John Gray - Door to Your Destiny
Anybody like me kinda been anticipating the word? For the last few weeks, we've been dealing in destiny. The first of this series was destiny doors, last week was destiny clues, and this week is destiny treasures. So you've already got your title, destiny treasures, so we're already a half hour ahead of time, 'cause normally I don't give you the title until I'm almost finished.
So now that we've got the title, let's get to the scripture. I want you to go, where do I want you to go first? Matter of fact, I want you to go to James, chapter one. I'm setting y'all up. This is a setup tonight, just tell somebody it's a setup. I believe that God is going to heal, set free, deliver. I believe that tears will flow, but they will be healing tears, tears of cleansing, tears of joy. I think there'll be shouts of release, I think there'll be unashamed praise, unrestrained praise. I believe that we are going to hear miracle reports from this service. I firmly believe that the power of the living God is going to meet us tonight in the next few minutes. Does anybody have that same expectation and anticipation?
James, chapter one. Starting at the second verse. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. My brethren, count it all joy. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Anybody in here ever fallen into a thing? I fell in love and then fell out. If you've ever fallen into anything, I want you to take heart with this scripture in James if it didn't turn out in a way that you expected it or desired it to, the Bible says to count it all. Count most of it? Some of it? All joy.
Alright, that's the first scripture, you got that one written down? Now let's go to this scripture in Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. Tonight is the third part of the destiny series. Destiny, of course, being the place of positioning that God originally intended for you and I to inhabit, that no one else can inhabit. You were uniquely gifted, you were uniquely formed and fashioned in the image of an eternal God, and you have a purpose in the earth that no other human being can do, no one can function in the calling and the gifting that God has given you. You must occupy it fully, you must embrace it totally, and you must go head and do the thing that you were created to do.
Do not leave one task that is assigned to your name undone. Fight, fight, fight to get to destiny, and if you've been like me, you've had to fight. Many of us have had to fight for a long time. Had to fight my mama, had to fight my daddy. All my life I had to fight. Little bit of color purple. What I'm saying is, black history month. What I'm saying is if you've ever had to push to get through, then this is for you. Because if you do have an awareness that and you know that destiny is upon you, you can be sure that the enemy is going to try to stop you. Lemme help you.
If you have no opposition, you may be going in the wrong direction. If everybody around you is telling you yes and everything is easy, you may need to ask the Holy Spirit am I moving in the right direction? Because when you move in the things of God, the enemy mobilizes the forces of darkness to attempt to discourage you, to shake your faith, to hit you with sickness and disease. He'll mess with your marriage, he'll try to interrupt your sleep, he'll mess with your children. Am I talking to anyone? Things that looked like they were an easy path, all of the sudden jagged edges and rocks crop up in crooked places, and now the thing that looked nice and easy is now going in 500 different directions.
If that's your testimony, if you know God called you but you see the end goal, you see where the Lord wants you to go but all of these things have now cropped up to stop you, I wanna tell you two words: keep going. Keep going. You're going in the right direction. Isaiah 45, starting at the second verse, says this: I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. Right there, that's enough to shout on, but I'm gonna give you some more. This is God talking to Cyrus the king. He said I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. And here's the verse. Roxanne, I will give you the treasures of darkness. And hidden riches of secret places, why? That you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.
Tonight I'm talking about destiny treasures. You had no clue when you were sitting in that room in the dark with the covers over your head, and if anybody was in there, all they could see is the cover moving from the tears flowing out of your face. They didn't know what God was doing in that dark place. That time when you were in the car and you were figuring out whether you and you were hitting the steering wheel, saying God why? Why me and why did this happen and what are you gonna do? And somehow you mustered enough courage to drive on home instead of crashing into the wall or doing something crazy to yourself. And you woke up the next morning and you felt like you could keep going, I want you to know that God was seeding something in that place.
If I'm talking to anybody that's ever been in a dark place, you're more than welcome to give God a praise. That night after y'all broke up, after promises had been made, when you found out about the betrayal and you thought it would break you but somehow you had the strength to get up and keep going, I want you to know that God was seeding something in that place. We always think of treasure as a tangible, visible thing with a map, but X doesn't mark the spot, a cross does. And a cross marks the spot where Jesus cemented the legacy of the broken, where those of us who have cried enough tears and gone through enough pain and had enough questions will find our answers, at the foot of a cross, and he who was declared king of the Jews has answers for every broken place you and I have ever had. There is treasure in your darkness.
Whoever would put treasure not in the darkness but as treasures of darkness? Strange scripture, God. But here's the key. I gave you this scripture first, James one. Count it all joy when various, when you fall into various trials. Over here, God says I'm going to give you the treasures of darkness. Now here's what's deep. The darkness in this Hebrew iteration means emptiness or void or vast wasteland. God says for every empty place in your life, for every voided moment, for every insufficient transaction, God says I've buried a treasure there. He didn't say, mama, that I'ma give you the treasures from the darkness. I'm gonna give you the treasures of the darkness. Its substance is your tears. You thought your tears were just wasted. Honey, them tears turned into Jewels, and he put 'em in a box and hid 'em from everybody, including you, because he wanted to surprise you when you turn around.
Like pastor Lisa prophetically said, she said I know you're not supposed to turn around but just look back and look what the Lord did in your life. I want you to look back, because the thing that looked like a waste place? There's treasure there. You can give him a five second if you want to, it's cool. The divorce, treasure. The abortion, treasure. The abuse, treasure. You got fired, treasure. And I know there might be some religious people saying how dare you? God hates divorce, and abortion, that's murder. You're absolutely right, he hates divorce, and it is, we understand. But guess what? God knew that it was going to happen, and because he loves you, and because the blood of Christ was already shed, the moment you confess it as sin, what was trial becomes treasure.
Destiny treasures. Genesis 1:2. After the Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. The same word, darkness, there is the same word we find in Isaiah 45. The treasures of darkness, the hidden things, the things in secret places, you know those secrets you don't want anybody to know about? There's treasure in there. The thing that you're so ashamed of that you'd not tell one soul? Treasure. I know you thought that it was a trial and it was sent there to remind you of your brokenness, but Jesus has turned that thing into treasure. But he hid it until you were ready to receive it.
The same word for darkness is Genesis one and two and Isaiah 45, it's a pregnant darkness. I need you to catch this in the spirit. If there's anything dark in your life, it's about to produce. I'm trying to teach but I feel like shouting, so let me keep teaching. I'll say it again, that the darkness is pregnant with your treasure, and you need to understand the darkness is the place the Bible says a wasteland or this place that is shrouded or makes no sense, obscure, the thing that was obscured from view, the things in your life that don't make sense, why would this happen to me? I'm a good person, how did that happen to me? That makes no sense, why am I doing this? I don't want to do this.
Maybe some of y'all too saved for that one. You like the other one where you're the victim. How 'bout pick up the other one, where you're the one committing the act? Every now and then, you need to remember that you and I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've got some things in us. God can take those things and turn them into treasure. Treasures of darkness. God was working with the same kind of darkness in Genesis one that he speaks of in Isaiah 45. And we know what he did with that darkness. He saw it, and the Bible says and God said, now freeze right there.
I need you to understand that the moment that the words written "And God said," before he was about to speak, everything that ever existed or ever would exist rushed to the forefront of eternity, waiting for its name to be called, because it didn't know what God was going to say next. They just knew if God says it, I've got to move. I don't know if you know this, but God said in Isaiah 45 I've called you by. I need you to know that when he called your name, everything connected to your name has to show up.
There's one person that caught it, two. I know you're at home, you need to shout, too. When God said your name, everything connected to your name showed up. You know how I know? Because that's how God creates. Because he said let there be light. He did not say let there be electrons and protons and neutrons and a positive charge and a negative charge, and let's get a filament and let's get some blown glass with a nice metal conductor and let's plug it into a lamp and then plug it into the wall. He didn't ask for a lamp, he asked for a light. And everything that needed to make up light showed up. So when God said your name in the darkness, he put trap. You went to sleep broken, but you woke up with treasure. I woke up like this, I woke up like this. Somebody give me my 10 second right there. I feel the Holy Ghost.
In Genesis, God saw what was present and spoke beyond what was present into potential. He looked in the darkness and said let there be light, and then he started speaking and mountains showed up, and animals showed up, and creative beasts showed up. Let me ask you something. When God said let's go ahead and get some mountains going, did the mountains fly in from outer space? Where'd they come from, Jacky? They came from under the ground. I want you to know the dark places in your life are about to start producing right up under your feet. Do you feel it? There's an earthquake. If you felt that thing, you've been on the edge, you've been kinda edgy, maybe a little irritated, not sure why you've been snapping at people, it's just because something in your spirit knows that something is about to change.
It has to change, I can't stay the same because I'm too close to destiny to, I feel it in my spirit! I feel it in my bones! It's shut up in my bones! Like Jeremiah said, it's life! God speaks to darkness, and stuff starts popping up under your feet. Hear me prophetically. Where my entrepreneurs at? Where my dreamers at? Where my creative people at? Where you at? Wave, wave, wave, wave. Where my dreamers at? Where my visionaries at? Where the people that know that they're called to be more than an employee? Do you feel it? It's right up under your feet. Do you feel it?
You should see it cropping up to your left and to your right. You might wanna take a look behind you. You might wanna look in front of you. God is creating in the dark place. Treasure. And people think you get treasure for being good. You get treasure 'cause he's God. That's for all your haters that don't want you to have anything. Just let 'em know God did it. Just get it out of your mouth now just, God did it. You get a raise, God did it. Promotion on the job, God did it. He got you that mortgage you couldn't possibly get with your credit, God did it. New car? God did it. God did it! God did it!
I wanna talk to anybody that's ever made mistakes. All the perfect people, just close your ears for the next four minutes. I wanna talk to the people who have missed the mark. This is only for the ones that have ever blown it. And I really, really only want this for the ones that have blown it big, multiple times. I wish I had more hands. Because religious people will tell you you better act right. You better do right, you better be perfect. I'm sorry, I can't live under that pressure. I'm a mess. I don't even know if I'm not gonna say the wrong thing if they cut me off on the highway. I might forget my Jesus as soon as I leave here. I hope my destiny is not as fragile as my humanity. Please, please, ay! I feel the Holy Ghost in here, ay! I just felt something break in here, ay! I hope my destiny is not as fragile as my humanity. I'm so glad my destiny is not tied up in my humanity, it's tied up in his divinity.