Latest / Pst T.D Jakes -The POTTER'S HOUSE / Faithful Wounds - Bishop T.D. Jakes

Transcript

Faithful Wounds - Bishop T.D. Jakes · Pst T.D Jakes -The POTTER'S HOUSE

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Proverbs 27 and 6. Proverbs written by the wise man.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Proverbs 27 and 6. And the wisdom of the Lord
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: speaks to us after this manner. And it says, faithful
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: are the wounds of a friend. But the kisses of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: an enemy are deceitful. I'm going to say that again.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of an enemy are deceitful. Tonight I want to teach
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on the subject faithful wounds. Faithful wounds. Let's pray. Spirit
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of the living God fall fresh in this place tonight
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: as we deliberate the text and begin to understand in
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: our own spirit and extract from the complexities of the text,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the nourishment that is necessary for us to better understand
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: our God and our walk with him. Thank you for
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: those that are joining us online from near and far
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: away who have set aside and sanctified this time that
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: they may feed their souls and grow and be edified.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I pray even for those that are online, if there's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: any voices of distraction that they might be muted, that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: we might hear what the Spirit of the Lord is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: saying to the church. Don't allow anybody to distract us
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: from this opportunity to receive your word. So we got
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: our plate out and we got our fork and our
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: knife and our spoon. And the master says, come and dine. Oh,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: come and dine, the master calleth, come and dine. And
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: in the spirit of consumption, we now consume this word.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, shout amen. You may be seated in
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the presence of God. In continuation of the theme that
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we started talking about on Sunday, And we begin to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: make the distinction between trusting God and praising God. One
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: was a verb and the other one was a noun.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Praising God is something that you do. Trusting God is
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a position that you take. I am. I trust you.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I trust you. I don't try to trust you. I
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: trust you. I didn't try to trust the church. I
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: just trusted it. Hallelujah. You don't make yourself trust. You
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: just trust. In fact, you can't make yourself trust. When
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you don't trust a person, you can't make yourself trust them. However,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the person can cause you to trust them. And in
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: order for them to create trust, they have to be consistent.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And if they are consistent long enough, they will turn
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: your distrust to trust. And we're learning to trust God
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And the reason that we're learning to trust God Is
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: because we are the friends of God Say I am
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a friend of God When you say I am a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: friend of God You're saying I believe him Abraham believed
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: God And therefore he became the friend of God God
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: cannot befriend people who do not believe him Okay And
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: say it again I am a friend of God That
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: means that if I am a friend of God He
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: is a friend of mine He is my friend. Jesus
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: is my friend. Jesus is my savior. Jesus is my Lord.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But we also are friends. The text tonight suggests that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: you can have a friend who hurts you. Yeah. You
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: can have a friend who hurts you. And there have
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: been times and moments in my life that God has
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: hurt me. Yeah, he has hurt me. I've been smitten
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: at the hip joint like Jacob. I've left the mountain
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: with a limp. I've gone through something that was painful
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and difficult to endure. That's when I had to trust
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: him and not just believe him. Come on, come on somebody.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I had to trust him. I went to a dark, dark,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: dark place in my life. And all I could, I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: couldn't see my way out of it. I couldn't see
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: how I would get out of it. But I told God, God,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I trust you. That if you have allowed me to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: go through this dark place in my life, that it
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: must be for my good. Because I know you are
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: not against me. I know that you are for me.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And even though this hurts me, faithful are the wounds
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of a friend. If I'm really your friend, I got
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to be able to tell you the truth. It may
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: strain the relationship, but I've got to be able to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: tell you the truth. If I'm really your friend, I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: won't let you come out the house looking silly. If
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I'm really your friend, I'm going to tell you, you know,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I don't normally say this to you, but that don't
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: look good on you. That's not your best look. This
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is not your best day. Maybe you shouldn't wear that. Now,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: if you override that, that's your business. But I'm going
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to say that if I'm really your friend. If I'm
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: really your friend, I'm going to say you spoke out
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of turn to him. That wasn't his fault. That was
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: your fault. If I'm really your friend, a friend take risks.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: A real friend takes risk of your scorn. And that's
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: why you can't have a whole lot of friends. I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: know you think everybody who follows you on Facebook is
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: your friend, but you can't have a lot of friends
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: because it takes work to be a friend. It takes
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: energy to be a friend. You have to put things
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: on the line to be a friend. You have to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: get in the fight with them. And sometimes you got
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to argue with them. Sometimes you got to wrestle with
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: them to get them to the place that they can see.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And sometimes they get hurt and you're yelling at each other.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And then you're crying and you're going through all kinds
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of changes. Real relationship takes work. But if you're really
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: my friend, you would never hurt me for the sake
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of hurting me. You might wound me to protect me.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: If you have a child, you might push the child
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: out of the way and they skin their knee on
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the sidewalk, but you saw a car coming. I didn't
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: push you because I'm mean. I pushed you because you're
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in danger. And before I let the car hit you,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I'd skin your knee up. Yes, I pushed you, knocked
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you over. You skid your knee, but I stopped you
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: from something coming after you. And every now and then,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in order to stop you from something that's coming after you,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: God will let you skin your knee. And you say,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: oh God, if you love me, you wouldn't push me. No,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I love you so much, I push you. I loved
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you so much that I've wounded you. When the text
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: says faithful are the wounds of a friend, it means
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that I love you so much that if I have
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to push you, if I have to hurt you, if
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I have to disappoint you, if I have to see
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you cry for a little while, I'd rather you cry
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: for a little while than ruin yourself for eternity because
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I am your friend. So you might not like my actions,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: but you will appreciate my intentions. Are you hearing what
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I'm saying to you? Upstairs we were talking about the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: difference between incidents and outcomes. And sometimes we in the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: incident become so glued to the incident that we don't
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: understand the outcome. And sometimes the incident requires that God
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: wound us on the short term that we can be
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: blessed on the long term. Sometimes it's like when you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: go for therapy, they'll take you to a painful place
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that you have built walls up to avoid because your
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: avoidance is not healing, it's just hiding. And so when
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: they start going to you, you say, I don't want
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to talk about that. I don't want to think about that.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that. I put that out of mind. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: We got to talk about that. I don't like to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: talk about that because it makes me cry. But it's
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: going to be necessary to excavate the poison that's down
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in your spirit that's toxic, that's making you depressed and suicidal.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And so I'll wound you in this therapy so that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I can heal you. Wounds and healings have something in common.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: For the Bible said by his stripes, by his stripes
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: we are healed. So wounds and healing have something in common.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: As odd as it is, you wouldn't think that God
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: would use wounds to heal you. But the Bible said
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: by his stripes we are healed. And so he tells
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: you that the price of true healing is wounding. So
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: if he really loves you, he wounds you for a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: short time that he can have you for a lifetime. Okay.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Incidents versus outcomes. And so if the incident is wounding,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if the outcome is healing. If they
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: do surgery, I'm going to keep going until you get it.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: If they do surgery and you got cancer and they
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: say we got cancer on your kidney and we believe
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: we can cut out the cancer and save the kidney.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So they put you up under anesthesia and they wound
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you that they might heal you. Now, then they come
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: out and they say the surgery was successful and you're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: all in pain and you're all swollen and you're hurting,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: but faithful are the wounds. Oh, come on, come on,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: come on, come on. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So if you didn't get the surgery, the cancer would
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: have eaten up the kidney. So maybe you wouldn't have
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: been wounded, but you would have been dead. Come on.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: So you got to understand that sometimes when you ask
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: God to heal you, he wounds you. Because faithful are
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the wounds of a friend. In life, if you got
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: a real friend, a real friend will confront you. You're
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: doing it again. There you go again with your mouth.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, a real friend will get in your face.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: That takes work. That takes energy. That takes labor. It's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: easier to be nice and say what you want to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: hear and get away from the moment, but it doesn't
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: have a great outcome. It avoids an incident, but it
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a great outcome. And sometimes too many people
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: around us are too weak to have an incident. And
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: they'll let you go ahead and be hit by the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: car because they don't want to get on your nerve. Well,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you're not really a friend because a real friend will
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: wound you in the incident so that you can be
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: healed immediately. in the outcome so tonight we're talking about
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: faithful wounds and we're understanding that when God got ready
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: to heal the world from the sin that it had
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: ingested that he sent his son to the cross to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: be wounded we also understand that when Thomas was doubting
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and did not believe it was not Jesus presence that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: caused him to believe it was Jesus wounds that caused
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: him to be healed Jesus said, reach hither your hand
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: into my side and feel the nail prints in my
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: hands and be not faithless, but believe for faithful are
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the wounds of a friend. And when Thomas felt his wounds,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: he fell down and said, my Lord and my God,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: because faithful are the wounds of a friend. Faithful wounds.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And I was going through this test and I was
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: crying out to God and I couldn't even find faith
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to believe him and rebuke the devil and rebuke whatever
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: it was because I wasn't even sure it was the devil.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I knew that if it happened, God allowed it. And
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: so I had to rely on my foundation of trust
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that I know that God is for me. And so
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: even if he wounds me, I said, I don't like
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: this God. I went out in the back. I told him,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I don't like this God. I don't like this at all.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I don't like the way it makes me feel. I
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: don't like what I'm going through. I don't like being threatened.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I don't like being intimidated. I don't like what's on
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the line. I don't like none of it. I don't
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: like none of it. But I trust you. That's why
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: it's important that somebody teach about trust because we teach
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: about praise and we teach about faith, but we don't
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: teach about trust. I trust you that if you allow
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this to happen to me, it's going to come out
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: for my good. Can I go deeper? Job understood that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: if God allowed his crops to burn up, his wife
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to abhor his breath, his finances to be disrupted, and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: even his children to be dead, he still believed and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: trusted God that at the end of it, his outcome
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: would be better than his incident. Somebody right now is
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: going through an incident that is quite painful. But I'm
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: telling you that if you trust God, the outcome will
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: be greater than the incident. So the text is saying
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to us tonight, faithful are the wounds of a friend
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. The kisses
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of an enemy are deceitful. Judas betrayed Jesus first. with a, Oh,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: there we go. He betrayed him with a kiss. So
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: people who are carnal doesn't necessarily mean that you are sinful.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: It just means that you take things on a very
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: surface level. You go by what you see. You go
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: by how you feel. You go by what you can touch.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That's carnality. Carnality, where we get carnivorous means meat. You
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: are controlled by the flesh senses. People who are controlled
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: by flesh senses have a tendency to buy into kisses.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: But just because somebody kissed you doesn't mean you can
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: trust them. Because deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss. And so people who
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: are carnal will cleave to Judas forever. And say, look, oh,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that's my friend. Never understanding that the kiss is not
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of love. Love gets tough. Love gets dirty.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Love gets stressful. Love creates tension. You wrestle with somebody
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: you love. If I don't love you, I'll ignore you.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I'll go around you. I don't have to be bothered
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: with you. I don't have time to deal with that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Get on out of my face. But when it's somebody
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I love, I can't go around it. I got to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: confront this. We got to have it out. We got
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to fight about this. We got to talk about this.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: We got to wrestle about this because I love you
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and I got too much invested on the line to
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: let you go down. That's running out. You don't see
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: much of that anymore, but real love will get its
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: hands dirty. Anybody who says they love you will get
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: their hands dirty before they'll let you go off a cliff.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You can't say that you love me and see me
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: destroying myself and not confront me because you're more concerned
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: about being nice than you are about me being healed.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: You got to get up in my mug and say,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, you about to mess this whole thing up.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is trusting God when it hurts.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: What do you think trust is all about? I don't
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: need to trust him in a promotion. I need to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: trust him in a downturning, in a layoff, in a crisis,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in a problem. I need to trust him when I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: don't understand his method. I trust his outcome. In the
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: short run, I'm in pain. In the long run, my
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: kidney no longer has cancer. In the short run, Abraham
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: takes his son, Isaac, up on the mountain and offers
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: him up. But in the long run, he says, me
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and the lad will come back again. If you're going
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to have a real relationship with God, you must be
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: taught about faithful wounds. Tonight, let's go deeper. Let's go
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to the Gospel of St. John, chapter 15, verse 1
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: through 9. Go to the Gospel of St. John, chapter 15,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: verse 1 through 9. And I want you to look
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: at it. I don't want you to take my word
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: for it. I want you to look at it. Because
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I use the word relationship. Somebody say relationship. So point
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: number one is going to be about relationship. Okay. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: let me tell you something. If you don't get better
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: at relationship, you can't get better at God. You can
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: get better at religion and not get better at relationship
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and lose sight of the power of God. There are
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: people who are very proficient at religion. They know how
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to administer sacraments. They know which cassock to wear. They
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: know what all the elements mean. They know all the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: rituals and the routines. They know how to set up
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the table for the first Sunday. They know that Thursday
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: night is women's night. They know all of the stuff
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: about religion, but little about relationship. They don't understand relationship.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Let's get away from the spiritual. Let's go natural for
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a minute since you don't understand me. There are people
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: who will have sex with you. And they love to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: have sex, but they don't love to relate to you.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And sooner or later, lust gets empty because the soul
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: craves love. Oh, y'all ain't gonna act like you know
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Just stand there and stare at
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: me with your phony self because you know exactly what
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about. But you're too religious to admit that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And you can't sit here and be phony because I
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: will call you out. in front of God and everybody.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: You understand the difference between lust and love. People who
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: don't understand that substitute more sex to compensate for the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: lack of love. Sooner or later, they might be 30,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: might be 40, might be 50, might be 60, but
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: sooner or later, you begin to recognize that more sex
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: does not equate to more love. and after a while
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you get tired of people handling you they're just handling
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you oh come on they're just handling you they're just
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: handling you and at first you think that if they
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: handle you they like you but deceitful are the kisses
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: of an enemy and sooner or later you begin to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: understand that you handling me does not equate to loving
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: me And you begin to know what relationship is all about. Now,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: relationship needs to be dealt with. And I don't know
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: how far I'll get to this. I may have to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: do this in two sections. But relationship needs to be
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: described because most of this current generation is having a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: better relationship with their phone than they are with people.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Because technology has replaced us. You don't have to worry
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: about Jews replacing you or blacks replacing you or browns
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: replacing you. Machines are replacing you. All you got to
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: do is look around your dinner table and look at
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: all your kids sitting there playing with their phone and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: nobody's talking to each other. If they do, they text
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: each other. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What happened to your mouth?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And so when we enter into things like relationship, we
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: don't have a context for relationship because we are the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: generation that was left home alone with machines. And machines
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: became our babysitter. And machines became our pacifier. And machines
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: became our entertainment. If you don't believe it, look at
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: how much time you scroll through Instagram. Just scroll it.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Looking at people doing silly stuff. I know. If you
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: can't say amen, say ouch. And all the time you're
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: scrolling through Instagram, you're ignoring somebody in the house. To
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: look at somebody you don't even know. You're ignoring somebody
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: who cares about you to look at somebody who ain't
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: thinking about you. You lose your ability to communicate with
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: people because the seduction of the telephone is designed in
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: such a way that the longer you're on it, the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: more money they make. And you don't realize that this
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: is a type of lust. And you never even noticed
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: it because the phone raised you. Because we lived in
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a generation and an era where our parents went to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: work and the TV and the machines became our babysitter.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I could go deeper, but y'all couldn't handle it. Okay.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: So then when we come up for air and try
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to have a relationship, we don't know how to have
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a relationship because people don't respond to us like computers do.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You can't just block me and I'm in the house.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You can't just hit a button and shut me up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say what I'm going to say whether
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you want to hear it or not. You can't delete
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: your child. So when you take computer skills and bring
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: them into human relationships, the marriage fails, the family falls apart,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the kids are terminated, everybody's isolated because you have never
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: had the model of what it means to struggle through relationship.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And the moment it's not romantic, you get out because
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you don't think that you could be friends with somebody
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: who wounded you. But if you don't learn how to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: be friends with somebody who wounded you, you can't be
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a friend of God. Because God said, pick up your
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: cross and follow me. If you're really my disciple, I'm
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: going to take you through some painful places. And I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: don't expect you to give up on me just because
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the going gets rough and the going gets tough. You
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: don't get to cut me off like I'm a machine. Oh,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to get into this. And so what you
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: have to understand is relationship. Relationship means what is the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: premise to which we relate? I am related. I am related.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: What is the thing through which we relate determines how
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: well we relate. I wish I had time to go deeper.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: For example, sometimes the way we relate to people is
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: through pain. So if you're in the midst of rejection
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm in the midst of rejection and we end
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: up in a relationship, you don't understand the thing that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: we relate to is the problem. And when we get well,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: we have no premise of relationship because I've fallen in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: love with my nurse. And the biggest attraction was that
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you needed me. And as long as you were on cocaine,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you needed me. And I need to be needed. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I fell in love with you because you were feeding
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: my need to be needed, which made me feel significant.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And now that you're well, I don't know have anything
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: to relate to you. So if you tell me me
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and this guy here are related and they say, how
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: are we related? I say, he's my second cousin. There
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: has to be something that causes us to be related
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: or we're not related. That is the root word of
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: relationship is what causes us to be related. Without relationship,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we cannot obey the biggest and first command that God
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: gave us in scripture, which was to be fruitful. And
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: you can't be fruitful without relationship. So everybody except the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: mother Mary who got pregnant had a... They had a relationship.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So don't come telling me you fell asleep up under
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the cabbage patch and now the cabbage has jumped in
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: your stomach. No, girl, get out of here with this.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You had a relationship. Why? I can tell there's fruit.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: There wouldn't be fruit without seed. And if there's seed,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: somebody had a relationship. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Am I making sense to you? So when Jesus begins
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to summarize his time on earth with his disciples, the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: first thing he talks to them about is relationship. Because
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: he's getting ready to go away, they need to understand
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that they are related to him more than physical proximity. Okay,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: now I have been with you, but I'm getting ready
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to go away. And if the only way you relate
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to me is in the flesh, then when I am absent,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: then you're not going to love me. It's hard to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have a long distance love. And in order to set
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: up the parameters for long distance love, he starts in
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: John 15 and 1 by teaching them relationship. Somebody say relationship. Relationship.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: This is Bible class. This is Bible class. So stay
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: with me. And this should change your life because it
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: will also explain some of the problems you're having in
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: your life. Because some of us, there are no classes
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: on relationship. You don't take relationship in college. You don't
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: take relationship in primary school. You don't even take relationship
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: in Sunday school. So if you didn't have relationship modeled
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: before you, then you can hunger for something that you're
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: not good at because you've never had it modeled in
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: front of you. So, gosh, I keep going deeper. I
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: want to go wider and I'm going deeper. So I
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: hate to use generalization. So I'll say in most cases,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: girls who grew up in an environment with all women
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and no men see men as a stranger. And they
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: treat men like we are women in pants. And they
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: talk to men like they're women. And if the man
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't respond like a woman, she is confused because she's
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: never had a relationship modeled in front of her between
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a woman and a man. Girls who are daddy's girls
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: have a greater tendency to be good wives because they
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: understand men better. Because they learned in their early life
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: how men think, act, and communicate. That doesn't mean if
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you were raised by a woman, you can't end up
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a good wife. It may mean that you might have
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to have a lot of conversations to process differently because
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you have never had to process with the opposite sex
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: because we don't, in case you notice or not, there's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: more differences in us than biological. We don't think alike.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to buy me an amen. Let
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: me buy me one. $ 20. $ 20 for an amen. $ 20
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for a quick amen. Okay. We don't think alike. And
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: when we try to understand each other, we get angry
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: with each other because the man thinks if I was
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in that situation, I would not respond like that. You
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: are not her. Just the same thing that was true
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. If you didn't grow up with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a strong relationship with your mother, sometimes your anger at
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: your mother comes out at your wife. So when a
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: man and a woman come together in a relationship, both
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of us are judging each other based on our psychological perspective.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Our point of view says, I would never talk to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you like that. I would never do you like that.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I would never say that. I would never not talk
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to you. I would never be as quiet as you are.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So they keep saying, what's wrong with you? What's the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: matter with you? How come you're not talking? It might
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: be because I don't have anything to say. And there
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: might not be anything wrong at all. But if your
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: normal is chatter, my silence is offensive. By the same token,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: if I am used to silence and only saying specific
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: things about specific issues, your chatter can be irritating. Because
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: you're going on and on and on and on and
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: on about nothing. I don't care about the traffic on
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: your way home and you stop to get some peas
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and there was no peas at Kroger's and you end
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: up going to Wendy's instead. Wendy's home for daddy. Just
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: give me the frosty and let's go on. So we
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: can end up ending the relationship because we don't find
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: common ground. And we don't understand that faithful are the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: wounds of a friend. Jesus starts to teach to my text.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I am the true vine. And my father is the husbandman.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Every branch in me that bears not fruit, he taketh
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: it away. When Jesus starts to teach this, he is
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: teaching them how the relationship works. When he says, I
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: am the true vine. It is a reflection of the
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Old Testament scripture where Israel was the old vine of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament. Anytime Christ says, I am the true,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: there has to be an illegitimate in order for there
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to be a legitimate. So Christ says, I am the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: true vine. The vine you had in the Old Testament
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: was just a shadow of which I am the reality.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: So I can cast my, my wife loves me, but
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: she can't hug my shadow. She said, I'm trying. She crazy.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: She can't hug my shadow. She can't hold my shadow.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: She can't keep my shadow. So the shadows of the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Old Testament, it's not that they were liars, but they
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: came as schoolmasters to teach us of the truth of
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the New Testament. And Jesus here says, I am the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: true vine and my father is the husbandman. Now, husbandman
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: is a biblical word that means gardener. My father is
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a gardener. What do I get out of that? First
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: of all, I get I have been planted. I'm not
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: an accident. I'm not an incident. I'm not a mistake.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: With great intentionality, I have been planted. Even if my
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: father and mother didn't intend for me to be here,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: God intended for me to be here because God the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Father is the husbandman. I have been planted. I am
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: not an accident. I'm not a mistake. I have been
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: planted at a particular time in a particular way in
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a particular way. God didn't intend for me to be
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: here in the 1800s or I would have been here
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: in the 1800s. He didn't intend for me to be
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: born in the 25th century or I would have been
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: born in the 25th century. We have a gardener who
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: planted us in time at a particular time for a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: particular purpose. If I were just wild growing wild, there's
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: no expectation of a weed. But if I plant you,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I have a purpose for you at a particular time.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So when Jesus says, my father is a husbandman, I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: immediately know that nobody plants something without intention. Go all
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the way back to the Old Testament. The book of Genesis,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the first thing God says is be fruitful. Nobody plants
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: something they don't want to grow. So get out of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: your mind that God is against you. Get out of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: your mind that God doesn't want you to be successful.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: If the father is the husbandman, wouldn't it be stupid
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: for you to plant something that you didn't want to prosper?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to spend your time on your
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: knees asking God to prosper you because if he planted you,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: he wanted you to prosper. You don't have to feel
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: bad about prosperity because if he planted you, he wanted
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: you to prosper. And the first thing he commanded you
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: was to be fruitful. Before he said be holy, he
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: said be fruitful. Oh, y'all want me to teach Bible class. God,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to mess this place up. You working on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: being a holy, you need to work on being fruitful.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Because this is the expectation of the relationship. You can't
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: enter into a relationship without expectations. The very fact that
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you enter into a relationship means there are expectations. Please
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: hear this tonight. You can't have a baby and there
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: not be expectations. The baby didn't have itself. You can't
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: be a mama and toss the baby everywhere. You had
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a baby, but you don't understand that there are expectations
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in every relationship. If you got a dog, you got
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to feed it. If you got a fish, you got
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to change the water sometime. If you got a cat,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: you got to take it to the vet sometime. You
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: can't have a thing and not have an expectation. So
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: stop being offended because I expect something from you because
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: that's part of the relationship. So God has a right
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to expect something from me because he's in a relationship
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: with me. When he says give and it shall be
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: given unto you, he has a right to ask me
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to give something because he gave something. God so loved
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the world that he gave his only begotten son. So
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: once you set the benchmark that high, surely I can
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: give you my carnal stuff because you have given me
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: your son. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Somebody shout relationship.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: If you don't get this first point, it ain't no
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: need in going no further. Because you can't take no
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: wounding if you don't understand the premise of the relationship.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Now,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I am the true vine and my father is the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: husbandman means that he planted me so you would have
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: somewhere to grow. Because a branch can't grow without a vine.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Come on, somebody. A branch can't grow without a vine.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: You have to grow from something. You can't just start
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a branch out in the middle of the air and
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: suspend it in space and expect for it to grow.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: That's why later in the text he says, without me,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: you can do nothing. Because everything you're ever going to get,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: that you're ever going to be, that you're ever going
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to do, that you're ever going to achieve is going
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: to come through the vine to reach to the branches.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: If it doesn't come through the vine, you're not going
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: to receive it. You can't get blessed save he bless you.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: You can't grow save he allow you. And you can
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: only grow to the extent that you have relationship with
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the vine. Every branch in me that bear not fruit,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: he taketh it away. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: So I want you to write down, stay connected. That's
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: all you got to worry about. Stay connected. You don't
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: have to bless yourself. You don't have to fix yourself.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: You don't have to straighten yourself. Just stay connected. Because
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: everything you need in order to be fruitful, he is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: going to handle if you stay connected. As long as
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I stay connected, I cannot die. If I get disconnected,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to die. If I tie a string real
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: tightly around my finger, my finger is going to die
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: because it is not connected to my hand. It is
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: only alive because it is connected. If it separates from
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: my hand, it will rot and die. Though I am alive,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: without me, it can do nothing. Connected. Cut my whole
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: hand off and lay it in this pulpit and watch
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: it rot while I live because my hand cannot do
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: nothing save it is connected to my arm. And Jesus
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: is saying, ye are the branches and I am the
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: vine and apart from me you can do nothing. So
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the focus tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is relationship. And in
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: order to have relationship, I must stay connected. Peter, Paul
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: is out in the storm. And the storm is terrible.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And the winds and the waves are breaking. And the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: ropes that they put up under the boat to hold
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it are starting to come apart. And the people are
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: starting to come apart as the ropes come apart. And
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Paul says to the people, abide in the ship. stay
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: connected and then the ship fell apart but even when
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: it fell apart everybody that held on to a peace
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: made it safely to the other side because all you
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: had to do to survive the storm was Oh, come on,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: come on, come on, come on. Come on, somebody. Somebody's
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: in a storm tonight, and all you have to do
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: to survive the storm is stay. And that's why the
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: enemy wants to separate you. I can't get off it. Lord,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I can't get off it. I'm going to be stuck
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: on this one point all night. That's why the enemy
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: wants to separate you. It's the same trick he used
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: with Eve in the garden. He wanted to separate her.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: He wanted her to disobey God. He wanted her to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: give the fruit to Adam— Because the moment that Adam
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: partook of the fruit, he was separated from God. And
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the Bible said, the day you eat, you shall surely die. Well,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: he was still alive. Well, guess what? You can cut
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: my hand off and it will still be alive for
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: a minute. But it started the death march process. Can
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I go deeper? Now, what Jesus is teaching them is
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: how you relate. Your objective then is to stay connected.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: The enemy's intention is to separate you. So he wants
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the wounded place you're in right now to separate you
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: from the source. Can I go deeper? God says to
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: ocean bring forth and the fish begin to swim. He
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: says to the air bring forth and the birds begin
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: to fly. He says to the earth bring forth and
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the grass begins to grow. When he gets ready to
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: make man he says let us make man in his
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: likeness or his image. What do they all have in common?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: The grass can't grow if it doesn't stay in the
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: thing that God spoke to. The fish can't live save
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: it stay in the water that God spoke to. The
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: bird can't fly save it stay in the air that
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: God spoke to. And man can't live save he stay
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: in the God that said, let us make man in
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: our likeness and in our image. So if I get disconnected,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I act in the spirit like a fish does out
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of the water. I start flipping and flopping and going
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: crazy and doing my own thing and get spastic because
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't stay. Now he says in the word, oh God,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I know this is going to be two classes, if
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: not three, because I can't get out of verse one.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: So this is going to take, he says, every branch
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: in me that bears not fruit, I take it away. Why?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Because the father is the husbandman. He didn't plant the
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: thing to grow leaves. He wants to grow fruit. So
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to have branches that just grow leaves.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Where is your fruit? What is God getting out of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: your existence? If you are the only one that's getting
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: anything out of your existence, you're growing leaves. but not fruit.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: purges it away. He cuts it away. This is called reduction.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So we have gone from relationship to reduction. Now, reduction,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I chose the term reduction, and I like the term
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: reduction because I cook. And reduction means that if you're
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: making a certain sauce or a certain gravy or a
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: certain liquid that you may put onions in it and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: you may put garlic in it and you may— Put
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a little sprig of mint in it and you may
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: let it cook down and then when it cooks down
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: to a thickness, it's called a reduction. Then you can
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: remove everything out of it and then take that reduction
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: and glaze it over your meat. And the flavor of
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the reduction will go into the meat because it has
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: been reduced down to a thickness that has a deeper
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: concentration of flavor. It's called a reduction. And so the
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: lower the reduction goes, the more potent it becomes because
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: of reduction. So everybody's talking to you about increase, but
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about reduction because in
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: order for you to be potent, you have to go
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: through reduction so that you can increase your potency. Reduction.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Somebody shout reduction. Reduction. You don't understand that because nobody
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: wants to talk about wounds. We went through positive thinking,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the power of positive thinking, positive confession. And just speak
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the word. Just say I'm healed. And though you're snotting
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: all in a rag, just say I'm healed. Just go on.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And we're so busy talking about positivity that we don't
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: understand that negativity is a part of any relationship. So
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: when you hit a hard place, you want a divorce.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: When you hit a hard place, you want to put
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the kid out. When you hit a hard place, you
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: don't want to be bothered with it. When you hit
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: a hard place, you get rid of the dog. When
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: you get a hard place, you give the cat to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: your sister. Anything that gets down to reduction, you release it.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: But in order for it to be potent, it must
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: have reduction. And you say, well, it was reduced because
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: it was not bearing fruit. I'm bearing fruit. Let's keep reading.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: He says, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that it may bring forth fruit. Oh, so here I
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: am with my few little grapes growing on my cute
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: little vine and I'm so proud of my little grapes
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and God comes along and cuts off my grapes. And
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: it comes down to this. I can only stay if
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I trust God. Come on, come on, come on, come on.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I have to trust him because I didn't expect him
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: to cut off my little fruit. I don't know who
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I'm talking to. It might be somebody online. But every
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: now and then God will cut you. But I want
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: you to understand faithful wounds. Faithful are the wounds of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a friend. And if God saw fit to cut you,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: he cuts you for a reason that through the reduction
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you might become more intense. more potent, more powerful, more thoughtful,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: more wise, more anointed, more invigorated, more motivated, more powerful
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in your spirit. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. That's why you can't get
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: everything by the laying on of hands. You have to
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: be cut sometimes. You have to cry sometimes. You have
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: to suffer sometimes. You can't get this anointing just by
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: me laying hands on you. Oh, because this is a reduction.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: This is a reduction. You have to cut. You have
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to bleed. You have to heal. But after you suffered
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: a while, God said, I'll establish you and make you perfect.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Somebody right now, you're going through reduction and you're saying,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: where is God? And you're saying, my faith doesn't work.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: My anointing doesn't work. God doesn't love me. God doesn't
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: care nothing about me because if he cared anything about me,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't cut me like this. He cuts you because
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he cares. He cuts you so you could reach your potential.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: He cuts you so you wouldn't be satisfied with less
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: than what he has for you. He cuts you so
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you could be more intense. He cuts you so you
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: could be more potent. He cuts you so that you
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: could be more powerful. He cuts you so he'd make
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: a man out of you. He cuts you so you'd
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: be a grown woman. He cuts you so you'd stand
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: up on your feet. He cuts you so you'd understand
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: what you got. He cuts you so... Can I get
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: a witness in here? Can I get a witness in here?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I need me a witness in here. I need somebody
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: who survived a cut. I need somebody who's been through
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: a cutback. I need somebody who's bled a little bit,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: who's cried a little bit, who's walked the floor a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: little bit. That doesn't mean that God left you. Just
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: because the boat fell apart doesn't mean you can't abide
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: on the ship. Are you hearing the words that are
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth? Hallelujah. Nobody is teaching us
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: about reduction. Nobody's teaching us about suffering. So whenever it
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: gets thick, we quit. I meant for it to evaporate.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I meant for the water to come out of it.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I meant for it to boil down to its lowest
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: common denominator. That's what a reduction is. Now I'm going
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to cut you so that you can bring forth more fruit.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: So the way up is down. If you want to
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: be exalted, get humble. If you want to go further,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: go back. If you want the arrow to go far,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: pull it back. But the further you pull it back,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the further forward it's going to go. And I need
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: you to trust me when I'm pulling you back. I'm
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: pulling you back, not because I don't love you. I'm
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: pulling you back so you can go forward. Because faithful
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: are the wounds. So the problem with us, brothers and sisters,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: is that we don't understand real love. So we are
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: deceived by kisses. But the enemy's kiss is deceitful. God
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: loves you. So whom the Lord he loveth, he chastens you.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: So the chastening of the Lord is a sign of
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: the love of the Lord. I loved you enough to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: cut you. When Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick, he
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: didn't come. And the Bible said Lazarus whom he loved,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: he was late coming to. And he let him die.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: And he meant for him to die. And he could
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: have healed him and he didn't and he let him die.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And the church doesn't talk about a God who lets
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: people die. So death is a stranger to us because
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: we don't have a contextualization that explains termination. Jesus literally
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: let Lazarus die on purpose. He hung around after he
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: heard the news. He stayed around for several days. He
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: didn't move and he let Lazarus die because he was
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: reducing him. you don't hear what I'm saying, that he
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: might bring for more. He knew that Lather would be
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: more in his resurrection than he would be in his healing.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Come on somebody, come on somebody, come on somebody. So
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: he reduced him down to death and Mary yells at
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: him and says, if you would have been here, my
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: brother would not have died. That's why I didn't come.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Because I'm making a reduction. Oh, can you praise him
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: in a reduction? Can you praise him in a reduction?
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: You're being tested right now. You're online. You're watching. Can
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you praise him right now in the middle of a reduction,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: a setback, a decrease, a divorce, a crisis, a trauma? Oh,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: if he's not going to be Lord in a reduction,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: he's not really Lord in your life. That's why relationship
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: comes before reduction. So I establish a relationship so that
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: you can stand the reduction. I was talking to a
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: young man today. I said, my wife and I have
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: been married 40 years. We probably just going to rock
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: on in. Because relationship, once you're in it so long,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: it ain't worth it to go outside because I had
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: too much equity built up where I am. Amen. to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: walk away and try something new, cause if this don't work,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: ain't nothing else gonna work. Ain't nothing going to work.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Ain't nothing going to work. For better or for worse,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: for richer or for poorer, I don't care what we
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: got to go through, we in this together. 40 years in,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: we in this together. We just going to make it work.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: If we have to tie toothpicks around it, we going
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: to make it work. If we have to put popsicles
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: on it, we going to make it work. If we
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: have to put bandages on it, we going to have
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to make it work. If we have to roll around
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: in wheelchairs, we going to have to make it work.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Because I can't be meeting somebody who can't remember nothing
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: that you remember. You remember everything that I remember. And
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I can't be starting over and say, and be laid
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: up one night and say, don't you remember? Oh, no.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Somebody holler, stay connected. Stay connected. So with the challenge
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: of staying connected is to stay connected when it hurts.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: It's no problem to stay connected when it feels good.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: The problem is to stay connected when it hurts. And
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the reason y'all are 35 and been married three times
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: is every time it hurts, you leave. And you're never
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: going to be nothing if you leave every time you're hurt.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Now Jesus said, now you are clean through the word
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: which I have spoken unto you. The word, you are
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: clean through the word I have spoken unto you. I
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: have spoken a word to you that has cleaned you up.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Nothing that he says has dealt with morality. Everything that
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: he said has dealt with stability. And you are over
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: here wrestling with your morality, but you're not wrestling with
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: your stability. So you're really moral, but you're emotionally unstable.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: God will fix your morality if you can anchor your stability.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: God will sanctify you. And the Bible said the very
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: God of peace will sanctify you wholly. He said, I'll
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: sanctify you wholly. You can't do this of yourself. I'll
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: sanctify you wholly. But you got to trust me when
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: I'm cutting. You got to trust me when I make
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: an incision. You got to trust me when you go
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: through a reduction. You can't just trust me when you're
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: going through a promotion and say you're a believer and
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you believe God and you trust God. I take my
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: wife out in the car. I got a surprise party
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: planned for her. And she said, we dressed up now.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Where are we going? And I say to her, trust me.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Because you got to shut up and ride when you
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: don't know the outcome because you know the driver. Come on,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: come on somebody. Somebody holler, trust me. My mother who
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: had dementia and Alzheimer's, I came home one night from
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a trip and she said, she always knew me. Even
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: when she didn't know anybody else and couldn't hardly talk,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: she said, Thomas, she said, I can't see. She said,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: I can't see and I'm scared. And I got in
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the bed with her with my clothes on and wrapped
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: my arms around her. She said, I don't know where
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I am. I said, if I'm there, it must be okay.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: She laid her hands on my chest and she laid
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: her head on my chest and she said, that's the truth.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: If you're there, it must be okay. I don't know
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: where I am, but I trust you. You don't have
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: to give me all the details, but your presence is
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: comfort to me because I know that if you are there,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: you're going to be my protector, my provider. You're going
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: to be my company. You're going to be my friend.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Come on, somebody. Come on. That's why I keep teaching
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: on trust. Because God is taking us through a period
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: right now that we've got to be able to trust him.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: While plagues are coming and chaos is coming and it
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: takes a bag of gold to buy a loaf of bread,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: this ain't no time for you to get out of
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the ship. You've got to be able to trust him.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Give me five seconds of crazy praise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I mean real praise. I mean trusting praise. I mean
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: God just gave me an answer praise. I mean I'm
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: getting an understanding praise. I mean my mind is opening
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: up praise. I mean I'm getting a deeper understanding praise.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm growing in Him praise. I mean I'm
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: getting development praise. I said praise Him out of your belly,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: out of your spirit, out of your stability, out of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: your anchor. I praise God from a deep place. With
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: joy we draw waters from the wells of salvation Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Announce to somebody around you, say something is about to happen.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Look at somebody else and say something's about to happen.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Everybody who got the Holy Ghost can tell when something's
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: about to happen. When you got the Holy Ghost, you
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: got a witness. Oh, I got to stop. I better stop.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Something's about to happen. I can feel it in the atmosphere.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I can feel it in my spirit. I can feel
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: it in my senses. Something is about to happen. Tell
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: hell to get out of here. Tell devils to leave.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Tell witches to exit. Something is about to happen in here.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: The glory of the Lord is getting intense. The reduction
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: is happening. It's starting to bubble. It's just about right.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: A breakthrough, a breakthrough, a breakthrough, a breakthrough, a breakthrough,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: a breakthrough. Somebody shout reduction. Reduction. Sit down, because if
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you don't sit down, I'm going to start preaching. It
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: ain't going to be good. It ain't going to be good.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: If I start preaching right now, it ain't going to
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: be good. I feel the power of the Holy Ghost
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in this place. And when I feel the power of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: God in a place, something is going to happen in
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: the room. No demon can stop it. No witch can
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: stop it. No hex can stop it. No spell can
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: stop it. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Praise him in this place. Praise him online. Praise him
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: on YouTube. Praise him on Facebook. Praise him in the back.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Praise him in the front. Let everything that have breath.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Let everything that have breath. Let everything that have breath.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Can you praise him bleeding? Can you praise him bruised?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Can you praise him in grief? Can you pray them
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: without money? Can you pray them without friends? Is there
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: anybody in here? Hallelujah that you've been in a reduction
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and the devil don't think you'll praise him in a reduction.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: But the devil is a liar. The devil is a liar.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: shall continually be in my mouth. I dare you to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: praise him. I double don't dare you to praise him
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: right now.