Paul, I said the facade the whole thing of the faith, the whole thing in the front, your whole life of a tap of our seat, and now you're getting older, and you'll never get to see what you could have been. Because the cost of getting the sin and the commitment that you've never been willing to pay. You're trying to get somebody to fall in love with you that you've never discovered yourself.
I'm so excited about the seeds of greatness because I know that there are things inside of you that need to be cultivated. My Church blew up when I shared this message. Now we're going to share it with you. The young lady in the text whose name is Leah, has been given to Jacob as a consolation prize. Jacob through a system of Labor has entered into seven years of labor because he has seen this woman named Rachel that he wanted bad enough to work seven years for her father in order to be able to marry her seven years. He worked seven years to get her Yeah, some of you won't work seven days, but he worked seven
that wasn't in my notes. I do that and for free, it won't cost you a thing. Just take it home with you. Look at his commitment. He worked seven years. At the end of seven years. He doesn't get the woman he wanted. He is tricked into marrying her sister. Now you know those families were one sister. Well, Leah was the other sister. Her. The King James Version says that she was Tinder I had, it means that she was tangled.
You couldn't tell which way she was looking. Her name means gazelle. Lia was not the love, she was attractive. Sensual, but don't laugh and Leah. Because God has a way of giving everybody something you may not be able to see it initially. And sometimes those people with whom you can see initially what God has given them, you will find out that sometimes the container is better than the content.
Leah might not have been wrapped in fine wrapping or put in a decorator box. She might have been a plain old cardboard box, but she was a blessed woman. She was gifted and the Bible said when the Lord saw that she was hated. He opened up her womb it's so hard for me not to meddle with none of that stuff because that's so good. Because I love that sense right there. I love how God can see how people don't like you and bless you because of it. You know that it's so hard for me to leave that alone because if your enemies understood that they wouldn't bother you when when the Lord sees how they hate you. They don't understand that God blesses you because they hate you. I'm not gonna bother. But deeper steel is this woman with low self esteem married to this man who really didn't want her. He spent the night with her woke up in the morning and saw that she was not her sister. The Bible said in the morning, he saw that it was Leah. And she's married to somebody who doesn't love her and doesn't see her. And her progress in the Bible said when she she was so hated that God opened up her womb. He blessed her because of the hatred. And as she begins to give birth, she burst four sons and she burst Simeon and she burst Ruben, and she personally by, and finally she birth Judah, each one of them are given names that on the surface represent her struggle to be accepted. She has the first son and calls his name Simeon, saying, maybe Jacob will see that I've given him a son, and maybe he will love me. The second son, she names Ruben, she says, when he hears, I have given him a man child, maybe he'll care about me. It is funny how you can be in situations where people will deny you the oxygen, of love. And an N and there she is trying desperately to get him to, to, maybe if I do something special here, hear about it and, and he'll, he'll feel better about me. And then the third son she has his name is Levi. Levi means to be joined, to be connected, to be committed. And she says maybe he will be joined to me, I'll call the boy Levite. It took her four children. On the fourth child, she has Judah. And she says now will I praise the Lord. She said I finally come to the place that I put away enough of my ghost fears, insecurities intimidations that I'm through doing things to be accepted by people now. Will I praise the Lord. Okay, now, now, I want to go back through these four, four children because they are the syllabus of what I want to talk to you about today. Not only does Leah's children have significance to her as a woman, and to Jacob and the father. But they also have prophetic significance to and it sets the tone of the ages of how God would deal with Israel during different dispensations and order. But I also see a third pattern that I want to deal with specifically today. And I think it is very, very important that you understand this because it becomes a syllabus, to the conversion of the believer. First of all, you cannot be a believer, until you see your own life and the misery there of and want to change it. You can't be a Christian, because it's the new thing to do. You can't do it through cores. And when somebody pushes you in to do it, you can't do it for your mother. You can't do it for your grandmother, you can't do it for your wife, you can't do it for your boss, you can't do it. Because rich people come to this church you can't do because pretty women are in the church, you can't do it. Because it would be a good business move to be connected with this church and you can be exposed in this church. It's not you can't do it like that. You have to recognize that your own wretched man is miserable and ugly and undone.
That's your vision is tangled. And that you're wasting time and losing life. And until you see it as misery, you will never be able to change and make the transformation that is necessary to become who God wants you to be. Until one day you spin around in a nightclub someplace and you start recognizing that it's not fun anymore. Until you wake up in a hotel room and you say you know what? This isn't it for me anymore. Until you see it as misery you can't change it until you look around and you say I'm sticking. I'm sick of putting needles in my arm until you see it as misery you can't change it until you look into your bigotry and your hatred of other people and your racism and you say I'm sick of my own heart and you look at the way you hate people and and hate them and can't even remember what you were mad about. But you are so unforgiving and you get sick of your own jealous spiteful conniving ways you can change it because all of us the wrestle against sins of the flesh. Some of us have sins of the heart and mind and character we don't drink or smoke or chew or run around with them that do but we are hateful and envious and proud and self righteous and to you see it as miserable
you can't change something that you wash them. If you have to fall out with it and see it as miserable, or you will not be able to train and even at that point you're not finishing it. Number two, Ruben, you have to hear the word. Ruben means to hear. You have to hear the word. A lot of people coming to church. They don't hear the word. They're kind of here, their brain is in neutral. They live their intelligence in the car. They'll pick it up on the way out. They kind of sit here, you know, and they wait on a big bump to happen or a song to be sung and something that they like they really don't hear the word. They don't let it sink down in their heart. That's why they have no faith. Because faith cometh. Oh, I knew you knew your Bible. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So how do you get faith you don't get faith by mental telepathy, forcing yourself to envision the future, trying to make yourself believe thinking pleasant thoughts picturing waterfalls in your head? Seeing yourself walking, when you're on crutches? No, none of that will give you faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Why does faith have to come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, because when you have God's Word on something that that's that's like God writing you a check. When you have God's Word on something and you believe what God has promised you, then you tailor your behavior into alignment with what you believe. And you will have whatever you say, or you don't hear what I'm talking to you about. You just got through shouting about giants do for you, but they're not going to fall because you danced, they're not going to fall because the choir sang that song. They're gonna fall because God has given you a promise that even though you don't have a sword, and you don't have a shield, and you don't have a gun, or you don't have a degree or you're in the middle of your life, or even if you're tangled like God has given you a promise, I swear of God bless you. And with nothing but a rag and a rock, you can bring a giant down if you have a promise from God. Or look at somebody and say I got a promise peers to me that this is a good time to teach on this element. The Bible said the engrafted word of God is able to save your soul in grafted engrafted, the word that sticks in your soul. That's the only word that you can use the enemy that unbind all the word that flies over your head. That's why he'll try to distract you all while I'm preaching. He'll have you doing something that don't have anything to do with it, you'll be thinking about what you're gonna wear to work Monday, Oh, where are we going? When the service is over. Because the enemy knows you can't fight with Word that goes over your head, you can only use the engrafted word of God, can I go into this a little bit more. Think of if you had a skin graft that is to take stem from one place and put it in another and you put it there and you hold it there until a natural grafting takes place. So that that was not there before has become one in a place and it did not exist privately. That is a miracle of God's Word. When I preach the word or you study the Word or you read the word, it will take a love you didn't have a piece you didn't have a power you didn't have a confidence you didn't have and it will graft into your personality. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying. And even though nobody else in your family is nice, all of a sudden you got niceness coming up in your spirit, even though you come from for generations of welfare recipients. You're the first millionaire in your house. Because you graphed it prosperity. You took it from the outside, you brought it on the inside the engrafted word of God is able to save your soul, your habits, your behavior, your appetite. So if you don't see it in your character currently, I want you to understand that if you would get into Word you can graft into your character things that were not there. Oh, my mouth. Now in grasping takes a little time. You can't take skin off your thigh and put it on your hand and it graft in a day.
It has to graft it has to connect it has to become one it has to fuse together. So you can't just run in here and get a quick blessing and run back out and be who you were. The word has to hover over you and sit on you and become your daily bread and your appetite. He can't just be a place you visit on Sunday
hearing the Word of God, it's absolutely life changing. That was a second sign or third sign is lever. And this is, this is the one I just want to sit on and rest a while. Levi means to be joined, to be connected, to be focused to be committed. That is something we don't see anymore. Oh, we have the ceremonies. We still have weddings. And people don't get married anymore.
I mean, even the people in the wedding, the bride and the grill, we throw rice at him.
We give him a certificate, but they don't get married. They move in together, they get the tax deduction, but they're not married. They're not joined together. Because the first little when the first little storm, the first little problem, the first little weakness, the first little test, they are out of there, they have no route, they have no connectivity, they are not joined, they are not committed. They don't have it in their character to withstand anything, they are only there for convenience. And when they don't see the convenience of the connection, they forsake the responsibility and walk away from their commitment.
We seldom see real church members. I've seen people come if everybody who joined this church came one Sunday, it would kill us. They come down here they sashay down here, they walk over there, they get all of the stuff, they go through the law orientation, shake the hand and some of them people, you never see them again. We go through the actions of commitment, but we're not really committed, we're not really connected, we're not really joined. Because we have no understanding, check this of our responsibility to any relationship. Right this time, you cannot have relationship without reciprocity. You cannot have true relationship without reciprocity. You cannot get into a relationship to get and not give. And I want you to ask yourself, do you give as good as you get
add up what you're getting. And weigh it against what you're giving. And then you will know whether you're really joined to anything. Yeah, people to come to work, they take a job, they're not committed to the job. They want the check. They want to check why everybody wants some money baby. I'm sorry to get everybody wants some money, baby. But I'm just here for a check. That's why it's not gonna work for you. You don't understand the reciprocity. Anybody wants some money. But if you're not willing to give at least as good as you get, it will not last. And that's why you can't stay anywhere. A word for anybody because you've never had lever. You may have had Reuben you might have had Simeon, but you've never been joined to anything. So you've had you connect anniversaries. You've got a lot of birthdays, you've got some plaques on the wall, but you've never been the person that you could be because the could be is locked up behind commitment. And until you're committed you will never get the good bit I'm glad to acquire son you're happy to I don't have to worry about preaching you're happy you know what, I'll talk to myself. I thought I would hate to live and die and never know what what happened if I ever committed myself to anything. Some people have never thrown their whole self at nothing. Not at school. Not at work not at Barry's not at church. Oh my god you've had one foot in and one foot out of every dream all of your life as you've never seen what you could be if you ever really connected to everything mess was gonna make your death so sad. That's what's gonna make it so sad is that you never live First, you never fully engage, you've never fully studied, you've never fully invested in anything or anybody, you want to get something that you are not willing to give, you have never been joined. You just wore the dress got the plaque, they flew to Rice, you joined the church, you took the job. But you've never seen what you could be. If you threw your whole self at your dream. You go to this church, but you're not joined. If you don't have reciprocity, you're not join. If you're not really bought into it, if you don't really feel like it's my church. I come here because I get a word reciprocity. What do you give back for what you get. Without reciprocity, no relationship will ever reach its apex, because you're not fully invested in anything you do. So you catch some crumbs that fall from the master table, but you don't get the children's bread. You get the puppy dog blessing that comes from being in the right place at the right time. Because you are not join into the connectivity that produces a real blessing of God in your life. And you're getting older. And you're running out of time and running out of excuses, and running out of people to blame. Wonder what what has happened in school, if you've been committed, wonder what whatever happened in your marriage, if you've been committed, wonder what would have happened in your church, if you don't really thrown your whole self. You've always been casual, and never been committed. And some of the most casual people are talented people. Because talented people will lay on their talent and use their talent as a camouflage to cover up the lack of commitment. And because you're talented enough to be able to float by on broken pieces, you will full and indiscriminate eyes into thinking that you aren't committed, you're not committed, you're just talented. You'll never know what you could have been, if you were to really committed yourself. You're just talented enough to get over it, and you fake them out. And you've been at 30 or 60 fold. When you were created to be 100 fold person.
I just think it would be terrible. I can't be committed to everything. I can't join everything. I can't be married to 1000 women, I can't work 1000 jobs, I can't join five churches, because I take my commitment too seriously. To spread it around loosely.
It costs too much. I see a lot of people now I liked that I
interests me and intrigued me. And I would like to be friends but I don't become friends with them. Because I understand that real friendship is an investment. And there's not any more of me to go around. So we will be nice it will be casual acquaintance. Because I understand real friendship is a commitment. It means I will be there for you. It means I will return your calls. It means I've got your back. It means that I will emotionally spiritually financially do whatever I can to undergird you. And I can't do that with everybody. slap somebody and tell them it's a commitment. So commitment is more to it than being nice. Stop laying on your talent. I know you're a nice person and people like you, but friendship in the commandment and doing they've got the information but they don't have the commitment and the character and the tenacity to be an asset. I'd rather hire somebody who have less knowledge and born ducks.
In a perfect world, I want somebody who's got both. But if I have to choose. I'd rather have somebody with commitment. Because if you are committed you can go back to school. You can go back and read you can go back and get some Not together, but you're gonna have all the books you want to if you don't have commitment, you will not succeed. But instead of having Levi first, we have a generation of people who skip over Levi and try to help Judah the praising generation, the shouting generation, the generation who goes for inspiration without impartation Oh, sit there, I'm coming for you. Don't you move I'll be right on your pew in just a minute. They shout all over the church. But they won't work. They won't give they won't support. They get married, they want sex, but they don't pay bills it's gonna be tough in here getting the baby back cuz I'm gonna start a fight. I'm gonna start a fight in here right now. You want all the benefits, but you don't want none of the responsibilities
Yes, it's gonna be a rough ride back home this Sunday. If I was you, I just catch the bus. I wouldn't even get in the car. Because if y'all started talking about this, there's gonna be some trouble in here. And don't want to wear women because you want a husband, but you don't want to be a wife
you just a girl who wants a man you're not a wife. You can't have a man and not change your life. Baby, you can have a dog and not change your life. If you bring home a goldfish, it's gonna change your life. How did you think you weren't gonna get married and talk about I got to be myself
you take a half committed man and a half committed trifling woman and put them together. And they'll have some half committed trifling kids and the whole house will be half committed. Because children will be what they see Stop fussing at your kids down reflection of you.
Your whole life and the facade, the whole thing and the faith, the whole thing in the front, your whole life of a camouflage. And now you're getting older, and you'll never get to see what you could have been. Because the cost of getting the sin and the commitment that you've never been willing to pay. You're trying to get somebody to fall in love with you that you've never discovered yourself.
You come to the altar and you raise your hand and you say Lord, I give myself to you but you don't. You walk down here and join the church and you say now I'm a member of the church but you're not. You marry somebody and say you can count on me I'll be there through the thick and the thin for better for worse for richer and poorer in sickness. You didn't mean it. Half studied, half worked half labored, and then wonder why I thought I'd be further than I am at data. Let me tell you why you are not further. It is not the devil. It is not witches. It is not demons. And in short, God ain't haters. You are not any further than where you are right now. Because you have never thrown your whole self at anything in your
life. And you think greatness goes on sale. But true quality, never goes on sale. Feel believe it going Fendi go and Fendi and ask them when it's a 50% off sale.
going to get you a Rolls Royce and start arguing and tell them I want this down 20% See if they'll negotiate the only thing that goes on sale is cheap stuff. The real high quality stuff it costs what it costs they're not trying to get somebody average to buy it. You got to have a certain amount of money or you ought not to be in here. Greatness costs what it costs oh my god cut me in here today. I feel something about to take over this flip somebody in this church is ready to receive this word. You're ready to get your breakthrough oh my god I feel a miracle coming in this place today. I wish I had 100 people that would give God a pray
that's why if you are good man. Now let me change it if you are great man. If you are great man. Or if you are great woman. Don't you let nobody drag you down to the bargain basement and put yourself on sale just so that you can have some company in the house. If I'm gonna be lonely let me be bypassed.
Gonna be referred to here this morning closer to golf. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. It's wrong for you to think that you're gonna give an offering and God's gonna bless a business you ain't committed to bless a marriage you ain't committed to bless you in school and
you won't study. Bless you as a saint of God and you won't walk like a saint to God. Who do you think God is somebody playing in Vegas? God is not hitting a slot machine. God is a guaranteed definite I am demonic god. Oh sure blessing people. Abraham. I swear. I'm gonna bless you ain't no chance Hey, no doubt Hey, no joke about it. If I told you I was gonna bless you. I will open up the window
I will if you will. Sit down said I'm just talking so. I laugh at the preachers who think that I got where I got
just goofing. While he was golfing I was studying. While they were shooting hoops I was praying while he was playing games and sitting up and eaten and joking in the restaurant I was studying. You can't get out of something, something that you're not willing to put into it. You have to put your everything your everything, your mind your energy, your effort, your discipline, your tenacity, nothing is gonna jump out the fire if you don't throw something in there. It's not gonna happen.
Your lack of commitment killing these four areas I want to talk about you need to be committed.
I listen for you right now. Number one, your first commitment is to God the God who gave you life who blue breath into you has a right to expect a return on his investment above all others. He gave you life. Mom about you shoes Daddy got you a bicycle God gave you life. You owe him a level of commitment. You owe him a level of commitment. Beyond all others. Your God is approached in your spirit not in your flesh. Your dancing in your jumping in your hooping in your heart and in your clapping does not mean you're committed to God. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, when you're inside, so given the God, when your heart is given to God, with my whole heart, glory, will I follow the it's not my hands, my feet, my heart, my spirit, my innermost being is committed to God, I will not face a giant without you, I will not make a major decision without prayer. I will not bring somebody into my life just because he pleases me. I will submit myself my destiny, my future over to you, you are my foundation, you are my rock, you are my fortress, you are my strength, you are my defense. Without you, I can do nothing. You are the substratum of every dream I have ever dreamed in my life. And I will take no promotion, you don't want me to have had I will accept no friend, you don't want me to have
your first commitment is to God. Your sucking commitment is to family. Your second commitment is to family. And it's a very important commitment. Some very important commitment.
You better be committed or you angle make it if you can only love me when you liked me, we ain't gonna make it. Because sooner or later, I'm gonna pluck your last nerve may say hi, you like me now?
See your family crazy as they are. If you're not committed, you're not gonna make it. Even the ones with two personalities you don't like you have to be committed to the storm and the rain and the heartache and the pain and the disappointment. You have to believe in the wheat and the US and not the me and the you
or you're not gonna make it. It's a commitment. It's not a feeling. You got to come home when you in love, and you got to come home when you're not in love. Or you're not gonna make it and stay there until the love comes back. It's a commitment. Y'all don't want to hear real truth. You want to hear fairy tale Hollywood shake and bake stuff, but in reality, it's a commitment. You're my son in my house. You're my son when you took the money. You're my son in the hall Ben, you're my son in the whorehouse, you're my son on the road back home. If you're a die, you're my son. If you're in jail, you're my son. If you're gay, you're my son. If you're a crossdresser, you're my son.
It's a comeback. And if you're not gonna be committed, you don't need no kids
my son on crack you my son in prison, you join the Nation of Islam, you steal my son. You can't eat the ribs. Come on, get some potato salad, Mama cooks or something. You're still my son, even when your decisions are not the ones that I would have wanted you to make. It's a commitment. It's a commitment. It's a commitment. Commitment, so had nothing to do with your feelings. You do it because you're supposed to. And stop expecting to be rewarded for what you're supposed to do anyway. Stop bragging about how you brought your money. Oh, you were supposed to stop bragging about how you took care of me. You're supposed to take care of me it's a commitment. This ain't a date. This is a commitment. We have past the stage of dating. We made a commitment that's why they said for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. The preacher knew that at least one of us was gonna be crazy. He was warning you from the beginning and sometimes you picked out that crazy man your chosen plays a woman Shut up
didn't know my point home you Oh, you wouldn't rest to your data now shut up you wouldn't listen to it nobody everybody tried to tell you people tried to warn you I just gotta have you shut up that's a commitment I changed your diapers because I'm supposed to you threw up on me you're supposed to throw up on me Do you know favorite so my job to clean up your vomit and everything else that comes out of you when you a child so then when I turn around and get oh, don't you throw me away and not come visit me and take care of me is reciprocity. If I wiped Johannine you out of the public
No, nobody teaching this stuff. Somebody has got to arrest this crazy generation that wants to take everything back
commitment to God number two commitment to family. Number three commitment to your church. I've never seen anything like this generation today. They don't commit to anything at all. You lucky if you see them again after they join. And if you do Sam is only going to be on Sundays. And don't talk too long because he got to go forget Sunday night Wednesday nights out of the question. We'll hear about the revival next Sunday. We sacrifice nothing for our church we will serve nowhere and yet is Bishop preaching. Is Bishop preaching because it's all about what I can get and nothing about what I can give and if I think I'm not gonna get what I expected did I won't even show up because I have a gimme mentality. I never came to give Oh, I lost you all over. I lost the whole house Oh man. Because you consider with great contemplation where you can go to be fed that's good. But where's the reciprocity? What do you give for all that you got any relationship that does not have reciprocity will not last. If I'm always the one given an always the one sacrifice, I'm always the one pushing myself over the limit to be there for you and I don't see that in return. Eventually my patients will wither my hope will die and I will give up
I told you I was gonna meet you at the picnic. I came to the picnic after being in New York. Speaking to TBN on Thursday. Speaking in New Jersey on Friday, the only way for me to get back in time for the picnic was to fly through the night. I got in the house around two. I laid down around 330 I fell asleep about 530 And I got up and went to the picnic
isn't it funny? How people will hop planes and drive miles to get to people who won't come across the street to get to them? How long can you maintain any relationship without reciprocity? Why put on a good program for people who don't come? Why should the choir get here at five in the morning at six in the morning and set up the sound for people who are coming in at 1030?
Why the some of our best givers never give it our best singers never sing our best workers will not work and some of our greatest people are sitting out there always sucking it up and They find no area of service out of 150 Ministries, not one of them fit you. Oh, giant, they do fall by the all of it, oh, let's enter any relationship that has no real reciprocity will be strong people will keep giving to you a long time. Eventually, when they don't see it coming back in similar capacity, they will eventually become convinced that the investment does not warrant a return. I tell you before you lose again, if you don't learn to give, like you learned to get every area that there is not reciprocity, it will die. If I had time I take you all through the ecological system. And it's not just biblical, as ecological as science is everything. Anything that takes more than it gives will eventually destroy the soil. I will show you how God commanded the farmer to let the ground risks because you have to put some back in something that you're taking something out of seeds, somebody has never taught you how to give, they teach you how to take are you demanding more of your God, or of your family, or of your church? Then you give because any area that you expect more than you invest, you will live in a perpetual state of disappointment. You walked into here, the building was up. The lights was on. The sound system was in many of you miss the blood and sweat and tears that built this ministry. That's the way Jesus is coming back to do just like that. Just like that. You walked in here when the work was over, you have no appreciation for the investment in it. And you don't understand the sacrifice, because you're reaping where you have not sown. So your God, your family, your church. What does your church get from you other than you know you show up sometimes. But what do they get?
