Bishop TD Jakes - Intentionality - Potter's Touch

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
We are going to the Book of Philippians. We're going
to stand for the reading of the word or remain
standing for the reading of the Word of God. I
got here to the Polish house this morning, early this

(00:32):
morning because.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I intended to.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I wore. What I wore is laid out last night.
I didn't wake up this morning trying to figure out
what I was going to put on. I like all
of that stuff out of the way, so I don't
get up in a haphazard way. I have a strategy,

(01:01):
I have a plan. I know where I want to go,
and so I was intentional. Yeah, I didn't go joy
riding in the car this morning to see where I
might end up at the beautiful sights to see it.
When I got in the car this morning, I ended
up at the party's house because I was intentional. And

(01:26):
yet many times, in the most important areas of our lives,
we live it without intention, turning it completely over the
guard to work it out, as if we had no
responsibility to be co laborers with him. Well, if the

(01:48):
Lord means for it to happen, if it be the
Lord's will, I'll see you next Friday. If the Lord
wanted me to have it, he would give it to me.
He must now take out ready for it. Yet we
don't understand intentionality. And yet we have a God who

(02:09):
is quite intentional. He's intentional. You are here because he intended.
You understand he's intentional. And so I guess you know.
Now I'm gonna be talking about intentionality, and I'm gonna

(02:32):
talk about it from Philippians chapter three, verse seven through sixteen.
I'm gonna be reading it out of the NIV. So
you follow a law in whatever translation you got, or
we're gonna sound like the Day of Pentecosts. But whatever
wor gains to me. And now consider loss for the

(03:00):
sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything alongst everything,
everything and everything aloss because of the surpassing worth of
knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord. He's so valuable that he
made everything else look cheap. For whose sake I have

(03:21):
lost all fiends. I consider them garbage that I macame Christ.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Hadn't be found in him.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Not having the righteousness of mind, oh, that comes from
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ Jesus,
the righteousness, the righteousness that comes from God on the
basis of faith, good God of mercy. Did you hear

(03:55):
that the righteousness that comes from God on the basis
of faith.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I want to all christ yes, to know the power.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Of His resurrection and participation in his suffering, becoming locked
him in death in the way Wait Waitedn't that something
to wart? I want to know the power of his
resurrection and the participation and the participation in his sufferings.

(04:28):
There are some things you can only.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Learn about God.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Through suffering. So all of you, why meet people? If
you're going to escape, you better go right now, because
I'm getting ready to mess with your theology that it's
not supposed to happen to me. I'm a Christian, I'm
better than There's no none, no, there are certain classes
that you can only take in the classroom of suffering.

(04:58):
You'll never be seen if you've never suffered, becoming like
him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the
resurrection from the dead, not that I have already obtained.
I'm talking one place, but I'm living somewhere else. I

(05:25):
don't I don't want to jive you. I don't want
to blow your mind. I don't want to play games
with you. I have not already obtained all of this,
or have already arrived.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
I haven't.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
I haven't arrived. I haven't arrived. I haven't arrived. But
I do have a goal. I may not be there yet,
but I have a goal. I'm not just fighting as
one beach air. I got a goal. Don't let the
fact that I haven't obtained or have it already arrived
make you think that I don't have a goal, that

(05:59):
I have not specific intentional goal. And because I have
a ball, I pass, I press on to take hold.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
I wannam.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
I'm trying to grip that for which Christ Jesus took
hold of me. I'm trying to grip it. I'm trying
to grip it. It's gripped me. I'm trying to grip it. Oh,
brothers and sisters. I do not consider myself yet to

(06:34):
have taken hold of it. And I haven't fully gotten
a grip on what's gotten the grip on me. But
one thing I do forgetting what is behind, and forgetting
what is behind.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
And straining toward what is ahead, Oh God, straining toward
what is the head.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
I'm not wait, wait, I'm not just I'm not just.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Chilling.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
I'm straining I'm not even just reaching. I'm straining toward
that which is ahead. I press on toward the goal
to win the prize for which God has called me
Heaven World in Christ, Jesus, all of us did who

(07:33):
are mature, should take such a view of things. All
mature people should be intentional. Children wake up in the morning,
don't have a strategy. But all mature people should take

(07:53):
such a view of things. And if on some point
you think differently, that too, God will make clear to
you that's good word in it only let us live
up to what we have already attained. Don't be so
busy snatching after what's next that you don't acknowledge what

(08:17):
you got right now. There's certain things that I have
already attained. Now there's other things that I'm straining toward.
But y'all don't hear what I'm saying. But there are
some things I got up under my belt right now. Say, man,
somebody remain standing, I'm going to pray with you about

(08:37):
being intentional. I'm gonna pray with you about being intentional. Really,
I'm gonna pray with you about being like Jesus, because

(09:00):
he is intentional. The Cross was intentional the grave was intentional,
The resurrection was intentional. Living your life right on schedule
has got to be the best feeling.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
In the world.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I am right where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly
what I'm supposed to be doing.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
That's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Father God, in the name of Jesus, we humbly crawl
toward your throne on bended knees and bound down the heads,
hoping that your blood would fall on us and saturate
us and cleanse us, and that you would prepare us
to enter beyond the outer courts and the outer parameters
of childish thinking, but that you would take us into

(09:52):
the intimate place of your tent so that we can
suck with you. We're going to sit at the table
with you and break bread with you over the next
few minutes, and if we are lucky, somewhere behind the veil,
we will be enraptured in your presence, because it is
you alone that we seek, and everything else seems worthless
besides you. Your presence cheapens my highest pursuit, for if

(10:19):
I attain it without you, I have got the cheapest
part of your essence. Nothing compares it all looks like
garbage in contrast to having you. I thank you for
what you're going to do. Have your way in this

(10:40):
place in Jesus' name. Shout, y man, you may be
seated in the presence of God. Yeah. Our God is intentional.
He is not accidental. He is not happy, stands. He

(11:00):
doesn't make mistakes, he doesn't react. He acts his sovereign.
He sits on the circle of the earth, the place
of change, position of power. Heaven is his throne and
earth is his footstool. He's the boss of every dominion.
He's the CEO of the universe. He's the president of glory.

(11:25):
He is the auspicious one, the all sufficient one, the
God that is more than enough. He is the kind
of God that does not need us to tell him
that he's God to be God. He doesn't need us
to volunteer a campaign for him. He was God before
we were there to say he was God. He doesn't

(11:46):
suffer from low self esteem and need us to come
along and tell him who he is. He knew who
he was before we knew who we were. He is
God all by himself. He has never been where God
has never been worried. God has never been shocked. He

(12:09):
determines the end from the beginning and then works all
things after the counsel of his own will. God has
determined where you're going to end up before you were
ever born, he says to one prophet, before I formed
THEE in the belly, I knew THEE. I ordain THEE,
and I sanctified THEE to be a prophet up to

(12:31):
the nation. I didn't wait until you got here and
then look at you and see what kind of gives
you God, and try to figure out.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
A position for you.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
I birth you with intentionality for you to fit a
particular spot. Nobody can fit your spot like you do.
I design you for that spot. I gave you everything
you need to function in that spot. How dare you
think you're not enough? When you think you're not enough,

(12:59):
you're saying I didn't plan well enough. You are enough
for your assignment. And if you're not enough for what
you're doing, you got the wrong assignment because everything I
intended you to do I equipped you to do. So
you can admire other people's gifts, but never be jealous

(13:21):
of them, because if you needed what they had, I
would give you what they had. I gave you everything
you need to do what you've got to do. You
must understand, then, that God is intentional, and we are
created in the likeness of an intentional God. Thereby, our
greatest defense is not our legs like the hyaenus running,

(13:45):
or the wings of an eagle that spread out, or
the eyes of an egle that are given to it
as a defense, or the roar of a lion. No,
our greatest defense is our mind. Our brain eggs are
not fast, our arms do not fly. We can't lift
up out of the ground without building something to fly in.

(14:08):
The thing that gives us our defense is how we think,
and if there were anything up under attack, it is
how we think. That's where the battleground is is in
your mind. That's where the enemy wants to confuse you
with different voices and different ideas is in your head,

(14:30):
because he knows your greatest weapon is your mind, sisters,
not your mouth. I know there are a lot of
books out there that says your tongue is your weapon,
your mind is your weapon. Your mind is your weapon.

(14:51):
So winning the argument doesn't move the agenda forward, because
it is possible to win the argument and lose the war.
So when you are insecure, you don't retaliate by talking,
but by thinking. For the man thinking in his heart,

(15:13):
so is he. So I'm gonna think my way out.
I'm gonna think my way out. I'm gonna think my
way out because I'm starting to understand that God is intentional.
When we look at our text today, we're not just
listening at the writings and the murmurings of some itinerant

(15:35):
preacher or some evangelists who has come into town to
speak to the Philippian Church. We are looking at the
one that God use to push out of his wound,
the Philippian Church. He has birthed it himself. He has
an attachment to it. There's something about your children that

(16:01):
will get your attention quicker than anything else, good or bad.
They determine your mood sometimes, because when you have birthed something,
you can't help caring about it. You can say I
don't care, it doesn't make me any difference. You do whatever.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
You want to.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Do, but you're still gonna be looking out of that
window seeing the home yet.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Did the get in the house yet? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Because because when you burst something, you have a special
level of passion about it, Especially how God used Paul
as a conduit to birth the church at Philippi. It
was not that God brought him into the city just
to do great preaching, because preaching was.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Not the platform that.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Shook the city. He did some of that, but that's
not what shook the city. He just preached an to
get on enough powerful people's nerves to get him arrested.
So it was not his preaching that converted the city.

(17:13):
It was him being arrested. God created prison as a
platform for purpose, right he willed him into jail intentionally.
God could have stopped the arrest. Sometimes God doesn't stop

(17:36):
trouble because trouble is the platform whereby he shows himself strong.
God said, I'm gonna use you getting beaten and locked
up in a way that I could not use your preaching,
or your writing or your intellectualism.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
I need a platform.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Big enough that the wealthy people are talking about you
because they had you arrest. The elected officials are talking
about you because they executed the arrests, and the carnal
criminals are talking about you because I'm gonna put you
in jail right with them. And I put you in
jail to show off. I put you in jail and

(18:21):
I watch I let you get arrested. I let you
get beaten in front of everybody. I let you come
down there absolutely nothing. I let them drag your bloody
striped body into a jail cell so that everybody could
be sure that you were locked away in an inner sanctum,
in an impossible situation, in a place for which you

(18:41):
could not escape, which chains around your feet and change
around your hands, because you prayed and asked me to
use you, So I'm going to use you.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
I'm gonna use you.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
There's a lady in the hospital I want you to me,
and so I'm gonna bring you in, which just pays
in an ambulance, just so that you can be across
the hallway. Y'all can't, y'all, you can't. Y'all can't understand
how God sets things up.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
The big word I want to use.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
The first big word I want to use is exposure.
God put Paul in prison to expose Philippi to the gospel.
In other words, God creates problems so that he can
get the glory out of solving them. In other words,

(19:48):
God lets Lazarus die just so he can raise him
from the dead. In other words, God lets the blind
man be born blind so that at the right time
he can heal his blindness and get the glory. His
mother didn't sin it, his father didn't sin it. I
will him to be blind because when the time is ripe,

(20:10):
the way I bring him out is going to give
me glory. So just sit still and wait on me.
I'm using the trouble to expose Philippi to my ministry. Now,
you can only embrace this if you can get past
your narcissism, and narcissism today is a hard walder knock down.

(20:39):
You can only embrace this when you begin to understand
that everything you go through is not about you. You
can only embrace this when you begin to understand that
God is not a stewardess to make sure that you
are comfortable and that your peanuts are will. He is

(21:03):
not as interested in your comfort. He's interested in maneuvering
you into a position of intentionality so that he can
work out his will in your life. And he will
use both your blessings and your sorrow to prove himself
strong in your life so that he can get the
glory out of your life. He will will you to

(21:26):
come down to a red sea. You can't get around,
block you in on every side, blow back the red sea,
just so your fhaivor Roh can see that your God
is bigger than your favor, and he will let your
favor le drown in the afterthoughts of your God. None,

(21:52):
your neighbor says, is set up. God uses paulse and
solace time in jail.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
As a stage.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
And at midnight Paulus I was praried and saying praises
under God. And suddenly there was an earthquake and a
great shaking, and the doors of the prison were opened,
and all the bound were loosed, and yet nobody left.
If God blew up the prison, broke loose to change,

(22:32):
opened up the doors, and everybody in the prison is like, yo, chilled,
we are still here. Why are you still here? If
God blew up the prison for you to escape, so

(22:53):
escape must not be success, because if escape was success,
if estate was success, we'd be gone. I want to
talk to all of you people heard Lord, get me
out of this, Just get me out. I don't care
what you do, I don't care how you do it.

(23:13):
Have you ever considered that sometimes God puts you in
it for something bigger than your comfort and if you
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, that
God is going to get some glory out of this.
I don't know who I'm talking to, but God is
going to get some glory out of this. I like

(23:40):
exposure in my own life. I've learned that exposure is transformative.
That we think the way that we think about things
because of what we have or have not been exposed to.
I certainly have to remember that when I get on Twitter. Yeah,
because as you deal with people who say unoxious things,

(24:03):
you have to consider that what they say is a
result of what they think, and what they think is
a result of what they've been exposed to, and everything
they say you don't have to answer.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Time will answer for you.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
If they keep on living and get some opportunities to
be exposed to something other than the people that they
are around, they'll go to the next level. Because your
ideology is affected by those with who you associate with.
And whenever God gets ready to change your life, the
first thing he says to you, Abram, get away from

(24:41):
your own country and everything that's kin to what it
used to be, because I'm getting ready to do something
that you can't relate to and your relatives are holding
you back. I want to break the system something that
stops you from being able to go to the next

(25:03):
level by exposing you to something else. And you got
to be willing to let go of them to go
to the next level. Because you think like them, and
you dress like them, and you act like them, and
you vote like them, and you walk like them, and

(25:25):
you talk like them, but you are not them. Exposure
is transformative. You don't have to own it, just be
exposed to it. Once you're exposed to something, it changes everything.
It changes some possibilities, it changes the potential, just exposure.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's how the.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Children of the Hebrew Children took over the Promised Land
after years of wandering around in the wilderness. God exposed
them to the Promised Land. Before he gave them the
Promised Land, he exposed them to it. He said, spies
over there to get a taste of it, and then said,
what I'm allowing you to taste today, I'm gonna give

(26:10):
you tomorrow. I don't know who this is for, but
God is exposing you to something. And you feel kind
of funny and out of place right now. But what
he's exposing you to, he's about to release in your life.
God exposed the Philippians to the Gospel of Jesus Christ

(26:34):
by blowing up the prison, opening up all the doors,
breaking all the chains, and finding Paul in there talking
about I'm cool if because I understand this prison is
not about me. Do you understand that your prison is
not about you? Do you understand that your prison could

(26:57):
be your platform that creates a platform through which you
can have influence with people that you couldn't have influence
with if you had not gone through similar experiences with them.
That God often transforms us only after He has exposed
us exposure.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
It's a powerful thing.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
In sociological situations. We have come to understand that if
you put a whole bunch of poor people together, the neighborhood,
no matter how you fix it up, will always go down.
Society teaches us that mixed income housing stabilizes people because
mixed income housing puts poor people and uneducated people in

(27:46):
an environment that you live across the street from somebody
who went to school, and they make it look sexy,
and they make it look good, and they make it
look possible, and they make it look attainable. If you
don't see it, you can't be, but if you can
see it, you can become. In exposure is oh, y'all,
don't hear me. It's the impetus to everything. It's not

(28:09):
enough to talk to me about education if you don't
expose me to educated people offering me an education. I
don't have an appetite for will make me drop out
of school. But when the people across the street went
to school, and when the people over there did this,
and the people over there did that, it becomes possible

(28:34):
because I'm exposed to it, and the whole city was transformed.
Just because God use to prison to expose the gospel.
I fear not do myself no harm. The jailer comes in,
he's ready to kill himself. Pose it's chill, don't kill yourself.
We're all here. We have not escaped. I'm not leaving

(28:57):
this place until I get what God tell death. I'm
not leaving this place until I get what God intended

(29:17):
tell them people who hate you on your job. I
am not leaving this place until I get what God
intended tell those people who are trying to get you
to drop out of school. I'm not leaving this place
until I get what God intended I am not leaving
this city until I accomplish what God sent me here
to do. I am not gonna quit preaching this sermon

(29:41):
until I accomplish what God sent me here to do.
I'm gonna stand right here, get right up in your face,
and tell you what he said until I get accomplished
what He's trying to do. Because I'm living in his intention,
I'm breathing in his intention, I'm moving in I'm protected

(30:01):
in his intentions. He will sustain me. As long as
I focus on what he intended. He will make everything
work out for the good of them that love the Lord,
who are the called according to His purpose, which his intentions.

(30:25):
So the safest place in the whole wide world for
me to be is in his intentions. He is a
searcher and a discerner of the thoughts and the intents
of our hearts. Why would God search our intentions while
people talk about our actions? Bolly't they didn't get that?

(30:45):
You got there, I saw that when they hit your head.
They talk about my actions, But God's words searches my
intentions because my intentions are more powerful than my actions.
There is a gulf between my intention and my actions.

(31:07):
While man looks at that I would appearance. God looks
at the heart, because the heart holds what I intended
to be. While people talk about what I did, God
judges me by what I meant. I meant to be

(31:28):
a good father. I meant to be a good mother.
I meant to be a good husband. I meant to
be a good member. I meant to keep my word.
I meant to be on time. I meant to stand
up to this test. I meant to do it. I
might stumble, I might fall short, I may not have
attained it, but I'm snatching after it. I'm straining after it.

(31:50):
I'm reaching out to it. I'm falling down and getting
back up again because I am. I am going through
what I'm going through intentionally. So I might as well
calm down, and I might as well stop being restless,

(32:11):
and I might as well stop murmuring and complaining, and
I might as well stop kicking and squirming begging to
get out of someplace that God went through all kinds
of trouble to get me in. A lot of times,

(32:34):
you like people till you meet them. The idea of
them is better than the reality of them, and you
might admire them because of what you saw them do,
or what you heard about them, or what you read
about them, and then when you meet them, you find
out they're not nearly as nice as what you thought.
Because exposure dispels myths, you unders say what I'm talking about.

(33:03):
Exposure is important. All my parents in here make some noise.
It's nice when you can give your kids the best
of everything. It's nice when you can send them to
the best schools. It's nice if you can buy them
the best clothes. But if you can just expose them,
if they can visit it, if they can taste it,
if they can walk in the room, if you can

(33:23):
go to the restaurant and just have dessert. Exposing people
to the next level lets them know that it's possible
to go to the next level. God use Paul's situation
to expose Philippi to a whole new radical idea about
Jesus Christ and the first chot started in a prison.

(33:51):
Good God of mercy exposure. All of them got saved
through what Paul suffers. It is to that Philippi that
he writes, I'm gonna share another big word with you.
When you begin to understand the power of being exposed.

(34:13):
The next thing that I want you to get out
of this text is the word experience, because exposure brought
about an experience. Because Paul was in the prison, they
had an experience with God. Can you imagine what it
would be like to be in the prison, been in
the prison for months or years. Everything's normal, Every day

(34:38):
looks like the day before. When you in jail, you
don't know whether this windstill Monday, because the routine is
still the same. Every day. Everything is just normal, no
big shocks, no big waves, no big noise, and all
of a sudden there is an earthquake and angels are
shaken on the rooftop and all the doors are open up.

(34:58):
And they had an under deniable experience with God. That's
what we don't have today. We have an experience with church,
but we don't have an experience with God. If you
have an experience with God, you wouldn't be Christian today
and Muslim tomorrow and serving God today. Now you're over

(35:20):
here with this group over here. You moved this way
and you moved that way. Whoever talks to you, that's
what you think this week. But once you've had a
real experience with God, you don't need to speak Greek
or Hebrew to know that he opened up the doors
for me. He broke my chain, he delivered me, He

(35:40):
set me free. He healed my body, he brought me
through a storm, He delivered my soul.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
He blessed me what I wasn't worthy.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
I know that. I know that. I know.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
They asked su blind man.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
They said, this man that healed you, why did he
hear you.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
What he's had.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I don't know nothing about that. I don't know nothing
about who he is. I don't know nothing about where
they sit or don.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
On the saddle. Oh I know is that I once
what's blind? That's all I know.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
I'm wondering if there's anybody in this room that's had
an experience with God. I said, I'm wondering if there's
anybody in this room that's had an undeniable experience with God.

(36:45):
And experience is something that no one can take away
from you. I don't care how you laugh, I don't
care how you talk. You cannot take away what I
know that.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
I know that he did in my life.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh he did that.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
I know he did that. I know he did that.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
That's three people saying I had an experience with God.
I had an experience with God. I had an experience
with God. I'm here to be a witness. I had
an experience with God. I had an experience with God.
Clap your hands and give God a praise right now,

(37:43):
I said, somebody that had an experience with God, clap
your hands and give him a praise right now. I
had an experience with God. I'm not ashamed to tell
you I had an experience with God. It might not

(38:04):
have even been in church, but I had had experience
with God. Inviight have been in my bedroom, but I
had an experience with God. It might have been in
the hospital, but I had had experience with God. I mean,
I know God did this for me. I couldn't do

(38:25):
this for myself. Mama didn't do it, died, It didn't
do it. God had to do this.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
If you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Mixingnoid, Oh my God, Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
I had an experience with God. He woke me up
in the middle of the night. I had an experience
with God. He brought me through something that I know
I couldn't have got through on my own. I didn't
have the strength, I didn't have the resources I didn't
have the contacts, and then all of a sudden God
just opened up away and made away out of no way.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
I had an experience with God.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
I was on the verge of losing my mind that
I had an experience with God. I almost killed myself,
but I had an experience with God. Some of your
had it in the prison, some of you had it
in the court, some of you had it in the
board room, some of your had it in the hospital.
But you had an ex See, we don't do church

(39:48):
like we used to do church. We used to wait
around the halls until we had an experience with God.
Now we're so busy being killed that we never really
could die to have an experience with God because it
might mess up my tie and it might mess up
my set. But every now and then, y'all to rip
off everything and just ain't no where in the world

(40:20):
I'm supposed to be standing here. It didn't look like
my trajectory, didn't look like I would end up right here.
It didn't look like I would end up right here.
Born on the side of a mountain in the hills
of West Virginia, eating government cheese and eggs that came
out of can with black writing on them. Y'all don't
know what I'm talking about. Dry powdered milk than in milk,

(40:42):
didn't put it in the refrigerat. Ain't no way I'm
supposed to be raised off of government cheese and standing
where I'm standing right now. My mama wasn't framingus, My
daddy wasn't framing. My uncles and aunts weren't framing. My
grandparents were sharecroppers. Ain't no way in the world I'm
supposed to be standing where in right now.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
But when you have an experience with God, God has a.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Way of taking your places you've never been in, showing
your sight. I want to talk to some people that

(41:26):
where you are right now does not fit your background.
Make some noise. Where I am right now doesn't fit
my background, It doesn't fit my situation. I should have
been locked up, I should have threw in the power.
I should have had a nervous breakdown. But I had
an experience with God. That experience with God was so

(41:58):
radical that they started a church in a shell. Sell
You don't have to have stained glass windows, you don't
need padded pews, you don't need expensive equipment.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
All you need is a real experience.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
With God in a turn your living room into a
prayer room, in a turn your dishwasher into an altar.
When you've had an experience with God, sit with me.

(42:33):
Give me a minute. I'm almost finished. I got one
more big word. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
The experience with God is what calls me.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
To the next level.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
I called you, calls you.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
I snatched you out for a reason. You're here for
a purpose. I got a plan for your life. I'm
sorry I disappointed you. I'm sorry your dream didn't come true,
but I sacrificed your dream because I had a better
dream for you then once you had for yourself. And
if you trust me, you're gonna end up better. Then

(43:23):
you win in the fast face.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Because I'm God and I can outthink you.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
So I'm gonna let you cry today so you can
dance tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
But don't worry about it. Women maying job for night.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
I want to talk to some people who had your
plans wrecked and you don't understand where you are. God
has a better plant.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
A call you.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Called you up, no.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Matter who trying to put their foot on you. I
called you up, no matter who said your word qualified
I call you up. No matter who laughed at your dream,
I called you up. I called you, I called you,
I called you. It was yours before you got there.
It was yours before you moved in. I saved it

(44:55):
for you, My God, I feel like preaching this morning.
I want to talk to some people who think you
lost some stuff. You've been fishing all night and ain't
caught nothing, and God wanted you to have an experience
with him. But nothing that you need is gonna be lost.

(45:16):
The fish is steel on the other side of the boat.
If you wait on him, he's gonna give you a
fat double for your trouble. Shout, yeah, so let me

(45:43):
show you this. Let me show you this. I gotta
get to the point. Yeah. I'm trying to harry, but
y'all keep shouting. I'm trying to harry, but y'all keep dancing.
I'm trying to harry, but change keep falling off. I'm
trying to harry, but dogs keep won't being up. I'm
trying to hurry about the bound not getting loose. I'm

(46:06):
trying to have up the second I'm being here.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
That don't give me that, because I've got how to
have that.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
You see man. He none, no, None of what I
said is my point. My point is number three is evolution,
the process that comes out to the experience of becoming

(46:42):
what he called me to.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
See.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
He won't call you something on credit. He won't call
you the head why you feel like the tale. He
will call you above whow all kind of stuff is
over top of you. He will call you a conqueror

(47:07):
at the weakest moment in your life.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
The call.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Is the conflict.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
The call is the conflict.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Because it is the call that makes you grupple with becoming.
What do he call you in thirty minutes? I can
perform a wedding, they can put a ring on your finger.
I can pronounce you husband and wife in thirty minutes,

(47:48):
but it'll take you thirty years to be one. Uh.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
I don't want to hear that. You all don't want
to hear that.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
You don't you're not a wife because you wore a
white dress and you got your hair done. What are
y'all saying you snatched? I don't care how snatch you are.
You're a wife when you run out of money and
you still make a home. You're a wife when you're
back in the corner and you're shoved to the wall
and you work through problemse You're a wife when you

(48:23):
feel like leaving, but you don't leave. You a wife
when you put the priorities of others above yourself. You're
a husband when you don't wake up in the morning.
I'm not going to work. You do what you gotta do.
It takes you a while to become what they call you.
Just because you got a degree, don't make you a teacher.

(48:47):
Just because you got a desk in a classroom. Don't
make you a teacher. Just because you're sit in a
big office. Don't make you a boss. The conflict is
in becoming what they call you.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
I count locked myself. Don't get it twisted. I have
noted valiant.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
That's why I get away from all the church people
who try to tell me how much they are there.
Because if the guy who wrote the book, if the
guy who wrote the book says I won't tell y'all something,

(49:37):
I'm still working on this, then don't tell me. You
read the book and you leaped the head of the
one who wrote the book. Paul says, I count locked
myself to have I apprehended. I'm trying to match what

(50:02):
snatched me. One of them is over. Oh, that I
may apprehend that which I am apprehended of. That which
I am apprehended of is done. And I'm still trying
to grasp what's done. That's where I want to spend

(50:27):
my last few minutes with you. It's it's the struggle
is to grasp what he's done. The strain, faith is.
The strain is to is to stretch her so far
enough to close the gap between who he says you

(50:52):
are and how you see yourself. That's the struggle. That's
the wrestling match. He snatched me, and I'm still trying

(51:14):
to grasp what he's done. I'm still trying to grasp it.
In my spirit, I pressed toward the mark of the
prize of the high calling. I'm pressing toward it. But

(51:37):
there's still some distance he's gotten me in a way
that I haven't quite grasped him.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Help me. Lord.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Somebody was walking me through and we were looking at
pictures of Megafest, and they said, that must have been
an amazing moment for you, and I can just tell
me what it felt like. I said, it felt like hell.

(52:15):
Traffic was backed up everywhere, had to have police escorts
to get in the building. Over one hundred some thousand
people in the venue every night, fire marshal about to
shut us down. Three venues filled to capacity, ten thousand
children under twelve.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
It felt like hell, It felt nauseating.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Budget was ten million dollars after reach it in a weekend.
It felt like hell. Feels good now, But while I'm

(53:02):
stretching and straining and pulling and reaching and wondering can
I do it?

Speaker 2 (53:09):
And do I have what it takes? And can I
make it through this alive?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
It never feels good. People who feel good too soon
are arrogant. They are arrogant, they are foolish. In the
time of strain, nothing feels good. But I tell you
suffered a while God set out. Do you hear what

(53:36):
I'm saying to you? Do you hear what I'm saying
to you? Do you hear what I'm saying to you?
You ain't married the first year? You mad the first year.
Maybe I made a mistake. This joker is crazy, he's sloppy,

(54:02):
she's a messing Sher mouth gets on my nerves.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
You're not married the first year.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
You ain't seen me sick hit, You ain't seen me
broken it. You ain't seen me her chit. You haven't
seen me depressed. Shit, you haven't seen me buried my
loved one. Shit. Every time you go through something, you
strain a little closer toward.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Becoming what God called you to be.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
It takes time and sweat and blood and tears, and
finally you say you're my wife. You my wife for life.
You don't know that in thirty minutes. You don't know

(54:54):
you and mama to your child is in trouble. You
don't know what it means to be a mother until
somebody attacks your child and you don't care whether your
makeup is on or not, or whether your wi is

(55:14):
clock out on your head and you're driving down the
street with your wig on back. What said you must
be out of your mind. Where my mama's in the
house makes some noise? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah. I mean real mama's not people just had
a baby. I mean real mama's makes some nothing. Why,

(55:37):
oh my god, I need some real mama. You say this,
This evolution is what Paul is talking about.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
This stretching.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
This stretching process is painful, stretching process of grasping what
has grasped you of receiving what has received you. We did.
We did the consecration last Sunday and consecrated to new pastors.
And I asked and it was an amazing servant. It

(56:21):
was beautiful. And I didn't get to talk to doctor
Annifie as much as I did Pastor bench Harden. But
I come asking him. He said, I can't. I don't.
I can't put it in the words what happened. I
don't know what to say. I can't process it yet.

(56:42):
You can't process it yet. The service is over, but
I'm still trying to grasp what was that, what happened?
What just happened in my life. That's why God doesn't
talk to you every day. God would seven and ten
year intervals without speaking to Abram, because when God speaks

(57:04):
to you, it blows your mind and it teachs you
years to grasp what he said and walk into what
he called you to be. You don't do that in
thirty minutes. You don't do that and put it on Snapchat.
You don't do that and put it on Facebook. It
takes you years to understand and become. And Ah that

(57:25):
I may I apprehend that which I'm apprehended of God
brought Jacob up to the mountaintop and told him, I
know you've spent your whole life being called Jacob, which
means trickster or con artist or scam man. But God

(57:48):
said you are a prince and your real name is Israel.
And they've wrestled. They've wrestled because this is a wrestling
match to find out who you really are, to find
out what you can really do, to find out what

(58:09):
you can really reach. It's a wrestling match. It's not
a degree. It's not a salary. It's not a car.
It's not a brand name. Clothed, it's not stuffed. It's
not things. That's why Paul said, I count all the
things as garbage. It is not things you can wear, labels.
It don't make you anymore or any less than what

(58:29):
you were before you had them. All because God said
I'll make your name great. And it takes you a
while to understand who you are?

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Can you grasp it?

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I apologize to all the people in the room who
are interested or called to go anywhere. This message must
be boring you to tears, because the only people I
want to talk to who have this are the people
who have this nagging, knowing feeling that there's something else

(59:04):
inside of me other than where I'm at right now,
and it does not yet appear what I shall be.
I might not look like it right now. I might
not have it right now. I might not preach like
that now. I may not minister like that, I may
not drive like that, I may not have the office.
But there's something pulling at me. There's something that snatched me.

(59:28):
There's something that won't let me rest where I am.
Who am I preaching too? So your hands up and
say I want it.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
I want it.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
I want it so bad. I'm willing to strain. I'm
willing to stretch. I'm willing to crawl. I'm willing to
be uncomfortable. I'm willing to go through hell. I'm willing
to have delayed gratification. I'm willing to be lonely. I'm
willing to cry myself to sleep. I'm willing to wipe
my own tears out of my own eye. I wanted,

(01:00:05):
I wanted. I cannot die wondering what I could have been,
what I should have been, what I was meant to be,
what I should have done.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
The devil is a lie.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I've got a feeling that there's something that's pulling me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
I press towards.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
The mark of the prize of the high calling of God.
Can't the leaghbor's say, excuse me, get out of my head?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
I press, I press. I ain't got time to be
in your face. I pressed.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Thirty seconds of crazy prayer. M H, I had a child,

(01:01:13):
the people on my head. I had to call people
over mass, I press, I press, I crawl, I slide, low.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Crown, I strived.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
God told Jacob, you're a prince. Your real name is Israel.
You have prevailed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
With God.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
And all the rest of his life, the same man
is referred to by two different names. You hear me
sometime in the same paragraph, it'll call him Jacob one
minute and Israel the next. I'm talking about the schizophrenia

(01:02:28):
of becoming, of being stuck between where I am and
where I'm trying to go. And sometimes I like where
I am, and sometimes I act like where I'm trying
to go. So I'm Jacob one minute and I'm Israel
the next. Where the real people at Isn't it crazy

(01:02:56):
how you can have faith about something and be scared
to death of something else. Isn't it crazy how you
can be courageous in one area and be so nervous
that your lips are trembling in the next moment. I'm

(01:03:17):
after it. I'm after it. If he says I'm a prince,
I'm after it. All my life. I thought I was
a calm like my mama and them, like my uncle
and them, like my relatives, like my background, like my background,
like where I came from. This is, for Jacob a

(01:03:39):
behavior that runs through his family. He comes from a
lineage of tricksters. His mama was slick, her uncle Laban
was slick. They all slick. Jacob didn't get this slickness
by himself. He got it from his background. He got
it from his neighborhood. He got it from where it
came from. But he's trying to press toward the mark

(01:04:02):
or the prize of the high calling of becoming a prince.
How do princess think? How do princess dress? How do
princess act? How do princess respond? Because sometimes I'm responding
as Jacob when I need to be responding like Israel,

(01:04:25):
And sometimes I messed up and I gave somebody Jacob's
phone number. Have you ever given somebody Jacob's number, and
all of a sudden they know how to access your Jacob.
They know how to call up your Jacob. They know
how to ring up, they know how to text your Jacob.
Don't give anybody Jacob's phone number, because they will call

(01:04:49):
Jacob up. They will call Jacob out, They will bring out,
they will bring out what you're trying to get rid of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
I priss.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Until you start living your life with intention, you will
never make great decisions because great decisions are based on intentionality,
They're based on purpose. Great decisions are made when you
decide I am only going to make decisions that bring
out the Israel and not the Jacob. When the Bible

(01:05:35):
says forgetting those things which are behind, it is not
talking about Alzheimer's. It is talking about letting go of
anything that contradicts your destiny. I'll make this confession and

(01:05:56):
then I'll pray. I notice now I am the most
comfortable around people who have the same history. People who
have the same history, like the same foods, have the

(01:06:18):
same issues, use the same colloquialisms. They make me comfortable
because I have history with them. People who I share
destiny with, I visit them, but I have trouble grasping

(01:06:48):
that I'm really one of them because I have no
history with them. I only have destiny with them. Challenge
is to become more comfortable with shared destiny than I
am with shared history, because as long as you keep

(01:07:12):
connecting with people who have shared history, you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Will never go forward.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
The only way you can go forward is to hook
up with people who have the same destiny and be
willing to feel out of place in the room, and
be willing to be a little bit awkward, and be
willing to be out of your comfort zone and say, Lord,
I trust you that you wouldn't have brought me in
this room if I weren't enough to be in this room.
And I thank you for teaching me how to grasp

(01:07:42):
that which has grasped me. Oh God, there are some
people in this room, and I'm going to close with this.
God is doing some things in your life that you
are experiencing and you have been exposed to, and you

(01:08:03):
are trying to evolve into it, but you're having trouble
grasping it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
And you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
You can visit it, but you can't grasp it because
you have no point of reference. For what God is
trying to do in your life, and so you talk schizophrenic.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Jacob.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
One minute is real, the next minute is with one
minute Jacob, the next minute, I got this. I believe God.
Everything's gonna happen. The devil is a lie. All the
blood prevails. I got this together. Oh my God, if this, oh, come,
the whole thing gon come apart. We're gonna lose a house.
We're gonna lose a mind, We're gonna lose everything. I'm
probably gonna end up alcoholic, living outside in the street somewhere,
sleeping up under brea. I don't know what in the

(01:08:57):
world's gonna happen. Oh I coughed, I must have that.
I don't know what this is. Oh, my hipp's out
of place. Old my mind? Oh whose report do you believe?
I would leave the promportant law. I want to talk
to some schizo people who are in a place right
now that sometimes you talk faith and sometimes you talk fear,
and sometimes you feel like you're not and sometimes you're
stare to death, and sometimes you're ready to take the

(01:09:19):
mountain that sometimes you feel like the mountain is on Tapa.
You're Wow, my real people that make some thing. I
want to spend my last few minutes with you. I

(01:09:41):
want to tell you, first of all, you're not crazy.
You're not crazy. I want to tell you that winning
doesn't feel like winning. I want to tell you that

(01:10:01):
God will bring you into a place that you don't
feel worthy of, and if you're not careful, you'll sabotage
it just to have company with your kin. I want
to tell you when God starts raising you up, people
will resent you and say you're acting funny, and that
means that you're not acting like where you came from.

(01:10:23):
You're acting like where you're going, and they have an
issue with you because you are becoming something bigger than
how they define you. I had ten members in a

(01:10:46):
city with one red light. I passed my church half
the time from the pianna, using my foot as a drum,
leading the worship service in a mic, working eight hours
a day, and putting my check in the church to

(01:11:08):
keep the doors open. But I kept having this sneaky
feeling that there was more down inside of me here
than what my situation said that I was. And I

(01:11:28):
count on myself to have I apprehended. But this one
thing I do Bye bye to that which was behind me.
I strained toward that which is before me. I kept pressing.
There's nothing wrong with having ten members. There's nothing wrong
with being in a storefront church if that is your

(01:11:49):
purpose and that is your destiny. But it is asphyxiating
to be stuck into something that is beneath what is
calling you. It is asphyxiating to be limited into a
shell of what people think you are to be. It

(01:12:14):
is a prison to be incarcerated and stuck in the
state they left you in. And that's why God is
breaking change this morning. Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
the change are not on your hands, they're not on

(01:12:37):
your feet. Yeah, you got it. You preaching good this morning,
the change on your mind. And the Lord told me
to tell you this morning that you're not going to

(01:12:58):
get there by waiting and praying and believing God. And
I know that's very unpopular to say the church people,
because we were surrounding everything by waiting and praying and
believing God. God said, you have to be intentional. God

(01:13:18):
said you have to get up every morning and strain
to think on the level of where he's calling you.
To think yourself free, to think yourself well, to think
your self whole, to think yourself into the next idiom

(01:13:41):
of influence, that God is getting ready to take you you,
and that it's gonna happen in your head before it
happens in your life. That it's going to be in
your intentions, it's going to be in your spirit, it's
going to be in your mean to.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
I mean to, I mean to. I'm going after this