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I want to talk to you from Genesis
chapter 50.
We're going to begin there.
Now this message this morning is what I
would consider the first message of our missions
conference.
It may not seem that way when we
begin, but you'll understand it when we get
closer to the end.
I'm going to talk about forfeiting the burying
place of kings.
Forfeiting the burying place of kings, Genesis chapter
50.
Now Father, I back away from this pulpit
this morning.
God Almighty, I ask you for the anointing
of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I'm not able to convey the things
that you're speaking to my heart.
I'm insufficient in and of myself to be
able to form the words and the thoughts
that will allow these truths to become something
that is desired in the hearts of your
people.
I ask you, Father, for the great grace
that I've known all these years, that you
come upon me, you make me more than
I am.
You give me the grace to disappear that
you may appear.
Let it be your heart, your passion and
your voice and your reasoning that comes from
the scriptures this day.
Most of all, Jesus, I ask that through
this word that you be honored and absolutely
glorified.
And God Almighty, let your kingdom come into
the hearts of your people.
May we leave here today completely challenged and
changed from the way we came in.
God, thank you.
Thank you for dealing with my heart.
Thank you for where you're taking me.
Lord, I love this journey.
It's confusing at times and often painful.
But God, it's good because your mercy endures
forever.
Help me to convey this today.
I ask it in Jesus' mighty name.
Genesis chapter 50, beginning at verse 7.
It's the scripture where Jacob is buried by
his family.
And Joseph went up to bury his father,
and with him went up all the servants
of Pharaoh, the elders of his house and
all the elders of the land of Egypt,
and all the house of Joseph and his
brethren and his father's house, only their little
ones in their flocks and their herds they
left in the land of Goshen.
And there went up with him both chariots
and horsemen, and it was a very great
company.
And they came to the threshing floor of
Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they
mourned with a great and a very sore
lamentation.
And he made a mourning for his father
seven days.
When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites,
saw the mourning in the floor of Atad,
they said, This is a grievous mourning to
the Egyptians.
Wherefore, the name of it was called Abel
Mizrahim, which is beyond Jordan.
Now, I want to ask you a question
today.
Now, this is something that God is speaking
to my heart, and this is exactly the
way I'm going to convey it to you.
I'm going to preach to you from a
personal dealing, as it is, that God has
been having with me.
Now, this has gone on for probably a
month or two now, and so I'm going
to ask you to bear with me.
And here, you'll have to really want to
hear this today.
The question is, when you die, will you
be mourned, missed, or undesired at your funeral?
Which one will you be?
And I do believe it's possible today to
see the end from the beginning.
Now, I realize I'm getting old.
I'm 53 years of age.
This probably should be a concern of mine.
I told Pastor Neal this morning he's 54.
He should be very, very concerned about this
topic today.
I believe with all my heart that God
in his grace will let us see the
end from the beginning.
If we ask him, we say, Lord, what
will the end of my days be?
What kind of an effect will I have
had on this world?
What kind of an effect will you have
created through me to the people that I
have stood before?
Now, it starts with the larger masses, in
the cases of those who preach the gospel,
for example, and then it moves down to
the congregation.
Then it gets even smaller.
It moves down to those that are closest,
or perhaps the closest associates, and ultimately ends
up with family.
That means brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, wives, husbands.
What kind of an effect will my life
have had when it's over?
Realistically, that's probably 20 or 25 years from
now, or maybe less.
We really don't know.
I don't even know that I have tomorrow.
I'm not even sure I'm going to get
through this message without dying on the platform.
You really don't know.
Our lives are in the hand of God.
And you see, if you're here today and
your whole pursuit of God is just to
better yourself, then you're not going to be
able to hear anything I'm saying.
But if your reason for living for Christ
is that you truly want His name to
be honored, you truly want to know what
it means to be a new creation in
Christ Jesus, you truly, truly want to leave
behind you a legacy, which means that there
is an influence.
Even after you've died, your life will leave
an influence in the lives of others that
come after you.
And the only way to really ask this
question is, what will it be like at
my funeral?
Now, don't turn there, but let me share
with you some things.
2 Chronicles chapter 21 and verse 20 talks
about a king, the son of Jehoshaphat.
His name was Joram.
He inherited the throne of the southern kingdom,
which was Judah.
The Bible tells us that when he died,
he departed without being desired.
He was buried in the city of David,
but not in the graves or the sepulchers
of the kings.
In other words, God had given him a
place of honor.
And it's no different, beloved, than you or
I today.
Whether you realize it or not, you've been
given of God in this life a place
of honor.
That when you die, there is going to
be, if you are truly a Christian, if
you truly live for God, there is going
to be an honor given you by the
Holy Spirit.
Now, I've been at enough funerals to know
this.
I've preached enough funerals to know this.
It doesn't matter what a man says about
himself or what others say about him.
It is God, ultimately, that bears witness to
those that are his.
This man died without being desired.
The Scripture tells us that he had very
little regard for the things of God.
He had very little, if any, regard for
the people.
And under his leadership, rebellion prospered in that
part of the nation of Israel.
And when he died, nobody desired anything that
he was.
There was no desire.
There's no awe.
Nobody looked at this casket or however he
was buried as it went by in the
streets and said, I'd like to be like
that man.
Or I'd like to be able to accomplish
some of the things that he did.
In other words, he was paraded through the
streets.
People probably forced to be there, perhaps in
the thousands.
But he was taken to the city of
Jerusalem, but he was not buried in the
place of honor.
In 1 Samuel, also chapter 4 and verse
18, it talks about a priest and a
judge of Israel.
His name was Eli.
The Scripture tells us he judged Israel for
40 years.
Now, most likely there was some good in
him.
But he finished his course distant from the
heart of God and removed from the struggles
of people around him.
He was the spiritual leader of Israel, as
it is.
He was the person that people came to
for direction and for resolution to the issues
of life.
You remember that Hannah, when she came into
the temple and she was praying, and the
Scripture says she was so grieved, her lips
were moving, but there was nothing coming out
of her mouth.
She was a barren woman and she was
so longing for a son.
And he looked down on this woman and
he said, How long will you be drunk?
Put away your alcohol as it is from
you.
He was just so removed from the people
that he didn't understand what travailing was anymore
or the pain that personal people can experience
in this walk that they have with God.
The Bible tells us, well, it doesn't tell
us, I'm only assuming, he was most likely
missed by some.
Yet there's no mention of this passage of
Scripture of any mourning.
It simply says he fell off a wall,
broke his neck and died.
And that's the end of Eli.
It's the end of his life.
That's all you hear.
There's no mention of any mourning whatsoever.
Under his ministry, the ark or the presence
of God was captivated.
His own sons were vile and ultimately Israel
suffered defeat.
He died.
And even though he was a judge of
Israel, there's no mention of any mourning over
his passing.
So I think I'm on safe ground to
say that he was probably missed by some.
Now, Genesis 50, where we just started, we
have this man, Jacob.
Now, Jacob is the man who became Israel.
And he is the man through whom the
testimony of Jesus Christ is going to come.
He is a man that has this seed
as it is of God's life in him.
And when he died, there was a grievous
mourning, the Scripture says.
And the people of the land who saw
this mourning and saw the procession, when Joseph
and his brethren and many, many from the
land of Egypt brought him across the Jordan
and into Canaan, they saw this, the people
who lived in the land of Canaan, they
were so moved by it that they gave
it a name.
And folks, I'm telling you, there are funerals
that you can attend and you can be
so moved by what you experience there that
whether or not you realize it, you give
it a name.
You may not understand that name.
The name may just simply be, I would
like to be like that man.
Or what was it about her that made
these people so deeply mourn the passing of
this person?
Teresa's father was such a man.
I've rarely in my lifetime seen such mourning
at a funeral and for days after.
Myself included, we would just simply walk through
the house where he lived and without reason,
any particular reason, break down weeping.
All of us, even his pastor who got
up to speak at his funeral, broke down
weeping.
What was it about this man that made
him so mourned?
And the question came into my life and
into my heart.
What is it in my life that will
determine the difference?
Now folks, I've attended a lot of funerals
as I shared earlier in my day.
I've been to funerals of dignitaries.
I've been to funerals of people who are
known, who are unknown, who are high profile,
low profile.
I've been to funerals where there have been
lists read of accomplishments, even in the spiritual
sense.
But strangely, there have been dry eyes, no
sense of mourning.
And you look at it and it can
very much unnerve you.
And you begin to say, what makes the
difference?
What was it about this person's life that
has left him with such a litany of
accomplishment, but so few dry eyes, especially among
those who are the closest to him, his
own family, sitting there stoic, unmoved.
I've seen people in funerals absolutely undesired by
their own family.
There's no doubt about it.
I've seen those that are missed, as I
shared with you in the scriptures, but not
mourned for.
Then I've been in places where there have
been all the way down the line, just
this incredible legacy of broken hearted people who
have truly mourned the passing of this person.
We left the graveyard and we were driving
home.
And I said to my wife, Teresa, I
was very stirred by this.
Even the undertaker was deeply moved.
I said to her, I said, if I
died soon, would you miss me or mourn
me?
Now, thankfully, she said, I would mourn you
all the days of my life.
There's no doubt about that.
So I felt like I was on a
winning streak.
So I was driving in the other day
and I asked my daughter, Katie.
You have to know her.
She's a bit of a character.
And I said, Katie, if I died soon,
would you miss me or mourn me?
She said, well, I'd mourn you, but I'd
get over it in a couple of days,
depending on the size of the inheritance.
Now, what is the difference between a person
who will be missed and a person who
will be mourned?
Now, I believe a person who will be
missed has occupied a place which is visible
to others.
He or she may have been involved in
what are considered good and high profile causes.
But in the context of Christ, these activities
and services could possibly have left him very
far from the heart of God and from
the struggles of the people.
I want to say this again.
You can be involved in high profile causes.
You can you can climb the ladder of
what the world says and half the church
says is success in ministry.
But yet at the end of the road,
find out in some measure that you have
missed the very heart of God.
Something in you has been deficient and you
have missed the struggles of the people.
And you'll be eulogized, no doubt about it.
And a list of your accomplishments will be
read.
But, folks, I dread this with all of
my heart.
I dread coming to the end of my
days and that all that people can do
is get up in a pulpit somewhere in
some place and talk about the things that
I've done.
He went to Africa.
He traveled here.
He did this.
He pastored there.
And all the eyes are dry in the
place.
It's an evidence that I have missed something.
I've gravely missed something of God that he
wanted to do in my life.
In Matthew, chapter seven, I want you to
think for a moment of the incredible shock.
As in the extreme sense, many who have
traveled this path stand before the throne of
Jesus Christ.
And they say to him, did we not
do many wonderful works in your name?
Did we not cast out devils?
Did we not prophesy in your name?
Now, here are people who are doing things.
Things that they feel are viable and successful
in somehow promoting the kingdom of God.
And finally, one day, they stand before the
throne of God.
And Jesus says to them, I never knew
you.
Incredible.
He's saying, nothing of me was involved in
anything you did.
You did all of these things.
You built magnificent buildings.
And you prophesied.
You seemed to have at least some kind
of a knowledge of the future.
You know, these people most likely are not
false prophets because they're standing now on the
other side of this life.
And they're standing before Christ.
Had they been false prophets, they probably would
have known it.
Here are people who have some ability at
least to open the Bible and declare the
things that God is about to do.
But now they stand before Christ and they've
done all these things.
They've done it all in his name.
And then he says to them, I don't
know you.
I don't know you.
Your journey was distant from my journey.
You see, you arrived at the end, but
you missed something in the beginning.
We ask, well, how could this happen?
How could people arrive at the throne of
Christ one day and have this happen to
them?
And the answer is simple.
Now, I want you to hear me on
this.
The answer is simply that they had a
wrong view of success.
And I am concerned that in the Christian
church world today, we have imbibed, as it
is, a wrong view of success.
We look at people who have big ministries
and think they are anointed and they are
successful.
We have completely reversed the order of God.
That's why Jesus said, there's a day coming
that everything is going to be turned around.
And many who are first are going to
be last, and many who are last are
going to be first.
Because God's view of success does not match
the view of success that this world has.
You see, men see the size and the
scope of what they do as the measure
of their success.
But I challenge you this morning to think
for a moment about Jesus Christ one more
time.
Think of the things that He could have
done when He was here on this earth.
Think about it.
Think about it logically.
Think about it clearly.
In Matthew chapter 4 and verse 6, we
see Satan try to push Him into this
kind of success orientation as it is.
He told Him, He said, jump from the
pinnacle of the temple only to be spectacularly
caught by angels before you hit the bottom.
Think of how successful this is.
Think of how this will propel you, as
it is, into people's admiration.
Think of how this will enhance your ministry.
Think of the rumor and report that will
begin to circulate throughout all of the known
world as you get to be known as
the man who jumped from the top of
a building and angels themselves caught you before
you hit the bottom.
Folks, He could have turned the Sea of
Galilee into a platform of glass.
He could have invited all the nation of
Israel to sit down to a five-star
dinner served by angels themselves.
There's nothing He couldn't have done.
He could have built spectacular buildings, all the
while claiming that it was for the glory
and honor of God.
He could have done everything in million-fold
measure to what men think is successful today.
There were no restraints to Him.
He was the one who created the very
universe by His Word.
He could have built bridges across seas.
He could have dazzled the people with His...
If Egypt thought it had an intellect for
building, He could have dazzled the world just
with the natural reasoning that He had to
do these types of things.
But yet the true measure of God-breathed
success in ministry was evidenced in the one
-on-one compassion He showed to individual people
along the journey of His life.
That was the evidence.
That's why people will one day stand before
Him and He will say, I don't know
you.
Your motivation is not my motivation.
Your direction was not my direction.
Your view of success does not match heaven's
view.
We see Jesus Christ in the beginning of
His ministry.
First miracle He performs is turning water to
wine at a wedding feast.
I know there are a lot of theological
types of this.
But at the very basic level, He turned
water to wine because His mother was concerned
that the host of the feast was going
to be embarrassed.
It was an embarrassing thing to run out
of this type of refreshment at a wedding
feast.
And she turned to Him and said, They
have no wine.
They're going to be embarrassed.
Do something about it.
And He performed His very first miracle to
save a host from embarrassment at a wedding
feast.
I see Jesus with crowds pressing upon Him.
Some felt that they could gain perhaps personal
favor by being in very close, and others
were trying to move Him towards their own
personal agendas and their viewpoints of God and
their viewpoints of what God's life and activities
should bring into the nation.
And all of a sudden, in the midst
of this huge parade, Jesus stops.
Why does He stop?
Because He hears the cry of a blind
man, in one case, and two blind men
in another, who are crying out.
Thousands of people are flocking Him.
But He hears the cry of one.
I thank God for that with all of
my heart today.
I thank God that Jesus can hear the
cry of one heart today.
In spite of the multitudes that might be
clamoring in His name, He hears your cry.
He hears my cry.
I thank God with everything that is in
my heart.
And that, folks, is the measure of success
in ministry.
It's not the multitudes.
It's the ability to hear the cry of
one heart that God may set before you
in your journey.
I see Jesus invited to dinner with the
movers and shakers of His day and religion,
and at this place allowing those without social
favor to come in and touch Him, knowing
that He's going to lose favor, because certain
types of people are touching His feet and
honoring Him, but yet still allowing it to
happen.
I see Jesus taking time for children when
others around Him considered it a waste of
time and energy.
I can virtually read the minds of those
that were close to Him.
Hey, Jesus, we're here to take a kingdom.
We're here to drive the Romans out of
our occupied nation.
We're here to establish places of power and
position and authority.
And we're going to sit at your right
hand and at your left hand.
No time for children.
But I see the measure of success that
was in the life of Jesus Christ, evidenced
in the fact that He took time, He
took quality time with children, put them on
His knee, perhaps said a few things that
gladdened their hearts, and blessed them and let
them go, and they knew they had been
touched by the hand of God.
I see Jesus Christ defending the failures and
outcasts of society when all of the people
wanted to stone a woman taken in adultery.
He was the one that put Himself in
that place of defending those that have no
defender, exactly as He says He is in
the Scriptures.
I see Him near the end of His
life, and even after He's resurrected from the
dead, forgiving those who have wronged Him, from
intimate acquaintances to His enemies, forgiving Peter for
denying with an oath and a curse that
even knew his name, forgiving the Roman soldiers
for nailing Him to a cross, forgiving the
people that were in the crowd those days
yelling, crucify Him.
You see, this is the measure of greatness.
This is the measure of success.
This really is the life that people will
mourn when you and I are gone.
And really, we do have a choice between
now and then.
We can pursue Christ for Christ Himself.
We can pursue Him for the work that
He does.
We can pursue Him and ask Him to
do in us what He does, and to
put our feet on a pathway similar to
the one that He walked while He was
here in physical form on this earth, because
today, of course, we are His body, His
church.
We can do this and say, Jesus, success
is measured by how You have touched others
along this journey through my life.
It's not measured by the amount of buildings
I've built.
It's not measured by men's admiration that I
may have been given of You because of
ministry.
Success is measured by the lives, beginning in
my own home, that have been touched by
the power of God through this journey that
You have given me.
Paul says in Acts chapter 17 and verse
28, speaking of Christ, he says, For in
Him we live and we move and we
have our being.
Now, Paul had discovered this truth.
Paul knew this is where life is.
This is where success is.
The success seminars offered in Christian circles today
would take Paul's life and say, Now, here,
folks, is an example of failure.
Here's a man who never prospered from his
preaching.
Here's a man who didn't do this.
He didn't do that.
He never founded this.
He never founded that.
He did, of course, write most of the
New Testament near the end of his life.
Paul knew this.
And, folks, if you go to Acts chapter
20 with me, I'm going to show you
something.
You see, Paul, I want to share with
you today that I believe that you can
know that you will be grieved when you
die.
Because Paul knew it before he died.
He was a man grieved even before he
was dead.
In Acts chapter 20 and verse 32, Paul
was leaving.
He had established a work of God.
He had taught the people.
They had grown to love, I believe, the
touch of God that had come into their
lives through this man.
In verse 32, he said, Now, brethren, I
commend you to God and to the word
of his grace, which is able to build
you up and to give you an inheritance
among all them which are sanctified.
I have coveted no man's silver or gold
or apparel.
So you know that his theology was not
based on these things.
Yea, you yourselves know that these hands have
ministered to my necessities and to them that
were with me.
I have shown you all things, how that
so laboring you ought to support the weak
and to remember the words of the Lord
Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed
to give than to receive.
And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled
down and prayed with them all.
And they all wept sore and fell on
Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of
all for the words which he spake, that
they should see his face no more.
And they accompanied him to the ship.
I do believe you can know.
It's how people feel when you have to
leave their company.
If you have been a vessel of God,
if truly the grace of God is in
you, there is a sense of loss as
it is in people's hearts when you have
to leave them.
When you are called of God to go
somewhere else, as Paul was, there is a
sense of loss because the Holy Spirit has
touched their hearts deeply through the ministry that
God gave to you.
You see, Paul could say, I found the
heart of God.
Jesus is my measure of success.
It's his life flowing through me to meet
every man's need that I meet along my
journey.
This is the measure of success, folks.
It doesn't matter two cents to God when
I stand before him that I have pastored
this church.
The measure of success is how people's hearts
have been touched personally through my life.
How Jesus has flowed through me.
How I have spoken to...
Why do you think the scripture says by
every word we speak we will be judged?
It's how he has spoken through us to
the struggling, the hopeless, the misunderstood.
What has been the motivation of our hearts?
Starting at home, forget about the pulpit, forget
about ministry and buildings and all these other
things.
What has it been in our own house?
How have we spoken to our own families?
What kind of ministry has flowed through us?
Because, you see, that determines what will happen
at the end.
I'm determined in my heart, I'm not going
to die with a list of things I've
done and a dry-eyed family.
Because that would be evidence that it's all
been just in the pulpit, but there's been
little or no reality in my own personal
life.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians, if you'll turn
there, chapter 9, we'll close with this portion
of scripture.
And in verse 19, now here are the
keys.
He says, though I be free from all
men, that's 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19, yet
have I made myself servant unto all that
I might gain them more.
Unto the Jews I became as a Jew
that I might gain the Jews.
To them that are under the law, as
under the law that I might gain them
that are under the law.
To them that are without law, as without
law, being not without law to God, but
under the law to Christ, that I might
gain them that are without law.
To the weak I became as weak, that
I might gain the weak.
I am made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some.
And this I do for the gospel's sake,
that I might be partaker thereof with you.
Now Paul says, I was made by this
life of Christ in me a servant, first
of all, to all men.
Not a king, I was made a servant.
Not a ruler, a servant, to all men.
And Paul says, I became all things to
all men.
Now there's two ways you can see this.
Now the first way I believe is false.
You see this man that's almost like a
spiritual chameleon.
Every time he goes into an environment, he
becomes a different person.
That's not what Paul was speaking about.
Paul was Paul.
He did not change.
He was the same man everywhere he went.
So what then does he mean, I became
all things to all men?
Well, Paul is just simply saying this.
I have allowed this inexhaustible supply of Christ's
life and love to flow through me, allowing
me and enabling me to care for and
minister to all men, no matter where they
may be found.
Paul was just saying, no matter where they
are, I can go there.
I don't have to change who I am.
But God gives me the grace in every
situation to be an able minister to those
who need to know about him.
I'm not afraid of other cultures.
I'm not afraid of other colors.
I'm not afraid of other languages.
I'm not afraid of other viewpoints.
Paul says, I have been enabled to become
all things to all men.
I can go in to any place and
God will give me the supply and God
will give me the word.
Folks, this is the measure.
Paul was just simply saying, I can go
there.
I can go there.
And I do believe that every true Christian
has that eventually get into the heart.
I can go there.
In this church, the leader of our prison
ministry has never been in jail.
I can go on and on.
At one time, the man who headed up
our audiovisual department was both legally blind and
deaf.
I can go there.
I can minister if God's called me to
minister.
He will give me the grace.
I can be all things to all men.
I can leave a testimony of Jesus Christ
after I'm gone.
You see, love will transcend all boundaries.
It will break down all the walls.
I can love all people of all races
and all languages and all places equally as
God loves them.
I can go in and God will give
me the wisdom to untangle the arguments that
the devil has interweaved in their minds, theologically
and practically.
I can do these things through Christ who
strengthens me.
I can be a type of Christ.
I have within this earthen vessel the spirit
of the living God and God can use
me to go places where nobody else could
go.
I can go there.
Folks, I believe this is the measure.
I believe this is the very essence of
God's heart that he wants to plant within
his church.
In this missions conference that's coming up, we're
going to hear from people who have gone
all over the world.
We'll hear from a model in New York
City that's now in prisons in Africa.
Situations and people that are impossible in the
natural to love and to minister to.
But in the power of the spirit of
God, as Paul said, we are unable to
go where others cannot go.
What do you want when you die?
Lists of deeds in dry eyes?
Or would you rather be mourned?
Scripture says that the Canaanites, when they saw
Jacob, they saw Jacob's entourage, Joseph and his
brethren, and all of the Egyptians that came
to bury him on the other side of
Jordan, were so moved by the degree of
mourning that they gave the place a name.
That's incredible when you think about it.
They gave it a name.
And folks, I do believe that if you
and I choose to live for God, that
those who observe our passing will give the
place and the time a name.
When they see people deeply affected by the
reality that Jesus Christ has been allowed to
flow through our lives and touching them, they
will give the place a name.
And I do believe the place will have
the name I want to be like that
person.
When you die, oh, you may have made
a mess of your whole family.
But if you choose today to live for
God, I promise you that when you die,
your sons, your daughters will be there, your
grandchildren will be there, brothers and sisters will
be there.
And they will listen and they will observe
the deep effect that has come upon the
hearts of those that you've been closest to.
And they will give the place a name.
And that name will be other than, of
course, they'll know it's Jesus Christ that gave
you this new life.
But that name will be, I want to
be like that man, that woman.
I want a life like this.
Elijah, Elisha followed Elijah.
And when Elijah's chariot was taken up, he
cried out, Oh, my father, my father, the
chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.
And it's almost like, oh, God, where's the
hope for tomorrow?
This was a man of God.
This was a man who affected my life.
And as he looked up heavenward, I can
see this mantle of Elijah floating down through
the heavens and descending at his feet.
As he mourned the loss of this man.
Oh, folks, you've got to understand something.
When you die at your funeral, if you
have been a man or woman of God,
those who are mourning your departure will be
crying out to God and they will have
their eyes open to this mantle that falls
from your life.
And the reality will be there that you
too can do the very things that this
person before you did because they didn't do
it in their own strength.
They did it by the power of the
Spirit of Almighty God.
They became what they were because the life
of Christ was in them.
They had the ability to reach out and
touch and go beyond their borders.
They had the ability to love when nobody
else could love and forgive when nobody else
could forgive because the life of God was
in them.
That's the life that I want.
No lists, no dry eyes.
No dying without being desired.
But when I die, if it happens to
be in New York, and you happen to
come to my funeral, I would like there
to be a revelation that everything that God
has done in me that he can do
in you.
That there are no big and little people
in the kingdom of God, just hungry hearts,
that's all.
Hungry people.
And one more time, the lame, the blind,
the maimed, press through and get the mantle
and walk out the door able to affect
their co-workers and family.
When Teresa's father never preached a sermon, never
built a church, never conducted a seminar, wrote
one song in his life, but people mourned
him.
They mourned.
Teresa's mother never preached a sermon, never wrote
a song, never built a Bible school, never
did any of these things.
But carpenters and plumbers and construction men, tough
ones, unsaved, mourned her.
So moved they could hardly speak.
What she did do was make biscuits for
them.
And she told them she loved them and
prayed for their kids and truly cared.
Oh, we're in for an awful surprise when
we get to the throne of God, folks.
What we think is big is pretty small,
I think, in the sight of God.
I have been in funerals where God has
honored those that are His.
Hallelujah.
It has changed me.
I've come back with a resolve and an
understanding in my heart.
It's not about ministry.
It's about Christ and it's about people.
It's about loving God and it's about loving
people and let everything else fall where it
may.
But these are the things, to love God
and to love people.
Hallelujah.
Father, I thank You for this day, God
Almighty.
I ask You, Lord, that You make this
a reality.
What I have attempted to speak today, make
it a reality in people's lives.
Make it a reality in my life.
Help me, Jesus.
Help me, God.
Beginning with my wife and my sons and
my daughter, now my grandson, nieces and nephews
and friends and family.
Oh, God Almighty.
It's so foolish to be standing in pulpits
and yet have no effect in Your own
home.
Deliver me, Lord, in any measure where I've
failed my own house.
I pray, Father, God, with everything in me,
that You flow through me in whatever time
remains to me.
Lord, that there be a desire created in
the lineage that follows to walk in the
pathway of Jesus Christ.
You have shown me clearly what success is.
I've seen it.
I've embraced it.
I know it deep in my heart.
I want this with everything in me.
God Almighty, thank You for how kind You
are to not let me pursue any pathway,
Lord, that brings no honor and glory to
Your name.
I pray You help this church, Lord.
You're calling out to us in this last
hour of time to be all things to
all people.
I pray help us to break out of
the boxes of our own comfort.
Break out of the places of our own
thinking about ourselves.
Help us to break away from selfishness and
a self-consuming consumer mentality of coming to
church.
Help us to become truly men and women
of God through whom You can flow.
Touch our families, Lord.
That's the cry of our heart today.
Let it begin in our homes, whether our
children are with us or gone, whether our
marriages are whole or broken.
Pray, God Almighty, You're the one who's able
to come and You're able to mend every
fence, You're able to build every wall, You're
able to bring back and make right things
that were wrong.
I pray, God, do this.
Oh, God, I pray with all my heart,
do this, Lord.
Let this be a church body through which
wholeness and healing flows.
God, I pray, Lord, let this not be
a selfish house, let this be a selfless
house.
I pray, Jesus, that You can have free
reign and give us hearts to care and
hearts of compassion, Lord, for people around us.
Stop us in our busy days, oh God.
We go through our streets and we're so
consumed of ourselves, we're missing the very work
of God.
Help us, Jesus.
It's got to be a Spirit-led compassion.
It's got to be something that You do.
We can't become all things to all men
unless You are the one doing it within
us.
So I cry out to You, Holy Spirit,
I acknowledge and declare my bankruptcy.
I need You.
I need a deposit of Your life.
I need Your compassion.
I need Your strength and power.
I need who You are, Jesus, to begin
to flow within me.
Oh, God.
There's got to be something of Your life
flowing in us in this hour.
Help us, Jesus.
Help us to lay hold of these things.
Help us to understand these truths, oh God.
Oh, Jesus.
Oh, God.
I pray now that people's lives today be
changed.
I pray, God, the courses of our lives
be turned.
I pray that our thinking be straightened.
I pray, God, that wrong views of Christianity
be demolished.
I pray, God, for the simplicity of Jesus
Christ that we can hear the voices of
those who are crying out for life and
a touch of hope in this darkened world.
I cry out to You, Holy Spirit, help
us.
Help us, Holy Spirit.
We feel like the blind men on the
side of the road.
Jesus, Son of God, help us.
Help us to see these things, oh God.
Father, I thank You with all my heart.
I thank You, God, with everything that is
in me.
Oh, God.
Just let us be men and women of
God.
Let it be said when we're dead in
God.
They walked with God.
They knew God.
They loved God.
And they loved us because of God.
I don't even know how to put this
into an altar call.
I just know it's something that God is
doing in my life.
I don't care if I ever preach another
sermon.
What I care about is that my family
see Christ in me.
Does that make any sense?
I don't know how else to say it.
Hallelujah.
The Holy Spirit has spoken to your heart
today.
I don't know what to do.
Maybe we'll join together and we'll pray at
this altar.
But you want the things that you heard
of today.
And you say, Pastor, you're on a journey.
We're with you.
I'm with you.
I want to go.
You may not even understand it all, but
you say, I want to go on this
journey.
I want to finish my course.
And people's lives have been touched through mine.
It's as simple as that.
People closest to me, to the people that
God will introduce to me in the days
to come.
But I want people to be truly touched
of God through my life.
If that's the cry of your heart, I
want you to join me at this altar.
Let's stand at the balcony.
You can go to either exit, main sanctuary,
slip out of wherever you are.
And in the education annex, if you could
just stand between the screens.
And we'll pray together momentarily.
Jesus.
Pray with me.
Jesus.
Touch people's lives.
Through me.
I ask for a heart.
That truly cares.
And ears.
That can truly see.
And eyes.
God to see the need.
In every person around me.
Make me sensitive.
To the needs of my family.
Beginning in my own house.
Deliver me from hard speaking.
In religious lectures.
Give me the tenderness.
Of Jesus Christ.
Help my conversation.
To be relevant.
And to meet the needs.
Of those who turn.
For help.
Father, I thank you.
That I just believe today.
That you have set my feet on a
course.
And through my life.
Your name.
Is going to be desired.
And your life.
Is going to be honored.
I thank you.
With all my heart.
In Jesus name.
Now give him thanks.
Give him thanks.
This is the conclusion of the message.