Easy Stages

Let's get our bibles out and lift them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad for this season because Jesus is the reason that I celebrate and I'm so glad for the Word.

He's the Word made flesh.

Tonight I'll be taught the Word of God, my faith is growing, my spirit is developing and I've got the victory in Jesus' name.

Amen, praise God.

Let's turn in our bibles to Matthew, the 11th chapter, and I'll read from verse 28.

Jesus is speaking and he said Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And in Genesis 33, 14, we see that Jacob and Esau are having their reunion.

You know there was a lot of trepidation and outright fear on Jacob's side of that equation and he wasn't sure that it would be a good meeting.

But they did meet and they hugged, embraced, and he had brought gifts for Esau.

He said oh, I don't need these gifts, I'm blessed.

Come on, let's go back home and he said so.

Jacob said so you go on ahead.

Genesis 33, 14,.

You go on ahead of us and we'll follow along at our own pace and meet you at Sear.

So that's the living Bible.

And then one more verse of scripture in Exodus 17, 1,.

Again in the living Bible this is when the children of Israel were in the wilderness says in Exodus 17, 1,.

The living Bible now, at God's command, the people of Israel left the sin desert and going by easy stages to refi, refi' dem, refi' kim, which means no water.

Refi' dem I get the right word, that's a D there.

I've got it kind of smudged there on my paper refi' dem and the refi' dem meant no water.

So they were coming out of the desert where they were headed in easy stages, where it was another place with no water.

And so that's what I want to talk about tonight Easy stages.

You know his yoke is easy, his burden is light.

You know Jesus said about the Holy Ghost in John 16, 13, he takes what Jesus has for us and he shows the Holy Ghost takes what Jesus has for us and shows it under us.

You know the Holy Ghost refreshes us, he keeps us from toiling in vain.

You know, if you want to, you know the Holy Ghost will always lead you in easy stages.

He will lead you at a pace that is right for you.

He knows you better than you know yourself, and so he will always lead us in a way that is that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

You know, I remember years ago, brother, those things we're sharing on a Sunday morning.

You know he never, he never had any problem talking about real life and what he had faced.

But he was facing some symptoms in his body that he didn't like and he'd been walking by faith and these symptoms got worse and so he went to the Lord about it and fasted a few days and saw the Lord, prayed much in the Holy Ghost, and he heard the spirit of God say to him.

He said the thing that is crushing the life out of you is not my work, but what you have added to it.

You know, I just I remember at the time how, you know, it was just so refreshing to hear my pastor just admit that he's like everybody else.

I mean, he faces trouble, he faces trials and tribulations, and he was able to admit that, that he had taken on weight, where you know if you follow him in the Holy Ghost, he won't.

He won't, let you know, he won't weigh you down with weight, his yoke is easy, his burden is light, he leads you at easy stages.

And you know, of course, later on, when I started this church, we're gonna in 2024, we'll be beginning our 30th year at Glorious Way Church and but I look back on our early years and I, you know I had a great teacher and I observed a whole lot of things at Lakewood.

But I mean, you know, when you're the pastor, I mean you, you have an opportunity to say yes or no to a whole lot of things and I had to learn how to say no.

I kind of look back on the things that I added to my job description that wasn't necessarily from the Holy Ghost.

I mean, you know, if you just if you're a people pleaser and you're gonna just do everything people ask you to do, where you're gonna get overloaded.

For instance, I had an office in the church and my car would be sitting out front, you know, during the week and people would come by and drop by.

Oh, I saw your car outside, just wanted to come by and chat.

You know no appointment.

I didn't have a secretary, I didn't have anybody kind of running interference for me and you know, sometimes they take a couple of hours of my time.

Well, you know, that gets kind of.

You know you add that up over a period of time it gets kind of heavy.

It's unscheduled, it's not even right, you know.

I mean come to church and hear the word.

You know you don't need a personal in a personal interview with me.

And another thing that I did a lot at first when we first started was, you know, I had people that I had never known before and they would invite me to their house for dinner.

We want to hear the vision.

Well, you know, after you do that six or eight times, that's an extra night of the week.

I mean I'm working pretty hard.

You know, sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, thursday night, prayer I mean that's four events a week out of seven days.

There needs to be a day off, you know.

And yet here I am going at night to somebody's house and spending two, three, three hours.

Sometimes didn't get home till 10 o'clock, you know, just exhausted.

Now God didn't call me to go out and tell everybody the vision.

Come to church and hear what the vision is, hear the word of God preached under the anointing.

I had another couple.

They were retired and they asked me to do their son's wedding.

His son was like 45 or 50 years old.

This wasn't his first wedding.

Oh yeah, sure, be glad to.

Well, I found out I had to drive all the way to San Leon, get on a boat and go out in Galveston Bay and do this wedding ceremony on a boat.

I mean it took all after.

I mean it was all day really by the time I, you know, got ready.

I it just.

You know.

I'm just giving you some examples of me adding to my work by obligation rather than letting the spirit of God govern my ministry.

I had to learn the hard way.

So, you know, sometimes success comes from what we can say no to.

You know it's okay to say no.

It's always right to let the Holy Ghost govern your time, because all of our time belongs to Him.

The children of Israel when they left Egypt, they weren't immediately ready to enter in to the promised land, much less possess it, and so they flunked a lot of the early tests.

They flunked tests after tests after tests.

You know God.

You know God permits tests.

You know he's not the one that tests you, but life will test you and he's gonna be observing, he's gonna be watching and he watched them come apart over and over again.

They came apart at the Red Sea, got all upset.

They got all upset before they left Egypt at Moses.

Why did you do this?

You know, when they had to go gather their own straw and all of that, you know it just took a few days to get them out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of them.

And so I like Isaiah 48-10,.

It says that God chose Israel in the furnace of affliction.

You know, I tell you, god is always watching you and he's watching how you react to crisis, how you react to trouble times.

Jesus said in the world, you're gonna have tribulation.

Be of good courage though.

I've overcome the world, I've defeated it, I've deprived of its power to harm you.

The Amplified says and Deuteronomy 8, let's turn back over there.

I'm talking about easy stages tonight and you know, sometimes we can interrupt the easy stages that the Holy Ghost has for us and we can add to our own burdens.

Deuteronomy 8, verse one all the commandments which I commanded this day shall you observe, to do that you and notice what God wanted them to do, that you may live and multiply, go in and possess the land which the Lord swear unto your Father.

See, that was God's plan for Israel, and you shall remember all the ways which the Lord, your God, led thee these 40 years in the wilderness to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in your heart.

Now, see, god knew what was in their heart, but they didn't know what was in their heart.

See, god already knows you inside out.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

But tests come for you to discover what's in there Is there, you know.

When you squeeze a lemon, lemon juice comes out, not orange juice, you know.

So you gotta kind of tell what's going, down to the degree when you're going through tough times, when you complain in murmur, like Israel did.

And so you know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna which you knew not.

Neither did your fathers know that he might make thee to know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God doth man live.

And so there the easy stages.

You see, he led them in easy stages but that doesn't mean there wasn't trials and tribulations.

You know, easy stages doesn't mean everything's easy and rosy, peachy, keen all the time.

It just easy stages means that he'll bring you along in your own personal progress.

I heard another testimony.

Brother Copeland was given one time about himself and of course he's a pilot and he's been a pilot for many years.

And now he flies or I'm not sure if he's still flying or not at his age, but up until recently he was still flying those big jets and he was talking about, you know, one day.

You know he's flying and he's, he got clearance to take off from the tower.

So then he accelerates down the runway and lifts off and wheels up and you know he gets on and the air traffic controller gives him a vector when he gets to a certain altitude and you turn up on this course at such and such altitude and he does, and he goes that for a while, then at another altitude, turn this way and go to this altitude.

You know, it took about 30 minutes for him to get to his cruising altitude.

And so at cruising altitude, put it on autopilot, kind of lean back and relax a little bit.

You know, and just you know, all the busy work is over, you're kind of flying now.

And he kind of quiet, and the Holy Ghost spoke to his heart and says you know, I wish you'd obey me like you did that air traffic controller.

What do you mean, lord?

I always obey you.

Well, you're always wanting to get ahead of me.

You're always wanting to turn when you shouldn't.

You're always wanting to go higher.

I'm the only one that knows what's at the altitude.

You're trying to get there too fast.

So just if you would obey me and obey my spirit like you do this air traffic control.

Yeah, I think we can all relate to that story.

What a powerful testimony that was.

So you know, we have to be prepared and taught by God so that he can bring us into all that he has planned for us.

You know he has big plans for each of us, every one of us, every believer under the sound of my voice.

He's got plans for you.

We're living in the last of the last days, but you know we have to follow along in easy stages.

We're not ready all the time.

Sometimes we hear about these plans.

You know, I remember God speaking to me 20 some odd years ago about things that we're just now getting into, and we spent 22, 23 years preparing us for what we're just now getting into.

And, yeah, I fought and tried to get there and tried to do this and tried to do that to wake up the church.

God told me in 1999, just five weeks after brother Osteen went to heaven wake up the church.

So I've been trying ever since.

I've done this, I've done that, I've gone this place, I've gone that place, I've had this conversation of that, I've prayed this, I've prayed that, and that's not wrong, necessarily, but God had to prepare the way for us and we're just now, you know, 22, 23 years later.

We're just now getting into some of the things that he talked to me about all those years ago.

I remember one year when, before I was started the church, when I was in business, I made one seemingly small mistake and I missed the witness of the spirit.

The witness of the spirit was telling me to do one thing and I obeyed my flesh and did something else, and it put me on a pathway that took me 10 years to recover and I didn't really recover fully until I started this church and things started just changing completely over now, almost overnight.

So let's look at Psalm 32, eight.

I'll read it out of the living Bible again.

I like the living Bible for some things.

It's not a translation but it's a good, valuable resource.

Psalm 32, eight in the living Bible it says I will instruct you, says the Lord, and guide you along the best pathway for your life.

I will advise you and watch your progress.

Isn't that good?

I will advise you and watch your progress.

See, sometimes it's not so much God demanding, it's not so much God commanding and demanding and micromanaging us, but if we will walk close to the Holy Spirit, his Spirit, by the witness, can nudge us and just give us a little advice and go this way, go this way, do this, slow this down.

And then he watches your progress.

He watched me those 10 years.

I can't say that they were fun.

I mean, it was a struggle many times.

But you guess what?

I began to appreciate the little things.

I began to appreciate little breakthroughs.

I began to appreciate every little thing that I could see Him doing for us, whereas before, when everything was abundant and I had lots of money flowing in, well, maybe I wasn't quite as grateful for what I had.

And so you know God doesn't waste any trouble, he uses all of it.

Now, this thing about easy he leads us in easy stages, and I mentioned this earlier.

And one thing that he developed in that 10 year period of mine where I missed the witness of the Spirit and obeyed my flesh and I made a business decision and it led me down a pathway that took 10 years to get me back on track.

Was it easy in the natural?

No, there wasn't anything easy about it.

But I did develop an attitude, and let's look at that.

Second Corinthians, chapter four, because you need to have, and only you know, the only way that you can develop this attitude is to go through some things, and you're gonna go.

Jesus said you're gonna go through some things.

He said in the world you shall have tribulation.

You know God doesn't send tribulation.

God doesn't send the test God.

You know God doesn't send it.

It just comes with life in this realm.

That's what it is.

That's why we cannot live by bread alone, but by every rama of God does man live.

We have to lean more on God's word, amen.

Second Corinthians, chapter four, in verse eight, paul is testifying here and he's saying we were troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We were perplexed but not in despair.

We were persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.

See, that's the report.

And what was all that persecution?

It was just difficult circumstances.

You know, I don't know anybody's been beaten five times with 39 stripes.

You know, I don't know anybody.

I have never met anybody who's been beaten with rods three times.

I don't know anybody's been spent a night in the day in the deep.

I mean, he goes on in the second Corinthians 12 and tells you all the things that he went through and he suffered a lot of things.

They weren't easy to go through, but look at his attitude.

Here's his attitude.

Yeah, I've had this.

I've been troubled, I've been perplexed, I've been persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.

And then down here in verse 17,.

Look at verse 17,.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which you're seeing, but at the things which you're not seeing, for the things which you're seeing are temporal or temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

What your faith sees.

That's what's eternal your faith eyes.

And so what happens when you go through life and you go through tribulation?

The more we fix our gaze on the trouble, the heavier and the harder it is.

And so we've got to count our troubles that we have as light and momentary, and so that just takes a bit of maturity.

It takes a bit of.

You know, you've got to preach to yourself.

You got to confess the word.

You've got to just refuse to quit.

You've got to refuse to have a pity party, you've got to just pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

And you know, realize that God is always leading you along in easy stages.

He's leading you along the pathway that's best for your life.

He's advising you and he's watching your progress, and so I just hope this encourages you.

You know we're all on the pathway of easy stages tonight.

Amen, let's lift our hands and receive the word easy stages.

Father, thank you for everybody's listening and for those that are struggling with circumstances, lord, help them to see that they're only momentary and that they counted as light and momentary.

That's what I said that they counted as light and momentary.

It's just a moment.

You're going to go through this thing and then you're going to get on the other side of it.

Praise God, amen, hallelujah.

God is so good.