This sermon emphasizes the importance of worshiping God in the midst of struggles and failures, highlighting how God's anointing brings supernatural change, opens prison doors, heals wounded hearts, and gives sight to the blind. It encourages believers to trust in God's faithfulness and see beyond their present circumstances, knowing that God's plan continues unhindered through their lives, regardless of their frailties and failures.

There are a lot of people here today with heavy hearts. Now that's not by coincidence. The Lord is going to minister something to you today. And if you will let the anointing of the Holy Spirit touch you. Now the anointing is not measured in the exuberancy or lack thereof of how the message is delivered. That's not the anointing. The anointing is measured when you open your heart and God begins to bring about a supernatural change in you. Prison doors open, blinded eyes start seeing, wounded hearts are healed. That is the measure of the anointing. And if you'll open your heart today, I know that God's going to do something profound. I want to encourage the eldership, the choir, everybody, open your heart today. Let the Lord speak to you. I'm going to speak about touching the tears of failure. Touching the tears of failure, Hebrews chapter 11, please, if you'll go there in your Bible. Hebrews chapter 11 in the New Testament. Now Father, God Almighty, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I thank you, God, with everything in me. That you said, Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord was upon you. You were sent to open prison doors to those that are bound, to give sight to the blind, and to give healing to the bruised in heart. Today, oh God, I'm asking you to do something profound. I'm asking you, Lord, to break a great strategy of the enemy. Break it wide open, destroy it, just like you did in Jericho. Let the walls of this captivating city come down. God, I'm asking you for the ability to speak this from your heart. Not from anything I know or have learned, but from your heart. I'm asking you, God, to be gripped by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. My mind and heart, everything of this physical body, be gripped by God. And I'm asking you, Lord, to do a profound work in the hearts of your people. I thank you for it in Jesus' mighty name. Hebrews 11, verse 21, one verse, touching the tears of failure. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Let me read that one more time to you. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Now, Jacob was the third in the lineage of Abraham. And Abraham was the man to whom God gave this promise in Genesis. He called him out from among his own people. And he gave him a promise that is so utterly profound that it had to be simply believed, because there is nothing of Abraham's natural thinking could ever bring this about to pass. In Genesis 12, 2 and 3, he told them, I'll make of you a great nation, and I will bless you. And I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And in you shall all the families, in part of verse 3, in all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Can you imagine getting a promise like this? One man just singled out by God. And now Jacob is the grandson. This was his grandfather. It was Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. He'd be fully familiar with this. And as a young man, even though he wasn't in the direct lineage, he wanted this promise to be fulfilled through his life. And he was willing, of course, if you know the story, to go to great lengths to get this promise. He wanted this blessing to flow through him. And if you are an honest Christian here this morning, then obviously you want this blessing of God's life to be in great measure flowing through your life as well. Now, nearing the end of his days, Jacob had, by his initially at least his own initiative, he had gained access to this blessing, and then finally he had an intimate encounter with God, and he truly did receive the blessing. And you can see him coming back into the promised land after a long, long journey where God was dealing with some issues of his own character, coming into this place of promise, being told by God himself that he was going to be blessed, knowing that the blessing that was spoken to Abraham was now on him. And you can see him now, near the end of his days, he's coming from the land of promise into Egypt with an entourage of 66 people, Genesis 46, 26, said from his own loins. He's coming into Egypt. And some of this lineage, it's not much. I mean, can you imagine being Jacob? You've traveled all these years. You've been the inheritor, as it is, of this blessing. And nearing the end of your days, all you have are 66 people, as it is, supposed to bless the whole world. And all that's come from your own life or your own loins, as it says, are 66 people, and some of whom have been a great disappointment to him. You think for a moment when, at the end of his days, when he calls his sons in, several years down the road, and he tells them, I want to tell you about your future and what the Lord has for you. His firstborn, Reuben, was the son of his strength, as it is. This is the man, the son, through whom the blessing should have gone to. But Reuben was an unstable, lustful man. And Jacob had to tell him, you're not going to excel because of these issues in your character and what you did. You're in the lineage, as it is, but you're not going to excel. And then the next two sons, Simeon and Levi, they wouldn't carry any of his honor with them because they had been angry and self-willed men. And they had taken things in their own hands, and they exacted vengeance and caused great suffering and even reproached to his own name because of their anger and their self-will. When Jacob came into Egypt, he met Pharaoh, and Pharaoh asked him, he said, how old are you? And in Genesis 47, 9, he says, the days of my pilgrimage have been 130 years. And he said, they've been few and evil have been the days of the years of my life. That's an amazing thing to say. For the man through whom the blessing of God is coming to literally, supposedly, bless the families of all the earth. And the word evil in the original text means my days have been of inferior quality. They have not been what I thought they were going to be. They somehow missed the mark of what I felt God had planted in my heart, of what I thought my life should be. My life has been less, in other words, than I perhaps once hoped it would have been. How many can, you don't have to raise your hand, obviously. But there are people here today that maybe have been a Christian for a certain amount of time, or maybe you're not a Christian, but you have this common thought in your heart, my life has not amounted to what I thought it was going to be, what I had hoped. And when I first came to God, I saw so many things that I should be accomplishing, and I came to the understanding that my life was to be a blessing, and people throughout the world were to be blessed through my life. But look at what I've become. And I'm nearing midlife, or I'm getting past midlife, or wherever you are today. And you can identify with Jacob and say, my life has not produced what I thought it was going to. I've somehow failed in this journey. I'm ending with so little, seemingly, to be seen by the natural eye of a life that was supposed to bless the world. Ending up in famine, and at the mercy of a foreign country. Can you imagine? The thoughts that would be going through this man's mind, heading out, as it is, leaving, as he thought, the land of promise, and going into a foreign country, and this great blessing that's supposed to be flowing through his life. He is now at the mercy of a foreign government, as it is. He has to go into Egypt to eat. And he's supposed to be the man through whom the world is going to be blessed. Yet Hebrews 11, 21 tells us that at the very end of his days, and the end of his natural strength, he worshipped. Now folks, we have to ask ourselves a question. What was the basis of this worship? I know for sure it wasn't just an empty song, or form a ritual. A lot of people finish out that way in the Christian church. It's just an empty song. Coming into the house of the Lord and singing the songs of Zion, but being a hundred miles, in heart, away from the words that are coming out of their lips. Life has been such a disappointment. Perhaps even God, in some measure to them, seemingly has been a disappointment to them. But I want to suggest to you that his worship was real. The Bible would not pen the word worship if it wasn't worship. He didn't just lean on his staff and give lip service to God. He had to have seen something. And I want to suggest to you that he saw something so profound. Hebrews 11, 13 said, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Now here's what I feel. I feel that Jacob saw something so profound that he could say, My God, I'm not of this world. In other words, I'm not subject to its limitations. I'm not governed by its sorrows. In spite of my failings and frailties, the plan of God has been going forward through my life absolutely unhindered all along. I believe he saw it because when he called his sons in. Now keep in mind, in Genesis 49, I want you to go there with me just for a moment. We see at the end of his days, Jacob calls in his sons, and I don't know exactly what must have been in his heart, but it must have been a difficult moment for him to be calling in your own sons who have been raised and are supposed to be the inheritors of this blessing, and yet there's such a deficiency in the firstborn that are all around him. And he called his sons together, and he had to say to Reuben, You're my firstborn, verse 3, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power, but you're unstable as water. You will not excel because you went up to your father's bed and you defiled it. He went up to my couch, and then he turns to the next two sons. He says, Simeon and Levi, our brethren, instruments of cruelty in their habitations. Oh, my soul, come not thou into their secret, unto their assembly. My honor, be not thou united. For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they dig down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. And then all of a sudden, is it possible that his eyes were opened? I don't know at what point his eyes were opened, but he looks upon this next son, and he says, Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies, thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as an old lion, who shall rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh, that's the Messiah, come. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine. He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine. That means his eyes shall be as dark as wine, and his teeth as white as milk. Praise be to God. I see Jacob looking, and he's saying, God Almighty, with all of my trouble, and all of my years, and all of my frailties, and all of my failings, and all of the deficiency that's all around me, I finally see that you have had a plan, and this plan has been flowing through me, it's been flowing through my lineage, it's been flowing through my loins, it is absolutely unhindered. This plan is not stopped by my frailties. God has determined to do something, that through my life, He is going to bless this world, and this plan has not stopped because I've failed Him. It's not stopped because I've failed Him in my thinking. It's not stopped because I've failed Him, in some of my direction. It's not stopped because I've even doubted Him in my journey. I'm not of this world. You see folks, if you are of the world, you are under its limitations. If your mind is in agreement with the thinking of this world, then you finish life of failure. You finish life saying it should have been more than it became, because all that there is for those who are of this world, is what is in this world. But Jacob saw something, he saw it in Judah. I don't know at what point he saw it. I'm sure it must have been a surprise. I'm sure when he finally, he first saw it, he said, my God, I'm not of this world. This world has no hold on me. This world has no hold on my future. It has no hold on my family. I'm not subject to its limitations and to its sorrows. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 15, he says, truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have had returned. If their thinking was the same, if you and I think the same as this world thinks, then we will go right back into that place of despair that everyone without God will ultimately end up. Praise be to God, we end our lives full of regret. We end our lives just with questions about what ifs and the if onlys. And if only it had been. Failing to see that we're not of this world. We're not bound by this world. We're not limited as this world is limited. Now Jacob had left a place of famine to come in to the continued will and provision of God. Keep in mind, he was in the promised land, but famine came there. He had to leave the promised land to come to where God's provision was and where God's will was. Although to the natural eye, it must have seemed to be exactly the opposite. Wouldn't it seem that way to you? It would have seemed as if the place of promise had failed and natural events were leading him and his family into a foreign place. It would have seemed to the natural mind as if he's moving into plan B as it is for his life and somehow plan A had slipped through his fingers. What I'm trying to say today is that the events surrounding your life are not what your natural mind wants you to think they are. Let me give you an example of this. In 1987 was the year that I left full-time police work and went into full-time ministry. It was actually the year that Times Square Church was initially founded. It was a large step of faith for me, leaving a well-paying position, leaving all of the benefits, etc., etc., that come with it, casting myself really on to the provision of God, knowing in my heart that God had called me to preach the gospel, bringing my family with me as it is because they would either be blessed or suffer depending on what the future held for me. I was bringing my wife and I was bringing my children into that same pathway. The first service as a full-time minister, folks, the glory of God came into the place. It was amazing. I can't even begin. As I think about it and remember it, just there was this sweep of glory came into this place. We were meeting in a high school gymnasium at the time, and it was an incredible moment. The worship was explosive. The word was just free. There was an open heaven. The response was, and I remember thinking, Oh, God, this is incredible. If this is what full-time ministry is going to be like, what a future it's going to hold. I went home and studiously prepared for the following week, got up in the pulpit, began to preach. It's the only time that I'm aware of in the entire life that I've lived as a preacher of the gospel that God took his hand off me. It was one of the scariest moments I've ever been through. It's my second full-time service as a full-time minister, and the Lord took his hand off me. It was as dry as a desert. I could barely think, and I knew God had taken his hand off me. I knew what the anointing was, and I knew that God had lifted his hand. Halfway through the message, I stopped, and I said, Folks, I can't push this any longer. You're probably as aware as I am. There's no anointing on this, so let's just call it a day. And I closed the Bible. I closed my notes. I prayed, sent the church home. I went home. Oh, dear. When I got home, I remember saying to the Lord, I was really mad. I said to the Lord, if this is your idea of a joke, you're the only one that's laughing. God, and then you go into this incredible battle of, have I grieved you? Did I miss God? Was I presumptuous in leaving? Should I have stayed a police officer and carried on preaching as I was? I still was full-time preaching, even though I was working. Did I really hear from God? Have I offended you, Lord? Have I grieved the Holy Spirit? What have I done? What have I brought my family into? What kind of a future is this going to be? And, of course, the ultimate fear, if this continues into another week or a week after this, I'm not going to have any church left. There'll be nobody there. Nobody's going to come to listen to this. And, of course, I had somebody come to my house that told me I was just immature and that I should have pressed through to the end of it. And I remember telling this man, I know the difference. I know what the anointing is. I know when God's hand is on me, and I know God's hand was not on me. And it was rather pointless. There's no anointing. And I can't fake it. And I'm not interested in faking it. And I'm not going to try to do that kind of thing. Either God is with me or he's not with me. And so I was in this incredible battle. So the natural mind is just running amok and saying, something is wrong. I've really missed something. I've really grieved God. And this is where the natural mind always wants to go. Midweek or so, I got a telephone call from a man. And he said, Pastor, I want you to know, he said, I'll be attending your church from now on. And I was in the service on Sunday, and I thought, wow, that's really interesting. I don't know why he'd want to attend my church after Sunday. Now, in our community, he would be considered a fairly wealthy man for the income levels in our community. And he had had some church experiences in the past that had left him fairly dry. And he had driven almost 40 miles to come to church that Sunday morning. And he was sitting in the congregation. And he said, Lord, I am asking you for a sign that this is a real man of God. And he said, if you give me a sign, he said, I will stay here and I will serve this church. Now, he ended up being the man who funded the renovation and much of our missions work when we bought our first church shortly after that. He was the man that God was actually sending into the congregation with the supply that we would need because we're not an affluent congregation. And he said, when you close that book and you put your notes away, you dismiss the service that I knew you were a man of God. And he said, I'm now committed to the church. And that man became a great blessing, not only financially, but other ways to the church over the course of many years. What we think is a disaster. What we think is going in a direction that is going to bring about an undesirable result is not always what God is doing. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He does things in a manner that we don't fully understand the way he's doing it. When Satan tells you that you're a failure. Now, I know there are many, many people here today. This week, even this morning, Satan's been right on your case saying, why do you even bother going to church? You're a failure. You've displeased the Lord or you failed God or you let something precious fall through your hands or your life is not what it should be or what it could have been. Why are you even bothering to go to church? Now, remember, firstly, that Jesus told you in John chapter 8 and verse 44 that Satan can't speak the truth. He is a liar and he's the father of all lies. That's what Jesus said about him. As a matter of fact, if you really were a failure, Satan would be telling you that you're an outstanding success. He wants you to think about it. He can't tell the truth. If you were a failure, he couldn't tell you because he can't speak the truth. He'd be telling you how successful you are, how wonderful you are, what a great future, etc., etc. In the last book of the Bible, we find the apostle John. John, at the end of his days, he's old, he's isolated and he's cold. And he's just a man like Jacob. No doubt having some regrets about things that could or should have been done differently or better. He's exiled to an island called Patmos for the testimony of God. And in these places, now, Patmos was apparently a very foreboding prison environment. Most who went there probably never survived it. And John is in his latter years and you can see the enemy right there. Is this where following Christ leads to? Is this the type of future it holds? John, you failed. John, you were supposed to look after the mother of Jesus and you didn't do a good job of it, John. And somehow you've displeased the Lord and somehow you've ended up in this place. And all around him now are voices of despair. Can you just picture yourself in that prison where people knew they're not going to survive? People are absolutely despairing of the future, complaining about everything that's around them. And as the scripture says, if he had been mindful in the book of Hebrews of the places that they'd come out of, he could have returned there. John could have gone back to perhaps where he'd begun before even coming to know Jesus Christ as his master and his Lord and Savior. Instead, the Bible tells us that he was choosing to worship God on the Lord's day. And as he was worshiping God, heaven opened to him and he saw things that are hidden from natural men. Now, the essence of this kind of worship is simply trust. I believe that God is good. I believe that His mercy endures forever. I believe that no weapon formed against us can prosper. I believe that I have the right to condemn every tongue that rises against me in judgment. I believe that the purposes of God have been flowing through my life. No matter what my natural eye sees, no matter what my natural ear may hear, no matter what my own heart may feel and want to rise up and condemn me, the Bible says that God is greater than my heart. I believe there is a divine purpose. I believe that all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose. I believe that I've entrusted myself into the hand of God and no man can take me out of that hand. I believe that God will keep that which I've given to Him up to the day when I finally see Him in all of eternity. I believe that neither angels, nor powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I believe it. No matter where I end up, no matter what my life holds in the future, I'm not buying into the lies of this society. I'm not giving ear to the lies of my adversary and my enemy. The day I receive Christ as my Savior, another life other than my own entered into this physical temple, and that life is going forward. That life is doing exactly what God said it was going to do. I may have a Jacob experience. I may have to go through famine. I may have to struggle and suffer. Everything around me may look like it's falling apart, but I know whom I have believed. So John made a choice, and he chose to worship God. And as he was choosing to worship God, heaven opened to him, and he saw things that are not seen by natural men. They're not seen by carnal men. They're not seen by people who think the way this world thinks. John knew that he was there for the testimony of Christ. John knew, yes, of course, he would be a man like all other in the Scripture. He'd be moved upon by the common frailties of the human heart. These were not supermen. They were ordinary people. Even Elijah, the Scripture says, was a man of like passions, just like we are. Just average, ordinary people that the Spirit of God had come upon. They had trusted in Christ. Now he's at the end of his days. He's choosing to worship. Oh, folks, it's the best choice you'll ever make, that you just worship, whether there's bread in the cupboard or there's no bread in the cupboard, whether you know what next week brings or you don't know. And here's what John, I'm just going to share it with you very quickly. Revelation 19, 11. His eyes were opened, and he said, I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. Hallelujah. He said, I saw God is faithful and true. I saw it. I saw his name. I saw him riding in victory. I saw him coming to get me one day. I saw him coming to get the whole church one day. I saw that every word he's ever spoken is faithful and true. In verse 17, he says, I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. In other words, I saw ungodliness defeated. Everything that stands against God is going down one day. I saw the defeat of evil. I saw the end of rebellion. I saw the future of those who think they have it all together, but they don't have God. I saw the perilousness of their condition, John says. And I knew that I was in a good place. Chapter 20, verse 1. He said, I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. John said, I saw that I'm not bound, but the one who has opposed everything of God and everything that is righteous is going to be bound, not only for a thousand years, but for all of eternity. Verse 4, he says, And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. John said, I saw God faithful and true. I saw ungodliness defeated. I saw Satan bound. And I saw those who had suffered for the name of Christ reigning and ruling with Him for all of eternity. Praise God. Verse 11, he said, I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. He said, I saw the day coming when all evil is going to be judged. Everything will be judged by the standard of Christ. Chapter 21, verse 1, He said, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the former things are passed away. Praise God. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. Here's what John saw. He saw a place where God is dwelling with men. He saw the faithfulness of God sending a city from heaven where you and I will dwell for all of eternity. But he saw something else. He saw Jesus wiping away tears. Verse 4, he said, And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. Now He's not only wiping away tears from those who had suffered, but from those who, having seen His glory, felt that their lives had been a failure. I saw something when I was preparing this message and it caused me to jump out of my seat at my desk last night and pace up and down in my apartment and just cry for joy. I see Jesus at this particular moment that John saw people seeing the glory, people getting there, and they feel like they've been a failure. That's the crying. That's the sorrow. That's the pain. God, my life didn't amount to what I felt it should be. I looked in Your Word, I saw Your glory, and I seemed to fall so short of that glory. And I see people falling on their knees, perhaps on their faces, and Jesus coming to them and saying, No, you don't understand. In spite of your frailties, my life was still flowing through you. Just like with Jacob, every time you ran into an impasse, it's like water coming downhill as it is. It's like water flowing from a divine place. You put an obstruction before it, it will just find another route. You put another obstruction, it will just go another way. When Reuben failed, perhaps the river went to Simeon and Levi. When they failed, it went to Judah. Praise be to God, if you finally see this, He said, No, I wasn't stopped by your frailties. The plan I had to flow through you wasn't stopped because you struggled. It wasn't stopped because you were weak in some area. You had a sincere heart. And whenever you felt like it was all over, I just moved around and went to another place. I just continued through your life because it's not about you, it's about the power of an endless life flowing in and through your life. I see Jesus coming to these at the throne. I think John saw it in Revelation. With a towel in his hand, touching the eyes of those that are weeping, saying, Listen, I was proud of you. You struggled, but you never gave up. You never quit. I was not ashamed of you. I was bragging about you to my father and to the angels in heaven. I looked down and I wasn't hindered by your frailty because in your heart you wanted me. And I flowed through your life. Praise be to God. He's going to dry all tears. All sorrow is going to be gone. There'll be no more pain. Don't let the devil condemn you. Don't let your own heart condemn you. Don't be driven into a place of despair because of hardship and trial as if somehow you've failed God. His plan is still going forward. If you are an honest Christian, if you have an honest heart for God, His plan is still going forward full speed. Nothing is stopped with the plan of God. When you get to heaven, you'll finally see it. As He says, No, this is where I was flowing through you. You thought it ended here, but I moved around. This is where I started to flow. This is the life I touched. Remember the person at the grocery store? You remember the one across the hall? You remember that little kid on the street that you used to give a smile and give a sandwich when you had an extra one? You remember these things? Well, look at what happened. Look at the glory of God that came. Look at how the whole world was blessed through your life. As the church of Jesus Christ, look at the blessing of God that flowed through you. Don't let the devil stop you. Don't let his lies put you in a prison of despair. Don't finish out with an unfinished testimony saying my days have just been few and evil. Yes, you and I may have to go through hardship. Yes, hardship and struggle may be already part of your life and it may be even a greater part in the future. But praise be to God, when everything else is bypassed, there's still a Judah in your life. There's still an avenue where the Messiah flows in divine life and anointing and the plan of God goes forward unstopped and unchecked and unchallenged and unhindered. Glory be to God. Glory be to God. And then John said to me in verse 6 of chapter 21, It is done. I'm Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and I'll give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. John says, I saw the thirsty drinking freely from an inexhaustible supply of life in Jesus Christ. I saw the thirsty drinking, folks. I saw it. I saw the change last night of this kind of fear broken. I saw this sadness of heart destroyed by the anointing of God. I saw people getting up out of prisons and walking to that fountain and one more time, drinking of the supply, and this inexhaustible supply of life in Jesus Christ. Drinking of hope, drinking of courage, drinking of the faithfulness of God, drinking of the promises of God, drinking of the fact that God's plan through my life is not stopped because I've struggled. It's not stopped because I've not understood even the direction of my own feet. It's not stopped because seemingly I think I should be here and I've ended up over here. God Almighty, give us understanding. Folks, you can't go into the coming days with sorrow in your heart. You've got to get up out of this prison. You've got to come to the fountain. You've got to drink of this faithfulness of God, this supply of Christ, this joy of the Lord that comes into every heart that finally says, God, it's not about me. It's about your life inside of my life. It's about you flowing through me. Praise be to God. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Let Jesus Christ touch the tears now. I know there'll be a day in heaven when we get there and there'll be sorrow in some people's hearts and pain. And finally, we will know, even as we are known, we will see things. Now we have to receive it by faith. But if we're mindful of the country that we've come out of, and I'm talking about a state of life before we became Christians, we might go back there. Hardship sometimes can drive people back into despair unless we are drinking at this fountain. Unless we choose to believe that God will be faithful, the words he said will be true. And in spite of our struggle, we say, God, I'm going to worship you based on every promise you've ever given me. I'm not going to worship you based on my circumstance. And when you choose to worship, that's when heaven opens. That's when you begin to see. That's where everything starts coming into focus and you start realizing it never was about you. It never was about me. It was about a river of life flowing through us in spite of our failures, in spite of our struggles. I'm talking now to the honest Christian. I'm talking to the honest heart. I'm talking to the person who does want to live for God. You begin to see. And God will wipe away all tears. And God will take away sorrow and there'll be no more pain. You don't have to live in the regrets of your past. You don't have to be bound by the struggles of your present. You don't have to finish your course with the if-onlys and what-ifs and what if it had been different. You can finish this course with a shout of glory in your heart saying, I have within me a life that cannot be stopped. It cannot be hindered. I've wanted God and he chose to put his life in this frail vessel. All my struggles and fears, he knew it. All of my inconsistencies, all of my trials and all of my limitations, he knew it all. But yet he still chose to put living water inside of me. And living water can bypass these things. Living water will get through all of these things and give drink to the thirsty. If you believe this, you can step out of prisons of despair today. You can step out of these places of doubt and unbelief. You can step out of living in regret and with a heavy heart. Folks, this should be a day of great joy. This should be a time of exultation and shouting. It should be a season where we say, God, thank you. This is not about me. It's about you. All you asked for in Abraham was be sincere and upright. That's all you asked. And God, that's all I can muster at the moment. And some of you, that's your testimony. I can't muster anything else, but I can form at least the intent to be sincere and upright. And Lord, you said that's enough. Through my life, this world is going to be blessed. Praise be to God. And when you begin to see it, when you begin to understand it, that it doesn't mean standing before thousands. Some have the privilege of doing that, thank God. But you get to stand before people that you meet every day. Every place that you go. And many, many, many here today. God's life is flowing through you every day. And you're just not aware of it because you're so focused on what you don't have and what you aren't and what you didn't become and what isn't that you're missing what is actually going on. People are drinking from the fountain within you all the time and you're not even aware of it. And so you sit and weep and have sorrow and you're put in this self-imposed prison that God never intended you to be in. That's not where you're to dwell as a child of God. Praise be to God. Are you? Do you understand this? Well, I'm going to give an over call then for those that say this is me. This is a tailor-made message for me. I consider myself a class A failure. I thought I was in plan B and if this is right, I understand that plan B has never come into my life. I'm still in plan A. Even if Promised Land looks like a desert. Even if it looks like it's the wrong country. I'm still in the plan of God. And in spite of my frailties, God's life in Christ is still flowing through me. Praise be to God. That's why Jacob could lean on his staff at the end of his days and worship. Praise God. I should have called it worshipping in Egypt. Let's stand. If the Holy Spirit is drawing you, would you come to this altar and let the Lord dry your tears? Kim, I'm going to ask you to sing that song again. I want you to let the Holy Spirit dry your tears. I want you to feel the hand of God touching your cheeks. In the annex you can stand between the screens if you will. Just come. We're going to spend some time worshipping. Let Him dry your tears. If you truly believe this today, if it makes sense to your heart, let Jesus, let Him dry your tears. You are not a failure. In the Old Testament there was a king who wanted to stop the advance of the people of God. So he hired a false prophet to come and curse them. And this false prophet stood on a mountaintop from every vantage point. And all he could say, he really did have heaven open for a minute to him. And he said, oh, that my end could be like theirs. That I might know the blessing that is on these people. Now you've got to understand they're coming around the curve as it is, making their way to where God was leading them. They had a failed leader. They had murmured and complained. They had a history of all kinds of failure. But he said, I don't see any iniquity in Jacob. I don't see anything that can stop what God is doing in Jacob. I hear in that camp the shout of a king. Praise be to God. There's the shout of a king inside you today. If you are Christ, the shout of that triumph when he said it is finished. It's finished. You're not in subjection to the beggarly ways of this world. You're not under those limitations anymore. And the way that people think without God is not the way that you're to think about your life. He said through Isaiah, he said, a nursing mother, it's possible she could forget her child, but I will never forget you, he said. I've loved you with an everlasting love and I've engraved you in the palms of my hands. I'll not forget you. God says, I'll not leave you. I'll not forsake you. And you're not going to just trickle over the finish line with a, you know, folks, the Lord is going to break out on the left and on the right, as he says in the scripture, in spite of our frailties, in spite of our weaknesses, God will be God in us. And when we get to the end, we'll give him the glory because we knew it wasn't us. We knew. Lord, we thank you, God, for what you have done today. We thank you, Lord. Truly, I believe that you've opened prison doors. You've given sight to the spiritually blind. You've caused hearts that have been wounded to be healed. You brought us out into a large place, as your word says, oh God. And we leave this altar today with anticipation of the wonderful things that you're going to do through us, Lord. Things that we don't see, but you see, and you will reveal it to us. You'll show us where your kingdom is advancing. You'll show us where the plan of Christ is flowing through us. God, you give us eyes to see what you see. Lord, things that we have not noticed that seem insignificant. God, you'll show it to us, Lord. We thank you for it in spite of where we are, in spite of what we go through. Lord, you'll show us where your kingdom is flowing. You've not forsaken us. You're not disappointed in us as your people. God, we thank you for this knowledge. Now give him praise one more time. Give him praise and thanks.