Excellence and Integrity | Joyce Meyer | Gateway Church

[Applause] good morning good morning good morning all you beautiful anointed people you can be seated wow that you made the devil mad getting out of bed this early and getting over here to church you saw dave walk me up here and dave and i have been married 55 years so we are extremely different so i always kind of chuckle when people get divorces because of irreconcilable differences i'm not real sure what that means other than they're not alike and you know god does that on purpose you're probably married to somebody that's not like you and it's good they're not because they have something you need and you have something they need and as the two become one flesh we become one whole person pastor robert was very kind yesterday and he opened the door for me to come here twice a year and do all the weekend services and so you're gonna have to put up with me twice a year instead of once a year i do that at joel osteen's church and it's uh a benefit to me too because i get good footage from my tv program and don't have to do anything but preach i don't have to do it all i just preach and i encouraged him to take off today and get a little bit of rest and he took me up on my offer so i said last night and i have to say it again this morning i was going to go in a different direction but god specifically put on my heart to preach to you what i'm going to preach here this weekend of course we started last night but when we started joyce meyer ministries 35 years ago i've been teaching the word 45 years but first five years was a couple of home bible studies second five years i worked at a church and then god said take your ministry and go north south east and west a lot of confirmation waited until god almost got mad at me before i finally did what he told me to but he put this in my heart he said there's three things i want you to do and if you do them i will bless your ministry and i want to say to you today if you do these three things your life will be blessed number one he said i want you to always be excellent in everything that you do excellence is not extravagance it's not perfection it simply means doing the very best that you can not being mediocre mediocre is halfway between success and failure and mediocre people are not written about in the bible nobody names their child judas there's a lot of people that you see in the bible and you see them with a choice and they make the wrong decision and you never hear from them again it's kind of interesting gehazi was one of those people so i just want to encourage you whatever you do do it with excellence and especially when nobody's looking because god is always looking he sees everything and the world we live in today is not excellent it's getting more and more sloppy and mediocre all the time and we're making a mistake if we expect them to set the standard we are the ones that need to set the standard it's a christian nation and it's the christian people that must set the standard so one of our biggest challenges is to make sure that we don't become like everybody else but that we are like jesus amen second thing he said was be a person of integrity always keep your word which there's not a lot of that in the world today how many of you have ever had the experience of taking a day off work to wait for a workman that was supposed to show up to repair something and they didn't come and didn't bother to call there's more and more of that all the time it's honesty it's always telling the truth doing what you said you would do keeping your commitments and he said the money that i trust you with don't ever mess around with it always be honest with it and just as a point of interest our ministry is quite large but we're totally debt-free and we have never paid one penny in interest everything that we have we've saved the money and paid cash for it and our building is beautiful i wish you could see it it's just amazing which you're welcome if you're ever in saint louis to come by and take a tour the third thing he said was keep the strife out of your life in case you don't know what strife is it's bickering arguing heated disagreement and the most dangerous and angry undercurrent it's kind of like when we love you with the love of the lord and inside thinking i can't stand you so we talked about excellence last night or yesterday afternoon of course can't go back and redo everything but i'm going to kind of pick up where i left off say a little more about excellence move into integrity and then in the second service i'll be teaching about strife i want to use the story of the ten virgins as an example of going the extra mile and i think we can learn some things from this if we pay attention matthew 25 verse 1 at that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom five of them were foolish and five were wise so i guess today we get to decide which we're gonna be the foolish ones took their lamps did not take any extra oil with them they didn't do anything extra they only did what they barely thought they had to do just enough to get by if everything went just right you know if your drive to work is 30 minutes if you leave 30 minutes ahead of time you're always going to be late you can't live running everything to the last second you always have to plan for unexpected things amen and i'm the kind of person i don't like to waste time so i would have a tendency to wait to the last minute because i don't like to get somewhere early and have nothing to do for 10 minutes but god and i are working on that and um the wise ones however took oil in jars along with their lamps they bought that extra oil it cost them money but they took it in case they needed it just in case they needed it well weddings then weren't like they are now there wasn't a set time and it started right then everybody was at the feast but the bridegroom was off negotiating with the bride's father for what they called the bride price and sometimes that took longer than others for the guy to get what he wanted and in this case it took till midnight that midnight hour we've all experienced that in one way or another haven't we it says the bridegroom was a long time in coming can i tell you something almost everything takes longer than you think it will amen it was a long time in coming and they all became drowsy and fell asleep at midnight the cry rang out here's the bridegroom come to meet him then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps the foolish said to the wise give us some of your oil our lamps are going out now i don't know about you but people like that annoy me maybe you're not supposed to get annoyed if you're a preacher but they annoy me i it aggravates me when people want to do nothing and then when they have a problem go get the people who did what they should have done to provide for them the world is full of people like that today i always say don't be jealous of what somebody has if you don't want to do what they did to get it that's just good advice well i wish i had a ministry like joyce's honey i didn't get it wishing this little part that you see this little standing behind the pulpit that's like a compared to everything else that goes into it see i studied hours before i got here and i know this message backwards and forwards but i would never ever show up at a place not having done my part because i believe that's what i'm responsible for i want to give you my best i don't want to just assume because i know the material that everything will go okay so while the others went off to try and buy oil the bridegroom arrived and the virgins who were ready let me ask you are you ready if jesus came tonight are you ready don't think you're going to have time to get ready you got to stay ready if the devil decides to attack you and your family are you ready to put him in his place and stand firm if you have a dream to be in ministry are you using this time to prepare for what you want to do while they were on their way to buy oil the bridegroom arrived and the virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut see you don't want to wait until the door is shut i wonder how many people have waited until the door was shut and they didn't get the job they wanted because they didn't do the part they were supposed to do or they got passed over for a promotion because although they went to work and had a job they always were mediocre not really excellent i said last night if you have a job and your hours are eight to five and let's just suppose there's a time clock that you have to use don't check in at eight and out at five clock in at five to eight and five after five you say well why should i do that why not why not go ahead and go the extra mile if you clock in at eight o'clock you're not at your work station working at eight o'clock by the time you get your coffee say good morning to everybody get organized it's 8 15 8 20. amen and i don't mean to be rude when i say this but god has had to teach me that when we behave that way we're actually stealing and there's a great little scripture that we all know we call it the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you my goodness every problem we have would be solved if we would do that right because if that was your company you wouldn't want people to do that so if we do what we would want other people to do wow we're on our way to excellence some people won't save anything for retirement they got to spend every penny they get their hands on and if you just start when you're young and you save just a little bit of everything you make boy it'll take the pressure off of you as you get older we have two categories of people investors and gamblers you can decide which one you are an investor always does he makes a sacrifice up front and knows that he will draw interest on that sacrifice and be well provided for later on does anybody in this building or at any of the other campuses care anything about later on because later on will come amen procrastination is a thief we're always going to do the right thing tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow is a dangerous word when pharaoh was going through all the plagues when he had the plague of the frogs and the frogs which i don't like frogs anyway but they were everywhere frogs in the bed frogs in the oven frogs on the porch frogs in their closet i mean frogs everywhere and moses said to him i'll pray for you and the frogs will go away you tell me when you want me to pray and the dummy said tomorrow now let me ask you a question if your bed was full of frogs why would you want to wait till tomorrow to get rid of them that's a pretty interesting story so let me just say don't sleep one more night with the frogs we have investors people who do the right thing up right upright see i believe wisdom i have my own little definition for wisdom wisdom is doing now what you'll be happy with later on wisdom is sanctified common sense that's all and jesus has made unto us wisdom from god every one of us has wisdom you don't even need to pray for wisdom you need to pray to use the wisdom that you have amen and then there's gamblers the people who always take a chance that they can do the wrong thing and somehow or another magically end up with the right results see the five foolish virgins were gamblers they were assuming the bridegroom would get there right on time and they'd have enough oil they didn't plan for any delays they didn't plan for any hiccups they just planned for everything to just go just the way they wanted it to and they got left out and i don't know about you but i don't want to get left out so i'm going to do everything that i possibly can do knowing that if i do what i can do god will always do what i cannot do did you hear me if you do what you can do god will always do what you cannot do if you want a new home your home's not big enough or you've lived in an apartment all your life and you got a bunch of kids and you're really cramped and you want a new house keep the one you've got clean keep the trash out of your yard be the most excellent you can with your old car if you're expecting god to give you a new one amen don't leave your clothes in the dryer overnight and get up the next morning and put them on and go out like that now to be honest with you we shouldn't have to spend church time telling people stuff like this but we do ladies i love you but please pay attention to how you dress nobody needs to see down your shirt and up your skirt god didn't call you to be a temptation just go look at yourself in the mirror before you leave just take a minute some people won't take care of themselves and you know what you only have one life and when you use this one up you're not going to get another one so many people feel bad and i was just doing a little research the other day and you know one of the number one things that makes people feel tired and sluggish is not drinking enough water and be being dehydrated and i have people tell me not all the time but i've had a number of people tell me i can't stand water how can you not like water it has no taste i'll tell you why people don't like it because they're used to sugary drinks full of caffeine and water is just too plain for them to like it but nothing will clean out your kidneys like water if you put a tea bag even in it it changes it people buy gym memberships because it makes them feel good to say they belong to the gym and we know a man that owns a gym and he said 65 of people who pay every month never show up don't worry i won't talk about exercise long but i mean find something to do walk work out ride a bike do something keep your joints moving and the younger you are when you start taking care of yourself the longer you're going to last my husband years ago started to have what he calls the what do you call them dave the yips the yips and what he meant was he he felt nervous shaky inside and it would really bother him because dave's a real peaceful guy and he's not the least bit into being nervous and he prayed and asked god to show him what was wrong and you know when you pray and ask god to show you what's wrong he usually will and god just showed him that every day he was going by drive-through and getting a soda about that tall 32-ounce that has a lot of heavy caffeine in it and although at one time in his life he was able to drink all that caffeine it didn't bother him for some reason now it had started to bother him you get older things change in your body amen somebody knows matter of fact i think every decade things change henry cloud said anybody who thinks they can always do what they've always done as a fool you have one life to live in one life to give and i want to ask you what are you going to give yours to please please please don't get old and on your deathbed look look back and have nothing but regrets nothing is worse than feeling bad about all your decisions and it being too late to change them and so i just want to say to you if god is dealing with you about anything how many of you god is dealing with you about something right now okay don't put it off don't be like pharaoh and spend another night with the frogs get busy and do now what god is dealing with you about you know why he's not going to change his mind don't think you're going to wait god out because it won't work the lazy person may go to work but they'll never do an excellent job or be promoted they complain constantly about everything that's wrong at their job and in society but they will not lift a finger to change any of it their favorite statement is they need to fix this do you ever wonder who they are if you think the government's going to take care of it you can forget that they've been broke a long time and it's going to catch up with them sooner or later amen they're actually giving you money they don't have we are they try fixing some of your own problems instead of expecting everybody else to do it they in john chapter five the first eight verses there's a story that i have used so many times in my messages my husband is probably so tired of hearing this when he could scream i think i've only preached maybe a handful of times in my life that dave has not said in the meeting he knows all my funny stories and he still laughs at all of them i don't know how he does it but this is there's so much to learn in this story if you feel sorry for yourself get ready to get shaken sometime later jesus went up to jerusalem for one of the jewish festivals now there is in jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool of water which in aramaic is called bethesda and it is surrounded by five covered they call them colonnades they were porches so imagine this you've got this big pool of water and there's a porch porch porch porch porch and laying in these porches are disabled people people that are crippled people that are blind people that are paralyzed they need a miracle and the way this thing worked was once a year only once a year an angel would come and stir the waters up and whoever got in the water first got their miracle so one man had been in that condition for 38 years and jesus saw him lying there and learned that he'd been in a condition a long time and he asked him and i this is so interesting to me he said to this man do you want to get well what kind of a question is that well of course i want to get well that's why i'm laying here really what he was saying are you ready to do what you need to do to get well so maybe i'll say that to you today how many of you need changes in your life okay are you ready to do what you need to do in order to have those changes or are you just sitting back praying wanting god to do a miracle you say well doesn't prayer work of course prayer works but we're partners with god and we always have a part and god has a part he won't do our part and we can't do his part and most of the time when we pray just like dave prayed about what was wrong with him well he had to give up what he liked in order to feel good and i've had so many things like that where god has just he'll show you what's wrong god will show you what's wrong if you're willing you would be amazed every single christian would be amazed if they would just start doing what god tells them to do how their life would change boy you guys are looking at me so mike you thinking it's too early for this lady preach something happy see i like to preach things that makes people squirm a little in your seat and you may say ouch now but later you'll say hallelujah [Applause] now you know i think about this man he says do you really want to get well so i don't want you to forget i'm saying to you do you really want to get well do you really want the changes that you say you want are you willing to do your part sir the invalid reprieve now you're about to see his real problem sir the invalid replied i have no one to help me into the pool when the water's stirred and while i'm trying to get in there somebody else always gets ahead of me poor guy you know the biggest thing that's wrong with some people is they just sit around and feel sorry for themselves all the time and i spent years feeling sorry for myself because my dad had sexually abused me and i just thought boy if that just wouldn't have happened to me i could have a good life let me tell you something i don't care what has happened to you you can still have a great life when god says he is no respecter of persons he means just that and the bible is for whoever whosoever will believe you can have whatever the bible says you can have but you can be pitiful or powerful and you're not going to be both and you may think well you just don't know what i'm going through i've got a reason to feel sorry for myself but here's what i'm trying to tell you it's not doing you any good [Laughter] you can feel sorry for yourself till jesus comes and you're just going to keep your problem it won't help you what good does it do you it doesn't do you any good you're wasting your time i have nobody to put me into the pool and see that's what we want we want somebody to come along and can you pray for me joyce pray for me that this problem will go away and that problem will go away and this is what jesus said to the man and i hope it says where are you putting these scriptures up i don't know if you are not anyway he says are they now look all right you see that and jesus said to him what get up exclamation mark [Applause] and pick up your mat and walk i like that he told him clean your mess up too take it with you now you know maybe i don't know maybe you drove 45 minutes here today just to hear me tell you get up stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up and do your part you are not entitled to anything [Applause] i must say it again you are not entitled to anything what we deserve is to die and go to hell but god has given us forgiveness and mercy and he has already pre-arranged a good plan for our life the bible says that you might walk in it god pre-arranged a good plan and we have to walk in it god will give you the grace he'll give you the energy he'll give you the ability but he will not do it for you get up amen the bible says that we are christ's ambassadors and he is making his appeal to the world through us be an excellent person mediocre is halfway between success and failure jesus said if you're lukewarm i'd rather you be hot or cold if you're lukewarm i'm going to spit you out of my mouth man that don't sound good he said i if you're not going to be red hot on fire i'd rather you just be ice cold just just either do it or forget it amen let me tell you something christianity is not for sissies i mean now you can go to church every week but i'm talking about if you're going to be a real dedicated full-on committed surrendered believer it's not going to be all that easy all the time you're going to be tested the enemy's going to come against you there's going to be people that are not going to like you there's going to be people that are gossip about you but oh you're going to be so happy so peaceful and they're going to be jealous of your life the bible says an excellent man chooses excellent friends do you know that the people you hang around with are having an influence on you don't stay away from every unbeliever but make sure that you're affecting them and they're not infecting you i always wish i had a lot longer than i do but things the bible says don't hang around with an angry person avoid excessive talkers i have about six scriptures on that but i'm just going to read you one proverbs 18 2 a fool takes no pleasure and understanding but only in expressing his opinion so i'm going to say something i'm going to smile i'm going to be really really nice mind your own business you will save yourself so much agony if you just stay out of everybody else's stuff you got enough of your own you don't need to get into theirs you got you're working your heads stay away from drunkards and gluttons paul said i buff at my body he didn't say i buffet my body be the best make a decision today you're going to be the best person you can be be the best that you can be do your duty the bible talks about a lot about duty do you know that if you have elderly parents and you never go see them shame on you they didn't treat me right when i was growing up well mine didn't either and god told me to take care of them until they died and i thought it was the most unfair thing but i can tell you it was one of the most powerful things that i ever did and i believe that with all my heart you call your parents you make sure that they have their needs met whether they treated you good or they didn't you still do it because you do it for god amen you take care of your grandparents the bible says that anybody who doesn't provide for their own relatives is worse than an unbeliever now you can go home this afternoon and call mom and dad and a lot of you probably do very well in that area but there's people who don't and then there's another thing that i don't want to read but the bible does say and i'm just going to slide by this real quickly that wives have a duty to submit to their husbands that's all i'm saying about that [Applause] there's another part of that scripture though that i want to spend some time with oh i love this part i love it and i think i'll just go right over here and just preach this a little bit closer to dave husbands have a duty to love their wives just as christ loved the church and sacrifice himself for her i had time to fit that in i knew come on joyce okay integrity do you know that i could take a camera we call a man on the street interviews i could take a camera crew and go out on the street and i could ask a hundred people what is integrity and i would be blessed if i would find 10 of them that could tell me most people don't even know what it is and i'm just going to give you the simplest definition it's to to have a strong moral code that you live by in other words you have things that you're not going to do and things that you're going to do you're not going to lie you're going to keep your word you're not ever going to take anything that doesn't belong to you when you make a commitment you're always going to keep your commitments the bible says swear to your own hurt and change not wonder how many people you've told i'll call you back if you've told somebody you're going to call them back then you need to call them back otherwise you're not being honest i've learned i don't i don't you know we just like to talk oh you know we should get together and go to lunch and you no more intend to go to lunch with them than a man in the moon you don't even like them i don't do that anymore because god expects me to do what i say i'm going to do i have one thing i'm not brilliant i'm anointed and i want to keep that anointing i've got to live right and i have a reverential fear and awe of god which the bible says is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom i'm not afraid he's going to hurt me but i know that he's powerful and i know that he gives and he also can take away and i do everything i can to protect the anointing that's on my life because i know that's the one thing that i have that causes people to listen to me it's the one thing i have that makes what we do a success i don't sing i don't play musical instruments i don't have anything to impress anybody i have god's anointing and that's worth more to me than anything else there again a lot of people don't even know what the anointing is anymore it's god's presence and power on your life wow there's something that i'm believing for and i have been for 45 years and don't intend to quit and when in psalm 107 20 it says he sends his word and heals them and i am believing that as i preach and teach that people will be healed physically delivered set free i got a great testimony last week and it just encouraged me to keep praying this man said that he told somebody else and somebody told my son his wife had been just fine and for some reason she got depressed they never didn't know why seriously depressed and for three months she just laid on the couch nothing was helping her no medicine was helping her she just was deeply depressed my tv program came on one day she said she looked at it and immediately got up and was fine after that she said i don't even know what she said and that's what i want i want that anointing to break the yoke of bondage off of people you know why i want god to get all the credit i want things to happen that people know was god not a person he deserves all the glory keep your word if you sign up to be at a workday at church show up call people back don't call in sick at work if you're not sick not unless you'd like to get sick if you commit to to support a missionary them if you commit to partner with a ministry do it and if you get to the point where you don't want to do it anymore then call them and let them know that god's leading you in another direction there's no problem with that but don't just dump them we support hundreds of ministries and anytime we decide not to support somebody that we've supported for a long time we always write them and give them one year so they can make other plans we don't just yank the rug out from under them if you make a pledge to a building program keep it do what you say you're going to do there's so many good character traits of a man or a woman of integrity but i just want to read you a couple things then i got to quit i said this last night but how many pens pencils rubber bands paper clips and notepads do you have in your house that you've taken home from work don't sit there and try to look innocent well they don't pay me enough anyway that has got nothing at all to do with it what do you do when you get home and notice that somebody didn't charge you enough you go back and tell them i want to give you some more of my money or do you just say oh god blessed me [Laughter] i was looking at a pair of shoes on a purse in a store and i finally decided i was going to buy the shoes but i was not going to buy the purse and the clerk accidentally stuck the purse in the bag anyway and didn't charge me for it and i got home and i knew i didn't have to have a prophecy a prayer meeting i knew now god do you really want me to take this back no i knew take it just take it back so i had to use my gas my time go back and cover his mistake but god that put a smile on god's face amen those are the kind of things that we need to do now i'm just asking all of you to make a decision to come up just a little bit higher has anybody thought of even one thing that you need to change in your life this morning let's see i know it's early but you can raise your hand all right i'm going to pray for you father i pray for everybody here this morning that they would make that decision and choose to be more excellent and to be a person of integrity and to always always always keep their word it's so important that we're honest and we keep our word because we represent you forgive us for our sins in the past and thank you that we don't have to feel guilty and look back at the past but we can have a brand new beginning right now and go forward from here being the very best that we can be in jesus name amen thank you for listening to me this morning thank you [Applause]

Channel: Gateway Church

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Id: Am5lY3YC3Po

Length: 48min 0sec (2880 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2022