Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Male): You are now listening to an inspirational message from Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, where Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr. is the pastor. Please join the service in progress.

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: There's nothing like that sweet hour of prayer when you have to get away, when you can't find the relief through the normal circumstances. And nothing comforts but a steal away moment with God.

You find the burdens lifted, the heart retempered. You can just have church all by yourself. Don't have to have a congregation, don't have to have a lot of noise. Just you and God. I like those moments. Worship is all of it. Sometimes it's the praise but sometimes it's the quiet moment of meditation.

Our Father and our God, we thank you for this privilege. We thank you for our children. We thank you for our youth. We thank you for the multiple ways in which worship comes on us. Sometimes we feel like a grateful praise, and then sometimes we want a quiet moment of meditation with you. We thank you for all of it.

And we thank you for this day of worship and the opportunity to fellowship together. Thank you for your people who have come together for this time. Thank you for every song, every scripture, every prayer.

Now Lord, we need your word, and not just to be hearers of it, but to be doers and to have our lives transformed and changed because of you. So we pray now that you would speak again to us and through us in this moment of sharing and bless now the words in our mouth and the meditations on our heart.

Lord, that your name may be glorified, honored, and praised, but that the blessing of God will rest on us. Speak it so clear, speak it so deep, speak the truth so wide that none of us escape. Bless the word, bless the truth now. In Jesus' precious name we pray. We ask you again to have mercy upon us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Thank you so much. Turn with me this morning to the gospel as recorded by Luke, the ninth chapter. Luke, chapter nine. And we're continuing with some thoughts on words that Jesus had shared at three different incidents in this passage that marks different passages of time, but we're going to attempt to weave them together to help us to see what God wants us to know today.

Starting in verse 46 and going through verse 56. The word of God reads, then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest. And Jesus perceived the thought of their heart and took a child and set him by him.

And he said unto them, whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me. And whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me. For he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.

And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbade him because he followed not us. And Jesus said unto him, forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.

And it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. And they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him.

And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did?

But he turned and rebuked them and said, you know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. This is the word of God for the people of God.

I want to talk today about humility. Humility. And what I want to say about it is that humility is an essential element for ministry. You can't do ministry effectively if you don't learn how to be humble.

Now, humility is hard. It's hard to be humble, especially when you're right. And when you know you're right, it's hard to give in to something else. And what makes this matter even more challenging is because of the society that we live in.

And we live in a world that glorifies self, and self-righteousness, and self-aggrandizement, and self-exaltation. And what makes it a problem is the world that we live in tries to make humility or people who practice humility look weak.

And consequently, people don't want to look weak and they get gripped by pride and they muscle up or bully up and go off the deep end. And while that might be popular in society, it has its problems for ministry.

And it prompted the master, Jesus, who is also the master teacher, to have to teach these disciples these important truths. See, you've got to know when Jesus called these disciples, he was calling them to become future apostles, people who would be entrusted with the work of ministry after he had gone from Earth to heaven.

And in order for them to be effective in that work, they needed the quality and the characteristic of humility operating in their life. And since now you and I have inherited the responsibility of continuing the ministry of Jesus on the Earth, we have to understand that that same quality is expected and is needed in our lives.

But it's so hard. It's so hard to be humble when you know you're right. Now, I find it hard because I have a pretty good understanding of Scripture. And it's very few people that could really debate that or point out to me where I'm in error as it relates to Scripture.

I remember a young man came to me one day and he said, "Pastor, how did you overcome pride?" I said, "Oh, I knocked it out three years ago." Kidding, y'all, kidding. Pride is not something you get rid of in this flesh. There will be an element of it that will linger around no matter what you do.

If you shoot basketball, man, you see them, they shoot the ball and they just bag all up, just fall out. They play football and they score a touchdown, then they do their dance. I don't care what it is that people engage in, following doing something well and they know that they've done it well, you're going to see the exhibition of pride.

These men, these disciples of Jesus, they had been in school with the master for now, at the time of this text, at least two years of the Galilean ministry. I mean, and they were in school 24/7. Everywhere that they went was a classroom.

Every subject that came up was an opportunity for a lesson to be learned. And they were being taught perfectly by Jesus because Jesus understood and knew the mind of God perfectly. He was God. So the lessons and the intent and everything that he taught them was something, man.

And consequently, they knew that they were right, so it made it hard for these men to be humble. And then at the beginning of chapter nine, where this text comes from, they had just been given power or authority to go into the villages, listen, and to heal the sick, to cast out demons, the power to raise the dead.

And these were ordinary cussing, fussing, fighting fishermen. And it was hard to contain all of this power and all of this intricate knowledge and be humble at the same time. Their flesh was having a hard time submitting to anyone who challenged them, and they even found themselves having a hard time submitting to one another.

And to make matters even more so, just before verse 46, Jesus had taken three of these guys up on the mount called Transfiguration. And there his flesh was pulled back and they saw his divine nature. And there on the stage of the mount appeared Moses, the greatest man of all Old Testament history, and Elijah, who was considered the great prophet.

And talking about a super experience, supernatural, these boys had absorbed it all. And then on top of that, had heard God's voice himself say, "My beloved Son, hear ye him." And then to come off that mount and to go back down in the valley with the rest of the eight, nine, and as they're walking on toward Capernaum, the text said an argument broke out among the disciples.

And the argument was which one of us is the greatest. All of them got egos. And you and I, we can almost hear the elements of the argument how it went. Somebody said, "Well, maybe he was talking about me, maybe I'm the greatest."

And one of the boys that had just come off the mount, James, said, "No way, because if you had been among the greatest, then Jesus would have taken you on the mount with him. And because you weren't on the mount with us, you can't be the greatest. It has to be at least one of us."

And somebody else probably got in the argument, said, "Wait a minute, y'all remember Jesus had just given us power and sent us on a preaching mission to these villages and we were casting out demons and healing sick? How many folk did you heal?"

And you can probably hear one of them say, "Well, I just healed one or two." "Oh man, then you need to be quiet because you don't know nothing. I just healed five. And I healed five who had real problems." I want you to see this now.

You've got to know that these disciples, every time the list of their names are given, they're given in four groups, or in three groups with four names each. Matthew gives a list, Mark gives a list, Luke gives a list, and the book of Acts gives a list. And every time these disciples are always in the same groups.

Sometimes their name may flip-flop, but the leaders were always the same. And in Group One was always Peter, and nobody has to question his boldness. And if he had not been in Group One, he would have immediately been put in Group One because he was bold.

And then James and John was in Group One because they were sons of thunder. And they would have thundered their way in Group One. And so there was a pecking order. There was always those in Group One who were the closest to Jesus.

And then everybody did not have the same relationship with him. So I can hear somebody else saying, "Well, you want to know who the greatest, who sits closest to the Master when we have dinner? Who's always leaning closer to him?" So you better pay attention.

And the arguments were going on. Now, what I want to help you understand is, as we listen at this, we need to go to school this morning, not theological school, but go to the school of humility as taught by Jesus. So he's going to take us into the classroom that he brought the boys in.

And so he knows that they are arguing, and he comes among them and he wants to teach them a lesson in humility in the light of its opposite character. And the opposite of humility is pride. And pride is a destroying, damning kind of characteristic.

Pride was so strong that Lucifer, who is now known as the devil, Diabolos the devil, employed pride and caused not only himself, but a third of the angels to be put out of heaven. Because he got in God's face, "I will be like the most high. I will, I will, I will." Pride. And God said, "Not in here." And he put him out of heaven.

Pride messed up Adam and Eve in the garden. They were around in the garden, perfect environment, perfect situation. And Satan showed up. "Ah, did God say you can't have? Oh, God just know, girl, that you're going to be a god like he is." And he put the word on her and caused her pride to well up. And she partook and gave it to her husband and both of them got kicked out of the garden.

So pride will mess you up. And that's what Jesus, why Jesus has to teach them and us the problem that pride can have as it relates to destroying the ministry that we're trying to carry out. So why, what was wrong with pride? First thing we see is that pride destroys, or should I say, ruins unity.

These 12 had been called individually by Jesus, and they had been formed into the apostolic. They were the first century preachers and they were given an assignment. They were brought into a learning situation to learn of him and learn from him so that they could lead when he was gone.

And they were to be together in a unit. They were to function for God's purpose. But listen at them, they're arguing among themselves about which one of us is the greatest. And what that does is it destroys the unity that's in the group.

Now let me bring it a little closer because you're looking at me funny. Pride will destroy unity wherever. It will mess up your household. It will mess up your family. It will mess up your church. It will mess up your community. It's messing up your nation.

Because we got people who are prideful because they had a little money all their life and they want to make sure that you don't get a chance to get none, and so they're moving it all out the way so that you can stay poor and they can get richer. Y'all don't hear me.

Pride ruins unity because people think that because their skin color is one skin color and yours is another, that they are somehow better. And they're trying to throw the whole nation into chaos because they want to divide people rather than cause people to be together. So pride, no matter what level it's on, no matter where it comes from, has a damning effect. It ruins the unity.

Not only that, but pride raises relativity. That is, it causes people to compare themselves to one another. Look at these men. "I'm the greatest." "No, I'm the greatest." And so they're stacking each other up. "How many miracles did you do? How many miracles did you do?" "Well, I was on the mount." "Well, you weren't on the mount by yourself, I was up there too." "I shook hand with Moses." "Well, I shook hand with Elijah." "I heard the voice of Jesus." "I heard the voice of Jesus too. I heard the angel."

And back and forth, and back and forth, and comparing. And whenever you get into that kind of mess, you can mess up the unity and you can keep people from coming forth and developing into the full fruit and flower of their potential.

Because if you've always got this "big I, little you" mindset, well, "I'm bigger than you, I'm holier than you, I'm closer to God than you are." How you figure that? How you know how close somebody else is to God?

You can't look at somebody else and decide that you have more God in you than somebody else got in them. But we push that. And when we push that relativity thing, that and comparison of my spirituality, and you know we got it so bad that some people think that because they can speak a little differently, that it makes them holier. No. You can speak in tongue in church, but you can't speak to your neighbor in the community. Jesus.

So you've got to be careful. You've got to be careful. We cannot allow pride to take over. Here's the third thing. All of this right in the text because the text said they argued, there arose an argument. And this is what arguments do because pride has now prompted them to think that they are superior to somebody else.

And not only does it ruin the unity and raises the relativity, but here it is. Pride reveals the sin. It exposes their depravity. Who are they with? They're with Jesus. Who is Jesus? The Son of God. He's God himself. And what abilities does he have? Not only to heal and to raise, but he can read minds.

And he perceives that they are arguing and discussing and holding this stuff in their hearts. And he's able to read their minds. A few weeks ago, when we were preaching about the paralytic man that was let down through the roof, that the Pharisees were sitting there and Jesus said to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The Pharisees didn't open their mouth, but in their hearts, they said, "Who is this who can heal sin? Why is he talking like that? Nobody can do that but God."

Jesus was God. Man, do you not understand what that means? That these boys being with Jesus 24/7, that means not only are they eating with him, sleeping with him, going wherever he go, but he's reading their every thought. Boy, if the Lord came down in here today and he began to read the thoughts, man listen, I'd probably have to be the first one to close the Bible and tiptoe out of here, man. We'd have to give up our ministry.

You understand? Because I know you're sitting here cute, and I know you look dignified and holy-fied, but you've been cutting your eye down the row at that old heifer. Look at that. Man, I'm just telling it like it is. And you better be glad the Lord is not in here reading. He is, he just hasn't exposed you.

But he exposed them because, see, what's in a man's heart is going to ultimately come out. And that's what pride does. When pride builds up on the inside, it's going to manifest itself outside. That's why some folk go out the other door to keep from going out the door where they know you're going to be. They don't want to speak, they don't want to say anything. And so we do all of that. That's because of pride. And pride reveals the sin nature that's still unredeemed in us.

And so Jesus has to teach a lesson on humility. So what does he do? He uses an object lesson. He reaches and he brings a child. And he brings the child right by him. The child is a little child. He's small enough to be picked up by the Lord, but large enough to stand on his own two feet.

And Jesus sets the boy by him. And what is he doing? Why is he doing that? Because he knows that pride in the hearts of people will reject, push back against God's plan. It's called deity. Whatever God is doing, pride will push back. So he wants to teach these disciples.

So he puts the child there and he says, listen, whoever receives this child receives me, or whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. In Matthew chapter 18, he goes through the whole chapter talking about us as being children.

He uses children. He says, "Suffer, permit the children to come unto me," because the people thought children were nothing. They weren't even possession. So don't bother the Master with this child. Get that child out of the way. And Jesus said, "No, let these children come because of such belongs the kingdom." In other words, children don't come to the table with pedigrees.

They don't show up with big resumes. They don't come with braggadocious right about what they have done, what miracles they have wrought, or who they then healed. They ain't heal nobody. But I believe that if Jesus was in this society today, he'd have to choose a little more carefully. Because some of these boys that he choose today, he'd say, "No, you sit down, let me find another one over here."

But he brought the child. And why? Because he wants them to understand that all of us are children of God. And listen, listen carefully. And as children of God, we have God living on the inside of us. And you've got to be careful about rejecting people because if you reject this man, you're rejecting not only him, you're rejecting the God that lives in him.

And we do it all the time. We do it in families, we do it, we sure enough got it bad in church. You know, we think that some people just can't do if they're different. And so we push back on people. And we've got to watch that because listen at what Jesus said, "He who receives him," meaning this child, "receives the one who sent me."

So when you reject another brother or sister, you're actually rejecting the God that sent that brother or sister. God chooses a diverse group. This is why he didn't want these boys arguing. He had Peter, James, and John. Yes, they were fishermen from Galilee, but he also had Matthew, who was a tax collector. He had Thomas, who was a doubter. He had Judas, who was a thief.

He had all of those men, but he assembled all of them because he wanted there to be diversity. And all of them were sent out by the Lord. So look around. This room is diverse. There's young men, there's old men, there's smart men, there's men who are not as smart. There are women who are tall, there are women who are short. There are all kinds of people in here, and we all are being sent on a mission by God.

So we've got to be careful about rejecting folk and pushing back against that. Because what we're doing in a real sense is rejecting the one that sent them, who is God. That's the lesson Jesus is teaching. But not only that, not only does he do that, he in the process of setting the child on display, he also understood that not only does pride rejects deity, but pride reveals reality.

It shows where people really are, and what he wants to do is to reverse their reality thoughts. They were thinking that the greatest was the one who had the most. They were thinking, and our world thinks like that, the one who has the most toys is the one who wins. The one who has the biggest ego is the one who's respected. The one who had the loudest voice and who pounds on the pavement and does all of these things and got all of the mics and tells everybody else, "You're going to get fired because you disagree," is the one.

That's what society thinks. But Jesus reveals a different reality. He says to them, "That's how the Gentiles think. The Gentiles work on this pecking order. But you are servants now in this kingdom, and that's not how we do it. The one who is the least is going to be the greatest one. The one who is the servant of them all is going to be the one who is the greatest."

So he changes their reality because he wants them to understand that all your jockeying for position don't mean nothing in the eyesight of God. God reads the heart. Remember God sent Samuel down to Jesse's house to anoint a king. And Jesse had his sons to pass by, big tall, good-looking boys. They come walking in there, man. And Samuel said, "Surely this is the Lord's anointed." And God said, "Shut up, that's not the way I see it."

He said, "Man judges by the outside, but God judges the heart." So you know, I think about my life, I've got to be honest with you, I think about my life. I was not always the most popular to succeed. And in many minds, there might have been the thought that, "Who is that?" I remember even coming into my professional career, having graduated from college, man, at the age of 22 years old, 21 and 22 years old, I was hired on my first job.

And I was given a job to follow a legendary person in this town who had had all kinds of accolades. And I was the new band guy coming in behind him. And folk was saying, "Lord, who is this boy? This boy got big shoes to fill. How in the world is he going to fill those shoes?" And my mindset was, "I don't have to fill his shoes. I just got to try my best to walk in mine."

You understand? You don't get lost in things. The reality is be who you are, and God will exalt you. And so Jesus reverses this thing, and he answers their question. They should have ended their argument, but these guys continue to argue over and over again. All the way to Jesus was gone to the cross, they were still arguing.

As a matter of fact, James and John went and got their mama and brought them into the argument. "Say, tell Jesus to give us choice seats, one sit on the left hand and one sit on the right." And you might ask why in the world would they do that? Because Jesus' mama and their mama were cousins. And they thought, "Blood is thicker than water, so we'll pull this card."

People pull cards, y'all. They pull race cards, they pull financial cards, they pull relational cards because they are trying to get an advantage. But God always reverses it and shows us what's reality. And he does in this object lesson.

So the scene shifts. We go to another lesson. Classroom still going on. The lessons are still being learned. The place of learning shifts. John speaks up now and he says to Jesus, "Hey Master, we saw a man who was casting out devils and he wasn't one of us." See, what is he saying? What is he doing? He's showing his pride.

And what is his pride now showing? His pride is now revealing exclusivism. There are so many people who think you don't belong because you're not in their circle. You're not in their club. You're not in their fraternity. You're not in their sorority. You're not in their race. You're not in their class.

And that has been the history of this nation of exclusivism. They used to draw red lines, you go to the bank and you trying to get a loan. And they say, "Well, what's the address you trying to move in?" And they see the community you want to live in, they say, "No, we can't lend you there." And it wouldn't matter what your credit score was. You were redlined because they had reserved that for an exclusive group. Are you hearing me?

And it's so amazing how we got that same problem today. Pride makes us think that we are the exclusive group. Sometimes you see it in churches. You hear it, "This is Holy Ghost headquarters over here," like the Holy Ghost can't be somewhere else. "It's only where we are." Or only this group, or only that group, or only these people, or only those people, or only people from New York know how to preach, or know how to lead, or whatever the exclusive thing we might choose to exclude.

Listen at John. "We saw other men out casting demons, another man out casting out devils, and we tried to stop him because he wasn't of our group." You see. Now, what he didn't understand was that Jesus sent out more than just the 12. The 12 was the group of apostles or disciples, but Jesus also sent out 70. And he sent them out two by two. And who knows whether or not the one man that he saw was not one of those 70.

And listen, listen, this is what I found interesting. John doesn't say "we saw someone trying to cast out devils." He said, "we saw somebody casting out devils." So the ministry that the man was carrying out was being effective. It was accomplishing what God wanted it to accomplish. But listen at the exclusivity again, "But because he wasn't of us, we told him stop."

And Jesus had to correct that pride. He had to say, "Don't stop him. You need to understand that if they are not against us, they must be for us. If someone else is on mission, and the whole mission of the whole religious community is about the salvation of souls, and somebody else is out there doing that, should we be angry about it? Don't you understand that you can't go everywhere? That you're not going to be able to talk to everybody? You're not going to be able to connect with every group?"

So God has all kinds of people, and he uses all of us in different ways. The old preacher, the black preacher, man, he couldn't read, he couldn't write. But he put his finger in his ear and he'd sing. And people were coming to God. Now, you know we can explain it a little different and maybe a little bit better, and people are still coming to God.

So we can't say that they were wrong and we're right. And we can't say that I'm right and they were wrong, or people of men or women or whatever it might be who may be involved in Christian ministry. We have to be careful because all that is, is an indication of pride. And pride is what promotes exclusivism, when God wants everybody to be used and to be included.

And the last thing that pride does in these three lessons, and this is probably the third text, down a little deeper here in 56, or 53 I guess it is, 52, 51 it starts. So Jesus is through. He's through with Galilee. He's through with Capernaum. And the Bible says that the time has come now when he knew that he was to be taken up.

He knew that he was to go up to Jerusalem. He knew that he was to go to the cross. He knew that he was to go through the grave because there was another level of ministry for the Christ. He had to go and be where he can make intercession for us, the saints of God. And so he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was where the redemption was to take place, the purchase, the buying back of our soul.

He had to go there. He had an appointment with Calvary. And he knew that he had to go there. And the text says, and when he knew that that time had come, it was time to leave Galilee, it was time to leave the lakeside, it was time to leave the crowds, and it was time to go on and finish his father's work.

But they had a strange custom, and the custom was whenever the Master was going into a new territory, he would send his disciples in front of him to announce his coming. So this time, as he's going to Jerusalem, most of the time when the Jews left Galilee in the north, they would cross the Jordan River and go down the right side of the Jordan River into the area called Perea and come back across the Jordan River into Judea and then go on into Jerusalem.

But Jesus did it different because when he left Judea the first time, he didn't go across the Jordan and go up the Perea and come into Galilee. He went through Samaria. He had a destinated appointment with a hoochie mama who he knew would be at the well. And so he went through Samaria to convert a woman, and a revival broke loose all because of that woman. She dropped her water pot, y'all do remember that, don't you?

And she went all through Samaria saying, "Come see a man who told me everything about me. Is not this the Christ?" So now, Jesus is doing the reverse. He's leaving Galilee to the north, and he's not going to go across Perea. He's going to come down through Samaria. But he sends the disciples ahead of him. And instead of the people hearing the good news, you know the disciples went, and you can imagine what they were saying. "Oh y'all get ready, get ready, he's coming. The Son of God is on the way. There's going to be healing in town. There's going to be great preaching."

There's a girl who lived here who can tell you everything that you already know. He is the true and the great one. You're not going to want to miss his arrival. He's coming in a little while. But instead of the people accepting and receiving the disciples making ready to receive Jesus, they rejected him. They said, "We don't want him here. We don't want him to sleep here, we don't want to feed him, we don't want him here because he has his face set to go to Jerusalem."

And anybody who's set to go to Jerusalem, we Samaritans can't stand. And so they rejected Jesus. Now look at this. James and John, two of Jesus' disciples, they hear this and they take offense to this. And they say, "Master, do you want us to call down fire and burn them up? What's wrong with those folk won't accept you? Don't they know who you are? Don't they know who we are?"

Now wait a minute, boys. I just find that a little confusing. Where they get that from? They had been given power to heal the sick, power to raise the dead, power to cast out demons, but there's no scripture that says they were given power to call down fire. But you've got to remember, they had been on the mount with Jesus, and they had met Moses and Elijah. And there was an incident in the Old Testament book of 2 Kings chapter 1.

Where Elijah had been used by God. Samaria in the Old Testament was the capital of the northern kingdom. And the king Ahaziah was there one day and he was walking around in the northern kingdom and he fell through the lattice and he hurt his back. And he sent his messengers to Ekron, which was the Philistine capital, to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the Philistine god, as to whether or not he was going to survive his accident.

And the Holy Spirit showed up in Elijah. He said, "You go and catch those men before they get to Ekron." And when Elijah met the men on the road, he said, "Why did your Master send y'all to Baal-Zebub, the Philistine god? Is there not a God in Israel?" He said, "You go back and tell your Master that the Lord said he ain't going to make it." And they went back and told him, and the king got mad.

Oh, he got mad. So he sent a captain with 50 soldiers. He said, "Y'all go and pick up Elijah. Go back and tell him he's under arrest." Let me use my mind, I want to close now. And so Elijah came, met the men on the road, and they said, "Oh man of God, our Master said come with us. In other words, you're under arrest." And Elijah said, "If I am a man of God, then fire's going to come from heaven and consume you right on the spot." And immediately, all 50 soldiers were burned up.

The king heard about it. He sent 50 more soldiers out there with another captain. And he said, "Tell Elijah he's under arrest." And when they got up to Elijah, he was sitting on a hill. Elijah said, "You go back." They said, "Man of God, our Master the king says you're under arrest." Elijah said, "Well, if I am a man of God, tell him fire's going to come from heaven and you guys are going to die too." And the second group was burned up. 100 men were burned up.

The king dumb, sent a third group. But this soldier had learned humility. And he comes to Elijah and he fell on his face and he said, "Please spare my life." He said, "Don't burn me up. Don't burn my soldiers up." And the Holy Spirit spoke to Elijah, said, "Go on with him, don't worry." So Elijah goes down into Samaria to the capital and he sees the king.

Elijah said, "Why did you send men to go to the Philistine capital looking for an answer when there's a God in Israel?" And he said, "I just wanted to know if I'm going to make it." And Elijah said, "No, you ain't going to make it, you're going to die." And the king died, and Elijah left. So the disciples, James and John, knew that God had used fire in Samaria.

And so they wanted to call down fire, but what they didn't realize is they were restraining mercy. That's what pride does, lastly. Pride restrains mercy. God told them, "Don't burn them up, that's going to be your mission field. Don't you know that later on when you boys are no longer preaching, I'm going to raise up a deacon whose name that I'm going to send to Samaria, Philip, and he's going to preach a revival and the people of Samaria are going to come to faith in Christ?"

Y'all, we trying to burn up Pookie and Nay-Nay and Ricky and Re-Re. We trying to tear up the community, and God wants you to understand that's the very folk I'm trying to save. You're trying to get rid of the Republicans and God is trying to save them, and he will if we would stand up and be a witness. But we've got to get rid of pride, we've got to get rid of racism, we've got to get rid of hatred out of our own heart so that we can be about our Father's business.

And when ministry has humility, we will find that God will use us for his purpose. My word to you today, got to go now, but be humble. He who humbles himself will be exalted, and he who exalts himself will be abased. But I know the truth, it's so hard to be humble when you know you're right. But it's necessary anyway.

Thank God for Jesus. Thank God for salvation. So I'm going to give myself away, I'm going to give God all, I'm going to surrender my life to him no matter what. Withholding nothing, withholding nothing. That's God's word to you today. When you come into his word, when you come into his kingdom, surrender your life to him and don't hold anything back.

And the Lord will take you just as you are and he'll use you for his glory. Doors of the church open. Doors of the church open. Might be somebody here today who might want to give their life to Christ. Somebody may want to rid themselves of that pride. It takes you to do that to become a Christian. Anytime during the song, this is your moment.

Withholding nothing. That's how you come. That's how you come. I surrender all to you. Everything to you. Withholding nothing. Withholding nothing. So hard to do. All I got is pride, God, and I keep that. And God said, "No, you've got to let that go too." Withholding nothing.

I give you all of me. That's the way the Lord wants. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give you all of me. I give myself away. I give myself away so that you can use me. I give myself away.

I give myself away. I give myself away so that you can use me. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything.

I give myself away. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything. I give myself away. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. I give myself away. Lord I love you more than anything. I give myself away. I give myself away so you can use me. I give myself away. I give myself away so you can use me.

Amen, Amen. And part of giving ourselves away includes giving our pride away and accepting the humility which becomes the essential element that's necessary for ministry. Thank you.

Guest (Male): Hope you enjoyed the broadcast. You have been listening to a message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where we are reaching the world for Christ. Located at 2135 Jefferson Avenue Southwest, Birmingham, Alabama, 35211.

For a copy of this message, you can reach us at 205-925-9750 or 9251, or visit us on the web at www.greatershiloh.org. For another uplifting message, we invite you to join us for our next broadcast.