What to Do When God Doesn’t Pick You | Joyce Meyer

[Applause] well thank you for giving me such a warm and exciting welcome we're so happy to have you here Dave's gonna stand up you can see how good-looking he is [Applause] the title this is what to do when God doesn't pick you now obviously I'm not talking about God cheese's all of us to love he chooses all of us as his children but what if you want something and a promotion at work or you want to be on the worship team or you want to be chosen for something and somebody else gets chosen for it and it's not you and it's a friend or it's a friend that you love with the love of the Lord but you don't like them so much any have you got any friends like that where you this I just love you with the love of the Lord or maybe it's somebody that you feel like doesn't deserve what God has given them maybe you feel like it's totally unfair because you know that you are much more spiritual than they are and so you really don't understand why God would give it to you I give it to them God made a covenant with two men in particular we're going to talk about for a minute the first one was Noah and in Genesis 9 beginning in 11 he said I will establish my covenant with you never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood nor shall there ever again be a flood that will destroy and ruin the whole earth and God said this is the token memorial of this solemn covenant that I'm making between me and you and every living creature I will set my rainbow in the clouds and it should be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth so the sealing are the signing of the Covenant that God made with Noah and all future generations that he would never again destroy the whole earth where the flood was a rainbow does anybody here not like a rainbow I mean we all like rainbows I'm sure when Noah saw that rainbow that he was so thrilled I mean he paid a price to build that art people thought he was crazy nobody had ever seen rain I'm sure it was a huge job I can't imagine what it must have smelled like in that art after being in there for the number of days that he was in there so I'm sure when the top popped open and he saw the rainbow that he was like having a really good day I would imagine by then that he needed a rainbow how many of you are at a place in your life right now where you could use a rainbow okay well I'd like to promise that you'll get one but we have to look at another man and that's Abraham now Abraham also had a covenant with God he made a covenant with God and we'll start in Genesis 12 verse 1 now in her ran the Lord had said to Abram go away from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land that I will show you isn't it interesting that when God is going to take us into something that's going to be better we always have to give up something back here before we can come on maybe I better say that again [Applause] and what we do a lot of times is because God he didn't even tell Abraham where he was gonna take it he was calling him somewhere but he wouldn't even tell him where it was going and I think a lot of times we just feel pulled apart because we're trying to hold on to what's back here at the same time we want to take a hold of what's out there because we want to make sure before we let go of this that this is worth heaven but that's not trust and that's not how God works but he made him an awesome promise and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you abundantly and I will make your name great exalted distinguished and you shall be a blessing a source of great good to others and I will bless and do good to all those who bless you and these goes on Iran I bet Abraham was thinking this is so cool God is going to bless me so much that even people who bless me are going to get blessed just because they blessed me wow I'm liking this covenant but we'll see here Genesis 17 9 further God said to Abraham as for your part of the agreement you know there always is in our part did you know that faithfully obey the terms of my covenant and your descendants after you throughout their generation and this shall be the sign of my covenant which you shall keep and faithfully obey between me and you your descendants after you every male among you shall be circumcised now that refers to the cutting back of the flesh I'm just going to say this one time and not to be rude God has some very strange ideas what a way to seal a covenant I don't imagine that Abraham was very popular with any of the men in the area every male eight days old and over that would have been a great time to be a woman let me tell you that now Abraham had sacrificed a lot he left his home and family to follow God he had already waited many years for the promised child and nothing had happened he followed his wife's advice and took a secondary wife and had a child with her Ishmael meaning man of war that's there's very few times when men should not listen to their wives but that was one of them he did what he wanted not what God wanted now God makes the covenant with Abraham and tells him to seal it with a circumcision by cutting away the flesh now we'll just pretend that Abraham had heard about Noah you know they both made sacrifices they've always went through hard times they both did what God wanted him to do God made a covenant with him now if I would have been Abraham I might have been asking God why did he get a rainbow and I got a circumcision [Applause] [Music] come on and we think like that sometimes it's like well god I've served you and I've worked hard and I've been faithful in it I've been at either and you know I ask you for that and you didn't give it to me you gave it to this person over here that in my opinion I'll tell you a very silly foolish story but it was kind of the times that we were in back in the early days of what was called the charismatic move of God people were taught to believe God for things and so a lot of people were wore fur coats in and so I was believing God for a fur coat last thing I needed was a fur coat but I was believing God for a fur coat I mean I I had it the color the length I knew exactly what I wanted I had a girl that lived next door to me that was one of those friends that I loved with the love of the Lord and we actually spent a lot of time together he did a lot of things together but she just she was just this you know happy-go-lucky and you know I'm working hard all the time and seeking God and she said and so one day she rang my doorbell and she had this big box in her hand and she said you are not gonna believe what God gave me and she opened the box up and it was my fur coat I mean I honestly remember thinking it had to get delivered to the wrong house there is no way God gave that to you well I did the Christian thing and I stood there in the middle of my living room and I said oh wow wow that is so nice god bless you like that and inside I'm thinking God if you don't get her out of here I don't know how long I can keep this up well why does God do things like that sometimes why does he give somebody else what you want and make you watch them get it that ever happened to any of you so when she left the stuff that came pouring out of me was pathetic I mean I was jealous I was angry I was telling God that he did the wrong thing you mean that you shouldn't have given that to her you should have given it to me and so the reason why God does things like that sometimes is to push the junk that's in us that were not recognizing to the surface we're busy asking God to give us a fur coat or a new car or some big promotion at work and yet we're so spiritually immature that it's pathetic and so we need to learn how to ask for the right things and we have to learn and come to the point where if God doesn't give me what I asked for then one or two things are certain either it's I'm not ready for it yet I know we always think we're ready but sometimes we're just not as ready as we think we are our God's got something better in mind that he wants to give us we're just not smart enough you have to know how to ask for that [Applause] I'll give you an example of needing a rainbow and getting a circumcision I was very young in ministry is teaching a home Bible study and I had quit a full-time job too to do that I didn't didn't have any proper formal education to be teaching the Bible and so I needed time to study to study to study I couldn't go off to Bible College so I just didn't have any time to study and work and so I really felt like God wanted me to quit my job the problem was was we didn't have enough money to pay our bills unless we got a miracle every month we didn't need a huge one it was just like a 40 or a $50 miracle every month but it seemed very huge to me and that that was not including anything extra that didn't cover if we got a flat tire if you needed to fix the air conditioner none of that that was just the bills and so stepped out in faith and did what we felt like God told us to do and a year went by two years went by three years went by and we're still just I'm shopping at garage sales trying to find my kids shoes and scrimping and saving and going to the grocery store with a 70 dollar allowance for every two weeks of groceries with my calculator and petrified to spend one cent over and couldn't understand you know when you step out and you do the hard thing that God wants you to do and you just keep not getting a right result it gets a little bit hard to understand doesn't it but I can tell you and I know this for a fact that when God has accomplished what he needs to accomplish in you then that test will be over you will have passed it and you will have gained something that nobody can ever take away from you and so I mean actually we had to believe God for every little single thing I mean I found so my old journalism prayerless awhile back and I found one where I had asked God to give me 12 new wash cloths and 12 new dish rags I mean we literally had to believe God for everything well it was kind of interesting one day when a lady rang my doorbell and she said I hope you don't think I'm stark raving mad but I felt like God told me to bring you 12 dish rags I was so excited I see times like that are hard but they're also precious because they teach you that you can depend on God they teach you that that everything doesn't have to come from your paycheck well back then I didn't know the kind of money we were going to need to run a ministry like this I mean it's it's like I don't even know how to say numbers that big so I won't even get into it but you know when you say you're on television all over the world in 83 languages everybody claps and thinks that's great but they're not paying the bills and so we need lots of money coming in all the time and I'm not really even all that great at raising money so we really trust God to do that for us and see we can do it now and not have any fear I can tell you I don't have any fear about the finances for the ministry and you know where I learned it back when I was believing God for my washer eggs back when I needed when I needed a $40 miracle every month just to pay the bills and month after month after month after month I would see God do something well I was this lasted for about six years and I think I was getting more toward the end of the six years and so I was having kind of a discouraging day and night you know I was young in ministry I wanted to get speaking engagements I wanted somebody to care about my ministry I wanted just one human being to want to support my ministry and none of that was happening and so my pastor stopped by one day and he had just started doing some speaking engagements and and he had a new startup Church in town but it was growing rapidly and he stopped by and I don't even know what he stopped by for now I forgot but he said he said oh I'm so excited I just got back from Texas and they gave me blah blah blah honorarium and it was like a huge amount of money and he said and not only that I had three different people come up to me and say they wanted to partner with my ministry and that's gonna total about $1,500 a month and I'm like oh praise God [Music] I am so happy for you that is wonderful and then all of a sudden he stopped and he said is it okay that I'm telling you this because he realized then you know what we were believing God far and now I'm hearing so sometimes just be honest would you just rather not hear somebody's testimony I mean if you're just like don't don't tell it to me today not today not today I don't want to know that one human being has got a victory today I just want to thank we're all in a big mess so when he left I threw myself across my daughter's bed and I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried but when I got up I said God I'm telling you something right now if I never have one more penny than what I have right now we will tithe and give offerings to you until the day Jesus comes back together you see we cannot do what God asks us to do even just to get what he's promised to give us no that might sound a little strange but it's true we should obey God and do what he asks us to do because we love him and we respect him and we believe that the other side of those promises will come in but we have to leave the timing and the ways of all that in God's hands so I'm gonna say it again see I don't I personally don't I don't think that we should give just to get something back now that's God's promise that if we give he will return it to us but we need to give because we love God and because we want other people to know of what we know we don't want people to die and go to hell but I don't think the motives are right if we're always just giving to get something God wants us to seek his face not his hand and so this jealousy thing is a huge problem the Bible says that jealousy rots the bones and I can tell you there's so much sibling rivalry within families one child can is great at sports and the other one doesn't seem to be great at anything and so now there's jealousy and you know one is tall and skinny and one's a little fluffy and so now there's jealous I've decided Fluffy's a good word [Applause] even uh even churches get jealous of each other pastors everybody's always counting everything and numbers and my church is this my church is that and this and that and something else well what about if your church is average 200 people forever and a new guy pulls into town and in four months he's got a thousand people what are you going to say about him you know a lot of the criticism that we hear about other preachers is out of nothing other than just absolute jealousy did you reach out to them in friendship what about if you've written a book and it sells 25,000 copies and somebody else's sells a million well what about if your friend got the promotion or the position that you wanted at work I want you to think seriously how do you behave what goes on in your heart in times like this how about your friend loses thirty pounds and she said well all I did was just walk three miles a day and drink lots of water and you've been starving for four months and we've lost maybe two pounds maybe two families how hard is it to be genuinely happy [Applause] come on the Bible says we are - we are to be blessed when other people are blessed it's supposed to make us happy that other people are being blessed and I think that might be one of the final frontiers of spiritual maturity is to get to the point where you can want something with all of your heart not get it watch God give it to somebody else maybe somebody you don't even like and be genuinely happy for them and I'm sure that some of you are thinking about some situations some cases in particular that maybe this will provoke you to go home and deal with in your heart we need to get to the point where we realize that God does what he does because he's God and we're not and so if somebody else it's blessed and I can't be happy for them then really what I'm saying is God you don't know what you're doing I'm not happy with what you're doing and boy the Bible is full of so many great examples but also some hilarious stories John 3 25 through 27 therefore there arose a controversy between John's disciples and a Jew in regard to purification so they came to John and said rabbi the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan at the Jordan River crossing and to whom you testified look he is baptizing - and everybody's going to him John Jesus is baptizing more people now than you are what do you think about that well John knew his stuff he said a man can receive nothing he can claim nothing at all unless it has been granted to him from heaven but there was no other source than the sovereign will of God so what was he saying if that's what's happening then we need to be happy for it because it's God's will amen John had just being funk been informed that he was losing popularity people were flocking to the new man in town and he said well it's God's choice you know I'm not going to try to tell the whole story but King David had a son Absalom who rose up and tried to turn the people against him and he wanted to steal the trunk the throne from him and David of course was told about the plotting and the planning and the scheming of Absalom and his men wanted him to take care of it what are you going to do and he basically said I'm not going to do anything if God's finished with me then he's finished with me and if he's not then nobody can ever take my throne we don't have to fight and scratch and claw and hate people that were afraid may get ahead of us a little bit God's in charge of these things true promotion comes from God well sure enough God took care of it and Absalom ended up getting his hair caught in a tree and he ended up hanging himself and David's reaction was not one of what you deserve it I mean he wept for the boy he was he was sad he understood Peter I like Peter because I think I probably would be a lot like Peter Peter was jealous of John John called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved he wrote the book of John and four times in the book of John he calls himself he referred to himself as the disciple whom jesus loves well I think I know enough about Peters personality is that he probably was just off some her going you didn't Scott gives me I may be side with him Jesus loves Oh what do you think I am you think he don't love me come on they were flawed people just like we are so I'll have to skip through some of this but John 21 14 through 22 now this was the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he'd risen from the dead they'd finished breakfast and Jesus said to Peter Simon do you love me more than all these others do with total commitment and devotion he said yes Lord you know that I love you and he said well feed my lambs second time Peter do you love me yes Lord you know that I love you well Shepherd my sheep third time Peter do you love me yes Lord it says it was beginning to grieve Peter that he kept asking him again and again do you love me well feed my sheep basically the simplicity of this assisting okay if you really love me then just spend your life helping people [Applause] but then verse 18 he says I assure you and most solemnly I say to you when you were young you dressed yourself and walked about wherever you wished but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and arms and someone else will dress you and carry you where you do not wish to go now what was he saying basically he's saying when we're baby Christians God gives us this honeymoon romance type I mean if you want to get a prayer answered go get a brand-new believer to pray for you because God is just I mean the circumcision hasn't started yet they're there like every day is a rainbow day and so he was basically saying to Peter now you know you've been kind of doing your own thing we've been hanging out and everything is cool but the time is going to come when you're not going to be in control anymore and some things are going to happen that you're not gonna like and he was talking to him about the kind of death that he was going to die that would glorify Jesus but look at verse 20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved this is in the book of John the disciple whom Jesus loved following the one who had leaned back on his chest at supper and it said Lord who is it that's going to betray you so when Peter saw him he asked Jesus Lord what about this man what's his future these guys are hilarious I mean they are just like us and jesus said if you want him to stay alive until I if I want him to stay alive and talk till I come again what is that to you you follow me in other words here's the simplicity of my message today what God does with anybody else is none of your business [Applause] I mean that's just the simplicity of it it's none of my business it's none of your business we don't get to vote we don't need to give God all the reasons why he made a bad choice and if our hearts are right we're not going to be jealous we're not going to be resentful [Applause] and I would suggest if somebody at work gets a promotion that you want no matter how hard it is for you that you walk up to them and say I want to congratulate you on your promotion I think it's just awesome and you may even have to say to God on your way to going I don't know that I really mean this yet but I'm going I'm gonna do it just out of obedience to you because you know what Romans 14:12 says that the time will come when every man will stand before God now listen and give an account of himself when we stand before God he's not gonna ask us about anybody but us that's why we spend so much time trying to fix everybody else and get them to do what we think they should do and we need to be letting the Holy Spirit deal with us and praying for other people [Applause] so I'm not gonna read these for church scriptures in John but you can find them he always says the disciple whom Jesus loved I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved and don't tell me those guys didn't get tired of hearing that I mean I don't know cuz I know I would've now here's a good example all of David's brothers were rejected as being anointed to be the new king they hadn't even bothered to bring David in he was out in the field shepherding the Sheep and one by one all of these boys were passed in front of Samuel the Prophet and one by one he said nope this is not the right one this is not the right one I'll read you just a few well first it says the Lord said to Samuel don't look at his appearance because I've rejected him the Lord sees not as man sees for man sees the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart then Jesse called abinadab and add him passed before Samuel the Lord's not chosen this one then Shama passed by the Lord's not chosen this one had other seven sons passed by the Lord's not chosen any of these so then they brought David in and I want you to look at what it says in verse 13 then Samuel took the Horn of oil and anointed David was it say in the presence of his brothers don't you see how God is are you getting this he did it on purpose not mean just just imagine you're rejected you're rejected you're rejected you're rejected you're rejected you're rejected and then here comes the little baby of the family which usually is there's usually a little sibling rivalry there well that goes on anyway and I don't know why it is but most brothers and sisters end up being jealous of the baby right see I have I had three teenagers and then hadn't then we had our last son and so he's he was definitely the baby of the family and they call him the Platinum child you know he [Music] if you want to get mom and dad to do something just send Danny to go ask him he gets anything he wants and so you know David was the baby and apparently he was a really really sweet kid and so this was gonna be the new King Samuel says and he makes all the other guys stand there and watch him anoint him to be king now here's the other side of it the side that people don't talk about a lot david was 20 when he was anointed but he did not wear the crown for another 20 years after he was anointed and those years I mean he went through a very very very rough time with Saul a lot of times we only see what people get now listen to me but we don't have a clue about the responsibility they get with it [Applause] I know that happens with people like me it happens with other people in the public well must be nice don't ever be jealous of what somebody's got unless you want to do what they did to get it jealousy it's a terrible thing isn't it and this had to be a good one Peter James and John seemed to have privileges with Jesus that some of the other disciples didn't get for example they went with Jesus when he raised gyres his daughter from the dead everybody else had to wait outside they went with Jesus to the Mount of Transfiguration saw these marvelous things everybody else had to wait at the foot of the mountain so in verse 36 and Mark 5 it says over hearing what was being said jesus said to the synagogue officials don't be afraid only keep on believing in me and my power because jerez his daughter had died and so he allowed no one to go with him except Peter James and John they came to the house number ends up Jesus raises this girl from the dead well we read it as a story but think for a minute what that must have been like nobody's ever seen anything like that well I can just see Peter James and John running outside to where the other nine were and saying guys it was so awesome I mean you cannot believe what it was like in there when Jesus made I'm he raised her from the dead guys is it right come on come on come on how much bragging do you do well hmm yeah rainbows and circumcisions how should you respond to God's choice if God doesn't choose you don't be jealous of those that he does choose and if you are take it to God right away and tell him you refuse to live that way and you get in Scripture and you stay in it until you can be free from that thing [Applause] one girl that I knew was she was a woman she was in her 50s and she never been married and had really only dated one guy for a short period of time and she was a very attractive woman wanted to be married just just wasn't what God had for her and she said the Lord told her that her job was to just serve Him with gladness Psalm 100 verse 2 let me ask you a question if you don't ever get whatever it is you think you want right now are you willing to just serve the Lord with gladness you're not clapping loud enough if you are chosen don't get the big head and think now you're better than everybody else and if you are chosen don't let people belittle you or put you down if God gives you a position you walk in it and you do your very best I believe all these things are for one purpose and one purpose only and that's to test our character and I think many times before God does give us the thing that we've asked for he'll make us watch him give somebody else the very thing that we want and see how we respond and many times we will never get what we want if we don't learn how to respond properly when other people are blessed amen so let's just have a little come to Jesus moment I'm sure that some of you here have an issue with this with some specific person you can think of it may be a brother or sister maybe a good friend maybe somebody at church but if you'd like to receive prayer in this area to start your journey of being free from all jealousy I want you to stand up I'm going to pray for you okay why do we always make you stand up not to embarrass you but here's something breaks when you're willing to get up in front of people and say I have a problem with this something breaks the devil's power over you breaks in a way that nothing else breaks it so now we're going to pray father I pray for all these amazing people that are admitting that they have a problem with somebody in this area God especially please if it's in families help them get it taken care of right away because we need our families to stick together I ask you to set them free and to help them start by praying for the people that they're jealous of and telling them they're glad for them even if they're not and I pray that you'll help them get to the point where they genuinely truly are glad because they know that you're sovereign and if that's what happened then it's what you wanted and that their time will come in the right way at the right time in Jesus name Amen all right thank you pastor's gonna come [Applause]

Channel: Christ Fellowship Church

Views: 518,325

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Keywords: Joyce Meyer, Joyce Meyer Ministries, church, God, Jesus, Christ, Sermon, Guest Speaker, Joyce Meyer Speaking, Joyce Meyer Message, Christ Fellowship Church, Christ Fellowship

Id: CVSJeXFqXoI

Length: 41min 24sec (2484 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018