Avoiding Burnout — Vlad Savchuk

David’s Pursuit of God and His Calling

We're going to look at the story of David, and I'm going to highlight to you four simple thoughts. The first thing that I want to mention, and if you're taking notes, write this down. The pursuit of God prepares you for what God is planning for your life.

The Bible says that Saul was rejected by God, and God chose David as the king, but God didn't play lottery in choosing David. God didn't just simply say, Oh, David, yeah, right there, David. The Bible makes it clear there was a prerequisite.

There was something that qualified David to be God's chosen servant. Now, today God is not choosing kings over Israel. Most of us, when I'm talking about our calling, God wants you not to be the one who is only called.

God wants you to be the one that is also chosen. Somebody say chosen. Not chosen frozen, but chosen and on fire. Chosen and called by God. Many people are called. Many of us don't get chosen. There is a prerequisite that distinguishes us from the mass, from the herd, from the crowd, and God makes a testimony about David.

You heard testimonies today during the baptism. When people gave testimonies of God, God saved me. God healed me. God delivered me. There is a time when God gives testimony of you. The Bible says the Lord testified of David.

What kind of testimony do you think God will give about you? Well, I know the testimony he gave about David. He said this about David. This man, David, is a man after my heart. Our testimonies go like this.

I was in darkness. Now I'm in the light. I was addicted to drugs. Now I'm set free. I was sick and now I'm healed. I was blind. Now I see. God's testimony goes slightly different. This person is different than others.

Why? Because their generation seeks after things he seeks after me. As David was seeking after God, something as a teenager distinguished him from the rest of the people. God took notice of that and his pursuit of God started to prepare him for what God was planning for him.

Ministry is an overflow of our pursuit of God. Ministry is not an overflow of our gifts, skills, and talents. Ministry is not an overflow of our abilities, education, connections, or well, I'm connected to pastor.

Well, I'm connected to one of the main families in the church. Therefore, I am in ministry. You can be in ministry position like that but God's calling on your life is never connected to your family connections or even other things.

It's connected to your pursuit of him. Can somebody say amen? God seeks those that go after him. The scripture clearly states in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6 that God rewards those that diligently pursue him.

What made David different is that David was after God. When I find people who are discouraged, disappointed, I'm tired from serving. I don't want to serve ministry anymore. I'm burned out. Church hurt.

I'll never do it again. Why? I've tried it. Underappreciated, over-criticized, too much demand, too much pressure. You look at those people's personal life and you will find something very common denominator between all of them.

It's not that the church hurt them, the ministry burned them out. It's the root system was too shallow and the weight of their responsibilities overwhelmed them. Not because responsibilities were heavy, because roots were short.

We live in Tri-Cities and we are cursed with wind. We get a lot of it and dust that the wind creates. Winds get so strong in Tri-Cities, they topple trees. And one of the things that wind exposes is how shallow the root system of the trees in Tri-Cities.

When the wind comes through and the trees topple, the trees turn over and you see this beautiful big tree. You drive by every single day and you find out that the root system was mile wide and just few feet deep.

And that's why they stood well when everything was well. But when things didn't go well, and as things always don't go well, the trees toppled. They were turned over and they fell. What kept David grounded in serving God all his life?

And the Bible says he served God in his generation through drama, trauma, abuse, criticism, attacks, misunderstood, falsely accused, somebody tried to kill him with a spear, his own father-in-law, all of that stuff.

You don't see David becoming bitter, angry, mad, suing and all of this stuff. You see David has a testimony from God, a man after my heart. Being on fire for Jesus is the only protection guarantee we have to not let anything we go through in ministry completely consume us.

When you've done ministry for a long time, you know how things are ran, especially if you've done things on the stage, up close with leaders and pastors. It's kind of like this, if you know how the sausage is made, you don't eat sausage.

I meet people sometimes who've been in the ministry for a long time and they tell me, they're like, I know how this stuff works and that's why I'm no longer in ministry. I said, I understand you, but I also know one thing about you, you don't know God.

I count everything as rubbish to know him. What separated David from every other man is that David wasn't a professional, he was passionate pursuer of God. Being professional is not what God is looking.

God is looking for lovers, pursuers and those who are after him, he will give them whatever is necessary to accomplish their purpose. It was amateurs that build the ark and professionals build Titanic.

God is looking for people in the pursuit after him. If all you have is just bad experience with serving Jesus, burned out, I don't want to condemn, guilt trip or discredit the validity of your painful experience.

What I want to tell you, there is a furnace hotter than any breakup or hurt and that furnace is the liquid love of God. When it burns you on the inside, you become unstoppable and God wants people who are in ministry, not just to be good in ministry, but to be good in prayer, good in pursuit after him, good in fasting, good in seeking after him.

God’s Anointing Gives Power for Service

Why? Because that qualifies them for growing in ministry. Can someone say amen? The second thing that I would like to highlight and that is this, God gives power to meet the demands of service. I want you to notice this in 1st Samuel chapter 16 and the Bible says in verse 13 and verse 14, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Rama verse 14. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.

I find it interesting that in every time God calls a man or a woman in the Bible, he doesn't send them to a college. He sends them anointing. College is important. University is important. Skills are important.

Being able to communicate, play instruments is important. Organize, structure and manage things is very important. God used many times very smart people like Moses and like apostle Paul. They helped to write things.

Moses helped to structure a bunch of slaves into a nation. But one common thread that runs from the beginning to the end is every person God calls, he gives them power. Why does he give them power? Because the task God calls us to do without power is not going to be accomplished.

Think of this. You have a way of cutting a tree with scissors or power tools. If you take your scissors and you come to a tree and you say, well, it cuts paper. Trees are kind of paper. I'm going to cut the tree with scissors.

You take these scissors, you will be there till the coming of Antichrist and the second coming of Christ. The tree will fall. You need power tools to accomplish a task. Now for a paper, scissors are enough.

To cut the tree, scissors are insufficient. The kind of calling God has for us. Now some of you may say, well, I'm just greeting. I'm leading a small group. I don't need a lot of power. Everything that has to do with assaulting the gates of hell, rescuing people from the kingdom of darkness to kingdom of light, discipling your children in a woke brainwashed culture that does not know what men is and what a woman is and is trying to put men in women's bathrooms.

In a culture that calls abortion a choice. In a culture that is completely messed up in their foolishness when it comes to morality and all this relativism. In this culture you need not scissors to disciple your children.

You need power tools and God promises power. Teenager, I think someone said about 15 years of age, God calls a teenager at the age of about 15, 15, 16 and he gives him power. What we call anointing to accomplish a task.

Stress in life comes from three main sources. It comes from the demands of service. It comes from the deception of sin and the demise of Satan. When we serve, the Bible says, Jesus says power left him.

We can experience depletion. We can experience emptiness because we feel empty because we lose that fuel when we serve. When we commit sin, we lose power. The Bible says that Samson felt power leave him, not because he was serving, it's because he was sinning.

We can also lose power when demonic attacks happen to us. The Bible says the distressing spirit came upon Saul and he was weak after that. When it comes to ministry or serving in God's house, serving God's purposes in your life, there are four problems that come with it.

The first one is the pressure from the position. The second one is the pain from people. The third one is the pushback from the devil and the fourth one is the problems from within. Let me just quickly go through this.

Pressure from our position. You don't have to be a pastor, but just being in the position of being a parent, there is a pressure that's involved with that. You have to provide, you have to think about everything your kids are not even thinking about.

For those of you who have a business, you have employees under your care. Your employees go to sleep, you're thinking about when the next contract will come. You're making sure the LNI is not on your case.

You're making sure everybody wears all that they need to wear. You're literally, there is pressure no one understands until somebody had employees to manage. You live with this, it never turns off. There's a pressure that comes with it and it stresses you out.

People say, well don't worry about it. That is the dumbest thing you can tell somebody who has a position that carries pressure. After the pressure from the position comes pain from people. The position itself has pressure, but then if you have anything to do with people, people don't add pressure, they add pain.

Now they're also the source of greatest pleasure in this world and they're the source of the deepest pains you'll ever experience in your life. There are people you work with, there are people who work for you, there are people you work for and the people that are around you.

I'll testify concerning church. Being in the church, you know when I was younger, I wished one day to be the lead pastor of Hungry Gen so I can make all the decisions. And one day our pastor was gone to Ukraine for about one month and I was just a youth pastor.

I was so excited, finally I can be the boy, the man, no not the boy, I didn't want to be the boy, I wanted to be the man. And we had a situation where in one week, we had two or three deacons decided to attack me about what we need to change in the church and I didn't know what to do, I didn't know who to say yes to and I was like, just wait for the pastor.

They're like, well you're the guy now, you make the decision. In those three days I was praying to God that God sends the pastor back that week and I was convinced I will never be a pastor again. I was like, why do I want this pressure?

Now they're all criticizing me, they're all expecting me to make those decisions. That Sunday, a girl that comes to our church for prayer line decides to manifest during the prayer. We bring her here and the demon doesn't even speak and for 15 minutes I'm commanding the demon to go in the back of my head.

I was like, where is the pastor? Where is, where's the real pastor? I'm not supposed to be doing this. I felt like sons of Sceva for a moment. Thankfully we delivered her and after that week I was like, I'm tired.

And we still had three more weeks to go. When the pastor came back, I was grateful. I said God, the dream I had, scratch it, I have no idea what I was thinking about. I want to stay under somebody else's covering.

I don't want to take the hits. I don't want to be criticized. I don't want to be responsible. I don't want the spotlight because the spotlight carries heat. I only thought about the spotlight. I didn't know you had to also endure the pressure from the heat that comes with it.

And when I tasted that as a teenager, I learned something. With great position comes even greater responsibility. Nobody knows until it lands on your shoulders. The pressure that comes with it. The people's hurt, that one comment, it could be 20 compliments and that one comment gets under your skin and you're thinking about it in the shower.

For three days you're, you're preparing a sermon. How next Sunday, this person is gone from the church but it's still inside of you. Matthew Barnett said, you want to be a bridge to a dying world, you have to be ready to be walked upon.

We all pray, Lord make me a servant and then people treat us like servants. It's like God, this church just doesn't love people. Well we ask God to make us like servants. What do you think? Servants get treated like royalties?

No. And that hurts because that's rejection. That, that is hurt. That is somebody leaving. That is somebody saying this. That is somebody not understanding. That is somebody expecting you to be their Jesus Messiah 24 -7 available and that carries hurt.

The third thing, if you think you're done with people, then if people are okay, position seems to be okay, then the devil comes out of nowhere. Starts attacking you. You're like, come on, leave me alone.

I'm already serving. I already have a lot of pressure. I'm already hurting from some of the people that are attacking me and now the devil comes like, well I have, I'm not done with you and throws few punches.

And if you think that's not enough, you also are flawed human being who have desires, cravings, passions that need to be crucified and those things begin to surface. All these four come at once and it's a recipe for disaster.

Now what God does is this. God doesn't come and say, oh it's so bad. People are hurting you. Let me go change the people. God doesn't come and say, oh it's so hard to be a pastor. Well let me just pull you away.

We'll just not make anybody a pastor. Oh it's so hard to be a father. Well you know what, go and not be a father. Oh it's so hard to be in this position. Let me just relieve the stress from this position.

God doesn't reduce the pressure, the pain, the pushback and even the problems. What he comes is he says, let me give you power to meet the demands of pressure. Let me give you power to meet the pushback against the devil.

Let me give you power to deal with the hurt that can come from people. Let me give you power to deal with your personal demons and your personal problems because God doesn't make us pitiful. He makes us powerful.

God isn't building wimps. He's building warriors. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, gives me power. It means come hell high water. When the devil comes like a flood, the spirit of God doesn't run.

He comes against him with power. That's why ministry without power will destroy you. Doing serving without relationship with God and to receive that fresh deposit of power regularly, you will get overwhelmed.

The problem is not the ministry is hard. You're weak. You are not strong enough for the ministry unless God supplies. That's why God gave David not a university course on how to kill giants. The Bible says he poured his spirit on the teenager and said, now you're powerful.

Go to the lions, go to the bears. No teenager can kill a lion unless God adds super to your natural. No young man, 17 years of age can kill a Goliath unless God adds super to your natural. If you feel overwhelmed, if you feel burned out, if you feel tired from the responsibilities of life, from the pressure of your position, from the pushback you experienced from the enemy, I want to tell you something.

You are not weird. It's normal. That's why God's remedy is power. Those who wait upon the Lord shall, I can't hear you. Interesting. The Bible doesn't say those who wait upon the Lord, he removes their pressure.

What most of us think is if I wait on God, he'll get rid of my husband. If I wait on God, he will cause the people that cause me suffering to just disappear. Sometimes, sometimes God doesn't remove the things that stress you out.

He simply renews the strength that you walk on those things others drown in. Peter was drowning in the sea Jesus was walking upon. That whatever is over your head is under his feet. And when you get into his presence, when God releases power, it's not that those things don't hurt anymore.

It's that they can't touch you and destroy you anymore because you're walking with power. You know, in our ministry, we value the relationship with the Holy Spirit because what the kind of ministry we do guys, this is not a social club.

We're not here to sing Kumbaya two songs and say a happy pat message and just, just go live better. A kid that's seeing the risks, they don't need just a positive affirming message. They need power. A person that is seeing nightmares, they don't need just a song.

They need a spirit. People need something that can take them from darkness to light. Something that can give them purpose. When mama maybe wasn't there, daddy wasn't there. Take all those demons out of that person and put a purpose inside of that person.

My friend, that is not done through our human efforts. It requires power. That's why God told his disciples, Jesus said to them, don't leave Jerusalem until you receive power. We need that in the ministry.

Under no circumstances should you discredit yourself. Even if you're doing sound, you're doing video, you're helping with counseling for the prayer line, you're helping with the administrational work and maybe you get overwhelmed and you get depleted.

Please understand the ministry you're involved in is unlike construction. It's unlike the other work that you do outside. You're dealing with the gates of hell. There is going to be pushback and God is not going to reduce that pushback.

He's just going to simply elevate you so much that you punch, punch, punch, punch. And the devil would wish he never started the fight because of the power the Holy Spirit gives to us. Can somebody say amen?

Inner and Outer Anointing

God's appointing requires God's anointing. God is interested in renewing our strength, not just removing the stress that comes from the demands of service. There is an anointing that's inside of us that every Christian has and there's an anointing that's on us that every Christian has access to.

We call it the inner anointing and the outer anointing. The inner anointing is for you in you. The outer anointing is upon you for others. Inner anointing affects your walk. The outer anointing affects our work.

Inner anointing steals you. You get into his presence and there is a stillness that happens. Outer anointing stirs you. You go, you want to go, let's go. You know it's like Jehu. He just wants to go. You know and it's not hype.

It's that holy fervency that hits you. Inner anointing teaches you. Outer anointing, actually you teach others. Inner anointing cannot be transferred, but the outer anointing can be transferred. Inner anointing produces spiritual fruit.

Outer anointing activates spiritual power. When we don't grieve the Holy Spirit, we cultivate that inner anointing. But when we don't quench the Spirit, we release that anointing. All of us have access to God's power.

This anointing that comes upon us, but it's accessed or it's released through two simple means. A visitation that you have from God or an impartation that you receive from a person that God uses. Let me give you an example.

In the Bible, we see Moses has a visitation from God and he receives power. Joshua receives impartation from Moses and he walks in power. We see Elijah most likely received a visitation from God. We don't know where he came from.

We don't know how he got the power, but we see that Elisha receives impartation from Elisha and he operates in power. We see the same thing with disciples of Jesus. They receive that impartation on the day of Pentecost.

Fire, tongues, everything comes out. But in Samaria, the city of Samaria, they come, they lay hands on the other people and other people receive that power. Apostle Paul has a visitation from God on the road to Damascus, but he lays hands on Timothy and Timothy receives impartation from Paul.

What does that mean? God has supernatural visitation with some people and they immediately receive power. Their life changes afterwards. Now for the rest of us, we're like, man, well that sucks because God missed me.

No, no, no. God allows that on purpose so that the rest of the people can receive the access. We already have that in our spirit, in the Holy Spirit, but it gets activated when we allow other people to pray for us through the laying on of the hands, through prophetic words, and then that visitation that they experienced, activates something in our own life that we now begin to walk in the same dimension of power that those people walked in.

Why? Because these special encounters with God are meant to be shared with the rest of the body. So that we live in dependence on each other, we live interdependent on every one of us. In our church, we believe in the doctrine of laying on of the hands.

The Bible says to lay hands on the sick and they will recover. The Bible says that Jacob laid hands on his sons and imported a blessing. The Bible says priests would lay hands on an animal and transfer sin upon that animal.

The Bible says Jesus laid hands on his disciples and he blessed them and released them. The Bible says they laid hands on apostle Paul and upon other disciples and released them into their missionary work.

When we lay hands on the people, if you're walking in the power of God, you can impart God's gifts through laying on of hands. The Bible teaches that. That's how Timothy received the gift. So those of you who are like, man, I don't feel like I had those special encounters.

I want to receive that power. Please understand that's why we are in this church. So that we all can, when the wave rises, when the tide rises, all ships rise. God's power on our life, on the life of our pastors is so that every person walks, healing the sick, casting out demons, prophesying, preaching the gospel.

Why? Because that anointing that some receive from visitation is meant to be shared with the rest of us. When we had men and women of God come to our church many times, we had them pray for us. I would go to Ukraine, to Africa, to different parts.

Working the Anointing Through Service

And one of the things that we would ask is that anointing that they carry, that they impart on our life. Because we believe in not only visitation, but impartation. Can somebody say amen? Now I do want to mention something about impartation.

Because you can receive a lot of impartation and do nothing with it. Impartation does not work if you don't. Let me say that again. People come up and this happens all the time. Pastor pray for me. Give me your, give me your anointing.

Okay. Then this happens all the time. They go to Ilya. Ilya, give me also the anointing. Richard. So by the time they're done, they collected seven mentals. This one particular person, I went to a different conference next week and I had them, I saw them doing exactly the same thing to every pastor.

And all they've been doing is collecting mentals. Imagine getting 27 coats, but you don't wear one. You have to then, when you receive the impartation, you got to work it. That's why God spoke to Saul when he received impartation.

Samuel said this, when these signs come to pass, he says, do what the occasion demands. Meaning you got to do something. You got to give it an outlet. It's kind of like this. If you've got power connected to your house, plug something in because you can have so much power.

If you don't plug anything in, it won't work. So you got to plug something in. That means find a bear, find a lion, find a Goliath, find somebody to pray for, find somebody to minister to. Begin to flow by faith and exercise your faith because anointing won't work if you don't work.

Many people receive more mentals than they have time to exercise them. And then they keep looking for this glorious ministry opportunity. God's anointing on your life is not only so you can just simply collect more anointing and collect more anointing.

Paul tells Timothy, do not quench the gift of God inside of you. Fan the flame. Meaning work it, what you received. Work what you got because then it will increase. It's like a muscle. Everybody has it, but some of us have it covered with layers of fat.

And if you exercise it, it will grow. If you exercise it, it will increase. So is with the anointing of God. It will increase as you exercise it. You don't need a stage to exercise that anointing. All you need is some human being.

It could be a child in the nursery, in the kid's zone that you minister to them. You love on them. You pray for them. It could be your co-worker. It could be somebody online. It could be your children.

You lay hands on them when they are sick and the anointing starts to flow. Can somebody say amen? Anointing will not flow if we simply receive the mentos, receive the anointing and never do anything with it.

Slow Success Builds Character

Number three, David receives anointing and the Bible says that David after that starts to move in this anointing slowly. He was about 15 years of age when Samuel anointed him. But David became a king over one tribe at the age of 30.

Then at the age of 37, he became the king of all Israel. Write this down. Slow success builds your character. Quick success grows your ego. God after 15 when he anointed him, did not put him on the throne.

When God gives you his promise of what he's going to do through you, typically God promises fast and trusts slow. God promises a lot, trusts a little. It's the way the Lord operates. At 15, he says you're going to be the king.

And then only at 37, he becomes a king of the all 12 tribes. Why does God do that? Why does God almost like tease you? At 14, you go to a conference, the prophet says you're going to touch the world. And then you still have to go back to middle school.

You still have to finish your high school. You still have to go through all of that stuff. Why does God allow that? Well, a few things I want to highlight. One, when God anoints us, men do not appoint us right away.

Men don't respond the same way God does. Your parents won't respond the same way God does. God can come to you in a dream and says, you're the great apostle to the nation. Mom will wake up and says, go clean your room.

And you're like, mom, you just disrespected the great apostle. And she will say, you say that one more time. Not only you'll be stripped of your apostleship, you'll be stripped of your, you will be in a timeout.

How can you put a great apostle in a timeout? Mom is like, well, you'll see how it will be very simple. David gets anointed. You know what his father does to him? Sends him back to the sheep. It's almost like his dad said, well, that was great.

Awesome. David, back to the sheep. Did you just hear? I'm a king. Uh, yeah. Anyway, back to the sheep. David kills Goliath. You would think this would be a good moment. Change the status on Facebook, lose the sheep and simply say I'm available.

Where's the university where they train kings? I'm ready. The Bible says David occasionally would go back to the sheep again and again. Why? Because just because God anointed you, men will not appoint you for a long time.

Oh, because those men, they're not sensitive to God. No, it's because you're not mature. It's nothing to do with men being bad. It's the God allows the process where he wants to develop you. Why? Because character grows when you have too much anointing and very little opportunity, too much potential, but nobody's trusting you with the position that matches your potential in the church.

Ah, they're disrespecting. They don't know why I have PhD. But do you have PhD in patience? But do you have PhD in serving and being small in your own eyes? Oh, that's just not fair. They're not letting me have the position that I have anointing for.

They don't understand. I can heal the sick. I can prophesy. But can you also mature and disciple children? No, I don't like children. That's, that's not my calling. Well, great. David went back to the sheep, back to the sheep, and he didn't walk with this ship on the shoulder.

They don't know how much I pray. They don't know how much I fast. They don't know Samuel poured anointing on me, not on anybody else. That's just not fair. The church is not sensitive. No discernment whatsoever in this church.

No discernment whatsoever by the pastor. David didn't have that ship on the shoulder. If you're too big for the sheep, you're too small for the throne. If you're too big to serve on the parking lot, you're too small to be used by God in the supernatural.

God tests us, and God molds our character that it's not about us. That we don't become celebrities, but we are servants in God's kingdom. Then we become big in our own head. We become humble, and we don't use our serving as a stepping stone.

If you don't serve another man's vision, nobody will give you yours. David gets this anointing. He ends up serving a king that really sat on his chair. It was David's position, and David is serving that man.

David is guarding that man. You don't see David stabbing that man. You don't see David prayerfully considering and saying, Lord, give him a heart attack. Lord, kill that sucker. Lord, kill that man. Lord, take him to heaven faster.

Lord, he really wants to be in over there with you because he's sitting on my place. Saul, do you know that this is my place? No, David is guarding, and when Saul died, David cried, not giggled. He didn't have a glee on his face.

He had tears on his face. Why? Because he genuinely believed in serving another man's vision for a long time, and not constantly reminding him, hey, so when is my transition? When you honor the anointing in others, God will increase it in you, and David had to do that for a long time, for years upon years, walking in that humility.

Some of you come to Hungry Gen, and you have a great anointing upon your life. In fact, you were pastors in your previous season or previous place that you came in. Some of you come to Hungry Gen, and you're educated.

You're skilled, and you can serve in so many capacities, but today what you are doing, and I'm just going to speak boldly, is you, you think of yourself too high. So what you're doing is you're sitting, and you're not participating in anything.

There's somebody comes to you, the pastor of God comes to you, and recognizes how great of a man or woman of God you are, and asks you to do something. I want to ask you that in our house, every hand is on the deck.

We all serve God's purpose, and I want to ask you to please get out from the bleachers, and jump in again. I want to ask you, if you came, and you sat already for four months, three months, I want to invite you to serve God's purpose in this church.

If God planted you here, I want you to flourish here for the glory of God. God isn't looking for spectators. He is looking for sons that serve. Stop having this thing like the prodigal son. Give me what is mine.

Do what prodigal son did when he came back, and he says here I am. Make me one of your servants. Lord I'm here to serve. Lord where can I find a place to serve? Not where can I find something that matches my anointing, but where can I find something where there is a need, and let me serve.

And as you begin to serve, you begin to notice you meet other people, and God starts promoting you, and you start giving, be given more opportunities. The grace of God starts flowing in your life. I want to invite you, add your gifts, your talents to what God is doing at Hungry Gen.

Give your resources, give your finances, give your skills, so that the kingdom of God is built. Through that, God is developing your character. Through that, God is developing the anointing in your life, and he will use you for his glory.

In the process, I knew that I was anointed by God to be a pastor, but I had to learn Photoshop. I had to learn Dreamweaver. I had to learn Final Cut Pro. I had to learn YouTube, and how to cut videos and upload them to YouTube.

Until this day, learning ProPresenter a little bit today. Why? Because at the end of the day, I'm not walking around with just a big head. I want to have a big heart that believes in serving God's house, and we are here servants, not celebrities.

Church doesn't exist for me. I exist to serve its cause and its purpose for the glory of God. Can somebody say amen? And then in God's time, God promotes when he chooses to promote, and if tomorrow he chooses not to, and we need to step back into the background, it is what it is.

We will serve in the background. Why? Because ultimately, we serve the key, not the spotlight. Can somebody say amen? That's why you see at our church, you see the team is constantly being elevated. You see the team constantly being preferred.

You see the team giving opportunities. Why? Because our church is not about a belly button, where everything is about one man. Everything is through him, by him, for him, and that. No, our church is about the mission of Jesus Christ.

Serving God Rather Than Pursuing Pleasure

We all have our hand in the deck, and we're growing together, so we have a skin in that game. Can somebody say amen? And lastly, what I want to highlight. Yeah, let's give the golf club. Sal, come on somebody.