Imaginary Audience

Pastor Keion Henderson is the lead pastor of The Lighthouse Church in Houston, Texas Lighthouse is an organization that serves the body of Christ through our 5 pillars. We always ANTICIPATE a move of God in every experience, so we constantly set a great ATMOSPHERE, and we ACCEPT everyone through love. We believe the best way to impact people is by being AUTHENTIC to who we are and by taking ACTION to move everyone towards greater.

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Autogenerated Transcript

Pastor Keion (00:00:03):
Lemme introduce to my father. I believe that we owe God a praise. This is my topic for today. Those of you watching online, those of you in the building, I want to talk about the imaginary audience. I think that some of y’all are performing for people who are not watching. I wish this mic was working. I don’t feel like holding this microphone.

Speaker 2 (00:00:37):
Can we

Pastor Keion (00:00:38):
Just try it one more time? Let’s try it one more time. I need to use my hands. I feel like fighting Come here. Won’t tell me if this light is on for me. Is it on? Yes sir. Alright. Alright. We’re going to try this one more time. If not, we’ll go back to, y’all can hear me? Good? Perfect. We’re

Speaker 2 (00:00:56):
Going to talk today about the imaginary audience. I want any book readers in here. Anybody like to read books? Okay. Here is my first book suggestion for today. I want you to read a book called From Strength to Strength. The author is author c Brooks, that’s not I didn’t misspeak. His name is author. He’s an author, but his name is author, author c Brooks. He writes a book called From Strength to Strength and the subtitle is How to Win in the Second Half of Life. Because lemme tell you something, your 20 year old mindset ain’t working in your 45 year old destiny.

(00:01:42):
It is just not going to work. If you’re going to get there, and I’m going to have you interactive with me today, I just need you to say it’s going to take a different version of you. Just say that it’s going to take a different version of me. Alright, how many of y’all can speak that into your spirit? It’s going to take a different version of me. I want you to act like today that you’re at a Ted Talk and that you came here and you paid $15,000 to get in the room for somebody to tell you how to get your life and your business to the next level. Okay? So I want you to drop all of the suppositions. I want you to drop all of the walls that you have built up. We are in here when the atmosphere, we know that God is real, but I’m getting ready to tell you how to adjust your mind so much that you could literally make it almost depression proof.

(00:02:27):
I’m not saying you’re going to not have some bad times. I’m going to get you to the moment where you have bad moments, not bad weeks. If you mad from Monday to Saturday, you got to make an adjustment. I can understand from four to nine, but from Monday to Saturday, that’s just too long. So he tells the story about a man who’s on the plane. Anybody ever taken that red eye from LA to dc? It is like flying to London. It is forever. And he tells a story about a man who’s on the plane and he’s having a conversation with his wife and he looks at his wife and he says these words, I wish I were dead As a wife, how would that make you feel as a spouse, as a significant other? If your husband, your significant other or your wife looks at you in the face in spite of your best efforts to make them happy, they look you in the face and say, I’d rather be dead.

(00:03:36):
She starts crying. He starts crying. I’d rather be dead. Those four words, those are the only four words that are recorded, and this is a true story as having been heard and the lady sitting across heard the voice and recognized the voice off of four words. The flight attendant comes and sees the man in the night of the flight and says, oh my God, it’s you. Can I have an autograph? And hour we’re into the flight. The pilot comes out of the cockpit to go to the restroom. He sees the guy around the corner, he says, oh my God, you’ve been my hero ever since I was a kid.

(00:04:20):
Imagine being so famous that your voice is recognized in four words. Your face is so known that it can be seen in the dark. My God, imagine being so financially stable that you’re sitting in first class going from LA to DC and you’ve got all of that going for you. You have everything that a man could want and all the man wants is to be dead. It then says to me that no matter how much money you make, you’ll never be happy. Now let me say, you can put a down payment on it, but it won’t make you happy. It means that you can be famous and still be insecure.

(00:05:05):
It means you can live in a mansion and not want to go home. It means you can have a $10,000 mattress and still can’t get to sleep. It means that you can have a cul and have nowhere to go. It means that you can have friends and still feel lonely. It means you can be in a relationship and still feel like you’re by yourself because life is not built on what you build. Life is built on how you see yourself. You better hear me. There is no shopping spree that can take away anxiety. That’s right.

(00:05:48):
You can have a Birkin bag, but it won’t make you feel good about yourself. Once all the people ask for the autograph and telling how great he was, his wife looks at him and she says, baby, see you are amazing. Like any good woman, how many good women know how to get a man to feel good about? See baby, I told you, you great and Eric thing. See baby. See baby. Don’t feel bad about yourself. You are amazing. That’s why I married you boo boo. And the man starts to smile because when a woman start talking to a man, he’d be like, yeah, I am all right. I, yeah, I can do the impossible. So he starts to feel good about himself and he starts smiling and he signs the pilot’s autograph and he signs the young lady across the aisle’s autograph and he does it for the flight attendant.

(00:06:46):
And then they give him the microphone and he starts to tell everybody on the plane to have a good flight. Everybody’s clapping and he feels good about himself. And when I read the book the first time, the first question I had, I said, self myself, said, Hmm. I said, self, who is this guy if it’s a true story and he’s still alive, who is this guy? And I start going through the list of who I thought it was. But upon close examination I said to him, it doesn’t matter who it is, the real question is, which one of these responses represents the real person? My God. Okay, y’all missed what I just said. One reaction was, I want to die. The next reaction is, Hey everybody, let’s have a great flight. And I asked myself, which one is he?

(00:07:50):
Is he the man that wants to die or is he the man that is wishing everybody a great flight? And then the Lord told me to tell you this, you are not the person you become when somebody congratulate you. And most of us don’t know the real us because the only person you identify with is the one that everybody likes or the person everybody applauds or the person that everybody loves and appreciates. But you are not who you become when you’re congratulated. You are who you are when nobody notices. So in your natural state, if you’re at home and you feel depressed, then more than likely depression is a part of your personality more than the happiness that you express. When somebody tells you how beautiful you are, you are not who you become. When we notice you, you are who you are. When nobody notices you, I want you to feel good enough about who you are. When nobody’s seeking you, I want you to have enough confidence in yourself that if somebody breaks up with you, you can assume they must not like quality.

(00:09:22):
Come on, holler at your boy. If you don’t want what God made me to be, then it doesn’t mean that I’m worthless. It just means you don’t know how to count out because you have to stop allowing the perspective of you to be dictated by people who don’t know you Repeat after me. I am. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made and wonderfully made. When God created the heavens and the earth, watch what he did. Let there be light and there was light. Let there be birds and fish and water. And it was so notice every time God created something, he did what He spoke it. But when he got to man, the Bible says He spits in the earth and he bends down to the ground and he forms man everything else he spoke. He didn’t say let there be man. He formed man, which means that everything in the earth is a result of speech except for man, you’re the only thing that God has ever touched. Listen, he never touched a tree. He never touched the water. He never touched the bird, but he touched to you. That’s why the Bible says you are the handy work of God. I don’t know about you, but things are always more expensive when they’re handmade.

(00:11:08):
Oh, y’all missed that. Touch your neighbor. Say, I didn’t come off the rack. I don’t come off an assembly line. I’ve got a bespoke destiny. I was tailor made for this moment. If you don’t see yourself like that, if you don’t see yourself like that, you’ll always become what they tell you. You are teach your children this. If a teacher calls them dumb, they shouldn’t feel dumb because the teacher said it. Teach them that they’re so smart that the teacher doesn’t know how to recognize brilliance. A lot of people in this room, you struggle with everything from skin color to weight because the society says that beauty is this height, this size and this color. But lemme tell you something, there’s somebody who like you just listen. It’s somebody looking for it. Touch your neighbor saying, I’m not about to mess up this package. Somebody, somebody coming to look at it, this wrapping this boat, somebody coming to look for it just like this.

(00:12:21):
Am I talking to anybody so far? I said, am I talking to anybody so far? So stuff doesn’t erase insecurity. There’s a lot of people in here right now that got $5,000 worth of clothes on and they want to die too. I know you’re not going to agree with this an online, I’m talking to you too. And I know you thought that if he put a ring on it and it was five carrots, you’d feel good. But you don’t even want to wear the ring. If the ring was going to make a difference, why is it the first thing you pawn when the relationship is over?

(00:13:05):
I came to fight. I told you I wanted to fight. It’s not the stuff, it’s the mindset. It’s how you think as a man thinks in his heart. So I just got to ask you, what do you think of yourself and is it influenced by people who benefit from your dysfunction? You do know that there are some people in your life who benefit from you, never finding yourself so that they can assume the role of always helping you trying to find you, but they’re never going to try to find you. They’re going to always hide you from you so you can come to them to find you.

(00:13:58):
Alright? I am trying to deliver people who are sick and tired of your worth being attached and associated to what other people think about you. The only thoughts you need to consider is how God sees you. If you can’t say man, say ouch in this place today. So the only thing that will sustain you in this season is your mindset. That’s it. That’s, that’s it. Now lemme tell you, my mother taught us how to think about ourselves. She will tell us you ain’t better than nobody else, but ain’t nobody better than you. She always taught us be good to everybody. But if they hit you, oh, how many of y’all grew up in it? If they hit you, you can hit ’em back household. Oh thank God. I ain’t got but two cheeks after I turn them, it’s going down. I ain’t got five.

(00:15:04):
I ain’t even sure you’re going to get the second one. Are y’all listening to me? The mindset that you naturally have represents the real you. Come on sir. So if you’re negative most times, then you’re going to get negative results as a man thinks. So if you think that you’re in last place, you’re in last place. This is what my basketball coach, coach Doug no told me in college. He said, Keon, he told me two things. He says, number one, if you think you can or if you think you cannot, you’re right. Did y’all hear what I just said? If you think you can, you’re right. If you think you cannot, you’re right. And then he said, oh, and by the way, success comes in cans, not cannots.

(00:16:04):
Somebody say, yes I can. Yes I can. Yes I can. Yes, I can open the business. Yes, I can be debt-free. Yes, I can be happy every day. Yes, I can have joy. Yes, I can beat depression. Yes, I can beat suicidal thoughts. Yes I can. And if you don’t say you can, you won’t. But I know I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Repeat after me. I can. I can. Now you fill in the blank, what can you do? I’ll wait. I can fill in the blank. I can be rich by next week. I can be cancer, I can be healed. Whatever it is, you fill in the blank. All I want to do is help you get started. You got to finish. I can.

(00:16:54):
Okay, so as a man, what? Let’s break that text down. Alright, so here’s my first scripture, Proverbs 23 and seven as a man. Now this isn’t gender specific, so nobody write me about sexism. Let me say this. As a man, our woman thinks in his or her heart. Yes. So is he or she. There you go. Thank you. Proverbs 23 is part of a collection of what is called the 30 wise sayings of Solomon. Okay? Now let me give you the first eight. Write this down because this is how you know are accumulating wisdom. What’s this? The year of what? Alright, the first thing you have to do to get wisdom is trust in the Lord with all. So your first problem is you trust in people more than you trust in God.

(00:18:05):
If you’ve ever called somebody and asked them what they thought before you prayed, you’re out of line. If you ask God first, you’ll have an answer before you call them. By the way, some of y’all causing you’re confused, calling people who are more confused to help you with your confusion. You know what you get when you take confusion and add is confusion confused as a mug. Okay, confused as a man thinks in his heart. So number one, I trust in who? Some trust in chariot, some you know the scripture, you got to trust in God and trusting in God doesn’t always feel comfortable. His ways are not your ways. So listen, I’m not asking you to look for agreement. I’m saying trust. Trust, trusting God will help you to sometime realize, oh my God, this man don’t agree with me. He doesn’t agree with my path, he doesn’t agree with my conclusion, so I got to trust in God. Number two, you’re on your way to wisdom when you don’t exploit the poor.

(00:19:24):
Lemme explain that because poor doesn’t always mean not having money. Some can be poor in spirit. And so what that means is, is whenever you take advantage of somebody who’s poor in spirit, it is a proof that you don’t have wisdom. You don’t take advantage of people who are poor in spirit. You pray for them. Okay? Number three, you’re on your way to wisdom. This is Solomon, not me. It’s when you are careful with who you associate with. Should I pause? How many of y’all know you got some people in your life they need to go but you can’t figure out how to get ’em out? Let me give you a clue. Whenever you change directions and start operating in wisdom, you don’t have to leave people alone, they will leave you alone.

(00:20:33):
How many of y’all, all of a sudden at this season of your life, you don’t gossip like you used to gossip, you don’t talk about folk how you used to talk about ’em. You’re like, you know what, I ain’t got time for that negative energy. And all of a sudden they don’t invite you anymore. They don’t call you anymore, they don’t invite you anymore. Thank you. Okay? So you got to make sure that you don’t associate with the wrong people. Here’s the next one, watch how you manage money. I didn’t say nothing about how you make it. I didn’t say anything about how you spend it. Watch how you manage money if you don’t listen, money is so smart that it will never go to anybody or stay with anybody who doesn’t manage it.

(00:21:40):
That’s why your money keep leaving. They’re like, you ain’t wise enough to have me right out the door. Here’s the thing about money, money has friends. So when it comes, it brings its crew. Lincoln says, come on Jefferson and everybody come together. But when you don’t manage money, it runs because money has no feelings, it will only rest with people who know how to manage it. So impulsive buyers, people who got to keep up with people, people who shopping you got on, you got on Louis Vuitton when you should have on target, okay? And lemme just tell y’all something. If you got the right kind of swag, nobody will know where the clothes came from. Lemme just tell you something.

(00:22:36):
Can I tell a story about the other day? About, yeah. So my wife and I, we went somewhere, my wife, she was so focused on me preaching this woman, she was so focused on me preaching that she packed clothes for my sermon and didn’t pack an outfit for her to speak. She’s like, baby, what you wearing for your sermon? Okay, ain’t going to try to match you with your color because she always trying to be like me. She’s like, I’m going to try to match your color and all that kind of stuff, but I don’t want you to be in a suit. And so she bought this dope outfit to where to hear me speak, but she had to speak in the morning and didn’t have an outfit. So she had to go buy something real quick from a store and put it on. And when she walked in, everybody was complimenting what she went and bought real quick. Because when you have the right mindset and the right aura, it doesn’t matter what rack you got it off of, it matters the frame that it’s on.

(00:23:33):
And when you get over the fact that your dress doesn’t have to cost $2,000 for you to feel good about yourself, that it could be $20 and you still are who you are, stop letting the clothes make you, you make them. I got on a free suit. Suit didn’t cost me nothing but I look fly, I look good. Alright, Dutch don’t steal other people’s property. Amen. It did, didn’t it? Some thieves in the house of the Lord always produce quality work. Let me talk to you entrepreneurs, stop getting in business and being trifling. If you open at nine, be open at 8 45. Don’t be mad because somebody showed up at nine. I’m like, y’all here already? Yes you open.

(00:25:03):
What’s wrong with y’all? It’s just nine. Y’all here already. Well you opened at nine, I’ve been here, I got other stuff to do and if you close at five, don’t be turning close at 4 45. So that’s why God can’t get some of us a business because we won’t run it right. Always produce quality work. Whatever you do, do your best. Somebody say do your best, do your best. Number seven, don’t be greedy. How many of y’all know greedy people? I’m going to teach you in a minute that God hates greed. Number eight, don’t trust money, it’ll leave you.

(00:26:03):
Oh yes it will, right? And then we get to our ninth saying, which is, what did we say? What’s our saying as a man or woman? So is what, alright, am I helping anybody? Yes. Alright, so as not to contribute to what we call in theological conundrums as exegesis or iso Jesus I should say ISO Jesus is when you bring your own opinions to an isolated perspective of the text. But you have to read it in context because any text read out of context as a pretext. So what we have to do is, and this is what we do in the church, we always read a verse and think we’re going to get the promise, but you didn’t read what came before it and what came after it. So you’re up here like where God at, God said you didn’t read the whole paragraph. There’s a contract here as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. But let’s go back a verse. He says, do not eat the bread of a miser. This is verse six. Nor desire the delicacies for as he thinks in his heart. So is he eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you. The more so you have eaten, you will vomit up and waste your pleasant words. You see how this one text that we use is mashed in between two? Because what the Bible is saying is that most of your problems is that you are at the table with stingy people.

(00:27:31):
That’s what a miser is. Somebody who’s stingy, come on, help me, help me. Holy ghost, they ain’t going to come through here. And the Hebrew word translated thinketh in the authorized version of Proverbs 23 and seven means to estimate or to calculate. So the clause more accurately says this, as a man or woman adjust. So is he, okay, let me say it a little deeper. What does adjust mean? It means to alter something in your life to bring about order. So let’s read it a little deeper. As a man has the ability to adjust, so is he your problem is not that you’re not thinking. The problem is is that your thoughts have no flexibility.

(00:28:25):
Most people can’t adjust to anything they didn’t create. So they have a thought, it’s supposed to go this way. I want it to go that way and I want it to go into that timeframe. And if it doesn’t happen the way you thought it, then God says I can’t bring it to you because I will only bring the thing to an adjustable person. I want all of the rigid people to raise your hand in here and admit that you like it, how you like it, when you like it, when you like it, where you like it and God says nope, as a man has the ability to adjust, adjust help me Holy Ghost, your ability to adjust determines what you become. Lord, there is something, a psychologist call adjustment disorder. It’s people who literally experience anxiety when they have to adjust.

(00:29:30):
Y’all hear that church mouse? Yeah my God. It’s people who either spazz out or shut down because it didn’t happen. How you expected? And lemme tell you something, you don’t get to clap because your reaction isn’t like the other person’s reaction because whether you’re loud or whether you’re quiet, you’re still wrong. No adjustment. My mama taught me your mama don’t live here. My daddy did this for me, your daddy, you want to go over there with him. It’s amazing how much adjustment parents want from things above them but will have a conundrum if they have to adjust for their children.

(00:30:33):
No. In order for your children to live in your house, they have to continuously adjust. Why don’t you think the same is necessary for you to be in your father’s kingdom? You don’t get to bring another perspective into somebody else’s house and expect that house to adjust to how you expect it to be. God says, I am looking for people who are adjustable. If I know you will adjust, if I know you know how to calculate, if I know that you know how to do what is necessary for things to be in order, I will open up the windows of heaven and I will pour out on you a blessing. You don’t have room enough to receive. But I will not send my glory to an unadjustable individual.

(00:31:32):
Look at how some of y’all now, you won’t even adjust how you sit. Just you won’t even slouch for a brother. Ask your neighbor, will you adjust? Will you adjust? Will you adjust? I’m still talking about wisdom, I’m talking about mindset, but I’m still talking about wisdom. Now let’s bring up Proverbs four, one through seven. I thought that this was one of the most amazing things that the Lord showed me here recently. Hear ye children the instructions of a father and attend to know understanding next verse, for I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law for I was my father’s son. Everybody say I was my father’s son tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. Now watch this. Who is the writer of Proverbs Solomon? Who was his father? David. David. So this is Solomon talking about what his daddy taught him.

(00:32:37):
Listen to me, he taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments and live, get wisdom, get understanding. Forget it, not neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake not and she shall preserve thee. Love her and she shall keep thee. Last verse, wisdom is what? Wisdom. Come on y’all. Wisdom is what? Wisdom. Therefore get wisdom. And with all thy getting, this is Solomon telling us what his father told him. His father told him, son, if you want anything get wisdom. Now why would David tell Solomon that wisdom was the principle thing is he was telling him, he said, son, I’ve had everything else. I’ve had money, I’ve had women come on talk to me. I had another man’s wife and had another baby by how you think you got here? Come on sir, come on, come on. That’s how Solomon was born. He took another man’s wife and had Solomon with her and he says, I’ve had women, I’ve had money, I’ve had concubine son. Ain’t none of it worth it when you go to God, I want you to ask him for the one thing. I didn’t have wisdom.

(00:34:03):
Y’all not listening because most people in this room and most people online don’t understand that wisdom is more important and more valuable than anything you have in your possession. One of the richest and the best kings to ever live on earth told his son, I want to teach you something when you go to God in prayer, before you ask for anything, ask for wisdom. What does wisdom do? Wisdom allows you to be in a circumstance and be able to see clearly even when it’s cloudy. Most of our lives are in shambles because when we were in a situation that was unclear, we made our decision based on what we saw and what we saw wasn’t clear because we were seeking knowledge and not wisdom. We were looking through emotional lenses and not wisdom lenses. And God says in this next season of your life, what I am about to lay on your lap, you’re going to have to have wisdom to be able to hold it because wisdom is the principle thing and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

(00:35:19):
And I’ve not yet figured out how to get people to be more excited about wisdom than they are wealth. Solomon was the richest man in the world. The Bible says that there will never be another one like him. But what did he ask God for? Wisdom, knowledge and understanding. You will get richer when your prayers are not about money. See, y’all don’t like to be taught. Y’all just like to be hooped too. But see, here’s the deal. If I hoop, you’re going to leave here with nothing. You’re going to leave here with the same knowledge. And let me tell you something, if the knowledge that you have can’t get you there, what makes you think it’s going to change your future? This is what a wise man once told me. He said it is the current level of knowledge that you have. Look at me. If you go to sleep on the rest of the sermon, look at me now. It is the current level of knowledge that you have that has helped you to get what you have. But it is also that same knowledge that will keep you from getting what you want.

(00:36:27):
Okay? Lemme say it this way. How many people in here make somewhere between 50,000 and $250,000 a year? Raise your hand. Just raise your hand. Look at all these rich people. Come on and praise God for all these rich people. See they clapping Uhuh. You don’t even know my bills. That ain’t even hardly enough. Jesus, if you had wisdom, 250,000 is enough. Yeah, if you have wisdom, $250,000 is enough because wisdom says I get this house, I get this card, this is my shopping budget and this is what my savings account is and you can get somewhere. There are people in here who make $250,000 a year who have more money than people who made a million a year because it ain’t how much you make, it’s how much you can keep.

(00:37:20):
So if you make somewhere between 50,200 $50,000 a year, congratulations to you. Your mind help you to make that. But it is also that mind that kept it from being 500,000. So my microphone started, I want to come down there, but the microphone saying stay on the stage, it is the mindset that you have that has gotten you what you have, but it’s also the mindset that you have that kept you from getting what you dreamed about. So if a man is going to be changed, it comes by the renewing. Come on y’all. A mind is a terrible, I’m asking you. I know your biceps are in good shape. I know you got abs. I know your quads are in good shape, but where your head at, you can bench press 300 pounds but can’t get out of bed in the morning.

(00:38:27):
You can run three miles on a treadmill but can’t run in ministry for six weeks. It’s amazing in the physical you can go all day in the spirits, you get tired of people in three days wisdom just me and you today. It’s just me and you. It’s me and you mama. Wisdom is the principle thing. All the other stuff we’ve been talking about all month, your student loans are not the principle thing but you shout about ’em. Your hospital bills are not the principle thing but you giving God glory for it. Wisdom is the principle thing. And when you learn what to give God glory for, he’ll give you more reasons to give him glory.

(00:39:27):
Watch this. Now lemme tell you mama, since it’s just me and you, lemme tell you why they’re not praising God. Let me tell you why they ain’t praising God. Okay mama. Reason why they’re not praising God is watch what he says. He says, people who lack wisdom is because they did not avoid eating at a stingy man’s table. So in other words, the reason why some people in here are not shouting is because they’re starving. Because guess what? When you get full at a stingy man’s table, you’re still empty. I speak the spirit of stingy out of this room.

(00:40:13):
I speak the spirit of stingy out of the internet. I speak the spirit of stingy out of this atmosphere. Help me Holy Ghost. Because when you are connected to stingy people, they can feed you all day long and you’ll still starve because there are no calories in a meal that comes from a stingy table. Let me give you how many people eat corn? Anybody eat corn? Go and research it. There is no nutritional value. So just because you full don’t mean you’re nourished. I’m going to talk up in here whether it’s just me go do your research. There is no nutritional value in corn. It doesn’t even digest properly, but it will make you feel like you are fool. Why? Because fool’s goal can make you feel rich.

(00:41:17):
You on the computer watching podcasts, watching 12 churches thinking you are full but you’re starving because you’re eating from the wrong table. And lemme tell you how I know I’m cooking the right meal because everything my mama made for me that was healthy. I didn’t want it, never will forget my mama one day. I don’t know some of y’all, y’all some little young thunder cats. Y’all didn’t grow up like I did, but I grew up in a day where you had to go to church at least 22 times a day. Anybody remember that? We had an eight o’clock service and then we had a 10 o’clock service and if your preacher could preach real good, he went to somebody else church and preached at three o’clock, then you had to come back to your church at night. Why all this church?

(00:42:14):
I don’t know why we went to church that much. Everybody was still pregnant out of wedlock. Everything was the same. What was we doing? Stand fix my stage up here. Then we have to come on Monday for the men’s meeting, Tuesday for the sisters meeting. Wednesday for choir rehearsal. Thursday for everybody meeting Friday for some people meeting Saturday for some folks meeting. No, what was I talking about? Wisdom. Oh yeah, wisdom in church all day. Still hungry in church all day still mean as a rattlesnake in church all day. Still as judgmental as of still gossiping five services but still gossiping, starving.

(00:43:41):
One of them times my mama because my mama was a nurse and in the choir stand and my mama used to be in the choir stand, me and my sister and them be down there playing. She’d be like this. We already knew that if she had to look at us from the choir stand, oh when we got home and see my mama, she didn’t whoop. Soon as you walked in the house, she let you get comfortable. You be in the bed just laying down. My mama come in the room and say, oh you thought I forgot. Take some cover. Listen my mama take all the clothes. I don’t whoop no clothes.

(00:44:21):
My mama Ed. My mama beat me so good one time I told her, I said, mama, my blood hurt and she ain’t stopped. My mama used to do what they call whoop you until she got tired. And some of y’all don’t believe in that no more. But lemme tell you what the Bible says. The Bible says beat ’em and they will not die. Now that’s in the Bible. Now I said, y’all out here talking about time out. Time out ain’t helping nobody. You got to apply the board of education to the seat of understanding sometime in all your ways so you can acknowledge him and you will not time out. Go get in the corner Johnny, Johnny in the corner thinking about how to kill everybody. You got to beat Johnny with the word of the Lord.

(00:45:20):
Lord, they’re going to be all in my dear Lord Jesus going to block you. Trying to tell my story. Oh yeah. So my mama, we would go all the services and my mama made this casserole one time that I wasn’t fond of. I’m just telling you, I just, first of all, I don’t like cilantro at all and I don’t know if it was cilantro but it had green stuff on it. So that’s what I remember and my mama made that and my mama, this is what you said. If you ask for it, you going to eat it all. So this time I said no, I ain’t going to eat it.

(00:46:04):
I’m 12 years old, almost a grown man in 10 years. What you mean I ain’t eating nothing. Mama said don’t move from that table. It was time to go to church. I got up to get dressed to go to church. She said, did you hear what I said? She made me sit at the table with the food that I asked for that she didn’t tell me I had to eat and told me when I get back from church, you better be sitting right here. I got up when she left but when she came back, when she left, I was around the crib time. You can’t tell me where to go. I can go out. When she came home, I was sitting right there in that seat. Did you move? No ma’am. I was right here the whole time I’m convicted. Jesus wants me to eat this.

(00:47:05):
Come to find out the meal was good for me and when you’re used to junk you’ll leave substance on the table. She never had to make me eat McDonald’s because I requested junk and I refused substance. I’m wondering how many people watching me online and in this room full of empty stuff, you feel satisfied but you’re empty. That’s why you’re up sometime and down sometimes. That’s why you have energy sometimes and other times you don’t. What’s wrong with me? You’re malnutrition mal neutral. You don’t have enough nutrition, you don’t have enough substance. You’re malnourished. You don’t consume anything that makes you uncomfortable.

(00:48:19):
If you’re eating it and it look like it’s going to challenge you, you turn the channel or you act like you’re too busy or you do something else while you’re watching it, you know where the help is. But some people benefit off of staying ignorant because being able to say, I don’t know is the best excuse not to get in trouble, help me Holy Ghost. He says, watch this. He says, you eat from another man’s table. Watch he says, and he said, it’ll make you vomit. You know why? Because the right mindset. When you get the right mindset, it makes you sick. When you’re around people who don’t have it, how many of y’all have been around somebody and just be like, raise your hand if I’m talking to you, you can’t tell them they’re getting on your nerve. You just be like, are you doing God’s going to bless you, you want to go with us? We got room it.

(00:49:45):
Touch on them say their mindset is making me sick, their mindset making me sick. You don’t have to stare around them people. I don’t care how long you’ve been knowing them. You don’t have to listen. I’m going to go deeper. I don’t care if y’all got the same last name. I’ll see you at the family reunion, but I ain’t going to see you tomorrow. I can’t introduce that mindset to my diet. I’m trying to stay positive with all the stuff I got going on. I if I’m helping you say you’re helping me, helping me listen to this, you are giving me everything I need today. The Hebrew word as a man thinking, listen to this, this helped me now. Okay, lemme just say it. Just say it. The Hebrew word translated in his heart as a man, think of in his heart in Proverbs 23 and seven. It can also be translated throat.

(00:51:03):
Remember English, Hebrew, different etymologies, different terms. So in his heart can be translated as throat and thinketh can be translated into hair. So he says, when you are around people who don’t have the right mindset is equivalent to having a hair in your throat. How many of y’all have ever ate food that had hair in it? What do you do when you eat food that has hair in it? You get a napkin and you don’t care if you at the table with the president of the United States. If it’s hair in your fool, you’re going to spit it out. God says, I need you to spit out negativity the same way you spit out food that has hair in it and it’s amazing the text letting us know how you can spit out food that has hair in it but can’t spit out negative words.

(00:52:11):
Why can’t you digest the information that comes from a friend but you can’t digest hair in your food? He says, I want you to have an adverse reaction to the wrong mindset in your day-to-day life the same way you would at a restaurant that serves you food with hair in it. God says, anytime you get around the wrong mindset, I want you to gag. Next time somebody comes up say, girl, lemme tell you what somebody said, do this. Nah, come on, tell me man. I’m telling you, you ain’t heard this from me. Nah, just you ought to leave feeling disgusted when you are around people who have no wisdom.

(00:53:13):
Amen. I’m telling you now, I did all of that to teach you how to think and here’s the next problem. That’s all some of you all will ever do because you got one problem. People who don’t think enough. The next problem is people who think too much, help me. Holy Spirit, they’re done with me. Alan Watt says, A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except for thoughts. So he loses touch with reality and he lives in a world of illusions. See, when all you do is think, you think you in the real world when all you do is think you are in a room with two-way mirrors running into what you think is clear when all you do is think you’ve created a world of illusions. Because an idol mind is the devil’s workshop and when all you do is think the devil is influencing your thoughts and you think your thoughts are relevant, but they are illusions, don’t trust me. Don’t trust Alan Watts. Trust Plato. Plato says the hungriest type of person is the one who feast on their own thoughts.

(00:54:43):
You trust your thinking too much and yes, it has worked for you a time or two, but it is not flawless. It’s a hair in the throat. The reason why I called this sermon the imaginary audience is because most of you all are performing for your own thoughts. Jesus. It’s like the girl who’s in high school who’s embarrassed to go to school because she has braces, because she thinks that everybody’s looking at her and she doesn’t realize that nobody caress. It’s like the person who gets dressed all the way up beat they face out to go to Forever 21 and I ain’t got nothing against Forever 21, but you don’t have to get dressed up to go there.

(00:55:53):
You’re in the mirror and you spend six hours on makeup and hair to go walk through the mall because you think everybody will notice you and get mad when somebody doesn’t say, you look nice today. I ain’t going back to that church. They ain’t compliment me. Come on, man. That’s not wisdom. Can I tell y’all something real quick? Nobody caress, but it’s the truth. You really think most people are so focused on themselves, they don’t have time to focus on you. You would have done all of that to go unnoticed all that money on the car so somebody can give you a thumbs up at a red light.

(00:56:55):
I’d rather the person at the bank being like I touch your name and say, nobody caress, nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody caress. Look at how fast we get through news cycles. Something happen and we on to the next one. That’s why the blog sites got 12,000 posts a day because nobody cares. They got to keep ’em coming because you just got to it. Feed it because people, once they read the art, they judge you and then they own. Nobody cares. You’re performing for an imaginary audience spending money. You don’t have to impress people you don’t know who won’t like you when you get it anyway.

(00:57:49):
Your mind is the most expensive real estate on the earth. Preach. I’m talking to y’all. These six inches is worth more than the acreage of the French villas more valuable than the Jean-Michel vsat. Your mind is expensive. That’s why your past wants it. Your present needs it. Your future requires it. Even God says, let this mind being you that’s also in Christ Jesus. The idol mind is a devil’s workshop. Your children want your mind, your spouse wants your mind. The six inches you have between your ears is the most valuable commodity you have and everybody in your life wants a piece of it and here is the deal. It is real estate and you better start being selective who you give lease agreements to.

(00:58:58):
Notice, I didn’t say mortgages because you can’t sell none of it, but you got to have lease agreements and some people don’t deserve lifetime agreements. You hook up with somebody they negative like, I’m terminating this lease. You have five minutes. Get out of my face. Stop letting people live in your mind, rent free, let it go. Wisdom. Are y’all listening to me? I’m done Wisdom. Wisdom is the principle thing. If I don’t know you, you can’t stress me. You can get my attention, but you can’t get my mind. Most of the people who know you love you, but you are focused on the ones who don’t know you and you around here stressed out about a person who don’t even know if you’re light-skinned or dark-skinned, and yet the people in your life who really love you, somehow you’re able to forget every great thing they’ve ever said about you to care about what somebody wrote in a comment. Come on son, do me a favor. Encourage your neighbor and tell ’em I love you in spite of you. I love you in spite of you. See how long you remember that If you’re in this place today and you’ve had a long history and battle with accomplishing the right mindset, and you can even remember those moments when the enemy entered into your psychology and here you are, beautiful, blessed and contemplating suicide.

(01:01:17):
Here you are, the president of the division are the manager of the company and you got less joy than the janitor. Okay? It didn’t work, but at least you were a part of it. Something will speak to you and it will have you speaking negatively to yourself performing for an imaginary audience when nobody’s really in the crowd. It’s just you and God. For those of you all who are not here on Tuesday, I told a story by the time I preached in Cape Town, South Africa, it was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.

(01:02:33):
I climbed and ailed off of the side of Table Mountain and I can still see myself ailing off of the side of Table Mountain. I was so high that the clouds were beneath my feet and she said, I wouldn’t have been up that child. It’s all right. This is my story. It’s my story. This is my story. This is my song, and I’m ab sailing off the side of it and I’m going through the clouds. I got to the bottom of Table Mountain. Nobody told me this part. I thought that when I ailed off the side of the mountain and I got to the bottom, they would have some sort of transportation vehicle. They’re waiting on us to take us back to the top. They didn’t tell me that when you get to the bottom of that mountain, you have to climb back up at yourself.

(01:03:40):
I had on a pair, this was back in the day, I had on some true religion gene. Y’all remember true religion and a flannel in the summertime in Africa, and I had to climb back up that mountain step by step. I was mad and hungry and hot One time. I didn’t know whether to go left or right. I asked the person who was up there climbing like us. I said, I don’t know where to go. They said, well, don’t go left. We just came from that way and it took us an hour to get back here.

(01:04:34):
So I took a right what just so happened to be the right direction, get back up to the top, excited. It took me two hours to climb back up. I was tired, sweating. I had taken my shirt off and I started using it as a rag. The man says to me when I get back up to the top, he said, how was it? Wasn’t it great? I said, no, because we don’t be climbing stuff. I mean, we just ain’t climbers. And he said, did you see any of the wildlife? I said, no. He said, you didn’t see the baboons? I said, oh no. It wasn’t no baboons where I was. He said, sir, you may not have seen them, but they saw you and it made me realize the wisdom of not always having to be seen because the Bible knew there will be no benefit from our relationship.

(01:05:53):
I had no food. I had nothing to offer it, so it stayed hidden from me. Had I had a banana or some potato chips or an apple or a sandwich, he would’ve introduced himself to me in an aggressive way, but he was quickly able to assess why, show myself to somebody who doesn’t have any benefit for me. So the first lesson is stop exposing your soul to experiences that don’t have any benefit. You got that lesson. Stand on your feet. For the second one, I told them this on Tuesday. We went to Reuben Island where Nelson Mandela was held captive. I think he was in prison for 27, 30 years, and you can’t get to the island any other way other than the boat. We got on the boat and it just so happens the water was rocky.

(01:07:06):
People were vomiting and throwing up. It was a horrible experience. Everybody was scared and crying and people were holding onto their children and everybody had on life vests finally get to the edge of the island and there are cannons that are focused at the water and being inquisitive. I asked the person, what are those cannons for? He said, well, this island used to house military people and there used to be families on this island, and so they had the cannons to keep the enemies away from being able to seize the island. He says, but do you see all of those horns? I said, yes, sir. I see the horns. He says, those are more important than the cannons. I said, why? He says, because everybody on the island is trained that if there is ever an invasion that will sound these alarms and the alarms are the signal that when you hear the sound of the alarm, you have to open your mouth.

(01:08:12):
Everybody on the island nose that if you hear the sound of the alarm, you have to open your mouth like this. I said, why do you have to open up your mouth? He says, because when you open your mouth, you protect your eardrums. He says, because when we shoot the cannon, it’s going to be so loud that if the mouth is closed, the ears will pop, and the devil has figured out that when it’s about to be a war, if he can keep your mouth closed, I need somebody in this atmosphere that sees the devil coming, and I need you to open up your mouth so you can hear what the spirit has.