TCC Jubilee Celebration - The Present - Carrying The Bones Of Joseph

Good afternoon.

Is it afternoon already?

It's going to be a long one.

They said I have till three o'clock.

Did I hear that right?

Okay, oh, what time we finish Eight.

Hey, it's good to be with you.

This is such an awesome time to celebrate and give it up for your pastor and his wife.

Come on, just give up for them, you guys.

Yeah, well done.

This is present.

We've been applauding the past since last night, but we're in the present moment and we do appreciate you and what you've been through and your family.

And best days are yet to come and you know so many good friends in the room and got to see some familiar faces I wouldn't say old faces, they're just familiar and we do go back a long ways.

42 years ago this month, my wife and I stumbled into full faith fellowship in Sheridan, wyoming, just kind of on a whim.

It was a Wednesday night and we were newlyweds.

We'd been married just a few weeks and we were trying to look for a church.

I was on a temporary assignment to open a brand new holiday inn in Sheridan, then moved to Denver and we had a great plan for our lives until the Holy Spirit showed up and that's what happened to us that night.

We got in and Tyler's dad was preaching on why you need the Holy Spirit and he taught us why we need the Holy Spirit from the Bible.

And then we responded to an altar call we're the only ones came up, got baptized in the Holy Spirit and totally wrecked our lives.

We never left the church.

We kept coming back.

Then I opened the hotel, quit my job and went on staff for a lucrative 85% pay cut.

I'll have you know.

And even then his dad goes.

Now we don't have the money, but we're going to believe it in.

It was called full faith fellowship.

We're going to believe in your $100 a week and I was like I'm in, let's do it.

We were there a year and a half and then moved to Florida with a few other families.

Can anything good come out of Cape Coral?

Neil, we all got delivered from Cape Coral.

We were there for a while.

We were in Florida 17 years and then I moved on to some other churches.

But we stayed in relationship off and on.

Then Neil moved down and I met Neil at a Lifelink conference in the early 90s and we connected.

So just a lot of great connection.

I mean going all the way back.

Where's Buddy Walker?

I saw Buddy earlier.

Buddy's all the way in the back and your dad was a huge influence in all of that.

So we're here to not only walk down memory lane but say God, what are you saying now?

What are you saying now, thinking about Neil and thinking about Tyler particularly?

I had a dream last night and Neil and Tyler were in my dream.

I dreamt we went to heaven.

I know that sounds such a stretch, but I dreamt the three of us were in heaven and we're kind of looking around like we're in heaven and then we're getting ready to enter in and there's this long, narrow sludge pit and an angel said before you enter in, you have to walk through the sludge pit to determine how much sin you had in your life before we assign you your spot in heaven.

And I'm like, oh boy, this doesn't sound good.

And I thought I'm with Neil and I'm with Tyler and I'm just going to go first.

So I just kind of started walking in the sludge pit and I started sinking, and I'm sinking quick, just like Jeff said, man, I had lots of sins and I'm sinking quick and I'm up to my chest and barely in and I'm going.

Oh, what are Neil thinking?

What's Tyler thinking?

So I just turned around to look and there's Tyler right behind me and he's just like up to his ankles.

I'm going how can this be?

You're not that good, I can't believe.

And I just said, tyler, why are you hardly sinking?

And I'm almost up to my chest and he goes oh, it's easy, I'm standing on Neil's shoulders, we're all standing on somebody's shoulders.

Amen, we didn't get here by ourselves, from Jack and the others that we honored last night to this day.

And so y'all get ready for another generation to stand on your shoulders, because we're going to go for that tonight.

Amen.

I'm going to preach out of a real Bible just to honor Steve Fado Carrying the bones of Joseph.

It's the message Genesis, chapter 50,.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

At the very end of the great book of Genesis, the very end of it, before we get into the great exodus, of course, is this admonition from Joseph.

Who, last night, steve just kind of laid out a beautiful picture of generational continuance Abraham, isaac, jacob.

And now here's one of Jacob's sons, joseph.

He gives this admonition to the people of Israel.

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear.

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear.

Genesis 50, 25, saying God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here.

Then in Exodus, chapter 13, it says Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying God will surely visit you.

Exodus 13 · chapter mention

Come on, somebody God's going to keep visiting and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.

This was 430 years later.

I don't know about you, but I have to remind myself what I'm going to do tomorrow.

I have to send myself text messages and emails just to remind myself.

How did they remember?

There was something prophetic about this.

There was something in the destiny of the people of Israel that they had to carry Joseph's bones with them to the promised land.

So Joseph had a prophetic sense about the future.

He believed that God would come visit his people time and time again and there would be a moving on of his purposes Trinity.

Let me tell you we are in the present, but we're moving on.

There's a moving that's coming that we have to get ready for, and so Joseph made this strange request Take my bones with you when God moves.

You.

Take my bones with you when God moves.

You Are you anticipating the move of God?

It's happening around the world.

I've already been in several nations, already got several more to go this year, but already I'm sensing something different.

There's something different in the world, there's something different in the kingdom.

There's a move of God.

We don't even have a label for it, and I'm glad we don't.

The only thing we can say is God is up to something, god is moving.

I just want to catch up.

I want to grab, hold and hang on.

We want to be a part of carrying the next move of God.

We have to carry something out of this place today.

I've been to Romania a number of times and one time a friend told this interesting story.

I'm just going to quote it the way he told it.

He says we went around the city of Timisoara and my guide showed me the various sites that were relevant to the Romanian revolution which started there.

And we landed finally in the Orthodox cathedral where, in the gloom, I saw a man almost doubled over, reaching into a box in a dark corner.

When I asked what was happening, my guide said he's trying to touch the bones.

He explained that there was a belief amongst the Orthodox that the bones were those of a holy man and if they would be touched, they could bring healing and life.

Trinity, you have better bones in your church, but you need to take them with you into the next move of God.

What about these bones?

Israel didn't forget the promise that was made to Joseph.

They took it seriously enough to remember for hundreds of years that when they left on the great exodus, they were to take the bones of Joseph with them.

Abraham, isaac, jacob and then, as Steve brought out so well, the power of multiplication.

Abraham had one, isaac had two, jacob had 12, and it multiplied.

How does this apply to us then, today?

Well, number one, bones are what's left when all the flesh is rotted away.

Aren't you glad?

Amen, trinity, you have inherited great bones from the previous 50 years of God building here, and no doubt you've faced a lot of flesh.

Don't look left, don't look right.

You have, you have and presently you still are.

But every movement does, every movement as powerful as they've been.

We were rehearsing movements last night.

We look at church history.

Every movement suffers flesh.

Every church has to deal with flesh, but we value the bones and carry them forward.

You have the bones of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Those are my bones.

My wife and I got those bones 42 years ago.

We carry those bones into our future.

You have the bones of incredible praise and worship.

We tasted it this morning in the present, but it's because of the bones that were carried.

You have the bones of the revelation of five-fold ministry man that transformed my life.

I've been carrying Ephesians 4.11 bones with me for 42 years.

The best is yet to come.

You have the bones of dynamic discipleship in small groups.

I remember when Neil came to that Lifelink's conference you taught on house churches and small groups.

I remember when Neil came to that Lifelink's conference you taught on house churches and small groups.

God was transforming the church back then, simply carrying the bones of Acts, chapter 2, back into the 20th century the dynamic of small groups.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You have those bones here.

You have the bones of the reappearance and the restoration of apostles and prophets.

They're so key and they've been so battled, but they're here now.

We've carried them and a lot of people paid a price for pioneering new truths.

You pay a price for carrying the bones.

Sometimes you carry the price of speaking in tongues.

How many of you know?

Those are bones that get rattled.

People don't like that.

The devil hates it.

You carried the bones and you paid the price for launching missionaries out of this place.

You did it in the past, you're doing it now and you will continue to do so because it's the Great Commission.

You carried the bones and the promises of personal prophecy.

We already heard testimonies about a prophetic word, how it changed lives, touched Jeff and others that talked about.

I got a word from Steve or I got a word from somebody.

You carry those bones.

Maybe you're sitting here going I didn't realize all that.

Maybe you're new to the church or recently added to the church.

Maybe you think, well, isn't this normal?

Can I tell you, no, aren't you glad not to be normal?

There's going to be kind of a welcomed weirdness in the days ahead.

We're going to continue to stand out.

Get used to it.

Okay, get used to it because you're carrying some bones that nobody else understands and sometimes the flesh makes it hard to carry bones forward.

We've had to push past the stinking flesh of the 80s and 90s where we had prominent ministries fail, and we've just been through it again where we kind of get a black mark on our movement and on our churches and all kinds of stuff, and that all happened before social media Now it's like it goes crazy.

But we have good bones even after the flesh has rotted away and it does.

That's what's left After the flesh and the works of the flesh rot away.

What's left are the bones.

Movements come and go.

Our challenge not carry a movement, let's carry the bones, what was good in every movement.

Secondly, all flesh does eventually rot away In every move of the Spirit, and this is the truth.

The flesh resists.

Galatians sets it up perfectly for us.

They're in opposition.

The flesh and the Spirit are in opposition one to another.

I love the verses that Jesus said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

But what a gift weakness is when we realize, like Tyler just spelled out so well, the gospel.

It's the gospel that transforms our weakness into spiritual strength.

And I got good news for you.

God never works with perfect people.

God calls the most crazy people to do stuff, and every one of you in this room were called Peter had a short time to recover from his flesh attack.

He denies Christ.

He does other crazy things Tries to cut off Malchus' ear in the garden.

Peter's flesh, you know, know, he had some flesh moments.

But you know what he found himself preaching on the day of Pentecost.

You can imagine the other disciples like I can't believe that he picked Peter.

Why is Peter preaching?

I don't know.

Don't you remember the garden?

We're so good at our flesh attacking somebody else's flesh we're really good at that.

My flesh says this Well, your flesh is stinkier than my flesh.

It all stinks, but all flesh eventually rots away.

So Joseph's request was not a remembrance of what he did in the flesh, it wasn't carrying his position in Egypt.

It was a willingness to carry his bones forward.

In other words, carry the structures, carry the framework that got us to where we were then, so that we can get to where God wants us to go now.

The bones are the very substance of what God speaks and what he builds in every move of the spirit and Trinity.

You are a product of moves of the spirit.

We heard some about it last night.

We're living in it now.

We've all had our share of rotting flesh, but there are precious bones to be carried forward.

You can't lose them.

Don't lose track of them.

Don't say where did we put those bones?

Hey, we're supposed to bring Joseph's bones.

Does anybody know where Joseph's bones are carried forward?

They can't lose them.

Don't lose track of them, don't say where did we put those bones?

Hey, we're supposed to bring Joseph's bones.

Does anybody know where Joseph's bones are?

And they go.

Joseph, who it's like?

No, they had to keep rehearsing.

It's good to rehearse history.

Last night was precious.

God loved to rehearse history in the Bible.

He was always talking about what was happening, the Exodus it carries into the New Testament, acts, chapter 7, before Stephen was stoned.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

He just constantly rehearsed history.

God's all about it.

Why?

Because God says don't forget the bones.

Let's carry the bones forward, trinity, because they cost you something.

We're all standing on someone's shoulders, even though we face issues of the flesh.

In the past, we've all had our war stories.

But when the flesh is gone, the bones survive.

The third thing is there's power in the bones.

Oh yeah, there's power in the bones.

I know there's power in the blood.

We know that one Nobody wrote a song about power in the bones.

Power in the bones, power in the bones.

I know there's power in the blood.

We know that one Nobody wrote a song about power in the bones.

Power in the bones, power in the bones.

Maybe we'll get the worship team to come up with a new song.

There's power in the bones.

I take you to 2 Kings, chapter 13, verse 21.

2 Kings 13:21

It's a crazy story.

As a man was being buried, he's dead.

Behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha.

And as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and he stood on his feet.

Wow, all because he touched the bones, all because he touched the bones.

The body of a dead man came to life when he touched the bones of a dead prophet.

What's up with that?

Only God can pull that off.

He wanted to illustrate for us.

There's something in the bones, there's power in the right bones.

If only the body of Christ can continue to touch the bones, I think we'll continue to have an outflow of the power that God wants to demonstrate the presence of his power.

When we gather as the church, you got to come in with a mentality as we're not just coming in to have a service, we're here to touch the bones.

And then you can't help but just reference Ezekiel 37.

I don't have the scripture, but just think about that great passage Speaks about the bones, where God brings the prophet and says to a boneyard.

So do you see these bones?

Yeah, you think they can live.

Only you know God.

And what was the word Prophesied to the bones?

Why there was still life in them, but they need the spirit of God.

And what was the word Prophesied to the bones?

Why there was still life in them, but they need the spirit of God.

They needed the prophetic word to activate the structures and the things that hold it all together.

The bones come together in response to a prophetic word to become something great, an exceeding great army called the church.

That was a shadow of the church, full of lively bones.

I know you're lively stones, but that's another good song.

Lively bones, hand bones connected to the.

I don't know if we can worship with that, but it's still true.

We're all connected.

Right, the bones get connected, they come together.

So we need to realize the power to resolve.

We got to carry them.

If there's power in the bones, then we must carry the bones with us as the church moves forward.

Don't leave behind what made Trinity great.

Don't leave those bones behind.

You got to carry the baptism, the Holy Spirit, into the future.

You got to carry the healing power of Jesus into the future.

Carry small groups, carry community, all the things that Tyler was carrying about.

What makes Trinity Trinity are the bones.

So maybe, as you leave this wonderful day of celebration today, you can reflect, not only tonight but through the week and your small groups, and think about what are the bones that God wants you to carry forward.

What are some bones in your life?

Like I shared, 42 years ago, we got the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Those are bones that God put in us, that have carried us all these years in five-fold ministry and understanding ecclesiology and church polity.

And all these bones and structures that a lot of are invisible.

You don't see them on any given Sunday, but they're there.

That's the whole thing about bones.

They're invisible.

You don't see them.

The flesh covers it up.

Yes, sometimes you have to work through the flesh to remind yourself what are the bones behind the activities.

This is not a cry for vain traditions.

It doesn't mean hang on to old, dead things or ineffective methods.

It's a cry to remember the bones that have cost us something.

It's to remember the bones and carry them forward because God is moving.

The last phrase I want to leave with you comes out of the Great Reformation of the 1600s Semper Reformanda, semper Reformanda, always reforming.

Hebrews 9 and verse 10.

The writer of Hebrews is contrasting covenants, jeff covenants, old and new covenant.

And the New Testament is a better covenant, as Neil teaches so well when he teaches Hebrews, and it says all these systems I use the word system all these systems were in place in the covenant to get us into a relationship with God, except there was one flaw it could not perfect the conscience of the worshiper, it couldn't cleanse us.

There were just formalities, rituals, washings, all these things that were instituted by God until a time of reformation, kairos time.

That's an ordained time, a superior time, a time set in eternity by God that someday this would happen, a God moment, a kairos time of reformation.

And this word, diorthesis, is only used here in the New Testament.

One other form of diorthesis is used in one other scripture, in Acts, and this word diorthesis simply means to straighten wholly, it means to make internal adjustments that bring external change.

The root word is where we get the word for orthopedic.

An orthopedic doctor is a bone doctor.

We need more bone doctors in the body of Christ.

Right, straighten out the bones when they get a little off, get a little crooked, keep things in alignment.

We are in a time of reformation.

We're living in an active apostolic reformation right now.

You're in it, you're a product of it.

God is adjusting constantly and we've gone through some amazing things just in the last few years.

We all referenced COVID.

It was a COVID time.

That was a Kairos time of reformation, where God had to reform.

And now it's like what?

Online church?

Yeah, everybody does it, don't they Ten years ago?

Yeah, someday all churches will be online doing online church.

No way, there's no way.

What's it going to take?

Oh, god's got a plan.

God's got a plan.

He'll put a little pressure on the bones.

He'll put a little pressure on the bones.

He'll reform some bones.

He'll reform our thinking.

It's mental change is the hardest one Making mental adjustments, changing the way we think about church, how we're going to deliver the gospel in this world that we live in now.

Trinity present.

You've got the internet.

Woo-hoo.

We planted a church in Fort Myers, florida, in 1993, I'll have you know, with no internet.

How do you do that?

We had a used overhead projector, a used six-channel PV soundboard and an old, worn-out cassette recorder.

Welcome to the 90s.

It's like here you go, here's all the technology you'll need for a successful church plant.

Thank you very much.

Oh boy, have we reformed, have we changed.

Internal technology must now be given the greatest weight in the reformation of the church.

It's what's going on on the inside.

It's where the bones are.

You've heard of the iceberg principle.

The iceberg principle is you look at an iceberg and only 10% is above the surface.

90% is below the surface.

It's what you can't see.

It was that 90% below the surface that sank the Titanic.

It wasn't the piece sticking out of the water, that internal technology, the bones.

Did it ever occur to you as we were reflecting on communion?

None of Jesus' bones were broken?

Why?

They were perfect.

They couldn't be broken.

Man could not break the internal strength and technology of the Son of God, break the internal strength and technology of the Son of God.

Thousands of men were crucified on the streets of Rome and all around, even Jerusalem.

Thousands of men were hung on crosses, crucified, but only one could save the world.

Why?

The bones, the internal structures of one was perfect.

So, semper Reformanda, tcc, keep reforming.

You say what's ahead?

Constant reformation, constantly reforming our structures, our vision, our systems.

What To reach?

A lost and dying world that's ever-changing?

We're not trying to keep up with the world, everybody.

We're trying to keep up with God.

I want to keep up with God.

He's moving at lightning speed.

I think we're the internet generation and all we're doing is getting a glimpse of how fast God can move.

Information moves so fast now and we think, wow, aren't we lucky?

No, we're not lucky.

We are called.

You were called to live in this Kairos time.

Therefore, god says you can do it, you can keep up.

You're going to have to constantly change out your hard drive, insert new internal drivers to bring transformation.

I believe we're going to make faster disciples.

We're going to make them faster, if I can say it that way, not less of a disciple, but you know what Capacity?

Faster, speed up systems.

That's what it's all about in the world we live in, because he is coming back and we are moving somewhere.

It's called the finish.

We are on our way to the great finish.

So, therefore, we must always be reforming and carry the bones, because we have, like the children of Israel, we have a promised land to get to.

We're on our way and it's going to come faster than you can even conceive.

Hang on and carry the bones.

Amen.

God bless you.