Clifford's a special person and Kathy in our lives.
We've been together a long time.
We worked youth camp probably 20 years.
Went to, I remember back in the days of the early 90s,
we went through the MIP probably around 93,
I may be a little bit off,
but we went through the MIP together.
I was only one pastor during that time,
so I had people come and preach.
Brother Clifford at that time was a redneck preacher.
Sister Kathy said, after service,
I wanted to climb under the seats,
but we had those little six foot strip pews.
We've served on boards together,
we've been on the state council together,
and he was just newly reelected.
Give it up for your pastor.
Amen.
We've served on the state ministries board together.
There's no telling how many years.
We've served on the youth board together
back before we got old.
They would vote for us to go on the youth board
if we went off two years, we went back on,
after that two years was expired.
We have traveled all over the country,
together, laughed, had some wonderful times,
and I want to tell you, I love and honor
and respect your pastor.
You see, he isn't just a preacher according
to the scriptures, and I'm gonna make mention of it
since that's not where I'm going this morning.
Paul said, your pastor is a gift,
and he gave some to be apostles and prophets,
evangelist pastors and teachers for the perfecting
of the saints, for the edifying of the body.
So that's what you've got.
You've got a man that don't care to preach God's word.
Do you know how blessed you are?
He didn't ask me to, I've not talked to Clifford.
Do you know how blessed this church is?
Now have a man of God.
Now I'm not running him down, don't think that.
I don't want to kill the spirit.
He's not one of them blue jean,
set on the stool preachers.
He's not one of those cool preachers,
because he's gonna preach you the word.
If you amen or if you don't,
and I don't say it's an honor, then I can go on and on.
Brother Clifford was so good to my daddy,
and I'll never forget that.
Pap would go, they'd get together and go to West Tennessee
and hunt rabbits and several of our pastors out there,
they'd all get together and just have a big time.
There's just so many emotional memories that I have,
and I am honored to grace this pulpit today
and preach God's word.
I'm blessed we got a few Dainty folks scattered out
around here that came this morning.
We're glad you're here, but I'm here to preach
the word of God, and you're only gonna get from me
what I got out of my prayer closet all week long.
That's all I have to go on, is my prayer closet.
Because you see, I'm not well educated.
I study and pray,
and I don't have a bunch of plaques.
I've done leader labs, I've done MIP,
I've done a few things, but what you get
is gonna come from the Lord this morning,
or what I believe is from the Lord this morning.
And I just wanna talk about living life the right way.
Living life the right way.
One more time, would you give it up for your pastor
and his wife and family?
Praise the Lord.
There's so many things I could tell you about youth camps.
I'm telling you, we had fun.
We would, I ran the kitchen for 20 years,
ordered the food, and we just had a big time
working together.
We had a group, you know, anymore there's always a shift
of different workers, but for years,
we had the same people in the kitchen.
And we had the best time, we would laugh,
and Brother Clifford and Pap, who was my dad,
they would make the mashed potatoes.
They'd always say that, you know what,
you can put it in, but you can't take it out
once it's in.
So we gotta get this thing right with all that
big old blocks of taters and milk and pepper.
And so we had so many good times.
We had this one guy, you know, we'd always go take a nap
after we cooked breakfast.
Imagine that.
We'd go take a nap, and Hammer,
it'd take him a while to get all them dishes washed
because we didn't use paper plates.
You can be seated a minute.
And so we had just got to resting pretty good.
And in comes Hammer thinking he's done something.
He forgot we had a key, a master key that fit,
it used to fit everything on the mountain.
And so he come in and made all kind of racket
and thought he'd done something, and we said,
well, just let him do it.
And we said, well, just lay here a few minutes,
let him get in his room with these little door locked,
feeling all safe and secure.
And so we, you know, he got heart trouble anyways.
We was young and ignorant at that time.
We slipped in and he was just all cuddled up
in his little blanket, all safe and secure.
We put his shoes up in the drop ceiling.
Two of us got one on one end, one on the other,
and picked up the mattress and
throwed it out in the floor.
He about had a heart attack over it.
But there's all kind of stuff that we just enjoyed,
laughed, enjoyed one another's fellowship.
There's a lot of stress in ministry.
And it's good to have those times like that.
But I'll always cherish all the many, many, many
memories that we have in the,
and what God has in store for the future.
If you got your Bibles, turn to Psalm 34.
Psalm 34, you know, I don't get to preach what I want to.
If I did, I would preach something that I preached
a thousand times.
But I don't get to do that.
So we're gonna try to keep this thing moving
because I don't get done in a few minutes.
And it's not my intention, it's never been my intention,
but it just turns out that way.
If you'll stand for the reading of God's word.
David said, I will bless, verse one, I will bless,
I will bless the Lord at all times.
And his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Oh, my soul shall make boast in the Lord,
the humble shall hear thereof and be glad.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt
his name together.
I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me
out of all, all, my dad used to say,
A-L-L-O, all of my fears.
Lord, in Jesus' name, add your blessings to the word
and what is to be done and accomplished
will give you praise in Jesus' name, amen.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
You see, there's the run of the mill of people
that come to church every Sunday.
Church don't save you.
You see, you can live life the right way
or you can live it the wrong way.
But when you magnify God, when you begin to praise God,
he said that was the key to my deliverance.
I love what he said, he delivered me out of all of my fear.
So many people are bound by fear.
There are 365 verses, one for every day,
that deals with fear.
But I wanna tell you, when you got a relationship
with the Lord, you don't have to walk around in fear.
You don't have to have a phobia,
you don't have to have a phobia, well, I wonder
how things are gonna work out.
Can I just preach a minute to you and tell you
out of my own experience and talk to you just a little bit
and if I get too loud, turn me down out there,
but keep me here, amen.
Can I tell you, we can't control
what's going on outside of us.
But we got complete control over what goes on within us.
Ever since he saved us, you see, you can create
an atmosphere for the presence and the glory of God
to work within you, amen.
You can't control what's going on,
but you can control the atmosphere.
You can control the atmosphere.
And the first thing I want you to notice,
the first step in living life the right way,
is you gotta create the right atmosphere.
And in one word, it's mentioned in our text,
and it's called praise.
It's called praise.
Oh, what do you mean, preacher?
What do you ever notice when you walk into a room?
You can tell if it's motivated,
that person's motivated by fear.
You can tell if they're motivated by anger,
and anxiety, because it comes out of their spirit.
And you can recognize the atmosphere
that is going on there.
But can I tell you, you can create
an atmosphere of thanksgiving.
You can create an atmosphere of gratitude.
And you can create an atmosphere
of giving praise and glory and honor to the Lord.
Are you with me?
You see, God is a God that responds to the atmosphere,
the atmosphere of thanksgiving, the atmosphere of praise.
You see, there is a little place in the Old Testament,
there was a man by the name of King Saul.
King Saul battled with depression.
And when he would get troubled,
he would say, go get that little shepherd boy.
What's that shepherd boy been doing?
He's been on the hill, Judean hillside,
a man singing the Lord's my shepherd.
I shall not walt.
And David would come, and all David would do
was pluck his harp, come to the palace
where the king was seated on the throne.
And all David would do is pluck his harp
and praise the Lord.
But the room would be filled with the presence of the Lord.
And King Saul, amen, would experience peace again.
That story's in 1 Samuel 16, 22 and 23.
You see, we can change the atmosphere
even when things have not changed situationally yet.
Things we're praying for, things we're believing God for.
You see, you don't have to walk around with your head down.
We've read this book enough times,
we've heard it preached enough times,
we know what the say at the word of God,
how He'll never leave us nor forsake us,
how He's always there with us
right in the midst of our crisis,
right in the midst of our storm.
But you can control the atmosphere around you.
Paul and Silas, you would have thought
they would have praised them for what they were doing.
Instead, they beat them half to death.
Threw them not just in prison, but in the inner prison,
in the lower vessels of the prison.
Paul and Silas could mope around and look at theirself.
We have so many people that I know there's none at Hopewell
that act like that, but want to say,
I don't know why this is happening to me.
I don't know why I'm going through this.
I don't know why I've got this pain.
I don't know why I've got this affliction.
But I want to tell you, Paul and Silas,
the Bible said in Acts 16,
they just stuck up some praise and worship
and began to pray at midnight.
And the Holy Ghost showed up and ranked sinners
who would have wanted in any other situation
to leave the prison.
Nobody left, because I want to tell you
that when you have the captivating atmosphere
of the presence of God in your life,
and you know who God is and what he's done in the past
and what he's doing in the present
and what he's doing in the future, you can control the atmosphere.
It's just like working.
Not only that, let's move quickly if we can.
We can understand the atmosphere of our life.
What kind of people are you hanging out with?
You want to control negative atmospheres,
negative thoughts,
what kind of people do you hang out with?
Are they negative or positive?
Are they faith-filled or are they fearful?
Not only that, what kind of music?
You see, it don't matter.
I got a church to go pastor when I get done.
What kind of music are you listening to?
What kind of things are filling your mind?
Because all of that creates an atmosphere.
It creates an atmosphere,
and God is either drawn to the atmosphere or withdrawn.
Abimelech is after David,
but David said, I'm going to bless the Lord.
I'm going to bless the Lord.
Everything ain't just ideal in my world,
and I don't get everything I want,
but I want to tell you one thing I'm going to do.
I'm going to bless the Lord, and I'm going to bless Him all the time.
His praise is going to continually be in my mouth,
not just in my heart, but in my mouth,
creating the right kind of atmosphere.
I'm just a country boy from Dunlap.
Don't plan on changing.
So I'll just be comfortable.
Amen.
Not make myself at home, but be comfortable.
David said, I'm going to bless the Lord.
Oh, He's delivered me.
He's delivered me.
I want to tell you, sometimes we get in the mullet grubs,
and we fail to think about all that God's already done for us.
Oh, I was reminiscing why Brenda was driving us
to this meeting this morning, and just in awe at all
that God has provided, and all that God has done,
that we can get in this won't mentality.
I don't have this, and I don't have that,
but I'd rather have Jesus.
I'd rather have Jesus than anything.
Oh, you can keep your silver.
You can keep your gold.
Oh, just give me some Jesus.
A few weeks ago, I was just thinking and reminiscing.
It came to my mind that there are certain things you don't
have, but the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said,
have I not heard of you?
But the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, have I not always?
Giving you everything that you need.
I'm telling you, you'll drive the enemy out of your home.
You'll drive the enemy out of your marriage.
You'll drive the enemy out of your children.
When you start creating an atmosphere of worship and
praise, some of you can't even praise Him when you get to
church on Sunday morning because you've not created a
place for the presence of God to dwell, to speak,
to minister to you.
You're just stuck where you're at.
You're stuck in your depression.
You're stuck in your ugly attitude.
When the Lord didn't come to leave you like you are,
He came to bring you out.
Oh, He brought me out of the horrible pit and out of the
miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock and established
my going.
And oh, He's given me a song, a song of praise in my mouth.
Atmosphere, what kind of atmosphere are you creating?
I need to hurry up, my Lord.
You've got to have the right energy source in your life.
The flesh can't fight flesh.
You're going to get defeated.
People try so hard to walk in victory, but they're trying to
do it in a humanistic way.
They're still forgot.
They done forgot that they have been born with a supernatural
birth from the Holy Ghost, and they were never called to walk
in the natural.
They were never called to walk in the natural.
They were never called to fight battles in the natural anymore.
They're still trying to fight.
They're still trying to prove a point, and it isn't just flesh
you're dealing with.
Paul said in Ephesians 6 and 12, for what we wrestle against
is not flesh and blood only, but it's against principalities
and powers, against spiritual wickedness, in hierarchy,
in high places.
But we've got a supernatural energy source.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5, for the weapons of our
warfare.
They are not fleshly, and they are not carnal, but they're
mighty.
They are mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds
and casting down imaginations and every high thing that
exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing
every thought into captivity, bringing it into the obedience
of Christ.
When it comes, you pull it down.
When it's impure, when it's not right, when it's envious, when
you've got jealousy in your heart, pull it down.
Pull it down.
He give you power.
I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over
all the powers of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means
prosper.
Oh, you better stay with the message, preacher.
People be walking out.
We have a supernatural power.
It's our energy source.
That's why the Bible talks about praying in an unknown
time.
When you pray in the Spirit, you pray in the language that
He gives.
Oh, preacher, we don't believe that.
Well, it's part of the Bible.
It's part of the Bible.
1 Corinthians 14 and 2, he that speaketh in an unknown tongue
speaks not to men, but rather they speak unto God, for no
man understands him.
I somehow bet in the Spirit he's speaking mysteries.
You see, sometimes we're all messed up.
Sometimes we're overwhelmed by trials.
Sometimes we're overwhelmed by situations, and we're trying to
figure out how am I going to deal with this, and how am I
going to handle this?
But he said when you pray in the Spirit, you bypass your
mind, you bypass your opinion, and you bypass everybody else's
opinion, because when you get in the Holy Ghost, you start
speaking and praying the will of God, not what you like or
dislike, not what you want and don't want.
You start speaking the will of God.
I don't care about man's opinion.
When you pray in the Spirit, you bypass all of that.
Paul said, in my prayer life, I pray in the Spirit, and I pray
in an unknown tongue.
1 Corinthians 14, 39, wherefore, brethren, covet to
prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.
Oh, but religion says you can't do that.
But it's in the Bible.
It was in the upper room in Acts chapter 2, when the day of
Pentecost had fully come, 500 heard.
But there's only somewhere around about 120.
But when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all,
all of them were one accord in one place.
And suddenly, I got to hurry, suddenly there came a sound.
There came a sound.
I don't care how good you sing.
I don't care how good a musician you are.
I want to hear a sound from heaven.
I want heaven to come down.
There came a sound from heaven.
It wasn't a Russian mighty wind, but it was like one.
And it filled all the house where they were sitting, and
cloven tongues like as a fire set upon them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and again to
speak with other tongues.
As the Spirit give the uttered chest, it's in Acts chapter 19,
where Paul said, have you received the Holy Ghost since
you believed?
Well, we've not even heard, will there be any Holy Ghost
or not?
And he said, what were you baptized in?
They said, John's baptism.
But he laid his hands on them and told them to receive the
Holy Ghost.
You know, we have a large life recovery.
You know, we didn't do anything to get them.
We inherited them.
During 2020, we were doing parking lot services.
A man had come because where he had been attending church,
they didn't want Lazarus House.
Lazarus House has over 100 men in Lazarus House.
And they started coming.
And when we went back in the building, we didn't wait long.
They said, did you know you got 20 people that's got COVID?
I said, yeah.
But they're at home.
They're not at church.
So we just had church.
Amen, ain't no need worrying about that.
They can watch online.
But when we went back in, Lazarus House had about 45
to 60 people in it then in 2020.
Now there's about 110 in the program.
I had Jimmy Talley.
Renee had spoke at the ladies' conference.
They'd had a great conference.
And I had Jimmy on Sunday morning.
Jimmy is supposed to preach.
He didn't.
There was a powerful presence of God that came down.
I've never done this all the years I've been in Pentecost.
Some of them guys come up.
I said, you want Holy Ghost?
They said, yeah, we want it.
I said, you only got to do one thing.
That's all you got to do.
They said, what's that?
I said, open your mouth.
And I'm talking about guys that had never
been brought up in Pentecost.
I'm talking about young men since they
was 9 to 11 years old, their parents have been on drugs.
And they done drugs.
And they don't even know what church is all about.
I said, open your mouth.
I said, get over here, brother Jimmy, my God.
People receiving the Holy, as soon as they opened their mouth,
they started speaking in tongues as the spirit gave
the utterance.
They didn't even fully understand it.
But I want to tell you, honey, I don't fully understand it yet.
But I know it's real.
And I want to tell you, it's my supernatural energy source.
And when I can't push my way through a mountain,
I can pray my way through to the Holy Ghost
and get victory over it.
Supernatural.
We don't have a cap on it.
But it's available.
It's for you.
Somebody say, I got to get the Holy Ghost to go to heaven.
Honey, you need it here.
You need it here.
You're going to do some supernatural stuff.
No, you ain't going to get all the recognition.
And people ain't going to always pat you on the back
because you're not here for that.
You've been equipped by the power of the Holy
Ghost to do supernatural signs.
And wonders.
And the Holy Ghost are going to do the work.
All you've got to do is be obedient and submissive
and surrender to the Holy Ghost.
I'm glad we got a supernatural source.
But religion says you can't have it.
But I'd rather have what the Bible says.
When you pray in the Spirit, it is
your supernatural energy source.
And if Isaiah, 700 years before Christ, can prophesy
of Him, he can prophesy that with stammering lips
and other tongues, will God speak?
We're worried about all the different languages.
We need to tap into the language of the Holy Spirit.
And walk in the power of the Spirit.
Because I want you to understand that your supernatural energy
source called the Holy Ghost, he's got a mind to think
and a mouth to speak.
Likewise, I go in and pray with a Sunday school
class every Sunday.
And sometimes I just preach to them.
I told them, I said, you know what?
What's wrong with the church?
It isn't that they don't pray.
They get up and going to pray what they want to pray.
That's not a prayer of the Spirit.
I said, let me tell you something.
God's doing something great in the land today
in spite of all the evil.
Seemed like over the last month to six weeks.
And I don't know why.
But God, even in the middle or end of our altar services,
God starts using me to speak prophetically.
And I pray for people.
And word of knowledge comes.
But I don't just get up.
The Holy Spirit told me to tell people
that the atmosphere is so clouded
by the presence of the Lord.
If you will come before Him and say, Holy Spirit, here I am.
I said, the Holy Ghost will show up.
Can I tell you, I go in the same place.
It's my place.
It's my happy place.
It's where I walk, prayer walk.
And I pray for people.
And I go in the same place, it's where I walk, prayer walk.
But I never just walk in to pray.
And there's nothing wrong with using helps.
But whatever song is in my spirit,
I just begin to walk the sanctuary and pray.
And the Holy Ghost shows up and starts speaking.
I'm going to take my iPhone and get in my notes.
What He's speaking and what He is saying.
You don't have to push down the gates of hell for hours.
We are in a dimension.
We are in a realm in the Holy Ghost.
If you will make yourself available
and make sure if there's any sin in your heart,
you open up your spirit to the Lord
and you open up your spirit man to the things of God.
He's going to show up and He's going to start speaking
and empowering you.
And you're going to see into the spirit realm
like you never have before.
Because we're approaching the coming of the Lord.
But God is not done with our assignment.
God is not done with the church.
We're in a burning, dying world.
And we can't do it on our reputation.
We can't do it on the name of the church of God alone.
We got to do it in the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Equipped, empowered, and prompted by the Spirit.
I won't charge you for that.
But they looked at me real funny.
I think Brother Andre was in there that morning.
He was 28.
Likewise, the Spirit helps our infirmities.
Eight and 26.
Well, we don't even know.
I've had people go, I don't even know how to pray.
You don't even have to know.
If you know Jesus, you give yourself to Him.
We don't know how to pray.
Our infirmities affects our thoughts and affects us.
In different ways.
We don't know how to pray like we're supposed to.
But the Spirit helps us.
Makes intercession for us.
With groanings cannot be uttered.
Verse 27, I love it.
Because He that searches the hearts
knows what is the mind of the Spirit.
Because the Spirit.
You see, we're trying to pray and bypass the Spirit.
I will pray and eventually I'll get in the Spirit.
No, honey, any hell it works.
Because you're just going to pray what you want.
I really need this, God.
You know my situation.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But I'm trying to tell you if you will make yourself
available to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's going to
pray through you.
And He's not going to pray what you like or dislike.
He's going to pray in alignment with what falls in line
with the will of God.
You want to get your prayers answered,
you let the Spirit pray through you.
Amen.
And you submit to that.
And you obey that.
And you watch Him work.
And then you can get to verse 28 and say,
well, we know that all things are working together
for good with Him that loved God.
They called according to His purpose.
And they called Him a musician.
I've got four more.
I've got five more points, to be honest with you.
But I'm not going to do it.
I quit a lot of times on Sunday morning at my church.
I study all week.
It's hard not to just have all kind of stuff that you want
to say, but you've got to have enough wisdom to shut up
and save it for another Sunday.
I've not learned that yet.
I just got a church that loves me.
And when I preach an hour or an hour and 15 minutes,
now, a lot of them would like to tell me that,
but only my wife tells me.
And I said, honey, I understand you.
I get it.
Pray that I'll be able to shut it down instead of keep going.
You see, when we get filled with the Spirit,
what does America need?
I know we think we need Trump.
I sure know we don't need Kamala.
But I can tell you what we do need.
Amen.
Sorry, Brother Clifford, I apologize.
No, I don't.
America needs a Holy Ghost.
Not just the church, but America needs a Holy Ghost.
There's too much racism.
There's too much hate in the world.
America needs to receive the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost will make you love one another.
The Holy Ghost will make you want to be there for one another.
The Holy Ghost will make you want to be supportive
and love one another.
Is this, is anybody here?
Too much hate.
Too much flesh.
We need the power of the Holy Ghost.
Because, you see, the devil helped you never learn it.
And some people live all their life and never learn it.
You don't have to play fair with the devil.
We can go straight in to the throne room of God.
Let us come boldly into the throne of grace
that we might obtain mercy and find grace
to help in a time of need.
You see, I can't help what's happened to me.
I was brought up in the Church of God
when they'd stay half of the night
praying people through to the Holy Ghost,
casting out demons, doing the work of God.
I've been left at church
where I was just a little fella and fell asleep underneath one of the pews.
Daddy Pastor Griffith Creek at the time,
and they were on their way home in 20 minutes
and left back to Dunlap and said,
Janice, Terry, where's David?
Cars pitch black dark. We don't know where he's at.
Well, they came back and I never knew they were gone.
Thank God.
What are you trying to tell me, preacher?
I'm trying to tell you we have an energy source
that we're not tapping into.
It's available to the church.
It will make a weak man strong.
It will make a person who is bound and addicted set free.
I'm so excited about the ministry
because we've got all kinds of folks that's been through recovery.
We have done everything for them.
All they've got to do is walk down the center aisle and say, I do.
They're living together, shackin' up,
but they're still coming to church.
We've married about four couples in the last year.
They knew they wasn't doing right, but they're in a situation.
And the Holy Ghost kept getting them under conviction.
I got a lady over the events in the church.
She'll decorate it up real nice,
decorate the sanctuary up real nice,
and all they've got to do is walk down the aisle and say, I do.
What are you saying, preacher?
We're getting a bunch of messed up people.
They're messed up.
They've been drug addicts.
They've been addicts.
Some of them received the baptism in the Holy Ghost
because I want to tell you Jesus don't want just good people.
He wants a bunch of messed up people
that's been kicked to the curb and rode off by their families
and rode off.
I don't like the way they look.
Some of them's got tattoos on their face, their head, their neck.
I ain't into all that stuff.
I'm 59 years old.
My Lord, that man buys steak.
Man buys steak with all that ink spread all over.
Now, I got a bunch that's got that ink spread all over them,
but they done that ink and sin.
God's delivered them.
Can I tell you the Holy Ghost is doing a special work in this day,
and we are so focused on the election and everything.
Can I tell you, you can only be responsible for your vote.
You can't change the election.
You should go vote and exercise your right to vote as an American citizen,
but I want to tell you you can do something better than that.
You can get in the presence of the Holy Ghost
and pray conviction on your community.
Pray conviction on the leaders.
What would happen if the mayor and some of the leaders just walked in the church
under the convicting power of the Holy Ghost,
and nobody had to persuade them?
Somebody touched heaven.
Somebody got in the presence,
and the spirit realm went to working for God's people,
and people started getting saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost.
Can I tell you, you don't have to grow old and get lukewarm on God after you get saved.
Receive the Holy Ghost.
Walk in the Holy Ghost.
Come to the altar to receive the Holy Ghost.
Get in your prayer chamber and open up yourself to the Holy Ghost,
and he will fill you with an energy source,
and all of a sudden you're thinking, my Lord, this was tough,
but now I can look at those addictions,
and I can look at those things in the power of the Holy Ghost,
because you see the Holy Ghost don't just make you shout.
The Holy Ghost gives you power to throw off what the enemy's trying to put on you.
I want everybody to stand all over the house.
I wanted to talk about what are you taking in?
What are you taking in?
Time won't let me do it.
You can't fool with garbage and expect to have a rose garden, can you?
Amen.
Are you moving in the power of the Spirit where he's calling you to go?
Elijah broke the plow.
Elisha broke the plow when he was to follow Elijah.
Elisha had had some inconsistencies over the history of his life.
Elijah said, you asked me for a hard thing,
but I want to tell you, you be with me when I'm taken up.
You see, Elisha didn't want what he had.
He wanted double to what he had.
You can have it.
Then there's old Brother Job.
Brother Job was covered up in boils, and it looked as though he would die.
But the Bible said that when he got his focus on his friends,
then the battle turned for him.
You see, sometimes you're so self-inwardly focused.
When God wants you to get your eyes off of you,
get your eyes on Jesus, get focused on the Lord
and other people, somebody's messed up, somebody's hurting,
make an attempt, be led by the Spirit, make an attempt,
because when Job started ministering to his friends,
his trials turned for him.
A woman's gathering a few sticks.
You've heard the story.
Her and her son, she's going to die.
Here comes a man of God, and Brooks dried up on him.
He said, hey, woman, make me a cake first.
She said, you ought to understand I'm gathering sticks.
I'm going to mix up this little cone of cornbread,
and we're going to eat and die.
But he said, you're not going to die.
You're not going to die until God does what he says he will do.
And the woman said, I've got a choice to make.
I can focus on me and my son and our needs only.
You see, the woman had a seed, and the man of God had a need.
And when she focused on the need,
God fulfilled what he said he would do.
Can I tell you something?
I wear my church out on this stuff,
and I don't mean to wear them out.
But we do a lot of outreach in the church,
and I'm always asking them to sow.
Sow $20.
Sow $50.
You see, when you start focusing on other people and their need,
and you start sowing, and you open your hand to God
and the needs of others,
God will open up the windows of heaven
and pour out a blessing.
I pray I never do what some retired people do,
and you don't do it, so thank God.
They retired, so I don't have to pay retires no more.
I worked on my life.
Yeah, you do.
You pay your tithes, you honor God.
Well, I may run out of money.
How did you get what you've got?
Take your eyes off of you and your foreign no more,
and get the focus on the needs of your community
and hurting people, and watch God start blessing.
I had a young man.
He was poor as poor could be.
I said, we're doing grocery cards, $50 grocery cards.
We got $50 envelopes up here.
Come get your envelope.
We're going to seven or eight different grocery stores,
and we're going to walk the aisles,
and we're going to find hurting people,
and we're going to say we're from Dainty Church of God,
God's storehouse.
A boy took his last $50 and put it in that little envelope.
He hadn't been saved too long.
He called me on Monday.
I said, you know what, preacher?
I said, well, he said, it took, I mean,
all the way down to the pennies for me to come up that $50.
But he said, you know what?
I got a $2.50 raise on the hour Monday morning
as soon as I walked into work.
You're talking about provision when you focus on others.
If you're here this morning, you want prayer, need prayer,
I can't wait to get to pray with you.
I can't wait to come in agreement with you
for whatever it is you need God to do.
This isn't the way I planned on ending this sermon,
but I thought I'd give you grace on three and a half points.
Amen, everybody needs some grace.
I need it.
But if you're here this morning, you say, I'm in a situation,
I've got a battle, and I need to pray through to some victory
in my life so that I have the wisdom of the Holy Spirit
on how I need to deal with this.
Or maybe you're here and say, preacher,
I've not been walking in the Spirit.
I've been walking, but I haven't been walking in the Spirit.
And I want to renew myself.
I want to renew myself in the Holy Ghost.
Now, you may think you don't need it, but I, every morning,
I'm glad Tim Hill, one of the purposes for the two years
is for restoration.
I pray restoration and renewal over me every morning.
I need to be renewed.
You can get in habits, and you can get stuck in a rut,
and the Holy Spirit will renew you and your experience with Him
if you want to be renewed.
Now, you can stay where you're at,
but you're going to get old like me one of these days,
and you're going to look back over your life and say,
did I give all of me to the Lord so that His purpose
could be done in my life?
I don't want to end it with regret, do you?
It's your time. It's your opportunity.
And I'm going to turn it back over to your pastor here in a minute.
But if you want prayer, need prayer, you need healing.
Yes, we preach, the Church of God believes in divine healing.
He is the healer.
He will heal you.
Lora baharabu hurabahataya.
He is the healer.
He sent His Word, and He healed them and delivered them.
Yes.
He said, I am the God.