Suffering Redefined | Pastor Paul McGee

Do me like Jesus with Can't nobody do me like the Lord?

Can't nobody do me like Jesus? He's my friend.

Amen. He is a friend, indeed, friend

that sticks closer than a brother.

The scripture says, Amen. We welcome each one of you to

the First Apostolic Church. So thankful for you being here

today. And we are in a contest.

But as I've reached out to some that have come as guests, we're

thankful for you being here for that.

But beyond that, we're just thankful for you.

All right? Beyond that, we're just thankful

for you. This is just a means for us to

rib one another and you know, say ha and all that.

But when it comes down to it, we're thankful for you today

being here in in the House of the Lord with us.

I want to just add a little add a denim on sister Mcgee's

bringing the candy. Bring candy that came man and

woman candy. In fact, if you probably like

it, you probably shouldn't wish, you know, start passing some of

that around. Honestly, I I kind of like

black, so I can't bring that. I got to bring something else,

even bring some bring some candy appropriate for kids.

And we appreciate that. I am on the green team.

And the only way I'm saying the only reason why I'm saying that

whenever I shook Scott's hand this morning, he said I figured

you'd have all four on your lapel that I told him I probably

should have, but green would be at the top.

But nonetheless, Amen, we're glad to have he and his wife.

I think I'm we're going to get a committee together, see if we

can't set up a mailbox somewhere around Mount Carmel for y'all.

I think maybe you just need to make Mount Carmel home.

You know, I may come. I know the East Coast looks

great, but you just might need to might need just make Mount

Carmel your home. We're glad to have you, Amen And

Dina, right, Katie's mom today start seeing that this was all

part of Katie's family. And Dina said, well, this ain't

all of us. So you have been warned.

You've been warned. The posse is coming.

The posse is coming. So we're glad to have them this

morning as well. Amen.

With us, all of these different families.

I'm going to be turning to the Old Testament book, the prophet

of Isaiah, prophet Isaiah chapter #53 the book of Isaiah

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

chapter 53, going to begin reading with verse #3 today.

And of course, we are heading into a season in the church in

the world over all Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, and

people already in the mindset of all of that.

And so I know it's not either one of those days, but I felt

drawn to this passage of Scripture this week.

And so I'm going to share from the word of the Lord.

The Bible says in verse #3 of Isaiah 53.

This is prophesied what most would term the suffering servant

in the Old Testament prophesied. But if you read all of the

Bible, you understand who that suffering servant was that was

being spoken of in Isaiah, Christ Jesus.

So the Bible says in Isaiah 53 and three, He is despised and

rejected of men. A man of sorrows, and acquainted

with grief. And we hid, as it were, our

faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed

him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,

smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our

transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His

stripes we are yield. Think it's important today if we

could draw our attention to verse #4 and this is kind of

little preview in actuality. If you look at the inverse of

this verse tells us what the crowds and the people and those

that were taking in this whole scenario seen it as that this is

this man being stricken and smitten and afflicted of God.

That's what this is. But there comes a shift in their

understanding of what really was taking place because they say,

surely He had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows for a

little while this morning. I want to talk to you today

about suffering redefined. Suffering redefined.

Amen. I'm going to ask the Lord's help

this morning. Thank you Jesus, God, for this

opportunity. I pray, Lord, that you would,

God continue to move, Lord, upon our hearts and our minds as we

look at your word today, as we look at Lord Jesus, your story,

God, that has become our story. I pray, O Father, this morning

that you have to help us in new and afresh and bring

enlightenment and understanding. God, revelation, Lord, in this

place today and will not fail to thank you, praise you for the

lovely name of Jesus Christ, that I pray Hallelujah and Amen

and the church say Amen. You may be seated today.

Brother Zach. Yeah, if you could put that

picture up for me. This is a very no picture of our

history, particularly after the times of the economic fall of

our world of that that that depression that came up on

America. As a matter of fact, I think it

was in the 90s that this picture was actually made into a stamp.

This is a picture that photographed for Dorothea Lang

took back in 1936. It's titled The Migrant Mother.

It was taken in the Pono, California.

And the woman that you see here is Florence Owens Thompson.

She is at this time 32 years old.

This is during a very great economic struggle of our world

where people were migrating from place to place and working in

fields and such for the purpose of sustaining their families.

And so she's 32 years old by the picture just looking at this

brother Reese. We we see what maybe if we were

to start to guess or suppose as a woman that's a destitute

mother of several children. There's three shown here in the

picture, but she has several more children than that.

Some say six others say seven children that she had.

She's actually sitting alongside the road of a pea pickers camp.

Her face, you look at her face and you see the lines that are

engraved, if you will, in her face, her, her hand pressed to

her cheek, her children leaning upon her shoulder.

Some have described her as being a woman, perhaps under stress or

worry. And this, this photo became

iconic in the 1930s for suffering or for brokenness of

our world and the family and what they were going through it.

It was depicted as a woman that was that was passive, a woman

that was helpless. But Brother Mason years after

this picture was taken and after that story had had been written

and people had made their own deducements just by looking at

the picture of what that may have represented.

There were some journalists that had interviews with with

Florence's relatives and their family, and they revealed a

woman that that scraped and bargained and negotiated and did

whatever was necessary to survive with a relentless

determination. In other words, they were

wanting people to know that society had really misread her

supposed suffering that they seen in that picture, that those

lines that were up on her face were not really woman in in a

place of resignation, but they were the lines of a woman of of

determining lines of a woman of endurance and courage.

And that was resourceful, willing to do and wanting to do

whatever she could do. There are just a few things and

you take that down, Brother Zach.

There are just a few things more painful in our lives than

misunderstood suffering. Misunderstood suffering.

Whenever you go through something and there's bystanders

on the outside of your situation and they're starting to deduce

why you are going through what you're going through, why you

are suffering the way that you are suffering, what you have

done, or what could have they have done in order for them to

be met with this plight in life. If you know the story of Job in

scripture, it is such a story where people wrongly misread his

suffering, wrong, misread what he was going through.

The Bible describes that he sat down in ashes.

One place in scripture describes it like this, that he defiled

his horn, which is a symbol of power.

He defiled his horn in the dust. And while Job sat in ashes, all

those that were viewing his life sat in their opinions about why

he was where he was and why he was going through what he was

going through. Think with me for a moment.

His children. Children have died.

His body is broke. His reputation seemingly has

failed just because with everything that went on.

And he sat there and his friends, when they first came,

had seven days of silence, which would have probably been best if

they continued that way. But then they opened their

mouths and tried to explain everything that was going on,

tried to explain why, why his livestock was slaughtered or why

that was burned or why the wind came and took out the house

where his kids were celebrating. And it's just human nature.

I believe it hasn't changed for thousands and thousands of

years. When somebody hurts, we want to

know why somebody's going through something.

We just want to know why. Whenever somebody falls, we want

to know, well, who's to blame? Is it somebody else or is this

their own doing that? And sometimes we go to the

negative spot. They brought this on themselves.

No, no other contacts, no other information.

We're just viewing their life. They brought this on themselves.

And so we have questions that enter our mind, whether we speak

them verbally or not. We say things like who failed or

who failed them or, or what went wrong or, or what did they do to

deserve this, that this would come up on them.

Or sometimes we get so bold and say, well, where is God in all

of this? Where is God?

And all this because society, humanity, we want an

explanation, Amen. And that's how people often

respond to suffering. And I found in the years that

I've lived upon this earth, if we don't soon get a response for

why a person is suffering, we'll rush in to interpret it

ourselves like they did in the book of Isaiah.

Their interpretation of the suffering servant and everything

that he would go through, everything he would be exposed

to, everything that came into his life at this moment.

Their interpretation is this. He's smitten, he's stricken, and

he's afflicted of God. And they thought, as often times

we think, we think we know the whole story, but we're wrong.

Job in his book, all of his suffering and everything that he

underwent, Amen points really ahead to the future.

But Job really doesn't give us a final answer on all of his

suffering himself. But that answer is going to come

from another man. That answer is going to come

from another sufferer in Scripture, one who was just as

completely misread as Job was misread.

You must look at chapter 53 of Isaiah, The onlookers in this

book, they are misunderstanding the suffering that's taking

place here. They mislabel the suffering

that's taking place here. Again.

They see a man, a man by the Reese that's smitten and

stricken and afflicted. And through the rumors that no

doubt had filled Jerusalem, through the rumors that had

filled the city where this man was as it filters across, they

understand that the type of people that are going to he be

alongside him. Amen.

On Gogolf this hill are the type of people a man that also should

be and ought to be crucified. They were just assuming in this

moment that swinging the hammer against the anvil in this man's

life and he ultimately deserved it.

Amen. They probably asked questions

among themselves. Did did he not in in his walk

among society and among the towns of Galilee and around the

sea where he walked? Did did he not do some

unacceptable actions on the Sabbath day and Sabbath

observances? And so no doubt this is part and

parcel because he didn't observe, observed the Sabbath

like he should have observed the Sabbath.

And others are saying, well, I heard that he even claimed to be

God. So no doubt that's coming to

bear upon his suffering that he's going through right now.

And there's others that said, well, he's declaring himself to

be the king of the Jews. So that's got to come into play

for surely he's being stricken because of that.

And then others say, well, I heard that they're they're

they're detaining him while they let go a seditionist.

They're they're letting go Barabbas, they're letting go a

murderer and they're retaining him.

So surely he's done something worse.

Surely he's done something worse than the man Barabbas that they

are letting go, Because that wouldn't make any sense.

Surely his misdeeds must surpass Barabbas.

And so they're thinking he's going to rightfully suffer for

all of this behavior that he has done incorrect and wrong.

And for that matter, they're taking him to Calvary, and

Calvary's not a place for the innocent.

Calvary's not a place for the innocent.

That Roman execution site, it's meant to make whoever's there a

spectacle. Amen.

That they have been rebellious or they've done something

against the law, or they've done something against humanity.

And so the one that's going there, being stricted and

afflicted and smitten, he's being punished at the right

place in the right company. Because look, he even has two

thieves on each side. He's getting what he deserves.

But Bishop, what the I cannot understand the Word of God

reveals to us here in Scripture. It places us in the same world

of misinterpretation as it was thousands of years ago, but it

does so with, as I pointed out to you this morning when I

began, the inverse of verse #4 We did esteem Him stricken and

smitten of God and afflicted, but surely He hath borne our

griefs and carried our sorrows. What are you saying, Pastor

McGee? I'm saying there's two things

happening right here within this verse.

On one hand, there's the appearance of what it seems to

be, the appearance of what it might be, the appearance of what

it could be. But on the other hand, there is

the truth of what it really is, the truth of what really is

taking place. The crowd looked upon Him and

they misread everything that was happening in that moment.

They saw the pain and they assumed that He's rejected.

They saw the wounds and they assumed that this is the wrath

of God coming down. They saw the affliction and they

assumed that he's being abandoned.

And they thought God must be against this man.

And they treated all of the suffering that he went through

as a verdict upon his life, stricken and smitten and

afflicted. But the prophet says Isaiah

raises his voice and he says you thought that he was being

punished for himself, but he was really bearing what belongs unto

you. I love what the contemporary

English version says. It reads that same verse like

this. He suffered and endured great

pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from

God. In one sentence we they thought

it was from God, but it was for us.

He was not suffering because he was guilty.

He was suffering because we were guilty.

He was, he was not suffering because he had per SE done

something wrong. He was suffering because

humanity, the collective cloud of the world, was in wrong

standing and he was trying to make our wrong right.

And so this is where the text finds us.

And we often do the same thing, see someone suffer.

I know the reason. I don't know them from Adam's

House Cat, but Scott, I know the reason why they're suffering.

Plain as the nose on your face. It's what Job's friends did, the

air that they made. You know what Job's friends

issue was to a certain degree. They had theology, yes, but

their theology was too neat for a broken world.

They believed it all boiled down to a very simple formula.

Righteousness equals blessing. Sin equals suffering.

So if you're blessed, you must be righteous.

All right, Come on, talk about it.

And if you're suffering, you just must be in the trenches of

sin. No if ends or buts.

No Gray areas, very decisive line right down the middle.

And so then we see hardship coming each other's lives and we

go to our edge of our seat and say, wonder what they've done.

I said a few weeks ago, I almost, you know, and not try to

be gross fit. Almost every time I hear it, I

kind of exert vomit just a little bit in my mouth.

Oh, I'm just so blessed and highly favored, but the Lord,

I'm just walking in heaven places with Christ Jesus.

Well, guess what? Sometimes I get a flat tire.

Sometimes I have three vehicles that need to see the mechanic at

the same time. Sometimes Brother Fred, we come

home right after a trip and lightning struck our house and

our windows busted out. Kenny, that's not saying Brother

Fred's not righteous. It's just saying humanity likes

to mislabel and misread suffering.

Christ Jesus entered suffering deeper than any other man has

ever known, yet still in that moment he was never more in the

center of God's will then when he was hanging in that suffering

up on the cross. And he's suffering in reality

because he's volunteered for it. He's volunteered for it.

The one who knew no sin was treated as though he were sin

itself. The Apostle Paul said in in 2nd

Corinthians 5 and verse 21. He said, for he hath made him to

be sin for us who knew no sin. And no, this isn't because

Christ Jesus had sinned, but because he had taken our place.

He goes on to say that we might be made the righteousness of God

in him. Jesus Christ was under the

weight of judgment because He chose to stand where we stood,

good, not smitten for Himself, but smitten for us.

And this is the wonderful pattern of Isaiah 53, this

constant for us, pattern that Isaiah talks about.

It goes on in verse #5 Isaiah 53.

But He, or I say He was wounded for us were transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was up on Him.

And with His stripes we are healed.

Do you understand this? Look at the beginning of verse

#5 it's talking about Him being smitten.

Verse #4 smitten the God afflicted, stricken.

And it comes with that strong contrasting word verse #5 But it

was He for our, He for our, our upon Him.

It's his constant pattern of He for us.

And So what that tells me is this, the suffering that's

taking place there. That's not random suffering.

That's not arbitrary suffering. That's just not because

suffering. That's not that at all.

What we see here, if we really understand it, Amen.

It's suffering as us. This is a substitutionary

suffering. This is someone suffering not

for their own, but for another He, for our, our, upon him.

And the language Isaiah is writing some 700 years before

the concept of a crucifix was even in existence.

But he's writing the language of the cross 700 years before

there's the concept of a crucifix appearing in history.

The crowd, yes, punish him, crucify him, and they've seen it

as punishment. But from heaven's point of view,

that wasn't punishment taking place, That was deliverance

taking place. Someone say yes, I I want to if

you will accept and adopt the words of Saint John 129 that

whenever John seen Jesus Christ in shoe leather walking in his

earthly ministry before Calvary ever came into the picture,

Amen. For most that were were to

observe it, he said of Jesus, Behold the Lamb of God, which

taketh away the sins of the world.

The apostle Peter says that Christ in first Peter 224 he is

only himself bear our sins in his own body on the tree

Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew lifts his

voice and says, what happened in Christ fulfilled the prophecy of

Isaiah. Matthew 817 himself took our

infirmities and bear our sickness.

So you can read Isaiah, you can read John, you can read the

apostle Peter, you can read the apostle Paul, you can read

Matthew. And these are not separate

thoughts, whether it be any or each of them.

They're all the same thought proclaiming the same gospel,

Amen. Through different voices of

different times and different books that the suffering servant

of Isaiah's prophecy, what's the Christ Jesus of the cross in the

New Testament? And what that means is this,

Amen. That means the cross was not the

point where heaven gave up. That's where heaven gave

everything. Yes, to the message we tote.

It's not that Christ suffered, but more specific, Christ

suffered for US. Judge it as you will and as

humanity did. But let's put the corrective

lens there, Tony, the whipping post and what took place there,

that was for you. The mocking, the spitting.

Ethan, that was for you. The nails in hands and feet,

Krista, that was for you. You know what that means?

Each one of those moments that it was for us or for this or for

that word for just three letters, but a powerful word for

gives the suffering direction. 4 gets the suffering direction.

It gives the suffering purpose. It gets the suffering destiny.

It's not a drifting agony. It's not a drifting sorrow.

It's not a aimless suffering. It was a redemptive.

Here's what I'm convinced years down the road that we walk in

churches all across America. We come with our own notions and

ideas and believe, well, God's finished with me.

He's let me because I'm suffering right now.

We're not guilty of interpreting other people suffering.

Then we get guilty of interpreting our own.

He must be finished with me. I must have ran out of chances.

He must have abandoned me. Suffering.

It's got to be. But folks, suffering is not

always a sign that God has abandoned someone.

Hear me. Calvary should be picture enough

that sometimes God is doing His deepest work in some of the

places that look the most painful.

I wish I wish the story of everybody that ever came to God

or came back to God was just XYZ.

You know what? I woke up on one sunny 1

sunshine morning and the wind was blowing the clouds away and

the tulips was coming out of the the ground and I said I'm going

to go to the House of the Lord and make him my Savior and King.

I wish every story was that, but I read other stories there were

David is talking about that. In my distress I looked into the

Lord and I found many times the very impetus for the four that

led some people to God was their sorrow, their pain, and their

suffering. It wasn't punishment.

It was God trying to woo them and draw them to where they knew

they could find an answer, where they knew they could find

healing, where they knew they could find hope.

Someone say Amen. He's getting what they deserve,

what he deserved. No, he was taking what we

deserved Heaven's rejecting him. Look at that.

What would be happening if heaven wasn't No, no, heaven was

sending him. We're going to stand here at

this crucifix as we Altas and we're going to watch the end of

a life No God right in the beginning of salvation for

someone right here at the good the cross.

Here's what I understand but them alone Job he didn't

understand the whole story while he was living through it of his

own life enough times we don't understand ours while we're

living through it either. The point is, is that Christ, he

knows what friends and what crowds and even what you may not

know. He knows what we're trying to

make sense of it. All right?

Everything that happens, our life, we got to make sense of it

right now. Be purpose got to be mean.

That's the reason why we scrounge around, try to give

purpose to things, even if it might not be the right purpose.

If I can give some purpose with it, even if it's

misappropriated, I'll feel better about it, even if even if

it paints me in the negative senses.

I flubbed up everything that was used that day.

Those whips, those nails, those thorns.

Yeah, all of that could have been instruments of human

cruelty, but they exceeded that Bishop.

They were the tools of rescue. And I think it's important

today. I love this about our Lord.

It's not as though Christ was sitting along the sidelines

giving some sideline advice to the hurting.

It wasn't like we are when the sports things are going on and

we're armchair refs. No, he entered the arena, He

entered the arena. He entered our hurt, He entered

our suffering. And so if he bore our griefs, as

Isaiah said, and carried our sorrows, then here's what we all

sitting here need to understand today.

Then then there is no reason for us to carry our guilt, though it

still belongs to us, and pretend like we can heal ourselves when

He's taken that obligation on himself.

We've been living in eternal rank, marching over orders since

the beginning of time. Even after Calvary.

He bore our sorrow, but we're still trying to bear it.

He's taking a large all of that suffering on us.

But we're like no, I should feel this bad because XYZ I deserve

it. So we just continue on in life.

I'm going to carry it because I don't deserve anything better

than this. You want to hear me right now?

You want to talk about trauma? Let's not go to your childhood.

Let's just go to your being born into this world.

A feeling like you don't deserve.

I don't deserve anything better. I don't deserve anything good.

Holly. He bore your grief, carried your

sorrow. Don't try to pick up what He

already placed on the cross, Folks, We're tugging and pulling

over. We're tugging and pulling on

things that's already been nailed there, and someone of you

has got your claw hook trying to pry it off so you can put it

back on yourself and carry it. That's not God's intention for

you. He's redefining suffering today.

No, no, no, no, He did it. He can take it.

I'm saying, Jesus, it was smitten and afflicted.

Yeah, I'm going back to the three smitten and afflicted and

stricken is the same one in New Testament Scripture.

He calls out to whoever and he says, come unto me, oh ye that

labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Fill my spirit today that we have restless people in here,

all right? Sleepless nights toss and turn

the agonies of what shouldn't have been but was.

And what now? You're the Holy Ghost in this

room. There's a call that's still

echoing from eons of time that's saying I want to give you a

rest, a peace that passes all understanding to give you a rest

where in the weary can rest. Because what looked like defeat

on Friday, right, was victory in preparation for Sunday.

Men thought they're ending his life.

God said no, I'm just using death so you can start your

life. The work is finished.

The work is finished. Note the Scripture.

Note the terminology that it is in Isaiah 53.

This is not the way it was worded.

He might have borne our grief. No, it says He hath borne our

grief. It does not say maybe, maybe He

carried our sorrows. It's not what it says.

It says He hath carried our sorrows.

Whatever Pastor McGee, whatever. Well, this is my challenge to

you today. We have a choice.

As we stand here, as we look at the sorrows, we look at The

Agonist, we look at the suffering we have.

We have an opportunity. We have a, we have a chance

here. Just as they did then, so we do

now. And this is what we got to ask

ourselves, am I going to receive the finished work of Calvary or

am I going to walk away from that hill?

Am I going to stand with the crowd as everybody else had

their opinions that day and misunderstand him and

misunderstand what was really taking place and misunderstand

what was being done? Will I look at him as just being

one more victim in history? Will I accept him as my answer?

Will I change my view of that supposed punishment and say no,

no, tone up. That wasn't punishment.

That was the display of a rescue mission.

That's what that was. Word explains it.

Now I'm getting to a closer by the means.

The word basically explains it. This, if I can just bring it

into a solitary sentence, that he was carrying what belonged to

us so that we might receive what belongs to him.

It's the story of Corinthians. He took all of our wrongs and he

the the word is imputed. He put them on his record and

then his righteousness he imputed as the word, but it

means he put that on our account.

Now, there may be some here today said that sounds like a

deal because if I got yoked up at the right person, we could

say, hey, could we switch accounts in the real like

financial world? Just go let the sky be the

limit. Think of it.

We're going to do an account switch.

I don't know who the wealthiest person in the world is right now

there with you know, I know Bill Gates is decently where, you

know, wealthy, you know, by my standards, but let there be a

count switch that that that might be a little pleasing.

A matter of fact. I don't know what I don't know

if I'm even capable of managing that type of money.

But I guarantee you this on my side, it would be debt free pro.

No, it wouldn't. He's going to he's going to

inherit some debt, right? Oh, come on, debt.

That's not his debt, right? And I'm going to get some

riches. I never worked for folks.

When Christ said I'll take yours on me and you can take mine on

yours. You just got the best deal there

ever was because he got things that's not even on him.

And you got some things that you didn't deserve.

None of us deserve. But this isn't punishment.

This is a rescue mission he's on.

You didn't stand with me this morning by the Mason.

We've been taught it's been ingrained in US.

I think it's been ingrained. I don't know how.

Maybe it's part of the there's some gene in the DNA strand

that's common to all men. And that is we've been taught

then that just pain always means punishment.

To what? That's what those jobs friends

thought. That's what the people standing

near or even afar from the cross thought.

Sometimes when I look at my own woundings in my life, it's kind

of the the footnote that I write on the woundings of my own life.

Punishment. Punishment.

Oh, you got that diagnosis? Well, you got that diagnosis

because of this. What?

You did XYZ years ago. Everybody doing all right?

Yeah. Come on, talk about it.

Yeah. You were.

You were stricken with with cancer or with the possibility

of cancer because of that which you did.

XYZ. You lost your job because of

what you did. Everybody hearing me right now,

pain's got to mean punishment. Isaiah 53 will not, will not.

Let us say that. Not forever.

It's trying to correct that mentality.

It's the gospel, It's the death, burial and resurrection.

And it's the gospel in a nutshell.

Isaiah 53 is it's the comfort of Job, it's the meaning of the

cross. It's all of those things.

It's it's the hope of every wounded soul in here that may be

going through suffering right now.

And we're asking, why would God allow this?

And sometimes the answer isn't that God has turned away from

us, but that God is doing something in that far greater

than we can see, far greater than we can even comprehend.

And the underlining thing is this.

It's for us. We bow our heads in this place.

It's for us. He wants to redefine suffering.

Calvary redefined suffering. It's not just cut and dry that

the righteous are blessed and the sin stricken ones are

cursed. I've seen some very, very good

in my estimation. Righteous people go through some

horrific things right now. What?

My wife just spoke to you about Cotton Garnett, what he's going

through right now. I know his mom and dad very

aware. I've known him for 25 years.

Good pastors, pastors, wife, great people that family, just

tremendous family. Someone else might look at that

and say, well, that's a punishment for whatever, but

I've seen some really good people, might even call them

righteous people, go some through some horrific things.

I can tell you it's not always what it seems to be.

It's not always what it appears to be.

It's not always what people with their opinions think it really

is. God might be doing a sovereign

work that our minds can't fully comprehend on this side of it,

but when it's all said and done, we might be able to test our

eyes over our shoulders and say that's what God was doing

through that. And it didn't mean anything of

what I thought it was. Oh, I feel the Spirit of the

Lord here. I'm convinced today that there's

people set in this place that's been interpreting things of

their own life. They've used the darkest hues of

black and Gray to color in the lines of what's presently taking

place. But Sir, ma'am, I'm telling you,

but the Lord has a way of redefining sufferings.

It might not be everything that it appears to be, and it might

not be happening. Why you think it really is

happening? God may be doing a sovereign

work, even through pain, even through suffering.

It feels like pastor, he's working against me, but the end

result of it all is that he might be working for you.

It's just that we've been accustomed to view anything that

looks negative as though it can't come out with a good

outcome, that all things are possible with the Lord.

This altar is open today, folks. I'm not just saying this is hype

or anything like that. I'm telling you the Spirit of

the living God is here today and He wants to touch you.

He wants to minister to those points of your life that are

being misunderstood by you and others.

He wants to touch you today. He wants to minister to you.

He wants to bring real truth, meaning to all of our

suppositions of the wise. Why now, why this extreme?

Oh God, if you feel comfortable today and you're standing by a

loved 1, you just might just grab their hand today and just

simply utter God help me help my perspective, help my viewpoint,

help the perspectives that others have placed upon what I'm

going through the opinions God that others that's come down the

pipe that is worn heavy upon my life.

God, I know I know that reference point of Calvary, but

God I've been trying to serve that come unto me, Paul ye the

labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest.

It's a rest that can only be found in him.

It's a rest that can only be found in Calvary.

It's not a rest your doctor can give you.

It's not a rest your therapist can give you.

It's not a rest that pharmaceuticals can give you.

It's not a rest that your family can return to you.

You need the rest that the one that carried your log, he's he's

imputing, he's changing accounts with you.

He's the only one that can do that.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. He's pulling for us today.

The Lord's pulling for us today. He's wanting to redefine our

mindset and our reading of our suffering.

He's wanting to do it for us today.

He is a gentleman. He is a good God.

He's a long-suffering God. He is a patient God.

He's a mindful God, and He's here for you, for you.

He for us, He for us, our upon him.

Come on, brother and sister. Mason, let's sing right now.

Oh, I wish you'd be mindful. If you're say, man, I'm feeling

something this morning, Pastor McGee.

That's the Spirit of the Lord dealing with you.

That's the Spirit of the Lord reaching for you.

He knows where you're at. He knows the things you

entertain in your mind and the defeat that's already taken

place there and the hopelessness and the helplessness that's

already taken place there. He knows you.