July 2, 2025 • 51 mins
How do our current families measure up to the real "Royal Family"? Lets find out together. Join us as we continue our journey through the book of Matthew. Here’s a link to the video “spend time with daddy” that was mentioned. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86HqkG3/
Exciting news!!! You can now join Henry, live via Zoom, every Sunday morning at 1030am EST, by clicking the link below, or by using the ID and passcode provided below. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82108038420?pwd=twW0ChMfqMskiPizTEFEbOPFq8zORT.1 Meeting ID: 821 0803 8420 Passcode: 439385 After the message, feel free to stay in the Zoom room and attend the "Empowerment Session".
Empowerment sessions are not a church service—but are a service to the church. Our automobiles, homes, electronics and various other tools in our lives need maintenance, upgrades and repairs. Are we as a person any different? Empowerment Sessions are where believers get the opportunity to make the necessary corrections, adjustments and spiritual enhancements needed to be better equipped to live more powerful lives for Christ. Acts 1:8
Empowerment sessions offer the opportunity for one-on-one coaching, discipleship and self-improvement, in a confidential but very transparent group setting. Those who attend experience powerful personal sharing of life experiences and struggles which allows for all to defeat the lie of the enemy that says “you’re all alone in this”. You are not alone. You are just a few clicks away from your empowerment. You need to join us soon. When you begin to operate with power in EVERY area of your life, then you have achieved Powerful Living. Join your host, Henry Flowers, as we discover principles that produce the "rich and satisfying life" that Jesus said that He wants for us.
Let's also make strides in the area of teen pregnancy prevention. My book will help your teens avoid the dangers of excessive unsupervised idle time, which is the major cause of trouble for too many of our teens; and it will help them to move from where they are to living the life that they love. Get it here. http://amzn.com/1503271021 To hear my musical tribute to a father's dedication to his family, get my album "I Am With You", at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/henryflowers
Exciting news!!! You can now join Henry, live via Zoom, every Sunday morning at 1030am EST, by clicking the link below, or by using the ID and passcode provided below. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82108038420?pwd=twW0ChMfqMskiPizTEFEbOPFq8zORT.1 Meeting ID: 821 0803 8420 Passcode: 439385 After the message, feel free to stay in the Zoom room and attend the "Empowerment Session".
Empowerment sessions are not a church service—but are a service to the church. Our automobiles, homes, electronics and various other tools in our lives need maintenance, upgrades and repairs. Are we as a person any different? Empowerment Sessions are where believers get the opportunity to make the necessary corrections, adjustments and spiritual enhancements needed to be better equipped to live more powerful lives for Christ. Acts 1:8
Empowerment sessions offer the opportunity for one-on-one coaching, discipleship and self-improvement, in a confidential but very transparent group setting. Those who attend experience powerful personal sharing of life experiences and struggles which allows for all to defeat the lie of the enemy that says “you’re all alone in this”. You are not alone. You are just a few clicks away from your empowerment. You need to join us soon. When you begin to operate with power in EVERY area of your life, then you have achieved Powerful Living. Join your host, Henry Flowers, as we discover principles that produce the "rich and satisfying life" that Jesus said that He wants for us.
Let's also make strides in the area of teen pregnancy prevention. My book will help your teens avoid the dangers of excessive unsupervised idle time, which is the major cause of trouble for too many of our teens; and it will help them to move from where they are to living the life that they love. Get it here. http://amzn.com/1503271021 To hear my musical tribute to a father's dedication to his family, get my album "I Am With You", at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/henryflowers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello friends, Henry Flowers here, Powerful Living Outreach Ministries coming
at you once again over the YouTube airwaves on this
amazing and wonderful Sunday morning. You can reach us if
you'd like to dial in, call in, text in. You
got questions, comments, show ideas, information about our ministry. Anything
(00:28):
you need, you can reach us. The area code is
five one three four zero four seven seven nine three.
Go online check out our website. Powerful Living dot org
is the name of our website, uploading latest shows and
(00:50):
those kind of things up there, shows, teachings, Bible readings,
all of those kind of things, sermons. Also, if you
just want to hear the audio, you can find us
on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen to your audio. Just
look us up Powerful Living and maybe put my name
(01:12):
in Henry Flowers. It'll come up there. And make sure
you subscribe and make sure you share this ministry. Our
subscriber base is growing. I've got a goal to get
to five hundred subscribers by the end of the year.
And then it's been it's been happening. Things have been
(01:33):
really good. I followed up prompting from the Lord. I
felt like the Lord told me just hey, just post
something online every day from It was the first week
of March when he prompted me to do this from
then through the rest of the for six months, and
I agree to do that. And I've been putting out,
(01:54):
really jumping on the sixty second shorts. So in addition
to uploading a sermon and then, but I also go
and highlight sixty second spots of sermons or the Bible
studies and uploading those, and those have really taken off
those little sixty seconds. Folks got a lot going on.
They got the hands in there, you know, their hands
on their phone all the time, and they running and
(02:16):
ripping and running and stuff, and so you got a
little bit of time to catch folks' attention. And that's
what the shorts do, and they do a good job.
So our subscribers have jumped tremendously, and that means people
are hearing the word of God. Man. It's a good thing.
Folks need to hear something positive and transformative in their lives.
(02:41):
A lot of crazy stuff happening in the world today,
and folks need to be encouraged by this powerful message.
This is the good news. I believe in it. I
ain't playing with this y'all. This is not something that
I play with. I'm just not playing church. I faked
it for some time, but been around a lot of
fake people too. But listen, I ain't faking this because
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is life in his
(03:04):
life more abundantly. So check those things out. Did I
handle all of the red tape everything, all of the
official stuff. Good. It's time to get into the word.
We have been going through the Book of Matthew. I
don't know how far through the Book of Matthew will go.
(03:24):
I'm just exposing what's happening in the Book of Matthew,
and it, of course it obviously begins with the story
of Jesus, so it will be what's called expository teaching.
You just go read the scripture and it's just exposed
what's in the text. Went through Matthew chapter one last week.
This time will be in Matthew chapter two. And there
(03:44):
are some good things to be revealed to us about
the Lord Jesus in this Matthew chapter two. So if
you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If you
don't have your Bible, go get it, pull it up
on your phone, go get the Bible app. Look up
on the app Store the Bible app. It should say
(04:04):
Life dot Church brown Bible app with yellow writing. It's
an amazing app. Got a whole bunch of tutorials and
educational tools in there so you can learn the word
of God. I don't want you to just believe what
I'm saying to you. I really want you to see
it for yourself, so you can walk along with us,
follow me as I follow Christ, and we follow Christ together,
(04:26):
and we learn the Word of God together. That's why
we read the scriptures together. So if you have Matthew
chapter two, this is rich. This is so rich. Now
(04:47):
this is also a very short chapter, but you just
trust me. As we go along, you're gonna see some
powerful things jump off the page discerning the life of
Jesus Christ. And what I want to highlight today is
(05:08):
I think what will be exposed is what is God's
model for the family. It's so clear, and I think
this may be actually the first time that I'm talking
about this in my twenty five years of ministry, but
(05:30):
it just jumped out in full color this week as
I was just studying going through the second chapter of Matthew.
I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. So here
we go, Matthew. Chapter two, visitors arrive from Eastern lands.
(05:55):
Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judah during the reign
of King Herod. About that time, some wise men from
eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking where's the newborn king
of the Jews. We saw his star as it arose,
(06:18):
and we've come to worship him. It says, some wise men,
Just to stop for a second here, some wise men.
I didn't say three. It did not say three wise men.
It says some wise men will read here in a second.
Why people believe it was three, But it just says
some wise men. And they came and they said, hey,
(06:40):
where's this king of the Jews. We've come to worship him.
There was a star and it's led us to him,
and we've come to worship him. Now, this what I'm
reading today, this is very important for those who are
studying the Word of God and you want to know
more and learn more. What I'm reading is a life
(07:04):
application study Bible. And below each of these passages of
scripture there's like a whole section where there's a whole
section where it has commentaries, commentaries are good to read.
All of this down here is commentaries. This up here
is just the scriptures, and all of this down here
(07:24):
is commentaries about each verse from theologians and well respected
people who studied these things. And so as I go back,
I'll read some of these commentaries, and so you can
grow and learn as well from those. So they says, hey, listen,
we want to come and worship him. We've been following
this star verse three. King Herod was deeply disturbed when
(07:48):
he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called
a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious
life law and asked, where is the Messiah supposed to
be born in Bethlehem in Judah? They said, for this
(08:10):
is what the prophet wrote. And you, oh, Bethlehem and
the land of Judah, are not the least among the
ruling cities of Judah. For a ruler will come from you,
who will be the shepherd for my people Israel. Then
(08:32):
Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men,
and he learned from them the time when the star
first appeared, and then he told them, go to Bethlehem
and search carefully for the child, and when you find him,
come back and tell me so that I can go
(08:55):
and worship him too. And after this interview, the men
went their way, and the star they had seen in
the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of
them and stopped over the place where the child was.
And when they saw the star, they were filled with joy.
(09:16):
They entered the house and saw the child with his
mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then
they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh. Three gifts. That's why it's believed there were
three wise men there. It is three gifts gold, frankensense,
(09:38):
and mrr Verse twelve. When it was time to leave,
they returned to their own country by another route, for
God had warned them in a dream not to return
to Harod. I was talking about the wise men verse thirteen.
(09:58):
After the wise men were gone, an angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, flee
to Egypt with the child and his mother. The angel said,
stay there until I tell you to return, because Horod
is going to search for the child to kill him.
(10:24):
Very important to remember this section here verse fourteen. That
night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and marry
his mother, the child's mother, and they stayed there until
Herod's death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through
the prophet I called my son, not of Egypt. Harod
(10:52):
was furious when he realized that the wise Man had
outwitted him. He sent so Is to kill all the
boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old
and young under based on the wise men's report of
the star's first appearance, and Herod's brutal action fulfilled what
(11:15):
God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. A cry was
heard in Rama, weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for
her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead
verse nineteen. When Herod died, an angel of the Lord
appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. Very important
(11:40):
point right there in verse nineteen. Get up, The angel said,
take the child and his mother back to the land
of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the
child are dead HM verse twenty one. So Joseph got
up and read turned to the land of Israel with
(12:02):
Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the
new ruler of Judah. But when he learned that the
new ruler of Judea was Herod's son Archelaus, he was
afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream,
he left for the region of Galilee. So the family
(12:25):
went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled
what the prophets had said. He will be called a Nazarene.
That is Matthew chapter two. Some very important things to
point out there. And I want to begin this teaching
(12:47):
today as we expose what's going on here. So Matthew
chapter one gave us a glimpse into the prophecy that
spoke to this savior, this Messiah that was going to
be born, and he would save all the people from
(13:09):
their sins. And then now we have Matthew chapter two,
who is which is describing the efforts that were made
by Herod, who was the king at that time. No
king wants to feel like there's another king rising up
(13:32):
in his kingdom. Yet it's never gonna go well, that's
never it's never gonna go. Well, you don't. You don't
go into another man's kingdom and claim to be king
without starting something. And so Jesus being born, and people
are people in Jerusalem. People are saying, hey, this is
(13:55):
a sign of the prophets. Y'all see that star. Remember
what the scripture said, and it thinks going down. We
thinks some things is happening. It spent a long time
since we heard a word from God, and now this
star is showing up and these people are coming. Man,
is this what was declared by the prophets? And he's
(14:15):
staying to the wise. Man, Hey, man'll y'all let me
know what's going on down there. I want to worship
him too. Ain't really what he wanted? Nope, the enemy
our enemy. Remember now, the scripture says, there's a thief.
He's coming to do three things, killed, still, and destroy.
(14:36):
He is after life. He's not playing around with what
he wants to do. He wants to keep you from
connecting to your creator because he knows his time is shortened.
He knows that his destination is the Lake of Fire,
an eternal destruction. His only hope, then, is to bring
(15:01):
God as much shame as he can by causing as
much of God's creation to be destroyed along with him
as he can. And that's what his goal is. He
wants you to go to eternal damnation with him. The
enemy Satan knows that Jesus is the Messiah, and he
(15:26):
knows that Jesus is your only way to the Father.
And your enemy does not want you to connect to
the Father. That's why you find so many distractions from
the world that keep you from reading the scriptures. You
get connected to God, the Father. The best way is
(15:46):
by reading the scriptures. And look how hard it is
for you to make the time to read the scriptures.
Thing pops up your schedule. You got to go to work,
you got family, you need personal time, you got emergencies
to pop up. Everything and everything and anything is causing
(16:12):
a distraction, trying to keep you from the scriptures, keep
you from connecting with the almighty God. And so God
knew all of this was going to occur, and says,
God says, you know what, let me go and do
for them what they can't do for themselves. And so
here is Jesus. He is the express image of the
invisible God. That's what the scriptures declare, and that's what
(16:32):
Prophecy says. And here it is Prophecy being fulfilled. And
so what I want to highlight today as we look
at this is. Listen, Herod is saying, there's no king
in this land but me. He calls for a private
meeting with the wise man he's learned from them when
(16:53):
the star first appeared. He says, HM, let me calculate
this thing. What is this time? And when did y'all
say y'all supposed to be going? Oh? Okay? So uh,
since these wise men have deceived me, because his plan
was to thwart this uprising. If you've read the scriptures before,
(17:16):
when you talk about the crucifixion, Jesus was accused of insurrection,
trying to take over as king. He was accused of blasphemy,
claiming to be God, and all of these things that
(17:37):
they accused him of. And this was an effort by
the people in that city to destroy him and destroy
the things that he had planned. This is what the
enemy does. He'll conspire together with people to cause your destruction.
Just think about it. The scriptures clearly says, listen, our
battle is not with flesh and blood people, not with
(18:00):
human beings. Our battle the real battle. The people of
God know that the real battle is against He says,
powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places, places
of authority, he says, and against the rulers of the
(18:22):
darkness of this age. That's what the battle is. It's
not about people. People can influenced by principalities. People get
influenced by spiritual wickedness in places of authority. Get out there, y'all.
Vote for president, vote for chief, vote for mayor just
(18:44):
go do whatever you've got to do. Yes, those things
are important, but just understand as you all know, more
and more as you see it. Sometimes these people in
office are crazy. Man. Many times they legislate things and
(19:05):
put things into law, and you're like, wait, what, how
is that helpful? A lot of things are helpful, but
some of the things, it's like, well, man, that doesn't
seem like something that's helpful to the family, or maybe
that doesn't seem like that's something helpful to this particular
(19:26):
people group. Or you're doing you're passing this law and
you're taking away this from a vulnerable people group, and
all these things affect people. Listen, there are spiritual powers
and authorities working in the background to thwart the Kingdom
of God. Your battle is not against President Trump. He
(19:52):
is not your enemy. I know. He gives you plenty
opportunity to not like him. And those of you who
voted for him, you on his side, and he's your man,
and you feel like he gives you plenty opportunity to
be for him. But just understand God, the Father, Jesus Christ,
(20:14):
the King. When he comes back, just understand, Jesus Christ
is not showing up as a democrat. He is not
showing up as a republican. Jesus is not showing back
up to take sides. He's coming back to take over
and to show us what godly leadership looks like. And
(20:39):
so here it begins, right here of him being born,
when God says, I'm gonna do something for them that
they can't do for themselves. I'm gonna give them my best,
my son, the third part the Trinity, the Triune God, God,
the Father, God, the Son, God, Holy Spirit. The three
are the one God. Don't worry about it if you
can't understand it. I mean, we're talking about God, right.
(21:02):
Are you really about to hurt yourself and be upset
because you can't understand the Almighty God? Come on, bro,
Jesus takes on flesh and it's born in a way
that is very vulnerable I might say, because here we
read in this is very important. In chapter thirteen, he says,
(21:24):
after the wise men were gone, Angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream. He says, get up,
flee to Egypt with the child and his mother, and
stay there until I tell you, because Herod is going
to search for the child to kill him. See, this
is the enemy trying to thwart God's plan for your life,
(21:48):
for you to receive salvation from your sins, for you
to receive a savior, somebody who can advocate with the
Almighty God on your behalf. And here it is Satan
trying to thwart that. And the Angel speaks to Joseph
(22:08):
and says, take the child and his mother and flee
to Egypt. Now this is very important because this is
God showing us exactly why the family is so powerful
and important. Did the Angel speak to Mary nod. Did
(22:35):
the angel speak to the child and tell the child
to tell the parents what to do? No, the angel
spoke to who. The angel spoke to Joseph. So you
see a father and now mother because she was with
child at this point right and earlier in the scriptures,
(22:57):
and at this point the child had been born, so
she is a mother, and he's saying the angel is
speaking to Joseph and saying, hey, get up, get out,
there's danger. This is very important for us to see
because as the times progress, you just see more and
more of a push away of traditional family structure. People
(23:25):
are going into the workforce more and more. More and
more women are being convinced that it's better to be
in corporate America and having a career and accomplishments and
things and things and things than to be a wife
than to be a mother. It's almost gotten to the
(23:48):
place where, hey, we don't need a man, and all
of these things have gone this way because more and
more there's a further distancing of ours from God. Most
of it is because of our sinful nature. We're very
vulnerable to distancing ourselves from the living God, just because
(24:10):
of our fallen nature. Sin came upon us through Adam
and Eve, and you were born with it. Nobody is good.
People can do good things, and I think in general
most people want to do good, but just understand that
the scriptures say there is none good, not a single one.
That sin nature causes us to push away from God,
(24:32):
and so along with our sin nature. We also have
the enemy man, the enemy of our souls, and he
is not playing around. He wants you to believe that
as a man you don't need a woman. He wants
you to believe as a woman you don't need a man.
And there you have the destruction of the family, and
(24:55):
all of us are paying the price, all of us.
According to the United States Census, seventy four percent of
black folks in this country were were raised with a
single parent, and seventy four percent of single moms. So
(25:21):
if you're in a group of blacks, count ten of them,
and only three of them were raised with God's designed
for a family, a father and a mother. Only three
out of that ten. So what does that mean? That
(25:42):
means that child grew up lacking as I did. And
God said it right here. God, the Angel speaks to Joseph.
Because God called men to lead as a husband, as
a man, he set things in place. You can read
in the scriptures a beginning, he says it's not good
for for Adam to be alone. But before that, he
gave Adam work to do. Work in the garden. Do this,
(26:06):
there's animals, go and name them. All. This kind of
stuff and then he said, listen, he's actually not good
for man to be alone. He needs some help, So
I'll make him help. That's fit for him, a perfect fit.
And yes, Lord, she is perfect glory. Somebody asked me,
what's the best thing that God created, and I quickly said,
(26:27):
without even thinking, woman perfect fit for him. And God
sets up this family in the world and the ways
of the world doing its best to tear it apart.
And I can tell you, as one of those seventy
(26:48):
four percent raised without a father, I didn't have a
father that a angel could speak to and say, go
save your child from danger, save your wife from danger.
You know everybody was in danger of dying. HEROD shows up.
(27:10):
If the King shows up with his people to kill
your child, you know likely you you're gonna die too.
If you're a mother, you ain't gonna stand by and
let nobody kill your child anyway the King fling on,
(27:31):
mister bing, ain't nobody gonna put hands on your child
without going through you. That is just what a mama does.
And then the father is supposed to be there number
one of the God protection, to give protection, the guide
the family, and to give protection. And so it's like
everybody's life is in danger. They come in for Jesus,
(27:52):
but Joseph and Mary would likely have died. And so
the Angel of the Lord, the Messenger of the Lord,
showing up and saying, hey, listen, take your family, get out,
there's danger coming. And man, I'm sitting back thinking about
my life, and I'm thinking about how my upbringing was
(28:17):
so rough and tumble because I had no man. Nobody
could protect us from danger. Me and my two sisters,
each of them a year older than me, respectively. We
(28:40):
had a mother. And I love my mom. She did
the best she could with the hand that she was dealt.
I'll say that my mother had a terrible childhood herself.
You learn somebody else's story, you'll understand why they are
the way they are, and you have less hard feelings
(29:01):
for someone when you begin to discover what they've been through.
And so as I got older and I started asking
questions from aunts and uncles and folks that knew my
mother and how she grew up, Man, I had less
and less animosity for the way I grew up because
I understood my mama's story. Be careful how you judge
(29:22):
somebody and how you respond to somebody based on who
they are. Just be careful. People have been through some stuff, y'all.
This world is wicked and evil, and there are a
lot of wicked and evil things that happened to us
because we did not have a father. It's a problem.
(29:49):
It's a problem. And as I go out and meet
people in public and get to know people, I love
to hear people with those My daddy used to always
or me and my daddy used to always or on
(30:11):
Sundays right at the dinner table. Daddy used to I
love to hear those stories, and I hate those stories too.
I love to hear those stories because it's so rich
and like you, hear the joy that they've experienced wanting
(30:33):
to be with daddy. Oh man, somebody sent me something
this morning. I'll share it with you. Maybe I'll put
it in the description box. Brother sent me a sixty
second video about how he hid in the back of
the car after he asked if he can go spend
the day with his daddy and his daddy said no,
I got stuff to do. He jumps into the car
and hides in the back seat and lays down. In
(30:55):
about ten minutes into the drive, he pops up, heydaddy
did his boy was wrong with you? Man? He said, Daddy,
I just wanted to spend the day with you. And
his dad was bad at first, but then his dad
looked at him and say, boy, if you don't get
up in his front seat, you want to go to McDonald's.
(31:16):
And he says, he smiled as bright as the sun.
They had a great day with his dad. I don't
have none of those stories. I have none of those.
And I listened to that young man's story this morning.
I was in my car driving. I almost had to
pull over, just overcome with emotion. Just number one, because
(31:40):
I see the power of a father and his son
and to see the dynamic there, and I also feel
the lack, the emptiness, the suffering that I endured because
my father was absent. Yeah, but to take a look
(32:04):
at description and understand the power of having a father
in your life. It is a lie, ladies, and some
of you ladies need to hear me today. It is
a lie that you do not need a man. It's
crazy how you needed a man for you to be conceived.
How you needed a man to conceive the child that
you have or the child that you want. But you
(32:28):
believe that you don't need a man. What you really
mean is that you don't need a bad, old, bust down,
broke man. And you write about that good for nothing, broke,
busted and disgusted and can't be trusted. Yep, you don't
need a man like that. What you need is a
(32:50):
god man. A man who fears God will do right.
A man who fears God number one will hear from
the Lord when danger is coming, and that man will
get up and respond to the Lord's voice. That's the
man that you need, ladies. A man that you need
will have provision and doesn't matter who it comes from.
(33:12):
Here wise man come to worship because they believe the scriptures,
and they saw the star. We've been waiting for this moment.
Is this it? They went and found it and said, hey, listen, yes,
this is it. Let's give this man some money. Why
because we believe in the scriptures and we saw the
star and this child right here, the Lord is speaking
to us saying give him something because this father needs
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to take this family and they're going to need those resources.
That's the kind of man you need who has resources
in his life that he can protect you and provide
for you. I understand why you get mad, and because
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you've been through what you've been through, just like my mom,
through a relationship after relationship, trying to find somebody, trying
to be happy, trying to create what we see here
Joseph marrying Jesus the baby, trying to create stability of
protection and provision is what a man is supposed to
bring to his family. I know you frustrated, and you've
been through all of that. I'm just saying, just don't
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believe the lie of the world that says you can
do it on your own. No, it's not that you
don't need a man. You don't need the men that
you have had. You need to find God's man because
God's man hears from him from God. God's man has provision,
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and God's Man is able to listen to God and
provide protection for you and for your child. And you
see that happening in Joseph's life. This is the model. Oh,
I can regale you with story after story, just trauma, trauma, trauma,
(35:05):
which is one of the reasons why I stay in counseling.
I stay on the phone with my mentors marriage counseling.
Yet about to start that too, because y'all listen, there's
just stuff that you go through when your family is
not intact, just unnecessary stuff. Anytime you get away from
(35:30):
God's design for your life, trouble is on the way.
Trouble is on the way. You know, this country is
at a birth rate that is below what it takes
to replace society because people have gotten away from God's
(35:52):
design for life. People don't have kids. That's the average
twenty year old to twenty five, and the majority of them,
the ain't trying to have kids. They're trying to get
an education. They're trying to get a job, they're trying
to get famous, They trying to get likes, they trying
(36:13):
to get clicks. They're trying to get the car, they
trying to get the house, all that stuff, and it
never fulfills you. It never satisfies you. But you know
(36:33):
what they're not trying to do. They're not trying to
deny their flesh, so they still want to be sexually
active and spreading their wild oats and now wild oats
turned into wild oak trees. All these fatherless children running
around out here, no fear, no fear of consequences, no
(36:53):
respect for authority, no discipline, angry because just like you,
if you are single, if you were raised without your father,
you are just like me. And there's nothing that you
can tell me to convince me and anything different. There's
a hole in your heart that is the shape of
your father, that you are, have been, and will continue
(37:14):
to fill that void with something else, and that something
else will never satisfy. Sex, drugs, alcohol, partying, stuff, thing,
(37:35):
all the earths, all the urths. You try to fill
that hole up with all the arths, and it never satisfies.
The more and more you get away from God's model,
the more and more you're vulnerable to the arths. You
know what the erths are, don't you. I need ooh,
this is good take away the father, and you're vulnerable
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to the other ers. I need a bigger, a newer, another,
a shinier. Just keep on adding to ers. You just
need another one and another one. And these things don't satisfy.
(38:26):
There's nothing more satisfying, more beautiful than doing things God's way.
And as we see here in the Book of Matthew,
chapter two, we see what family is supposed to look
like when family has done God's way, and we see
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provision I mean we see direction. Joseph. God speaks to Joseph.
The angel speaks to Joseph in a dream. It says,
get up, do this for your family, and he saves
his family from destruction. That's what a father is supposed
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to do. Father's supposed to hear from God say hey,
we doing this. A father's supposed to grab his son,
say hey, you're going to be this, grab his daughter.
You can do this with your life, baby girl, I
love you and I'll protect you from any and every
danger that might face you. Those children are supposed to
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see their father love his wife. This children are supposed
to see a man love his wife. They're supposed to
be a powerful relationship between a man and a woman,
and that becomes a model for them. And when they
get older, they say, hey, I wanna be happy the
(39:52):
way my father and my mother were happy together. But
too many of us don't see that, and too many
of us are just like me, going into fatherhood trying
to figure it out instead of being instructed by somebody
(40:14):
who worked it out. And this is where we are.
And the more and more we escape from and run
away from and turn our backs on God's plan and
design for our lives, the more we suffer consequences. And boy,
(40:36):
I can just regale you with your stories of suffering.
It just shouldn't have been that way in this country.
People should not be hungry, you guys. If you've read
my book, you've heard my story of just always being
(40:59):
the small guys. So it's easy to be beat up
and pushed around and bullied and chased home. And I
was always a small guy, you know what. More and
more I think about it, and the reason I was
always a small guy because I was always hungry, malnourished.
There's never enough food in the house. And I just
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wonder how things would have been different had my father
been around to hear from God. One of how things
have been different, had my family been like the family
that's described here, where the father's there and he can
hear about danger coming and he can do something about it.
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But I had to figure it out on my own.
And listen, I did. You can speak to each one
of my five children. My children have never been chased
home from school. Never. Never have my children been beat
up by somebody. Oh no, no, no, it's not happening,
(42:07):
not up in here. Because I wanted to change things
I wanted to change the pattern. I wanted to change history,
and I didn't have a natural father to model it
to me. But thank God that I gained access to
my spiritual father, and he made all the difference. And
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as we approach Mother's Day, you see here Mary having
found favor with God, and we don't know. There's not
a lot of descriptors in there about why Mary found
favor with God and says you are blessed not on
the favorite of the Lord. We don't know. There's not
(42:54):
a lot of information in there in the first book
of Matthew. But to hear in chapter two, this is
Joseph is being instructed, Hey, don't put her away. We
know she's pregnant and you didn't do it. But the
child that she's conceived was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
This is a child of prophecy. Don't put her away.
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And this is a man of integrity, saying, I hear
from God and I see this woman. She is a
virtuous woman, because the Angel said, the Angel tells Joseph,
this is her. This is your wife. Man. If you wait,
God will speak to you and tell you who your
(43:36):
wife's supposed to be. If you wait, and patiently and
get yourself in the right position and be the right
person that you're supposed to be. God will tell you
who your husband is supposed to be, a person of virtue,
(43:57):
a person who finds favor with God, because that's who
you want. That's really what you want in your life.
And just see, people want good things in their lives.
They just number one, either don't know how to go
about getting the good things or they just refused to
do the right thing in order to get the good thing.
(44:18):
Some people want that fast money. People want to work hard. Why.
I remember the story of Snoop Dogg Man. He was
out there selling dope and he said, man, listen, I
had a job. I was just out there working at
this place. I was paying three dollars. I was working
(44:38):
for three dollars and changed an hour, and at the
end of two weeks, I made three hundred dollars. And
he said, man, in the last couple of days, I'm
averaging about three hundred dollars an hour selling dope. And
his life changed when he went to jail and he
(45:00):
got around some men, and they wasn't necessarily godly men,
but there were men who recognized a gift. And this
is a true story. You should hear. Stephen A. Smith
interviewed Snoop DOGG. It was a few months ago, but
you can look it up when Stephen A. Smith show
and Snoop said, those people in jail looked at me
(45:21):
and said, hey, you got a gift. Because he was
in jail doing rat battles and he was crushing crushing them.
He got a gift, obviously, Snoop DOGG right. And he
was crushing them having rat battles in jail, and he said,
one of the dudes in jail who was running stuff,
one of the dudes who was the man up in
jail man, he pulled him aside, had a couple of
(45:43):
his henchmen along his along each one of his shoulders,
and they cornered Snoop in the room and said, listen,
you gonna get out of here, and you're gonna pursue
his gift that you have. And if you come back here,
we gone. And I can't repeat what they said over
(46:04):
these FCC where airwaves if you come back here. And
he got out and he did what those men in
his life told him to do, and thus was born
(46:27):
s and DOBP. Dble G the dog Pound. Hey, you
may not like his genre and his style of music,
but that brother heard from some men who gave him guidance,
and there he is and here he is. Man. I
just wonder how my life would be had I had
a along with Mary who was my mother. And like
(46:51):
I said, my mother did what she could with the
hand that she was dealt. But I just wonder what
life would have been like had she had a Joseph.
Has she had a man in her life to speak
to her what God has said to guide her in
(47:14):
the past of righteousness according to how God has led.
Wonder how things would have been in my life growing
up as a child. Had my mother had a Joseph
who had provision, gold, frankinsense, and myrrh, he had what
they needed to get up and flee and go to Egypt.
(47:35):
I wonder what my life had been like. H We
need to pray for our country. We need to pray
for our young folks, especially some of our young women.
They just do not have a mentor in their life
(47:56):
to speak to them and say, hey, baby girl, you've
got some things in your life going on more than
what you're showing off, which it clothes or lack thereof.
You know you could make a success out of yourself
with something else other than your body. This is how
you do it. This is how you find a good man.
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This is what a bad man looks like. This is
what an evil man looks like. This is what a
selfish man looks like. This is how you become a
virtuous woman who can find favor with God and with man.
This is what a virtuous woman does. And this is
what a virtuous woman does not do. Have you read
Proverbs thirty one? It describes what God's woman looks like.
(48:40):
How can I help you become that? Hmm? I wonder
how my mother's life would have been different had she had
a Mary speak into her life, and had she had
Joseph there to provide and protect and to cast God's
(49:02):
vision for our lives. M h. And So here we are.
The story of Jesus is unfolding, and next week, as
we moved to chapter three, you'll find Jesus the man
(49:27):
moving into his ministry, beginning powerful exploits for the Kingdom
of God. But brother, I'm telling you, I'm thankful for
Joseph and for Mary, and I'll always wonder what my
life would have been like had I had a Joseph
(49:48):
a father in my life, and had my mother been
somebody different than who she was. I love her. I
love her. She had her flaws, and she had a
handicap and raising children alone it was not God's design.
(50:08):
We see God's design for family right here in Matthew
chapter two. But thanks to God that, in spite of
being raised in a rock solid family, I grabbed a
hold of God and he showed me how to do things.
(50:32):
His way was a perfect note, but I was perfectly
trying to do things God's way. And my friends, as
long as that is your goal and that is your effort,
your life will end well and you'll have God's provision
(50:58):
and you'll be on the road to powerful living in
every area of your life. Henry Flowers Powerful Living outreach ministries.
I ain't going to where I'm coming back.
Hello friends, Henry Flowers here, Powerful Living Outreach Ministries coming
at you once again over the YouTube airwaves on this
amazing and wonderful Sunday morning. You can reach us if
you'd like to dial in, call in, text in. You
got questions, comments, show ideas, information about our ministry. Anything
(00:28):
you need, you can reach us. The area code is
five one three four zero four seven seven nine three.
Go online check out our website. Powerful Living dot org
is the name of our website, uploading latest shows and
(00:50):
those kind of things up there, shows, teachings, Bible readings,
all of those kind of things, sermons. Also, if you
just want to hear the audio, you can find us
on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen to your audio. Just
look us up Powerful Living and maybe put my name
(01:12):
in Henry Flowers. It'll come up there. And make sure
you subscribe and make sure you share this ministry. Our
subscriber base is growing. I've got a goal to get
to five hundred subscribers by the end of the year.
And then it's been it's been happening. Things have been
(01:33):
really good. I followed up prompting from the Lord. I
felt like the Lord told me just hey, just post
something online every day from It was the first week
of March when he prompted me to do this from
then through the rest of the for six months, and
I agree to do that. And I've been putting out,
(01:54):
really jumping on the sixty second shorts. So in addition
to uploading a sermon and then, but I also go
and highlight sixty second spots of sermons or the Bible
studies and uploading those, and those have really taken off
those little sixty seconds. Folks got a lot going on.
They got the hands in there, you know, their hands
on their phone all the time, and they running and
(02:16):
ripping and running and stuff, and so you got a
little bit of time to catch folks' attention. And that's
what the shorts do, and they do a good job.
So our subscribers have jumped tremendously, and that means people
are hearing the word of God. Man. It's a good thing.
Folks need to hear something positive and transformative in their lives.
(02:41):
A lot of crazy stuff happening in the world today,
and folks need to be encouraged by this powerful message.
This is the good news. I believe in it. I
ain't playing with this y'all. This is not something that
I play with. I'm just not playing church. I faked
it for some time, but been around a lot of
fake people too. But listen, I ain't faking this because
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is life in his
(03:04):
life more abundantly. So check those things out. Did I
handle all of the red tape everything, all of the
official stuff. Good. It's time to get into the word.
We have been going through the Book of Matthew. I
don't know how far through the Book of Matthew will go.
(03:24):
I'm just exposing what's happening in the Book of Matthew,
and it, of course it obviously begins with the story
of Jesus, so it will be what's called expository teaching.
You just go read the scripture and it's just exposed
what's in the text. Went through Matthew chapter one last week.
This time will be in Matthew chapter two. And there
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are some good things to be revealed to us about
the Lord Jesus in this Matthew chapter two. So if
you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If you
don't have your Bible, go get it, pull it up
on your phone, go get the Bible app. Look up
on the app Store the Bible app. It should say
(04:04):
Life dot Church brown Bible app with yellow writing. It's
an amazing app. Got a whole bunch of tutorials and
educational tools in there so you can learn the word
of God. I don't want you to just believe what
I'm saying to you. I really want you to see
it for yourself, so you can walk along with us,
follow me as I follow Christ, and we follow Christ together,
(04:26):
and we learn the Word of God together. That's why
we read the scriptures together. So if you have Matthew
chapter two, this is rich. This is so rich. Now
(04:47):
this is also a very short chapter, but you just
trust me. As we go along, you're gonna see some
powerful things jump off the page discerning the life of
Jesus Christ. And what I want to highlight today is
(05:08):
I think what will be exposed is what is God's
model for the family. It's so clear, and I think
this may be actually the first time that I'm talking
about this in my twenty five years of ministry, but
(05:30):
it just jumped out in full color this week as
I was just studying going through the second chapter of Matthew.
I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. So here
we go, Matthew. Chapter two, visitors arrive from Eastern lands.
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Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judah during the reign
of King Herod. About that time, some wise men from
eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking where's the newborn king
of the Jews. We saw his star as it arose,
(06:18):
and we've come to worship him. It says, some wise men,
Just to stop for a second here, some wise men.
I didn't say three. It did not say three wise men.
It says some wise men will read here in a second.
Why people believe it was three, But it just says
some wise men. And they came and they said, hey,
(06:40):
where's this king of the Jews. We've come to worship him.
There was a star and it's led us to him,
and we've come to worship him. Now, this what I'm
reading today, this is very important for those who are
studying the Word of God and you want to know
more and learn more. What I'm reading is a life
(07:04):
application study Bible. And below each of these passages of
scripture there's like a whole section where there's a whole
section where it has commentaries, commentaries are good to read.
All of this down here is commentaries. This up here
is just the scriptures, and all of this down here
(07:24):
is commentaries about each verse from theologians and well respected
people who studied these things. And so as I go back,
I'll read some of these commentaries, and so you can
grow and learn as well from those. So they says, hey, listen,
we want to come and worship him. We've been following
this star verse three. King Herod was deeply disturbed when
(07:48):
he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called
a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious
life law and asked, where is the Messiah supposed to
be born in Bethlehem in Judah? They said, for this
(08:10):
is what the prophet wrote. And you, oh, Bethlehem and
the land of Judah, are not the least among the
ruling cities of Judah. For a ruler will come from you,
who will be the shepherd for my people Israel. Then
(08:32):
Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men,
and he learned from them the time when the star
first appeared, and then he told them, go to Bethlehem
and search carefully for the child, and when you find him,
come back and tell me so that I can go
(08:55):
and worship him too. And after this interview, the men
went their way, and the star they had seen in
the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of
them and stopped over the place where the child was.
And when they saw the star, they were filled with joy.
(09:16):
They entered the house and saw the child with his
mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then
they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh. Three gifts. That's why it's believed there were
three wise men there. It is three gifts gold, frankensense,
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and mrr Verse twelve. When it was time to leave,
they returned to their own country by another route, for
God had warned them in a dream not to return
to Harod. I was talking about the wise men verse thirteen.
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After the wise men were gone, an angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, flee
to Egypt with the child and his mother. The angel said,
stay there until I tell you to return, because Horod
is going to search for the child to kill him.
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Very important to remember this section here verse fourteen. That
night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and marry
his mother, the child's mother, and they stayed there until
Herod's death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through
the prophet I called my son, not of Egypt. Harod
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was furious when he realized that the wise Man had
outwitted him. He sent so Is to kill all the
boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old
and young under based on the wise men's report of
the star's first appearance, and Herod's brutal action fulfilled what
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God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. A cry was
heard in Rama, weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for
her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead
verse nineteen. When Herod died, an angel of the Lord
appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. Very important
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point right there in verse nineteen. Get up, The angel said,
take the child and his mother back to the land
of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the
child are dead HM verse twenty one. So Joseph got
up and read turned to the land of Israel with
(12:02):
Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the
new ruler of Judah. But when he learned that the
new ruler of Judea was Herod's son Archelaus, he was
afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream,
he left for the region of Galilee. So the family
(12:25):
went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled
what the prophets had said. He will be called a Nazarene.
That is Matthew chapter two. Some very important things to
point out there. And I want to begin this teaching
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today as we expose what's going on here. So Matthew
chapter one gave us a glimpse into the prophecy that
spoke to this savior, this Messiah that was going to
be born, and he would save all the people from
(13:09):
their sins. And then now we have Matthew chapter two,
who is which is describing the efforts that were made
by Herod, who was the king at that time. No
king wants to feel like there's another king rising up
(13:32):
in his kingdom. Yet it's never gonna go well, that's
never it's never gonna go. Well, you don't. You don't
go into another man's kingdom and claim to be king
without starting something. And so Jesus being born, and people
are people in Jerusalem. People are saying, hey, this is
(13:55):
a sign of the prophets. Y'all see that star. Remember
what the scripture said, and it thinks going down. We
thinks some things is happening. It spent a long time
since we heard a word from God, and now this
star is showing up and these people are coming. Man,
is this what was declared by the prophets? And he's
(14:15):
staying to the wise. Man, Hey, man'll y'all let me
know what's going on down there. I want to worship
him too. Ain't really what he wanted? Nope, the enemy
our enemy. Remember now, the scripture says, there's a thief.
He's coming to do three things, killed, still, and destroy.
(14:36):
He is after life. He's not playing around with what
he wants to do. He wants to keep you from
connecting to your creator because he knows his time is shortened.
He knows that his destination is the Lake of Fire,
an eternal destruction. His only hope, then, is to bring
(15:01):
God as much shame as he can by causing as
much of God's creation to be destroyed along with him
as he can. And that's what his goal is. He
wants you to go to eternal damnation with him. The
enemy Satan knows that Jesus is the Messiah, and he
(15:26):
knows that Jesus is your only way to the Father.
And your enemy does not want you to connect to
the Father. That's why you find so many distractions from
the world that keep you from reading the scriptures. You
get connected to God, the Father. The best way is
(15:46):
by reading the scriptures. And look how hard it is
for you to make the time to read the scriptures.
Thing pops up your schedule. You got to go to work,
you got family, you need personal time, you got emergencies
to pop up. Everything and everything and anything is causing
(16:12):
a distraction, trying to keep you from the scriptures, keep
you from connecting with the almighty God. And so God
knew all of this was going to occur, and says,
God says, you know what, let me go and do
for them what they can't do for themselves. And so
here is Jesus. He is the express image of the
invisible God. That's what the scriptures declare, and that's what
(16:32):
Prophecy says. And here it is Prophecy being fulfilled. And
so what I want to highlight today as we look
at this is. Listen, Herod is saying, there's no king
in this land but me. He calls for a private
meeting with the wise man he's learned from them when
(16:53):
the star first appeared. He says, HM, let me calculate
this thing. What is this time? And when did y'all
say y'all supposed to be going? Oh? Okay? So uh,
since these wise men have deceived me, because his plan
was to thwart this uprising. If you've read the scriptures before,
(17:16):
when you talk about the crucifixion, Jesus was accused of insurrection,
trying to take over as king. He was accused of blasphemy,
claiming to be God, and all of these things that
(17:37):
they accused him of. And this was an effort by
the people in that city to destroy him and destroy
the things that he had planned. This is what the
enemy does. He'll conspire together with people to cause your destruction.
Just think about it. The scriptures clearly says, listen, our
battle is not with flesh and blood people, not with
(18:00):
human beings. Our battle the real battle. The people of
God know that the real battle is against He says,
powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places, places
of authority, he says, and against the rulers of the
(18:22):
darkness of this age. That's what the battle is. It's
not about people. People can influenced by principalities. People get
influenced by spiritual wickedness in places of authority. Get out there, y'all.
Vote for president, vote for chief, vote for mayor just
(18:44):
go do whatever you've got to do. Yes, those things
are important, but just understand as you all know, more
and more as you see it. Sometimes these people in
office are crazy. Man. Many times they legislate things and
(19:05):
put things into law, and you're like, wait, what, how
is that helpful? A lot of things are helpful, but
some of the things, it's like, well, man, that doesn't
seem like something that's helpful to the family, or maybe
that doesn't seem like that's something helpful to this particular
(19:26):
people group. Or you're doing you're passing this law and
you're taking away this from a vulnerable people group, and
all these things affect people. Listen, there are spiritual powers
and authorities working in the background to thwart the Kingdom
of God. Your battle is not against President Trump. He
(19:52):
is not your enemy. I know. He gives you plenty
opportunity to not like him. And those of you who
voted for him, you on his side, and he's your man,
and you feel like he gives you plenty opportunity to
be for him. But just understand God, the Father, Jesus Christ,
(20:14):
the King. When he comes back, just understand, Jesus Christ
is not showing up as a democrat. He is not
showing up as a republican. Jesus is not showing back
up to take sides. He's coming back to take over
and to show us what godly leadership looks like. And
(20:39):
so here it begins, right here of him being born,
when God says, I'm gonna do something for them that
they can't do for themselves. I'm gonna give them my best,
my son, the third part the Trinity, the Triune God, God,
the Father, God, the Son, God, Holy Spirit. The three
are the one God. Don't worry about it if you
can't understand it. I mean, we're talking about God, right.
(21:02):
Are you really about to hurt yourself and be upset
because you can't understand the Almighty God? Come on, bro,
Jesus takes on flesh and it's born in a way
that is very vulnerable I might say, because here we
read in this is very important. In chapter thirteen, he says,
(21:24):
after the wise men were gone, Angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream. He says, get up,
flee to Egypt with the child and his mother, and
stay there until I tell you, because Herod is going
to search for the child to kill him. See, this
is the enemy trying to thwart God's plan for your life,
(21:48):
for you to receive salvation from your sins, for you
to receive a savior, somebody who can advocate with the
Almighty God on your behalf. And here it is Satan
trying to thwart that. And the Angel speaks to Joseph
(22:08):
and says, take the child and his mother and flee
to Egypt. Now this is very important because this is
God showing us exactly why the family is so powerful
and important. Did the Angel speak to Mary nod. Did
(22:35):
the angel speak to the child and tell the child
to tell the parents what to do? No, the angel
spoke to who. The angel spoke to Joseph. So you
see a father and now mother because she was with
child at this point right and earlier in the scriptures,
(22:57):
and at this point the child had been born, so
she is a mother, and he's saying the angel is
speaking to Joseph and saying, hey, get up, get out,
there's danger. This is very important for us to see
because as the times progress, you just see more and
more of a push away of traditional family structure. People
(23:25):
are going into the workforce more and more. More and
more women are being convinced that it's better to be
in corporate America and having a career and accomplishments and
things and things and things than to be a wife
than to be a mother. It's almost gotten to the
(23:48):
place where, hey, we don't need a man, and all
of these things have gone this way because more and
more there's a further distancing of ours from God. Most
of it is because of our sinful nature. We're very
vulnerable to distancing ourselves from the living God, just because
(24:10):
of our fallen nature. Sin came upon us through Adam
and Eve, and you were born with it. Nobody is good.
People can do good things, and I think in general
most people want to do good, but just understand that
the scriptures say there is none good, not a single one.
That sin nature causes us to push away from God,
(24:32):
and so along with our sin nature. We also have
the enemy man, the enemy of our souls, and he
is not playing around. He wants you to believe that
as a man you don't need a woman. He wants
you to believe as a woman you don't need a man.
And there you have the destruction of the family, and
(24:55):
all of us are paying the price, all of us.
According to the United States Census, seventy four percent of
black folks in this country were were raised with a
single parent, and seventy four percent of single moms. So
(25:21):
if you're in a group of blacks, count ten of them,
and only three of them were raised with God's designed
for a family, a father and a mother. Only three
out of that ten. So what does that mean? That
(25:42):
means that child grew up lacking as I did. And
God said it right here. God, the Angel speaks to Joseph.
Because God called men to lead as a husband, as
a man, he set things in place. You can read
in the scriptures a beginning, he says it's not good
for for Adam to be alone. But before that, he
gave Adam work to do. Work in the garden. Do this,
(26:06):
there's animals, go and name them. All. This kind of
stuff and then he said, listen, he's actually not good
for man to be alone. He needs some help, So
I'll make him help. That's fit for him, a perfect fit.
And yes, Lord, she is perfect glory. Somebody asked me,
what's the best thing that God created, and I quickly said,
(26:27):
without even thinking, woman perfect fit for him. And God
sets up this family in the world and the ways
of the world doing its best to tear it apart.
And I can tell you, as one of those seventy
(26:48):
four percent raised without a father, I didn't have a
father that a angel could speak to and say, go
save your child from danger, save your wife from danger.
You know everybody was in danger of dying. HEROD shows up.
(27:10):
If the King shows up with his people to kill
your child, you know likely you you're gonna die too.
If you're a mother, you ain't gonna stand by and
let nobody kill your child anyway the King fling on,
(27:31):
mister bing, ain't nobody gonna put hands on your child
without going through you. That is just what a mama does.
And then the father is supposed to be there number
one of the God protection, to give protection, the guide
the family, and to give protection. And so it's like
everybody's life is in danger. They come in for Jesus,
(27:52):
but Joseph and Mary would likely have died. And so
the Angel of the Lord, the Messenger of the Lord,
showing up and saying, hey, listen, take your family, get out,
there's danger coming. And man, I'm sitting back thinking about
my life, and I'm thinking about how my upbringing was
(28:17):
so rough and tumble because I had no man. Nobody
could protect us from danger. Me and my two sisters,
each of them a year older than me, respectively. We
(28:40):
had a mother. And I love my mom. She did
the best she could with the hand that she was dealt.
I'll say that my mother had a terrible childhood herself.
You learn somebody else's story, you'll understand why they are
the way they are, and you have less hard feelings
(29:01):
for someone when you begin to discover what they've been through.
And so as I got older and I started asking
questions from aunts and uncles and folks that knew my
mother and how she grew up, Man, I had less
and less animosity for the way I grew up because
I understood my mama's story. Be careful how you judge
(29:22):
somebody and how you respond to somebody based on who
they are. Just be careful. People have been through some stuff, y'all.
This world is wicked and evil, and there are a
lot of wicked and evil things that happened to us
because we did not have a father. It's a problem.
(29:49):
It's a problem. And as I go out and meet
people in public and get to know people, I love
to hear people with those My daddy used to always
or me and my daddy used to always or on
(30:11):
Sundays right at the dinner table. Daddy used to I
love to hear those stories, and I hate those stories too.
I love to hear those stories because it's so rich
and like you, hear the joy that they've experienced wanting
(30:33):
to be with daddy. Oh man, somebody sent me something
this morning. I'll share it with you. Maybe I'll put
it in the description box. Brother sent me a sixty
second video about how he hid in the back of
the car after he asked if he can go spend
the day with his daddy and his daddy said no,
I got stuff to do. He jumps into the car
and hides in the back seat and lays down. In
(30:55):
about ten minutes into the drive, he pops up, heydaddy
did his boy was wrong with you? Man? He said, Daddy,
I just wanted to spend the day with you. And
his dad was bad at first, but then his dad
looked at him and say, boy, if you don't get
up in his front seat, you want to go to McDonald's.
(31:16):
And he says, he smiled as bright as the sun.
They had a great day with his dad. I don't
have none of those stories. I have none of those.
And I listened to that young man's story this morning.
I was in my car driving. I almost had to
pull over, just overcome with emotion. Just number one, because
(31:40):
I see the power of a father and his son
and to see the dynamic there, and I also feel
the lack, the emptiness, the suffering that I endured because
my father was absent. Yeah, but to take a look
(32:04):
at description and understand the power of having a father
in your life. It is a lie, ladies, and some
of you ladies need to hear me today. It is
a lie that you do not need a man. It's
crazy how you needed a man for you to be conceived.
How you needed a man to conceive the child that
you have or the child that you want. But you
(32:28):
believe that you don't need a man. What you really
mean is that you don't need a bad, old, bust down,
broke man. And you write about that good for nothing, broke,
busted and disgusted and can't be trusted. Yep, you don't
need a man like that. What you need is a
(32:50):
god man. A man who fears God will do right.
A man who fears God number one will hear from
the Lord when danger is coming, and that man will
get up and respond to the Lord's voice. That's the
man that you need, ladies. A man that you need
will have provision and doesn't matter who it comes from.
(33:12):
Here wise man come to worship because they believe the scriptures,
and they saw the star. We've been waiting for this moment.
Is this it? They went and found it and said, hey, listen, yes,
this is it. Let's give this man some money. Why
because we believe in the scriptures and we saw the
star and this child right here, the Lord is speaking
to us saying give him something because this father needs
(33:34):
to take this family and they're going to need those resources.
That's the kind of man you need who has resources
in his life that he can protect you and provide
for you. I understand why you get mad, and because
(33:57):
you've been through what you've been through, just like my mom,
through a relationship after relationship, trying to find somebody, trying
to be happy, trying to create what we see here
Joseph marrying Jesus the baby, trying to create stability of
protection and provision is what a man is supposed to
bring to his family. I know you frustrated, and you've
been through all of that. I'm just saying, just don't
(34:19):
believe the lie of the world that says you can
do it on your own. No, it's not that you
don't need a man. You don't need the men that
you have had. You need to find God's man because
God's man hears from him from God. God's man has provision,
(34:41):
and God's Man is able to listen to God and
provide protection for you and for your child. And you
see that happening in Joseph's life. This is the model. Oh,
I can regale you with story after story, just trauma, trauma, trauma,
(35:05):
which is one of the reasons why I stay in counseling.
I stay on the phone with my mentors marriage counseling.
Yet about to start that too, because y'all listen, there's
just stuff that you go through when your family is
not intact, just unnecessary stuff. Anytime you get away from
(35:30):
God's design for your life, trouble is on the way.
Trouble is on the way. You know, this country is
at a birth rate that is below what it takes
to replace society because people have gotten away from God's
(35:52):
design for life. People don't have kids. That's the average
twenty year old to twenty five, and the majority of them,
the ain't trying to have kids. They're trying to get
an education. They're trying to get a job, they're trying
to get famous, They trying to get likes, they trying
(36:13):
to get clicks. They're trying to get the car, they
trying to get the house, all that stuff, and it
never fulfills you. It never satisfies you. But you know
(36:33):
what they're not trying to do. They're not trying to
deny their flesh, so they still want to be sexually
active and spreading their wild oats and now wild oats
turned into wild oak trees. All these fatherless children running
around out here, no fear, no fear of consequences, no
(36:53):
respect for authority, no discipline, angry because just like you,
if you are single, if you were raised without your father,
you are just like me. And there's nothing that you
can tell me to convince me and anything different. There's
a hole in your heart that is the shape of
your father, that you are, have been, and will continue
(37:14):
to fill that void with something else, and that something
else will never satisfy. Sex, drugs, alcohol, partying, stuff, thing,
(37:35):
all the earths, all the urths. You try to fill
that hole up with all the arths, and it never satisfies.
The more and more you get away from God's model,
the more and more you're vulnerable to the arths. You
know what the erths are, don't you. I need ooh,
this is good take away the father, and you're vulnerable
(38:01):
to the other ers. I need a bigger, a newer, another,
a shinier. Just keep on adding to ers. You just
need another one and another one. And these things don't satisfy.
(38:26):
There's nothing more satisfying, more beautiful than doing things God's way.
And as we see here in the Book of Matthew,
chapter two, we see what family is supposed to look
like when family has done God's way, and we see
(38:46):
provision I mean we see direction. Joseph. God speaks to Joseph.
The angel speaks to Joseph in a dream. It says,
get up, do this for your family, and he saves
his family from destruction. That's what a father is supposed
(39:06):
to do. Father's supposed to hear from God say hey,
we doing this. A father's supposed to grab his son,
say hey, you're going to be this, grab his daughter.
You can do this with your life, baby girl, I
love you and I'll protect you from any and every
danger that might face you. Those children are supposed to
(39:31):
see their father love his wife. This children are supposed
to see a man love his wife. They're supposed to
be a powerful relationship between a man and a woman,
and that becomes a model for them. And when they
get older, they say, hey, I wanna be happy the
(39:52):
way my father and my mother were happy together. But
too many of us don't see that, and too many
of us are just like me, going into fatherhood trying
to figure it out instead of being instructed by somebody
(40:14):
who worked it out. And this is where we are.
And the more and more we escape from and run
away from and turn our backs on God's plan and
design for our lives, the more we suffer consequences. And boy,
(40:36):
I can just regale you with your stories of suffering.
It just shouldn't have been that way in this country.
People should not be hungry, you guys. If you've read
my book, you've heard my story of just always being
(40:59):
the small guys. So it's easy to be beat up
and pushed around and bullied and chased home. And I
was always a small guy, you know what. More and
more I think about it, and the reason I was
always a small guy because I was always hungry, malnourished.
There's never enough food in the house. And I just
(41:22):
wonder how things would have been different had my father
been around to hear from God. One of how things
have been different, had my family been like the family
that's described here, where the father's there and he can
hear about danger coming and he can do something about it.
(41:45):
But I had to figure it out on my own.
And listen, I did. You can speak to each one
of my five children. My children have never been chased
home from school. Never. Never have my children been beat
up by somebody. Oh no, no, no, it's not happening,
(42:07):
not up in here. Because I wanted to change things
I wanted to change the pattern. I wanted to change history,
and I didn't have a natural father to model it
to me. But thank God that I gained access to
my spiritual father, and he made all the difference. And
(42:33):
as we approach Mother's Day, you see here Mary having
found favor with God, and we don't know. There's not
a lot of descriptors in there about why Mary found
favor with God and says you are blessed not on
the favorite of the Lord. We don't know. There's not
(42:54):
a lot of information in there in the first book
of Matthew. But to hear in chapter two, this is
Joseph is being instructed, Hey, don't put her away. We
know she's pregnant and you didn't do it. But the
child that she's conceived was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
This is a child of prophecy. Don't put her away.
(43:15):
And this is a man of integrity, saying, I hear
from God and I see this woman. She is a
virtuous woman, because the Angel said, the Angel tells Joseph,
this is her. This is your wife. Man. If you wait,
God will speak to you and tell you who your
(43:36):
wife's supposed to be. If you wait, and patiently and
get yourself in the right position and be the right
person that you're supposed to be. God will tell you
who your husband is supposed to be, a person of virtue,
(43:57):
a person who finds favor with God, because that's who
you want. That's really what you want in your life.
And just see, people want good things in their lives.
They just number one, either don't know how to go
about getting the good things or they just refused to
do the right thing in order to get the good thing.
(44:18):
Some people want that fast money. People want to work hard. Why.
I remember the story of Snoop Dogg Man. He was
out there selling dope and he said, man, listen, I
had a job. I was just out there working at
this place. I was paying three dollars. I was working
(44:38):
for three dollars and changed an hour, and at the
end of two weeks, I made three hundred dollars. And
he said, man, in the last couple of days, I'm
averaging about three hundred dollars an hour selling dope. And
his life changed when he went to jail and he
(45:00):
got around some men, and they wasn't necessarily godly men,
but there were men who recognized a gift. And this
is a true story. You should hear. Stephen A. Smith
interviewed Snoop DOGG. It was a few months ago, but
you can look it up when Stephen A. Smith show
and Snoop said, those people in jail looked at me
(45:21):
and said, hey, you got a gift. Because he was
in jail doing rat battles and he was crushing crushing them.
He got a gift, obviously, Snoop DOGG right. And he
was crushing them having rat battles in jail, and he said,
one of the dudes in jail who was running stuff,
one of the dudes who was the man up in
jail man, he pulled him aside, had a couple of
(45:43):
his henchmen along his along each one of his shoulders,
and they cornered Snoop in the room and said, listen,
you gonna get out of here, and you're gonna pursue
his gift that you have. And if you come back here,
we gone. And I can't repeat what they said over
(46:04):
these FCC where airwaves if you come back here. And
he got out and he did what those men in
his life told him to do, and thus was born
(46:27):
s and DOBP. Dble G the dog Pound. Hey, you
may not like his genre and his style of music,
but that brother heard from some men who gave him guidance,
and there he is and here he is. Man. I
just wonder how my life would be had I had
a along with Mary who was my mother. And like
(46:51):
I said, my mother did what she could with the
hand that she was dealt. But I just wonder what
life would have been like had she had a Joseph.
Has she had a man in her life to speak
to her what God has said to guide her in
(47:14):
the past of righteousness according to how God has led.
Wonder how things would have been in my life growing
up as a child. Had my mother had a Joseph
who had provision, gold, frankinsense, and myrrh, he had what
they needed to get up and flee and go to Egypt.
(47:35):
I wonder what my life had been like. H We
need to pray for our country. We need to pray
for our young folks, especially some of our young women.
They just do not have a mentor in their life
(47:56):
to speak to them and say, hey, baby girl, you've
got some things in your life going on more than
what you're showing off, which it clothes or lack thereof.
You know you could make a success out of yourself
with something else other than your body. This is how
you do it. This is how you find a good man.
(48:16):
This is what a bad man looks like. This is
what an evil man looks like. This is what a
selfish man looks like. This is how you become a
virtuous woman who can find favor with God and with man.
This is what a virtuous woman does. And this is
what a virtuous woman does not do. Have you read
Proverbs thirty one? It describes what God's woman looks like.
(48:40):
How can I help you become that? Hmm? I wonder
how my mother's life would have been different had she had
a Mary speak into her life, and had she had
Joseph there to provide and protect and to cast God's
(49:02):
vision for our lives. M h. And So here we are.
The story of Jesus is unfolding, and next week, as
we moved to chapter three, you'll find Jesus the man
(49:27):
moving into his ministry, beginning powerful exploits for the Kingdom
of God. But brother, I'm telling you, I'm thankful for
Joseph and for Mary, and I'll always wonder what my
life would have been like had I had a Joseph
(49:48):
a father in my life, and had my mother been
somebody different than who she was. I love her. I
love her. She had her flaws, and she had a
handicap and raising children alone it was not God's design.
(50:08):
We see God's design for family right here in Matthew
chapter two. But thanks to God that, in spite of
being raised in a rock solid family, I grabbed a
hold of God and he showed me how to do things.
(50:32):
His way was a perfect note, but I was perfectly
trying to do things God's way. And my friends, as
long as that is your goal and that is your effort,
your life will end well and you'll have God's provision
(50:58):
and you'll be on the road to powerful living in
every area of your life. Henry Flowers Powerful Living outreach ministries.
I ain't going to where I'm coming back.
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