so what do you do when god doesn't pick you you trust him and you say god i know that you will never do anything unless it's going to work out for my ultimate good and i'm not in this with you god to get what i want i'm in it for what you want [Music] i'm a word person the words in here have changed my life they've changed me and they'll change you the word is the absolute truth of god john 8 says if you continue in my word you will you will know the truth and
the truth will make you free amen how many of you love the word how many have made your mind up you're going to stick with the word no matter what amen all right why don't you be seated and we're going to have some word tonight i think you've already had a bunch of word but we're about to have a little bit more hey ladies did you know that they have opened up a new store in new york city anybody heard about the new store in new york city it's called the husband store [Applause] and you
can go there and shop for a husband [Applause] there are six floors in this store [Applause] you can only visit each floor one time though and each floor you go up the value increases you may choose any item from any particular floor but you cannot you can go up a floor but you cannot go back down so there was a woman who went to the husband's store to find herself a husband on the first floor the sign on the door read these men have jobs that sounded good these men have jobs floor 2 says these
men have jobs and love kids floor number 3 said these men have jobs love kids and are extremely good looking [Applause] wow she thought this is sounding pretty good but i'm compelled to go on to the next floor well she does go to the fourth floor and the sign reads these men have jobs love kids are dropped dead good looking and they help with the housework oh mercy me she said i can hardly stand it still she said i've got to go on she went to the fifth floor these men have jobs love kids or
drop dead gorgeous help with the housework and have a very strong romantic streak but she couldn't stand it she decided she had to just find out what was on floor number six floor number six said you are visitor 31 456 to this floor there are no men on this floor this floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please amen amen amen amen amen all right you want to do one more you want one more little funny before i start maybe being not so funny we'll see [Music] nine words that women use and
men need to really understand these words the first one is fine [Applause] how many of you ladies can do it fine okay this is the word that women use to end an argument when they're right and you need to shut up fine five minutes now she's getting dressed that means a half an hour five minutes is only really five minutes if you've just been given five more minutes to finish watching the game before you're supposed to help with housework the next word a very important word nothing what's wrong honey nothing this is the calm before
the storm this word nothing means something and you should be on your toes arguments that begin with nothing almost always end with fine go ahead this is a dare not permission do not do it allowed sigh this is actually a word but it is a non-verbal statement that is very often misunderstood by men a loud sign means that she thinks you're an idiot and wonders why she's wasting her time standing here arguing with you about nothing for the meaning of nothing refer back to number three [Applause] number six that's okay that's okay this is one
of the most dangerous statements that a woman can make to a man that okay means that she wants to think long and hard before deciding how you're going to pay for your mistakes [Applause] amen thanks a woman is thanking you don't question it don't faint just say you're welcome i do want to add in here a clause though this is true unless she says thanks a lot that is pure sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all do not say you're welcome because if you do that will bring on a whatever and whatever is
a woman's way of saying whatever happens i am not going to be happy and number nine don't worry about it i got it just just don't worry about this i got it that's another very dangerous statement meaning that there is something that a woman has told a man to do now several times but is now doing it herself because he never did it this will later result in a man asking honey what's wrong for the woman's response refer to number three which is nothing amen it's good to laugh in the house of god amen well
i want to thank everybody for having me i was here two three i don't know some years ago but the bishop is persistent he keeps at what he wants until he gets it amen [Applause] i want to talk to you tonight about what to do when god does not pick you [Applause] wow what to do when god does not pick you well in psalm 37 verses 1 through 3 which i've been preaching on a lot lately the bible says do not fret yourself over evildoers for they shall soon be cut down like the grass now
that doesn't mean that we're supposed to be happy about them being cut down it's just thought i'd throw that out there but it's just prophesying what will happen to evildoers if they don't turn around so bottom line is is if you love god and you're called according to his purpose people really cannot they might temporarily take advantage of you or they might temporarily mistreat you but sooner or later god will get it away from them and if he has to bring it through a thousand people he'll bring it back to you multiplied many times over
amen psalm 37 verse 3 says trust in the lord and do good it does not just say trust in the lord it says trust in the lord and do good two distinctly different things and i love that verse because i think that many times people forget the second part well i'm trusting god well what are you doing we need to trust god and do good and i think do good has two different parts to it i think doing good is being obedient to god doing what you believe that he tells you to do and i
also think that doing good means just being good to people you know that christians are supposed to be good to other people we're supposed to encourage and edify lift up and smile at people and make people happy and help people and give people some of our money if they need some of our money come on now and i still think that we have a long way to go in learning what i believe is one of the biggest spiritual secrets in the bible and that is that you overcome evil with good i said you overcome evil
with good whoever it is you're mad at for whatever they did to you you're not hurting them at all you're only hurting yourself i said you are not hurting them at all you're only hurting yourself why do you want to spend your life mad at somebody that's not having a good time and don't even care that you're upset [Applause] but if you trust god and do good the best thing you can do when you're hurting is going to be a blessing to somebody else come on i said the best thing you can do when you're
hurting is go be a blessing to somebody else fret not yourself over evil doers for in the end they shall or soon they shall be cut down like the grass trust in the lord and do good you know god does not have the same plan for everybody he's got a good plan for everybody but god does not have the same plan for everybody and it seems like that two people can do the exact same thing right this person's on bank on this person's obeying god and this person seems to get one type of reward or
response from god and this other person seems to get like a totally other response from god let's think about noah for a minute in genesis chapter 9 verses 12 and 13 we see that after noah obeyed god and he built the ark and he went into the ark and did everything that god asked him to do and when he came out god gave him a sign to seal a new covenant with him that he would never again destroy the earth with water and that sign that he gave him was a rainbow i'm sure that after
being in that ark for that long with all those i can't even imagine what that smelled like just imagine i'm sure that he needed a rainbow and some of you could use a rainbow day right now too you know i've never heard anybody say oh look at that stupid rainbow i mean everybody likes a rainbow and boy if we get a double rainbow wow look at the double rainbow and some of you are like yeah i'm due for a double rainbow well what if god doesn't give you a rainbow what if he gives you what
he gave abraham abraham also was a man who obeyed god made a lot of sacrifices genesis 12 says that god called him to leave his home and his family and everything that he was familiar with and go to a place that i will show you god didn't even tell him where to go i mean really god you want me to walk away from everything and i don't even have one little smidge of a bit of evidence of what's going to happen next how many of you hate it when god's telling you to let go of
this but he won't anybody ever make that statement i just feel like i'm being pulled apart well here's the thing when you try to hold on to this while you're trying to take hold of that see you gotta let go and trust yourself completely to god that's scary but people who are willing to do that are the ones really who become the world changers and so after abraham had done what god told him to do and actually i want us to to read genesis 12 the first three verses because it's actually really very exciting what
god said to him now in haran the lord said to abram go for yourself for your own advantage away from your country from your relatives and your father's house to the land that i will show you so he's asking him to do a very hard thing but he said this is for your good do you know when god asks us to do hard things it's not because he wants to just sit back and watch us suffer it's always for our good i said it's always always always always [Applause] for our good and i will make
of you a great nation and i will bless you with an abundant increase of favors and i will make your name famous and distinguished and you will be a blessing dispensing good to others this is get isn't this sounding good i mean i think this is sounding pretty good abraham's kind of like this might work out really good and i will bless those who bless you who confer prosperity or happiness upon you and i will curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you and in you will all the families of the earth be
blessed all right so now god is ready to seal his covenant his agreement with abraham and if we look at genesis 17 just a few pages over verses 9 beginning in verse 9 and god said to abraham as for you you shall therefore keep my covenant you and your descendants after you throughout their generations and this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your posterity after you every male among you shall be circumcised and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token or a sign
of the covenant the promise of the pledge between me and you and he who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised every male throughout your generation rather born in your house or bought with your own money from any foreigner not of your offspring and he goes on and on everybody had to be circumcised circumcised means a cutting away of the flesh now here's what i want to know why did noah get a rainbow and abram got a circumcision i am not liking this god that is just not fair hello ladies that is just
not fair i've been believing you god for so long to get married and she's already been married three times and and you might not say it out loud but you're thinking and she's not nearly as godly as i am [Applause] we just don't do good with the fair thing but i can tell you that the greater god is going to use you [Applause] now don't don't get me wrong god used noah he was an awesome man of god and god really used him but abraham was used in a much greater way so noah got the
rainbow he did his job here have a present but abraham had some stuff he had some stuff anybody got any stuff he had some stuff that needed to be cut off come on because god had a greater plan for him you know i was grumbling to the lord one time about how it just seemed to me that he just wouldn't let me do hardly anything you're always you can do this you can't do that you can't do this you can't do that and i saw other people people in ministry doing those things people serving god
doing those things but that's i'm like i don't understand god gave me me and this is what the lord said to me and maybe somebody here tonight needs to hear this look joyce you've asked me for a lot do you want it or not [Applause] have you asked god for a lot i wonder who's in here that said god used me to change the world oh honey honey honey honey let mama counsel you [Applause] use me to change lives or how about this one jesus i want to be just like you oh [Applause] my goodness
i surrender [Applause] [Music] oh we love to just get the goosebumps in church [Applause] lord have mercy you got to get something here tonight that you can take home with you because the truth is you got to go home and i can't promise you that any of the ugliness at home is going to look any better when you go back than it did when you left it but i can promise you that you can be different you can be different [Applause] thank you you know in genesis 12 when god was reading all that great stuff
to abram oh i'm going to make i'm going to make your name famous and you're going to be rich and you're going to have this and do that and you're going to have favor and you're going to end up being a blessing to everybody to me it was kind of like if you go out and you buy a puzzle we always buy it based on the picture on the box come on six thousand piece puzzle see you're smart you know where i'm going and that boy that's really pretty awesome so you take that dude home
and you get your puzzle table out man [Applause] what have i done so we start with the easy stuff we get all the straight edge pieces come on let's start with easy stuff [Applause] let's do the easy stuff so you get all the straight edge pieces and so you now you have this outline you still really don't have anything but and then it's like there's like i don't know a thousand blue pieces a thousand pieces of blue sky and after about three weeks you are so fed up with putting together blue sky come on we
got some people here tonight you are like fed up with blue sky in your life you've had blue sky till you just like i cannot do the same thing anymore god over and over and over and over and over and over again [Applause] so then maybe you go to green grass and there's 2 000 pieces of that [Applause] a dream comes to pass with much business and painful effort that's ecclesiastes i'm not making it up and painful effort none of us have the time for me to stand here and tell you what it's taken to
get from where i started to where i am we don't i don't have that much time left to live to tell you that and nobody really knows but you and god what it costs you if you're gonna fully and completely do the will of god because you'll be judged and criticized and people will not understand you and people are going to be jealous of you and they're going to be critical of you and you're going to be disappointed and sometimes you're going to be disappointed with god and there's going to be all kinds of things
that are not going to be fair as far as looking at them in the natural and you just want a rainbow but you keep getting a circumcision and then you know it wasn't just abraham that got circumcised everybody had all the men had to get circumcised i don't think he was probably a very popular guy and sometimes even the people that are going to work with you and be around you and help you and whatever god's called you to do then they've got to all get circumcised [Applause] because you know sometimes you're just like you're
waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting you're just like god i know i'm ready i know i'm ready i know i'm ready and one time the lord told me he said yeah you are ready but he said all the people that you need to help you aren't so you're gonna have to be still and wait on them you can't do it by yourself and then you know there's those pieces that you just fed up with this thing and so you're just like that's going in there i don't care if this fits or not you know
what i'm talking about amen but let me tell you something sometimes there's those pieces in your life that just don't make any sense and you can't find any place to put it you can't find any place in the picture that you feel like god showed you the picture on the box you can't find anywhere to put that piece it doesn't make sense why god why so you have to just set that piece aside and just pray over that peace ladies we live life forward but we understand it backwards we don't understand everything that happens to
us do we but it will fit romans 8 28 but now here listen all things work together each thing may not be good but when you get them all together and see we're still waiting some of us for some of the things to come together amen but i just want to tell you from experience and what i know from the word of god and i know that people try to cheer you up with this stuff all the time but i mean it with all sincerity god is faithful and what you don't understand now you may
understand later you may never understand it but just because something hurts that doesn't mean that it's bad and just because something hurts that doesn't mean that it's not god the amplified bible in proverbs talks about sanctified experiences that we have with god there are things that we go through that may look like they're bad but they've been sanctified by god for our spiritual growth and our character building and testing [Music] the testing of our faith let me tell you something we can shout and holler in church all we want to but we don't know what
we believe until it's tested you don't know what you believe until it's tested and those tests are important because they put the devil in his place and they give us confidence and they make us strong they make us strong you know when we don't get what we want and somebody else gets what we want oh honey it is hard one of the ways that god deals with us believe it or not is he will let somebody else get what we want and make us watch [Applause] and then tell us that we have to be happy
for them now that's the killer right there so i'll tell you a couple of stories to kind of get it into practicality for all of us and this is so funny now when i think about it back in the 70s and 80s boy having a fur coat was like a big status symbol and if you could march into the church with your fur coat and sit on the fur coat row am i right [Applause] if you can come in and sit on the fur coat roll with all the other fur coat that prove that you
know how to believe god for stuff my faith is working you see this fur coat [Applause] god lord help us and uh so i mean i'm believing god for a fur coat i mean i i did the whole fourth dimension thing i saw it in my eyes i knew the color i mean i you know the four laws of faith i had it i claimed it i named it i saw it i believed over one day my doorbell rang and it was a girl that that i loved with the love of the lord but i
didn't like her [Applause] matter of fact she annoyed the living daylights out of me [Applause] i love you with the love of the lord whatever that is i'm still trying to figure out what that is and she had this huge box she was so excited she said you are not going to believe what somebody gave me [Applause] in my house she brought it to my house my fur coat somebody gave her a fur coat and she was not nearly as spiritual as me [Applause] i even tithed on my birthday money i was so spiritual i
fast until i almost died [Applause] i mean you understand i was miss ministry spiritual now i honestly thought they had to deliver it to the wrong house because she lived next door to me well i tell you what when i saw that box when i saw that coat everything i mean i was mad at her i was mad at god i was mad i was i was just like jealousy and rage and resentment come on praise the lord oh yeah that oh that's really pretty oh yeah i'm thinking god if you don't get her out
of here i am going to kill her you have got to make her leave [Applause] well see here's the thing i'm like oh god i want to go all over the world preach the gospel to every creature and i just say i want to be like you jesus and so the last thing i needed was a fur coat that was the last thing on the earth on the planet that i needed what i needed was circumcision and pruning and i needed god to deal with me and i needed to get rid of the jealousy and
i needed to get rid of the resentment and i needed to have right motives we want god to work on the outside and he wants to work on the inside and when the inside gets right it'll make its way to the outside and all of these things will be added unto you [Applause] but i had kind of a little epiphany the other day because i finally got a fur coat actually more than one i had people were giving me fur coats i had you know so i had fur coats but i had the the the
only one that i kept is in the basement hanging in a closet and you know people don't even wear them anymore and she and and it was hanging kind of lopsided on the hanger which made it look really pitiful so i happened the closet door in the basement was open where we keep some extra stuff and i happen to see this fur coat hanging over in the corner kind of sort of in the dark kind of crooked on the hanger and i thought it just like it brought back all the stupidity and the the childishness
of what i thought was important at that time that was not important at all but i had to live life to then look back and see how utterly ridiculous it was come on give god a big praise well see the fur coat piece of the puzzle well my friend got my fur coat and she's not nearly as spiritual as me i did not understand that so i had to set it aside over there somewhere and actually i mean i got it before but if nothing else last week when i looked in the closet man that
piece went right into place it was like oh yeah god you gave it to her purposely and you made me watch because you were after something in me that had to come out in order for me to be here where i'm at today come on now you've asked god for a lot do you want it or not i said you've asked god for a lot do you want it or not [Applause] then it's not going to be all rainbow days for you the apostle john had a little nicer word for it he called it pruning
in john 15. if you don't bear fruit you'll be pruned away cut off trimmed off and if you bear fruit you will be pruned so you bear richer and more excellent fruit so i got the revelation early in my walk with god you're pruned if you do and pruned if you don't so we might as well just ask for the version that's going to do us some ultimate good somewhere down the line amen trust god and do good your church has 200 people for the last 10 years and a new guy comes to town and
has a thousand people in four months and you get stuck sitting next to him at the leaders luncheon where he spends the whole time telling you all about his church praise the lord and then when you leave god tells you to send him a generous offering to help pay for the overflow room he now has to build because his church is growing so rapidly and everything in you is going good do you hate me but when you obey god when it hurts so bad you feel like you just cannot stand it i said when you
obey god when it hurts so bad that you feel like you just cannot stand it that's when you become dangerous to the devil amen and the pain doesn't last forever i tell you when i look back at what i went through oh my god i mean i was abused by my dad and so i had oh i mean you talk about dysfunction i mean i was the queen of dysfunction and i mean even well it's too long of a story to try to get into but when i look back at everything that i went through
and i am so happy now i am so peaceful i am so blessed my kids are saved i'm my husband and i dave's over here stand up dave dave and i've been married almost 50 years yay dave's been in a gazillion women's meetings we've been married 48 and a half years [Applause] man i tell you when him and i first got married i mean if you even tried to tell me anything fire shot out of my eyes and now i would it would it be i wouldn't be stretching it to say that i'm a submissive
wife would i see i am dave knows what i'm called to do and he blesses me in doing it and it's obvious that you know i'm a woman but i'm not his teacher i'm his wife amen and that's where women get mixed up when they want to be used by god they start thinking now they're everybody's teacher and everybody's boss because they're anointed now [Applause] amen one of the main reasons why our ministry has had such longevity and why we're being able to help so many people is because things are right behind the scenes at
home behind closed doors and then what happens if you write your book and it sells 25 000 and a friend of yours writes one that you don't even like and it sells a million copies your friend gets the promotion at work that you wanted and believe you deserve your friend loses 30 pounds walking and drinking lots of water i remember a girl telling me that one time she lost a lot of weight and i said oh how'd you lose weight she said i just started walking and drinking a lot of water [Applause] and i could
starve for four months and lose two pounds [Applause] well she must just have a fast metabolism and you feel like yours is in a coma [Applause] can we once and for all start working toward being completely free from competing with one another and comparing ourselves with each other we do it in the church over spiritual gifts and everything else imaginable well i should be singing in the choir my voice is a lot better than yours and oh moon it goes now you know what really when you get right down to it what difference does it
really make what we're doing as long as we're serving god and living for him now i'll admit you know i've got a few years on me now and the longer you live the more you realize how stupid some stuff is so that that is a great benefit of living a while and getting a little bit older because then you can look back and by then most of your puzzles put together there might be a few pieces missing but you got most of it you're understanding most of it you know it's coming together but boy am
i a lot smarter than i was when i was 42 and 50 and so many things that were so important to me then just don't mean anything to me now amen we're either going to get down to god's business or what's the point and and we're going we're going to have a turnaround and instead of telling god what he's got to give us every day to keep us happy and saved well god if i don't get a break too i just don't think i can hold on what we're going to do is we're going to
turn around and we're going to say god from now on i want to know what you want i just want to know what you want and no matter what it costs i want you to give me the grace to be obedient to you because i love you there's nobody like you and i can do without a whole lot of other things i can do without a man i can do without a fur coat i can do without a promotion i don't have to sing in the choir but i cannot do without you i've got to
have you and not a little bit of you all of you amen god you do what you want to in my life and and this is what i pray and god if you have to tie me to the altar no matter how much i kick and scream i'm making the commitment right now i want to go all the way with you and what i try to turn back don't let me your will be done in earth as it is in heaven i don't want to be unkind but i just want to say that i am
just so fed up with selfish self-centered whining christians [Applause] ah that felt good to get that out i mean i was one for god knows how long and it just isn't pretty verse 19 but he said this to peter to indicate to him what kind of death he would die and then he said to him follow me now verse 20. this is so stinking good but peter's turned this is peter's response to what jesus just said to him but peter turned and saw the disciple whom jesus loved that was john and this is the book
of john that john wrote and john refers to himself in the book that he wrote over and over and over as the one whom jesus loved now i know enough about peter's personality because i've got it to know that he wanted to knock john's lights out so peter right away turns to jesus and says what about john it's kind of like is he going to suffer too come on you know sometimes if we're not really all that crazy about somebody and we're going through a rough time and they've got it easy boy is that annoying
and then i love this samuel went to anoint a new king and all of the brothers were brought in and none of them were right weren't right weren't right weren't right then they finally brought in david and you would have thought that samuel could have taken him aside privately so as to not hurt the other brothers feelings don't want to make them feel bad that they've been rejected oh i love this this is why i do this because i have so stinking much fun preaching verse 13 first samuel 16 13 then samuel took the horn
of oil and anointed david in the midst of his brothers put him that little scrawny sheep keeping baby brother sat him right in the middle of all of them that had been rejected and poured the anointing oil on him made him king and made them watch come on come on maybe you're having to watch somebody else right now but someday you'll be anointed king and somebody else will have to watch [Applause] let's even put it better than this many of you are already anointed to be king but you have to realize that david did not
wear the crown for 20 years after he was anointed he spent those 20 years in caves running from a crazy man oh boy i can see you guys are about to wear out i better bring this to a close okay one one final thought here rachel and leah have you ever had any sibling rivalry were you ever the kind of fluffy sister that had the skinny sister [Applause] oh my gosh i see situations like that all the time one sister is so sweet she just drips sugar when she opens her mouth she forgets to eat
the other sister lives in the refrigerator [Applause] okay well let's let's get to this in genesis 29 there were two sisters leah and rachel jacob loved rachel but leah was the oldest and he got stuck with her had to work seven more years for rachel but the thing the bible says which is amusing to me is that leah had dull weak eyes [Applause] i think that's a real godly way of saying she just flat out wasn't very pretty [Applause] maybe even downright ugly i don't know and and in the same verse leah had dull weak
eyes and rachel was beautiful okay but now listen listen listen listen because this is so good but one of the things that so eventually jacob's got both of his wives and one one of the things that was extremely important to women then was to be able to have children and an heir for the bloodline and so the bible says that leah gave birth to seven children and rachel had to watch and she never had won during that whole time now later she did have two but years and years and years okay she had the sparky
eyes but she didn't get the babies leah had the dull weak eyes but she got the babies let me tell you something whatever you don't have god will give you something else to make up for it come on now whatever you don't have god will give you something else to make up for it and here's what i've come to everybody gets something and everybody doesn't get something i can preach but i cannot sing i can manage a worldwide organization but i tell you what even my stick people when i draw them are scary we all
have things that we can do and things we can't do we all have things that we're good at and things that we're not good at we all have strengths we all have weaknesses and let me tell you something it's good to know what you can do but it's even better to know what you cannot do and don't make a fool out of yourself spending your life trying to be something you're not to prove something you don't even have to prove come on give god a praise amen amen amen amen amen [Applause] so what do you
do when god doesn't pick you you trust him and you say god i know that you will never do anything unless it's going to work out for my ultimate good and i'm not in this with you god to get what i want i'm in it for what you want and so if me not getting what i want works out better for your plan then thank you god for not giving me what i want at tbn our mission is to use every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life-changing gospel
of jesus christ thank you for helping make the gospel of grace go around the world without you we couldn't do it god bless you
