Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
[Music] just bless his name honor him for a few minutes lord we bless you this morning we honor you lord we love you lord god your word says that if we love you we would keep your commandments lord and truly god you know the ones that love you and father we just thank you we thank you god for your grace your mercy your revelation everything about you lord we just love you this morning lord there are some people in the world they just hate you they speak against you they don't understand why uh there's evil in the world and why stuff is happening there i want to bring all these accusations against you lord but you're the only thing good in the whole universe and the whole world and they don't even know it lord and lord we just worship you and we pray god that you will anoint us and that you will use us to be a light to people in the world that they may see the truth hear the truth and believe the truth through our lives as we love and obey you father thank you for this in jesus name we pray amen and amen praise god good worship time good worship time well baby are you ready okay well it's all yours and you're gonna have to for him to get a good recording you have to hold this up here oh well praise god this is a kind of a last-minute thing yesterday whenever i was sitting on the sofa reading my bible innocently as you know unsuspecting um i was i took out my notebook and as soon as i did the lord spoke to me and said when dean comes down from upstairs pray and he's gonna he's gonna ask you to preach tomorrow and i was like wait a minute i'm just innocently studying you know i don't have a sermon and so the lord started showing me that there were some things that he wanted me to share and one of the things was starting with if you'll turn to luke if you remember a couple of weeks ago i shared something that the lord had um fresh freshly revealed to me and he wanted me to go back and revisit it but go into more depth so if you go to luke 1 it sounds like i'm going to bring to you this morning a nice sweet christmas story because we're going to read about jesus's birth and and the angel come to mary but it's not actually going to go there so don't get too comfortable with it um all right luke you know the first first part of the chapter talks about zacharias and
john the baptist you know the angel coming to him and saying that but we're going to start in verse 26 verse 26 of luke 1. now in the sixth month the angel gabriel was sent from god to a city in galilee called nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was joseph of the descendants of david and the virgin's name was mary and coming in he said to her hail favored one the lord is with you but she was greatly troubled in this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be then the angel said to her do not be afraid mary for you have found favor with god and behold you will conceive in your room and bear a son and you shall name him jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the lord god will give him the throne of his father david and he will reign over the house of jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end and mary said to the angel how can this be since i am a virgin and the angel answered and said to her the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will ever shadow you and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the son of god and behold even your relative elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month for nothing would be impossible with god and mary said behold the bond slave of the lord be it done to me according to your word and the angel departed from her we're going to go ahead and continue a little ways verse 39 now at this time mary arose and went with haste to the hill country to a city of judah and entered the house of zacharias and greeted elizabeth and it came about when elizabeth heard mary's greeting the baby leaped in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and she cried out with a loud voice and and keep in mind this is not elizabeth just saying these things she was filled with the holy spirit and just like later on in the chapter it talks about zacharias being filled with the holy spirit and prophesy and that's what's going on here it's not elizabeth just saying wonderful things it's the holy spirit speaking through her and she cried out with a loud voice and said blessed among women are you and blessed is blessed is the fruit of your womb and how it has it happened to me that the mother of my lord should come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting reached my ears the baby leaped in my womb for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what has been spoken to her by the lord and a couple of weeks ago the lord just you know showed me the the word fulfillment right there um you know it's
it's that mary believed that it was already done the word fulfillment is in the greek and i won't probably pronounce it correctly but talios teleosis e l t-e-l-e-i-o-s-i-s i o s i s and it's the fulfillment of a promise it refers to the completeness as an attainment already reached versus um another greek word teliotus which t-e-l-e-i-o-t-e-s which refers to the attainment to be reached so it wasn't that mary was saying you know this will happen when the lord spoke it to her she received it as as the truth that it was it was done it was complete it was it was fulfilled and she was also very willing to she immediately um you know said be it let's see in verse 38 behold the bond slave of the lord and be it done to me according to your word so she didn't question it she didn't she just accepted it as the truth um that's all good but that's not exactly what i'm going to focus on this morning we need to we need to look at mary and how she accepted the word of the lord um and and how she took it as truth but then also look at what happened to her afterwards okay what were some of the things that that were spoken over mary i know we all have things that are spoken over us a lot of times we've had prophecies or the lord has shown us things in his word or given us you know things directly from him or other people have spoken it over us and so some of the things that that that the lord spoke of her was that she was a favored one she was richly blessed the lord is with you you found favor with god um the that to us sounds all wonderful i mean the promise the things that were spoken over her child i mean what a glorious thing she received from the lord i mean she must have been just walking on the clouds from from having this experience and these words spoken over but then take a step back and look what happened to her immediately after that okay if you go on turn to matthew 1 and you'll have to excuse me three weeks coming up on due date of little faith marie sometimes i get out of breath so as i talk so if i'm huffing and puffing it's because i have a baby in my belly and i have three weeks to go so [Laughter] um oh my husband brings me a chair thank you um matthew 1 we go into more of this story and it talks about joseph's side of this
matthew 1 18. now the birth of jesus christ was as follows when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph before they came together she was found to be with child by the holy spirit and joseph her husband being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her desire to put her away secretly and what we need to understand here is when in jewish culture and their laws being betrothed to someone was as good as being married um it was a binding contract so it's not like today when you just get a ring and give it back and get a ring and give it back and it's not a big deal betrothal was a big deal and it usually happened about usually about a year before you got married and the woman was considered to be his his wife he was considered to be her husband it just wasn't that they went on to the physical it was a time where he would prepare a home and and they were committed to each other through a bonding contract so betrothal she she was basically married to joseph and came up pregnant and it wasn't by him so this was a serious situation um unlike today when you know people do these things all all the time and don't think anything of it it wasn't done like that back then and of course that's the way it's supposed to be is the committed relationship and then marriage but so and when it refers to in verse 19 desire to put her away secretly that was a divorce that's how you had to get out of a betrothal was you actually had to divorce the woman if she had been unfaithful or if he was found to not be able to pro you know provide a home and the things that he was supposed to be preparing you had to actually go through this process so god speaks this wonderful word to mary and then all of a sudden what happens next she's in danger of losing her husband she's in danger of being um embarrassed and put to shame of actually being stoned you know for adultery because she had supposedly had these you know relationships and turned up pregnant so it was it wasn't a favorable thing the lord spoke you know you are a favored one well sometimes god's favor doesn't look like our favor and most of the time favor with god does not equal favor with man i mean i mean it just doesn't that's if it does you're you're really in an odd circumstance so she she faced embarrassment false accusations i mean how many of us when we speak out for the lord end up having that happen um her husband almost divorced her but praise god you know god had chosen them for a reason he was a godly man and he listened to the angel and he followed the lord then i mean even after that after all of that got cleared up she didn't have a an
easy road you know i think about my pregnancy and i get tired just driving in the car traveling to georgia this woman had to pack up and travel by donkey from nazareth to bethlehem and she was pretty pregnant so i guess i've got it pretty cushy i shouldn't complain and then she ended up giving birth to this great king and and all of these wonderful promises had been spoken over her baby she gives birth to him in a stable it lays him in a trough you know i mean things just didn't equal up to what she thought probably they should have it didn't look like favor um and then after that they have to run from herod because he's wanting to kill the babies because he heard about you know the the king coming so they're running for their child's life once again not very favorable um and then i mean if you skip on ahead she left her child and she ended up having to watch him be beaten and crucified at the age of 33. um that's no mother's dream of course you know you certainly don't want to outlive your children you certainly don't want to see them beaten and mocked and spit upon and crucified at such a young age so i i go through that just to revisit that um god's favor god speaks things over us it doesn't always look like what we think it should it doesn't always turn out the way we think it should so i just want to go through some examples because in our own lives i mean i know we've had things happen but god gave us the scripture god gave us the old testament god gave us the new testament as an example as as something to learn from as as things to just go by so if you'll turn to genesis 6. genesis 6 5 we're just going to run through and i'll try to be real quick we're going to run through some some of examples of you know when god spoke to people and how it how it turned out you know it turned out the way god wanted it to but did it always look the way the people thought it should um genesis 6 and i turn to five okay verse five then the lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was was only evil continually it sounds like today of course in the days of noah pastor dean has been teaching on that and the lord was sorry that he made man on on the earth and he was grieved in his heart and the lord said i will blot out man who i have created from the face of the land from from man to animals to creeping things into birds of the sky
and i'm sorry that i've made them that's pretty sad but noah found favor in the lord's eyes so here we go again we have someone who found favor in the lord's eyes and you know i mean that's what we always pray for oh lord give us favor with you know you and give us travel in favor give us you know favor with this favor with that so here we go noah found favor in the eyes of the lord um and then if you go down to verse 18 it even says that the lord tells noah i will establish my covenant with you and you shall enter the ark and you and your sons and your wife and your sons wise with you so god's gonna he's that noah's found favor with him god's gonna establish his covenant with him it sounds like a great deal but then what does noah go through for we were looking back at it yesterday it doesn't specifically give a time period but if you go back in chapter 5 when they first mention him having his sons and then if you go on in chapter 6 where it talks about him the flood coming he was 500 at one point 600 another so it could have been a period of 100 years we think we have a long time to wait for god's promises to be fulfilled thank god we don't live that long anymore or think how long we might have to wait he had a hundred years of preaching righteousness he was a preacher of righteousness much like my husband and he did it for a hundred years and who got saved his family only his family out of that hundred years and building the ark and probably being ridiculed and mocked and scoffed at a hundred years worth of this and standing on god's word and his promise and only his family got saved and responded wow you know we don't have it so bad i think um so bless little noah's heart abraham let's go over to genesis 12. you know father abraham had many sons many sons had father abraham [Laughter] genesis 12. i mean abraham had some great promises didn't he i mean god just just really loved this guy if you go to 12 1 this is what the lord said to abraham well he was abram at this time it was before he had his name changed god said go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which i will show you notice i will show you he didn't show him he said he would show him um and i will make you a great nation and i will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing and i will bless those who bless you and and the one who curses you i will curse and in you all the families of the earth
shall be blessed wow i mean that's a really great promise that's a i mean if one of us got those that word we went to a service and somebody prophesied that over us wow that i mean that's pretty powerful you know pretty much you know anybody that messes with you i'm going to mess with god said you know that's protection right there um anybody that blesses you they'll be blessed so i mean it's you're gonna be the father of many you're gonna i mean it's it's a great promise but then what happens you know abraham goes through some junk you know i mean before he actually sees in in genesis 15 you know he doesn't have any children in genesis 15 god ends up promising him a son um if you want to turn there you can let's see well he promises him isaac and of course you know abraham is pretty old at this point and and he doesn't really think about having a son it's like well okay but he believes the lord you know he believes the lord but then what does he do so he gets this great promise about you know in in chapter 12 and then he gets the promise of this wonderful son that he's he and his wife have been longing for in chapter 15 and and god tells him that he's going to have a son and descendants like the stars i mean wow once again an old man who has no children and now he's going to have descendants like the stars so what happens to abraham he ends up twice he gives his wife away to a pharaoh and a king you know once he he um ends up you know taking things into his own hands he and his wife and having a son that you know he wasn't supposed to have ishmael by the handmaiden and and so it's pretty much abraham makes a lot of mistakes on his own you know a lot of the stories in the bible you'll see they have persecution they have this and that abraham goofed up quite a bit you know he he gave his own wife away to people because he was afraid that he was going to get killed over how pretty she was twice you know he didn't learn the first time he did it twice um that's encouraging for us yeah abraham you know made some some major goofs and then i mean the woman issues that he had of it just you know between his wife convincing him to go and lay with the handmaiden and having then having them go back and forth he had woman issues and it was all his own creation he did all this to himself um but god still used him and god still ended up giving him isaac but what
happened when he finally got that promise son what does god tell him to do yeah sacrifice him once again this does not look like the picture that probably abraham had in his mind of what it should have gone like um you know god sends him out to a land where he doesn't know where he's supposed to be going reminds me of dean and i you know kind of okay god wherever you want us to go that's what we're gonna do washington dc oh no okay auburn okay you know just kind of stepping out and going wherever um and then abraham just messes it up royally all over the place but god continues to keep his word and be faithful successful story in the end and then we'll turn over to genesis 37 joseph another bless joseph's little heart you know he has these two dreams that that's such a southern saying i know it is but i'm gonna sound southern so i might as well say it joseph has these two dreams and they're great they're about him you know basically rising above his brothers and you know i mean and what does he do he shares them not always the best thing to do when you're going to be you know rising above your brothers who already have issues with you because you're the favorite um so we're not going to go into it because if we go into all of these we'll probably be here until two o'clock but and i promised nick that we wouldn't so he has these dreams his brothers get jealous this happens in so many families jealousy issues they sell him into slavery which seems like a horrible thing but if you look in in genesis 39 2 it says and the lord was with joseph so he became a successful man i mean this is a this is a nice thing god was with joseph no matter what situation he got into god directed his path god you know gave him wisdom god gave him revelation he you know ordered his steps but it just didn't always feel good you know being in the pit that your brothers threw you in didn't feel good being sold into slavery not not a good situation but he rose above that because god made him successful well what happens he's probably thinking all right well guys working out this situation for me that's great what happens then his bosses you know his potipher's the the master that he's a slave for his his master's wife lies about him and false accusations once again something that christians you know true christians face a lot um and he goes right back down to the bottom of the pile again
couldn't have looked good he probably thought well this just isn't right you know god made me successful why is it always all being stripped away from me you know i mean he was human he probably had worries doubts fears you know he probably wasn't pleased with the situation probably was angry at the wife you know that would have been normal so he's thrown into jail what happens in jail he rises to the top again god's favor was on him that's great even in jail even in a situation where it didn't look like you know he should have had favor and so he you know ends up speaking out and giving an interpretation to these two guys in there and they both come true he's thinking oh this cupbearer he's going to spring me he's going to remember me he's going to spring me from jail what happens the guy totally forgets about him and and he still stays in jail you know it's like wait a minute i thought god was setting up a scenario here to get me out of here didn't work out the way he thought it was gonna gonna work out um but finally you know the the pharaoh had the dreams and joseph interpreted and and through this whole scenario he ends up being once again raised out of a horrible situation and he was made the ruler of egypt right under the pharaoh because of his revelation and and the things that he told the pharaoh about the famine that was coming but when he had the dreams he was 17 he was about 17. you know when he was raised up as the ruler of egypt he was 30. so quite a bit a period of time between what you know god showed him in a dream and what really happened you know and i i can imagine there were some discouraging moments there for him um we'll move on to famous moses you know moses is it bless his heart he's like the pastor of the worst church in the world is what moses says i was reading about this yesterday and i just started laughing i mean it's not funny funny but it's pitiful because this guy saw so many miracles signs and wonders the red sea parted and what happened in i mean the plagues he got the the children out of egypt and i mean all this incredible stuff and boy did the children of israel just treat him like pooh you know i mean they complained they murmured right after they get across the red sea and escape you know certain death from from pharaoh pursuing them they start grumbling it's just not good enough you know and i'm sitting here going how did this guy he really had god's grace on him he i mean he really did because because leading these people is like leading the biggest worst church in the history of mankind it really is
if if you go go ahead and turn to numbers 11. moses was one it talks about in exodus 33 11 that god spoke to him face to face i mean that's incredible face to face wouldn't we love that i mean we we speak to god and we have experiences with god but this guy was glowing you know his his whole face was was lit up from being in his presence um he saw miracles he god put him in the cleft of the rock and passed by because moses was crying out to see his glory you know god referred to him as his friend you know he spoke to face to face but like a friend but then also you know he was pursued by pharaoh pharaoh wanted to kill him he went through all kinds of trials and tribulations god's people rebelling even after everything they saw um them constantly complaining we don't have enough water well we don't like the manna give us some meat you know i mean it was just never good enough and it got so bad that this is this is what made me kind of laugh here in numbers 11. the title on this chapter is the complaint of moses so moses said to the lord why hast thou been so hard on thy servant and why have i not found favor in thy sight now keep in mind this is a man who god spoke to face to face who his glory you know i'm sorry verse 11. did i not say that i'm getting some weird clothes i said 11 once but i didn't say it again it was chapter 11 verse 11. so moses is complaining that he doesn't have god's favor but my goodness he had seen the red sea part he had seen you know manna he had seen all these things he had you know had the glory of the lord on him but he's still struggling with this and he says why hast thou been so hard on thy servant and why have i not found favor in thy side and thou has laid the burden of all this people on me was it i who conceived all this people was it i who brought them forth that thou should say to me carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant to the land which thou didst swear to their fathers i mean he's getting serious and down with it here he is really complaining it's like are these my kids did i birth them do i really have to take care of them um then he goes on to say um where am i to to get meat to give to all this people for they weep before me saying give us meat that we may eat i alone am not able to carry all this people because it is too burdensome for
me so if thou art going to deal thus with me please kill me at once if i have found favor in thy sight and do not let me see do not let me see my wretchedness he's like just kill me go ahead and kill me this is just too much you know i mean all the things the wonderful things that he experienced with god and yet he gets to this point he's like i can't deal with these people they're a bunch of babies they're infants kill me god i'd rather die right now than have to deal with them another day once again it's like wow moses that great man of god that you see you know in the movie holding up the staff and being so strong and bold he gets to this point where he's just like i just don't want to do it anymore you know these people are just too difficult like i said moses was the pastor of the biggest worst church in the in the whole history of the world so oh he's my funny one i love the fact that he's so human and that's what you find when you go through and you read these things is they're so human and they go through their highs and lows and they experience the presence of the lord and then they have great difficulty but the thing that stays constant is they kept going you know they just kept going um gideon we'll move on to gideon and judges six god calls gideon a mighty man of valor well where does he run into this angel that calls him mighty man of valor he's hiding he's scared because of the midianites and he's hiding in the wine press beating out his wheat in the wine press because he's scared of the midianites and this angel appears and calls him a mighty man of valor once again god has a sense of humor doesn't he you're trembling for fear and god's going to call you something that you just don't see in in the short of it is you know judges 6 judges 7. god calls me gideon to basically get this army together and go defeat their enemy so he gets this great army of 22 000 people which is pretty decent you know and what does god do too many what that can't be right you know too many people to go and battle do you really ever think that there's too many people to fight on your side come on well god said there was in isaiah 55 8-9 a perfect scripture for gideon it says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts that's definitely what gideon experienced here god's ways are not our
ways so god took that army he said you know tell them if they're afraid to go home okay he tells them how many does it go down to ten thousand people that's still a pretty decent sized army okay we can deal with that you know god can do anything even with ten thousand so what does he do still too many so he takes him down to 300 and that's not impressive in those days you know an army of 300 people i mean the the stats here are really kind of getting scary so but once again god's ways are not our ways and so gideon had found favor it just didn't look like things were turning out the way that he would thought you know would have thought god tells you to get an army together you're thinking army big impressive army god's ways are not our ways you know his thoughts are not our thoughts i used to think that that just meant oh well we'll never understand god his ways are not our ways his thoughts are not our thoughts we just have to accept that and just deal with whatever but no there's actually a point where you can pray and spend time with the lord and walk in the spirit and your thoughts can get higher your thoughts can move into the spiritual world your ways can become like god's ways and that's what he's he's not saying oh you know bless your your little pitiful hearts you're never going to be up here with me he's he's saying you know raise up your standards and walk the way i walk walk in the spirit you know don't walk by the flesh my ways are not your way so figure out what my ways are and walk that way you know figure out what my thoughts are pray in the holy spirit so that he'll reveal my thoughts to you because the holy spirit knows my thoughts the holy spirit is here hearing what i'm saying and he can pass it on to you so you know gideon was successful gideon took 300 people and he defeated the enemy that's that's a god thing you know that's definitely a god thing um hannah first samuel one and two everybody knows this is one of my favorite stories because it shows the agony of longing for something and not getting it for so long um a great desperation for a baby despair you know i mean she was just torn up that she had not you know born a son even though she had favor with her husband and he loved her more than he loved his other wife who was barren children so she ends up you know going before the priest and and ends up actually conceiving and having a son which seems like wow what a great answer to prayer but then what did god require of her what did she do with that son she gave him to the lord and when she said give him to the lord it's not like our baby dedications she actually had to let go of her child and send him she sent him to be raised by the priest and you know if you read the story it's
she waited for him to be weaned and then she gave her son to the lord so this promise that she had waited on for so long and and agonized over and cried over and you know begged the lord for she gave back to the lord you know and and us looking at it now it you know we probably think wow that's really kind of she got jumped you know but that was that was what the lord had arranged for her and she was good with that because she had given up her right you know to raise that child she just wanted she wanted that answer to prayer she got it and she surrendered everything even her son which was the answer to that prayer back over to the lord and that's really letting go and surrendering all to the lord really um to wean your child and then and then go visit him once a year you know bring him a new little ephod or whatever you know i mean that's that that's really dedication to the lord um and then you have daniel of course god didn't answer the prayer and keep him out of the lion's den god you know dealt with it the situation when he was in the lion's den and gave him favor a lot of us think god should prevent things from happening that's not always the way that the lord does things sometimes it does sometimes we don't know that he has prevented something from happening to us but sometimes we have to go through things and if you look in these stories most of the times they had to go through things me shack shadrach and abednego daniel 3 same same scenario as the lion's den god didn't keep him out of the fire he just joined them in the fire you know when when they went back to look in the fire there was a fourth person in there with him you know with them so he didn't he didn't prevent it from happening he just made sure he walked through it with them which is what he does with us and then we'll move on to david david first samuel 16. he was anointed as a young boy you know as a teenager he was anointed to be king i mean that's a big deal that's a good promise that's a you know that's a word if we got that oh you know your teenage son if if somebody came and anointed my son austin at 17 to be president you know that would be an incredible promise to be looking forward to but then what happened you know you follow david's life you know he saw the king it was constantly trying to kill him he was you know schizo he would love love his music and love this and that and then he would you know be controlled by demons and then go after him and try to kill him and not just threaten but really he really wanted to kill him um david had to go and hide in caves you know he
definitely not the lifestyle of an up-and-coming king it didn't appear you know it did the the things that happened in david's life did not match up with the word he had gotten about being anointed as king if you go to first samuel 22 first samuel 22 2 god finally gives him a posse and gives him some people to hang out with and to battle with him and who does god give him 2 and everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was discontented gathered to him david and he became captain over them now there were about four hundred men with him he gives him a ragtag bunch of guys that are discontented in debt how many you know how many can agree with having yeah and in distress you know not really the the shining example of an army that you want to see distressed discontented and in debt but that's what god gave him and god worked with it god you know god did some mighty things through that you know david ends up being in in the land having to live in the land with his enemies um the philistines when he's hiding from saul god even works that out for him you know he's an outcast and he's in in another land has to live as a foreigner and then in um on on into 1st samuel you see a story where david comes to the rescue of the people of kela i'm not sure that i'm saying that right kela k-e-i-l-a-h kila he comes to the rescue saves them from the philistines you know battles for him comes in as the hero and then what happens they turn on him saul's going to come and and come after david and and david prays about you know everything and he says god are they going to surrender me over to saul and what does guys say yep they sure are yep you just saved their lives you just saved their city but they're going to turn on you and they're going to send you over to saul you know so you better get out of here you know it's like can i ever even when i'm the hero i get turned on so definitely but then he did move into being king and he still had some issues but god fulfilled that promise so and well the last example i'll give you is the the example of all examples i know when whenever a couple of years back i had this this day well there's a couple of days where everything in my life went wrong in just a matter of a couple of days i mean it was just like what else can happen it's before i met my wonderful husband but then everything went right
but i'm getting points but it was one of those days and then i was moving something and knocked my head probably as hard as i could on something as i was moving it and i just screamed out lord am i job you know because job is one of those that everything just got stripped from him everything went wrong he lost his wealth he lost his children you know were dead he and then he lost his health you know everybody says well at least i have my help he didn't have any of that you know he got messed up in a very short period of time and he was a good man job 1 1 said it said job was blameless upright fearing god and turning away from evil this was a good man he was blameless in god's sight and yet things just didn't go right you know now you skip on through to job 42 and it talks about in verse 10 how god restored job's fortunes two-fold and then verse 12 it says god blessed job's latter days more than his beginnings but in between this job got criticized by his friends you know everybody his wife is like nagging and he's in tremendous pain from this physical condition on his body that's been inflicted by the devil so he had a really rough time but then his latter days were you know blessed more than his beginning um but this was a righteous man he was a blameless upright fearing god and turning away from evil but he suffered some something that you know we couldn't even imagine you know i mean we we may lose this or we may lose that or have a child sick or you know even have a child you know god forbid people have had children who died but he lost all of his children he lost you know everything he had but he still stayed steady with god you know i mean he just still stayed on the path and and continued and god did bless him but the story just doesn't look like what we usually think it should you know it it didn't um i grew up in in the charismatic faith movement which is wonderful it was wonderful it put a lot of great things and and teachings into me but one of the things that that transpired out of that whole movement was the whole name it and claim it you know no we're supposed to be prosperous so um money cometh you know i remember being in church and them just saying that over and over and over and over and so it should be this way well money didn't cometh to job you know he was good with god and money
didn't cometh you know he was he was good with god and health didn't cometh you know i mean there there's something to be said about believing and having faith but there's also things that we have to walk through um in hebrews 11 6 it says and without faith it is impossible to please him for he who comes to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him and that's that's very true he is a rewarder of those who seek him faith in the greek is p i p-i-s-t-i-s and it's being persuaded or belief and implies such a knowledge of ascent to and confidence in certain divine truths especially those of the gospel as produces good works you know being convinced confident [Music] being certain in divine truths like like the lord loves you you know and he's there with you he'll never leave you he'll never forsake you he's faithful he's your shield i mean there are certain things that we know but when it says he is a rewarder of those who seek him we a lot of times get that kind of twisted into our own views what what is his reward it doesn't always look like what we think it should you know we think money and and power and good you know favor in our job and and those things he will give to us but it's not always in our timing it's not always the way that we think it should be um the agape love love god's kind of love i i like this i keep this in mind whenever i go through things it's not shown by doing what the person loved desires but what the one who loves deems as needed by the one loved so it's not always you know you you may not god may not decide that we need money or we need this or that at a particular time um it's it's different than that and one of the things that he does is he will test our hearts in deuteronomy 8 2 and i'm just i'm running through this because we're getting closer to the ending time but in deuteronomy 8 2 it says and you shall remember all the way which the lord your god has led you in the wilderness wilderness is not a fun place to be these 40 years that he might humble you testing you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not and that's a lot of times i know in my own life you know i've been through a lot you know i went through divorce and raising my kids by myself and all of these things and then when i think that you know everything's
been stripped away and anything can't get worse then i lost my job that i had for 16 years as a single mom and the thing that the lord told me in january of 2007 when i lost my job was wait on me you know and that at that point i had been crying out to him i wanted to do his will in every step you know i didn't want to get off at all and whenever i prayed he just kept saying wait on me and i was like okay lord it's january 2007 don't have a job single mom have a house have a car have you know need the lights on wait on you okay is that figuratively or is that you know literally because i hope that it's just meaning spend more time with me and go out and get a good job well it wasn't you know every effort that i made to get a job even though god had told me not to failed completely and i had a lot of experience in a lot of things i had been you know cell support and telecommunication should have been able to get a job you know i had connections didn't that whole year up until december i was without a job and i was a single mom and i paid my bills but it didn't always look the way that i thought it should you know when god tells you to wait on him and he's going to take care of things you think oh well everything's going to be paid for there was there was a day when my lights were going to be cut off and i mean i had already passed the due date which sometimes we think oh well god wouldn't allow that well it was tested my heart it was really tested my heart would i be obedient to him even when things didn't fall into place the way i thought they would and 30 minutes before the deadline this these two people pulled up and said hey the lord put it on my heart to bring you this money and i was like i get to keep my lights on yay because the next day they would have come if i had not paid by five o'clock that day um so i ran up to the you know i paid the bill right there in the city and i ran up to the city um hall and paid the bill and i was like praise god okay yeah you do it your way all right your ways are certainly not our ways because lord i would have done it a little sooner but he was testing my heart you know and humbling me would i stay would i stay consistent would i praise him regardless if i had to eat by candle the next night would i continue to praise would i continue to love him the same or would i start to fall into doubt and complaining like the children of israel you know coming out of egypt a song of song of solomon her song of songs eight five says who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved and that's the point in going through these times you know who is this coming out of the wilderness wilderness is you know a desolate
not a good place to be but the point is are you going to come up leaning on the lord are you going to come out of these situations leaning on him um first samuel 16 7 and i'm just going to read through these last scriptures that i have so that we can get finished but first samuel 16 7 and this is when god has sent samuel to anoint david and of course samuel is looking for the finest of david's brothers and the best looking and you know the one that looks like he's going to be king and the lord tells him but the lord says to samuel do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature because i have rejected him talking about david's brother brothers for god sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance but the lord looks at the heart you know that's what god's concerned about is is our heart because if there are things in there that are not good then we will betray the lord we will we will fall you know what you can be sure that it will be found out by satan and we will end up having issues in that area so that's what god's purpose is he's got to get this stuff out of our hearts you know i know pastor dean has talked a lot about you know the obvious sins and fornication and the things that that we as christians you would think that we would have had out but we found coming here that it's a these are main major issues you know that christians are still going through um struggling with homosexuality or fornication or adultery you know all of these things a rebellion but there are other things that don't seem as serious to us that we allow to to fester i know that's a yucky word but we do we allow it to to fester and it causes you know infection and it causes a heart condition basically um true understand she's a heart nurse but you can't let these things continue because they will affect the overall health of the body you know and a lot of times we don't take maybe unforgiveness as seriously as we do in fornication but unforgiveness bitterness they lead to heart conditions that affect the entire body second chronicles 16 9 says for the eyes of the lord move to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his once again that's the that's the goal you know get all the other stuff out of your heart so that your heart can be completely his and why psalm 24 3 and 4 says who may ascend into the hill of the lord and who may stand in his holy place he who has clean hands and a pure heart
you know we can't move closer to god if we have things that are preventing that if we have things in our heart that are hindering us from moving closer to him and then psalm 51 17 of course a broken heart and a a broken and a contrite heart oh god thou wilt not despise so that's what god is looking for once again and then my last scripture and this is one that you don't want to pray if you don't really mean it psalm 139 23-24 and hopefully we would all be praying this psalm 139 23 and 24 and i know we're all familiar with this but you a lot of a lot of the times you'll read something and just say oh that's a nice scripture this really means something this is this is something that we all need to take to heart and be praying and really um work on purging um things i know god has been doing that with with me is purging the stuff out of my system out of my myself so that i can move closer and take the next steps into relationship with him search me oh god and know my heart try me and know my anxious thoughts excuse me and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way any hurtful way any anxious thoughts you know we kind of skip through our day not taking these things seriously but but this scripture right here is what we're supposed to be doing asking god to search us holy spirit search our hearts clean us up from the inside out get these anxious thoughts the an anxious thought is a place where you're not trusting god you know when you're having an anxious thought about something you're not fully surrendered and trust in god in that area um you know anxious thoughts hurtful ways lead me in the everlasting way so that's you know if you go back to to where we started with mary you know god knew her heart and that's why he was able to to place his son in her you know god knew her heart she was obedient on the spot she was willing on the spot she was humble she was ready to serve ready to do whatever she had to do ready to give up everything and that's what the lord is wanting of us are you ready if everything in your life falls apart if everything around you if everybody mocks you if everybody thinks you're crazy
for going to fire and grace church a bunch of crazies over there you know are you willing to give up friends family when when i married my husband i had to be willing to do that because we were at that point being led to go to washington dc to to be a part of a church up there i had to be willing to leave family i had been in the same area for 38 years all of my family was was in henry county georgia and they all thought i was crazy because dean and i had not known each other long there were so many reasons but i had to be willing to give up everything to follow what the lord was telling me to do you know like like abraham leave your father's house leave your relatives leave everything you know a lot of times we take comfort in those things god wants us to take comfort in him and what he's telling us to do and be obedient so we've got to get those things out unforgiveness bitterness anger jealousy pride greed impatience selfish ambition you know wanting to see ourselves succeed even it's good to want to be something but not if it doesn't line up with what god's saying so um that's that's our word for the day i just want to just encourage everybody to take some time you know reflect on these things and start praying that psalm 139 you know search me god if there's anything in me that is not pleasing to you i want it gone you know not just those quote unquote biggies you know fornication oh i'm clear i'm not an alcoholic i'm not a fornicator i'm good no we've all we've all got those those other issues that cause us to be separated from god and hurt other people sometimes we don't even know it so let's pray lord i thank you for this word i thank you that your word does not return void and i just pray right now in the name of jesus lord that that this word would penetrate our hearts lord that it would um it would come back and we would be able to to just purify our hearts for you lord lord i just pray that you would search us lord lord i just pray that you search our hearts lord remove the things that need to be removed so that we can draw closer to you lord remove the hindrances show us and and lord we will be obedient lord i pray for for these people lord that if there's any bitterness unforgiveness jealousy pride all of those things that that hurt your heart lord i pray in the name of jesus that those would be removed lord that we will be obedient to follow you all the way no matter what it takes no matter what the cause lord just pray that you would touch your people and bless your people
lord and just help us and guide us through this week in the name of jesus amen