Bishop Noel Jones - Sunday Morning Worship - July 11, 2021

[Applause] [Music] while you're turning your bibles to saint john's gospel chapter 14. before we begin to read there's a young man here all the way from oakland california who has blessed us in these past few weeks and he's sitting over there in the person of would you stand please for a moment the bishop keith thought you give god praise for him and certainly honor the work that god has done through him and to all of my wonderful ministerial alliance persons under the direction of dr oaks and the work that you've done over the year and a half the people that you've touched sister beverly tomlinson evangelist doctor working with the sunday school over the air over the internet to the marvelous people who under the direction of brother steve dunn have been praying for people and on the direction of sister haniel joseph have been working diligently for all of these people who have called i said my office to the people there you can't hear me oh to all the people who are working in the office i said call i sent them a hundred thousand names and i said call many people as you can encourage people speak to people's hearts so elder joey jackson who prayed so did gently and answer the phone so marvelously to of course a champion of the cause always at work to pastor edwin perry amen to the music department that sang and sang and sang to the band that played and played and played to my deacons who came out here diligently every sunday for whatever he was brought in and worked in but then of course the new church was the i-tech fellas under bishop shelby i couldn't help myself i'm sorry yeah but the work that they did i would say this that shelby made sure that everything was qualitative he made sure that everything was done so when the screens came on we had a couple of difficult days but other than that he made sure that everything was in place that all the fellas were on time and in place and each one played a particularly different role but they played their roles very very well so those who maintained the building of course this is the loretta jones who kept the school going and all the other things going wow real way and i thank god i hope all of you enjoyed uh july 4th and we made it our business to make sure that you'd come on july 4th and have a taste of july 4th i i wanted to have a short service today but it's you know we're back i guess we got to take a little time and thank people i thank everybody amen thank everybody uh in john 14 and it's going to be quite interesting i believe because it touched me in a very special way he says of course we know it let not your heart be troubled ye believe in god believe also in me in my father's house the many mansions if it were not so i would have told you i go to prepare a place for you and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and receive you unto myself and where i am that where i am there ye may be also and whether i go ye know and the way you know thomas sayeth unto him lord we know not wither thou goest and how can we know the way jesus saith unto him i am the truth the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me and if you had known me you should have known my father also and from henceforth you know him and have seen him philip say let the lord show us the father and it sufficeth us and jesus said unto him have i been so long with you and yet hast thou not known me he that had seen me had seen the father and how saith thou shall was the father believeth thou not that i am in the father and the father in me the words that i speak unto you i speak not of myself but the father that dwelleth in me he doeth the word of course verse six is significant i am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me if we were in another time in another almost dispensation it seems i would say to you say something to your neighbor but now you just gotta look up i want to talk a little bit about and particularly after hearing last week and becoming more familiar with how life goes with us i want to talk a little bit about the fact that jesus meets us wherever we are it's not a matter of making any comparisons with the person around you as to just what they're going through versus what you're going through because nobody can actually feel what somebody else feels in a particular environment in a particular situation and indeed and in fact pain is individual the interesting thing here is notice the questions because whenever there are questions based on the position that you're in it is indicative that you're feeling something for you and i not to have questioned the situation of the pandemic the situation of what it is that it forced us to go through would indicate that we didn't have a need and there was nothing that bothered us and if i remember paul tillich correctly anytime you don't have a need or what he calls ultimate concern then you're not in a position of growth it is interesting that now we've got philip questioning and we've got thomas questioning two different personalities completely philip we haven't heard a lot from thomas we have but when there are certain circumstances that come upon us each one of us have to question god because i'm truly questioning god is god pushing you to another level pushing me to another level because what has happened is he's taken me out of the comfort zone and he's put me in a place that i don't understand and when the pain hits the difficulties come the challenges are in front of me the first thing i do is question i don't want to push it too far but that prompts my question and my question is why should we think that god who orchestrated the death of his son orchestrated decreed ordained planned and brought it to pass the death of his only begotten son in order for us to enter into his domain why should any one of us think that he would not allow us to endure some pain in order to grow where his son had to die to give us the privilege i i think we as preachers have done serious injustice when we have not approached the children of god the saints the christians from a christian perspective and not a world system perspective because how in the world could all of us comfortably think that he would give his only begotten son to get us started and give all of us miracles maybe i'm dyslexic maybe somehow it's wrong do you know that god could have saved all of us with a word he wouldn't even have to lay his hands on any one of them he wouldn't have to baptize us why would he go through such a complex situation of ecstasy and pain ecstasy and pain miracles and suffering and put his son on the cross for his son to declare his son not me his son said to him my god my god why hath thou forsaken me and we want to be rich without working we want to be sane without therapy [Music] we want to be healthy without sacrifice and every time there's a challenge we don't look to the cross we look to resurrection but there is no resurrection if there is no cross i don't know how he missed it i was talking to a friend of mine last night late about three a.m in the morning he was awake going through super preacher of miracles going through great friend and i'm saying to him as i'm meditating on last week and lord what do i say i'm saying to him isn't it interesting that what we have preached to people about being strong and going through i've been there myself 2017. two operations my mother died and i was sitting around having a real wonderful i mean i had candlelight i had uh i had music and balloons in my pity party oh i was dressed up best shoes on best suit on and anybody that wanted to join me could have joined me that day and something said to me well aren't you the preaching aren't you the one that simply tells people when they come to your broken trust god and then i said maybe we study to preach but we don't study to receive what it is we're telling everybody else to do so brother preacher instead of contemplating going crazy tonight maybe god is telling pastors and teachers and preachers that you need to take another look at the god you're talking about because if he put his son on the cross to bring you in he's going to do some things and allow some things and he allows the things because he's gone because he didn't leave you but he met you right where you were oh i feel like dancing already i i feel like dancing this text he he he frames the text in a very homey and phenomenal language nevertheless but it is very homely and it's a point to a reality concerning christians ultimate relationship with jesus i looked at beasley murray and busy murder noted that the verbs in the passage are all in the plural form so john once again is addressing the turmoil within his community of believers he's talking to them about a situation that existed then so while he's writing he does two things he teaches and he portrays jesus speaking to his disciples as he speaks to a situation that exists right there it's not difficult to grasp because there's always the example of the double level presentation that brings two or maybe sometimes three different historical settings now isn't it interesting that we are going back to jesus in order to solve the problem of how we feel right now and i think if anything this pandemic has taught us that if we don't have personal relationship with jesus oh i'm telling you now i i i i i was feeling church a while ago i i tried to get everything in i could as short as i at time we have because we love this oh but the lord has taught us what to do when we don't have this and that i'm the same jesus in the church that i am out of the church oh i feel like shouting in fact and [Applause] indeed in order to solve how we feel we have to go 2 000 years back to hear how jesus talked to his disciples i i don't think i have the time to do this i i might have to i might have to bring this up next week we are taking a contemporary situation and using an historical account in order to feel better which means the same jesus that was talking to a group of people 2000 years ago who weren't facing pandemic the same words of jesus then have as much power to us now he didn't change the words he's using the same words he's not talking to 12 he's talking to millions and he's meeting every one of them where they are and he's not asking anybody how to talk to anyone of us who he has a relationship [Applause] i can say one thing jesus is saying and i'll get different questions from different disciples i don't have to ask him the way i don't have to ask him well i know the way thomas asked that philip was asking something else how is it that a man one man can preach and 20 000 people think he was only talking to them huh how can 20 000 people understand when you are talking to your mate and they don't well i had to meddle with you i can't get away you talking to people right around you and they don't understand what you're trying to say yet one man can stand up in front of twenty thousand eighty thousand and they think he's only talking to them why because when you're talking to your mate you don't get into the holy spirit but when god sends somebody to talk to a crowd he gets into sends in the holy spirit but the holy spirit only knows one thing jesus and him he only testifies of jesus because only jesus can meet us wherever we are wherever we are he begins the text and somebody pulled my quote he begins the text with a strong prohibition he starts with a negative imperative and it carries the meaning of i won't i won't say the word maybe i should me periscepto and the may on it makes it negative and what he's saying here is do not let your hearts be overcome with turmoil don't let it be overcome you can hurt but don't let it overcome if i were to be more idiomatic more colloquial in our language it would be don't let allow yourself rather to be intimidated by the situation keep the situation outside oh lord now he doesn't just say that i was reading a newspaper the other day that somebody was saying uh that what the other person was saying was a lie but they didn't offer the truth he follows the statement immediately by a call to evidence he calls them to evidence confidence through the double use of the word and this word is fistuette from the word pistuo now if bishop omar were here he'd help me because this can be either an indicative or an imperative indicative really just says what is imperative becomes more commanding so here's what he says he says you believe in god i need you to believe in me you trust in god i want you to trust in me now notice the situation here is they are looking at him and later on he explains why because he set up the question for uh philip to ask you see me in my humanity and you have seen me cry but you have seen me cast out devils but i wasn't casting out devils and feeding five thousand to show you what i could do i was feeding five thousand casting out that was walking on a raising the dead to show you who i am [Applause] and let me indicate to you that now he's leading up to i am the way the truth and the life will we have gone with the in our relationship with jesus is we want the newness of jesus but not the i am-ness i am not accusing everybody i i have had those tendencies and proclivities myself what jesus is saying to them is you have never seen god he's going jewish tradition because jehovah you can't make an idol out of jehovah jehovah has always been a conceptualization of the jewish mind going through the talmud i'm going to show you something a little bit later when jesus said i am the way he ain't talking about the way of of of the law or instruction he is the way of relationships all right i give an example i'll give an example and i'll make detail later why do we have to stand when we read the word why why i got to get up i read my bible laying down in my bed was i disrespectful the bible is the word of god it is a word about god and it's a word that brings you in relationship with god so you don't worship the bible you worship the god of the bible the problem we have is we respect process more than we respect what the process is bringing us to how would i put this now ain't no sense to me playing with it uh the uber is driving you to your wife and you respect the uber man you treated him with all kind of dignity and when he drops you off to the wife you go off on her you could be nice to a stranger but you couldn't be nice to somebody who's with you all the time oh you praised the chefs at the restaurant who you'll never see again but you don't praise the one that's walking behind your cooking what do you want baby can i fix your plate baby can i talk to me children of god i don't think it's too hard to understand we do everything to praise the preacher we do everything to fix the program we do everything to make everything right in the church but at the end of the day it ain't about nobody but jesus and the lord showed us i can take you out of the house and find out where you are because i'll meet you right where i'm almost i'm almost there somehow we're shouting together but your situation and mine the person around you is not a together situation the only reason we're shouting together is because we're shouting about the same person i wish you'd understand me because he was there when you were crying he was there when you thought you were done he was there when no relative could see you he was there when you were fearing you were sick when you were not he was there when you heard your best friend died he was there when your mama died he was there when your money ran out he was there when your money came back we're shouting together but we weren't in the same place but the one we're shouting about was in the same place with each one of us to bring us back together again [Applause] i got a reason to praise him but my reason ain't your reason but that don't make my reason any less yours any greater we all can lift him up at the same time because he met us where we and i feel lord have mercy he knew that his little band could and would be shaken not only by his words concerning his departure but also by the fact that he would soon become the crucified lamb so accordingly now he called for them to place their trust not in the power evident in the world but in god and in himself now i've been around a lot of people who say trust me anybody ever said do you trust me trust me you get a little nervous now don't you trust sometimes we trust only what we can control only what we see that's why you got beepers and lojacks you're going across town baby share your location our panic our panic is not in what we can control our panic is in what we cannot control and can't put our finger on the outcome can't put in trouble and don't know where it's going huh and immediately the mind that cannot find trust in something is going to project the worst and somehow we have come to the place where we project we project the worst as a defensive mechanism you know things have gotten real bad when we trust that things will get worse to defend ourselves but in a relationship with jesus he is saying the worse things get the more you trust me [Applause] because i haven't left you on the worst day of your life it is still the best day of your life because you're gonna get more out of me on the worst day and it'll make it the best day because my strengths it's made perfect in your weakness you know we've called on him in this last year and a half we've called on him like we never called on him before [Applause] i wish i could talk to you plainly those of us who had quit drinking felt like going back to drinking those of us who are drinking little drinking more you know since you looking at me like alice in wonderland i'll read your mail found out who we really cared about found out who we wanted to lead found out who we didn't want to be locked up with and with all that that we were doing with all that we were going through he was walking with us all the way walking with us all the way and when we were about to make the biggest mistake of our life he said don't do that trust me you ain't got to go back into that in order to get your life together trust me because i will meet you i will meet you wherever you are [Applause] [Music] i'm getting ready to close [Music] um i i want to make a switch i want to make a switch and the switch is does he meet me when i'm wrong does he meet me when i'm wrong well you could never get right if he didn't meet you you would never be saved if he didn't meet you when you were crazy you would never be sober if he didn't meet you when you were drunk you'd never be right if he didn't meet you when you're wrong i feel like lifting him up i feel like giving him a glory i feel like letting the devil know in the darkest moment of my life he was still there with me when i thought i could make it that i wouldn't recover he was still there with me and the reason i'm here lifting up holy hands is because when i couldn't do better he was better for me when i could lift myself up he lifted me when i was down and out he brought me back in and told the devil get your hands off him get your hands off because if you're gonna kill him you gotta go through me because i am the way i am the truth and i am the life walk with me when you're down and out call on me when you don't have anybody else reach for me and i'll reach back because i'm with you that's why i can say weeping may endure for a night but joy [Music] joy it's coming in the morning somebody holler he met me he met me he met me now i can walk with him i can talk with him i can recover with him i can live for him i can give joy i can preach for him i can talk for him because he met me [Music] [Music] somebody can make it i can take it because he met me i can overcome because he met me i'll get over the pain no i'll control the pain because [Music] to those who feel guilty in any way this is not your burden to carry he knew this was coming and he promised i'll put no more on you than you're able to bear and so in this very solemn but aesthetic moment we can reach out of ourselves and into himself because i heard him say i will never leave you in your worst moment i will never leave you [Music] this is why he says i am the way it ain't no rules i am the way that there are no rules there are no rules how long must i suffer with you yet he ain't leaving look how many times he told his disciples and never left one of them he said i've never seen such faith in all of israel talking about the centurion he praised his faith and he called his disciples oh ye of little faith but he never left why because in your strongest moment [Music] you still have weakness so he's not leaving so now i want you to expect the unexpected we didn't expect the pandemic and we won't expect the blessing because he's in the pandemic and he's in the blessing but we have come out of this stronger huh i don't need another pandemic to learn another lesson the same lesson i've come out of this stronghold you're in here today and the reason you're here is because jesus wants to meet you he wants to save your soul you came because you heard that we're back in church but more than that he used that mechanism to bring you to a place where he can meet you at the cross he wants to meet you at the point of entry into his kingdom so if you're here anywhere in here and you want to be saved i want you to come i want you to come i want you to come and for those of you that are reviewing us in a few minutes our our team will be waiting and we need you to call to our prayer line right now if you're at home it's it's so much easier at home because in the house there's some reticence about laying on of hands in the house but i believe in this moment if you come that god will do something special in your life i believe and hey if you're at home right now just go to the bedroom go outside in the backyard and call 844 267 7729 just call that number somebody's waiting somebody's waiting whoa [Music] believe [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] everybody's standing where you are i thank god for you i love you i appreciate you thank god for your prayers for my brother chris just praying for him and he is uh he's sick i wanna i wanna i wanna say something that may stretch you just a little bit may stretch you it may just stretch you your thinking and it may bother you too [Music] at what time does prayer [Music] accept what god is doing i i don't want to stretch you with this at what time does the prayer shift from lord heal to lord help me to accept what's happening from lord send the miracle [Music] for the person who is sick to lord give me a miracle to handle what they're going through [Music] and i and i read i read where the lord would say to those he had relationship with he would say to them get your house in order how do i what do i pray when god says to a loved one of mine get your house in order and it's a marvelous thing because the wicked are cut off without remedy but the righteous god speaks to them says get your house in order where's your will you want your relatives fighting over your stuff or you're gonna set it up then to a guy like me he says i gotta teach you to number your days because you want to act like you 40 when you 70 years old you you better get your thing together just in case well you know i put everything in trust when that covert was running around because if i laying at that hospital i want to know who got my stuff i want to know amen i think you get out of here better when you know cousin willie ain't never and he will he gonna fight your children for everything it's just another just a thought when do i pray lord give me the strength for what's happening and so that's how i'm with my brother your will be done what else can i pray fourth stage cancer keeping him comfortable as we can talking to him every night every morning he's sending me jokes he's sending me jokes he says no like i got a couple of pictures i want to leave for you and something he's talking about leaving and being comfortable with it you know what i tell him stay here it's out of my hands pray for a miracle yes yes somehow we just don't want to let people go that ain't them some people are ready to go and we pain and just wrecking their bodies we just don't want to let them go i'll give you another one it might it might shock you but you know i've been by myself for a while thinking about all that you take alzheimer's for instance you know i get mad when i want to remember something you know if i'm preaching and i make a mistake with a word i'm trying to find the right one i'll almost stop the service i just gotta get it almost i just gotta get the word right and when you wanna remember something and you see in it and it's right on the tip of your tongue and the name is in your mind but it just won't register because you know you don't know now that's a problem when you know you should know but you don't know now take somebody that's got old timer and mama it's me it's me it's me it's me don't you remember me me well she ain't got no problem because when she don't know don't know and she don't know she should know she ain't the one with the problem meditate on that for a minute you the one with the problem because you know she should know but she don't know she should know fathers if we go go with us bring us back at the appointed time in jesus name amen milwaukee [Music] amen we thank god for our bishop listen please stop by the cafe to pick up your lunch amen and please stop in the lobby and sign our welcome back wall and we look forward to seeing you next sunday if you left any trash behind don't forget it while you exit the building and sunday school huh at night at 8. at 9. and sunday school is at 9 to 9 45 right here in the sanctuary once again if you left behind any any trash just please take it with you he's over there amen anthony i get it you

Channel: Official Bishop Noel Jones

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Length: 60min 25sec (3625 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021