Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. I’m so glad to have an opportunity to be blessed once again to share the Word of the Lord with you. I’ve been teaching a series that just revolutionized our church. This message is called, “Destiny Steps”. It’s really dealing with how do you walk in your destiny, and walk it out and really what is the thing that keeps pulling me? I’ve talked about instincts and if instincts is metal, then destiny is magnet pulling you instinctively into a prepared place. Beginnings don’t look like endings. I want you to understand that greatness starts in the seed. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. That’s why you got to go all the way through the steps to find your destiny. Take a look at this. You’re gonna be blessed.
Today, I’m focusing on being distinctively similar. Say that with me, distinctively similar. It’s an oxymoron. Distinctive, to be distinctive is to be unique. And then to be similar is to be like. And yet, I want to talk about being distinctively similar. God, in my text, is speaking to Joshua who is a protégé or a mentee of Moses. And God says to him something that is absolutely amazing. He says, “As I was with Moses, so shall I be with you”.
And especially considering the fact that Moses’ congregation was kind of mad with him right then. ‘Cause he had called them out of the familiar into the unfamiliar. And whenever you challenge people to come from the familiar to the unfamiliar, they’re not nice. They’re not always nice about that. “Why did you bring us out here,” and all this stuff. And Moses says, “Just shut up”. And goes like this, you know. And the wind blows and the water parts. And it’s real cool. Yeah, I like that part, yeah. Moses got to go down to the president of Egypt, and walk in, and do his stuff in front of the president of Egypt, and to eat up the serpents of the magicians. It was bad! It was awesome!
And you just throw out your rod and… He is, no. No, he is, now. Oh, wait a minute, I got to prime it a little bit. Let me step down in this water. It’s gonna part in a minute, y’all. Come on, come on, don’t be scared. It’s gonna part in a minute. We gonna get out of debt in a minute. Don’t be scared, just stay with me. We gonna own our own house in a minute. Don’t be scared, just stay with me a minute. Stay with a minute, we gonna raise our family. We gonna come out of this in just a minute.
And water all the way up to my knees and I’m still going. And then, all of a sudden, they got a rumble. And the waters started moving back out of their way. He said, “Oh, it does work. Come on”. Distinctively similar. As I was with Moses, so shall I be with you. I will be with you the same way I was with Moses. But you are not Moses. You are not who inspired you. You are not who trained you. God is going to be with you as he was with Moses. But you are not Moses. So you have to discover your own uniqueness to accomplish your purpose or you’ll step in the water and it doesn’t move.
And you’ll say, “It didn’t work for me”. And God is still with you. But God and you don’t form the same coalition that God and Moses did. So you have to be willing to be distinctively similar. “As I was with Moses, so shall I be with you. But I will not do with you what I did with Moses”. Can you recognize God being with you to the same degree, but creating a unique experience? God does not do encores. Everything God does is a designer’s original. So while you want to be mentored and you want to be developed by people, you don’t want to imitate them. Because God says, “I will be with you like I was with them. But you got to be yourself”. Because if I wanted Moses, I could have kept Moses.
Touch somebody and say, “Be who God created you to be”. The promise is not a duplicate copy. It is a unique promise built on an old presence. The only thing that will be the same is “As I was with, so shall I be”. I will be with you like I was with the one who inspired you. But you will not be them. The promise is, “I will be with you”. Throughout the chapter, over and over again, God says, “I will not leave you nor forsake you”. I will not leave you means you won’t be out there by yourself.
In English, when we read, “I will not leave you nor forsake you,” it’s a little bit confusing to us, because if you think when you read, “leave” and “forsake” to us is the same thing. I’m leaving you. I forsook you. It’s the same thing. So why did God say, “I will not leave you nor forsake you”? Because when you study it out, to leave somebody is to remove your presence. But to forsake them is to emotionally abandon them. You can forsake somebody you didn’t leave. That’s a class all by itself. You can emotionally abandon someone that you still come home to. Somebody wanting to shout, but they can’t ’cause they sitting right beside the forsakee.
God says, “When I get ready to get something done, I don’t leave it and I don’t forsake it”. I don’t leave it, I don’t withdraw my presence from it, nor do I withdraw my emotions from it. My physical presence there is followed up by my emotional attention there. So when God wants to see something succeed, he doesn’t leave it nor forsake it. And he said, “I will not leave you nor forsake you”. I will not emotionally abandon you just because I’m disappointed in you.
I am distinctively similar. “As I was with Moses, so shall I be with you. But don’t play Moses. Joshua, do you. Glory to God. And if you do you, I’ll do me. Glory to God. And together, we will walk through life and the promise I give you, no matter where your feet trods, no matter where you walk, or where you go, up hills, or down valleys, abased or abound, for richer or for poorer, in sickness, and in health, I will not leave you nor forsake you. People may leave ya, friends may leave ya, opportunities may leave ya. But God said, “I will be with you every step of the way”.
Destiny steps, wherever your feet trod, God said, “I will not leave you”. I feel the glory of the Lord in this place. I feel anointing in this place. “I will be with you. I was with you when you was 8, I’ll be with you when you 80. I was with you when you were 7, I’ll be with you when you were 70. I was with you in your momma’s belly. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, I ordained thee, I sanctified thee to be a prophet unto the… you couldn’t have been born by yourself. I pushed you out of her belly. And I’ll push you out of this storm. I will not leave you nor forsake you”.
Woo! Oh, bless his name. I feel the glory of the Lord coming in this place. David said, “I was young and now I’m old. But I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken nor their seed begging bread”. God was consistent when I was young and God is consistent when I am old. Destiny steps, I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’ll be with you no matter wherever you step. I’m with ya every step of the way. Somebody stomp your foot. God said, “I’m in that stomp”. So the promise centers around his presence, that’s the promise. My presence will be with you every step of the way.
My presence is your promise. Not a car. Not a mansion. Not a million dollars. My presence is your promise. But my presence does not abort the process. So we’re talking presence and now we’re talking process. My presence is with you. But you still got to go through the wilderness. My presence is with you, but I still have to take you through process. My presence is with you, but I still have to train you. I still have to develop you. I have to whittle down all the things off of you that are not relevant to your destiny. I put you in the process to prune you. I put you in the process, so that you could go through what was necessary to be tough enough to stand where I’m taking you.
Oh, you didn’t hear what I’m saying. The process makes you tough. The process makes you tenacious. The process prunes your heart. It purges your sensibilities. It burns out all the things, the wrong motives that you had when you started. God said, “I’mma take you through the wilderness till everything that is not of faith dies in the wilderness, until you come forth as pure gold. The wilderness is designed to kill the unbelief in you, to purge your motives, to prepare your heart. My God. Glory to God.
Touch somebody and tell them, “I’m in the process”. I am in the process. But his presence is in the process. Lord, they just threw me in the fiery furnace. He said, “I’m in here with you. And when you pass through the waters, I’ll be there with you. And when you go through the flood, I’ll be there with you”. It will not overtake you. God’s presence is with you in the process. God’s presence is with you while you’re doing your scales, rehearsing, waiting on your recital. Most people don’t know that. They’ll only recognize God’s presence in the recital and not in the rehearsal. I’m with you in the slow, mundane, routine, ordinary days. You gonna have more ordinary days than you do spectacular days. And God said, “I’m gonna be with you”.
Playing scales is just boring. Somebody get on the keyboard and play me some… you know, I played ’em. My mother taught me to play the scales. And she would be in there cooking and I had to sit on the piano and play scales. My sister plays the piano. She was a classical pianist. And I grew up listening at her playing scales. And scales sound nothing like recitals. Play me a scale. Yeah. We’ll be selling those albums in the lobby. Anybody want one? Do I see a show of hands? Nobody wants process.
I’m sorry brother, but we did not sell not one CD today, not one thing. Because process is an accumulation of boring days, of things that don’t move, and things that are not changing, and things that don’t seem to be getting better. Process is routine. Play it again, it’s routine. It’s boring, it’s go to work and come home. Lay out what you gonna wear tomorrow. Got to get up and go to work again. See ya, honey. Be back this evening. Bye. Take care.
Kids, the lunch money is on the kitchen table. Did you do your homework? Don’t lie to me, I’ll call Ms. Bailey and ask her myself. Don’t forget to pay the light bill. It’s past due, Richie. Yeah, I paid it on my phone. It’s process. It’s going around and around, and around. Preaching in the church that’s not growing. Teaching Bible class and they didn’t even come. I spent 10 years begging people to come hear me do what I’m doing right now. And if I had 20 people come, it was a good service. The devil will say, “Quit. You can’t preach. You can’t teach. You’re never gonna be anything. Nobody’s gonna never hear you”. But I kept on reciting, and I keep on working, and I kept on going, and playing, and playing my chords, and playing my chords, and I got a little stronger.
And all of a sudden, it started working. And it started happening. And it started coming to pass. And people started coming in, into the church, into the auditoriums, into the sanctuary, into the auditoriums, into the coliseums, into the Georgia Dome, into the Philips Arena. If you keep on doing what God told you to do, if you stick to it, and you don’t leave it, and you don’t forsake it, God will open up the window to heaven and pour you out a blessing. You don’t have room enough to receive.
Can the church give God praise and glory for process? Touch ten people and tell ’em, “I’m in the process, I’m in the process”. I’m in the process. I’m in the process of parenting. I’m in the process of being a wife. I’m in the process of being a mother. I’m in the process of being a husband. I’m in the process of law school. I’m in the process of starting a business. I’m in the process of building a career. I’m in the process, I’m in the process. But don’t count me out. And don’t play me cheap just ’cause I’m in the process. Something is gonna happen in my life. Can I get a good praise going in here?