Robert Morris - The Foundation of Humility
I want to give you a little bit of an update on expansion at Gateway Church and where we are, and talk about each campus. Last year about this time we were entering into a capital campaign. Remember, we called it Now Is the Time. We found out in March, now's not the time. And I'm the one that came up with that title, praise the Lord. So, the God in heaven said, Nope, not the time. So we pulled back from that. We will still eventually do some renovations to the Southlake campus. We do need to do some things for, we need more classroom space. We would like a wedding chapel. We do need some space for our young adults and youth and a sanctuary for them. Some in-between spaces between a 4,000-seat sanctuary and 200-seat classrooms.
So we do need to do that, but we don't feel like this is the time to do that. But what we're going to do is we'll go back to where we just give a good faith estimate of whatever we're going to give over and above our tithe. No pressure on anyone. I don't want you to ever feel that. And we're using it for expansion. So we're moving ahead right now. So I want to tell you some of the things that we're doing in the campuses. Every campus, we're doing something at every campus, or we been doing something for a couple of years that maybe you don't know about. So the first thing I will tell you about is the Frisco campus. That was an existing church and became a campus a few years ago, and 600-seat sanctuary, five acres. We bought 12 acres beside it. We start in April on a brand new 69,000 square foot facility, 1200-seat to do that for Frisco. So, hey Frisco. So but I, let me show you a couple of pictures.
So this is what the facility will look like. You can see the older facility, or former, or however you want to say that, beside it, another picture here, just to show you a little more of a closeup. So on the left there, all that's going to be built. And then children's area, which is very important to us at every campus. And we're trying to make all the children's areas at every campus look nice, be updated. So we'll be doing that in Frisco. Dallas campus, again was an existing facility, church. We bought it. We want to update the exterior. This is what we want to do that would kind of modernize the exterior. And then we'll be renovating the lobby, children's area again. You can see the children's area there. And one of the things about the children's area, because that church was built like many churches kind of in stages as they grew, it was a really good church called Hillcrest church for many years, great pastor there. But we, as they grew, the nursery was on one side of the building and they kept growing.
Now the sanctuary and the nursery are on opposite sides of a 225,000 square foot building. So if you're a mom and you get paged during the message, you may not make it back before the message, but maybe not even before, your family might leave without you before you get back. So we'll be moving the nursery over next to the sanctuary. Justin campus. We started the Justin campus. It's growing incredibly. We bought 11 acres of land. And since then the neighborhoods are going up like crazy all around it. Here's a picture of our land. If you see the water tower and then all the land to the left of it, that's the 11 acres we own. That street right there, that highway is Highway 114 in Justin. This is an existing neighborhood that was behind it. And then there's another shot of how they're building the neighborhood. All these homes, every one of these homes you're seeing now with our land behind, this is now on the other side of 114, the south side. All those are brand new since we bought that 11 acres.
So we're in the design phase for a thousand seat sanctuary there, and we're going through working through that. North Richland Hills. We've renovated it over the last two years. We're now going to be building offices there. The North Richland Hills staff has never... Oh, I need to be doing this. Dallas, Justin, NRH, all you, everybody, hi to everybody. The NRH pastors and staff have never officed at the NRH campus. So we're building offices over there for them to be able to office there. They've always been officing out of Southlake. Grand Prairie, again, existing church, the church I came out of, Shady Grove Church. It's now our Grand Prairie campus. And we did a $25 million renovation on that campus. Now we're adding more parking. Prosper opened last year, growing like crazy, another existing church building that we completely remodeled, and so now we're adding an additional 226 parking spaces for them. Jackson Hole, an existing church that the pastor retired and asked us to come and make that a campus.
By the way, the Jackson Hole campus is meeting in person this weekend. And we are going online... because of weather. You know they think we're wimps, you know. You know, we need to... Okay, so, but it's ice, not snow. It's ice, not snow. Alright. So anyway, Jackson Hole, we refurbished, did the children's area. And now we are updating the heating system, which might not sound like a big deal if you live in Texas. But if you live in Jackson Hole, you want a good heating system. So we're doing that. North Fort Worth is bursting at the seams. It's been bursting at the seams since we opened that campus. So we're looking for land around the North Fort Worth campus to open another, sorry to open another campus around the North Fort Worth area. So we're in the process of doing that. And right now, there are big box buildings for sale, you know.
And so we're looking at all of these opportunities. That reminds me that Houston, they're a little over a year old, started January 26. My son-in-law Ethan's the pastor, Gateway Church, Houston. They started and had either five or seven weeks before COVID hit .Yet, that congregation is growing. I was just there. They're in Katy High School. I was there two weeks ago when Michael Todd was here. Totally packed out, people standing on the back wall, people standing, and they're still able to socially distance by the way, because since they set up the chairs every week, they can set them farther apart, you know, just the rows, so completely packed, doing great. So we just bought a Toys-R-Us building for them, paid cash for it. Here's the picture of the Toys-R-Us building, but let me show you what it's going to look like. It's going to look like that. And then if you look at the next picture there, this is kind of the inside space. It's 50,000 square feet. It's the same size as the North Richland Hills campus. So it'll be a thousand-seat sanctuary.
Here's another shot of the inside. We're going to leave the checkout station so people can pay their tithe on the way out. So... and that's a joke. Two weeks ago, then, we were there. Some of the elders and I were there. And on the right, on your right you might see in the middle there, Debbie and I, and then Gayland and Susan Lawshe, one of our elders, and then Michael Bethany went down. And beside Michael is Leeland Mooring, who does the song Way Maker, and he's the worship pastor for Gateway Church in Houston. So Leland and Michael led us in Way Maker. Maybe it's the first time it's ever been sung in Toys-R-Us, you know, it might be the first worship song ever, well I was thinking, No, there's probably another song. It's, "d, help me not to kill this child". That might've been sung also in a Toys-R-Us.
So, alright. And then, something exciting is we are closing on March 1st buying an existing church building in Plano for a new campus. A thousand-seat sanctuary, 20 acres of land, and it's not very old, the church building. Let me show you where it is. It's on George Bush Freeway. And then if you look just to the west there, you see 75, Highway 75, so it's an incredible location. Look at all the rooftops though, too, around that home, around that. And then here's another picture that shows you where all of our existing campuses are right now. So you can see Justin, North Fort Worth, NRH, Southlake, Grand Prairie, Dallas, Frisco, Prosper, and then you see where the Plano campus will be. This is a picture of the sanctuary, on the outside of the sanctuary. And then here's a picture of the whole campus there. But again, they have 20 acres of land, so it's just phenomenal that we're doing that.
Now, all these projects together, and we bought this building by the way for $17.5 million, and then it's going to take $3.5 to renovate it. And then let me give you one other that we didn't put on the map. And the reason as you're going hear in a minute, this is a multi-campus and that's our prison campuses. Do you remember how excited we all were when God gave us the opportunity to not just pipe our service in, but to open a campus? And you are our brothers in Christ, and so, I mean, sincerely, we love you guys. So to open up our first prison campus, remember how excited we got? By the way, it hit the news outlets, the major associated press and all. 118 news outlets picked it up. I did an interview with Mike Huckabee about it. And so then we get another one, and then another one. We haven't updated you in a while because the doors have flung open to us. We're now in 150 prisons in eight states, 150 prisons in eight states. And on April 1st, we'll be in 450 prisons in 45 states, Gateway Church. Pretty incredible.
So let me tell you, all this together is about $75 million to do. So let me give you the good news and the bad news. Okay? So, and you're going to want to clap when I say the good news, but wait till you hear the bad news, okay? The good news is we have all the money we need. The bad news is it's still in your pockets. So... I'm joking. We have reserves. We're doing fine. We're moving forward. So here's really the good news. All I need you to do is just keep giving. That's it. Just keep giving. The elders are tremendous stewards and managers of the resources that God's given us. We have no debt. We have all of these facilities owned outright, and now we're moving ahead with $75 million in building projects to start more campuses, remodel the campuses we have, update them, modernize them. So here's what we do though, every year in February, is we do Heart for the Kingdom. If you're in a campus, then there's a card in the seatback in front of you. But most of you will be online, and there's a card online. You can just go to our page and hit right there. Here's what this is, if you don't know.
How many of you've ever made a commitment to Heart for the Kingdom? Can see your hands? Okay. Here's all this is. It's just a good faith estimate of what you could give in the next 12 months over and above your tithe to go to expansion. And we ask everybody in the church to give something over and above your tithe, even if you think it's small. Just something. What that does is it gives us an estimate of how we move forward to be able to keep cash reserves and to move forward with the building projects that we have. So that's how we expand. Alright? So in the next couple of weeks, these are going to be available. We'll do this for the rest of February. We'll just mention it. I just want you to pray and then do whatever the Lord tells you to. Is that fair enough? Come on. Is that fair enough? Alright so, it's exciting. Alright. So if you didn't hear the message again, last week, it was very, very good. It was just incredible. So you do need to hear it.
So we're in a series called The Four Living Creatures, and last week I talked about The Four Foundations, because there are four creatures, and each creature has four faces: a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. And we talked last weekend about that the man represents grace because Jesus is the Son of Man and he brought grace and truth when he came. So this week, we're going to talk about the face of the ox, and the ox represents servanthood and humility. So the title of the message is The Foundation of Humility. The Foundation of Humility. So I just want you to think about how God blesses those who walk in humility. One of my life versus, God gave me this verse many, many years ago. I can't even tell you how long ago. And I was at Wayne Drain's church.
Many of you probably remember Wayne Drain. He comes every year for our prophetic presbytery. He's been doing that since the first year of the church, and I'd heard he had a prophetic gift, and so they were praying over me before I spoke, and Wayne said, I have a word for you, Pastor Robert, if that's okay. And I said, yes. Well, this is what he said. He says, "e not I given you a life verse that you've only told your wife about"? And I remember thinking, that was pretty interesting. There's 31,103 verses in the Bible. If he says the verse, I'm going to know this as a word from God. And he said, it's Micah 6:8. And here's the verse. "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God"?
Well, I knew it was a word from God through Wayne for me. But that verse, to do justly, to love mercy, to be a gracious and kind person, to do what's right, to be kind, to be merciful, and to walk humbly. So we're talking about humility, walking humbly. Alright? So here's the first point: The Highest Position. I'm going to tell you in the Bible what's the highest position in the Bible, the highest calling that a person can achieve or can walk in. The highest calling. Now, most think it's an apostle, but the apostles themselves tell you what the highest position is. Romans 1:1, "l, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle..." Notice he says what he's called to do, but he tells us what he is. He's a servant. Philippians 1:1, "l and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus..." James 1:1, "...a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ..." 2 Peter 1:1, "on Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ..."
The highest position for believers is a servant. Think about when Jesus came to this earth, what did he do? He said, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve. Philippians 2 says he took upon himself, the form of a servant. He became a servant. That's the highest position you can have in the kingdom of God. The problem is that we get so concerned and so fixated on what our position is, what our title is, or what we have, or what we're supposed to do, or what we're supposed to accomplish, or what we've done in the past, or we get very, very fixated on what God's called us to do, and we want everybody know, Hey, this is my calling. This is what I'm called to do. Well, I can tell you what all of us are called to do. We're all called to serve. We're all called to be servants. I've had, I've known of people that in workplaces have demanded certain titles. They've demanded, I want a certain title.
Can I tell you something? It really doesn't matter what my title is. What I do is I'm a servant. I'm going to serve people. That's what Jesus did, who has the name above all names, he comes to serve. That's the title that Paul and Peter and James and Timothy, that's the title that they took upon themselves. Your identity is not in what you do. It's not in your title. It's in whose you are. It's also not in what you own. Here's an incredible scripture. If you've ever seen this scripture, I want you to meditate on it. Luke 12 verse 15, "...for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses". That's Jesus. One's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. So it consists in Jesus. We're going to get a little bit more into that in a moment.
We have some high school friends. There's four couples. We went to high school, Debbie and I, with two of the guys and two of the girls, and now they all have spouses and we get together every year. We weren't able to last year because of COVID, but we're hoping we can this year. But we get together every year for an extended weekend, and we just have fellowship and fun. They all love the Lord. They're great folks. So when we started doing this, you've got to remember, we knew two of the guys, two of the girls 'cause we went to high school with them. We knew some of the others, but a couple of the spouses, I didn't know. So there's one of the guys there. And so I said to him, just trying to get to know him. I said, so what do you do? And he said, I'm a trash man. And I said, Oh, well do you like it? He said, I do. I like it a lot.
And then I said, well, how long have you been doing it? He said, almost 20 years now. And I could see then some of the other couples that knew him, 'cause they all live in the same city. And Debbie and I are in the metroplex now. They're in the city where we grew up in, and I could see them starting to smile, you know, 'cause I'm asking these questions, do you like it, and you know, things. How long have you been doing it? And so then I said to him, Well, do you have to get up early in the morning? Because my understanding of trash people is if you forget to push your trash out, they come right before you remember. That's been my experience. So, I'm thinking, you got to get up really early and get started, 'cause whatever it is, I'm not quite there yet. Or I'm running down the driveway, you know? So I said, so do you have to get up early to do this? He said, No, I get in the office about eight normally.
And then I could see them smiling, and then one of the other guys said to me, he's the manager of the whole trash facility for all of East Texas, and he has employees, and he has a multi-million dollar budget, and you know, all this stuff. But here's what I really respect about that guy, and I know him really well now, his identity is not in what he does. He didn't have to tell me, I'm the boss. I've got people reporting to me, and I oversee millions of dollars. He said, I'm a trash man. It's kind of like Paul, who writes a third of the New Testament, and someone says, what do you do? He says, I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I do. So that's the highest position.
Here's number two: The Highest Place. The Highest Place. Mark chapter nine. I love this passage, verse 33. "Then He [speaking of Jesus] came to Capernaum. And when He was in the house He asked them, 'What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?' But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest". This is the first pastors' conference right here that ever took place. "...He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, 'If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.'" You need to understand that success in the kingdom is not how many people you can get under you, it's how many people you can get over you. It's how many people you can serve.
I'm very adamant that we give God the glory at Gateway Church. You won't hear me say things like, I did this, and I decided, and I did this, and I'm this. You'll hear me talk about, we have this. The elders and I made this decision. The staff and I made the decision. When we made the decision to go online, Pastor Todd, Pastor Thomas, and I were making a decision for the good of the congregation. But I don't get up and say, I did this, and I did that. And it's not that I'm doing it so much on purpose. It's just normal. It's just natural, because we build the kingdom of God together. We have prison campuses. We have a campus in Jackson Hole. We do these things, not I. Humility is at the core of the values of Gateway Church, because why, what do we have to be proud of? God's doing it all. We're simply cooperating with him. God's the one that's moving. God's the one that's working. God's the one that's opening prison doors. You can't open 450 prison doors in a few months, but God can, and we can walk through that door.
Philippians 2:3, "...nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind..." I love this word, lowly, because this is the ox. The ox is called the lowly servant. "...in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself". And then it goes on to tell us, this is what Jesus did. And then I want you to notice, because we're talking about the highest place, so I'm going to get to why I'm calling it this. I want you to notice when Jesus esteems himself lower than others, what happens? In verse nine, it says, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name..."
Now, remember this creature, this four-faced creature goes higher and higher. And that's what I want to talk to you about. We want to go higher and higher in our relationship with God, but the way you go higher in the kingdom is you go lower. If you try to go higher, God puts you lower. If you try to take the best seat, he walks you down to the last seat. If you take the last seat, he walks you up to the first seat. It's all opposite in the kingdom of God. If you want to have authority, you get under authority. If you want to receive more to be able to help people, you give more to be able to help people. If you, here's a big opposite: if you want to live, die. It's all opposite in the kingdom. So, if you want to help more people, then you learn to serve more people. You don't put yourself up at the top, you put yourself at the bottom, which is what Jesus did. But then he exalts you.
Look at these scriptures, Job 5:11, "He sets on high those who are lowly".
Luke 1:52, "...put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly".
Matthew 23:12, by the way, Jesus said this many times, this is just one time that he said it, Matthew 23:12. "...whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted". If you try to lift yourself up, he says, I'm going to take you down. If you put yourself down, I'll take you up.
In 1 Peter 5:6, "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time".
Now, some of you might be thinking like this. Well, Pastor Robert, you're saying if I humble myself, he's going to exalt me. But I don't want to be exalted. I want to be humble. Yeah. But the more humble you get, the more he's going to lift you up. Now, here again, you might be saying, but I don't want to be lifted up. I don't want to be seen, I don't want to be at the center of attention. That's wonderful. That's the way you're supposed to think. So why would I be saying the highest place? Why do we want to be lifted to the highest place? Let me just say it this way. It's real simple. The only reason I want to be lifted up is so I can lift someone else up. The only reason I want to be put up on this platform maybe, is so I can pick someone else up here, and help them up. There's no, I don't want to be put on the platform to be seen. I want to go higher in my relationship with God so I can help someone else higher in his relationship with God.
So we're not talking about that God wants to exalt us for us to to be seen or someone to focus on us or give us praise or glory. We're only told that God wants to take us higher, like this creature goes higher in worship, higher in prayer, higher in service, higher in grace, so that we can take others higher in worship, higher in prayer, higher in service, higher in grace. That's the reason that we're lifted up. That's the only reason we do it. When I went to Shady Grove Church, which is our Grand Prairie campus. I hope I don't have to do that every time, but it's fun for this time. Okay, so... Hey, I'm serious. I love you guys. So, I don't even know what that means. If that means something bad, y'all send me an email and let me know. You probably want to have to let me know. My kids will let me know, so.
But when I went to Shady Grove Church, I was 23 years old, and I went to one service and I knew this is where God wants me and my family. And I talked to Pastor Olen and said, God's calling us. We're going to join the church. He said, well, here's, I'd like you to preach. You got to remember now, I started preaching when I was 19, and by the time I was 20 and 21, I was preaching crusades in coliseums larger than our Southlake campus and football stadiums and things like that. So when I came to join the church, he said, Well, I want you, when you join the church that weekend, some people know you and all, and I want you to preach that weekend. So I said, Okay.
So I went and I preached that weekend, and there were three ladies, this is my understanding of how Pastor Olen and Syble told me this, three ladies that were very, just prayer warriors for the church and intercessors for the church. But they had prophetic gifts. Sometimes they would give a word, and they were so in touch with the Lord because they prayed so much that it was always just right on base, you know. Very unassuming ladies. So this lady comes up to Pastor Olen after I preach, and she said, I have this word for Pastor Robert. And he said, great. So he brings her over and introduces her. Here's the only thing I remember about the word that she said. She said your face is going to be in every living room.
I was 23 years old. How did she know that our television program would one day go into every country in the world, every country in the world. But why does God want our television program in every country in the world? So I can get recognized? No. So I can help more people. So I can take the messages that I share with you and have someone in South Africa hear that same message or in Brazil, or in Europe somewhere, all over the world, and they get changed. That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about God putting us in a high place so we can be seen. I'm talking about God putting us in a high place so we can influence others.
So, we talked about The Highest Position and The Highest Place. Here's point number three: The Highest Prize. The Highest Prize. Philippians 3:14, Paul said, "press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus". So he says, I'm pressing for the prize, but what's the prize? Well you've got to back up a few verses in Philippians 3. First of all, he lists all of his credentials. He lists all his credentials, but then he tells you what he thinks about all of them. Verse seven, "...what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ..." Now, just remember the knowledge of Christ. We'll get back to that. "...Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, And I count them, " These are all these things. "...as rubbish, that I may gain Christ".
Now, some of you, I'll keep going, but some of you might remember the Old King James. Maybe you grew up on that. There's a different word that's used in the Old King James. It's actually closer to the meaning in the Greek. He doesn't say I count them as rubbish or trash, like newer versions. He said, I count them as dung, D-U-N-G. Do any of you remember hearing that scripture? I count it as dung. Okay. Nevermind. So, but let me tell you what this word in the Greek means. I'm not trying to get graphic with you, I just think it's interesting. It means animal excrement, dung. So let me go a little further. Let me help you. He said, you know all this stuff, all these accolades I have and this background I have and this schooling I have, it's just dog poop. It's dog poop compared to knowing Christ. It just doesn't mean anything to me.
And then he goes on to say, "...be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may..." We're looking for the prize. "...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death..." You know what the ultimate prize is, the highest prize? It's knowing Jesus. It's exactly what I said last week about the book of Revelation. It's not about all the charts and all that stuff. It's about Jesus. We get so focused on all the other stuff instead of Jesus, the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not just knowing him the first time you walk down the aisle and get saved. It's growing in him.
Think how much more you know him now after however long you've walked with him and how you can't ever get to the end of him. He's just phenomenal. He's incredible. That's what Paul is saying. And the way we know him more is by counting everything else is just dog poop, just rubbish, trash. Show you a couple of scriptures more. "...thus says the High and Lofty One..." Isaiah 57:15, high "...Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit..." Psalm 138:6, "...the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly..." Matthew 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls". You will know how to find rest? Do any of you ever get tired? It's learning about the lowly one. It's learning about Jesus.
Now, when we mature, we should become more and more humble. If a person gets more and more prideful, we've got a real problem because that person's not getting closer to Jesus, that person's getting farther from Jesus. You can actually get older and not mature. You're just older. We are to mature in Christ. The sign of maturity in the kingdom is humility. And I'm going to give you my closing illustration here. I'm going to use three scriptures to do it with Paul, greatest apostle, no doubt. Highest apostle, no doubt. Wrote a third of the New Testament. Pretty incredible. Got caught up in the third heavens and couldn't even tell us the things that he saw, and he actually said in one place, some of the revelations I have, I can't tell you because you wouldn't be able to understand them. We don't even understand some of the things he did write about, but he said there are other things I can't write about 'cause you definitely wouldn't understand them.
Paul died in 66 AD. He got saved in 36 AD. He was a Christian for about 30 years. 20 years after becoming a Christian, 10 years before his death, everyone follow me? So he died in 66 AD. In 56 AD, he writes 1 Corinthians. And 10 years before he died, he's been a Christian now 20 years, he makes this statement, "I am the least..." 1 Corinthians 15:9, "...the apostles". I'm the least of the apostles. "...who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God". Seven years later, three years before his death, he writes Ephesians. In Ephesians 3:8, he writes, "To me, who am less than the least of all the saints..." Less than the least of all the saints. Two years after that, one year before he dies, he writes 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy 1:15. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief".
So 10 years before he dies, he says, I'm the least of all the apostles. Three years before he dies, he says, I'm the least of all the saints. One year before he dies, he says, I'm the chief of all sinners. He just keeps going down and down and down in his assessment of who he is without Christ. That's called humility. And the farther you go down, the more God can lift you up so you can be able to lift others up. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I know a message on humility is one of those that we hear, and we think, Well God, I don't know how, I don't even know how to do that. I know I have prideful areas. I know a say prideful things. I know I have prideful thoughts.
I can remember asking the Lord one time, Lord, help me to be humble. I was in my twenties and again, I was preaching these big venues, and I just thought I was everything. And the Lord told me, I never told you to pray for humility. I told you to humble yourself. I need you to humble yourself, Robert. And the way, the key that I found was exactly what Paul said. I understand that my righteousness comes from Christ, not from the works of the law. And the goal is knowing him. I want to know him more. And this is one of those areas where I'm not saying we shouldn't pray about it. That's the first thing we should do, but just tell the Lord, Lord a struggle in this area. And of course the reason we struggle, and I didn't have time to go into it in this message, is insecurity.
Prideful people always have an area of insecurity, and most of the time it came from something in our childhood that we just have to come to the place where someone can help us who's a counselor, who's gifted in that area, getting in the Word, being in worship, being in a small group. All these things begin to take that insecurity out of what we do or what we have, and our security goes to whose we are by grace. So I want us, this is one of the foundations of the Church. This is one of the foundations, when I say the Church: the Church, the body of Christ. This is one of the foundations for every believer. We started last week with talking an overview of all four, then we went to the foundation of grace, now we're talking about the foundation of humility. As we go through each of these, I just want you to be able to say,
Lord, I want to go higher in this area of my life. In other words, I want to learn how to humble myself, and I want to be a servant. Lord, I want to tell you, thank you that you're the greatest example of this, that you left heaven, you gave up your position, you humbled yourself, took upon yourself the form of a servant, and was obedient even to the point of death. And God, we come, Lord, we desire to walk humbly. What does the Lord require, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly. Lord, we desire to walk humbly before you so that we can help others and we can lift them up as well. So Lord, I pray you would just continue to do this work in our hearts, in Jesus' name, amen.