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Hunters | 9 to 5 (Part 2) · The Travis Rutland Podcast

• 0:00
  Host: Foreign you're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as President of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland.
• 0:44
  Travis Rutland: Well, good morning again. It is great to see each and every one of you and I'm excited to to share this this next message in the series this morning as we're continuing this this series on different jobs in the Bible, calling it 9 to 5 now, having Pastor Jennifer do the announcements this morning. So somebody reminded me that there appears to be a video floating around of Jennifer singing 9 to 5 at a karaoke night that we did recently. I'm vaguely debating making that the bumper video for one of these weeks. We'll see. We'll see if she behaves herself the next couple of weeks when I've got some blackmail material on her moving forward. So turn if you will to the Old Testament to the book of Genesis. This morning we're talking about Hunter. There's different jobs in the Bible. We talked about armor bearer last week and we're going to stay in the Old Testament this week and talk about Hunter. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 10 and verse 8. We're going to read some passages there, but we're really not going to stay there. We're just using it as sort of a jumping off point for us this this morning. So turn if you will to Genesis chapter 10 and verse 8 as we talk about Hunter. Genesis 10 and 8 Cush begot Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty, mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akkad, and Kalneh in the land of Shinar. So Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord and his kingdom begins in the land of Shinar where Babel is now turn, if you will over one chapter to eleven and verse one, Genesis eleven and one. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plane, the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there and Then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose name, whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. Let's pray. God, we ask in the next few moments that you will speak to us. We want to hear from you this morning. God, let your holy spirit continue to move in this place. Challenge and convict us. Speak to each of us. We want to hear from you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In Greek mythology, there is a. There is a Greek mythological hero character named Achilles. Achilles. We know him because he is told about in the ancient Greek poetry, the Iliad and, and the Odyssey. Achilles is definitely mythological. The Iliad and the Odyssey talk about the Trojan War. And the Trojan War almost certainly didn't happen, but maybe it did, or maybe variations of it happened. It almost certainly did not happen the way that Homer describes it, the Greek poet, in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
• 3:44
  Travis Rutland: So in it, though, this, this war,
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  Travis Rutland: this Trojan War, the hero for the Greek army is Achilles. When Achilles was born, his mother didn't want anything to happen to him. This is the mythology, of course, it's not real, but this is the myth. And so Achilles mother took him to the river Styx and dipped her baby boy into the river.
• 4:04
  Travis Rutland: And by, by putting him in the
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  Travis Rutland: river, she gave him a, a cloak or a force field of invulnerability.
• 4:14
  Travis Rutland: He couldn't be harmed. He couldn't be, he couldn't be hurt. Well, that's an unbeatable warrior, right? A warrior that can't be killed, a warrior that can't be beaten.
• 4:21
  Travis Rutland: A warrior that can't be stabbed or
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  Travis Rutland: shot with an arrow. He's unbeatable.
• 4:24
  Travis Rutland: And so she wanted to keep her
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  Travis Rutland: baby safe and so she dipped him
• 4:27
  Travis Rutland: in the river Styx.
• 4:28
  Travis Rutland: But she had to hold on to Achilles some.
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  Travis Rutland: So she held on to his left heel.
• 4:32
  Travis Rutland: So she grabbed him by his left
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  Travis Rutland: heel and dipped him into the river
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  Travis Rutland: sticks covering all of his body with
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  Travis Rutland: invulnerability except for that left heel. And then she pulled her baby out and he became a great warrior. Towards the end of the Trojan War,
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  Travis Rutland: Achilles is shot by an arrow in
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  Travis Rutland: the heel and he dies. And so now, thousands of years later,
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  Travis Rutland: we still refer to that idea that
• 4:59
  Travis Rutland: as someone's Achilles heel, that thing that keeps them from being all that they want to be, that thing that leads to their Downfall, that thing that causes our destruction, that thing that destroys us is.
• 5:12
  Travis Rutland: And it's different for every person, right? But, oh, that's their Achilles heel. And we still refer to it in
• 5:17
  Travis Rutland: the human body as the Achilles tendon. And you'll hear often athletes, well, they're going on the injured reserve list because they, what, they tore their Achilles. So there's that thing.
• 5:26
  Travis Rutland: So that Achilles heel is there.
• 5:29
  Travis Rutland: What I would say is that for many of us, or most of us, the symptoms of the Achilles heel manifest themselves differently. But I actually want to challenge us this morning in how we think and how we think about who we are and how we think about ourselves. I want to suggest to you that for many of us, most of us, we actually have the same Achilles heel. It then manifests itself differently for every person.
• 5:59
  Travis Rutland: But the problem, the issue that it
• 6:01
  Travis Rutland: flows out of is actually the same Achilles heel for everybody. And that Achilles heel is pride. And I want to talk about that for just a moment. And I know that many of us go, I don't struggle with pride.
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  Travis Rutland: And I think that we do.
• 6:14
  Travis Rutland: I think that we struggle with it in ways that we don't think of or even recognize or even understand what we're doing. Sometimes I think it becomes second nature to us to respond in certain ways,
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  Travis Rutland: and it's actually responding out of our own pride. So turn, if you will.
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  Travis Rutland: Now we're going to be in the New Testament primarily. Turn, if you will, to Romans chapter three. Have a lot of scripture this morning. Romans chapter three and verse ten. Paul is writing to the church at Rome and he says this as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. So he says, nobody is righteous. Not a single person is righteous. Now look at Romans 3 and 23, the same chapter, but 3 and 23. Paul continues, and he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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  Travis Rutland: So no one is righteous.
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  Travis Rutland: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And now go over to Galatians, chapter 6, Galatians 6:3. Paul again is writing, this time to the church at Galatia. And he says this in Galatians 6:3.
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  Travis Rutland: For if anyone thinks himself to be
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  Travis Rutland: something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
• 7:25
  Travis Rutland: The first thing about pride is this. Pride makes us resent ourselves. Pride makes us hate ourselves. Pride makes us angry and upset with ourselves. So what we say is, we again using pride as the Achilles heel, then we have these symptoms. So someone might say, well, I just really struggle with a bad self image. But a bad self image Flows out of pride because pride makes us resent ourselves because we're not as great as we think we should be. We should be better, we should do better, we should be doing more. We should have this, we should have that. We're constantly angry with ourselves. We're constantly upset with ourselves. One of the worst jobs I ever
• 8:14
  Travis Rutland: had when I was in my late teens and early 20s, I was like 19, 20 years old. One of the worst jobs I ever had was I was the referee of an over 40s men's league, church basketball.
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  Travis Rutland: Worst job I ever had. Every single game I would have to
• 8:35
  Travis Rutland: throw somebody out of the game.
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  Travis Rutland: These guys were mad all the time.
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  Travis Rutland: Now I'm 50 and I understand why they're mad all the time.
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  Travis Rutland: But at 19, I didn't.
• 8:44
  Travis Rutland: This is a true story. He's not here today because he's not feeling great.
• 8:48
  Travis Rutland: But this is a true story and you can ask him about the next
• 8:50
  Travis Rutland: time you saw it.
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  Travis Rutland: In one game, I gave a technical foul to both my father and my uncle playing on the same team. I teed up in succession. I gave a technical foul to my own father and my own uncle. Here's the worst part of it. It was church league basketball at the church dad was pastoring. I gave my own father, a pastor at the church, a technical foul in that it was. It was unbelievable. And I couldn't understand why these guys were so mad all the time. I remember thinking, At 19, it doesn't matter. It's church league basketball. Over 40, men's church league. How big of a deal can this be?
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  Travis Rutland: One game.
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  Travis Rutland: I'll never forget this. And this is a true story after this game, I had given this guy a couple of one technical.
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  Travis Rutland: I hadn't thrown him out of the game. He finished the game.
• 9:42
  Travis Rutland: But he was just eating me up the whole game. He was just giving it to me, yelling at me, terrible referee, mad at me all the time. Calls I did make, calls I didn't make. At the end of the game, it's
• 9:53
  Travis Rutland: over and I'm, you know, re evaluating my life choices that have led me to that moment.
• 9:59
  Travis Rutland: And he comes up to me after
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  Travis Rutland: the game and he puts his hand out and he says, I'm really sorry. I said, it's okay, you know, I said, it's fine, you know, I forgive you. He said, I want you to know. And I remember this so clearly, he said, I want you to know something.
• 10:15
  Travis Rutland: I'm not mad at you.
• 10:17
  Travis Rutland: He said, it's just that I used to be really good at this. Do you understand?
• 10:24
  Travis Rutland: That's pride. Pride separates us from the reality of who we are. People change. People age. You can't be the best forever. You can't be the best at. Probably. You're never going to be the best at anything anyway. But even if you are, you can't be the best forever. Great basketball players from the past. When we talk about the greatest of all time, nobody mentions guys like Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged 50 points in a season, and nobody ever says he's gone. No matter who you are, what you are, the same thing. You can't name all the presidents of the United States. There's all these. They were the President of the United States, one of the most powerful men on earth at the time that they lived. And I show you a picture. I don't know who that is. I have no idea who that is. Can you name all of them? Who's this one? Which number was that one? You don't know? Pride makes us resent ourselves. We disgrace ourselves in this idea that we separate ourselves from the grace that we should be giving ourselves. Don't stand in front of a mirror and condemn yourself day after day, week after week, month after month. I'm in touch with the reality of that, from recent health issues that I've had. I just stare at the mirror and go, look at the mess we've made of this. We used to play sports. Look at this. You've given yourself a heart attack, you idiot. But do you see that? That. That doesn't do you any good. You disgrace yourself. You separate yourself from. From grace and mercy. Pride makes us resent ourselves. I'm going to tell you something else. I want to encourage you with this.
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  Travis Rutland: Having a sense of humor is not knowing what's funny.
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  Travis Rutland: Having a sense of humor is knowing
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  Travis Rutland: what's funny about yourself.
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  Travis Rutland: And we can all see it, so you might as well get in on the joke. You see what I'm saying? We can all see the things. When you leave the room, you go, oh, yeah, I'm so great. I'm so awesome. And then we all laugh about your eccentricities, and we all have them. Knowing what's funny. Having a sense of humor is knowing what's funny about yourself. You probably haven't. It's a big church, and I may not have ever hung out with you at an extended time, but my family
• 12:53
  Travis Rutland: knows, the staff knows.
• 12:54
  Travis Rutland: Anybody that's been in the office knows. When I sneeze, I don't sneeze once or twice or three or four times. I sneeze six or seven times in a row, no matter what. It's just like that. And my kids and my wife tease
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  Travis Rutland: me incessantly, and it hurts my feelings.
• 13:17
  Travis Rutland: They make fun of me at home and I tell them this. I just decide, I'm not going to get mad about this. It's the thing. It's who I am. When I was a little boy, when I was in elementary school, I sneezed like this. I was embarrassed then, and I tried to hold it inside and it almost blew my top of my head off. So I just. That's it. That's who we are. It's what we do. So they tease me about it when I've sneezed eight or nine times in a row. And I always yelled the same thing. It's a disease. I can't believe you're making fun of me. It's a disease. It's not a disease. It's just how I sneeze. But there's no reason getting mad when people laugh at that. There's all kinds of stuff about me. Get in touch with the reality of the things that are funny about you. Look at the size of my head. It's enormous. If I cut all my hair off, I would look like a jack o' lantern that came to life. That's okay. I know that. My kids make fun of me about it. I make fun of them. My three boys got successively bigger heads. Everybody got huge heads. Right? It's part of life. It's okay. I'm fine with it. I got an enormous cabeza. That's okay. It's huge. That's all right. I give you another one. Eccentricities. I don't like to be sticky. I don't like stickiness at all in any way, shape or form. So how many of you do this? This is a dirty little secret, right? You go out to restaurants. What do you got to do? You got to rub your hand around the glass so you get that condensation on your fingers to get the stickiness off. Yes. How many weirdo OCD eccentricities do we have? But you. I do that. If you go to lunch with me sometime, I'm going to do it because I'll pick something up and it's sticky. And I'm like, ah.
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  Travis Rutland: My parents said. My dad told me that before I could talk, they would be feeding me in a highchair. And he said if my mom would give me some baby food and it would get on my face, I would
• 15:05
  Travis Rutland: go like this until they wiped it off. Still, that baby, it's just that I'm 50 years old now. I don't want to be sticky. So if we're going to lunch, I'm wrapping my hands around that glass to get the condensation so I can get my hands wet and get the stickiness off. I refuse to apologize for it. I went to lunch with a guy in my last church. Big. We ended up being probably one of
• 15:31
  Travis Rutland: my best friends at that church, but he was.
• 15:33
  Travis Rutland: We. Nothing could be. We were totally different. Big, Huge guy, long hair, huge beard, big burly dude. He rode motorcycles and hunted and all this kind of stuff. We went to lunch the first time and I did that with my glass. He said, hey, what are you doing?
• 15:47
  Travis Rutland: And I was like, oh, my secret shame.
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  Travis Rutland: I was like, cory, I don't like
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  Travis Rutland: my hands to be sticky. And he goes, me neither, brother.
• 15:57
  Travis Rutland: And he took those big old calloused hands and we like, we bonded over our shared hatred of stickiness. He came up and visited me about a week ago. We went to lunch together. We both did it at Okinawa when we were eating lunch and we were laughing about it. There's stuff that's funny about you. Pride makes us look in the mirror and hate ourselves. It makes us resent ourselves. That's not. Remember this. You are created. You were made. You are a child of God. You are sons and daughters of the Almighty. He is. He has breathed his breath into you. He loved you so much that he sent his son to die for you. If he feels that way about you, how dare we disqualify ourselves? Pride destroys us inwardly because it makes us resent ourselves. Because we're not this thing that we thought we should be. That we're not doing this thing that we thought we should do. It's okay. It's okay. Don't allow pride to destroy your self image. But pride doesn't stop there.
• 16:59
  Travis Rutland: It moves out in these ever widening circles. Look if you will now at James again, staying in the New Testament, James chapter 3 and verse 16, James 3 and 16. For where envy and self seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. For where envy. Remember that. Now back to the Old Testament. Look at Proverbs, Proverbs 14, Proverbs 14 and 30.
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  Travis Rutland: A sound heart is life to the
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  Travis Rutland: body, but envy is rottenness to the bones.
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  Travis Rutland: The next thing as pride moves out is.
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  Travis Rutland: Pride makes us resent others.
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  Travis Rutland: Pride makes us mad at everybody else. See, it starts internally. Why am I not taller? Why am I not smarter? Why am I not more handsome or more beautiful? Why don't I and so we're mad at ourselves, makes us resent ourselves. But eventually all that self hatred, all that resentment of self as we look and we. We're mad at ourselves and mad at who we've become and mad at what we are and mad at what we're doing. But eventually that is not sufficient. Pride then moves out in ever widening circles and it makes us hate everybody around us. It makes us resent others. We can't be happy for our friend when they get a promotion because we say to ourselves, well, why didn't I get one? We can't be happy when our, when our, when our friends. Kids do something great because we're saying, well, why don't my kids, like, why don't I have this with my kids or my spouse or our marriage? Why isn't my house as big as that? Why isn't my bank account as large as theirs? Why don't I have a car as nice as theirs? And pride destroys our ability to be happy and to love everybody else. Look again at what it said in Proverbs. A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones. Do you see what it says? Pride makes you resent others. But in resenting others, what you do
• 19:05
  Travis Rutland: is you destroy yourself.
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  Travis Rutland: Because what do you do?
• 19:09
  Travis Rutland: Here's that word again. You disgrace your relationship with everybody else.
• 19:14
  Travis Rutland: Pride makes you disgrace yourself, separate yourself from grace. But now we are separating ourselves from everyone else. We are mad at them, we're upset with them, and we all struggle with this. Like in. For me, I go, why is this guy, why is God blessing this guy? Why does this guy have such a huge church like Joel Osteen? Why does Joel Osteen have such a big church? Why? That makes me furious. Right? Why does he have all that? How's he got a bigger church than me? He's got a mullet, for crying out loud. How can he have a bigger church than me, right? But see, that disgraces our. I want to be happy for him, right? And if you live your entire life mad because somebody else, everybody else has something better, more wonderful than you have, it just destroys you. It destroys you on the inside. Be happy for others, rejoice with them, celebrate with them. If you can't, if our relationship with
• 20:25
  Travis Rutland: others is constantly one upsmanship, there's going
• 20:30
  Travis Rutland: to come a moment where you're not
• 20:32
  Travis Rutland: going to have anybody that even wants to hang around.
• 20:35
  Travis Rutland: Somebody comes in and says, oh man, let me tell you what happened. Something great happened to my kid yesterday.
• 20:43
  Travis Rutland: You have two responses in that moment, you can celebrate with your friend about the wonderful thing that happened to their child, or you can tell your friend how much better the thing that your child did than theirs did. You have two responses. And I'm going to warn you, if you consistently tell them how much better your child is than theirs, eventually they're not going to share that news with you.
• 21:09
  Travis Rutland: And eventually you're going to reach a point in your life where you go, why don't I have any friends? Why doesn't anybody want to hang out with me? Why don't I have anybody that wants to be involved in my life? And it's because pride has destroyed you. It rottenness to the bones. It has made you resent everyone else. And because you're projecting that on them, people pick up on that. And they don't want to be around somebody that is constantly angry at them because of the successes and the good stuff that they've seen in your life. I want to encourage you. You want to have friends. You want to. You say, I need more friends in my life. Here's the way to do it. Be the number one best cheerleader of anybody around. Somebody says, oh, this just happened. Go, man. That's great. That's awesome. I'm so excited for you. Tell me more about that opportunity. Wow, what a blessing for your life. Wow, this is so amazing. Oh, I'm so happy for your marriage. I'm excited for your kids. You're having another grandkid. Fantastic. Is it a boy or a girl? Be. Be encouraging. Be excited. Be a cheerleader. Pride makes us resent others, makes us angry for their accomplishments and their blessings.
• 22:23
  Travis Rutland: And it robs us of who we could be. It literally rots us from the inside. But pride is not finished. Look, if you will, at Psalm now, the book of Psalms. We're going to look at two different Psalms. Look at Psalm 10, verse 4. Psalm 10. 4. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts.
• 22:56
  Travis Rutland: The wicked in his pride does not seek God.
• 23:00
  Travis Rutland: He has no need for God. God is not in any of his thoughts. Turn over a couple to 14 and 1.
• 23:07
  Travis Rutland: Psalm 14 and 1.
• 23:08
  Travis Rutland: We're going to read the very beginning of it. The fool has said in his heart there is no God.
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  Travis Rutland: Finally, what does pride do?
• 23:18
  Travis Rutland: Pride makes us resent God.
• 23:21
  Travis Rutland: Pride makes us resent God. Because in our pride, we have to be the best, Right? We're mad at ourselves. We're always warring with ourselves. We have to be the best. And then if we're the best, then we're better than everybody else. And so pride separates us from others. We can't be happy for them, we can't celebrate with them, we can't cheer
• 23:41
  Travis Rutland: for them because we have to be better than them.
• 23:44
  Travis Rutland: So we resenting ourselves, we're working through, we have to be the best. We have to be better than everybody else. And then what happens if we're the best and if we're better than everybody else? We don't need anybody else. And eventually what?
• 23:56
  Travis Rutland: We don't need God.
• 23:58
  Travis Rutland: Eventually. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Those in their proud countenance, in their pride, they never think about God. They have no thought towards God. Pride makes us resent God. We have no need for God.
• 24:11
  Travis Rutland: We have no need for what? His grace.
• 24:15
  Travis Rutland: His grace.
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  Travis Rutland: And so we disgrace ourselves from the Almighty.
• 24:20
  Travis Rutland: We disgrace ourselves from who God is
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  Travis Rutland: and what he wants to give and
• 24:24
  Travis Rutland: pour into our lives and what he
• 24:25
  Travis Rutland: wants to do for us.
• 24:27
  Travis Rutland: We separate ourselves from his grace because in our pride, we convince ourselves that
• 24:32
  Travis Rutland: we have no need for it. There's an interesting movie came out a number of years ago with Liam Neeson. It's called the Gray. And Liam Neeson plays a wolf hunter trapper in an oil field in extreme northern Alaska. And he keeps these oil workers safe from wolf attacks. Their shift, their season is over and they're flying back to the continental United States and their plane crashes in remote Alaska and they find themselves being hunted by a pack of gray wolves. And it's their sort of their struggle, man against nature type of thing. It's an excellent movie. I enjoyed. I always like Liam Neeson. It's a good movie called the Gray. But there's an interesting part where the band of survivors, I won't give the whole story away, but obviously the band of survivors dwindles as the wolves pick them off and attack them. And there's less and less. Finally, there's a scene with Liam Neeson where he's standing by a creek bed and he calls out. One of the men has a. Like a GPS watch. And they keep thinking that somebody's going to pick up their signal, come and find him. Liam Neeson is wearing the watch fine. He looks up, he says, God, help
• 25:52
  Travis Rutland: me, are you there?
• 25:53
  Travis Rutland: And that's one of the discussion points in the movie. Liam Neeson's character is an atheist agnostic, doesn't believe in God.
• 26:00
  Travis Rutland: And finally, in this moment of desperation, he calls out to God by this riverbank and remote Alaska, God, are you there? I need Your help. Help me if you're there. Help me. And there's that moment, and the camera is just panning this gray sky. No son is just looking upward. He's waiting and waiting. And I was watching it for the first time, and there was a moment where I thought, oh, maybe the helicopter is going to show up.
• 26:26
  Travis Rutland: And he waits and he waits, and there's nothing. He hears the howl of a wolf off in the distance. He takes the watch off and throws it to the ground. And he says, fine, I'll do it myself.
• 26:41
  Travis Rutland: That. That is pride. Pride says, I have no need for the grace of God. Pride says, I have no need for what God wants to do in my life. I have no need for how God wants to guide me and direct me. I have no need for the calling of God on my life. Pride says, fine, I'll do it myself. That is pride. It makes us resent ourselves. It makes us resent everybody else. And ultimately, it makes us mad at God. It separates us from the Father. It takes us away from who God is and what he wants to do in our life. That is what pride does.
• 27:26
  Travis Rutland: The separation gets higher, deeper, farther. First, we just stare in the mirror and hate ourselves.
• 27:36
  Travis Rutland: We try to be better, but we
• 27:38
  Travis Rutland: can never be as good as what we want to see in the mirror. We're never going to be 20 again, right? We're never going to have.
• 27:47
  Travis Rutland: No matter how many, you know, vitamins
• 27:50
  Travis Rutland: and supplements and everything else, you're never going to not.
• 27:54
  Travis Rutland: You're never going to be that again. I'm never going to not have a
• 27:59
  Travis Rutland: stent in my heart that's weird and disconcerting in a lot of different ways for me that I'm still working through.
• 28:08
  Travis Rutland: If I go, I wish I could just have done this different. That ship has sailed. You're never going back again. You're never going to be 20 again. So what happens is, no matter how much we try to change, no matter how much we do, no matter, well, I'm going to lose some weight. It's never enough, no matter what. Pride makes us hate the face in the mirror. Pride destroys us. And so we hate the face in the mirror. And so then, because we hate the face in the mirror, then what? We hate all the other faces that we see because they look happy and we're not. Because they're thin and we're not. Because they have their hair and we don't. Because they have a fully functioning heart and we don't. Right. Because they don't have to take seven medications a day. And we do, and it makes us angry with everybody else, and we hate them. We hate ourselves, and then we hate them. And then because we're so filled with hate for ourselves and for others, God tries to speak into our life, and what do we do? We resent him. We hate him. Why did you make me like this? Why did you do this to me? And pride destroys our relationship with everybody, including the almighty Father. You see?
• 29:19
  Travis Rutland: And then it manifests itself in different ways, different things.
• 29:26
  Travis Rutland: Then someone
• 29:29
  Travis Rutland: allows addiction to take hold of them. But the addiction was not actually their Achilles heel. The Achilles heel was the pride that makes them hate themselves so much that the only way they can stomach looking in the mirror is by being high at the time. I understand that more than most, you hate the reflection. And so if you're high enough or you're drunk enough, you don't hate the reflection as much as you used to. But the Achilles heel is pride.
• 29:59
  Travis Rutland: You have anger towards people around you, rage towards your spouse or your kids
• 30:03
  Travis Rutland: that you can't control.
• 30:05
  Travis Rutland: But the anger is not the Achilles heel. The Achilles heel is pride. That's allowed you to resent others. Then you're mad at God and you don't want to worship. And I'm angry with God and what he's done. And why have you allowed this to happen? Right? Why do. Why did bad thing. Why did this thing happen? You're mad at God, but that's not actually the root cause. That's not the Achilles heel. It's pride. It's insidious. It's in everything, in every place.
• 30:36
  Travis Rutland: What we have to do is push
• 30:38
  Travis Rutland: back against that pride.
• 30:40
  Travis Rutland: What we have to do is not allow it to take ownership of our life and our relationship with others and our relationship with God. So let me close with this. CS Lewis is a great author, one of the best, and of all the books that he wrote. One of my favorite books that he wrote is called the Great Divorce. It's a small book, little book. Almost like a mini novel, almost. It's not a huge read. It's maybe just a little bit more than 100 pages now. Of course, CS Lewis wrote it, so there's like three words in every sentence that you don't understand. You have to read it with a. You have to read the book with a dictionary to understand. He was, like, one of the smartest guys that ever lived. But it's a great book. What it's about is people that find themselves. They're in hell, and they take a bus trip to heaven. This was Written, I don't know, 70, 80 years ago now. So they ride a bus up to heaven. And the title, the Great Divorce, is talking about the divorce, the separation between what heaven is and what hell is.
• 31:44
  Travis Rutland: And so these people that take this
• 31:45
  Travis Rutland: bus trip to heaven from hell, they
• 31:48
  Travis Rutland: encounter people from their past, they talk
• 31:52
  Travis Rutland: to and, you know, have conversations with different people that they know. And C.S. lewis, you know, is recording all of this, saying that he was on this thing. It's obviously fiction. But in the Great Divorce, there's a fascinating part.
• 32:10
  Travis Rutland: There's two co workers that have both died.
• 32:13
  Travis Rutland: This one coworker has gone to heaven, the other one's gone to hell. And the one that's in heaven says,
• 32:19
  Travis Rutland: I can't believe that you're here. He said, I always did my best. He said, I did right by everybody. He said, I never had a drink that I didn't pay for and I never took wages that I didn't work for. He said, I just want what's mine. He said, I want what I've earned. I want what I've done. I want my rights. He keeps talking about how he wants his rights. I want my rights. I want what I've gotten. And the other guy, his co worker that has also died, is in heaven, says, no, you don't want that. You don't want that. He says, no, I want what I earned. I want what I deserve. I want my rights. He said, I don't ask, ask for
• 33:05
  Travis Rutland: any charity or what grace.
• 33:09
  Travis Rutland: He said, I don't ask for any grace.
• 33:14
  Travis Rutland: And the other man that's in heaven
• 33:15
  Travis Rutland: says, no, do ask. You must ask. Ask for the charity. Ask for the charity. Ask for the grace.
• 33:28
  Travis Rutland: Pride destroys everything we touch. It destroys our relationship with ourselves. It destroys our relationship with others, and it destroys our relationship with the Father. The solution is to no longer disgrace yourself, but to receive his grace. You look in the mirror and you're old and you're overweight. And there's a lot of easy ways to get mad at the reflection. Look at the mess we've made. And you know what you say to the mirror?
• 34:04
  Travis Rutland: Grace. Grace. You look at the mirror and you say, his grace is sufficient for even this, the mess I've made of this. His grace is sufficient for me. Pride tells you you are never enough. Grace says, you are sufficient.
• 34:28
  Travis Rutland: My grace is sufficient for you.
• 34:31
  Travis Rutland: Grace says, we've made mistakes, we're going
• 34:34
  Travis Rutland: to make some more. But his grace is sufficient for us. Along the journey, you look around at the people that you care about. Friends, family, Co workers. And it seems like they're doing better than you are. And they're great and they're awesome and they're having success and you're not. And pride says, hate them.
• 34:55
  Travis Rutland: Pride says, destroy them. Pride says, tear them down to our level.
• 35:01
  Travis Rutland: What's the solution?
• 35:03
  Travis Rutland: Grace. The grace that was offered to us for ourselves, we now extend to the people around us. They say, this is what's happened to me. And you go, man, that's great. Isn't it wonderful? When God provides in new and unusual ways and the grace that was sufficient for you, you now pass along to others so that they can be reminded that his grace is sufficient for them too. And you are able to pour into their lives, you are able to encourage them. And then the moment where you think of all the sin that you've committed, you remember the addictions that used to be in your life, you remember the pain that you've caused. You remember the hurt, you remember all the trauma, all the things that you've done. The older we get, the more we remember all the terrible stuff that we've done. And we say, what hope can there be for me? What hope can there be? And pride says, because we've already made a mess of it, we'll get out of it on our own. We'll do it ourself.
• 36:08
  Travis Rutland: Nothing could be further from the truth.
• 36:11
  Travis Rutland: You take your mangled life and you say, God, look at the mess I've made of this thing. Look at the problem. Look at the sin in my past. Look at the pain that I've caused. Look at the people that I've hurt. What do you say? What do you say to this?
• 36:34
  Travis Rutland: And the words are the same. The Father says, my grace is sufficient for you. His grace is sufficient for us. His grace is sufficient for others. And his grace is sufficient for all the stuff that we've done. Everything. Pride is rottenness to the bones. Grace restores us eternally. Don't let pride destroy you from the inside. Receive his grace for yourself, for others, and for the sin of your past. His grace is sufficient. Accept the charity. Accept the grace that we so desperately need. His grace is sufficient for us. God, ask that you finish this simple message in the hearts of every person here.
• 37:37
  Travis Rutland: God, help us to put aside pride. Pride that makes us hate ourselves, pride that makes us hate others, pride that could even lead to making us hate you for what you have or haven't done. God, help us to put aside the pride, to rebuke it, to put it out of our life. God, to not be angry at ourselves or others, or at you, God. Instead, help us to to receive your grace. Your grace moving inside of us. Your grace moving in the lives of others. God, your grace. We receive it. We take ownership of it. We invite it in. No longer consumed by pride.
• 38:13
  Travis Rutland: We receive your grace and it is sufficient for us. In Jesus name we pray.
• 38:22
  Travis Rutland: Amen and Amen. Thank you for being here. Receive his grace this week. God bless you everybody.
• 38:30
  Host: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland.