Sheryl Brady - Circumventing Commonness

On your way down, tell somebody, «Circumvent commonness.» Circumvent commonness. You know, I think one of the biggest, maybe not the biggest, but certainly one of the largest misconceptions in the church as a whole today is that when God raises someone up, when God anoints a vessel, and when God uses a vessel, we begin to think that this particular vessel is immortal, that this vessel is not like a man or a woman, and that this vessel is not even human. When we see people that God raises up and anoints, and they begin to move in some form of ministry, we automatically look at them and think, «Well, they can’t be going through what I’ve gone through,» or «They don’t feel things like we feel,» or «They don’t struggle like we struggle,» or «They don’t hurt like we hurt,» because there’s no way in the world they could be up there doing what they do and just be average like some of us are. I remember one person many years ago, a bishop, after church— I recall he preached one night on a Tuesday night; I mean, he destroyed the place! I don’t know, to God be the glory. Listen, we are a team, okay? I cover him, and he covers me, but we say to God be the glory for all that He’s done. He preached that night, and it was amazing; he called it «Train Your Brain» Bible study, and that’s exactly what it was. I remember after that he left the church, and he drove through a McDonald’s. When he drove through McDonald’s, someone from the church saw him and was blown away that he would actually go through McDonald’s. They were just like, «Do you come here? Do you eat at McDonald’s?» The bishop replied, «Well, yeah, I like the French fries, I like their Diet Coke—I like their Big Mac. You know, you gotta have a Diet Coke to wash all that guilt down.» But he was amazed because when God uses you in a supernaturally great way, people just don’t think you are like them. They don’t believe you go through the things they experience, so they don’t think that you face the challenges that they face. Because of this, I think people have made idols out of many who have simply been touched by God. I’m going to say that we are, as human beings, inclined to worship; we are built to worship. Many times, the slightest thing we see that we think is above and far beyond us leads us to make an idol out of that. You need to go home and study what an idol is, but if I started naming modern-day idols today, you’d probably find that some of them exist in your life. I don’t have my cell phone here right now, but an iPhone—yes, the «I» in it stands for idol. What it does is it puts your brain on idle because what happens now is that you can’t think. You used to know everyone’s phone number, but now you know no one’s phone number because this phone has really dumbed a lot of people down. You can’t even have dinner with your kids! We went somewhere to eat, to a buffet a couple of weeks ago, and took some of our grandkids with us. The bishop said, «Everybody’s phone—well, first of all, I was really proud of him for that—needs to go into the middle of the table.» So we put everyone’s phone in the middle. The kids all got up and went to the buffet, and he said, «Well, come on, baby, let’s go!» I said, «Who’s going to watch the phones?» You know, we just make idols. It’s not just that, but I honestly say that in the church we’ve done it; we’ve made idols out of people who are gifted by God to hit a high note when they sing. And it never hurts if you’re pretty or handsome on top of that. We’ve made idols out of people who rightly divide the word of God. Now, if my favorite preacher isn’t speaking, I’m not going to come to church because it’s really not about the word; it’s about the person carrying the word. That’s sad, but that’s exactly where we are. I want to help balance that out because I grew up—can you tell? —I grew up in the white community, and then the bishop rescued me. No, I’m kidding. I love white people; I am white people, okay? But I love you all; I mean, we are made for each other. I’m just going to say it like that. We are made for each other. But in my culture, we have a tendency to not really honor anyone. Everyone is viewed as on the same level, and everyone says, «Oh, that’s not Bishop Brady; that’s Joby. That’s Cheryl, not Pastor.» I think this is an extreme view.