15 Minutes of Fame
The Happy Hunters Ministry- Francis and Charles Hunter, You don’t call Jesus “Mr. Jesus”, please don’t call me Mr. Hunter it’s Charles
Everyone is looking for their 15 min.
Check out all the YouTubes, vines, blogs, PEOPLE have a desire to be KNOWN.
It has even spread into the church. What about all the titles in the church? Master Doctor Pastor so and so, Apostle Prophet so and so, Pastor Teacher so and so, Prophetess Apostle so and so and the list goes on.
PLEASE HEAR ME: I ABSOLUTELY believe in honoring a pastor. I WOULD NEVER call Pastor Kirby anything other than Pastor Kirby. Pastor Chance, etc. RESPECT.
BUT, this new thing is something different. I have even been corrected before when I didn’t refer to someone’s title of pastor.
People wanting to MAKE themselves KNOWN.
Let me just let you in on a little clue: if you have a calling of God on your life, HE will make you known. You will not have to say a word.
Tonight I am going to ask you to examine your heart.
Psalm 131- the shortest Psalm, but can take years to fully understand and achieve
Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
“Lord, my heart is not haughty.”
- The Psalm deals with the Lord, and is a solitary prayer with him, not a discourse before men.
- We have a sufficient audience when we speak with the Lord, and we may say to Him many things which are not meant for the other’s ears.
- The righteous man makes his appeal to the Lord, who alone knows the heart. We should be slow to do this upon any matter and when anyone ventures on such an appeal he should be sure of his case.
- He begins with his heart, for that is the centre of our nature, and if pride be there it defiles everything.
- It is a great thing for us to know our own heart so as to be able to speak before the Lord about it.
- Jeremiah 17:9 “the heart is beyond all things deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Who can know it unless taught by the Spirit of God?
- It is a still greater thing if, upon searching yourself thoroughly, you can solemnly protest unto the Lord that your heart is not haughty.
- that is to say, neither proud in his opinion of himself, contemptuous to others, nor self-righteous before the Lord; neither boastful of the past, proud of the present, nor ambitious for the future.
“Nor mine eyes lofty.”
- What the heart desires the eyes look for. Where the desires run the glances follow.
- What are you beholding? Power, money, control, status among men? Maybe you want to be known as the biggest giver? the best preacher? the kindest person? Whatever you let in with your eyes, goes into your soul.
- David felt that he did not seek after elevated places where he might gratify his self-esteem, neither did he look down upon others as being his inferiors.
- DO YOU SEEK AFTER ELEVATED PLACES TO GRATIFY YOUR SELF-ESTEEM???
- The world does. The person looking for his 15 min. does.
- Proverbs 21:4 A haughty look, a proud heart, And the plowing of the wicked are sin.
- In Psalm 121:1-8. David lifted up his eyes to the hills; but here he declares that they were not lifted up in any other sense.
- When the heart is right, and the eyes are right, the whole man is on the road to a healthy spiritual condition.
- Take care that we do not use the language of this Psalm unless, indeed, it be true as to ourselves; for there is no worse pride than that which claims humility when it does not possess it.
- We desperately need to seek to be honest with ourselves and with God.
- We CANNOT give Him lip service. HE KNOWS.
“Neither do I exercise myself in great matters.”
- As a private man David did not usurp the power of King Saul nor devise plots against him: he minded his own business, and left others to mind theirs.
- He did not pry into things unrevealed; he was not speculative, self-conceited or opinionated.
- He did not thrust himself into the priesthood as Saul had done before him, and as Uzziah did after him.
- It is well so to exercise ourselves unto godliness that we know our boundaries and calling, and then diligently keep to it. Heads down, hands to the plow.
- 1 Thes 4:10-12 But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; 11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.
- “Many through wishing to be great have failed to be good: they were not content to adorn the lowly stations which the Lord appointed them, and so they have rushed at grandeur and power; and found destruction where they looked for honor.”
“Or in things too high for me.”
- High things may suit others, and yet they may be quite unfit for us. HELLO! KING DAVID said this
- We do well to know our own size. What do I mean? EX: weddings and funerals with Matt, I always sit in the back, but wait until all the guests have arrived. One time we were sat at the head table
Romans 12:3Amplified Bible (AMP)
3 For by the grace [of God] given to me I say to everyone of you not to think more highly of himself [and of his importance and ability] than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has apportioned to each a degree of faith [and a purpose designed for service].
- Ascertain your own capacity, do not be foolish in aiming for things “too high”, take the lower room.
- Luke 14:8-9 “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place.”
- THIS is so common in the church that if a work be within one’s range they despise it, and think it beneath them: the only service which they are willing to undertake is that to which they have never been called. EX: see this is a lot in the work force, the new guy wants to be manager
- It is the haughty heart who will not serve God at all unless he may be trusted with at least five talents.
- Pastor Kirby’s biggest tither wanted to preach, he told her to come and clean. She didn’t want to do anything if she couldn’t preach. “I’m called to preach”
- BEWARE! When we long to be everything we can end in being nothing.
“Surely I have behaved and quieted myself.”
- The original bears somewhat of the form of an oath. “I will behave and quiet myself”
- The Psalmist had been upon his best behavior, and had smoothed down the roughnesses of his self-will; by holy effort he had mastered his own spirit, so that towards God he was not rebellious, even as towards man he was not haughty.
- It is no easy thing to quiet yourself–therefore GO TO THE COMFORTER!
- We are clamorous and contentious; and nothing but the Comforter can make us quiet under afflictions, irritations, and disappointments.
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
“As a child that is weaned of his mother.”
- He had become as subdued and content as a child whose weaning is fully accomplished.
- At last there must be an end to the suckling period, and then a battle begins: the child is denied his comfort, and then the battle begins. Sorrow, and distress. Yet time brings not only alleviations, but the ending of the conflict; the child is FINALLY content to find his nourishment at the table, and he feels no lingering wish to return to the breast. THEY FIND REAL FOOD
- *****To the weaned child his mother is his comfort though she has denied him comfort.
- It is a mark of growth out of spiritual infancy when we can forego the joys which once appeared to be SO essential, and can find our solace in Him who denies them to us: then we behave maturely, and every childish complaint is hushed.
- If the Lord removes our dearest delight we bow to his will without a murmuring thought; in fact, we find delight in giving up our delight.
- This is no spontaneous fruit of nature, but a well-tended product of divine grace: it grows out of humility and lowliness.
“My soul is even as a weaned child”; or it may be read, “as a weaned child on me my soul,”
- as if his soul leaned upon him in mute submission, neither boasting nor complaining.
- It is not every child of God who arrives at this weaned stage speedily.
- Some are babies when they ought to be fathers; others are hard to wean, and cry, and fight, and rage against their heavenly parent’s discipline.
- 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
- Hebrews 5:12-13 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
- We are considered mature when we walk in the Spirit and submit to the authority of God’s Word. David LOVED God’s Word, more than life itself.
- When we think ourselves safely through the weaning, we can sadly discover that the old appetites are rather wounded than slain, and we begin crying again for the milk which we had given up.
- Praise God for those afflictions which subdue our affections, which wean us from self-sufficiency, which educate us into Christian maturity, which teach us to love God not merely when he comforts us, but even when he tries us.
- This figure of the weaned child is worthy of admiration and imitation; it is doubly desirable and difficult to attain, but not impossible.
- Such weaning from self springs from the gentle humility declared in Psalm 131:1
- If pride is gone, submission will be sure to follow; and, on the other hand, if pride is to be driven out, self must also be vanquished.
Lord, make us lowly, keep us lowly, fix us forever in lowliness. Help us to be in such a case that the confession of this verse may come from our lips as a truthful utterance which we dare make before the Judge of all the earth.
Hope ONLY in the LORD.
