Joyce Meyer - Trust God For A Positive Outcome (08/20/2019)
Joyce Meyer urges believers to live with eternity in view, seeking deeper life in God rather than shallow pursuits or constant complaints. Drawing from Luke 5 and Deuteronomy 8, she emphasizes obedience despite hardship, going into the "deep" by prioritizing God's Word over feelings, allowing trials to build spiritual depth and maturity for greater blessing and responsibility.
Living with Eternity in Mind
Come on, think with me this morning. You're not going to be here forever. Use the time you have now to get ready for your real life. Your real life starts the day you leave this earth, get out of this body, and get right into the presence of God. Now, life here is great. I'm enjoying my life. But we act sometimes like this is all we've got. Do we believe in eternity or not? Do we really believe that God is preparing a home for us? A mansion? Woo! I'm excited about mine. I don't know about you.
Ephesians 4:14, Paul says, "So then we may no longer be children tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine." I get so tired of watching people, immature people, baby Christians, chase after every new little doctrinal thing that comes up and down the road. God told me a long time ago, you keep your nose to the grindstone, you do what I've called you to do, and you'll be around a long time after a lot of other people have bit the dust and gone by the wayside. The only thing that's going to last and endure forever is this right here. Amen?
Representing God in Tragedy
You know, I can't resist telling this a little bit, and I don't think Charles will mind. You won't mind if I tell a little story about you, will you? Charles Neiman, a wonderful pastor from El Paso, and good friends of Pastor Tommy, and I'm sure he's probably preached at the church here. His beautiful, lovely wife died with cancer two or three years ago, and he said some things that really, really touched my heart.
He said, when she died, and they had believed and prayed and all the things that we do, and it didn't happen the way they wanted it to happen. She was a lovely lady. Who could make any sense out of that? Her first grandchild was about to be born. And you know, we can get in an attitude, well, after all the years we've served God. And this is what we get. Boy, you've got to avoid that kind of stuff. Don't even, I mean, if you start to go there, run from it like the plague.
Let me tell you something, getting mad at God is ridiculous. He's all we've got. I mean, what do we have if we're going to be mad at God? And he said the first thing that he said to God when his wife passed away was, "God, please help me do this right." In other words, help me represent you well in this terrible, tragic thing that has happened.
Depth Over Shallow Christianity
Can I tell you something? We're not worth our salt if the only time we can be happy is when we're getting everything our way. Amen. And I love that. You know, to me, there's depth in that statement. It was more important to him to represent God right than it even was to get his own way. Well, you're a little quiet, but that's okay. Don't be a shallow Christian. Let's have depth. We need depth.
You know, years ago, there used to be a movement called the Deeper Life Movement. And they sold books on crucifying the flesh, dying to self. One of the most moving books that I ever read was by Watchman Nee called Dying to Self. I would love to write a big book called Dying to Self. I probably wouldn't sell too many of them, but... You know, I've written 120 books, and most of them have been, you know, somewhat successful. Some of them have been real successful.
But a book that I wrote that I think is absolutely amazing that sold the worst of any book I've ever written was on walking in love. Huh, yeah, huh, yeah. It was about helping the poor, and giving to people, and getting yourself off your mind, and being a blessing. Why would we rather buy a book on how I can prosper overnight than learning how to walk in love? Because we're still learning, learning what is really important.
Representing God well is more important than me or you getting our way. Amen? It's more important than us getting our way. You know why? We've got a long time to live in the presence of God. And I don't want my behavior now to offend Him. Yes, you can offend God. The Bible says, do not offend, grieve, or sadden the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed.
Doing the Right Thing in Hard Times
Doers of the Word are like people who dig down deep and build their house on a rock. You know, it's hard to keep doing the right thing when the right thing is not yet happening to you. It's hard to keep giving when you still have all kinds of financial needs. It's hard to keep praying for other people who are sick when you're seeing other people get healed and you're still sick yourself.
It's hard sometimes for me to get up here and preach a happy message to you when I feel like I'm just falling apart inside because of something that's going on in my own life. It's hard. We all go through things that are hard. But the good news is, is we go through. And you've got to go through to get through. Amen? God didn't invite us to get translated. He invited us to be transformed. There's a difference. Elijah got translated, but I haven't had that yet. We've got to be transformed.
How many of you, God is doing something in your life that is not super, super feel-good, pleasant? Well, isn't that amazing? We must all need this then, huh? But see, I want to do it right. I want to be like Pastor Charles. The minute that something happens, I want my first prayer to be, "God, help me do this right." Help me do this right.
Rather, I'm on a plane that gets diverted, and I'm going to have to spend 16 hours getting to Phoenix. My first prayer should not be, well, God, get me on the first flight out of here so I'm not late, and I'm not inconvenienced. My first prayer should be, "God, help me do this right." Amen? That would make a good book. Help me do this right. God, help me do this right.
Is anybody understanding what I'm saying? See, there's depth in that. There's some depth in that. God, help me do this right. Help me represent you. We're better off to not spend so much excessive time trying to figure out the why of everything. Why, God, why? When, God, when?
Seeking God's Face, Not Just His Hand
All right, Luke chapter 5. You know, we have those times in our life, those pivotal, pivotal spiritual moments that are some of the things that we talk about being life-changing. When I was filled with the Spirit in 1976, it was life-changing for me. Several years after that, God taught me through a series of things that I was spending too much time seeking Him for what He could do for me instead of just seeking Him because of who He was.
And I got a very definite word from God, seek my face and not my hand. And that was so life-changing to me, to really realize the amazing beauty of just being in the presence of God and knowing that He's with me all the time. And through that, I started learning this message of not just being happy when God did something for me, but just being happy and joyful about Him. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
And one day, Dave and I went to a bookstore, and I got some books, and he got some books. And nosy me, I got in his bag of books as soon as we got in the car to see what he had. And the first one that I pulled out was a book by a woman named Madame Guyon called Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. Well, it was certainly way over my head, but it looked inviting. And so, I asked Dave if I could read it first. And he said, yeah, because he had a bunch of books.
And so, I didn't realize that God was about to take me deeper. Deeper. You see, you really got to go deeper before you can have anything better. And we're always wanting God to give us something that, in effect, we're really not spiritually ready to handle. And if God did give us what we wanted, it could actually be our undoing.
The Danger of Untimely Success
Case in point, I prayed and prayed and prayed for my ministry to grow. I had a big vision from the day God called me. And when I was teaching a Bible study of 20 people, I saw things like what I'm doing now. Well, if God would have given me that too fast, you know, there's nothing that destroys a person's life rather than too much success, too fast, when they're too young and not spiritually mature enough to handle it properly.
The worst thing in the world that we can do is put people in a position of leadership just because they're talented. There's a difference in being talented and being anointed. Amen. And we need to be smart enough to start looking for the anointing, not just clap and cheer for every talent that goes up and down the street. Amen. Get smart enough to realize, I don't care how good you look or sound, I don't sense any anointing. And I want the anointing.
I love the worship last night because the anointing kind of parted the way for me. That's what happens if you're in really good worship. It kind of just like parts the way for the minister to get up and just go for it, you know. It makes it so easy for me when I have good anointed worship. But I've had a lot of people that could sing great. And I didn't feel that freedom when I got up.
And so we need deeper life. Because if you just think about a big tree that's got loads of fruit, it may look great. But do you know if that tree does not have deep roots, the heavy fruit can actually make it fall over. Are you with me? And so God loves us too much to let that happen to us. So sometimes He withholds or puts off giving us the things that we're pleading for. Because He has a different purpose for us than we have for ourselves. And He wants us to get more deeply rooted in Him and not be shallow.
Going into the Deep: Luke 5
So I didn't have any idea what I was in for when I pulled that book out of that bag. But nor did I have any clue what a deeper life was. But as God does things, a couple days later I was reading the Bible and I came across Luke chapter 5. Started reading. It says this. "Now it occurred, in verse 1. Now it occurred that while the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the message of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee. And He saw two boats drawn up by the lake. But the fishermen had gone down from them and were washing their nets."
"And getting into one of the boats, the one that belonged to Simon Peter, He requested him to draw away a little bit from the shore. Then He sat down and continued to teach the crowd of people from the boat. And when He had stopped speaking, He said to Peter, Now get this. Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a haul." And Simon Peter answered, "Master, we toiled all night exhaustingly and we caught nothing in our nets." Now watch. "But on the ground of your word, we will lower the nets again."
Now, that's the deeper life. When God tells you to do something, you can say, I don't want to. I don't feel like it. And frankly, I don't even think it's going to work. I mean, that's really what Peter was saying. Look, we've been fishing all night. There's no fish out there to catch. I'm tired. I want to go home and go to bed. I'm exhausted. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what I want. Come on now. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what I feel. It doesn't matter what I want. Because you said to do it, Lord, I'm going to do it.
Obedience Despite Feelings
Come on, if you're going to clap, don't patty-cake. Now, some of you are in situations right now where you're trying to make decisions about whether you should stay or go or do this or do that. Run away or stand still. You know, it's not going to do you any good to run from God. He'll find you wherever you go. And you're still going to have to come back right to the place you ran from and deal with it. And by the way, everybody in the Bible who ran from God ended up in the wilderness. So save yourself some time. That's another whole big teaching.
Come on right into the deep. The deep. And get ready for a haul. Now, watch what happened. Verse 6. "And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish. And as their nets were at the point of breaking, they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and take hold with them. And they came and filled both the boats so that they all began to sink."
So here, I mean, just use your imagination. Peter's been fishing all night. He didn't catch anything. Maybe you feel like that. Maybe you've been fishing all your life. You feel like you haven't caught anything. Now, you know, probably if you're not saved or don't have any measure of the Holy Spirit in your life yet, you're just thinking, what in the world is this nutty woman talking about? But God's going to help you get this.
And so, they fished all night, didn't catch anything. Jesus comes along and says, well, here's the problem. You're not fishing in deep enough water. In other words, he's saying, you're shallow. Everything is how you feel, what you want. How do people make you feel? Well, you hurt my feelings. Okay, can I just throw this out to say I said it? Let's just grow up a little bit. And instead of saying, you hurt my feelings, let's say I got my feelings hurt and I need to make a change. Instead of it always being you, how about if we let it be my responsibility?
Peter said, I don't want to do that. I don't want to go back out there. I don't feel like doing that. But I will because you said so. See, that's the final word. What does God say? And whatever he says is the way that it's got to be.
The Reward of Depth and Responsibility
So then when they went back out, I want you not to miss this. He caught so many fish that he had to call all of his other fishing partners. How can we help other people if we have no depth of relationship with God? And so when you get a deeper life with God, then God can let you get involved with lots of other people because you're going to be in a position where you can actually really help them instead of hurting them.
One of the most powerful things that God ever said to me when I was praying to be able to help a lot more people. And I want you to listen to this. Because some of you have big visions. You're not all, you don't all have a vision for ministry. You're just trying to get your closet cleaned out. And that's cool too, you know. Start small and work your way up. But some of you really want to do some major things for God. And he said, I want you to always remember this. However many people you can help, that's exactly also how many you can hurt.
It's a big responsibility to be up here. It's a big responsibility for you to put a bumper sticker on your car and go to work. Advertising that you're a Christian. We've got to have fruit. We've got to have depth. So we're not out there just going to church on Sunday and acting like everybody else the rest of the week.
Lessons from the Wilderness: Deuteronomy 8
Deuteronomy 8:1 I went through times in my life where I just thought, what in the world is happening to me? God, I know that you can change this. Why won't you change it? I would see him doing it for other people. It's like, really? One day when I was driving, I still remember exactly where I was at in the car. And I was, God, I don't understand. And God spoke to my heart and he said, I'm teaching you that man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Well, he wasn't talking about a loaf of bread. He was talking about stuff, you know. What you want, Joyce, you want your ministry to grow. It's all outward stuff. First, before you get that, you need to want the inward stuff. God, grant me the fruit of the Spirit. Strengthen me in my inner man. Help me be stable in trials and tribulations. Help me walk in love. Let me be a greater giver. Those are the kind of things we need to be praying for. And then when we seek God first, all the rest of it comes as a natural result. Seek first the kingdom and all these other things will be added unto you.
"All the commandments which I command you this day, you shall be watchful to do that you might live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord your God swore to give to your fathers." So he's saying, look, everything that I tell you to do is for your benefit. "And you shall earnestly remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these 40 years in the wilderness." In the wilderness. Not on the mountaintop. In the wilderness.
"To humble you and to prove you to know what was in your mind and heart whether you would keep his commandments or not." Wow. I'm not delivering you from this just yet because I want to see if you'll keep my commandments in the wilderness. I want to see if you'll keep my commandments when you're not yet getting your reward.
"And he humbled you. Verse 3. And he allowed you to hunger. And he fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know." Every one of these sentences is a full message. He's saying, look, I mean, they had to wait every day for God to provide that manna and they didn't know from one day to the next if it was going to come or not. Honey, that's nerve-wracking.
I remember all the years that we lived from paycheck to paycheck to paycheck and boy, if we even had a flat tire it was like a financial disaster. And I was out telling people that God wanted to prosper them and we were given more than we'd ever given before and had less than we'd ever had.
Provision and Testing in the Wilderness
And now watch this. "And I did it that I might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Oh, God said that to me last week. "Your clothing did not get old nor did your feet swell." They had the same clothes for 40 years. Not one new outfit in 40 years, ladies. I'm glad that hasn't been my test.
"Your clothing didn't get old nor did your feet swell. Know in your mind and heart..." Now, this is the part you got to get. This comes... This is the part that's full of hope. "Know in your mind and heart that as a man disciplines and instructs his son, so the Lord disciplines and instructs you. So that you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and reverently fear him."
"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. A land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates. A land of olive trees and honey. A land in which you shall eat food without shortage and lack nothing in that land whose stones will actually turn to iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper."
"Okay, here it comes. And when you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good which he has given you. And beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his precepts." And it goes on to say, for if you do, you will go all the way back to where you came from and probably end up in a worse mess than you were when you started.
So God says, I'm in charge of this journey. And I'm going to guide you in the wilderness. And I'm going to provide what you need. I may not give you everything you want, but I can promise you I will provide every need that you have. And I'm doing this to test you, to help you get some depth, to grow up, because I'm going to bring you into the best life that you could possibly imagine. But when things are good, don't forget me.