So the House of God, you girls, happy to be here. I’m glad y’all are here. Y’all give them one more hand clap. I know Jesse already said hi to him, but welcome to Kentucky. You’re in God’s country now girls. You’re in the right part of the world. Now somebody say amen to that. Hey, I’m glad you’re here tonight with our Amarillo church. I’m glad to be here. Why don’t you turn to your neighbor and tell them you’re super blessed to be with me tonight. Just let them know that, Huh? They are blessed to be with you and I’ll tell you, I’m blessed to be with you and I’m pumped to teach tonight. I’m going to teach for a short time tonight. I’ve got a message prepared. Shouldn’t take me more than 97 minutes and then we’re going to go home. But I’ll tell Ya, ah, 97 minutes really isn’t that long to preach.
I want to, I want to pull the crowd. How many of you have watched at least three or four episodes in a row of a show on Netflix? Three or four episodes in a row on a shelf. All right. Let me see if you’ve done it before. Three or four in a row. All right. How many of you have done that this month? Let me see your hands on Netflix. Lou the crowd. How many of you have done that this week? I did it. I got turned on to black list this week and I watched like 57 of them, right? You know, in a row. Uh, so really I think our attention span is longer than we think it is. Let me say that again. Our attention span is longer than we, we say that it is somebody say amen to that. It’s just what are we going to feed in our lives?
So the question I have in my spirit today, and it’s what I’m going to teach tonight in this is just the question I have. I felt like the Holy Spirit asked me this this afternoon and I felt like I was to teach it, share it. A lot of times I feel like what God’s speaking to me, God’s speaking to the church. So the way it works with the Lead Shepherd, God just asks me, what are you feeding Brian? Come on. Look at your neighbor and just ask him, what are you feeding? What are you feeding Lucas? You’re now the other neighbor and say, what about you? What are you feeding? Now ask them that. So here’s one way I could say it. The question could be what tastes do you have in your mouth? You get done eating something, you’d go out to eat and there’s some tastes that’s just they linger with you, right?
Sometimes it’s a good taste. Sometimes it’s a bad taste. And what you eat and what you feed on, you can taste it in your mouth. It stays there for awhile. And how many know there are some restaurants in town you go to eat at them and whenever you walk out of there, you don’t just taste what you ate in there. You smell like what you ate in there. So you walk up by somebody or are they, they’re sitting around you. And like if you’ve been to Amarillo church this afternoon cause you, you, you, you smell straight up like curry, right? It’s just, it’s there. What you eat gets on you. What are you feeding? I was talking to my, my son, uh, we have a dog in our house because my children’s spiritual, he manipulated me to buy one. And then, you know, we teach them all the time.
You pray in faith, whatever things you ask, believe that you received them, you will have them, right? I’ve been teaching them that since they were born. If you pray in the will of God and you pray in the name of Jesus, God is going to answer your prayers. And that was all cool. I believe until my children start praying for things like dogs and cats, right in faith, in the name of Jesus. Now I gotta make a decision. Am I going to build their faith or am I going to break their faith? And I chose to build their faith on the dog, break their faith on the cat. That was, that was what I chose because dogs are better than cats. Somebody say amen to that, right? I’m going to build their faith on a dog, break their faith on a cat. And you can’t people, man, I pray for you every day because if you die that capital each you before they find your body.
I’m just telling you my dog word protect you. Your cat will eat you and all that. It’s just the way it is. So, so, uh, my, my boy is nine. We have this dog, his name is pirate. He’s a Portuguese water dog. Jessie found founded mud. Never heard of one of those before. And uh, the good thing about that dog has had, doesn’t shed. Ah, it doesn’t, um, it doesn’t smell. It doesn’t make a lot of noise unless there’s somebody around. Oh, that’s the good things about the dog. I won’t talk about the bad things about the dog publicly. All right? So there’s good things and there’s bad things about everybody. And, and justice comes to me, he’s nine years old and he says, Dad, I want a puppy. Now I’m like, everybody wants a puppy. And you had a puppy, but now the puppy is a dog, right?
And, and you could get a small dog that stays the, as a puppy, but that’s not a dog. That’s some sort of fallen creature. Those little dogs are not dogs, Hon. So I’m like, you have a dog. And he’s like, I’m just messing with everybody’s pets cause it’s fun for me. But, but um, here’s what he says back to me, says, God, Dad, I had a dog but Brierley and you stole the dog from me and now the dog like shoe and Briley more than it likes me now. Said, justice, I can teach you how to fix that in a week. He says, you can teach me how to fix that in a week. I said, yeah, I can teach you how to fix that in a week. Said, do you know why that dog loves me so much? I can tell you that dog loves me. Done to Jesse.
If I go downstairs and shut the door to the basement, he lays at the top of the basement right by the door till I come up. If I go in a room and shut the door, he’s there and need a laser that door until I come to come out. When I walk in every day, he’s waiting at the door wagon looking up at me. He loves me more than Jessie or the children loves me. I’m Anita. This dog loves me. I’m playing. Maybe not, I don’t know if I am or not, right? The dog really loves me and uh, and I’ll tell you, I can teach you to teach him to love you like that justice. He said, how do I do it dad? So it’s real simple. All you got to do to make that dog love you is a fee.
Come on somebody. It’s all you gotta do to make that dog love you is feed him. And I fed him since he was a puppy and he’s grown and he’s gotten bigger and now I’m not just feeding him, right? Somebody suspicious comes around at dog’s got a lot of fight in him. Now that dog will step up to feed me back. Come on. Whatever you feed will begin to feed you. You got to feed. What’s feeding you? Somebody say amen to that right relationships. You’ve got to feed them to keep them feeding you. Everything on the earth is built on a medium of exchange. Never start to think that it, that that exchange, what an exchange is broken down. So as the relationship you have to feed what’s feeding you in life. So you got, you got to think about what should I be feeding?
This is the question I want you to ask you to ask yourself this tonight and write this down tonight. Say, say, what should I be feeding in my life? Let’s just say that out loud. Say, what should I be feeding in my life? Come on and said again, what should I be feeding in my life? And so I think there’s decisions that you make on what you’re feeding in your life. Cause everybody is feeding something. If you don’t make a decision on what you’re feeding the world, the devil, the people around you, the culture, the prince of the power of the air, somebody else will make that decision for you. Because I promise you everybody is feeding something. You have to ask yourself, what should I feed now that a lot of experience feeding stuff, it’s something that I, I’ve got a great amount of experience in.
I was raised feeding something every morning. Other kids got to sleep and get ready and then run out to the school bus at the last minute, but before I got to go to the school bus, when I was a kid, I got up, I got ready, I fed, fed the horses, fed the cattle, make sure the water was busted on the ice if it was cold outside so they could get something to drink. I was raised feeding stuff and I’m still feeding stuff right now. I have a cattle feeding operation where we feed cattle. My brother and I do all the time. Oh, I don’t literally pour the feed in the, in the trough anymore. [inaudible] he’s got a pasture, but I’m involved in that every day and, and the power of feeding is, is massive. I want you to open up your bibles to psalm chapter 34 Psalm chapter 34 verses one through eight psalm 34 we’re going to read verses one through eight.
Now I’m going to show you where the Bible talks about the fact that we shouldn’t just be feasting on anything. We should be feasting on the Lord. Psalm 34 verses one through eight if you’re there tonight, if you’re there, psalm 34 one and eight just go ahead and say, Aha out there. Uh Huh. I’m there. Here’s what it says. It says this, it says, I will bless the Lord at all times. How many? I’ll think that’s a good idea. I will bless the Lord at all times. Come on somebody. I will bless the Lord. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to respond to that by faith I will bless the Lord. Come on somebody, lift a Amarillo church hand and I will bless the Lord. Not your sometime, not in the good times, not in the fun times, not in the perfect times. Not all the mountain top. I will bless the Lord at, at what church?
All Times. Come on there. There’s something about making the decision to be a perfect person to brace. No matter what happens around us. Amen. I’ve just decided I’m going to bless the Lord at all times. I’ve walked up when I buried family and say, praise the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I don’t let the situation dictate my praise. My praise is going to turn around and dictate the situation long term because I’m not in this for the short game. I’m in this for the long game. I’m not in this for a sprint. I’m in this for a marathon, so I just decided, even on the dark days, I’m going to bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth, is what the Bible says. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord y’all to learn to control your soul.
Now, I’m not going to let my soul just boasting anything, my soul, I’m going to command it so it’s time for you to boast in the Lord. Come on somebody. He says this, the humble will hear thereof and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, man. I loved to magnify the Lord. See, magnifying the Lord is is, is making him. When you magnify something, you make it bigger. Amen. Praise has this power. No matter what the problems are in my life, no matter what’s going on in my situation, it’s so easy to magnify the problem, to talk about the pain. Come on you. You know how many of you have ever been in physical pain for maybe an extended period of time? If you’re not careful, it’s easy to start talking about it all the time, right? Me and my shoulder hurts. It’s just, it’s burning.
It’s on fire. It doesn’t stop me. My shoulder burnt for his burnt for three years for the most part, and if I’m not careful, I’ll magnify that, that that fact, that injury, when I’m magnified, it starts becoming the only thing I think about, right? It becomes blinding. It becomes almost like numbing at times. And so I’ve learned that instead of magnifying my pain or my problem, I got to magnify the promise of the healer in my life and if I’ll magnify the Lord instead of magnifying the problem, I’ll begin to walk out of that problem and walk into that promise. Come on somebody. In the time we walk out of magnifying the problem and the fallen world and the issue in our family and the addiction in your child, it’s time to magnify the Lord instead of magnifying the problem. Come on somebody, and as you magnify the promise instead of the problem, Tony, you start to get perspective back.
You start to see now I’ve got a great big guy and a little bitty problem instead of a great big problem and little bitty gods don’t comes down to what you magnify. Truly what you’re feeding, isn’t it? Come on, look at your neighbor one more time and ask him, what are you feeding? Just ask them that you feed him the problem. Are you feeding the promise? He goes on. He says this, he says, he says, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Ne Next, next sentence. He says, I sought the Lord and he heard me and me from just a couple of my fierce, no. So when I say all of my fears, he delivered me from all my fears. I looked to him that they looked to him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed. God will take the shame out of your life.
The poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him. Out of all of his troubles. Tone. If you got poverty in your life, God’s a God that wants to lift you up out of that poverty and bring you out of those troubles. He wants to set your feet upon a rock. You don’t. You used to be poor, but come on, Jesus died so you could be provided for. You don’t have to be poor anymore. You got to God. That’s a provider. The poor man cried to him, got hurt him. Then he delivered him out of his trouble. The Angel of the Lord in camps around all those that fear him and delivers them. Man, Jesse, and have, we’ve learned throughout the years the angel of the Lord is with us. And then how many I’ll believe that, that God’s got angels come on camps of angels and um, I know people that have seen them with their physical I physical manifestations of angels, like I’ve never seen an angel with my eye, but there’s a, there’s a gift in the Bible in the list of gifts.
Um, it’s the discernment of spirits. People will say, well, I have the gift of discernment. What they’re really saying is sometimes they’re sent to have wisdom. So there’s not really a gift of discernment. But there is, there’s wisdom that grows in your life. God is our wisdom. Come on. How many are thankful for the wisdom of God in your life? We ought to. We ought to by faith. Give God a hand. Clap tonight for more wisdom. Every day that we operate in it, it’s already there. Wisdom is the answered almost every problem in life. It’s not a problem. The wisdom of God can’t fix for you. By the way, the longer you walk with God, the more Christ is our wisdom. I believe the more wisdom just kind of oozes out of us. And uh, we know what to do because there’s wisdom in our life now.
Uh, so, so, but there’s, there’s a gift called the discerning of spirits and it tells you what, what kind of spirit is operating in a situation. So you can tell if there’s a demonic influence on a person or demonic influence in a situation. You just know. And it’s almost like a spider sense is what I call it goes off. Jesse. And I’ve had this deal for years. We’ve been teaching about marriage, but when either one of us are spider sense goes off about a person. All right, somebody sent to harm our marriage, our covenant or what we’re doing, if my spider sense goes off, I got, I can call a red flag and I’m like, Jesse, that person’s up to no good. I see a spirit behind it. It’s sent to steal, kill and destroy. And we’re not giving them access to our life anymore. And Jesse can come and say, her spider since goes off, right? Cerner, spirits, Brian, that person, how many, you know, whenever, especially when you’re not just when you’re younger, this probably never ends. How many know that there are people sent from the to destroy your marriage?
Okay?
There are people sent from the devil to destroy this church.
Come on somebody.
And the discerning of spirits, you get wise enough, you start to realize who’s who. Is there something nefarious behind that? Right? And so, um, we can call an audible call flag and it’s like, hey, we’re not, we’re not doing life with this person. Not that we’re going to be mean to them. We’re not gonna throw stones on them, Adam, whatever. Right? We’re not going to do that, but, but we’re not going to give an open door to something that is evil direct into my households. It’s your house. There’s locks on the door for a reason. It’s to lock people out of your life. There’s a time to do it. The scripture teaches that. Do you know that? Teaches that what we’re supposed to love all people. Yes. Love old people. But the Bible teaches you not even to receive a false teacher into your house, cause to receive them as to receive their teaching to your people.
There’s a time to lock the doors. Did you know that? America says love everybody. Let everybody go. And I’ll tell you what, I love every person and I’m going to accept every person, but I’m not going to accept every action or agree with every action that they’re a part of. Come on somebody. It’s locks on the door for a reason. So I’m off my topic, but I feel like I’m preaching prophetically to somebody right now. I’ll tell you some of you, you got somebody right now that’s danger in your life. There are a danger to your marriage. There’s somebody in here that you’re not married yet, or maybe you’re right on the edge of a divorce. There’s something like that cooking in your life and the devil sent somebody to break through the hedge of your life right now, and you’re setting under unwise council on a continual basis because you’ve taken somebody in your life.
I believe it’s in a workplace and their voices twist in your ear. And, and I believe if you allow that voice to keep twisting your ear, it’s going to not just twist your ear, but it’s going to begin to twist your life and twist your spirit and twist your family and twist your future. Now I’m telling you, Jesus went to the cross so we don’t have to be twisted anymore. He loves us so much that he wants that been broken. But I’m telling you there, there’s a Amarillo church voice that’s twisting. You got to learn to take that voice and to shut it out of your life. And when it’s an aligned voice, you’ve got to learn to take it, put it under your foot to come on somebody, the the righteous rule and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and cut it out of your life. It’s the word of the Lord for somebody.
So I, I’m just telling Ya, you gotta learn to discern. So back to what I was preaching about. All right, all that was free. All right, that’s free. But what I was preaching about was there’s the discerning of spirits. All right? So you can, you can tell he’s talking about angels there in the song. There’s a been a few times, multiple times really that I could discern that there was angelic intervention. I used to come out at our house in Tulsa at the apartments that we lived in, Tulsa, Oklahoma. And uh, by the way, pray tonight, pray for Oklahoma and pray for the panhandle of Texas. They’ve had hundred mile an hour winds today in Amarillo where these girls live up here and the light posts or turnover fences or, or torn down all over the city. They said, even like the signs of the buildings, you know, that advertise the signs down the way are all blown out.
Hurricane force winds have ripped through everything there. So I want you, I want you to pray for that. But uh, we lived in Oklahoma. I remember we would come out of our, our building and we lived up on the second or third floor of the apartment then and there was a big retaining wall across from where we lived. Now would come out often and I would discern there was a massive angel standing there just watching us. Right. I could sense it, I could feel it, never saw it, but I could sense it now. I even knew where he was. And uh, there’s been times I’ve been in services now be at the front of the service and I think, ah, I don’t know if they manifest like this because they’re getting ready to do something and people in the room or if they’re there to protect.
A lot of times I believe when I feel them or I sent some, it’s a protection issue. The Angel of the Lord comes and stops things before it can happen. Bible says the angel of the Lord goes before you. He doesn’t come after you and clean up the mess. He goes up and stops things before there’s problems and bloodshed not. But in this room when I felt him come and stand on the sides of the stage and just just watch. But I want you to know, I want you to be encouraged that you are God’s children and those angels are there. The Bible says to be ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. Let me tell you what born again believer, you are an heir of salvation. Therefore, there are angels assigned to Minister to you to go before you, to make your paths straight and to protect you.
Now I’m telling you, the protection of God is with us and on us. The protection of God is within on our children. Come out, somebody you can pray the protection of God on your grandchildren’s life. Believe it, receive it. I want their help. The Bible says goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. So I want the angel of the Lord to go before me and I won’t goodness and mercy to follow me and I feel like I’m devo. Double covered. That way somebody say amen to that. Right? So the, so the, the angels are there. Let’s look back down at our text tonight says this. He says, the angel of Lord and camps around those who fear him and delivers them. Then he goes on. He says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him.
Come on, somebody say taste and see. Let’s say it again. Taste and see. See, he’s talking about feeding or there’s a taste of the things of God that gets in your mouth. Once you taste of the things of God, nothing else in this world ever tastes quite the same. Once you tasted the things of God, nothing of this world ever tastes quite the same. Once you drink of the living water, the water that this world has to offer always will come back stale and second rate somebody say amen to that. Tony, the things of God changed you and I don’t know why we do it, but there’s something in us as people that we will feed and feast on the things of God for a period of our life. Then we’ll allow distractions to come in. Might even be a decade of real feeding. Some either had been in the kingdom longer than me.
I’m looking at you guys over here, but right. I know you could probably attest to this. How many you mandaean and, and, and Max and, and, and you guys run over there. How many all would agree with me are seasons in your life where you’re tasting, you’re feeding, and then their seasons that gets challenged in your life. Sometimes it’s just easy and sometimes it’s working it and you’ve got to buckle down in those seasons and there’s a grace for it. How many of you have been through seasons where you were just on fire and then seasons that what it was a little more dry feeling in your life? Right? And some people will say things like this. They’ll say, well, the Lord’s just got me in a dry season now. I’m not buying that for a minute. I think we just quit feeding what we need to grow in our life.
Come on somebody, it may be a tough season. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been through some seasons that, that we’re like, hell right. I’m just being honest with you. Talking about a Jv Javez breached over here and he said he used to wake up and it was like, all right, let’s go. And then he started pastoring and he said he woke up and it was like, ah, every morning when he got up, right. And uh, it’s like I’ve, I’ve been through seasons like that, but I’m telling you what if I’ll feed myself with what matters. It doesn’t matter what the devil throws at me. There’s a taste in my mouth. That’s a good days because God is faithful. Even when the world is rough on our lives. Come on, somebody, give God a handclap. Our God is faithful. What you feed, taste and see that the Lord is good.
So here’s the questions I have. I want you to ask yourself these tonight, man, you, you might ought to get a prayer time. You all to write these down. Think about what we’re feeding. I really want us to question ourselves. I think getting the right answers in life. A lot of it’s about asking the right questions and when he started asking the right questions, you’ll start getting the right answers. Especially if you write, ask the right questions of the right people, right? Then he started getting the right answers. So, so here’s what I want to ask myself. Am I feeding my fear or am I feeding my faith? Look at yourself for the last seven days. Said something we can remember over the last seven days. Have you fed your fears or have you fed your faith? If you fed what the enemy was telling you might happen to you could happen to you.
Oh, just if things don’t go right, this could happen. Are you meditating on that? Are you meditating on the promises of God? Cause most of fear. Now, most of the things we fear, how many know never really ever happened in our lives? It’s just something send from the enemy to paralyze us, to stop us from pushing forward to the Amarillo church promises. So to ask yourself, have you been feeding your fear of are you feeding your faith for the last seven days? Next thing. Next question I’d ask, am I feeding my failure or am I feeding my success?
Yeah,
asked yourself that question and what God’s called you to do. Have you been feeding failure in your life or feeding success in your life? And how many you can tell if you’re honest with yourself, when what you’ve been doing is not productive. Come on somebody for the kingdom, for yourself, for your mind, for your emotions. How many all know when it’s like, oh, it just hadn’t been 100% right. And then if I have, I’ve been feeding my failure. And then how many of you know when you culture stride at a period of of life, and it’s like right now, it might not even look successful to everybody else, but what you keep feeding is going to grow in your life. So feeding your success is just to seed every day, right? A seed of success. I’m going to take a step forward today. That’s it. Everybody say one step men, the biggest enemy to going forward in life, in kingdom life and succeeded in the things of God, which has been a fully devoted follower of Christ.
Being full of the fruit of the spirit. Come on, be it in the Lane God’s called you to be in. That’s Christian success, right? I’m not talking about success according to the world’s standards. How many know we’re playing with a different set of books than the world is? We’re not keeping score the way the world’s keeping score, the world’s keeping score by dollars and cents and by how cool they look on their Instagram accounts. Come on somebody about about how many people out there know their name, but that’s not godly success. God was successful. It’s totally different. It’s about are you doing what I assigned you to do in the kingdom? Are you making the name of Jesus famous? Are you growing in maturity? So my feeding, my failure of feeding my success and success, it’s like this. How do you feed it? What’s just a seed? Every day it’s audience. Everybody says just to seed man and seeds are small. They don’t even look like anything, something small. Gross. I’ll tell you how do, how do you feed s kingdom success? The sea can be as simple as this. I showed up in 1998 to church and I made a seed of commitment that when they have church, I’m going to be there.
Come on. That’s not, that’s not building my own airline to take people into outer space like Elon Musk. Right? It’s not that difficult showing up succeed. It’s just a seed to Christian success. And I believe that I didn’t do anything magical. I just kept showing up. People would come up to me all the time and they’re like, Brian, my kid’s on drugs. We had talked to him. I’m like, well, yeah, but I don’t have any, I don’t have any uh, fairy to get your kid off drugs. Come on somebody. And most every other man in this church has been around a while, knows my playbook on how to get them off drugs. It’s a seed. Every day you make some decisions, God will help you and deliver you. Amen. We believe that. But then you’re going to have to just keep showing up.
What about a seed in your marriage? Right? Me and Jessie, it’s not like I’m in most every day. Whenever she gets up outside on a white horse with some roses, 12 of them in my mouth, I’m serenading her with a new song I wrote at midnight, right? I’ll bring her breakfast and bread and that’s by, by, you know, six 30 every morning. And you all know that’s a stinking lie, right? I’ve never done that. I’m a cowboy that hates horses. I hate horses, right? I grew up with horses and I like golf carts, not orphans, right? Oh, horses take money. Cattle make money. I learned that in my life. So, so, but here’s what we do. Just simple seeds of success. We made a decision for our marriage years ago that once a week we’re going on a date night that we’re going to tell each other.
We love each other. We’re going to communicate clearly, right? We got some things that are systems that we just do and, and those small things start to add up as the years go by. And whenever we’re faithful to them. Our marriage is great. Whenever we allow really calendar and responsibility to get in the way of what we should be doing, w we can tell that it’s getting out of balance at those times. Then we’ll have to go back and just do the simple things. It’s the seed. You cut open an apple, right? Heard somebody say this on Instagram like yesterday. Don’t remember who it was. So preacher, but he opened up an apple and he said, you can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the apples.
Okay?
In a seat. You can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the apples in a seed. Really what he’s talking about, what are you feeling? Is it a seed? It’s people like the fruit. They liked the tree. They like the apples, they liked the harvest, but they despise the seed and Emma feeding failure or am I feeding success? Come on, it’s all just a seat. Here’s a couple more questions. I’ll be done. All. Am I feeding my sorrow or am I feeding my joy? Come on. How many of y’all been through seasons where you fed sorrow? You shouldn’t have fed man up, buried family young, and it was tragic and hey, that’s life.
You don’t meet many people who haven’t had some tragedy that went through in life. Some people develop a spirit of grief. Zay Feed that sorrow continually, right? But some people pull themselves up say, yeah, it was hell. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It happened though. And now I’ve decided that I’m going to, I’m going to fight this spirit of sorrow and I’m on to have a spirit of joy and it’s a decision you’ve gotta make my faith and it’s not easy and there’s an appropriate time to grieve. Don’t mishear me, but I’m telling you, I buried my dad real young. He fell over y’all mini on other story. 61 massive heart attack right in front of me. Uh, was my golfing buddy and probably my best friend on the earth other than my wife Jessie. And it was like, wow, dad was supposed to live til I got older, right?
And to be honest, I fed the sorrow for awhile. Ah, I’ll tell this story on myself. I made like a, uh, back in the day we, I’m dating myself, but how many y’all used to make mixed tapes? You’ll know some many kids don’t even know what a tape is, right? But you remember making a mix tape how many number waiting until the new song came on the radio so you can push, play and record at the same time, right? Boom. Play and record. When you’re pulling that down, it was like a, it was like when, uh, I dunno, you know, tone loke first came out or something way back in the day. Right? Huh? Somebody, I’ll never remember tone low. Most of you don’t know who that is at all. And uh, probably isn’t appropriate music to be talking about as a preacher in the pulpit right now anyway.
But it was, it was our childhood. Right. And so you hit play and record and you get enough of those and you’ve got a mix tape for something and you know, you could have mixed tapes to set the mood to get that romantic glow going if you had a date or something. Right. You got to go in on there and say you got it smooth sounding. Get mixed tapes before a game. You know, they’re still playing some of the same songs before. Football Games. How many ball games have you been in? A herd ACDC thunderstruck before game. They’ve been playing that for, I dunno, since Angus young was 20 years old. 89 years ago. Right. They’ve been playing that song forever. But I made a Amarillo church mix tape for my grief to be honest. And it had songs on it like this songs my dad like Simon and Garfunkel, song bridge over troubled water bridge over troubled water makes you just want to kill yourself, you know, didn’t the melodies and the lyrics, it’s all over there.
How many remember Rem Song? Everybody hurts. Huh? And then I would throw in like some Johnny Cash or some like old school sad beer-drinking music in the middle of it. Cause I’m a redneck and those are my, those are my roots. And I listened to this and Jesse would catch me listening to it. Just getting down and I’m just depressed. I miss my dad. And finally she’s like, Hey, you know, this is like a couple of years in, this isn’t like I’m not talking like a week later, I’m talking like a couple of years and um, I didn’t do it all the time, but I would allow myself to go there and, and isn’t it great to have a spouse that will tell you what you need to hear? Huh? In love? Some of you are like, I wish they’d tell me what I really need to hear a little bit less. But yes, it is a blessing.
Right? And um, she came to me, she’s like, you need to throw that tape out. You know, you need to get rid of that. You need to quit feeding that spirit of grief. It’s been two years, man. Joy comes in the morning. It’s time for you to get restored and stop feeding that thing. So am I feeding? Come on somebody. Am I feeding my joy or am I feeding my sorrow? You make decisions everyday. What are you, what are you feeding? I’ve been talking too long right now. I’ll give you a couple more. Am I feeding my flesh? Say that out loud. Am I feeding my flesh or am I feeding my spirits? So important? You can tell what you’re feeding right at the time. How many have noticed that flesh is always right here just waiting to show up right in the old testament. Jacob’s name gets turned to Israel, but all throughout the Old Testament he was Jacob.
His name’s turned to Israel. Jacob means calm man. Israel means prince with power of God, Prince with power of power with God and all throughout the Old Testament. It will call them Israel in one chapter. Call Him Jacob in the next Israel and Jacob, and if you don’t know about it, if you’re just reading it, you could think it’s two different men. Why does it do that? I’m telling you, you’ve been transformed into a prince that has power with God, but the old man’s always right here waiting to hop back into your life and which one wins the flesh or the spirit comes down to what are you going to feed? Last question. I’ll close with this. Am I feeding those of you that are responsible for a family decisions, marriage, my feeding my family, right? Or am I just feeding myself, my feeding, my family, or am I just feeding myself?
Whole lot of times families fall apart because somebody makes a decision that self is more important than the family I’m called to. It’s true and my desires, my wants, my needs, whatever this is. This is more important than this and don’t mishear me. If you’ve been placed in some difficult situations and a family deal didn’t work out, I have no judgment for you there. There are situations that are impossible telling you without God doing a miracle and there’s some situations that are just abusive and unlovable and I’m not talking to you. Don’t, don’t feel that. Cause a lot of times the best people they got put in the worst situations, right? They really weren’t their fault. At the end of the day, whenever people start talking about family making it or breaking it, those good people that wanted it to work, that we’re with somebody impossible.
They’re the people that fill the greatest shame and the person that busted his up, typically their pride doesn’t even, doesn’t even hurt him when he started talking about it, right? So don’t, don’t feel like I’m talking like that to you. I’m not. I love you have compassion. I’ve looked at people and said, yeah, you know it’s, you got some decisions to make here and that is, that is reality and that’s life. But I’m telling you on the front end, if everybody will decide to feed their family instead of feed theirself, don’t matter how hard it is right now. You make it work. Both parties will make a decision today. Come. Y’all want to be the kind of people that decides to feed the family or call to instead of feeding herself. Come on, let’s give God a hand clap. We believe that. What are we feeding?
Stand up on your feet. I’m out of time. I’m out of time. How many? How many did this help you? Not you think this was a good reminder of what are we feeding? Amen. Whatever I’m feeding is going to grow whenever I’m feeding is going to grow, not promise you you’re feeding something. Come on, lift a hand to heaven if you’re comfortable with it. I want to pray over you tonight. Father, I thank you for the people in the House of God. I thank you for this midweek crowd. I think you for the faithful people here, Lord, that that has fed, fed your house and your people. The assisted with us in ministering to Owensboro and the city in the world. Lord, I bless them now and I thank you for their steady, steady hand, steady life, steady plotting and plowing. I thank you father, that there’s a great grace that comes upon people to be consistent and persistent in life.
I speak that over us. Make us consistent and persistent in what we’re feeding. Father, I declare that we’re going to feed the things of the spirit. We’re going to feed the things of God. We’re going to feed the things that edifying buildup and we’re not going to feed the flesh or the desires of this Amarillo church world and what we feed is going to grow. We’re going to grow in grace, growing knowledge, grow in faith. I speak growth over your life. Grow in the things of God. Grow in the things of the spirit, growing your dreams, growing kingdom destiny. I declare that over your life in the name of Jesus. Now, come on, let’s make a confession of our faith. Just say this. I declare that I’m feeding the spirits. I’m not feeding the flesh. I’m feeding my face. I’m not feeding my fear. I’m feeding my joy. I’m not feeding my sorrow. God’s going to grow me. God’s going to grow in my life. God’s going to grow my family, Addie, Claire, the right things are being fed in Jesus’ mighty name. Now, come on. Let’s give God one more hand clap tonight.