Well, you can look in Ephesians chapter 5.
We're going to start there and just kind of lay some foundation
here. And in Ephesians the 5th chapter
and verse one and the new King James says therefore be
imitators of God as dear children.
Now Paul's writing to the church he says be imitators of God as
dear children. The amplified classic says it
this way. Therefore be imitators of God.
Copy him and follow his example as well.
Beloved children, imitate their father.
You know what Paul saying to the Church of Corinth, to the Church
of Ephesus. Here he's saying Christianity,
salvation, redemption, and your your commitment to the Lord does
not begin and end at the altar is not just a confession or a
commitment to to get to heaven, but praise God.
The Lord is calling us not just to become a child of God, but to
live that life and follow him, begin to make him our example
and imitate him in life. Amen.
Come on. We should be imitating though.
People should leave you and say, well, you, you know, they they
did this with the disciples. You know, Peter and him got to
talking and preaching and carrying on.
They said, well, they've been with Jesus.
Hallelujah. Well, I wonder why they said
this. Because they were acting like
him, talking like him, dealing with the situation like Jesus
did. Amen.
Imitate copy. Glory to God, follow the
example. And so however the Lord did it,
we should do it. Amen.
And you know, we, we, we, we come to the Lord, we become a
new creation in Christ Jesus. And then we set ourselves to
circle. Or somebody says, well, if I'm
going to follow the Lord, if I'm going to copy him, imitate him
and live like him, then, then what are some of the keys that I
can do that in my life? Well, the first key you're going
to find out if you're going to imitate and follow the Lord, is
you're going to have to live the faith of life.
Amen. Hebrews 11/6 says, but without
faith, it's impossible to please him.
For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that is
a rewarder them that diligently seek him.
Amen. So I'm going to have to set
myself to get over into faith if I'm going to imitate God.
Amen. Because Hebrews 11/3 says we
understand that the world's refrained by the word of God, so
faith tells us how God operates. In fact, you can't even begin
your journey with the Lord without faith because Ephesians
28 and nine says you're saved by grace.
What? Through faith, Hallelujah.
So I get introduced to the Lord. How do I get introduced to the
Lord through faith? The Bible says in Romans 10 that
the Word of Faith doesn't talk about defeating failure.
But the Word of Faith speaks out the things of God.
And he says, here's what you're supposed to say.
You got to believe that Jesus died for you.
God raised him from the dead and confess him as your Lord.
And when you believe in your heart and confess with your
mouth, you get saved. Amen.
It's because you're releasing faith in him.
So we start our journey in faith with the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Paul wrote to the Galatians in Galatians 311 and he said the
just shall live by faith. What's that mean?
Faith isn't a one time deal of the altar.
Faith is an everyday lifestyle. Copying, imitating and living
like God wants me to live. Hallelujah.
How many of you know the Lord Jesus was always in faith, even
when he went to sleep? Let me say, how do you say that
he went to sleep in faith? Well, he was in the back of a
boat. He told him to go to the other
side. Storm blew up.
They woke him up. He didn't go, Oh, my God.
He looked around, looked at the stop and said, what is wrong
with you? Why didn't you deal with this?
Why are you waking me up? And then he speaks to the storm,
steals it, goes by and goes to bed.
Amen. Praise God.
So he was he, you know, he started the trip in faith.
He went to bed in faith. He got up in faith.
Yeah, come on. Come on.
You and I should live 24/7 in faith.
What is faith? It is having an assurance that
God is going to get you through this thing.
It is trusting God with all your heart is relying upon him to be
that one that you need in that moment, and he will do it for
you. Praise God.
But faith is more than just believing and and and having an
assurance in the Lord or trusting in the Lord.
It's also a conviction. Hey, Ben, if I'm going to live
in faith, I have to have a conviction.
What's the difference in a conviction with somebody with a
conviction and somebody else that has a a theory?
Well, you know, a theory. Once once something comes up and
somebody debates you, you'll back off.
But if I have a conviction, I'm not going to back off.
I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to surrender.
I'm standing for one. I believe.
Amen. So we're told if we're going to
imitate God, we're going to have to live this life of faith that
God's calling us to live. We're going to have to follow
him in our actions. We're going to have to follow
him in our words. We're going to follow him in in
in what we're believing. Amen.
And every day we just get up and we just trust that no matter
what comes today, greater is he that's in me than he that's
against me. Amen.
We've got all kinds of scripture to build our faith on.
Because over in Colossians one he says that we're to give
thanks to the Father who has delivered us from the authority,
the dominion, the power of of darkness, and has brought us
over into the Kingdom of the Son of his love.
Amen. And made us heirs of the things
of God and and qualified us to partake of all the blessings.
Praise God. So I've got God's word on the
situation because when I got born again, I got taken out of
the Kingdom of darkness and taken out from under the
authority of the devil and sin. And I got placed over into the
Kingdom of God and put under the authority of the lordship of
Jesus Christ. I went from darkness to light.
I went from without to with everything.
Amen. I went from one who hated me and
wanted to use me, to one who loved me and wanted to bless me.
Praise God. And he said he would never leave
me nor forsake me. So praise God.
When Paul's writing to the the the church here, he's writing to
believers. He's saying now that you're in
Christ, now that you've given your heart to the Lord.
Now that you understand these things, now say yourself every
day of your life. I'm going to imitate God today.
I'm going to be like Jesus. Hallelujah.
Amen. I'm going to do my life the way
the Lord did his. I'm going to get in the Word,
find out what God wants me to do, and I'm going to follow the
Lord. Now, how many of you know or
have found out? And if you haven't, you will
find out that when you make your decision that you're going to
serve the Lord, live for the Lord.
Walk in faith does not mean that the devil's not going to try
your faith. See, we get this religious
concept, and I did that. When we get born again, the
devil goes, oh, excuse me, you're saved.
Now go right ahead. But that's unscriptural.
Amen. Even in Mark 4, Jesus over there
begins in verse 14 teaching on the parable of the sower.
And he says, the sower soweth the word.
The very next verse says. And these are they by the
wayside who, when they have heard the word, Satan comes
immediately to steal the word out of their heart.
He doesn't wait till you get home.
Amen. He's working on you before you
get off the parking lot. Somebody's kid runs by and
knocks coffee all over you. He's working on you before you
get out of the building. How they look.
But the thing comes down to us this.
We are going to have tests and trials with our faith but we
that should not deter us from living our life in a way that's
pleasing to God and us acting like and taking on the
principles God and living our faith life.
Amen. See James chapter one over there
in verse three says that the trying of your faith works your
patience. See the testing of your faith.
And then you went on down in James 113 and says now when you
get tempted and tested and tried, don't stand there and say
God is doing this, 'cause God does not tempt you, test you, or
try you with bad or evil things. So if it's not God that's
putting the test to your faith, then it must be the devil that's
coming to steal, kill and destroy and test your faith and
try you to see if he can stop you from having what God says
you can have. Amen.
In Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 15, the Bible says that the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he was here on this earth, went through
every temptation, every test, every trial, everything that you
and I would go through. But he didn't fail one of them.
Why did he have to go through all this?
Because he emptied himself, laid aside Jesus.
You see, you got to understand this.
You not only study the teachings of Jesus, study his life and how
he handled things. If I'm going to imitate him, I
need to see how he dealt with it.
Amen. And then however he dealt with
the situations, how I need to deal with it.
And he says he went through all these things yet without sin.
You know what I mean? Jesus has faced everything you
and I will ever face. But he conquered it.
It didn't stop him. And you know, the great thing
about it is this. Now he's the high priest for us.
And if we'll hook up with him, he can help us.
So that when we find ourselves in a test or a trials trying to
stop us from imitating following God, He's there to help us to do
what he did, so we can get the same results he got.
Amen. And you know what James says
over there? If we went back and just started
quoting something. James, when you let your faith
and your persistence, your consistency, I refuse to stop
acting like a child of God. I stopped.
You know, I I refuse to start acting like I used to be before
I made Jesus my Lord. When I make the decision, let my
patience have his perfect work. You know what?
James went on and said, you will come out of that thing entire
and wanting nothing. Glory to God.
Woo, Glory to God. In other words, you'll use your
test as a stepping stone to mature your walk with God and
also to cause your trust in him to be that much more secure.
But to do that, I need to know how I can do it.
Amen. Faith isn't just knowing what
God says. Faith is knowing how to get it.
Amen. So if I'm going to have this,
this eternal life, this blessed life that the Lord wants me to
have and walk in this, then the best thing I could do is go find
an example where the Lord Jesus had to deal with something like
that, find out how he dealt with it, make that my example, and do
it the same way he did. Amen.
So to do that, let's look in Mark's Gospel of the 11th
chapter, Mark, Chapter 11. Everybody wants to turn
immediately to verse 22 and verse 23.
But we're going to back up a little bit.
We're going to go back up to verse 12.
Now this 11th chapter of Mark is is real powerful Jesus in the
first, you know, 11 verses, there is his triumph and entry.
That's what we call Palm Sunday. He sends them over.
They get the the, the donkey, and he comes in, He rides in,
they're celebrating, rejoicing. And by the time that's all done,
it says here that the evening came and Jesus goes out to
Bethany, out into the area, and and he he goes to bed.
He's he's sleepy. OK, the day's over.
He can't do anything else. But the Lord has a purpose, OK?
This is his his entry into revealing who he is.
And the next day he's got a purpose.
He's going to get up the next morning, go back into Jerusalem
and clean the temple out. Amen.
Get rid of the sin, turn it back into a House of prayer and and
and bring worship and healing and ministry back into the House
of God. Amen.
So the next morning he's going to get up.
He already knows what the plan of God is.
He knows what his purpose is that day.
He knows what his, his, his, his, his direction is for that
day. Amen.
And he's gets up. And now he's heading to
Jerusalem to fulfil what God has told him to do.
Amen. So let's pick it up in verse 12.
Now, the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was
hungry. Anybody here ever get up in the
morning and be hungry? Gee, Jesus got up that morning
and he was hungry. Hadn't had any breakfast, no
coffee. Not a good place to deal with
him right now. Amen.
Something So the Lord is heading back into bed and and and you
know he got up that morning, he's hungry.
He's heading back into town, going to do what his heavenly
Father has taught him to do that day.
Amen. Going to fulfill God's will in
his life. Verse 13.
And seeing from afar A fig tree having leaves, he went to see if
perhaps he would find something on it.
When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was
not yet the season of figs. Now, now, let me tell you
something. When when Mark brings it out,
and I like looking at it here, because Mark brings out this
tree wasn't right beside the path.
It was a far off. That means it was, you know,
over here in a field maybe. And so for the Lord to get to
that fig tree, he had to not just take a few steps off his
path, he actually had to go for a good little walk to get to it.
Amen. Now he sees it and he goes to
this fig tree. Because during that time, if a
tree had leaves, then it's supposed to have figs.
So the Lord is hungry. He's natural.
He's dealing with things that you and I have to deal with.
He knows what his purpose is, but the same time his his
belly's growling. And so he's going, you know.
Yes, there's a fig tree over there.
I can see leaves on it. Breakfast.
Come on guys, let's go get us some breakfast.
So the Lord goes over there and he looks at the tree and there's
and he starts looking and he says surely there's figs.
I mean this tree's, you know, it's it's advertised to me all
the way down the path. Every time I looked at it, it
was telling me it had figs because it's got leaves and it
goes through the entire tree and he finds nothing.
Look at the next part. Here's a response.
Here is something you and I are going to have to learn.
This is a lesson Jesus teaches us on following God and not
getting distracted, discouraged, defeated, upset, or whatever.
Now Can you imagine? Jesus has laid aside his eternal
glory. Remember Philippians 2?
Paul says that he's taken upon himself the form of flesh and
blood. He's he's tempted, test and try
with every kind of test he faced.
Everything you and I face. Jesus is hungry.
He's walked all the way off over here to this place, to where the
tree is. He's found it.
Now there's no fruit on the tree.
It's a wasted trip over to this tree.
If it's 200 yards off the path, he could have been 200 yards on
down the road toward fulfilling God's purpose for him that
morning. But he thought he would take a
moment and take care of a situation, a personal situation.
I'm hungry. Amen.
He's not in sin. He's not.
It's not like he's got to be there right now.
He knows he's going to get this thing done, but on the way he
makes a little detour in what he's doing.
And now here he is with a tree that has nothing on it.
Look what it says, verse 14. In response Jesus said to it,
The King James says. And Jesus answered it and said,
if you answer something or you respond to something, that means
it initiated it. If you ask me something, I
respond to you. If you say something to me, I
respond to you. If you have given me a question,
I answer it. Amen.
I didn't initiate the conversation.
I responded to it. That tree was talking to Jesus
from the time he saw it. The tree's over here in the
distance going, hey, Jesus, I got breakfast.
I know you're hungry. It's early.
Come on over, I'll take care of you.
So Jesus is listening to this tree, talking to him, saying
come on over. It's going to be great.
You're going to enjoy this. You're going to have figs and
you're going to have a great breakfast.
Then you can go in there and run those people out and Jesus goes
over there because that tree's been talking to him.
And now Jesus is faced with a decision.
How do I respond to the tree? How many of us have had our
purpose laid out? We know what we're going to
believe God for. We're in ourselves.
We're going after it, and something pops up that distracts
us and pulls us away from them. And we thought it was going to
be a good thing, but it turns out to be a negative thing, a
bad thing, a hindrance instead of a blessing.
What is your response in that moment?
Because your response at that moment's going to determine
whether you get to fulfilled the big thing.
Are you hearing me? Because you see it's not the big
things that usually defeat us. It's the little things the devil
throws in the way before we get to the big thing that keeps us
from being able to even be there to deal with it.
So the Lord now and and I'm going to tell you something he
says he was in Hebrews 4. Says he was tempted with every
temptation. You know his flesh right now is
aggravated. Why do you say that, Brother
Uben? Because my flesh right now would
be aggravated. What would you do at this
moment? You don't want to hear what I
would think about doing at this moment.
But what does the Lord Jesus do in this moment, in this moment
of frustration, in this moment when you realize you've been
lied to, you've been deceived, and it was just there to keep
you from fulfilling what God said you can have.
It's there to stop you from imitating your heavenly Father
and doing what he would have you to do.
What are you going to do? And Jesus in response said to
it, let no one eat fruit from ever after again.
And his disciples heard it. Jesus didn't say Peter.
I cannot believe you didn't stop me from coming over here.
He didn't blame the disciples. One of you could have been
spiritual enough to know that there's no figs on that tree.
He didn't stand there and say, you stupid tree, Amen.
He didn't stomp and storm around.
He didn't sit down and twiddle his son, say, my God, now what
am I going to eat? You know what the Lord Jesus did
in that moment? He responded from his spirit,
not from his flesh. He's showing us how to deal with
disappointments and things that are coming up to distract you
and to discourage you to keep you from having what God said
you can have. He's allowing himself to go
through this so that he can show you and me exactly how we in
need to deal with our fig tree. What fig tree?
Brother Hubman, the bad report when you was expecting a good
one. Amen.
We just heard that we prayed for a person and they had gotten a
great report. They went in and got checked and
there was no cancer. Then they went back and they
checked and they said we think it's back and got a bad report
and they stood their ground. When they went back in, they
couldn't find it. Hallelujah.
Why? Because they dealt with their
fig tree the way Jesus dealt with his fig tree.
They refused to stay there and let it have any place in their
life. Amen.
We're all going to face tests. We're all going to face trials.
We're all going to face disappointments.
We're going to get some bad reports.
What do you do when you're a fig tree, gets you off the path and
get you over there, then leaves you disappointed and and and
what am I going to do now? I'll tell you what you're going
to do. You're going to speak to it.
Not about it. And you're going to tell it.
You are dead. You will never do this again.
I'm. I'm making this a learning
lesson. I will never be deceived by you.
In fact, not only you're not going to ever do it to me again.
You're not going to do it to anybody again because I break
you now in the name of Jesus. I'm going to act like my Lord.
I'm going to imitate my God. I'm just going to praise God.
This is this just took a little bit of my time out.
But it has no more. See, because your flesh has a
tendency is even if you deal with it, you want to talk about
it all day. Jesus never talked about it ever
again. He deals with the problem, deals
with the distraction, deals with the disappointment, and goes
right back, gets on the path, goes down in Jerusalem, cleans
out the temple, does exactly what his Heavenly Father wanted,
and then had a healing service and set people free.
If he'd have stayed up there frustrated because of some silly
fig, then those people wouldn't have been healed.
They would have been delivered. God couldn't have done his will,
and it would have been Jesus ensuring it's the wrong way to
do something and the devil would have won.
But Jesus says don't let some little thing dominate your time
or deter you from doing the big thing that God wants you to do.
Let me tell you something, folks.
In our lives, we're going to have all kinds of little fig
trees come along. I mean, I've had every kind of
negative report you could hear while I was believing God to do
stuff. And the Lord took me to this
thing and I had a situation come up and the Lord took me over
here to mark 11 and he said, and I thought, OK, Lord, read verse
22. He said, no, go back.
How did I handle the fig tree? I'd never seen this, he said.
And I read my King James. And Jesus answering said, he
said, did you notice I answered it.
He said, Son, the devil's going to talk to you.
Problem's going to talk to you. The enemy's going to talk to
you. It's how you answer it.
It's going to determine whether you win or lose that situation.
It's how you respond. What did James say?
He said, when you fall into chess and trials, count it all
joy, that's the way you get the victory.
If you fuss about it and why me, Lord, then you lose.
Amen. Jesus is teaching us here that
you're going to have tests and trials.
I had tests and trials. I went through these to show you
how to handle them. And Jesus just deals with.
And you know what? He wasn't silent about it.
The disciples were there and they heard him say that to them.
Meaning what? Jesus was delivered by from
everybody else's opinion about him.
Your faith isn't going to work. If you're concerned about what
people don't think about you. Amen.
See, in First Timothy 612, he says we're to fight the good
fight of faith and we're to lay hold of eternal life.
Are you hearing me? And he says, and keep the good
confession that you've confessed before many witnesses.
You know what Paul says. You don't just fight the good
fight of faith when you're by yourself or when you're around
Christians. You you fight the good fight of
faith and lay hold of the life of God in front of everybody.
Years ago, I was playing some basketball at the YMCA there in
Huntington. We I'd go over and that's I'd
get my exercise in. And so I I played ball coming
up. So I'm over there playing ball
and we our team If you won, you stayed up.
And so we were in the small gym and so we'd won three games in a
row. And man, I'm tell you what, just
going along and we go back out to play the 4th game.
About halfway through it I went up and came down on the guy's
foot and my ankle turned and it popped and I hit the floor.
Now I'm in shorts, T-shirts, tennis shoes, sweating, and my
ankle is laying there and everybody's like, one minute one
was the doctor and said we're going to have to deal with that.
And so before any I could even think, I said, if you can
believe God, turn toward me. If this is totally awkward to
you and you can't believe God, turn away from me because I
don't have time to explain to you right now what I'm about to
do. I'm going to lay hands on my
ankle and I'm going to pray. And the Lord's going to heal my
ankle right here because I can't afford to walk around here in
the next six weeks in crutches or whatever.
And so if you can believe God with me, watch.
If you're curious, watch. But if you're totally opposite
of this, turn away because I got to deal with this now.
I lay hands on my ankle, prayed over it, prayed in tongues.
You pray somebody to get offended?
No, it's my ankle. I'm not preaching to them.
I'm getting my ankle bits. Jesus isn't preaching to the
disciples. He's dealing with an obstacle.
He's dealing with the distraction.
He's dealing with something that's trying to stop him from
doing what God called him to do. So some of them turned away,
some watched. I prayed, lay hands.
God touched it. I got up, walked around a little
bit and said, guys, I'm finished for the day, 'cause it did, you
know, get darkened and all this good stuff.
It goes with that. But it didn't hinder me from
going about my daily business. Amen.
I thought, well, I didn't do it for them.
I did it for me. But a lady in our church came to
me about a month later and she started working in this doctor's
office and she came to me and she said, pastor, did you have a
problem with your ankle? And the why?
About a month or so ago I said, well, why she goes, well, the
guy I'm working for is a doctor and said he was playing
basketball over here at the gym with you and you came down.
He was just sure that your ankle was broken.
It was a mess and he said you told everybody to either look or
turn away. And he said you prayed in some
language. Then you switched it over to
English and prayed for your ankle and got up and walked
around. He said it's a it's a he said.
I'm still dumbfounded about it. He said what goes on in Y'all's
church, but you know what that was used to but this to him.
Praise God. But I didn't do it to witness to
him. I dealt with it to stop the
enemy from hindering me, from going about doing what God's
called me to do. Amen.
I didn't sin to cause my ankle to get turned.
I was actually enjoying life. Jesus didn't sin to get in a
distressful situation with this. See, you got to understand.
Hebrews 12 says that we are to follow the Lord, keep our eyes
on Him, and then he says we're to lay aside every weight and
sin. Well, you see, they're a waste.
This tree was a weight. It wasn't a sin.
It was a distraction, bad reports, something that happened
that you weren't planning on. And what's the Lord say?
He tells him he down here, let's go on, Jesus speaks.
So they hear it. And then in verse 20.
Now in the morning as they pass by, they saw the fig tree dried
up from the roots. And Peter remembering, said to
him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed us, withered
away. So Jesus answered and said to
them, have faith in God. Oh no.
So Lord didn't even respond to Peter talking about the fig
tree. Why?
Because once it was done, it was done.
Amen. See, here's the thing, folks.
You get up and you're going to work and you come up to the
stoplight, it turns green and somebody goes blowing through
about the time you pull out and they're blowing their horn at
you, acting like you're the ones wrong.
Now I know that doesn't frustrate or 'cause anybody here
would be aggravated because I can see the Halo around you and
but for me, I've had tendencies to get aggravated.
OK, but here's what we do. If you deal with it right, then
you should let it go. That was a fig tree experience.
All it's doing is trying to disrupt and and and aggravate
you for the rest of the day and stop you from enjoying life.
So what do you do? You say, Lord, I thank you that
that nut didn't hit me. Hallelujah.
And I pray for him that he'll not run through another light
and somebody else will run through a light.
And I put it in your hands and I thank you that I'm going to have
a great day in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Hallelujah. And you know, you go and you
never bring it up again. And what if you do something and
you missed it? Maybe you, you made a turn.
You're going to, you're going to take a shortcut.
You saying you just turn down the road and you know this will
give me 5 minutes. I can get there 5 minutes
quicker. And you turn, you go around the
curve and they got the road blocked off.
Well, they're literally doing their work, but they didn't have
a sign telling you that the road was closed.
Now you're either going to sit there and throw a fit because
they're fixing a road, but either way, you know what you
have to do. You have to back up, turn around
and go back out and get on the main path and get on to where
you was gone. But here's what the devil wants
you to do. He wants you to get so upset
because your plan was thwarted by something you weren't ready
for. He wants you to just talk about
the hindrance that they were to you all day long.
Break rolls around and you telling them about how they're
fixing that road and didn't put the signs out.
Lunch rolls around, you say it cost me 5 extra minutes.
You get home, you say, Honey, you know what happened to me
today? No.
And I don't want to. I don't want, I don't want to
know what happened you today. I want to know what did you do
today in your walking plan with God?
Because you see, the Lord is not going to even let the apostles
bring up the fig tree. They're trying to direct him
back to a hindrance. And he says no, no, no, no, no.
Have faith in God. Don't think about the tree.
Think about God. Put your trust in God.
Walk with God. Stay in faith.
Don't get caught out. Don't be pulled away.
Stay in faith. Because God has great things for
you and that's only there to just to hinder you and to cause
you to not get the great things God wants you to have.
Amen. And then the Lord tells them
exactly what they need to do with their faith in verse 23.
For surely, I say to you, whoever says that this mountain
be removed, be cast into the scene does not doubt in his
heart, but believes that those things he says will be done.
He will have whatever he says. Isn't that amazing?
The Lord took something that the devil meant for bad to disrupt
and and hinder him and turns it around and makes it a teaching
moment to help the apostles to grow in their faith, to move
things out of their life. So what am I preaching you this
morning? We're all going to have tests.
We're all have trials. But the Lord told us that we're
to imitate him, copy him, and live like he lives.
Amen. So therefore, I need to find out
how the Lord dealt with that. And if that's the way he dealt
with it, then that's the way I should deal with it.
And I should stay focused on what God has called me to do and
what he said I can do and keep that as the main focus.
My faith walk with God is more important than some little
disappointment that tried to stop me from having a good day.
Amen. And while I'm preaching this to
you, what's going on? You're thinking about all kinds
of little fig trees that the the enemy's been planting all around
your house, in your neighborhood, on the job site.
What are you going to do with them?
Deal with it and go on. But what if I missed it?
Deal with it and go on. Bonnie and I were down in
Virginia and I at the time. I had when the Mustangs came out
it was a Ford Mustang Cobra OK. It was pretty nice little car.
It wouldn't move. We're driving along.
I come off the exit ramp, go down and the moment I did I
realized I was 1 exit too quick and then we'd go down about I
guess 4th of a mile and it goes into two lanes and it runs into
a dead end and it you have to go right or left.
And Bonnie says what are you going to do now?
Because we're supposed to be up there and this is 1/2 mile down
to the next exit. I looked at her and I said hold
on she goes why? And I turned the wheels put in
first, revved it up, light turned and when the light turned
I turned. I did a full donut in the road,
spun it around and headed back out towards the Interstate,
shifting gears while the tires are still speeding and she's
over pinned up against the wall of the car.
She was. Do that again.
Tell me first, I said. Hold on.
What? I wasn't going to let that fig
tree stop me from enjoying my trip.
Hallelujah. So I just turned it into a an
opportunity to show everybody what my car could do.
Hallelujah. Amen.
And I'm going to tell you something, folks.
There are people that are watching to see how we're going
to deal with something that the enemies try to throw at us.
What are you going to say? How they going to respond?
What's going to be their expression?
How they going? Because we're going to find out
if they're really Christian. Now come on, we're going to find
out if they really believe and what they believe.
And so you can either let it defeat you or you can grab a
hold of God's word, and you would do.
The Lord said. And the Amplified says, have
faith in God constantly. You know what that means?
Always. In every situation.
Even when you thought you was going to get breakfast and you
didn't. Now you know why the Lord was so
tough on those people when he showed up at the temple.
Amen. Hallelujah.
Bless God. You stop me from having
breakfast. I'll show you.
No, I had no difference. But this is thing.
He went on about his business and never brought it up again.
I don't know what disappointments the enemies
tried to throw at you. You know what you need to do.
Deal with them like Jesus did. So no more.
I'm not going to listen to another thought.
I'm not going to listen to another word.
I'm not going to think about it. You're done.
You're dead. You're not.
Not only my life. I don't want to hear it.
My family. I don't want to hear it with my
friends. It's never going to be brought
up again. In Jesus name, you say, Lord, I
thank you, that I am not distracted.
I am committed. I am.
I'm focused and I'm going to fulfil what you called me to do.
This little fox is not going to keep me from having the great
blessing that you promised in my life.
Amen. Come on, Even if I got a little
misled, I'm going to get right back on the right path and I'm
not going to fuss at myself, condemn myself, or think that
I'm unworthy because I turned the wrong turn.
Amen. Jesus made a wrong turn, went in
and cleaned out the temple and brought holiness back in and set
people free. Why?
Because he refused to let his wrong turn turn into a sin.
Are you hearing me? And he stayed committed.
And when he realized it wasn't right, he fixed it and went
right back to doing what was right.
Hallelujah. I saw this one time when in the
early days. Well, it was early days of my
ministry, 1980, that's a few years ago.
But we had a young lady come in, and she did praise and worship
and sang and ministered. And she was actually from Pastor
John Osteen's church. And so we'd had her come in.
Of course we were all somewhat young in those days, but, you
know, but she's up there on a Sunday morning and she's playing
the piano and she's doing this song and she had a really pretty
voice and she taught with it and she, she used all and so she's
doing it and it had a key change.
So she go, no, no, no. And she hits and goes, she just
stopped. She goes, I changed to the wrong
key. I'm, I Can't Sing of that key.
It's the wrong key. She looks around, she goes, and
this was probably the best teaching moment and it ties
right in. Lord took me back to this, she
said. Now I could get embarrassed.
I could quit, I could lose the anointing and I could just sit
here and think, why did I do that?
She said. Or I can go, no, no, no, there
it is. I can go to the right key and
just keep going. I'm going to go to the right key
and keep going. And she hits the notes and just
kept singing her song and finish your song.
I said it's the best Bible lesson on staying committed to
the pion of God that I'd heard anybody do.
And she did it with the music song.
She didn't sin. She hit the wrong key.
So instead of staying in the wrong key.
I've seen people that pastor stay in the wrong key.
Well, you got oh, I got all these leaves from that tree.
If I was going to go that far I'm going to get something.
Well, the leaves aren't going to help you silly.
Hey, man. No.
Get back on the course. Get back on the course.
Do what God's called you to do. Stay with what the Lord's told
you to stay with. Amen.
And what am I going to do? I'm not going to let the fig
tree, and I'm not going to let the problem determine what I
believe. Amen.
I'm not going to let it determine what I say.
It's not going to determine my actions.
My faith in God's going to determine what I say, what I
believe, and my actions. I don't know what kind of
mountain you're facing right now.
The mountain should not be determining your confession.
Your faith in God should be determining your confession.
And you shouldn't be talking about the mountain.
You should be talking to the mountain.
You should be coming from a position of faith and power, not
from a position of worry and doubt.
Amen. But yeah, brother, what if I
made a wrong decision getting to the mountain?
Do what Jesus did. Deal with it, Curse it, get it
out. Give it no place.
Get right back on the path. Because see, here's the thing.
If you don't deal with that little fig tree, when you
finally do get to your mountain, that mount's going to remind you
of your fig tree. That mount's going to say, if
you couldn't deal with a little thing, how do you think you're
going to deal with this big thing?
And then that mount's going to say you're not worthy.
Who do you think you are that you can say that and the enemy's
immediately going. If you didn't get it out of
completely out of your life, the enemy's going to just take you
right back to your failure of getting figs.
But if you dealt with it like Jesus dealt with it, even when
somebody brings it up, you refuse to even for comment when
they brought it up. Look the fig tree, you curse his
drive. Jesus didn't even bring it.
He didn't even comment on it. He just said have faith in God.
He wouldn't join in the conversation.
Why? Because in his eyes it's a dead
deal. Amen.
The moment you dealt with it, it's dead.
It's gone. It's out of this thing.
Hallelujah. It no longer has any part in
this equation. Praise God.
I am now in faith. God is moving, and I'm here and
blessed be God. I don't do this because I'm
perfect. I don't do this because I
deserve it. I do this because God qualified
me to operate in my inheritance with the Lord Jesus Christ, and
it's in his name, under his authority, I deal with this.
So, devil, you're going to have to deal with Jesus, not me.
Hallelujah. Amen.
And that's how we begin to imitate God.
That's why he came to us in the flesh, because he knew we
couldn't imitate him while he's sitting on the throne, because
we aren't there. So when we couldn't get to him,
he came to us and said, Now let me show you how to live this
life. Let me show you how to deal with
disappointments. Let me show you how to deal with
situations. Let me show you how to stay in
faith and operate in the power of the Kingdom of God, even when
it doesn't look like you deserve.
Amen. And what I need to do is this.
I need to make Jesus high priest of my faith confession and let
him determine what I'm going to say in every situation.
Amen. And then I need to hold fast my
confession. Don't know are you hearing me?
Because in Mark 11/23 it that word there down at the bottom it
says and you'll have what you're say.
You shall have whatever he says. It's plural.
The saith in the King James. That's a continuous action verb.
You know what he's saying? He's saying just keep saying
what God says about it and you'll have what God says about
it. Well, I told that mountain to
go, then just keep telling it. Amen.
Praise God. I had a had a had a dog and we'd
try to get him to go outside and we said, OK, you got to go.
He'd walk over the door and look at me.
OK, I'll walk over the door and open the door.
You got to go. He'd walk out on the porch and
said, not here, you got to go. And I keep on talking.
You know what? I finally get him to the yard,
whatever. And then I bring him back in.
Hallelujah. You know, I didn't just say to
him, you got to go out. One time.
I walked him through it until I got what I said accomplished.
Amen. And the Lord is saying, why
would you look at the mountain, say something to it, and then go
check and see if it's there? Jesus cursed that fig tree,
turned around, went on in and did what God called him to do.
And he said, I'll tell you what you do.
You face that situation, you stand there without guilt,
condemnation, doubt or inferiority.
You say to it and then you just keep saying, I thank you, Lord,
it's done. I thank you Lord, this thing's
out of my life. I thank you, Lord, for the
victory and just keep saying what God says, not what the
problem says. Amen.
And if your faith begins to waver, remember Romans 10/17,
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
So what do you do if your faith starts to waver?
Go back into the Word and feed your faith the Word of God until
it gets strong again and it empowers your confession to say
what God says. Amen.