The Pathway To Success Pt. 3

To those of you on YouTube Live, Facebook Live, on our Zion Church website, hey, do me a favor, be an evangelist. Share this link with somebody, the link you're using, share it with somebody. Because listen, we share videos all the time, funny stuff, violence, bad news, we share stuff all the time, all types of stuff with people. This could be something to change somebody's life. I'm in part three of a series called The Pathway to Success. And I'm about to go into the message right now, so share that link. Those of you who work in the chat, as chat hosts, create a shareable link for people so they can put it in their stories, put it in their posts, and share it with your group, maybe in a text thread. All right, this is Pathway to Success, part three. We started this series, we had some orange Chuck Taylors up here. I thought it was the right shoe. The detractors came along and opposed it, and so we've been changing the shoe every week. These are Dunks, right? We had some Jordan 1s up there last week, we'll have a new pair of shoes next week. It's just a conversation piece. Be assured that success has nothing to do with what's on your feet.

Success has to do with the way you walk. And God has a pathway to success that's in his word that we're about to look at again in part three of this series. And so if you're ready for that, if you can physically stand. Now, why do we have you stand? It is most important to me. In the Bible, the way it worked, people sat down for the teaching of the word, but they always stood for the reading of it. When the Bible was instructed, people would sit down, and interesting enough, the instructor would sit down. But during the reading of the word, people stood in reverence and honor that God is speaking. Amen. We stand because God is speaking. And we stand because what we're doing physically is a prelude to what we're going to do spiritually and practically. I'm not just standing for this word, I'm gonna stand on this word. Amen. Amen, amen. If you're ready to receive, say this with me. Dear God. Dear God. Speak to me. Speak to me. Whatever you wanna say.

Whatever you wanna say. Whatever I need to hear. Whatever I need to hear. Give it to me. Give it to me. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Amen. Joshua chapter one, verse eight, says this. This is our theme verse. It says, this book of the law, New King James Version, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. It is obedience that's so important. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. On your way to your seat, please say these words. Good success. Good success. You may be seated. Good success. Good success. There's an old saying that says, all money. Ain't good money. Ain't good money. We've seen that play out this week in sports and gambling and stuff.

All money. Ain't good money. And I'm gonna say, if that's true, I would also say all success. Ain't good success. God says to Joshua, here is the pathway to good success. And I know when God talks about having good success, part of it is, what we want is, when we say I wanna be successful, we just wanna do well. When somebody says, hey, I wanna do well in life, we have in mind things like, I want a nice place to live. I wanna be able to take care of my family. I want us to have some comfort. I wanna be able to take a vacation. I wanna be able to own some property. Like, doing well is usually something we consider when we're talking about successful. That's on the material side. But God, and God has no problem with that. God wants you to do well, but he also wants you to do good. Doing good is behavioral. It is benevolent. And it is possible to do well and not do good. And it is possible to do good, but not be doing well. You are too nice of a person to be broke, and to be sick, and to be ill all the time. God wants both. He says, I want you to do well and do good. I want you to do good and be well.

Ooh, there's a verse in, I give you verses, this is gonna be next week. I wanna say it's Ecclesiastes 519, and it says, God gives us wealth and the health to enjoy it. Look that up, Proverbs 519, I think it is. God says, I'm gonna give you the, what difference does it make if you got the wealth, you ain't got the health to enjoy it? In order for you to be successful, you're gonna need this body. I'm already in part four. Let me come back, part three. Good success, everybody say it again, good success. Now, I want you to pay attention to this verse, Ecclesiastes, I'm sorry, Ephesians chapter two, verse two, verse 10, because it is important and germane to what I wanna say today. I'm going back to something I shared and I'm gonna expand on it. In Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, it says, we are God's masterpiece. And he has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we could do the good things he planned for us long ago. Now watch this, when you hear something like this, that we are God's masterpiece, please unpack that. When you talk about a masterpiece, that's somebody's best work. Whatever you do, whatever you design, whatever you create, when you say, that's my masterpiece,

you ain't did, that's on a different shelf, you understand what I'm saying? This is up here, and when God says, this is my masterpiece, you're talking about a perfect God, the creator of the ends of the earth, the one who's made places all over the world, rivers and streams and mountains and forests and beautiful places, but he says, none of that's my masterpiece, you are. Fearfully and wonderfully made. How can you have low self-worth when you are his masterpiece? Your DNA, your personality, your unique gifts and ability, his masterpiece, and he says, I designed you masterfully, a part of the verse, because of what I'm trying to do through you, at the end of the verse, I've already planned work for you to do. I planned good things for you to do, but watch this, I wouldn't plan for you to do something that I didn't prepare you to do. So I've masterfully designed you as a masterpiece to do masterful things, but in between there, you gotta meet my son, because you will never do the things I brought you to this earth to do unless you're first born again. You can't just be born once, you gotta be born again. Do you track with me? God has designed you to do some great things, some things that only you could do, but here's the problem, many of us have settled for employment

over divine assignment, and we spend most of our life doing something, as I talked about early in this series, we spend most of our life, work life, doing something that we're too good at it to fail at it, but we're not great enough at it to really succeed at it. Like there's some things in life that, there's some people who are working in areas and doing work on a regular basis, and you're good, but you're not great, and so you kind of live in this space, this space called average. And in average, it's sort of like if you make it like a steak, when it comes to your professional life, you're medium well, but God wants you to be rare so that one day he can say, well done. Good God, look at how you like that. Now that's a bar, give me a hand for that. I wrote that. Give me my little amen on that. God expects you to be rare because he has fearfully and wonderfully created you, and there is something that you are rare at, there is something that you are exceptional at, but for many people, you're not doing it professionally, when it's actually what he wants you to spend your time doing, but you've accepted a career that at best you'll be good at. You are good on your best day. When you do what you've been designed to do, you are good on your worst day. You're usually great, but you can never be great

at something you weren't designed to be great at, and the only reason why you haven't failed at this is because you're good enough enough times that they won't fire you. In fact, it would actually be almost, I hate to say, helpful if they fired you so you could find out what you're great at, but you've committed your life to spend 40 or 50 years doing this because you're almost vested, and you can get a pension, and that's not evil, it's just off. It's off plan, it's off purpose. It is a safe and comfortable way of living your life, and because you got this job when you were 18, and watch this, if you live in this area, people told you when you was little, get you a good government job. Well, how's that working? You better get you a good mindset of what God put you on this earth to do. No matter what's happening in any industry, you gonna be all right. I said, you gonna be all right, because watch this, you are rare at something. People pay for rare. They don't pay for average. You have to be average a long time, and this is how you make it an average. Your tenure gets you paid. You ain't getting promoted because you're special, you're getting promoted because they ain't got no choice.

Well, we got to give you a step or something. Grade or a step, it's been 27 years. But when you are rare, you get elevated no matter how long you've been there. They can't stop you. They don't even have to like you. Well, how do you get out of this trap? And this is gonna be a disturbing message because it's supposed to disturb you out of normalcy and being comfortable. Now, how do you get out of this trap of spending your whole life in a world of average? You find out and you operate in your special gift. Ephesians 4, seven says this. Y'all, everybody walk back there. God has been kind to all of us. Each of us has received, watch this, God has been kind to all of us, and each of us has received a special gift just as Christ has decided to give us. Now, in that verse, everything we've received is past tense. You have a special gift. You have a special grace and anointing on your life and it's already been given you. It ain't something you gotta stand in line for. It ain't something you gotta go hunting down. You already have it, it's in you. He is, watch this, it's a part of the masterpiece. He put it in you. Now, it is your job to discover.

You know what discover means? It means to take the cover off something. But it's hard to discover something when I'm so busy doing, watch this, discovering my greatness when I'm, watch this, when I'm occupied with what I'm just average at. So I spend my whole life being in a place called between average and good when God wants me to be in a place of good to great, when I'm good on a bad day. Everybody has a special gift. And when I talk about gifts in the church, people think we're talking about, what, are you talking about tongues? Are you talking about the gift of help? So you're talking about administration. Are you talking about the gift of pastoring? A gift can be being kind to people. A gift can be, you can have the gift of organizing things. Decluttering spaces. I'm gonna give you six words to identify your special gift. It's the best way I can do this. And I'm gonna give you six words, and here are the six words, we're gonna talk about these six words, and we'll be pretty much done. Got one more thing after that. First of all, when you know your special gift, when you identify your special gift, it is something you're effective at. What does it mean to be effective?

You get the job done. You're trustworthy, you're reliable. Hey, y'all right on time, ain't no problem, come on in. I'm sorry, let me leave people alone before I get in trouble. Amen, just come on in and come on up to the front, amen. Amen, we ain't got nothing but some time, amen. Just walk on, look at him, he's head down, he's like, dang, man, they'll call me out. Amen, just come, lay Ann to the front. That's what I'm talking about, it wasn't your fault, amen. Traffic, amen. Now, when you're operating your gift, you're effective. If somebody say to you, all right, dude, by next Friday, we need this done. Most people who are not gifted to do that will be overwhelmed, that's impossible, that's impossible. You say, say less. Got it, you're effective. Got it, you're effective. You will get the job done, the need will be met. Now, that's effective. You can only do that, you can do that sometimes when you're not gifted, but most of the time it's because you're gifted. But now, here's the next thing to further define it. You also, when you are gifted at something, you have a special gift, you do it with excellence. How many of you know, it's one thing to be effective, it's a whole nother level to be in excellence?

Because when you operate in excellence, you don't forfeit effectiveness. You still are effective, but you do effective on steroids. It's like, the difference between, let's just say, a wedding coordinator who's effective. They're gonna get you married. The ceremony gonna happen, it may be sloppy, it may be a mess, I've seen it. I said, I've seen it. I've seen, I've seen it. But then there are certain wedding coordinators that the whole thing is excellent. The program is excellent, the flow is excellent, the decor is excellent, the music is excellent. The whole thing is that it flows because they operate in a spirit of excellence, right? And it stands out. Now, let me give you another. Example, I'm an effective cook. I know you didn't know that, but you know, I just thought you might wanna know. I'm an effective cook. I'm not an excellent cook. I'm an effective cook. I'll cook if there's a situation. I got a day, I got a day. It's on me. I don't try to cook a lot of stuff. I don't cook souffle, whatever that is, or parfait. I got some standard stuff.

I got you a protein, I got you a vegetable, I got you a starch. It ain't a usual combination, but it all tastes good, and at the end, they call me K-Pa, my family. Thank you, K-Pa. That's it. Everybody enjoyed the food. It was effective. An excellent cook doesn't just hit your palate. The presentation is effective. They plate it. I don't plate nothing. Wherever I cook, it's right here. This is your, make your own plate. It ain't even organized. The kitchen a mess, they do, go get it. You eat out the pot, I don't care, just go get that. I'm not gonna have garnishments on there, and the color design. I ain't gonna have happy birthday written in chocolate. I ain't doing all that. That's what excellent cooks do. They give you an experience. Who understands what I'm saying? The food still tastes good, but you wanna take Big Mama to the restaurant. You wanna take your friends, say, we going there. Don't nobody come to me for holidays. I'm effective. That's why distinction between effective and excellence

is very important when it comes to your gift, because people might disagree whether or not you're effective, but what people cannot deny is when you're excellent. When you're excellent, your haters gotta say, I can't stand her, but that thing can sure sing. He get on my nerves, but boy, he can do that. How many know what I'm talking about? There is something in your life you are excellent at, and it is a part of your DNA, amen. And one of the reasons why you're excellent is because it is a part of your effort. See, even if you have a special gift to do something, it's still gonna take a lot of work to do it, a lot of planning, a lot of preparation, a lot of late hours. But here's the good news. Because God designed you to do that, he wires you with the desire to do the effort. You understand what I'm saying? Okay, let me give you an example. Somebody who puts in effort in their thing that they're great at, they will talk about it a lot. They talk about, you don't even wanna talk about it, yeah, and we can do this, and we can do that, and they plan it all the time. You're just as, you put as much effort into the preparation as into the actual actuation or the presentation of the thing, you understand what I'm saying?

But you put a lot of effort in, you're willing to work hard, you're willing to plan, you're willing to go watch other people do what you're trying to do, all right, you understand what I'm saying? That's effort. Because watch this, you never get to excellence by accident, it's hard work. And people who are gifted that don't work hard actually do more effective things than they do excellence. You can have the capacity to do excellence, but if you don't put in the effort, it ain't gonna be excellent. But when people are working in something that they're great at, they usually are willing to put the effort in, and here's another word for that. The reason why they're able to do that is because they have a lot of energy for it. Somebody say energy. Watch how to make this machine work. Energy. Energy is the strength to do what you, one of the ways you can know what God designed you to do, it takes you longer to get tired of it than others. People ask you, what you doing? I'm still working. You're still doing that? Who knows what I'm talking about? This is my passion. I'll be working on this all night.

You lose sense of time. Here's how you know when you're doing stuff, when you're in one of them jobs, you do work that you don't like, you don't have energy for it. It doesn't energize you, it drains you. And you're always watching the clock. When you do work in this space, you clock watch. You get to work at eight o'clock, feel like you've been there four hours, you look at the clock, it's 9.45. You'd be like, dang, you ready to cuss. It's only 9.45, man, I'm going to take me a two-hour break. I remember working jobs, I would hide. I would hide till they paged me. When you hiding, you don't like that job. You think God picked a job that you hiding? Your happiest time in your workday is when you get off. You mad all day, five o'clock. It ain't even five o'clock, 4.56. You start getting happy, you start packing up, you done shut down, unplugged stuff, unhooked stuff, getting your back. If the phone ring at 4.57, I ain't getting out, I'm off, because that might take 10 minutes. Because let me tell you something about you. You may not get to work on time, but you get off on time. I will not be here. That's a sign. This thing drains me.

Some of y'all who are furloughed, respectfully, not everybody, but some of you are furloughed, you don't miss going to work. What you miss is, man, they talking about not paying me. That's what you miss. When you do work you love, the pay is almost like, I get paid to do this? Who understands what I'm talking? They gonna pay me for this? If you understand what I'm saying, put your hand up. Just put it right there. That's all I'm trying to say. It's a sign. When you're doing work you're not designed to do, your happiest day is Friday. You know why? Because I'm gonna get off for two more days. When they made the short work week, four-day work week, you was like, there is a God. Only got to come here four times. You can't wait. You always talk about retirement. I ain't got nothing but like 16 years. People who talk retirement are not doing what they love. Retirement is actually a union term that was created years ago for people who worked in jobs. They start when they were 18. And they figure if you do that for 47 years, when you're 65, you deserve to not have to do that no more. That's what retirement is.

Why would I retire from something that God has designed me to do with excellence? The reason why you have such energy for it is because you also enjoy it. Give me Ecclesiastes 2, 24. Are y'all still with me? I'm almost done. Ecclesiastes 2, 24. Solomon, the wisest man in history, says this. He says, there's nothing better. Somebody say, there's nothing better. He says, there's nothing better for people than to eat, drink, and to find enjoyment in their work. Enjoyment. This too I perceive is from the hand of God. This is Solomon. You can't just read what's said in the Bible. You gotta know who said it. If you know anything about King Solomon, any man who's read about King Solomon know he know something about pleasure. He had it all. And he says, he ain't name none of that. He says, you know what? Watch this. Nothing is better than having a job you enjoy. Enjoyment. And when you look at this word enjoyment, don't just focus on the pleasure that the word means. Look at that sacred word in the middle of it, joy.

Joy is contentment and peace. It is not external. It is not about fans. It is not about applause. When you have joy, it means I actually am content that I am doing what I was designed to do. I enjoy this. Can you tell? Can you tell that I enjoy this? You're supposed to say, yeah, you're supposed to. I hope you, that's the work God wants us to have, work that brings us joy. Do you have joy? Some of you are mad when you get up and drive to the job. Oh, Lord. You wake up, oh, Lord. Here we go. Got 16 years. Maybe they can give me a bow. Then you're mad. You're mad. Ooh, I'm gonna say this. Let me see. There are other things you can enjoy in life, not just your work. You can enjoy playing golf. You can enjoy shopping. That's not your calling. But you say, I'm effective at shopping. I do it with excellence.

I have plenty of energy. When my wife gets in the mall, it's like she on steroids. But you have to do, these things have to make you money, not cost you money. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about your life's work, not a hobby. What God says, I'll give you work that you enjoy because I made you for it. And this is the last word, ease. It's not that the work is easy. It's that because you're anointed to do it, you make it look easy. It looks easy to others. It ain't even easy work. I remember when Terrence Crawford beat Canelo Alvarez, and somebody was saying after the fight, he said, man, that was easy work. He said, it wasn't easy work. My hard work made it look easy. You understand what I'm saying? And some of you. Because what you do looks easy, people say you got it naturally. Don't limit it to that. Say, I got it supernaturally. God blessed me to be able to do this. So you got to look within the circumference of these words and say, all right, what does this describe in my life? What am I effective at and not just effective? I do it with excellence. I have great effort for it. I have a great energy for it. I enjoy it. And it looks easy. That's your life's work. And if you wouldn't get stuck doing something that you can never reach these plateaus with or these levels with, the only thing you can reach really is being effective. And you can be effective enough for people to keep you around. You can hit a fact, yeah, that was pretty good. You will never be excellent. And it's not your

fault. You aren't wired to be excellent at that. How many know you can't be excellent at everything? God has to give you the ability to be excellent at everything. That's why you got to know what you can't and you can't do. Let me give you one more word and we're done. Humility. Humility does not seem like it's important to success, but it is. Because we bought into the notion that in order to be successful, you have to make your own name great. But isn't it interesting in the Bible, God told Abraham, I'm going to make your name great. It's different if God makes your name great. Most people in this world have made it their business to make their own name great. You got brand ambassadors, brand managers trying to get followers. But really as Christians, instead of us trying to get followers, we're supposed to be trying to get people to follow Jesus. That's different. There's a scripture I'm going to look at next week. I'm not even trying to sell next week. Just my notes are like spilling over into each other. Ecclesiastes 5.17 says, never think that you were responsible for your own success. That's Ecclesiastes 5.17. And then 5.18 says, no, Deuteronomy, that's it. Deuteronomy 8.17 says, never assume that you made yourself successful. And then 8.18 says, for it is the Lord who gives us power to get wealth and to be successful. Understand where your success comes from. I'm not going to use that verse. I'm going to close with John 3.30. In John 3.30, John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, was deeply committed to the things of God, all the way down to his wardrobe, his lifestyle. John had a lifestyle, pastors. This is what we have to understand. His lifestyle was in alignment to his assignment. Ooh, that's so good. One of the reasons why you can't stay focused on your assignment is because your lifestyle is not aligned to it. It is not what you have the liberty to do. It is what you choose not to do that keeps you locked in. There are things that I just don't do, not because they're evil, they're not in alignment. I don't have time to do that. Not if I'm going to be excellent. And the reason why you don't reach excellence is because you do everything. You're a card player, you're a detailer of cards, you cornrow hair, you sell Mary Kay insurance, and you're a night manager at Chick-fil-A. That's why you're average. Whatever you're going to be excellent in, you have to learn how to say no to a lot of things. John was that guy. He was the man. His people came to him and said, John, Jesus is, verse 26 is Genesis of John chapter three. He said, Jesus is taking all your people, man. He's taking all your members from your church.

He's baptizing people on your turf. And they thought they were going to make John get into a competition with Jesus. And John says, give me verse 28 in the CEV. John says, I already told y'all, 328 CEV. He said, I already told y'all I'm not the Messiah. I'm only the one sent ahead of him. This is what he said in verse 29. He says, at a wedding, the groom is the one who gets married. The best man is just glad to be there to hear the groom's voice. That's why I'm so glad. And this is what he says. He says, Jesus must become more important. I must become less important. That's success. Jesus, more important. Me, less important. Watch this. He didn't say I must become unimportant. I must become less important. He must become more important. Let me ask you a question. In your life, are you more interested in being famous or faithful? Do not answer that in here. Do you want to be famous with people or faithful to God, because I'm telling you, those two things compete with each other. Because your faithfulness to God may diminish your fame, because it ain't about you. And your pursuit of fame will certainly impact your faithfulness to God. Because the people who are truly about it say, I must decrease, he must increase. That's why Jesus said about John the Baptist, there's never been a person on earth born to women on John's level. There ain't nobody on his level. John understood it. John says, I gotta get out of his way, that he might receive the glory. Do you wanna be famous, or you wanna be faithful? Because when you do, watch this, when you hear well done from God, he's not gonna say, well done, thou good and famous servant. Well done, good and faithful.

Now if your faithfulness makes you famous, so be it. Let God make your name great. And this is what I'm saying, this is what I'm saying, I'm not trying to judge anybody, I'm gonna tell you my own testimony. This is not what I grew up to be. When I was a kid, I wasn't up there saying, man, I sure would like to be a preacher. Who wants to do that? The pastor I grew up watching didn't even look happy. He looked tired all the time. Deacon Bill looked like the deacons was tearing him up. That's why I feel some kind of way about deacons, is I watched them tear him up. So I'm like, I ain't trying to do that. And when I sensed God was calling me into ministry, I was like, oh, I got, I got, this is what we gonna do. I'm gonna work, how about, how about, I do this with a Christian flair to it? How about I take a gift you gave me? Because my gift since the time I was a child was comedy. I have always been funny. You check the record on me. Beaver Heights Elementary, Bethune Junior High, Family Heights, perennial, regular, annual class clown. Not most likely to succeed, not most congenial, not best dressed, class clown, standing and still. So that's my, watch this, that's my gift, and I could have used that gift to become famous and great. Doing monologues, monologues, 60 minutes, 90 minutes,

and my, you know, my compromise with God was, okay, I'll do these jokes for 60 to 90 minutes, and at the end, I'll talk about you. And then tell people as I close, after saying all these jokes had nothing to do with you, and y'all remember, keep God first in your life. And then people would say, that's my man, and he's saved. 89 minutes of jokes, one minute of Jesus. And some of you have mastered manipulating the gift God gave you, and using it for your own aggrandizement, and pimping his gift, and sprinkling enough Jesus on it to fool people, but God ain't fooled. You know he ain't first. My gift of comedy was supposed to color my assignment, not control it. I'm not called to make people feel, to be funny. I'm called to help people. Every now and then, I'll say something funny, but that ain't my assignment. Do you understand what I'm saying? How many of you have taken the gift God gave you, and you ran with it for your, and really, you won't admit it, but it's really all about you? And you sprinkle enough Jesus on it that you got enough people saying, and you know what, she's saved, too. You ain't know she was saved? Look on her, it's in the, on her, on her IG page, it say God first.

Go look at it, and the first thing she said is God first. That's sprinkles. Can't just write that. You gotta live that. I say you gotta live that. God knows even when people are convinced otherwise. And I wanna ask you a question today. Is he really first? Is he really first? Let me tell you something else. I was on the pathway to be at least cashier of the year. Y'all laughing, but I started off as giant food. I was a utility clerk at store number 42 in Malo Heights. I remember catching the bus over there. Utility clerks, what we did was we put bags of groceries in people's cars. We would bag the groceries at the, you know, when people were running up the groceries, then we'd put them in the car. Then I got elevated, went to store 162, Woodyard Road in Clinton. I was in bulk food. I was inside. You can. Promoted when you go from the outside to the inside. Then I got elevated. I moved to Shopper's Food Warehouse in Largo. I was a cashier. Paper or plastic, talk to them. Then I took my talents over to Kmart,

right here in this building. I was on my way. I'm so glad I got fired at just about every job. I'm not saying that people don't have a career in retail. I'm just saying that wasn't my assignment. And I'm so glad somebody fired me so that I could find me. Ooh, I'm gonna have to write that down. Let me, give me a pen. I fired me so I could find me. I'm so glad of churches that rejected me. When I knew I was supposed to be in the ministry digging Bill, Sister Angie, for 10 years, from 1990, this true story, through 1999 to 2000, I would apply for churches because I just wanted to preach one place. I was preaching at different churches. I just said, can I just have one place to preach? And I remember I'd go to churches and I'd interview to be their pastor and they'd let me teach Sunday school and then I'd preach on Sundays and I'd meet with the board and cast my vision. And for 10 years, not one church picked me. All of them rejected me. And when I look around this day and I'm able to wear tennis shoes to church and I look in that camera, I wanna thank every church that said no. I wanna thank you.

Because you woulda, it woulda, I was hurt when you, I was hurt at first. I see now. I woulda been doing the right thing in the wrong place. I gotta wrap this up. I'm concerned about two groups of people in here. First of all, I'm concerned about people who are spending your whole life doing something you will never be more than average to good at. When God has designed you to be absolutely phenomenal at something. And by the way, you're holding on to the average middle, watch this, you're holding on to medium well because it's paying the bills. But I tell you, if you ever trusted Him and you became rare, you'll do better at that if you trust Him. You'll do better at that. I'm concerned about you spending your life in a place called average. I'm concerned about another group of people too. I'm concerned about those of you who have used the gift God has given you for your own aggrandizement. You are not using it for His glory and you know it. I said you know it. You know, this is how you sprinkle Jesus on it. You talk about God every now and then, or you'll bring a pastor. Pastor, come on by my job.

People ask me, I say, can you come by and bless this? Can you come by and bless my house? Can you come by and bless my business that I'm opening? And what you're doing is you're sprinkling Jesus on it so everybody ran and say, yeah, and they believe in God too. Let me tell you something. If you really had God first, you could bless your own business. You could bless your own house. Let me ask you something. What is it that you can't, what is it that you can be doing professionally that you can't pray over? You can't pray over. That tells me there's compromise. You are the priest of what you're leading. The fact that you can't pray over it is probably a sign of compromise. But just because one of the pastors come by and bless it don't mean you're in alignment. Let's stand. I told you, I'm done. I'm done. I'm about to go home. Now it's your turn. Your time now. A lot of people come to church and you come to church, it's almost like entertain me. Sing your songs to me.

Play your music for me. I don't like their music. I don't like their singing. That's fine. I don't like all church music either. Preach that message. I'll see if you're effective or not. But let me tell you something. At the end of the day, there's gonna come a time when you're gonna have to give an account to God. And what this part of the service is really about is your response to him. How will you respond to God? About what he's saying in this message? About what he's saying in this service? About what he's been dealing with? See, sometimes God's been dealing, he's been dealing with you about. Stuff and you think it's pretty ironic that you came in here, and it got confirmed Part of you wants to chuckle right now say God. I hear you. Okay. You hear what you're gonna do If you have children stepchildren God's children biological children put your hand up put it back down If you tell your child to do something and And you know they heard you, but they don't do it. Are you cool with that? The fact that you heard me and did it do it is more insulting I Could do better if you didn't hear me The fact that you heard me say and didn't do it I'm saying how gangster can you be I? I Don't even know you

You can't hear God's voice Take me out of the equation I'm just I was just sent he sent his word We talked about this and remember the free services that God said who will go for us and who can we send? There's a difference between us and who will go because everybody says Isaiah say here am I in the Hebrew says here am I most people say here I am That's the location. I already know where you are. Here. Am I says that's availability So first of all, I'm looking to send somebody that's available. But why she said who will go for us? I hate Lord Then God said well, who can we send? You send people who ain't in it for themselves And I'm saying how gangster is it to hear your Heavenly Father and that obey And let your child do it Some of your children been punished we lost track of Holland. They've been grounded. They don't even know you don't even know when it started They're just grounded We took your phone. You took everything because of disobedience Here God lets you wake up every day. I'm gonna leave you alone. It's your time to respond How can you respond you can respond to say God I surrender my life to you today. I recommit my life to you today. I Respond by by choosing to put you first in my life. I Respond maybe he's been dealing with you about being a part of this church and Making it official. We don't say that the pressure you is just an opportunity Maybe your responses they say, you know what? I need somebody to pray for me. I Need God's wisdom and direction, but this is your time in a service to respond And if that's you and he's speaking to you and it's time for you to respond Come down to the front right where you are. If you're online, just put your hand up Come on down to the front as I turn the service over now To the pastor and the host on your campus