Faith That Works

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Alright, how's everybody doing?

Y'all worse than the youth.

How's everybody doing?

We good, we good.

It's good to be in the house of the Lord today.

Um for two reasons.

One, I get to preach, and that's awesome.

Um, but two, I love to see those who have accomplished something great in their lives.

And it's also a sad time for me.

Um, you know, some of these students I've gotten to uh really know and love, and you know, it's hard.

I I heard Pastor Rick talking about it, like, you know, these are some of your best friends that you grow in life with, and I feel that for a lot of these students, and so um, you know, I'm thankful for the time that I've got to spend with a lot of you and what God is going to do in your lives.

Um, today we're gonna be talking about the shield of faith.

And so my sermon title is Faith That Works.

Everybody say faith that works.

All right, so to introduce this, I asked Brandon Morgan to come and help me.

Um we're gonna do a little trusting and and and faith.

We're gonna see how it works out.

So, y'all know the trust fall.

Okay, we're gonna we're gonna do this.

We're gonna we're gonna do this.

Okay.

Whenever you're ready.

Oh.

Listen, here here is this is what I want you to get.

Do not put your trust in man because they will fail you.

Trust in God and Him alone.

That's it.

All right, get your Bibles redone.

I I did ask him to do that, and I warned him before that he's gonna fall.

So he practiced a couple times, hitting the ground, and parkour, he got it.

Um, but we're talking about faith.

And when we look at faith, there are a lot of different things we can put our faith in.

Right?

You guys are all sitting in a chair, and most of you guys believe that that chair is gonna hold you up.

Okay, you have faith that the design of the chair will work.

But that's not the faith we're talking about.

We're talking about faith that will carry us through life.

And so if you guys could turn to Ephesians chapter 16 and verse 6.

Ephesians 6.

Yes, you got it.

Ephesians 6.

I'm just checking to make sure y'all wait.

All right, verse 16, it says this above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

So we're looking at the shield of faith.

Um, and we're gonna be looking at the story of Joseph and how his faith helped him through his life.

And so before we do that, I want to kind of look at what the shield is.

Now, the shield, the picture that we get from scripture of the shield, think of like a giant door, okay?

And so the person who has a shield, it's not the size of a door, it says that it's about 2.5 feet by uh four feet.

And so it's something that you can get behind, right?

It's not like the shield of Captain America, which I love Captain America, he's probably my favorite hero, right?

His is that round shield, he can throw it, he can do all those things.

That's not what this scripture is saying.

It talks about the shield, rectangle shield that you can get behind, and it'll protect you.

And it talks about that the shield would have been soaked with oil, um, wrapped in leather, so that when fiery darts hit it, it would be quenched.

So he's saying that we have faith like a shield to protect us from the enemy.

Now, what is faith?

Uh Hebrews 11 1 says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Romans 8, 24 and 25 says this we were saved in this hope, but hope that is not that is seen is not hope.

For why does one still hope for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it in perseverance.

Tony Evans said this about faith.

Faith is acting like something is so, even when it is not so, in order that it may be so, simply because God said so.

Faith is continuingly trusting in God no matter the circumstance, no matter what it looks like.

And there are a lot of times in our lives that we believe what God said, and then we get into that situation, and then we struggle to believe.

Like, does God really love me?

Is God really gonna save me from this?

Is God really gonna heal me in this situation?

Here's the thing, young adults, you guys are about to go into college and you are gonna need your faith.

You're going to need something to shield you from all the things that you're gonna hear, from the temptations, from the lies and the tricks of the enemy, the fiery darts.

And so if we're gonna walk strong in our faith to the end, how will we do that?

We're gonna look at Joseph and his story on what it looks like to walk through life, no matter the circumstance, holding our faith in Jesus.

So if you guys will pray with me before we get started, Devil Father, we just thank you so much, God, for the seniors, God, those who have graduated, those who have uh persevered.

And Lord, I'm praying that your word will not return void.

God, we know that, Lord, if you're in it, something will happen.

God, when you show up, something has to happen.

And Lord, we know already from the worship that you are here in this place, ready to move on the hearts of men and women.

And Lord, I just pray that you would use me, um, God, hide me behind the shadow of the cross.

Um, Lord, all I have is a couple of pieces of bread and some fish, Lord, and I'm asking that you would take your word, God, and apply it to your people as only you can.

Lord, we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright, if you guys can turn to Romans chapter 10 and verse 14.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

I got it right that time.

All right, it says this.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings and good things.

So our first point is this that faith comes by hearing the word.

Faith comes by hearing the word.

Now I think a lot of times this gets twisted up.

Sometimes we say faith comes by seeing.

I've met a lot of people in my life who say, you know what, I want to believe in God, but he has to show me.

I have to see him do X, Y, Z.

Or I think about my beautiful wife, um, who is smart and awesome and great and amazing.

I'm reading off my list.

Uh I already said beautiful, smart, uh, masters having, career woman, um, love of my life.

Am I getting it right?

Yeah.

It's good, it's good.

Listen, sometimes I tell my wife something, like I'm reading a text message to her, and for her, she's like, no, no, let me see your phone.

I want to read it.

I'm like, baby, I just told you what it said.

No, no, no, no.

I gotta see it to believe it.

That's not what this scripture is saying.

He's saying that we believe even though we cannot see.

My wife is beautiful, she's awesome, she's hot, right?

But sometimes she thinks she has to see what is being said to believe it.

Okay.

But Jesus is saying those who hear, that's where your faith comes from.

It's by hearing of God's word.

Here's the thing.

We're gonna go to Genesis chapter 37, verse 1 through 11.

Genesis 37:1–11

I got a lot of verses to read, um, so I'm gonna do my best to get through them fast, but we're looking at somebody who heard a word from God and believed it.

So Genesis chapter 37, verse 1, it says this.

Genesis 37:1

Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

And this is the history of Jacob.

Joseph, being a 17-year-old, was feeding the flock with his brothers, and the lad was with the sons of Belaha and the sons of Zephilah, and his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.

Now we're gonna stop there for a second.

Parents don't do that, okay?

Okay.

My mama did that to me.

I hope she's not watching, but hey, don't be singling out your kids.

All right, so it said, Joseph loved or uh Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors.

And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably about him or to him.

Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they had hated him even more.

So he said to them, Please hear this dream, which I have dreamed.

There were binding sheaves in the field, and then, behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright.

Indeed, your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.

Now here's the thing.

In this scripture, Joseph hears a word from God through a dream.

Um, and in that dream, because when he heard it, he told his brothers who already hated him.

So we're not starting off great right here, okay?

I want to tell you right now, uh, if you hear a word from God, don't brag about it, okay?

You don't got to do all that.

But he heard and he told those around him.

Now, now let's take a moment to look at what it means to hear.

Um, because as my beautiful wife would tell you, a lot of times I hear what she's saying, but I don't understand.

Okay, she'll tell you that.

Sometimes I hear the words coming out of her mouth, but it's one ear in and out the other.

I do not understand.

Um, now when we think about hearing, it's not just a collection of sounds entering the ears, but rather being able to hear a message and perceive or understand it.

Faith doesn't just come by sitting in church and hearing the word preached.

It doesn't just come by uh reading a couple Bible verses, right?

Something happens when we hear God's word and we're able to understand it and perceive it and know what the Lord is saying.

My wife often will say something and she'll ask me to repeat it back to her, and I'll say, I think what you're saying is X, Y, Z.

And she's like, Yeah, no, that is not it.

Okay?

And guess what I just told her?

I didn't understand or perceive nothing you were saying.

Okay?

Listen, if we're gonna have faith in Jesus, we need to be able to understand what we're hearing.

Now here's the thing: a lot of times we get into church and we listen to a word and we let it let it be that.

But the Bible says to test the things that you hear.

Just because I'm up here preaching to you doesn't mean what I'm saying is it.

You have to go back and say, okay, where is what he's saying in Scripture?

What is he saying?

Can I test it?

Can I find it in God's word?

If I can, all right, good.

Then I can understand what he's saying.

See, Joseph heard a word from God and he tested those things.

He understood that it was coming from Jesus.

Now listen, youth, you guys are going to be hearing a whole lot of words from a whole lot of people.

You're already hearing a lot of things.

But I you you can't open your Instagram, your TikTok, your uh Twitter, what else y'all use?

Uh I don't know all the other stuff.

Uh, but you you can't, I know it's not Facebook.

That's just for the old people.

But listen, I got Facebook.

I don't got Instagram, so I know.

Listen, you you open your Instagram and you hear messages coming in 24-7.

You hear, you get on these uh little spells where you you watch one video and then an hour later you've watched a thousand different videos.

You're constantly hearing things, but does it match God's word?

Because you're gonna hear words from the enemy that sound so close to the truth, and that's what he does, right?

He's the father of what?

Of lies.

But he's so good at lying that he can wrap it up and make it look sweet and nice, and it looks so close to the truth that we accept it.

Listen, Satan doesn't just come at you right away with an open lie that you can tell.

Okay?

He is crafty.

And so we have to be listening to God's word, understanding what it says, so that when the enemy comes, we'll know that it's not right.

Listen, there are a lot of people who are not reading God's word, they're just listening to preaching, and that's not enough because guess what?

Their preacher may not be in tune with the spirit, and they may be accepting what's being told, and guess what?

Little by little, they're turning away from the actual truth.

The Bible says that we need to be able to rightly divine the word of truth, rightly divide the word of truth.

Joseph got a dream from God, and how we know it was from God, because later in the scripture, when the Pharaoh asked him to answer a dream, he told the Pharaoh, he said, What I'm about to tell you is not in me, but it's of God.

I'm gonna interpret your dream, but guess what?

The interpreter is not me, it's God in me.

Listen, you need to be hearing God's word, knowing God's word, so that when God speaks something, you know it is from Him.

And the way we know sometimes that something's from God is because there's an attack with it.

When Joseph told his brothers, it said that they hated him even more.

Listen, the things that you're hearing from God, the things that you're believing, are they making the world your friend?

Because if they if they if the world can get behind what you're saying, it may not be the truth.

Because a lot of things that the world wants to hear is not what God's word says.

And so it said that he heard from God in his dream.

Listen, here's another thing I want to say to you.

It'll be really hard to know that you're hearing from God if you're not close to him.

My wife loves to yell at me from the other room.

She doesn't just yell at me all the time, but just from the other room.

And I get upset sometimes because I got my music playing, I got the fan going, uh, the the there's dogs barking, there's birds chirping, there's squirrels digging around.

And between all that, I don't know what she said.

And then I respond back, hey, I don't know what you're saying.

Dead silence.

Because she didn't hear me either.

But you know what happens when I walk into the room where she's at, I can actually hear what she's saying.

And I can know the message she's trying to tell me.

It's hard to listen to Jesus when you got so many distractions and you're not even close to him.

How am I gonna know what he's saying is real and right if I'm not spending time with him?

If I don't know him, if I'm not close enough to hear that it's him speaking.

Here's the truth God is speaking all the time, but so is the world, so is the enemy.

And if we're not walking close, step by step, hand in hand with Jesus, we won't know if it's him or if it's the enemy.

So, how can I hear God's word?

How can I know that it's his voice?

It comes by reading God's word, studying it, memorizing, meditating on it.

When you hear a message, when you hear a word, a voice inside, bringing it back to scripture and trying to match it up and making sure that it's from God.

Making sure every voice that you hear is from Him.

Because here's the thing it can be a good thing and not be a God thing.

You can hear something that sounds so good, and it's actually a good thing, but it's not God's best thing for you.

There are a lot of times we answer uh calls to certain parts of ministry because it's a good thing, but then you get burnt out and you realize that wasn't the thing that God wanted you to do.

Right?

You can fulfill a spot because it's open and it's needed and that not be what God is wanting.

You gotta pray.

Constantly being praying and hearing what the Lord is saying.

So here's the other part of this.

Joseph not only heard what God was saying in a dream, but he believed it.

Now, how do we know that he believed it?

Here's what the Bible says about believing.

It's that it means to be convinced of something or to give credence to something.

Joseph was so convinced of what God had said that he told his brothers, who he already knew, hated him.

Right?

And if you go down a little bit in that scripture, it says that he told his brothers and his parents, right?

And as he's telling his parents, his dad rebukes him, but at the end of that verse, it says that he kept what his son said to heart, that he didn't forget it.

If you believe something, it's going to lead to action.

You're going to be convinced of something.

Um, we were at a marriage retreat that Pastor Dave put on.

It was really awesome.

And we did this marriage game where you had to, as couples, beat out other couples.

You had to have this knowledge of one another.

And I'm going to tell you right now, I did not win, okay?

Um, I did my best, but I did not win.

Um, but we have one game, and in this, the round, it was talking about uh put down an amphibian that your spouse would be if they could pick one.

And I'm I'm thinking, and I have no clue what amphibian means, okay?

So my everything's spinning.

There's smoke coming out, and I'm like, squirrel, and everybody starts laughing.

Some of y'all may laughing because y'all don't know what amphibian is.

That's okay.

But people are laughing, and I'm like, uh, you know, okay, whatever.

Nobody tells me.

And then my my awesome, handsome friend, Jacob Vale, it comes to him, and he says, Joe, that's what school's for.

And he says, My wife would be a dolphin.

Now, some of y'all are laughing because you don't know what amphibian is.

Okay.

And I'm telling you, with all confidence in that room, he answered, and everybody else started laughing because that's not an amphibian.

And I since learned from Zayla that that's like a salamander, okay?

Yeah.

I didn't know either.

But listen, when you believe something and you're convinced of something, there's a confidence that comes.

Even when you're wrong, there's a confidence.

That's my wife.

I, you know, hey, sometimes I believe.

You know, there was her, she went to the University of West Alabama, and I thought it was Western.

And so I, you know, I put it on there, and I'm I'm talking to her about it.

She's like, I know what school I went to.

I said, No, you don't.

And I Googled it.

I'm like, shut up.

Okay, you got me, right?

But when you're convinced of something, when you believe something, there's a confidence that comes with it.

Joseph didn't just tell his brothers about this dream because he halfway believed it.

He was fully convinced that this dream was from God.

And so in boldness, he told them about it.

Listen, in one of my classes, we studied about reasonable faith.

And William Lane Craig talked about the empty tomb and how historians, in the book it said 80% of historians believed that the tomb was empty, that Jesus was not in the tomb.

Now, not all of them believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but they believed that the tomb was empty.

And one of those reasons is the way that the disciples carried on the rest of their lives.

Right?

Because they believed that Jesus was alive.

It changed their lives.

They began preaching Christ's resurrection.

They believed that there was not a tomb with his body in it, that he had rose from the grave.

And because of that, they had confidence.

They were convinced that Jesus was who he said he was.

So much that they were willing to give their lives for the gospel, for following Jesus.

Up until their last breath, they preached Christ, crucified and resurrected.

Something happens when we're convinced of who God is and what his word says.

Joseph, it wouldn't have been enough for him just to hear a word.

It's not enough for you guys to be here and just hear a good message about faith.

But what do you believe about Jesus?

Because when you get to college, you're going to have professors who don't believe.

You're going to have people with PhDs who are smart, who can outthink everybody in the room who are going to say that God is not real.

And if you're not convinced that Jesus is the only way, you may come out of college an atheist.

I met plenty of people in my time at a university before I went to Bible college who started there as Christians and ended as non-believers.

I had one guy when I was studying geology who was tutoring me because I had no clue what I was doing.

And I remember talking to him.

And I asked him, I said, Man, do you really believe this stuff?

That the world is millions and billions of years old.

And he's like, Yeah.

I'm like, dude, have you not read the Bible?

And he's like, dude, I was a Christian before I got here.

And he's like, this makes more sense.

And my heart just broke.

I'm like, man.

He wasn't convinced that Jesus was who he said he was.

Joseph believed.

He was convinced that what he heard was from God.

And you're going to be challenged.

As adults, we're challenged.

Do you believe that this is the word of God and that everything in here is real and true?

Because if not, when you get to college, it's going to be hard to continue walking your faith.

Point two is this that faith protects our walk.

Let me let me have by a raise of hands.

How many here have been attacked by the enemy?

All you graduates, I want you to look around.

Yep, keep your hands up.

Every person in here who's a believer has been attacked for their faith, has been attacked by the enemy, has been given uh uh these false truths to try to sway them.

I want to say something real quick.

Satan cannot take your salvation.

If you are saved, Satan cannot take that.

But what he wants to do is kill your witness.

And if you go into college not knowing what you believe, you might end up on the wrong side.

Still saved, but not witnessing.

Still saved, but not reading your Bible, still saved, but not knowing the voice of God.

If you don't know what you believe, if you are not convinced that Jesus is Lord, then your walk will not be protected.

Listen, let's go to Genesis chapter 39 and verse 6.

Genesis 39 · chapter mention

Point A says this that Joseph endured hardship.

So Genesis 39, verse 6.

Genesis 39:6

And it says this.

So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house, and all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.

For the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field.

Thus he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate.

Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, and it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, Lie with me.

But here's the important part.

He refused and said to his master's wife, Look, my master does not know what is with me in this house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand.

There is no one greater in this house than I, nor I, or nor he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife.

Temptation will happen when you get to college in many ways.

To drink, to have sex before marriage, to not go to church.

There's a lot of things that you're gonna face when you get to college.

But because Joseph's faith, because he understood who God was, he was able to endure.

Now I want you all to know something else.

Before this part, Joseph, being hated by his brothers, they threw him in a pit, they were gonna kill him.

His other brother said, no, let's not kill him.

Well, they ended up selling him to slavery.

And that's how he ends up in Potiphar's house.

As you look further into the story, uh Potiphar's wife wants to sleep with him, and he says no.

She lies on him, he gets thrown into jail.

And as he's in jail, he tells, he interprets two dreams for two men.

They get out of jail and he says, Remember me.

And what happens?

It says two years go by and he's still in jail because they forgot about him.

If his faith wasn't in Jesus, wasn't in God, he would have fallen away.

You're gonna have hard times in college.

Sometimes your grades are gonna slap.

Sometimes you're gonna be distracted.

Sometimes you're gonna wanna come home.

Listen, I was in New York as a Bible college student.

Eight hours away from home.

When the worst parts of my life were happening, I wanted to be at home and I couldn't be there.

When I was a freshman in college, I wanted to give up, I wanted to quit.

There was a time where I wanted to not live.

But because of who Jesus was in my life, I'm still here today.

If it wasn't for God, if it wasn't for what I knew about God and what I believed about God, what I was convinced about God, I would have never made it to where I am.

There's a lot of dots in here that wouldn't be here except for what they believed about Jesus.

I had a mentor of mine when he was in Bible college, he was saying that he hated Christians.

He's literally in Bible college studying ministry and he hated Christians.

And one day he sat down and he said, You know, I need to figure out if I'm going to really be a believer or not.

And he said, I had to figure out who Jesus was and if I believed it.

And he said, after examining all that, he said, I believe that Jesus is who he says he is.

And despite what I see, he's real.

And so that he followed Jesus and he's still a believer today.

But here's the thing: had he not been convinced of who Jesus was, every hardship that came his way would have knocked him down.

Listen, there's a lot of people in here whose spouses have walked out on them.

There's a lot of people here whose their lives have been terrible.

Maybe they're taking care of kids that aren't theirs.

Maybe their spouses is running around and life is hard for them.

But simply because of who Jesus is and their faith in him, they continue day by day walking forward because of who Jesus is.

They continue to walk towards God no matter what happens, because they're convinced, they believe that God is God.

My wife's favorite Bible verse, Romans 8.28.

All things work together for the good of those who love God.

All things, guess what?

Not all things are good things, but all things work for good.

Joseph endured all those things because the thing that he knew was coming was greater than the struggles he was in.

The place he knew that God was taking him was better than the place he was currently in.

Right?

It takes looking ahead and having an eternal mindset to be able to endure trials and tribulations now.

Listen, if you know me, you know that I hate flying.

Okay, I hate it.

There's nothing worse to me than flying in an airplane.

When my wife and I got married, or before we got married, we were planning our honeymoon, and we decided to go on a cruise.

And the port was in Jacksonville, Florida.

And we were in Indiana at the time, so it's eight hours to get here, and then another six hours to get to Jacksonville.

And so I wasn't driving after our wedding to get to this airplane, right?

Or to this uh port.

And so my wife books us a plane ticket, and I'm telling you, on this plane, it was the AC that was blowing, but I thought there was smoke on the plane.

I said it's a wrap.

This I ain't even we ain't even got to the honeymoon.

I'm going down.

Okay.

I thought the plane was gonna crash, and I'm gonna die right here.

I was gonna have a heart attack before it hit the ground.

I was scared, and the turbulence hit, and I was afraid, but I tell you what, the thing that got me through that was what I knew was coming after.

I knew that the honeymoon was gonna be so much better than this trial and this tribulation right here.

So I endured a plane trip to get to the honeymoon.

Listen, youth, you'll be able to endure college and all the trials that you're going through if Jesus is enough for you.

If you believe that heaven is your eternal home, if you believe that what's in heaven is better than what's here, then the trials you go through are moments.

They're small in comparison to what will be forever.

In Romans, it talks about all of creation longs for the day where we'll be with him.

Let me speak to the adults in the room.

I don't know your situation.

I've heard a couple stories, but keep fighting, keep trusting God, keep walking step by step, moment by moment, if you have to, second by second, because what's to come is worth everything that you're going through right now.

That marriage that's on the brink, what's to come, the testimony that's to come, the stories that are to come from you guys sticking together is better than just giving up because it's hard right now.

Joseph could have just gave up on God because it wasn't looking the way he saw in the dream.

But he kept on pushing.

He kept on trusting God, he kept on step by step.

God, I don't know what you're doing in this place, but I trust you.

God, I don't know why I'm being lied on, but I trust you.

God, I don't know why these temptations are coming from left to right, but I trust you.

God, I don't know why I'm in jail.

I didn't do anything wrong, but I trust you.

God, they forgot about me.

It's okay, son.

Trust me, I got you.

You're gonna have many days where it's gonna be easy to question if God is for you.

But come back to this.

Because when you hear God's word, it boosts that faith in you.

It encourages that faith.

It helps you take one more step toward God.

I've told the teens this a lot of times, but in my time in college, there was a moment struggling with pornography, uh, my grades were failing, just awful.

And I remember I had a moment where I said, I can't do this.

I'm giving up.

I'm not just going back home, I'm not just quitting college, like I'm giving up on life.

God, this is too hard.

And I told my best friend that.

Everything he touched worked out because God was with him.

You'll be able to endure if you're walking with Jesus.

The point B is this.

Joseph remained with God.

That word remain or abide means to sojourn, to tarry, to not depart, to be held and kept continually, to not be left or destroyed.

Never once did Joseph walk alone.

All through his story.

Everything that looked awful, he never walked alone.

Adults in the room, I want you to hear that.

Everything that you've been through, never once have you ever walked alone.

Every miscarriage, every bad report, every time your teenager walked away from the Lord, every moment in depression, every moment your finances look terrible, you never walked alone.

Your spouse may have walked out on you, but you didn't walk alone through that.

Graduates, you're about to walk into college, and for the most part, you're going to be alone, and you're going to have freedoms, you're going to have a whole lot of things.

But Jesus won't leave you.

Every step, he'll be right there, walking you through it.

When you can't see him, believe that he's still there.

Because his word is true.

When you can't feel him, because sometimes we feel like we have to have this camp feeling to believe that God is surrounding us.

But even when you cannot feel him, he's there.

And I want you to think about Joseph.

In the end of his story, he ended up right where God said he would.

Next to Pharaoh.

And because of that, he was able to help his brothers and his parents in a time where they were struggling.

He was able to do amazing things.

He had a testimony to share because he continued to walk with the Lord.

And we can have that same testimony.

Most of y'all have heard my story.

I got saved and kicked out within the month.

Life was awful.

But I remember hearing the still small voice of the Lord saying that I'm with you.

That before you even knew me, I had a plan for your life.

That when y'all didn't think you would you would make it through the day, that I provided every meal.

That when you could have been harmed, I was there to protect you.

That time in that car wreck, I was there holding on to you.

Jesus is in every moment.

I want to say, like my grandmother used to say to me, go with God.

Whatever you got going on, go with God.

I want to take a moment before I close.

And I just want to ask every adult here that's been saved for a year or longer.

I want you to stand up.

Every adult that's been saved for a year or longer.

Look around the room.

Look around the room.

If you've been saved for five years or longer, I want you to keep standing.

Five years or longer.

Look at the room.

Twenty years or longer.

Thirty years or longer.

Forty years.

But let me ask you this for our young people.

Was not God who he said he was all along the way?

Was he not good even when life was not good all along the way?

Was it he what got you through every step of the way?

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community, to grow with one another, and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94,000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.