God's Way Is Best

Lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and give the devil a nervous breakdown.

Now let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I'm here on purpose tonight, to be a witness of the change in these lives.

And, lord, we know that we're changing day by day.

We're drawing near to you, gaining in faith, gaining in knowledge, revelation of your goodness in Jesus' name, amen.

This really ties right in with a lot of what Jay was saying there to the folks that he was baptizing.

Let's look at Psalm one and also get Second Corinthians five in front of you.

Psalm one blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seed of the scornful, but his delight is in the law or the word of the Lord, and in his word does he meditate day and night.

And that person that does that, that doesn't do those first things you know, that doesn't walk and stand and sit where he shouldn't, but the person that delights in the word and meditates, that person, he shall be like a tree.

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.

And then we'll skip down to verse six.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.

The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

And then we, when we look at 2 Corinthians 5, 7, very simple, short verse, but so powerful.

It says for we walk by faith, not by sight, we walk by faith.

God's way is a way of faith, and so that's what I want to talk about.

God's way is best, god's way is best, his way, and I declare that nothing in the past, or even in the present, is going to be equal to the things that are before us.

I'll tell you, our greatest days are ahead.

But why do I say that?

Because the word says it.

If we walk in his way, when we're walking in his way, because to walk in his way we have to walk by faith the just shall walk by faith, the just shall live by faith.

Bible.

So we walk by faith, the just shall walk by faith, the just shall live by faith.

Bible says and so, um, and you know, god has made us new creatures.

We're all new creatures.

You know they were, they were being baptized.

Tonight, jay was speaking over each one of them about their past being gone.

Well, that's true of us too, whether we're acting.

We were baptized at some point.

I'm trusting most of you were baptized.

I knew.

I didn't know I wasn't baptized until I got saved.

Then I realized it wasn't baptism, that my parents had me christened when I was a baby.

I thought that was baptism.

Lots of Catholics think they've been baptized.

Well, you know, the Pope lied.

Don't throw rocks at me, I'm just joking, but anyway, I mean they have the wrong understanding of what baptism is.

Baptism is not sprinkling a little baby.

You know, baptism is the immersion water of a born again believer.

Jesus said he that is bad, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.

Baptism doesn't save you, but it's a sign that you, that's the first thing that you do to prove to God.

Yes, I'm going to walk in newness of life and I'm going to be baptized.

Jesus said to do it.

He's my Lord.

I'm going to follow him in water baptism.

Jay mentioned being baptized as five years old.

So when he was baptized, well, we hurryed up and had Claire baptized.

We just, you know, we just decided for her that she was saved and we just went ahead and had her baptized, but she wasn't saved.

We just got her wet and then, a year or so later, you know we're, we're going to bed.

I'm giving your testimony, honey, I'm sorry, I should save you, I should let you.

Let you do it, you do a better job.

But I mean, she got under conviction.

Little old, whatever you eight years old, seven years old, got under conviction of the Holy Ghost.

She couldn't sleep.

A daddy, I can't sleep, I stop my heart.

They start crying and I thought what in the world?

You know?

And the Holy Ghost said convicted little child, she became aware of her need to get saved.

We had wasted time getting her baptized, which had to get baptized again.

She got the double dunk.

I don't know where I'm going this way, but anyway, get baptized If you've never been, if all you had was christening, that's not what you had.

Christening, that's nothing more than a baby dedication and you need to be water baptized, amen.

You know, in the Middle East, water baptism is the place where the target puts on your back.

You know, if you're a Jew and you, you come to Jesus and you get water baptized.

That's when your family disowns you, disinherits you.

I know a young man who, whose parents hired people to deep program him, they kidnap.

Well, they didn't kidnap him, but they, they Obscended with him, captured him and held him against his will and put him in a uh, in a, in a place where they kind of did mental torture and and tried to make him deny.

And pretty soon he figured out what they were doing and he just went along with them so he could get out from under their, their cat.

You know what they were doing, but but he did not turn his back on.

The Lord.

Are you with me now?

Yeah, and uh, so anyway, uh, anybody that's been born again as a new creature.

Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things have become new.

Second Corinthians, five, 17,.

Just 10 verses down.

We're become new creatures, and that's continually, every moment of every day as a new start.

Every day, as a Christian, you have a new opportunity to grow in the knowledge of your father, heavenly father, and your past is gone.

The blood cleanses you and keeps short accounts with God.

I mean, when you make a mistake, you know it instantly, when you see it, and when you miss it, you know it and right then you get it under the blood.

Right then you say Lord, I missed it, I'm sorry, forgive me.

And that, just like that it's gone, washed away.

Praise God, come on, lift your hands right now.

And that's walking by face.

See, you don't walk by motion, you don't walk by being sorry, you don't do penance.

You know, I was taught to do penance.

It's not in the Bible to do penance, to try to pay for your sins by praying a certain kind of prayer.

It's simply confessing your sin, not to a priest but to God, and he is faithful to just 1 John 1, 9 to forgive you and cleanse you.

So, as we go down this wonderful Christian life, psalm 1 speaks of becoming like a tree, in other words growing like a tree.

You know, a tree grows, hopefully, and finally, when it grows long enough and big enough, it starts to bear fruit.

Doesn't bear fruit overnight, it's a process and that's the way Christianity is.

You start off, everybody starts the same place.

It start off as a baby.

It's very similar to human growth.

It start off as a baby.

Nobody starts off in high school, nobody starts off in college.

They start off as a blubbering, crying infant that needs lots of attention, needs lots of petting and lots of love.

And I tell you baby Christians.

I mean, many times they get crushed in a church.

They get a condemn, they get, you know, like Jay was talking about, instead of being encouraged.

You can make it, you know, they get, you know, beat down and beat up.

That's not the way to do baby Christians.

You gotta be gentle with them.

You gotta love them, just like you love a little baby.

And.

But it speaks of growth and it tells us what not to do, don't you know?

Don't walk, don't stand, don't sit.

I mean, you know, if you're walking down the street and there's a bunch of bad stuff going on over here, you might be on the wrong street.

You might consider not walking down that street again.

But at least, if you're there, just keep walking.

Don't don't stop and stand there and watch, cause if you stop and stand, then you're liable to sit down and partake.

You can see the progression and that's what hangs a lot of people up.

They, they're walking through this life.

It's a filthy place.

It's filled with with iniquity and sin.

It's so easy to get distracted and start to go in the direction of partaking of something like that.

But no, when you take the word of God and you begin to meditate on it, you begin to delight in it.

You know, praise God, it separates you from iniquity.

The Word of God will literally separate you, hallelujah.

And so when you delight in meditating the Word, then you're blessed and prosperous.

I used to take that Word whatever he does, you're prosperous.

I just thought whatever I would do would prosper.

That's what it's kind of.

I forgot about the other part of it.

I just thought I could do anything in business.

I could start as many houses as I wanted to.

I could do.

I didn't have to even.

I didn't even have to pray.

I just I'm a home builder, I'm gonna start a bunch of houses.

No, no, no, no, pray, no, don't find out what God thinks about it, just get out there and do it all.

He said He'd pray, I'd prosper.

Well, I didn't prosper.

I mean those houses didn't sell.

I got in trouble.

You know, when I look back on my life, the troubles that I've had most of the time is because I just went about life half-cocked, doing what I wanted to do, walking my way, you know.

But he's got a way.

I said he's got a way, not everything.

See the Bible, the Word of God is the general will of God for your life.

It's generally, you know, if you obey the Word generally, you'll be in the general will of God.

But then there are certain things it doesn't say in there.

Not to build a house, it doesn't say, you know?

I mean, I was a home builder.

That's how I make my living I make, I build houses.

Okay, that's what it was at that time.

And so when I wasn't building, the cash wasn't flowing.

If the cash wasn't flowing into my business, then the money in the business to pay my salary wouldn't flow into me personally.

So you can see why I was more interested in making sure and turn the crank on my business.

But there came time when God said, okay, let you foot off the accelerator.

I've got some different things.

So when I look at some of the soup that I fell into boiling water, it was because I just did my thing and I didn't wait in prayer.

See, sometimes you've got to discover the will of God by seeking and inquiring and praying and realizing that not everything in the word.

That's the general will, but you need the specific will of God.

You need the specific will of God.

You've got to do the general will of God, but you need the specific will of God.

And so you know 2nd Corinthians 5-7, which we read.

It says we walk by faith, not by what it seems like, looks like, feels like we walk by faith, not by sight.

1st Timothy 6-12,.

Paul told Timothy fight the good fight of faith.

See, we don't fight the devil.

He's been defeated already.

We don't fight sin.

Sin has been taken care of through Jesus.

What do we fight?

We fight the good fight of faith.

Our faith's biggest enemy is the lack of knowledge of God's work.

That's really what the fight is.

The fight is, I mean, the will of you know.

Faith begins where the will of God is known.

Otherwise, you can't have any faith.

So for me, since I didn't even find out that God wanted me to build a specific house at a specific address, I just kept doing what I had done.

I just started just doing what I always done, didn't even pray.

Well, it wasn't God's will for me to do that.

He had another plan for me.

He had a change, because God knows the economy better than we do, and he had a way to bless me.

And he knew that very shortly we're going to have some major problems in the mid-80s, and this city didn't go through a recession.

It went through a depression and every builder that I knew went broke.

All the small, mopping pop, small builders went broke and the only people that survived were the big Bob Perry and all those big, massive builders.

I remember I was building a subdivision and Bob Perry came moving in there and bought about a hundred lots and he started underselling me about $20 a square foot.

Guess who didn't sell their houses.

He, god, knew that was going to happen.

I didn't know it was going to happen.

He had another plan for me that would have blessed me.

But no, you know what.

He didn't give up on me, he didn't condemn me.

I tell you what he just made another way.

He had to move me and he had to alternate plan B.

It was not the full blessing, it was not the full will of God.

He had to.

Let me learn a hard lesson to always wait and let him give us the.

You know he needs to be Lord in every area.

He is our Lord, isn't he?

So walking by faith is the way it's.

The God's way is best.

In fact, in Hebrews 11.6,.

Without faith it's impossible to please God.

So if we're not walking by faith, we're not walking in a pleasing manner to him when we're just walking by, how it seems what it feels like well, I feel like this.

I feel like that.

You know that doesn't please God.

It pleases God when we seek him and we hear from him and he's able to guide us.

Hallelujah, praise God.

I tell you he met me where I was.

He'll meet you where you are.

He knows you're not in the doctorate program yet, you might just be in junior high, you might just be in high school.

I don't know, we're all in different places.

He knows where you are and he knows how to meet you where you are and he knows how to bless you and he knows how you know.

He knows the weakness.

Jesus was tempted in all points, like as we are.

Yet he was without sin.

So, whatever you're going through or have gone through, he's gone through it.

Well, how could that be?

I don't know how.

I just know that it is because the Bible says so.

We're trying to figure it out.

You'll never figure God out, amen, hallelujah.

Think about Jacob and his fadavin mama man.

They were too conniving.

They were made for each other.

They didn't like Esau.

He was hairy, he had a lot of hair.

He had hair growing out of his ears, out of his nose.

He had hair everywhere.

He smelled.

They didn't like him.

Jacob was delicate.

Jacob was slick, smooth.

No, no, no beard.

You know, he was just.

You know his mama's favorite.

Esau was daddy's favorite.

So you know, they engineered this thing where they, they cheated him, you know, out of his blessing.

They'd already kind of stole his birthright from him.

That wasn't too cool either.

But then they engineered it.

Can you imagine these people should have gone to work on Broadway.

They were actors like you can't believe.

They connived and they dressed him up and they killed a.

They killed a lamb and put this hide on him.

You know, made him smell bad like his brother and hairy like his brother.

And daddy is blind as a bat.

He can't see what, you know he can smell, though.

Well, something don't smell right.

You smell too good for Esau.

Esau don't smell like this.

Not even a dead sheep could mask his perfume.

I'll tell you right now.

But what did?

Did God give up?

No, he let him reap what he sowed for 27 years.

He had to reap what he sowed for 27 years, but God never gave up on him.

God brought him back.

God fulfilled every bit of the promise that he had to him.

I'll tell you, god is faithful.

We don't have to just think it's all over just because we slipped up.

Thank God, hallelujah, praise God.

So Our part is just simply to grow, and that's what Jay was praying over some of them, just that the eyes of their understanding be flooded with life that they might know.

You know, they would know who God is, for who he is.

That's all part of a prayer life, that's all part of growing.

And, like I said, nobody's arrived.

Are you growing?

I'm still growing.

How about you?

I mean, every time I go away to Galveston I know a little bit more about God than I did before.

I think about this time last year.

I know God better than I did this time last year.

But if that's not true of you, well then, that's something that you've got to turn up the heat a little bit, because flies can't light on a hot stove.

Maybe some flies have been lighting on your stove lately.

I mean it'd be a shame if they blew it.

You know those maggots.

They grow when dead meat.

That's what happens when meat is dead.

That's what happens in the country.

Dead meat attracts flies and they lay eggs and they become maggots and they eat the dead meat.

I hate to be so graphic, but let's not be turned into fly food, okay, praise God, let's keep moving and let's grow.

Praise God and let's walk in God's way, because God's way is better.

Sometimes, when we try to figure it out with our brain, we think no, I think I'll do it.

No, no, you're headed in the wrong direction, just wait.

I know that a lot of the mistakes that I've made were mistakes of hasty decisions.

I know none of you have ever made a hasty decision.

You know how it is.

I mean, listen, you've got to make this decision right away.

I mean, this opportunity is going to disappear and if I haven't heard from you by this time tomorrow, I'm sorry.

I'm going to have to let someone else have this wonderful opportunity.

And so you know, we have the fear of man, we have the fear of.

The pressure is turned up and we think, oh well, if I did miss a good?

Oh, I don't want to miss this.

Oh, this is a great opportunity.

Well, you don't even know, because you ain't prayed yet, you haven't asked the Lord.

Well, how will I know when he, how will you ever know if you don't begin to live that way.

I didn't know anything about how to hear from God when I first started.

I made so many mistakes.

But if you exercise what the Bible says to do, god will meet you where you are.

That's my point.

No matter how big a novice you are, whether you're just starting out hearing from God, you might be expecting God to talk to you out of heaven.

Thou shalt turn right.

Well, don't hold your breath to hear that.

But God will in fact meet you where you are.

That's the faith part.

How many of you believe that?

Everybody say God will meet me where I am.

He's not gonna meet you where I am.

You can meet you where you are.

And some of the greatest ways that I heard from God in those years of growing up was going to church.

And when I went into the sanctuary of God then I understood I can't count the times I'd go in and brother those things would make one little offhand and come in.

I mean he'd just fly and boy, I'd catch it with my catchers.

Now I'm, oh, I caught that.

That was just for me.

And I'll tell you what praise God.

He knows how to get information to you.

I tell you, let's walk in God's way.

You know, it's a glorious way.

Jesus said I'm the way, the truth, the life.

No man comes to the Father, but by me.

So our tomorrow's become brighter than our yesterdays, praise God.

I don't know, I don't think anybody ever remember Janice Joplin, but Janice Joplin grew up in Port Arthur, texas, and she sang a song when I was in college, called Bobby McGee.

You know me and Bobby McGee.

I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday.

See, that's the world.

They would trade all their tomorrows for a single yesterday.

They're living in the past.

They're living with a rear view mirror.

Thank God, god broke our rear view mirror off.

We've got our brightest days ahead.

I'm not looking back, I'm not looking, I'm not longing for yesterday.

I'm telling you, I'm thanking God for what lies ahead in tomorrow's day.

I'll tell you God's way, god's way is best.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

Praise God.