The Pathway To Success Pt. 19

Alright y'all we're gonna get into this world y'all ready for the word All right, we're in part 19 The series called the pathway to success and what a journey this has been for us And if you can physically stand without any pain or harm, I want you to stand as we honor God For the way he has been speaking to us And for what he's going to say to us today Let's go to our foundation scripture Joshua chapter 1 verse 8 and Watch closely. It says this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth This is God talking to Joshua directly, but he's talking to you and I indirectly He says Joshua this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth Your mouth it can't just be in Moses mouth It can't just be in the high priest Eliezer's mouth it's got to be in your mouth And God is saying the same thing to you and I today this book of the law ladies and gentlemen must be in your mouth You and your mouth it can't just be in your pastor's mouth It can't just be in your mom or your dad's mouth or your spouse's mouth. It's got to be in your mouth But you shall meditate watch all these second personal plural pronouns in this verse You shall meditate in a day and night you you Coming to church is fine There's things in church. You can't get nowhere else But that does not exempt you from meditating on the Word of God day and night from making sure that it stays in your mouth and your Conversations and making sure that it also stays on your mind that it impacts your thinking you why? So that you may observe to do according to all there's written in it who? You this is one series you don't have to wonder is God talking to me. It's all about you That you may observe to do according to all there's written in it for then you will make your way prosperous all about you and Then you will have good success This series is 100% about you You in fact my title for today's message is is on you is on you

Now I'm gonna recite some things I want you to declare these things with me if you agree with it repeat this with me God Since you're talking to me Help me to listen. Well Keep me focused And give me what I need in Jesus name Amen, you may be seated It's on you It's on you It's on you If you ever play cards You already know what is going you and you sitting at the table And we waiting on somebody and it's their turn to play somebody's gonna say It's on you We waiting on you to play It could be a board game. It's your move It's on you. You could be playing golf and everybody's sitting in the cart Waiting on you You up it's on you and I want to tell you something that's critically important You gonna have to come to a point in your life Where you understand that the primary person responsible for your success is you And you're gonna have to embrace that and take Responsibility for doing your part for your success and stop making excuses Because you're somewhere you don't want to be and you're not happy with where you are and so you blame it on genetics where I'm just I'm just big-boned it or This just in my family and this just my Personality or this cuz I'm a black man in this country or as they just how they treat women and it's on you ma'am It's on you, sir It's on you

Stop saying if I had if I had a supportive wife, this is the third one At some point it's gonna have to be I Wish I was that land over there at some point It's gonna have to be on you Stop saying I wish I had a praying husband you pray It's on you You have become a master at making excuses for your failures and for your shortcomings But it's on you today. I said it's on you today Amen, stop time. I want nobody hire me. Talk to me before at the floor. Won't nobody hire me. Hi Yourself I Can tell y'all right now every church in the DMV that I applied for that I submitted a resume to She knows the churches too. We talked about them time time is that not talk bad about me talk about these words I can tell you every single one of them churches who told me I wasn't qualified to be their pastor It went on for 10 years. So, you know what I did. I hide myself. I said I hide myself. I Said you ain't gonna get let me take over your church. I'm gonna figure out how to start one Who am I talking to in here who's ready to take responsibility for your own success I No more excuses and you ain't gonna believe this. This is a true story Many of these churches that are vacant in the DMV area that are looking for a pastor right now. This is 36 years later Still wouldn't hire me to be the pastor because of qualifications. I don't meet their education qualifications I Ain't got time to go to school This is school for me everything. You understand. I need to know what I need to know. Yes. I got people around me They went to school I'm gonna tell y'all a true story. There's a major church in Washington DC the pastor So can I tell y'all something the pastor search committee talked to me called me pastor Shaman Z The bridge they called me and said we want to talk to you because we're searching for a pastor and we believe Zion Church is a model that we want our church to look up to and We believe they were basically saying you're the blueprint Now check this out. Check this out Check this out

That same church that met with me for an hour and a half as I talked to them about what to look for in a pastor If they put me on the if I applied for that church They wouldn't pick me who they call the blueprint because I don't meet their qualifications And I'm saying it don't matter what you think about me at the end of the day. It's on I don't know who I'm talking to but at some point you have to make a decision That I don't need everybody on my side. It's on you Sit down I'm playing with y'all today. So then this is 945 y'all acting like y'all y'all can like y'all to 145 service Be quiet like y'all normally are Throwing me up. They throw me off for watching. They throw me off Amen I'm gonna give you time to give you five seconds That's all I'm gonna give you five seconds to get it out because some of y'all I already spoke something hits you see when when something Hits your spirit, it makes you react you said you talking to me today pastor. I don't usually stand up in church I don't usually say man, but you coming out of my street today. You coming down my street today I'm tired of excuses I'm tired of blaming this person and this person and that system and that system for where I am in life It's all me if the last thing you leave here today saying it's on me It's on me if the last thing you leave here today saying it's on me then this was a successful service it's on me All right, that's five four three two one sit down I'm gonna give you four things that's on you Four things that's on you number one It is on you. Give me the point on the screen. I want to say it like I wrote it It's on you to keep the word of God in your conversations and your thoughts and in your actions and behaviors that's on you I said that's on you. That is your responsibility That is not anybody else's responsibility When god told that to josh, we said I need this word in your conversations I'm gonna have to switch Okay, I got it. I'm gonna need this word in your thinking and i'm gonna need this word in your behavior That's on you. Nobody can do that for you People can't study and read the word for you. You can listen to other people but that's still on you How much time you give to the word of god is on you? It doesn't matter what your profession is

Joshua's primary profession was he was a military leader, but he still had to know that word I don't care what you're doing. You need the word to form your decisions And to shut your mouth And to help you know what's yours and to help you know what to say and not to say what to do And not to do you need that word. It's a governor And it is on you To make sure that word and it's not just for success because that's what josh was going to get out of it Is also what those things what the word protects you from look at psalm 1 In psalm 1 verse 2 it says this about the word It says happy is the person who obeys the law of the lord who thinks about god's law during the day and that night So watch this watch this You're you're thinking on the word and obeying the word is actually feeding your happiness Happy Happiness is so important in this country that it's one of our inalienable rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit is so important they put it in the Constitution. And God says, I got it for you, get in that book. Get in that word and I'll show you the pathway to happiness and joy. But not only that, verse two, watch this, verse two is the way you avoid verse one. It's written in verse one, verse two, but actually, the way you avoid people who are wicked and sinners and people who laugh at God in verse one is by meditating on and obeying the word. See, there's this connection between how much you obey the word and how comfortable you are around wicked people. Your ability to fraternize with carnality

is a revelation of how shallow your commitment is to the word. Woo, I'm in your house now, ain't I? See, see, see, because the deeper you go in the word, the more shallow you are in the world. You can't live in both places. And I'm not saying you can never be around worldly, carnal people, you have to go to heaven for that. But I'm saying if you're not influencing them, if you're not having a positive impact on them, and if you're not being a witness to them, you need to avoid them. Why? Because the blessing is on you. Psalm 11 says, and the blessing must be protected. And the blessing can be smeared by your association with people who are carnal, people who are depraved. So one of the things that being committed to the word of God does is it protects your decisions and your moves and your company. And it matters in your success, because when you look down at verse six, give me verse six in Psalm one, it says the Lord takes care of people who respect him, but wicked people are living in a way that will take them to a bad end. See, this Psalm ends up in two ways. You're either gonna be taken care of by the Lord, or you're gonna end up with a bad end. And that's where you end, in a bad end.

See, that's the key part, that part. It's gonna end bad. It may look like it's all good now, but you don't know how it's gonna end. In fact, give me the New Living translation of this same verse, because both wicked people and righteous people are on a path. It says the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. It's two paths. And you know which path is blessed and watched over by God? The path that is governed by the word of God. Another thing that I want you to do and understand, point number two is, that is on you to do, and that is to develop personal strong convictions in your life. Strong personal convictions in your life. That comes through your convictions. By definition, a conviction is this. A conviction is, this is what I'm not going to do. It is not up to, watch this. It does not accelerate the plan of God in my life. I will not participate in it. That's a conviction. And watch this, convictions are fed and formed by the word of God. And in order to be successful in life, it demands you have convictions. And your convictions don't have to be popular. It ain't about doing what's popular,

it's about doing what's right. Now speaking of popularity, your success might make you popular, but that's not the goal. The goal is, is to do the ergonomic work that God put me on this earth to do. But if in my success, God makes me popular, then that's all the more reason to have strong convictions, because you're going to need those convictions to handle what popularity brings. One thing I had to realize, and anybody near you going to sleep, just reach over to the person on your right, because the person I see going to sleep is on your right. You may, who I'm talking to, touch everybody on your right, because the person on your right is going to sleep. The person on your right is going to sleep. And I don't want them to go to sleep, because I take that personal. Man, I forgot where I was, messing with y'all. What was I saying? Convictions. Popularity. I'm on convictions and popularity. So one thing I had to learn at some point, I wish I had learned it sooner, was that my pathway to success was going to require me to have strong convictions, because my pathway to success,

and all people. Pathway success is wrought with traps temptations and trials. I Said they're gonna be traps temptations and trials at every level and if you don't have strong convictions You're not gonna make it because the roads not gonna get easier. You got to get tougher You have to get deeply rooted in your convictions and you will have to overcome Temptations and overcome traps and you will have to withstand and persevere through trials You're just gonna have to do that. It ain't gonna get easy. It's gonna be hard It's not gonna be a cakewalk and one of the things that having strong convictions will do it or keep you out of places and Circumstances that will compromise your convictions See when you know, I'm my convictions won't let me go on a spot like that I can't go in a place like that because I've already predetermined That's not where I'm supposed to be Some of y'all just frivolously go anywhere you want cuz you grown just cuz you old enough to go don't mean you should go I Said just cuz you I don't know who it is for just cuz you old enough now you old enough to go You're just gonna go somewhere. Well, that's what the older you get spiritually Whoo? See, this is the thing When you naturally grow up Not spiritually when you naturally grow up you have more options of places to go When you spiritually grow up those options become truncated I can't go with you to that I can't be seen in there. I can't sit right here. My witness is on the line But I can't mess around with this my blessing. Who am I talking? My blessing is on the line You too loose It's too loose Convictions why am I talking about convictions because one thing Joshua had was conviction Look at chapter 24 Joshua stands up in front of all Israel in chapter 24, and he says if it's disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord Choose for yourself today whom you will serve choose for yourself

Who's gonna be your Lord choose for yourself? Oh, that's my third point right there. It's on you to choose who's gonna be your Lord It's going to it's on you to make that choice your parents may have exposed you to Jesus But you gonna have to choose them for yourself You can't you can't fly on somebody's coattail You got to make a decision for your choice because let me tell you something a personal relationship with Jesus is all about choice You got to choose Jesus and he knows you can make choices because you make them every day You choose what you're gonna eat you choose what you're gonna wear you choose where you're gonna live You choose who you're gonna marry you choose what team you're gonna root for you choose where you're gonna go to school You choose what career path you're gonna do and Jesus ain't gonna look at you making all them choices and leave him unchosen No, you don't get the pass on Jesus He paid too high of a price for you to be neutral with him who am I talking to? He bled to death you can't be on the fence about that. He shed his blood for you He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. You cannot be blase blase about Jesus You got to choose Joshua said choose today Did that did it's a today you hear his voice Hard not your heart if God blesses you to hear his voice Don't disrespect that blessing by not obeying it God I choose you you gonna have to make a decision on your own to walk down the aisle of a church and come to The front no matter where anybody thinks about you and choose God for yourself. That's your problem You're too worried about what's popular and what people don't think about you. Ooh Excuse me. I've almost said so much in this to heck with people and what they think about you That's that's clean enough. It don't matter what everybody thinks about you. What does God want you to do? Some of y'all just need some holy courage and make a decision You gotta be like I've decided To follow Jesus. I wonder if I'm talking to anybody right here right now who can say this I have decided to follow Jesus No turning back No turning back Though no one joined me. It doesn't have to be popular

It doesn't have to be trending though. No one joined me. Who am I talking to in here still? I will follow no turning back. No turning back the world behind me the cross before me That's on you that's on you You say what you want about churches churches church politics and and I don't trust organized religion And it's a bunch of hypocrites in the church. It's on you. I Said it's on you That Jesus thing is on you He did his part last week. Good Friday and Easter is over. It's on you now Choose for yourself today Whom you will serve whether the gods which your father served which were beyond the river the ancestors Who they serve or the gods that I am rights in whose land you are living and watch this conviction He said but as for me and my house We will serve the Lord We hope you go with us We hope you join in on who we following but whether you go or not Milton Brunson say my mind's made up No turning back. Yes. I'm happy and I'm on the right track y'all learn about that I don't care if it's trending. I don't care if it's socially acceptable As for me and my house has anybody drawn the line in the sand and say I'm not even gonna play with this I don't even want you to think I'm half in half out I'm half with Jesus have with Allah have with Buddha have with Confucius have with Harry Krishna's All my money is on Jesus. I bet him I bust him and I played him straight All my chips are in on Jesus. I ain't playing with it That's on you it's on you it's on you forever Now, let me tell you I got one more thing Verse 14 he says Fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly Can I tell you why people a lot of people listen to me right now do not serve God wholeheartedly I hear y'all at the fort. Thank you. I feel you

Can't tell you why people don't serve God wholeheartedly It's because of the same thing that's happening in this verse He says fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. How put away forever the idols Your ancestors worship when they live beyond the fruit Brady's rivers and Egypt's and serve the Lord alone Whether it's ancestral stuff or stuff you started The reason why you have hardly served the Lord is because you got another God in your life You know that makes you that makes you an idolater How so pastor people know you for that more than they know you for Jesus You wear that Yeah, you know what it is That's how you're known that sound like two people on the throne You have pledged your allegiance and loyalty to something or someone other than God Yeah, yeah, we're y'all ain't standing on that one Don't make you a bad person it just means you got two gods That means you're polytheistic For you to be polytheistic that means you serve more than one God That is unbiblical because Deuteronomy 6 4 says the Lord our God is one And you should love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your strength How can you love God with all your heart all your soul and all your strength when you got another God? You can't serve two gods. Well And The reason why not everybody the reason why people don't consistently serve the Lord in the church Let me tell you something every child of God is supposed to serve the Lord in the house of God Everyone nobody's exempt from that if you're a part of the body of Christ Then you're a part of the body is needed in the body But the reason why many of you can't serve the Lord is because you're serving another God I Think everybody here. I don't want you to answer out loud. I Don't want you to put it in the chat because I want you to trigger nobody. I want you a question Do you have an idol in your life?

You say pastor this can't be an idol because it's done some so many good things in my life Let me tell you something. It don't have to be bad to be in the way It's Competing it has impinged your Trajectory of your success Because you want to hold on to god and it And it means so much to you That even if you're not polytheistic, you're syncretic about it You try to blend the two God is not whoa When it comes to worship god is not supposed to be first he's supposed to be only Only god deserves worship Oh How do we fix that let me tell you a quick story when I was 19 years old Something happened in my life. First of all, my god was my music collection I got my first car when I was 17. My parents wouldn't let me drive their car So I got my first job when I was 15. I just worked and worked. I bought a car from my cousin marty. It was Marty if you're listening right now, you still need to be forgiven for that car. He sold me He sold me a lemon. I needed lemonade to dry the joint It was a 1972 mazda rx3. It was a four-speed. It had one speaker in it And when you go into third gear the speaker the rev the rpms would play through the radio What I didn't know is that he sold me a car that the whole floorboard was busted under it And I wondered why he had so many mats on the driver's side I thought it was for cushion, but he was covering the hole that he didn't tell me about I took it to get the oil change the man said your whole floor boy going i'm talking about fred flintstone stuff I'm talking about i'm on the road. I can put my feet on the ground I had a music collection in that car. I had a cassette player This is before you could stream music for free. You had to buy music back there. Kemp mill holds the records I had a whole boat loaded. I had boxes and cases of cassettes I was into r&b music. I had patrice rushing and gene khan and angie bofield luther vandross and

I can't even name it I don't want to trigger nobody but I had all All this music and that's what I was known for and then I had see if you had this you was doing something. I had pa go-go tapes I had I had all this music in my car and it was my god That's what I was known for. I pull up turn it. You know i'm saying turn the music up That was my idol and I remember 19 years old when god says that's between us It's in the way I didn't even know it until this until the other day antoine when I was in addison chapel apartments And you may remember his name was jumbo lived in our neighborhood. What happened was I remember the night I said god if this is in the way of me growing to be who you want me to be i'll give it up I Took boxes of cassette tapes and I threw them in the dumpster in my apartment complex off of addison road And this guy named jumbo his name larry something. He's a barber. This is a true story He was riding his bicycle and he came by I saw what I was doing He knew the quality of music and he literally was going into the trash can and take him out of it That's how good this stuff was. So I started I went I took the tapes. You remember the little brown thing? I started popping them. I said I don't want you to hear it either now that was a mistake because What's a god for you may not be a god for somebody else I'm, not trying to say music is a god is an idol. It was an idol. It was in my way That's why I said see some of y'all god will show you where the idol is Then you want to try to get everybody else to stop it mind your business do what god told you to do All you're going to do is start a fight. You're trying to get everybody to leave what you left you leave and live But let me tell you what happened when I got rid of all that stuff that same year god started teaching me how to preach I was I wasn't a preacher. I wouldn't even into that Like I was watch this y'all true story. I started preaching in the same car. I was idol worshiping there Y'all ain't heard some of my best preaching you ain't never heard it was in my car I was in there. God would speak to me and give me words. Like I said, man, this is good

But it happened because here's what's this success is not just what you build it's what you burn People talk about elevating you can't elevate you can only elevate at the at the at the dimension you're willing to eliminate The reason why you can't build something is because you won't burn something that's keeping you from building it Hernan cortez 1500s. He was a military leader spanish military leader. Some of you may know this story in 1519 He came by sea to mexico When they landed on mexico, he told all his soldiers burn the ships And he told all his soldiers to burn the ships And he told all his soldiers to burn the ships And he told all his soldiers to burn the ships Why do we burn the ships? Because we will not make a way to go back. He says, either we gonna succeed here or we gonna die here. But one thing we not gonna do is go backwards. If you playing basketball and you cross half-court, even if somebody calling you, if you go back in the backcourt, that's a turnover. And some of you can't build because you won't burn, we're still an idol to you. And you have to drive it out. You can't just talk about what I'm gonna let go. You got to get rid of it. You got to get rid of all the artifacts of it, all the statues of it, everything that is representative of it, so that it's gone. So that it's out of the way. God, nothing will compete for you. Only you are Lord. I want to ask you a question without saying it out loud. What is that in your life? I promise you, it's standing between you and the next level of God in your life. And you, how can it, how can that be okay with you? Y'all remember in the Bible, there's a man named Elijah. He was a prophet, 1st Kings chapter 19. He sees Elisha plowing 12 rows of oxen. And he goes over to Elisha. And Elisha takes off his mantle and places his cloak on Elisha. And Elisha knew what that meant. He said, I'm next. I'm next. And it scared him. Because when God calls you higher, let me tell you something, when God calls you higher, stuff shouldn't stay on you, it's got to come off you. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childless things. They ain't going to drop off, you got to put them away. And some of the things you're holding on to in your old age are childish compared to what God's

trying to give you. You still walking around proud of something that you should have outgrown spiritually. You don't have to like it. I know you ain't coming back for part 20. I already know. I've already accepted it. I hope you find you a good church and a pastor that will preach you some nice little sermons to make you comfortable. That's not my job. If you ain't getting challenged, you ain't going to change. I know you ain't coming back for part 20, that's it. That's it. Yeah, that's your idol. What you going to do? You put that cloak on Elijah, and Elijah try to make excuses. But let me tell you something, when you're going to make a decision, it can't just be a discussion, it must be a decision. No delays, decision. So Elijah took every bull he had, and he killed it. Sacrificed it. Took all of his farming equipment and burnt it. Gave all the food to the townspeople. Why? So that there'd be nothing left of his business. He says, I can't go back now. I can only go forward. Give me that quote. Give me that quote I gave you. There it is. I don't know who said this. People don't usually fail because they can't go forward. They fail because they made it too easy to go back. I'm going to give you an opportunity today, at all of our campuses, to make a decision. Because it's on you. It's on you to choose whether Jesus Christ is going to be your Savior or not. That's on you. And I'm going to give you an opportunity in a moment to come forward to make that decision. Why I got to come forward? Faith and progress is forward. It is not neutral, it is not backwards, it is forward. And to have the kind of commitment that Joshua had means you cannot be intimidated about what people think. I hear God and God only and I respond to that. I'm going to give you an opportunity to come forward in a moment. I'm also going to give you an opportunity to recommit your life to the Lord. Some of you need to recommit your life to the Lord and burn your idols. You have to get rid of everything that you lifted up as so important in your life. And at the end of the day, it's just in the way. It's just in the way. Am I saying the music I had is an idol for everybody? I told you, if you're a DJ, you better have that. It was in my way.

And 41 years later, I'm doing what he taught me to do after I, after I, watch this, he helped me build something after I burned something. Do you understand what I'm saying? Will you let him build your life? Or are you going to keep what you built? I'm going to give you an opportunity today to come forward to join the church, if that's your choice. It's your choice. It's on you. It's on you. Ain't nobody got time to just make you all, well, nobody spoke to me today. Hey, let me tell you something. If you think everything's going to be okay, then you're already taking an L. People don't have to like you, everybody don't have to be nice to you, but you still got to do what God wants you to do. So everybody that can't stand, stand now. And if God's calling you to come forward, come forward now. Every campus, come forward. Just say, excuse me, excuse me, I need to go up there. I know when God's talking to me and I need to make it right with him. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Bless you. Amen. Amen. Yeah. God bless you.

I appreciate it. Come on, y'all clap for them like it's your loved one you've been praying for. Amen. You good? Amen. Bless you, buddy. Amen. Yeah. Come on. You at Fort Washington right now. We ain't in the same building, but we in the same spirit right now. You come on. Come on down. Here at Woodbridge. Come on. Right now. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. You at Woodbridge. Come on. Come on down to the front. Forward. Forward. Forward.

Forward. You at Z-Lo. Come forward. Come forward. He sees you and he knows why you coming forward. Don't stay where you are. Don't stay where you are. Bless you, buddy. You brought him or you together? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's take two minutes in worshiping. Thank you Lord for who you are. Thank you for who you are. Father, I thank you for everybody who's made a decision for you, a choice for you, wherever they are, whether they're online, wherever they may be right now, seal these decisions. May you take your rightful place in our life. Give us the courage to burn whatever's preventing us from building. And we thank you for what you're going to do in our lives, in Jesus' name.

And everybody that agrees, say amen.