The Goodness of God Will Carry You

I asked Jeannie to bring the word to us this morning. Her and I have been talking.

Give her a hand as she comes.

The Burgess family is an awesome family, an answer to prayer at True Life.

And Jeannie's an answer to prayer.

For years I prayed I wanted to have a powerful female voice.

And God brought us Jeannie. Amen.

And so receive her this morning as we hear the word. And open your Bibles to Psalms 92, verse 1.

Psalms 92:1

It says, It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name,

O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night.

The title of today's message is His Goodness Will Carry You.

Turn to Psalms 103. This is in the Passion Translation.

In verse 1 it says, With my whole heart, with my whole life,

and with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God.

Yahweh, you are my soul's celebration.

How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you've done for me?

You kissed my heart with forgiveness in spite of all I've done.

You've healed me inside and out from every disease.

You've rescued me from hell and saved my life. You crowned me with love and mercy.

You satisfy my every desire with good things. You've supercharged my life so

that I soar again like a flying eagle in the sky.

You're a God who makes things right, giving justice to the defenseless.

You unveiled to Moses your plans and showed Israel's sons what you could do.

God's goodness is his kindness in action.

Actions that benefit you, that's what his goodness is.

It's his kindness towards you, his benefits for you.

We stay walking in the goodness of God by remembering his kindness.

Psalms 103 tells us to put in remembrance all the good things that God has done for us.

When we become discouraged or weary, we're to tell our soul,

our minds, will, and emotions to bless the Lord.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

We remind ourselves when things get hard and discouraging, we go back through

our life and we thank God for His kindness.

Those times when you look back over your life and the hand of God was on it.

Every one of us can do that. We look back and we remember the goodness.

We remember the kindness.

We remember the action where God showed up and he benefited us.

There are many memorials throughout the Bible. I'm not going to go through all

of them this morning. I'm just going to touch on a few. you.

Memorials are times where something was set up in remembrance of God's goodness

showing up. So we have the rainbow.

The rainbow is a covenant promise to God's people of God's protection and his loving kindness.

We have the Sabbath, and this is a big one that I think people,

We really don't have a full understanding sometimes in our life.

The Sabbath is an opportunity for us.

It's an opportunity to surrender and submit to the Lord, entering into his rest

from trying to be the God of our own life.

And then in Exodus 12, we see the Passover. This was God delivering his people

from slavery and bondage in Egypt.

Now, throughout our life, we're encouraged to go back to these times in our

life, these memorials in our life where we reflect upon the time that God saved

us, delivered us, set us free, the times that he healed us.

And let's turn to Deuteronomy 1, and we're going to look at verse 29. We're going to go to 33.

It says, Then I said to you, Do not be terrified or afraid of them.

The Lord your God who goes before you, he will fight for you according to all

he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.

And in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you as a man

carried his son in all the way that you went until you came to this place.

Yet for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God.

You went in the way before, who went in the way before you to search out a place

for you, to pitch your tents, to show you the way that you should go,

in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.

Here we're seeing Moses and the Israelites.

We're seeing that God spoke to Moses and he delivered the people. We know Passover.

God delivered his people from severe bondage, severe slavery.

He performed a miraculous act. He took them across the Red Sea.

He did all of these miracles for them.

And then he says, I want you to go and occupy this land.

Now, this was an unknown land to them. It wasn't familiar to them.

But it was familiar to God. It was known to God. And he was saying to the people,

I am going to lead you. I'm going to fight your battle.

I want you to go in and occupy this land.

It says here that Moses was talking. It says that God went before them and searched out the land.

He searched it for them.

And I believe that there's times in our life when we step out in faith and we're walking in faith,

we're walking into the unknown that God is smiling down upon us because he's

saying, my children are imitators of me and my children are walking by faith.

And that's what he was asking the people, the Israelites to do, was to walk by faith.

These people had tasted and seen the goodness of God literally in the wilderness.

And let's see if they're celebrating and remembering God. Let's turn to Exodus 14.

We'll start in verse 11. It says, and then they said to Moses.

Let's see, are they filled with thanksgiving?

Are they filled with remembrance? Are they filled with an excitement of goodness

that God's leading them to a wonderful promise to land?

It says, and then they said to Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt,

have you taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Why have you dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt?

Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt saying?

Now, I'm sure this is not what they said to Moses. I'm pretty sure they were

saying we needed a deliverer. We wanted to get out of here.

But now they're saying, did we not tell you, let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?

They were not saying, let us serve the Egyptians.

They did not say, I want to be a slave. They wanted to be free.

For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.

And Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today.

For the Egyptians who you see today, you shall see again no more forever.

The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.

The biggest hindrance to walking in the goodness of God is complaining.

Complaining is a form of unthankfulness.

A few months ago, the Lord had been dealing with me, and I'm going to be transparent,

and this is just a very minor example compared to, I feel compared to the Egyptians and the Israelites.

About four or five years ago, I was in a place where we were really believing for a home.

I was praying for a home. I was going before the Lord saying,

Lord, we desire a place that we can open our home up to other people.

We desire a place that we can use our home as a tool to serve others.

And at that time, we had some good neighbors, but we had some really bad neighbors.

And so I said, and God, I don't want to go to jail, and I need to move.

And it was bad. I'm talking, it was really bad.

We, there was one time, oh, it was so bad. I'm not going to share that story.

I'm not, this pastor knows that story. But I said, God, I need to,

I got to get up and get out.

Just like, I wasn't saying I wanted to stay and serve those neighbors.

I wanted to get up and get out. And so we had looked at some homes,

and we were looking in different places, and it's very interesting because God

was searching out the land.

He knew where we needed to be because he knew the trajectory of our life.

He knew years down the line where our business needed to be,

where our family needed to be. He had searched out a place for us.

And so we were praying, and it was literally in the midnight hour,

literally in the midnight hour, where we had put an offer on a home that I knew that was our home.

We had put that offer in, and it was around 11.45 at night. My phone rang,

and the realtor said, are you awake?

And I was like, I am now. And she said, give me about 15 minutes,

but I think they're going to accept your offer.

So I remember getting up. I didn't wake Josh up. The kids were asleep.

I went into the bathroom, and I remember just sitting on that floor,

praying and crying out to the Lord, like, Lord, this is not me being selfish, just wanting any home.

I really believe that this is a home that we can serve other people.

And so praise God. Fast forward. We got that home.

It is a blessing. I truly enjoy my home. I'm a homebody too.

So when I go home, I'm home. I love it.

Well, a few months ago, I caught myself.

I really started complaining. Man, this house is always dirty.

The kids told my son

I said stop touching the walls why do

you have to walk down the hall touching the

walls doing that I was complaining about our

animals and if you don't know we've got a lot of

animals it's just our children we save animals

if there's a stray animal if there's an abandoned animal we're

gonna take it in so we have a dog three cats and a ferret and

I was just like this is my home and I

was complaining I was just complaining can you

hear me better now okay good I'm gonna take this off right quick sorry there

that's okay it'll stay like that and so I was complaining about all of these things I,

And then the Lord arrested me, and the Holy Spirit said, your place of answered

prayer has become a place of complaints.

And it really bothered me. Wow, like I thought back and I said,

God, I prayed for this home. It is a blessing.

I prayed for these kids. They are a blessing to me.

I didn't necessarily pray for the animals, but they are a blessing to me.

They are a blessing, and they're loving, and they're obedient.

And I looked back, and I thought, all the times we've opened our home,

and I've sat with people who were going through a really hard time,

and they would cry at my kitchen counter.

It's nothing fancy, nothing big and special, just love, just fellowship.

There has been times we've opened our home for you guys to come in for true life in the bonfire.

Sierra loves our bonfires.

And it's just a time of fellowship.

But my place of answered prayer had become a place of complaints.

And so I challenge you to watch in your own life.

Have you prayed for something earnestly?

Sought the Lord, and he answered that prayer. He came through for you,

and now you complain about it.

Please watch that. So, has your answered prayer become your place of complaints?

Turn to Numbers 14.

Now, I'm going to ask those in the back if they'll keep verse 3 just up on the screen.

I'll tell you when we're going to go to verse 4.

But here in Numbers 14 of verse 3, it says, here again is the Israelites.

It says, why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword?

That our wives and children should become victims.

Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt.

These are people who, they are eyewitnesses to the Passover.

They are eyewitnesses to walking into water and seeing it split.

They walked through the Red Sea.

Their answered prayers had become a place of complaints.

They were no longer slaves. They were free. And they wanted to return to Egypt.

They weren't being thankful. the moment

that they became discouraged and uncomfortable, they wanted to go back.

They wanted to go back to bondage. They wanted to go back to slavery.

And we do the same thing. When we become uncomfortable, weary,

fearful, discouraged, our mind and our flesh says go back.

Go back to what? Really think about that.

Go back to what? Go back to that relationship that was abusive?

Go back to that job where you weren't appreciated and there was strife and drama

and you prayed to get out of it?

Go back to that habit that you were delivered from?

Do you really want to go back just because you don't know what to expect next?

And that's what going back is.

Going back and retreating is just going back to the familiar.

It's just the familiar. It's not more comfortable.

Is just familiar to you.

God answered your prayer. He's given you goodness, and he's been faithful to you. Why go back?

And that's what complaining does. As we have a mindset of just complaining,

our mind and our flesh and the enemy will step in and say, you need to go back.

Have you been sitting around considering going back to something?

When God is saying, bless me, put into remembrance my goodness,

I will carry you forward.

Now we're going to go to verse 4.

It says, so they said to one another, let us select a leader and return to Egypt.

We're going to leave that up there for just a minute.

I really laughed at this when I was reading it because it says, let us select a leader.

Well, God already selected Moses. They had a leader, but the people came together

and said, let us select a leader and return to Egypt.

So we're all adults in here, and so we're not going to get offended by the next thing that I share.

So we're going to set our heart right now, and we're going to say,

I will not be offended. And side note is that I believe, this is not in the

Bible, I believe that offense is the biggest enemy to the local church.

I believe that that offense is a huge maybe not the biggest but it is a severe

enemy to the local church now i'm going to continue so that pastor's not like

oh god what is she going to say,

when they said let us select a leader and return to egypt let us go back what

they meant was, let us select a leader who will cater to our feelings.

Let us select a leader who will let us do what we want to do.

And let us select a leader who won't challenge us. And let us select a leader who won't stretch us.

And Christians today, remember we're not going to be offended,

Christians today come to church and some of these Christians they want a pastor

who will cater to their feelings.

They want a pastor who won't challenge their lifestyle, that won't challenge their habits.

They want a pastor who will not challenge them. And they want a pastor who won't stretch them.

I remember when we first started coming to True Life, we had maybe only been here a few weeks.

And as we were leaving, we stopped at the door to greet Pastor.

And I remember he stopped me and said why do

you keep coming back I had never

had a pastor ask me why do I keep coming back to church and up out of me I will

never forget I said it's because you challenged me I did not know that day that

I would be challenged even more but I did not need a watered down message.

I needed change in my life. I was in a really hard, dark season of my life.

I needed change.

I needed this word to be real.

I needed this word to come alive. I needed to come here and be fed.

And when I left, be changed, but

also be challenged to be the change in someone

else's life and so I believe

here as the Israelites were saying and

you can remove that verse the Israelites were saying

hey we want another leader we don't like that Moses is challenging us we don't

like that Moses is taking us into the unknown we want another leader I believe

that you all the congregation of true life that's not what we want we want to

go deeper and we want to go further.

We want to come in and put down sin so that we can come up higher.

That's how we go in and occupy the new place that God has for us.

This is preparing ground.

This is preparing ground, an exodus, so that now we can travel and put down

roots and occupy the land.

So this is not part of my message, but I feel like Pastor of the Lord is saying,

so we don't get discouraged for the journey.

We have already exited this facility.

The exodus project is fulfilled at the very last moment of last year.

I don't remember the date. I don't know if it's the 28th.

At the very end of the year, for you guys that don't know, we were believing

for the Exodus Project to be completely paid in full.

And literally that last few days, God stepped in and paid the entire project.

Just completely paid it all. Paid in full. There you go. That is a miracle.

That was because God was saying, hey, this is done.

This is done. We've got to travel now.

And so we're traveling to a place that God has already searched out.

And it's a good land. He doesn't want us to settle for less.

He wants the best land for his people.

And so now as we're traveling and transitioning, it's to lay down roots.

It's to be planted in a place.

And I believe that there are three different character traits that we're going

to need as a congregation and in our personal life.

We need submission, we need obedience, and we need thankfulness.

Submission, obedience, and thankfulness.

His goodness is going to carry us to these places.

Turn with me to John 14, verse 1 through 3. This is in the Passion Translation.

John 14:1–3

It says, don't worry or surrender to your fear.

That's a command from Jesus. Jesus is speaking here.

Don't worry or surrender to your fear. It's always going to be there.

It's always going to try to creep in. The enemy's always going to try to use

that tool of fear to stop you.

For you've believed in God, now trust and believe in me also.

Verse 2 says my father's house

has many dwelling places if it

were otherwise I would tell you plainly because

I go to prepare a place for you

to rest and when everything is ready I will come back and take you to myself

so that you will be where I am now we know that this passage is Jesus talking

to his disciples about his departure and that he is going to prepare a place for us in heaven.

And praise God, that is a promise that we need to be thinking about every single day.

That the Lord is preparing a place for me. He loves me so much that he died

for me, broke the curse over my life, and he's preparing a good place for me.

And I also believe spiritually Essentially, he is talking about occupying places

in your life, places that are different for you than me.

Now, these places could be fatherhood.

You could be stepping into a season where you're called to be a really good dad.

Maybe it's not to birth children. Maybe it's stepping into a role as a stepdad, an adoptive dad.

Maybe it's fatherhood for youth around you, and he's given you a heart.

It might be motherhood. It might be ministry he's calling you into or calling you up higher in.

It could be business owners that he is rising up. It could be husband, wife, friend.

He is calling you into places to occupy.

And his goodness will carry you with his anointing in these places.

But we have to stay submissive, obedient, and thankful for his goodness to carry

us. Let's take a look at Ephesians 1 and verse 3.

It says, Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished

upon us. I really want you to meditate upon that.

Jesus has caused every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms to be lavished upon you.

As a love gift from our wonderful Heavenly Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus,

all because he sees us wrapped into Jesus.

This is why we celebrate him with all of our hearts.

You are in right standing with God because of your belief in Jesus Christ.

You're not in right standing just because of who you are, just because you're

a good person or where you came from or who raised you.

What brings you into that holy place before the Lord.

In right standing with God is the blood of Jesus.

Ephesians chapter 1 verses 7 and 8,

Ephesians 1:7

it says, Since we now join to Christ, we have been given the treasures of redemption

by his blood, the total cancellation of our sins, all because of the cascading riches of his grace.

This super abundant grace is already powerfully working in us,

releasing with us all forms of wisdom and practical understanding.

This super abundant grace that is working in us, it cannot work in the fullness

when we are complaining and we've turned our place of answered prayer into complaints.

You cannot be thankful and complaining at the same time.

You just can't. You can't walk in the fullness of God's goodness and faithfulness

when you are walking around complaining about the very things that he's doing in your life.

And I'll close with this. Galatians 3, 13 and 14 says,

It says, yet Christ paid the full price. He didn't pay a half price.

It was a full price for you. To set us free from the curse of the law, he absorbed it.

He absorbed the curse for you completely.

As he became a curse in our place, for it is written, everyone who is hung on a tree is doubly cursed.

Jesus, our Messiah, was cursed in our place and in so doing dissolved the curse from our lives.

When we are walking around complaining, it's like we're going back and picking

up a little bit of the curse and just sticking it on us.

Just covering us with a little bit of the curse. That Jesus already dissolved all of that.

That's not who we are. That's not what we carry around. We put on the garment

of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

When that heaviness tries to attack you, you open your mouth and give thanksgiving

and put that garment of praise on.

He dissolved the curse from our lives so that all the blessings of Abraham can

be poured out upon even non-Jewish believers, Gentiles.

And now God gives us the promise of the wonderful Holy Spirit who lives within

us when we believe in Him.

I believe that the goodness of God will carry you as you stay in thankfulness.

As you submit to Him and you are obedient to Him and you remain thankful.

His goodness will run after you. It will pursue you all the days of your life.

And I want you to get into a habit of going

back and rehearsing the good things that God's done for you if you have to take

a whole afternoon and you just write it down thank you God that you delivered

me here thank you Lord that I didn't die in that car accident and whatever year

thank you Lord that you healed me that you protected me,

I did that this week. I talked to pastor this week. And I hope this encourages you too, Robert.

Sean knows about this too. I talked to her. I went to a doctor,

a checkup. Because I believe in getting checkups.

There's nothing wrong with the checkup. You go in faith.

And I had had a few little symptoms, but nothing major. I had went for a checkup.

And the doctor said, we have to send you to a specialist.

And I thought, I feel great. Why?

And he said, well, there's something going on in your ear that I can't really

see, so we're going to send you to a specialist.

So I went to a specialist, ENT, and they looked in my ears and said,

okay, well, first your eardrums are retracted, and in your left ear,

there's a complete hole in your eardrum, and we

can see the bones that we're not supposed to be able to

see and two of them are split apart and

I was like okay and he said so we're going to send

you to another specialist and we don't

understand how you are walking

around how are you not dizzy how are you not in pain and I said thank you Jesus

I have no dizziness I have no pain I told pastor I said I feel great and they're

saying how are you even able to walk around with this happening right now.

And so I went to the specialist this last week and they did some hearing tests.

They did a CT scan.

And we talked about a plan that we're going to continue with of repairing this

eardrum, which would require surgery.

And you know, I think a lot of times we hear surgery and we think, oh, that's not from God.

But I believe that if you have peace, I didn't say always if you don't have peace from God.

Then don't go through with it. If you have peace and you have a green light,

then I believe that God will anoint that surgeon's hand.

And when I was sitting there, because I don't ever, Josh says,

I don't ever agree to anything until I know it's from God.

I sometimes can be hard-headed with that. And so I said, I got to pray about this.

And I felt a green light on this one. Now, there's been times where I've said

no to medical treatment, but I felt like I had a green light for this.

And they said, okay, well, we have to repair the hole in your eardrum and we're

gonna have to put you in like a little fake bone That will connect because the bones had dissolved.

Um, so I got home And as soon as I got home now, I had a green light at the

office I felt peace the whole way home felt peace talked to pastor had peace.

I've talked to shone um,

The enemy came in. Unbelief started to come in.

All the negative risks started speaking to me.

And I did exactly what I've taught you today.

I said, Lord, I believe that you're leading me to do this. And I want to thank

you that I don't have to get surgery on my right ear.

I want to thank you that that CT scan did not show infection.

I want to thank you that that CT scan did not show a tumor.

I want to thank you that I can walk, that I'm not dizzy, that I'm not in pain.

When the enemy comes to you and says, oh, you have deficiency,

whether that's health or finances or peace in your relationships,

when the enemy says, look at all this deficiency, you need to go back and look

at the abundance in your life.

Thank you, God, I have knees that can bend.

Thank you God I can hear Thank you God I can speak Thank you God I have these

family members in my life That I'm not lonely and alone,

Thank you Lord that I may have got an unexpected bill But thank you God I can

pay for it We got to get thankful We got to stop focusing on the deficiency

And look at the abundance of the goodness of God in our life We have to make

this a lifestyle Thank you God.