Thanking God for the Church | Bishop Tony Hall

Hallelujah. Lord, you are good. Can you say that? Lord, you are good. Come on, y'.

All too quiet. Say, lord, you are good. Doesn't matter. The situation doesn't matter. What's going on?

You need to declare, Lord, you are good. You are good. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for your amazing grace. Thank you for another opportunity to come to your house together in your name, to worship you and praise you.

Let these few moments, God, give me a word that will help your people strengthen the church. And I just thank you that lives will be impacted and changed by the power of God. We give you thanks and praise for what you're doing and what you shall do tonight in advance in Jesus name. Amen. Somebody say amen.

Tell somebody around you, I'm glad to see. I'm glad to see you. I'm glad. Put a smile on your face. Say, I'm really glad to see you.

Really glad to see you. Praise God. Really glad to be here tonight. And of course, I honor my pastor and Pastor Mel for allowing me to come and share something with you from the word of God tonight. Of course, I thank God for my wife who is still putting up with me.

Praise God. Two more months, it'll be 49 years. So I'm. I'm on my absolute best behavior. Amen.

And I hadn't told her yet. We can't go anywhere on our anniversary because both of us in school. Don't y' all tell her.

Anyway, I'm just. I'm very thankful for a great church. And that's one of the things I want to talk to you about tonight. I want to continue on our conversation we had last month. And I believe that the enemy is trying to shut our eyes to a great church.

All you have to do is. I've turned the news off, but all you gotta do is look at the news. It's just a crazy time. I believe that it started back in Covid. And I have not seen a time like this time.

I just got back a few weeks ago from California for our national convention. And I've never seen so many pastors that's beat down because the times that we live in, so many of them are sick. A lot of them, their wives are dying. We are just living in a troubled time. But I want you to know that God is not.

Jesus is not coming back for a weak church, but he's coming back for a powerful church. He's coming back for a great church. And I'm glad to be in a church like that. Say amen Somebody, I said, I'm glad to be in a church like that. So would you go back with me to Matthew 28:19?

This is where I'm gonna continue my text from tonight and what I'm gonna talk to you about. My theme is gonna be thank God for a great church. Thank God for a great church. Amen. Matthew 28:19, it says, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.

And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I'm taking a class called Worldview. And so in this class, we're supposed to write things of posts from different students. Y' all forgive me. It's only been 50 years since I've been in school, but I'm trying my best.

And so in this book called Worldview, I'm really shocked at how they are trying to get people off of this Jesus thing. I'm really shocked. And so they asked the question about, can we really agree with this? Can we really stand on the word of God when it was written who it was written by men that were flawed. And you know me, I'm an old dude.

So as why the students were saying, you know, I was wondering about that, and I was kind of wondering about that. Then I chimed in, said, I don't care about what y' all don't believe or not, but I can tell you that 53 years ago, when we didn't know Greek and Hebrew, the Lord saved me and changed my life and took somebody who was out and on the streets to. To somebody that's saved. And I still love that Jesus that I met on March 28, 1973. I'm not bowing.

And that's what I told her. I'm not bowing. So my professor come on and said, well, we want you to not be so adamant. I said, hey, Doc, that's the way I am. Amen.

If you get me, you got somebody pretty adamant. Because I know what the Lord has done for me. I know what the Lord has done for me. I was. I'm telling you, we're, you know, in a crazy time.

It's not like anything that I've seen before. When we were 21, 22, we were our bishop's driver. I was his driver, and he had a Mercedes Benz. So I couldn't wait to drive him around because all I had was an old Pacer. If you don't know what a Pacer is, don't worry about it.

It looked like a spaceship with all those windows. And in San Antonio, where it's like 150 degrees in the shade, so me and my little wife and our kids, we were like burning up. So when bishop said, come on and drive me to certain places in the state, I'm like, okay, that's cool. I never thought I'd drive a Benz before. But we would drive to Benz and some of those cities, I remember some of those little towns in Texas we would go to.

And one of the towns, I read this week that the pastor of that church, they used to bring small kids into the church and then he began to molest them and molest them for years. Where the. And they took him when they got grown, they took him to court and they gave him. Watch this. Five separate.

Five separate. All of your life sentences for the rest of your life. Five. And on top of that, 200 years.

So life sentence is five. So number one, it makes you wonder, what in the world did he do to get five deaths, all of his life sentences? And then on top of that, 200 years. And so when you see these things, it makes you wonder, and it makes you wonder, does anybody understand that what we need now is a powerful church? Everybody wants their flag, everybody wants to say what they want to say.

But not many people get comfortable when we start talking about the Lord. Well, I'm telling you right now, I am more on fire than I ever been. And everywhere I go, I want to tell somebody about Jesus. Everywhere I go. I got a call from a pharmacy today and the lady was supposed to go over all of my medicines and stuff like that.

And she mentioned one thing. Next thing I know, we was on the phone for half an hour talking about the Lord. Amen. And I told her, I'm praying for you in this situation. I just get excited about talking about Jesus.

Anybody here like that. I get excited about telling somebody the God I serve because I. I am not ashamed of the God I serve. And for the rest of my life, I'm going to talk about that Jesus. I'm going to talk about that Jesus. And when we're seeing all of these things go on and they're marching in the streets of America saying how much they hate America and they get away with it.

But I wonder what would happen if that many people would go to the streets that talking about this Jesus that we serve.

I wonder what would happen. I thought about the thing that we're having here in a couple of weeks from Charlotte the big crusade. And they're saying it's gonna be probably 20,000 people. I wonder if 20,000 people would just march the streets of Charlotte or Kannapolis or Concord, what would be what people will be saying? I've never seen the things that I'm seeing in the 80s.

I believe that a lot of this started that the church becomes so soft. I believe that it started in the 80s because in the 80s, the preachers began to preach about a soft gospel. So they want to make sure everybody is happy and everybody is not offended. And everybody just. We want you to leave here feeling like you just came to Romper Room.

And so because of the 80s until now, everybody wants to be rich. That's what we heard in the 80s. Everybody wants to be rich. Everybody wants to have a big house. Everybody wants to have private jets.

And they start believing for those things. I'm believing for this. I'm believing for this. I'm believing for this. And I'm not saying that anything is wrong there.

But the Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God. So what we have done over these last few years is we built a weak church where people can believe for stuff, but they don't have power to bind the devil that's in their house. They don't have enough strength to stand up to the devil and say, you can huff and puff, but you ain't going to blow my house down. They don't have enough power to say, devil, you're not going to destroy. I went through divorce in my life.

I went through single parenting in my life. And devil, you're not going to take me down there where my kids are in a single home. So I've been seeing it. I've watched it. I've watched it happen.

But I'm telling you right now, I thank God for a healthy church. I said, I thank God for a healthy church. I love the church. And we need to brag about our church. I said, we need to brag about our church.

I walked in church on Sunday morning and I've been talking to you about making disciples. And I heard a leader tell a young lady who just joined this church a year ago and was faithful to this place of serving. And he began to tell her that I want to make you one of our leaders. She broke down crying, and it blessed me, because that's what I'm talking about. Taking somebody, pouring it to them so they can leave this place and change the world.

Romans 16:17 says, Now I make one more appeal. My dear brothers and sisters, watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people's faith by teaching things contrary to what you've been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not striving, serving Christ our Lord. They are serving their personal interests.

By smooth talking, glowing words, they deceive innocent people. And I believe that that's where we're at today. And so that's the reason why we ought to thank God for a healthy church. What is my definition of a healthy church? My definition of a healthy church is where people are growing.

My definition of a healthy church is where people are getting saved and people are grabbing hold to them and begin to teach them what they know. The days are out for people coming to the altar, giving their life to Christ and walking back out of these doors where somebody don't grab and say, come here, let me holler at you. Amen. That's how it was when I got saved in 1973. March 1973.

Okay, let me just scrub it. Pastor was saying something Sunday, and I began to laugh and try to check myself. He's talking about those old people that always got stories to tell. So I'm gonna try to minimize all of my stories to tell. I'm a minimize.

Sometime my wife roll her eyes, oh, here's another story. But in March 28, 1973, when I gave my life to Christ 53 years ago, coming off the streets of Detroit, they had somebody to get hold of me. And the reason why I become what I am is because somebody wouldn't let me go. They took me and said, come on, when you're not in church, where were you at? How come you wasn't at church today?

You gotta be in church if you're gonna grow. You gotta be in church. You gotta be in church if you're gonna grow and become something that God wants you to be. I know you still struggle with drugs. I know you still struggle with alcohol.

I know you still struggle with anger. But I'm glad that grabbed hold of me and would not let me go. I'm glad for those that got in the dirt with me and said, I'm gonna hold on to you until you come up. I'm glad that when my wife came to the church and gave her life to Christ, even though coming out of that world and coming out of a bunch of situations, coming out of having a kid, she went through all that stuff. But when she came and gave her life to Christ on her birthday when she turned 17, somebody got hold of her.

And when she didn't want to go to Church on Sunday sometime they called her and if they couldn't get her, they showed up at her house, say, hey, where were you at? How come you ain't in church? And it kept us involved. One sister went to her and said, come on, you gonna work with me. And she didn't know that she was gonna be cleaning the kitchen every Saturday.

But guess what? She stayed in there. We're living in unprecedented times. I know all of us who have been in ministry, even in church ministry, know that there's no other times like this time. And so what I want to encourage those of you that are new and even those of you that's been in Christ a lot.

You gotta watch what you hear. I said, you gotta watch what you hear. Because people will talk you out of your purpose. They'll talk you out of your church. Mm, mm, mm.

They'll come and talk to you about something negative in the church. Nobody said this church is perfect, but there's no perfect church. I began to say about 20 years ago, I believe that the next revival is not gonna come from the pulpit, but from the pews. That means the pews have to rise up and not wait for somebody from the pulpit and set our revival from the pew. And this time calls it.

This time calls for it. The Bible says that difficult times will come in the last days. But understand this, Paul says that in the last days, dangerous times, a great distress and trouble will come. Difficult days that will be hard to bear. For people will be lovers of themselves, narcissistic, self focused, lovers of money, impelled by greed, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.

For they will be unloving, devoid of natural human defection, callous and inhumane, irreconcilable, malicious gossip, devoid of self control, untemperate, immoral, brutal, haters of that that's good. And that's the days that we're living in right now. And so if there was ever a time for the people that's in the pews that I always consider Wednesday night is really the backbone of the church. Because we pray here, it's easy to come on Sunday for an hour and a half and say, okay, we did our duty. But the people that come in here on Wednesday nights, the people that come here to pray these next few nights, those are the backbone of the church that holds the church up.

But you need to be careful because people will talk you out of your purpose if you're not careful. They will find you, because you love your church and begin to talk in your ear, and before you know it, you'll be joining their band. I remember one time a person that come from who knows where with a prophetic word for me right here in the refuge. So he says, the Lord spoke to me and told me that you are to come to our prayer meeting at my house. And afterwards, we get in the hot tub and there's pastors from around here, and we just want to come together and pray.

My first question to him was, who's your pastor if you don't have a pastor, I wouldn't go to you to McDonald's, because everybody needs a pastor. I say, everybody needs a pastor. I said everybody needs a pastor. Everybody. You need a pastor.

All of this kind of going on your own, and I just float wherever God leads me this week. That's the devil. You need a pastor. You need a pastor. You need a solid voice.

That's gonna teach you what God said. You need a solid. You need a solid voice in your life that will see the enemy coming and warn you.

Mm. Right? Everybody needs a pastor. We're living in a day that people don't understand the need for pastors. And I thank God for the church because God has trusted men and women to take care of his church.

He gave some apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for what? For the perfecting of the saints to do the work of the ministry. If you're sitting here today and you don't know what your purpose is in the body of Christ, I encourage you to find your purpose. Most people that I know that's most excited about life are those that's meeting their purpose, that's following their purpose. Because the enemy can't knock you off if you know your purpose.

Mm, mm, mm, mm. The enemy can't knock you off if you know your purpose and what the enemy wants to steal. Even if you're sitting in church, he wants to make you doubt your purpose. You gotta fight for your purpose. You have to strive for your purpose and not let anything or anybody take you away from your purpose, because your purpose is what God is tied to.

What I found about my life is I am connected to my purpose. And because I work in my purpose, God is attached to my purpose. He's not attached to my feelings, my traumas, my.

Everything else, but he's tied to my purpose. And so I stay in my purpose because that's the way God uses me, is because I stay in my purpose.

That's why I stand and thank God that I'm in a healthy church, because this church will help you define your purpose.

Everywhere I go, I try to tell people about their purpose. People are falling out. And I said a minute ago, that's the reason why I think that Covid was so effective. Covid was so effective because it taught people that you didn't need to be in the church. And there's people all of this time that Covid is ever.

They're still sitting at home looking at a screen. Because that way you can be not connected because you can get a word in your home, but you can't get a connection. I thank God for the four or five or six families that we're connected to in this church that we get a chance to pour into them. I thank God for the new converts that's in the church that we get a chance to speak in their lives and call them sometime and send them a text during the daytime. What?

Thus said the Lord, in order to strengthen their inner man.

But the enemy has tried all over the church. I was just in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, like I said to you, and I noticed as I was riding down the street, it used to be in Los Angeles, there was always churches almost on every corner. Churches everywhere, all kind of churches everywhere. And now those churches are closed down. They're full with mosques.

We need a strong church that will stand up for the things of God.

We need. The day is over for having powerful altar calls and people walk right out these doors without somebody grabbing hold of them.

You don't know how much you'll grow if you start finding people that's coming from this altar and hugging them. Find out what you got from God today. What is your name? I ask everybody their name, knowing by the time I leave church, I'll forget it.

Okay, young people, just keep on being young. But the thing about it is, it's amazing how people look at me just asking their name.

Ask them how you found about the refuge and be excited about the refuge. You can't expect anybody to be excited about your house. If you're not excited about your house, you can't be excited about your church. You can't expect people to buy into the walk with God if you're not excited. We're excited everywhere we go, whether it's in restaurants, I don't care.

We're just excited. Amen. Because we, every day we wake up, we say, God, who can we touch today? Who can we sow into today? And I believe that's where revival is coming from.

Amen.

We have to get to the place that we're making disciples. So I want to give you six truths about becoming a Disciple Maker.

Six truths. Number one, it's a messy job.

It's a messy job. If you're thinking becoming a Disciple maker is a clean, easy job, you are wrong. It's a messy job. You'll find out things and hear things that you never thought you would hear. It's a messy job.

It is a job that make you want to run away and never talk to anybody again. It'll make you want to just say, forget this. I didn't even sign up for this. But let me tell you something. Number one, it's a messy job.

I remember a young lady in our church. Her name was Keisha. Keisha from in Tulsa. When we started our first church, we were 25 years old and we won somebody to the Lord from Job Corps. Now, if you don't know what Job Corps is, Job Corps is a place that everybody sends their troubled teens to.

I wish I knew about it when some of my kids were teens, but that's neither here nor there.

But we wanted this girl named Pisha to the church, and we were excited. So all of a sudden, we start winning tons and tons of kids from Job Corps. So we would have prayer. Man, we was on it. We would have prayer every morning at 6 o' clock and we would go get them kids.

We had like 25 kids or whatever. We would pile them into our olds 98. It was like a tank. We had people sitting in the trunk, sitting on the back seat, sitting on top of everybody's lap in the front seat to get to prayer. But this Keisha, she loved to fight.

Every service, somebody looked at Keisha wrong. She was fighting. Somebody said something to Kesha, she was fighting. If some girl didn't like her, she was ready to fight. Instead of blowing it off, she was ready to fight.

But we just kept on pointing at her, kept on loving her the best way we can. So she got married to a guy named Craig and then found out because of her lifestyle, she got gonorrhea and could not have kids. And they're devastated. She shouldn't have been, but she was devastated. So she came to the church house.

Amen. Where Mama Denise, don't play with the devil.

Amen. She didn't ease into it. She laid hands on her stomach and began to pray in the name of Jesus. And she began to call forth children in her womb and for her womb to be healed.

Several weeks later, Keisha came To church, excited that she was pregnant. Amen. Two years later, she had another one. A year and a half later, she had another one. Then she called us to say, can you pray for them to stop now?

But today, that troubled girl named Keisha, we loved her. We brought her in our home, which I don't really recommend people to do, but we brought her in our home to love on her. Today, Keisha is a director of Job Corps in the place that she was rescued. She's gone back to rescue other young people. That's powerful.

That's powerful. Then one more. I gotta tell you one more. Then this young man named. His name was Quincy Bell.

He used to say his name. Hi, Pastor. This Quincy Bell. That's how he talked. He was from the.

He was down from Louisiana. And so Quincy loved to fight. He got in all of his problems at Job Corps because he loved to fight. We want Quincy to the Lord. But after church, he was looking for somebody to fight.

Amen. The only good thing about Quincy, he loved Mama Denise. Amen. He just thought that she walked on water. Love Mama Denise.

But he liked to fight. And so we kept on pouring into Quincy, kept on loving Quincy, Kept on showing him right, kept on showing him things as a man, kept on showing him things, how you become greater than God. So when we left Tulsa in 1989, we hadn't heard from Quincy Bell anymore. Forty years later, several weeks ago, my phone rang. I didn't know who it was.

I said, hello. Hello, Bishop? I said, who is this? This is Quincy Bell. Couldn't believe it.

All of those years later, from the 80s until now, I said, quincy, what are you doing now? He said, I have grandchildren, I have children, and me and my wife, we are armor bearers of our pastor. And thank you for pouring into me. He did not have a father, but he needed somebody to take up the banner to pour into him. And you have people that you have influence over that just need your voice, that needs your encouragement, that need your pushing, that need your love.

It's important.

Important. So, number one, it's a messy job. Number two, you ready for number two? You got to get your life in order.

You got to get your life in order if you're going to be a great disciple maker. You got to get order in your life, because order will be the thing that you'll fight forever. It becomes a lifestyle of battle for the rest of your life. If you don't have order in your life, you'll win at one thing and destroy another thing that you love. All of these mistakes.

I'm telling you because I made the mistakes. So I'm not sitting there telling you something that I don't know. My problem was when I was young and we had young kids and we had a young wife and a young church and I was working my heart out, but there were things that I missed and I didn't have order in my life. And if you are gonna be able to help people that are struggling and going through things and going through hard times, being molested as children, being abandoned by parents, drugs and alcohol and all kind of perverted things that you're gonna hear, you have to have order. You have to have order.

You gotta pinch yourself sometime and say, you know what? No, you gotta get order in your life because it's gonna be a lifelong battle. The Bible says that false balance is abomination to the Lord. He wants you to either be. He wants you to be on both sides today.

I can be a disciple maker and a great husband. I can be a disciple maker and love my grandkids. I can be a disciple maker and take care of my health. Because you have to have balance if you're gonna be a great disciple maker. Because, listen, the problems with people will make you quit if you don't have balance.

Amen. It'll make you quick if you don't have balance. Here's a famous quote. Problems arise when one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what a person needs for oneself. That means you have to know what you need.

I'm learning that now, unfortunately. But if I wish that I was sitting somewhere 20 years from back when I was growing up, I wish I would have heard this. Because to be honest with you, we did some great things, but we did not have balance. And so now I'm working at getting balance. Number three.

You ready for number three? Get connected to your church and stay there. Get connected to your church and stay there. One of the things that I notice in this generation, they don't want to stay anywhere long. You will never have a powerful life.

Always up, moving around.

Amen. Somebody, you gotta get connected to a church and you gotta stay there. In my book called the 10 Things I Wish My Father Had Taught Me, I talked about a young man named Benjamin Benji. Benji was somebody who loved the applause of new places. So he would go to a church where they were excited that he was there.

Let's clap your hands that somebody is a visitor here. And then when that wear off, he has to go find another church in order to get the applause. He would go from a relationship to a relationship in order to get the applause. Get somewhere and stay. Plant yourself there.

Because there God can find you and use you.

Get somewhere and get planted. Because guess what your miracle will be. What's planted? And let me just throw this in. Stop running after prophets.

Somebody can be a prophet, but he's not your prophet. Want to know who your prophet is? The man's sitting on that seat right there. No matter what I need. And this past few months have been the worst times of my life.

But every time I've come to church, there was a word for me. I want to encourage you. There's so many people that's screwed up today because they ran after prophets. You got to watch that. That's a demon.

You got to stay planted where you are. The Bible says, know them that labor among you and those that's over you in the Lord. But there's too many people being destroyed because they got their favorite prophet. You better watch that. It's really a problem.

And so if you're going to be a great disciple maker, you have to get in your church and plant yourself there. They have to see that you're consistent. Consistency is very important. That's why I'm glad for my church. I'm glad for my church because I can come in here and feel love.

I come in here and build relationships. I've built relationships here in my six years that we'll probably be connected for the rest of our life. Because it's all about being planted. Because when you go to another place, you got to figure it out. You got to figure it out if it fits you.

And a lot of people's family have been destroyed because people are not consistent.

Their kids say, forget about church because I'm all over the place. I'm not consistent. Consistency is very important. Consistency is very important. Amen.

Consistency is very important. It's very important where you put your feet at. It's very important. Let me apologize before I say this.

You have to plant your feet where your tithe is, in good ground.

I thought it would hit a little bit better than that, but I'll try it again. You have to plant your tithe and in good ground. Still.

I say this because one time I was speaking and I was talking about tithing because we're tithers. I can talk about tithers because we are faithful in tithing. Faithful. When me and my wife get paid, before we pay anybody, before we pay the light bill, anything, we give in our tithe and I have been here long enough to see how God has blessed and changed our lives because we're tithers. Well, one time I was talking about this, somebody got really mad at me.

And if somebody get mad at me when I mention tithe, it's because you ain't tithing.

Why do we argue about tithing so much? But you don't argue about when you was in a world about all them drugs and alcohol and whatever your fang was. But all of a sudden when God says, he says, I will prove to you. I will open to you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that you won't have room to receive it. And I am convinced the reason why God's hand is on me and Denise so powerfully is because we are tithers.

So we have plant our feet at a place where, where we know our tithe matters.

Okay, I guess I better finish right now. Amen.

So consistency is very important. Number five. You ready for number five? Get yourself built up in prayer.

There's one thing that nobody could say about the refuge. Is there just not enough prayer going on? Get yourself built up in prayer. You say, well, I'm very busy. They got a Monday morning that my wife don't miss.

Amen. And then they have one on Tuesday morning that the men come together and pray. And they have different meetings out in the community where people are just praying for people. You have to build yourself up in prayer because the enemy knows if you're influencing somebody, all the devil has to do is knock you off in order to get that person. That's the reason why you should pray for your leaders, because the devil know if I can get the leader.

What about the people? We need to pray for that church. We need to pray for that church in Texas that their pastor got five life sentences and 200 years on top of that. He was a father in that church. He was 50 something years old.

He was a father in that church. And so who are the people that's destroyed because of that? We need to pray for pastors everywhere. We need to pray, even if it's not your pastor. Pray for pastors everywhere.

If you know of a pastor where you come from a church, you need to pray for him. Because the enemy is all out to destroy our leaders.

That's why I told somebody one time, don't you ever curse another man's ministry because you never know when you might be in a position and you want somebody to follow you. That was good. Preach, boy. Preach boy. Amen.

Amen. Never curse Another man's ministry. Never talk about another man's ministry. Because unless you sit in that seat, you do not know the stresses and the struggles of trying to carry on something in this crazy day that we're living in.

Pray for leaders. Pray for yourself. Get yourself built up for your family.

Amen. That you will disciple strong.

Build yourself up. Because here is the thing that I want to say about this. If you didn't break it, you don't have to be the person that fixed it.

You miss it, okay? So when you're becoming a disciple maker, if you didn't break it, you don't have to fix it. You have to take people to God and not you feel the stress that you need to fix it. Teach people how to pray. Teach people how to fast.

My wife's grandmother, she was an old pastor. She was an old pastor in Georgia, and she was so powerful in prayer. When my wife was a kid, she would have her down in Georgia. They didn't have any air conditioning or no running water inside. But my mother in law had 13 kids, I guess 13 kids, 14 kids, something like that.

And so. But she would let my wife sleep in there with her, and four o' clock in the morning, she had a little closet. She'd take my little wife in there and she would rock her and she would pray over her. So whenever we had a problem and we called Grandma, here's what Grandma say, turn that plate over.

Y' all know what that means? That means fast. You having problems with your kids, turn that plate over. You having problems financially, turn that plate over. You having problems in your body, turn that plate over.

If I would call Big Mama right now, if she was still on Earth, she would say, oh, you going to that baby, I'm so sorry. You go turn that plate over. You and Niecy need to turn that plate over. And guess what? When we turn that plate over, we saw miracles happen.

Because some things come out only by fasting and praying. Turn that plate over. Teach people how to turn that plate over. Because one of my issues was I was a fixer. How can we fix this?

How can we fix this? And I didn't give God time to fix it because I felt like I needed to fix it. But here's what I learned. If I didn't break it, I don't have to fix it. I thank God for the home grease we have here, and hopefully that helps some small home person.

If you didn't break it, it's not your responsibility to fix. Only God can fix a lot of this stuff, only God can deliver you. Only God can set you free. Only God can take you out of wherever you are right now and bring you where you need to be. If you didn't break it, you don't have to fix it.

Last point. Don't measure success by days, months and years because you don't know when your seed will bring forth the harvest. I'm shocked that we're hearing from people that I pastored 40 years ago and now they're living for God. It's amazing, but sometimes you want quick reactions, but you never know what God is doing. And my only job is to sow the seed.

My only job is to sow the seed. I believe that everywhere we go, everything that we do, every morning when we wake up, we say, God, who can we be a blessing to today? Who can we bless today? And that's what we do. Everywhere we go, restaurants.

We go to restaurants trying to save money. And the Lord says, pay for those people meal.

First thing I would do is ask the server how much they meal.

No, no, this is true. One more story and then I'm done. I promise. So Pentecost Sunday, probably three years ago. And we were saving money because we were going on some trip somewhere.

So I had made up my mind that after church, I'mma fix some steak for us because we can't plant, we can't afford to go out to eat like we do every Sunday. So my wife was down with it. Okay. But Pentecost Sunday was so powerful. I said, babe, let's just go to this place that we go eat and we'll eat on the same meal and save some money.

So we went to this place, we sat down order, and we had the lady to bring our little check. And the check was $45. I wanted to get up and start screaming and running around that restaurant. I was so happy, so excited. I said, Babe, look, $45.

Good idea. And the Lord spoke to me and said, pay for those people's meal next to you. Well, I looked and see what they had first. Oh, I'm being transparent. I looked to see what they had first, and they had already boxed up their meal.

So I called the server over there and said, how much was their food over there? She said, I'll go see. Went to their server and brought it back. It was $106. I said, oh, no, just bring us our check.

Don't just bring us our check, bring our check. And here's what the Lord said to me. So you can't trust Me with a hundred dollars? Is that what you're saying? You are saying to me, you can't Trust me with $100?

Bring that check over here. Just bring it over here. And I had to pray about my little attitude. Bring the check over here. So trying to come in and spend $45, end up $172.

And I always tell the service, don't tell them who did it. Don't tell them. After I go, you can tell them, but don't tell them who did it. And so I said, okay, God, you owe me for this.

Oh, say, that's how I talk to God. God doesn't say thou and thee and all that kind of stuff. God said, get your attitude and straight, boy. Get up. He's the only one that can call me boy, by the way.

I just want y' all to know that. But he said, get your attitude straight. That next day, my business blew up, and God blessed me with 14 times a month more. Because I obey God. Yeah.

Yeah. Get to a place and plant your heart. Plant your feet. Sow seeds into people's lives, especially people that you're not normally around. Sometimes the best people that you can sow in is people that you don't know or people that you can't trust.

Amen. People on the street, sometime we just stop and give them money. We don't know why, but we just do. We're so into single parents.

And it's only God that tells me, I don't just do this because I ain't loaded, but I want to always obey God. And so the reason for that is because I'm planted in a sure place where I know that whatever seed I've sown, God will make it grow. Whatever seed I plant in people's lives, I believe that they will grow whatever seed I sow. Whatever seed you sow, it might not be through a person. It may not even be your kid.

It may not even be your kids. But God will touch somebody. He'll touch somebody's kids. So I sow whatever I sow, whether it's a word or praying for people, I don't look for the result. The result may not come until I'm dead in the ground and my great grandkids will be talking about me.

I want to be a person with an open heart, with an obedient heart, because I want to continue to walk in the blessings that God has placed on my life. Stand to your feet, please. Amen. Hallelujah. Be a disciple, Maker.

I believe that in these troubled times, there's going to be a revival that breaks out. And I believe that it's gonna be here. It's gonna be at places where people are really going after God. It's weekends like this where people are pressing into God. If you haven't felt it, have you felt that struggle and that press against you?

Because the enemy don't want what God wants. Listen very carefully to what your pastor is saying. Listen very carefully when he prophesies something. Listen very careful when he's preaching something that can go into your. And go into your life for your kids and your grandkids and your great grandkids.

That's how I live my life now. I live my life to a point, God. I don't want to just have blessings for me, my grandkids and my great grandkids. I want them blessed, I want them powerful. I may not ever live to see it, may not.

But I want to thank God that I put gray seed in the ground. That's why I write books. I don't know anything about my great grandparents, but now that I have great grandkids, I want them one day to read that our grandpa and grandma dropped out of school when they were 17 and went back to school 50 years later to get the highest honors you can get. It's not for us. I ain't working no more jobs.

Amen. Praise Jesus. No, no, no. You never know what happened. But guess what?

I'm going to live out my life to serve God. Can I pray for you?

God has called you to be a disciple Maker. No matter who you are, if you're a person that's introverted or whatever else, God has called you to be a disciple maker. I need you to begin to use your life. You will see joy in your life when you become a disciple maker. Reach out to touch somebody.

When pastor called or whoever calls the altar, call down here. Why don't you get on the prayer team where you can come down and minister to somebody. You'll be surprised the people that you touch. Become a disciple maker. Father, thank you for your amazing grace.

Thank you, Lord, that you call us to be disciple makers. Jesus said, go into all the world, make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them to observe everything that I told you and I'll be with you. So we ask you, God, that you be with us. Bless this service on Friday night. Let the anointing break out here where lives will be impacted.

Let people be healed. I'm declaring my healing in Jesus name. Let people be delivered. Let people be set free. Let people leave here worshiping and praising God, drunk in the spirit.

Let that happen here in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Let the power of God sweep through this place. Let people get on their faces before you, knowing that God is in this place. Thank you for the opportunity for what you're doing. God, maybe this seed has touched somebody.

I pray for them right now. I pray for their families. I pray for everybody that's attached to them. That you would continue to bless them in Jesus name. Amen.

Praise God.