Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: We ask it now in the name of your son, Jesus. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

This morning, we want to begin a series thought that will encompass the rest of July and August, particularly aimed at men, speaking to men of character. The reason for that is a couple of weeks back when we did the Steel City Jazz, we were given the charge to challenge the city to regain the city for God. We've seen a lot of things happen in this city that have not been of God.

So we had to ask ourselves, what would we do, and what can we do? I believe that it starts with men. It's because of the statistical facts that I know that exist. In every church, there are always more women than there are men. In the African-American congregation, black women are the most reached population of those who ascribe to faith.

But when a black woman comes to faith in Christ, 27 percent of the time, her family will follow. But when a black man comes to faith, 98 percent of the time, his family will follow. So if we can reach black men, we can take the city back. We can take the church back. We can take the family back.

While we want to look over these next few weeks, not at a man-bashing, but at some biblical examples of men who demonstrated character. Some who didn't, so we'll learn from those who did well and learn from those who did not do well. We're going to talk about men of character over the next seven, eight weeks.

Today, I want to start with the Book of Hebrews, chapter 11. We want to look at verses eight through 18, and we're going to talk about this one man first. "By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place where he should after receive an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God."

"Through faith, also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore, sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. 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 earth."

"For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. Truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had an opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac. He that received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called."

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be unto God. Talking today about men who answer the call. That's the need: for men to answer the call of God. God is calling. Hark the voice of Jesus, say who will go and work today? Fields are white and harvest waiting, who will bear the sheaves away? Loud and long the master calleth, rich rewards he offers free. Who will answer gladly saying, "Here am I, oh Lord, send me"?

Let none hear you idly saying there is nothing that I can do while the souls of men are dying and the Master calls for you. Take the task he gives you freely, let his work your pleasure be. Answer quickly while he calleth saying, "Here am I, oh Lord, send me." If you can't sing like the angels, if you can't preach like Paul, then the least that you do for Jesus will be precious for us all.

Take the task he gives you freely, let his work your pleasure be. Answer quickly while he calleth saying, "Here am I, oh Lord, send me." God does call in more than 75 different ways in the pages of the Holy Writ. God is said to have spoken. In that speaking, he summons men unto him. We are drawn by cords of love.

God calls sometimes through dreams. He calls in others through visions. He calls in others through just the command, "Come and follow me." But he calls. Men are divided into two categories of living. There are those who respond to the call of God and choose to live a life of faith, and those who reject the call of God who choose to live a life of denial.

So the call today for men is to respond to God's call in faith by living a life of faith. We look today at an example. We look at the example of Abraham, who is said to be the father of the faithful. He's called the father of the faithful because God changed the way that he was dealing with the human family at this point.

From the confusion of the language that took place at the Tower of Babel, where he spread the people out into various forms and denominations or races of people, only those who could understand one another would begin to migrate together. Here they had built the Tower of Babel not to worship God but to defy him, to say that we're going to worship the gods of stars and moons and others.

But God stepped in and confused the language. Out of this pagan race of people that had grown up, he looked down in Ur of the Chaldees, and he called a man whose name was Abram. So many who listen to these kind of words think that God only chose the brightest and the best, that God chose the perfect and the upright.

But I want you to know that's not who God chooses. God chooses ordinary men just like you and me. Men who are flawed, men who are messed up, men who don't have it together. God doesn't choose the qualified; he chooses the unqualified and qualifies the unqualified. So he does with Abraham.

Abraham's record is here some 2,000 years later because he obeyed God. Listen to what he did. He simply heard God's voice and he obeyed God. Any man who hears God's voice and obeys him, God will use that man's life. So the account is given to us here in the Book of Hebrews.

Why Hebrews? Because this writer has been trying to lay down the case that it is by faith that God works in and through the lives of others, especially in this section. He's writing to Jewish people because the Jewish rabbis had taught that it's by works that you earn your way to God. This writer refutes the idea that you earn your way by showing us Abraham, who was the first Jew, and helping us to understand that if the first one lived a life of faith, then everybody else who comes along should also live a life of faith.

Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 7, when he was trying to prove the justification that people have. God doesn't count us right because we are right. He counts us right because we hear his voice and follow what he asks us to do. So he also uses Abraham and says that Abraham was counted right, not that Abraham was right.

How many know Abraham lied? Abraham didn't tell the truth. Abraham didn't always follow God as perfectly as he could have or should have, just like any of the rest of us. But yet God uses him. That's the good news for all men today. If you would hear God's voice and obey his voice and follow him, God will use you.

Let's listen. Look at five things that I want to draw out today to help you to understand what a life of faith should look like as you do it. First and foremost, the eighth verse says, "By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place where he should after receive an inheritance..." He was called. Where did he live? He lived in Ur of the Chaldees.

Where is Ur of the Chaldees? It's in the area near the Tigris-Euphrates River where life began in what is known as the Garden of Eden. It's in the same area that later became Mesopotamia. It's the same area where that Tower of Babel had been built. It was the same area that later became the great city of Babylon, which is today Iraq.

In the same area where wicked men have always lived and where wicked men live even now. It was in Ur of the Chaldees. Not among a group of Christian noted Bible scholars or followers of Jesus, but among pagan, star-worshipping, star-gazing, moon-worshipping, idolatry-oriented people, God called this one man.

He says to him, "I want you to get up from your kinfolk and your acquaintances, and I want you to go to a place that I will show you and give to you as an inheritance forever." The beautiful thing and the powerful thing about it is Abraham heard the call and he answered the call because he followed God.

That's my challenge for you, my brothers. Listen again at the call. Get up from your kinfolk and your acquaintances and go to a place that I will show you. One of the reason men are disobedient and living hellish lives is because of the environments that they find themselves continually in.

You're going to have to get up and separate yourself from some of the mess you've been hanging around in if God is going to change your life. It doesn't make any sense you come to church week after week and then go right back into the same stuff around the same cussing, fussing, lying, foolish-carrying-on brothers that you've been hanging with. You can't experience the change that God is trying to work if you don't change the environment.

I've been a fella all of my life and I was a fella, trust me. I know I grew up in church, but I hung around where the boys hung around. I used to listen to the lies and the jokes and the things and say the kinds of stuff that everybody else said and tried to do some of it. But you know what? It wasn't until I decided to separate myself from it that life really began to change.

I'll be honest with you when I came home from college, I had the college mindset. I had the college campus mindset. I had the language of the college mindset, which meant every other word was not a Sunday school word. Oh, y'all don't understand, I'm just telling it like it is. If we're going to save men, if we're going to help men, we've got to tell men the truth.

Men don't want to know how good your church is; men want to know how merciful your God is. I'm here to tell you God is a merciful God. The guys who have been in the army, guys who have been in the military, you know what it is to hang around in the barracks and to hear the talk and the shop talk.

You know what it is to hang around in the mechanic's shop, around the domino tree and all of that stuff, and to hear the language that the boys talk. I'm telling you, you cannot change if you continue to hang in those same places. You're going to continue to be inundated with the same thought process.

So God said, "Get up from there. Separate yourself from that and go to a land that I'll show you." You've got to get out of that. God knows this morning that there are some brothers who need to be separated from some of the environments that you've been in. The language, the foolishness, the ways, the thought process is toxic and is poisonous to your mindset.

I remember when sexual harassment first came out as a policy. Don't y'all sleep this morning, I'm going to talk to you. Brother challenged me one day, he said, "Pastor, talk to the men." I said, "Yes, sir, here I am." So don't be ducking now. I remember when sexual harassment first came out as a policy. Men pushed back against it.

They pushed back against it because typically and traditionally it had been what we call adult conversation. But then the jokes were no longer funny. Then people started getting fired from jobs and people started being sued. It was funny as long as it was among common people, but when it started hitting television stars and news anchors and other people in prominent positions, it didn't become funny anymore.

One of the reasons I think we still have a racism problem in America is because kids may go to school with black and brown people, but when they go home, they go back into that same toxic environment where the same germination and same spread of hatred and dislike and feelings of superiority is spread. Consequently, no real change can take place.

From a poverty-stricken area, we can take a kid and bring him into the school and keep him there seven hours a day, but then you send him right back into that same illiterate environment and illiteracy continues. So I'm saying what God is saying: get up, change your environment, separate yourself.

Some of you know you're around wrong folk. Some of you know that you're around people who are messing you up and some of the stuff you're hearing is not allowing for the health of your development. A lot of times, we don't want to change because we enjoy it. We like the talk, we like what we hear, we like the environment we hang in.

John wrote in John's Gospel, "Men love deeds of darkness more than they love the light." Consequently, Abraham had been in this environment among—he was a sinner, he was a pagan, he was a star-worshipper, he was an idolater, he was all of that until he heard God's call and until he responded by separating himself.

Now listen carefully. He got up from there and he went north to Haran. God was calling him to go east to Canaan. But at least he got up. When did he get up? Some weeks later, some months later? No, the imperative way this is written right here, present imperative, the way this is written in the Greek is while God was calling, Abraham was responding.

He immediately responded. So he immediately got up and he went to Haran. Even though he wasn't following God perfectly at this point, he had at least begun the separation process. May I help you understand? It'll take a while to get all that stuff out. You're not going to blink your eye overnight and become the saint of God that you want to be.

How many know that's a plague for new Christians that every new Christian goes through? You come to church, you cry, you snot your nose and you say, "Lord, I want to be different and I want my life to be different." You mean it. But then you go back where you've been going.

Somebody say something and you say one of them words right back at them. Then they say, "I thought you were Christian. I thought you were going to church. I thought you had changed." Then they make you feel shame. See, what you don't understand is that your old nature does not die as dead as you would like for it to.

Sanctification is a process. But here's the first thing you've got to do: you've got to start on a faith pilgrimage, on a faith journey. You've got to answer God's call. You've got to start in the direction of a faith-filled life. Abraham got up. He went up to Haran. He stayed five years. Why? Until his daddy died.

Who was his daddy? His daddy's name was Terah and Terah was a pagan. He was one of those star-gazers, one of those star-worshippers. Can I help you understand that some of that old stuff has to literally die out of you before you can change? God is patient with you. God is merciful.

God will give you what you need, but you've got to make a move. You've got to start. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. You at first got to do an about-face. You at first got to set your mind that I want to go in a different direction. When you decide that you want to go in a different direction, a different direction is yours.

I was telling them earlier when I first came home from school, they used to call me "Wild Wild" because I was wild, untamed, yeah, refined, but still had some of all of that on me. Then I decided that God was calling and I knew I couldn't hang no more. So I stopped hanging in the places. I stopped going to some of the things that I was doing.

The boys that used to hang around said, "Hey man, he ain't 'Wild Wild' no more. He's 'Mild Wild'." Then I didn't go no more and after a while they said, "Well, he's not 'Mild Wild', he's 'Mild Mild'." Then after a while, they just started calling me Wesley. They left out the "Wild Wild" and the "Mild Wild" because there had been a change.

I remember I had a friend of mine ask me one day after I'd been preaching just for a little while, he said, "Which one of those sermons turned you around?" I don't know the day or the hour, do you? I don't know when God did it, but I know he did it because I set myself in a different direction.

I'm saying to men now, if you want to be different, you've got to do something different. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things the same way you've always done them but expecting a different result. That's crazy. If you want a different result, you've have to do something different.

You're not going to sprout wings and it doesn't mean just because you can say, "Praise the Lord..." There's got to be a change in your heart, not just a change in your vocabulary. That starts with a change in the company that you keep. I hope you're hearing me this morning.

The second thing that we see on this pilgrimage of faith, not only is a journey of faith or a pilgrimage of faith—and I'm using "P" words to make it easy to remember—is that there has to be a patience with faith. On your faith journey, you've got to learn how to be patient because God is going to be patient with you.

Look at verse nine. "By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise." God didn't give Abraham no big advertisement plan. He didn't send him no brochure and say, "Get up, go to this beautiful place. I've got castles, I've got sea land, I've got cottages on the side." No, he went to where God finally told him to go, and he was a stranger and a pilgrim.

He wandered around in tents and he was there for a long time. I know at first it might have seemed exciting. How many know that when God first calls, there seems to be excitement? Oh yes, man, I want to turn over new leaf. I want to do this thing, man, I want to make my life better.

At first you're enthusiastic and excited about it. But you learn patience. You have to learn that God is not in a hurry to fix you. You have to learn that God is not taking out all of your old stuff right away. You have to learn that you have to keep reading and keep hearing and keep praying and keep trusting and keep believing and keep understanding.

Little by little, gradually, God replaces and builds you up and change takes place. But Abraham goes into the land and he has to wait patiently. Can I tell you this man lived in the land more than 25 years and he never really saw the total fulfillment of all that God promised that he would do?

How many know that you have to wait for a long time sometimes? How many know that God has a blessing for you right now? He has a blessing with your name on it. But God is not always in a hurry to give it to you. Sometimes you have to wait and you have to watch and you have to look. Is it over here? Is it over here?

God, where is it? I know you've got it, I believe it. So I'm looking. Is it down there? Is it over here? Is it back there? We continually look for God and we look for his hand, and God just patiently allows us to grow and develop because he knows that over time that washing, that cleansing, that changing is a gradual process.

Man, if God just instantly took it all away, you wouldn't even know who you were. I remember once when I was principal of school, we used to have to schedule a visit to the classrooms to observe teachers teaching. One of those visits had to be announced so the teacher knew you were coming. Well, I had announced to this teacher that I was coming and she was ready for me.

Boy, she had everything ready. She got in there and she put on a performance so well that day, the kids were going, "Who is this? This can't be our teacher," because she was so different than who she was. That's not who God wants. God doesn't want you to be so radically different so soon that he doesn't even recognize who you are and you don't recognize yourself.

So it's patience, man. You have to wait patiently on the Lord. Listen at what the promise is. The promise from Isaiah the prophet, he said, "They that wait on the Lord," something happens. They renew their strength. They mount up with wings like eagle. They run and not be weary. They walk and they don't fall out.

When you wait on God, God knows how to fix you. God knew that Abraham needed some stuff. When Abraham got in the land, one time there was a famine down in the land and he went down to Egypt and he took his wife Sarah—she was still young and pretty—and he got down there and he said, "Now, you tell them folk you're my sister. Don't tell them folk you're my wife, because if you tell them you're my wife, they're going to kill me and keep you."

See, he wasn't perfect. Some stuff over time had to be removed. Brothers, I want you to know God is not ignorant. He knows what it takes to bring you around. He knows what it take to bring the change in your life that you need. Meanwhile, he might put you out there and let you wander around a little bit.

So be patient. Be patient with yourself, be patient with God. Understand, don't let nothing knock you out of your belief. God is going to do what he said he's going to do. It just may take a little while. That's why the old people say, "He may not come when you want him, but he's always on time." Anybody know he's an on-time God? Yes, he is.

The thirdly what you need to understand on this journey of faith, not only must you have a pilgrimage, a journey of faith, and secondly there has to be patience, the willingness to wait on God to fulfill his promise, then thirdly, you'll experience the power of God. Faith has a power to it.

But it doesn't all happen at the same time. You grow in faith. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. It takes a while to get there to where you get that iron-clad faith where you say, "On Christ, the solid rock I stand," because you've experimented and you understand all other ground is sinking sand.

But over time, you'll learn and see the power of God. Abraham had been in the land about 24 years, 25 years. He was 75 when he went up to Haran and left Haran at 75, so he's 75 by time he get to Canaan. God is not only promising that I'm going to make your name great, but God said, "I'm going to make you into a great nation."

The clock is ticking. Abraham's had a 76th birthday, an 80th birthday and no child. An 85th birthday and no child. A 90th birthday and no child. He's waiting and time running out. God blessed him. God wanted him to see what was impossible with man is possible with God.

God gave him supernatural strength and demonstrated his power that he could not only produce seed but the seed would be able to produce a child. In other words, he made his soldiers march. I don't want to hurt nobody, man, but I just want to help you understand. I'm talking to fellas, I'm talking to men, so I'm putting it in a language that men can understand.

God gave Sarah, his wife, supernatural strength to be able to receive the marching soldiers and for them to take effect, take command, and she was able to produce and bear a child when she was past age. Now she had been barren all of these years. It says "By faith Sarah," but I don't really believe it was so much the faith of Sarah, it was the faith of Abraham.

Because when the angel came to tell Abraham, Sarah was inside of the tent, and when she overheard the angel saying that your wife is going to bear a child, she laughed. So it wasn't her faith; it was Abraham's faith who believed that God was going to fulfill his promise and give him a child.

God shows up to give him the power to be able to produce. Not only did he produce the child with his wife Sarah, whose name was Isaac, but he went into a slave girl named Hagar and he had the power to produce another son whose name was Ishmael. Then after Sarah died, Abraham married another woman named Keturah and he produced, through the power, six more children on the other side of 100.

So you can't tell me God won't bring the power. Don't misunderstand, don't go out and throw away all your little blue stuff. That's not what God is trying to say: that I'm going to give you power to be able to produce. But God will give you power.

What kind of power will he give you? He'll give you power to walk right. He'll give you power to talk right. He'll give you power to live right. He'll give you power to act right. You'll know the growth that's in your life because you'll be able to see how you react to people.

There are people now that come across you and say things to you. They could get away with it, but years ago you know they wouldn't have been able to get away with it because you said, "Now, when I was a younger man and when I was out there in the world, you had talked to me like that, I'd been upside your head."

But because time and God has produced something else inside of you, you're a different person and you can see a different power. You have power to overlook stuff you used to couldn't overlook. You have power to smile when it used to make you frown. You have power to pray for folk when you used to would go ahead and tell them what you really thought.

God will give you power. That's for men who answer the call. But you've got to answer the call, you've got to be on the faith journey, and you've got to be patient and allow God's patience to overshadow you and work his work in you, and then you'll see the supernatural power of God to produce.

This Bible said that Abraham's body was past dead, but God woke him up, shook him up. Number four is perseverance. Men on a faith journey have got to persevere. You've got to hang in there. You can't let things put a block on your vision of God. You can't let people, you can't let circumstance.

The light has got to shine just as bright 20 years from today as it does today. You know, God is not always interested in getting you there right away because sometimes the fun is not in the destination, it's in the journey, it's in the travel. I like walking with God. I like talking with God.

I like enjoying the relationship that I have acquired with him that has come over the years, the maturity that has developed, the understanding that has grown, having gone through some things. See, when Abraham got in the land, he went through some stuff. Yes, he had a son, Isaac, and Isaac had a son, Jacob.

God revealed the same promise to Isaac and God revealed the same promise to Jacob. But none of them never really saw the total fulfillment of all that God said. God promised, "I'm going to make you into a great nation. I'm going to bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you, and you all of the families of the earth will be blessed. I'm going to give you so many children that they'll be as the grains on the seashore and as the stars in heaven."

All he got is two children, one legitimate and one illegitimate. So he didn't see the fulfillment before he died. Isaac did not see the total fulfillment, but he persevered. He hung in there. Jacob saw his 12 sons and he saw the family grow at least to 70 in number when they went down in Egypt, but he wasn't around 400 years later when God brought the family out.

Now they're more than two million, so none of them got a chance to see the fulfillment of it, but they persevered during their lifetime. You know what? That's what others have done, even in our era. We've had people who have seen the promise but didn't see the fulfillment.

I mention Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream that one day my four little children will walk hand-in-hand with others." He talked about having a dream that this nation one day will live out its creed. Now, he didn't live long enough to see the fulfillment of it, but he persevered all of the days of his life believing that what God had showed him was going to happen.

That's what I want you to understand. Listen, you might not even see all that God intended to take place in your family line, but you still as a man ought to set it up that it can happen. You ought to be putting some aside for your children, for your grandchildren, for your great-grandchildren, even though you don't see what they might become.

But God has made a promise. What is his promise? I've been old, I've been young, and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. That made me shout one day because I realized that my children, my sons, my grandchildren won't have to beg.

I remember hearing my mama say that years ago, and I thought about all of her children. None of them had to beg. Are you understanding God's promise is God's promise? What God has promised, God will deliver. Yes, he will. I remember going by her bedside one day and she said to me, "Son, you're going to build that church."

She said, "I won't be there to see it," she said, "But I already see it." Anybody else ever talk to you like that? Anybody ever put a prophecy on your life that they weren't able to fulfill the actual seeing of it, but they knew the reality of it? My mom told me also, she said, "Boy, you're going to get that doctorate degree."

The day I went across that stage at Louisiana Theological Seminary and they were putting that hood on, man, the tears just rolled because I said, "Mom, this is for you." I mean, man, I couldn't help myself. The day we cut the ribbon on this church to march in, I said, "You said it, even though you're not here to see it. It happened."

All you've got to understand: when God calls, when God promises that he's going to make you somebody, he's going to make you somebody. Yeah, he'll pick you up from the guttermost and take you to the uttermost. God will brush you off, he will dust you off, he will make your name great.

You might not see it, but your child might be the one. But you've got to persevere. The last thing: if you're going to go on this journey of faith, if you're going to answer the call of God, you've got to have some proof that you're true to what God says because God's going to test you.

Yes, he is, he's going to test you. He's going to test you. Abraham was bad enough to believe God that when he was an old man, almost 100 years old, that he could produce a child, and God gave him that child. Then God waited about 15 years later. Now he's 114 years old, and God said, "Now, take that boy, that only son of yours that I've made all the rest of the promises to, and take him to a mountain that I'll show you, and I want you to offer him as a living sacrifice. I want you to take his life."

Abraham didn't even hesitate. He didn't blink his eye. He didn't have a family discussion. He didn't tell the boy's mama because he knew that would have been when the fight started. But he got up early the next morning, saddled his donkeys, cut the wood, and said, "Come on, boy, we're going on a trip."

Three days they rode until they got to the land of Moriah. In the distance, he could see the mountain that God had told him, "That's where the test is going to take place." Abraham rode up and he parked his stretch limo, his camels. He told the young man, "Y'all stay here while me and the boy go up there. We're going up there to worship, but we're coming back again."

Listen at the talk of faith. We're going up there and we're coming back. He takes Isaac and he takes all of the supplies. As they're going up the hill, Isaac said, "Daddy, I see the wood and I see the fire, but where is the sacrifice?" Listen at the faith of Abraham: "God will supply."

Oh man, I can't tell you how many times I heard my mama say, "God will supply." Don't know how he's going to do it, but I know he will supply. He's going to come through. You just go on and trust him and believe him because God will come through. Oh yes, oh yes, he will. Abraham marched on up the hill, tied the boy down on the wood.

Just at that time, he raised his hand to put that knife in his son's chest. Somebody said, "Why in the world would he do that? How in the world could he do it?" Because he believed. He believed God so strong that he believed that if God took the boy's life, God had the power to raise him from the dead and to restore his life.

Just as Abraham was ready to come down with the fatal blow, God and the angels were looking over heaven's balcony. The angel said, "Abraham, Abraham!" Abraham said, "Here am I." God said, "Don't do the boy no harm. You passed the test. You've proven that you have real faith. I tell you what you do: instead of hurting that boy, look behind you."

There in the bush was a ram in the bush. Is there anybody here this morning who know that God always has a ram in the bush? He always has an alternative plan when you're obedient. If you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you out. Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

God said, "There it is." Abraham took that ram and he killed that lamb, that ram, and offered him as a sacrifice. He and the boy went down the mountain. Family reunion was put back together. Everything was all right because Abraham's faith had proven to be what it needed to be.

I just need some man here to know, if you trust God, if you hold on to his unchanging hand, tears may be in your eye, heart may sometimes be made to bleed, friends may walk out, others may call you everything but a child of God, but God will stick by your side.

God will lift up your drooping arms. God will put money in your pocket. God will put clapping in your hand. God will put running in your feet. God will put a shout in your voice. Oh yes, I know what I'm talking about because one Friday, oh yes, one Friday, they took his son and they marched him up to Via Dolorosa, sometimes rising and sometimes falling, but he went all the way to the hill.

This time, there was no angel to say, "Do him no harm." God gave his son over, and Jesus dropped his head in the locks of his shoulders and he died. But he didn't stay dead because early, early, early, early the third day morning, he got up. He said, "Now all power in heaven and earth is in my hand."

Why? Because he answered the call of God. Every man who answers the call of God will find that God is no shorter than his word. He is true to his word. He will come through. You just got to go on the journey, baby. You've got to get up from where you are. You've got to separate yourself from some of the toxicity.

You've got to be patient and believe that God is going to do what he said. You've got to persevere. You'll see the power. You'll see the manifestation. So now because I've seen it, all I want to do is just bless his name. All I want to do is praise him all day long, man, because God has done what he said he would do.

So I can say, "Thank you." Can you say, "Thank you"? Can you tell the Lord, "Thank you"? Anybody want to praise him today? Anybody want to bless his name today? Oh man, I feel it, man. Come on. Doors open. Invitation time. During the song, give your heart to God. Give your hand to one of these. Doors open. Come on. All I want to do.

All I want to do is bless your name. Bless your name for all you've done. Anybody want to praise him today for what he's done? All I want to do is give you praise. Give you praise all day and bless your holy name. Oh man, that's a powerful truth. See, that's what happens when you see God. All I want to do is bless your name.

Bless your name for all you've done. For all you've done, I want to give you praise. Give you praise all day and bless your holy name. Listen, for the blessings you poured upon my soul, for the health and strength that you bestowed, the peace, love, and joy that you've given to me. For mercy and grace, thank God I am free.

All I want to do is bless your name. Bless your name, bless your name for all you've done. Hallelujah, for all you've done. I want to give you praise. Praise your name. Give you praise all day and bless your holy name. For the blood that was shed for me alone. For the ransom you made just to take me as your own. Just by my faith, I'm here today. I'm safe and secure. Thank God I am saved.

All I want to do is bless your name. Bless your name, bless your name for all you've done. Hallelujah, for all you've done. I want to give you praise. Praise your name. Give you praise all day and bless your holy name. Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you for loving me, for caring for me. Thank you. Thank you, thank you and bless your holy name.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you for loving me and caring for me. Thank you, thank you and bless your holy name. Come on. Stand up and give God some praise. Wave your hands and give God some praise. Thank him for waking you up this morning, for another day's journey, for caring for me. Thank you. Thank you and bless your holy name.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for loving me and caring for me. Thank you. Thank you and bless your holy name. All I want to do is bless your name. Yes, bless your name. Bless your name for all you've done. All you've done. All I want to do is give you praise. Give you praise all day and bless your holy name.

Guest (Male): Hope you enjoyed the broadcast. You have been listening to a message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where we are reaching the world for Christ. Located at 2135 Jefferson Avenue Southwest, Birmingham, Alabama, 35211.

For a copy of this message, you can reach us at 205-925-9750 or 9751, or visit us on the web at www.greatershiloh.org. For another uplifting message, we invite you to join us for our next broadcast.