Finding God's Way

and wave them around.

Make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Say this together.

Say the third person of the Godhead lives in me and guides me into all truth.

Tonight I receive the Word of God.

Spirit of God, enlighten me so that my faith grows and my spirit develops.

I want to be on another level and I know the Word is the way.

In Jesus' name, let's turn to Psalm 25 tonight, and I'm going to share with you, out of these verses, some of my favorites.

Psalm 25, glad you're here tonight.

You're at the right place at the right time with the right people.

How did you know?

Well, I'm just confessing it over.

Yet.

Verse one Psalm 25, unto thee, o Lord, do I lift up my soul?

Oh my God, I trust in thee.

Let me not be ashamed.

Let not my enemies triumph over me.

Let none that wait on thee be ashamed.

Let them be ashamed, which transgress without cause.

Show me thy ways, o Lord.

Teach me thy paths, lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation.

On thee do I wait all the day.

Remember, o Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses, for they have been ever of old.

Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions.

According to thy mercy, remember thou me.

For thy goodness sake, o Lord, good and upright is the Lord.

Therefore, when he teach sinners in the way, the meek shall he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way.

All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, under, such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.

For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

What man is he that feareth the Lord?

Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.

His soul shall dwell at ease and his seed shall inherit the earth.

Wow, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Finding the Way, or actually, more accurately, finding God's Way.

God's Way is the way, it's a glorious way, and you know the sweet psalmist of Israel, man after God's own heart.

He's a king, he's a mighty warrior, he's a leader of men, yet he's a worshipper, he's a man of prayer, and he's seeking God here in this city, and he's seeking God here in this psalm, seeking God for his ways and his path.

Seeking God, he's the king.

Now you know, one thing about Israel is God didn't want him to have a king.

And when Samuel was the prophet, they rose up and said we want a king, get us a king.

Samuel said, no, absolutely not.

That's not God's will for Israel.

Israel is not to be like all the nations around her.

Israel, you know, essentially they had judges, they had leaders, but they weren't called kings and they didn't have a king's power.

And it was the flesh.

It was the flesh and competition and wanting to be like everybody else that didn't have a covenant, see, they wanted to be like people that didn't have a covenant with God.

They didn't need a king, they had one.

God wanted to be their father and their king.

But they're too stupid and too hard hearted, see.

They drifted way away, away, away away from him, and they kept insisting.

He said, all right, I'll give them a king.

But, you know, solemnly protest to them, tell them that they're doing the wrong thing.

And so you know the story.

He picked out Saul.

He was head and shoulders above everybody.

He was exactly the picture of who, if they had had elections, they would have elected Saul.

I mean, he looked beautiful, he looked handsome, he was big, he was tall, he was humble at first, at first, and, but he had heart trouble and within just a short time God had to reject him.

He stayed king, though, for a long time, until he died, till he was killed in battle, wounded in battle and then was finished off.

But anyway, get back to David.

Here he is anointed king at probably 17 years of age, which that would ruin most teenagers, but didn't him.

He went back to doing what he was doing before, I mean after.

After he was anointed by the prophet, samuel poured a horn of oil over his head in front of his daddy and in front of his brothers, who hated him.

You know, read the story of Goliath and see how his brother, you know his oldest brother, treated him like a dog.

I mean, he couldn't stand the sight of him, mocked him.

But so here he is, seeking God for his ways and his paths.

And the word way there is the Hebrew word Derek.

Derek You're in the Bible, derek.

It means a course of life, a mode of action, a pathway, a highway, and then path is also in there.

Show me thy path, teach me thy ways.

This is a prayer that David is praying.

Let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me, show me.

He's the king.

And so the word path is the Greek word.

I mean a Hebrew word, oroch.

It means a well trodden road, a way of living.

See, you know, god doesn't want to just show you a temporary little way out of your trouble.

He wants to teach you a whole new way of living.

He wants to show you a pathway that's well traveled.

He doesn't want you walking through waste, high weeds.

You ever walk through a place that's just got growth?

You know, that's our old property over there, 92.7 acres.

When we first bought it I was determined to go all over it and you couldn't see much of it.

It was about a third open where champions crossing subdivision is now.

That was our property, 92.7 acres, and about a third of it was open and the rest of it was dense pines and oaks but undergrowth.

And I mean I walked crosswise right through that.

I mean it was hard.

It was hard traveling through there.

I had scratches, I had mosquito bites, I had poison ivy.

It was tough sledding.

And Lord says what are you going to do about all this?

You got to clean this up.

What do you mean?

I've got to clean it up.

We hired bulldozers $32,000 worth of bulldozers to go in there and clean that up, knock down all the little tiny scrubby trees and clean it up to where we could even see what we had.

And we did that in January and February.

Well, by April, weeds this tall all over it.

And he said what are you going to do about all those weeds?

You know, I thought you know, we bought this land and you know, and then all of the responsibility of it.

So we bought a $27,000 tractor, kubota, 40 horse diesel, with five foot brush hog on the back and had a blade on the front.

And why did you do that?

Well, I had to do a research and I found out a little dinky garden tractor is not going to do the job.

We needed a heavy duty tractor and you know we had.

I mean, here we were, we spent $32,000, wrote a check over two months for the dozer operators and then we turn around and $27,000.

And look, we're in a rented building.

I mean we've got about 150 people there.

I mean this was way above our budget.

And so, thank God, somebody in the church this felt led to buy that tractor, for they wrote us a check for $27,000.

Some odd dollars paid for the tractor.

Praise God.

God's got his pay masters.

Well, you know, if you're going to walk through the weeds you're going to have a whole lot of trouble.

God wants to get you out of the weeds.

He wants to get you on that well traveled road.

It's not a quick fix.

It's not just something that we need right now.

We, you know we all have decisions to make and we need need his path and way of escape for certain temptations.

But, generally speaking, david is is talking long term.

He's wanting to know God.

I want to set my foot on a pathway of success.

How many of you want that?

You want a pathway of success.

God wants you successful.

He doesn't want you to fail.

He's made provision for you to have success.

You know, and I say a 59, 55, verse nine.

It says God was speaking there to prophet Isaiah from my ways are higher than your ways, my, my thoughts than your thoughts.

Well, it looks kind of hopeless, but you know these are his thoughts and this contains his way.

The Holy Ghost is show you the way.

They're not unattainable.

His ways are higher than natural.

Every time we walk in the flesh we're going to pick the wrong path.

We're going to pick the wrong way.

Oh God, bless my path, bless my way.

Well, you forget it.

He won't bless your path and he won't bless your way because then then he's just obligated to bless everybody, just whatever they want to do.

They know he blesses his way.

So we got to discover that, amen.

So we got some things to glean out of these verses about how to find God's way and and I like following this, this pathway that David went down, and the first thing I see.

In verse nine he says the meek will he guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way.

One must be meek, meekness, not weakness, not weakness.

I'm not talking about weakness, I'm talking about meekness.

In other words, in verse four, how is he meek?

Well, he's the king and he's he's asking, he's asking God for help.

He said show me your ways, teach me.

He's teachable, he's teachable.

You know and know it all is not meek.

Some preachers are not meek.

Some preachers are not teachable.

Some preachers just think they know everything and they can't really glean much from anybody else, and so they don't ever listen to anybody else.

They're just kind of an aisle in the other themselves.

You know, being under a ministry like that pretty dangerous because there's no meekness.

Meekness left.

Pride took its place.

In other words, teachable, humble, dependent and even needy dependent upon God and even needy for God.

Needy for God?

Do you see how directly away from the normal way a king would be?

A king is not like that.

A king has groups of people around him ready to run and do whatever proclamation he makes.

I mean, as soon as he says it out of his mouth, he's got somebody out there to go take care of it.

David had Joab, head of the armies, and he was a mighty man of valor.

David had a bunch of those guys.

They're listed there.

When you read first and second kings, first and second chronicles, and how they can, you know, sling an arrow with both.

You know, sling a sling with both hands and all of that.

Shoot an arrow with both hands, left and right, and so they're ready to do his bidding.

Let's look at first Samuel 30, talking about meekness.

If you want, you know, there's some things that you've got to develop in your life Meekness, meekness is dependent upon God and careful about listening to the advice of man.

Now, make no mistake about it.

The right people can give you good advice.

The right people will sharpen you, but in the end you're going to have to be needy and dependent upon God himself.

You're going to have to check things with God.

That's why I can't just find out what brother so and so does over at ABC church and just copy his program.

It doesn't work.

God's got something for glorious way church.

We have to find out what that works here, what works here, and when something doesn't work, I learned from Pastor Osteen quit, stop it right there.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Sometimes it makes people's nose get out of joint when you stop doing something because they were all involved in the thing that you stopped, heavily invested in it.

All right, I won't go down that road very long.

Okay, first, samuel 30.

I'm not planning on stopping anything right now.

Okay, first, samuel 30.

And said this is the.

I'm not going to read all of it, you can read it later.

David and his mighty men 600 of them came back from fighting with the Philistines.

He was making out like he was an ally to the Philistines so that Saul wouldn't kill him, and he was never against Israel, but he would line himself up with the Philistines of other nations and they were fighting together with them to kind of.

You know, you have to be wise and serpent harmless, as does navigating this world.

And so they get back to their home base, ziklag, and they find that the Amalekites had come through there and burned the entire city down to the ground and captured the men, or men captured the women and children and all their stuff, took it away, and David and his 600 mighty men just wept until there was no more power to weep.

They were so upset and they got so upset that some of them started thinking about stoning David.

You know, the leader is always the one to blame when things go wrong.

It's easy to blame the leader instead of the devil.

And David, the Bible says, encouraged himself and the Lord, his God, you know what anybody else to encourage him.

So he had to encourage himself.

Now he's not yet officially king, but he was anointed king at 17.

By this time he's 30.

He is a wise.

I mean, he is a worshiper, he's wise.

He's wise, he's a warrior.

You gotta be pretty mean motor scooter to have the kind of men working under you that he had.

I mean, he had to conduct himself in such a way that they wouldn't dare raise their voice against him.

And here it is people raised their voices against him.

They probably didn't do it to his face, it's probably coming from the back of a room.

Let's stoning.

Who was that?

Silence, anyway.

So he said, bring me hither the EFOD.

What's the EFOD?

Well, it's the way that they are able to contact God, the oomim and the thumen.

I'm not going to go into all of that, but anyway, it's just the priest's garb.

And he prayed.

He said, lord, say he didn't just get mad and say I'm going to treat those a man of Christ, I'm going to kill them all.

I'm going to kill them, he asked, he inquired shall I pursue, will I overtake?

And God told him yes, pursue, for surely you will overtake and surely recover all.

So he had a word from God.

He waited for a word from God.

I'm talking about meekness.

I'm talking about dependency on God alone.

I'm talking about not consulting with your men of war.

They're all ready to stone you anyway, can't consult them anyway.

And only 400 of the 600 could even go out there.

The other 200 were too weak and they were too worn out from the previous campaign.

So he went out with two thirds of his army.

But he had a word from God and he pursued the Amalekites, overtook them and took his wives back and his children back.

Nobody was harmed, nobody was hurt.

All his stuff.

And I'm telling you meekness, he didn't presume.

Ask him.

You know, one of the biggest mistakes we make is presumption and assumption.

Don't presume, don't assume.

Pray, depend on God to show you the way, to show, to teach you the path.

Teach me the other way, show me that path.

All right.

First, chronicles 14 came out.

All right on that.

And of course, when they got back, the 400 didn't wanna share with the 200.

They said well, we'll give you wives back, we don't need them, but we're gonna keep everything.

Nope, ain't gonna happen, not on my watch.

David said Nope, we're gonna part alike.

And it became a law in Israel.

You know, when you couldn't go to battle, you parted alike anyway.

You know, sometimes people are not in a shape to do their part in a church.

Sometimes they just have to lay back and recover.

But we part alike around here.

Whatever we get, we get it all.

Everybody has equal share.

Amen, all right.

First, chronicles 14.

Another time in David's life.

This was a part of his life that was very common throughout his history, and so when the Philistines heard that David was anointed king over all Israel.

This is seven and a half years after he became what we just read about.

72 hours later, he became the king over the Southern Kingdom, judah and Benjamin.

72 hours after Ziklag, see, I mean, that big disaster happened right before a big breakthrough.

Saul was killed and he took he took the kingdom of the Southern, of the two tribes, and so you still had 10 tribes that he wasn't king over the house of Saul.

They kept at war with the house of David.

There was a split, and all that happened because of the sin of Saul.

It all happened because of departing from the covenant.

But then, after seven and a half years, here we pick up the story and now he is now the king of all the unified.

All of Israel has now made him the king.

And when the Philistines heard that he had been made king, they came out and attacked him.

I'm telling you, when you get a promotion, the devil's gonna line up against you and he's gonna try to steal it.

He's gonna try to intimidate you.

When you get a breakthrough, he's there to try to stop it.

He's there to try to turn it any way that he can.

And so the Philistines verse 17, or verse nine Philistines came and spread themselves in the valley of Refaim and David inquired of God see, there it is meekness.

Then he's been king now seven and a half years, and before that all those years of the 600 mighty men and being a leader and a captain over them.

I mean, he is not a novice, he's not a little babe in the woods.

This is a sophisticated worship, you know, plus a warrior, plus a leader of men.

And yet what does he do?

He leans on God.

He's meek, he's still meek.

That's a secret of his success.

David inquired of God saying shall I go up against the Philistines?

Will you deliver them into my hand?

And the Lord said unto him go up, for I will deliver them under thine hands.

And he went down into the valley of Refaim and they cleaned their clock.

Well, that's the Griner translation.

I mean, they annihilated the Philistines, they killed them, and he said the Lord has broken.

See, he didn't take credit.

He said the Lord has broken forth upon mine, enemies, as the breaking forth of water.

He's the Lord of the breakthrough.

Just like a dam, you get a little hole in the dam and pretty soon that water comes rushing through there, busts the dam wide open.

That's what the Russians did to Ukraine.

They busted a dam wide open, flooded I don't know how many acres of rich farmland that they've ruined in the Ukraine.

Ukraine was the bread basket of the USSR back when United Soviet Socialist Republic, when it was that.

Well, when you break a dam open, you've loosed a lot.

So he's giving God the credit.

See, again, I'm talking about meekness.

And then you know one thing about the devil he doesn't give up quick.

So they lined up against him again.

I guess they wanted more of the same.

So you know, many times people like that we just assume okay, god gave me the victory, I'm gonna line up against him, I'm gonna do it again.

No, he went back to the Lord again, verse 14,.

Therefore, david inquired again of God and God said unto him go, not up after them, don't do it like he did last time.

Come upon them over against the mulberry trees, and it shall be when you shall hear a sound of going.

That word going means marching.

We hear a sound of the marching in the top of the mulberry trees.

I wonder who's marching in the top of the mulberry trees?

Must have been a bunch of angels Last time I looked.

Soldiers, don't march on the top of trees.

When you hear that sound, when you hear that sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then shall you go out to battle, for God has gone forth before.

They dismite the host of the Philistine, and David therefore did as God commanded him and they smote the host of the Philistines from Gibbon even to Gaza.

God gazers Gaza strip and the fame of David went out into all lands and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations.

You see God, as long as you give him the honor, as long as you are meek and you're dependent on him, he doesn't mind you being elevated.

He doesn't mind you being exalted, not one little bit.

What he hates is for you to exalt yourself and to think it's because of your greatness or your power that you did anything.

See, he was meek and dependent upon God, and David stayed meek and dependent on God's plan and God's way, very unassuming, which is unusual for a king.

When you keep reading the history of and I find it tedious, I read it because it's in my Bible.

I read it, but I don't like reading it because why?

It's just one stupid thing after another.

It's hard to watch, hard to, and all of that is in there.

For whose benefit?

Mine and yours?

It's all in here not to catch it.

It's in here not to cast dispersions on these people that make these dumb mistakes.

I mean over and over.

They're not meek, they're full of pride.

They think they can do anything.

Amen.

Now, that's why God didn't want them to have kings.

So three keys to finding God's way One must be meek, not weak.

Number two one must walk in the fear of the Lord.

So let's go back to get anything out of this, amen.

Psalm 25.

All right time for a new Bible.

Mine's falling apart.

I'm not, but my Bible is Psalm 25, there's a couple of places in here verse 12.

What man is he that feareth the Lord?

Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose?

Who shall choose?

God shall choose, you're gonna see.

God chooses what you need to hear.

He chooses what to teach you.

That's the danger of not having a pastor.

And what we've exploded since COVID is unattached Christians, people who used to go to church and have a pastor.

Maybe it wasn't ideal, maybe it wasn't perfect, but at least it was scriptural to have a pastor, and they've left the church.

Most of them are offended.

They're offended the way things were handled and all that, and they haven't taken the time to get reassigned.

God has got a new assignment for them and they're not listening for God to tell them where to go.

They're unattached.

And let me tell you something they're vulnerable because they're teaching themselves and they're not teaching themselves properly.

They're feeding on the wrong stuff.

They're listening to the wrong messages.

I didn't hear any amens on that, but anyway, praise God, it's true anyway.

So God chooses what he's gonna teach you.

If you what fear the Lord, say fear of the Lord In verse 14,.

The secret of the Lord is with them.

That fear him and he will show them his covenant.

So the fear of the Lord that I'm referring to is not the cold starch being afraid of God.

It's reverencing God.

It's wanting to please him beyond anything.

It's wanting to follow his way and his path, no matter who.

It identifies me with or separates me from the fear of the Lord.

Not standing in our own righteousness, but standing in faith.

See where the righteousness we have was imputed unto us.

It's not behavior, it's not how good we are, because none of us good enough.

No, the righteousness is a gift.

It was given to us.

The most important thing is that we have the right to be good enough.

No, the righteousness is a gift.

It was given to us the moment we got saved.

We became what the righteousness of God in Christ, what we have, we have in Christ.

So when we know that, say we're not weak, we can be meek, but yet, at the same time, we can stand up and move out in faith, knowing that when we pray, god is hearing us.

And once we know, then we obey.

Once we know, now that's what we're talking about.

Now, how do you find that way?

See, well, we'll get to part number three here in a minute, but this message presupposes that you're going to do it and you're going to find your answers that you need for life, and you're going to find some things that you need to take action on.

And when you do, and when you identify what those are, then you must obey, because if you don't obey, then he's not Lord anymore.

Jesus is Lord.

He said why call you me Lord?

Lord, don't do the same things.

I tell you.

Why dare call me Lord and you're going to do your own thing?

Uh-uh, that's why, when I discovered that I had a church to start, it wasn't going to be the way Brother Osteen told me.

It wasn't going to be a phone ringing in his office and saying, hey, we need a pastor.

You got anybody.

Yeah, I got John Griner.

I'm going to send him to you.

John, pack your bags.

You're going to Dubuque, iowa.

You know what?

I found out?

That God had a plan for me to start this church in Houston.

I never would have dreamed it, I never thought it.

I never knew it until the last.

And then, once I knew it, then it was on, incumbent upon me to do what.

Who obeyed him, and all the praying that I could ever do wouldn't make up for the disobedience if I hadn't done it.

Obedience, this is what the prophet Samuel told Saul.

He said obedience is better than sacrifice.

I like what one preacher I heard years ago 40 something years ago, he made this statement.

I've stuck with it ever since.

You cannot make up by the sacrifice of prayer what you lose through disobedience.

You cannot make up by the sacrifice of prayer what you lose by disobedience.

It's just supreme.

So obedience, see, is a fear of the Lord.

I say that's why I don't care what people think of me, I don't care if they leave.

I do care, but I'm not going to change what I'm preaching.

I'm not going to change what I believe.

To keep them I can't.

I fear the Lord.

That drives this ministry I have from the beginning.

You must fear the Lord, and one of the great, great, great deficits in the church now is the lack of the fear of the Lord.

There's not really much fear of the Lord at all.

People just kind of do what they want to do.

They go to church where they want to, when they want to.

There's no real try to find out what is God's plan.

It's incumbent upon us to discover His ways and His paths.

Amen.

So meekness, the fear of the Lord.

One more thing with David.

Let's go back here to 1 Chronicles 21,.

Really interesting Getting anything out of this tonight.

Well, we're digging into the Bible.

It's more of a little bit deeper.

On Sunday nights we have an opportunity to get a little deeper with you.

What happened?

I'll just tell the story.

David decided to take a census.

God had forbidden him to do it.

He didn't want him to count his warriors, he didn't want him to count the population.

Because he didn't want to count the population?

Because he didn't want him to trust in the numbers.

He wanted him to trust in God alone.

And he got tempted and he sent Joab, the director of his armies, out to do the census, to count the people.

Joab argued with him.

Joab, you know I like Joab.

He wasn't a yes man.

I don't like to have a bunch of yes people around me.

I like people.

I mean I give people safe harbor that are close to me to tell me what they really see, think and feel.

We have to have that.

I've seen the top down ministries.

They're weak and it's all concentrated in top down.

If the top gets off, the whole thing is blown up.

But when the body, when you mine the rich deposits in the body of Christ and bring those to the surface and you start listening to people.

See, we listened to Linda, linda Martinez, heading up our media center out there, and I mean she prays with people and advises them on what media that they need and talks to people and all that.

So we meet with her and get some feedback from her.

I mean she's valuable to have.

I don't know, I wouldn't know a thing about who's getting what out there why, cause I never go out there.

I can't make it all the way out there unless there's cake.

If there's a cake to cut, I'm there, okay, or he's crying, I'm 20.

All right.

So he goes and he, you know, he does this, he does this census.

And Joab said you know, don't do this, don't sin against the Lord, don't make me do this.

So he did it and he skipped some of them.

He skipped two whole tribes, didn't even give him an accurate count.

And so, anyway, verse 12, only the Lord, give thee wisdom and understanding, give thee charge concerning Israel that you may keep the law of it.

Then you shall prosper.

No, don't, don't do this.

You know he's saying the right thing.

He wants him to prosper, but no, don't, don't make me do this.

So he goes out there and the Lord got angry and there was this huge angel.

That was sin.

And he said I tell you what.

You made a census.

I told you not to do it.

Now, pick three things.

You know you find it here.

I should have wrote it down.

Sorry, it's 21, isn't it?

Second Chronicles 21,.

First Chronicles 21.

There it is.

And so choose the God was just verse seven.

God was displeased with this thing.

Therefore, he smote Israel.

David said unto God, I have sinned greatly because I've done this thing, but now I beseech to do away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.

And the Lord spoke unto God.

Gad, David's seer, that's his prophet, saying go and tell David, saying thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things.

Choose thee one of them that I may do it unto thee.

See, they're old covenant.

When they do this, it demands a payment.

Thank God, christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

We've done worse than this and we don't get curses.

So Gad came to David choose these three years, famine, three months to be destroyed before your foes, or three days, the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel.

Now, therefore, advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.

And David said unto God, unto Gad, I'm in a great strait.

See, man, now he's really hurting because he knows he's the one that sinned, and yet innocent people are gonna die because of it Again.

That's another reason why God didn't want kings.

And so he said let me fall now under the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man.

So the last one was the angel destroying and the pestilence.

That's the hand of God that he'd rather fall into.

And so big old angel shows up, start destroying Jerusalem.

Can you imagine how he was going to fall into the hand of the Lord?

Can you imagine how big that angel was, how big that sword was?

People started dying, 70,000 people died of the pestilence, 70,000 men.

And then, as the angel was destroying Jerusalem, the Lord beheld and he repented him of the evil that the angel that destroyed it's enough hold up.

And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornon the Jebusite.

And David lifted up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heavens.

Ain't no horror movie could equal what he saw.

I mean, he's looking up like that at angel and he said offer, quick, offer a sacrifice at the threshing floor of Ornon.

And so he goes to Ornon, said I need your threshing floor.

He, ornon is threshing weep.

I need your threshing floor.

He says oh, take it, take it, it's nothing, have it, I have to.

I will not take it, I will not offer to the Lord a sacrifice, it costs me nothing.

See, there's the fear of the Lord.

There's the meekness Even in the midst of his big mistake he wasn't gonna do wrong again.

It's another thing.

I see that people you know a lot of ministries just take, take, take.

We have to have volunteers.

We can't pay everybody or I guess we could pay everybody but I mean that really steals the servanthood away from people.

Everybody's paid.

We have to have a paid staff.

I believe in paying people the right amount of money.

I mean we do a lot of research to make sure that when we hire somebody we pay them appropriately.

It's a big thing with us, always has been.

He said I'm not gonna take you.

You wanna give me this threshing floor?

I'm not gonna take it.

You weigh it out.

Weigh it out and I'll pay you full pride.

I don't want a 25% discount.

A lot of people want a discount because of church.

We never asked for that, never, never have, never will.

I'm not gonna ask for a discount Now.

People give us discount.

My doctor gives me a discount.

I didn't even know it.

Oh, your discount on your medication, pastor.

Oh well, thank you.

Tell doctor, thank her, appreciate that.

But I didn't ask for it.

I didn't go in there with my hat in my hands.

Oh, he give me a minute or discount, I'm just so poor.

No, he said, you weigh it out.

I'm gonna give you full price.

I can't offer to God to sacrifice.

It costs me nothing.

Hallelujah, fear of the Lord.

And of course they were able to stop that judgment and he learned the hard way to do it God's way all the time.

You know they're not a perfect person.

You find that out when you read your Bible.

These guys, they seem like they're bigger than life.

They have some many great miracles, but you know, sometimes they make great big mistakes and they have to own them.

And then, lastly, the last one is one must be diligent in prayer.

And so that's what we see with David.

Throughout his life he saw the will of the Lord.

We saw that in verse two, where he said Lord, teach me that way, show me that path.

We see it in verses four and five there of that psalm where he's seeking the Lord.

Let's read it there and go back to Psalm 25.

Lead me in thy truth, teach me.

Without the God of my salvation On thee, do I wait all the day?

What does that talk about prayer?

I wait on him all the day.

He's the king.

He takes the day off and just waits on the Lord all day.

What's wait me?

It means he serves God.

It means that he's ministering to God and he was a wonderful musician, so he would.

I can see that even in his later life he played the harp and worship God.

So when I see these verses it shows me three things in prayer Commit to God, say I trust you.

If you trust him, then you know he's gonna answer.

You can trust his answer.

Number two you commune with God, you spend time with him.

And then finally, number three you continue with God.

And then verse five, on thee, do I wait all the day?

See, you continue, you don't just give a little burst, a little quick.

And really, you know, we know that life is busy.

This is a terrible our society is.

If you're married and you have a home, you've got both parties working and you've got kids at home, it takes a lot of doing to put God first.

But I mean it can be done.

It can be done and you have to decide that.

I can't decide it, you have to decide it.

There's no such thing as finding God's way without a prayer life.

That's how this church came to be and it was the most pressure-packed time of my life.

I was broke.

I had a $680,000 house that was stuck.

It wasn't selling $4,000 a month interest that I couldn't pay.

I mean, it was just a lot of pressure and I just continued with the Lord.

I just kept on praying.

I get up at much earlier and I just pray and pray.

Mostly I pray at other tongues.

I can't tell you how valuable it is to pray in other tongues.

Sometimes you're better off not touching things with your mind, with your brain.

You're better off just saying God, I need to know your way in this situation.

I'm just gonna pray much in the Holy Ghost and then you know your text will go off your phone.

You'll live e-bails.

You're like listen, you're gonna have to turn all that stuff off, get it out of your sight and give yourself time to pray in other tongues.

And it can be done.

This is how this church was birthed.

I can't even explain.

I would be praying in other tongues and just all of a sudden I just have a knowing.

It wasn't God speaking to me in a voice.

He did at one point, but that was just.

It's rare.

What you get is you get the witness of the Spirit rising up and suddenly your mind knows what your Spirit has known for a while and you don't know when your Spirit knows it, until it comes up.

And how do you know?

Praying much in other tongues, praying much in other tongues.

And I got home from open heart surgery in January.

Last part of January spent my birthday 2018, and ICU and got out of the hospital, I think around them 23rd, and I was weak as water man.

I could hardly move and every movement hurt.

But I spent a lot of time in prayer.

I didn't come to church, I didn't want to be here.

I wanted to just wait until I recovered enough and have enough strength to be before you.

And I know, the first time you saw me, I was wide as a sheet, real pale, a whole lot less meat on my bones, but I was praying and it was.

I did a lot of praying in other tongues and God was comforting me about the whole thing and let me know that he had reset my clock.

It's one of the first things he told me after I got home.

He said your clock ran out and I reset your clock.

You ever watch a football game?

And they said, oh, reset the clock to two minutes in 15 seconds, and then these games are supposed to be ending.

You know the two minute warning and they keep resetting the clock and putting more time on the clock.

He put more time on my clock.

My clock had run out.

He put more time on my clock, praise God.

That was nice to know, I said.

I just don't understand.

He says battle scars, battle scars.

You had a bunch of battle scars, but anyway, a couple of months after that, march of 2018, I was praying much in other tongues.

One morning, I just prayed, I just wouldn't stop.

I prayed in tongues, prayed in tongues, prayed in tongues, prayed in tongues, prayed in tongues, march of 2018.

Now it's been five and years and four months later, but that morning, and you know, as I was praying in tongues and I just, you know, I had to keep making myself get back to it.

I had to.

I'm in my study, I've got a computer there and it'll ding, you know, and it's tempting me to be distracted every time a text comes in or an email or something.

But I just stayed with it, stayed with it, prayed in other tongues, prayed in other tongues, and after about two hours, I'd say I saw this wall.

It was at the end of a big pasture.

I say pasture but it was just like overgrown.

It didn't have like crops on it, it was overgrown with weeds, I guess.

Didn't look like anything pretty or anything like that.

But there was this wall sticking up at one end of it, about eight or 10 foot tall, and it was covered over with brambles, thick brambles, and vines.

This wall, and I just kept praying and pretty soon out of that wall came a door and it opened, like that, and the word of the Lord came to me.

He said I'm about to send you into the regions beyond and you're gonna take a word of demonstration and you're gonna give people what religion can't give them.

You're gonna bring a demonstration of healing and deliverance.

And I really believe that we're just on the cusp of that, because after all this COVID stuff, and suddenly God let my name be known all over the nation and we got 17,700 followers on Facebook.

I know Facebook by itself is not much, but you know Facebook, little by little, see, we're putting little teaspoons of truth out there and people are getting it and then they're reacting to it.

They're reacting to it.

Our consultant, royce's son Ryan, he just can't get over the kind of action we have on our Facebook page.

He said you've got way more reaction to the post that people.

They're responding Instead of just liking it with a like.

You know, like a thumb or a heart, they don't do that.

They'll take the time to sit down and say amen, amen, preach it, brother, amen, pastor, amen, amen.

I mean I have 500 amens that people typed in there to one post and he said this is unheard of.

We don't get this kind of reaction typically.

I mean you know you're doing good to get the, to get the little thumbs up or the little heart, but I believe that God is beginning to move us out.

I believe my God votes is gonna do the same thing.

Thank God is expanding our footprint.

We're going out through this door into the regions beyond.

I remember I spent the next year trying to figure out what town I was gonna go to and the answer is it's all over the nation and I haven't gone anywhere.

It's stayed right here.

Now, god's got some ideas for you, god's got a way, god's got a path.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

Father, we thank you that we have a way before us, before us that you have charted for us, and we're not gonna be satisfied with our way.

Not another minute.

We're not gonna do things our way, we're gonna do things your way.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

You get anything out of this tonight.

Come on, let's lift our hands, father, thank you tonight.

Thank you, jesus.