T.D. Jakes: Motivation to Trust God's Plan and Overcome the Storms of Life | Full Sermons on TBN

[Music] how you respond to trouble determines your outcome to embrace the sorrow of the season and to trust God to bring you out of it is what faith is made of you cannot be comfortable and be Christlike in order to be Christlike he always always calls you out of your comfort zone he did not say that there would be a storm along the way he just told them they would get there the middle is where you wonder why God can be silent while you're in a storm and so I had sat on a plane for

about 12 hours left the beautiful city of Dallas flew to London got out in Heathrow walked the corridors made the change and then flew another 9 or 10 hours to Lego Nigerian and then by car I traveled out somewhere I had never been before to speak to over a million people I was in the hotel getting ready for the event pastor adabo had invited me to one of the biggest meetings he does during the year he's huge all over the world but in Africa it's unexplainable and I was getting ready to go when I got

a call the phone rang my son Jamar had had a heart attack and the doctors were trying to stabilize him and while they were telling me about it he'd had a second one and the airport was shut down for the evening and we had to pull all kind of strings to get out of there and I never got to preach to the crowd one because under battle you always have to keep your priorities straight don't let the seduction of the crowd of the allurement of the masses make you forget about the commitment to the few

Jamar was my son and I had to be there and I wondered Lord how in the world could this be happening they had rushed him into surgery and it didn't look good good and I said this is a 20-some year old young man who's vibrant healthy and good shape not overweight how could this happen you we we want to understand everything but we don't so I flew for hours and hours and all the while I stayed awake the whole time saying God spare my son because I don't want to know the pain of losing my

child and we want to understand why and I got to the hospital I came down the hall and he's laying in the hospital bed and he said I hear my daddy coming and I walked in the room I shaved his chest I talked to him I tried to get him ready for this this surgery they were going to do cuz they had to try to figure out where this was coming from and the first one hadn't proven it and I wanted answers and I learned something you don't get answers because you want them that God

doesn't explain himself for that matter the doctors don't explain themselves I would have took an answer from anybody they weren't explaining much because they weren't sure why he had the heart attack they couldn't give me answers and when I prayed and asked God why did I have to go through this he chose to be silent and the real issue becomes can you trust God when he doesn't answer because we want answers and we're raised in school to seek answers and then if you get the answer right we reward you and it makes us think that

there's an answer but sometimes life hands you stuff where there is no answer now he recovered and I'm happy about that he really recovered but my point in talking to you about seeking answers is that it's a dangerous thing to seek answers while you're suffering that's like trying to diagnose a storm in the middle of a tsunami you have to get to the other side of it and look back at it and see it in retrospect because if you ask too many questions at the wrong time you're not going to come up with healthy answers

or no answers at all and the frustration becomes a distraction because what difference does it make why you're still dealing with what and if you're dealing with what you can't worry about why so you're dealing with what and surviving what must take preeminence over understanding why I grew up in a little Baptist Church in the hills of West Virginia on the Mountaintop and we used to sing an old song we are tossed and driven on the mighty Seas of time summer times in summer Tempest off succeed a bright sunshine in the land of perfect day

when the Mist have rolled away we will understand it better by and by sometimes you have to realize that you have to settle to walk in the dark to walk by faith and not by sight to not ask God to appeal to your intellect because when you ask God to appeal to your intellect you ask him to come down to your level when his thoughts are above your thoughts and his ways are above your ways he has to come down to your level to explain himself and sometimes God is not interested in your intellect he

is interested in your obedience do you hear what I'm saying to you because obedience is proven best when you don't understand if I tell my child clean up the room you don't get to ask me why I don't have to explain to you we got company coming over and we got this no no no I said clean the room obedience is better than sacrifice obedience is better than understanding and God is trying to teach us to obey him and to trust in the fact get this that pruning is not punishment yeah that you are not

cursed because you had a bad day that God is Not punishing you just because you're going through suffering they feel the same but they're not the same the intention is quite different between pruning and Punishment pruning is the reward of having something of value is how God lets you know that you're valuable he he wouldn't prune you if you were a dying bush wow nobody prunes a dying Bush he prunes you because you're fruitful but pruning feels like punishment and if you're not careful you will feel like you're punished and if you will buy that

you're punished then you will believe that you're cursed God doesn't cut to kill us he cuts to heal us I had to trust God when they cut in my back four inches and operated on my back and I had to learn how to walk again I had to trust God as I preached on Sunday mornings and couldn't walk I went to Washington DC and preached I had to lay on the floor in the back of the church the pain was so great and then when they got ready to introduced me I came out and I

preached because when the anointing was on me and the spirit started moving and the energy got up it was like I had no pain I only made one mistake I sat down after I got through preaching instead of leaving and when I sat down I couldn't get up and they're in front of everybody they they had to help me up out of my seat the one who preached power and anointing and Glory couldn't get out of his chair and this oximoron between strength and weakness between Victory and being paralyzed is The Human Experience truth and

Trust whole hands they hang out together we need both to see the the crushing from God's Divine perspective we have to look at it from God's perspective to avoid our limited view we cannot see what God can see we can see to the corner but God can see around the corner and if you just trust him when all hell is breaking loose if you trust him with tears running down your face if you trust him through a Bad season and a storm and I and it's okay to be scared you can have fear and faith

at the same time I was afraid for my son and yet I had faith for my son you can have fear and faith at the same time Jesus said which of you if your son asked for a bread will give him a stone or if he asked for a fish would you give him a snake if you then through all of your evil ways know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the father give what you need to his children God knows what you need even when you don't like what

you need that is crushing [Music] my brother and I decided to go into business this was back when I was in West Virginia it was years ago and it was always our Dream to have a family business cuz my father had a family business so we decided to go into business together and we opened up a Windows insiding company and we were going to do windows insiding and I didn't know anything about Windows insiding but I learned pretty quickly I knew something about business and we were doing okay and in in West Virginia it gets

cold you need Windows and you need deciding and that we were selling and we hit a tough spot because you do that in business you you run out of capital you run out of resources you got to pay your staff you got to make your payroll you got to pay for your building you got to pay for your materials you have to do all of that kind of stuff and my brother who is my older brother and could always talk me into anything including letting him cut my hair when he didn't know how to cut

hair he could talk me into anything he talked me into putting up my car as collateral to get a loan to sustain the business and it was kind of like the haircut when I looked in the mirror I found out he couldn't cut hair and when we got through struggling in business I found out I didn't have a car I literally sat in the living room looking through the window as they drove my car away this is after going through a long period of being without a car and I needed a car cuz I had

two kids and I thought to myself why me why me I serve you I'm preaching I'm working I'm laboring I'm loving I'm trying to take care of this family why me and when I finally got an answer back the answer was why not me wow why not you what EX you from suffering if Jesus went to the Cross if Paul got locked up in jail if Joseph got thrown into a pit if the woman was there with the issue of blood why not me wow so when you face a dilemma and you run into a

crisis and you're trying to figure out what in the world is going on in my life and it feels like you're going backwards instead of forward and you trusted the wrong person or you made the wrong decision or the business didn't turn out like you think and you have a setback you have to remember a setback is a setup for a comeback that's right and you can't go into the valley of Despair and throw yourself a pity party and and luxuriate in the pain of your own self-indulgence and ask God why you when God spared

not his son why would he spare you come on the question is never why me it's Why Not Me amen I remember our ministry was thriving and then in 2008 the economy collapsed I had to lay off 40 people I thought why me Lord he said why not you other people are going through the same thing why not you the Lord was teaching me how to lead how to make decisions how to make tough choices anybody can make easy choices as a leader but in order to make tough choices and have the spine and the

guts to be able to put make a tough choice that people don't like and they're murmuring about it and they're complaining about it but it was necessary to do it and it fell my lot to be able to make those kinds of choices why me why not me to him who much is given much is required you can't have the much given and then avoid the much required you have to make the tough decisions and sometimes they are not popular it's not popular but it's purposeful yes and in the midst of seeking God's purpose you

have to understand that he has a plan for your life Trouble Comes to us all but what I'm glad about is that trouble doesn't last [Music] always trouble doesn't last always the art of life is to make sure that you don't get out of trouble and be left with [Music] trauma because trouble has an expiration date but trauma can last for 30 years I didn't write crushing just to get you out of trouble I wrote crushing to get you out of trauma the residue that holds on to you that threatens to ruin your future with

the incidents from your [Music] past the wind is high the Thunder is roaring the lightning is flashing and the boat is shaking like something you have never seen before and the Apostle Paul is aboard the ship with all of the passengers it's really a cargo ship and he's headed to Rome he thinks but the storm gets worse and worse and worse and many in desperation and in fear they want to get out of the boat because it's gotten rough but Paul says Sav you abide in the ship you shall not survive when it gets rough

we all want to jump ship when it gets tough we want to get out of it we we we want to get out of it so it to stop hurting yes but the ship was the solution to the problem and I know I know I know I know I hear you saying to me oh Bishop you must not know your Bible very well because the ship fell apart yes the ship fell apart but the people didn't because some on boards and some on broken pieces made it safely to the other side and had they gotten

out of the ship there wouldn't have been a board to hold on to so we have to make a decision every day do you stay in the process and submit to the pruning or do you jump ship for your own Comfort only to fall into Peril even Jesus had this Choice he taught a lesson that opposed many the true meaning of the bread and the wine many followers left they were pruned from Jesus because he said unless you drink my blood and eat my flesh you will have no part with me and that was not

a sermon they wanted to hear and they wanted to avoid the process not even understanding what he meant wow and then he asked Peter will you go away also or will you stay in the process and Peter responds where shall I go in your hands are the words of eternal life for some of us quitting is not an option we may cry we may whine we may groan we may fuss we may bicker but we cannot jump ship we must stay in the process what will you choose to do when your ship is tossed to

and fro and the lightning is flashing and the sky goes black and the wind is high and you're not sure what the next turn is going to bring when people are seasick and falling apart and men are screaming and women are in Peril will you stay on board the boat or will you jump off and go for something that seems like it might be better but could kill you how you respond to trouble determines your outcome to embrace the sorrow of the season and to trust God to bring you out of it is what faith

is made of you cannot be comfortable and be Christlike in order to be Christlike he always always calls you out of your comfort zone and when you say yes I will stand even though the boat is falling apart there's more power in the chips than there is in my Disobedience looking at my life you can tell the choice I made I'm 45 years into Ministry I'm 39 years into marriage I am not the kind of guy that walks away from a fight and I challenge you today if you're going to make anything last you got

to stay when it's rough and when it's tough and work together as a team to make it better I realize you can't be married by yourself it takes two to do that but in every area where your decision makes the difference you'll never be successful if you quit don't jump ship stay in the [Music] process so the Lord called me and I became aware of it around 17 though I didn't say yes to it until I was 19 and it's funny because when we talk about the Lord calling us it's like it's this one-time experience

like he calls you one time and and that's it and you're done the truth of the matter is he's still calling me by the time I get to where he was he's somewhere else so Paul says oh that I may apprehend that which I'm am apprehended of in other words I want to capture the god who's calling me yes and then the guy who is writing the most of the New Testament Epistles says I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do I'm forgetting those things which are behind and reaching to

those things which are before I press toward it I haven't got it yet but I press toward the mark of the prize of the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus means I want to see progress in my process the goal is not completion or Perfection Perfection is not my aim it's progress and he calls me and I get there and he calls me and I get there and he calls me and I get there and he calls me and suddenly I look back at where I came from and realized that the steps of a

good man have been ordered ordered ordered you hear that do you hear that ordered ordered by the Lord and that means every time I took a step it's cuz he called me he called me and he's going to keep on calling me until he calls me home yes and that will be a call too and as long as I keep an eternal yes to an eternal call I will always make progress yes sir the only thing that shuts down the progress is when he calls me and I say no it's not that I win it

just means that he has to war with me rather than reward me to show me that he's stronger than me and I delay the process because I don't understand that he's always going to be calling me and gratification is always going to be somewhere in front of me and I will almost be there my mother who taught me how to make banana pudding from scratch and and when she was sick and dying I made banana pudding for her and a big meal and I brought it up to her and I sat by the bed and

I gave her some of the banana pudding and I said Mama I said is it good as yours yet and she looked at could be she said almost and and I bust out and started laugh because she never was going to admit she never was going to admit that I had made it there but I got as close as almost almost and and it's so funny because that's what God is saying to me almost keep on [Music] stepping keep on stepping you're almost there keep on stepping you're almost there keep on growing you're almost there

almost there I count not myself to evapor ended and don't you count yourself to have apprehended don't die before you die don't let the enemy talk you into dying before you die and make you think that you're through just because your old job is over just because you're through raising kids or you're through parenting or you're through doing this or you're through doing that does it mean that your life is over it just means that you changed into another dimension and if you will allow God to let you change into the next Dimension you will

evolve and when you evolve your whole world shifts everything around you shifts Everything Changes somebody knows what I'm talking about to have the whole world shift crushing Fields Like An Earthquake because the whole world shifts the sea stands up the ground caves in the trimers are felt for Miles that's how big your God is when he moves everything shifts yes I say to you no I prophesy to you that a shift is coming of mam proportions and rather than to prepare for where you were prepare for where you're going prepare for what God is going

to do in this stage of your life that has never been done before because he chose you for such a time as this and if you can let go of your normal you're almost where he wants you to [Music] be who would have ever thought that the God we serve would introduce himself to us in a world filled with chaos a chaos so absolute and so complete and so all ulfing that the whole globe had succumbed to it that the whole globe had submerged beneath water and a baptism waiting on a birth wow that in

the chaos of the submergence of the earth that the master of the universe would introduce himself or at least his word when he said let there be light and there was light it means he was not afraid of the dark what is the dark anyway if you look it up you will come to understand that all darkness is is the absence of light so it is not an object at all so when God said let there be light he didn't have to roll back the darkness because the entrance of light dispelled Darkness that's why the

Bible said the entrance of Thy word giveth life and God stepped out on nothing and said let there be something and it became what he said and in the middle of the gross darkness and the chaos the chaos and the confusion of mud and water mingling together until they were indistinguishable one from the other God stepped in the muddy mess that we call a planet and said let there be light and there was light and it was good God doesn't need good to make good God doesn't need light to make light God doesn't need right

to make right God can step into total chaos and create calm because he's God he is the creator he creates he doesn't just make he creates part of the greatest thing God did in creation was to give us boundaries to say to the Sea here and no further to say to the darkness you can work at night and the evening and the morning were the first day and he separated the light from the darkness and gave it boundaries so what God does through the crushings of our life is give us boundaries because when you've never

been crushed you have no boundaries but after you have been crushed a while you learn boundaries you don't give your heart to strangers you don't fall in love so easily you don't run off and get married with somebody cuz they're cute you don't do all kinds of mistakes Come on talk to me somebody cuz you all of a sudden you got boundaries so things can grow because he couldn't say bring forth to Mud long before he started creating anything else he just said bring forth and he spoke to the thing that he wanted it to

come from and it became to the Sea he says bring forth and fish begin to swim to the ground he says bring forth and grass begins to grow to the air he says bring forth and birds begin to fly each thing he spoke to caused something to come forth when he got ready to to make man yeah he spoke to himself and said let us make man in our own likeness and in our own image and after our own kind so we are more than water and dirt and we are more than the universe and

Planet there is something of God in each and every one of us because he spoke to himself so he is to me what air is to birds what dirt is to Grass what water is to fish he is the atmosphere that I'm sustained in if you take the Fish Out of Water yeah he dies not because there's anything wrong with him you took him out of what he was spoken into if you take the bird out the air he dies not because there's anything wrong with him but you took him out of the thing he

spoke to yeah if you pull the grass up from the dirt it Withers because you took it out of the thing he spoke to and if you take me away from God I perish because you took me out of the thing he spoke to wow whatever it takes to keep me into you keep me [Music] there and with one command from the master himself all the disciples gathered all their equipment and got inside of the boat and started to launch for the master said let us cross over to the other side and whenever the master

says let us cross over to the other side who am I to say anything but let's and with a yes in their heart and a conviction in their Spirit they got in the boat while Jesus got in the bed they're on the boat and Jesus is in the bed in the hinder parts of the ship because Jesus said let us cross over to the other side he did not say that there would be a storm along the way he just told them they would get there he did not tell them that the lightning would flash

and that the Thunder would roll and that the boat would almost go capsized and that it would be so Fierce that even an experienced sailor like Peter would be terrified and that the boat would get filled with water he just said let us cross over to the other side and then we begin to learn how short God is on details yes he's great at beginnings and he's great at endings but he doesn't say much about the middle maybe that's why they say he's Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end the first and the last

because God doesn't say much about the middle and the middle is where the storm is the middle is where the lightning flashes and The Thunder Rolls and the middle is where the crushing is and the middle is where the doubt is and the middle is where you begin to wonder carest thou not that we perish the middle is where you wonder why God can be silent while you're in a storm the middle it's a crushing place it is the place of uncertainty it is the place of vulnerability it is the place where you have to

go to Jesus and you feel like you need to wake him up it is in his sleep that we discover the power of presence not the power of rhetoric not the power of solutions the power of presence how could Peter think that he was going to sink with the unsinkable presence of Jesus asleep in the bow of the ship in order for the ship to go down they'd have to drown Jesus so they woke Jesus up and he was the only one at this point who could handle the situation because Peter could not speak peace

cuz Peter didn't have peace and you cannot speak outwardly what you do not have inwardly Peter had trauma yeah so if he'd have spoke anything the storm would have gotten worse because he had more storm inside than he did outside the storm inside had become so tumultuous that now he's questioning his savior carest thou not that we [Music] perish Jesus got up wiped his sleeve out of his eye stood on the side of a rocking boat that looked like it would capsized and merely said peace be still but he said what he was yes because

he was peace he could speak peace because he was sleep he was calm enough to deal with the crushing place and he says peace be still and when he said peace be still the winds heard the voice that said let there be light come on right right right and the winds were slain in the spirit come on and the waves lay prostrate in the floor and the disciples stood there scratching their head saying what manner of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey his will yes he rebuked the wind yes but

wait you don't rebuke weather come on you rebuke spirit so behind the weather was a spirit Jesus rebuked the spirit and the weather had nothing left to work with the crushing is not the destination it's the transportation and you will get there to the other side [Music] and so it was amazing for me that the in the same year the first time I made my first trip to the motherland to the land of my ancestors when I first got off the plane to hear the gentleman say in a deep African accent welcome home was absolutely

staggering and it was amazing because in that same year I made my first trip to my spiritual ancestry to Jerusalem it was the first time these Old West Virginia feet had walked down cobblestone streets and smelt bread baking early in the morning and watched Jerusalem open up and come to life much as it would in the days of Christ time and I searched it through I went everywhere I could go I went down to where the pool of Bethesda is thought to have been I went down to the Sea of Galilee I set my feet

in the waters of the Jordan and I went to a place called megaa where Armageddon is supposed to be leaped out of the car over in Jordan and ran out in the mud to stand and look around at the amphitheater a natural Amphitheater of mountains all around just to see what was going on I went in the Temple Mount which is now controlled not by the Jews but the Muslims and they told me to take off my shoes as I went in there and I went inside the Temple Mount and had the experience of walking

up into what would have been the holies of holies only to find Abraham's Rock the place where he would offer up Isaac and it was then that I realize that the Bible isn't wide it's deep M that the same place that Abraham offers up Isaac is in the same area where Christ is to be crucified so it's not about going from place to place it's about digging deeper so you stand in a contemporary place with a contemporary shovel and dig your way through the Epistles and dig your way into the prophets and dig your way

into the Old Testament because the history of our faith is in layers yeah I walk down to the Wailing Wall The Wailing Wall where all the Jews go to pray and the rabbis stand in front of the Wailing Wall and rock back and forth placing their prayer requests into the crevices of The Rock and rocking back and forth they Rock back and forth I asked the God why are they rocking back and forth they said because they believe that God is a moving God and if you're going to come into His presence you have to

be moving in his presence because God is always moving he's always rocking he's always doing and I said can I go and with the women on one side and the men on the other I came to the whaling wall and had the most amazing experience I burst into tears because the Wailing Wall is The Last Remnant of herod's Temple The Wailing Wall is reminiscent of Solomon's Temple and when I looked at the faith of so much history layered and still standing there in the Rock and I'm standing at the Rock I'm standing at the rock

where Jesus has stood I'm standing on the spot where the threshing floor of Orin was where Solomon's Temple was where all of history had collided in that moment and I just started crying and I'm surr surrounded by Jews and they're watching a Christian cry at their Wailing Wall and suddenly I recognize or hope they recognize that your Jehovah is my Jesus that your Elohim is my prince of piece that your bright and morning story is my lily of the valley that we are Ken and that we are connected and that that that we have something

in common though our perspectives are different for you stand waiting on a messiah to come and I stand looking back at a messiah who visited and you recognized him not and yet we all whail at the Wailing Wall for even though we recognize Jesus as the Messiah that doesn't mean that we're not waiting for him to come too we wait yes and we weep and we rock to my brothers and my sisters ladies and gentlemen Saints and Friends keep on rocking keep on weeping and for God sake keep on waiting the thing that separates wine

from anything else that you might drink like Kool-Aid water or anything else is that wine making is a process that could take years and sodas and drinks can be made very quickly but wine takes time and the older it is the better it gets the reason we use wine as a metaphor for the book crushing is because wine takes time and I'm talking about taking time to an Era of people who don't believe that anything takes time in other words I'm talking to a microwave crowd yeah about a cold stove recipe I remember my grandmother's

cold stove and said on on the back porch and you had to put coal in it and she fried chicken and cast iron skillets and baked cakes until they were standing that high and I wonder even to this day how they regulated the temperature in a cold stove I remember her making cakes without a mixer but she take a spoon and turn it flat and beat the butter and I can see her arm shaking baking a cake and she did better with a spoon than I can with a mixer oh yeah and I'm good with

the mixing Grandma knew that the best cakes took time and she was willing to put in the time and the effort and the sweat to get the cake to rise to the place that it needs to be and so it is with the wine wine makers know that good wine takes time that's right it starts with the soil you plant the seed in yeah and the grape that grows from it and the grape accepting the fact that it was raised to be crushed right I think we need to teach our children a little differently that

you are raised to be crushed WoW instead of teaching them that you're raised to be applauded and you're raised to be exalted and you're raised to be laed I think we should tell them that you are raised to be crushed and when you come to the crushing Place do not believe for what one moment that it is the end because the crushing of the Grave is not the end of the grape it is the transition from one error to the next what I am talking about is process yes when I'm talking about crushing I'm talking

about process I'm talking about submitting yourself to the process because that is respect to commit yourself to the process means you respect the artistry of the calling come on when you put the work in and the labor in and the commitment in and and and all of the sacrifice into it that means you respect it I wouldn't go down to the Cowboy stadium and asked Jerry Jones to put me in a uniform and just because I watch football think I could play football that's disrespectful to the people who have worked hours and years getting ready

and training all their life to become excellent in what they do process is respect wow to recognize that it's it's not supposed to happen fast because if it happens fast it will not last come on that that is slow broed and slow cooked and cooked overnight and smoked on a smoker until in the morning has a richness and a flavor that you just cannot get in a micro wave that's right you have to understand that and if you want microwave success go on and do it quick and you'll go up quick and you'll come down

quick but if you really respect the Artistry and the and and the technique and the style and the fashion and the depth and the anointing and the unction and the power and the collaboration between the spirit and the man and the man and the spirit and the spirit and the man until you can't tell the difference between the talent and the tool of the master and how he uses it in such synchronization that you don't know whether it was the hand of Gideon or the sword of the Lord that defeated the enemy that means that

you want to fit so good in the hands of God that at a moment's notice he can use you any time and anywhere yes and in order to be that kind of good that means you have to go through the process and embrace it yes embrace the process not resent it not feel betrayed or denied because it didn't happen as quick as a person next to you because you are not comparing yourself with the person next to you that is not the goal to be like the person next to you right you are not running

against them you're running against the hope of your calling and what God wants to do in your life and what he has to take you through to produce what he is trying to produce in your life and that means you have to listen at what he's saying that's right even when he's talking about waiting while you're talking about winning wow you have to respect the process because if you do when the process is over you will last longer as wine than you would have as a great it's amazing when you start talking about the life

of Joseph and all of the turmoil that he went through and how his father made him a coat of many colors which was really prophetic to him becoming The Prince of Egypt it was also prophetic to the multiplicity of a God who is able to love all colors and kinds and Stitch them together and make one garment and become the dwell amongst us God and Joseph W his coat and his brother stripped him of his coat they stripped him of his coat but they couldn't strip him of his calling they threw him in a pit

and they said he was dead the midianites came along and bought him for 20 pieces of silver because God was using Joseph's Life as a shadow of Jesus who would be rejected of his Brethren who would be thrown into a pit who would be sold for 30 pieces of silver and Joseph doesn't know it but he is acting out what Jesus will fulfill and then he goes from that to potterer house and Rises to a place of power only to be lied on by Piper's wife and have to flee and end up in prison and

then Joseph the young man who grew up with the coat of many colors ends up with stripes in a prison locked up behind bars and even there he Excel and you know all of this but what you may not realize is that that is only a small fraction of his life that he spent more years free than he did bound wow that he spent more years as The Prince of Egypt than he did as a prisoner in the jail cell that's right and what you have to understand the process may seem long while you're going

through it but if you will go through the process when you get to the end of it you'll be a prince much longer than you'll be in process and God is trying to fix you so that you will last and when the wine maker makes the wine he makes it in such a way that when they bring it to the table they ask they tell you first what year it was made and the best wines have been preserved for hundreds of years and the longer it lasts the more it costs yeah and if you want

to be expensive in the Kingdom exotic in the Master's Hand if you want to be the kind of wine that is prophesied at the marriage at kaaa that he saved the best wine for last then all of that is predicated upon how well you endure the process [Music] when God sends Jacob's family to Egypt it is not just to get bread it is not just to get food he is trying to transition a family into a nation and so Egypt becomes an incubator it becomes a womb where God turns Jacob's family big family though it

was 70 people people into millions of people yeah and he fermented them through the slavery of Egypt the atrocities and the abuses and the 400 years of Agony was how God incubated them so they go into Egypt a family wanting bread and they come out of Egypt a nation carrying gold do you hear what I'm saying to you in order to turn family thinking into Nation mentalities it takes time it takes time 10 Generations went past so many generations went past that they had forgotten how to worship their God because they had so assimilated into

the culture of Egypt that much of their understanding of who God was had drifted away but with the limited residue of faith that they had left they cried out unto God and he still heard them though they had forgotten what Abraham had taught them and what Isaac had shown them and Jacob had long since been buried he still heard them I know he did because he told Moses I have heard the Cry of my children Israel go down there and tell pharaoh to let my people go yes you talking about times up that was God's

times up that was God saying the process is over the fermentation is completed the wine is made and I'm ready to bring it out and when God gets ready to bring you out nobody no matter how powerful they are no matter what they have or what they own or what they drive can stop God from bringing you out that's right and even though Pharaoh settled up 600 chosen chariots and decided to go get them and try to drive them back he could not drive back what God had loosed yeah that's right and there they stand

at the Red Sea with Pharaoh chasing in behind them and mountains surrounding them and they think that they are in a place of hopelessness and despair because they can't swim the Red Sea and they can't escape across the mountains and the horses are coming faster than their feet can run and their children are laiden down with the wealth of Egypt and there they stand in total dismay Moses included saying God what am I supposed to do and God says to him why stand ye here gazing at me stretch forth Your Rod wow and when Moses

stretched forth his staff when he stretched forth what he had the wind started blowing and the waters went hither and thither and they walked across on dry ground because it was time for the wine to come out it was time that the family had become a nation it was time that the purpose of God had been completed and he brought them out by his mighty power and he brought them out on dry ground they didn't even have to get mud on their feet they walked out on dry ground it was almost as if God had

paved the bottom of the riverbank so that they could have comfort while they exited wow they came out on dry ground but when Pharaoh tried to come through the way that God had made for his people Pharaoh drown see what God has for you is for you and nobody else can take it so don't waste time arguing with people who are trying to get what you got because nobody can take what is yours if it's really yours it's yours and no one can get it and when Pharaoh tried to get it he drowned in the

Red Sea he drowned in the Red Sea cuz God stopped the wind from blowing and the waters collapsed and covered him up and pharaoh and his horses and his chariots drowned in the Red Sea and Miriam grabbed the tambourine and be to beat it to the glory of God and the women began to dance around the mountain and as they danc the bodies of the Egyptians were washing up on the bank but God did not just close the Red Sea to drown Pharaoh or his horses or his men one of the reasons that God close

the Red Sea is to keep them from going back once you get out never go [Music] back so I was building my church the church of my dreams the church Beyond My Dreams the church that I never thought I would ever get to build the church that was valued out at millions and millions of dollars that I didn't have but I had the faith to believe that God did and it was going up and it was happening and I was seeing it right before my eyes and it was like being at the Red Sea when

Moses stretched forth his rod and and the bills parted and the contractors got paid and the building was erected and it was standing there and the only bad thing about it amidst all of the pews and the colors and the and the picking out of the Architects designs and going through proofs and looking at materials and Concepts the only bad thing about it is while the church was going up my mother was going down and you have to have taken care of somebody with alzheimer's to know that they go away in layers it's not like

a car wreck and they go all at once it's not like a heart attack and you find them and they're gone no no no no she died a little bit every day and every day they were bringing me reports about what materials came in and the pews are going to come in on Saturday and the carpet is coming in and at the same time the doctor was saying she's getting worse and she had lost the ability to remember to swallow and holding food in her mouth and I would come home from preaching and ministering and

and have to stick my finger in her mouth and remove her food and take care of her and all kinds of Articles were being written about the smart church and what was going on and they were talking about what was going right and they never saw what was going wrong they saw the wine and I saw the crushing wow I really saw the crushing yes you see my mother was not just my mother she was my best friend she was my secret keeper and my Confidant and I knew everything about her and she knew everything

about me and losing her was like losing me in pieces because we were almost the same person even through Alzheimer's we could still continue to communicate and when she lost her ability to speak English and started speaking gibberish when I would walk into the room she'd look at me and say hi baby and I washed her fade away until she died in my arms and I held her until her body got cold and it was painful and it was tough and I still had to teach Bible class and I still had to run Revival and

I still had to preach on Sunday morning and I still had to conduct business and I still had to negotiate the Affairs of the church and I was writing a book by her bed side while she was in the hospital I was writing while she was dying in the room with her right by her side you can't let go of one thing for the other you have to do both simultaneously life doesn't stop for you to hurt it doesn't stop turning because you lost to loved one it doesn't stop because you don't feel good it

it won't give you a leave of absence so that you can get away from everything and shut it all down it's still happening the bills are still coming the problems are still coming I'm talking about crushing people I'm talking about pain I'm talking about suffering I'm talking about where the rubber meets the road I'm not talking about church I'm not talking about religion I'm talking about life Jesus didn't say I come that you might have church he said I come that you might have life and sometimes we are great at having church but we're having

a terrible time having life we know how to clap we know how to sing we know how to shout but do we know how to live W and God won't just be a church experience he's going to get in your life experience to validate your church experience so I asked myself what does this mean how how would I get through this can I get through this I have never had to get through this before I have never lived a day that she wasn't in him not one I have never been abandoned like that in my

life and even though I was 40 for the first time in my life I was an orphan a preaching orphan a teaching orphan a traveling bookwriting orphan and though he slay me yet shall I trust him you see in order to develop real quality it takes time and it takes pain and it takes endurance and it takes grief and it takes trouble and it takes turmoil and it takes destruction and demolition demolition is a messy thing if you get ready to remodel your house expect to have some mess and when God gets ready to recycle

you he does it through the things you suffer and the things you endure in the gospel of St John Jesus identifies who he is and he says I am the vine and ye are the branches and every branch in me that bear fruit I purge it that it might bring forth more fruit that's the sentence that gets me because it would seem like to me that if the branch was doing good you would leave it alone but he says every branch in me that beareth fruit I cut it back I cut it back not because

I'm a serial killer not because I'm out to destroy the bush not because I hate grapes not because I don't want it to win but I cut it back so that it might bring forth more fruit so we don't we don't go through these crushings because we are not his and we don't go through these crushings because he doesn't love us and we don't go through these questionings because we're not fruitful he cuts us because we are fruitful W because as fruitful as we are he knows the potential of what is yet down inside of

us and he knows how to get you to that potential and he stops you from being safe and he stops you from being satisfied you have to give up safety if you're going to walk with God you have to trust him that he is the farmer that he knows what he's doing and when he says that I am the vine and ye are the branches he says my father is the husbandman and the husbandman is the farmer he's the viter he's the one that controls the process he knows exactly where to cut to make you

more fruitful when I was a little boy I went out in the in the yard trying to do like my mother who pruned the rose bushes I decided I would help her out and go pring the rose bushes and when she came home from work I had almost killed the bush I had almost killed the bush I was a bad little boy you can tell can't you imagine just shrink me down to about 8 years old you got trouble on your hand I was a bad little boy I had tore the bush apart and she

was furious with me and I said why are you furious with me when I'm only doing what you did she said no you're not doing what I did because I know where to cut see the vitner knows where to cut it's not the cut alone you can't just cut it anywhere he knows where to cut and he knows when to cut and he knows how to cut to bring you to the place that you can be more fruitful because ultimately he wants you to have enough fruit that we can become win that we can enter

into that state of being that lasts for years and years and hundreds of years as wine but if I remain a gra P will go bad so it is the only fruit that is raised to die it is raised to be crushed wow it is meant to be stepped on it is meant to be bruised if grapes could scream they would cry out from the pain of becoming wine but if they can endure the pain of the crushing and Trust the Vier who is God our Father to take me through this process my latter days

will be greater than my former days and finally I'll be more valuable and I'll be worth more and I may get shipped abroad and I may be served to Kings and princes and set before great men only because I've been crushed I may be served at the finest tables I may be used in the greatest restaurants only because I endured the crushing Jesus connects us to the father by helping us to understand what his role is in our life so that we won't misunderstand the knife so that we will understand that the knife is in

the right hand that sometimes when God approaches you he approaches you and he looks like a Slayer because he's coming with something that hurts and you have to trust his character when you don't understand his methods amen that you have to understand his acts by believing in his ways because the husbandman is our father he cuts Us in all the right places and we can do nothing without him we can be nothing without him we cannot reach the height and the hope of the purpose of our calling without him because only the manufacturer knows how

fast the car will go he has built it and designed it to accomplish more than the foot that's got his pressure on the pedal he has designed the car to exceed the pace that you may be willing to drive and so if you want to know how how fast it can go you have to talk to the manufacturer because he designed it with enough horsepower to do more things than you may even be capable of doing and God pushes us out of our comfort zone by crushing us Jesus became human so that he could understand

what it was like to be human he experienced our trials our Temptations our heartaches our pain so that he would be an example for us he is the fruition of God's word he proves himself in us he walks it out right in front of us to show us that it can be done he he allows himself to be beaten right in front of us and we got to see him be beaten and we got to see him be ridiculed and laugh and be popular and then unpopular and loved and then hated so that we would

understand that all of this is part of becoming wine my wife is a neat freak she wants everything in place I think the house is clean even when she says it's not and she'll be complaining about stuff that I think is no big deal because she likes everything nice and neat now don't get me wrong I'm not a messy person well maybe a little bit but I I like it nice even though I'm messy I like it nice and neat I like life nice and neat and packaged and beautiful and smelling good and that's not

how it happens any wine maker will tell you that making wine is a dirty business it's a messy business it's a business that leaves stains in your clothes and scratches in your skin that making wine happens in dirty places not nice neat comfortable Lazy Boy chair laidback remote control places that's not how you become wine we have a God who works in dirty places from the very first time we meet him in the Book of Genesis we see him stooping down playing in the dirt this is the first indication that God is not afraid to

work in dirty places over and over again we get the metaphor of him being a farmer of seed of seed time and harvest of sewing and reaping to let you know that God works in the dirt yes and when you pray to stay out of the dirt you're praying to stay away from God because he Stoops down to the dirt and he he makes you in the dirt and he shapes you in the dirt and he forms you in the dirt and he matures you in the dirt and he stabilizes you in the dirt like

any wine dresser would if a wine dresser is not willing to get dirty he'll never have the grapes and if you don't have the grapes you won't have the wine because the wine means that you got to step on it and you got to crush it and your feet are stained with the pressure until both the wine maker and the grape have experienced the same stain and he was wounded for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed Jesus

became human so that he could be stained with the stain that we experience so that when we cry out to him he can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity he wanted to know what that was like God had never slept not one night until he came in the form of Jesus he didn't know what tired felt like he didn't know what sleep felt like he didn't know what fear felt like he didn't know what stress felt like and he came so he could answer his own question Adam Where Art Thou and so he

came walking down from time from eternity into time so that he could have in a human experience so that we could have a conversation he is the Seed of Abraham and God knows how to develop that seed he knew how to take it through 42 generations and you're trying to get there in 42 days and Jesus came through 42 generations and you think you're late and you think you're behind and you think you're off schedule and you think you miss your mark Jesus came through 42 generations to be the Seed of Abraham he grew and

mature he started as a baby and most people don't want to start small the Lord Of Glory the king of glory the Great I Am the mighty one the Holy One the consolation of Israel came in a form of a baby he came small he came smaller than the mother he would redeem he came smaller than the people that he would deliver and it is no accident that he was born in a manger because he was a lamb yeah where else would a lamb be born and he teaches us as he grows and as he

develops the opportunity to grow happens in your life in your home in your heart in your spirit and you are being planted but you feel like you're being buried have you ever noticed that there is no difference in the motion between planting and burying Jesus when you plant a seed it feels buried but it was planted to rise again the the the the the vitner understands that he is not a mortician and even though he takes a seed and digs a hole and puts a seed down in the hole and covers it up with dirt

he's not a mortician he's planted it and not buried it and most of us think we are being buried when in fact we are only being planted and when you are planted that means you're going to get up again and when you are planted that means you're going to come forth again and when you are planted that means that this is not how the story ends this is not the end don't run from it don't hatde from it don't duck from it don't Dodge from it don't run trying to get away from it because you

are not being buried you are being planted and to God be the glory for the things he has done even when it hurts that's [Music] crushing when God got ready to show how much you were worth he gave his son then how can you have low self-esteem when the grape comes through the crushing it knows it will never be a grape again again but it will be why