God, Help Me Interpret

And some of us have the wrong interpreter. We are

interpreting our present through our past. We are interpreting our

purpose through our pain. We are interpreting our entire life

through one little situation. We are interpreting our future through

our flaws. When you have the wrong interpreter, messages everything up.

The first time I went to speak in a country

where they didn't speak English, the first international speaking.

Trip that I remember was Australia.

That they speak kind of English. To pick on the

ussis they shorten everything. They kind of speak English, but

they nickname everything. They call praise songs praises, and that's weird.

And when I go over there, they don't call me Steve,

and they call me Steve. And there's an inn on

my name for a reason my mom put it there.

Would you please let my consonants come through customs and

put the in on the end of my name.

I love Australia've been there many times.

But one time I went to preach in a place

where they didn't speak English, and I called a wiser

minister who had preach many times in international settings and said,

give me some just different things I need to know

about preaching through an interpreter. Translator is for written, interpreter

is for spoken. I said, I need I need some

of your wisdom on speaking through an interpreter. He gave

me a few things, but one thing he said that

stood out. He said, First, pray that you get a

good one. He said, because you'll think that he's saying

what you said, and sometimes you can tell. I said,

how will I tell if I have a bad interpreter?

He said, one thing. He'll talk longer than.

You When you finish your sentence, he'll say three sentences.

That means he's putting something in that you didn't intend

to say. Can I tell y'all something The devil has

been putting some stuff in. Come on between what God

has spoken to you. He puts thoughts in people's minds

about you, in your mind that they weren't even thinking

about you. Makes you paranoid. Oh man, look how they're

looking at me. They don't like me. No, they actually

don't like their husband. And they came to work in

a bad mood because.

Of something else that had nothing to do with you.

But the devil will make you think that they don't

like you because he's an interpreter.

That likes to add. He puts all that you have.

You ever had this happen before in a situation where

you start interpreting it wrong, And now all of a sudden,

you're thinking that they said things or thought things.

That they didn't say or think.

He said, the other extreme you got to look out for.

Sometimes they won't say everything that you just said. They'll

cut it short, he said. Sometimes they'll leave stuff out.

And that's what the enemy will do. When you let

him interpret your life. He'll only show you what's wrong

with you, but he won't let you see how God

is going to use everything that you consider to be

a deficiency.

To bring you into your destiny. So he will only

keep you confined.

Come on, church, that golf clap that's not even worth doing.

If you're going to brace God and worship God. Well

what he's spoken over your life, and the fact that

no man can add to it or subtract from it.

If he said it, it will happen. If he said in

three days, he will rise. I might be on a

cross now.

Baby, but refurrection power is in my god future.

So before we leave this place.

Today, I just want to give you five things to

pray for don't get nervous were we are now approaching

our initial dissent.

Make sure your bibles are securely open. But I thought

we would just spell out the word.

Dream, because Joseph interpreted not only the dream of the prisoners,

not only the dream of Pharaoh, but his own dream

that he had at seventeen years old.

Not through the lens of what he had lost in

his life. You know how you keep doing it?

You keep get You keep focusing so much on who

left you and the opportunity that you wasted, that you

keep bringing that forward with you into the next opportunity.

And it's messing with you. And you need the Holy Spirit.

This is what the Holy Spirit does.

Speak in tongues. That's awesome.

Shout at the top of your lungs, that's awesome.

Get a goosebump. I'll get one with you. We'll we'll goose,

we'll rub our goosebumps together. It's all wonderful.

But what I really need the Spirit of God for

is for those groans that words can express. And I'll

give them to you and we'll go and we'll call

it a day, and we'll call it a series. But

the first one that I'm praying for the power to interpret,

like Paul said, because I know that interpretations belong to God.

So I need God.

God help me to interpret my desires times know why

I want what I want, And neither did Paul.

He was like, what I want to do it? Don't

do what I don't want to do it. Don't do

that didn't make any sense. If you want to do it,

you want to do it. What do you mean you

want to do it? You don't do it? Like, well,

there's flesh, there's the spirit. I got a new nature.

I love God, and then four minutes later, I really, I.

Really still love God, but.

I love something that's the opposite of God too, And

I don't know what to do, and I need the

Holy Spirit to show me why I want what I want,

because if the Holy Spirit doesn't interpret my desires, I

will run around my whole life trying to get what

I want, and then when I get it, I won't

even want what I've got. God help me interpret my desires,

because sometimes what will happen is it's not like one

desire is divine and one is demonic, and you know

there's no devil and no angel.

Some times what the enemy will do to.

Me is he'll take a god given desire and distort it.

And what I really want is not a bad thing.

It's not a bad desire.

I notice a lot of people these days seem to

want to be famous, famous for what famous? So I

could be famous?

Have you noticed that.

Fame is like the number one cultural value now? And

I was thinking about that as to why everybody wants

to be famous. I mean, you think about it, famous kind.

Of a weird thing.

People aren't really built to receive that amount of attention.

And when you see the number of famous people who

are famous and don't even want to go on living,

it should cause you to question, what is the real

thing that I want?

Is it really fame?

Is it really followers on some platform full of people

who don't even know me, but only the presentation and

projection that I choose to stage, the props that I

put in my life? Is that really what I want?

Do I really want to be noticed or do I

really want to be known? Because I think a lot

of times we're trying to be noticed, and the real

desire is we want to be known. And the Spirit

of God can show you your real desire, to say

I know that you're doing all this to try to

get people to notice you, But I'm the only one

who really knows you.

And see when people know you.

From a distance and they notice things about you, but

they don't know the real you, and you still feel lonely.

It's so important that you ask the Spirit of God

things like this, What am I really spending fourteen sixteen

hours a day working for?

Is it really to give my kids the life that

they Yeah? Is it really that? Are you really trying

to prove something to somebody who's not even paying attention.

Like early in Joseph's life, he's like, you were all

bowing down to me.

It was awesome.

Twenty years later, he's the one crumbling on his knees

because he realized that the desire God gave him was

not so he could be important, but so that he

could have influence, not so he could have status, but

so that he could be a servant. So, God, show

me my desires, Show me which ones come from you,

and help me. You know.

I used to always pray some thirty seven for it says.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you

the desires of your heart and an immature interpretation of

that is God's going to give me what I want.

You know, God's just peeling them off. You know what

you want, what you want, what you want?

You want.

Now I look at it like He will give me

the right desires. He will give me in part unto

me the right desires.

So I don't just.

Come up wanting to impress people. But I start asking God,

how can I be a blessing? Because I cannot simultaneously

be a blessing if I'm trying to be impressive. So

I want to get out of my own way and

ask God to interpret my desires. God, I want you.

I want your presence in my life.

God. I want your pleasure, your smile. God.

I want harmony and peace with you, even if it

costs me sometimes position with people. God, I don't want

to just be popular. I want to live a life

of purpose. I want to know that this matters and

means something at the end of it all. Sonny the

power of interpretation for my desires. And see, you can't

really have that if you don't get past rejection. So

the second thing is, God, will you help me interpret

my rejection? We help me look at my brothers not

just through the lens of what they did to me,

but through the lens of what you want to do

through me. I did not expect an amen right there.

But I didn't expect that level of silence.

I'll tell you that right now, that that was just

over the top.

Praise Lord, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, halleluj all of them. Yeah,

because he says two things. He says, you rejected me,

but God protected me.

Is see it? You know? I see it again on

the screen, do you I can.

Show it to you on the screen that push a button.

It'll come right up on the screen. Genesis forty five

to five. You sold me.

God sent me to preserve life. So when I was seventeen,

it felt like rejection. But now that I've grown, and

now that I've experienced the grace of God, and now

that I've let.

Go of the resentment and I refuse to hold on

to it, I see that what man calls.

Rejection, sometimes God calls protection.

Some of the.

People who left you, God was removing them.

God wanted to do some things for you that only

he could do. And if he had let him, say yes,

you wouldn't have been ready for what was next.

I'm gonna come back to these and preach a whole

series on them. Each one. I'm gonna preach a series

on dream. I promise you I will do it. If

you stay here long enough, I will do it. I

might be ninety three years old porting over three.

I'm apprecious thing that because I got to get God to.

Help me interpret what my desires and rejection, and then

I gotta make sure that God filters my emotions. So God,

help me interpret my emotions because I know what I feel. Well,

let me be honest as a man. Sometimes I don't

even know what I feel. And being married has helped

me so much with interpretation. I really love my wife.

I jokingly call Holly the Holly Spirit.

It's only half joking. She's a great interpreter. She interprets things.

One time we were fighting about a bill. I think

it was like three two hundred and forty three dollars

and guess what I didn't have in the bank account

three thousand, two hundred and forty whatever I said, dollars

and I got so angry.

And I don't yell.

I'm not the kind of guy that goes around yelling

at his wife.

But I was yelling at her this day, this was

years ago.

This was like, you know, the early stage is a marriage,

and so you know, you'll forgive me for being angry.

But she she was At one point in the argument, goes,

why are you so angry?

I said that, sund you know what I was telling

the truth. I wasn't really angry.

I was afraid, and it was expressing itself as anger.

But she was able to interpret the fear that was

driving my anger. And when she realized that I wasn't

mad at her, I was mad at the attorney who

sent that bill, and mad at BB and T for not.

Having enough money in my bank account to.

Pay the attorney who sent the bill.

And interpretation can change everything.

She was able to realize, it's not me versus you

in this moment, it's us versus this bill, and let's

figure it out together. But if you don't pray for

the power to interpret, you will just live at the

level of the emotion and never know what is beneath

the surface, and you will repeat the emotion on the

next person who steps into the line of fire of

your unfiltered experiences.

Okay, I'm gonna download this podcast myself.

I think, all right, so God help me interpret my emotions.

So I say I'm depressed. I'm in depression right now.

Well, maybe maybe you are depressed or maybe you know

sometimes it's it's just Monday.

You always feel this way.

On Monday, just hadn't been outside yet. Yeah, but if

you don't ask God, God, see, do not interpretations belong

to God.

That's what Joseph knew.

That's what Joseph knew because on one hand, emotionally he's angry,

he's crying, and he sends everybody out of.

His presence, and beneath the emotion he realized the reason.

Now here's a good question, are you living at the

level of reaction or reason? Because if you always just react, react, react,

but never ask God, what is the reason I'm reacting

this way, you will fix the wrong factors. And this

is where a lot of preaching gets so mean and

hateful and impossible, because we're correcting behaviors but not addressing

the beliefs that drive the behaviors. So you'll hear a

preacher sometimes preach against addiction, but why is she drinking

six classes? Or you'll hear it preached against, you know,

pornography or sexual addiction, and the preacher will never address

the fact.

That you're reaching out for God. When you log on

that site. You just don't know it's.

God that you're reaching out for, so you're trying to

fill it with something that leaves you more empty. But

you're really reaching out for God. But so what you

really want isn't sex, it's connection. So you run around

for sex, but you don't get connection because it's empty

because you never ask God why. And this takes reflection,

and this takes sitting alone with God and even other

people that you trust, and joining an e group and

sharing some stuff that makes you uncomfortable. Shameless plug. Today

there's temps outside join any group again. Interpret Pharaoh said,

I need someone interpret my dream. The prisoner said, I

need someone to interpret the dream. But really I need God

to help me interpret not only the hard things I've

been through.

But look at Joseph. Now he's in a position of power.

Not only does have the power of interpretation that God

has given him, but he has the power to punish

his brothers or provide for them.

And what's he going to do with his advantage? That's

the fourth one, God.

Show me the advantages that you've given me, and show

me why you.

Gave them to me.

Because when people receive advantages, but they think that the

purpose for the advantage so that they can call attention

to themselves, that's when leaders become toxic. That's when rich

people become oppressive. The hard thing is sometimes recognizing the advantage.

Because remember when David killed Goliath and Bible says that

after he killed him, he took his sword.

I always thought that was an.

Illustration of how today's attack can become tomorrow's advantage.

You sold me for God sent me, and.

The whole time that people were pushing me in a pit,

God was preparing me so that I could provide with

the power that He's given me.

And maybe the reason that you went through.

The attack is so that you could have an advantage.

Do you hear me?

Just forget I'm talking. Hear this from God. He wanted

to say this to you, and he's just using me

to do it. Quit calling it an attack. It's an advantage.

Quit calling it a weakness because it is in your

weakness that.

He is strong.

Quit being ashamed of it, Quit trying to run from it,

hide it and numb it and cover it up.

The attack is the advantage. And you know what Paul said.

He said, I am convinced that the sufferings of.

This present time are not.

Even worthy to be compared with the glory.

That will be revealed.

So I interpret my pain through the lens of God's

purpose and my feelings through my faith. So God give

me the power to interpret it.

Not just to.

When I get there, not just to interpret when it's

all better, But God, help me to interpret when I'm

in the middle. I'm in the middle. Joseph spent twenty

years with a dream. They contradicted everything he was facing

in his situation, and yet the most frequent line that

is repeated in the account of his life is this,

The Lord was with Joseph. You know, that's not something

you always feel. That's not something that you can always prove.

That's not something that you always have facts to back

it up. But I don't need facts. I got faith.

I don't need feelings. I've got faith God. I want

to interpret my life as it unfolds through the lens

that you love me and that you're with me.

Hey, thank you for watching.

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