If you wanna do your own thing, don’t bring God in it. If you wanna finish out your dreams and your plans go according to your own heart, don’t bring God in it. I might warn you that your plans are not gonna end as well as you think. But if you wanna have it your way, don’t expect God to go along for the ride. We have mismanaged our faith so bad, it’s unbelievable. We use God like he’s a bellman. Like, “Take it over here, and move it over there. Bless me, give me this, give me this job, give me this husband, give me this car”. We just only use God’s Word like he’s Santa Claus. But the truth of the matter, it is not about you using God, it’s about God using you. It’s about you being available and open for God to speak and understand that when God speaks it cancels out everything you had in mind.
Every blessing brings a burden. That’s what your haters don’t see. They hate you because you’re blessed but they don’t understand that every blessing you got gave you… oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying. Touch somebody and say, “I can relate”. I know blessings and burdens don’t look related but they are. You cannot have one without the other. You wouldn’t need a garage if you didn’t have a car. You wouldn’t need a carburetor if you hadn’t bought a car. You wouldn’t need to get to work if you hadn’t had a job. Every blessing brings a burden. You can’t have children and not have burdens. You can’t have a companion and not have burdens. You cannot have an opportunity and not have a burden. You can’t have a paycheck and not go to work. Every time God gives you something, “to him who much is given, much is required”.
Blessings and burdens are cousins. In fact, God can only bless you to the level of your ability to stand the burden. If you can’t handle the burden, stop praying for the blessings. They come together. You cannot have one without the other. Miracles and misery are related. Oh my God, sometimes I drive over the hill, coming over to the church, and I’m pulling over the hill and I look out and I see all the expansive parking lot and the traffic backed up and people coming from all directions, and I think, “Oh my God, I can’t believe it”. I still can’t. I can’t believe that the guy who would have dreamed of having 100 people in his church has almost 300 people on staff. Thousands and thousands and thousands of miracles. Is this a blessing? Yes. But is this a burden?
Oh my God, miracles and misery are so related that you can have your greatest miracle and feel miserable. You can have your greatest miracle in your life right now and not appreciate it because miracles often feel miserable. Fat people wanna be skinny. Skinny people wanna be fat. People with long hair trying to get it cut off. People who can’t grow hair trying to get it sewed on. Everybody’s trying to find their sweet spot where they can have the miracle and not the misery. But you got to take the bitter with the sweet, the up with the down, the right with the wrong. You can’t have one with… oh, God, I don’t know who I’m talking to but I’m talking to, “Hail, Mary…. So in fact, the reason I’m telling you you’re highly favored is because you’re not gonna feel like it”.
Joseph is gonna throw you away but I’ll deal with him. Your girlfriends are gonna look at you and they’re gonna be whispering about you at the barber’s shop but it will pass. You’re gonna have your baby in a barn with flies and gnats and cockroaches. You’re gonna have a holy thing in a filthy place. How could you have something that holy in something that filthy? In fact, God has a habit of putting holy things in filthy places. And if he didn’t, you wouldn’t be saved today. For we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency may be of God. Oh, I feel like preaching this morning. How can you have a holy thing in a filthy place? This holy thing is born in a barn. This holy thing is born around cockroaches and lice. This holy thing is born around sheep dung and goat and, yet, it is still holy. Somebody holler, “Holy”! I can relate. Touch somebody and say, “I can relate”.
Touch three people and say, “I can relate. I can relate. I can relate”. I didn’t even wanna live in Dallas. I didn’t even wanna come over here. I’m from Chicago. I’m from Memphis. I thought I was gonna build a house in Tennessee. I did never expect that I would end up in this situation. I can relate. And then Mary does the thing that’s hard for all of us to do. She says yes to the blank check of God’s Word, “Be it unto me according to thy word. I’ll go where you want me to go. I’ll do what you want me to do. I’ll say what you want me to say. You can mess up my plans, you can stir up my life, you can get me off course. Be it unto me according to thy word”.
Then I want you to understand that this troubling moment, this troubling, disconcerting moment in her life, he brings up her cousin and says, “You know, your cousin is going through the same thing you are. Both of you all are dealing with two different kinds of barrenness”. You see, Mary was barren because she was a virgin. And seeing as she knew not a man, how could she have a seed? And Elizabeth was barren because she was past childbearing age and she was an old woman. Both of them suffered from emptiness. You see, Elizabeth needed to have this child not just because she was an older woman and she had not proven in her society the importance of motherhood validated the existence of a woman. But deeper still, if Zechariah died without a child it would break the link of the entire Aaronic priesthood. And all Israel had left was priest.
The succession of kings had stopped and if the old woman did not birth a child, not only would it have personal ramifications but it would affect all of Israel for all they had left was a succession of priests and yet she, as a woman, was barren in the face of a dying priest. And if the priest died without a child, so would a priesthood. And when she was old, God blessed her to conceive. I wanna talk to you, baby boomers, don’t you let these millennials run you out of town. Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re not relevant. Just because we live in a society that does not relevate, does not appreciate, people as they get older, don’t you drink the Kool Aid and set yourself down and die. Remain relevant. Get right beside the young people, plow right beside ’em, work right beside ’em, tell ’em, “Scoot over, baby. Papa’s coming through”.
If you don’t do that, you won’t teach them how to age and appreciate every facet of life and they won’t serve God, they’ll only serve youth. And if you serve youth, you’re gonna be out of business in a year. If the only glory you has is your youth, your glory is fading while you’re clutching after it. Touch somebody and say, “Scoot over”. Now, the young woman has come to the old woman’s house. Hey! And they found that their relativity is not built on their generation. It is built on their circumstances. Elizabeth’s husband has stopped speaking to her and everybody else, and Joseph was trying to figure out how to get rid of Mary. So even though their ages were different, their miseries were the relationship.
Touch somebody and say, “Go see your cousin”. Stop trying to connect with people you’re not cousin to. I said stop trying to connect with people you’re not cousin to. If you have to keep explaining yourself, it means they can’t relate to you. When you find somebody who can relate to you, you ain’t got to say nothing but, “Open up the door, girl. I’m coming in”. Touch your neighbor and say, “Open up the door. I’m coming in”. So she came in and here, God is sending her to minister to her cousin. Somebody say, “cousin”. That’s where I’m getting this, “I can relate,” yeah. She is sent to minister to her cousin at a time that she is personally miserable. We have been asking you to be a miracle in the lives of people and you’ve been saying, “As soon as I get my situation fixed, I’m gonna be a blessing”. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, you will have to go miserable.
Yeah, and it was a great moment in Elizabeth’s life but I gotta tell you something. Josephus, the historian, tells us that even though Elizabeth was pregnant, her baby wasn’t moving. And the fear was that even though she had made it to the place of blessings, the burden was that her baby was likely dead. Even though she had the miracle of being pregnant, her misery was she was likely carrying a stillborn. So when she heard the knock at the door and the old woman tried to get to the door to answer it, one was carrying a dead baby and the other one was carrying the resurrection and the life. And the Bible said, until the anointing of the Holy Ghost about to make somebody’s baby leap. I know you think it’s dead. I know it’s not moving like you want it to move. I know it’s not working like you want it to work. But I feel a breakthrough in this place this morning. I need 30 seconds of crazy praise.
I don’t know who I’m preaching to this morning but you’ve been shut up for months, but God is about to bring you out of your cave. Get somebody you can relate to and shake ’em by the hand and say, “Neighbor, I know your situation looks dead. I know it’s not moving like you want it to move but I got a word for you. God’s gonna make your baby leap. God’s gonna make your baby leap”. I got up this morning to speak to dead things. I got up this morning to speak to things that are not moving in your life. I got up this morning to speak to your bills, speak to your family, speak to your heartache. I know the devil said your life is over, but the devil is a liar. God said that thing is about, it’s gonna leap. I need 30 seconds of crazy praise!