Come on, let's keep it going. Give God a hand of praise. Come on a little louder. Give God a hand of praise. Hallelujah. Go ahead and take your seats. I'm so excited to be with you on this morning. I will promise you that I'm going to move fast because the crossing keeps inviting a black preacher to preach in a short period of time. And I don't understand why we haven't figured this thing out quite yet. It takes me an hour to warm up sometimes. Hey, I joke, I joke, but I'm so excited to be with my crossing friends and family. It's so good to see faces that I haven't seen in a while. I got a couple of updates and then I'm gonna get right to the word. And I think we're gonna have a great time to get today. Uh, one, um, I have a high schooler. I have a high schooler now. Uh, pray for me. Uh, pray for me. Uh, my wife still loves me. She's here today, so that's a wonderful thing, right? Um, amen. Because I'm a lot to handle. In fact, sometimes I'm too hot to handle. No, I'm excited. She is doing great things. Uh, Dr. Hawkins, as I endearingly call her around the house, she's a doctor. She be moving. So she's doing great things in the field of education and I'm excited for what God is doing in her life. Uh, also, I brought a copy of my book. If you have not read it yet or have not grabbed a copy, it's in the bookstore today. So, um, it's really for those of you who are trying to make sense of some madness that went on in your life, for those of you who are in the madness and you're trying to get traction, this is a great book to read. I'm giving a shameless plug. I wrote it. So it's a great book. Go get it. Amen. So I'm gonna head this off to one of my pastors over here and uh, they'll take that back 'cause that's a copy they might need. They sold out Saturday night, so hey, must be doing something right. Amen. We gonna have fun today y'all. So just make sure that you can talk back to me at the proper time. And if you don't know the proper time, just talk back anyway. Um, I'll make sure you're in rhythm. Hallelujah. Um, so lemme just share with you as we get into what I'm going to be talking to you about today, which is a topic called Fanatical Faith. Um, I really thought about several ways of approaching this, but mostly it is what God laid in my heart to speak to the crossing family about. I am, I'm a believer that we have unfortunately taken the miracle working power of God out of the Bible and it has become a logical book. And so I began to realize that, uh, part of my growth and development has been to really embrace what God has introduced me to. I, I, I realize in this season of my life that I'm a builder. It's like a grace of God to build things. And by that I mean I literally look into spaces that are empty and I see what can be there. And I bring those things that look like it's impossible into the place of reasonable possibility. It's just kind of how I've been. I have been, I have been, uh, rated in, in a great sense of the word and I get it from my dad, man, my dad growing up, my dad never bought a new car. And it wasn't really a surprise to me, but you would see commercials of new cars and going to dealer. I'd never been to a dealership until I got grown. See, my dad was a, a very, um, he was a very crafty man. We, we would get cars from a place called the Trading Times and Junkyards. And so I spent a lot of time walking junkyards looking for cars. And he had a specialty car called the Volvo Brand. He, he loved Volvos. And so, uh, trading times for those who don't know what paper products looked like, it was this newspaper that you could buy stuff in. It was people trying to get rid of stuff. It'd be a, it would be an old school Craigslist, right? And so you had to look through and see what was available and, and it was a short paragraph that told you what was available. So we would go to these people houses and these costs could not run. And my dad would say to them it was like $200 or a hundred dollars, you just wanna get rid of it. And my dad said, well, let me just spend an hour working on it before I tow it or have it towed. And, uh, he, the guys or the or the owner would say, oh, this is not going to run. My dad would spend an hour on that thing, it'd start running and they would run out the house. It's running. He said, alright, bye-Bye. See you later. Here's your money. You know, he didn't want them to think they can get it back, right? And so what I learned is that in doing that, my dad taught me how to take stuff that seems to be broken down. Stuff that looks like it is impossible for it to, in any way, shape or form work again and make it work. And so with that, I've learned that in order to be a builder, you have to have faith, right? You have to have faith. And that's what we're gonna be talking about today is how to grow your faith. I'm gonna jump right to scripture because here's what Jesus has to say about faith. In Matthew nine and 29. Jesus says, according to your faith, it will be done to you. Okay, pause. Let me define faith. Faith at its core is trusting something of someone beyond what we can see or understand. You got that for the new believer, for the person who is on this journey with Christ, learning more about what it means to be a follower of Christ, it means putting your faith in Jesus in your daily life for both salvation and for every day thereafter. Even when circumstances don't look like that's turning out favorably, it means I serve God through all seasons of my life. Now, for those of you who've been around church a while and you signed on the dotted line of following Christ, I'm here to tell you sometimes our faith can be challenged. Amen. That sometimes we get empty in our faith, right? There is a level of faith. Jesus even told the disciples, oh ye of little faith, which if there can be little faith, there can be more faith, right? So our faith, gas tanks get low sometimes. So those of you who've been around this for a while, you got scars, you have battles, you have all kinds of stuff that hits you, stuff you didn't expect, anticipate. And can I pause? I'm gonna talk a little fast 'cause they're still trying to get a black preacher to preach within a short period of time. All right? So just bear with me, watch the replay. But take copious notes. Take copious notes today 'cause we're gonna talk about the phases of faith. So Jesus said, according to your faith, it will be done to you. All right? Also, Jesus says in Mark 1923, everything is possible for the person who has faith. This is what most of us struggle at. And I'm here today to make sure we quit having a gambling relationship with faith. See, let's just be honest, how many can use a facelift to their faith? Alright, that's the majority of you all online at the other campuses I pray you raise your hand to if you didn't, you're lying. Okay? The second thing I wanna ask you is, how many have struggled with their faith? Walk by a show of hands, how many have struggled? Okay, I have two. Don't you get this twisted. Just because I'm in leadership don't mean I got faith figured out, but I have some, I have some best practices and I wanna talk about how God builds your faith. This is not going to be a talk that you can just simply listen to. My goal is to challenge you to believe God for some stuff that you have put on the shelf for a long time. My goal is to resurrect that which has been dead lying dormant or that which you have totally given up on. My goal today is to take you from being logical, to being faithful. My goal is to hopefully get you to the place where you can be used of God to bring heaven down to earth. I wanna take all of the logic out of your thinking today in order for us to get this word, you got to do me a favor. You got to dismiss past traumas. I'm not saying the trauma ain't real. I'm talking about in this span of time they only gave me 30 minutes. So y'all looser to me. Okay listen, here's the deal, here's the deal. My goal is to help you. So we gotta dismiss trauma. 'cause right now you are litigating this subject matter already. Well I mean God ain't never did nothing for me. And I don't know why we even talking about this 'cause God disappointed me. Okay, stop. Okay, we get it. We get you. We got it. You got your law degree from uh uh uh Google University. I need you also to dismiss all past disappointments where God didn't move in the season you thought he should have moved. And then I wanted to also have you dismiss this thing called fear and insecurity because again, all of those play into this unfortunate concoction that stops us from moving with God. So with that being said, my brothers and sisters, I'm moving full steam ahead. You ready? 'cause I'm gonna give you six phases of faith. The first phase is when God wants to build your faith. He gives you a dream. Nothing happens with God without you dreaming. He drops something in your heart. He gives you a dream about your purpose, the impact that you will make in life about your family, about your neighborhood, about your city. God gives you a dream. Everybody who God has ever used in the Old Testament portions of the New Testament, he gives them a dream. And that dream irritates their soul. Nobody used of God ever thought they do for God what they've done for God. God gives you a dream. Now if that's so, if that's something that you have felt, felt and you know God has deposited something in your heart, you are in good company. God gave Noah the dream of building the art. God gave Abraham the dream of being the father of a great nation. God gave Joseph the dream of being a leader that would save his people. God gave Nehemiah the dream of building the walls around Jerusalem. God gave David the the dream of building the temple. My question to you is what has happened to your ability to dream? Uh, I read this uh, mean post. I don't know where, but it was through social media. I saw it. You know some stuff you just scroll by some stuff you ignore, some stuff you don't wanna be bothered with. But this stood out to me. It was a quote. It says up to the age of six, we are dreamers. After age six we are survivors. There was a strong implication that it really resonated with me that some of us quit dreaming because something happened to us. A disappointment, a failure. Something happened in our family of origin, a letdown. I don't know, I'm not here to spend too much time, but I need you to interrogate why you quit dreaming. Why did you stop dreaming? Why are you just surviving for the next 64 years plus that means we are literally missing out on God, doing something amazing in our lives. Because somehow some way we have experienced a hiccup, a failure, a stop point, a something that caused us to quit imagining again with God. Can I share something with you all? Not you are not alone. We all have to reconcile the stuff that we couldn't control. But here's what I need you to really hear me get at. There is scripture that challenges us to dream. And I need to say to you not only what has stopped you from dreaming, you have to figure that thing out by asking the question, where did I stop dreaming at? Some of you all can go to the day, the month, and the year. Some of you all know the event, some of you all have buried the event. But you know somewhere around the ballpark of the timeline that you just kind of start saying, Hey, I'm gonna put this thing in cruise control and survive. I'm hanging on for dear life. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands because I know we're in good company. I don't care how you look and you put water on your face and put some cologne on your body. It's a perfume on your body. There is still something behind the scenes that says, I'm troubled as all get out and I'm fighting for my life right now. In fact, getting here today was a fight. It was a battle. You're like, let me try this one more day and I'm happy you're here today because God still wants you to do some dreaming. In Ephesians, the third chapter, I want you to see this scripture that's going to stand out in verse 20 is one of my favorite scriptures. It says, God is able to do far more than we could ever dare to ask or even dream of. So God says, whatever you're dreaming that I gave you, I'm gonna do even more than that. Now for some of y'all, you're just done with that whole thought process that God can do more in your life because you feel like you missed the opportunity or you messed up so bad or you're so messed up that God, listen, stop, pause, pause. Listen. If my dad can take a junkie Volvo that didn't run for the owner and make it work in an hour, I'm certain that God who created the heavens and the earth can deal with you no matter how parked you are. So brothers and sisters says He's able to do far more than we can ever dare ask or dream. See, God deals with dreams, which means we've got to start putting something in our mind so us and God can have communion. Pause. If God is dealing with our minds, then it, it's important to, it is important that we guard and gauge what we put in junk, in junk out. When you are in worship, you are giving God space. There is a psychology that says that humans go into REM, sleep, rapid eye movement, sleep. It's the deepest form of sleep that is the place where you have either the greatest amount of joy or the greatest amount of torment. And it's all based on what you meditate on throughout the day. What you're taking in, you are angry because you're listening to angry stuff. If you constantly put in your heart and mind the stuff that goes against what God wants to do, it is by no surprise that you and God are at an impasse. Brothers and sisters, if God is dealing with us and he wants to do more, then our mindset and how we process our day, we've got to start getting in the word of God. We have to start reading the word, reading devotionals, getting into worship because that allows us to dream with God. Now I know you have to do business and you're very smart. You're, you're very brilliant. I get all that and you're very busy. But what has, what has been the advantage of taking in the junk but not giving God space? Can we go further? In the scripture it says infinitely beyond our highest prayer. So which means when you're praying real good, there are times for the new believer and for those who are on that journey towards being a believer. There are times we feel real good when we pray and we just know God heard us and we walk away with confidence. And there are times we don't even know if he's there. This is for the experienced person that's been walking with God. We sometimes like, ah, did you hear me? He says, even when you're praying your highest prayers, God still wants to do more than that. Which implied means when you're praying your lowest prayer, IE it don't have all of the juice behind it, all the confidence behind it. God says, I'm still able to do more than that. And it says in Philip, beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, and hopes. How do you know a dream is from God? I may have asked you that question, but I'm gonna ask you again. How do you know a dream is from God? Here's the first one. It's so big you can't do it without it. If you are having a dream that you can accomplish, I'm here to tell you probably it's not God's dream. The second way, you know it's a dream from God is that God's dream never goes against God's word. Amen. And so that's the context of which I wanna begin to build this. So God gives you a dream. It's so big you can't do it without him. If you can do it without him, it's not God's dream. But if you are in that place where you're like, I don't know how, that's huge, you're in the right place. 'cause God never asked you how. God never asked you about your 401k or your W2 when he signed you up for this journey. He says, oh, you simply available. Now that leads me to phase two. Phase one is a dream. Phase two is a decision after God gives you dream, it's time to move on it. It's time to move on it. You can't keep playing double Dutch with God. Some of y'all don't know what double Dutch is, but back in the day in the black hood, we used to play double Dutch. It's like jump rope, but it's with extension cards and telephone cards And it's two ropes. And the one person on one end would have the rope and you would do this, it's two ropes. And so you will be, as the person who was jumping, you would have to time it right? 'cause if you didn't time it right since it was an extension card or an old telephone card, the thick kind, southwestern bale kind, those swans that you can literally rally a a, a cattle with, right? It would hit you across the forehead and you would have a whip across your forehead and some of us and and you would see the people, they would be like this ready to jump in to time it. And some of us are that with God, we are double Dutch with God. And God says, move, make the decision how much longer you're going to try to cancel the possibilities because you are an overthinker. And don't even get on anxiety. Anxiety. Oh my God, I can't stand anxiety. I wish I could find, I wish I could punch it. I wish anxiety was a person. Are you anxiety? Are you, are you okay? You're not There. There are, there are moments where we talk ourselves out when God wants us to make a decision. Here's what James says, that A, you must believe and not doubt. A double-minded man is unstable in all that he does. Did y'all ever hear about the story of the man that tried to sail two boats at one time? He put one foot in one boat and the other foot in another boat and he goes out to water. And over time because of the ness of the water, he becomes unstable and he falls in the water. Y'all didn't hear that story. I just made it up. That's how it looks when you're trying to do God's will and your will at the same time. That's how it looks when you're saying I believe God. But you do everything that goes po that goes in opposition to you. Believe in God. I need to tell y'all something. Faith is a verb, not a noun. It is not just something for you to believe. It's something for you to do. In other words, faith encompasses my foundation. The Bible gives a definition of faith in Hebrews 11. Now, faith is a substance of things hope for. I don't have hope until I have faith. Faith essentially for those who who, who live in a house, those who know how a house is built before that house can be built up. It has to have a foundation. Faith is your foundation. Hope becomes the walls and the floors and the decor. And here is where I wanna lay the burden on you so deeply. And I want you to hear me. God wants you to move with what he's been telling you about in dreams. And this is where we start building our muscle of faith. When you start walking, when you start making that decision, you commit. And during this phase of, of, of, of, of decision making, this is when we find out if you're real true about what God said. And there are two things that are required when you step out and make that decision to follow God's dream. Two things. You must invest. That's the first thing you must invest. What are you investing? Time, money, reputation, and energy. Now I'm gonna pause. I didn't say this to Saturday because they wasn't worthy. All my revelation. And I'm really questioning if you are worthy as well. I kid time is one of the biggest things up there that I think most of us struggle with. Some of us feel like we're past time. Some of us, some of us feel like we don't have time. Some of us feel like God is off time. I need to tell you all this fact about God. God is eternal and what eternal means that he does not and is not regulated. By time he created time, God himself created time, time don't tell God what to do. God tells time what to do. So, so, so, so when it comes to Sarah and she's talking about I passed my time to have a baby. God says, shut up. I didn't ask you about time. God is over time. So if God is over time, then that means he still has time for you to move in what he called you to. But, but I missed the opportunity. Don't you know God is the one that makes ways out of no way. So some of y'all got to go back to the dream board and you have to allow God of time to use time for you. And then the other thing you have to do in this season of decision making, you have to let go of security. You have to let go of security. Take a deep breath. You have to let go of security. Breathe. Ah, let go of security. I believe one of the reasons why we don't see more of God moving in our lives is because most of us are addicted to comfort. Comfort Why you cry. Amen. Okay, two over here. Amen. Amen. Oh my God, we got a long way to go. We, we, we, we are addicted to comfort and we think that if it's not comfortable or easy, it must not be God. But God in his word, never gave us the idea of comfort until we get to heaven. And there's no scripture in the entire Bible where God says, be safe. That's for your comfort. That's what you tell loved ones when they travel to school, those who are going back to college. Be safe baby. It's what you say to loved ones that go on business. Just be safe baby. You know what God says? Be courageous. It's totally opposite. Comfort ain't it? Ain't no lazy boy in heaven. Comfort is what causes us to miss out on what God wants to do because you'd rather be comfortable than convicted. Convicted to do what God said do even when folk look at you like you're crazy. And I'm here to tell you all I won't get into it, but everybody, Abraham, Moses, Nehemiah all had to give up comfort to follow God. Nehemiah gave up a good job in 401k to go back to Jerusalem to build the walls. He was the cut bearer to the king. He was cool for the rest of his life. He says, Nope. God says go, gotta go. So God gives you a dream and then he wants you to make a decision. Which leads me to phase three. So phase one God gives you dream phase two. That's a decision. Phase three, there is a delay. God will not fulfill your dream immediately. God has not promised to give you the dream today and tomorrow will fulfill it. You can always count on this. There will be a time lapse between what, when God gives you a dream and when God fulfills it. Now, now, now some of you act like that's joyful news. I hate delays. I even wonder why Amazon can't bring me my body wash faster. Like it's just body wash. It's not a whole barbecue pit. Get it to me today. Hate delays, right? Hate delays when there should be things happening in my life. I don't like delays. I'm not equipped for delays. 'cause delays mean this. This is the revelation you are going to listen. I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you three years of masters in theological ex studies. I'm gonna give you this word real quick. This is what I learned after three years and a lot of money spent. Um, um, God wants you to have patience. I just gave y'all a whole master's degree right there. That's it. God wants you to have patience. Patience is the place where God begins to show you himself in unique ways and powerful ways. And these delays are God delays. But what I need y'all to understand is that in delay, God is building you. It's this concept in the Bible called seed time, harvest time. I'm not a former, I wasn't born and raised on a farm, I'm a city boy. Uh, we didn't have all the animals that the farm have. We had possums. And one thing help me out is that when you plant today, do you get that thing out the ground tomorrow? No. So y'all farm folks should just talk. So you didn't say nothing to me. So we ain't friends now. So I'm done with you. I'll go to Google and figure this out. When the beauty of God is one seed never brings back just one seed. If I was to have an apple seed today to plant an apple tree and I planted that one seed in the ground, gave it the right nourishment, the right saw and the right sunlight exposure, it's not going to bring me one apple. What is it going to bring me? My farmers? There you go. You are my friend. Thank you all. Even though you may have been on the phone, but thank you for having the city. Boy, you bring an apple tree and what on the apple tree happens? What? What's on that apple tree now from one seed is a bunch of apples and every apple is multiple seeds. God is never one for one. And some of y'all are missing out. What God wants to do because you think God is one for one qui pro quo, you think God just wanna scratch your back. God won't be your buddy. God will wanna be your buddy. You wanna be your God. He wanna blow your mind far more than you can ask or think. God wants to show you that I have more for you than you can imagine. No matter family of origin, no matter hiccups, no matter the internal battles you're having. Now, Habak says it this way, in two and three it says these words, God is talking. But these things I plan won't happen right away, slowly, steadily. Surely the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. I hate that scripture because there's everything against my Americanism, against my need for urgency. And God says what? Because here is what God is doing when these seasons of life happen. God uses delay, uh, for three reasons. Number one, to exterminate, to kill your agenda. That's the first reason why God allows delay. Because some of us, we want God to do great things for wrong reasons. Like you want to kinda, you wanna come into your own so you can go back and talk about the people and show them who left you and who, who didn't believe in you. See, I made it look at me and ba ba and God says, let me hold off for a while and kill your agenda because God will never co-sign his dream to your petty agenda. He kills the agenda. Why are you asking God for big things? And when your heart becomes pure is when God starts moving. The second thing is to develop your character. Some of us are right now in character development university. God is saying, I'm helping you to learn patience. I'm helping you to learn love. I'm helping you to learn what it means to slow down. God is saying, I'm helping you to learn what it means to love, to slow down, to pray, to trust, to hear my voice. I'm also working out that stuff in you that's going to goof up what I'm about to do for you. 'cause I know in me, I don't know about y'all, but God saved a wretch. I have it all together as I wouldn't, it came to God. So that's the stuff in me that lies dormant. And God has to deal with delay or deal with me through delay to, to work that thing out of me. Because if left to my own devices, I will mess up what God is setting up. So don't look at delay as a bad thing. God has you in delay because you are in Kingdom University. He's building your muscles so you can handle what he's about to bestow on you. And just to be honest with you, there are some dreams you're not ready for. That's why he gave it to you early on so you can build the capacity for it later on. And the last, the last reason is to ensure you are dependent on him. Now, I love this part because this part still irritates my soul. Because we're so resourceful as people. We oftentimes have a a, a, a B plan, a parachute clause. When we step out, we always have a B plan. Here's how God deals with us and our B plans, he flushes them down the toilet. If there's a B plan, God won't move. In fact, God won't move until you get done and over and you totally remove the B plan from your thinking. I promise y'all, I am a living witness. It's not until I remove the escape pod from my life that God says, now I can bless you because now I'm totally dependent on him. Give me this day my daily bread, the Lord's prayer. It means daily we ought to depend on God. No, he did it for the children of Israel in the Old Testament where he dropped down bread provided covering for them. We call that DoorDash today. But God wants us to depend on him daily and not just for the basics. God wants you to dream again. Noah awaited 120 years, y'all. 'cause that's what we ask in this phase. When it is going to happen, God and God don't answer us like that. He don't even take, in fact, God, don't even give us a month and a date in a year. There are people that's trying to predict the return of Jesus Christ. And he makes it very clear. It's so funny when I hear people say, oh, he's about to come back. Oh, times are always gonna be terrible as long as we keep living because humanity has a way of goofing up stuff and everybody's, oh, I predict Jesus is coming back. Jesus said, no man knows the time not day. He said it out his own mouth. You can't go to Lamber and look on that board and see when Jesus is coming. Right. And my point, my point in all of this is we ask when, but Noah waited 120 years. Abraham, 24 years. I could really talk about Abraham right here. But let me just say this. I didn't say this a Saturday, but I'm gonna say it to you 'cause you're worthy. God calls Abraham at 75. He's gonna have a child 24 years past Isaac is born. Guess when Abraham dies. At what age? I'll tell you 'cause we're gonna walk together 125 years. So here it is. He waited 24 years, has the child, he's now a hundred. And God allows his life to be extended to 25. God gave him back time. Do you trust God to give you back time? And so, uh, David, uh, waited nearly 20 years to be pointed. King, could you imagine being elevated to a position and said, oh, by the way, you gotta wait 20 so years. And by the way, the guy who's in your position wanna kill you. Jesus waited 30 years to do ministry. It leads me to phase four difficulty. Not only do we get to wait, but then God allows problems to happen. Ain't God fun? Yay. Right? And there are two primary kinds of problems that you're going to have or difficulties, circumstances and critics. Some of us have environmental problems, things that's in our environment that's a barrier to us dreaming. And then there are people who know that we dreamed we told them our secret and we talked too much and we never should do. And they stole our dream and they're using it against us. Oh, this person think they go do this and think they go do that. And they think they're gonna do this. And I I don't how, how, how dare them. Y'all remember Joseph was given a dream. And I don't think Joseph's problems was totally based on the dream. I think Joseph's problem was because he talked too much. If after the first time I tell my brothers that, listen, God's going to make me over you. I'm gonna be a supervisor over you, and they hate me, and they see that they're not receiving that message, I'm not gonna go back and tell them again. Joseph went right back to 'em. Hey brothers, I don't know if you got the memo yesterday. He already got the code of many colors and you gonna keep telling us this dream. Shut up my brothers and sisters. It's important that we all capture this. That we're going to have critics in life. Don't spend your life trying to chase down and clarify critics analysis. I'm in this season where I really don't care what you think. Not that I don't care, I just don't let it affect me anymore. If you're not in my circle of faith builders, I'm just not listening to the naysayers anymore. See, God captivated me. I've never, ever, ever in my life thought I'd be a pastor ever. And I thought that, that, that, that the people would respond differently and, and I learned that you gotta get confident in God and go for it. Now one Peter says it this way, at the present, you may be temporarily harassed by all kinds of trials. This is no accident. It happens to prove your faith, which is infinitely more valuable than gold. Notice what it says right now. You're being temporarily harassed. Say this with me. It's temporary. It's temporary. You should have said that so confidently that everything you're dealing with right now knows that it has an expiration date. It's not gonna stay, it's not gonna linger. You're like, but but, but it's been here for five years, seven years. And the doctors don't know. Pause. What did I ask you to do in the beginning? Let's dismiss all of our litigation and let God be God in this 30 minute time they keep giving me that I still have issues with. And let God be God in this moment, in the next moment and after we leave this parking lot, because right now it's temporary, tomorrow is temporary. Next week, it's temporary. And God says, I'm doing that to prove your faith. Now let me lead you to phase number five. We'll round the bin quickly. This is the dead end phase. Okay? So you got delay, you got difficulty, you now there's a dead end, which is the place where you see no way out and no way of this coming to pass. And if you have arrived at phase five, congratulations. Most people give up at phase three. If you're here, you have graduated to God's gotta do this university. Hallelujah. I know you're like, oh my God, want me to tell me he ain't done? Oh my God, I wanna share this with you. Paul gives us a very powerful insight to dead end situations. He gives the Church of Corinthians a rundown of a season in his life where he almost thought he was going to die. And second Corinthians one, eight through nine, it reads as such, at that time we were completely overwhelmed. Pause, sometimes we get bad theology through nice coins. Phrases. One of those coin phrases where we have allowed bad theology to come through and to us and we believe is that's a statement that says, God won't put more on you think you can bear, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. That's not Bible. Paul's about to tell you why it's not Bible. He says, at that time we were completely overwhelmed. The burden was what? More. More than we could bear. In fact, we told ourselves that this was the end. Pause. Anybody been there before? Okay, thank you for acknowledging because you have graduated though there used to be a time when delay would stop you, but you're at a dead end right now. No. Notice what he says. Yet now we now believe that we had this sense of impending disaster so that we might learn to trust not in ourselves, but in God who can raise the dead. Paul puts everything about this dead end on the reality that Jesus was raised from the grave. Paul didn't walk with Jesus. Paul was some 20 to 30 to 40 years after Jesus. And Paul is literally positing his entire deliverance. Breakthrough on the fact that God can raise the dead. That leads me to my last phase and I get to let y'all go in this 30 minute talk is deliverance. If there's a dead end and you are holding on by a thread, you are in position for God to show out because God has the ability to raise the dead. So if the dream has died and you put it on the shelf, the mantle, or you have totally erased it from your memory, men in black, I'm here to tell y'all that God can raise the dead. So if the person or the entity or the circumstances is yelling, it won't happen. You say, but my God is able to do far exceeding that I can ask or think according to the power that work in him. I want y'all to know that God is not done. Dead ends are God's platform and brothers and sisters, Paul does not stop telling them his story. In second Corinthians, the uh, first chapter, he goes on to verse 10. So I gave you eight and nine, here's verse 10. Let's stand all over the house. Let's stay. I'm done. I ain't finished. Just done. I want us to look at this scripture here. Let's read it together. First he has delivered and he will deliver us again. Now Paul's at the place where he said that this thing was far more than he could bear. And he also said we thought this was going to be a death sentence. He also said, impending disaster. But then in verse 10 he says, he has delivered, which says a historical reality to God moving in Paul's life where he says God has delivered, as in God has moved at the right time in the nick of time. And he was on time right? That says that God didn't fail Paul when stuff was saying Paul's about to die. So Paul says he has delivered. And then Paul prophesies based on a historical, his historical experience with God. He says, what's that next sentence? And he will deliver us again. So here's the exercise. This is your homework. I'm gonna read the first part. I'm gonna point to you. You read the second part, okay? And somewhere in me pointing to you, you go get it. He has delivered And he'll deliver us again. He has delivered And he'll deliver us Again. I don't understand why you're still being quiet. Here is what you've just said. Whatever you're dealing with, God's about to deliver you how. Again. So one more time, he has delivered and He'll deliver us. God, I thank you. Come on eyeball a neighbor. Just find a neighbor. Eyeball them. Eyeball them. Just find somebody next to you, eyeball them and tell them he will deliver you again. Again. Can I pray for you? And we outta here. Can I do that? Father, in the name of Jesus, my prayer is simple and it is very short. Resurrect dreams and let them see your power. In Jesus name, amen. God bless y'all.