All right, then. Are you ready?
Am I? I don't know. God is
so faithful and he is so good, and I am excited about the word that
he has today. You guys doing good this morning? Does it seem like
I'm really close here for a minute? Yeah. Would you rather that I
go up here? Oh, good. Because I was just going to be right over here
and talk to you a little.
I am excited about the Word. We are still in the arise
portion of the series that we've been in, and it is all
about those moments or those
seasons in our life where God begins to draw us
to step up in some areas. You know, has God ever done that
to you? Gone. You know, this is good. This is good. But you know what?
I've got more for you, and I would like you to step up just a
little bit in this because I have more for. For you
and in God. That is always the case. I was sharing
earlier. You know, it doesn't matter how many times you read the. Well,
it does matter how many times you read the Bible. But I will say,
regardless of how many times you read the Bible, read the
Word, there's always something new. There's always
something that makes you go, wait a minute, was that there before? You know,
was there really always a book of Genesis? You know, Anyway,
anyway, I love that he continues to open his word
to us, and that's my prayer this morning, is that he would open his
word to us. We do have some visitors in the house.
I am Barbie Laughlin. I'm the executive
pastor here, and I've had the honor and privilege of serving in
this house for almost 30 years.
You know, I think I need to sit down now that I've said that out
loud. Actually, you know, the goodness of God thing, I was sitting here
just a second ago and had the most poignant, sweetest
moment because I'm sitting here as people are walking up
for communion, and I hear these two voices, and they are
the most beautiful voices in the world to me. And I rarely get to hear
them together. And it was Pastor Ronnie and Pastor Wayne who were
in front of one another in the aisle. And I'm like, oh, God, I've
been so blessed. I've been so blessed. And we are
so blessed by what God has done and continue and by who
he is. So we are going to jump into the Word and see what
he has for us this morning. You know, what's interesting is
that I can study and I can plan,
and I really have no clue what's going to happen when I get
up here. Which is good, because all I want to do is follow
the Holy Spirit and follow his leading. I want to study, and then I just
want to see where he takes us. Are y' all cool with that?
Okay. Because if you said no, we were in big trouble. So we're going to
stand up and we're going to get into the Word. And I will tell you,
these scriptures may seem random, but they're not,
or they weren't in my office, and I
don't believe they will be by the end of this time together. So if we
could read together. And God said,
let there be lights in the vault of the sky to
separate the day from the night, and let them sit
as signs to mark sacred times and days and
years. That last line. Let them serve as
signs to mark sacred times and days
and years. Okay, now we're gonna jump over
into Genesis a little further. Then
Moses said to him, if your presence does not go
with us, do not send us up from here. How
will anyone know that you are pleased with me and
with your. Unless you go with us? What
else will distinguish me and your people from all
the other people on the face of the earth?
And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the
very thing you have asked because I am pleased with
you and I know you by name. Then
Moses said, now show me your glory.
And the Lord said, I. I will cause all my
goodness to pass in front of you, and I will
proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.
Father. God, I thank you so much for your word.
I thank you so much for your
word. It truly is a light in our
path. It's a lamp unto our feet. I thank you, Father,
that you alone have the words of wisdom, the words of life. And
so, Father, thank you. Thank you for giving that to us.
I pray our hearts are attentive to you and what you have to say today,
Lord, not me. Let my stuff fall in your stand in
Jesus name. And they all said, amen.
Amen. I have read Genesis so many times
as have you, and for some reason, it just
hit me as I was reading this passage when it
said that there would be lights in the
expanse of the heaven. This was day four. That there would
be lights in the expanse of the heaven, and that they would mark
the sacred days. They would mark the sacred
days. And there are a lot of ways we can go with this, but I'm
just gonna sit here with this for a minute. You know, when you.
Last night, did any of y' all go outside Last night, any
of you close to, have you been
outside in the last month? Did
you happen to see that it gets dark in the evenings?
And the last time, whenever that might have been, did you
notice that there were stars in the
sky in the expanse of the heavens? Well, this
tells me that they are still marking sacred times,
that they're still marking sacred times. And that as
long as those stars are there and the lights are
there, God's doing stuff. God's doing
things. Because, see, here's what this says. Sacred,
regarded as holy and entitled to reverence or set
apart for a specific and elevated purpose. Dedicated and
consecrated, hallowed, directly associated with
deity and worship.
So if there are stars in the sky
and there are lights in the expanse of the heaven,
there are holy things happening. There
are sacred things happening. There are moments that
are entitled to reverence as the Lord unfolds them.
There are days that are appointed in your life for
specific purpose, and they're still being
marked by the expanse, the lights in the heavens. See,
here's my revelation, my day for revelation. The reason it's a day for
revelation is because that's the day that it was created. My day
for revelation is this is as long as there are lights in the vault of
the sky, we are marking and standing
witness to sacred seasons and appointed and
holy times. We are marking
those seasons. And I see the Lord in my life.
It seems like there is just such a keen awareness these
days. And they're not easy days, but there's this keen awareness,
there's this keen calling in my spirit to pay
attention. To pay attention. Not to social
media, not to NBC and ABC and FOX
News, but to pay attention to what God is
doing in the earth, to pay attention to
what he is accomplishing in the earth. It's like
I asked him. I'm like, lord, what is this? Because it's been going on for
several years, but, Lord, what is this? And
he is teaching my spirit
to stand witness. And he is
calling his people to stand witness
to what he is doing in the earth. And it isn't. There's an
element of witnesses. Like, go and be witnesses.
Absolutely. You go and you share the gospel. You go and share
the message of Christ. But there's also an element to
witness, to be aware and to see what God
is doing in the earth, what God is doing in these moments
in your life, what he's trying to do, to teach you.
Because he's always trying to teach you to be
aware and to be awake. Here's the thing. In seasons of
witness. And trust me, whether you know it or not, you are
in one because you are called to see what
God is doing and to be aware and to grasp it
so that not only can we witness it, but we can be a part of
what he's doing in the earth and seasons of
witness. Elroy, the God who sees
me and the God who sees you
is teaching you to see him in
what you're doing. Now, listen, I understand there's a passage of scripture that
says no man can see God and live. Okay,
I get that, and that's not what I'm saying, but I am
saying you can see him.
You can see him. It's, you know, the old thing. You
cannot see the wind, but you can feel its effects.
You can know that God is moving in a
moment if you are aware and see, he's getting
me in these seasons to understand the
sacred nature of where you're walking right now.
Today. Today. Now, see, there are things that you
know. Don't jump. Don't jump
where you're walking today. Where you are walking today is
in the season of Witness, when we begin to understand
the sacred privilege of standing witness. Under the lights,
God births a heart of gratitude for even the things we
once found impossible to look upon. He
begins to show us the collateral beauty of things. When the
ashes are still ashes, you can see the beauty that
will come from them because of the faithfulness of God and the
gratitude that it can birth in your spirit.
I am a
blessed, blessed woman. I am
a blessed woman. God has given me the best
husband. He gave me exactly what I needed. He
gave me three children. I have 11
grandchildren. And those moments in my life have
marked me. Those have been sacred moments.
I remember holding each of my children.
I remember holding James, Aaron for the first time and being
scared out of my mind. God, are you sure you can
trust me with this? Probably not, but anyway.
And I remember staying up all night that first night in
the hospital because I didn't know I was going to need my sleep later anyway.
But I remember staying up and being in that bed and
holding him for the first time in my
arms and being overwhelmed
with how precious and holy and
sacred that moment was. I remember
holding each of my grandchildren for the first
time and how precious that was and how everything
in you shifts at that moment. But
equally as precious was in that same
hospital, in that same hospital,
I would crawl into bed with my mother and hold her
for the last time.
Just as sacred, just as
holy, One was exceeding joy
and one was exceeding pain. But equally as
sacred, these moments that God entrusts us with
in our life, if we just look for the beauty
in those moments, see, we can spend
our life looking for the miraculous
and only seeing God in the. I stood right over here
several years ago, and I was standing over here, and it was an
altar gathering like we do, and a young lady came up,
and as soon as she came up, she started to weep.
And she said, I went to the doctor this week, and I'm having
twins, but there's no membrane between
them. They're conjoined twins. And I said, you
know what? I don't know what God has planned here. I don't know what he
has planned here, but I know that he's good. So we're going to
pray and we're going to trust him. And about three
weeks later, I'm standing in the exact same spot, and I see her
come through the back doors, and she comes down and she goes, I went to
the doctor. There's a membrane.
She said, there's a membrane. And then about. Oh, I don't know,
about four months. No, about a year and four months. Because they were
toddlers, and the back doors open, and
she's got a little boy, one by each hand. She said, I just wanted you
to see him. We serve a God of the
miraculous. Absolutely, we serve a God of the
miraculous, but we don't spend our lives waiting on the miraculous.
What we do is spend our lives day after day after day after day,
watching God's goodness, God's goodness.
And so I'm like, lord, I don't know what's going on with me, Lord,
it's like, I'm just seeing you and all of these things. What are you
doing? And he took me to Genesis
33. And I'm like, what? Genesis 33.
I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you,
and I will proclaim my name. And I'm like, okay, okay,
okay. But you know what's really cool
is that Moses didn't ask him if he
could see his goodness. Moses asked him, can I see your glory?
It's two different words. And the Holy
Spirit just went, all your life, you were
raised as a glory girl. You responded
to me in moves that went this way or went
that way. And this is how you expect to see me, is in those
specific moves. But I'm gonna take you from being a glory
girl who has to have a different kind of manifestation
to understand that my presence is right there. I am going
to teach you, train your heart
to Be aware of my goodness. To be aware
of my goodness. Oh, Jesus, help me.
Gratitude disciplines our hearts to judge a moment
only after finding him in it.
Lord, how can I be grateful in this? This is hard. This is
painful, Lord, this is not what I expected. This
feels like suffering, Lord. But all
the while, if you look for him,
if you will look for him, you will see things.
I just. I have just. I've just never
ever been as aware of the goodness of God
as I am these days. And they're hard days. You
look around in the world and you're like, God, where are you? That's the
appropriate question. Because he wants you to find him, because he
is there. Then if your heart is going, God, where are you? Where are you
in this? Dig in deeper. Spend some more time
with him. Get on your face in the room with nothing
going on and talk to him. Because, see, there are these
preachers.
Hiding behind keyboards
with imacs in front of them who are
preaching a gospel of distraction. And you know what really
makes me mad is everything they say is, oh, you could have more.
If you will just do this like and follow, like and follow. If
you will like and follow, then you can make $70,000 in four and
a half minutes and your life will be different. And what it's teaching
us is that what you have is not enough. What
God has provided for you is not enough. And so there's
this constant longing for more. And media is telling us
that we're doing it wrong. Do it the way they say to do it. We
don't have enough, so we have to do it. You know, you'll have more if
you don't. Passive income. You don't wanna work for it. You want the passive income.
And the whole thing, the whole thing
is a distraction from the fact that God has been good to you.
God has provided everything you need. He
has opened his hand according to scripture
and provided for you, supplied everything that you
need. And the enemy wants us to be so distracted and
so busy trying to gain more that we do not appreciate
what is right, right in the room with us.
Gratitude. An awareness of God and His work
that allows us to be grateful. And I'm like, lord, what is this thing
you're doing? You know, I know it's a spiritual occurrence
thing that you're waking me up, Lord. And he gave me this.
Did you know that there is such a thing?
To actively see God's hand, to
witness his work and stand witness. There's that word, witness
to what he is doing in the Space and in the moment
to stand witness to what he is doing. This literally
means God, give me eyes to see, Lord. Give me an
understanding of what I'm looking at, but give me eyes
that see you. And when that happens, there's
this gratitude thing that begins to well up. When I first read
that, doesn't that seem like a transformer's name to you?
I want to see that one transform.
But the goodness of God to be able to see it. And as
they said a few times, we get so distracted that we don't
see it. And as the Lord began to shift that in me,
this was what I felt like. He told me our prayers need to shift from
show me your glory to allow me to stand witness to your
goodness. Allow me to stand witness
to your goodness. To the goodness of the
Lord. Well, what does that even mean, goodness of
God? The tool of God. It includes his beauty. Can
you look at ashes and go, I see the potential beauty here.
I see what you can do in this moment.
His fairness, his joy. That joy
that you get when there's no reason for you to be
happy, but there's something on the inside of you that still cries
out, God is good and he is faithful and we will survive this.
And if not, I get to live with you forever.
He'll either keep us here or take us out. And my mama used to always
say, you can't threaten me with heaven.
The goodness of God. That we would see the
goodness of God. You know, David had a life, you
know. Yeah, he did, Connie.
And you had a life. Good, the bad and the
ugly. We all got a history and we all got a future in him. Amen.
Cause that's what his word says. The goodness of God. We can see the
goodness of God. And I think about David and his failures
and his falls and him drooling against the wall while he
was literally holding Goliath's sword.
Makes. Anyway, it's a long story. We'll get into it somet.
But his life story was crazy. Yet he was still known
to be a man after God's heart. Why?
Because he knew the goodness of God. He knew
the goodness of God. This is what I remain confident of. This
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of
the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.
Sometimes it's not immediate. Sometimes all you see is the
crash instead of the people crawling out of the car.
Sometimes all you see is the immediacy of the moment and your
breath catches and you don't know what to do in that moment. Can
I encourage you be still and know that he's God and
give him a minute to wait. This word right here, when it says wait for
the Lord, it literally means lay down.
Lay down and wait on me.
Just lay down. See, we can wait about this long. And I know
this because I've stood behind some of you in the checkout counter. Anyway,
you can wait about this long. What if he asks you to just
stretch out? What if he asks you to just wait in that for
just a little bit? What if he says, just wait on
me until you see his hand? Because, see, even when he took
Moses, he didn't just. He went and he put him in the cleft of
a rock and put his hand over him, and he could
only see him from one angle. Sometimes you just
gotta move around a little bit to catch the right angle
to see what you need to see in that moment. But I
ask you this. Like David, Hardships, blessings, and
all people throwing stones at him. Conviction, losing child.
Are you confident that you will see his goodness?
Some of you are in a mess, Some of you are struggling, Some of you
are in broken places. You're having a hard time. And
are you confident underneath, underneath,
like, physical stress, underneath those moments where you're not really
figuring out, is there something on the inside of you that says, God, I will
see your goodness. I will see your goodness, and I'll
wait for it. Are you looking for it? Are you looking for it?
Or is the problem all you can see?
Is the issue all you can see? Or are you looking for
him in it?
Has your heart shifted to that of one who
witnesses the sacred? Has your heart shifted to that,
to me? There are three heart postures when you. You can know you're standing
as a witness on the planet. There are three heart postures, and I think there
are three cries in our heart, and they are this.
I need to see God.
I need to see God in this.
I need your presence, God, I need to see you
in this situation. I need to see you
in this situation. And then you move
from that to go, I will, I will.
I will see you, God, in this God, I trust you, God.
I know what your word says. I can't see it yet, but I will see
you in this situation. And then there's the victorious part
that goes, ha, I've seen him.
I see your hand in this, God. It took a while.
I had to lay there for a while, but I see your hand. I
finally see your hand. But the issue Is so often
we need to see him. We cry out, I will see him. But when we
do see him, we don't tell anybody. We don't tell
anybody. Do you know what God did? Do you
have any idea how he met me in this moment? I
thought I was going to die, but I didn't. God met
me there. I have seen God. See, there's a before,
during, and after in all of it. And each of you sit in one of
those right now. Some of you need to see God in your
situation. You need to know that he is there. And some of
you need to allow faith to arise and go, okay, God, I am confident,
shaky, but I'm confident that I'm going to see you in this.
And, Lord, after we've sussed this out and I can
figure it out in you, I'm going to tell everybody what you did.
I want to tell everybody what you did. When with a pure heart,
we ask to see his goodness in our situation, he gives us
glimpses of a greater work in that moment. And the lens through
which we see life changes and gratitude
awakens. Things look different. Things look
different. Pastor Wayne was sharing about this in one of our flow
meetings. It looks different. The lens that you
wear, the lens that you allow the Holy Spirit to
flesh out life for you, changes
with gratitude. With gratitude. When you begin
to look and see everything you have instead of everything you do not have.
When you begin to see the potential of the moment instead of what the moment
looks like at that time. Because see, gratitude
trains your heart to see the goodness of God. What does
that say? Trains our heart to see the goodness of God
regardless of our circumstances. Listen, gratitude is
not a moment. Gratitude is not standing and going.
I thank you, Lord. Gratitude is a lifestyle.
It is a place that we plant ourself and decide to
live a grateful life instead of having a
dissatisfied, unfulfilled heart all the time.
So what do you do? What do you do? What is our
instruction? What do you mean? It's an act of obedience. It's a lifestyle.
It is a choice. It is an act of obedience. Well,
rejoice always. Pray continually.
Give thanks. When?
In just the ones you like. In the easy
ones. In the ones that involve ice cream.
Those are easier. I will give you that. Give thanks in
all circumstances. For what? This is
God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do you know
how many times we get the question, what's God's will for my life?
What? Start here, start here,
Start here and see. David saw the goodness of the Lord. You've
seen the goodness of the Lord. We have all stood witness to the goodness of
the Lord, or we would not be sitting here today. His
faithfulness has brought you to this place at this time.
And we are all still standing under the
expanse of the stars in the skies. There's still
that canopy above us, witnessing sacred moments. And we are beginning
the opportunity and the privilege to stand with them and
witness the sacred in the earth. If we will just do
it. If we will just do it.
He's been good to me. And, you know,
I was thinking about. I shared this
many years ago, but there is one instance,
you know, those sacred times, it says that they are marked,
that they would mark sacred times. I believe there's something in
our own spirits that mark sacred times,
things that happen in our life. And I had one
many years ago. I will never forget it. Ever
forget it. It is etched into the
eternity on my soul. It is etched there. And
it was. Many of you all know, and a lot of you don't,
because there's a lot of new people. But I had
a niece who was diagnosed with leukemia when she
was almost three years old. And this was back 25, 30 years ago,
when the prognosis was not
good, when you were diagnosed with this.
And I had the awesome privilege and
opportunity of attending her wedding later in life because God was
so faithful. But there was this moment in that process
that marked me. I don't know that I
have ever or will ever see
gratitude in the same way again.
My sister Angie, I don't know if she's. Lord,
my sister, she's younger, 15 months younger than I am. And Heather was her
daughter and is her daughter. And
they. I have to tell you, I am just going to say this.
When Angie was young, she was very emotional.
She was the youngest of the family. Do I need to say anymore?
She was the youngest child, and she was a little spoiled.
You know, I got that on good authority my own. And.
And she was beautiful, little princess girl. And actually, she is still
beautiful, but she was very emotional. And
later in life, she just stopped.
Stopped. And one day I asked her,
I said, I don't understand what's going on. You
know, what happened? And she said, well,
Heather had gone in for another spinal tap. And
my understanding is that those are extremely painful.
And she said, I was sitting beside the bed holding
her hand, and she said. Heather looked at her and
said, mommy, if you won't cry, I won't.
And from that moment forward,
their deal was, we're going to be strong
we're going to walk through this. And from that
moment forward, if there were
tears in her life, I didn't see them.
And then flash forward, they walked through everything
together. And God was so faithful and he was so good, but it was a
journey. And we're sitting in a cabin in North
Carolina, in the woods of North Carolina. I know. Cause I got lost going
there anyway. And we've had a day and we've had the
dinner and the families all come in, but everybody's gone to their own cabins
and everybody's doing their own thing. And the only. It's quiet.
And I'm sitting on the sofa with Heather, my niece, and
Angie's sitting in a chair across the room. And
Angie, in her way, I just. She is an amazing woman.
She just goes, okay, let's do this.
And she looks over at Heather and she says,
you know, when I got pregnant with you, I so wanted
a little girl. I so wanted a little girl. But we didn't find
out. And I would have been happy with whatever, but we so wanted a little
girl. And she said, and when you were born, your voice was so
deep that when you cried, I didn't know.
And. And your daddy said, you got your girl,
you got your girl. And she said, I was the
most grateful woman on the planet.
And she said, and then I got to enjoy you.
And we, you know, we played. We had our life until you were
two and we sat in front of that doctor and the doctor
gave their news. And she said all I could remember, said, I
remember Mama would always say,
don't ask God for everything, lest you seem ungrateful for what you
have. And she said, so all I did
was say, God, can I see her turn three?
Can I see her turn three? And she said,
you turned three and I was the most grateful
woman on the planet. I was the most grateful
woman planet. And she said.
So I just said, God, can I see her turn four?
And she said, we spent the year and I watched you turn
four. And before she could get the words out of her
mouth, Heather, who's sitting beside me, this 27
year old gets up and runs across the room and climbs
into her mother's lap and tucks her head in.
And she said, I was so grateful, she said,
and you turned five. And she said, but here's the thing, she said, I never,
I would have never even imagined this
day. I couldn't let my heart go there to go. God, can I
see her get married? Can I see her grow up? She said, every
single day of your life. I have been
grateful. I have been grateful for. For every
moment that we've had together. And all I could think was, oh, I
shouldn't be here. This is such a private moment. Why am I here? But I
couldn't move and I wasn't gonna leave. And I was like. It was the
most beautiful thing in the world because I knew my s. You
know what? I have always known and loved my sister. But I
think I saw her for the first time to go. She
has lived on that razor's edge between
not knowing what God was gonna do or not do and trusting
him and just asking for. Because she knew the goodness of God that
surrounded her life on a daily basis.
Sometimes all we're doing is asking for more and we can't see and
be grateful for what we have today. To
live in a posture of gratitude, to go God,
to be able to sit in that room and watch someone
that we didn't know what was going to happen. To watch her marry Chris,
who is crazy in to have.
She's got a baby now. She's got a little boy. And God
just was so amazing through all
of it. But it's the attitude,
that posture of gratitude that my
sister taught me, it's not about all of that. It's about
this and it's about now, and it's about what God has done
in your life. Everybody's waiting on this big thing.
You're the big thing. God is the big thing. This moment now is all that
we're promised. We know that. So to live in gratitude
for what he has done and all that he's doing. And
I honestly say with David, what shall
I return to the Lord? What shall I return
to the Lord? For all his goodness to me.
For all his goodness to me.
I ran across this thing and I thought, lord, this is so.
This is so. If I were
little. Actually, that's not an excuse. We can do it.
You'll see. But to go, Lord, I want this heart
of gratitude. I want this to be
how I worship you. This is what I want to do,
to return to the Lord all his goodness. And I want you
to pay attention to the ancillary things in this video I'm getting
ready to share with you. Because the beautiful part of it is, is that if
I learn. If I learn to see and appreciate the goodness
of God, I can teach my children to see and appreciate the goodness of
God. And if you will, it will be perpetuated through the generations
and the changes that come. So I'm gonna Ask them to take the
lights down and crank this up for me, if you would.
You can. Go ahead. Start us up there, Jonathan.
Here's the thing that's in
all of us. We lost it somewhere along the
way, but it's there.
Grandma and Grandpa are encouraging you. Mama's singing in the
background. Do that for your babies. Do that
for your babies. You know, this week, actually, last night,
Rowan and Norin was gonna watch Kung Fu Panda.
And in the beginning, at one point it says, you know,
you must bow to your master. At which Rowan looks up and says,
I don't bow to anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Nora said, pass the ketchup.
You win. Some guys, there
should be something in our hearts that testifies to the
goodness of God as we stand witness to all
he has done. And so we're going to stand for just a second, and we
are going to sing. And I'm going to ask you to take just one
moment and think of one thing
and be grateful. And we're going to sing. We're going to sing like he
sings. We're going to lift our hands. I'd like to see some feet
moving, if possible. We are going to declare the goodness of God. Let's
go. Let's.