.
Hallelujah.
It's also good to have with us tonight,
our state ministry's coordinator
and his lovely wife, Sister Renee,
brother Jimmy, good to have you in the house of the Lord tonight.
Good to have you with us.
I serve on brother Jimmy's state ministry board
when I can get there, amen.
Get ready for senior adult retreat coming up.
Friends on the mountain.
Coming up here before too long, we'll be on the mountain.
Lord. A little faster, saints, a little faster. We can almost feel it up here. And it is an honor, again, to have our bishop with us tonight.
Over the past few years serving our ego, I thought you would have one known reason I put mine on tonight.
Who? Serving our church at large around the world as our general overseer, our general bishop.
From time to time I just, I knew the road was a little bit hot, a little bit heavy for him.
I just shoot him a little message just to let him know that somebody that don't want anything from him is praying for him.
Amen. Isn't it good sometimes you get those? And bishop, I meant every one I sent. I prayed when I sent it and before.
It's good to have you here in Tennessee, but it's good to have you back at Hopewell Church of God.
Come and take your liberty in the Lord tonight. Amen. Would you make our bishop welcome?
Thank you for having us here. What a joy to be in Hopewell tonight. So good to be back. It's been a while since I've been here.
Paul and I love being in this church. And we're so honored to be with Pastor Cliff and Kathy Waters tonight.
Don't you appreciate this couple so much? I love them. Appreciate them for a long time.
It's good to see every other pastor and minister here tonight. Thank you, Brother and Sister Talley, for being here tonight.
It's such a joy to see this wonderful couple that's helping make our transition into Tennessee a whole lot easier than it would be without you.
I can tell you that right now. We're glad that they're here.
You know, I couldn't help but think, Paul, when Pastor Cliff received that offering for you,
when we were, I don't know, probably married two and a half to three years, we found out we were going to have our first child.
And everywhere we would go as evangelists, every pastor got up and said,
we're going to take this offering for Sister Hill tonight because she's expecting a baby.
Everywhere we went, I went for nine months without getting an offering.
Paul got every offering where we went. I couldn't help but think when he did that tonight.
I'm so glad that's not the reason he did that tonight.
Lord, have mercy. But thank you for doing that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Now listen, I know it's warm in here. It dawned on me a few minutes ago. Take my necktie off.
And I might can preach 20 extra minutes without that necktie.
So that's the only reason I did that tonight.
You know, when you've got a group of folks up here that can sing like this group can sing,
I just want to sing with them. Is that all right?
You folks are fantastic. Just tremendous. Now get up close to me.
You may be wondering what we're going to do. I don't have a clue what we're going to do.
We're going to figure it out. Let's go to the good Church of God key of F.
And let's just let's just see how it goes.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
I'm a child of the key.
His royal blood now flows in my veins.
And I who was wretched and poor now can see.
Praise God. Praise God.
I'm a child of the key.
Once I was cloned in the rags of my sin.
I was wretched and poor, lost and lonely within.
But with wondrous compassion, the king of all kings in pity and love took me under his wings.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
I'm a child of the key.
And his royal blood now flows in my veins.
And I who was wretched and poor now can see.
Praise God. Praise God.
I'm a child of the key.
Now I'm a child with a heavenly home for my holy father.
Reached heaven and made me one of his own.
Now I'm cleansed by his blood.
And I'm clothed in his love.
And someday I'll sing with the angels above.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
I'm a child of the key.
And his royal blood now flows in my veins.
And I who was wretched and poor now can see.
Praise God. Say that again. Praise God. Praise God.
One more time. Praise God. Praise God.
I'm a child of the key.
Any King's kids here tonight? Amen.
Oh, wow.
We're going to buy a bus and put this show on the road, I'm telling you right now.
Let's stay in the same key.
This was the first song I ever remember singing in front of a large group of people.
I was seven years old at a Texas camp meeting on a Sunday night.
The last night most of the crowd had gone home.
So they knew it wouldn't hurt anything if they called this fat,
freckle-faced, redheaded kid up to sing a little bit.
I'd been singing in Dad's church, son.
And so they brought me out of the crowd, stood me on a piano bench, and said,
Sing, son.
And the only song I could think to sing was what Mama had been playing on the old record player
by the Happy Goodman family.
A song called I Wouldn't Take Nothing From My Journey Now.
Now what's funny about it is the first verse of that song says,
I started out traveling for the Lord many years ago.
At seven years old I had been down the street hardly at all.
The next line said, I've had a lot of heartache, met a lot of grief and woe.
Truth is, the only woe I'd ever know is what my mama gave me.
But I've been singing that song ever since.
So you think we can sing a little bit of that?
I started out traveling for the Lord many years ago.
I've had a lot of heartache, met a lot of grief and woe.
But when I would stumble, then I would humble down.
And there I would say I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
Well, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
God, I make it to heaven somehow.
The old devil tipped me and he tried to turn me around.
He's offered everything that's got a name or the wealth I want.
The worldly fame, but if I could still, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey.
Singing again, well, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
God, I make it to heaven somehow.
The old devil tipped me and he tried to turn me around.
He's offered everything that's got a name or the wealth I want.
The worldly fame, but if I could still, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
There's nothing in the world that'll ever take the place of God's love.
All the silver and gold can never buy a mighty touch from above.
Oh, no, when my soul needs healing and I begin to feel in his power,
I could say, thank the Lord, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
Well, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
God, I make it to heaven somehow.
The old devil tipped me and he tried to turn me around.
He's offered everything that's got a name or the wealth I want.
The worldly fame, but if I could still, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey one more time.
Well, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
God, I make it to heaven somehow.
The old devil tipped me and he tried to turn me around.
He's offered everything that's got a name or the wealth I want.
The worldly fame, but if I could still, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
If I could still, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now.
Yes, sir!
Whoo!
Oh, my goodness.
I'm getting too old singing one like that too much.
Y'all better sit down. Y'all keep standing. I want to sing all night.
Let's do a little course of something here.
Let me see if this is my key.
That's the Church of God key, so that must be it.
There's a lighthouse on a hillside that overlooks live sea.
And when I'm tossed, oh, it sends out a light.
A light that I might see.
And the light that shines in darkness now will safely lead me o'er.
If it wasn't for the lighthouse, my ship would sail no more.
And I thank God for the lighthouse.
Sing it with us.
I owe my life to him, for Jesus is the lighthouse.
And from the rocks, he has shone the light
all around me that I could cleave.
If it wasn't for the lighthouse, then where would this ship be?
Now everybody that lives around us, they say, tear that lighthouse down.
The big ships find no point in sailing this way anymore.
So what's the use of that old lighthouse just standing around?
Oh, but then my mind goes back to that stormy night
when just in time I saw the light.
It was the light from that old lighthouse.
And it still stands up there on Calvary's Hill.
And I thank God for that old lighthouse.
I owe my life to him, for Jesus is the lighthouse.
And from the rocks of sin, he has shone the light
all the way around me that I could clearly see.
If it wasn't for, tell me where.
Why don't you lift your hands and let's sing it just one more time.
Oh, but I thank God for.
Oh, I owe my life to him, for Jesus is the lighthouse.
And from the rocks of sin, he has shone the light
all the way around me that I could clearly see.
Oh, I feel his presence in this house that I could see.
Do you feel his presence here?
If it wasn't for.
We're going to sing it just one more time.
Sing out your praise.
Oh, but I thank God for that old lighthouse.
I owe my life to him, for Jesus is the lighthouse.
Hallelujah.
Oh, I feel him in this place.
He has shone the light
all the way around me that I could clearly see.
If it wasn't for, tell me where.
Jesus is the lighthouse.
Now listen, I'm not trying to get out of my responsibility to preach
because I've got every intention of doing that before we leave here.
But I got sang on me right now. Is that all right?
OK.
And if you'll let us do just a little bit of one more, I'll take it off my preaching time.
Is that OK?
I fell. I fell back in love with this song late last spring going into the summer.
And I told this at camp meeting.
I think I told it at General Assembly.
I was 14 years old when Benny Triplett visited my mom and dad.
At that time, his daughter, Renee, and their son-in-law, Duane Piot,
pastored 30 miles up the road, and so they had come to see them.
And we lived in what we called Lake Country.
There were like three or four pretty good-sized lakes
that just surrounded the community we lived in.
And so dad invited Brother Triplett to come over and go fishing, and they did.
And when they got back, we cleaned those fish, or they cleaned those fish,
and then we had a fish fry.
And when all that was over, Brother Triplett had seen a piano in my mom's den,
and he invited me, a 14-year-old teenage boy,
to go into that den and listen to a brand new song he had just written.
My dad fell in love with it.
I've sang it through the years, as we all have, but just for some reason,
a few months ago it just hit me.
Jesus is precious.
He is so precious.
Jesus is precious to me.
He is my Savior, my Lord, and my Master.
Jesus is precious to me.
It's not earthly treasure, and it's not worldly pleasure
that seems so important to me.
And though I prize kinship and thank God for friendship,
there's no one as precious as He.
Sing it with us, everybody.
Jesus is precious.
He is so precious.
Jesus is precious to me.
For He is my Savior, my Lord,
and my Master.
Oh, Jesus is precious to me.
Now, I love this line.
He's comfort in sorrow, and He's hope for tomorrow.
Jesus is precious to me.
He's all that I pray for.
What more could I ask for?
There's no one as precious as He.
Jesus is precious.
He is so precious.
Jesus is precious to me.
For He is my Savior, my Lord,
and my Master.
Jesus is precious to me.
If that's the way you feel about it,
tell Him you love Him with a hand of praise tonight.
Amen. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, singers, musicians.
We've got to do this again. Amen. Praise God.
Well, how many are praying for a 24-minute anointing
to hit me tonight?
I see it out there.
That would take us to about 7 o'clock.
That's going to be my aim.
If I go beyond that, you blame it on the Lord, okay?
All right.
I want to just go somewhere in the Old Testament tonight.
If you've ever heard me preach much,
you've heard me preach from the Book of Ruth.
There's a message I've been preaching for a long time.
I call it Handfuls on Purpose.
That's not the message I'm going to preach tonight,
but I just want to lift a few thoughts, if I may,
from the Book of Ruth, and then we'll pray.
When I was pastoring in Danville, Virginia, years ago,
I fell in love with the four chapters of this book
and preached for about four months on these four chapters.
I thought I had preached everything there was to preach
in this book, but not all that long ago,
I let something get a hold of my heart that I had never seen,
and I'm going to try to point it out to you
in just a very few minutes.
In Ruth chapter 1, let me begin reading with verse number 19,
without a lot of background, a lot of history to this.
Let me just simply reference the point that these verses
have to do with Naomi and Ruth returning to Bethlehem
out of Moab.
Years before, Naomi's husband, Elimelech, had taken her
and their two sons to Moab during the time of famine
that had come to Bethlehem Judah.
By the time we pick up in the 19th verse,
the famine is over in Bethlehem,
and word has got back to Naomi way over in Moab
that God has visited His people.
The rains have come, there's bread back on the table,
the famine is over, and you are welcome to come home.
Well, by this time, Elimelech has passed away,
and her two sons had grown up, married Moabite women,
and now the two boys are passed away.
And she is left with two daughters-in-law.
One by the name of Orpah has gone back into Moab,
but one by the name of Ruth, the Bible said,
clinged to Naomi and said,
don't push me out of your life.
Let me go where you're going,
because your people will be my people,
and your God shall be my God.
And that brings us to verse 19.
All of that brings us to verse 19.
And it reads, so they too went until they came to Bethlehem,
and it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem
that all the city was moved about them,
and they said, is this Naomi?
And by the way, the name Naomi means sweet, good, pleasant woman.
Is this Naomi?
And she said unto them, don't call me that anymore.
Call me not Naomi, call me Mara.
The name Mara means bitter,
and it comes from that story of the children of Israel
coming through the desert, the wilderness.
They came upon bitter waters,
not knowing they were bitter until they tasted it,
but they named that place Mara.
She said, don't call me good, sweet, pleasant woman.
Call me bitter, call me Mara.
She said to them, the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I have been out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty.
Why then would you call me Naomi,
seeing the Lord has testified against me,
and the Almighty has afflicted me?
So Naomi returned and rude the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her,
which returned out of the country of Moab,
and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.
Now go with me very quickly to the fourth chapter.
Four chapters now have come and gone,
and in these four chapters, Naomi and Ruth have found their way to Bethlehem.
They have set up housekeeping.
Ruth was better to Naomi than seven sons would have been, the Bible said.
And while Naomi sets up housekeeping, Ruth goes out to find a job,
and she finds a job working in the fields of harvest
for a man by the name of Boaz.
Boaz is a type of Christ in this story.
He is what is known as a kinsman-redeemer.
Long story short, one thing leads to another.
Boaz marries Ruth, and they ultimately have a child.
And that's what's happened by the time we get to Ruth chapter 4.
We pick up with verse number 14.
A baby has been born to Ruth and Boaz,
and the women of the city want to see this baby.
And so the Bible says here in verse 14,
The women said unto Naomi,
Blessed be the Lord, which has not left thee this day without a kinsman,
that his name may be famous in Israel.
And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age,
for thy daughter-in-law which loves thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him.
And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and she became nurse unto it.
And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying,
There is a son born to Naomi.
And they called his name Obed.
He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
And now my father, I pray for just a few moments you will help me
to just deliver a message tonight that I pray will speak to someone's heart.
In Jesus' name, Amen and Amen.
I was sitting on a plane when the Lord revealed this to me that I had never seen.
And I had my tray down, my Bible on the tray, diet coke over here, pretzels over here.
And a man was passed out drunk sitting beside me.
He had had a few of those little bottles to drink before we took off.
He had a few more after we took off.
By the time we got to 32,000 feet in the air, he was gone.
And I'm reading my Bible and I come across this old story about Ruth and Naomi,
and I saw something, pastor, that I had never seen in all the years I preached to them.
I had never seen it.
And when I saw it, I went into another zone.
When I came to myself, I realized that I had spilt my diet coke.
The drunk man beside me had awakened and he was brushing off pretzel salt off of his sleeve.
And he looked at me and said, are you from a foreign country or something?
I said, no, why do you ask?
He said, because you're talking in a language I don't understand.
So I figured I must have really got into another zone.
I didn't try to explain it to him, but I'm going to explain it to you tonight.
Here's what blessed me.
Ruth, Chapter 1, clearly tells us that when Naomi returned to Bethlehem,
she was bitter, angry, broke, discouraged in every way,
to the point that when she's coming into the city gates
and they recognize her and begin to speak her name,
she stopped them because she knew what that name meant.
She was not just hearing them say, Naomi is back.
Here comes Naomi. I recognize Naomi.
She's been gone a long time. I know her anywhere.
That's Naomi. She wasn't just hearing the name.
She was hearing the meaning of that name.
Good, sweet, pleasant.
The good woman is back. The sweet woman. The pleasant woman is back.
And she stopped them and said, please don't call me that anymore.
I left here full. The Lord has brought me back empty.
As a matter of fact, he is dealing very bitterly with me.
And in light of that, you have my blessing.
I give you my permission from this day forward.
Just call me Miss Bitter. Call me Mara.
And I read that and the thought came to my mind,
I wonder if anybody ever did call her Mara.
I went through the rest of that chapter, chapter one,
they didn't call her Mara in chapter one.
I went into chapter two, they didn't call her Mara in chapter two.
Chapter three, they don't call her Mara.
In all of chapter four, verse by verse, line by line,
they have never called her Mara throughout that entire book.
That's what got me. They never called her Mara.
Because this crowd who had lived through the famine,
this crowd who had waited it out, I'm going to preach for this, this is over.
This crowd who had kept their trust and their faith in God knew that
what God had done for them, he would do for her.
And they called things that were not as though they were,
they kept calling her good, sweet, pleasant woman.
In spite of how she felt, in spite of what had happened to her,
in spite of everything that was encroaching about her life,
they kept seeing into her life, speaking into her life,
knowing about her life, what she did not know herself.
They never called her Mara.
And I've come by Hopewell for just a few minutes tonight to tell you
one main thing, don't you let this world identify you,
don't you let your circumstances tag you,
don't even let how you feel put a name on you
because the Father has already named you
and the Father says you're blessed and highly favored.
You may not feel like it, but you are.
You may not look like it, but you are.
Other people may look at you and say you're not,
but you are because God has given you a name.
He's blessed you, he's favored you, and I choose to walk in the name
the Father has given me to walk in tonight.
Oh, clap your hands and pray for 15 more minutes, amen.
Amen.
So I'm a preacher, and every preacher worth his salt
has got to get at least three points out of this,
but I've got four.
Here's what I see when I read this story.
They never called her Mara, number one,
because this crowd who had lived through the famine
understood these principles.
You never allow circumstance to determine your identity.
Naomi, you've lost a husband, but that's not who you are.
Two sons have died, but that's not who you are.
A daughter-in-law by the name of Orpah kissed you goodbye
and went back to her idol worship,
but that's not who you are.
Your circumstances must not determine your identity.
I love what the apostle Paul says.
I believe it's in 2 Corinthians chapter 4.
Let me just preach it out a little bit.
If I could put it in this vernacular,
Paul would look at us tonight and say,
now, on any given occasion when you check in on me,
I may be troubled on every hand, yet not distressed,
perplexed, but not in despair,
persecuted, but not forsaken,
cast down, but never destroyed.
Don't judge me by what you see on the occasion you see me,
because you'll walk away thinking one thing,
but the reality is I'm something else by the grace of God.
Circumstance must never determine your identity.
Number two, circumstance must not be permitted
to distort your view of God.
Listen to what she says.
She stops the people from pronouncing her name Naomi,
and she says, the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
I left here full.
I've come back empty.
He's angry with me, and he's dealing bitterly with me.
Her circumstances had twisted her view of God.
Her circumstances had so misaligned
and defined her view of her loving heavenly father
to the point that she no longer saw God as that loving Lord.
And you get the impression she's blaming God
for all of her ills and all of her difficulties.
Circumstance must never be permitted to distort,
twist, malign your view of God.
I think about Job's wife.
Some of the finest preaching I've ever heard, brother,
has come from preachers who sent Job's wife down the road.
And I get it.
I mean, she told Job, curse God and die.
I get that.
Some of the best homiletical sermons, good hermeneutics,
all of that, great preachers of our day and in the past
have sent Job's wife down the road
because of what she said to Job, curse God and die.
But I'm on a campaign tonight.
I'm on a campaign to lift the reputation of Sister Job.
Here's what I think happened to Sister Job.
She had a meltdown.
No, I'm going to preach before this is over.
She lost the same kids.
He lost the same house.
She's watching her husband die by the hour,
eaten up with sores.
Three supposed friends have come from far and near,
and in silent suspicion, Brother Talley,
they have stared at him for seven days
and not said one blessed thing.
Now think about that.
If I get sick and go in the hospital tonight
and you decide to come see me, you better talk to me.
Don't just stare at me.
But for seven days, they stare at the poor man.
Finally, one of them speaks up and says,
what did you do to make God so mad?
Don't forget on the sidelines over here, Brother Mills,
is Sister Job.
No wonder she said what she said.
She's lost all of this.
She's listened to these three guys berate her husband,
and she just can't take it anymore,
and she says, curse God and die.
Drop this integrity thing.
You don't owe them an explanation.
You don't owe me one.
I'm not sure you owe God one anymore.
Job, just get it over with, man.
Curse God and die.
Her circumstance had twisted her view of God.
So here's my question.
What have you been through
that has affected your view of God?
Come here, Brother, just a minute.
But Job pulls her back in.
You play the role of Sister Job just for a minute, will you?
I'll do my best.
And I hope, and you better hope,
this is not on Facebook Live tonight.
You'll never live it down.
He pulls her back in at some point
and says to her, you speak like a foolish woman.
Now, I can tell you right now,
my marriage would not have lasted 45 years
if I had started any conversation like that
with Paul right there.
But he said, you speak like a foolish woman,
but here's the deal, sweetie pie.
I didn't have a thing when I got here.
That's what he said.
Naked came I into the world,
and naked shall I be when I leave,
but here's the truth.
While I am here, I will bless the name of the Lord,
because he gave it to me.
The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And the Bible said in all of this, Job, sin not.
Neither did he charge God foolishly,
and his lateran was greater than his beginning.
So here's what I think he might would have done.
I think he might have pulled her real close
and said, you said curse God and die,
but darling, if we can curse God and die,
we can bless God and live.
I came by to tell hope well tonight.
You can bless the name of the Lord,
and don't let your circumstance twist your view
of your loving Heavenly Father.
Amen.
Now, you're sitting there thinking,
why'd you pull that guy up there to illustrate Sister Job?
Because Paul knew what I was going to preach,
and she said, don't you dare pull me up there to do that.
So it fell your lot, my friend.
There you go.
They never called her Mara.
Ron, because number three,
this crowd who had lived through the famine refused.
They refused to allow her circumstance
to devalue her potential.
Don't let it determine your identity.
Don't let it distort your view of God.
But thirdly, don't allow it to devalue your potential.
Naomi has no clue what her potential is.
But centuries later, millenniums later,
we read her story, and we see, pastor,
that even over in Moab,
the woman is full of potential.
She doesn't know it.
So how do you know that?
Well, because when she had the chance
to separate between one or the other,
Orpah, whose name, by the way, means stiff neck,
rebellious, stubborn,
who one of the renderings of her name is Beauty,
when she has the opportunity to separate
between one or the other,
she lets stiff neck go on down the road.
And she wraps her arms around that beautiful anointing,
that beautiful companion,
that beautiful spirit,
and makes her way back to Bethlehem
with something beautiful.
That says to me that when given the choice,
her potential shines through.
Now let me ask you this,
and I'm going to put it in hyper speed here.
Does it ever just amaze you what accumulates on us
when we're walking through life?
I mean, you're just minding your own business.
Walking through life.
And stuff just starts accumulating.
You don't go looking for it.
You don't sign up for it.
What's in this, darling?
But baggage!
Please turn that camera off.
Baggage!
Just jumps on you.
And then, about the time you think you've got it balanced,
come help me, preacher.
Get on this side.
Along comes that orpa spirit.
Just grab onto my shoulder.
And everywhere you go,
orpa's hanging on.
You can't shake it.
Hit the ball and drag George.
You know what I'm saying. Just everywhere you go.
Only a golfer understands what I just said.
Come back up here, Miss Jobe.
I'm going to change your name for a second.
Now you get to be Miss Ruth, okay?
Grab onto that shoulder.
No, just there you go.
But God loves you enough to balance out the orpas with Ruth.
You got all this other baggage going on,
but God loves you enough.
Let me man it up a little bit.
He brings a handsome spirit to you.
A handsome anointing.
Man, I tell you what.
If it was 20 degrees cooler in here tonight,
I could preach for an hour and a half.
It's been a great night to preach on hell.
I can tell you that right now.
What an altar call we could have had, too.
And this is what's happened to Naomi.
She's just moving through life and all this stuff.
Two boys have died.
The husbands died.
All this stuff just dragging her down.
And then comes that stubborn spirit.
Sister, did I tag him right?
Did I pick the right guy?
Boy.
But there comes a point in time when that handsome anointing
overpowers that stubborn spirit,
and somewhere along the way you're going to get a little break.
Watch it happen.
It'll happen.
And that stubborn spirit will get more distant from you
the closer that handsome anointing gets to you.
And then you get an opportunity to just wave that stubborn spirit
goodbye.
Now, what you've got to be careful of is that you haven't
become so codependent on that right there that you go chasing
after it.
And then what happens is you begin to notice the longer that
handsome anointing hangs on, other things just begin to fall away.
The baggage separates.
The load, don't leave me, don't leave me.
The load gets lighter.
The day gets brighter because God has brought a handsome
anointing, an anointing not just to cope, an anointing not just
to deal with things, but an anointing to help see you through
to get you from Moab all the way to Bethlehem,
which by the way the name Bethlehem means the house of bread,
the house of plenty, the house of provision.
I'm preaching better than anybody's shouting here tonight.
The house where Jesus himself, the bread of life, was going to
be born in a few more centuries.
I came by to tell you God's bringing a handsome anointing to
your life.
God's bringing a providing anointing to your life.
God is bringing an anointing to your life that's going to get
you from point A to point B without all the baggage in
between.
Can somebody clap your hands to the Lord?
Point four, you thought we'd never get here, didn't you?
How am I doing?
How's my clock?
Am I good?
They never called her Mara because this crowd who had lived
through the famine, they understood circumstance must
never destroy your destiny.
Don't let it determine your identity.
Don't let it distort your view of God.
Don't let it devalue your potential, but most of all,
don't let your circumstance destroy your destiny.
Now follow me real close because this is so good.
Ruth meets Boaz.
I love that whole story.
And by the way, did you ever notice how he proposed to her?
Did you ever read that?
There at lunch one day, eating parched corn, butter dripping
off both ends.
And he reaches for an ear of corn and extends it to Ruth.
If I had ever known you could have got by that cheap.
Brother Bobby Paula likes jewelry, but if I had ever known
that an ear of corn, he extends her an ear of corn, next thing
you know, they're married.
Lord, I feel like preaching here.
Is it cooling down?
What'd you do?
And they got a baby on the way.
And you know how folks are.
They want to see that baby when it's born.
Whose eyes did it get?
Whose nose does he have?
So all the town's women go to see little baby Obed.
That's his name, Obed.
And they see this baby and they pick this baby out of Ruth's arms.
Watch it.
And they move toward Naomi, who had said in chapter 1,
I can't have any more kids.
By her own confession in chapter 1, she said, I'm too old.
It's not going to happen.
So I release you, Ruth, and I release you, Orpah.
Go back to your people, find husbands, get on with your life.
It's never going to happen to me.
If it could happen, I wouldn't expect you to wait on it.
But it's not going to happen.
I'm as good as dead.
But in Ruth chapter 4, they walk into the room saying,
Blessed be Naomi.
They haven't called her Mara the first time.
Blessed be the God of Naomi, because God has given you a
kinsman who will nourish you in your old age.
Not only has he given you a kinsman, watch this, watch this,
he has given you a son.
She said, I can't have children.
Yeah, but God's given you a son.
I'm too old to bear children, but God's given you a son.
The biological clock has not, yeah, but God has given you,
it's not going to happen.
Yeah, I know, but God's given you a son.
Biologically, that's not her boy.
But God tied her to a destiny, because not only is she tied to
an obid, now she's tied to obid when he grows up and gets
married, they have a child named Jesse.
And now she's tied when Jesse grows up and gets married,
they have a child named David.
Following on and on and on and on, and one day on the dusty
streets of Judea, there's an old blind beggar that heard Jesus
is walking by, and the Bible said when he heard Jesus was
near, he cried out and said, oh, thou son of David, have
mercy on me.
I came by to tell you, she had a destiny she was connected to.
Even though hope seemed lost, even though life seemed
hopeless, she was still connected to a future.
I'm not going to spend too long here, but the Bible said she
became nursed to it.
Let me just speak to that a moment.
That simply means she helped to mature that child.
That simply means she helped nourish that generation.
That simply means she was more than a good babysitter, she was
more than a good nana, she was more than a good granny.
No, that simply means she had a maturing capability, she had a
nurturing capability, she had a teaching capability to help a
young generation connect to a coming Messiah.
Don't you let anybody write Pentecost off, don't you let
anybody write the Church of God off, don't you let anybody
write full gospel off, don't you let anybody write off anybody
that preaches the whole Bible rightly divided.
God has raised us up to help nurture a generation and mature
a generation that is connected to a coming Christ, hallelujah.
Go stand to your feet and clap your hands all over this place.
They never called her Mara because she still had a future.
Hallelujah.
I just preached an hour and a half sermon in a little over
20 minutes, miracles still happen.
And I preach that whole thing to make this one point and I'm
through.
You have a future.
The Church of God in Tennessee has a future.
The Church of God around this world has a future.
They never called her Mara.
I refuse to wear any label.
I refuse, well praise God.
Well praise God.
I refuse to wear any tag.
I refuse to wear any name besides I'm blessed and highly
favored of God.
The more I preach the more I want to preach.
We're living in a day and time and a nation and a culture that's
trying to rename our sons and daughters.
They're trying to confuse the identity of our children and all
this crazy stuff that's going on here and there.
But I came by to tell the Church of God and hope well.
I came by to tell everybody that represents a church wherever you
represent it from.
You keep proclaiming the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Keep preaching the truth.
Keep protecting our children.
Keep protecting our teenagers because we have a future in God.
Somebody praise him in this house.
Hallelujah.
Tell you what let's do.
Gather with me around these altars here.
Just come stand here for a few minutes.
Thank God.
Thank you Jesus.
Was brokenness and strife but he made something beautiful of my
life.
Why don't you sing it, lift your hands and sing something
beautiful, something good.
For my confusion he understood all I had to offer him was
brokenness and strife but he made something beautiful of my
life.
Thank you Jesus.
Now we're going to pray.
Feel led to just say this.
I've been telling this recently everywhere I've been preaching.
In another message I've been preaching about labels.
You know life has a way of labeling us.
I've been told for one doctor visit and walk out labeled.
It's an Old Testament story about King Naaman.
Mighty warrior king.
Remember the card of the scripture uses one little
three-letter conjunction that connects his history to a very
dismal future until God healed him.
King Naaman this, King Naaman that great, great, great, great
warrior, leader, king but he was a leper.
That word leper changed it all.
Sometimes a label can change everything about our destiny it
seems.
I've been telling you that little sermon I'm preaching.
When I was a kid my mama went and bought some new pillows,
brought them home so we could all have a new pillow to sleep
on.
The first night I tried to sleep on my pillow something kept
irritating my neck.
I got up, turned on the light and discovered that there is this
label on that pillow.
In big bold lettering it says under penalty of law do not
remove the label.
Well I was a rambunctious mischievous six-year-old so I
just got up and found me a pair of scissors and I cut that
label off.
I have yet to go to jail.
I don't know who the Pillow Police even are.
I'm sure there's some logical reason for all that.
But I came by tonight to tell somebody take the label off.
You're not who a doctor said you were, a diagnosis.
You're not who life circumstances say you are.
You're who God says you are.