Mike Bickle emphasizes that meekness is the key to attracting God's favor, urging believers to embrace a deeper level of humility in their lives. He explains that Jesus described Himself as meek and lowly in heart, highlighting that meekness is foundational to God's character and His governance. Bickle encourages the congregation to pursue meekness as a means to experience God's rest and refreshing in their spirits, asserting that true reconciliation and authority come from a posture of humility. He warns against the fear of losing out by being meek, reminding them that meekness ultimately leads to victory in every conflict. The sermon concludes with a call to prioritize the pursuit of meekness over worldly ambitions, assuring that this will lead to a more profound experience of God's presence and favor.

In the speaking and the hearing of your word and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen. Well, the other day I woke up early to get ready to go to the early morning prayer meeting and when I woke up, I had this very strong word. I just woke up and said this, of which I take that as the Lord speaking to me. And he did it for me. And though I'm taking this phrase and sharing it with you, he said this, meekness is the magnet that attracts God's favor. So I woke up, you know, about 4.15 in the morning, wide awake. And I said, meekness is the magnet that attracts God's favor. I said to myself, what? I heard myself say this, and it just impacted me deeply. It resonated inside of me. And I went to the prayer meeting and to the, uh, uh, uh, Alan came in early that morning. I said, Alan, I said, let me tell you something. The Lord is really wanting to draw my attention to this. And he, he's not, he didn't do that so I could share it with you. He did it because he wanted me to embrace a deeper level of meekness in my life so that he could give me more. The Lord wants to give me more. He wants to give you more. And he was talking to me about me. And he said, Mike, if you lay hold of meekness in a greater way, it's a magnet that will draw my favor towards you. And I decided to share it with you. But the point, the reason I'm saying it just this way is that, is that, uh, just before the Lord, I'm saying, Lord, I'm receiving this. It's a invitation with correction in it. The Lord saying, I have need of more meekness from your heart and from your life revelation. I mean, not revelation. Matthew chapter 11 29 is the only time in the Bible where Jesus by his own lips describes himself. And I've said this many times, but, uh, I think it's worth hearing it again. Jesus never said I am loving. He is loving, but he never claimed it with his own lips. He never said I am wise. He never said I am powerful. He only said one thing in Matthew chapter 11. You go ahead and turn to that while the, uh, uh, PowerPoint they're working on that. Just, just so that you see it. Okay. It's right there. It's down at the bottom there. It says, for I am meek and lowly of heart. That's the only time he ever described himself. Now the phrase lowly in heart means humble in heart, meekness, lowliness, or humility is all the same thing. Let's go to paragraph C meekness is the, or, or humility or lowliness is the foundation of who God is. It's the foundation of what he does. It's the foundation of what he will bless forever. I mean, forever, this is the basis of his blessing. I mean, it's his son's death on the cross that moves the hindrances out of the way. So he can bless us. But then after Jesus has removed everything that hinders God's blessing and we get the gift of righteousness, it's meekness that becomes the magnet in the individual way where God delivers. I mean, releases his favor towards our life, all of God's government in time and all of God's government in eternity operates on the principle of meekness. I'm going to say that again. It's a very important point. God's government, or you might say God's authority or God's power, his ruling of the earth and the nations, all of his government now and throughout of eternity operates off of the principle of meekness. Jesus did not become meek his personality in the perfect expression of his father. He has humility and meekness in him from eternity. That is the personality of God. That's the God we're dealing with in the middle of sea. I have a phrase here. The supremacy of meekness is inevitable. Meekness will win in every single conflict. Meekness will be seen as supreme when the last word is said about that conflict. I want to say that again. The supremacy, the victory, the triumph of meekness in every conflict is inevitable. It will happen. Maybe not immediately and probably not immediately, but it will triumph over pride in every single conflict in life. The Lord began to stir my heart about the supremacy of meekness. It's inevitable. It cannot lose. And I just felt him wooing me saying, I want you on the winning side in every issue of your life. Not just to the fact that you'll go to heaven when you die and that you know me and I'm using you a little bit. More than that. I want every single area of your life, time, money, words, every conflict. I want you to be in the place of meekness where my favor is drawn to you in the fullness in that issue. The very profound arrow that struck my heart. Again, I'm all for sharing it with you, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the Lord was inviting and in the invitation was a correction. The Lord doesn't speak unless there's need for the word to come. And in that correction, he was saying there's more favor that I have for you, but I can't give it to you right now because I want it to be given only in the likeness of my government and my administration, which is all based on meekness. I have the last sentence of C. We must resist the fear that we will lose with meekness. We have this fear. We're in a conflict with somebody on money and they're pushing their point. We're going to lose out a little bit, a hundred or a thousand or 20,000 and we're stirred up and our flesh is stirred up and we have a fear. If we yield at any point, we will lose. The Lord whispers, he says, it's impossible for meekness to lose. Impossible. You will end up with more authority over more money than you can imagine. But I need, I need meekness in its place before I release the favor. Now, if winning means you win by the end of the month, then meekness doesn't win every time. But if winning means that the final end of the matter is victory for the meek person, then it's a true statement. The Lord's dealing with me. He's wanting to wean me off of any fear whatsoever that I could lose by yielding the meekness. Men will rise up and say this and say that people will attack, people will resist. And if I maintain, not maintain, if I attain and then maintain, I got to attain it before I maintain it. But if I can attain to this in a deeper level, every conflict I have in the future, again, I'm making this real personal. This is still just touching me. The same is true of you. Ultimately, it will have a triumphant. We need to have no fear about this. We can stay steady. We don't have to be cocky, defensive. We don't have to put that extra energy with sarcasm. We can have in the tranquility of the peace of God, a calm spirit, knowing that meekness always will win because that's where God's government only works through meekness. The whole government of God operates on this principle. D, the beauty of God's meekness. God, part of God's beauty, I mean, this is a massive part of his beauty. The fact that he's meek. I mean, could you imagine he has all power? He's he spoke the universe into the power that he has is beyond anything we can grasp the knowledge, the wisdom. He is so brilliant. He stewards all of it in indescribable, infinite meekness. And that's the God that saved us and that we will rule and live with forever. What a fantastic concept of an empire that has all power in it. That's rooted deeply in meekness and all of the subjects of that empire are filled with meekness together. Beloved, I want to see more of that now in our midst right now, right here in IHOP, right here in our spiritual family of FCF. But the beauty of God's meekness is imparted to those who seek it. God wants to not just to possess the beauty of it. He wants you and I to have, to be adorned with this beauty. In 1st Peter, a verse that's not on the PowerPoint, 1st Peter chapter 3, verse 3 to 5, God says that we are adorned with the beauty of meekness. We are made beautiful by meekness. We are made beautiful by a meek spirit. Now, we're not just beautiful in the sense that believers look at it. God is deeply attracted to meekness. When meekness is operating in our lives, God loves us before we care about Him. When we hate Him, He loves us. God so loved the world. But there's more than God loving us. God actually enjoys us once we say yes to Him in Christ Jesus. It goes from loving us to loving us plus enjoying us. But beloved, there's something more than saying yes to Jesus in a deeply sincere way where He enjoys us. God loves us, yay more. He enjoys us, yay more. He wants to release His favor because He's deeply attracted to what He's like Himself and it's meekness. He's deeply attracted to meekness. Says in Psalm 149, David was the one that said it. And he's talking about the people of God in meekness when he says this or humility. He goes, God takes pleasure in His people. And in its context, He means He takes pleasure in the people that are walking in humility, the next phrase. And He will not only take pleasure, He will crown them with beauty. They will be attractive and drawing the favor of God. And they will be attractive even before men, before one another, men and women. We need to spend time adorning ourselves, making this one of the premier focuses of our life in this age, the attaining of meekness. I'm going to say that again. It needs to be one of the premier focuses of our life. Too often, our premier focus is becoming happy. Our premier focus is getting a big ministry, a big business, getting bigger and happier. And beloved, I want to say this with, with confidence. If we will make meekness the premier focus of our life, the happy spirit we long for will follow soon in its path. And the prosperity of God we long for, whether it's the anointing or authority or impact will be here in its season. Some in this age and much in the age to come. Let's go to the next a paragraph E and it says in Isaiah 62 verse one and two. Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. Where is the place where I rest? God's asking a question. He goes, I want to be at rest with people. Where is the place where I am not wrestling with my people, where I'm not resisting them and wrestling them and challenging them and boxing them in a corner where they can't get out? Do you know that the Lord wants to be at rest with his people? Because right now, mostly in our lives, when the Lord talks to us about every third conversation, he's striving with us to quit something. He's striving with us to start doing something different than we're doing. He wants more meekness out of us. He wants more servanthood out of us and he wants less compromise. And the Lord's relationship with his church is one often where he's striving, constantly wrestling and we're hassling and pushing him away and he's wooing us and hemming us in and then we're sneaking out and running out and then he traps us again and he says, I love you, I love you, but I want to rest in you. And one of the phrase of God resting, it's a fantastic phrase we looked at the other night and I don't want to go into the definition of what God's rest, but the essence is that he's not wrestling and striving anymore with us and we become a vehicle of his manifest power and authority. And so the question of the hour is, where is the place where God isn't wrestling with people where he's manifesting his authority instead? Where is that place? And he gives the answer in verse 2. The Lord says, on this one will I look to the person who's poor in spirit. He's talking not about poor financially, he's talking about poor in spirit. Beloved people are, many people who are poor financially have a proud and haughty spirit. There's no virtue in poverty in itself. Being poor doesn't qualify us for anything. He's talking about being poor in spirit. There's some very rich people that have poverty of spirit. It's not very common, but it does happen. Well, matter of fact, poverty of spirit is not very common among anybody. So I'm going to pick on the rich, but I'm just saying that when he's talking about to this one will I look, to this one am I attracted with my favor that goes along with God resting on them. Because God resting on them talks about his manifest authority in their life. It's a fantastic concept. Again, I don't want to develop that, but God's looking to rest at IHOP. He's not resting at IHOP. He's looking to rest in our lives instead of wrestling. He's not resting among us or in us. He loves us. He even enjoys us, but he's wrestling and withholding favor from us. He says in verse 2, this is the one that I will look at, to the one that's poor in spirit. The one that has a contrite spirit, that's the same thing as meekness. Contrite spirit and meekness is the same. And I am looking at the person to rest in, the one that trembles at my word. And what it means to tremble at God's word is to hear God's word and to take it so serious that we want to obey it. It's not casual. It's the opposite of a casual attitude. Well, you know, that one verse I don't really know. It's the person that is energetically cautious about obeying each phrase of the Bible. The one that trembles, that has this unusual attentiveness about the specifics of what God's word tells us to do. The Lord says, this is the kind of woman that I will rest in. This is the kind of man I will manifest my authority, because rest and authority is the same thing in this context. Okay, let's go to G. Skipping a few verses. Again, if you want them, you can just get it on the document on the internet, if you want that. And some, several have asked me, if you just go to the homepage and it says, my biblical documents and just click, there you have it. And we've got a whole bunch of G. Let's read the passage, Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 to 30. Jesus says, come to me, all you who labor, come to me, all of you that are heavy laden, every one of you that have a heavy spirit on your heart. To be heavy laden means your heart is locked up. It feels oppressed. It feels agitated. It's the opposite of feeling the anointing of God on the heart, which is it's most people in the earth. Truthfully, it's most believers in the body of Christ. They're heavy laden. Their spirit is filled with anxiety and fear and rejection and turmoil. And the word is boring and prayer is boring and worship is good. If the musicians are good, but their spirit doesn't move, it's not responsive. It doesn't discern the anointing. You didn't feel the presence of God much. They're heavy laden. Their spirit was heavy in a negative sense. He says, all of you Christians and non-Christians alike, you got a heavy spirit. You feel oppressed. You're agitated. You're complete. You don't have peace in your spirit. Occasionally you might, but you don't. He goes, here's what I want to do. I want to refresh your spirit. I want to give you rest. That means I want to breathe the anointing on your spirit. I want you to feel the power of God in the word. I want you to be able to read the word and feel the tenderness of God strike your spirit. That's what rest means. It means God's going to bring refreshing power to your spirit. He says, but here's the deal. He goes, that's my intention to refresh your spirit and to refresh our spirit. Does it? I mean, this is nice. I like this, but it doesn't mean you go worship service for an hour and feeling a little bit and thinking, wow, that's good. I like that, but the Lord has far more. He wants you to be able to close, to open your Bible and feel God in the word. He wants you to feel the spirit's movement on your heart. When you pray beloved, that's the inheritance of every single believer. And that's a, that's a dynamic reality that most believers do not operate in, except for every, you know, maybe 1% of the time and it's God's will. They want to operate in that 80% of the time. The Lord always has those seasons where he holds back because you're obeying God. So you, you got to remember that sometimes our struggle is because we are obeying. So I don't want to say a hundred percent of the time of this age, you're going to have your spirit with that. I love to use that phrase. It's not a biblical phrase. I say that buzz on my spirit, where I just feel that electricity of God touching me. When I opened his open the word, I love that. I want, I want more of it. And the Lord woke me up the other night and told me how to get it. He says, meekness is what draws my favor to you. I already love you. I've already called you. It's not about loving you, Mike. It's not about calling you. It's not about wanting you. It's about my favor being released in your spirit. I mean, your life. I want more of his favor. So the Lord says in verse 29, he says, take my yoke and learn from me. Now the question that is supposed to be asked is what do we learn from you? What is it you want us to learn that would cause us to be yoked to you? And he gives the answer, learn my gentleness and my meekness. And there's a direct correlation. If we get yoked in with a lifestyle of meekness, yoked into the Lord, we begin to take serious the meekness that he lived out in his humanity on the earth. He lived in meekness. We begin to yoke into that lifestyle. We can be, we begin to press into that. What happens by getting into that yoke of meekness rest will come to our spirits and rest will be ministered from us to other people. We'll be vehicles of bringing the refreshing of God. Not only will we feel it, we will communicate it to others. He says, you'll find rest for your souls. And because this verse is used so much and it's in so many posters and Christian cards, which I appreciate, but it's become afraid. It's become a passage that most people don't think much about because they're so familiar with the terms. Jesus said, I promise you, you will find rest. You will find the anointing of God on your heart. You will feel God when he talks to you and you will feel God when you talk back to him. That's called the anointing of God in prayer. Beloved, could you imagine what it would be like if the majority of your life, when God talked to you through the written word or through your conscience drawing, and you talk back to God, just praising him. I love you, God, in a worship service. You talk back to God in a prayer meeting, or you talk back to God, just kind of, you know, under your breath driving. You could feel the presence of God when he talked to you, when you talk to him. This is the will of God. It absolutely is what God wants for us. I have more of that than I've ever had in my life, but I don't have near as much as I long for. I don't have as near as much of that as God has for me. If I had all that I, that he had for me, he wouldn't have woken me up the other day and said, Mike, what about meekness? Not a sermon talking to you, but because you're my friends and I've been struggling with this. I mean, and there's good sense of going, oh my, I just, if I'm going to struggle, I want you to struggle. I mean, that's what friends are for. Number one, I have a heavy laden. I've already described it, but I got a paragraph on it. The heavy spirit so common today, beloved, there's a heavy spirit on most believers. I don't mean a heavy spirit when they talk, they're so depressed, they're about to fall asleep. That's not what I mean by heavy spirit. Some people have this idea of a heavy spirit that is so intense. Nobody qualifies for it unless they're in an institution. No, the heavy spirit he's talking about is the dull spirit that can't feel the presence of God. When God talks to us and we talk back to him in the various different ways that I mentioned a minute ago, that's the heavy spirit. That's the heavy laden. We were not designed to have a dull spirit. We were not designed by God to not be able to, our hearts be able to move powerfully when the communication takes place. There's a foreign presence that's come in. Now here's what happens. I have in the second sentence here in paragraph one, we can easily become so accustomed to quenching the spirit. We are so accustomed to quenching the spirit. The spirit is always drawing us to meekness, always drawing us to more humility in our speech, what we say and don't say in our time and our money. And we get so accustomed to ignoring that wooing, that slight whisper in our conscience that we don't understand that the spiritually dull heart that we have becomes a long-term condition that many believers have just made peace with and decided to live with that dull spirit for decades. And they don't even have to. They don't even have to, but there is no freedom from it apart from the pursuit of meekness. People go to the prayer line, lay hands on me and I want to get my heart refreshed. I go, I'm happy for that. It's just like the Lord to give you a little jumpstart. You never know, but I tell you one thing, even if somebody does pray for it and you get a little jumpstart, you feel a little refreshing, it will be gone before the end of the evening or by tomorrow at best, because there's only pathway. There's only one pathway to a refreshed heart and that is pursuing meekness in a literal, serious, comprehensive way in our lives. I don't want to be conditioned. I don't want to get used to quenching the spirit. I don't want to get used to a dull spirit where it doesn't even bother me because everyone else has one. What's the big deal? He says, number two, I'll give you rest. I've already talked about that. I using the word here, refreshed or tenderized or feeling the presence of God. Number three, he says this in verse 30, he goes, if you do this, if you do this, this yoke of meekness that I want you to put on you, I want you to yoke yourself because a yoke in an, you know, an oxen or various, the beast of burden, the animals that did the work in the field plowing, you would, you would yoke a strong oxen to a weaker one and the stronger one would help pull them along the way. Jesus is the strong ox who knows the way of meekness. He goes, get yoked to me and go in my path. Go with me in this way. He goes, if you do it here, I promise you something. The yoke may cause you to be afraid on the front end because we're afraid of meekness because we have the feeling that meekness won't ultimately triumph, but actually we will lose. If we're meek, we have this unspoken fear that meekness will injure us. We're afraid of it. We don't have confidence. And I understand that because I, you know, I don't have perfect confidence that it's going to triumph, but my confidence in it grows more and more as the years go by. But the Lord saying, listen, here's what you're going to find out in verse 30. You're going to find out that the yoke of meekness will end up, it will just take a little bit of time before you get used to that yoke because you put that new oxen in the yoke. It takes a while, you know, that wooden yoke, you know, it's around their neck. It causes a few calluses. It's a little odd at first, but the animals get used to it in a short amount of time. He goes, you'll find the yoke is an easy yoke at the heart level. Your heart will become alive. The heavy spirit will go and you will find that the heart is easy and light because the anointing of God's touching it. Beloved, again, I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad. I'm trying to say that it's not, this problem is widespread. What I'm trying to say is that most believers do not have an experience of the easy yoke in their heart. If the circumstances are hard, their heart is hard. If the circumstances are light, then their heart is light. If something good happens in circumstances, then they get happy. If something goes bad in circumstances, they're sad. And Jesus says, you don't have to be a slave to your circumstances. There is a way to walk with me to when it's bad or good outwardly, you can be yoked to an easy light flow of God on the inside, regardless what's going on the outside. Most believers, their inward man goes up and down with what's happening in their outward life. Lord says, you don't have to do that. There's a yoke and it's, it's, it's, it's a strange yoke on the front end because it's so contrary to anything we think or do, but that yoke will get light and you will begin to have adversity on the outside and pressures, but your spirit will be alive and it will be an easy life on the inside, even though it may have stress on the outside. Now we're jealous for that, aren't we? We want the yoke of God. Well, the easy yoke though, the, the heart that's alive when the pressures are, are, are mounting up on the outside is there's only found one place it's found in the yoke of meekness. I cannot stress this enough. We can fake one another out, but we can't fake out the Holy Spirit. The yoke that is light is only found in one place, seeking meekness when nobody's looking in our heart, trembling at the word of the Lord. This is the one that I'm looking at. The Lord says to the one that's meek and that trembles at my word. My, my desire that tonight that I'm going to get a few converts tonight that several of you, I know a bunch of you already are signed on for this, but some of you, my goal is that some of you are going to shift and make your outward life, which is important, you're going to make it second, not 20th, second. You're going to make your relational, business, ministerial and physical life very important. Those are very important things. God's in those things. God has things to do. You're going to make it second. You're going to make the pursuit of meekness or intimacy because they go together first. And if that shift takes place, I got a convert and you're going to spend more time thinking of ways to walk in meekness than you are thinking of ways to make your circumstances better. Beloved, it's right to think about making our circumstances, but that's totally biblical to do that. But if it becomes first, what ends up happening, we get into fear and strife and we start pressing to make sure things go right and we get into pride and meekness goes out the window and then our inner man loses its ability of vitality in the grace of God. Roman numeral two. What is meekness? Well, there's quite a few definitions and I want to unpack them a little bit. I don't have, you know, the final word on it by any means, but there's, I would think of, there's, I could think of eight or ten different distinct facets of what meekness is. It's not just one phrase. It's more than one phrase. There's eight or ten facets of what humility is. Some people think that humility is, is if you don't boast. No, boasting is like the extreme end of pride. Meaning most people that are filled with pride are dignified and not enough not to boast. Boasting is when you're totally out of control and have no discernment. So, and the reason I'm saying that is that some folks think if you don't boast, well, you're not proud. Boasting is, again, it's the kind of the eccentric end of pride. Pride has so many other facets that don't go to the extreme of boasting. Pride is the number one enemy in your heart and my heart. Pride is the number one destruction, I mean, tool of Satan to bring destruction to our lives. It is gigantic. Pride is the last thing to go and meekness operating in the opposite spirit is taking a, is taking a shot at it. It's like a sledgehammer at a time. Every time we walk in meekness in a relationship, in our words, in serving, we take a, it's like we're we're moving the opposite spirit. We're breaking a little bit of the stronghold of pride in our spirit. But beloved, let me tell you this, and I know I'm sure that a number of you know this well. Pride is far more powerful in all of our lives. I was talking to Anne. I was giving her eight or ten of these definitions and into some of them are not obvious definitions and she says, oh my gosh, if this is what pride is, we're all loaded with it. I go, it is what pride is and we are loaded with it and my point isn't like, oh no, we might as well quit. My point is, at least we know what the problem is because there's an answer to the problem if we're attacking the right problem. We can pray and go to have ministry and do all kinds of things, but if we're not seeking meekness, we don't have the environment in our heart for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to release all the other dimensions we want revelation in. Meekness is the core, is the core atmosphere of the human heart of which revelation of Jesus is bridegroom, king, and judge. You can't get revelation. You can get head knowledge. You can't get revelation without a pursuit of meekness as the atmosphere of your heart. You can learn Bible phrases, you can't have revelation. Meekness is the condition to receive anything from God that has authority and power in it, anything that's unique. I mean, versus just the common grace of the sun shining and so what I mean by unique or distinct is the word I'm really looking for. It's, it's a lifelong struggle. I have so much, I've gained, I've gained ground on it in 30 years, but I have so much more than the more that I, I strike at pride. The more pride I see in me. And so I look at it not as a kind of a, the reason I'm saying that I don't feel discouraged by that is that it's not a kind of a passing thing. Well, while we deal dealt with pride in the eighties, you know, then we, we learned about the bridegroom in the nineties. We got into the prophetic in the two thousands. No pride is the number one resistor from now to the day we meet the Lord. It is the Goliath till the end. I don't mean it conquers us. It is, if we turn the other way, it will come in and try to take over again. The Lord visited Paul, the apostle, and he said, Paul, here he is the most, here's the, I don't know about, I was gonna say the most mature apostle. I don't know about that, but he's right at the top. I mean, Paul's pretty, you know, intense guy writing half the word of God of the new Testament. And he gets this thorn in the flesh in second Corinthians 12, and he goes, Satan's buffeting me. What's the deal? And Jesus appears to him. He says, Paul, I'm allowing Satan to buffet you because even as a mature apostle writing the Bible, you have pride in your spirit that will get out of control because I'm using you so much now, beloved, if Paul, right before he dies, I mean, a few years before he dies, has pride of that level where he needs a demonic harassment to keep his attention focused on humility. I look at me and go, what on earth? And the Lord says, no, no, no, don't, don't give up. Don't do that, but don't think so casual about it. And that's the only point I'm making. My point is that what's the, what's the use because it's so big, because we will gain ground and the pursuit of meekness is what God's after. My point is it's so big that if we're casual or worse, if we don't even think about it, which is where most believers are, they don't think about their, their lack of meekness or the pursuit of it on a daily basis. They hardly ever think about it. I'm saying that we're really completely on the wrong page. We're on a different page than God is when God's thinking about our life. It says here, uh, this is to me, the premier passage is Philippians two, one to 16. I only got a few verses here, but that is, if you want to become students on meekness, which we do Philippians two is the ultimate passage, you know, like the beauty Rome of God, revelation four and five, the ultimate passage of the description of meekness and the call to it line by line, phrase by phrase, Philippians two, we ought to have a Bible school course just on those 16 verses. And, you know, every class is one of those verses. I mean, this is how big this subject is. And there's no place that's more clearly as it said than this. And Paul, uh, takes about 10 categories of pride, all kinds of different versions of pride, you know, that are not, uh, boasting they're far more subtle than that. And he just sums them all up. But he says, let there be nothing. That word, nothing is stubborn. Let nothing be done with selfish ambition. Like, Oh my goodness. Are you for real Paul? And Paul say, well, that's not exactly the right question. The question is, is the Holy spirit breathing in me for real, telling me to tell you this. Do nothing through selfish ambition, nothing through empty concede is what one translation says, but in lowliness of mind, that's meekness, esteem others. Now, as long as others never have a name and a face, this is a great verse. I mean, as long as others are just a concept in a Bible teaching, then there's no problem. But when the others are the people in your family, in your neighborhood and the people you work with that aren't cooperating, then others is a whole different deal because we have this category that we esteem others, except for the uncooperative ones, which is the whole human race. It's almost everyone, you know, is in that category of not fully cooperating. So we have this category, this idea, we will esteem those that are kind of like getting with the program, i.e. our program versus no, no, I didn't say that. I said, I want you to esteem others like, oh my goodness, this is intense. Well, you can read the verse on your own more of it. And Philippians two, look at the verse, the next verse, first Timothy three, six, he's talking about an elder. He said, now don't put a, don't put an elder in too quick because if he's a novice, if he's too young, Paul said, he'll be puffed up with pride because he'll fall into the same condemnation the devil fell into. My point is this Lucifer fell because of pride. Pride is to the kingdom of darkness, all pervasive as meekness is to the kingdom of God and government. It's the exact antithesis of it, the exact opposite. Everything in the room of darkness is fueled by pride. A person wants to get into immorality. If they will, if they will continue in their pride, they'll get a stronger immorality demon. If they stay with pride, more pride will bring bigger demons to whatever they're fixated with. Humility will do the opposite humility, every virtue in the grace of God. We want, we want more revelation. We want more, uh, uh, everything. We're going to get free from this. We want our, our, our tongue to be controlled more. We want our appetites control. We want all these virtues, humility is the atmosphere, which will make those virtues grow much faster inside of us. But we seek those virtues without seeking meekness. Those things it's like planting, uh, uh, uh, uh, planting on soil that's parched. Many believers are pursuing the gifts of the, I mean, the fruit of the Holy spirit. They wouldn't love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, but they're doing it. We're then never taking the pursuit of meekness serious. So the very soil of their heart is not receptive to the seeds. They're trying to plan it and it just falls right off and they stay with their bondages and addictions. They're trying to get free from alcohol. They're trying to get free from their drugs. They're trying to get free from their anxiety. They're trying to get free from, and when I mean the drugs I was talking about, they are illegal drugs. I'm talking about in the drug markets. What I'm talking about right now, they're trying to get free from their, uh, pornography from their everything, but they have a, but they've neglected to pursue humility and they can't repent their way out. They can't get a counselor to get them freed. They can't get anybody to lay hands and cast it out because without meekness in their spirit, these things will not go away. We are stuck with them until we die, except our heart has an atmosphere of meekness in it. Same with pride. Again, I've already said it, but I'll say it again with pride, whatever demon we have, we can have the double dose demon, the, what do you call that? The bigger size, you know, whatever you have, the problem is compounded. When the pride increases of whatever addiction we have, it gets more severe with pride and they all have got pride, but I mean, the pride can grow and the addictions get worse. And most people don't think it's related to meekness and pride. They think it's related to the addiction. Trying to get a bunch of people free from addictions when they're not dealing with pride in their spirit, it's just an impossible situation. They can hold their breath and get free for a month or two or three. The minute they have stress, they go right back to it because the atmosphere inside of them is contrary to the life of God. If I deny meekness and I have denied and refused meekness, it injures my soul in a way far more than I could ever calculate. It's not about proving to you I do it. It's not about you proving it to me. It's about the Holy Spirit looking and says, this is the one that I will look at. This is the one that I will rest in. This is the one I will put my hand on, the one that is pursuing meekness. I will bring them under a yoke of freedom if they get into a yoke of meekness. Whatever you need to understand in life, make the understanding and the acquiring of meekness the number one pursuit of your life. You get that thing straight. I don't mean you get the victory in the full sense. You get the idea of what God wants out of you meekness. I tell you this, your areas of bondage will begin to decrease dramatically. You try to get free and try to get annoyed and try to get all the positive things without pursuing meekness. It is so frustrating and you can fake everybody out, but you can't fake out the Holy Spirit. There's no point in doing a charade. I mean, for me to get you guys thinking I'm this or that and then do it different on the other side is a charade. It's worthless because my soul would still be in bondage. Well, I'm going to talk just a little bit more. I know it's late, but I want to touch on one key point. It's got a couple points in it, but it's one key idea. It's about reconciliation and meekness. Reconciliation. Down in paragraph B, God's way is meekness-based reconciliation. When God wants two people who are estranged or who are separated to come back together, God's way is meekness-based. Man's way is justice-based reconciliation. I just want to develop this idea for a moment, then we'll end with that. Jesus, I'm in paragraph B, as the innocent one, assumed the role of the guilty one to accomplish reconciliation. So we have the only man that was totally innocent. He stepped into the role of being totally guilty so you and I could get reconciled to him. He goes, that is reconciliation based on meekness. Now, here's what man wants to do. Here's what you and I want to do. We want a justice-based reconciliation. We get estranged, we have conflict, whether it's marriage, family, friends, workers, neighbors, whatever, it doesn't matter. Okay, we're going to sit down at the table. I am responsible for 25% of the conflict. You are responsible for 75% of the conflict. I am willing to operate in justice and take responsibility for my 25%. I want you responsible for your 75%. I want a sense of justice. I want the exact percentage of what I'm guilty for. I will bring it to the table and I want to be done with it. And all that will do is cause pride and strife and fractured relationships to continue and to continue and to continue. It's impossible in the pursuit of justice in interpersonal relationships for that to be the basis of reconciliation. The basis cannot be justice. I cannot look at you and ask you to own your percent and I commit to own my percent according to my understanding because I will always miss it and you will always miss it and we will be even though we might even come to a peace treaty shake hands or hug and our hearts are still injured and we say you know what I'm I'm reconciled but I don't want to hang out with him anymore we're not reconciled then there's a peace treaty but it's not reconciled in our heart every time we hear their name it's bah humbug and we get the that funny feeling and all of that the lord says I want your spirit alive when you run into that person he says don't do the justice-based reconciliation do the mercy-based one well that's not the mercy the meekness the meekness-based one here's what you do do what Jesus did Jesus was perfectly innocent he assumed the role of all the guilt I am the guilty one and then we came together he says operate that way the guy goes whoa whoa whoa what that's not fair well that's the point meekness is not fair that's that's the total point of it it's godlike and so we don't want to lie about it you know that's the people get this strange sense of justice well I have to be truthful if I'm going to get reconciled we have this incredible zeal for justice the fact that we might have to take responsibility for 26 if we're only responsible for 25 so the lord whispers in our heart and he says these kinds of things here's the kinds of things the holy spirit would say you search you know in every conflict there's 10 different little root systems to every conflict there's there are things that we could have done might have done changed the outcome we could have been more sensitive we could have been more thoughtful we could have served more diligently we could have been more persevering there's so many ways we could have contributed in extravagant ways and we lack extravagance and the lord whispers he says good own that then don't you don't have to say the word extravagant go to them and tell them how you lacked all of those virtues in your relationship with them you go oh that's a little intense well they lack it too don't go to justice-based reconciliation there is no reconciliation go to meekness assume as much guilt go to the full limits of truth that you can to be as responsible as you can to repent and you go to them with just a boatload of responsibility and own it i mean ask the lord say i have five points i can repent of i want two more give me two more what we normally do is we have five and we try to bring it down to three like talk talk ourself out of two of them wait a second in second thought i didn't really do that he should have done that the lord says if you have five little points you can bring to the table to repent of ask for two more and the holy spirit says i'll give you three more if you ask for two i'll give you creative ideas and when you get at the table you'll have three or more ideas and be wide open because the guy you're talking to will add one or two more to your the equation as well instead of drawing back saying bah humbug how dare you give him ten dollars and say thank you my spirit is going to get freed if i could be if i can excel in the yoke of meekness my spirit will be at rest and i'll be alive inside beloved give the guy ten dollars give him twenty dollars he gives you even a hint of what you can repent of even a hint if it's possible it's true give him another ten dollars thank you i need this my because i tell you what you get into meekness addictions pains strongholds it's like the weeds in the soil it's like watering them though it gets all moist you can pull those plants out from the root up you get a moist soil in your heart the whole root system comes up when there's meekness softening the soil you really want that guy to tell you more i mean it sounds kind of cute but i mean for real you do because he can give you insight to another way to be yoked to learn of jesus's yoke now in proverbs chapter 18 verse 23 this is a verse the lord has pounded on me from on a few on a number of occasions here's what it says now talking about finances but then it's also talking in the application of a of a social dynamics it says the poor man uses entreaties and the rich man answers roughly so in the banking world the poor guy comes up to the banker says please can i get a house all over my house and the banker goes you prove to me you little whippersnapper you can pay me back and i'll think about even giving you one more minute of my time and the guy trembles and oh please please and he's begging he's entreating yes sir no sir can i do this oh yes i'll have that back for you he's in the posture of the entreating and the rich man says yeah you're wasting my time prove it get out of here now in the social setting the people that are poor in spirit they may they may be the leader of the whole organization i mean they may run the billion dollar company doesn't matter what their position is they go into the relationship as a poor man even though they're talking to people 10 layers lower than them and they speak to them with entreaties as though they're poor because they're poor in spirit they don't go with all their relate their organizational clout you know they're the director of the board and they own all the stock and they come in and say listen you know i'm the owner of this place they don't go as a rich man that offers roughly they go as a poor man even though they might have the authority and that's the way the lord wants us in our relationships he wants us to be poor men and poor women not rich ones that are in the power position and i don't have to listen to you tell me that that's the rich man offering answering roughly that's called pride the poor man is meekness he answers within he he talks with entreaties even though he might have far more authority in the organization i'm thinking of a big business type thing blessed are the poor in spirit number one a servant spirit a servant spirit takes the initiative here's what meekness is a servant spirit well i'll make it personal with me so because i always like to use a person or name or something like that and this is a tough situation so i'll be uh put myself on the line if i really have a servant spirit if i really have meekness those are synonymous i will take the initiative in a conflict to take responsibility to assume as much of the guilt as possible and i will seek the lord to show me a way to take on more of the responsibility the negative that's what a leader does that's what a leader in the kingdom of god does or a leader after god's own heart does servant leadership takes the initiative i'm in the middle of paragraph one it takes the initiative in humbling oneself servant leadership takes initiative in assuming as much of the responsibility i'll say of the guilt of the air again if you're wise if i'm wise i will search for ways they go three things i can see i did lord i need two more because i don't want to just be convincing to the person i want the spirit of god to move on my heart and i want to be transformed another degree through this experience okay let's go to paragraph two this isn't this is the whole thing i really wanted to say was paragraph two right here and i mean this very very sincerely a husband's leadership in the home you know the bible says the husband is the head of the home means for real this is not like i said this morning they all kind of got a kick out of it i go no no no i'm not it seems kind of uh like oh wow that would really be something but let's just say it anyway to be the leader of the home means he takes the initiative in humility when there's a conflict in the home for a man to be over his wife and he is means he is mandated by god when there's a conflict to be the first one to bring it up and the first one to bow down that is what leadership is that's what it means for a man to be over his wife all over the kingdom of god it's amazing many many men of god have this this pride driven secular ungodly mindset that being over their wife means they tell her what to do that is not at all what being over a family means to tell them what to do they come home they sit down woman do this i'm over you that's the exact opposite spirit of the bible that that concept is born in hell that comes from darkness the idea that if you're in the place of authority that gives you the place to boss around is exactly opposite if you've at those wedding vows the young guy here the guy is he's 22 23 he gets married they make the vows he is vowing before god to take the initiative in humility and to take as much responsibility to be lowly so that his wife can enter back into the restored relationship that's what the young man is vowing on his wedding day he is not she is not vowing to obey his every whim it's that is so ungodly and how people uh how that has got entrenched in the kingdom of god is just again it's it's like strongholds of darkness all over the kingdom of god in that arena for the leader of the church the leader of the ministry whatever level of leadership you are whether you're the in our situation here i'm the primary human leader but you might be the primary human leader over an area over a worship team over a section over a program and if there's problems under that as a leader you are the first one to initiate humility and you're the one seeking to take the double load of the guilt that's what you're trying to do that's what leadership is now i heard this i mean i've really had a tough go at this because i heard this when i was 22 years old or something like that at some seminar and it was so exciting i wasn't married yet i got married i was 22 i heard at some seminar i thought oh that's cool so i just kind of got all diane this is how it will be in our home she goes cool never heard of that i like that so the first day we're married it's amazing how much practice you get what happens is that conflicts begin to emerge and i made such a big point i bragged about it so much i was stuck i bragged about it before there was a conflict and now i was still you know that's it was perfect setup from the lord and uh and i really did believe it actually i really did believe it i believed it but didn't have the kind of the emotional infrastructure to really walk it out well if you can figure out what i'm trying to say it's like ah and it and i decided i blew it i blew it sometimes but i would confess it to her i blew it i said i did not take leadership i did not take biblical leadership i did that spirit of man proud kingdom of darkness thing to you and i don't like that that is called the kingdom of darkness so i would admit that to her and i asked her to forgive me and i would make this commitment i said i am going to be a leader and i made a commitment to her so many times and i'm encouraging the young guys to do this that whenever we were in a conflict she knew that i knew that she knew that i knew that she knew that god knew we both all knew i went oh my goodness because we're in a conflict i said 100 of the time no basis whatsoever in justice but based in meekness i'm going to pursue reconciliation and if i'm 50 responsible and you are 25 75 either way it does not make any difference i will be first i commit in the grace of god and i will take the double load of the responsibility and so now you know as the conflicts happen over the years the what we call intense fellowship does anybody know what intense fellowship is okay i i guess i'm talking to the right crowd then there would be this moment of silence because i committed to her and there's something about committing it to them over and over and over again and then when i blow it we're confessing that i did not do it then recommitting again to it so now the intense fellowship happens and i got this yucky feeling because i know i have to do this like in the next 30 minutes or so like oh man she is like double wrong again and the lord's answer is i'm not even going to speak about who's more wrong or who's not wrong i know that under me you made a covenant to be the leader of the home so get on with it beloved that's what leadership is that's what leadership in an organization is that's what about doing it i never you know you don't know near it you don't have any idea the mountains of pride you have till you start walking out meekness line by line then the times i didn't want to do it i was just sick you know maybe i just i didn't do that come back in an hour i just waited and waited and i'm really stuck like a lot of you guys because when those early days i was really committed to prayer meetings i would go i did this i mean a hundred times i would leave the house at six to go to a three-hour prayer meeting seven to ten knowing i'm quenching the spirit ephesians 1 17 with a quenched spirit god send the spirit of revelation to somebody oh my gosh maybe me oh i gotta i always have to do it and here's the answer i said why do i always have to do it in the lord just because you're the leader that's what leaders do oh i want her to be the leader well you're the one that made that big point mike about how the bible was god's order so you're the leader like oh man i thought it was like woman get over here and get me some cupcakes or something that's what i thought it was that's what the other guys told me that leadership was and so for the last 28 years this has been the most important principle in our relationship when there's a we know this we've talked about so many times it's like she can get all excited in a negative way or i can it's not matter whoever does i am covenanted under god not because of a special covenant because of the word of god in making a marriage covenant i have to do this number three we'll end with number three god uses familiar relationships to draw our un i have unprecedented that's the wrong word unperceived is what i meant to write god uses familiar relationships families i mean inside of the family brother sister parents children mom dad uh marriage that you know the whole family structure or just close friends he uses uh familiar relationships to draw unperceived is what i meant to put pride to the surface because when we get into familiar relationships we get this idea like man i know you know i've been married to her i know you know my sisters my brother my this my that my i don't have to do that they can't get rid of me they're stuck i mean we're it's blood you know even if they get mad and i miss a couple christmases it has to rebound sooner or later so we end up neglecting meekness in familiar relationships because we're kind of like where are they going to go anyway and the lord's saying that's not what this is about i am using because the familiar relationships is the one we're most easily carnal in the new relationships were far more sensitive to show to show meekness and the familiar ones that's the one we'll release he says no it's in those relationships where if you will pursue meekness it will expose the mountains of pride in your spirit just every little encounter where you take the initiative to be to take the ownership of it the mountain of pride will shoot up again every encounter will do it and the lord's saying i am wanting to highlight this in your spirit i'm wanting to seize this area of your life and to take this thing captive and to free you because you know why the lord wants my spirit to be at rest remember matthew 11 take my yoke upon you take my yoke upon you learn from me your spirit will be alive but beloved if i do not do this if i do not do this in secret in in many relationships not just with diane many relationships i'm telling you this there is no such thing as an anointing of prayer there is no such thing as the revelation of the bridegroom king and judge in the forerunner ministry because there's i can learn precepts but i can't have an alive heart apart from an atmosphere of meekness on the inside it is impossible impossible because that's the government of god's kingdom is built around this principle amen well i think i went way over time but let's stand you guys were so enjoying me being crucified up here telling my story that i took my liberty and just went on and on you were just at the end of your chair tell us more tell us more you old proud hypocrite tell us more i could feel it all coming i deserved it you know what i'm going to do i'm going to have us uh instead of pray i'm going to have us we're just going to worship a few minutes because i took so long and the kids and i'll be having to do this to all the parents for their kids you know we're just gonna i just want you to we're just gonna let's just do one song let's just minister to the lord not coming forward because i wouldn't i don't want to go this long as a rule i want us to talk to the lord individually talk to him don't just even hardly sing the song and say lord i want grace for this i gotta go after this i gotta go after this but i want to be meek i want the yoke of meekness i want my spirit refreshed and free inside i want rest for my spirit