Scripture Reading And Welcome

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Good morning. My name is Susan. I'm in recovery. My sobriety date is January 5th, 2010. I'm going to be reading today's verses. Luke 18, 9 to 14. To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Philistine, the other a tax collector. The Philistine stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his chest and said, God have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you that this man rather than other went home justified before God, for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

A Control Freak Meets Fear

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This is the word of the Lord.

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Thank you so much. Northgate Church, how are you feeling today? Are y'all feeling good? Man, tell the person beside you you look so good today. Don't ignore the person on your other side. Tell them too, you look so good today. All right, if you're if you're single and they're single, this may be your moment. You may be like, hey girl, what's up? I've been seeing you worship the way you hold your hands and stuff. So, my name is Courtney Beard. I get a chance to be on the preaching team here at Northgate Church. I'm excited to be here. And let's, oh, you can clap for that. That's okay. That's all right. He's walking around, but Pastor Lawrence is back in the house this week. He's over there saying hi. Y'all saying, hey, Pastor Lawrence. There you go. There you go. Last week, he convinced me to admit that I was a control freak in my sermon series. And I heard some of y'all say, Amen, me too. And Lord, this week I had to practice all my recovery stuff this week because my wife and I, we went and did all the things in the Bay Area. I mean, all the things. And it started out so cool, you know, ramen on Monday, San Francisco. You know, we walking through the town holding hands, we doing that whole thing. And it ended with us going on a hike, okay? This isn't a hiking body, okay? We uh we we we we pulled up to the little to the little uh gate where we were going hiking at, and and we, you know, we paid our money, and I can't believe I'm actually paying to go on this hike where there's no cell phone reception. Grim control freak, I need reception. I'm going where there is no reception. And we pull up, and it it's a it's a it's a it's a paper on the on the place, and it says something that my wife and I have never seen before in the wild streets of San Antonio, and the paper says, careful mountain lion on the loose. They almost lost your boy, okay? They almost lost me. My wife said, Mountain Lion. And then, you know, I didn't want to get her all nervous that mountain lions run 55 miles per hour and can jump 18 inches in the air. And I thought to myself, when this mountain lion comes, and if it looks at her and looks at me, I know who it's coming after first. She's gonna get away and tell the story. She's gonna have to preach this Sunday. And all of my control freak isms were going off because I could not control the moment, and I had to start utilizing all the stuff that I taught you guys last week that I thought was just a sermon. No, I had to do all of it last week. I said, All right, God, you got my attention. I'm gonna give up being a control freak. He said, You sure? I said, Yeah. He said, Well, let me take you down Route One, Highway One, over here by the coast. And I said, Oh my God, the water is beautiful, but I wasn't driving. And the girl who was driving was hugging those corners, going around those corners, and my control freak ism took over again. And I just wanted to say, pull over and let me drive. Because I think you're driving us into the arms of an angel, into the arms of God. Girl, I'm trying to get over being a control freak, and you put me right at the epicenter of my control freakness. And and and I realized really quick that I still have a little bit of work to do. Because how many of you guys know that it's not just a one-time process, it's something that you choose to walk out every day of your life. You're gonna find yourself at some level going back to the steps that you thought you mastered to regain access to them in your life and to give them control one more time and say, Will you walk me through this process again? Because there's a mountain lion chasing me. I didn't tell my wife this part. You know, a mountain lion is also called a cougar, but here's the one, it's called a puma. I used to wear puma shoes, that means I could run fast. And so I just thought to myself, in both of those moments, okay, Courtney, you still got a little bit more work to do of dealing with all your control freakness and in the nature of put your hands up, give God the glory. I was sitting in the back seat. I had to figure out what I was gonna do with my hands because your hands tell the whole story. And so there I am. I'm trying to text on my phone, but every time we hug one of those corners, I start just tapping on random things. I'm playing air guitar and air piano. That's not even guitar right there, that's piano. That's how nervous I was. I was playing instruments that hadn't even been made yet. Because when you're nervous, your hands normally tell a story. Have you ever noticed that? You ever been on a plane that drop real quick, you start grabbing for stuff? Have you ever been

What Your Hands Reveal

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in a situation where you have you ever noticed when you get angry? I don't know how they do it here, but in San Antonio, when they get angry and there's road race, they stick their hand out the window, but it's not in worship. They're doing other stuff with that hand, they're showing you which way heaven is because your hands tell the story. And I'm like, I know which way heaven is. I'm a pastor. Why are you telling me that? Your hands tell a story. Some of you guys watched Brother Messi yesterday in the FIFA game, and you were celebrating when they won, and you threw your hands in the air, you're like, Woo! We won. Some of you guys back in the day when you used to go to parties, the house parties, wherever you went, you would hear the song throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care. And if you're down with Northgate Church, somebody say, Oh yeah, I hear you in the building. You know what to do with your hands. Some of you guys, you go to the TSA in the airport and tell you, hold your hands up like this. They want to see what you got on. But also there are moments when you go through moments and your hands tell a different story. They get angry, they get misunderstood, and all of those things. Here's another thing. You can walk through a moment in life. If you ever dealt with the legal system, you know that putting your hands in the air means I surrender. But in scripture, when you put your hands in the air, it does not mean I have the answer like in school. It does not mean I won. It doesn't mean I'm celebrating. What it simply means is when you put your hands in the air, it means, God, I don't have the answers right now, but I trust that you do. And you're bigger than I am, and you're bigger than my situation. So I just choose to say this is yours and not mine. I hand it over to you. Has anybody ever walked through the part of life where you had to hand something over to God before and say, God, you have to be bigger than this moment? This is where we find ourselves at at step seven. Last week I told you, I said, Church, would you work with me in just opening your hands? To tell the truth, was anybody at work this week just practicing step six? You're somebody made you mad. It's like, oh Lord, you better be glad I went to church this week. Just what are you doing, yoga? Mm-mm. I'm doing Northgate right now. Take the Jesus. Just Northgate. This week is all about taking those hands from being free and empty to being lifted up to a God who knows and who sees, to a God who's been waiting on you the whole time. That is called this this seventh step is dealing with our humility, our ability to ask God to, will you step in and take? Remember last week we were talking about we're gonna get ready to get ready to get ready? Well, this isn't the part where we're getting ready to get ready. This is the moment where we're saying, I've already done the work of getting ready to be ready to there. Here's the work of me saying, God, now I'm asking that you would take this and that you would shape it with all humility. I'm stepping out on courage with empty hands, asking a full God to fill my life. Here's why this is so important because many of us walk through life carrying things. I met, I saw, I talked to some of you guys at the church last week, and you were just like, Pastor Courtney, you kind of nail one of the things that I was walking through. And for everybody in here, it could be from a real substance abuse to control, to anger, to wrath, to pride, to if I was in Texas, I would say overeating. That's not a problem here in San Antonio, in uh San Francisco, in the Bay Area, and Bonesha, y'all eat pretty good. Come to Texas. We are big for a reason. But everybody has something that they're walking through that they're carrying, that they're having to offer to the Lord. So Jesus walks through this story here in the Gospel of Luke. Luke is a physician, he's taking all the things and he knows how this thing is gonna lay out. There's Jesus telling a story about a Pharisee man, about a tax collector who walks into the moment in the hour of prayer. And just like she so beautifully read, Jesus tells this story and it has a plot twist because you have two men, same temple, same hour of prayer, same God, two different heart postures. One walks in pompous, giving God his resume. The other one walks in and says, I don't know if you can handle this, God, but I'm a mess. What you look out for me. This is a scandalous story that Jesus is telling. Jesus is giving this

Step Seven And Empty Hands

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parable that's built with a trap. The trap is that you hear the story, and the moment you hear Pharisee, you think, Oh, that's a good church goer right there. I mean, a good, that's a Pharisee, that's a quality church goer. He's standing up before the Lord, giving his whole resume. Dear God, oh God, oh God, oh God, this week I did right and live right before you didn't cut anybody off while driving down the interstate, Lord, and I didn't overeat, I only had one piece of bacon, God, but not too many. This is a great confessing church right here. That's what I'm talking about. Let me confess some more stuff and see what else I can get off my chest. And so Jesus is telling this parable of this Pharisee who is really lifting himself up before the Lord. And then you have the tax collector who is a man who many would consider to be a traitor because he's been finessing his friends out of money to make sure that Rome gets wealthy. He's living with his friends, taking advantage of them, or finessing them, as the young generation would say, finessing them out of all their money so that way the country can really take off. And they're looking at him like this traitor is coming into the temple, and you're asking me to judge who's gonna be on the right standing between the Pharisee and the tax collector. Clearly, it's gonna be the Pharisee, but Jesus highlights the words of the prayer of the man who is the Pharisee. If you took a poll in that crowd, they would say the Pharisee is right. But here's the problem with that. Here's point number one. You have to have the right posture. Whenever you're dealing with an ask moment, the posture has to be right. Here's what I wrote right here: the posture, the posture is this pride is trying to convince God you're not someone he already knows you're not. That baby said, uh-uh-uh. That must be a good line right there. Let me read it again. Maybe you'll use this in preschool one more time. Pride is no. Pride is trying to convince God that you're something else. Hey God, it's me, Courtney. Your boy, all 140 pounds of me. Oh, y'all went a little far with that laugh. I don't know. That one sounded a little excessive, okay? The first Kiki was great. The other 12, that was a little much. Okay, but but can you imagine that? Hey God, it's me. Washboard Courtney coming to you one more time, talking to you. Well, you look, he's like, Courtney, what are you what are you doing? That that that's that's not you. Where is the real you? Where is the authentic you? Courtney, you told me last week that you taught the people that you could just come and say, search me. And God is looking at us, he's saying, Don't present a version of you that's not the actual you. Bring the real you, bring the messy, learn how to pray and say, God, my life is a mess. Things are going crazy. I kicked the dog and pushed my spouse out. I am doing some crazy stuff. Will you please see me right now? And God steps in with that kind of posture and he says, I actually see you. I'm actually gonna strengthen you. You're gonna be the one that I'm gonna use. You're the plot twist of your whole family, you're the plot twist of your whole neighborhood, you're the plot twist of your story. I'm actually gonna use your story to get some glory out of it to watch people, watch uh freedom come alive in your life, and people are gonna watch you be free. But it's when we don't have the right posture, we're like the Pharisee guy, and he comes in running his resume. Look at this. Jesus says it in Luke 18, uh, 9. Then Jesus told this story to someone who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everybody else. Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness. There's a lot of people that walk around, they have a lot of confidence in their own righteousness. Those are the ones that normally can't see their own shadows. And he's telling the story in saying, hey guys, there's some righteousness issues here. Righteousness simply means the right standing with God. Are you standing in the right place with God? And here it is, right here. There are two types of things that pride brings us as a disease. One is self-righteousness, and the other is an exaggerated view. Have you ever met somebody and you kind of figured out, even though they were telling their story, you're listening, you're kind of like, I think you're the problem. I hear you're saying everybody

Two Prayers Two Heart Postures

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else, but I think you I think you may be the actual problem. That is the tension with this story. Is this Pharisees who's standing in the temple with the right volume, the right stance, the right thing in his voice, even words that look holy, but his posture's off because he's standing from a place of pride. And here's the problem pride never travels alone. Pride always brings friends with it and wants to throw a house party in the middle of your soul. The Pharisee has all the technicalities right, he's in the right building at the right hour with the right activity. That's like the person who's winning on the Bible streak. There's somebody that you know that has 4,000 days strong in the Bible app. They've read a scripture every day, but their life does not look like they've read a scripture every day. And they're doing all the right things. And they're like, oh, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, every every morning for the last 4,532 days, I read something of scripture, and you're like, Great, but I know someone who just got saved at Northgate three weeks ago, and they sound more like God is doing something in their life because they're taking these scriptures that they're gather they're gathering and they're holding it so close to their heart that God is doing the actual real work with them. Why? Because their posture is right. It's possible to know all the language of faith without living a life of dependence on God. Last week, I don't know if I actually said this, it was in my notes, that it's not just about us being free, it's about us being formed. God can set us free in the moment, but forming takes time. I don't want to just be free. I want to be formed. I want to look like Jesus. I want to smell like Jesus. I want my life to reflect Jesus. I don't just want to be free so I can go back into the thing that had me bound. I want to actually be formed so that way when I encounter somebody else and share my story, my story is not out of my own goodwill or my self-discipline, but my story is out of the good freedom of the gospel. That when I partner with God, good things happen. Here's the problem with that. Uh Luke 18, 11 through 12 says this the Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer. He says, I thank you, God. That I am not like the other people. Oh, look at all of you. That I'm not like those other people. Cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I'm certainly not like that tax collector over there. I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of all of my income. This brother has deep main character energy going on. Did you read how many eyes are in there? Read it with me. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer. What do you say, church? I thank you, God, that I am not like other people. What did he say? Cheaters, sinners, adultery. I mean, he's going down the line. And you better not have tapped the person beside you when I nail theirs. Don't tap them on cheaters. That's you, babe. That's why I bought you today. He he he's not giving God his reality, fam. He's giving God his resume. And God's not interested in my resume when he wants to heal my reality. He's boosting himself up in the presence of the Lord. That is arrogance and pride when God is telling him, Come to me just as you are, come to me the way you look in the mirror. Come to me because I can actually see your location. I know what's going on with you. Your GPS is on and I see where you are. But if you come to me and you try to tell me that you're someplace that you're not. One time I was traveling, this is back before Uber fixed all of this. I had my food delivered to the wrong place. I ordered a good oxtail meal. Anybody here ever had oxtails with gravy and rice? If you never had it, go find you. You've had it before. Okay, good. There's some good food in this church. And so I had my oxtails delivered because I was staying at a hotel in Chicago, but I made my way back to San Francisco, and this is before they had fixed it all. And I was waiting at my house for the oxtails to arrive, and they arrived and said they've been delivered. I looked outside my house and I don't see anything. And then I looked again back on the app and I texted them, I said, I don't see it. They said, No, we just dropped it off at the hotel in Chicago. And I said, Oh my God, wrong location. I don't want to give a wrong location when I need freedom over here. But tell him the Lord, I'm over here. Don't drop my stuff off at the wrong place. I need to show you exactly who I am, where I am, and what I'm walking through. This Pharisee, he walked up, he gave God all of his mentionables. I do this now. He's overachieving because you really, you know, he's telling him, I fast twice a week. They're normally fasting once a year. He's telling him, I give you a tenth of everything. God is telling him, give me a tenth of all of all of your crop that you bring in. This guy is overachieving. He's trying to do it in his own self-discipline. He's become his own God and his own idol. Pride is when you're trying to convince God you're someone he already knows that you're not. The Pharisee prayed his resume. The tax collector prayed a plea. Let me jump down here because uh I can give you uh these things, but let me give you the three P's that I discovered. But here's a guy uh named Pastor Willard who came up with this. This is in mind. He gives you the three P's of what it looks like to overthrow pride when you want to walk in humility. The first P is this it is no pretending. We have to stop pretending. Somebody say no pretending. You gotta be exactly who you are with God. Here's the other one: no presuming.

Three Ways To Overthrow Pride

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Somebody say no presuming. That sounds good. Let's say it one more time. Say no presuming. There you go. You probably spit all over the neighbor in front of you with that presuming. He's presuming that he has a better opinion of himself than God does. So he's offering up his resume as opposed to his reality. And the other one is no pushing. Say no pushing. If you're ever gonna walk in humility, you can't push people down so you can get higher. Humility, when dealing with this moment, and I told I may have told you this last week, our church has become a home and a hub for adult team challenge. And every week our church is filled with guys from adult team challenge who volunteered to be a part of their one-year program. And they're saying, I want to get free from substance, I want to get free from the addictions that have me bound. This is for some of them. This is their last stop. We have some people in our church that are part of adult team challenge. There's 25 years hanging over their head, but they they uh told the court system give them uh to us for one year, and after one year, they'll be different. And so they have to either finish this year or go for 25 years, and they're walking through this one year with all power and might. And this is what they have figured out no pushing other people down so that way you can look better. And this is us because I don't want to be like the Pharisee looking to make myself clean in all of humility. I cannot pretend, I cannot presume, and I cannot push. He doesn't understand in this whole story as they're listening to Jesus tell this story, the Pharisee does not understand he's the elephant in the room. He's the problem. Here's point number two. The first point was the posture's right. The second point is that the prayer is right. That breakthrough isn't saying more, it is in hiding less. The breakthrough isn't in saying more, it's in hiding less. Here's what Luke 18, 13 says. But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, Oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.

Breakthrough Comes From Hiding Less

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He stands at a distance, he lifts up his eyes, he beats his chest. Now, in that culture, men didn't beat their chest. So if someone were beating their chest, here's what it really meant: it meant that they were in absolute uh sorrow. The only time that Luke ever uses this phrase, beat his chest, is at the bloody nature of the cross. When Jesus is being sacrificed, murdered, hanging on a cross, and it said, and they beat their chest in sorrow and walked away. This is not a beating of the chest in celebration. This is a beating of the chest in something is off. I'm literally undone. I don't know about you. Have you ever hit a moment in life where emotions and life was life and things were going crazy where you weren't mad, you weren't sad, you weren't just grieving. It was all together and you were undone.

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Nothing left. Exhausted. Too empty to cry. Too angry to get mad.

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Too depleted to be devastated. You're just undone. That's this tax collector. I've robbed all of these people. I'm fighting for the wrong thing. I'm standing at the back of this church, looking at the front, asking God, can He actually use me? He figured out something. Humility isn't making yourself smaller, it's removing yourself from the center. For any of us to be free from any level of addiction, whether it's being a control freak or anything, we have to take ourselves from being at the center of the equation to allowing Jesus to be at the center of it all. I've said this to my church over and over again. I said some of us have a list and we say, you know, it's it's uh it's Jesus, it's it's God, it's it's you know, it's it's God, it's it's my family, it's my churches. And I say, I love your list. I love that God is at the top. But I want you to take God off of the top of your list and put him at the center of everything on your list so that way there's no distance between God and the third thing. But God is sitting at the center of everything on your list. And this guy figured it out. If I can take myself from being at the center and put God at the center, maybe humility will carry me forward. He figured that out because of the last part of his prayer. The last part of his prayer, it reads this, Oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Seven words that set him free. God be merciful to me, I'm a sinner. But there's a little bit of a difference in there. In the Greek, that word right there, that word mercy is a sacrificial language. Here's what it really means. He walked into this temple. He could see the lamb being burnt in the front. He could smell the lamb. What he really was saying as he walked in with grief, he's not just saying, God, be merciful to me. Mercy, mercy is not a mood. Mercy at this point is not an emotion. He's saying, God, I see that lamb up there. This is a lamb that has been sacrificed so I can be clean. Would you let that lamb represent me so I can walk out of here better? He's not asking for a mood change. He's asking, God, will you kind of do an exchange? Will you do something with me? Will you allow that thing to set me free and to make me clean because I can't do it myself? And so here he is asking for mercy. If you read this in the original text, it actually says, Be

Mercy As An Exchange

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merciful to me, the sinner. The sinner. Think about that. The Pharisee said, I'm not like that tax collector. He's been pointed out. This guy says, Hey, God, he pointed me out. I'm actually the sinner he's talking about. Would you do something with me? And Jesus says, because of his humility, he's the one who left justified. The gavel of the courtroom has come down, and the judge has ruled in his favor and said, I know he had a case hanging over his head, but the case is removed. Everything is gone. He won't have to pay the price for this thing because I'm actually ruling in his favor. If somebody walked in here today saying, Pastor Courtney, I'm walking in broken, I'm walking in carrying a whole lot. Is God gonna rule in my favor? But I want you to know that you're gonna leave this place freer than you felt in a long time because God is looking at you, carrying all the weights that you carried and saying, I called you to be free. I'm just looking for your humility. Humility is when the person in the prayer matches the person in the mirror. You heard the old R and B prophet say, I'm starting with the man in the mirror. Okay, never mind. You shouldn't know that song. Let's jump down here to Psalm 51 and 17. It says, the sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, oh God. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit, and you will not reject. Maybe you walked in here and you've been waiting for God to reject you because you've been trying to clean yourself up before offering yourself to the Lord. And this tax collector figured out something. I can't clean me up first. He has to do the cleaning, I just have to do the posturing, which is showing up, opening those hands, lifting those hands. Let's jump down some more because point three. The verdict is in. The cross didn't make your sin less serious, it made God's mercy more visible. In San Antonio not long ago, we lost a giraffe. No, seriously, one of the ranchers out there, a giraffe went missing. And the whole city was looking for the giraffe, well, not the whole city, because I wasn't looking for the, you know, if I wasn't looking for a mountain lion, I for sure wouldn't look for no giraffe. I remember taking my trash out in my neighborhood. I know the giraffe probably wasn't coming to my neighborhood, but you can

The Verdict Grace For The Humble

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never be too careful. So I took the trash out in a zigzag just in case he couldn't, you know, get to me. They found the giraffe hanging out in one of the other empty ranches after three weeks. I mean, it took us three weeks to find this giraffe. The giraffe's name was Gracie. There's this huge, huge, huge animal that again can get up to 18 feet in height. And for three weeks we couldn't see it. Do we not know what a giraffe looks like, maybe? You know, that's kind of what pride is like in our life, though. Is this huge 18-foot thing walking around in our life, hiding in plain sight. And for some of us, if no one's ever pointed it out, we can't see it. They went and got Gracie. And when they went and got Gracie, they had to build a special contraption to take Gracie back to the original ranch. And I was like, why'd they have to build a special contraption? They said, Because the stuff that we had is only for cows. Gracie's much taller. Maybe you walked in here today and you said, Is there a special contraption for the thing that I'm actually dealing with? It's called grace and it's called mercy. And Jesus has been waiting to give it to you the whole time. Do me a favor, stand on your feet. There's no way I have so much food. You ever overcooked some food? I just cooked so much food for this week. I just said, My cousins got to eat great today. Let me give you this scripture in James for a second. There's a scripture in James. Here's what it says. And he gives great. No, you know what? Read it with me. Just read, read it out loud with me. Go. And he gives grace generously. Pause. How much does he give it? Generously. How much does he give it?

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Generously.

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And read it with me from the beginning. Go. And he gives grace generously. As the scripture says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. The cross, when they hung him high and stretched him wide, and his hands went wide open. And his hands were like this, arms open. There, Jesus was dying just for us. And in that moment, he looked out in the distance and he saw you. And in seeing you, he says, I have enough grace for all of this. Step seven. Humbly ask. Last week I asked you just to open your hands. This time, we're gonna live on the wild side. I want you to lift those hands just a little bit. I wish you guys could see what I see. This is so beautiful. Oh my god. Um

Lift Your Hands And Pray

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every generation in this church, I see hands up. I see men, women, young seasoned, every color. And for some of you, you're probably like, Pastor Courtney, my hands are getting tired. There you go. I saw you just there you go. The Bible says, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Do you feel that laughter in you right now? That's your strength. And I want you to pray this prayer with me. Say, Lord God, this is my ask that you would remove every defect, everything from my life and my world that stands in the way of my freedom. Lord, today is my day. I'm choosing you, I'm choosing your way. Give me the desire to have the desire, to want the desire to be free. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Would you take those same hands and give God some praise? Come on.

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Thank you, Pastor Courtney, for that powerful message that God prepared for you.