Anointed By Association

Pick your bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

I've got something that I have prepared for you tonight that I believe it'll be worth coming out on a cold Sunday night.

It's not as cold as it's gonna get, but it's kinda cold and it's kinda.

I don't know about you, but I was kinda looking forward to a little colder weather.

You know, I mean fungus was growing, you know growing in my patio.

It was so humid.

Let's wave those bibles around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I am here by divine appointment tonight.

I have ears to hear what the Spirit is talking to me about.

I believe the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are preparing me to accomplish what you've created me to accomplish.

You have a plan for my life and I don't know the fullness of it, but I am willing to go forward by faith and be a doer of the Word.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated.

Turn your bibles to a couple of places.

First, we'll look at 2 Timothy, chapter two, and while you're finding that, you'll probably go right by 2 Corinthians 8, so put your finger there.

We'll start with 2 Timothy 2.

And we're so glad you're here tonight.

2 Timothy, chapter two, verse one Paul writing to Timothy.

Thou, therefore, my son, my son, see, notice, there is a divine association.

Everybody shout divine association, or you could say a supernatural relationship.

See, obviously Timothy's not his actual son, he's not his natural son.

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same, commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

Notice the progression of divine associations the Paul to Timothy to faithful men, to others also.

The long train, the long series.

And then in 2 Corinthians, 8, verse three.

Well, let's just start with verse one.

He's talking to the Corinthian church.

You know the Corinthian church.

They had a background of the occult, they had a lot of disorder in their church.

He wrote them two letters.

They needed a whole lot of correction and yet they came behind in no good gift.

They had the gifts of the spirit, but they were not very mature.

But anyway, so he's writing to them.

He says more over brethren, we do you to wed at the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that, in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty, abounded under the riches of their liberality or their generosity.

Even though they were poor, they were generous, for to their power I bear record they were so generous.

They were generous beyond their ability and they were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty, that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.

And this they did not, as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto the Lord, and they were willing, of themselves and unto us, by the will of God.

They gave their own selves under the Lord and under us, by the will of God.

So here Paul is using another church, the church of Macedonia, as an example to the Corinthian church, as you know, to try to stir them up to be participators and offering that he's receiving for the poor saints in Jerusalem.

And so he's using them as an example and he talks to them about this, about giving themselves to God first and then to him by the will of God.

So tonight I wanted to just share a message entitled Anointed by Association, anointed by Association, divine Associations, or another word for that would be supernatural relationships.

Supernatural relationships Really, that's what a church is.

A local church like this Is a church filled with people who have divine associations with each other, and with me and with my family, my staff, I mean.

These divine associations are supernatural relationships.

And so here in Timothy he's telling his son be strong in the grace and Christ Jesus and share your divine association and let them be progressive so that they go all the way out and follow one upon another.

You're faithful to me, you're my son.

Now you find faithful men, commit the message that you have for me and commit it to them.

Who can turn around and commit it to them?

You see what I'm saying?

Amen, everybody say divine associations.

And so the Macedonians committed themselves, of course, first to God and then to Paul, by the will of God, and the word commitment, it says it gave themselves.

Another version says commit.

Commit means to surrender, to yield up, to put in prison.

In other words, they were bond servants to Christ through Paul, through Paul, through someone else.

You know, I know we're all saved individually and Jesus is our Lord, but on earth, in the church, we still have to have somebody we're committed to and through, because if we're not, you're gonna miss out on the train of the supernatural relationships through which information and revelation flow.

You'll only know what you know.

You won't know what I know, and what I know and am able to give to you might save your life.

If I weren't in your life and no one like me was in your life and it's just between you and Jesus and that's it.

You and reading your own Bible, and that's all there is, you're likely to miss a whole lot of things, you know.

It kind of reminds you of Philip, you know.

He left a big meeting in Samaria and God told him to go someplace else, you know, and he saw a guy in a chariot and he was reading his Bible.

He said what are you reading?

I'm reading the book of Isaiah.

And he said well, what does it mean?

He said well, how can I know unless somebody teach me?

You know, and yet I know people that call themselves pastors, who've never had a pastor and they're here trying to teach other people a lot of things they don't even know.

I thank God for the supernatural relationships that I've had in my life and I've lived my life in ministry, faithful to those relationships, to surrender, to yield up, to put in prison.

You know.

Jesus said how can you ever get your own if you're not faithful over another man's?

So years ago, that period of time, I was well acquainted with a young prophet.

He'd come to town.

He was from another state.

He liked to visit Lakewood.

When he came to town I just offered a place for him to stay, stay with me, and I got to visit with him.

And you know, an awnings are transferable.

So a lot of the prophetic that I flow in, I mean, came from my association with him for a number of years.

And you know, prophets new Testament prophets are not like old Testament prophets, but new Testament prophets tend to be seers.

They tend to have dreams, and while he was staying with me I had a dream, my first dream that I guess I could really say was from the Lord, and he had to be staying there.

So the next morning I shared it with him so he could help me interpret it, because I didn't know how to do that.

And so in the dream I was on this cargo vessel on the Houston ship channel, because I said I mean I'm going down this body of water and one side is big refineries, on the other side is all these big oil storage batteries, and the boat didn't have a superstructure, it was flat but had cargo holes underneath the deck.

And I'm standing all the way in the stern of the vessel, just almost with my heels hanging over the back right where the propeller is boiling up the water, and I'm feeling the vibration of the big engines underneath my feet.

And I'm thinking in the dream boy, this is such a powerful vessel, wow, it was probably as long as maybe from here to the other side of the lobby.

It wasn't a tanker, it was just pretty good sized, maybe a 80 foot or 100 foot long, maybe I don't know, maybe not a 100 foot, anyway.

So I have an engineering background.

So I was thinking, man, one of what kind of engines are under my feet?

I'm gonna take a look.

So I pulled the cover up off of the engines and, man, it was hot, the manifolds were hot and the diesel fuel and exhaust fumes, and just hit me in the face.

And then I looked up, I was no longer on the vessel.

Now I'm in an 18-wheeler, looking over the hood, but the sound of the engine didn't change.

I mean, in the dream it just sounded exactly the same.

I didn't even know I had switched from a boat to a truck and so, anyway, he said, well, this is a good one, this is a good one to get a hold of.

He said you're carrying a blend of oil.

You're on the Houston Ship Channel and the refineries and the oil storage, and you've got a boat that's a container of oil.

He said you are at Lakewood Church where Brother Osteen has all these other ministries coming in, brother Hagan and Shambach and Till Osburn, and just name all of the people of that time.

They all came to Lakewood and I'm a partaker of that oil.

That oil stands for the Holy Ghost, the anointing, and he said you were discovering the power of the anointing in your life, because you're not just one, you're a blend of anointing and you're discovering the power of the anointing that's on your life.

That's why you raised the hatch and looked at the engines and I said, well, what about the 18-wheeler?

He said, well, that's another segment.

Your dream had two segments.

A lot of times dreams will have two segments or maybe three segments.

That second segment was futuristic and he wouldn't go there, he wouldn't even talk about it.

So we didn't investigate what the other part of the dream meant.

I just call it my ship channel dream.

And that's when I became aware of how important my church was to my spiritual growth and how strategic it was because of all these tremendous ministries that would come into that church and I'd get to sit under those and partake of those teachings.

In later years I even got to drive some of them and be there like they're chauffeur when they were in town, several of them and so that was another level and of course I was very conscious of that.

That's another opportunity to interface with someone and gain even more of the transfer of the anointing, anointed by association.

So let's look at David, 1 Samuel 22 here.

Let's look at a great example of this in the Bible, 1 Samuel 22.

David's on the run from Saul.

Saul's wanting to kill it.

Remember, david killed Goliath.

The women of Jerusalem saying David's killed his David, saul has killed his thousands, david has killed his 10,000.

And so David was the popular boy, young, and the women were shouting his praises and it made Saul jealous and he was gonna kill David.

And so David is on the run, chapter 22, verse one.

David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Dulum, and when his brother and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.

Now, you know, just think about this.

Now their entire family was uprooted because David killed Goliath.

They fell out of favor with the king.

The king, I mean, you know, everybody's against David's family.

So they had to leave.

When he left, I mean they couldn't stay where they were.

Where is David?

I'm gonna kill you one by one if you don't tell me.

So.

They probably weren't very happy to be there.

I mean, they moved from town to a cave.

Did you read your Bible like that?

I read my Bible that way.

That's what I like to read my Bible.

I think about all the side issues.

And then they disappeared from the pages of the Bible you never read.

You don't read about his daddy, you don't read about his brothers.

They're gone, they disappeared.

And then he says verse two and everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented and gathered themselves unto him and he became a captain unto them.

He became a captain over them, and there were with him about 400 men.

And what kind of men were they?

Well, they were in distress, everyone that was in debt in other words, they had a creditor looking for him and everyone that was discontented.

Bitter of soul Boy.

That is quite a kingdom that he was amassing, 400 of those kind.

You know when your door is open and people know where you're at.

You don't get to pick who shows up.

I'm sure if he was picking he might have picked something a little bit.

You know a little more mature.

But he became notice.

It says he became a captain.

So while he'd been busy fighting and becoming a giant killer and being very successful, they were busy failing.

They were failing in just about every area and he became a captain.

That word captain means Lord, master, prince ruler.

Now, yes, the prophet Samuel had anointed him king at age 18, but he was not in the office.

He was anointed ahead of his time.

He had an anointing on his he in the Old Testament, the only anointing that was present was the priest, the prophet and the king.

Well, saul is still king.

God had not removed Saul from the office, and so David can't be king, but he's anointed to be king.

And so God then supplied him with an outlet for the anointing on his life to lead and to shape and to influence.

Are y'all following me along here?

How important was David to those 400 men?

I tell you he was a whole lot more important to those 400 men than those 400 men were to him.

Are you with me?

But yet it was an opportunity for David to grow, because he's a young man and so he has to start somewhere.

So he started and uh, and correspondingly then they, as independent as they were you can imagine how independent they were.

Here they are in debt, discontented, and all of that I mean.

They didn't start off being very easy to work with, but eventually they committed themselves unto David.

There had to be a commitment.

They had to uh, yield up, to surrender and put themselves in prison on his behalf.

They had to learn how to follow the leader.

So in uh, let's turn over to first Chronicles 11, 20 years later.

First Chronicles 11, 20,.

Everybody say 20 years, so you just don't snap your finger.

20 years and 20 years.

They're called mighty men, david's mighty men.

He must have taught him something.

He must have molded and shaped them.

They must have received from his anointed.

They were anointed themselves by association for a specific purpose, not anointed to be a priest, prophet or king, but anointed to help David accomplish his mission.

Are you with me now?

And so there uh, verse 15, uh, chapter 11, verse 15.

Now three of the 30 captains went down to the rock, to David, into the cave of Adulam, and the host of the Philistines had camped in the valley of Refaim and David was then in the hold, and the Philistines garrison was in Bethlehem.

And David longed and said, oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate.

And the three break through the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and took it and brought it to David.

But David would not drink of it but poured it out to the Lord and said my God, forbid it me that I should do this thing.

Shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy, for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it.

Therefore he would not drink it.

Glory to God.

So here you know, years ago I got a hold of these principles as God began to promote me and God began to associate with me closer and closer, and some of the divine associations that he had for me.

I guess you know I first started out.

I mean I had never heard of John Osteen, never heard of Lakewood Church.

I never heard of Word of Faith.

I never heard of baptism, of the Holy Ghost.

I think I might have heard about speaking in tongues.

I thought it was Holy Rollers.

I heard something about Holy Rollers when I was a kid.

I'm Catholic, you know.

I didn't know much outside of Catholic.

And then, of course, baptist.

I married a Baptist girl so I knew enough about Baptist to stay away from Baptist churches Because every time I went there I knew where I was headed.

I knew I was going to hell.

All the Baptist churches she took me to Preach, tell Fire and Brampton and I just did not want to hear that.

But anyway, I went to.

I took my entire family, went to California right after I got saved.

I mean, the first year after I got saved my tithe was bigger than my income.

Two years before, I mean, my finances turned around, I learned about tithing, I got out of the doldrums and started getting blessed.

So anyway, we went to a full gospel businessmen's world convention in Anaheim, california, which happened to be in the same town as Disneyland.

So we went to the convention and we heard Pat Robertson and David Yongecho and Kenneth Copeland and all the big speakers you know that were there that year TBN was on site and doing programs there and so forth and so on.

And so we got on the shuttle bus to go from the hotel to the Anaheim Convention Center and so, you know, I've been going to Lakewood for maybe out on six months or something.

And so people on the shuttle bus said, okay, where's everybody from?

Well, I'm from, you know, st Martins.

One was from the Caribbean and then one from this state and that state.

And when it got to me I said Houston.

Everybody said John Osteen, and I'm.

Everybody on that bus was excited about John Osteen.

I thought what?

I had no idea he had a worldwide ministry.

I didn't know, I didn't know.

But you know, you start to find out things.

You know about people, but I'm talking about anointed by association.

So what did they see in David?

Now they're mighty men.

They weren't always mighty men, but now they're mighty men.

20 years later they're mighty men.

They're not the same as they were when they got there.

They learned success.

Now I also learned how to give.

Remember the offering that David gave of his own personal wealth to the giving of the temple, and then he wanted all of his mighty men to give in the offering and they gave huge amounts of money.

Where did they get that money?

Well, they were successful at spoiling the enemy transfer of wealth.

I believe we're in a transfer of wealth right now.

Wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just and we is the just.

So what did they see in David?

So this is something that I began to study and look at after I began to understand the providence and the destiny.

I guess you'd call it, or I mean, it wasn't by accident.

I knew that.

How did God put me in a place like that?

And so what did they see it?

And so I was studying this one time.

What did they see in David that compelled their commitment?

Are you going to just commit yourself to just any old person, just anybody?

That's an old goat.

So, number one, he repented of speaking ill advisedly.

He said, oh, if somebody had just given me a drink of that water, if I just had that water.

He was not issuing an order.

They took it.

They raced each other to get the water back to him.

He didn't expect them to do that.

So he knew he had misspoke.

He should not have said that.

See, he was not that kind of leader that expected I want that water and I don't care if you die.

See, I've known preachers like that.

They want everybody to hop to it.

I knew one preacher would have a team come over to the house and iron clothes and packed bags for it.

You know, I don't say I don't mind if somebody wanted to do that, but for me to expect it is just, in fact I don't, I wouldn't like it, so I'll never ask it.

But this preacher expected it.

See, well, I don't get that.

That doesn't look like David.

David did not expect that water and when it showed up he kept his flesh under and didn't drink it.

You knew he would thirsty, you knew that water.

Oh, he remembered that water, he just.

And then, when it showed up, he couldn't dare drink it because it was the blood of those men that has erided their lives to bring it to him.

And what did he do with it?

He poured it out and worshiped God with it, and he was tender toward those under his authority.

Those four things.

They saw that in David.

And there's no kind of hill they wouldn't climb, there's no kind of enemy they wouldn't go after.

Are you with me now, anointed by association?

Praise God.

Come on, let's just lift our hands.

Father, we thank you that you have ordained our lives down to the smallest detail.

Thank God for divine association, thank God for supernatural relationships.

You know, part of that word we had for greatest year yet mentioned about God was going to open up doors for you to be hooked up with people that you needed to be hooked up with, and it's not necessarily like church people, I mean, it's like bosses, it's like like influential people that God wants you interfacing with that can bless your life.

We've already heard some testimonies of that.

I had this little testimony.

So years later, gradually, little by little, it just got open doors for me.

I guess it began when the guy that was supposed to open and close services and prayer in the old building this is before we moved in the new building there were two services on Sunday morning, 8.30 and 11.

And so we go to both services.

You know we'd moved back from Corpus and I was unemployed, I'd lost my business.

We had moved to Corpus and the depression of the mid 80s caught up with us in Corpus and so then that cratered.

So we moved back and I noticed on Sunday mornings that many times this gentleman would be late getting back to the sanctuary and nobody was there.

And I knew Brother Osteen to be very punctual.

Just by observation, he'd like to start on time.

If the service is 8.30, then he wanted it started at 8.30 because you have a crowd coming for the 11 o'clock service and if you're late in that service and you haven't gotten out of there, then there's a big jam in the parking lot and there's a jam in the church and things don't work very well.

Some people leave because they can't find a place to park, but anyway.

So those were the old days.

But I knew he needed to be punctual and so we had the worship leader and she would look out and when that guy didn't show up she'd look for somebody to start the service.

And so I just kind of positioned myself in the front of the church just to catch her eye.

And then one Sunday she went like that and I grabbed a mic, I went up and opened the service in prayer and the guy never did show up.

And then the next week the same thing happened and I did it again and he came in a little bit late.

And here I am.

Well, then the next week the same thing happened again and she looked at me, but she didn't want to pick me again Twice in a row, so she picked another guy, bob Babolos, who picked up Bob Babolos.

So Bob Babolos gets up there.

We used to call him an astronaut.

He was at NASA.

He was not an astronaut, but he was connected.

He got saved because of Apollo 13.

A lot of those guys out there got saved.

If you ever watched and you watched the movie Apollo 13, that was God doing that.

God brought them back to earth, not NASA.

Prayer brought them back, anyway.

So I won't go any further.

The job became mine.

That guy got fired and I started opening services in prayer and then brother Sting got to know me and he how did you get that job?

He took us to lunch one day and his favorite thing when people would ask him how that happened, he would always just say the holy ghost.

So he asked me how did you get that job?

I said just the holy ghost, brother Sting.

He started laughing, but anyway, we got to know each other and then he invited me on a trip with him to go overseas.

Later on I'd been with him a number of times, so this time we're going to India by way of Paris.

He liked to travel through Paris on his way to India.

You can either go through Frankfurt, other places, but he liked to go through because his travel agent liked to use Air France and she had a lot of points with Air France and when he got to a certain level she could put him on the Concorde.

Anybody remember the Concorde?

It crashed and they don't fly anymore.

It's a shame because it was a tremendous aircraft.

But you could go from New York to Paris in three and a half hours.

So you're flying at Mach two, you know.

And so one time he wanted Doty to go with him.

Doty turned him down, didn't want to go, and so I got to go with him on the Concorde and I sat next to the windows and they get real hot.

I sweat the whole time.

I sweated my whole, all my clothes down because the fuselage gets hot because of the air friction flying that fast and it comes radiating through the window, the window's little tiny window, and you're looking outside and it's kind of weird looking.

I mean you're almost in outer space in a 45 or 50,000 feet real high anyway.

So this trip he's gonna do that, he said so.

He sent me ahead.

Continental had a flight direct to Paris from Intercontinental Airport, continental Airlines, and so nine hour non-stop.

So he sent me on that flight and then he was coming behind and I don't know if he got to fly on the Concord that trip or not, but I got there about 10 o'clock in the morning, so I had a hauled day and I calculated when he would be arriving at the hotel.

It'd be about 10 o'clock that night and so I had the whole day, you know.

So I got a little nap in, I went to grab a sandwich and then.

So I decided I'm going to get downstairs and it's kind of laughing.

I'm going to stand at where his car gets there and as soon as the door opens and he gets out of his car, I'm going to be standing right there on the sidewalk and I'm going to be standing in attention and I'm going to give him a salute like this.

I'm going to stand there like a stick, just still, and I was doing it kind of a joke, you know, kind of a funny thing.

And so I did.

And I was standing out there and it's close to 10 o'clock, the Holy Ghost said here he comes, and sure enough, he comes up in this car, and so I get over to the back door, next to the curb, and I'm waiting for the driver to get out to open the door for him.

He gets out and steps up on the curb, you know, and he, all of a sudden, he looks at me and here I am, standing like this, no smile, just standing there like this, and it startled him.

It's John and it touched him.

It touched him, I mean, it was like I'm out there at your service, sir, you know, and he took it like that, and I realized that I had pulled a bone-headed move here.

I mean, I really I didn't realize that it was going to be taken like he took it, and so then it touched me.

We both got touched and blinked a couple of times, you know, and on the way up to the room he said oh, john, he said I feel so bad, I feel terrible.

I just apologize.

I should never have sent you ahead.

You should have traveled with me.

I really made a big mistake and it's bothered me all the whole trip, ever since I thought about you flying up up here by yourself.

You needed to be with me.

I'll, I'll never do that to you again.

Oh, I said, brother, those things it didn't, oh no, no, and he wouldn't hear of it.

He was so.

So God used that to kind of cement a divine association and make us both aware of it.

Are you with me now tonight?

Glory to God.

And so later that trip, you know, we, we stayed there just one night and then we flew on in to, I think at that that point we went to Mumbai from Paris.

That trip and we, he would older gentlemen and and challenged with issues in his health, and he would travel leisurely, he would travel a little at a time.

He would travel, you know, he'd go from here to New York, spend the night in the town and go back to their porch, fly the Concorde, if he could, across the water to Paris, spend the night there, kind of rest, so he would.

He would go in stages, he wouldn't just break next speed across, you know, the world, he would take care of himself.

So later that trip we got to Mumbai, he, he said, john, real serious, we've talked about a lot of things, we, that's.

One of the great things I treasure was all the personal conversations that we had, because we had no one to interrupt us at Lakewood.

If I ever had the conversation, people would be rude they're.

They didn't have my mama for a mama.

My mama taught me better manners than to interrupt somebody's conversation, to stand respectfully away from somebody that's having a private conversation, and when you know they're through, then you come and you talk.

If you get a chance, especially somebody like John Osteen you don't just barge in and without fail.

If I had something to talk to him about, someone would barge in and interrupt and then I would just pull out, I just wouldn't hang around, I'd leave.

But anyway, we had some really wonderful conversations.

So one day in Mumbai he came up to him and he grabbed me, my, my lapels.

He said John, do you value the anointing on your life?

I said yes, sir, I do.

He said well, he said then, protect your temple.

The Bible says the laborers of few.

Then he grabbed me, bring me in close.

He said always believed to travel first class.

And he did travel first class.

And I can't say that I've always traveled first class.

I, if it's in the North American continent, I don't travel first class.

If it's in America, I don't typically travel first class.

If I'm going overseas, I try to get business class if I possibly can, because I'm.

He's right, you have to rest and you have to protect your, your temple.

But Praise God, come on, let's lift our hands.

Father, we thank you for these precious associations.

I'm preaching this because I just believe it's a legacy message.

I believe it it's something that I wish I had known about earlier in my ministry.

But once I did know about it, I've tried to be faithful over those kinds of divine, supernatural relationships.

They're very valuable.

I've tried to make it not on my side you can't make both sides of that equation's decisions but on my side.

I'm going to swear to my own heart and change not If the person I'm associated with doesn't choose to do that and they drift away, and we've had, I've had plenty of those that's drifted away and ended.

But I don't want to be the one to pull away, I want to be the one that hangs in as long as I can.

So anyway, aren't y'all interested about the 18-wheeler?

Would you like to know what that meant?

So that that ship channel dream would have been about 1987.

And so the fulfillment of the second segment of that dream, the 18-wheeler.

If you'll remember, I went from the ship channel up into an 18-wheeler.

Looking over the hood, I'm driving, I'm really moving down the highway and suddenly I came up on another 18-wheeler and I had to slow down.

And in the dream I was irritated that I had to slow down, I was being hindered.

And then I woke up and so my friend says well, that's a futuristic and it's a second segment, you know.

And he wouldn't talk about it.

And so it just was laying there all these years, from 1987 to 1994, seven years.

And so when I went to talk to brother Osteen and consult with him not not tell him that I'm going to start a church, consult with him and get his permission and his thoughts on my starting a church Glad it's not a start a church and that I don't I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to go to him and tell him that he's got a ministry here in Houston and here I am going to start a church in Houston.

And that was different than what he ever thought about me.

He always thought I'd just go and be part of a church that called him, that needed a pastor.

That's what his conversation with me was.

He said you won't even need a started church, you just step right in.

That was his heart.

He didn't want me to have to go through all of what it takes to start something from scratch.

He wanted me just to walk right in the door and be the pastor.

That was his heart.

But that wasn't God's plan for me.

And I, when I heard from God, I didn't go say God told me to start a church.

I didn't say that at all ever.

I submitted an idea to him and gave him full carte blanche to say yes or no.

And so he said oh, john.

He said you know what I think about you.

Of course you're qualified, of course you wouldn't glass make excellent pastors.

And so he gave me his permission that day when I went to meet with him in September of 1994.

And so the next day I was on a job, pouring concrete, and secretary called me on my cell phone Brother Osteen wants to talk to you.

I said, oh God, I just knew it.

And he said, john, I couldn't sleep at all.

Last time I didn't sleep a wink.

He said I keep getting this scripture.

He that believe it shall not make haste.

I just think you're ahead of God.

I think you need to wait until after the first of the year.

I think you need to wait until January.

You know, right now here, it is September, it's almost October and, for you know it, it's Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Terrible time to start a church the holidays.

It's hard to get people to show up for church during the holidays.

If I were you, I'd wait until January.

What he said made perfect sense, except that wasn't the deal I made with God.

I said God, this is a yay or nay.

And if, for whatever reason, he says nay, I'm killing this whole thing.

I am not going forward.

At my age, you know, 40, almost 50 years old, start a church.

I'd seen too many people start churches and come back busted flat and discouraged and out of the will of God and beat up, and I didn't want to be one of them.

I wanted his full and total, unreserved blessing, because that's what I so do.

And so I said, brother, I appreciate what you're saying and I don't differ with you at all.

It's just that I told God it was yay or nay, and now I can't go back and say, wait, so for me I need to kill it.

I'm just going to stick a knife in it.

God can raise it.

Oh, john, I don't mean for you to do that.

I said well, I know, brother, you're, you're coming at it from total wisdom and I agree with you 100%.

I do.

What you're saying is wisdom, but on my side I told God, for my safety, I've got to have your unreserved blessing.

And you're saying to wait.

So it's not unreserved, so let me just kill this.

I'm going to kill the church I'm going to release.

I told him who was involved.

I'm going to release them and I did and it was hard.

It was hard to kill that church, this church, but it's stronger because I killed it, because God raised it from the dead.

This church has been raised from the dead.

This church has resurrection power on it.

I mean that it facts.

That impacts you, because that anointing is transferable.

Some of you are going to have dreams that you thought were dead a long time and God's going to raise them from the dead.

God's going to give resurrection life to some of the things that you thought never are going to come to pass.

Well, they're coming to pass.

Amen, receive that now.

Praise God, that's for you.

So he was the 18 wheeler that slowed me down and I drove up on him and it was hard to have to slow down and stop and actually kill this church.

I called everybody involved.

I said I'm sorry.

I told you it was a go, now it's a no go.

Oh, it had some people cry, you know.

But then we went on another tremendous trip together in October to New Delhi, which was probably the crown jewel of our trips that we made together, brother and uh.

When we got back to town, uh, it was December the 14th he called me at home and to talk to me about something, and then he said oh, by the way, on that matter of you starting your church, if you at now, at this time, or any other time in the future, decide to do it, you have my full and unreserved blessing.

December the 14th.

So the 18 wheeler exited off the freeway and let me go on.

Amen, praise God.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Anointed by association?

I try, it's a legacy message and I just preach it.

You know, I preach it because people need to hear parts of my testimony.

Amen, there's power in your testimony.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Praise God.

Thank you, jesus.