Transcription
Why don't you just tell somebody that message is for you. The battle is not yours, it is the Lord. Hallelujah! Glory to God!
And now, Lord, we ask that you would anoint these lips of clay. Let us speak as an oracle of Christ. Hide us behind your glorious cross, cover us with your precious blood, that no flesh glory in your sight. And we give you the glory, the honor, and the praise, through Christ our Lord. Amen and amen.
Give the Lord a hand of praise, and you may be seated.
[Music] [Applause]
God bless Sister Lillian Thomas, and we're so happy to have her husband, Pastor Richard Thomas, pastor of the uh Pentecostal Cathedral of Faith Church of God in Christ in Waco, Texas. And uh, stand up, Pastor Thomas. Glad to have him with us today. He is the son of Bishop A. Liedell Thomas, vice chairman of the board of bishops of the Church of God in Christ. I suppose I probably talked to his father more than I do any of the other bishops. We usually talk maybe two or three times a week. And it's been quite some time that we had planned uh for Sister Thomas to come and minister to us in song at a later date. Pastor Richard's going to come back and preach to us. Amen. And we'll look forward to that.
Very briefly today, and look at somebody and say, "He did say very briefly." All right. We look to the book of Philippians, chapter four. I have spoken from this text before, but uh, maybe a little bit of a different emphasis today. But this is what has been in my spirit for the last 24 hours or so. Philippians chapter 4, verse 4 through 7. If you have that, say "Amen." Let's read it aloud together.
"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
All right. The words that I really want you to focus on are these words of Paul in his letter to the Philippian church. He simply says, "Rejoice in the Lord alway." It doesn't matter what is going on, rejoice in the Lord. And again I say, rejoice. Now, it may sound a little bit unreal, impossible to rejoice at all times. But what I want to say to you today, you may not be happy, but you can rejoice. You may not be happy, but you can have joy.
Now, that that may sound paradoxical and contradictory, but that's what I want to say to you today. You may not be happy, but you can have joy. Probably one of the greatest misnomers that there is in the church circles. When I was coming up as a little boy, whenever we'd see people shouting and dancing and praising God, we said that such and such a person got happy. It doesn't always mean that you're happy because you have joy. You'd be surprised if you could interview every person in this building, especially those whom you see rejoicing. If you could interview them one by one, you would find out that just like those of you who are not shouting, there are very few people who are really happy. Because first of all, happiness is based on what is happening. If things are happening right in your life, you're happy. But how many people find things are happening right in their life? Look, even at the simple definition of the word happiness. The first one simply says good fortune, prosperity. But the second one is really it, a state of well-being and contentment. There are not many people, regardless of what their state is, that are contented. People are not happy with their relationships. Practically every single person that reaches a certain age, they feel like, "I'll really be happy if I can get married." And then you need to talk to the ones that are married, and most of them will tell you, "I was happy and didn't know it when I was single."
[Applause]
People are not happy with relationships. You know, here's somebody, they they think they're perfectly contented, and they turn on that thing that uh, when I was a little boy, some of the saints called it a one-eyed devil, television. And life as it pours out of the movie and out of the television is not real. You know, the man who looks on the television screen, "Oh my God, if my wife looked like her." Well, you need to see her before the makeup room. Gets up and she's sitting there, "Oh, my. Look at this Mr. Atlas." And sometimes he seems to be he-man. And you really get him off screen by himself, and he's... huh.
[Applause] [Music]
Everybody that puts on the charade or masquerade, they're not really happy. "I'll be happy when..." You've got bills stacked yay high, and all you do is just close your eyes and see which one of them can I pay on this month. Hard to be happy when you end a work environment and it seems like everybody else is just there making and mocking time, and the work always ends up on you. It's hard to be happy when you're in a domestic situation where uh, you've got children that you've got to lock your bedroom door to keep them from stealing what you've got in order to go out and give it to the pusher. It's hard to be happy.
But in the midst of unhappy situations, Paul says to the believer, "Rejoice." But my bills are not paid, rejoice. But but I'm in a messed up relationship, rejoice. Why? Paul's joy was centered in the fact that Jesus Christ was Lord of his life. When you really just look at this book of Philippians, the very background of the book. Here is a man that was an evangelist. He was an apostle and an evangelist. He was on an evangelistic tour, and the Holy Ghost stopped him in his tracks and said, "No, you can't go where you are attempting to go." And while he's wondering in what direction the Lord would have him to go, he fell asleep. And in a night vision, there stood a man from Macedonia saying, "Come on over here in Macedonia and help us." Paul goes into Macedonia along with his party, and he's looking for that man evidently that appeared to him in a dream. But he does not find a man at all. He finds a group of women down by a certain body of water. Every day they were there going through God's word. And he began to open the word of God, and God opened up the heart of a woman by the name of Lydia, the seller of purple, from the town of Thyatira. And she said, "You can stay with us."
And as he walked daily from Lydia's house to the prayer meeting, there was a young girl possessed with a demon, and she saw Paul and his companions and said, "These are the men of God that show us the way of salvation." Paul heard what she said, but he knew that it was not being said in a reverential tone. But it was a demon inside of her that was attempting to talk through them. And one day, Paul just got fed up with it. And he looked around at the girl and commanded the devil to come out of her. And that very hour, that demonic spirit that had given her the ability to tell fortunes came out of her. And what ends up being the result? The men who were making money off of her demonic gift, through Paul and Silas into the Philippian jail.
But at midnight, I tell you, sometimes you get in situations and wonder how you got there. At midnight, when everybody else was sound asleep, at midnight, hallelujah. When the wounds on their back after being beaten had started probably to give them a certain amount of irritation, at midnight, Paul looked over at Silas and said, "Let's praise God." Wow. Paul starts singing, and and and Silas starts praying. And after a while, they decided to sing or do it. And when they got to the chorus, God joined in, made it a trio, and the prison began to shake, and everybody's bands were loosed.
Paul knew that God was with him in Philippi. And later on, he's writing these Philippians. He's now in jail. He's incarcerated in Rome around the year of A.D. 61. And he starts thinking about how the church in Philippi was always ready to minister to his needs. And he takes a pen and began to write, letting them know that I'm in prison, but I'm still rejoicing. You read that first chapter, you'll find that he said, "Let me tell you what's happening here. Since I've been incarcerated, the word of God is going forth stronger now than ever. All of the guards know that I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ." And now everybody starts preaching. Some of them are sincere, some are insincere. He said, "But I don't care whether they're sincere and insincere. All I know is that Christ is being preached, and in that I rejoice." His joy was so full until he kept on in that same first chapter. He said, "To tell you the state I'm in now, it doesn't matter to me whether I die and go home and be with the Lord or stay here. I'm in a straight betwixt two. I'll be happy anyway it goes. I think if I depart and go and be with the Lord, it's far better for me. But you need me, so I think I'll stay around just a little bit longer." He's so full of joy. And he tells them, "I don't know what you are going through, but rejoice. Whatever you're going through, learn how to express the joy that you have in God. It's not the end of the world."
Look at somebody and tell them, "I don't know what you're into, but it's not the end of the world." Oh, bless the name of the Lord. Hallelujah. Say, "You lost a job? There's another one." Say, "You're being evicted from your house? God is saying, 'You will either have that or something better.'" It doesn't matter what's going on. Recognize that as long as you've got Jesus, you've got something to rejoice about.
Jesus sent out his disciples. And I'm almost finished. Tenth chapter of Matthew, ninth chapter of Luke, third chapter of Mark. He sent out the twelve, gave him power, told him, "Preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out devils." And then he saw his time was running out, and he called seventy more, said, "Now, I want you fellas, y'all gonna out preach the gospel and heal the sick." But such is the nature of doing the work of God that you're going to be confronted by Satan and his demons whenever you do a work for God. The seventy were not told to cast out devils. You can read that tenth chapter of Luke backwards and forwards. Jesus didn't say a thing to them about casting out devils. But after they got out there doing evangelistic work, they were confronted by the prince of darkness. But at the mention of the name Jesus, demons had to flee. And they came back rejoicing, said, "Master, even the spirits are subject to us through thy name." Jesus said, "And that's and that's no big thing. He said, 'I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven.' Don't rejoice because devils are cast out, but I'll give you something to really rejoice about. Rejoice because your name is written in heaven."
And I want you to know that when it seems like life has dropped you to the bottom, when it seems like you were in the cellar beneath the basement, and the devil is trying to get you in a corner, in a fetal position, hallelujah, don't you ever let him defeat you and roll you up in a knot because of what's happening in your life. Whatever's going on in your life, remember who Jesus is. Remember what he's done for you. And when you think of the goodness of Jesus and all that he's done for you, something on the inside can't help but shout, "Hallelujah!"
[Applause]
I told y'all that was gonna be real quick today. Hallelujah. Yeah. I don't know what's happening in your life. I feel the presence of many with broken hearts, with wounded spirits, with diseased bodies. Doctors giving you some bad news. You've got court dates and you don't see how you're going to be able to win. And the enemy wants you to sit there feeling sorry for yourself. But I got news for you. The Lord does not respond to anybody who sends him an invitation to a pity party.
[Music]
I don't care who you are. When you send him an invitation to a pity party, he's not going to respond. As great as the prophet Elijah was, he got disgusted, ran from Jezebel, ended up under the juniper tree. And the Lord said, "What are you doing here?" And I want you to know that if you are having your pity party, the only question God is asking is, "What are you doing?" I told you to rejoice. "Well, Lord, they lied on me." But I told you, "Blessed are you when men revile you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad." In fact, you should have come in the door rejoicing. You shouldn't have had to wait for the music tone to change. If you've been lied on, if you've been misunderstood, if your name has been hung up on the billboard of scandal, you should have entered his gates with thanksgiving. You should have come into his courts with praise.
I don't know about you, but I got something to rejoice about. No matter what else is going on, I know Jesus. Does anybody in here know him? Look over and say, "Amen." Yes, you know Jesus. You got something to rejoice about. Now, I know one week from today is Anniversary Sunday. Oh, what a jubilant day, what an exciting day. But everybody that's here today may not get back next Sunday. You don't know what's going to happen between now and next Sunday. That's why the saints used to sing, "I believe I'll testify while I have a chance. I believe I'll clap my hands while I have a chance. I believe I'll praise the Lord while I've got a chance." If He's done anything for you, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. If He's successful, if He's done anything for you, praise Him right now. Hallelujah. You know, when we designed this church, your seats, when you get up, they automatically pop up. So if somebody's in the middle and the folks between you and the aisle don't want to praise God, just send out an SOS. Tell them, "Scoot over. Something while I praise the Lord." So rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice because we lost. Thank you.