God's Way Is Best

Just pick our bibles up, as is our custom, and wave them around.

Make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Say this together.

Say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad for Wednesday night.

I'm primed and ready to receive what the word is speaking to me tonight.

I know faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

So I'm ready for my faith to grow, I'm ready for my spirit to develop and I'm ready to get in position for greater victories ahead.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn to Psalm chapter one, and that was our normal reading here.

It is the first of November and so I read this Psalm.

This morning reminded me of this message and I think we're going to haul off and read the whole thing.

It's just six verses, it won't take long.

Psalm number one it says blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law or in the word of the Lord, and in his law, in his word, doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveeth away.

Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor centers in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

God knows the way of the righteous.

And then a second Corinthians five seven says that this you can turn there if you want, but I'll just quote it, for we walk by faith and not by sight.

For we walk by faith, not by sight or not by our five senses.

So the message is entitled God's way is best.

God's way is best, and I just want to encourage you here.

Here is November, the first.

Already, just we can see 2024 coming up.

You know, just over our hood.

We're driving down the freeway, we're going the speed limit, 80 miles an hour, we're on the interstate and 2024 is coming up pretty quick.

And remember that this year, 2023, was the year of God's power.

God's power has propelled us to this place where we are, and you know we're gonna enter into some new places.

We've not passed this way here before.

Think about Joshua, you know, telling children of Israel as they crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land.

I remember years ago I heard Sister Billy Brim say this.

She said no one has passed through the church in the last days and that's really stuck with me all these years, and the more every year that goes by, I'm just more aware of the differences.

And we've had to walk by faith and not by sight.

We've had to make adjustments in our emphases and double down on accomplishing what God has told us to do.

And I just wanna declare this right now.

I just declare that nothing in the past or the present can equal to the glory of tomorrow.

I mean, our best days are yet ahead.

I'm telling you we've got some great days ahead and so you know we get to grow in the knowledge and understanding of who he is.

You know it talks about a tree being planted that grows by the rivers of water, brings forth fruit, it never withers.

It doesn't pay any attention to the dry weather we had a real dry summer and here we are.

It's already cold.

Now we're getting some rain, we're getting caught up.

I'll tell you, it doesn't matter.

When you're planted in the rivers of the Holy Ghost and you're planted deep in the word of God, you're growing, I've grown.

Have you grown?

Growing in faith.

And when you grow in faith, you grow in power, you grow in position and God's way.

You know God's got a better way than our way.

And so we've got the Holy Ghost in us, we've got the word, our mind, or word, renewed minds, and so we're gonna see some greater days.

We're gonna see some greater days.

So Psalm one it speaks of that growth.

It speaks and it tells us what not to do.

It says don't be walking, you know, in advice and fellowship of the ungodly.

Don't be standing in the way of sinners, don't be sitting in the seat of the scornful.

What I see in that is I see a progression.

You know you walk and then pretty soon you stand around listening and that next thing, you know, you're sitting down.

Listen, we just got.

We got it.

We've got a better way to travel.

God's got a better way.

He's got the God's way is best and he'll bypass all of this world's ideas.

And, uh, you know we're gonna see some greater days.

And then it tells us what that we should do, and that is what delight in the word and meditate on the word continually and consistently.

What does it mean to meditate, it just means to turn it over in your mind, to think about it, to mutter, to speak it.

You know, really, confession is a sort of a way to meditate in the word, the more you confess the word.

You know, back in the 80s, when I was coming up as a brand new baby Christian from 1980 on, you know, all in the 80s, we know, we sang these scripture songs.

We just sang.

We didn't sing hymns, we didn't sing full blown songs that had a beginning and a bridge and a verse and a chorus, we just sang choruses.

And there were scripture songs and they were just amazing because these were.

It was just we would just take scriptures right out of the Bible A lot of times in songs and different scriptures and they would make songs out of them.

It was a great way to meditate on the word of God, just by singing.

You know, and we've gotten away from that now.

We've got, you know, different music now and that's fine, but I know it helped me to get the word down in my heart and that's where it has to be.

It can't just lodge in your brain, you've got to get it down in your heart and then we are blessed and prosperous.

I used to quote this.

I used to quote this verse you know, whatsoever he do us shall prosper.

Well, that's contingent on the others things that he told you not to do, and the things that he told you to do.

That's the only time that that's true.

Not everything you do will prosper when you just do it your way, I mean if you learn that the hard way.

I have so.

So in second Corinthians 5-7, he said for we shall, for we walk by faith and not by what it seems like, not by our sight, not by our senses.

And so, as I mentioned here on the overcomer messages, I had two messages on the overcomer and I guess this is a pretty good companion to what we've covered in those messages there.

But you know, we are in a war, the devil has declared war on us and we're in a fight.

And 1 Timothy 6-12 says fight the good fight of faith.

Why is it a good fight?

Well, because we win.

But what is what or what are we fighting?

Well, we're not fighting the devil.

He's already defeated.

We're not fighting sin.

Jesus took it, you know.

So what is it that we're fighting?

Well, we're fighting the good fight of faith.

Our faith's biggest enemy is the lack of understanding of God's word.

That's the biggest enemy we have.

It's the lack of understanding.

I come across people that have been in church for 50 years, 60 years, and they don't know any more about the Bible.

I really I think most of our kids in our children's church know more about the Bible than they do.

We teach our children in children's church.

We teach listen.

We taught this past Sunday on the gifts of the spirit.

I know there's people in this church never had a good teaching about the gifts of the spirit till they came to this church.

We'll preach on it every so often, but what a shame.

You know what a wealth of ammunition we have.

You know for our faith to grow, and so you know faith cometh by hearing.

Romans 10, 17.

Faith cometh by hearing.

Well, the word hearing means hearing with understanding.

It also means revelation.

See, god reveals his word to us, and so that's how our faith grows.

It doesn't come by praying for it, it doesn't come by crying for it, it doesn't.

It doesn't come just with our age.

It comes by those things that it said here before it's you walk not, you stand not, you sit not.

The not things, and then the do things, do meditate, do delight in the word, make the word the main thing in your life.

But you know, you, just you know, I think, about the apostle of faith.

He was called the apostle of faith Smith Wigglesworth and I don't know.

I've read where he had 23 people, I've heard 17 people.

I don't know, I just know he's had a whole lot more people raised from the dead in his ministry than I have.

So he I mean one time he was someone, was already fully embalmed in the casket and he raised him from the dead.

I mean it just, I mean it's pretty outstanding and he was known as the apostle of faith.

And he said, you know, I would, I would rather go out of my house undressed and leave my New Testament home.

Everywhere he went he had that pocket New Testament and his custom was he'd sit down to dinner and eat a nice dinner and then they would pull away and if he had somebody he was eating with, he said, well, we fed the body, now let's feed the spirit.

And he would read a good scripture and kind of bring a message on faith.

You know, I mean you know he delighted in the word, he delented, it was in him, it was lodged in him.

And so if we walk by faith and not by our five senses, you see, then we will walk in a way that God delights in.

It says here in verse six the Lord knows the way of the righteous, so he knows the way.

What is that way?

It's his ordained way, it's his.

You know, god's word is his will.

If we wanna walk according to the will of God, we've gotta get the word in us.

And then, of course, there are specific things that aren't written in the Bible, and so then the Holy Spirit can fill in the blanks.

I mean, sometimes we just don't know exactly what to do.

Well, let's wait until we know.

I think about Paul and Silas.

And they were saying to go into Bithynia you're considering it?

And the Spirit suffered them not.

Well, the Bible says going to all the world.

Well, that's all the world.

I mean, they generally were in the will of God, but God had a specific will.

They said, no, that's not my specific.

Well, I don't need you in Bithynia.

And then they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia Minor.

And they had another no.

And I think about then he waited and waited, so he didn't just run off half-cocked.

He could have done it his way and might have been martyred early.

He might have died for his faith in Asia Minor or Bithynia, who knows.

We don't know what he escaped.

We don't know what he escaped by waiting.

But then he had a dream and the Macedonian men said come over here and help us.

And they did, and people got saved and the jailer in his house got saved and the earthquake hit the prison and loosed all the prisoners.

I mean, you know, wow, it's the faith.

Life is exciting, to say the least.

So faith Hebrews 11.6,.

Without faith it's impossible to please God.

So when we walk by faith, we walk in a pleasing to God.

God is pleased when we walk or when we pursue the way of faith.

God's way is the way of faith, and faith doesn't always know everything.

Faith is one step at a time.

We don't always know exactly two or three steps down the way.

We have to walk one step at a time.

Many times we don't know how to get to where we're going.

That's why we have to depend on God.

You know I've been thinking a lot about this time of year.

You know I look back.

I give thanks for the wonderful things that God has done in my life and I sometimes think back how he delivered me out of trouble.

Some of the biggest troubles that I've had in my life came when I walked in my plan.

You know my way.

You know I had my way.

You know, like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way.

You know that's a terrible song.

I didn't like it when I was lost Now.

I like it even less now.

When I heard an old tape of him singing that song, everybody would just go crazy over that thing.

Well, it was horrible.

In fact, elvis sang it one time, one of his last times before he died.

He did it my way.

But God's not glorified in your way.

He's glorified in his way when you walk according to his plan and it.

You know some of the mistakes I made.

They weren't necessarily sin, they just.

You know, I just didn't wait for his way or his plan.

I got ahead of him.

I made a decision that I thought was good and you know, god met me in my ignorance.

I mean, he didn't leave me, he didn't forsake me, he didn't say well, I'm cutting you off, buddy.

You know this is it.

No, I mean, he just never gives up on us.

So when I look back, I don't look back in the way of beating myself up at all.

I look back with a fondness, with a love of God that he's so faithful to me that, no matter what I've been through, you know, if I just stuck with it and didn't quit, he'd always get me to the other side.

I mean, it might take a longer, you know, if I and I healed, you know, wait and he'll show me what, where it was that I missed it and I get to learn from the mistakes that I make.

You know, that's God's plan.

God wants to help you.

I was just reading in the book of Genesis about Jacob, and you know, I read the testimony about his brother, esau, coming in and was so hungry and Jacob had had some soup.

And he said man, I need some of that soup.

And Jacob said well, I'll tell you what.

I'll give you the soup if you'll give me your birthright.

And he said well, what good is this birthright if I dive hunger?

That's pretty low down, you know.

I mean, what kind of a brother would do that?

And so he, he stole his birthright for a pot of soup.

And then, you know, later on his mother figured out a way to steal his blessing by, you know, jacob's mother Jacob means supplanter, by the way.

He took the place of Esau and he put she put lamb skin on him and dressed him up and, you know, killed a goat and cooked it and made it seem like a savory deer meat that Esau would.

And the plan was that Isaac was gonna bless Esau as he cooked him a nice venison meal.

And mama got involved.

She had her plan and Jacob had her plan, his plan, and they stole the blessing.

And so I'm convinced that they were not wrong.

I think they, I think they looked at Esau and Esau was not worthy of the blessing of his father.

He was not gonna be able to succeed.

But then they took matters into their own hands and their method was wrong.

They should not have done that.

It was deceit.

Well, you know, then he had to leave because Esau got so mad when he stole his blessings, or he stole his birthright and his blessing.

The blessing is the double portion, by the way, and that was pretty significant.

And so suddenly, you know, jacob has to escape and go to Laban's house.

And what did God do?

God didn't give up on Jacob, jacob, I mean when he did that and it was a bad thing that he did.

He shouldn't have done it, his mother shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have been party to it, but they did.

And what was it?

I mean God prepared a ladder and God prepared an angel to visit him and I mean he got back on track and eventually he changed his name to Israel.

And he got back on track and God was with him for 21 years.

He never left him.

He blessed him.

He blessed him for 21 years.

See, god doesn't give up on you just because you get off of his plan onto your plan.

But let me tell you something God's plan is best.

I mean, let's just lift our hand.

God, your plan is always best.

I wanna pursue your plan for my life, hallelujah.

So you know, our God is merciful and our God is good in his, his has said, his has said endureth forever.

See, he had a has said Jacob did on behalf of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, he had a has said he had God's covenant and we have a better covenant than he did.

I mean, you think God didn't give up on Jacob.

God didn't gonna give up on us.

So I just wanna encourage you, you know, for the end of 2023, the years of God's power.

Just get ready for the glory, get ready for the wonders and signs and wonders and miracles and victory.

Our part is just simply to keep growing Now.

Just keep being planted by the rivers of water, keep meditating in the word of God, keep the lighting in it.

Avoid the advice of the enemy.

Avoid the advice you know blending in with the devil.

Quit listening to what they're saying and let's concentrate on what God is saying.

And if we'll walk in God's way, it's far better.

It's far better.

It's far above anything that we could ever cook up ourselves.

And as we do, our tomorrow's become brighter than our today's and surely brighter than yesterday.

I've kind of reminded this old song that I heard when I was lost.

You know Janice Joplin.

She's from Port Arthur, texas.

She died young of an overdose.

You know she was a wild woman rock star back in the 60s and she had this old song, bobby McGee, and in that song she had this statement she said I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday.

Well, that was Janice Joplin.

That's not me.

I wouldn't listen, I wouldn't trade.

I wouldn't trade what God is doing right now for yesterday, and I sure wouldn't trade what God is about to do for today.

I'm telling you we're on an upward ascendancy.

I'm telling you we're going up higher.

Praise God, and so his way is better.

Every increasing wave of his glory and the atmosphere of a victory is just increasing.

So just be encouraged.

Tonight you may be kind of weighted down with all the bad news around for Israel and the bad news for the country and the economic.

Listen, we're in a different economy, we're heading up and God's way is best.

So let's cling to God's way.

Hope you got something out of this.

Lift your hand and receive.

Father, we thank you for your way.

We thank you that it's contained right here in your word, and your Holy Spirit is revealing those things that we need.

And, lord, when we do take the wrong exit, when we miss a signal, when we make a decision that's not the best one, lord, we know you don't quit on us.

You've got something else for us and you will help us get back on track.

And you'll help us to get back on track.

In Jesus' name, don't get discouraged, just keep on keeping on.

Amen, praise God and be Yours.

Schön ich halleluma.