How To Gain Access | Take Action

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 (00:22):
Hey everybody, how are you? My name is Pastor Keon Henderson and welcome to another episode, another reiteration of Take Action. I am so excited, so excited to be with you as I always am. I like spending my evenings with you or wherever you watch me at or what time of day, spending the morning together, the afternoon, whether you’re watching it live or you’ll see this as a replay, it’s always a pleasure to extrapolate and expound on the word of God, which in the end, make sure that you go from where you are right into the middle of your divine destiny and how will you know you are at divine destiny? That’s right. You’ll begin to take action. You’ll take action in areas where you used to be uncomfortable. So I believe that God has yoked us together and we are like oxen, treading, and we’re just plowing through life together and I’m glad to be a part of your journey.

(01:20):
So it’s my privilege wherever you watch us from, it is my privilege to be able to expound on the word of God. Whether you’re having a watch party or you’re inviting people into a place and you’re watching this, or maybe you’re looking at it on your cellular phone and you got headphones in while you’re doing hair or whatever it is, it’s always a pleasure for me to be with you. So as always, we like to give you an opportunity to give. They’re going to put the giving instructions up on the screen and you can give throughout this message. Let me tell you, I believe that one of the most important scriptures in the whole Bible is in Malachi chapter three, verse eight through 12, and I’ll just say it to you very simply like this, it says, will a man, rob God, wherein have you robbed me in the tithe and the offering?

(02:10):
And this is not a message about giving or anything like that as much as it is telling you that every time you share with God, you set God up to have to hold you up and to help meet and supply all of your needs according to his riches, not your paycheck, but his in Christ. So I am so excited His riches in glory. I’m so excited about the opportunity to present you with the chance to continue to work on your giving so that you’ll be able to shout about your receiving. And that’s the great thing about this. This is not just giving out, it’s also receiving back in today’s scripture is, and I say this with all today’s scripture is probably my, I shouldn’t say that because I’m going to get in trouble. I think today’s scripture is in my faith, five of scriptures all time.

(03:16):
I don’t like to say that I have a favorite part of the Bible. The whole Bible is my favorite, right? It is all his word. There’s something about this text, it just gets me every time and I just love to say it. I love to recite it, I love to hear it. And I may say this text and you may say, pastor, what in the world are you talking about? I didn’t feel any goosebumps. None of what you just said mattered to me. I just love the Bible. I love the word of God and I think that this is one of my favorite texts in the whole Bible. So I want you to look at Philippians chapter two verse six, okay? And this is the King James version because there is no other Bible that says it like the King James version as it relates to this particular text.

(04:13):
The Bible says in Philippians chapter two verse six, it says, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God? Look at verse seven, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men, verse eight, and being found in fashion as a man. Here it is. This is about, I’m about to run already. I’m about to run already. I can’t even stand still. You ready? He humbled himself and became obedient unto death. Even the death of the cross. That’s like the be part of verse eight. In Philippians chapter two. I mean every time I hear the be part and the C part, it gets me him being humbled. He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Today I want to talk about this thought, this subject, how to gain access. How many of you all have ever been trying to gain access to a thing? So here on campus, we are blessed to have a school. We have a school here on our campus and it goes from K five all the way to fifth grade, and we’ve got about 200 students on campus from pre-K, all the way up to fifth grade. And in that building, in that building, now you have to understand my name is on the marquee.

(06:04):
My name is on the documents. My name is on the contract. My name is with the general contractors and the subcontractors that build it. I had to sit down with our director of finance and CFO to ensure that checks were being issued based on work that was being done. And after over 20 to 30 months of building a 40,000 plus square foot building for kids in our area, we were finally able to open the dream center. And when I tell you I was in on every detail, if you pull up the carpet, you’ll see that I put my name in the foundation with my finger in the concrete. I was there when it was dirt. I actually took the first shovel and dug it in the ground. I was the first person to break ground. Every inch of that building was given to me through a vision by God and with the help of interior designers and decorators, we were able to get that vision out. So I picked the doors, the color scheme, the tile on the ground, the bathroom fixtures within my budget, and when I go over there right now, I have to check in through the front door security because even though I’m responsible through the help of God of building the building, because there are children in the building, I have to go through the same security process as a stranger.

(07:54):
I literally listen, become obedient to something I actually have control over. Do I have to go through the security? No. Could I take out my key or my access pad and just walk through the back door? Absolutely. But do I do it? No, because I intentionally became obedient unto that which I have control over now. Now, that’s why this text is so powerful to me. This is why this text is so amazing to me because when Paul who wrote this book to the church at Philippi, when Paul wrote that Jesus made himself of no reputation, watch this and that Jesus existed in the form of God

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Going back and reading the original language, it actually means that the Greek word morphe, it means that Jesus in his preexistence, listen to me. He looked just like God in his preexistence. Jesus looked just like God, I want you to hear me because I haven’t said anything profound to you yet, but it is the substratum of our thought that Jesus is not. Listen to me, please pay attention. Jesus is not a component of God. Jesus is not a symbol for God. Jesus is God. Jesus isn’t the assistant God or the likeness of God or just the flesh incarnate of God, although he was flesh, but Jesus is God. You got to get that in your spirit so that you’ll understand the foundation.

(10:31):
Jesus is God. So Paul said that God, not Jesus because I want you to think about this from a higher level that God, yes, Jesus, but he made of himself know reputation. So this word comes from the Greek word S, which means to make empty to relinquish. So the only way Jesus could make his 33 year appearance because he is God man, this is so good to me. The only way that Jesus or God could come to the earth for 33 years as the son of God is that he had to willfully, although yet temporarily he had to willfully let go of all of his godliness.

(11:32):
He had to let go of all of his deity. He had to let go of all of his divinity. Does this make sense to you that he had to lay aside his crown, that he had to leave his kingdom and that he totally divested himself of his will and made himself subject to the power of attorney by his father and subjugated himself to a lower class and he thought it not robbery, that the God of heaven and earth would think it was okay to be a person. It’s not equivalent, but let me just give you just imagine right now, okay? I want you to imagine this.

(12:34):
I want you to imagine that you’re in a first class seat or perhaps a private plane right now. Can you imagine that your life is set up, that everywhere you fly is private, everywhere you go, it’s pristine. Every hotel you stay in is a seven diamond. Every outfit you put on it is some sort of designer. I’m not saying that that’s what you want. I just want you to imagine that this is your life and somebody comes and tells you, oh, by the way, when you wake up to morning, you will no longer be rich and you will have a minimum wage job and you’re going to either have to catch the bus or walk to work in the heat with no shoes on. It’s not even the equivalent. It’s mind blowing that he would decide not to be God, to be man, that he would willfully abdicate his divinity for humanity.

(13:33):
Do you understand the juxtaposition? Do you understand divinity and humanity? He gave up never being hungry to starve. He gave up never being thirsty. He gave up being water to kneading water. He gives up having a kingdom to having to say that the birds of the air have nest and the foxes of the ground have holes, but I have nowhere to lay my head. He gives up golden streets to be born in an animal’s feeding trough. Do you understand the dichotomy and the differentiation of what he had to give up to be able to understand us, and yet he found it not robbery to make himself of no reputation. God literally reached out from his eternal existence in the material world that he created by the way, and took up on human flesh himself in the form of a servant.

(14:43):
Here is the first point. Are you ready? Look at me closely because I think done enough explaining to get us to this place. You will never be massively effective in the form of authority that you now enjoy. See, here’s what you got to understand. Most people don’t respect authority. They fear it. So God says, I don’t want to be feared. I want to be accepting. So I’ve got to step out of my deity. I’ve got to let them see me bleed and it is my humanity they will respect. Okay, let me put it in another way. People don’t widely appreciate authority. They fear it. Let me give you an example by a show of your virtual hand. How many of you, as long as you don’t see a police officer, you speed.

(15:51):
As long as you don’t see a police officer, you park anywhere. As long as there is no authority around, come on, real people. Ain’t no telling what you will do, especially when you know you can get away with it. But the moment you’re on that freeway in your city and you see a Ford Explorer that you might think is a police truck, it could not even be one. If it’s white or black, you’re going to assume that they’re Camaro. You’re going to assume that that vehicle is a police car, that Impala, and when you see it, what do you do? You slow down. See the way I know you don’t. This is why this is my favorite text because one of my favorite texts, because I literally imagined what God gave up to save me, that he would rather be respected by me than to be feared by me. So he lowered himself in a way that would draw me closer to him.

(17:02):
I’m telling you that the only way you’re going to gain access to the next level in your life is to lower yourself in a way that people will be drawn to you. Everybody is trying to be important. Everybody wants to post their credentials. Everybody wants to talk about I’m this and I’m that. And I’m not saying that if you went to school and got your doctorate degree that you shouldn’t want to be called doctor. And I’m not saying that if you passed a bar that you shouldn’t want to be called attorney. And I’m not saying that if you have a doctorate degree that you shouldn’t have all of the letters after your name because I believe in all of that and you should. But let me tell you something, if you’re going to go to the next level of, you’re not going to do it with your degree, you’re going to do it with your humility.

(17:56):
Nobody is going to respect you because your robe is any more vibrant than anybody else’s. Nobody’s going to respect you because you can speak in tongues deeper than anybody else. Nobody’s going to respect you just because you have the title. And again, I’m not against the titles. I’ve got a master’s degree myself. I believe in all of it, but I understand that the tile comes before the title that you have to serve. He said that he made himself in the form of a servant, and I heard Bishop Jakes talking about this the other day on one of his sermons, and we’ve been talking about it here in our church, in our class, Bishop Jake said that he has a leadership course, but he doesn’t have a followship conference because who would come to the servant conference 2024, who would come to the servant conference 2025?

(18:58):
Nobody will come because we don’t understand the importance of servitude that the scripture says that he put himself in the form of a servant and somehow a man who pops up up on the scene screaming that he is God incarnate, was able to be accepted in a time where other men were also saying they were God. What do you think the difference was between the king? We now worship and the kings that are no longer alive because the other ones were yelling us, making anyone bow before him. It was an innate reaction to his deity, but you never saw him be disgruntled when he was in the presence of sinners. Matthew 23 and 12 says, and this is in the new living translation of the Bible, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Jesus only left heaven briefly, which means that the change that I am telling you that is necessary for you to get to the next level is not eternal.

(20:34):
You only have to step down for a moment. Stepping down for a moment I prophesy will result in being lifted for a lifetime. He didn’t leave heaven forever. He only left for 33 years. Now you may say 33 years is a long time, not when you’re God because to you, to him a day is a thousand years. A thousand years is but a day, so he literally only a day is a thousand years. A thousand years is but a day, so he literally only left heaven for about 50 minutes. You don’t have to make the changes that I’m talking about eternally, but you have to make them. Initially, Jesus emptied himself of all divine attributes and literally and intentionally became like man, in every way for the sole purposes of garnering our yes. All he wanted us to say to him was yes. All he wanted us to say to him was yes.

(21:48):
When Paul said he took upon himself the form of a servant, he used the word which is translated slave out of his love for you and I, he willingly listen. He willingly left his privilege. He willingly left his privilege. I’m going to say it again. He willingly left his privilege, which actually led to him being the high priest. I don’t know if this sermon is going to work for most of you. I don’t know. I don’t know how this word is going to do because we all want to be so important and we all want privileges and I get it, but I’m just wondering if anybody hears me saying that God gave up his privilege, which is what led to him being high priest because sometimes you have to pull yourself back in order for God to push you forward. Sometimes you have to serve as opposed to looking to be served. Sometimes you have to lower yourself so that God can lift you. Sometimes you have to apologize even when you’re not wrong. Sometimes you got to turn the other cheeks. Sometimes you have to forego being important in an environment because it’s always better. Here it is. Here it is. It’s better to be axed up than to be axed down how to gain access through humility.

(23:29):
Through humility, he intentionally made himself like man in every way. He didn’t become man and not get hungry. He got hungry. He didn’t become man and not get sleepy. He slept. He didn’t become man and not cry. He cried when Paul said he took upon himself the form of a servant. He used the word that’s translated slave, which means that out of his love for you and I, he willingly left his privilege, which would actually lead to him becoming the high priest. See, you don’t gain access to the next level by always touting your degrees and certificates and titles and all of that is good. Humility is the best class you could ever pass.

(24:44):
Listen to this. Humility is required to fulfill the plan that God has for your life. This is why this text is one of my favorite because he humbled himself and became obedient to death. You’re talking about life being obedient to death. You’re talking about the one who was never born because remember, Jesus is God, to be obedient to death. You’re talking about the one that died on the cross but never died to become obedient to death. You’re talking about the one who shaped man out of the dust and spit in the ground and breathed into that dust and man became a living soul and he became obedient to death. You’re talking about the one who planned his crucifixion and ensured that every player that would take part in his final hour would be on the team without reservation, and he subjected himself to being cold at night and being hot in the day. You’re talking about the one who created the sun, who then gave himself skin that would be subject to the sun. You’re talking about the one who knows how many hairs are on your head and then gives himself hair. He humbled himself

Pastor Keion (26:45):
And became obedient to something that he created. He became obedient to something that he was in control of. Sometimes you have to submit yourself to a thing that you have the power to ignore. Help me, holy Spirit. Sometimes you have to subject yourself and humble yourself to a thing that you have the power to ignore. Jesus humbled himself that word humbled in the original means, listen to be willing to stoop to any measure that is needed. And now Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of the Father arrayed in splendor and glory beyond human imagination. And Hebrews 13 in a says that he’s the same yesterday, he’s the same today and he’s the same forevermore, which means that if he’s the same yesterday today and forevermore, it means that if he was humble, then guess what? He’s humble now. So that means he was humble. He is humble and will always be humble, and yet after leaving Earth and going back to be with his father, listen to me.

(28:40):
Even though he’s back in heaven sitting on the throne, he’s still humble. And my last question is, can God trust you to remain humble if he blesses you? Here it is. Are you blessable? Can you be given more and not look down on people because you are blessed? Can you be given a title and not misuse it because you have authority? See, this is the year of wealth and wisdom and I told you if you stay with me for 12 months that through the word of God, God was going to take you to higher heights. My question is, can you go higher and still stay low?

(29:45):
Will you still pray when all of your bills are paid? Can God still get a worship out of you when you don’t have to pray about paying your car note and when all of your daughters and sons are healthy, and when your mother is in good health and cancer skips a generation and your financial wherewithal is higher than you ever thought it would be, and you become the lender and not the bar, and you’re the head and not the tail, and you above and never beneath and God just blesses you and you’ve got wealth and wisdom and you’ve got more wisdom and wealth, and all of your problems are extinguished and you’ve finally got the group of friends that you’ve been praying for, will you still say yes Over the next 12 months, I’m going to get you ready to receive what God has for you, and I must ask the question, will your character be intact when you get to the next level?

(30:54):
Will you still speak to people that can do nothing for you? Will you still be kind to people who have no opportunities for you to seize? He became obedient to death, a thing that he had complete authority over it. My plea to you brothers and sisters, I beseech you by the mercies of God. Please don’t allow your wealth and your wisdom to extinguish your humility. Please don’t allow the grandiose grandness of what God is about to do in your life to make you shrink as a person. This is how you will gain access. Spirit of the living God fall fresh upon us.

(32:17):
We come today pleading the blood of Jesus over our character, over our moral state of mind, over our intuitions, over our friendship circles, praying God that you’ll give us access to new dimensions and higher levels, but let it not be robbery for us to take on the form of a slave, of a servant, be with us, guide us and stand with us. For those of us who are taking action, we’re going to stand up and rise up and call you blessed. In name we pray, amen. Thank you so much for being on another episode of Take Action with Us. Thank you for spending your Tuesdays with us. Listen, it’s giving time as I’ve already stated, that God is going to be a rewarder of those who diligently seek after him. As you get ready to give today, I want you to name your seed, whatever you want to name it, name it, wisdom, name it, wealth, name it more than enough.

(33:42):
Name it, raise on the job, name it, entrepreneur name it health. Whatever it is you’ve been praying and asking God for. I want you to name this seat because I feel with every fiber in me that the next 12 months of wisdom and wealth, it’s going to set you up to blow your original dreams out of the water, and we’re going to set the temple. We’re going to remain humble and we’ll let God take care of high priest. You’re going higher, but it’s because you’re going lower. First, I pray that God will bless your seed and that he will meet you at the place of your need. In Jesus’ name we pray. Oh, by the way, I want you to tune in to our service in the next couple of services because those of you all who are partaking in giving as relates to take action, we’re getting ready to do something big for somebody. We’re going to take our collective gifts and we’re going to make a difference in somebody’s life, and we’re going to do it on a Sunday morning very soon. So I want you to be watching us and subscribe to our YouTube channel because we’re getting ready to do something big. I love you. God bless you. I’ll see you next week.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Hey everybody. My name is Pastor Keon Henderson. I am the founder of an organization called Take Action. Now. People are always direct messaging me and texting me and saying, pastor, what are you doing? How can I be a part of what you’re doing? And I know everybody doesn’t want to be a part of the local church, but what if I told you I had a way for you to partner with me so that we can affect change throughout the world? Hence, take action now. A 5 0 1 C three nonprofit organization committed to advancing individual agency and social progress by protecting, strengthening and uplifting the underserved and disenfranchised throughout the world. We’re doing humanitarian things, teaching entrepreneurism, teaching home ownership and institutional inequities, cultural deficits. We have our ear to the ground and we need your help to make a difference, whether it is making a sizable donation to the estate of a young woman who lost her battle with cancer via the internet, and we were able to make a difference there.

(36:18):
Or whether it is in a underserved community in the Caribbean islands where the children were playing amidst rocks and glass, and we came in and broke ground recently on the park so that athletes and cheerleaders and young people in that community can have a safe place to stir up the gift inside of them. Whether it is paying the utility bills in cold climates for seniors, or just helping basketball players get the proper uniforms of football players. It’s just us making a difference through financial literacy and technological empowerment and mentoring services. This is what we do, and all I’m asking you to do is become a partner with me right now, and I want you to go visit Take action now.org. Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.