Mike Bickle emphasizes the critical role of humility in leadership and spiritual growth, sharing a prophetic dream that highlights the importance of those who prefer the back of the line over the front. He warns that neglecting humility can lead to missed destinies and encourages a conscious effort to combat pride, which is often hidden and pervasive. Bickle explains that true humility involves transferring personal rights to God, trusting Him with our reputation and needs, and serving others selflessly. He illustrates this through biblical examples, urging believers to embrace a servant's heart and to recognize that greatness in God's kingdom comes through humility and servitude. Ultimately, he calls for a collective commitment to pursue humility as a foundational aspect of faith and community.

Thank you for the word of God and we so treasure and value the fact that we have this holy transcript of your heart called the scripture. We ask you to feed our spirit with it. We ask you to bless the speaking and the hearing of it in Jesus' name. A couple days ago I received an email from Julie Meyer, another one of her prophetic dreams. It's just a season where the Lord's really giving her dreams for the corporate ministry. And in this dream she said she had it several nights over and over and over, over two weeks. She kept having the same dream night after night and was very alarmed, alerted or whatever, you know, paying attention to it is very significant. And in this dream I was sitting at a desk and looking at a lot of pink slips. And these pink slips, which in the dream is, has two interpretations, they were phone messages from people from around the country. And I was overwhelmed when there was a big stack of them because the Lord was beginning to move and people were wanting to come from all around to join us. And I was looking at this big stack of phone messages and people saying, we want to come, we want to join. And I was saying, Lord, how will I know? Because the idea was leadership, you know, those that would be involved in some form of leadership, whether worship leaders or small group leaders or just whatever. And I was saying, how, how will I know? How will I know? And then she saw the Lord standing beside me and he had eyes of flaming fire. And he said this, he said, this is how you will know he who delights in the back of the line, more than the front of the line, he who delights in the lowest place. These are your comrades. These are the ones that you will run with. However, the others, they will get a pink slip. And so the pink slip then was used a secondary way of saying the Lord says, no. And the, and the idea of the message of the dream was the leaders that are called, but neglect humility. Well, they will not walk in their full destiny. Now this isn't a dream particular to IHOP. This is a dream, uh, focusing on the way the Lord is running his kingdom and the way he's enforcing it. Reason it got my attention is that, uh, you know, a dream is a dream, but when, uh, when you're thinking on something and then somebody has a dream that's on the same lines, that's how the Lord sets it up sometimes. And no man can set that up because the one person's on the subject and the other person has the dream on that very subject at the same time. And that's, uh, one of the ways the Lord sets, uh, sets us up. It was 20 years ago that Bob Jones had a very powerful dream about the future of, uh, the ministry here. And obviously it's about IHOP. We didn't know we didn't have all the language for it, although we understood 24, seven in the spirit of the tabernacle of David, we didn't know what it looked like, but the Lord said that when he releases this, he was, and it was a very dramatic, uh, thing that I don't want to go into. Uh, but it was a life-changing experience because it was the same thing. I had my end of the experience and Bob had his end the same time, the same day. And it was one of those wows and the Lord, the message of that very, uh, dramatic experience in March of 1984 was God says, I will only do this with leaders that are walking in humility. Humility was the number one issue. So I was, uh, been pondering just this idea of, uh, Lord, uh, what about, what about the, uh, coming forth of, of your purposes? Because I'm aware I just feel this though. I don't even feel like we're fully on track as a people. I feel like we're just a little bit off track, not severely off, but a little bit off in terms of our focus, in terms of being in sync with the Lord. And I've been off so many times I'm a pro at it. So I'm not, I'm not worried about that. I want to get back on. I'm not, I'm not worried. I'm not, I've been there so many times personally and in ministry, I'm saying, Lord, I want us to get back on track. And I was thinking of this Bob Jones word, this, because it was such a major thing that happened in March of 84. And, uh, and so Julie has this very word. And let me say it again, there's this large stack of, uh, pink slips and they were, you know, from the secretary type idea. And, you know, all these people were calling, they want to come and be a part and there's going to be this swirl. I sensed that, that, that, that we're, uh, about to turn a corner as a ministry, which is humbling because I feel that we're going to turn a corner in a positive sense. We're not even fully right. Totally on track. But the way the Lord does his editing, he says, you know, in grace, I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to get this thing right. And I said, Lord, at least we will know that as you in visit us and release more and more, we were stumbling and fumbling. Even when you were visiting us and promoting us, we were stumbling and fumbling. And so anybody who forgets that I want to be one that, uh, uh, together with many of you as well, that constantly remind us that when the Lord's visit comes, we're just not all together. And, and so that's the paradox. I don't feel like we're just totally straight yet. I feel like, uh, the, uh, a small breakthrough is not far, uh, from now it's right around the corner. And so there's going to be this increase of people. How can we get involved? How can we get involved? How are we getting involved? And I represent the leadership. It's not me particularly, but it's the whole leadership team saying, Lord, who, which ones? Let me say it again. The Lord standing behind me, speaking of the IHOP leadership team, I'm just symbolic of it. I mean, I need to hear it myself, but I need to do it. I don't know. It's not just that I got to make sure you do it or those that are coming to it. I have to do this. This is for everybody, but the IHOP leadership, we're asking the question, Lord, how are we going to, who do we fit in all these gifted and dah, dah, dah, dah people? And they're qualified. And the Lord says the one that delights in the back of the line more than the front, the one that delights in the lowest place, these are the comrades that you shall run with at IHOP and the others that are wanting to be a part. I'm going to, thus says the Lord, I'm going to give them a pink slip and send them on their way. The Lord wants to establish his kingdom, not just here. I, again, I don't want to, uh, uh, narrow it to some special word here. It's like Genesis to revelation, be humble, you know, walk in love, be holy. It's the same thing. And so you, you don't really need a dream to pay attention to the basic Christianity one-on-one, but in our dullness, the Lord gives us these set up to kind of give us, get our attention. And again, I mean, to grab our attention and a focus. The Lord wants us to declare war on pride. It's a hard war to fight. Pride is, is the most natural way of the human spirit. Pride is the most constant, pervasive, hidden enemy in our spirit. All of us were born with it. We're born with an overdose of it. We excel at it. And the thing about pride, it, it mostly appears to the one with pride, which is the whole human race. It mostly appears to us that we don't have it. We see everybody else's, but we don't see our own. It's hidden. It's subtle. It's a, it's a very poisonous, toxic reality in the human spirit. And we have to declare war on it to make, to make a headway, to gain on it. Meaning it's not going to just go away one day. We're just not going to be reading the Bible and all of a sudden we wake up one day and pride's gone. No, this thing is focused on. This thing is, it's a conscious, deliberate pursuit to identify this unperceived enemy in our spirit and to attack it with humility, to attack it unrelenting. So it's constant. The Holy Spirit wants us to go on a journey with him and identify it. And to pray this prayer, if you have the nerve to pray this prayer, Lord, show me the unperceived pride, the pockets of pride in my spirit, the unperceived pride, show it to me, show it to me. And to the people that really asked for it, I'm talking about individuals. The Holy Spirit says, I will do this and I will free you when I show you in the showing to you. If you'll respond to me, I will free you little by little, but it's like peeling an onion and it's pride didn't go away. Uh, instantly it got just layer by layer and you cry all the way through it. I mean, pride is just like that. Pride is, I mean, humility is a decision of the mind. First humility is a decision we make even without feeling humble, we can feel raging negative emotions and just feel, Oh, I want to pay him back and get him back. And I just don't like anybody, but we can still decide to act in humility. It's a, it's a role decision. The initial, uh, uh, beginnings of humility is a decision that we make with our mind. And then the Lord eventually changes our emotional makeup. And then we begin to feel emotions of humility, but don't think some folks think humility is mostly what they're feeling. I just am mad at this. I'm not happy about that. And I feel left out here and I'm not at peace. And I think I must be pride. No pride is mostly a decision of the mind that we're going to fight for our own honor. We're going to establish our own rights. We're going to protect our own turf. It's a decision. It's got a lot of emotion with it. Now, the way, uh, the grace of God works is that we change our mind and God changes our heart. And what I mean by that, because there's other scriptures that say we change our heart. I mean, God changes our emotional makeup. We change our mind. We put the Bible in our mind. We make decisions with our mind. And then God uses that open door. And the grace of God changes our emotions, our heart. We cannot grit our teeth and change emotions. We can't grit our teeth. And I want to feel humble. I want to feel humble. I want to feel humble. Lord says, don't worry about that part. You just decide humility. You may have a raging storm the opposite way, but you just grit your teeth and serve. You grit your teeth in honor and bless your enemies. Don't fight for your own rights. Don't fight for your own turf. Uh, be left out, be neglected, be misused and continue to bless and serve in secret. You just decide that. And I will move in and ignite your emotions to go with it. So I just want you to understand that there's a famous verse, James four, 10, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and then God will exalt you. So God wants you exalted. He just didn't want you to do it yourself. God wants to exalt me. He just doesn't want me to exalt me. And God wants me humbled. But he says that that is a decision I leave to you. I will not do your part for you. If you do not humble yourself in that redemptive way, as an act of your own will, the Lord will humiliate us on occasion, but the humbling of ourself is not something God does in that strict sense. I mean, there are times of discipline and humiliation, but there's the humbling of the self is the changing of the mind to be lowly, to be a servant and to continue to bless and to serve without all of the things that we think we deserve in that place. It's an act of humility, nothing more foreign to the human spirit than humility. It's, it's, it's just foreign. It doesn't set well with the human spirit at all, except the grace of God is moving on us. Now, pride is so, again, it's so undetectable. It's so unperceived. We all have overdose versions. I mean, we all get an overdose of it way more than we think. You know, we are imagining it's a five and that's all we see because there's unperceived pride in my life, in your life, and we can dress it up and all these tailor-made ways to dignify it. And it's still pride on the inside. We can even get our language right to where we're, you know, we, we can conceal it, but our heart is still moving and we still want our honor. And we're just outraged when we don't get it, even though we might be smart enough not to make a big deal about it, but our hearts are still just roaring on the inside. And Lord says, I really want to lasso this, this lion, and I want to tame it and kill it. I want to, I want to free you from this, but I do need your cooperation in order to do this. Okay, Matthew chapter 20. Very well-known passage. Matthew 20, verse 20. Then the mother of Zebedee's sons, that's James and John, James, the apostle James, the apostle John, the famous, you know, John the apostle, they came, their mother came to Jesus with her two boys, James and John, verse 21. And the mother said, this little sweet little Jewish mom said, Jesus said to her, honey, what do you wish? What, what is it you want? Because Jesus could tell when this little gal came walking up to him, you know, he goes, okay, okay. She definitely wants something. Hi, how you doing? I got something I want to ask you. Okay. What, what would you like? She says, okay, here's what I want. I want my two sons. I want one to sit on your right hand and one to sit on the left hand, your kingdom. In other words, the forever, I want them to be the main two guys over everybody forever. That's all I want. I want them to be, not the head apostles in the early church. I want it to be over everybody forever. Okay. Jesus, Jesus looks at them. Wow, man, you're really committed to those guys, aren't you? Yes. I want them to have full kingdom authority and full kingdom honor, full kingdom authority, full kingdom honor. And Jesus says a very important statement in verse 22. And this is the very important statement to my heart, to your heart and to I hop. Jesus said, you do not know what you're asking for. You don't understand what you're asking for. And then he, he develops his point by the next, by a question, are you able to drink the cup that I'm going to drink? And then they answer a few phrases later. We are able, Oh, Ooh, that's so their pride. Number one is in the request because Luke 22 makes it clear. They're the ones asking. So it's kind of like mom, they asked and got turned down. Then they said, mom to them, you know, thought that would prevail better or prevail in Jesus's, uh, in her relationship with Jesus. So pride, number one is the request. We want to have great authority. We wouldn't be over people. They want to be over people for the sake of it, not to be helpful, not because it was their places to be for the sake of it. It's good to know that apostles start off that way. And secondly, they were proud, not just because they just wanted honor unrelated to its purpose. But the second reason pride was in their answer is because they said, yes, we're able to bear the cup. We can drink the cup. We can endure the process that you're going to endure Jesus. And Jesus looks at him and he says, you'd really, really don't know. He even warned them. You don't know what you're asking, but they proceeded ahead. We are able to drink the cup. And Jesus could have said, you didn't really catch my question. Did my statement, did you? You don't know what you're asking now. I hop asked the Lord 24 seven where we're on asking people and we're asking for kingdom authority. We're asking for revival. We're asking for the breaking of the power of the kingdom. And then that's going to come authority and power. And there's going to be honor. There will be people honored who will God will cause his authority to rest on. And the Lord will say to us too, you don't know, like he said to this young Jewish mom, I mean, this Jewish mom, you don't know the measure of what you're asking. You're asking for something massive here, the measure of the glory you want yourselves to walk in. You don't grasp it to you. It's just about them being special in the eyes of others. But you're talking about the glory, the ultimate glory of participating with my kingdom authority. But more specifically, he was saying, you don't know, you're asking in the sense of the process that would be required. If I did say yes, if I said yes to your boys, I would have to take them through a training program. So rigorous to be able to have this kind of authority without that authority, injuring their life too. So they would be protected in, in the operation of kingdom authority. I would have to put them on a training regime so intense to prepare them for this level. Do you know that by asking that they would have greater authority, you're asking for a more rigorous training regime in the spirit. She did not know that. She just says, I want my boys special. He goes, you don't really understand what you're talking about. You're talking about kingdom authority. And you're talking about, I'm going to be, I'm going to rule with my people who are equally yoked to me. And I'm lowly and meek of heart. I'm humble of heart. They have to be humble like me to walk in my power or the power will hurt them and injure them in the process of using it. So we're crying out, release your glory unprecedented beyond the book of acts. And the Lord looks down at IHOP and says, that's biblical. We're not really sure you know what you're asking for. Not really sure you understand the magnitude of what you're asking for. Surely you probably don't understand the implication that if I answer you, it will demand a rigorous training regime and humility that's above and beyond anything that you're prepared for right now. Do you really know what you're asking? And now Jesus is going to go and develop this because he says, are you able to drink the cup? Are you willing to live the life before God? I'm living. Will you endure what is necessary to operate in this authority? Now, when we endure by, by in the enduring, really in one sentence is the putting down of pride and the developing of, of, of humility, which is the most rigorous reality in our lives. It's called love. There is nothing more rigorous than overcoming pride and cultivating humility. It is the most rigorous reality. Again, it really is peeling an onion. It's layer by layer by layer. And we, it seemed like we worked so hard and we get so we don't seem to get very far. We put all this effort is, and we're crying and our eyes are dead. It's just horrible. The whole way we think we're not, we're hardly even started. It seems like we've been at it so long. Now, this humility doesn't earn us the power of God. It's not, we pray and fast and, and, uh, uh, fill our hearts with the word. And we make humble choices in our relationships. Humble choices is what we're talking about. It doesn't earn us the, the power of God. It protects us when it comes, it protects us because when the power of God is being manifest in a far greater level, the only way we can stand safe is in humility and likeness to Jesus. Okay. Let's go to verse 23. He says, okay, so you will drink the cup. Yes. He goes, you will then indeed drink the cup. Oh my. It's sad. Once the second person, the Trinity, he was the one that spoke in Genesis one. I mean, when he speaks, it's over. He said, you will drink the cup. They probably said hot dog. It means we're going to probably sit on the throne. Oh, we knew it. We knew it. And Jesus is looking at him. He goes, however, however, sitting at the right and the left, that's not my decision. It's the father's. They're going, we got the cup, but not the throne. See, we want the throne and the Lord wants us to look at the cup. We want a throne and the Lord is far more interested in us drinking the cup, because if we drink that cup, the process of humility, we're talking again, there's fasting. That's, that's humility, prayers, humility, filling ourselves with the word is humility. But I'm talking about right now, there's many facets of humility, making choices of humility in our relationship to one another, specifically related to our honor and, and, uh, uh, refusing to fight for our honor, refusing to protect our honor and our turf, willingly letting it go and trusting God with it. Jesus said, verse 23, you will drink the cup. And they did. James was martyred, uh, while even in his youth as a young man, and John drank the cup in a different way. He went on to live well into his nineties, but he drank the cup. He became one of the most humble men in all history. The son of thunder became the apostle of love. This, this was a guiding word. They just, he just didn't even know how formative this was. Now, verse 24, uh, the 10 heard it. They hear this little Jewish mom and they go, what is the deal? We were arguing about this back on the road, you know, back in, in, uh, in Luke nine. And again, in Luke 22, there's the, uh, the points to the conversation of John. And they're going, what is the deal here? You're, you're not letting this thing go. You really want to be the main guys. And the 10 of them were indignant. Now I always love to point out that Judas is one of the 10. You know, when Judas knows that you have a bad spirit, you know, you've gone too far. You know, Judas is saying, man, they got a bad spirit. And when Judas picks up on it, you've really got over the line. Verse 25, Jesus said, you know, that the rulers of the Gentiles, now the Gentiles in this sense mean unbelievers. He goes, you know, that, uh, unbelievers, when the rulers, when they have power, when rulers, when unbelievers have influence, instead of rulers, just put the word, uh, those with influence, they Lord it over people. That's the key phrase. And those who are great, meaning great in influence, money, wealth, honor, they exercise authority or they Lord it over people. Here's what he means. He goes unbelievers. This is the way everybody is by nature without the grace of God. Everybody's just, everybody's this way when we have rule or we have, when it says great here in the new King James, it means great wealth, great power, great honor, whatever. They have a great position when we have, uh, in our little world here, we might have a little extra money. We might have a little bit, uh, of, uh, of, uh, say so in a social network, maybe we've got five or 10 friends and, you know, we're close to, and we get to determine who's in and who's out. Or maybe we got a worship team or we got a conference team, or we got an outreach team, or we got a, whatever, just our little areas that we have a little bit of rule over a little bit of authority over. Here's what Jesus said, the way the unbeliever does, they use that every time to secure their own honor and their own job security and their own financial gain. He goes, everyone does that, you know? So it's the little guy, it's a group of five or 10, it's a little home group. And here's the leader of it. And somebody bugs them in the coffee shop. So they get in their home group. They're not getting in my home group. That's for sure. And so even if it's a little way, just a little way of, uh, I mean, just a little bit of authority, even just a little social network, the human spirit will not let people into it. If they don't, if they can't be assured, it's going to help their own honor, their own security and their own financial gain, some version of that. He says, that's the way the human spirit is. They Lord it over people. They make sure that they only include people that make them better off in the system. Now that is so prevailing throughout the whole body of Christ, all, all of us in this room, we stumble into that. The Lord says, don't do that. Don't he's the Lord saying this, you know, I'll just make a real person to me, Mike, don't use your position to where the people that bug you and that don't make you look rich and famous or don't contribute to it. You push them out. Don't do that. That's how unbelievers do it. That's the way the world uses a little bit of the influence they have. You use your position to do the will of God. And that's humility. There may be people that get in that don't help me that they don't help you. They get into your turf and your area, but they don't actually make you better off in honor or in finance or in any other way. The Lord says, don't make that your number one consideration. And now we go, okay, we won't. But I tell you, this is the most powerful urge in our spirit to make decisions based on how that person, if they get into any part of our world, that they secure our honor and our job security, our turf, our authority, that we want to absolutely make sure that they contribute to that. Verse 26, Jesus said, this is, this shall not be so among you. This is a prophecy. He's not just telling them it ought not to be. So he's actually proclaiming it. It won't be. So I'm not going to release my kingdom authority in fullness, the people that operate this way, I'm not going to do it. Now there's an, uh, there's a, there's just an introductory anointing on just being born again. There's an introductory anointing on the word. I mean, a guy could get saved. He's born again. He's preaching the word a little bit. A few people are gonna get healed. A crowd's going to gather a little bit. A few people are gonna fall down in the prayer line. A little bit is going to happen. They're going to put them on TV once or twice. That's just the introductory anointing. We're talking about the fullness of what God's doing. I want to say this to you. And I say this to me first, Jesus says in verse 26, it shall not be so among my leaders that I have people who make decisions based on how those people they're inviting in, make them look better. I'm not going to have a leadership where that's their primary mindset. And that is the whole way that we're raised in our, in our natural state. That's how the unrenewed thinks automatically. This thing is so counter to who, I mean, humility is so contrary to our natural way of thinking. And we can be in the kingdom, 10, 20, 30 years in leadership and be so immersed in the way everyone else is doing it in the kingdom, which is the worldly way. Jesus said, I'm telling you right now, it won't be so among my people. Now all through history, he's had, he's had very, uh, uh, self-serving leaders right through history, but there's coming an hour where this saying will be, this prophecy will be fulfilled to the uttermost. And I believe we're, we're entering in to that timeframe before the coming of the Lord, where the Lord will see to this. Only the meek are going to enter into the places of leadership before the Lord, before the Lord returns. Now we don't want to do it just to be leaders. We want to do it because we want to be, we want to walk with God in reality. And there's no way to do it without meekness, meekness and humility is really the same thing. Now, Jesus goes on in verse 26, and he says, this says a surprising statement. He says, whoever desires to be great among you, let him be the servant. This is surprising for several on several points. And then verse 27, who desires to be first, let him be a slave. And then he goes on to say, for even the son of God came not to be served, but to serve, et cetera. First of all, two times, verse 26 and verse 27, he uses the word desire. He goes, you want to desire to be great and you desire to be first. He's talking about first in honor. The Lord says, I don't mind that. I don't mind that you desire to be great. Isn't that, that's interesting because there's no correction for the desire to be great because the God who is great created you to be great. We don't repent of longing to be great. We repent of approaching it in the wrong way. The Lord didn't say, if you want to be great, bah humbug. He says, you want to be great, that's good. Be great. I'm great. My father is great. We created you for greatness. Be great. That's way better. However, be a slave. Be a slave. That's the way to be great. Be a slave. Don't use your position to exclude or include people based on how they build your profile. And I tell you, that is just the whole way of the, the, the, the, the nations operate. It says, be a slave. This is a intense statement. This is so foreign. It says, it's great that you want to be great. That's awesome. But be a slave. It's awesome. You want to be first, but you have to do it as a slave. Now you think of the slave in the ancient world. I mean, it's more intense than we can imagine. I don't even want to go there, but it was a slave was a slave. I mean, that was like, now we understand you understand this, that in the kingdom of God, whether you not with your permission, it's going to happen a thousand times without your permission, you are going to be used and mistreated a thousand times. I want to just establish this. You are going to be mistreated. This is a new idea. This is disturbing to people. And that's why they're always so thrown off by it. How many times in the, you know, the years of leadership and somebody come to me and said, I went there and they used me. I go, so, so they used you. Of course they used you. What do you, what do you mean? You pray your whole life in the kingdom. Oh, God used me. So God let somebody use you. And now you're all mad about it. There's this, uh, very, uh, naive. I mean, it's non-biblical and naive concept. And it's, that's why people have such a hard time because they're still living in this, in this Disney world kind of reality. It's this naive concept that if they're in the kingdom, then they're not going to be they're not going to be mish, uh, I mean, mistreated or used. Of course you are many, many, many, many times in the kingdom. And you're going to, because men godly people, but still have pockets of unperceived selfishness in their own life. They don't see it. They're just going to do it to you. And there's so many thousands of occasions for that to happen over 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. And God is orchestrating it. He wants it to happen. So you get two problems. You've got a world filled with people who even love God, but they have pockets of, of unperceived selfishness. They do not see they don't mean to, but they're colliding with your agenda. So thousands of them all around your life. You know, if you leave here, you go there, there's thousands there. Okay. You leave there, you go to the thousands. They're like, ah, there's a conspiracy. The whole world's against me. They're all selfish. And I'm the only one that's not well, I am, but I'm not that selfish because we can see it so clear and others. We can't see it's the most powerful toxic poison because we can't see it. It's unperceived in our own spirit. Most of it, even though we see a little bit of it, we don't see the truth of it, the fullness of it. That's just how it is. But then not only everywhere do you go, is it going to happen everywhere till the end. Then it is a conspiracy. God's up in heaven saying, I'm orchestrating it. I want this to happen. So people are so scandalized. They said, I would get this much money. I got less money. I go, Oh bro, that's going to happen so many times. Just get over it. Push to lead, give it to the Lord and move on. Don't just get used to walking with God with that kind of reality. But the first 10 or 20 times it's so knocks the wind, especially out of new believers. They just can't imagine this reality. Beloved, you want to be great. You must be a slave for real. This is not figurative language, not song of Solomon. We're talking a slave. This is such a gross collision to the unrenewed mind of the Western world. Slave. Are you kidding me? I'm a king. I'm not a slave. Kings in the kingdom of God operate as slaves. You will take the least privilege and do the most work. You'll be mistreated the most and you'll get the least rewards. That is how authority operates in my kingdom. You must, if you sign up for greatness, you must sign up to be a slave. You have to, Oh my goodness. I don't want to be a slave. Beloved. I want to say this being mistreated, getting the, I mean, working real hard and nobody recognizes you working real hard and they don't honor you the way that you really would be honored. And if things were all just normal is the optimum context for humility to grow in you. It's the optimum context. You, you or I are not going to grow in humility without negative circumstances. It won't happen. We're not just going to will ourself into deep humility. We have to make the decision, but the way humility works, it's like the, like, like the guy points out, you can't crucify yourself. You know, you get the two feet and you get the one hand, but now you're stuck with a hammer trying to figure out that other hand. You can't, I've never tried it, but I just imagine, you know, just trying to nail that other hand down. You can not, you can make the decision for humility. You cannot pull it off without other people helping you. You have to have mistreatment in circumstances. Don't worry. There's plenty to go around. You're going to have every opportunity. You're going to have opportunity beyond anything you imagine in the next 10, 20, 30 years of the Lord Terry's to grow in humility, but you need other people letting you work hard. Not only do they neglect you, not only did five of them work hard, four of them were honored. They were all called up and given the trophy. You were not only missed, then they told negative things about you on top of it. So not only did you work for free and get no honor, then you actually were slandered. The Lord said, that's what I'm talking. That's the slave thing I'm talking about. That's the way your heart will grow right there because now you have to sort out how you live before God and where, how you're carrying your heart. And so it's an, it's an intense reality, but it is an absolutely, absolutely necessary reality. Okay. Let's turn to first Corinthians chapter six, first Corinthians chapter six, verse 20. This is the foundational revelation from my point of view on humility. This is the absolute foundation stone. I don't know that it is for everybody else, but it's the one that I, it's the one that I was taught on. I was 16 years old. I remember the day. I remember the, I remember it so vividly. It's so formed me, my thinking. I was 16. I went to a Bill Gothard seminar. How many of you went to Bill Gothard? Okay. There's some of you, some of you too young. Yeah. Who's Bill Gothard. Okay. Anyway, Bill Gothard seminar. You know, I never heard of the guy, you know, it's, you know, what, 30 hours of teaching in a week or 40 or something, whatever. And I, and I can't remember anything. Two things. I remember was this teaching on first Corinthians chapter six, verse 20 and something on bitterness. I realize that the only out of 30 hours of teaching, that's all I can remember. But I remember this. Somehow this struck me like an arrow that I went home and, and got all the notes and wrote them all down. And I memorized them best I could and preach them. I was 16 and 17 and 18 at every little Bible study. And my little Bible studies were three, four and eight and 12 and 15. And, and I had to, you know, go pick them up and buy them ice cream afterwards to get them to show up. But that's how we started junior high kids. And then high school, I taught this so many times and nobody ever got it. I mean, they would look at me and go, what are you talking about? I mean, I was only teaching. I mean, now that I look back, the Lord was having me, I was teaching it so often. So I would get it and I would be accountable for it. But if there was one thing I learned in those early days, it was this first, first guy preached this sermon, you know, just a dozen times. I was 16, 17 and 18 years old. So I'm going to, uh, it's my, it's a foundational first Corinthians chapter six, verse 20. I can heal hero here. Bill Gothard teach at this even now, 30 years ago, uh, plus, uh, giving this message. Here it is. You were bought with a price and he went to talk about what that means. Jesus purchased us. This is for real. We really don't own ourself. We all know that, but somehow he had an anointing to make that real. Therefore glorify God in your body. That's your external life. It's not just your body. It's your sexuality. It's your food. It's your possessions. It's your comfort. It's all that goes with your external, uh, uh, situation and glorify God with your spirit, all the internals, your attitude, your speech, your whole internal life, because in essence, you're God's God owns you. Okay. That's great. So Bill Gothard teaches this. Okay. That's a nice teaching. And they went on to develop it. And he talked about this. It was the session called transfer of personal rights. How many of you remember transfer? Oh, there you go. You remember that one? That's really the only one I remember of the whole 30 hours besides the one on bitterness. And, uh, here's what, uh, the, the hairs, how the teacher goes is that when we are born again, when we are born again, we recognize two things that Jesus takes the ownership over our lives. So that's a simple principle. We go, okay. I mean, to walk it out. It's one thing, but to say, okay, he is now the owner and he is the one responsible as the source. He's the provider. He is the source of our future needs. He owns us and he provides for us very simple. Okay. So far, that's not very convicting. That sounds pretty nice. He owns us and provides for us. He's the leader in the source of everything we truly need. That's the key issue. It's what we truly need now in redemption. The day you're born again, you've got a new owner and a new provider for your life. So what we do, and this is where it started to get personal. We transfer all of our personal rights because now we've been bought by someone else. We transfer all of them and we give them into his hands. We have the right to honor what's called our reputation. So we take that. We go, Lord, you are now the one responsible for my reputation. You own me. You own my reputation. Good. We take all of our rights for money. We work hard. We get money. It's our car, our house, our stuff. We hand it. Lord, it is now yours. It is your stuff. Here it is. You own me. So therefore you own my money. Nice concept. So far, so good. It's not very convicting. He is the owner and the provider. We transfer all of our rights for well-being, all of our rights for security and honor in our future to him. Now here's where it starts getting tough. If we take back the rights and begin to demand honor from one another, we are now taking back the right of the ownership of our life. That is called pride. So you come and say, Mike Bickle is really off the wall. I go, how dare you? The Lord goes, whoa, stop. I own you, Mike. I own your reputation. Would you mind just being quiet and sitting down? I will talk to that guy. Good. Anytime soon? Well, no. Because me and the Lord have two different agendas. My immediate agenda is for money and honor. His immediate agenda is that I grow in meekness so I can have much more money and honor ultimately. He goes, no, I'm going to work on your meekness because then you can have your whole inheritance without it injuring you. Yeah, Lord, trust me, I'll get the meekness thing down. I want my money and honor now, this month. I want the guy to be corrected. I want the whole thing turned around and I want to be marched through town on a chariot and a horse as king. And I want him to give me double. Or it says, you know what, we're going to work on that march through town thing later. But here's what we're going to do now. I'm going to have you not go after it. You can't demand it. You can't protect it. You can't seize it. You can't insist on it. You release it into my hands. So I'm listening to this little teaching 16 year old going, whoa, I'm starting to think I'm doing the math. I got a healthy ego. You know, I got this and that. I'm going, oh, this is going to be trouble. I mean, I can see where this is going all the way. So he kind of, at first it was kind of a slow, kind of a little bit boring teaching, but it started picking up my, you know, adrenaline started pounding and my heart started getting nervous. And that in as much as we relinquish those rights to him and we ask him to protect them for us, that is called humility. That is the decision of humility. When we demand that we get honor, we demand that our rights are given to us. It is our money. It's our honor. It's our comfort. It's our everything. That's called pride. Pride demands it. Okay, now let's go to the next really key verse that Bill Gothard went to. This is straight Bill Gothard 101. Bill is here. He'd say, well, you missed a couple of key points, Mike. I probably am missing all kinds of points, but this is how I remember it. And first Peter chapter two, first Peter chapter two, very important passage. So here's how it goes. If you, if God owns me, he does, you take my money. You took his money. Then I don't fight you to get my money back. He fights you to get my money back. I wait, I bless you and trust him. So I look at you, it's called blessing your enemies or let's, let's downgrade it from enemies, bless the people that annoy you at IHOP. Okay. It doesn't have to be a full scale capital E enemy. You know what I mean? It can be just, uh, people who are blocking your goals, people who are not appreciating you, people that are annoying you. I bless the person who took my money in honor. And there's a half a dozen other things you put in that category, but that kind of gets right to about everything right there. Money and honor. I bless them. And I trust God and I'm quiet. I don't fight for it myself. That is the posture of humility. If you humble yourself, God will get into the battle for you. And so I'm going to come after you. You better say nice things about you and you better give me my money. And the Lord says, well, since it's your money now, and it's your reputation, I'm not going to get involved. It's up to you to go get it and to keep it and protect it. Good luck because you're real bad at that. Are you sure, Mike, that you want the money and honor to really be yours? Because if it's yours, you have to protect it. If it's mine, if you really give me your money and honor and reputation, same thing as honor. If you give it to me, I have to protect it in my timing, but I will protect it. And I will so expand your spirit and humility that I will make you. I will equip you for your whole inheritance in time and eternity. And then when I give you the fullness, it won't injure you. It won't hurt you. So here it is. First Peter 2. I'll let you give you a minute to get there. It says that when Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return. Okay. So when they said negative things about Jesus, when he suffered, he didn't threaten back. He didn't say, do you have any idea who I am? If you ever read Genesis one? Yeah, I've read it. Why do you know who I am? I don't think you really want to threaten me. And when he was reviled, it's interesting. You know, Jesus was put down a handful of time by the apostles. It wasn't just the mean Pharisees. I mean, Peter was the only one that had the nerve to go face to face with him four or five times and said, no Lord, you're off. It's wrong. I tell you, I don't, you know, maybe I could be wrong, but that feisty little Peter, that wasn't the first time he had that conversation. I assure you that it didn't occur to him. He's been, been on those long walks, you know, lagging back a hundred yards saying, man, he's just getting out of control, man. I just don't know what he's thinking this time. John going, yeah, I know. I know this. I mean, he seems to really know the Bible, but he's off on this point. I mean, I have no question that Peter had a few conversations probably before practice them before he ever gave them to Jesus. But here's what Jesus did. He committed himself to God to him. That's the father who judges, put the word intervenes, who intervenes righteously or rightly. So here's what Jesus did when they friends and enemies. See, if you only have the category, your enemies treat you bad. Then when your friends do it, it's a different category. And so you kind of hit your friends back and you go after it. No beloved. This is friends and enemies, friends and foes all in the same category. Jesus entrusted himself to God. He said, father, you are over my reputation. You own all my money. You own my comfort. I'm asking you to judge or to intervene. That's the word. That's the idea. I want you to break in and set things right. My father says, I will, I will do it in my timing. So humility is trusting him to break in on his timing. Oh, but here I am. I'm waiting. Lord, he took my money and my honor and he keeps talking. He won't give me my money and he won't quit talking. And the Lord says, I am going to set the record straight. Maybe not for a while because Mike, I really am more interested in your meekness right now. And you cannot produce meekness without this pressure. You can't produce it just by deciding meekness. You have to work the muscle over and over and over under pressure. So I will answer later, but I'm getting you prepared in meekness so you can inherit all that I've ordained for you. All that I've ordained for you. I have way more money and honor that I want to be given to you, but without it injuring you when I give it to you. So pride demands to take the issue into our own hands. Humility releases it to God the father. Okay, let's go to first Peter chapter three. Now I remember when I was 16, the, the big issue was the, I don't know why this was the big, but I remember it was a giant issue. It was my clothes. My little brother, Pat would go out where my new shirt get in a fight and they'd come back torn up. And then I would beat the tar out of him. I would just slug him. I'm a believer. He's not a believer. I came home from this that night, all jazzed up to be humble. And I went home. He actually had one of my shirts torn and it seems so silly now, but that was big to me then. And I went, this is your shirt God. If you want your shirt fixed, fix it or something like that. And my brother came in and he goes, Oh, you're home. And I just kind of held my breath. And it was my first official act of humility. I was like screaming and I just froze. And he, he was like, let's do it. And I went, I didn't have the nerve to say any time, you know, use my shirt anytime. But eventually I got to the place where I said, you can use any shirt anytime. And I said, God, you owe me shirts. You owe me shirts, but it's real though. And then it, it, it came to sports equipment, you know, my football and my cleats and my this and my that, and, and then reputation, high school reputation, big stuff was still big stuff, but reputation. And so the guy would do this on the football team and I go, God, it's you, I, you own me. They called me an ABC do something because I know you can't bear it. I'm all, I only care about your glory. You won't be glorified if they call me that my whole being is trembling. And I said, Lord, you owe me, you owe me. You know what? I wouldn't exactly use that word right now, but the Lord could answer something like, Oh, that's easy. I'll give you shirts, cleats and honor beyond anything you can imagine. You just give it to me and I will give it back to you in a measure you can't imagine. Then over the years, it was money and position and you know, air, you know, I've, I've, I've blown it dozens and dozens of times, but these are the two verses. These are the verses in the mindset. Like, here we go again. Same old, same old. And I've relinquished every area except for my books. And, uh, because those truly are the Lord. So, okay. So you leave my books alone. No, I had Duane come over today and he was looking at all my books and I was getting ready. I preached this this morning and all of a sudden my heart was pounding. He was staring. He goes, Ooh, your George Whitfield books. Oh Lord, they're your books. Most of them. That one is mine. The one that his hands on that one's still mine. Tell him to wait. And you walked away with it in your hand. It only worked because I preached this this morning. Sidney, you get that book back for me. You and the Lord, of course, first Peter chapter three, verse three, look at this. Let your, I'm going fast on these verses. So I want to just, I want to wind this up here. Let your adornment not just be outward verse four, let your adornment or your beauty, let your beauty put the word adornment. Let it be the hidden person of the heart. Isn't that amazing? You have a, you have what God calls the hidden person of the Here's what the Lord says. I want that hidden person, the inside person to be in, to have incorruptible beauty with a gentle and quiet spirit. Now, uh, this is very precious to God, very precious to God. When your inner man is beautified with a gentle, quiet spirit, it's very precious to God. And it goes on in verse five and describes it. It's when it's like the former women in the days of old, the holy women trusted God. It's when they did the chapter two, verse 23, they entrusted themselves to God. Now here it says, trusted here in verse five, but back at chapter two, verse 23, it said, committed yourself to God. It's the same thing in trusting, trusting God. So the women in the days of old, the holy women, when things would go wrong, they trusted themselves. They said, God, you own my life. You own my future. You are my champion. You are the one that fights on my behalf. Now, therefore I won't, I will bless my enemies and I will trust you. And here's what Peter said, that will beautify your spirit and it will make you beautiful. Now it says gentle and quiet spirit. Now a gentle and a quiet spirit is not a person with a soft voice and a timid personality because you can have a soft voice and a raging heart of anger and a raging heart of a fear. A gentle spirit is a spirit that's at peace because it's trusted God. It's not, it's not about your personality. It's about your spirit being quieted by the love of God. Okay, let's go to chapter five, verse five. Now it's talking to the younger people. He says, young people, submit yourself to your elders. Chapter first Peter five, verse five. I want all young people to look at this. Younger people, this is the word of God. Submit yourself to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive even to one another. He says, younger people be submissive to the younger people too. You're thinking, what? What's going on here? He says, if you do this, you're clothed with humility. He's referring back to chapter three, verse five. Having that beautiful adorned person on the inside. It's called clothed with humility. And if you do this, it says, know this, that God resists. God resists the proud man. He resists him, but he gives grace to the humble person. Now, young people are called to submit to elders. Now let me get, make it real clear. Not because elders are smarter. Elders are supposed to be smarter, but that's not the point. There are, the whole earth believers and unbelievers of leaders of the whole earth are off. The whole earth is off. Meaning there's nobody that has this brilliant wisdom. He didn't say submit to elders because the elders have so much wisdom. They're smarter than you. That's not what it is. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about, this is not mostly about elders having better information. Therefore you submit it's better at what he's talking about. This is the way to build meekness in your spirit. So he tells the younger people, many times a younger person actually has better information than the older person. It's not about better information. It's about meekness of the heart. Here's what the Lord's saying. I want you to submit to the older ones. I actually want you to submit to the younger ones. It's not an information deal. It's not if the information that the older or the others have is better than you submit. That's not the point. It's calling a teachable spirit. Now we here's what he's telling the young people because young people because well it's good for older people too. There's plenty of verses for the older ones but this is really important for our movement. It's a spirit of restraint. The Lord's saying I want your brilliance to be held restrained. I will let it shine later. Here's what I want you to do. You got a better idea than everybody else has. I don't want you to vocalize it all the time and I want you to live in the knowledge your ideas better but just give yourself to the others and serve them quietly and bless them. And the Lord says I will put an anointing of grace on your spirit if you do that. Because in order to have better ideas and yet be quiet and just serve with a grateful heart there is a collision. There is an explosion going on inside. Ah I'm better don't tell. Nobody knows it. The Lord says be quiet. Just serve. But they're wrong. Everyone's wrong. The Lord says it's fine. You're brilliant. That's not the point. Your brilliance will come out later. Your brilliance will come out later. I want you even to other young people to know better. Now this is not about morality or or or theology. We're not talking about give your uh give uh yield into things that are morally wrong or theologically wrong. I'm not talking about that. I'm just the way life runs. You do it this way or that way. Just all kinds of ways that are secondary. The Lord says you got the scriptures say you've got a brilliant way. Your way is brilliant. But I want you to be quiet. Every time you get a brilliant idea. Does it mean it has to be made known? Nor does it have to be applied. Have this brilliance like percolate and burn inside of you like a volcano. Nobody knows how smart my idea is. They're all doing it dumb. The Lord says that's okay. That's okay. It's it's tough isn't it? There's a raging there's a forest in there for a forest fire. A lot of pride there. Oh man I'm so used to venting and I never ever held it. Oh that thing's powerful. He says now I want you to do this. I want you to clothe yourself in humility. Now here's what happens with humility. There is an anointing on humility. When we are humble I mean uh we're serving in the back. Nobody sees us. And not only do they not see us then they talk bad against us. And then they not only did we not get the money for it they took money from us and we still served. Lord says don't worry about that. I'm watching everything. Your future is in my hands. Your promotion is in my hands. All your money is in my hands. Your reputation is in my hands. You yield it to me and you be quiet and you serve. You bless all the people doing it weird. I don't mean morally or theologically. You bless them and you trust me. It's called meekness. And here's what will happen. The anointing of God will touch your spirit and here's when the anointing touch your spirit is called anointing on humility. Then the root systems of sin that's in all of our hearts. There's root systems of covetousness. Root systems of bitterness. Root systems of sensuality and immorality. The Lord says I will water and moisten your heart that I can pull those root systems out so much easier if I oil you with humility. And I will give you humility. I will give you an anointing of humility. I mean I'll give you an anointing on the heart if you humble yourself to your elders and to the young people. Take the last seat. Be a slave. I will help you with all those other root systems. However if you don't want to go the way of humility God says you'll go the other way and your heart is hardened. And then when your heart is hardened it's so much harder to say no to resist immorality when your heart's hard. It's so much harder to be faithful at IHOP when your heart's hard. It's so much harder to give money when your heart's hard. It's so much harder to to be kind to people that don't do your way when your heart's hard. And hardness sets up that crust and that rust of the spirit just starts building. And the Lord says right here in verse 5 he goes I will resist you. I will actually resist you. Now the guy says well I've been proud for years and I've been doing okay. And the Lord says I would have given you multitudes. I mean I'd have multiplied the economics you would have had. I would have given you so much more honor and blessing if you would have done it my way. But I would have give it to you in my time. So just because a man's you know got his million dollars doesn't mean that he hasn't been resisted in part by the Lord. Beloved the way that you and I experience God when we read the Bible here it is you know it's it's it's Wednesday 10 a.m or noon or whatever you're at IHOP and you're It is dynamically not only but dynamically related to the humility you've had all week long. The way that you've humbled yourself in the last seat and served and and and when your honor and your money and your future was being challenged you gave it to God. That spirit of humility actually softens the heart so the word is alive when you read it. There's no way forward without humility. Absolutely no way. The Lord says many are coming. Many are coming to IHOP. And so the leadership team is saying what? Miss Tim I have you coming up. The leadership team is saying what which ones Lord? And the Lord says here's the ones. The ones that love the last seat more than the front seat. The ones that are servants and they're in the lowest place. Those are the ones that are your companions. Run with them. For those are the ones that my hand is on. Amen. Let's stand. Now it's time to respond. If I say come forward then maybe you're coming forward to get noticed that you're really gonna. So we're in a jam. If you don't come forward then you're resisting. If you do come forward then maybe you're showing off. I'm just kidding. This is peeling an onion. It is. Isn't that right? I can preach this today. Let Dwayne take one of my books. I can lose it. I can be out of touch with this by noon tomorrow. This is peeling. It's one little layer at a time. Crying all the way through it. Humility is the most foreign thing to our spirit but we're going after it. As a people we're going after the thing called humility. If you went prayer for anything. For healing. You went prayer for the Lord just to touch your heart. Or you want to just come and kneel before the Lord. You don't have to come forward to do that but you can. For any reason I invite you to come on forward. And again the ministry team just come on up and just come on up and begin to help.