Stay The Course

So if you'll bend down and pick up your Bible and you can do this at home, you can pick up your phone you can even kind of touch your device if you want to, because there's a Bible app on that isn't there and wave it around and make Jesus glad in the devil mad and say Heavenly Father, I'm grateful for tonight's word.

It's a right now word.

It's exactly what I need to hear.

I believe in supernatural hearing, and so I grab ahold of your word and I am planted inside my heart and it's not going anywhere, but I'm gonna water it with the word and I'm gonna stand firm on my faith In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I just wanna preach a really simple message for you, for all of us, tonight, and the title is Staying the Course, staying the Course.

And so it's really important to stay on course, not the wrong course, but the correct course, the one that God has predestined us to be a part of, and he's planned.

Even before you were born, god had a plan designed just for you, specifically for you, that only you can fulfill, and so let's learn about that tonight, and then we're gonna flip over later on and we're gonna talk about the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the beginning of Peter's ministry as well, and look at the early on the decisions that they made in order to stay their course, amen.

And so if you'll turn with me, I'm gonna be reading out of the amplified classic version and Lee's gonna have that up on the screen.

But if you have your Bible there at home or wherever you're watching from I know if you're driving obviously you wouldn't reach for your Bible, but I like to do that a lot.

I end up watching a lot of live streams going down the road, but I'm listening to them and not watching them.

Anyways, ephesians 2-10 in the amplified classic and again, this is one of my favorite scriptures.

I've used this scripture a lot, even in receiving the offering, but it's because Paul is letting us know that what God laid out even before like I said earlier, before you were even born.

So let's dig in amen Again, ephesians 2-10, for we are God's own handiwork.

The new living translation says masterpiece.

You are His masterpiece, his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, born anew that we may do those good works which God predestined.

That just means planned beforehand.

Everybody gets all caught up in that predestined word.

They make it really complicated and it's not at all.

It just means that, before you were born, god had plans designed just for you Excuse me For us taking paths which he prepared ahead of time that we should walk in them, living the good life Everybody say the good life which he pre-arranged and made ready for us to live.

And so let's go back, we're gonna just break this up piece by piece and just kind of go over it until we know that.

We know that, we know that it's on the inside of us, amen.

So we're His handiwork, we're His workmanship, and I looked that word up and it means the quality imparted to a thing in the process of making it.

So, in the process of making you and creating you, god imparted inside of you quality, real quality.

And so just think about that, just think about that.

You truly are the real deal.

You know, on the way here, we stopped at the car wash and we were washing, we were getting my wife's jeep washed, and so I was checking on the car and Selena was over there sitting by herself, and so an older gentleman came and began to compliment her and said that man, you are the real deal, and she truly is.

She's my real deal.

I was nicer than that later on when I was talking to him.

But she is my real deal.

But you know, you are God's real deal.

You have been made with quality, amen Imparted, and into you amen.

And so we are.

His workmanship, his handiwork, recreated in Christ.

We've been born a new, a new creature that's never before existed, right, that we may do those good works.

And so the good works that we're talking about here.

Obviously we're saved by grace, through faith, and so our good works, in other words, what we do down here on earth, doesn't matter, it doesn't bear to us getting into heaven.

So it's not about salvation.

But how many of you realize that your good works, what we do down here, affects and lasts for eternity, it lasts into heaven, right?

And so we must be totally focused on bearing fruit for God's kingdom in our lives.

Everything about our behavior, everything about our attitudes, everything about our thoughts must line up with bearing fruit for His kingdom, god's kingdom, and so what we do down here on earth, it matters, it has eternal significance, amen.

And so, and the works that he has for me to do are only for me to do, and so they're for me to complete, and so, like I said earlier that there's things that only you can complete, that are on His path for you to complete.

So it says taking paths which he prepared ahead of time.

So ahead of time, before the beginning of time, he's prepared these paths for you, and so it's your responsibility to walk down those paths.

It's not your mom's responsibility, it's not your dad's responsibility.

I'm really grateful for I have awesome parents and Growing up I had a praying mama that would intercede and pray for me and keep me on the right path.

But you know, there became a day that it was my decision on staying on that path, and so there's a good and acceptable, but there's also a perfect will of God that's way up here, that is obtainable, to walk in and walk down.

But we do that by faith, and so God's plan is complete in our lives, and so this plan has been prepared ahead of time.

It's been.

You know, when we choose to walk our own way, there's no preparation in that way, right, and so there's tripping and there's falling and there's stumbling and there's.

You know, you exit early and you miss everything that God prepared for you.

And the simplest way to get back on path, on God's path for your life, is just realize in your prayer time the last time that you missed it and go back and do it.

You know, obey God.

It's never too late to obey God and do the right thing.

Go ahead and realize what you did wrong through your prayer life.

Allow him to show you, go back, pick up right where you left off, and that's where his grace or his ability kicks in and only he can redeem the time.

Amen, he redeems the time and puts you right back on his path for your life.

Amen.

But it's your responsibility.

And so again, if you get off on your own path, it's unprepared, it's got potholes in it, it's got you know.

It's got a big dead-end sign and you're running.

The bridge is out.

Trust me, you don't wanna go down your own path, you wanna walk down the one that he's planned out for you.

So recently I got to take a motorcycle trip.

I love riding my motorcycle, and so another pastor had invited me out to Big Bend National Park out in West Texas and we were gonna meet a big group of he was riding with them from the Dallas area.

So I rode out by myself and met up with the big group and then we had about five more hours of riding together and right away, boom, there was a problem with the group, and so I won't get into details, but Pastor Larry and I split off from the group right away and we made our own path, and so everything I wanted out of this trip didn't happen with the group, and anytime I was having fun it was outside that group.

I thought when you signed up to go with a group, you know that the leader had done all of the investigating, they were gonna have the best food and the best stops and you were gonna see all the greatest sights and almost every single thing that was planned out never, we never, completed.

So we rode like 40 miles to the other end of the park and we're like a mile away from seeing this amazing whatever there was to see, but we didn't see it.

We had some people in the group that were overheated and got too hot, and so I'll never know what that looks like.

We turned around and we went back.

It was a little bit torturous, right, and so it was all by a lack of planning and a lack of preparation by that leader, and so I got back and I did some thinking about it and I realized my issue with looking forward to somebody else that had planted this.

I'm a really good planner.

I'm gonna do this for a little bit here, but just I do all the planning for all of our trips.

We had a church bus for almost a decade and so we would plan out all kind of trips all over the place antique festivals and baseball games and obviously youth camps and children's church events as well.

But I did all the planning.

I knew where all the stops were gonna be and if there was a restaurant involved, I was in the planning process, and so I get that from my wife.

We don't ever eat at a dud restaurant.

Let me preach about food for just a second.

And when we eat, it's worth eating, it's gonna be some good stuff, right.

And so why?

Because we plan it out, we prepare our trip ahead of time and, plus, she just follows the Holy Spirit and also, if it's a last minute choice, man, it's gonna be good, it's gonna be the right choice, because she's following the Holy Spirit.

And so, again, you don't wanna go your own way, you wanna go down the pathway that God has prepared just for you, and so along that path is provision, it's finances that will get you through the toughest times, it's peace that will invade the squirreliest of minds.

It's patience when you need patience, when you just can't figure it out.

It's the answer when all else seems lost.

There, god is invading your pathway with light and he lights up your path through his word and you're able to follow, step by step by step.

Sometimes you can't see.

You know, riding through the desert in a Big Bend National Park, you can see forever.

I mean, just these gorgeous mountains all around, and it was just amazing, incredible, you know, but we couldn't always see all the way across the desert to those mountains.

Sometimes we had a mountain right there in our face, and so sometimes you can't see 10 miles down the road, 20 miles down the road.

You just have to trust them step by step, by reading your word and receiving that revelation.

That's another thing.

That's along that pathway is a pastor that knows how to feed you exactly what you need to eat out of the word of God.

That will feed you revelation that's right, on time, that's right, exactly what you need to hear, that encourages your heart and that's so important.

Living in these last days you know this is the last day's church and so nobody's ever pastored in the last days.

I just, you know, here we are in our 28th year.

We've been pastoring for 27 years my dad has, and so we've been right alongside with them, holding up his arms along with the Holy Spirit, amen, just serving.

And it's all about people.

It's all about lifting up their arms when they need help, amen.

It's all about helping people and it's all about pouring into them, and then we receive fruit out of that right and so, and then they're able to bear more and more fruit, and so I just I look at it I know this is live stream, but we have a little studio audience here as well and so I look out at fruit.

Every single one of these represents fruit that we've that their pastor has poured into, and they have gone and poured into others, and I see that over and over and over again, and so that's so encouraging, and that's what church is all about.

That's what not forsaking the assembly of the body of Christ, being part of the body of Christ and being connected.

Man, there's total joy on your pathway that God has called you for.

There's every provision that you're ever gonna need is along his path.

So let's find that path, let's get on that path and let's stay the course, amen.

And so you know.

And how do we stay on that path?

It's all about doing it by faith.

Amen.

There is a fight of faith, but it's a good fight of faith.

It's not a nasty fight of faith.

It's not necessarily a bloody fight of faith.

Excuse me, I can't cough.

I mean I can't laugh because I know.

Anyways, you know, our pastor just got through preaching a really good message Sunday morning Faith, the believer's servant.

It was an awesome message.

I encourage you to go back if you missed it or didn't watch it on live stream.

That's available on our Facebook and on our YouTube channels.

We just launched yesterday a brand new website, so we're in the process of catching that 100% up, but it has a lot of good messages as well.

My wife just preached a message Sunday night entitled the Real you being Authentic and just all about your authenticity with yourself and with God.

Amen.

It's impossible to hide things from God, and God sees every area of your heart, every compartment of your heart.

He knows and he sees you and he's able to heal every single thing in your life when you allow him to be Lord of all.

Amen.

And so I just you know, as Selena, my wife was preaching Sunday night, she read a story out of Luke, chapter five.

So we'll turn if you'll turn, if you have a Bible turned with me to Luke, chapter five.

Again, I'm gonna read it out of the amplified, but I've got my new King James version right here.

I kind of wanted to back up for just a second.

I think it helps to see to know the context when you're studying the Bible and reading the Bible.

So we're gonna read about Peter in chapter five.

But chapter four starts out with Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert or in the wilderness, and then he's rejected.

He goes to Nazareth and he wants to do some miracles, but he can't because he's rejected, because that was his hometown.

And so then he makes it over to Simon Peter's house.

Chapter four, verse 40,.

It says "'When the sun was setting, all those who had any?

"'that were sick of various diseases'', "'i'm sorry, I missed it' verse 38, "'and there it is, it's right in front of me'.

"'now he arose from the synagogue, "'and entered Simon's house'".

This is Simon Peter.

He's not been named Peter yet, and it doesn't say if he was invited in.

Obviously he was invited in, but maybe he just showed up and knocked on the door.

What if he did that?

But it says Simon's wife's mother, so his mother-in-law was sick.

How many of you know that's a real problem.

When your mother-in-law is sick and she lives with you, that can be a real issue.

And she had a high fever and they made requests of Jesus concerning her.

So Jesus stood over her and rebuked the fever and it left her.

And immediately everybody say immediately, immediately she arose and served them and so she got right to work, amen.

And so maybe she made some coffee and a little bit of dessert, maybe she got to bacon.

But that was exactly what needed to happen.

And Jesus had been preaching and he goes there to rest, but he's not resting because Peter's mother-in-law was sick.

And so he intervenes and boom, she's healed immediately as soon as he lays his hands on her.

And so, again, this is before he's called Peter to the ministry.

And so let's read about Peter being called to ministry Now in Luke, chapter five, I'm gonna switch over to the Amplified Classic First one.

It says and now it occurred that while the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the message of God, he was standing by the Sea of Galilee and he saw two boats drawn by the sea, but the fishermen had gone down from them and were washing their nets.

In other words, they had been fishing.

We were about to find this out.

They had been fishing all night.

They've cleaned up the boat and now they're cleaning up the nets.

Right, it takes a lot of effort when you wanna go fishing ask me how I know that and so everything has to be cleaned, especially when salt water is involved.

And so it was no different back then.

So they've cleaned up.

And verse three and getting into one of the boats which belonged to Peter, he requested Peter to draw away a little from the shore.

Then he sat down and continued to teach the crowd of people from the boat.

So real quick.

Nothing to do with what I'm preaching about, but we like to use this scripture when we're preaching about running sound.

And so Jesus was his own sound man, and so he got in this boat and he got away from shore and his voice echoed over the water and it had allowed all of those people, the multitude of people, to hear him.

And so it's so important to be able to be heard when you're preaching, right?

And so we've kind of reiterate this scripture in with our sound men and women of how important it is to have good, sound right.

But more than that, you see that Peter didn't say no, he was willing.

Immediately he was willing.

And you say, well, hey, his mother-in-law was already healed, he's already witnessed a miracle by Jesus.

Maybe it was a little bit easier, but you know, either way, I like the fact that he immediately obeyed right, don't you?

And so he did exactly what Jesus wanted and he followed directions and he gave him access to his livelihood.

So now Jesus has been in his home and now Jesus is in his business.

He's in his livelihood in his boat that makes him money.

This is how Peter makes money, right, and so Jesus has.

I mean, peter has given Jesus access into that right.

In verse four, and when Jesus had stopped speaking, he turned to Peter and pulled out and said pull out into the deep water and lower your nets for a haul.

And Simon Peter answered master, we toiled all night exhaustively and caught nothing zero in our nets.

But on the ground of your word, I will lower the nets again.

In other words, hey, we've cleaned everything up.

The last thing I wanna do is go get everything dirty again and have to clean it all up again.

But hey, because of your word on the ground, of your word I'm gonna obey.

So maybe he didn't obey immediately, maybe he let his brain kick in there for a second, doing this for so long.

I can tell you that the smarter someone is, the more they allow their brain to get in the way and really for some of those people it's a little bit difficult to get them to follow the Holy Spirit and to get them to follow the word, because their brain is in their way.

They wanna analyze everything here.

Peter, he wanted to analyze and argue, and just because it made no sense, hey, you don't catch fish during the day, you catch fish at night, and they've been out all night long.

They're tired and, like I said, the last thing they wanna do is have to clean all this up again and waste of time.

But you know what he ended up obeying, and so he got his brain out of the way.

Just took just a half second.

But all of us are guilty of having our brain in the way and it's just a matter of training ourselves to be quicker, to obey the Holy Spirit, the word of God, and to obey when he speaks to us, and so we need to be quick to obey, right.

And so Peter does this in verse six and it says and when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and as their nets were at the point of breaking verse seven, this is important they signaled to their partners and the other boat to come and take a hold with them.

And they came and they filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

So this was such a huge harvest of fish that their nets were about to break and the boats were actually sinking, began to sink under the weight of all these fish.

But I wanted you to see something that Peter's obedience affected his partners.

And so you know partnership is so critically important.

You know you're our partner and we're your partner.

We partner together, we're in this together, right, those of you that consider yourself a member here.

We're in this together, we're partners, and your obedience affects us and our obedience affects you, and we're obeying God together.

And you see the importance of partnership in this story.

And so maybe I should just finish reading, real quick, verse eight.

But when Simon Peter?

Well, bottom line.

I will read this here in a second.

But in verse 10 it says who the partners are, it's James and John, and they all get called to the ministry.

And so look at, peter's obedience affected the future lives of James and John.

Think about that.

And so, and not only that, it gave them a harvest that catapulted them to be able to answer the call.

In other words, they had a financial harvest so great from those fish that they were able to support their families as they left their livelihood and follow Jesus right.

And so everybody likes to you know, excuse me, religious people like to say that Jesus had nothing.

But no, jesus was blessed, he had all that he needed, and he's supplying these men with all that they needed to catch, you know, with this harvest of fish.

It's gonna go back and support their families, especially Peter and his mother-in-law that's living with them, anyways.

And so verse eight.

But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.

For he was gripped with bewildering amazement, and all who were with him, in other words James and John as well, at the hall of the fish that was just made.

And so I wanted to point out to you that the supernatural power of God, that this miraculous sign and a wonder, convicted immediately.

Convicted them of their sin, and in a fearful way.

They were afraid, not in a respectful way, but more into, like you know, a fearful way.

It says and what does Jesus say?

And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon Peter.

And Jesus said to them to Simon, have no fear, from now on you will be catching men.

And after they had verse 11, and after they had run their boats on shore, they left everything and joined him as his disciples and sided with his party and accompanied him.

Amen.

So they were called into ministry.

But I want you to see that the conviction of the Holy Spirit you know the Holy Spirit's not on the scene yet, but the supernatural always snaps a person into reality, it aligns, it allows them to see the character of God so clearly, so quickly.

And so we don't have to bend over backwards to try to get somebody saved.

We don't have to bend over backwards and preach all the don't do's and all of the.

You know, we can show the love of God through the power of God, and I think that's what's missing overall in the overall church.

I'm not talking about this church, I'm talking about the church at large is the power of the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, wonder working power of God.

It's just allowing the Holy Spirit to have his way and for signs and wonders to happen and for miracles to take place.

And so this is a financial miracle as much as it is anything else.

And I'm telling you, god hasn't, god hadn't lost the recipe for miracles.

He's still able to perform financial miracles to this day, amen.

And so all we have to do is lean on him and rely on him.

And so I want you to see that excuse me a second, but as we partner with God, what he's able to perform on our behalf?

Right, we have an assignment on our lives, we have a pathway that only we have, things that we're called to do that only we can do, and we must stick, we must stay the course and stick to his pathway for our lives.

And so here we get to witness in this story again a little bit of the context of Jesus answering the call for his life, and then Peter answering the call on his life, peter, james and John, all of them, all three of them answering the call on their lives and picking up the baton and carrying it.

And so it's so important to be obedient to what the Holy Spirit is leading us to do.

And so I also want to point out real quick the importance of the net.

And so we as a body of Christ, we at this church, glorious Way Church, we represent a net and we're all sewn in together in order to now see.

It says that from now on you will be catching men.

We are fishers of men and we are bonded together and we're able to work together as the body of Christ in order to win souls and snatch souls out of hell and place them in the kingdom of God and welcome them into the kingdom of God.

And it's so important what we do here.

It's not, we're not just playing church, this is for real.

We are staying the course as a church.

We are gonna stay on this course.

You know, the church, glorious Way Church, also has a pathway, a perfect will of God for it.

And you know, my daughter just graduated from Ramah Bible Training College in Broken Arrow, oklahoma, and so that was last Friday, and so our family drove up to celebrate with her, but also to move her back here to Houston, and we went up a full day early and we kind of rushed to get there.

We were able to make their Wednesday night service and my daughter was volunteering in their youth service, so it was just Selina and I in the main service and Brother Hagin was just preaching the message on not being moved, you know, and not allowing circumstances to pull you out of the will of God.

But he described it as surfing, you know.

So there are waves of opportunities, and so I don't know if you've ever been surfing.

I have not, I'm not a surfer, but I got my first boogie board.

I know that doesn't count for much, but when I was in the fourth grade I remember that very, very well and it's still in my attic.

I mean, it's really.

It will take all your skin off your chest if you actually use it in the water, cause it's really old, but you know it technically would still work I would say the brand, but then it would turn into a commercial.

But anyways, so I've been.

You know, you're out in the ocean, you're out in the Gulf around here, right, and you're waiting on that perfect wave, and it's gotta be a big wave, right, and so maybe you turn around and you start to paddle a little bit and you realize, oh no, that's not the wave.

And so you know it's really the same way when you're following the will of God for your life.

When an opportunity comes along, you get, you might begin to try it on, you'll begin to pray about it, you'll begin to seek God about it.

But then you realize you know what.

This is not the one.

And so you paddle down and the wave goes over you, no big deal.

And you turn around and you're waiting on the next wave as you begin to paddle further out.

And so, and then boom, the perfect wave comes along and you ride it in right and you're, and it's exhilarating, it's fun.

And so the word of God and the will of God is like that as well.

And so it's exhilarating, it's exciting, it's fun to follow God's will for your life.

And so I just encourage you Hopefully this message was encouraging to you let's lift our hands and receive the word of God.

Father, we're grateful for your word that's invaded our hearts and taken over.

Lord, I thank you for the Holy Spirit that's here, that's able to shine and illuminate areas where we need to change to get back into your perfect will.

And so, father, we know that it's not a hard thing to do.

It's definitely not an impossible thing to do, lord, but you make it easy, right out of your word, and so we're following your precepts step by step, receiving all that we need from you.

And so, father, we just thank you that we'll continue to go up to the next level in you, in Jesus' name, amen.