Latest / THE WORLD'S BEST PREACHER / T.D. Jakes Fight Back Against Negative Thoughts and Say Yes to God FULL SERMON TBN.
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Whenever you ask for change, you've got to be prepared
- 0:03Speaker 1: for disruption. If you plant an oak tree in the earth,
- 0:07Speaker 1: it's going to disrupt the soil. If you plant a
- 0:10Speaker 1: peach tree in the soil, it's going to disrupt the ground.
- 0:13Speaker 1: There's no way you can have growth without disruption. But
- 0:17Speaker 1: God said to me, when you say change, I send disruption.
- 0:21Speaker 1: But don't let the disruption become a distraction. You won't
- 0:28Speaker 1: come out of this. You're not smart enough, you're not
- 0:33Speaker 1: bright enough. You waited too late. You should have started younger.
- 0:38Speaker 1: Those are the kind of voices that we all live with.
- 0:42Speaker 1: For me, our ministry was growing. We lived in a
- 0:46Speaker 1: nice house, nice house we'd ever had, driving a nice car,
- 0:51Speaker 1: living from paycheck to paycheck, with making it every night,
- 0:58Speaker 1: I lay down at night after she goes to sleep,
- 1:03Speaker 1: I hear the voices. Those voices are the kind of
- 1:07Speaker 1: voices that stop you from buying into your own life,
- 1:13Speaker 1: stop you from enjoying the good times and believing that
- 1:15Speaker 1: they will last. The anxiety and the pressure and the
- 1:20Speaker 1: strength that it took to get from where you were
- 1:22Speaker 1: or where you are doesn't go away, so you don't
- 1:26Speaker 1: really believe it's yours. You're driving it, but you don't
- 1:31Speaker 1: really believe it's your and you're scared to relax and
- 1:34Speaker 1: really rest in whatever it is or whoever it is.
- 1:42Speaker 1: Because everything else went away, maybe this will go away too.
- 1:49Speaker 1: We talk about faith for bad times, but you also
- 1:52Speaker 1: need faith in good times to actually believe the goodness
- 1:59Speaker 1: of God. It's not going anywhere to silence the voices
- 2:06Speaker 1: that keep saying you'll never make it, You're about to
- 2:08Speaker 1: lose everything. Fear gets in your heart. See, I know
- 2:15Speaker 1: what it's like to be poor, and I know what
- 2:18Speaker 1: it's like to be without, and I know what it's
- 2:20Speaker 1: like not to have dinner for my kids. Returning to that,
- 2:25Speaker 1: the idea that that could happen is terrifying. And the
- 2:31Speaker 1: enemy always has some sort of tool or memory or
- 2:34Speaker 1: situation that he uses to terrify you. Even though the
- 2:38Speaker 1: good times are here and the dream is there, the
- 2:42Speaker 1: blessing is there, and the goodness is there, but there's
- 2:45Speaker 1: always this haunting, nagging defiance that says, don't you relax.
- 2:55Speaker 1: You're not worth it, you don't deserve it, and it's
- 3:00Speaker 1: not going to last. Resting in what God has done
- 3:06Speaker 1: it's often more difficult than receiving what God has done,
- 3:12Speaker 1: to rest in it, to believe that it will last,
- 3:18Speaker 1: to believe that you will last, and love will last,
- 3:20Speaker 1: that life will last, that good times will come, that
- 3:23Speaker 1: things will be better, is difficult because of the voices.
- 3:27Speaker 1: Then you are what you eat, and the voices are
- 3:30Speaker 1: the food that feeds your faith or fear.
- 3:35Speaker 2: So if you.
- 3:36Speaker 1: Want to change your diet, you can change your outcome,
- 3:42Speaker 1: but you have to stop talking to yourself the way
- 3:45Speaker 1: you do, because if you continue to talk to yourself
- 3:48Speaker 1: the way you do, you will always be where you've
- 3:50Speaker 1: always been. It is what you say within yourself that
- 3:54Speaker 1: heals you. The woman with israel blood said to herself,
- 3:59Speaker 1: I can but touch to him of his garment, I'll
- 4:01Speaker 1: be made whole. There was no scripture to validate that,
- 4:07Speaker 1: she could say. She wasn't quoting Doodonomy or do numbers
- 4:10Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's just something she said to herself.
- 4:14Speaker 1: There was no doctrine around it. We've never seen that
- 4:18Speaker 1: happen before. But she said to herself, if I can
- 4:22Speaker 1: but touch thee him of his garment, I'll be made hole.
- 4:26Speaker 1: And although she was crawling, she kept saying, over and
- 4:29Speaker 1: over again, if I can just touch it, if I
- 4:30Speaker 1: can just touch, if I can just touch, if I
- 4:32Speaker 1: can just touch him of the gum. And without Jesus' permission,
- 4:38Speaker 1: I was out the support of the disciples. She creeped
- 4:42Speaker 1: up on him and snatched a miracle, snatched it, snatch
- 4:50Speaker 1: it because of what she said to herself. You see
- 4:55Speaker 1: those voices that say, what you can't do, what you
- 4:57Speaker 1: can't have, what you can't be, what's not gonna last,
- 4:59Speaker 1: what's not gonna work, is how the enemy pulverizes the
- 5:03Speaker 1: promises of God in your life.
- 5:06Speaker 2: And it takes word to combat word.
- 5:09Speaker 1: That's why when Jesus was in the wilderness and Satan
- 5:12Speaker 1: was throwing word at him, he was throwing word back.
- 5:15Speaker 1: And what we have to do is put word on word.
- 5:20Speaker 1: I'm blessed. I'm blessed in the city. I'm blessed in
- 5:23Speaker 1: the field. I'm blessed in my uprising. I'm blessed in
- 5:25Speaker 1: my down setting. I'll be blessed in to my old age.
- 5:29Speaker 1: I'll be blessed when I'm an old man. My grandchildren
- 5:32Speaker 1: will be blessed. My body is blessed, my body is,
- 5:35Speaker 1: my mind is blessed, my head is blessed. I got this,
- 5:39Speaker 1: I can handle it, I can do it.
- 5:40Speaker 2: Bring it a home. Hideous.
- 5:43Speaker 1: That kind of talk, saying that to yourself drives back
- 5:48Speaker 1: the other voices of negativity that we all have creep
- 5:52Speaker 1: up behind us and tell us that we're not capable
- 5:56Speaker 1: and we're not competent, and we're not gifted enough, and
- 6:00Speaker 1: we're not good enough, or we waited too late, or
- 6:03Speaker 1: God is punishing us. To talk back to those voices
- 6:08Speaker 1: shut seeing me down. The pressure I was going through
- 6:14Speaker 1: I was causing because the pressure I was going through
- 6:19Speaker 1: was coming from the things that I allowed to reverberate
- 6:23Speaker 1: in my head. And I'm wondering if there are things
- 6:25Speaker 1: echoing in your head right now that are stopping you
- 6:28Speaker 1: from living your best life because you will outsilence them
- 6:33Speaker 1: by speaking back. You shall have whatever you say, so
- 6:42Speaker 1: says the word of God. You shall have whatever you say.
- 6:48Speaker 1: If it's betrayal, you shall have whatever you say. If
- 6:53Speaker 1: it's a life without love, you shall have whatever you say.
- 6:57Speaker 1: It doesn't just work positively, it also works negatively. You
- 7:01Speaker 1: shall have whatever you say. She touched him and she
- 7:04Speaker 1: was made whole, And he says, who touched me?
- 7:10Speaker 2: Which means he's oblivious to what's going on.
- 7:12Speaker 1: This is all happening in her head.
- 7:16Speaker 2: The whole thing happened in her head.
- 7:18Speaker 1: And the Lord who is on missing and asked a
- 7:21Speaker 1: question who touched me? And the disciples, wanting to be
- 7:25Speaker 1: important to answer him, said everybody touched you. He said, no, no, no, no, no,
- 7:29Speaker 1: no no no, that's not what I'm talking about. Everybody
- 7:32Speaker 1: around me, don't touch me. Everybody around me, don't touch me.
- 7:35Speaker 1: You've been said everybody around me, don't touch me. Just
- 7:38Speaker 1: because you're around me don't mean you touch me. Somebody
- 7:41Speaker 1: touched me. Somebody touched me, And she came out from
- 7:44Speaker 1: the christ Chiefers League and said it was me, It
- 7:48Speaker 1: was me. She got a miracle. Wow, Jesus wasn't looking
- 7:55Speaker 1: because of what she said to herself. When I say excellent,
- 7:59Speaker 1: you said excellent, excellent, excellent.
- 8:04Speaker 2: The problem is.
- 8:07Speaker 1: We all said the same word, but we don't all
- 8:10Speaker 1: mean the same thing, because what you call excellent what
- 8:14Speaker 1: I call excellent may be two different things. Based on
- 8:18Speaker 1: the lives we've lived, the things we've experienced, the places
- 8:22Speaker 1: we've been exposed to. Our ideas of excellent may very
- 8:27Speaker 1: drastically based on how we define excellence. The problem with
- 8:33Speaker 1: the English language is that it is limited to interpretation.
- 8:38Speaker 2: So how do you know when.
- 8:39Speaker 1: I say I love you that I mean what you
- 8:41Speaker 1: meant when you said you loved me. So we're having
- 8:45Speaker 1: a conversation and I am making an assumption that your
- 8:48Speaker 1: love is my love, and it may not be at all.
- 8:52Speaker 1: Or we're planning a banquet and I make an assumption
- 8:56Speaker 1: that your excellent is my excellent, and it may not
- 8:59Speaker 1: be at all. Because the reality about it is your
- 9:05Speaker 1: definition of excellent rises no higher than your level of exposure,
- 9:14Speaker 1: whatever you've been exposed to. That becomes the new paradigm
- 9:18Speaker 1: of what excellent is to you, and it shifts from
- 9:22Speaker 1: day to day. And the hardest thing in the world
- 9:24Speaker 1: is to have a conversation with somebody and all you
- 9:27Speaker 1: have to use the words because I'm not sure that
- 9:33Speaker 1: you mean what I mean when I say excellent. I'm
- 9:38Speaker 1: not sure that you mean what I mean when I
- 9:40Speaker 1: say love. I'm not sure you mean what I mean
- 9:43Speaker 1: when I say loyal. I'm not sure you mean what
- 9:48Speaker 1: I mean when I say hurt. Because all we have
- 9:57Speaker 1: it's worse is we have to make up in our
- 10:03Speaker 1: minds that whatever our definition of excellence is it's gonna change.
- 10:13Speaker 1: It's gonna get higher, it's gonna get broader, it's gonna
- 10:16Speaker 1: get better, it's gonna be different, or it's gonna go down.
- 10:21Speaker 1: And a lot of it depends on who you hang
- 10:23Speaker 1: around and what you're exposed to. There are people that
- 10:26Speaker 1: take you up, there are people that bring you down.
- 10:28Speaker 1: They bring you down to their level of excellence. That's
- 10:32Speaker 1: what a job description for a hater looks like. The
- 10:36Speaker 1: job description of the hater is to bring you down
- 10:39Speaker 1: to the level that they are on, so that while
- 10:44Speaker 1: they're trying to pull you down, I'm trying to get up.
- 10:48Speaker 1: And if I'm going to get up, I have to
- 10:50Speaker 1: know that there's gonna be a cost in getting up.
- 10:53Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to put my back to it or
- 10:54Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. God wants somebody to work with
- 10:57Speaker 1: him and give what it takes to make it happen.
- 11:02Speaker 1: Is it worth it? Absolutely? I do not want to die.
- 11:10Speaker 1: Let me explain. I was born in between two dead babies.
- 11:14Speaker 1: The baby before me died, the baby after me died.
- 11:17Speaker 1: I was raised by dying father. And I do not
- 11:21Speaker 1: want to live my life and die and at the
- 11:25Speaker 1: last moment of my life, I ask this question, wonder
- 11:30Speaker 1: what would have happened if I'd have pushed it a
- 11:32Speaker 1: little harder. I don't want to get down to the
- 11:36Speaker 1: end of the road and wonder what would have happened
- 11:40Speaker 1: if I'd have pushed a little harder. I don't want
- 11:43Speaker 1: to wonder that. I want to get down to the
- 11:46Speaker 1: end of the road, like Paul and say, I fought
- 11:48Speaker 1: a good fight, I kept the faith, I finished my course,
- 11:52Speaker 1: and now later for me is a crowd of rights?
- 11:55Speaker 2: Is this and there?
- 11:56Speaker 1: I don't want to get down to my last breath
- 11:58Speaker 1: and wonder what would have happened if I went back
- 12:00Speaker 1: to school, if I took a course, if I worked
- 12:02Speaker 1: a little harder, if I changed the way I address,
- 12:04Speaker 1: if I changed the way I talk to people, if
- 12:06Speaker 1: I forgave somebody, if I release somebody. I don't want
- 12:09Speaker 1: to wonder about nothing, because that's excellence.
- 12:19Speaker 2: Excellence.
- 12:21Speaker 1: It's to come out with the conclusion I have no regrets.
- 12:27Speaker 1: The dying words of the thief on the cross was
- 12:31Speaker 1: remember me. The words of Jesus at the Last Supper
- 12:37Speaker 1: is as often as you do this, you do this
- 12:40Speaker 1: in remembrance of me, What does remember me, remember, re
- 12:50Speaker 1: put back together again, remember me. When we remember what
- 13:00Speaker 1: God has done, that becomes the foundation on which we
- 13:03Speaker 1: build our lives. Now, a house is not a foundation,
- 13:08Speaker 1: and nobody can live in a foundation. But it has
- 13:10Speaker 1: to have a foundation in order to be a house.
- 13:14Speaker 1: And I'm not suggesting that your life begins, ends and
- 13:17Speaker 1: all through the middle is nothing but Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
- 13:20Speaker 1: Because you got to take out the trash, you gotta
- 13:22Speaker 1: brush your teeth, you got to comb your hair, you
- 13:23Speaker 1: gotta get your nails done, you got to get your
- 13:25Speaker 1: feet done, or you're gonna cut your blankets when you
- 13:27Speaker 1: land in the bed tonight. All of that happens. But
- 13:31Speaker 1: I am saying that God is the foundation. When God
- 13:35Speaker 1: delivered the children of Vidua out of Egypt, he did
- 13:38Speaker 1: it as a foundation for them to remember. And all
- 13:41Speaker 1: through the whole Testament he says over and over again,
- 13:43Speaker 1: Am I not the God who brought you out from
- 13:46Speaker 1: the Red sea? Am I not the God who brought
- 13:49Speaker 1: you out by my own and my strong arm. It
- 13:52Speaker 1: becomes a point of reference to which you face the
- 13:55Speaker 1: future remembering what he did in the past, remembering it,
- 14:00Speaker 1: putting it back together again again and again, and recreating
- 14:03Speaker 1: it as a point of reference to fight from, to stand,
- 14:07Speaker 1: to drive from, to to preach from, to teach from.
- 14:11Speaker 2: What do you have to remember?
- 14:15Speaker 1: It's important that you have something to remember, something on
- 14:18Speaker 1: God's resume that you know that you know that, you
- 14:21Speaker 1: know that He did for you, and it tells you
- 14:23Speaker 1: that if God would do that, he can do this.
- 14:27Speaker 1: If he can drive back the Red Sea and bring
- 14:29Speaker 1: me across on dry land, then he can fight you off.
- 14:32Speaker 1: He can deal with their Alachites and the Hittites and
- 14:35Speaker 1: the jeers Heights and the Gharashites. God does certain things
- 14:38Speaker 1: so you will have something to remember, a point of
- 14:41Speaker 1: reference to what you build your life upon. And you
- 14:44Speaker 1: stand on it and you say, I'm not sure about this,
- 14:47Speaker 1: and I'm not sure about that, but this one thing
- 14:49Speaker 1: I do know. You have to know this. You have
- 14:53Speaker 1: to know this, and your know it. You have to
- 14:55Speaker 1: know this when your girlfriend doesn't know it, when your
- 14:57Speaker 1: prayer warriors don't know it, when your children don't know it,
- 15:00Speaker 1: when your mama doesn't know it. Something that you know
- 15:02Speaker 1: that you know that you know becomes the catalysts against
- 15:06Speaker 1: the trials against the traumas, against the sleepless nights, against
- 15:10Speaker 1: the virus, against the crisis, against the times.
- 15:13Speaker 2: That we're living in.
- 15:14Speaker 1: We have been living in the most perilous times that
- 15:18Speaker 1: we have seen in one hundred years. We are living
- 15:21Speaker 1: in a time where nearly seven hundred thousand people are
- 15:24Speaker 1: now dead from something we can't even see. We are
- 15:28Speaker 1: fighting an invisible enemy, and that enemy has friends. That
- 15:33Speaker 1: has created trauma and distress until we are overwhelmed. Even
- 15:38Speaker 1: when nothing else is going wrong, Just the feeling that
- 15:41Speaker 1: other people are going wrong gives us a certain degree
- 15:44Speaker 1: of stress and trauma.
- 15:46Speaker 2: How do we stand.
- 15:47Speaker 1: Up against this unseen foe we fight right now? Of course,
- 15:51Speaker 1: we need to do everything we can to protect ourselves
- 15:54Speaker 1: from the virus. But I'm not just talking about the virus.
- 15:56Speaker 1: I'm talking about your mind. I'm talking about your emotions,
- 15:59Speaker 1: your spirit, your fight, your drive, your tenacity, your sense
- 16:04Speaker 1: of normalcy, your courage to get out of the house,
- 16:07Speaker 1: your courage to get out of the bed, the courage
- 16:09Speaker 1: to continue when there's a threat. Requires that there's something
- 16:17Speaker 1: about God that you have to remember. For the children
- 16:22Speaker 1: of Israel, it was the blood of the lamb that
- 16:25Speaker 1: was painted on the doorposts and death angel passed by
- 16:28Speaker 1: and said, when I see the blood, I will pass
- 16:31Speaker 1: over you. It was walking out to the Red Sea
- 16:35Speaker 1: and hearing six hundred chosen chariots coming, with failure of
- 16:39Speaker 1: chasing them down, saying I'm going to get you back.
- 16:42Speaker 1: He was going to get them back. But let me
- 16:43Speaker 1: tell you a secret. He was also trying to get
- 16:45Speaker 1: back the wealth they take it for the wealth of
- 16:49Speaker 1: the unjust had been laid up for the just, and
- 16:51Speaker 1: they had borrowed all the gold and all the silver,
- 16:53Speaker 1: and they had broken the GDP of Egypt. It wasn't
- 16:57Speaker 1: just the slaves he wanted. He wanted the money. He
- 17:00Speaker 1: wanted the jewels, He wanted the gold, he wanted the silver,
- 17:03Speaker 1: He wanted the things that the tabernacle would actually end
- 17:05Speaker 1: up being built by. He was trying to get it
- 17:07Speaker 1: all back. He could have got some more slaves anywhere.
- 17:10Speaker 1: He was trying to get what they had borrowed. They
- 17:12Speaker 1: had borrowed. The whole economy of Egypt was running through
- 17:16Speaker 1: the Red Sea. For the wealth of the unjustice laid
- 17:21Speaker 1: up for the jests. And when God brings you out,
- 17:24Speaker 1: he brings out enough for your children. The Bible says
- 17:26Speaker 1: that God put so much wealth on them that the
- 17:29Speaker 1: children had to carry on their backs the wealth that
- 17:32Speaker 1: God placed on them. I want the kind of blessing
- 17:34Speaker 1: that affects my children and my children's children and my
- 17:38Speaker 1: children's children's children. I want my grandchildren to blow kisses
- 17:43Speaker 1: at my picture when I'm dead and gone. I want
- 17:45Speaker 1: them to be able to say, if it hadn't been
- 17:47Speaker 1: for that whole man, I'd have never been able to
- 17:49Speaker 1: go to college. I'd have never been able to get
- 17:51Speaker 1: a job. I'd have never been able to work for Google.
- 17:54Speaker 1: I'd have never been able to work for Xerox. I'd
- 17:55Speaker 1: have never been able to preach the gospel. I would
- 17:58Speaker 1: have never been able to do it. I want that
- 18:01Speaker 1: for them. So I have to have something to remember
- 18:06Speaker 1: that I can count on that won't break. And I
- 18:10Speaker 1: want to ask you, what do you remember when life
- 18:14Speaker 1: get hard, when things get tough, when friends get few?
- 18:19Speaker 1: There are how to be something in your life that
- 18:22Speaker 1: you remember God brought you through, or brought you from,
- 18:26Speaker 1: or brought you out of, that feeds you, That is
- 18:31Speaker 1: the foundation that makes you to rise above the crushing
- 18:36Speaker 1: and turns crape juice into absolute mind. The Bible says
- 18:43Speaker 1: that we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood or
- 18:47Speaker 1: holy nation of peculiar people. That we didn't just wander
- 18:53Speaker 1: in to him. We were chosen. He said, you have
- 18:58Speaker 1: not chosen me. I have chosen you. I picked you out,
- 19:03Speaker 1: I chose you. We are chosen. We know this from
- 19:08Speaker 1: a biblical theological perspective that the reason that we are
- 19:11Speaker 1: here is because He drew us. No man can come
- 19:14Speaker 1: unto the Father save the son draw him. He drew
- 19:17Speaker 1: us to him. But we don't think about this, that
- 19:21Speaker 1: we as a generation are chosen to go through a
- 19:25Speaker 1: challenge that this country or the world has not seen
- 19:30Speaker 1: in a hundred years. Of all the generations. My mother
- 19:37Speaker 1: missed it, my father missed it, my grandmother missed it,
- 19:42Speaker 1: my great grandmother missed it. They had trials, they had tasks.
- 19:45Speaker 1: They didn't have COVID, they didn't have masks all over
- 19:50Speaker 1: their face. They didn't have people arguing and fighting about this,
- 19:53Speaker 1: that and the other. They didn't have George Floyd. They
- 19:58Speaker 1: didn't have racial combat like it is right now. It's crazy.
- 20:04Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's so crazy that there is enough stress
- 20:09Speaker 1: in the world to take your sleep and then when
- 20:15Speaker 1: you add to it the stress of your own life,
- 20:19Speaker 1: what's going on with you and the people in your house,
- 20:22Speaker 1: and the people you related to, the people you love,
- 20:24Speaker 1: and you take that stress and you put it on
- 20:26Speaker 1: national stress, and then you add global stress.
- 20:31Speaker 2: It's too much stress.
- 20:37Speaker 1: Too much stress coming at us from all directions leaves
- 20:40Speaker 1: us with unsuppressed trauma. Suppressed trauma, trauma that has no
- 20:48Speaker 1: way to escape that comes out in rage and self
- 20:51Speaker 1: medication and over indulgences and excesses and tempers and flaring
- 20:58Speaker 1: and people up and own stewardess and flight attendants and
- 21:02Speaker 1: road rage and shooting people over parking spaces. Has too
- 21:06Speaker 1: much stress. I've got good news, Jesus said, My peace
- 21:15Speaker 1: give out unto thee, not the peace of the world,
- 21:19Speaker 1: but the peace which passive all understanding. This is the
- 21:26Speaker 1: peace that you stand under. You heard me, Yeah, this
- 21:34Speaker 1: is the peace that you stand under. You stand under
- 21:37Speaker 1: a peace that defies logic, crazy peace, ridiculous peace, the
- 21:45Speaker 1: kind of peace that other people will call you a
- 21:47Speaker 1: fool for. But you just got a peace in your
- 21:49Speaker 1: spirit and in your heart that he that has began
- 21:52Speaker 1: a good work and you shall perform it until the
- 21:54Speaker 1: day of Jesus Christ, You've got the peace to understand
- 21:59Speaker 1: that even though we are living through a crushing season
- 22:02Speaker 1: as a planet, with global warming and everything else going on,
- 22:07Speaker 1: and people shooting and people fighting on planes and all
- 22:12Speaker 1: kinds of sickness and people dying on respirators, you've got
- 22:17Speaker 1: to know in the midst of all of this that
- 22:20Speaker 1: God is not taken by surprise that he chose us
- 22:25Speaker 1: to go through this, and He wouldn't have chosen us
- 22:28Speaker 1: to go through this if we didn't have what it
- 22:30Speaker 1: takes to go through this. You have not chosen me,
- 22:34Speaker 1: but I have chosen you, and I have chosen what
- 22:38Speaker 1: to try you with, and I have chosen what to
- 22:40Speaker 1: crush you with. And if I thought you couldn't take it,
- 22:43Speaker 1: I wouldn't expose you to it. I put you in
- 22:46Speaker 1: the middle of it for you to stand up to it.
- 22:50Speaker 1: And so today it is very important that as we
- 22:55Speaker 1: embrace our faith, we do it with a new tenacity.
- 23:00Speaker 1: We do it with a new tenacity, because we have
- 23:03Speaker 1: an enemy that is ubiquitous, absolutely everywhere, and yet invisible,
- 23:10Speaker 1: absolutely intangible, and we can't touch him anywhere, we can't
- 23:15Speaker 1: see him, and we don't know who's next. But we
- 23:21Speaker 1: have to know in whom we have believed, and that
- 23:25Speaker 1: he that has began a good work in us shall
- 23:28Speaker 1: perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And we
- 23:32Speaker 1: have to know the difference between being crushed by the
- 23:37Speaker 1: Lord and being crushed by life. I will not let
- 23:45Speaker 1: life crush me. God, you can do whatever you want,
- 23:53Speaker 1: You can take me through whatever you will order my
- 23:56Speaker 1: steps in your word, Dear Lord, I am chosen or
- 24:00Speaker 1: this generation. I was called to preach during a global pandemic,
- 24:09Speaker 1: with people dying and getting sick, and people in the
- 24:13Speaker 1: hallways of hospitals and more expect up in funerals delayed
- 24:18Speaker 1: for two weeks. I was called I was chosen for
- 24:22Speaker 1: such a time as if that means that God has
- 24:26Speaker 1: given me something that's stronger than the times I'm in
- 24:32Speaker 1: because we have been chosen, and so have you, and
- 24:36Speaker 1: you and you and you and you and even you,
- 24:43Speaker 1: and God would not have chosen you if this were
- 24:47Speaker 1: going to destroy you. I'm always fascinated by leaders I
- 24:53Speaker 1: read about leadership, corporate leadership, church leadership, spiritual leadership, family leadership.
- 24:59Speaker 1: Everything I can I'm find about leadership because I am
- 25:02Speaker 1: a leader, and the more proficient. I am at being
- 25:05Speaker 1: a leader, the more impactful my life becomes. Just because
- 25:10Speaker 1: you're upfront doesn't make you a leader if the cars
- 25:12Speaker 1: aren't moving. Leaders are determined by how much you move
- 25:17Speaker 1: something from one place to another. Are you quantifiable? You
- 25:23Speaker 1: ought to have some metrics to which not a title.
- 25:27Speaker 1: It's not a title, it's a metric. You're a leader
- 25:30Speaker 1: when we move. When we move to the degree that
- 25:34Speaker 1: you move me, that's a degree that you led me.
- 25:37Speaker 1: And so I'm fascinated about leadership. I'm fascinated that God
- 25:42Speaker 1: says to Abraham before he puts him to sleep. He says,
- 25:46Speaker 1: your descendants shall be in Egypt for four hundred years,
- 25:52Speaker 1: but afterwards they she'll come out with great substance. And
- 25:57Speaker 1: Abraham dies believing a promise that he never got to see.
- 26:05Speaker 1: And God says, when he looks at the children of
- 26:08Speaker 1: Israel and how they were being crushed in Egypt, the
- 26:13Speaker 1: Bible says that God remembered his promise to Abraham. God
- 26:20Speaker 1: should excite me because Abraham was dead. And if God
- 26:25Speaker 1: kept his word to a dead man, this, surely God
- 26:30Speaker 1: will keep his word to a man that's alive, to
- 26:34Speaker 1: a woman that's alive, Abraham went to sleep, trusting God's
- 26:39Speaker 1: character to honor his word. Now we have gone four
- 26:43Speaker 1: hundred and thirty years, which is ten generations, almost eleven,
- 26:50Speaker 1: and Abraham has been dead, and God speaks to Moses.
- 26:55Speaker 1: And God says to Moses, I want you to go
- 26:59Speaker 1: down there and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.
- 27:03Speaker 1: But before he tells him what he wants him to do,
- 27:05Speaker 1: he describes to him who he is. I am the
- 27:08Speaker 1: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's who I am.
- 27:14Speaker 1: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I
- 27:19Speaker 1: am the god of three of your ancestors that are dead.
- 27:27Speaker 1: I am their God. And today I have become your God.
- 27:35Speaker 1: So take off your shoes sign of covenant. Take off
- 27:38Speaker 1: your shoes, for the ground you stand on is holy ground,
- 27:41Speaker 1: because this day I call you into covenant. How do
- 27:44Speaker 1: you know it was covenant? Because he calls his name twice, Moses, Moses.
- 27:48Speaker 1: And whenever God calls your name twice, it's covenant that
- 27:52Speaker 1: will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Once has he spoken it? Twice have I heard it?
- 27:58Speaker 1: Power belongs to God. So whether they're saying Moses, Moses
- 28:01Speaker 1: or Abraham, Abraham, or Verily, verily, I say to you
- 28:05Speaker 1: this day, shalt thou be with me in Paradise. This
- 28:09Speaker 1: is a bilateral covenant that God has made to Moses
- 28:15Speaker 1: to get them out of Egypt. God to the day
- 28:20Speaker 1: had a stop watch of when they would go in
- 28:25Speaker 1: and when they would get out. He knows exactly when
- 28:29Speaker 1: it's going to be over. He told Abraham that his
- 28:33Speaker 1: descendants would be their four hundred years as slaves. The
- 28:37Speaker 1: reason they were there four hundred and thirty years is
- 28:39Speaker 1: because the first thirty years they were not slaves because
- 28:43Speaker 1: Joseph was alive. But then after Joseph died, a pharaoh
- 28:47Speaker 1: a rose who did not regard Joseph or his God,
- 28:51Speaker 1: and they begin to afflict them, and the more they
- 28:53Speaker 1: afflicted them, the more they grew. And all of a
- 28:57Speaker 1: sudden they have been in captivity four hundred years. And
- 29:03Speaker 1: Moses's mama gets pregnant on the three hundred and ninety
- 29:07Speaker 1: ninth year and bursts a boy named Moses, and there's
- 29:13Speaker 1: a hit list to destroy him, but God protected him,
- 29:18Speaker 1: not because Moses was Moses, but because Moses had purpose.
- 29:23Speaker 1: And all things work together for the good of them
- 29:25Speaker 1: who love the Lord, who are the called according to
- 29:27Speaker 1: his So when you know you got a purpose, no
- 29:31Speaker 1: matter who set out a decree, they can't kill you.
- 29:34Speaker 1: So when he could no longer be hidden, they brought
- 29:36Speaker 1: him out and near Pharaoh is raising in his house
- 29:41Speaker 1: the very one he is trying to kill, and he
- 29:46Speaker 1: does it. He raises Moses on Pharaoh's money. He educates
- 29:55Speaker 1: Moses in Pharaoh's school. He diversified Moses to the point
- 30:01Speaker 1: that Moses is genetically connected to the Hebrews, but experientially
- 30:05Speaker 1: connected to the Egyptians, which gave him the courage to
- 30:09Speaker 1: be able to come back after he had been in
- 30:11Speaker 1: Jethro's house for forty years, and face Pharaoh and speak
- 30:15Speaker 1: his language. And he was not afraid of him because
- 30:21Speaker 1: he was raised in the palace and not in the
- 30:24Speaker 1: slave quarters. When you are chosen, God will take everything
- 30:30Speaker 1: that you went through and make it work for your good.
- 30:35Speaker 1: We got to see normal disappear right in front of
- 30:42Speaker 1: our face. It is not normal to preach in an
- 30:46Speaker 1: empty church. It is not normal to be afraid of
- 30:50Speaker 1: somebody when they call. It is not normal to be
- 30:54Speaker 1: reluctant to shake a hand. And we have seen the
- 31:00Speaker 1: memorial of normal, which leaves us without a compass to
- 31:07Speaker 1: understand how do we get back and what do we
- 31:11Speaker 1: get back to and what does normal look like in
- 31:14Speaker 1: this current environment. And I hate to say this to you,
- 31:19Speaker 1: and it might really upset you, but once the grape's
- 31:22Speaker 1: been crushed, you can never get the juice back in
- 31:24Speaker 1: the grape. So from that moment forward, that traumatic experience
- 31:33Speaker 1: of having the pulp shatter, the skin lacerate, and the
- 31:38Speaker 1: juicy merge, it signifies that that great will never be
- 31:43Speaker 1: the same again. And I suggest to you, my brothers
- 31:47Speaker 1: and sisters, that there will be no normal to go
- 31:50Speaker 1: back to. There may be a new normal, but the
- 31:56Speaker 1: normal that we grew up with will never be quite
- 31:59Speaker 1: the same again. It has changed the way we eat,
- 32:02Speaker 1: It has changed the way we shop. It has changed
- 32:05Speaker 1: the way we travel. It has changed how we receive packages.
- 32:09Speaker 1: It has changed the way we do business. It has
- 32:12Speaker 1: changed every aspect of our life. It has changed the
- 32:15Speaker 1: way we educate our children. It has changed the way
- 32:18Speaker 1: we go to the mall or don't go. It has
- 32:20Speaker 1: changed the way we get Christmas gifts or don't get them.
- 32:23Speaker 1: It has changed everything. And that's what happens when you're
- 32:31Speaker 1: making wine. It changes everything. All hopes of being a
- 32:39Speaker 1: grape is gone. If you're gonna be wine, If you're
- 32:44Speaker 1: gonna be wine, you gotta be willing to give up
- 32:46Speaker 1: being a grape. And the challenge for a lot of
- 32:51Speaker 1: it is we have a difficult time accepting changed because
- 32:55Speaker 1: we are so in love with what was that we're
- 32:58Speaker 1: not willing to explore what it is. And so there
- 33:01Speaker 1: we are in a situation where God has allowed something
- 33:04Speaker 1: to come and crush our normal and get us out
- 33:07Speaker 1: of our normal, and all of a sudden we are afraid,
- 33:10Speaker 1: never realizing that what's in front of you is always
- 33:13Speaker 1: better than what's behind you, that it's better to be
- 33:16Speaker 1: wine than to be grapes. When you are wine and
- 33:21Speaker 1: not grapes, you don't have to worry about insects. You
- 33:25Speaker 1: don't have to worry about weather conditions. You don't have
- 33:28Speaker 1: to worry about locusts. You don't have to worry about disease,
- 33:32Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about fungus, you don't have
- 33:34Speaker 1: to worry about problems. That whenever God disrupts you, it's
- 33:38Speaker 1: only because He's got something better for you. In the
- 33:42Speaker 1: height of the disruption, he said something to me that
- 33:45Speaker 1: I thought was very important. He said, when you pray
- 33:48Speaker 1: for change, I always answer with disruption, because you cannot
- 33:55Speaker 1: have change without disruption. You can't have a baby without disruption.
- 34:02Speaker 1: And whenever you ask for change, you've got to be
- 34:05Speaker 1: prepared for disruption. If you plant an oak tree in
- 34:09Speaker 1: the earth, it's going to disrupt the soil. If you
- 34:12Speaker 1: plant a peach tree in the soil, it's going to
- 34:14Speaker 1: disrupt the ground. There's no way you can have growth
- 34:17Speaker 1: without disruption. But God said to me, when you say change,
- 34:22Speaker 1: I send disruption. But don't let the disruption become a distraction,
- 34:31Speaker 1: because if you're not careful, you will try to solve
- 34:33Speaker 1: the disruption as if that were the victory, when that
- 34:37Speaker 1: is not the victory at all. I did not call
- 34:40Speaker 1: you to solve the disruption. I sent the disruption in
- 34:45Speaker 1: answer to your requests for change.
- 34:47Speaker 2: Come on, go with me. We're going somewhere.
- 34:50Speaker 1: I sent the disruption, So don't change goals and make
- 34:55Speaker 1: it a distraction. In other words, neh Mayah, you're doing
- 34:59Speaker 1: a great work. Don't come down to Sambalad and Tobiah
- 35:04Speaker 1: and make changing their mind your victory, because changing their
- 35:08Speaker 1: mind won't build your wall, so that disruption is a distraction.
- 35:14Speaker 1: So the Lord says to me, and I'll say this
- 35:16Speaker 1: in rap. He says, when you pray for change, I
- 35:20Speaker 1: answer with disruption. The challenge of your faith is not
- 35:24Speaker 1: to allow the disruption to become a distraction, because in
- 35:30Speaker 1: every disruption there will always be an opportunity. So rather
- 35:37Speaker 1: than wrestling with the disruption, look for their opportunity. And
- 35:43Speaker 1: in the midst of this disruption, the people who are
- 35:46Speaker 1: going forward are people who see opportunity where we see distraction.
- 35:52Speaker 1: What do we need that we didn't need before. How
- 35:55Speaker 1: do we serve that need in a way that we
- 35:56Speaker 1: didn't serve before. How do we get out of the
- 35:59Speaker 1: box in the way we think and how we function
- 36:01Speaker 1: and how we deal with it? What should we take
- 36:03Speaker 1: in school? How should we aim our children? What should
- 36:06Speaker 1: we point them at? Seeing as the world has changed,
- 36:09Speaker 1: and every time you go into a grocery store and
- 36:11Speaker 1: you check out your grocery storeself through those machines, and
- 36:14Speaker 1: you go and get a plane ticket, and you go
- 36:16Speaker 1: through it and just flash your phone over it and
- 36:19Speaker 1: going in every machine standing there is a job that's gone.
- 36:26Speaker 1: So don't fail to prepare for what's next, because you're
- 36:33Speaker 1: trying to get what was. When the grape comes through
- 36:39Speaker 1: the crushing, it knows it will never be a grape again,
- 36:44Speaker 1: but it will be wine. It will gig cabinet, it
- 36:57Speaker 1: will be.
- 37:00Speaker 2: Wine.
- 37:03Speaker 1: And the challenge of our lives is to turn our crushing.
- 37:09Speaker 2: Into wine.
- 37:11Speaker 1: And you can't turn it into wine. If the goal
- 37:15Speaker 1: of your life becomes to build back your grape, let
- 37:22Speaker 1: the grape go
- 37:24Speaker 2: And find the wine.