Lombardi. He was a people builder. During the next nine year reign at the Packers he had nine winning seasons, they beat their opponents 75% of the time and walked away with 5 national championships including the first two Superbowls. He turned a losing team into a winning team. Lombardi was a people builder.
He knew how to bring out the best in people by issuing personal challenges to the players. (video: www.vincelombardi.net )

We all know that there is more to life than just living for yourself. There must be a cause, reason, purpose that I'm here than to just take up space. All of us need somebody in our lives who can inspire us to be what we could be. There are people in your life that God wants to use you to be a people builder, bring out the best in others, to inspire people to be what he knows they could be.
How do we know what God wants us to be?
By looking at our S.H.A.P.E.
God has shaped us for significance. We have been shaped to serve God and others.
S - spiritual gifts
H - heart
A - abilities
P - personality
E - experiences

"God has given each of you some special abilities; be sure to use them to help each other, passing on to others God's many kinds of blessings."
He says look at your S.H.A.P.E.
The way you know what God wants to do in your life is to look at how He's gifted you, how He's talented you, your personality... (go to April 10th, 2005 - AT YOUR SERVICE - Discover Your Design)
One of the hot markets today in our world is the Career Planning Market. Seminars are popping up everywhere. Temperament analysis. Competency tests. Capability consultants. People are shelling out big, big bucks to get people to tell them what they're good at. Why? Because we all need somebody who will issue us a personal challenge. Somebody who will help us discover what we're good at, bring the best out in us.
Somebody who can find a challenge that will develop us and strengthen us.

The Bible teaches that that's what the church is to do. That's one of the goals of our church. A place of "Life Development." We're here to help be people builders, to help people discover and develop what God made them to be. There's a whole process here at our church --
to raise up committed Christians to be leaders in the kingdom of God.
That is all about discipleship development. We are also committed to helping others discover exactly what it is that God has designed you to be, and then create opportunities for you to succeed. It's a top priority of ours here in our church to help you become what God wants you to be in Him. You need people builders. Rather than criticizing the worst in others, they bring out the best, they challenge the best in others.

I want you to evaluate yourself on these four qualities today. From one to ten how much time do I spend thinking about challenging others? Drawing out the strengths of others? Peter Drucker said,
"We need to build on people's strengths and make their weaknesses irrelevant." All of us have weaknesses but you build on your strengths. If you're going to be a people builder, to bring out the best in the people around you, give them a personal challenge.

2. GIVE THEM COMPLETE CONFIDENCE
Romans 15:2 "We who are strong in the faith ought to help the weak in order to build them up in the faith." We all need confidence.
When somebody believes in you it brings out the best in you.
It gives you the courage. "I know you can do it!" Jesus did this with Peter. Peter's name "Petros" meant pebble. Jesus said, "Pebble, you're going to be a rock. I'm giving you a new name." [His name was Peter Simon bar Jonah which means Son of John. So, I guess his real name was Rock Johnson.] When Jesus said that to Peter he was anything but a rock. He was Mr. Impulsive, Mr. Foot-in-Mouth, Mr. Hey! Let's Do It! -- Walking on water and the slip. Jesus said you're going to be a rock. Jesus didn't tell him what he was; He told him what he could be -- that's potential, that's building confidence.

Whenever you label somebody you reinforce what they are.
Lazy, unorganized, temper problem. Don't tell people what they are,
tell them what they could be. Build them up.

One time God said to a man in the Old Testament, "Gideon, " (Gideon is hiding from the enemy army in a well threshing grain.) He said, "Gideon, you are a mighty man of courage." Gideon was the biggest wimp out there. Yet God said, "This is what I see in you. You can become a man of courage." That's what it means to build people up by giving them confidence. Encourage them.

I Thes. 5:11 "Encourage one another and build each other up."
this is talking about the power of affirmation. If you're going to be a people builder you've got to be good at encouragement. Ken Blanchard who wrote
'The One Minute Manager' said, "Catch people doing something right and then tell them."
We all need encouragement. For years, I have kept an
Encouragement File. It consists of notes, cards, letters & I file it. . On those days when I'm discouraged and down and tired, I get out that Encouragement File and I read through all the letters and cards that I've collected over the years. I read both of those letters over and over. It's encouraging to me to know that at some time in my life my mother and my wife thought I had some kind of value! We all need encouragement.

“It was the annual sales conference when the award was presented to the outstanding sales agent of the year. The woman who had performed spectacularly that year gave all the credit to her sales manager. As she stood before the crowd of 63,000 she recalled the slump she had been in for two years before. The future looked bleak and she was ready to resign. She tried to quit several times. Now she's the Number One Agent. The supervisor kept reinforcing her confidence. Her voice cracked as she related the story, "All those months I wanted to quit and didn't think I had a future, someone believed in me more than I did in myself. She wanted me to succeed even more than I did."

Who can say that about you? That you believe in them more than they do?
That you want them to succeed more than they do?
If you want to be a people builder you've got to give people a challenge and then you've got to say, "I know you can do it!"
Whether you're working with your kids, your husband, your wife,
your employees --
"I know you can do it."

Suggestions on giving encouragement:
1. When you encourage people it needs to be real, from the heart and not some kind of phony manipulation. It needs to be sincere, genuine, real.

2. It needs to be regular. Don't be stingy with encouragement. Give it out all the time. Encourage everybody -- the waitress, your children, all around you.

3. It needs to be recognizable. For it to be effective you need to be precise. The more specific you are in encouraging people, the greater the impact it has on them, the more power it packs. Don't say, "I enjoyed the meal." Say, "I can tell you spent a lot of time putting effort into this meal and the seasoning that you put into this was just perfect." Don't say, "You did a good job." Say, "I noticed you handled that cranky customer with class and tact and you really maintained your cool under pressure." Don't say, "That was a good article." Say, "I noticed that your thoughts were organized. You had really thought it out and covered all the bases." Be specific.
Have you ever had a compliment and you didn't know whether it was a compliment or not?
Rate yourself on how you encourage others.
Give yourself 1 to 10 -- 10 being best.
Parents, when was the last time you wrote a specific note of encouragement to your children about a strength that they have? Their creativity or faithfulness or honesty? This message has convicted me of writing more notes to my family. When was the last time, husbands/wives, you wrote a love note to your spouse? When was the last time you wrote a note of encouragement to a teacher that's doing a good job? Teachers always hear about when they're doing a bad job with our kids. When was the last time you wrote a note to encourage a friend who's had a major impact in your life? I encourage you to write it down. Be specific. A note says you took the time to care.

I hear people say, "Whenever something is wrong I hear it from my boss!" That boss has poor leadership. If you only hear from your boss when you do something wrong, that's poor leadership.
(quite often boss at Pepsi says, let me say something about...)

3. GIVE THEM HONEST COUNSEL
There is no progress without learning. There is no learning without feedback. We all need honest feedback. Since none of us is perfect our perception gets off base and we need people to say "You're off base!" We all need people who will lay it out on the line and be honest with us. Occasional correction.
Proverbs 27:17 (Good News) "People learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron." We bring out the best in each other. "An honest answer is the sign of a true friendship." A real friend will tell you when you're making a mistake. A real friend will level with you. They care enough to correct, confront. They'll lay it on the line. Even when it's painful they'll tell you the truth. "I think you're off base here. You're wasting your time or life." They don't just let people waste their life in silence. Prov. 27:6 (Good News) "A friend means well even when he hurts you." He's doing it for your benefit.
Correction is very powerful, dangerous stuff. Correction done the right way builds people up. But correction done the wrong way can scar a person for life. When you correct somebody it's very serious. Do it the right way. What is the difference between the right and wrong way to correct?
It's your attitude in correcting. If your attitude is "I'm going to point out this weakness in your life just to be pointing it out because it's wrong!" If that's your attitude, forget it! Don't do it. People don't need to have their faults pointed out. We're all very well aware of our faults for the most part. If all you're going to do is point out somebody's faults, don't do it. The purpose has to be not to condemn but to correct, to help them make a change in their behavior. You need to ask yourself, "What's my motive in this? Am I correcting them for my benefit or for their benefit?" A lot of times we want to correct people just because they're being jerks and they're hassling us. We think "If they stop being a jerk my life would be easier." That's the wrong motive. We don't correct people for our benefit. We correct them as an honest friend, for their benefit.
How do you do it for the right motive?
Ephesians 4:15 "Speak the truth in love." That's the attitude. Love means giving the person what they need not what they deserve. The motive has got to be not to condemn but to correct. You speak the truth in love.
How? The key to proper correction: You affirm the person, correct the behavior. Whether it's a friend, a child, a husband, a wife, a boss -- affirm the person, correct the behavior.

One of the greatest basketball coaches that ever lived, year after year of consecutive NCAA championships for the Bruins, was an incredibly successful man. One of his final seasons, a couple research psychologists went to study his coaching techniques. His technique was what he called scold-instruct. He would say to a person, "Don't do it `this' way, do it `this' way." Then he would demonstrate it. He'd show them how he wanted it done. The purpose was never to say, "You're blowing it. You're doing it the wrong way!" The purpose was always, "No, it's not like that. It's like this." He always demonstrated what he wanted. So the focus was on improvement not punishment.

A child psychologist named Aldrich who works with delinquent children says, "Let's say your child, as most children do at some point, engages in some petty theft. Perhaps a pack of candy. If you say to him, `Now we know what you are. You're a thief. We'll be watching you from now on.' It's quite likely he'll steal more and quickly graduate from stealing candy to stealing cars. On the other hand, if you react with both firmness and gentleness by saying, `Son, that wasn't like you at all. We're going to have to go back to the store and clear this up. But we're not going to make a huge thing about it because what you did was wrong and you know it was wrong and I'm sure that you'll never do it again." After that kind of treatment, most kid's stealing is going to end.

You focus on affirming the person, correct the behavior. Speak the truth in love.
Rate yourself on this one, one to ten. How good am I at correcting without condemning?

4. GIVE THEM FULL CREDIT
If you want to be a people builder -- bring out the best in the people in your life -- give them full credit. Praise the growth and the changes you do see in their lives. Romans 12:10 "Let us have real, warm affection for each other and a willingness to let others have the credit." Have you ever heard the saying,
"God can do great things through the person who doesn't care who gets the credit."
One of the things that impressed me about Norman Schwarzkopf in the desert Storm Operations was that he was constantly giving the credit away. He was always pointing to the guys in the trenches, to his under command, to the President, Colin Powell, or whoever. Schwartzkaff was a genius, 170 IQ, a mastermind. He was always giving the credit away.

How do you do on that? How quickly do I share the credit? Usually we like to share the blame but keep the credit. God says the mark of maturity is to accept the blame and share the credit. The exact opposite.

When you look at these four things on how to be a People Builder:
Give Them a Personal Challenge, Give Them Complete Confidence,
Give Them Honest Counsel and Full Credit -- that's a lot of work.
Yes, and you won't always feel like doing it. Kindness always costs. There's a price tag for being a people builder. It requires time, effort, money, energy, lack of privacy. It always costs to be kind. Most of all it costs unselfishness. It takes unselfishness to be a people builder. Usually we're so caught up in our own thing we don't have time to build anybody else up. We focus on me, myself, I.
I don't care about anybody else; I'm focusing on me. It takes unselfishness. It costs to be kind.
Why should you do it then? Hebrews 10:24 "In response to all God has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other."
God's been kind to you, you owe it to others! The Romans, back when the first Christians were forming after Jesus Christ came to earth, used to confuse the word "cristos" with "crestos". Cristos means Christ. Crestos, in Latin, means kindness. What a great confusion! If anything ought to be synonymous it ought to be kindness and a Christian. Christians ought to be the most kind people in the work force. What does it mean to be kind? You give people personal challenges, you raise their confidence, you offer honest counsel and you give them the credit. That's what it means to be kind to people, to look for ways of being constructive, building them up.

How do you rate as a people builder? How many people do you know would say that you do this to them? I give you a challenge. I want to challenge you. I want to give you a new objective for life. Whether you live another year, five years, ten years or a hundred years I want to challenge you to make as your primary objective of life that "I will commit myself for the rest of my life of being a people builder." Say, "Starting today, I'm going to commit the rest of my life, no matter how much it is, to bringing out the best in people that I come in contact with. I'm going to dedicate my life to actively looking for constructive ways to building people up."
Imagine the impact that our church family could have if we would commit ourselves to being people builders. Everybody we come in contact with, we're going to try to bring out the best in them, help them to develop what God made them to be. First by sharing Christ, the Good News, with them and then helping them grow and become and recognize their strengths. That's the purpose of our church. We're a Life Development Church -- to help people grow and be what God made you to be.
If you do that, Proverbs 11:17 says (Good News) "You do yourself a favor when you're kind." The New International Version says, "The kind man benefits himself."
When you help other people succeed, you succeed. When you help other people win, you win. Any executive of a successful corporation will tell you that is true. You make other people successful and it makes you successful. What you sow, you reap. I challenge you to say, "I'm going to become as my life objective a people builder, no matter what else I get done."

I want to 'Live Beyond Myself' – do you? I want to be a people builder. I'm committed to bringing out the best in you and help you discover and develop what God made you to be. Kind people are happy people, fulfilled people. Unkind people are miserable. People who think only of themselves no matter how much money they've got are miserable. It's the people who give their lives away that really enjoy life.

Let's be people who live beyond ourselves!

Living Beyond Myself - How to B.R.E.A.K. F.R.E.E.

HOW TO BREAK FREE FROM ADDICTION

I read this week: "Americans seem hooked on the idea of having addictions. These days almost anyone might have an addiction, if not to drugs or alcohol, then to food, cigarettes, exercise, relationships, sex, shopping, work, video games. Habits that were once called compulsions or just plain weaknesses are now described as addictions. A monthly magazine Lifeline America deals with addictions. More than 200 different kinds of addictions now are dealt with by groups in America."

How do you deal with addictions? A couple of our favorite addictions in America are drinking and eating. Eighteen million have a drinking problem and eating, well - This article says that Americans are 2.3 billion pounds overweight.
I want us to look at how to break free from a habit. I don't care what your habit is. Everybody has got a bad habit. I want to give you nine Biblical steps. When you break a habit there is a spiritual part, a physical part and an emotional part. I want to deal with the emotional and spiritual today. Nine steps from God's word on How Do You Break a Bad Habit?

B.R.E.A.K. F.R.E.E.

B - BEGIN TODAY
Not tomorrow, next week, next month. Have you noticed there are more people going on a diet tomorrow than today? Prov. 27:1 "Never boast about tomorrow. You don't know what will happen between now and then." Quit telling yourself "one of these days". Stop procrastinating. Stop postponing. It's going to be harder to change tomorrow than it is today, because delay always makes a problem worse.
Eccl. 11:4 "If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never get anything done!" So what's your excuse, why aren't you working on that problem? The person who really wants to change finds a way; the person who doesn't want to change finds an excuse. Begin today.

R - REFUSE TO BLAME OTHERS
This problem is as old as Adam and Eve. Adam sinned, took it like a man and blamed his wife. "Eve made me do it!" I'll never get better until I accept personal responsibility. I've got to admit it's my problem. Proverbs 19:3 "Some people ruin themselves by their own stupid actions and then blame the Lord." Who are you blaming for your bad problems? Your parents? Your husband? Wife? Teachers? Children? Boss? the devil made me do it? God? To break free I've got to assume responsibility for my life. When you blame you're being lame. B-lame. You're backing off. In order to break a habit you've got to quit excusing yourself and accusing other people. You don't "pass the buck".

E - EXAMINE MY LIFE
I take personal inventory, I do an internal audit, a frank evaluation. I ask myself questions like "What are my weaknesses? How long have I had this problem? Where am I tempted most? What are my fears? What are my frustrations?" You need to do a frank evaluation of your life. Lamentations 3:40 "Let us examine our ways and test them, and return to the Lord." Circle "examine" and "test".
To change I've got to stop pretending. I can't cover up my faults. I've got to come face to face with my faults. The fact is hiding a hurt only intensifies it and makes it worse. Denial prevents healing. Psalm 32:4-5 "My dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration until I finally admitted my sins and stopped trying to hide them. And God forgave me! All my guilt is gone!"

Circle "miserable" and "frustration". God says just admit that you've got a problem and I will forgive and wipe out the guilt in your life!
You need to do an evaluation. This needs to be continual. Healthy people are always evaluating themselves: Am I slipping? Am I making it? Where am I getting off course? Keep short accounts with God. Be honest with God and be honest with yourself.

A - ASK CHRIST TO TAKE OVER MY LIFE
He's waiting to help. You need a power greater than yourself to help you change. You can't change on your own power. Why not go straight to the source?
Romans 6:12-13 (Living Bible) "Don't let sin control your body any longer. Don't give in to its sinful desires but give yourself completely to God -- every part of you -- to be used for His good purposes." He's saying that the solution to your addiction is choose the right master. Every day you're controlled by something: other people, other time schedules, drugs, alcohol, food. You're going to have to serve somebody, why not choose the right master? That's where freedom comes. Instead of having somebody else control my life, you say, "I'm going to have God control my life." That's where freedom takes place. You don't let these other things control you, you let God control you. Circle the word "completely". Often we only want to give God the problem. "God, I'll give you this problem, but let me take the rest of my life." God says, "If you want Me to work on the problem you've got to give Me every area of your life. You've got to give it all to Me, not just a part." You turn the management of your life over to God and that produces incredible power to change.
Why don't most people do it? Because we're afraid we'll become fanatics. If I give over every area of my life I'll lose my fun and my freedom and I'll become a fanatic. The Good News is Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly." The good news is that you matter to God. God has a purpose for your life and a plan and His plans for your life are good. So you relax and let God take control of your life and He gives you that power. The Bible says that God is for you, not against you. So I ask Christ to take over my life. Instead of being controlled by something else, I'm going to be controlled by God. And that produces freedom. You're going to serve somebody or something.

K - KEEP AWAY FROM THE TEMPTATION
This just makes sense. If you don't want to get stung by the bees you stay away from them. You need to avoid the situations where you are tempted.
Romans 13:14 (Phillips translation) "Don't give any chances for the flesh to have it's fling." Don't put yourself in tempting situations. If I have a problem with drinking, I don't stock a bar in my house. If I have a problem with lust, I don't go to those news stands that carry that kind of stuff or play with fire online. If I have a problem with overeating, I don't move next to a fast food place. I don't stock pile my home with junk food. I stay away from the things that cause me problems.
I thought of an invention the other day for dieters: A refrigerator that every time you opened it, it weighed you.
You don't put yourself in compromising situations - where you know you're going to be tempted. (video: "Temptation" Volume 2 from www.visualrealityonline.com )

Proverbs 24:27 "Plan carefully what you do. Avoid evil." Plan to avoid temptation. The key to overcoming temptations is to decide in advance. You don't wait, teenagers, or singles, until you're in the back seat of a parked car to say, "Do I want to stay pure?" You don't wait until you're sitting in a bar until you say, "Do I want to drink?" You plan in advance. You decide to avoid it in advance. Predetermine, is what he's saying here.
If you don't want to get involved sexually before you get married, plan your dates. You'll either go by your plans or your glands. One of them is going to win out!
asked a guy how he quit smoking. He said, "I wet my matches." He planned in advance.
Ephesians 4:27 "Don't give the devil a foothold." Don't put yourself in those situations, in compromising situations. It may mean you have to choose some new friends. If your friends bring you down, you need new friends. Maybe you need to change jobs. Maybe you need to move. The Bible says, "Flee temptation." Run from it, avoid it!
Most of us, when we flee temptation, we leave a forwarding address. Keep away from it! Burn your bridges! Do the smart thing and stay away from situations that tempt you.
That's the negative part: Stay away from situations that cause your downfall. The positive part is this:

F - FOCUS ON SOMETHING BETTER
Proverbs 4:23 "Be careful how you think, your life is shaped by your thoughts." Circle "thoughts". The Bible says that the spiritual battle for sin is fought in the mind. If you want to change your life, it starts right here. Whatever captures my attention, captures me.
The key to resisting temptation is not to resist it. You simply refocus your attention. You mentally change channels. The only way you have victory over temptation is to refocus your attention on something else.
Whatever you concentrate on gets you. Have you ever concentrated on a diet? The right portions, the right times. The more you concentrate on the diet all you can think about is food. I think about food much more when I'm on a diet than when I'm not on a diet. It's like I'm consumed with the thought of food when I concentrate on it. That's not the way to break a habit. The key is to turn your mind and focus on something better. Don't think about the diet, losing weight, refocus on living a healthy lifestyle. What does that take?
The moment you're tempted you turn your mind to something else. Switch channels. What do you focus on?
Philippians 4:8
"Fill your mind with things that are good and deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable."
This is the principle of replacement. You replace the bad with the good. Vacuums do not exist in the world. They are artificially created. If you create a vacuum, something fills it. My gas tank is never empty: it's always either filled with gas or with air. Gas replaces the air, air replaces the gas. One thing is going to fill it.
You may think your mind is empty. You say you're going to get rid of a thought. But it will come right back unless you replace something else with it. The principle of replacement. The power of a positive affection -- when you want to get rid of a bad thought, fill it with a good thought. That's the way you push it out. You push it in the front door and it goes out the back door. You replace old thoughts with new ones. That's why Romans 12:2 says "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
This sixth step is to focus on the positive. Focus on something better. The Bible says you fill your mind with positive things and when you know the truth, What does John 8:32 say, "The truth will set you free." You fill your mind with the word of God.

R - RESTORE BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS
Why is this important? Anything that is out of control in your life is hurting somebody else. When we have addictions we manipulate other people to fulfill those addictions. We end up causing grief to ourselves, grief to others and guilt to ourselves. You need to make those things right. Go to those people you've hurt and restore those relationships.
Romans 12:18 (Phillips translation) "As far as your responsibility goes, live at peace with everyone." That may take some time. But you take the initiative. You make a list of people that your habit has harmed and you go to those people and you ask forgiveness and you offer restitution and as much as your responsibility, you try to make things right.
Why? A clear conscious is essential for change. For permanent, lasting change you must maintain a clear conscious. If you don't maintain a clear conscious, I don't give you much hope for lasting change. Go back and make things right.
This is the hardest step -- to go back and admit to people that my problem caused you a problem, my guilt caused you grief. The Bible says as much as it's your responsibility go and live at peace with everybody. Get that clear conscious so you've got God's power in your life to keep on keeping on.

E - ENLIST A SUPPORT GROUP
The eighth Biblical principle in breaking free is to enlist a support group. We all need reinforcement. We all need support. Eccl. 4:9-10 "Two are better off than one, because together if one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls there is no one to help him." That makes sense. He's talking about the law of diminishing intent. It goes like this: As time passes, best intentions fade. You start out great in January. Two weeks later you're back in your old habits.
Why? It's a cycle. You start out in humility: "God, I'm not making it. I need your help." God gives grace to the humble. He gives us the power to change when we're humble. So He gives you the power to make it. After about six months you start thinking, "I'm making it!" And you get full of pride. The Bible says in Proverbs 16 that pride leads to a fall. And you fall again. Then in humility you say again, "God, I'm not making it. I need your help." And you get God's power. If you'd live in that humility you'd stay there. But then you get full of pride again.
The moment you think, "I've got this thing licked!" you're in dangerous water. The moment you think this is no longer a problem you're in dangerous water (C. & I – never say never).
How do we break the cycle? We need support. We need friends who will pray for us, care for us, encourage us, keep us on track. When that law of diminishing intent takes effect those people are there to spur us on. Two are better than one because they help each other up.
"Confess your sins to each other..." Not just to God, or to a priest! This says I've got to confess my sins to you and you've got to confess your sins to me. I don't like that verse at all! "... and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

I like the healing part of this verse. I want to be emotionally healed. I want to be physically healed, spiritually healed. I want to break the grasp of this habit on my life. How? By confessing to each other and praying for each other. Not just to God, but to each other. This is one of the keys. This is the price for freedom.
Some of you have a habit and you want to break it. But you don't want anybody to know about your problem. I say "Good luck!" I don't give you any hope of lasting change. I really don't. This is the very attitude we talked about last week that says, "I can do it on my own and I don't want other people to know that I'm a human being with normal problems and weaknesses and faults and failures. I want them to think I'm perfect!" That is the very attitude that will keep you in bondage. It is essential that you learn to live a transparent life before people (Cathleen and I open book). I've got strengths and I've got weaknesses. Here they are.

This is one of the purposes of the church! The church is to be a support group, to encourage each other and lift each other up. This is the value of small groups. Every Christian needs to be in a small group. There is no such thing as 'Rambo' Christians. You need to be in a small group where people pray for you, care for you, encourage you. There's a feeling of freedom to know that everybody's in the same boat. We all have the same problems. When you find somebody who says, "I've been there! We've made it through and I'm on the other side now. Let me give you some encouragement." That gives you the motivation to break out of the cycle of starting and stopping and hiding your hurt.

Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing.

That's where it starts. If you can't admit it to somebody you can't work on it.
Some of you are thinking, "I'm going to quit, but I'm not going to tell anybody that I'm quitting." And I say, that's a cop out. You're making provision for the flesh. You're providing an escape hatch. What you're thinking is, "I'm going to try but if it doesn't work out nobody knows that I even tried and it's no big deal. Nobody knows so it's all right." You are guaranteeing failure. You're providing an escape hatch by which you can get out. You need a support group.
(tough ? - who do you need tell what's going on?)
That's why we have small groups. We have groups that deal with our problems and we share. We get into God's Word and we pray together and we have a good time. Even in those there is tremendous emotional healing taking place and encouragement and people given the lift that they need to make the changes God wants to make in their lives. We need a support group. We need each other. We can press on b/c of their support (Eldon and I running)
When we've done these first eight steps then comes the ninth step.

E - EXTEND MYSELF TO OTHERS
2 Cor. 1:4 (Good News) "Christ helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others in trouble, using the same help that we ourselves have received from God." God allows us to go through problems, even the ones I've brought on myself, and then He helps us through those problems so that we can turn around and help other people with the same comfort we've been given. God wants to take your greatest weakness, the area you're ashamed of and you don't want anybody to know about and make it your ministry. He wants to help you through this problem and help you overcome it, and get victory in it and then give you a ministry of helping other people with the exact same problems.

(more on this next week)

God never wastes a hurt.
My prayer is that some of you are going to start putting into practice these nine steps and you're going to get involved in a group and give all areas of your life to Christ and you're going to start seeing these changes and you're going to get victory over that area you've been ashamed of and has been a habit and problem in your life and two years you're going to have a ministry to those very people that have the problem that you have right now. That is the ultimate high! Being used of God to help other people. There is nothing more fulfilling than knowing that God is using you to help people. And what does He use in your life? Not your strengths. He uses your weaknesses! The very area that I don't want anybody to know about, God uses in your life.

I am scared to death to speak in front of other people. You can't believe that but I am. I used to try to get everything out in breath - my voice would start shaking and yet God has used this in my life to reach others. Go figure – that's what He does. God wants to take your life, your habits, your hang ups, your hurts -- and they're not there by accident -- and He wants to turn them around in your life to serve Him and others.

Galatians 6:1-2 "If a person is trapped in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself; you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ."

If you want to be like Christ, if you want to be loving and have the law of Christ in your life, carry each other's burdens.
When you share a burden, it's halved -- only half as heavy when somebody else is carrying it with you. That's what I think God wants a church to be, where we carry each other's burdens. My prayer is that our church will be a place where people say, "That's for fellow strugglers. Nobody thinks they've got it together there. Everybody thinks they have hang-ups there but they're all working on it. That church is just a bunch of saved sinners." That's exactly what we are. No better and no worse. So we extend ourselves to other people.
When you take these nine steps look at God's promise. I Cor. 10:13 (Good News) "God keeps His promise; He will not allow you to be tempted beyond your power to resist; at the time you are tempted He will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out." God says I will give you the power to overcome that temptation, that habit and provide a way out. This promise is not for everybody. You cannot go out and say, "I've got a problem with overeating, set down to several orders of ice cream and then say, `God, provide a way out!' ... God, I have a problem with lust but I'm going to keep looking at that junk online." You need to do these other steps. You can only claim the promise when you're following the principles. It starts by making Jesus Christ the master of your life.
2 Peter 2:19 talks about people who are slaves of destructive habits, "For a man is a slave of anything that has conquered him." What's in control in your life? Whatever is in control is your master. If you say, "I'm in control of my life" then look where it got you. A self made man worships his maker. The fact is you need something bigger than yourself to pull you out of yourself to pull you out of the problems that you're causing on yourself. The Bible says you're going to serve somebody. You're going to serve money or power or sex or food or drugs or drink or gambling or shopping... something. Real freedom comes when you chose the right master. These steps work but it starts with a decision.

If you have someone in your family who's messing up their life with a habit, an addiction, whatever, you must care enough to confront. You cannot let them get away with it. You must confront them and say, "I'm not going to stand for it! You will get your act together! You will get help! But I'm not going to support you and bail you out!" You must have tough love, you must care enough to confront.

We've only talked about the spiritual and the emotional this morning. There is a physical part. I'm a firm believer in rehab programs, like 'Teen Challenge' and others that are not necessarily Christ centered but are for detoxification or withdrawal -- but you need the spiritual basis for lasting, permanent change.

To 'Live Beyond Ourselves' we must break free from the hurts, the bad habits, and hang-ups that really are just tying us down. They are keeping us from becoming so much more that God has in store.

Living Beyond Myself - The Fine Art of Humility

Really for us to move forward to continue in the thought of 'Living Beyond Myself' we have to get a grasp of a word, that's just not used that often, you don't really hear of any seminars about it, courses taught, or self-help books and that is Humility. So I'd like to talk to you today about the Fine art of Humility.
When you think about humility, I think it's the most misunderstood character trait God ever invented. Before we go any farther into this let's take a look at what humility is not:
It's not shyness, or being timid or bashful, it's not being weak or spineless, it's not a lack of confidence, humility is not having a low opinion of yourself, or low self-esteem. Humility isn't walking around in life putting yourself down, saying 'well I'm gona go play racquetball against the curb' or something. That's not humility. Jesus never put Himself down yet He was the most humble person that ever lived.
Really humility takes an enormous amount of courage. Takes huge amounts of self-confidence. It takes personal security, in fact insecure people cannot be humble. Insecurity produces the exact opposite of humility, it produces pride.
Did you know that God promises more to those who walk in humility than almost any other trait, except for giving.
God says He'll save the humble, support the humble, promises to give wisdom to the humble, exalt the humble, He says, He will honor you if you're humble.
“There are seven things that God hates (sure would like to know what's on that list huh?) and cannot tolerate…” Proverbs 6:16

Do you know what the 1st one is on that list, Pride.
God loves humility, look at this vs.
“This is the one I esteem: (you would want to find out what that
one is) he who is humble and contrite in spirit.” Isaiah 66:2

God says, He looks up to people who have a genuine spirit of humility, people who arent only interested in themselves, but hold others in high regard.
You know, I'm just thinking but if God esteems that, I'd sure like to know how to live that out.
What is Humility?

Humility is a way of __Thinking__
Humility is a way of __Acting ____
It's a way of thinking and acting – by the way humility has nothing to do with your emotions. You say I dont feel very humble. It doesn't matter how you feel. Feelings are immaterial.
Humility is a ___Choice ___
We chose it – life is full choices, we dont always see it that way.
So it's up to us to chose, to chose to think about others, reather than being that 'Naval Gazer' – b/c it's all about me, and my life, and my needs – and we chose to think about and then act on putting others ahead of ourselves.
Guess what, when we do that – I'm 'Living Beyond Myself'

I encourage you to do a word study this week on the word 'humble -
“Humble yourself before God.” (Multiple times in the bible)

Humility then is not thinking less of yourself, but it going beyond yourself – it's thinking of others instead of you. Their best interests instead of your own. To be other person centered.
This is not real ez – with everybody else, spouse, family, friends, co-workers, you name it – we think about ourselves 1st.
To develop humility is to move beyond myself and think about others.

“Let us not just talk about love. Let’s practice real love.”
1 John 3:18 (The Message) circle the word practice.
It takes practice, now you guys know what it means to practice.
How many of you ever had music lessons or singing lessons? You know the meaning of practice. How many of you ever played on a sports team? Then you know the meaning of practice – you've got to work hard to succeed. How many of you ever worked out at a gym for more than 2 weeks? You know the meaning of practice – it involves doing something over and over again until you get good at it and it becomes natural, or just 2nd nature to do it. In order to 'Live Beyond Ourselves' were going to have to practice a thing or two.
How do we get there?
How do we Practice the Fine Art of Humility?

First: Practice the art of giving __preference__ to others
Think about it right now, times and situations where it is hard or difficult for you to give preference to someone else. Such as a scenario where you'll let someone else go 1st. I can think of a couple scenarios – You're standing in the checkout lane @ HEB and it's the longest, slowest line(how many of you although you never intend to, find yourself in the longest, slowest line?) you're waiting there and you're in a hurry. Your getting frustrated, and the older guy behind you keeps hitting you with his cart. Then you hear it over the intercom, “Lane 4 now open” - what are you gona do in that moment?
You can pull a George Castanza and knock down older ladies and children with your cart on the way there. If you're a female you can put your hand under your shirt, “Lady with a baby” - you can try misdirection - “Oh there's lane 4”, and go the other way.
How about in a parking lot, again you may find yourself in a rush, or maybe a child is getting a little rambunctious and a spot opens up near the front, but there are 3 cars going for that spot. What do you do?
You see choosing, thinking, and acting upon it doesn't come natural – so what do you do? A – punch on the gas. B – hit the brakes. C – let the other guy go – then park behind them so they cant get out.

“Give preference to one another in honor.” Romans 12:10
circle preference -
“…Practice playing second fiddle…” Romans 12:10 (The Message)

Leonard Bernstein a famous conductor, was once asked what is the hardest instrument to play? He said 2nd fiddle.
Insnt that true – B/c everyone wants the top spot, 1st chair. Nobody wants to be a back-up. You couldn't have the beautiful sound of a symphony orchestra unless everybody was doing their part.
How about us? How are you doing practicing playing 2nd fiddle?

I have tried, I have tried this week purposely letting others in grocery store go ahead of me, giving up that parking spot, and in different scenarios, and it's hard, it's not ez. Maybe for a couple of hours.
To live beyond ourselves -

“Don’t push your way to the front. Put yourself aside and
help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your
own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a
helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Jesus thought of
Himself. He was God but He took on the status of a slave an
incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special
privileges. Instead He lived a selfless obedient life.”
Philippians 2:3-8 (The Message)

Jesus is our perfect model in every area of life. He didn’t come thinking about me, He came thinking about you, about everyone else.
It's one way to stay focused this week, while you're warring, trying to practice humility – think about what Christ did for you – that will help you to shift you thinking towards others.
“Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become
angry.” James 1:19

Second: Practice the art of _learning _ from others
Part of humility is teachability. The willingness to grow, to be open to the suggestions, corrections, and criticisms of others. Not thinking you know it all.
Why, why should we be open to the correction of others -

Three Reasons:
I’ll be more __likable __
“Conceited people do not like to be corrected. They
never ask for advice.” Proverbs 15:12

why, b/c their afraid you'll see they don't have it all-together.
But I'll be more likable if I'm open to teachings and not conceited.
Let me ask, “How many of you don't like being around arrogant people?” we just don't – their a pain in the 'blessed assurance'
Humility makes us more likable, people would rather be around someone who is humble, than proud. (don't be a know it all – even if you do know the answer)

I’ll be _wiser__ if I’m open to the correction of other people
“If you reject criticism you only harm yourself. But if
you listen to correction you grow in understanding.”
Proverbs 15:32 (New Living Bible)

Humble people are always growing b/c they're open to correction.
Did you know we are all ignorant in specific areas (some more than others) You know some stuff I don't, and I know some stuff you don't, and that applies to just about every relationship we can have.
It's wise to learn from other people – one of the best ways is to ask ?'s
you can only do that if you're humble enough to do it.
We have to decide, “Do I want to appear to be wise, or do I want to be wise?”

I’ll have __less__ conflict
Most conflict arises b/c I'm thinking about ME – you have violated my rights or my perceived rights. Then I'll be all over you. But if it's not about me, then war ceases, argument diminishes.
“Pride only leads to arguments.” Proverbs 13:10
Ask Someone:
What do you see that is wrong in my life?
Humility is not ez, it takes courage to be humble, it takes courage to open ourselves up and set pride aside.

Third: Practice the art of _surrendering __ your plans to God
Can I tell you what usually happens, what often happens is we make our plans and then ask God what He thinks.
Then we pray, God bless what I am doing. We may not have even asked Him to be a part of it in the 1st place. Then when our plans don't happen in the time we thought they should, or even happen at all, do you know what we do do? We blame God . Can I tell you what that is:
Pride. God doesn't like pride.
“God opposes everyone who’s proud but He gives grace to
everyone who is humble. Surrender to God.” James 4:6-7

I can think of a lot people who I wouldn't want to have as my opponent – if I were in the ring against Jermain Taylor – I wouldn't want that fist to hit me. I wouldn't want to get on the basketball court w/ Shaq, he'd just give me a little booty move and I'm on the floor. I would not want to oppose Bill Gates at an auction.
But I certainly above all do not want to be opposed by God.

How do I surrender to God?
“Give yourselves to God and surrender your whole being (circle that) to Him to be used for His righteous purpose.” Romans 6:13

We surrender our whole being that is our thoughts, our plans, our decisions, everything. Then you see, when we dare to dream BIG, we are to be used for His purpose.
That's God's goal.
And we say, OK God, I'm going with your plan in my life, not mine. I'm going to intentionally chose your plan for my life. I know You're not gonna reveal that plan to me all at once, just a little at a time, but I'm good w/ that.
Humbleness is surrendering your plans to God.

We are challenged, just like Mary to surrender our plans to God. You may be mocked, ridiculed, criticized – and we will have a choice to be made, is it going to continue to be about me, or am I going to start thinking about everyone else?
That's surrendering our plans to God – that's 'Living Beyond Ourselves'

“This is what the Lord requires from you. That you do what
is right, to love mercy and you live humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8
Here it is again, if you read something in the Bible that God requires it of you, you'd probably want to know what that is. Real ez here:
Do what is right – simple to understand, may be hard to do
Love mercy – extend grace to those you don't want to extend to
Live humbly w/ God -

“God, turn me away from wanting any other plan than yours.” Psalms 119:37 (Living Bible)
That's my prayer! Let's memorize it – read aloud together.
That our goal – to live beyond myself. To live humbly with God, to put others ahead of my own interests. It's a bit tough – practice.
Restaurant today, a little fidgety, call our name, where's my waiter/ess
Ez to talk about in here, tougher to live it out there – all things are possible w/ God. Let's be people who are Known by Love!
We'll make a difference.