It is good to be back home. Yes. My goodness, I missed y'all last week. Yes sir. I love y'all and I had a good time on assignment last week, but man, the whole time I was like, I don't want to go home. But can we give it up for Katie Kazadi, who brought the word, you know, have sermons and messages, and then you have Bible study. And last week was a Bible study. Thank you so much, Katie, for devoting yourself to the word of God and for seeking the face of God, for stepping in here and delivering a great word. I got a lot of nuggets out of it. I got about three or four different sermons out of it, so thank you. I'll give credit to whom credit is due. Amen. If you're a guest with here with us, we want to say Welcome to Embassy City. We're so glad that you are here. For those that are watching online, thank you for tuning in and we pray that God is with you wherever you're listening from, whether it be in your car, your couch, your bed, wherever in the gym. Thank you so much for tuning in.

God is doing something special in the midst of us, and I'm glad to be a part of it, aren't you? Oh yeah. So a couple weeks ago we had our baptism Sunday, and when we had our baptism Sunday, we passed out habits, which is a 14 day devotional, and we ran out. And so we ordered some new ones. And so I'm glad to announce that if you didn't get one, today is your date. You get to get your copy of this 14 day devotional. And so if you don't have a copy, today is the perfect day to grab yours. If you're in the building, just right outside these doors in what is now our new information central, just go there, we've got the books available, grab your copy. This is the only condition. If you're going to grab a copy, use it, use it or lose it. Don't abuse it, don't misuse it. No, I'm a poet and didn't know it.

Yeah, don't let me get in this flow. But I'm so glad that I'm so glad to hear all the reports of people that have been digging into it. And I pray the Lord has been blessing you. We also have Easter coming up in two weeks. Woo. Let me tell you how excited we are. We added another service cause we believe that we want to make space. One of the things that the Lord's been speaking to me about over the last several weeks is I just heard two words and he said, make room. And I said, all right, God, we will do that. And so we've added another service on April the eighth. Yeah. Lemme get my dates right. April the eighth at 6:00 PM And this is what I would encourage you, if this is your home church, maybe pick that Saturday because are going to be a lot of people that are going to come here that traditionally may not come on a Saturday, going to be here at the nine and 11. We want to make room for all those that God is going to bring. And I believe God is going to do something special, don't you? Yeah. So let's get in the house. Let's invite as many people as possible and let's see God move. Amen. Amen. One of the things about not having been here last week is that I came ready to preach.

You've been forewarned. I come, bro, don't mess with me. I came ready to preach.

So y'all better grab a Bible. Go to Acts chapter 14. While you're turning there, we do want to dismiss all of our students greatest grades, sixth through 12th. If you're in the building right now, you are dismissed to youth. Just go outside those doors go upstairs to be waiting for you for a dynamic youth service. Can we give all our youth a big hand? I love youth. All right. Acts chapter 14, verse number 19 says, but Jews came from Antioch and a iconium. And having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But somebody say, but I love divine butts in the Bible. If you see a butt in the Bible, you better pay attention.

But When the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day, he went on with Barnabas to derby. I want to take my topic today from a little phrase in verse number 19. It says, supposing that he was dead, supposing that he was dead. So my title for today is this, don't bury me. I'm not dead yet.

Don't bury me. I'm not dead yet. I got to tell you, I'm on assignment today. There are times where you preach a message and it's like shooting a shotgun. You just hope one of the bbs hit somebody. And there are other times where you do some precision shooting where you have one bullet, one target, and that's who you're going after. And today I'm precision shooting. I believe that there is somebody specifically that needs to hear this word that you have been in a season of wondering if your time is over. But I came here to preach and tell you that your time is not over. You may have been knocked down, but you're not knocked out. Right? The devil may have attacked you and tried to convince you that your situation has gone too far, but I'm here to preach and tell you that they better not bury you because you're not dead yet.

One day I will die, but it ain't today. Yes, right. One day I'm going to leave this earth, but it ain't today. And while there's breath in my lungs, while I still have ability, I still got to work to do for God. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. I pray that in the next few moments as we dig into your word, that you would give us revelation, give us ears to hear, a heart to receive and a mind to understand what your word would speak to us. Help us to walk out of here different than the way we walked in. We give your name all the praise, all the glory, all the honor because you're worthy of it. And Jesus name and everybody say amen. Amen. One more time, can you give Jesus some praise in the building? Come on now. Come on. Really love him in the place. Come on. Has he done anything for you?

Yes.

Yes. Amen. Don't bury me. I am not dead yet. I want to really quickly talk about the Christian life for a moment. How many know that the Christian life is not an easy life? Amen. If you are here today by invitation of somebody who told you that when you become a Christian, your life will be perfect. You will have no more sorrow, no more pain, you'll have no more struggles. You'll be sleeping on a bed of roses. They lied to you, they Lied.

You going to be sleeping on a bed of roses already with thorns in it.

Yes. When you become a Christian, it's not an easy life. We know that. And we have to actually look no further than the words of Jesus. Jesus said, if you are to come after me, you must deny yourself. Take up your cross daily and follow me every day. You have to be willing to deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow after Jesus. Every disciple, anyone who wants to be a disciple must understand there are certain attributes of discipleship. Number one is you have to be willing to practice self denial. And self means that you are denying yourself. When you follow Jesus, you must be willing to lay aside the things that bring you pleasure and seek after the things that bring God pleasure. And this is countercultural and counterintuitive to where our world is currently. Our world is inundating us with this ideology of self-care and self-love.

Come on now. There's nothing wrong with self-care. Please take a shower. Take care of your body. If your muscles go get a massage, you know what I'm saying? Go get your pedicure, go get your hair dead. You know what I'm saying? Go take care of yourself. If you need therapy, go see a therapist. Take care of yourself there. Certain people grew up in a church environment that's like if you did anything for yourself that was selfish. That's not true. Take care of yourself. But be very careful with this idea of self love because there is a spirit behind it in our culture, in our world that tries to get us convinced that there's a God inside of us. And if you can just get in touch with the God inside of you, let me tell you, there's nothing new. That's Greek mythology that goes way back to S in the Bible, right?

So be very careful when you get into self-love. In fact, the Bible makes a redundant statement. It says, we should love others. Love your neighbor as yourself. The Bible assumes that you already love yourself. That's good. I don't have to convince you to love yourself. I can prove the point. If I had a hatchet right now and threw it right in the middle of the crowd, everybody would be dodging. Why? Because you love yourself. You know what I'm saying? If you go up and pretend like you are going to hear, so they're going to why? Because you love yourself. So you have to practice self denial If you are to follow after Christ, the second attribute of a disciple is that you must practice sacrifice. And sacrifice means to put something under altar for something else or someone else. And if you are going to become a disciple, you must understand it is going to require you to lay something aside.

Generally something that means the most to you, something that you have elevated above Christ. Christ wants it. In fact, everyone that you read about that followed after Jesus had to leave something behind for Matthew. It was his taxes for Peter, James and John. It was their boats and their fishing career. For the rich young ruler, it was his riches. Anyone who is going to follow after Jesus must realize that sacrifices will be made. You got to give something up. You cannot live the same old way you've always been living. And then say, now I also follow Christ. Christ says, you must lay that aside and come follow after me. If you are going to follow after Christ and be a disciple, you must assure worldliness and embrace holiness.

And that word holiness is very unpopular right now in our church culture because the way some of us grew up, when you said holiness, you said, Ooh. Right, because cause. Cause a lot of guys preach that holiness is a certain way that you dress in a certain way, that you did your hair in a certain way, certain place that you didn't go. But holiness literally means to become more like God. The Bible still says be holy. For I am holy. Yeah. Right. So if you're going to follow after Christ, you must leave worldliness and you must follow after holiness. It's called sacrifice. Then the third attribute of a disciple is to practice a followship. Know you're like, you mean fellowship? No, I mean followship. You cannot. You can no longer follow your own self. You must follow after Christ. You must go where he leads.

No longer do you follow where you want to go and what you want to do, but you follow after where he leads. You must lay aside your own ambitions, your own thoughts about what you think is right and how you and you must embrace the goodness of God and the word of God and follow after him. Now, if you're like me and you understand that the Christian life, the discipleship requires self denial, sacrifice and followship, that's not the easiest thing to do. And there are moments in your life, as probably is the case with everyone who becomes a Christian, where you look around and you realize that you're sacrificing these things and you ask yourself the question, why am I doing this? Has anybody ever asked that question? Yeah. Why am I a Christian? Why have I agreed to follow after Christ and lay aside worldliness?

Why have I decided to be a disciple instead of going and sewing my wild oats? Why have I decided to become a Christian? Has anybody ever asked that? Yeah, it's not that easy. So why would I be willing to do something that's not that easy? The best thing that could have happened to all of us is the moment that we said, Lord, would you come into my heart if he raptures it out? Yeah. Just take me right now, Lord. No more pain, no more. Sorry. Just take me, take it. Woo. I'm sorry guys. I got to go. I just got saved. I don't want to mess this up.

So you have to ask the question, why are we willing to do this? And I believe that reason that we seek after God is because it goes back to the book of Genesis, which is the book of beginnings where we find God, he creates the world and he creates a garden and he calls it Eden. And Eden means pleasure or delight. It means it. It's the sense of euphoria. It's perfect. It has no spotter ble image. It is perfect place that God has created. And then within the garden, he places Adam and Eve and he tells Adam and Eve, I want you to live in delight and in pleasure. I want you to live in perfect communion with me and with perfect communion with each other and perfect communion with all the animals where the lion is laying with the lamb and the wolf ate chasing in the lamb, they, they're all getting along and apparently they can talk to each other.

This is a phenomenal euphoric experience. And this was the original plan of God for us to be naked and vulnerable without shame and to live in harmony with God's creation. But we know that when sin came into the world, it severed the connection, the relationship, first of all, that mankind had with God, but also the relationship that mankind had with the garden because two consequences happened of sin. God, first of all said, I can no longer be in the direct communion with you as I always have been because I can't dwell with sin and I, I'll make a way of escape through sacrifices, but I also can't allow you to be in this perfect garden. And so because of sin, now we who are born in the sin and shape and iniquity still feel a deep desire to be in communion with God. That's right.

That is a desire that God has given us. This is why Paul says that the creation, all of creation groans within itself. What? Waiting for the redemption of creation back to God. That's right. And it's this innate desire to be in fellowship with God, to be in fellowship with a perfect union, with creation and with God, that creates expectation within us. Did you know that as a Christian, you can have everything in your life seemingly perfect? You can have a great car, you can have a nice house, you can have great friends, you can have a perfect marriage. I said,

You lost me there. You can have a great relationship, seemingly you can have everything that you could ever want, but still there is deep down a desire within you for more wow. That you're created for more, that there's greater purpose out there. You know that this ain't it, that there's something greater, that there's more purpose in your life. And so you have this expectation that something greater will happen. In fact, let's define expectation. Expectation is a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. And our expectations are based on experiences or things that we've heard of in the past. In other words, I believe and I expected God is going to make a way where there seems to be no way. You know why? Because I've seen him make a way where there seems to be no way. I expect God to work a miracle.

Why? Because I've seen him work miracles. I expect God to come through for me when I can't come for myself. Why? Because I've seen him do it before. If I've seen him do it before, I know that he will do it again. Yeah. And so when I begin to just think about what God wants to do, even among us here at Embassy City, I begin to pray like God, how do I begin to just share what I'm expecting you to do? And what I believe God said is I want you to expect me to do things that you can't do by yourself. Because if I can do it by myself, why am I even praying about it? I should just go out and do it. But if I'm going to pray, I'm going to take the time to pray about stuff. I'm going to pray about things that I can't do by myself, where I need the intervention of God to come into my situation and do what only he can do.

That's why I begin to pray prayers over our church. And I said, God, I'm expecting miracle signs and wonders. I'm expecting healings to take place. I'm expecting God to raise up ministries out of this place. I'm expecting us to write songs that are going to go all around the world. I'm expecting creatives and musicians to be developed in this house. I'm expecting us to see more people safe than we ever have seen before. I'm expecting revival to blow up out of here. Embassy City. I'm expecting us to baptize more people than we ever have before. I'm expecting it. I believe that the reason why we pray small prayers is because we've been met by disappointment. And when we expect something great and we get a different result, we start adjusting our expectation down. But it's not the will of God for you to expect, let still expect that God is able to exceed your expectations. Preaching good. Yay. I expect God to move. Amen. I expect him to do things that I can't do by myself. Yes, I expect it. Why? Because he is able. We have, I think oftentimes we've insulted God by praying bty prayers. That's right.

Because the Bible says in Ephesians chapter three, restraining now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us. Amen. To him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation, forever and ever. Amen. What the man of God was saying is God is able to exceed what you expect from him. So if I set a certain expectation from him, I can also expect that my expectations are going to be abundant.

Right?

Okay. Y'all want some? I got some word for you. I want to go back to the Old Testament. There's a story, the prophet Elijah, he is the successor to the prophet Elijah. And Elijah comes and he's now getting to the end of his life. And if you follow his life, you'll realize that he had a double portion of what Elijah had. And you see that in the miracles that he performs, he performs almost twice as many miracles as Elijah does. And so he has now come to the end of his life and while he is laying in his bed and he is about to close his eyes and he's about to pass on the King Joe ass comes to him and he says, Elijah, there's one more miracle, one more request that I'd like to put before you, that the Syrians have been a pain in our side Israel.

And I just want to know, will God give us victory over the Syrian? And Elijah said, open up the window. He opens up the window. He said, take your bow and arrow takes his bow and arrow. He says, shoot out the arrow. He shot out the arrow. And then he said, this is a sign of the victory that God is going to give you over the series. And Joe asked is like dope. I like that. And then Elijah says to him, but there's one more thing I need you to do. I need you to take the remaining arrows. I need you to strike the ground to represent, to be a symbol of how you're going to strike down the Syrians. And so Joe as says, okay, I can do that. So he grabs the arrows and he strikes the ground three times and the Bible says he struck it three times and he stopped.

Now. Now we read this passage and then we see a Eli's response to what Josh does is he's upset with him. And he says, why would you do that? Why would you just strike the ground three times because of that? You're only going to strike down the Syrians three times. But if you would've gone at five or six times, if you would've had increased your expectation, then you would've had obliterated the Syrian army. Now we fought Joe Ash, right? We go like, man, this clown went three times. He know that the perfect number is seven.

Well, here, lemme give you a little Bible lesson. Actually, if you study a numbers and that time, both three and seven mean the same thing. Three is also the number of completion in a lesser sense, but it still means completeness. It means wholeness, it means fullness. The problem wasn't that he struck the ground three times to represent fullness. The problem is that Elijah never told him to stop. Right? Elijah said, I just need you to strike the ground. And if you really want it bad enough, you will strike the ground until either I tell you to stop or you break these arrows. Because if you want it bad enough, you will do something that you've never done before. So I'm here to preach and tell somebody before I really get into the media, this message, stop hemorrhaging God. Stop stopping God by limited prayers. If you have limited prayers, you'll have limited answers. If you have small prayers, you'll have small answers. If you limit God, he will limit his answer. I'm not going to be satisfied with just three hits and that's it. If God don't tell me to stop, I'm going to pray crazy, bold prayers. When was the last time you prayed to prayer that made you nervous?

Huh? When was the last time you prayed a prayer and said, I ain't going to tell nobody about this. This is going in my prayer journal. When was the last time that you prayed so boldly that you were like, you know what? It's got to be God. Because it can't, that's exactly what prayer is supposed to be. It's supposed to be that kind of situation where you're like, there's no way on earth that I can do it by myself or with somebody else. God has to intervene on my behalf and come through. I'm talking about the type of prayer that'll make you go, you know what? I don't know if this is going to happen, I believe, but I don't believe, but I'm going to pray it anyways. That's the kind of prayers I've been praying lately. I've been praying the kind of prayers that make me nervous, that make me, the only one I tell is my wife. I'm like, Hey, I may be crazy, but this is what I'm praying because I believe that God is going to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we are able to ask or think according to the power, the dunamus, the dynamite that's working within us.

So this is what brings us now to Acts chapter 14, because the problem with most of us is that when our expectations are not met, we lower them. Or when we're met with opposition, we'll walk away. Or when we are met with pressure, we let off. This is what brings us to Acts chapter 14, and I got to give you a little bit of history to the story before we get to verse number 19. Because at the very beginning of Acts, chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas, they're doing the work of God, right? They've been traveling, good things have been happening. Miracle signs and wonders converts are happening everywhere. And at the very beginning of Acts, chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas, they find themselves at a place called I Iconium and I, Iconium is a place that's kind of split all over the place. You have Jews, you have Gentiles, you have some Christians, and Paul and Barnabas are going to preach the gospel.

And as they're preaching the gospel, there are believers who are converting from just regular O Judaism to believing that Christ is the Messiah. And certain Jews who were zealots didn't like what was going on through Paul and Barnabas. So they wanted to basically stoned them in I Iconium. And the pressure was growing and there was mixed reviews on Paul and Barnabas, so that Paul and Barnabas getting stoned in Iconium and then went to a place called Lera. Now, Lera happens to be the epicenter of Zeus worship. In fact, if you read history, you'll find that at the very beginning at the gate of the city, there was a temple built to Zeus. And when Paul and Barnabas get to Lera, the first thing that they do as they're approaching the city is they see a man who is laying down. He's laying in his bed, and Paul and Barnabas look at him and they say, Hey, listen, we believe that you can get healed.

So once you rise, take up your bed and walk. And the Bible says that the man sprung up on his feet and start up to walk. And next thing you know, many miracle signs and wonders were being done and many converts were coming to Christ. So much so that the people at stra decided and thought maybe Paul and Barnabas are actually Gods who have descended among us, Zeus and hers. This is legitimately what happened because there was a prophetic word or a myth among those that worship sub Zeus, that there would be two gods, hers and Jupiter who would come down or Zeus, they would come down and they would walk among them. And so when these people at Stra saw Paul and Barnabas, they assumed that they were the gods who descended. They were so excited that they started getting little flowers and they got an oxen and they got the sacrifice ready.

And they were about to make a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas and honor for them being demi gods. And Paul and Barnabas were so appalled by it that they said, Hey, listen folks, this is not it. We are not the ones. We're regular humans just like you. We serve the one true living God, stop all this nonsense. In fact, they tore their clothes as a sign of being distraught. They tore their clothes and said, don't do this. And this is when the Jews came from Iconium to lira and they said, we couldn't stone you in I iconium. So maybe now that there's all this confusion, we can convince the people at lira to stone you. And so the scripture says that they convinced the crowd, they got them to turn on. Paul Burton, let me just stop and say this. It is amazing how quick people will turn on you. You're a God one moment and you're a head heretic. The next all depending on what you said, you can be a great prophet one moment and then be a heretic. The next why? Because what you said has now offended me. So the scripture says that the Jews convinced the people at Lustrum we need to stone these dudes. And the scripture says that the people were convinced. So they grabbed stones to stone. Paul. Now I don't know what happened with Barnabas.

The homie somehow disappeared from the story. Listen, let's stone these men. And then next thing you know, it was just a man where was, Hey, where you at Barney? Come on. So they get together and they gather stones to stone. Paul. And now this is what you have to understand about stoning. In that time, stoning was a form of execution. It wasn't like they said, don't do that again. No stoning literally was a form of executions like getting hanged or getting electrocuted, getting a lethal injection. When you got stoned, they would put you in a position of vulnerability and then the first person would come up and they'd grab the largest stone that they could find and they would say out loud what your crime was. And then they would throw and try to get a lethal blow either in the chest or in the head to crush you on the first throw.

And then everyone who agreed with the execution would grab their stone and throw it on top until there was just a pile of stones. A stoning was not meant to just be a punishment, it was meant to kill you. So when they stoned Paul, they weren't just stoning him because they had nothing better to do and they wanted to teach him lesson, they wanted to literally kill him. In fact, so much so that the Bible says after they stoned him, the scripture says that they supposed that he was dead. Now, the word supposed doesn't mean I think that he died, or maybe this happened. The word supposed literally means in the Greek me suit or no me suit. It literally means to believe it means that he was supposed to be dead. Not I think he was dead. Not maybe he's dead, but he is literally dead.

So much so that when they got ready to get rid of Paul, they drug him outside of the city. This was a sign that they were taking him to a burial plot because in those times, you couldn't bury anyone in the midst in the city walls. That was a pagan practice. They drug him outside of the city and were getting ready to bury him. Why? Because there is no way that this man took all of these hits. He's supposed to be dead. No one has ever taken these stones to the head and survived. No one has ever gone through this type of trauma and made it to the other side. No one has ever faced this kind of opposition and survived the tell. He's supposed to be dead. We did our best. We grabbed the largest stones possible. We grabbed the ones with the sharpest edges, we hit 'em across the head, across the chest, in the legs, in the knees, in the shoulder.

We got him covered. He's supposed to be dead now. Get rid of them. So the people gathered around him and they knew in their minds that he was dead. They took him outside the city and the scripture says that the disciples gathered around him. They weren't gathering around him to have a prayer meeting. They weren't gathering around to pour one out for the homies. They weren't gathering around him because they thought, you know what? Let's, let's just pray him back to life. They were gathering around him to bury him, but lo and behold, what they did not know is that when God says that your time is not over, your time is not over because the scripture says that they were getting ready. They gathered around, they were getting ready to bury him, and Paul pops up and he goes right back into the city and when I think Paul is, when he got up, he said, don't bury me because I'm not dead yet. When he got up off off of the ground, he said, you know what? I need you all to return the flowers. I need you to rewrite the obituary. I need you to get rid of the eulogy. I need you to return the Hearst. I'm not dead.

All the things. I need you to put the dirt back in the hole. Please. I need you to quit. Put those morning clothes changing back because I'm not dead yet. I know you thought I was supposed to die. I know you thought I wasn't going to make it. I know you thought that this was a setback, but really it was a setup. I know you thought you got rid of me, but you didn't. Why? Because I'm not dead yet. The enemy thought that he had got Paul, but what they didn't know is Paul got up out out of that situation. He walked right back into the city that stoned him and he's like this, I know y'all thought y'all got rid of me, but you ain't going to find me hiding no cave. I'm going to rock right back and to the same place that thought they got rid of me. I'm going to walk right back into the same situation because it ain't over until God says it's over and with God. It's never over

Here.

Here. What's cool, I'm going to preach it like I feel it. I'm, and maybe I'm just preaching to myself, but I, I'm going to tell my enemy. You might as well close up the hole and you might as well get rid of the stones. You may as well change your clothes. You might as well go ahead and take the flowers back to call the funeral home. Tell 'em you want a refund. My time ain't done yet. Tell 'em to hold the plot. Tell 'em to stop engraving the tombstone because my time is not yet. I'm still working for God. I still got work to do. I still got a call on my life. I still got anointing in my boat. Don't bury me. I'm not dead yet. This is what I love about this story. Paul gets up and he doesn't go hide in the case he doesn't get up and he's like, man, that was hard. I'm leaving. And he had every right to do so. The first thing I would've done if I was Paul, I would've got up and I would've been finding Barnabas. Yo homie, listen bruh, I thought we were in this together, but you done left me high and dry. You left me to get stone and not the kind of stone they do nowadays. I'm talking about stone with rocks.

Where were you at? Paul wasn't worried about what Paul, what Barnabas was doing. He wasn't worried about what the disciples would think. He said, my job ain't done. I got to go right back to Lero and continue to preach the gospel. So don't bury me because I'm not dead yet. My time has not come yet, and this is what I love about this story. When Paul got up from there, he preached another 18 years. Some of y'all think your time is over. That's a line from the pen of hell. They had no truth to that. He got up and preached for another 18 years establishing churches right in the pistols. We wouldn't have a third of the New Testament if Paul didn't got up from that moment and go continue to preach the gospel. He said, I may have taken a hit, but I'm not down.

This is why is Paul was able to write when he said in first and second Corinthians chapter four, verse eight and nine, he said, we are afflicted in every way but not crushed. We are perplexed but not driven to despair. We are persecuted, but not we are struck down but not destroyed. Can I preach to somebody? That's why David could save. Many are infliction of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. That's why Solomon could save that. A righteous man may fall seven times, but he gets back up. That's why Joe can say they can came on to this world, but naked shall I return. Blessed it be the name of the Lord. That's why Joseph could say what you meant for evil. God will turn around for my good. Somebody to give him praise right now that he kept you, that he kept you. Somebody give him praise that he kept you. He brought me from a modern long way. When they lied on me, I still made it when they talked about me. I still made it. When they overlooked me. I still made it When they didn't think I would survive. I still made it. I may just be preaching to myself, but I'm going to preaching. I feel it. I'm not going down in no grave. I'm not going to bury myself a no hoe. You can't put me in no burial supply. Why? Because God is not done with me

Or somebody. Give God some praise in this place.

Oh, I feel I appreciate somebody. I feel I appreciate it, man. I need y'all out here. If y'all don't mind. I came to preach to somebody because what I felt like the Lord was telling me while I was getting ready is he said, you need to go in there. You remind some people who have decided to lay low because they've taken some hits. You need go preach to some people that are sitting there like Paul could have just laid there and just had one eye open, barely and say, y'all just carry me as far as you can away from this place. This is not the joint that I'm trying to be at, but Paul said, you know what? God's done too much for me to lay down and play dead. If I ain't dead, why am I playing dead? I'm here to preach and tell somebody you need to get up. You need to dust yourself off. You need to fix your wig. You need to put some new clothes off. You need to wash your face and you need to go back to where God has called you too. Stop playing. God still got work for you to do. You're not dead yet.

Woo.

Am I preaching to anybody in this place?

Can I preach? Can I preach to some gray haired soldiers of the faith you've been living for God for 30 years? Do you know what it's like to take a hit? You know what it's like to take a lick and keep on ticking, but for some reason the devil's got you convinced that your time is over, that you are. You're too old. You've been in this too long. Make some time. Make some room for the young people. No, no, no, no, no. If you are still breathing, we still need you. If you still got breath in your lung, we still need you to pray. We still need you to encourage. We still need you to preach.

Woo,

My God.

Woo.

I'm going to have to watch my own video. I'm going to have to get on YouTube and watch my own video. I'm need to preach and tell somebody your time is right now. You don't have to wait another second. When I'm waiting, I'm waiting on an assignment. Here's your assignment. Get back out there. Well, I, I used to be an elder in it. I'm just waiting for somebody. No, no, no, no. If you are an elder, keep being an elder. If you preach, preach if you are a teacher, teach if you pray, pray. If you're a witness, witness, you're not dead yet. Somebody take a deep breath in and let it out. You're assigned.

Let me tell you something. The way you power drive the devil in his ugly old face is when you take a hit, you come back to church and you stomp all over his head by worshiping God in the midst of adversity. He cannot stand people who will go through trials and tribulations and get back up and keep on praising God. He can't stand it when he's been throwing rocks at you and he thinks you're supposed to give up and be dead, but you get back up and you say, I'm going back into the house of God to give him praise. Somebody give God some worship in this house right now. Hey, hey, hey, listen. Listen. Lemme tell you something. Let me tell you something. Y'all can keep standing or sit down, whatever you want. I'm moving to a close

Now. That's dangerous language I killed. I could still be preaching for two hours, but I want to preach and tell somebody. Yo Katie talked about Joseph last week. I want to remind you of Joseph's story because Joseph had a promise on his life, but he kept dealing with adversity after adversity, and then it looked like he got delivered and that he do with adversity. Again, it looked like he got delivered and adversity again, and some of us can be on a roller coaster of getting knocked down and knocked down, but the measure of a righteous person is not how many times they got knocked down, but how many times they get back up. I refuse to lay down and play dead because the devil knocked me upside my head. I'm going to get up and give God more praise. I'm going to give him more worship. I'm going to intensify my prayers. I'm going to intensify my belief. I believe God to do more. I believe God to do more. I believe God to do more. What's cool, really cool. When Paul got up from where he was, he ended up seeing more miracles than he had seen the years prior, previously.

Oh my Lord, how many miracle signs and wonders are we leaving on the shelf because we play in possum?

Woo. Good.

Maybe if I lay here, the devil won't mess with me. Maybe if I lay here, he won't come after me. Let me tell you something. The devil only comes after people who are disrupting his kingdom, and here's the thing, the devil can't do anything to you that he hasn't asked permission for. First, I'm being tempted. Of course, you've been tempted. Jesus was tempted and on all points as we yet without sin, and in every temptation he has made a way of escape. You know what that means? You thought you knocked me out. I escaped. You thought you got rid of me. I escaped. You thought you going to get me with this one? I escaped. You thought you were going to come after me. I escaped because God's not done with me yet. Lord mercy. So who am I preaching to? I'm preaching to the crew of people that have gotten hit and you're in this place and you want to lay low because the pain was too much. Lemme tell you something, Paul didn't get up from there with no issues.

That's right.

He got up. He still had scars. Did he have scars? Yes. Did he limp? Probably. Did he have markings on his body? Yes. Why? Because he even wrote about it. He said, I got stripes on my body. I got proof that I've been through it. I got beat. I got persecuted by my own countrymen. He said, I've been out in the deep for three days. He said, I've been in wanting often, I've been in deserted places often. He said, when he said, I've in deaths often, you mean to tell me you died more than once? Yep.

Wow.

How'd you get up and keep going? He wasn't through with me. That's

Right.

I'm preaching to somebody. I'm preaching to somebody in this place. Maybe you pastored church at a time and you're like, now what? I took too many hits. That's why I stopped. But I'm here to preach and tell you If you're still breathing it, he's not done. He's not done. I know. I know. It may look bleak. I know it may seem like it's over, but it ain't over until God says it's over and with God. It's never over. Here's one thing I want you to realize about this whole story is that Paul and Barnabas were not getting persecuted because they weren't doing the will of God. It's easy to take these hits and say, I know I'm taking hints because I hadn't been living right. It's easy to come up with excuses for why you're going through trials when you haven't been doing what you're supposed to, but what happens when you're in the church that God sent you to and you serving on the team that God led you to and the pastor is the source of stoning you unjustly? What happens when you are at the job that you believe God gave you

And you have been doing great, but now you're getting persecuted by that boss and those employees and you wonder, why am I going through this when I'm doing the work of God? What happens when you are an elder and you bring up something that you felt like was fishy and they turn on you and fired you because you were doing the right thing? What? Then Paul and Barnabas were getting persecuted because they were doing the will of God…

But here's what I want you to know. No matter the scenario God ain't done with you. I know it may look like it. I know it may feel like it. I know when you look around, you're like, I'm covered by rocks. I've taken too many hits. I think my time is done. I like my little job. Now I do my nine to five. I ain't got to deal with emotional people. I ain't got to do all that, but without a shot of a doubt, you can work that job, but there's a longing in your heart that knows you are not finished with the calling that God has on your life. So I'm here to preach and tell somebody it's time to get back up and go right back. Paul could have gone somewhere else. Scripture says he got up and went back into the city until he was done doing what he did. Then the next day he went on Too many of us. As we go through a hard time, we start flirting with the idea of getting back out there, and then we have Christianese phrases like, well, I'm just waiting for my assignment, and that's usually an excuse for, I really don't want to get in there yet. You don't need me or anybody else to tell you. An assign is something to you. You know the call of God that's on your life. If you're a preacher,

Preach

Where the same place you did before. If it's on the street, do it. If you're a teacher, teach to who, anybody who will listen. If you're a prayer warrior, pray If you're a witness, witness, if you're a singer sing, don't allow the enemy to bury you before it's your time and too many people are in coffs while they're still alive. Am I preaching to anybody? Yes. Well, I feel this strongly would stand to your feet across this place. We're going to do something a little different. I feel the presence of God in this place and we're going to make space for him right now. We're going to make space for him right now. If you're in that season right now where you feel like you've got, you've gotten hit with some things, you've gotten knocked down, you feel like you're under a pile of rocks and you're not sure what your next move is, you, you feel uncertain because you're right on the verge of being buried, and some of us are like, I'm okay with that because man above surface is hard. If you're that person and you're ready to say, God, don't bury me, I'm not dead yet. That's you in this place. I'm opening this altar right now for you to come.

I'm talking about people who have been called by God. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Get as close as you can. Pack this front out if you need to.

Lord, I'm after some people that you used to preach, but because of the scenario and this situation, you said, you know what? I don't know man. I don't know if I want to get back out. I'm talking about some people that you walked away from some things and you're like, okay with not being in the spotlight because it was too hard, but you know will be miserable as long as you're not doing the will of God. Right? Right, and I'm preaching some boldness to you. Yes. Am I promising you that you'll never get hit again? No. You probably will again,

But every one of those stones, every one of those rocks represents how God brought you through, how God delivered you, how God sets you free. Every head that I've taken is now a testimony. I'm not preaching up here because my life has been perfect. I'm preaching up here. Why? Because I know I'd done been through some stuff and when I'm preaching, I yell and I scream. It's because I got a power shot for God because God's brought me through too many times for me to get quieter. I'm going to get louder. Yes. I'm going to get more aggressive. Yes. I'm going to come after the devil even more. Yes. I'm going to pile drive him into the ground even more so come on, squeeze up here to the front. We're going to go into a top of worship, and this is what I want you to do. I want you just to know that this is the season. This is the moment where you're going to get up and you're going to go back into your calling. You're going to go back into the favor that God has on you. You're going to go back into that season that God has prepared for you. It's been waiting on you. Lira is waiting on you. Yeah. Your ministry has been waiting on that calling has been waiting. You people have been waiting on you.

If you're in this place, come on, just lift your hands right now and with your own voice. I want you just to begin to pray right now. Come on. I want you to pray out loud. Oh God, come on. Exercise your prayer right now. I need some gray-haired soldiers of the faith to begin to pray right now. God,Jesus, right now, God, us, we come before you. I pray, Lord Jesus, there will be an inundation of faith right now, God, that you would heal every broken heart, that you would heal every wound, that you would bring life back. Father, we prophesy to the wind. We prophesy as Ezekiel did and Ezekiel chapter 37, and we'd prophesy that wind would blow in this place and that you would revive us, God, that you would bring renewable God, that you would bring restoration, that you would bring hope. Again, restoration. God, let it be done right now. Come on somebody right now. Lift your voice and begin to pray. If you know how to pray in your heavenly language, pray in your heavenly language right now. Come on, somebody. Start digging deep right now. Jesus, I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you.