[MUSIC AND APPLAUSE]
Rise up, church!
Rise up!
There are a lot of pastors this morning,
I know, giving the reading of the day.
They're preaching the wages of sin.
And sometimes-- sometimes that's what folks need to hear.
But I want to talk about the gift,
the gift on the other side of that equation.
And our God, who never stops giving,
never stops reaching out, he never stops reaching
out his hand, saying, take it.
Can you feel the presence of the Lord this morning?
He's here.
He's here, and he's reaching out his hand, and he's saying,
just take it.
Now, to sin means to turn away.
To repent just means to turn back.
God is holding out his hand to you right now,
and he's saying, turn back from where you were headed
and walk with me.
Walk with me.
Now, I know--
I know the road is long and hard,
but we can get to where we're going together.
Oh!
I feel.
Oh, I feel God's Holy Spirit coming on me right now,
coming on me right now with right wing
setting down for me from above.
Oh, if you feel it too, let me hear you say amen.
Say amen.
Hallelujah.
If there's one thing I could go back and change
in the preaching that I heard as a girl,
it would be what I heard about that dreaded day of reckoning,
that dreaded day when the dead would rise up from the grave.
You remember, don't you?
Yes, and every soul was going to get what they deserve.
I mean, here I am, a little bitty precious baby girl.
And I just knew I had sinned.
I don't know.
Must have been that chocolate chip cookie
I took out of the kitchen.
But I knew that I had sinned.
If I could just go back and just put some small measure
of tenderness in the hearts of those men who were preaching
to me, some small drop of wisdom in their minds
so that they might have encouraged me.
Oh, how I wished that they had filled me with the confidence
that Jesus bought and paid for on that cross--
yes-- so that on that day of that great reckoning,
I really would have gotten all that I deserved,
which is the undying love of my Lord.
And we are going to replace all that fear with love.
Love.
Now, the thing to remember about the 12 tribes of Israel
is that they were 12 tribes.
Now, I don't know about y'all's family,
but we can barely get two people to agree on something,
let along 12.
She is not wrong about that.
But somehow Moses got all the tribes of Egypt
to agree to do this strange, bloody thing--
to slaughter their firstborn lamb
and to paint the doorways with its blood.
And lo and behold, it worked.
They walked out of Egypt with their heads held high.
The sea itself parted out of respect
for their unity of purpose.
How did Moses do all of that?
How did he do that?
I never heard Moses used as a uniter in that way.
Or was it Moses at all?
Very on brand.
Praise!
Praise the Lord.
It was God who did it.
Hallelujah.
Catch this through Pharaoh.
Every time Pharaoh gave an order,
every time he moved God's people this way
and that against their will, he united
them against a common enemy.
That's good.
And when they finally rose up, it cost Pharaoh his own son.
Now, I want you to hear me right now.
I want you to catch this part.
Anyone out there in the world who thinks that they can
get away with pushing God's people around,
I have got news for you.
God is using you to unite us!
Amen!
And woe to you when we rise.
Woe to you when we rise!
Rise up, church.
Rise up!
Rise up in the face of your sorrow.
Rise up in the face of your trouble.
Rise up.
Tell that mountain to move!
Rise up!
Woe to you when we rise 'cause it is
going to cost you everything.
So I asked God, what should I do?
[LAUGHS] I mean, I got land but no money
to build a church on it.
I've got the heart for Jesus but not enough people
to share it with.
What should I do?
Then the soft, small voice said, Jacob, you know what to do.
But I was like, uh, what?
But God was patient with me, and he
said, Jacob, I told you in my word what to do, feed my sheep.
Not just with bread, he said.
Feed my sheep my word.
That's why I'm here, to be obedient.
Preaching the word of God just like Jesus
did, outside the temple.
"Then he cometh unto his disciples
and findeth them sleeping."
Amen.
Then in verse 43, "And he came and found them asleep again,
for their eyes were heavy."
And we know that Jesus came back a third time
and found them asleep again.
You're in the worst pain of your entire life,
and everyone around you is sleeping.
People you depend on for counsel, sleeping.
It's all those folks who want to say
the Bible makes it very clear, Pastor,
the Lord's position on this.
We don't need to discuss it.
And I say, well, let's find out what else
the Lord makes clear, Amen?
'Cause anybody who wants to shut down a conversation with me
by slamming the Bible on the table
without discussing what's in it is going to have
a problem, with me, at least.
Let's see here.
Hebrews 13 and 4 says, "Marriage should be honored by all,
and the marriage bed kept pure."
Y'all know some of y'all left your boyfriend's bed
to get to church this morning.
And have you heard what he said about shellfish
in Leviticus 11 and 9?
Right now.
Now, I know you have.
And yet how many of y'all are heading down to the shrimp
boat after this to take advantage
of that all you can eat buffet?
Huh?
[LAUGHS] If we try to ban everyone who does not follow
every biblical law from entering that church, none of us
would be sitting here right now.
You gotta understand, when God looks
at each and every one of you, he sees you through a prism
of the blood of Jesus.
Without that blood, all our sins would be
laying before us people of God.
But through that blood we all can find the love of God,
the acceptance of God, and the oneness
of God, a God who made us, a God who is in us,
and a God who's for us.
Amen?
So I say to the homosexual community,
there is a place for you among us
here for all of us that are living under God's grace.
Amen.
Oh, OK.
I see.
It's not enough to say who are we to condemn.
Let God handle that.
It's not enough for us to say like our brethren
at Calvary Fellowship, all are welcome,
long as you hide who you really are and don't
put nothing on social media.
Come on now.
At a time when the laws of the land that protect
the rights of our gay brothers and sisters
are being rolled back every day, it's
not enough to say God is love.
It's time to get specific.
It's time to say God loves gays.
It's time to take a stand.
I want to talk today about Moses.
A man of God but not without faults.
Denied entrance to the land of milk and honey
that he had led his people to.
Now, what had Moses done that caused God such sorrow that he
made Moses watch from a mountain as his people crossed
the Jordan?
A failure to trust in God.
I always thought that Moses felt angry, sad,
like God had done him wrong.
But I know today that Moses felt proud to be on that mountain
because every man, woman, and child that crossed
that river, Moses knew them.
He knew their struggles.
He knew the strength in each of them
that earned them that ticket to glory.
[APPLAUSE]
And I know he felt grateful.
He felt grateful to have been on that adventure at all.
[APPLAUSE]
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting.
But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, wait a minute now.
I know a lot of y'all don't like this verse.
Come on now, admit it.
Yeah, 'cause you love your charm.
Oh, we love our beauty, don't we?
Ooh, I'm right with you.
However, in a world where men are stompin' and shoutin'
and takin' most anything they want by force,
charm and beauty are some of the most important
weapons we have left to us.
Isn't that right?
So why would the Lord ask us to give up those for fear?
The Hebrew word that is translated here in this verse
to fear--
it doesn't mean that cowering in the corner kind of fear,
you know?
What this means is awe.
It means amazement.
What it means is seeing life in a way
that sometimes only a woman can.
Now, I pray without ceasing.
And one of the things that I always thank God for all day
long is men.
[APPLAUSE]
He has put powerful, strong, wonderful men in my life.
And I'm grateful for them.
But there are times when only a woman, a virtuous woman,
can save a situation.
I'm talking about women like Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Oh, she stood with her head held high amidst all
that filthy gossip and rumors because she was filled with awe
at what she knew to be the truth, which
was God didn't give the salvation of all humanity
to some man to carry.
He gave it to a woman.
[APPLAUSE]
Amen!