Mind Ya Business

I started sitting over there and I sit down for a second.

When you begin to read, everything you read is going to line up with exactly what God has for these people today.

Thank you for having an open ear towards heaven.

It is time for the people of God.

Last Wednesday we had our first class for the women.

Revival breaks out, revival begins to break out and God's spirit manifests itself in the midst of those who are willing to be free.

You see, we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, but we walk around in chains, we walk around in bondage, but God has freedom for you.

Sometimes it's freedom from relationships, sometimes it's freedom from a substance, sometimes, and most of the time, it is freedom from yourself, because if you can get out of your own head, god can have room to work man.

It's a part of our core value here at this church, one of the four core values that we believe.

First, you must know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Connecting with God, you must connect with each other, you must love thy neighbor and then you must find freedom, because freedom births more freedom when you find freedom in Christ and you really break free of those chains that have been binding you and weighing you down.

Freedom breeds freedom.

Eventually you're going to start being overflowing with freedom and you can't stop telling people.

And then the church begins to see more people come Because if they got free from that, god can do something to me.

If that pastor over at that church used to be homeless and used to be addicted to drugs and alcohol, what could God do for me?

Don't close up your story.

Be willing to share your story, because in fact, other people will find freedom through you voicing what God has done for you, because that's where we find freedom the blood of the lamb and the word of your testimony.

It is the double-edged sword that can pierce the hardest hearts, that has turned and ran from God for so long.

While you're standing, look in Genesis, chapter 9.

Genesis 9 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at verses 12 through 17.

We're going to read a little glimpse of the passage and then we're going to talk about some meat of the word.

Can I hear an amen for the word of God?

If you are a Christian and you're walking daily without the word in your life, you will starve.

If you aren't hearing from God and you're not seeing mountains moved in your life, you are not in his word.

You ever had somebody quote something that you said back to you and you forgot.

You said it and you're like well, I sound pretty smart, you liked it.

It felt good.

Imagine how God feels when we quote the word back to him and say Lord, I'm standing on your promises.

Your word says this.

I imagine as a daddy.

It's like when Tristan says something to his friends.

That is what the words we have planted into him and he repeats it to his friends and we're like, oh, he does listen.

Imagine the pride in God when we begin to repeat back to him what he has sowed into our hearts.

So in Genesis, chapter nine, 12 through 17,.

Thank y'all, worship team, y'all did an amazing job today.

Thank y'all.

Put into it man.

In verse 12, it says this Then God said I am giving you a sign of my covenant Say covenant With you and with all living creatures for all generations to come.

I have placed my rainbow in the clouds.

Let's just say it right now.

God did it first.

It is the sign of my covenant with you.

Say sign, it is a sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.

When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds.

Verse 15,.

It says I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures.

This is the third time he has said this.

Verse 16, it says or no.

At the end of 15, never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.

Can I get an amen for last Monday?

Glad that ain't gonna happen Now.

16 says when I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature.

Let me stop right there for a second.

Is it weird to anybody else that the covenant between man and wife is tainted with the rainbow?

A new rainbow has been tainted and tried to cover up a covenant Verse 17,.

Then God said to Noah yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all creatures on earth.

He said it again.

Let's pray, father.

We thank you so much for your presence that has been so evident here today.

I pray that anybody under the sound of my voice today will not leave the same as when they came in, no matter where they are at in their life, no matter what season they are in.

Let the word of God penetrate their hearts, transform us today, renew our minds, restore our strength.

In your.

You may be seated if you can.

It is such a blessing to me to be able to call people and say, hey, can you do worship for a minute, because ministers need filling too now, as you're seated by probably your favorite person.

Some of you may just accidentally fell into that place, it may be your least favorite person, I don't know, but I want you to look to them and I want you to.

I just want you to think for a second, like if your child was on the football field or on the soccer field or playing baseball or in a play or in the band, and your child messes up and whatever they're doing, and someone next to you that is not with you, you hear them uttering a negative comment about your child.

Specifically.

Now, with that sass that just built up inside of you, I want you to look to your neighbor and say mind your business.

Now look to your second choice and say mind your business.

That is the title of today's message.

Today.

So in Genesis 6-9, we have this whole chain of events where God looks down and he sees that his creation has, every generation, gotten worse and worse and more violent and more evil.

And we have Noah, his wife and his three sons and their wives, sham, ham and Japheth, and most of you know the story.

God looks down, he sees these guys are not learning, they are slow.

Why don't I just hit the reset button?

Anybody ever had that in your life where you just wish you could be like reset Maybe to people, maybe to circumstances.

We won't go into particulars on that, but we will say that sometimes in life we wish that we could have a reset button.

And okay, let's just start this back over Now.

Genesis 719 says.

Then God said to Noah yes, this is a rainbow with the sign of a covenant.

I am confirming with you and all creatures on earth.

Now Noah was asked by God to do a very difficult thing.

Why?

Because they were in a season of drought.

There was no reason for boats.

He had to get instructions so that he would understand what it was supposed to even look like.

I don't know what they did without yachts.

You might even own a yacht Not in this crowd right Me neither.

I've seen one on TV.

That's about it.

Noah had to build the biggest yacht ever known to man, and he was instructed by God to step out in a vast space that was filled with nothing but raw faith.

He had to build something he'd never seen.

He had to build it to a magnitude that doesn't make sense, especially if there's no water, especially if there's no water.

And so, in this moment of faith, extreme faith, god created, after his faithfulness, a covenant with him.

Actually, there's two covenants in this story.

One is that he would save his wife and children, and the second covenant is actually when God saved them.

He came, he got them in the boat.

Now you imagine it's raining, it's flooding.

You're still wondering if we're going to make it out alive.

I have been in the middle of Lake Palestine before with my father and I don't know if he just never checked the weather or he just, you know how it says it's going to rain, it's like a 50% chance.

And you're like, nah, it's good, it's not going to do anything, because it usually doesn't or it'll push back a day or two.

We got in the middle of Lake Palestine and suddenly a storm was upon us, and I'm talking about the waves.

It was not a pontoon, but it was big, like that it would exceed 11 people.

It didn't have the metal things underneath, but it was shaped like a regular boat.

The waves were crashing over the side of this boat and it's me and him.

We're getting banged up so bad and so hard.

It hurts to try to plow our way through these waves to get back to shore where we came in, because we are, as our luck would have it, not even close to the side we came in.

So if I was questioning whether we were gonna die on Lake Palestine, imagine a huge ship full of animals and your family and you are getting tossed and you no longer see land I could at least, through the storm and the fog and the rain, could see a little bit of land.

There was hope that we were getting closer, because that's the only way we knew where we were going is because of the things on land.

Noah had no clue how to go, where he was going to go.

They were stuck and they were just going along with the ride.

So the covenant of God was very important here, because God said in the beginning of this story his covenant was to save the children, save his family, save his sons.

And then, at the end of his story, when they finally made it to actual land, god sent another reminder of the covenant.

That, what I say I come through on.

Now.

Some of you are sitting here today and God has given you a covenant.

I don't care how long ago it could have been yesterday, it could have been 30 years ago and you sometimes forget to look up.

When the storm comes, you start remembering all that trauma.

You went through the boat ride you had to go through, all the animals got on and I'm sure it stunk.

You remember that unpleasant time where you didn't know where anything was going to come from.

You didn't know how you were going to make it to the next part of the month and we forget.

And the storm is actually when the clouds come over.

The Bible says when the clouds come over, your promise will appear again.

We want to run and hide from the storms, but it's in the storm that actually God reminds us of who he is Now.

When Noah started to build the ark, I like to place I tell you this all the time.

This is how I read the Bible I place myself in this position of Noah.

Okay, first of all, apparently he had to read instructions, and I don't know if y'all read instructions, but when I get something, I figure it out for myself.

I don't need that paper that comes in the box.

So I would be in serious trouble if God starts giving me instructions on how to build a boat.

When god speaks to you, no matter how dumb it looks.

You remember last week, brother howard, I embarrassed him with a unicorn mask.

If you didn't watch it, go back on youtube and you'll see it.

He even told me after he said I did kind of feel dumb.

I said good, because that's what I asked him.

Hey, can you find me the ugliest, most embarrassing face mask you got in the entire region of walmart.

So no matter how, when you listen to god, no matter how dumb it makes you look, no matter how stupid it makes you look, no matter how stupid it makes you look, no matter how scary it might seem, how off the beaten path it might feel, you can trust God is working it out for your good.

Now see, the cool thing about God is what he says in his word applies to every season of your life.

There's never a season in your life that his word stops working.

It may be a season where you stop applying it, but there's not a season where his word comes back void and his promises are true.

Now flip over to Genesis.

We're going to be in chapters 15 and 16.

We're going to go through this other story and here we meet a guy.

At this point in time, we all know him as Abraham.

Remember Abraham, isaac and Jacob.

See it over and over and over again through the Bible, because that was the people of God, but at this moment in time he's just Abram, chapter 15.

Now God promises a covenant with Abraham, abram, and he says I will make.

In chapter 15, I will make you the father of many nations.

Now, why is this so In today's age saying, oh, you're going to be a daddy one day?

Okay, well, I'm married.

That seems kind of logical, but there was something that was wrong with his wife that would not allow her to bear children.

Matter of fact, when Abram was told this, she was eavesdropping and she started giggling because she said fat chance.

And I know some of y'all older people are saying that in here too.

So watch out, because God still does miracles.

I'm not going to pray that on you, but I'm just saying don't say God won't, he'll remind you of who he is.

Nobody wants that rainbow.

So in chapter 15, what does Abraham do?

What does Abraham do?

In chapter 16, he hatches the plan with his wife.

Well, we're not getting any younger.

Why don't we just figure this out for ourselves?

God said we would have a child.

He didn't give the specifics on how.

So why don't we just take charge of this situation?

And why don't we fast-track God's plan a little bit?

Why don't we fast-track God's process?

We all know the story.

This backfires on them greatly, and not only on them, but the woman that had the child.

In effect, when you try to fast track God's process in your life, it becomes a problem for everybody else around you, because anytime we try to take control of the process, we stunt the growth of our progress.

Turn to Genesis, chapter 17, if you will.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

Now, in this moment in time, in this moment in time, abraham gets his name changed from Abram to Abraham, and he's 99 years old.

Some of y'all think, oh, this dude was old.

He was at the end of his days very quickly, but God still said that you have a purpose, even at this age.

I'm going to let that resonate for a second.

Even though you may be at the end of the road, there is no retirement plan in the house of God.

If you need to have a reason to live, I will pray that you will have a child.

That's fine.

If you need to find your purpose, I'll pray that you have a child so that you feel like, well, I do have something left to do.

I'm just kidding, I'm not going to do that to you.

Genesis 17, 9 and 10, it says this.

Then God said to Abraham your responsibility is to obey the terms of the covenant.

Here we have that word covenant again.

You and all of your descendants have this continual responsibility Responsibility.

I can handle that.

It gets worse.

This is the covenant verse 10, that you and your descendants must keep.

Each male among you must be circumcised.

Male among you must be circumcised.

God told Abraham that everyone, even those that haven't even been born yet, must keep this covenant for God to keep his promise.

Even if they weren't blood kid, even if they were just workers in the house, every male had to follow suit with this covenant.

They had to do the same action or they would not be a part of the blessing or the promise or God's covenant with Abraham.

They would not receive the blessing of the seed of Abraham to come Now, this time when Noah was on the ark and he built the ark, what did it cost Noah?

It costed him faith.

It costed him faith.

It costed him pride.

It cost him no matter what anybody said around, no matter what it looked like.

He was just doing what God said.

And at the end of that journey God gave him a rainbow.

But in this covenant with Abraham, see, some of us want to.

We want to ask God for great things to happen in our life, but we're not willing to sacrifice what God requires of us for the covenant.

We want blessings on our life, we want God to move in our life, we want things to happen in our life, but we are not willing to sacrifice what God requires for the covenant.

And what's cool about this is Abraham literally had to sacrifice his flesh to maintain this covenant of God.

The flesh had to be cut away to be in covenant with God.

The covenant will cost you something.

Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.

It costs you your sinful nature.

Salvation costs you sinful nature.

Getting married.

It costs you your singleness.

No more can you act like a dumb single person.

You now have to be a grown-up or you very soon will be single again.

You very soon will be single again.

Becoming a parent.

It costs you time and it costs you money.

Matter of fact, becoming a parent, the more and more.

It costs you more time and almost all your money.

I looked up the stats on this.

I don't remember the exact numbers, I didn't write it down, but it says to raise a child is like over a million dollars throughout their entire life, from birth to 18.

I mean, I can keep my money, sorry.

And faith will cost you your doubt.

Faith will cost you your pride.

Now, staying focused on your covenant with God.

Keep your eyes on the prize, not someone else's prize.

We're really good.

I say this all the time and I repeat it over and over and over again Comparison kills calling.

If you begin to compare where you are in your season, it will kill what God's called you to do, because you will not focus on what you're supposed to be focused on.

You'll be focused on what they're doing and how they're doing it.

Keep your eyes on the prize, not someone else's prize.

Do not look to the left, do not look to the right.

If the enemy can keep you distracted, he can dismantle God's divine destiny he has planned for your life, because distractions are damaging.

Distractions are damaging.

Now here's what I would think.

Okay, so I'm going to put myself in the shoes of Moses I mean sorry, not Moses, abraham.

Okay, now I know the story backwards and forwards of Noah and I'm Abraham and God's giving me this covenant.

I'm like where's my rainbow, bro?

You're asking me for some serious.

It's literally a piece of me.

The covenant with Abraham was a much larger promise than it was for Noah.

Lord, your covenant with Noah was pretty simple, with some colors in the sky.

Can we do something like that?

You got another one of those up there for me.

I mean, think about it.

You're getting in covenant with God and he's requiring you for actually to cut something of yourself off.

Let that resonate for a second.

What have you been asking God for a covenant about, but you are not willing to cut off what you need to cut off?

What have you been holding on to?

What has grown in the garden of your heart, and you are not willing to prune the garden and cut off the excess so that true growth can happen.

And we always get in the mindset of God.

That's not fair.

And when you start to feel this bubble up inside of you, god, that's not fair.

How come they got that car?

God?

That's not fair.

How come you use it?

How come I can't sing God?

That's not fair.

How come you use it?

How come I can't sing God?

That's not fair.

How come I can't have that much money coming from a job, god?

That's not fair.

How come I can't have that spouse Mind your business?

Because when you start to do this, you lose focus of God, the one that sent you, the one, that of God, the one that sent you, the one that created you, the one that gave you your purpose, and you start focusing on yourself, because in every sentence it says God, why can't I, I, I, I, over and over again, mine your business?

The greater the covenant, though, the greater the sacrifice.

The greater the sacrifice.

If you want a great, amazing marriage, you have to sacrifice everything of yourself for that person in your family.

The biggest enemy and divider in marriage is selfishness.

You can put money, all the other things that are listed on there, but selfishness is at the root of all of it.

When you are selfish, soon you will be by yourself.

If you want a good church and you just come on Sundays to sing a few songs and you want to feel good and get a good word, maybe you take a few notes, you write down a couple of verses but you don't help in any other way or contribute.

You're what we call a consumer and you will complain about the church and never be a solution.

You will be pollution.

Let's see if I got some more rhyming words Because the greater the covenant with God.

If you want to be a part of an amazing church, you have to be amazing.

You have to take root and be a part of something, because it's important.

Why?

There's a reason.

Brother Vernon's hair was wet when he came in a minute ago.

That boy was out there working.

He was doing stuff.

There's people out there right now sacrificing so that you in here in the air conditioner, we can go and eat the food they make in just a minute.

Because they understand Y'all excited for food, y'all getting excited.

Oh, for the help.

Okay, I thought y'all were just excited.

You're like it's coming to noon, pastor, I get it Calm down.

But the greater the covenant, the greater the sacrifice.

And Noah did a great job.

He did exactly what God asked him to do, exactly what God asked him to do, exactly what God asked.

But Abraham had some stuff spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically that God wanted him to remember.

To remove the stuff?

Why?

Because before, when God gave him a covenant, what did he do?

He went and tried to do it himself.

Before, when God gave him a covenant, what did he do?

He went and tried to do it himself and he said okay, apparently this guy learns the hard way.

I will really help him remember the covenant.

And then later, when he's going up the mountain with his son, god asked him to do some crazy selfless things.

And he did it.

And there was a covenant, the very thing God brought to him that he promised him.

Now he was asking him to sacrifice his one and only son, just like he asked him to sacrifice before.

How many of you here today you're asking God for things in your life but you're not willing to sacrifice the stuff?

Don't answer out loud.

I'm not trying to embarrass you, but there's things in all of our lives that we hold on to.

It may be the music, it may be the TV shows, it may be relationships.

It may be that you being here is toxic for you.

I don't know your situation.

Or maybe you're online and you haven't been to church since COVID.

It's over, bro.

You can come back now.

I'd rather be in church.

Y'all like that shameless plug.

But it's important that when God this reason last week, when I covered up his ears but I covered up his eyes when one would step what he would try to do, when he couldn't hear what was going on but he could see he was trying to follow what other people were doing.

God has not called you to follow what other people are doing.

He has called you to follow what he's telling you to do.

He has put a purpose in your life.

Before you were born, he knew you.

He created you in your mother's womb.

It is a life in there.

You were formed and when you were born, god already had a purpose set aside just for you.

But he knew.

He knew how you were going to be today.

He knew how you were going to be today.

And God is asking his people if you want a covenant with me, what are you willing to cut away?

What part of your flesh are you willing to sacrifice and leave behind and say God, I am so sorry.

You know, a lot of issues that we have in life come from us not being able to see that we're the problem.

Maybe I'm the only one.

Thank God for an honest wife.

Amen, fellas.

There's things in our lives that we need to cut away from.

We need to get away from, we need to cut out of our lives the depth of the covenant.

It cost something of Abraham's self.

He tried earlier in the chapters to fast-track God's covenant how Abraham wanted it to go, his timing and the new covenant.

Once he stepped into the covenant with God, he couldn't undo or manipulate it.

God made sure of that.

You can't change what was.

If you keep focusing on what was, or better yet, what wasn't, you'll overlook and you will miss the blessing God has for you right now, in the present time.

God is a God of covenant.

This is why he values marriage so much.

He's a God by design of covenant.

We see this from the very beginning.

He had a covenant with Adam and Eve all out.

Today he has covenants with his people.

But we don't want to step in covenant with God because when we do, it will cost us something.

I just want the feel goods.

I want the salvation without the sacrifice.

I want the covenant without the cost.

God is the God of covenant.

It's time to cut off the stuff in your life once and for all, because if you do not, there will be seeds planted in the garden of your heart that will produce the wrong fruit that you don't want in the first place.

And when you are not willing to sacrifice and make that, that severing of the flesh from your spirit, from your mind, from your body, this distracts you and dismantles the path that god has you on to get you where he's wanting you to be.

We see this in the children of is.

They are one of the greatest examples of not listening, not wanting to follow.

And God did so many miracles in their life and they still would not turn from their wicked ways and their idol worship and really give everything they are to him, everything.

They even used the blessing God gave.

It was another covenant with Abraham that it was talking about his descendants that would be enslaved and they would leave rich beyond their wildest dreams.

And it came to pass later in Moses' day.

And still, even though they had that prophecy over God's people, they still use what God blessed them with to turn it into a golden calf and worship it.

What has God blessed you with that?

You have turned into a golden calf.

We read a couple weeks ago that the Bible says Jesus told them to even hate your mother, your father, your son, your daughter.

You must hate everything to follow him, because if not, it will distract you.

Everything to follow him, because if not, it will distract you.

God has designed us to live in authority and freedom in his son, jesus.

Every aspect of your life.

If you cover it by the blood, you are promised freedom.