Keep On Keeping On | Pastor John Greiner

Go ahead and do what we always do around here.

I like this uh tradition, I guess, of lifting our Bibles and wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

And let's say this confession.

Let's say this together.

Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be here on Wednesday night.

I came specifically to receive for myself.

I'm not listening for someone else.

I want to build my faith.

I want to see a victory in my life so that I can lead others to victory in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, let's turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter 14, and we will pick it up in verse 19, talking about Paul.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

And there came thither to where the place where he was certain Jews from Antioch and Oconium who persuaded the people.

And having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.

Another version says they dragged him out of the city.

And so when you're stoned, you're not supposed to, I mean, you're supposed to be dead.

I mean, that's what happens when people they know how to stone people, okay?

They know how to stone you to death, and so they didn't fail.

I want you to get that.

I mean, he was dead.

Uh how be it, as the disciples stood around him, he rose up.

One version says, miraculously rose up.

See, he, I mean, his staff raised him from the dead.

That's the kind of staff I've got working for me.

They can raise me from the dead if I fall down.

But anyway, he says they and they he rose up after being stoned.

Just think about all the wounds and the, just think about how hard that was.

And yet he he was so healed he rose up and he went back into the city.

I wonder what the group thought when they saw him coming back in the city limits.

And uh, and and then uh so and then the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derby.

I would just think about that.

I mean, here's one day he's dead, and then they raised him from the dead.

He goes back into town, spends the night, leaves, and walks to the next city.

I mean, it's amazing.

And when they had preached the gospel, verse 21 to that city and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch.

That's where all these rabble rousers came from.

I mean, that's where the group came that stirred up the trouble where he was.

He went right back in their hometown.

He refused to leave, he refused to be intimidated.

So he went back and returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples.

See, they had disciples they left behind, and they had to go back and confirm the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed.

Then I wanted to read verse 22 in another version.

Uh it's it said he confirmed the souls of the disciples.

I like this version.

They put muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn't be easy.

Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.

And so I wanted to encourage you tonight with this message.

Keep on keeping on.

Keep on keeping on.

I mean, hard times come to every disciple.

A disciple is a taught one.

You know, they they uh they didn't call people disciples in the in in the early church until they were really Christ-like.

I mean, they they they brought people along to the point where they had fruit, the fruit of the Spirit operating in their lives.

They were not living just for themselves, they're looking living to help others, they're living to get involved with others.

And uh, but there's hard times.

Tribulation comes to all.

In fact, Jesus said in John 16, 33, in the world, you shall have tribulation.

He didn't say you might have, he said you shall have.

You shall have tribulation.

What's tribulation?

Trials, distresses, frustration, anguish, hardships, betrayals, you name it.

It all comes with you signing on the dotted line, so to speak, when you join Jesus.

You know, you're signing up for tribulation.

And uh he said, but be of good courage.

I have overcome the world.

And uh I like to amplify it.

He says, I have deprived it of its ability to harm you, I have conquered it for you.

The world can't, can't, doesn't have the ability to harm you because Jesus deprived it of that ability.

See, but if you don't know that, and if you haven't been strengthened and confirmed, and you haven't been given a message like this one tonight that will put muscle and sinew in your life to where you can stand up and keep on keeping on when you ought to, you know, want to take a pity party break.

I know nobody in this room has ever taken a break to have a pity party.

Hold on, just I want to take about a couple of days, and I just want to feel sorry for myself for a couple of days, you know, or a couple of minutes.

No, I mean, I'm telling you right now, you're tempted sometimes, but keep on keeping on.

Be of good courage.

And uh and so he overcame, and so can we.

You know, uh, let's turn over to Revelation.

There's great reward in overcoming.

Jesus was uh visiting with John on the Isle of Potmus, and he had a bunch of stuff that he gave him, and he gave him some uh things to share with the seven churches of Asia Minor.

And the letter that he had them had him write uh was repent or else for five of the seven churches.

I mean, you know, this is the early church, you know, and they they didn't have everything, they didn't have it all together.

They had some, they had kind of strayed a little bit, and they had been kind of, you know, as a brand, you know, the church is like a brand new baby.

It's it's it's growing, it's it's it's learning about the kingdom, and and five out of the seven churches deserved to have a harsh message from Jesus, the head of the church, telling them repent or else.

And then he told John to tell them what the else was.

And the else wasn't positive.

And only two out of the seven didn't have that kind of a rebuke.

But all seven churches, he gave them a different reward for the overcoming.

If they would just listen to what they were being chastised for and alter their behavior, alter their thinking and line up with God, then and overcome the world.

Overcome these things that happen.

There's rewards.

And so I just we'll just start, we're not going to read them all, but you ought to go back and look at some of them.

The first church is the church of Ephesus.

And in verse 7, he said, To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Well, I want to eat of that tree.

That's a pretty good reward.

And then the church in Smyrna, he goes down here.

In verse 11, he that overcometh shall not be heard of the second death.

In the church of Pergamos, he goes down in verse 17, to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saveth he that receiveth it.

And on and on.

You know, you can read it for yourself, but my point is that Jesus has given us rewards when we keep on keeping them, when we don't allow the world and trouble and tough times to keep us down.

You know, you can't avoid them.

They're gonna come.

Jesus said they will come.

I I had the mistaken impression, you know, at first when I first got saved, I was 33, and this was all news to me.

I'd been a Catholic all my life.

I'd never heard any preaching like Brother Osteen was preaching.

Then I every day I'd I'd go, you know, and I'd listen to the radio.

I had four preachers I listened to for an hour every 15 minutes each, every day.

My ideal was I'd get up early and I'd pray and read my Bible, then I'd go to spring post office and pick up my mail and come back to my office.

And I would spend an hour listening to the radio.

I listened to every one of those radio uh stations.

And uh Brother Shambach was on there, uh Brother Um Charles Caps was on there.

Uh who's the who's the British guy that uh Derek Prince?

Oh, Derek Prince.

Here you got all these southern sounding guys, and I thought, I thought, see, I didn't know what they looked like.

I thought Shambok was a black black man.

I mean, he sounded black.

He sounded like a black preacher to me.

I didn't know.

And you know, Charles Capp's real corny sound and real corny accent.

Brother Hagin, same, same.

So Brother Hagin was the fourth one.

15 minutes each.

Every day, you know, and then I go to Lakewood, you know, you you get you get strong.

And as a baby Christian, I had some victories.

I mean, boy, amazing victories early on.

But then, but as I matured and as I got more of a threat to the devil, then the opposition started rising, you see.

And uh, but I got the idea that all I had to do was just get more faith and I wouldn't have as much trouble.

Actually, it's the opposite.

The more you grow, the more threat you are to the devil and his kingdom, and he's gonna throw some things at you.

And the devil uses people.

Some of the people he uses is your own family.

I mean, it can be children, it can be siblings, it can be parents, it can be, it can be cousins, it can be close friends that you used to have, and then all of a sudden you get full of the Holy Ghost and start speaking in other tongues and trying to witness, and next thing you know, you're on the outs.

Well, I'd rather be on the outs with people than be on the ins with Jesus.

So um uh much of Paul's preaching here in verse 21, let's go back now to Acts.

Tell you there's great reward for overcoming, besides just overcoming itself.

I mean, that's a reward all by itself, you know, when you can walk on the devil.

Acts 14 and verse 21, when they had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many, they returned again to Lyster and Oconium and confirming their souls.

And so much of Paul's preaching and teaching, and really mine, is about making disciples.

You know, it's not about getting people saved.

What do you mean when you're people criticizing?

Well, we don't have enough altar calls.

Whether or not you've lost people in the sanctuary for people to get saved, I refuse to have a uh I refuse to have an altar call for saved people.

I'm just, you know, that's what they do in the Baptist church.

Gladys grew up in a Baptist church.

And every week, you know, they've got a call, altar call, altar call.

Oh, if you need Jesus.

Well, you know, you've been saved for 25 years, but you hear that, that's the only thing you hear every week.

And so what do you do?

You know what?

I feel like I need to rededicate.

You have no assurance.

You're not, you're really not growing at all.

You're just preaching this same salvation.

That's not my job to preach a salvation message.

My job is to confirm you.

My job is to build muscle and sinew in you, and to give you the information that you need, that you can build revelation.

See, the information alone is not enough.

You've got to have a revelation of what I'm saying and put it to work.

And uh that that is really my job.

And so he in verse 21 uh he confirmed the souls.

Verse 22, confirmed the souls or the minds.

The soul is the mind, the will, the intellect.

You know, we're spirit beings.

We live in a body.

When you got saved, you're born again, your your body wasn't born again, your mind wasn't born again.

But what was born again?

Your spirit was born again.

You got a brand new spirit made out of the image and likeness of God, your new creation.

2 Corinthians 5.17.

If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, a new species of being that never before existed.

That's the part of you that's saved.

Well, but the rest of you needs work.

You need to present your body a living sacrifice, you need to learn how to live a separated life, you have to rule your flesh because it wants to do what it used to do.

It's not saved.

And then your mind has to change.

You have to be renewed in your mind.

Your mind needs confirmation or strengthening.

And so that's what he did.

I mean, he paid a price to do that.

He was stoned to death doing this.

You talk about tribulation, you talk about opposition.

And so he went about establishing and strengthening their souls or their minds.

Why?

So that they can continue in the faith.

I mean, look, he had to preserve the harvest.

These brand new Christians.

I mean, you know, Christianity had just been birthed.

Jesus hadn't been gone off the scene very long.

This is the early church.

The people that are getting saved are either getting saved out of Judaism and they've got all this, you know, religion in them, or they're being saved out of the occult, and the world was full of the occult.

Corinthian church was known for its demon powers and all of the occult stuff that they were involved in, witchcraft.

So whatever they were saved out of was still hanging around, tempting them, trying to draw them back in, trying to twist the word around and turn it around and make it say something it didn't, like this Talo Rico character, you know, that's running for Senate in the state of Texas.

I mean, he's the I mean, you talk about an antichrist spirit.

I mean, he claims he's a preacher.

He's no preacher.

He's no preacher.

He's going to, I think he's supposedly going to some seminary, probably online.

Who knows what he's doing?

But I know one thing, what he's saying is a twisting and it's a complete lie.

And that's what they were having.

They had to have something to counteract that.

They had to have something solid.

So Paul spent his life going from church to church.

And yes, he did witness to his own nation.

He had a heart for the Jews, and he tried to tried to give them the truth.

But I mean, honestly, I don't I think that was where all the persecution rose because I mean they just would get mad, want to kill him.

Um, and so these baby Christians needed to be strengthened.

Um and really, it it sounds like I'm gonna say this, but I mean it really benefits the baby to overcome some things.

Just like in the natural, I you know uh it's scientific that a baby is better off uh if it goes through the birth canal, if it's not born cesarean section.

Now, there was a time a few years ago when women were getting in the work workforce and and all of a sudden there was this big move, and women were wanting to schedule the birth of their children, and so they would have it where it would coordinate with their careers and stuff like that.

But I mean, the proof of it is that the children were not as healthy.

I mean, God's idea is better.

Something about the birth canal and the pressure of coming through that canal, that baby is squeezed.

It's it's it, I don't know what it is.

I'm not a doctor, but I just know that medical science tells us that it's better for the baby.

It might be a little easier for mama, but it's better for the baby.

Some mothers don't have as much trouble as others.

Others, you know, physiological or have more trouble.

But my point is that all trials that we go through, whether we're baby Christians or whether we're mature Christians, all trials have a side effect of making us stronger if we'll just keep on keeping up.

They will make you stronger.

Not that God doesn't send them.

God's not teaching you by sending you that.

That's that's a totally no, it's the devil that's bringing it bringing the tribulation, but God will turn it all for your good and make you stronger every time you defeat him with your faith.

You get stronger, he gets weaker, and you've got a testimony.

Oh, glory to God.

Praise God.

I mean, every testimony.

I mean, there's no great testimonies without great tests, no great victories without great battles.

So we're gonna have those.

Um so then here in verse uh 23, we see uh that he ordained elders in every church.

He ordained elders, and elders uh in that case is the Greek Greek word uh presbyteros, presbyteros, kind of like what we get presbyterian from, presbyteros, and it just means senior or elder.

Uh in the early church, all you had were you had the apostle, and you had uh the evangelist, and you had the prophet.

It doesn't talk about pastors and teachers, they came later.

Pastors were the five-fold ministry that was in charge of the local church, and so I like to use my hand as a uh as an example.

The uh the prophet is the index finger, points the way.

The evangelist is the middle finger, it's the longest, it reaches the furthest.

The the whenever the pastor came along, the pastor took the longest to come because uh it took longer to develop that gift because the pastor uh is the ring finger, is married to the saint, so you've got to have enough maturity to stay in one place and pour your life into a group of people.

Pastor's not supposed to go and you know, me moving around every other year trying to climb the religious ladder.

That's that's not scriptural.

It's scriptural to stay in one place long enough to build a flock.

And so you're married to the saints, you you serve the saints.

And of course, the teacher is the little finger.

It reaches into the ear, you know, it's the only finger that can go down in the ear a little bit.

And then what about the thumb?

Well, the thumb is the apostle, so you can get a grip.

You can't get a grip with the four.

You've got to have the thumb to get a grip on the word.

So the apostles are very important.

We started with apostles.

So uh he ordained elders.

So an elder was a member of the five-fold ministry.

It's not clear whether they were what kind they were.

They were in the early church, they were just more mature.

They're older.

They've had life experience.

They're more mature, hopefully, more mature uh emotional maturity is important in a leader.

And so when you ordain and lay your hands on them and say, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you here in charge of this flock.

You what are you gonna do with this flock?

You're gonna feed this flock and you're gonna tend this flock.

You're gonna tend to them, you're gonna feed them.

Let's look at 1 Peter 5.

I'm talking about keep on keeping on.

See, this is, I mean, this is why everybody needs a local church.

I mean, I really we've got a lot of lone rangers.

I see them, they come through here, and they're they've they since COVID, they've never gotten planted again.

They got defense, either their church closed or their church went woke.

And they have just, I see them on Facebook, I've got 30, some odd thousand followers on Facebook.

I see lots of people that are lone rangers.

They're obviously not hooked up with a pastor.

They've got a bad attitude about the church and about the ministry.

And I I feel for them because they're vulnerable.

They're not likely to keep on keeping them because they can't, you know, they don't have the power to keep themselves self-motivated.

That's not how they're designed to live.

So in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 1.

1 Peter 5:1

The elders which are among you, I exhort who am also an elder.

So Peter is an apostle, and he says, I'm an elder.

So that tells you that an elder is not just necessarily a pastor, it's just a minute, it's a member of the fivefold ministry.

And so he said, he said, the elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.

And he tells them, he exhorts them, feed the five.

Flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof.

And see, there's the touch of the pastor, because the pastor is more of a shepherd.

He's looking over his sheep.

He's watching his sheep.

He's making sure they're here.

If they're missing, he's going to find out where they are.

I mean, just like a real shepherd, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.

Neither is being lords over God's heritage, but being an example to the flock.

So you've got to have somebody ordained as an elder that can be an example.

You wouldn't ordain a drunk.

You wouldn't ordain, you know, a skirt chasing goofball.

No, you're going to find somebody of good report.

You're going to find somebody that's emotionally stable and has a stable home.

It goes through all of this in other chapters, Timothy and other places, what you've got to have to be.

In many places it calls them overseers, which is the word like a bishop.

They're all interchangeable essentially.

And they were just substituted until the pastor showed up.

And when the pastor showed up, now that's the real, that's the real model that Jesus wanted for the local church.

Every local church should have a pastor.

You know, back in the 90s there was this false doctrine going around where some whippersnapper 22 years old would call himself an apostle, and he goes around and he says, now God's assigned you to me, so you tithe, you tithe to me, I'm your apostle.

Well, you're a nut.

You know, you don't, you're not anybody.

You don't even know anything.

You don't even know the Bible.

That's not in the Bible.

The pastor is in charge of every local church.

It's the buck stops with the pastor.

He's in charge.

But he doesn't lord it over the sheep.

He doesn't, you know, abuse the sheep.

He feeds the sheep.

He doesn't fleece the sheep.

He feeds them.

He doesn't abuse them.

Are you with me now?

He doesn't make merchandise of them.

So in Acts 20, 28, he met with some elders in the Ephesian church, and he called them overseers.

Let's real quick just flip over there, real quick.

He had met with them every day, like I mean, night and day for three years.

Verse 28.

Acts 20, 28, take heed.

Now this is Paul again talking to a group of elders.

Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseer.

See, if man does it, it's going to fail.

But if the Holy Ghost is in charge of the assignment, see, that's where the anointing is.

That's where the anointing is.

Man just elect.

See, this is why it's unscriptural for churches to elect a pastor.

I mean, it's as stupid.

It's not in the Bible where they elect.

You're not able to choose somebody by what are you going to what what are you going to do?

How are you going to choose them?

We got a pulpit committee, and we we, you know, we went to Nashville.

We got our next pastor.

We we had to give a big, we have to pay a lot of money.

See, all that stuff is just.

God selected me and he placed me here.

Period.

I know it.

Or wouldn't have been here for 30 years.

So he said, take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers.

You take the oversight.

You you watch over them, you manage them, you make sure they're all headed in the right direction.

You feed them, you tend them, you love on them, you encourage them.

See, that's what that is all about.

To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

See, you're not my sheep, you're his.

He paid for you.

I am a, I, you know, I'm a hireling in the sense that I'm working for him.

I'm not working for you, I'm working for him.

But you belong to him because he purchased you with his blood.

If I forget that, and some have.

Amen.

So these messages like this, like keep, everybody say, I'm going to keep on, keeping on.

These messages strengthen number one, they strengthen your spirit because it's spiritual nourishment, it's the word of God.

Your spirit needs to be strengthened.

It'll grow your spirit.

And then number two, it strengthens your mind.

Your mind needs to think the way God thinks.

And a lot of church folks have been brainwashed into churchianity, into man's denominational, and even some cases, non-denominational devices.

They've got these complicated systems that they're get part of.

And look, you've got to have God's word in you to where you can discern between good and evil and what's right and wrong.

You've got to know how to walk by the witness of the Holy Ghost.

We don't want everybody.

We just want the ones that belong here.

That's the ones we want.

And so you're equipped to overcome.

Everybody say, I've got overcoming equipment.

Amen.

Keep on keeping on.

All right, I've got one, two, three things tonight to kind of give you some ways to action items.

Let's look at Hebrews chapter 6, verse 10.

Hebrews 6:10

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward his name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.

Now see who is he talking to?

Is he talking to the heathen?

Is he talking to, you know, just the casual church attender?

No, he's talking to, he's talking to he's talking to disciples.

He's talking to people who have been, who have gone and overcome some things in their life, and yet they're still in the mode of helping other people.

They're ministering to the saints, and God is keeping the books.

God knows what you've done.

God knows when you've shown up and when you've gone out of your way to help somebody, maybe give somebody a ride, or go by somebody and visit them in a hospital or whatever, or pray for them, or whatever it is that you've done.

God sees it and he knows about it.

He's not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you've showed door to his name and that you've ministered to the saints and do minister.

And we declare that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.

In other words, keep on keeping on, keep on keeping on doing what you do in life, because it's a blessing.

That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

So, you know, the tale, it it really, in so many words, he's basically basically saying, keep on keeping on.

You're gonna go through some things, and and and guess what?

Those things didn't come to stay, they came to pass.

You're gonna overcome those things.

Don't take a pity party break.

Keep doing what you were doing, and don't stop doing it just because you're going through something personally.

I mean, in fact, in fact, you all you know you really kind of need to double down.

I mean, you know, it's it's the opposite.

I see people do this all the time.

They go through a trauma.

They go through, it's it's real.

It's a real problem.

And what first thing, a lot of times the first thing they want to do is quit what they're doing.

Well, I just can't work in children's church anymore.

I got blah, blah, blah.

Well, I can't be a welcome team, I can't be on the welcome team.

I just blah.

Well, you know, you ought to stay on the welcome team and put a bigger smile on your face.

And and make and run the devil crazy.

And so, uh, ministering to other believers, you know, this is what we encourage people.

We're gonna roll out some some new things for this year coming up in a little while.

We're still working on the on the uh preliminary parts of it, but we want to make it easier and more uh uh quicker for people to get involved in helping.

I mean, because we need lots of help.

And and believers need to help.

They need to be involved.

They don't need to be slothful.

Slothful means, actually, it means stupid, but it also means lazy.

It means, you know, you just, well, you know, it's I have to get up earlier to get to church early.

Yeah, almost anything you do, it takes a commitment, it takes longer, it takes part of your time.

Yes, that's why God is keeping the books.

He's watching, he is checking some boxes, and it's rewarding for you.

Because what are you doing?

You're overcoming, you're keeping on, keeping on, and there's rewards to overcome these things, and you're overcoming these things by not allowing it to steal your ministry.

Every one of you have a ministry.

Every one of you.

And so here you are in here helping each other, encouraging each other.

I I remember I tell I tell these stories a lot.

But when Gladys and I moved, we were in Corpus Christi for a year and a half.

When I moved back, I was broke and a half.

I mean, I was broke and a half.

I mean, it was not just broke.

I was I mean, you know, it can't get more broke than I was.

I mean, you know, I had to move in with my sister.

You know, here I am, an adult with two kids, a wife and two kids moving myself.

I mean, it's just so humbly.

It's really hard, you know, to look in the mirror and you don't feel like a man, you're not providing.

You go looking for a job.

Nobody wants to hire a 40-some-odd-year-old guy, you know, that's owned his own business for 10, 12 years, and I'm overqualified.

So um we got back in January, and so about two weeks after we got back, I'm I'm just looking for a job, going here, going there, filling out applications.

And and uh my phone rings.

Brother Bill Deerman called me.

He's the director of missions at Lakewood, and he always believed in me.

He encouraged me when I got back in town and tried to get me to start a church.

You know, John, you're a pastor.

Just get out there, find ten people that like you and start teaching them.

And if you teach them to tithe, then if they tithe to you, you'll have their same uh uh lifestyle.

That's how he put it, don't he?

I sat in his office for three hours and he tried to talk me into starting a church.

But anyway, I just wasn't ready for that.

I mean, we were just, God, we're just below zero.

You know, I mean, just so bad off.

And so he calls me a couple weeks later, John, we're going to Mexico.

It's it's you need you need to, you and Gladys need to go.

I said, Brother Deerman, I haven't got a job.

I'm looking for a job.

He said, Well, I I just tell you what God told me.

Just do it, either do it or don't.

I don't care.

Click.

And I hated to tell Gladys.

I hated it.

And I said, honey, we've been invited.

In fact, Brother Deerman said we don't have to pay the$300 that it takes to go to Saltillo.

Are you crazy?

You need a job.

That's what you need.

And I said, I know it, honey.

I know it.

I tell you what.

I tell you what.

It'll be just like you say.

If you get peace about going, we'll go.

And if you don't have peace about going, we won't go.

That's it.

The end of the story.

I'm not coming back to you again.

I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

I'm not lobbying one thing.

See, I knew I didn't have any standing.

I knew I'd lost credibility.

I didn't blame her at all for not wanting to follow me on some missions trip when we can't even pay a bill, have no income.

And so, and she, I said, just do me a favor, pray about it, please.

Pray about it.

Will you pray about it?

Yes.

Well, she prayed about it, and God told her that we were supposed to go.

So we went all the way down to Saltillo, and God used both of us.

And I mean, we got around people that were a lot worse off than we were.

They were a lot more poverty-stricken than we were.

I mean, I was praying for a lady that had a baby on the breast.

She was standing in a goat shearing barn out like a at open sides of the concrete floor.

It's the only thing that was concrete.

It was everything else is mud.

And she's got a baby on the breast, and she comes up for prayer and she falls out.

There's no catcher.

She hit on the concrete.

The baby never lost, never quit feeding.

The baby just kept on.

I'll never forget that as long as I live.

But we preached, we we ministered.

Gladys delivered this pastor's wife from a depression.

I mean, she got it, she got in the van with us and she was all mad, and within 20 minutes, she was back there giggling.

Gladys had her giggling because Gladys was trying to speak Spanish with, and it was so funny, and that lady just got so tickled.

She got completely delivered from that spirit.

And that kind of thing.

And so, you know, when, and so when we got back, I mean, you know, my mail, I went to the mailbox, and here's a$1,000 check from Lakewood, and they said, oh, is it somebody uh anonymous gift came in?

I figured it was probably Doty, but Dotie probably did it.

But we got$1,000 to pay a few bit, you know, pay a little bit of something.

But what happened, why was that?

Well, we put ministry first.

We put, we did not go on a pity party.

We didn't withdraw and act like we didn't have anything to offer.

We knew we had something.

You've got something, no matter what you're going through.

Keep on keeping on.

All right, Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Get anything out of this tonight?

I know that sinew and muscle is coming back into you.

Verse 35, Hebrews 10, 35.

Cast not away, therefore, your confidence or your courage.

Another word for that is courage.

Don't cast your courage away, fling it away, one you know the amplified says.

Don't fling away your courage, your outspokenness, your boldness.

You know, a lot of times the first thing that happens with people when they're going through a trial is they shut up and they get real quiet.

And they don't want to testify.

They don't want to talk about anything.

They don't want to tell anybody, they don't want to, they want to hide what they're going through.

And that's fine.

You don't want to talk about what you're going through, but you know, you, why don't you talk about what somebody else is going through?

I mean, somebody else might be going through something a whole lot worse than you're going through, and then you can still help them.

But they get real quiet, they cast away their courage.

And and so it says here, don't do that.

Cast not away your confidence or your courage, which hath great recompense of reward.

There's that word again.

God rewards you when you do his word.

There it is again.

I mean, I didn't put it there, he put it there.

For you have need of patience that after you've done the will of God, you might receive the promise.

Hallelujah.

So it's gonna take a little while.

You have to have patience.

You just, you're going through this trouble.

It came to stuff, it didn't come to stay, it came to pass.

But you've got to just, you just gotta use your faith and take one step at a time and not get and not be, you know, tempted.

Don't give in to the temptation to quit.

If you don't quit, you won't, you can't, you can't uh, you'll win if you don't quit.

Praise God.

God's will for your life.

What is God's will for your life?

Well, probably what you've been doing, if you're a church member and you're worried, if you're working in church and being a blessing, it takes just take just patience.

Patience, patience.

We were uh involved very heavily uh at Lakewood Church during the years where I had some of the toughest trials.

And uh, you know, I'll I'll never forget one Sunday after we first got back, Brother Osteen had everybody stand up and needed a job.

Well, you know, I'm still I'm in row three in the center, right in front of the, you know, in front of, you know, 7,000 people.

And I didn't want to stand up, but I needed a job, so I stood up, you know.

I stood up because it was me.

I needed a job.

Well, it was it was not the new sanctuary, it was the old one, so it was not seven, it was more like 4,500.

What's the difference?

Thousands.

I mean, I'm I'm standing up there.

I felt so conspicuous.

There was a few people standing up, and some people came up to me.

Oh, Brother John, we didn't understand.

We thought you had your own business.

What happened?

You know, and they didn't care.

They were just nosy, you know, and and you know, I I just felt about this tall.

I'm I'm I'm, you know, I'm having to fight this and this thing, you know, against my manhood, against, you know, being my I'm a father and a husband and everything.

All that, you know, that self-esteem is is I'm having to I'm having to just cast that over on the Lord and and uh and to just see their at the their attitude was that they were kind of glad that they were better than me.

They always looked up to me, and now they look down on me.

And I just laughed and I said, Well, poor things.

I mean, how what a cheap way to live.

I mean, if you're that pitiful that you rejoice in my trouble.

I mean, you know, I didn't get offended.

I wasn't mad at them.

I just I just observed it.

I said, Boy, these are people you can't depend on.

They they they sat here for however long they have been here and they have not grown in the things that are important.

Are y'all with me now?

But patience.

All right, and then the last one, Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Praise God, verse 1.

Wherefore, seeing you also are compassed about so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily preset us, and let us run with patience.

Here's that word again, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher, or we could say the initiator and the developer of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.

So it's important, you know, this year, 2025, behold, I make all things new.

God, you know, Jesus told Paul to write these words down, they're true and faithful.

And we've discovered that I make all things new.

Make means light in the ship.

It means to get rid of things that are no longer God's plan.

There's a time sometimes when we just need to lay something down.

It's not necessarily sin at all.

It talks about the sin.

Lay the sin aside.

There are things that's that's time to do that too.

Time to get rid of things that we know are wrong, get rid of it.

You know, get rid of it.

But the other side is the weights.

A weight is something that we're doing that God is no longer involved in.

We're we it's not wrong, it's not a sin, sinful thing, it's not a bad thing.

For me, coming back from corpus and coming back to Lakewood Church uh was the beginning of something very new and and very amazing in my ministry because it was like I skipped a grade.

Even though my my circumstances were so bad ministerially, it's like I skipped way ahead of the pack.

I don't even understand it.

I don't even know how it could happen.

But next thing you know, within just a three or four months, here five, six months or something, I'm I'm in front of the church leading the you know, opening the services and prayer, and and it just parlays into a into a ministry that that was an amazing thing to have happen.

But I at the same time, when I moved back to from Corpus, I had interrupted my involvement with Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International.

I I left Houston as president of the Conroe chapter, and I had to let that go.

And when I moved to Corpus, I wasn't involved with Full Gospel Businessmen.

They had a chapter down there, but I wasn't involved in it.

I was busy in the church we were there, uh we were at.

But when I came back, they heard I was back, and they tried to get me to come on board as president again, and I went to a meeting, you know, and sit and renewed con, you know, our it was part of networking, just letting people know I'm back and all of that.

Oh, they wanted me back as president.

The president that had it wanted to step aside and let me have it, and I said, no, let me let me pray, and I just didn't have peace about it.

And then from there I started getting invites to give my testimony.

I went to Baytown, I went to Victoria, I went to different cities giving my testimony.

And then one time I got tapped to give my testimony at uh at a regional convention.

And after the regional convention, I was praying one day, and this is about about took about a year.

And I'm talking about weights.

I'm talking about laying aside the weight.

And God said, Okay, I want you to lay down f full gospel businessmen.

You're not to do any more with that.

No more, no more involvement.

Just like that.

No more involvement.

And I just never did have a witness about it.

I mean, I was going, I was doing it because they invited me.

I was doing it because it was an open door.

But, you know, and then God just had to just say, No, I'm done with that.

And then that was when my ministry took another step at Lakewood, and I started traveling, Brother O'Stein.

Right after that.

And so that was a big major, a major promotion.

My point of that is that's what we're doing right now.

We're trying to find what are those things in our lives that are not sinful, but yet we've obligated ourselves, and maybe God is done with that.

You've completed that task.

Now let's cut that off and let's find the next thing that God has for you.

I can't do that for you, but I mean that's one way you can pray.

And I'm giving an example in my own life.

I've lived what this, I've lived this message.

And uh Gladys and I kept on keeping on.

We still kept on keeping on, even right now.

And we know our reward is great because God said there's rewards for overcoming.

We're designed to overcome.

We're designed to overcome every obstacle the devil throws at us.

And uh our reward is great.

Payday's coming for us, payback's coming for the devil.

Amen.

Let's keep on keeping on.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Glory to God.

Hallelujah.