Transcription
[Music] I'm going to the book of Genesis chapter number 45. I will read extensively out of chapter number 45 of the book of Genesis, verse 15 through 28. When you have it, it's our custom to stand for the reading of the word of God. If you would respect that, we would appreciate it. [Applause] [Music] Yeah, we have the Lord said to me, we have got to get used to these services where anything can happen because we can't put the glory in a box. You got to be able to release what God placed down inside of you. Anything can happen in here. Shout amen, somebody. [Applause] I have a task before me. I solicit your prayers as I delve into this text. I do it from a place of great humility to discuss with you what He has discussed with me and to hopefully contemplate with you the ideas that He has shared with me that the church might be edified by that which every joint supply to the thousands and thousands of people that connect with us through cyberspace. This is a word from the Lord that I am heavy with today, uh, because it is a prophetic word for somebody regarding how things are going to play out over the next few years in your life. And I want you to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to the church, to the best of my ability, beginning at verse number 15.
Moreover, it's talking about Joseph here. He kissed all his brethren and wept upon them. And after that, his brethren talked with him. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brother that I come. And he pleased Pharaoh well and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brother, This do ye. Lay your beast and go get you unto the land of Canaan, and take your father and your households and come unto me. And I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, This do ye. Take your wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father and come also. Regard not your stuff, for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. And the children of Israel did so. And Joseph gave them wagons according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of rain, but to Benjamin he gave 300 pieces of silver and five changes of rain. And to his father he said, After this manner, ten assets laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she assets laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed. And he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive. Good God of mercy, Joseph is yet alive, and he is the governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph which he had said unto them. And when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, It is enough. Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die. Can you say amen?
Go back to the first verse for me there, verse 15. Moreover, Joseph kissed all his brethren and wept upon them. And after that, his brethren talked with him. I want, I want to entitle the message, Joseph's Tears. Joseph's Tears. Spirit of the living God, help me. Without You, I can do nothing. But with You, all things become possible. Take me and use me any way You want to use me for the highest kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. My soul says amen. You may be seated in the presence of God. Yeah, let's go to work.
It is odd that there is so little preaching done about this part of Joseph's life because this is the harvest of the faithfulness that came through the suffering of his life. And yet, we preach more about the suffering and the sacrifice than we do the harvest. We preach about how he was abandoned and abused, mistreated and ostracized, but we don't teach people that he came to an end of suffering, that not only did he survive, but he thrived, and that his latter day was greater [Applause] than his former day. That in spite of a rough start and a raggedy middle, ultimately, in the end, everything that God promised him came to pass. He took him a roundabout way to get there, but he got them there. This text, which is seldom discussed, it evokes a myriad of emotions because having gotten there and been sustained and is now the prince of Egypt, he is a Hebrew boy, the prince of Egypt. God doesn't have to raise you up amongst your own people. God will take you out of your element because sometimes when you're around your own people, they don't appreciate who you really are. God will take you out of your element and take you to a place where your gifts can be seen and utilized. And He raised Him up there.
This text also shows us our God working through a dysfunctional family to accomplish His own divine purpose. Jacob's family was, as the young people say, tore up from the floor up. The story starts in the treacherous deceit of Joseph's brothers and the plot that caused his father's head to gradually age prematurely, broken-hearted and fragmented. Raising children that don't love each other is a stressful thing. It picks up here toward the end with the kind of promiscuous grace that redeems the guilty and creates a stage for the purpose Joseph was chosen to be made manifest. It, it exploits before us the magnitude and the majesty of the breadth of the kind of person Joseph was. It was not merely his coat, it was his character. They could take his coat, but they couldn't take his character. He had the kind of magnanimous ability, the voluminous capacity to be able to have the kind of love that was tough enough to withstand the obstacles of his times. It's going to be challenging because it's not easy to jump up and say, "Yeah, I got it like that," until you've had it tested like that. The family had been badly disjointed. The reconciliation brings Joseph to tears. Joseph, who has a chariot behind Pharaoh, who commands the authority over the finances for the entire nation of Egypt, who is revered amongst the Egyptians, bursts out in tears in the face of his brethren, in spite of being unjustly treated by them, in spite of the way they ostracized him and humiliated him, in spite of the way they set out to murder him, literally murder him, and decided instead to throw him in a pit to be divided by animals or taken captive as a slave. They didn't care which. They stood back to watch him die. Have you ever had people that stood up? Y'all don't understand. I'm going to talk to this. Say, have you ever had anybody that stood by to watch you die, set you up, and just waited for you to fall and fold in the arms of course? You had. You can't live in this world and not attract enemies and haters and naysayers and people who despise you. That's a part of this world. Out of 8 billion people on the planet, everybody is not going to like you. We understand that. But it's not just that they hated him, it was that they were also his brethren. It is not just what they did, it is who they were. And yet, Joseph, when he is on top and he has the power to be vindictive, he has the power to get even, he has the power to seek revenge, he has the power to annihilate them, he has the power to destroy their lives, he has the power to cut them completely off, he has the power to cut off their food supply and watch them die. Instead [Applause], he bursts into tears.
Joseph's tears are amazing. They threw him in the pit and he didn't cry. They stripped him of his clothes and he didn't cry. They ripped his coat of many colors and he didn't cry. They separated him from the love of his father and he didn't cry. They sold him into captivity to the Midianites and he didn't cry. For Joseph to cry here, he didn't cry in the house of Potiphar when Potiphar's wife lied on him and he was, he had to leave there under a lie and was falsely arrested, and he didn't cry. He went to jail and he didn't cry. He was forgotten by the butler and the banker and he didn't cry. Joseph is not a whip. He's not easy to give way to his. But what is it about this situation that has brought him to tears? This is all the time that we readily recall Joseph's tears. I would have cried when they threw me in the pit. I might have cried when they took my coat. I definitely would have cried when I lost my good job at Potiphar's house. And if they took me to jail, I would have been in tears. But he stood up to all of that and didn't shed a tear. And now, when these haters out of one period in his life come back to him at another period in his life, he sees them and they are desperate and they're in trouble, and a famine is coming into the land and they need him. And either the evil in him will rise up and get revenge, or his better angels will rise up in him and he will respond correctly. Have you ever had to wrestle? You had two different ways you could react. You know the way you should react, but when you think about what they did and how you suffered, is there anybody in here that had trouble reacting the way you were supposed to? Lie. He is torn in his thinking. It is human to remember. How can he forget what they did to him? He said, "I know you did it, and you didn't do it by accident. You meant it for evil." [Applause] Oh, I'm not a child or a novice. I understand everybody's not going to wish me well. But it's not what they did, it's who it to root. You betrayed me too. [Music] Do you have the strength to allow good to come out of you when evil has been done to you? [Applause] Anybody can be good to people that are good to them. But the challenge of life is to be good to somebody that you don't owe them no kind of good. I don't owe you enough. I don't owe you nothing. I don't know you didn't raise me. You didn't love me. You were there for me. Now you and I don't. [Applause] [Music] Somebody in here knows what I'm talking about. Time has passed, and now you need me. Time has passed, and now you call on me. Time has passed, and now your hearts have softened. You need me now. And the challenge becomes, given the favor that He's been given, does He have the capacity in His person to allow the phrase "better angels," I'm going to talk about that in a minute, to rise up out of Him and to guide Him so that the best part of Him is leading Him and not the worst part of Him? The plan of God depends on Joseph finding his better angels. Abraham Lincoln, who used the phrase "better angels" so beautifully in his first inaugural address on March the 4th, 1861, was, was a time when our country was on the eve of the Civil War. Initially, those lines were not in there. He added them. He says, "I am loved to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passions may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over the broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." The better angels of our nature. Abraham Lincoln says, as he is leading the nation through the most turbulent, one of the most turbulent periods in the history of this country, he calls for the better angels and says that ultimately, when all is said and done, we will recognize that we are one people, that we are brethren, though our relationship has been strained. Indeed, it had, it had been greatly strained. And his writer, one of his writers who served as Lincoln's secretary of state, wanted to change the land and wanted to write, in fact, did write, "guardian angels." But "guardian angels" implied something from the outside. What Lincoln was counting on is that in the worst of us, there, there is a better of us that is on the inside. That if we will allow it, it will rise up and take us through the turbulence of the times we face. Are you hearing what I'm saying to you? Not the piotistic term of the guardian of angels, no, but the better angels would arise and protect them. Now, give me, give me a moment. I will get, I'm going to get you where you're trying to go. Abraham Lincoln didn't come up with that by himself. He is quoting from William Shakespeare. When William Shakespeare writes in Othello in the 1600s century, he writes about a play called Othello. And in Othello, he writes about the better angels fighting down the evil that was done to him. Abraham reached his back. Abraham Lincoln reaches back to William Shakespeare's speech in 1603 and adopts this language. Better angels, better angels. It is hard to live a life that exemplifies your better angels when you've had bad times. It's hard to have better angels when you've been around bad people. It's hard to have better angels when you've got bad memories. [Music] All of us have to fight every day to get our better angels to stand up inside of us. It's not enough for me to talk about Joseph or, or even talk about Abraham Lincoln or William Shakespeare, the character in Othello. Let me bring this on down to Paul. Paul said, "When I would do good, [Music] evil is present with me." He said, "There's a war going on in my members. I could react a lot of different kinds of ways. I don't even know how to respond to the moment. That which I would do, I do not. That which I would not do, I do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the complexity of my life?" There's not a person in this room who has a life that has no complexity. We smile for people and we deal with the complexity by ourselves. We show up as if everything is seamless, but down on the inside, we know we got some complicated. It's some complicated folks up in here. There's some complicated people watching me online. You've been through some complicated situations. Complicated situations is when your mind and your emotions get into a fight, and both of them are right. I present you, and I love you. I love you, and I'm mad at you. I'm sick of you, but I'm going to stand by you. Oh, yeah. I want to talk to some people that know what it is to have some complicated. [Applause] Yeah, yeah. Oh God, oh God. When I think about in my own life, there's been times that I had to struggle to find my better angels. I remember years ago when I was driving on Capitol Street, we were back in West Virginia, and the man cut me off. And I was in a hairy, and this was a simple thing, but he was, he, he took my parking space. I had pulled up to park, and while I was pulling into park, he shot in in front of me and took my parking space and bumped my car. And my two boys, who are grown now, 40, they were little boys. I locked them in the car because I didn't want them to get in the fight. [Music] I walked over to his window, and I reached in the wind, and said, "What's it going to take for you to get off of my bumper?" Whatever it is, I got it. I was fully prepared to snatch it. It was only that much crack in the window. I was fully prepared to snatch his body through that window and beat him like a runaway slave over a parking. [Applause] I'm just talking about me. I know you never had no moments of conflict where your better angels went to bed and your bad angel said, "I'd go." [Applause] The wise part about it, Ed, is I, I went in the dry cleaners. He backed up off my bumper. Once you know that, and I went into the dry cleaners to get my dry cleaning, and one of the things that was being dry cleaned was a robe, a preaching robe. And the man looked at me, and I looked at him. I said, "Yeah, that's right." Threw my robe over my shoulder and walked out the door. I was embarrassed, but I tried to hide it. I was ashamed, but I tried to hide it. I got in the car, and God said, "Look at you. I can't turn my head up in it. There you are, a young preacher, just getting started, and you're going to fight the man over a parking space while you rush to get your robe so you can preach." I'm the only one conflicted. I'm the only one complicated. I'm the only one that struggles with two different voices. I, I'm telling you that it is natural to have this fight. The text that I read to you, it's kind of unfair because I bring you into the story at the end of the movie. It's a spoiler alert because, because at the time I bring you into the movie, you have to begin to recognize certain things about what is going on. Joseph's brothers tried to kill him. They tried to destroy him. They conspired to murder him. They ultimately left him in the pit. He was traumatized. God knows how long, and naked, and hungry, and alone, and afraid. Trauma, Bishop, vastly McKenzie said something that I love. Trouble don't last always, but trauma will stay a while. The trouble will end, but the trauma is still there. They said one to another, "Let's stand to the side and see what will come of this dreamer." Behold, the dreamer cometh, and let's see what will become of the dreamer. What happens to your dream when trouble comes? What happens to your dream when delays come? What happens to your dreams when betrayers come? What happens to your dreams when the money doesn't come, when the support isn't there, when people sabotage you? What happened? See, the enemy wants to kill your dream. [Applause] None of it would have happened if it wasn't for these brothers who were his brothers and his killers at the same time. Every person in this room had situations in their family that's hard to explain. I love you, but you get on my nerves. [Applause] Come on over for dinner, but I can't forget what you said about me on the phone. And Joseph has this ability to be able to deal with this huge situation with the grace that it's difficult to explain. And it is here that we come to understand that with, with the bombarding of emotions coming at him from all levels, his love is stronger than his memory. You see, when I look at this text, I realize that they are both in a family that his brethren have been in a famine for food, but Joseph has been in a famine for family. They were starving for stuff, but he was starving for them. And suddenly, when I realize what made him cry, I realize I have never really done a good job of preaching him because I am distracted by what he went through. But what he went through in the pit, in Potiphar's house, in the prison, doesn't compare [Applause] with why he went through it. It is not the what that kills us. [Music] It ain't the what. I'm strong enough to make it through the what. It is so why. [Music] Suddenly, I realized that it was not his body plummeting head first down through the rocks to the bottom of the well that was the most painful. It was not the lacerations on his skin or the beatings on his back or being sold for 20 pieces of silver that hurt him. It was not that part of his wife lying on him that gave him the most grief. It was that his dream was tied to his family. [Music] And how can the dream come to pass when the people I love don't? I can't reap love back. I sow love to you, I can't get love back from you. [Applause] I want to talk to some people who are partially successful. You got it going on in this part of your life, but in this part of your life, all hell is breaking loose. You got it going on over here and you're the envy of everybody, but over here, you go home and you deal with something completely. Oh, you ain't in here today. You didn't come to church today. It must be somebody online. Well, come out, come out, wherever you are. Come out, come out, wherever you are. On one hand, it is the best of times, and on the other hand, [Music] [Applause] it is the worst of times. On one hand, you're at the top of your game. On the other hand, there is this nagging, haunting, aching feeling that will not leave your heart. It will not go away. What do you do when your love won't go [Music] away and your common sense says, "Leave them alone"? Leave them alone. Is there anybody in here that's got stubborn love, tenacious love, relentless love? Is there anybody in here that has ever told yourself, "I'm not going to do nothing, I'm not going to say nothing, I'm not going to help, I'm not going to open my mouth"? And all the while you're saying it, you're fixing dinner, talking about, "Come on in and get something." Is there anybody in here that's ever been mad at yourself for being too nice? Come on, talk to me, somebody. I can't be the only one in here that got mad at myself and told myself, "You stupid. You're just stupid. You let people run all over you." Never really realizing that what I hate about myself is what God loved. Never really realizing that the whole basis of God's favor on my life is because I have stubborn love. You see, it hurts to have stubborn love. It hurts to keep on caring even when you're not treated fairly. But there's something down inside of you, they cannot render evil for evil. And hence, it hurts to say, "I'm sorry," when you know you wasn't wrong. It hurts to hold your peace when you know you're right about somebody. Talk to me somewhere. If I'm talking to you, make some noise. Say something to me if you understand me. I don't hope to get everybody. I know this ain't for everybody, 'cause some of y'all too evil to even understand what I'm talking about. But there's somebody watching me right now that knows what it is to argue with yourself all night long and say what you ain't gonna do, and get up in the morning [Applause] and do it anyway because you got stubborn love. And now I see why God chose him. God chose him because God couldn't trust any of the other brothers to have the radical kind of love. They could look beyond what was done to them. [Applause] God needed a lover, somebody who would love anyhow, so that He could work out His purpose and His will. He could not work out His purpose through somebody who was vindictive and spiteful and hateful and could not find their better angels. God said, "This is a moment that will require your better angels." [Applause] In order to get what God has for you right now, it will require that you summon your better angels and that you stop calling it weak. Who am I talking to? [Applause] I got a couple of things that I want you to get out of this. I want you to get out of this, how do you handle advantage? [Music] Because how you handle advantage determines whether God will trust you with power. Some people can't handle power because they're so vengeful that if they ever get the upper hand, they're going to go for revenge rather than reconciliation. And you've been praying for power, and you've been praying for promotion, but God can't trust you with promotion because your heart is not big enough to have the power that you're asking for and the kind of favor that God wants to give you. It's going to come to somebody whose heart is bigger than their head. [Music] Oh, I'm losing. I'm on this. Jesus. This is going to be number two. I want you to understand that love never fails. It may take a long time. It may look like it's been knocked out. It may get bloodied. It may get bruised. It may even require stitches. But when the fight is over, love will always prevail. Can your love survive a fall? Joseph had taken a fall in a pit, but his love survived the fall. You can't raise children if your love can't take a fall. You can't have a relationship if your love can't take a fall. You can't run a business if your love can't take a fall. You can't have a dream if your love cannot withstand a fall. [Music] Have you ever dreamed you were falling? You remember that powerless feeling of falling and how frightening it is when you wake up because you're falling and it feels like things are out of control. There are going to be some moments in your life that it feels like everything is out of control. Joseph has gone through a long period of bad getting worse, and the only thing consistent is that he was still in love with his brothers and his father. Man, there are some people you have to love at a distance. There are some people who are so unsafe to love that that you have to love them at a distance because, because who they are at this stage is not who they're going to become at that stage. But for right now, I have to love you. Give me 50 feet. I love you, but give me 50 feet. You, you crazy. Give me 50 feet. You're going through some changes. Give me 50. Oh, come on. Is there anybody in here got somebody you love, but you got to give them some? The third thing I want to ask you is, do you have the grace to accommodate people changing, or are you still angry over something that's 20 years old? [Applause] [Music] Do you have the kind of grace to accommodate that? I might look like the same person, but I'm not the same person at this stage in my life that I was at that stage in my life. So much time had passed that they didn't even recognize Joseph. Some of you have been holding a grudge so long that you can't even remember the details. You just remember the hanger, and you're still mad. And God wants your better angels so that you can walk in the favor that He has for you. It's going to require that your better angels arise, and you stop trying to be your own defense. [Applause] Because anger often is the camouflage that love wears to keep from being exposed. Oh God. And, and in order for God to deal with you, number four, you gotta have emotional honesty, even if it makes you feel vulnerable. To be emotionally honest, Joseph is emotionally honest. He cannot help the fact that he loves. He cannot control their behavior. He can only control his. Number five, it brings him because of that, he can bless them. They cursed him. I had a pastor call me the other day. Said, "This young man leaving in my church, and he said he's taking some of my members and he's going away." And, uh, and I gave him stage, I gave him a platform. He betrayed me, and he took some of my memories. And I said, "What should I do?" I said, "Give him a love offering." I said, "Give him a love offering." He said, "A love offering?" "Why would I give him a love offer?" I said, "Because you are too big to have unnecessary enemies. He's going to have enough to fight without you. You don't have to fight him. Life is going to fight him. Life is going to change him. Don't add your name to the list. You take the high road." As Michelle said, "When they go low, we go." Oh, y'all ain't talking to me. Talk to me, somebody. Talk to me, somebody. This family has been ripped apart, and they are a part of God's divine purpose. This family is important because God is going to use this family to start the nation of Israel. And they have been ripped apart for years. And the thing about a rip, whenever something is torn, both sides get damaged. I don't know who I'm talking to. Whenever something is ripped, both sides get damaged. You go home bleeding, but you think you're the only one bleeding. You go home and cry, you think you're the only one crying. But if it's a rip, both sides are going to cry. Both sides are going to suffer. They may not show you, but there's no clean way to have a rip. You don't have a straight side and a rip side. When something rips, it rips on both sides. Joseph's coat was ripped from him, and his family was ripped from him, and both sides were filled with pain. God was getting ready to do something so amazing that He was looking for somebody who was big enough to do it through. Joseph understood something that God had brought him into favor to be a channel to bless them. That the only reason God put him in the power is so that his power would be used for the posterity and the continuation of the legacy of God. If God can get it through you, He can give it to you. If God can trust you that your flesh won't get in the way. I'm talking to somebody who's been talking to God about what He's about to do in your life. If God can trust you that the higher He takes you, you'll still reach low and pull up somebody else. If God can trust you that as He opens up doors, you'll reach back and open up a door for somebody else. If God can touch you. [Applause] Look at somebody, type on the line. Something is about to happen. God wouldn't be talking to me like this if something wasn't about to happen. If something wasn't about to shift. If God was about to raise me up in some kind of Egypt. If some kind of promotion wasn't coming in my life. And God has given me this test so that I'll be ready to handle what He's about to do next in my life. There's a reason I'm listening at this message today. God is about to raise me up from the prison to the palace. Who am I preaching to? Get ready for a switch. Get ready for a turn. Get ready for a change. Get ready for a move. Get ready for a switch right now. Holler at somebody. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something's about to happen. Something is about to happen. Something's about to happen. God wouldn't be counseling me about power if I was going to stay weak. There's something that's about to switch in my life that I've got to be ready to receive. Give Him 60 seconds of crazy Holy Ghost. [Music] So [Music] what I want you to see is that all of a sudden the wealth of Egypt was transferred to the house of Jacob. And the Bible said that Pharaoh told Joseph, "Give him the best of the land. Load up the assets and the camels. I'm going to send him so much blessing that before he ever even gets to me." And the Lord said to me to tell you, if you can get the right attitude, God is about to do a switch in your life. Until the wealth of the unjust is going to be laid up for the just. If I'm preaching to you, give God a praise right now. I don't care where you are sitting on the couch, sitting at the dining room table, or in this building. I want you to just turn around in a circle and say, "God is about to turn it around." [Applause] God is about to turn it around. He's about to turn it. He's about to turn it. He's about to turn it. He's about to turn it. The Lord is about to. The Lord is about to turn it. The Lord is about to turn it. The Lord is about to turn it. The Lord is about to turn it. [Applause] Somebody shout, "It will change. It will change. It will change." The pandemic couldn't take it. The race rides couldn't take it. What God has for you is for you. I rebuke every devil, every foul spirit that tries to cancel out your blessing. God said, "It will change. It will come to pass." If I'm preaching to you, shout about it. If I'm preaching to you, shout about it. [Applause] If I'm preaching to you, shout about it. [Applause] [Applause] If you've been in a battle, shout about it. If you had a hard time, shout about it. If you thought the enemy was going to kill you, shout about it. God didn't keep you alive without a purpose. The reason you're still here, God's about to fill your camel with blessings. Your ass have not seen. [Applause] [Music] Type on the line, "My story's about to change." You saw me in the pits. You saw me in Potiphar's house. You saw me in the prison. But you're about to see me in the palace. My entire life is going in better than it started. If you had a bad start, give God a good praise. [Music] We pray. [Applause] Y'all are playing with me. I said, if you had a bad start, give God a good praise. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] These are not tears of sorrow. These tears Joseph had are happy tears. How can you say they're happy tears? Because the Bible said he kissed him. [Music] See, once you know that what they did didn't stop you, [Applause] once you know that what they said didn't kill you, once you find out that God can get you there anyway, [Applause] you see, Joseph was the love child of Jacob and Rachel. Family meant everything. And God said, "I am going to restore." Listen to this. Jacob thought Joseph was dead. He was sure he was dead. He said, "Joseph is dead, and Simeon is gone, and now they want Benjamin." He had accepted that Joseph was dead. When his sons came back with their camels loaded down with blessings, Joseph couldn't hardly believe that what he had given up on could still happen. [Music] [Applause] [Music] So Joseph, [Applause] he got his own legs up, and he stood straight up, and he said, "I gotta go to my son, Joseph, and connect with him before I die." God said, "I'm not going to let you leave this world until you see what I promised you come to pass in your life." I don't care what the doctor said. God said, "I will keep you alive until I show you, until I show you that what you dreamed was not a joke. It shall come to pass. It shall come to pass." [Music] [Applause] Say it again. Say it again. Say it again. That's why Joseph, oh yeah, that's why Joseph was crying because the scene I read was the scene he saw when he was a boy. [Applause] What started the whole fight was he had had a dream [Applause] where his brothers would bow and worship him. And when he walked in the room as the prince of Egypt, and they bowed before him, God said, [Applause] "They laughed at your dream, but it happened. They laughed at what you believed, but it happened." [Applause] And I kept your father alive because he's part of the dream. He brought Joseph's father and his brothers into the fulfillment of what God has predestined. Hear me right now. You're watching me right now. I want you to focus on me right now. I want you to focus on me right now. There have been a lot of setbacks. There have been a lot of betrayals. There have been lies told. There has been pain inflicted. There's been times you've been handcuffed. There's been times you've been tried. There's been times you've been in situations where you were locked up and you couldn't get out. In spite of all of that, what God spoke to you shall surely come to pass. It will come. It will come. It will come. It will come. It will come. It will come. You weren't ready for it when you saw it. [Music] You weren't ready for it when you saw it. You had to go through more things to grow into it. But you're coming into a season now. The things you saw long time ago are going to come to pass. And it's going to be the kind of joy that brings you to tears because there were times you thought you were crazy, and there were times you thought you lost your mind, and there were times you thought you were a fool, and there were times you couldn't hardly believe in your own dream. But every bit of it, every jot, every tittle, every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every promise, everything God told you when you were a child, when you were a little girl, everything God showed you when you were a little boy playing in a sandbar, everything that God gave you, God said He gave you glimpses. Glimpses. You didn't have details. You had glimpses. Whoever I'm talking to, you had glimpses. You had glimpses. You had glimpses. And you've been looking at your life and say, "My life doesn't look like what I saw." God said, "That's because it's not over yet." God's gonna bring you into a place where everything that you glimpsed is gonna materialize in your life. And the praise that's gonna be in your mouth is unspeakable. I want somebody that feels a witness to what I'm saying to open your mouth and flood this place, flood your house, flood your kitchen, flood your car, flood your place with [Music] Here it comes. Your season. [Music] Here it comes. Your season. If it wasn't going to be your season, the virus wouldn't have come. The plagues wouldn't have been loose. The jobs wouldn't have shaken. The trials wouldn't have come. The storms would have attacked you. The divorce wouldn't attack you. The sickness wouldn't attack you. The only reason the enemy is attacking you is because you're on the verge of coming into a press down, shaken together, running over, supernatural miracle in the Lord. I don't need nobody to praise Him that I'm not talking to. I don't need nobody to praise Him who don't understand it. I only want people to praise Him that God, they got something leaving in your body that's got something shouting in your soul. I, I don't care if it's 10 people. If this is a witness that the word of God is true in your life, in your ministry, in your preaching, in your family, in your body, in your finances, open your [Applause] mouth. [Applause] [Music] Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about right there. Yeah, that's what God wants. Somebody who believes it. Somebody who believes it. Somebody who's been praying about something and praying about something, and you can't shake the way you feel, and you feel like you're trapped, and the thing is complicated, and it's complex, and it's difficult, and it's been tough, and it hadn't been a straight line, and there's been dark days, and there's been lonely nights, and there's been times you wanted to quit, and there's been times you wanted to collapse, but God kept speaking to you. [Applause] [Music] So Joseph, Joseph runs up, he runs up and he kisses his brothers because they're coming as a sign that the time is now, and he starts weeping, and he loved him and he missed him. But the thing that tipped him over is that the dream was not alive, though the visionary. [Applause] [Music] Wait for it. In the end, it should speak and not lie. Who am I talking to? It's been a long time coming. [Music] But a change has got to come. It's been a long time coming. [Music] [Music] The change, the change, the change. You felt like a fool sometimes, but the change was coming. You loved even when you was mistreated, but the change was coming. God said, "Stop despising the way you care. It is the way you care that made Him bless you in the first place. He blessed you because He could trust you. He blessed you because of the way He designed your heart." [Applause] [Music] Don't you start being nobody else. Lord have mercy. I feel the Holy Ghost. Don't you start walking in nobody else's shoes because your gift is the crazy way that you can take a licking and keep on ticking. It's a crazy way that you can love people that other people don't even like. That you cannot like what they do and still find a way to love them. It's the crazy way that God has put you in a position of power to bring about change with people who your mind says don't even deserve it. But God is going to use. Lift your hands up in total surrender, like you're under arrest. Lord, I surrender to Your providential will, to Your purpose for my life. [Music] You have created me like You created me for reasons, and I know my girlfriend says, "If, if I was you, I would take you." Not me. I'm, I'm me. I can't be you. I gotta be me because if I stay me, God is gonna bless me. Lift your hands and open your mouth and thank God for working it out in your life. Everything is going to work together for the good of them that love the Lord. [Music] He's talking to you. He's talking to you right now. He's talking to you. [Music] Is [Music] I receive it. I believe it. Will do just what He says. [Music] [Applause] What [Music] God's gonna change. [Applause] [Music] Yes, it is. He will. [Music] Be [Music] [Music] Now bring your hands with me. Don't let a trace of bitterness. Don't let a trace of bitterness destroy the word of the Lord that's been spoken over you. [Music] Not a trace of hatred or anger. Get rid of your victim mentality. It's gonna take all of this to get to that. [Music] Everything is going to fall into place. He's moving pieces around. He's moving you from place to place to place for such a time as this, so that what He said long time ago, it's going to come to pass. [Music] The word of God is true, and your joy is gonna be so full that your face is gonna flood with tears. Thank You, Lord. You didn't let me live and die without getting what I needed. You had to move some pieces around, but You placed me in a place for me to receive, and I will not let any devil trick me into anything less than my better self. Hold it just a second, Lord. While other people are saying, "Make me bigger," our prayer is, "Make me better." While others are seeking status and stage, we are just asking You to make us better people because now we realize that if You trust us, You can bless us. [Music] I pray for divine favor, favor so strong that it's generational. I pray for the kind of favor that reproduces on our offspring and their offspring and their offspring. The changes we make now will change the trajectory for generations to come. For generations to come will be changed because of the adjustments that we are making right now. The adjustments that we're making right now are going to affect our grandchildren and great-grandchildren because something just shifted in my soul. I will never be the same again. Lord, while we're praying, is there somebody watching me, viewing me, streaming me in this room who doesn't know Jesus? I pray that they would come to know Him in the free pardon of their sins, that they would stop wrestling with God over the hateful things that happened in their life and trust in the fact that God has a plan, and that everything is going to fall into place, even the things that bruised them and hurt them and lacerated their heart. And that right now, they will give their life to You in this moment. The prayer number is up on the screen for you to give your life to Christ. If you're in this room and the Holy Spirit touched you and you've decided to give your life to Christ, hold your hand up. I'm giving my life to Christ. Hold it up. Hold it up. Hold it up. Bless you. Hold it up high. Bless you. Hold it up high. If you're in this room and you're backslidden [Music] and this year and this storm has made you act out, if you've been going through a period like I was, and you're ready to snatch people through windows, and you have not been the person that you really are supposed to be, and you know you needed to get back to church because you, you, you're turning into somebody else, and you need to renew your covenant with Christ right now, hold your hand up high. I want to pray for you. Everybody who didn't raise your hand, be seated. Nobody standing but those who raised your hand in either category, and I want to pray with you. Father, right now, I thank You for this harvest. This is the harvest that matters. This is the harvest that counts. The harvest of souls and hearts and lives that are changed by the power of God. We stand in Your house, Lord, and we confess our failures, our flaws, our humanities, our weaknesses, and yes, our sins. We repent. Get us together. Get us right in the center of Your will so You can finish what You started in our lives. We've been delayed, but we have not been denied. And right now, in the name of Jesus, restore the joy of our salvation. I plead the blood over every sinner that your life would be changed by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. To those of you that are online, the same anointing that's in this room is reaching out to you right now. You will never be the same again. And we thank You for the change. It's not a feeling. It's not an emotion. It doesn't mean that I'm quaking or shaking, but I receive the change in my spirit and in my life that today forward, I'm back. Yes, I am. And max. [Music] [Music] [Music] The Bible said, "When the Lord turned again our captivity, we were like them that dream." Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our hearts with singing. Turn again our captivity, oh God. It is by saying they that sow in tears [Music] shall reap in joy. [Music] God said to love radically, to love radically, to love even when you look like a fool. That when it's all over, your dream, even now, will come to pass. If you got blessed today, give Him a praise. [Applause] [Music] You.