Adam McCain “Tenderized”


[00:00:13] Speaker A: Today we are going to be hearing Adam McCain's second message from Oasis 2026. If you know anything about Adam McCain, you know that this message is filled with laughter, deep insight and just the word of God. So buckle in for today's episode of [00:00:31] Speaker B: the thank you, guys. Oh, wow. [00:00:37] Speaker C: Thank you so much. [00:00:38] Speaker B: My family sends their love. How many of you guys are just joining us tonight? [00:00:43] Speaker C: You weren't with us this morning. If that's you, throw your hand up. Let's see who that is. All right, how many of you guys [00:00:48] Speaker B: actually you had to work and so [00:00:49] Speaker C: you got off of work and you and you came to be with us tonight. If that's you, would you stand up for me? Stand up. Everyone that just got off of work and came to be with us, come on, stand. Stand up. Amen. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Make her stand. She needs to stand. Stay standing. Stay standing. [00:01:07] Speaker C: I bless you. I bless you with the goodness of God to flow through you. I bless you with kindness and gentleness in your home. I bless you with peace and joy as you serve the Lord in his work. And you give overtime to all the other pieces that you've been entrusted with. I bless you with excitement tonight as the Lord reaches down in your soul and does a double work inside of you for the sacrifice and the efforts that you make. We as a fellowship love you and we call God's blessing on you in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you. God bless you guys. [00:01:44] Speaker B: I'm, [00:01:47] Speaker C: you know, I had a great time this morning with some, a little intimidating. I just got to be honest and I don't get intimidated offering. But you know, I've got guys that have been in ministry for 50 years plus standing in front of me, sitting [00:02:01] Speaker B: in front of me. [00:02:02] Speaker C: And I just kept hearing, you know, I had a mentor in his 80s. He would always say to me, don't mess up right before I go up to preach, Just, just mean about it. But you guys have been so gracious and let me, you know, I figure most of you have forgotten more ministry than I've ever learned. Sometime back I was, [00:02:31] Speaker B: I transitioned an [00:02:33] Speaker C: assistant and you know, I usually keep a booking coordinator on staff, someone who helped me to as I travel and things like that, especially in the era where I was traveling full time and [00:02:43] Speaker B: had a new booking assistant and boy, she blew it. [00:02:46] Speaker C: Goodness gracious. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I was on my way to Costa Rica and just flown in from somewhere [00:02:51] Speaker C: else out of just half a day in Dallas with my family. [00:02:55] Speaker B: And I go to board this plane and I'm rushing to get on and I, it's you know, American Airlines, their [00:03:00] Speaker C: business model is oversell the flight and [00:03:04] Speaker B: then, and then bless people with an opportunity to travel later and give them [00:03:09] Speaker C: some kind of little, you know, little free flight. Supposedly somewhere there's a business model. [00:03:13] Speaker B: So I start walking down the aisle and I'm on the phone and I'm trying and I have. [00:03:18] Speaker C: My sweet little assistant has booked me in the worst seat on the airplane. [00:03:23] Speaker B: I'm all the way at the last [00:03:25] Speaker C: row, against the bathroom, against the window with two empty seats here. [00:03:32] Speaker B: As I, you know, at those days [00:03:34] Speaker C: I had a little bit of status and so I got to board the [00:03:36] Speaker B: plane a little early. [00:03:37] Speaker C: And so I am losing my ever living mind. [00:03:41] Speaker B: I am agitated, I am, I'm frustrated. [00:03:44] Speaker C: I'm about to do what a four or five hour flight or whatever it is. [00:03:47] Speaker B: And I don't need to sit in first class. There's not enough of me. [00:03:52] Speaker C: Just put me in the trunk. [00:03:53] Speaker B: But at the same time, you know, [00:03:56] Speaker C: not that seat, the worst one on the plane. [00:04:00] Speaker B: And so the plane starts filling up and I know American Airlines business model. [00:04:05] Speaker C: This is going to be a packed flight. And ladies and gentlemen, you know, please, with your carry ons. And we're going to, it's going to be a book flight tonight. [00:04:12] Speaker B: And they fill in, and they fill in and they fill in and they fill in. [00:04:15] Speaker C: But nobody sits here. And I start getting my hope up. The Lord's favor is not fair. The Lord loves me and Lord, I just thank you right now, Lord God, [00:04:26] Speaker B: that whoever was supposed to be in [00:04:28] Speaker C: this seat will not make this flight. In the mighty name of Jesus, Lord, [00:04:32] Speaker B: that would be recompense for the suffrage that I'm having to experience as one [00:04:37] Speaker C: of your special servants of the Lord. [00:04:41] Speaker B: And so they start talking about, we're about to close the boarding door. The boarding is concluding and we're about to. And I get so excited and then there they come. I can't believe it. I can see them all the way at the beginning of the plane. They've got luggage on top of luggage. They've got bags that look like they got them from a, you know, Salvation army cell. They, they've got a child with them that's about a year. And I can feel the fire of something. It ain't the Holy Ghost, but I can feel it just raging inside of me. And three rows before they ever get [00:05:28] Speaker C: to me, I smell them [00:05:33] Speaker B: as God is my witness, out loud, out of my mouth. [00:05:37] Speaker C: Oh my Jesus. [00:05:40] Speaker B: This couple has been living under a bridge or they've been on a commune Somewhere, and I can't. And then they sit down next to me. The husband sits next to me. They got stuff. They're hitting me. They're throwing stuff all over me. The baby's crying and screaming. And I'm like. And I've already processed how I'm firing this assistant and getting a new one. I'm already processing that. She's done. Done. And so as they sit down and finally get settled, they're shutting the doors. They're backing away. And the odor. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been on missions my whole life, and I have never smelt anything like this. I don't get. I don't really have a gag reflex to anything, but I'm doing that. I'm like, oh, my God. And I promise you, they have. Neither one of them have bathed in at least a week. So my mind starts playing the scenario. They're coming out of a commune. I don't know why. There must be drug running. And they've got it inside the baby. I don't know what they're doing here. We don't even get up off the ground. And they crack open their homemade baby food from their commune living. And I can't. And I'm turning away from. And I'm just. Oh, Jesus. I can't do five hours. Oh, God. I'm about to hit the call button because there's. But there's nowhere to go. I figure I'll sit in the bathroom. That'll be cleaner. It'll smell better. And I'm just. And then he would turn and like this, I'm like, oh, get off of me now. It's on me. It's on me. Ah, it's on me. It's on me. Oh, God. And we haven't been. The seatbelt sign hadn't come off yet. We barely get up to cruising altitude. And this young man turns to me [00:07:35] Speaker C: and he says, sir, I'm sorry. I know we're a little hard to [00:07:40] Speaker B: deal with right now, and I bet [00:07:44] Speaker C: we don't smell too good. [00:07:45] Speaker B: To which I was about to reply, you should not be allowed on an airplane like this. Like, there needs to be some type of systemization that if you. If you stink to high heaven or if you've got some kind of fluids coming out of your body, uncontrollable. You should not be allowed on a plane. There ought to be some kind of rules. And I'm about to get into my speech because I've been practicing it. Like we're going to have confrontation. I was just waiting for the baby to stop crying. And he goes, and so, sir, I'm so sorry. We're actually. We're actually going to be missionaries in Costa Rica and we sold our house and then something happened with our flights and the missions work that we're going to go work with. And so our flights had to be pushed back a week. We've been living in our house that we've already sold. The new people haven't moved into it. We've been living without electricity and running water and our little baby's been sick. And so I know that we don't smell that good, and I'm so sorry. [00:08:58] Speaker C: So what do you do for a living? S. [00:09:09] Speaker B: I've titled my message tonight Tenderized. If you'll go with me to First Corinthians, chapter 13. Most of you have preached this at [00:09:20] Speaker C: least once in your life, but let's just remind ourselves out of the NIV version, verses 1 through 8. [00:09:26] Speaker B: If I speak in the tongues of [00:09:28] Speaker C: men and of angels, but have not love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. [00:09:35] Speaker B: If I have the gift of prophecy [00:09:36] Speaker C: and can fathom all mysteries and all [00:09:38] Speaker B: knowledge, and if I have faith that [00:09:40] Speaker C: can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [00:09:44] Speaker B: If I give all I possess to [00:09:46] Speaker C: the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. A friend of mine was teaching me about that today. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, is not proud, it's not rude, it's not self seeking, it's not easily angered. Adam McCain it keeps no record of wrongs. [00:10:10] Speaker B: Love does not delight in evil, but [00:10:12] Speaker C: rejoices with the truth. It always protects, it always trust, it always hopes, it always perseveres. Love never fails. I guess [00:10:29] Speaker B: what I want to warn [00:10:30] Speaker C: us about and call us back to is a place of a tender heart. Ministry has a way. Loving people and serving people has a way of causing your heart to become calloused. You know, callous is the result of something rubbing over and over in a particular spot. And the skin at first becomes numb and sensitive. Excuse me, sensitive and kind of raw. [00:10:55] Speaker B: And then it begins to numb and [00:10:57] Speaker C: layers of skin build up as a protection. [00:10:59] Speaker B: And before you know it, that's a hard spot. Throughout the Scriptures we find God constantly [00:11:05] Speaker C: warning his people, don't harden your heart. Do not be stiff necked, Keep a tender heart, be gracious and kind with one another. [00:11:13] Speaker B: And ministry has this way. And working with people has this way of just before you know it. [00:11:18] Speaker C: Your heart has become hardened again. [00:11:21] Speaker B: We work with one another with different personality styles and different traits and different shortcomings and different and different hardships. And it just. It has a way of just kind of causing you to become callous. See, I sat on an airplane more worried about my little comfort. And this little couple is just trying to get to the mission field. And they look at me, the guy who has disdain for them and with all kindness in their eyes, they've sold everything and they're going to the field. They got everything that they can pack in their little bags and they've got their little one year old with them and they're doing the best to get there. And they walk through a tragic moment the last few days and they're not even able to bathe. But they're going to the mission field. But Adam and Cain is too disruptive, is too arrogant, has gotten such a calloused heart that he cannot even see the goodness of God at work in a person's life because of the way they smell in the moment. And I'm already frustrated because I'm not honored enough to be sitting up front. I'm somehow in the back. And that somehow, you know, triggers my little insecurities in my own life that I've not arrived yet. And in all of that, love is [00:12:28] Speaker C: patient, love is kind. It does not delight in evil. [00:12:33] Speaker B: It doesn't keep records of wrong. And ladies and gentlemen, let me tell [00:12:36] Speaker C: you what I'm dealing with in ministry. [00:12:38] Speaker B: I'm watching couples who have been married 21 years in ministry walk away from [00:12:42] Speaker C: each other scores and scores. [00:12:45] Speaker B: I'm dealing with mega church pastors who do not love people anymore. I'm walking with folks who say, I am not changing until she changes. And it put themselves in a corner and their hearts are so callous towards one another. I'm dealing with leaders in MEGA ministries who hate being on staff with each other. Why? [00:13:09] Speaker C: Because their hearts have lost their tenderness. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Mark, chapter six, verse 51 and 52. [00:13:16] Speaker C: It says. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Awkward, strange passage. Let me read it to you. All you scholars probably have some insight on it. Just pick up right here at the end of verse 51. The wind died down. They were completely amazed. Verse 52. For they had not understood about the loaves. [00:13:32] Speaker C: Their hearts were hardened. [00:13:35] Speaker B: Let me put this in perspective. We'll go back and kind of put what the storyline happened here earlier in the chapter. Jesus takes his disciples and he sends them out two by two, sends them out. They go out doing ministry and they come back obviously they had a set time, come back after this many days, this many hours, whatever it was. And I picture that Jesus is waiting for them, sitting in Starbucks, drinking his latte, you know, kind of thing. And they come rolling up, and the first ones come in. [00:14:02] Speaker C: Jesus. [00:14:02] Speaker B: I'm like, you're not gonna believe what happened. I was awesome, man. I showed up at this one house. I knocked on the door. This little dude walked out and had half an arm. And I said, in the name of Jesus, grow back. And it grew. It's unbelievable. Then all of a sudden, you know, John comes walking up. Jesus. We were just out street walking and talking to people, man. We got this one little young guy. He had some kind of issue with drugs. We laid hands on him. The demons left him. All his friends came. We had revival. We started three small groups and a mini church right there. Microchurch right there in the midst of downtown, right there in the hood. It's unbelievable. And they come back and they're reporting, and Jesus basically tells them, hey, let's go get some R and R. Let's go get some refreshing. How about we go take a little vacation? [00:14:45] Speaker C: And they're all excited. Let's go. [00:14:47] Speaker B: They start heading down to the water. You can go check me in. Mark, chapter six. And heading down towards the water. As they head down towards the water, get in the boat to go across the lake to go to their vacation spot. All of a sudden, people start showing Jesus, Jesus. Excuse me, can you pray for me? Can you explain this to me? Before, you know, he's got a crowd around him. Can you imagine those 12 disciples? [00:15:07] Speaker C: Like, you got to be kidding me. [00:15:10] Speaker B: I just ministered to you. Now you want to talk to Jesus. I was with you all weekend. I know, but he's something more special. And, you know, because he's the lead [00:15:20] Speaker C: minister in this whole group. [00:15:21] Speaker B: And you're like, you gotta be kidding me. And so they just keep crowding and crowding and crowding and crowding. And you're like, come on, Jesus, Leave us alone. We're on our way to vacation. Leave Jesus alone. Let's go. Come on, guys. Let's get him in the boat. And all of a sudden, Jesus says, stop. [00:15:36] Speaker C: He had compassion on them. Sit them all down. And he starts ministering to them. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Now picture that. [00:15:42] Speaker C: It goes something like this. Peter and them standing over. Minister to him. Dude, he always does this. [00:15:48] Speaker B: I know, dude. We were almost at the boat. Look how close we got. And you see that joker right there? I prayed with him all weekend. That's a. Ooh. That's a punk right there. I can't stand that dude. God. [00:16:00] Speaker C: You see me? What? [00:16:04] Speaker B: I mean, I did not sign up for this. [00:16:06] Speaker C: Me either. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Not only that, but. Man, I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. I'm not hungry. [00:16:09] Speaker C: I'm hungry. [00:16:11] Speaker B: I'm hangry. Yeah, me, too. I'm hangry, too. [00:16:14] Speaker C: Well, that's it. Look at them. They got to be hungry, too. Peter, go tell him. You write, hey, Jesus, hold on just a second. Peter. And then verse seven, this, this, this and this. What? Peter, Jesus, listen, I know you love them, but listen, they hungry, and I [00:16:33] Speaker B: think you ought to feed them. [00:16:34] Speaker C: You need to let them go. Go back. It's getting dark. Get back. [00:16:37] Speaker B: We get in the boat, we go [00:16:38] Speaker C: do what we said we was going to do because we on vacation time right now, like you said, and it ain't happening. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Okay? [00:16:47] Speaker C: And he's like, you feed them. [00:16:50] Speaker B: And he keeps preaching. What do you say? What'd he say? [00:16:55] Speaker C: He said, you feed them. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Oh, Thomas is like, it can't happen. Look at all the people. There's no way. Judas is like, we ain't got enough money for this. We all out of money. And John's like, whatever the. [00:17:13] Speaker C: Whatever Jesus wants. [00:17:18] Speaker B: So they start looking around, man, what you got? What you got? [00:17:20] Speaker C: The stores are all closed. [00:17:21] Speaker B: What do they come up with? Help me. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Preachers. [00:17:23] Speaker B: They come up with, what, five little crackers and two sardines? [00:17:30] Speaker C: Peter's like, that's all we got. That's all we could find. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Well, that can't feed everybody. [00:17:34] Speaker C: Exactly. Peter's like, exactly, Yes, Peter, you know, [00:17:45] Speaker B: Jesus, I know you're supposed to be [00:17:46] Speaker C: the Lord and all, [00:17:50] Speaker B: and so you. We did what you said. We looked high and we looked low. Let me just tell you. I don't know what you was thinking, but this is all we came up with. [00:18:01] Speaker C: So send them home like I said, like we suggested, Lord, and let's go on about the vacation that we planned. And Jesus said, give it to me in the name of the Father and me. [00:18:13] Speaker B: All right, go give it to him. What'd he say this time? He said, give it to him. That ain't gonna take long. [00:18:28] Speaker C: Here. You gotta be kidding me. Here. [00:18:34] Speaker B: And just by the end of day, like, all right. How much you got left there? Look at all this we got left over. He's still preaching. We're gonna be here all night. He always does this. I know, man. I did not sign up for this. Golly. [00:18:55] Speaker C: So Jesus finally turns to him, Some of you Preach it for how. How about y' all go get in though boat and you head over to the other side. I'll meet you later. All right, let's go. And they get in the boat, they start going out on the water. Come on, you know the story. And all of a sudden, I'm from the south, the Gulf of Mexico, south of America. Sorry, I didn't know what group I was talking. [00:19:27] Speaker B: I am in New York, so I'm a little nervous. Just saying, y' all done run out all the billionaires. I don't know what you're doing next. So, I mean, anyway, here we go. They get out on that water, and a number of these guys are fishermen. And they wouldn't even got out on the water if it wouldn't have been clear water. [00:19:49] Speaker C: They get out on one of those things that happen, up comes this big squall. [00:19:58] Speaker B: I can't believe we're in the middle of this, trying to get water out of it. I mean, they're just holding on for dear life when all of a sudden, lightning hits and they're walking towards them. Well, go back and read it. What does it say? It's a go. What does Jesus do? Only in Jesus form. [00:20:24] Speaker C: It is I, Jesus, right? [00:20:29] Speaker B: And the scripture says, let's pick back up. The moment he steps into the boat. [00:20:42] Speaker C: Cricket. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Cricket. The moment he steps in the boat, the wind died down. They were completely amazed. How you. Completely amazed. This is what he does all day long. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves, why their hearts were hardened. [00:21:04] Speaker C: They were offended at Jesus. You said we were going to do this. [00:21:09] Speaker B: I had an expectation. [00:21:10] Speaker C: And you didn't do it. His disciples, the guys who walked with him and talked with him and saw the miracles and he laid his hands [00:21:22] Speaker B: on them and he loved him. [00:21:25] Speaker C: He treated them like. He said, I don't call you servants. I call you friends. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Like, the intimacy that they didn't even [00:21:32] Speaker C: have to try and just with him [00:21:35] Speaker B: day in and day out. [00:21:36] Speaker C: But they were offended at him. [00:21:38] Speaker B: I am convinced In Matthew, chapter 24, when Jesus is talking about the end of days and the end of it all, and he talks about. He literally says. [00:21:46] Speaker C: He says, but the love of most will grow cold. [00:21:49] Speaker B: I'm convinced that the growing cold of [00:21:52] Speaker C: the love of most will be the [00:21:54] Speaker B: result of being offended at God and each other. And we're seeing it in real time in the church in America right now. Splitting off of each other, mad at each other. Can't even do life with each other. Can't even Stay married anymore. Why? Because our hearts are so easily offended and so easily hardened. And I'm here to tell you tonight, we gotta get free from that. So let me give you a couple symptoms that your heart has started losing some of its tenderness. Here's the first one. Number one, you are impatient. You're impatient. It's a sign that your heart is starting to become calloused and a little hard. And you're impatient. You don't have time for that anymore. And I find myself. And this is how I know this symptom is because it happens to me at times. And I realize, whoa, I've been in this thing long enough to. Whoa, there it is. There it is. Look at that. [00:22:41] Speaker C: Impatience. Love is what patient. [00:22:47] Speaker B: Why am I so impatient with this staff member? Why am I so impatient with these kids or my spouse? Or why am I impatient with the Lord? [00:22:57] Speaker C: Because my heart has lost some of its tenderness. [00:23:00] Speaker B: You still with me? [00:23:01] Speaker C: Say yes. [00:23:02] Speaker B: Here's the second sign. I'll move quickly tonight. Here's the second sign or symptom of a heart that's beginning to get hardened. And that is you're frustrated by others ineptness. You're frustrated by their inability, their ineptness. They're inept. [00:23:20] Speaker C: You can spell it. It's on the screen. It's all right. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Have we forgotten how much. How difficult we were and are. How much failure we. Listen. I was telling somebody. Can you imagine? They let me preach for the first time at the youth group when I was 14 years old. Do you want to know what that message sounded like? There was. There was no theology. And if it was, it was wrong. I can tell you that now. How we lost tenderness towards the very people we're supposed to be loving on because they didn't show up on time to volunteer to greet people. Because you know what. Because. Because you know, they keep making the same excuses and not accomplishing what they were supposed to accomplish. And what's happening is that heart is getting more callous and more callous towards them because you know what? They still have that same issue that they've always had. And we've told them that they have it, and they're still not gotten free from it. And it's just frustrating. And it's frustrating. And can I tell you something? I heard Joyce Meyer say this years ago when the Bible says that he resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. She said that word resist actually translates out frustrates. So if you're frustrated, it's because you got pride. In your life. But if you've got humility, you've got the grace and the mercies of God flowing through you. So I'm just so frustrated. Pride. I'm just so frustrated. Pride. Oh, when she said that, I'll never forget, it just marked me to the heart, because I'm easily frustrated with people's ineptness. And I think it's because the way I was raised, I was half raised by my grandmother, who was a World War II generation person. And you just didn't mess up. I mean, I don't know how y' all do it these days, but in those days, you could get whooped by everybody. Well, white people. Y' all don't. Y' all just time out. But where I'm from, I mean, listen, I am actually, I am black on the inside. Anyone who knows me knows this true. And so I just. So I raised my kids. We didn't whip them, we whooped them. There's a difference. And we didn't. Time out, little hunter. You know, Skyler, we didn't do that. Timeout. We didn't do all that. We whooped and got whooped. That's how I grew up. Got whooped. And I can tell you right now that frustration, that frustration at other people's ineptness, because I was trained. You do your best. You pay attention. And so when I see people who just don't pay attention, listen, I love you millennials, but I get frustrated with millennials. I'm like, what are you whining about now? I mean, it's first world problems. Jesus loves you. Stop it. Literally. I mean, we started making policy. Will not hire millennials straight to Gen Z. That's where we started creating policy. Gen X, Gen Z. We won't even let millennials in our church. No. We literally got so frustrated with that demographic of people. And what it was was pride in our own life. A hardened heart. It needs to be tenderized. Here's another symptom. You still with me? Say yes. You become more task driven than people driven. Ministry becomes more about results than about relationships. Interruptions feel like annoyances instead of assignments. So you can be organized and still be available, but you get frustrated and then task, task, task, task. And people. We're in the people business. Listen to me, leaders. We're in the people business. Thank God Jesus didn't get frustrated with us and give up on us. Thank God that he wasn't just about the task. He was about the people. Are you with me? Say yes. He loved the people and that's where we're following, is in his footsteps. Here's the fourth sign that you've gotten, you know, kind of calloused in your heart. And that is you justify wrong attitudes instead of repenting of them. You justify wrong attitudes instead of repenting of them. [00:27:20] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. I am preaching to me right now. You listen, you hear me right now. [00:27:25] Speaker B: All the attitudes that are just not like Jesus and we justify. [00:27:29] Speaker C: Well, because she did that. Because she did that. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Listen, I have never experienced bad attitudes, worse than being on staff at a church. Because you know what H.R. is? H.R. is prayer room. I mean, we ain't got no H.R. senior pastor. He's H.R. i guess he's the one gonna solve all the, you know, all the staff problems. And I'll just tell you right now that frustration is not from heaven. That whole attitude that we get with one another and we're like, you know, look, I love Psalms 139. You preached this verse 23, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Work those attitudes out of me. If there's anything offensive that's not gracious and kind and patient and loving God, work it out of me. Listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to help you tonight. Help myself tonight. Let us have tender hearts. God, strip away every callous strip, Strip away every hard spot in our heart and Lord, break us back again to the ones who just love the way you love, who live the way you live, who care the way you care. Lord, may we be ministers for our generation that are tender hearted. Here's the fifth. If you will sign or symptom that you're starting to get hard hearted. And that is you don't have the God word for others. Oh, I've experienced it. They come to me, pastor, what are we going to do? And I'm like, hmm, [00:29:04] Speaker C: well, oh. [00:29:06] Speaker B: But I can tell you the times [00:29:07] Speaker C: when my heart's so tender and the spirit of the Lord's able to whisper so clearly. [00:29:12] Speaker B: And they'll come to me with an obstacle that is so unbelievable. [00:29:14] Speaker C: And I'll say, well, what does the word of God say? Hear the spirit of the Lord right now. This, this and this. And they go, wow. Because my heart was tender, but I get callous. Like just the same problem. [00:29:28] Speaker B: You come back with the same problem [00:29:29] Speaker C: over and over again. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Don't you have anything else to ask? Have you read the Bible? That's How I used to counsel, read the Bible and then come back, talk to me. It's going to take me a year. [00:29:43] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:29:48] Speaker B: I have counsel thee in the way of the Lord. Go and sin no more. You know me, didn't have the word of the Lord. Didn't have it at all. See, if you haven't been with God, you won't have anything from God. Yeah, you can stay active in ministry while becoming spiritually dry. I've done it. [00:30:09] Speaker C: Oh, my Jesus, May we stay tenderized. May our hearts be so tender. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Have you ever had one of those [00:30:16] Speaker C: grandpas or grandmas in the faith that is just so tenderhearted? Got a man in my church every time worship starts. And we're not always really on timing with our worship. And we every now and then we got something that don't sing that good. It don't matter. 85 years old, he throws up his hand and tears just start streaming down his cheeks. [00:30:39] Speaker B: The drums are loud. [00:30:42] Speaker C: All the young adults love the lights. He don't care. He loves Jesus and he'll find anybody in the church. Do you tithe? He's a multimillionaire. No, sir. I struggle to tithe. And he'll say, listen, I love you if you don't learn to tithe. If you can't trust God with 10%, how can you trust him with. [00:31:03] Speaker B: And he'll make it. [00:31:03] Speaker C: He make a covenant with them. He's done this with hundreds of people. [00:31:07] Speaker B: I will pay back. [00:31:08] Speaker C: You tithe for three months. And if something significant doesn't happen in your life in those three months, I'll pay back your tithe. He's a successful businessman, so tenderhearted. [00:31:19] Speaker B: And he walks up to me all the time. He was part of. [00:31:22] Speaker C: In Dallas, we had. In the 70s, we had. On the backside of the Jesus movement, we had some real outrageous revivals in the Methodist church and some of the Baptist churches right there in downtown Dallas area. He was a part of some of that. [00:31:35] Speaker B: And he just gets to telling me [00:31:36] Speaker C: afterwards, he goes, you know, they call me Pa for Pastor Adam. You know, Pa, I remember when the spirit was moving. Oh, he's so good. And thank you for sharing the word with honesty and reality. Yes, sir. His heart's so tender. [00:31:56] Speaker B: I find myself sometimes looking past him to figure, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. What you gonna do with the offering basket? You left it there. [00:32:03] Speaker C: What's wrong with you? [00:32:05] Speaker B: Is there money in it? You want us to get robbed? What's wrong with you? Not everybody here is a Christian. You know that, right? Yes, sir. [00:32:11] Speaker C: Yes, sir. Tell me more about the revival. [00:32:18] Speaker B: Here's a sec. Number six, symptom that maybe your heart's getting callous. [00:32:22] Speaker C: And that is correction feels offensive instead of helpful. It's offensive. So when someone brings correction, you get offended by it. That's a sign of a calloused heart. Instead of going, thank you. Oh, my goodness, thank you for seeing my blind spots and helping me see them. I don't care how old you are, we all still have blind spots. In fact, my doctrine is we probably won't come into perfection. We'll be battling the sin nature until we cross over from this life to the next. That's my position. And so, because I've accepted that, I recognize that. You know what? There's some things that I haven't arrived at yet. There's some rough edges that the Lord's still sanding off. And sometimes he uses people that I don't like to sand them off of me. Yeah, correction feels offensive instead of helpful. Here's another symptom or sign that maybe your hearts begin to be callous as you stop being moved in God's presence. I'm watching the younger generation, and, you know, we've got a group right down the road from us called Upper Room, and they're really special. And I was interviewing their pastor not so long ago on a podcast, and I really was kind of jostling with him because they will sing four songs of worship, and it takes them an hour to sing those four songs. [00:33:51] Speaker B: And so I was telling him. I was like, dude, I was visiting with you guys the other day, and y' all were singing, you know, he's coming, he's coming. And look, after about 15 minutes, I was like, I think he's here. I really do. I think he's here. And so I was jostling with him a little bit, and I was giving him a hard time. And he goes. He just kind of sat back. [00:34:12] Speaker C: He goes, you know, he goes, all these years in ministry, I was always about getting somewhere in God. And he goes. And we were in the middle of worship, and I was looking around. The sound's not good here, and the sound's not good there. The Lord began to convict me and say, why are you not engaging in my presence? And he goes, well, Lord, I am, but we got to make sure it's good for the people. It's got to minister to the people, he said. And the Lord rebuked me and said, what if worship was you ministering to me? And what if that took a little bit of Time. And he said, so we shifted everything, and we shifted. He said, we don't really care. And so now in that shift, their concept of worship is to sit and [00:35:00] Speaker B: not move until they feel like they [00:35:02] Speaker C: have ministered to Jesus properly, [00:35:06] Speaker B: until they administer, till they have poured out their love, massaged his feet, I mean, cut his hair. I don't know what all they ministered to him, but you know, you know, pour out their love on him. And they don't move. They stay there. They'll sing the same song. Like I said, 30 minutes. I'm like, oh. I'm like, we could have won 25 souls to Jesus by now. [00:35:37] Speaker C: Marked me, though. Marked me. [00:35:39] Speaker B: I came back to our worship pastor. I said, Listen, those three songs that we sing in 60 seconds, let's expand them. Let's go to 22 minutes of worship. Let's do that now. [00:35:50] Speaker C: I'm just kidding. [00:35:53] Speaker B: But I did. I came back, I said, what if we had told our worship? What if we. [00:35:56] Speaker C: What if we just minister to the Lord? [00:35:58] Speaker B: I started telling our people, we're going [00:35:59] Speaker C: to have a culture where we just want his presence, man. [00:36:03] Speaker B: And we're not moving until. Until we. [00:36:05] Speaker C: Until we sense his presence. [00:36:07] Speaker B: And I started practicing it in my personal time with the Lord. [00:36:10] Speaker C: It's just like I'm not moving until I sense your presence, until I know you're with me. So whatever has to fall off of me, whatever needs to change in my thinking right now, I'm just. I'm with you, Jesus. What does the scripture say about abiding? The Greek word is mento, like mentos, mento, to abide. If you abide in me, my word abides in you. You'll bear fruit. You don't even have to do anything, just abide. What happens many times when our hearts become calloused, literally, we stop being moved by God's presence. John, chapter 11, verse 33. Jesus gets the call that Lazarus is really sick. And so these are his close personal friends, Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And they've entertained him in their home and loved on him and probably has supported his ministry. And so the sisters sent for him. And Jesus hesitates or prolongs his leaving. So when he finally does show up, obviously, as you know the storyline, Lazarus has already passed away. They've got the professional weepers. And so when we pick up in verse 33, it says, When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? He asked. Come and see Lord, they replied, jesus wept. Second shortest scripture from this morning, verse 36. And then the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, he said, as you know, he called out, and Lazarus raised from the dead. I believe as I read through the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, that what generated much of the miracles was his love and compassion and tenderness towards hurting people. He said they were like sheep without a shepherd. We've got to minister to them. He weeps over this scenario and scholars love to argue whether, you know, it was he's weeping over their lack of faith, or either way, he's moved to tears from a heart of compassion. Just a heart. When did we lose our heart of compassion in ministry? When did getting the follow up cards and pulling off the outreaches take precedence over the tenderness of just loving people and just enjoying the joy of a tender heart? See, a tender heart is soft towards God, sensitive to his voice, it's responsive to His Word, and it's compassionate towards people. Proverbs 4, 23 says, above all else, guard your heart. Why does it tell us to guard our heart? Because it's the wellspring of life. Just by statistical analysis, most everyone in this room is offended at somebody right now. Just stats. I'm not accusing you. I'm talking about myself. And what I've learned over the years is for ministry to be pure and to flow through me, my heart has to remain pliable and soft and tender. Not just loving the Lord my God, with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, but also loving my neighbor as much as I love myself like this. This tenderness that seems to be lost for some. Just after a few years of being in ministry, serving, volunteering, caring, helping people, I see so much turmoil in the workings of the body of Christ, especially when it comes to the different personalities and the conflicts and because our hearts are easily calloused. And so I want to give you a couple thoughts I have on how to keep a tenderized heart. Can I help you with that? Say yes. Thank you so much. Here's the first thing that I've learned to do, and that is repent of a hardened heart. Isn't repentance beautiful? [00:40:54] Speaker B: When did repentance become a dirty word? [00:40:57] Speaker C: It's beautiful. [00:40:58] Speaker B: I explain to people all the time. Can you imagine? You're in the Olympics, you're running the 100 meter and they go, and you. And you fall down. Oh, my goodness. Can we do it again? Yeah, everybody come back. [00:41:08] Speaker C: Let's do it again. [00:41:10] Speaker B: That's repentance. Okay, let's go. Oh, I did it. Can we do it? Yeah, come on back. Repentance is beautiful. Every now and then on that Mac computer, I get this spinning wheel of death. And then I do this thing called control, alt, delete, and it reboots. And I'm like, repentance is beautiful. The Lord lets us repent and literally change our mind, turn from our wicked ways. It's beautiful. Repent of a hard heart. [00:41:42] Speaker C: Lord, my heart's gotten hard again. Jesus, people are driving me insane. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Of these seven symptoms, I got them all semi free. God, repent. Hebrews 3 and 13. It's a little different context, but it fits. But encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today, so that none [00:42:02] Speaker C: of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. [00:42:05] Speaker B: That whole passage is about engagement with one another. And don't let the sun go down on your wrath. And this thing in the body of Christ. Listen, let me tell you something. [00:42:13] Speaker C: Relationships are tough. Ministries are hard. [00:42:17] Speaker B: People [00:42:20] Speaker C: are messy, and they mess on us. And sometimes it's just your heart gets calloused. And that's not what we signed up to be. We signed up to be like Jesus. And I've learned to stop and go, lord, I repent. I'm back complaining about that person again. Talking bad about them, building a case against them because of their ineptness, running my mouth about, how can this be and how frustrating this is. How much do we pay them? Because my heart's getting calloused again. Number one, to tenderize that heart of yours, repent. Number two, I've learned this through years of ministry, and that is you need to daily dialysize. You know what dialysis is? [00:43:13] Speaker B: So in your body, you have poisons. [00:43:14] Speaker C: In your blood, you have poisons because [00:43:17] Speaker B: the food we eat, the air we breathe. Not upstate New York, but you guys [00:43:21] Speaker C: that live in the city. [00:43:24] Speaker B: And so your kidneys filter all the poisons out. And in my life, I've had a [00:43:30] Speaker C: number of people whose kidneys have failed them. [00:43:32] Speaker B: And so they have to dialysize. [00:43:34] Speaker C: They go sit with a machine. [00:43:35] Speaker B: This machine sucks all the blood out [00:43:37] Speaker C: of them, runs it through, filters, cleans it out and puts it back in. It's a pretty intense process. It's exhausting. [00:43:45] Speaker B: And can I just tell you, if you're gonna be in ministry, you're gonna [00:43:47] Speaker C: have to learn to daily dialysize. [00:43:51] Speaker B: I have learned to wake up every [00:43:52] Speaker C: morning, say, lord Jesus, I've got to work with so and so today. And that person right there is toxic. And so, Lord, I know some of that toxicity is gonna get on me. So right now I even cleaned up what's left over from yesterday. Lord, I repent for being hard hearted. I repent, Lord God, for not. For not loving them the way they need to be loved. Lord, I just release them right now. I release them. [00:44:17] Speaker B: They cannot offend me. I'm a dead man. Dead men are offended. Dead men. I offend you? I don't like you. We're dead men walking, right? I no longer live. Christ lives in me. The hope of glory. Adam McCain's dead. I died in a watery grave and came up in newness of life. Come on, somebody. This is how we believe. This is what we see. And so what's happened to me over the years is I'll take that offense and I'll take it home. And that person didn't do me right and they did me dirty. And it builds up and builds up. I'll tell you. Not so long ago, I was flying through Atlanta's airport, which is the devil, and I was ministering in Atlanta. And I showed up early that morning and the security line was like an hour wait. They had some kind of trouble. And so we're all backed up, and as we're walking through the doors, it's hundreds of people and they're dead stops. So we're getting in line. So as I start walking towards the line, all of a sudden I feel somebody coming up behind me. And they're walking fast and they're trying to get ahead of me in line. So I started walking fast, but sister beats me, you know, she just somehow she takes them high heels off and she. And she pulls up same time I do. And she jumps in front of me like that in line. Then she does this. Come on, girls, come on up here with me. We're already 10 people deep. That's how many people are trying to get in this line. And she brings up all the sisters. All the sisters come with her. There's got to be eight of them. They got luggage, they got bling. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. I am offended that they skip me. You don't skip. You can do a lot of things that you don't skip. That's a. That's a. Like. Like that's holy ground right there. And I'm on my way Back from preaching this big conference, and I'm telling you right now, I can feel. I can feel that heart. I start looking at it. Do all women act like this? I start profiling. Mm. Where y' all from? Your mamas ain't raised y' all right? [00:46:23] Speaker C: All this is going in my head. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Come on. Y' all better be honest. I can't tell y' all that false religion I got looking at back at. No, seriously, I'm picking on you. But. And so as I'm sitting there, all [00:46:33] Speaker C: of a sudden, I hear the whisper of the Lord. Who are you? Who are you? This is an opportunity. You a dead man. It don't matter who skips you or who walks on you. They crucified me and put me on a cross. I did that for you. You love these people. So now I'm like, oh, man, [00:46:57] Speaker B: It's early morning, too. It's like 6. 6:30. And you know how some of y' all get mean till you had your coffee? And I'm like, These ladies start talking. I don't know what time we supposed to be flying. Our. Our flight leaves at 7. 7:05. It says it's an hour wait today. Well, now, 45 minutes. [00:47:23] Speaker C: Huh? [00:47:24] Speaker B: 7:05. [00:47:25] Speaker C: It's 6:30. [00:47:28] Speaker B: They boarding right now. They gonna shut the doors in 15 minutes. You're not making it. You're not making it. And then. And then I heard one of them go, I know. I can't believe they did that to us last night and canceled that flight. We had to stay here. Oh, my goodness. This is just a terrible weekend. This is horrible. I can't believe that. [00:47:44] Speaker C: And I said, ladies, what time's Yalls flight? [00:47:51] Speaker B: Why you want to know? [00:47:53] Speaker C: I said, I was just concerned about you. They said. [00:47:55] Speaker B: And one of the girls spoke up, trying to be nice. [00:47:57] Speaker C: It's at 7:05. I said, ladies, you got a 45 minute wait here. And I. What time does it say it's boring? 6:35. It's 6:30 right now. Y' all not gonna make this flight. Oh. [00:48:12] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I can't believe this happened again. Oh, my goodness. [00:48:16] Speaker C: I said, hold up. [00:48:17] Speaker B: And I saw one of these little guys, these little Barney Fife guys. And you know that little dude who's like 110 pounds soaking wet, but he's got a set of keys and he's walking. He's got the little blue uniform, and [00:48:27] Speaker C: he's walking like this. [00:48:28] Speaker B: And I said, excuse me, sir. Excuse me. All of a sudden, the little lady's like, no, no, it's okay. [00:48:32] Speaker C: I said, no, no, no. I got you. [00:48:34] Speaker B: I got this. And like. Excuse me, sir, we have an emergency over here. So he comes, he's ready to save the day. [00:48:43] Speaker C: And I said, sir, sir, we need you. I said, these poor ladies. [00:48:48] Speaker B: It's okay, baby. It's okay. I said, these poor ladies, they canceled [00:48:54] Speaker C: their flight last night and they got stuck in Atlanta. This is a connecting flight for them. Their flight leaves in 10 minutes. [00:49:02] Speaker B: They gonna shut the door. It leaves in. [00:49:03] Speaker C: In 25 minutes now, but they're gonna shut the door on them. Sir, when I look at you, I see power. [00:49:13] Speaker B: I see authority. I said, is there any way, sir, that you can help these ladies? Well, I. I'm not. [00:49:23] Speaker C: I said, sir, look at me, look at me. You can do it. [00:49:29] Speaker B: I don't know if it was the Holy Ghost or he never had a dad in his life, tell him he could do anything. And he's like, I got you. You can do it. [00:49:45] Speaker C: I can do it. [00:49:45] Speaker B: I put the Obi Wan on him. Use the force. Anyway, so and so he grabs these ladies and he's going to come on, I got you. I'm gonna get you around this whole security line and get you up front. And they start walking off. [00:49:58] Speaker C: And all of a sudden the lead gal, who was so mean to me, turns around. She goes, thank you. I said, yeah, no problem. She goes, I'm sorry. And I said, it's okay. She goes, are you a Christian? I said, yes, ma'. [00:50:17] Speaker B: Am. I wasn't 15 minutes ago. I can tell you that right now because you did me wrong. Look how our hearts can get calloused in a moment. In a moment. Can you imagine me coming and preaching for you guys after I done talked bad about ladies and been all a knothead? Because my heart and my heart's all clogged with frustration and disappointment and now turning into bitterness and. Listen to me. This is what most of us are doing. We've got to dialysis. Get it out of me, Lord. Clean it out, Lord. I release them. I release sister so and so and what she says. I bless her in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy. I bless her. I bless her with favor. I speak life over that person who just left our church, took a whole small group with them and went down the road and trying to start another. I bless them in Jesus name. We've got a dialysizer. We gotta get that poison out. Why? Because we want tender hearts. [00:51:15] Speaker C: We want hearts that are soft before the Lord. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Here's the third thing I would Teach you to do, to keep that heart tenderized. And that is engage in acts of humility. [00:51:26] Speaker C: Engage in it. Set it. Wash your staff's feet this week. So. Ooh, Pastor, don't do that. I ain't done my toes yet. Wash their feet. [00:51:37] Speaker B: Engage in acts of humility. Step out of the authority that you [00:51:44] Speaker C: walk in, in your position and just [00:51:46] Speaker B: humble yourself and do an act of humility. I don't know any other way to describe it. Just go, just go level. Take time at the end of the [00:51:52] Speaker C: service and go sit down with the special needs kid that nobody knows how to talk to. Just rub his head. Buddy, I love you. It's gonna be okay, buddy. You're God's favorite. I know I'm God's favorite. You are, Buddy. God loves you. [00:52:10] Speaker B: I know that new young couple may [00:52:11] Speaker C: want to join the church, but this, that little guy right there needs you. That keeps your heart soft. Little acts of humility. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Listen, you're not gonna keep a marriage [00:52:22] Speaker C: together by both of you being prideful and arrogant. Well, that's not my duty. That's not my responsibility. Acts of humility. Make the bed up for her. But I work two jobs. She's a stay at home mom for us. Make the bed up for her. Rinse off your plate, put it in the dishwasher. Don't just take out the trash because that's your job. These acts of humility, what they do is they keep our heart tender because what it does is it sands off those hard places that are starting to happen. And literally God begins to tear off, tear off that heart of stone. [00:53:02] Speaker B: What did he say in the Old Testament? [00:53:03] Speaker C: He says, I'm going to give you fresh hearts. I'm going to remove that heart of stone, give you tender hearts. Oh, I want a tender heart. [00:53:12] Speaker B: I don't want to miss the moments [00:53:13] Speaker C: that God is moving these acts of humility. The last couple weeks I've had two ministers tell me things that have blown my doctrine out the water. [00:53:24] Speaker B: One, I'm working with a young minister. [00:53:26] Speaker C: He and his wife have been separated for a year and a half now. [00:53:30] Speaker B: And no infidelity, nothing. [00:53:32] Speaker C: They had a blow up and he's, [00:53:36] Speaker B: he needed to get free of being arrogant and prideful. And she, and he had told her, you know, they blew up, had a blow up fight. And he said, call your daddy. [00:53:44] Speaker C: So she did. [00:53:46] Speaker B: And mom and dad came in from out of country and moved in to their apartment and then told him, don't [00:53:53] Speaker C: you come back to this apartment. These are ministers of the gospel of Jesu Cristo. [00:54:00] Speaker B: There's no Fuego del Espirito Santo happening right there. I'm gonna tell you right now. So he works for me, and so I'm casting the devil out of him. I'm whooping him up one side, you big dummy. Supposed to love your wife like Christ loves the church. [00:54:15] Speaker C: What are you doing? [00:54:16] Speaker B: We walk him through counseling and ministry, and they start trying to go to counseling, and she's not having it. [00:54:22] Speaker C: She don't trust him. [00:54:24] Speaker B: It's a year, It's a year and [00:54:25] Speaker C: a half, and he's exhausted, trying to make it happen. [00:54:28] Speaker B: And at his little church after Sunday [00:54:31] Speaker C: service, one of them grandmas in the faith walked up to him, one of these Pentecostal churches, Holy Ghost Churches, and said, son, the Lord gave me a word that you need to do spiritual warfare for your family, for your marriage. And he said, I looked at her, I'm exhausted. I have. Because you know us Pentecostal, spiritual warfare [00:54:48] Speaker B: is praying in tongues real loud at [00:54:49] Speaker C: the devil until he stops. You know, that's kind of our concept. [00:54:55] Speaker B: Go back, you shall not pass. You know, go back, you know, and there was some good prayer meetings back in the day, I'll tell you that now. That's why I have a raspy voice anyway. And so he said, I just. I didn't have it in me. I didn't have any kind of spiritual [00:55:14] Speaker C: warfare fighting in the spirit. I'm just exhausted, he said. So I started driving home. He said, and all of a sudden the spirit of the Lord came into my car and said, do you want to know what real spiritual warfare looks like? Text your father in law and tell him you're sorry for making him the bad guy in the this whole situation, the enemy, because it's not his fault, it's your fault. Text him that, because he's just trying to defend his daughter. So he said, oh, Jesus, you can't ask me to do that. [00:55:47] Speaker B: We supposed to leave and cleave. That man needs to get up out of my house. [00:55:52] Speaker C: But in humility, he responded because his heart was hard towards that man. He said, I began weeping as I'm texting. And when I send the text, he said, something blew up inside of me. He said, the tenderness of God. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Instead of seeing everybody that was my enemy, I started seeing the enemy's plan [00:56:14] Speaker C: to destroy me and my family and my own shortcomings. [00:56:17] Speaker B: And the tenderness of God just overtook me. My heart all of a sudden was tender again before the Lord. And I could hear his voice again. He said, it was Unbelievable. He said. And the father in law, who hasn't responded back to me in six months, texted me back and said, it's okay, buddy. I love you. And I am believing that y' all be back together. [00:56:32] Speaker C: Let's get together soon and have some discussion. [00:56:34] Speaker B: He said, pastor Adam, something has shifted. The wife's talking to me again. She wants to have some meetings again. You know why? Because he took an act of humility, and he walked it out and responded to the Holy Ghost on doing that. Listen, I was talking to another great pastor. He had one of the megachurches in our area. He had been a missionary for many years. He came off the field. He took one of the influential churches in our city. That church was going through crazy upheaval. He had to literally get rid of most of the board. He walked through this thing, and then, you know, they just built it back up. Their ministry was going great. And then his wife had a mental breakdown. She started teaching, and just something clicked. And here they are, mature Christians in their 60s. They're kind of in their prime. You know, they got the maturity, they got some energy left. And she literally has a mental breakdown, and they begin to take her everywhere. They went medical, they went holistic. For two years, they've gone to every healing person they can lay hands on. She literally scared to leave the house, can't drive the car. And he said. And he said. He told me this 10 days ago. He said, pastor Adam, you're not gonna believe this. He said, I was before the Lord, and I'd had a mentor, a man of faith that was my best friend, and he'd been my pastor for a little bit. And then when I took over this church, he came and he helped me a little bit and supported me. He goes. And we got in that conflict with the board, and he took the other side. He said, it broke my heart. When I needed him there for me, he wasn't there for me. He broke my heart. And he said, and I wasn't bitter, but we basically, our relationship became strained. He said, we just didn't talk anymore. He moved back to where we were, to a place that we had all done ministry back in the day, another state. And he said, I didn't call him again. I wasn't bitter. I checked my heart, have hatred in my heart, but I just didn't want to do any life with him anymore. I just, like, you know, what it is, what it is. And he said, and here I was two years into my wife's difficult, difficult situation, and the spirit of the Lord [00:58:34] Speaker C: said, reach out to him and reestablish that relationship. [00:58:39] Speaker B: And he said, my first response is, I bind every high thought that exalted [00:58:42] Speaker C: itself against the knowledge of God. [00:58:45] Speaker B: He said, lord, check my heart. I don't have bitterness. [00:58:47] Speaker C: He said, no, reach out to him. [00:58:50] Speaker B: What are we talking about? [00:58:50] Speaker C: We're talking about engage in acts of humility, he said. [00:58:55] Speaker B: So I looked him up, the church he was at. You're not going to believe this. He said, they were having a minister's [00:59:00] Speaker C: conference the next day. [00:59:03] Speaker B: So I got my assistant. We booked air flights. [00:59:06] Speaker C: He said they were expensive. At the last minute like that, we got online. [00:59:09] Speaker B: We bought the last, you know, tickets that they would let for the conference. We showed up. He said, we showed up, and we were in the middle of worship, and I could see him over there talking [00:59:17] Speaker C: with people and worship. And I just said, lord, I'll go talk to him as soon. As soon as we get break time. [00:59:23] Speaker B: He goes, and after service, I saw someone I knew. We began communicating, and we looked up. We were the last ones in the auditorium. Everybody had left. It's already late at night. [00:59:31] Speaker C: He goes, well, I guess maybe in the morning. I don't know if they have a morning session. [00:59:36] Speaker B: So he says, I go to get in the rental car to go back to the hotel where my assistant is at. And he goes, as soon as I start driving off, he said, I hear my name and he goes. And he's running in the dark in the parking lot. So I throw the car in parking. [00:59:49] Speaker C: I jump out and we hug each other. [00:59:52] Speaker B: We never talk about what transpired. That was really under the blood, he said, but we just talked for an hour and a half. He said, my heart, my heart, My heart was fixed. I didn't even know that I had a hard spot in my heart. I didn't know that there was a callus there. He said, I'm serving the Lord. I'm a pastor. I'm a leader. He said, but he said. So I just said. I said, I can't believe this. He said, I get back to the hotel, and there in the lobby is my assistant. He had gone out with some other friends, and they all leave. And he said. I just told him. [01:00:24] Speaker C: I said, you're not gonna believe what God's done. I didn't even know that my heart needed a healing. [01:00:28] Speaker B: He said, it's magnificent. He said, what we literally humbling ourselves and doing this. God did it. I didn't even realize. [01:00:35] Speaker C: It's so refreshing. [01:00:36] Speaker B: He's my friend again. He's my friend again. He said in that moment, he had that remembrance Lord dropped into his heart. When Job actually started praying for his [01:00:44] Speaker C: friends after all that foolishness, and that [01:00:47] Speaker B: God did a miracle in that process. Right after that, he said, so they get on the plane the next day, they fly back. His wife comes and picks him up at the airport. He's like, baby, thank you. I'll drive us back now. [01:01:01] Speaker C: And she goes, no, I'm okay. You just sit right there, okay? [01:01:05] Speaker B: He said, I get home and she's [01:01:07] Speaker C: got lessons laid out all over the coffee table. He said, baby, what is this? She goes, I'm gonna go back to teaching. He said, baby, what happened? She said, God did something to me last night. [01:01:26] Speaker B: I believe it's so important as the [01:01:28] Speaker C: body of Christ that we're connected, that [01:01:31] Speaker B: the great plan of the enemy is [01:01:32] Speaker C: not so much about us falling in sin, but disconnecting us from one another. I think that's the great play from hell. I think that's in the playbook on page 101. [01:01:43] Speaker B: I think that's section A. [01:01:45] Speaker C: Keep them disappointed with each other. Create conflict with them so that they will not love one another, so that the beautiful blood that flows through every part of the body gets broken off. [01:01:58] Speaker B: And can't the miracle signs and wonders begin to cease because they're at each [01:02:02] Speaker C: other and they don't like each other? I'm convinced that the love of most will grow cold because Matthew 24 tells me that. And I'm convinced it's the result of being offended at one another, having hard places in our heart. Here's my last. And I got two more. Here's the next way how to tenderize your heart, and that is ask and listen. [01:02:26] Speaker B: Very practical. [01:02:28] Speaker C: Ask people how they're doing and then listen how. [01:02:34] Speaker B: I was raised up in mega ministry. [01:02:35] Speaker C: We didn't have time to listen. [01:02:38] Speaker B: Most of the conversations that I had [01:02:40] Speaker C: with my pastor growing up was, hey, how we doing on the such and such? All right, that's good. Now, what about this? You got that in line? Yes, sir, I got that. All right, God bless you. Go do it. Love you, man of God. Love you. Love you, too, sir. I can't remember one time my pastor saying, how you doing, bro? You struggling with porn? How you treating your wife? And just let me talk. When you ask and listen, they'll begin to say things that literally will open up your heart and love for them. You realize, you know what? This person's not really a jerk. They're just going through something right now. It causes them to act this way because you start hearing their heart, and [01:03:25] Speaker B: it gets into those tough places in [01:03:27] Speaker C: your heart and begins to soften. I mean, what if church was less about production and less about lecturing and more about engagement? What if we taught every person in our church to listen and to ask and to watch out? There are young ministers all around this nation that say this all the time. Adam McCain's the only guy who asked me how I'm doing with things. He's the only one who asked me if I'm treating my wife right. He's the only one asking if I'm struggling with porn. He's the only one calling me out for pride. He's the only one. [01:04:03] Speaker B: I'm not great. I just. [01:04:06] Speaker C: I realize that the only way I can really love them is to open up my heart. [01:04:12] Speaker B: And the only way I can open [01:04:12] Speaker C: my heart is to know what's going on in them. [01:04:14] Speaker B: And maybe I need to, because I'm [01:04:16] Speaker C: a talker, as you might have figured out. [01:04:21] Speaker B: There's no introvert in me. And I've just been trying to learn [01:04:26] Speaker C: the last 10 years. I'm sorry to offend your Christianity. I've just learned to shut up a little bit. Just be quiet. Pastor Chris was talking about that tonight. Just stop. Instead of trying to get somewhere, try to be in the moment. Can you imagine what that will do for our kids? Can you imagine what that does for our spouse? Just say, how you doing? Long silence. Awkward. One time I was in Germany, and we were ministering in Germany and was in the lobby, and somebody walked by. Pastor that. I said, man, how you doing? He goes, you're American. You don't really want to know. I'm like, you're right. God bless you. Hope you have a good day. [01:05:27] Speaker B: He pegged me. I really didn't want to know how he was doing. And I think that started this whole process. [01:05:33] Speaker C: Like, dude, look how callous my heart is that I've got an opportunity with you, and I don't really care. That's not like Jesus. And here's the next piece that I would teach, and that is look for interrupted God moments. Jesus is doing ministry. And I'll quote you the Mark 5 passage. He's doing ministry. And the teachers of the law come and say, hey, this Jairus guy, we need you to do a favor for us. His daughter is sick and in trouble. And he gives to our temples. He helps us and things like that. And he goes, all right, let's go. He's interrupted. They interrupt what he's doing. And he goes, okay, I can be interrupted. [01:06:18] Speaker B: And as he's being interrupted to go [01:06:20] Speaker C: and minister to Jairus daughter, what happens? [01:06:24] Speaker B: He's interrupted again with the woman with the issue of blood. And she literally has been suffering for 12 years. She pushes through the crowd and she touches the hem of his garment. I love Jesus response. He says, hey, who touched me? Oh, this is a great scenario. I would love to sketch this out [01:06:44] Speaker C: and put it in a movie. [01:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I want you to picture this because Peter and them were like, the eagle has landed. The eagle has landed. We're going left at the next street. Left, left at Jehovah Jireh street. Here we go. Everybody going left. And then Jesus goes, wait, What? What is it? Jesus? He goes, somebody touched me. Who touched me? I would imagine Peter's like, let me help you with that. Everybody's touching you. We're trying to get you out of here. And Jesus goes, no, no, no, no. Somebody touched me different. Come on, Word of faith. Somebody touched me different. Somebody sucked power out of me that I did not stop and intend to give contextually. That's how I read it. Who? He didn't know who did it. So is he lying? Who touched me? Who touched me? Who touched me? And the Bible says, knowing that she could not get away with it, she [01:07:50] Speaker C: comes forward and says, it was me. And he looks at her, he said, mommy, your faith has made you whole. Interrupted. But in the interruption, imagine being that lady's daughter. Can you imagine being her grandkids if she has grandkids? [01:08:12] Speaker B: Reset. An entire legacy, an entire stream of [01:08:16] Speaker C: humanity just got reset because Jesus allowed himself to be interrupted. Of course, Jairus daughter gets healed too. [01:08:29] Speaker B: Resets that whole framework of people because [01:08:32] Speaker C: we're all six degrees of separation, right? We're all connected to each other. [01:08:35] Speaker B: He literally, God movement goes down through that entire family because he allows himself to get interrupted. [01:08:44] Speaker C: Man, I've really been chewing on this concept. Jesus, do I allow myself to be interrupted with a potential God moment are my plans? The God moments [01:08:56] Speaker B: that do not have [01:08:57] Speaker C: time to be interrupted by potential God moments. [01:09:00] Speaker B: And if I could encourage you with [01:09:02] Speaker C: anything, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the father, loved to interrupt your schedule for opportunities for the. The supernatural. People ask me all the time, how come we don't see the supernatural like we see in other countries. And I tell them, because we're too busy. We walk right past the opportunity, right past it, because we think if we can get to the production, the production will create the supernatural. And Frank, can I tell you something? The same spirit that Rose, Christ from the dead dwells in you. You are walking supernatural. That's what you are. Where you are, there he is. Especially as sharp people, right? Because, lo, I'm with you always. [01:09:45] Speaker B: So you just need to grasp that wherever you go, he's with you. [01:09:50] Speaker C: It's an opportunity for something supernatural to happen. It's an opportunity. When I was preparing for this last week and just fasting and praying over this moment tonight, I really heard the spirit of the Lord say, there are such sweet people that are going to be in this conference and none of them have meant to allow their heart to become calloused. And that each and every one of us are due for a tenderization that he wants to tenderize our heart tonight. Ministry can be enjoyable again when our hearts are not calloused because again, people are tough. Marriage is difficult. Life is fast paced in the era in which we live. If I could just take a few moments as we go to close out our time together and if I could just implore of you to maybe we pause for a moment like brother Chris said, and we just let the Lord tenderize our heart again. Would you stand with me all across the room as they stand. Would you show them that picture one more time of that little couple? Show them that picture. Did I get that was the couple. For the next five hours, [01:11:24] Speaker B: I strategized [01:11:25] Speaker C: with them on how to be good missionaries. I almost missed my moment. Look at the love in their eyes, Lord, Keep our heart tender. Can we go before the Lord together, Jesus? I think we all ought to take a moment, Lord. We just repent of allowing our heart to be calloused, Lord, Those who have [01:12:00] Speaker B: been used [01:12:03] Speaker C: to offend us, to disappoint us, or even where we become callous towards you because we're disappointed in you. [01:12:10] Speaker B: I thought we were going to do [01:12:12] Speaker C: this, Jesus, and now we're doing that. So, Lord, we just avail our heart. We just crack open our chest and we say, take the scalpel. Take the scalpel to those offended places, those disappointed places of our heart. Tenderize us again. [01:12:33] Speaker B: Or tenderize us to where hope, joy, [01:12:38] Speaker C: peace and patience aren't something that we're [01:12:42] Speaker B: aspiring to, but something we walk in [01:12:45] Speaker C: because our hearts are so full of the love living God. Because love is patient, it's kind, it's gentle, it's not self seeking. So, Lord, I just ask you to tenderize me. Start with me, Lord. Start with me tonight. [01:13:08] Speaker B: Turn us back to what ministry was [01:13:09] Speaker C: supposed to be, [01:13:14] Speaker B: Back to where ministry was a overflow of our love to others. [01:13:20] Speaker C: Because of the love that you've given [01:13:21] Speaker B: us to where we are, that extension cord, the love of God flowing through us to others. [01:13:28] Speaker C: Lord, we ask you to heal, heal those places. [01:13:33] Speaker B: There's a couple people here tonight, and you are deeply offended at your adult [01:13:37] Speaker C: child who's turned their back on the Lord and it's caused a little bit of a hardness of your heart towards them. And the Lord's just going to soften that tonight as you just allow him have access to that. [01:13:48] Speaker B: And I would encourage you to. I would encourage you to do an act of humility, [01:13:55] Speaker C: do something before the Lord to soften that place towards them. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Tenderize us. Oh God, Lord, I want to walk out of this place excited about interrupted moments, excited about it, looking for moments of interruption to my daily routine. [01:14:24] Speaker B: It's all boring anyway. [01:14:26] Speaker C: Oh, the excitement of the interruption. Who touched me? [01:14:31] Speaker B: Look at that. [01:14:32] Speaker C: That's cool. Lord, I just pray, Lord, for those who serve the body of Christ. Many of them, Lord God, have just become exhausted with their ineptness. Some of these, Lord, who own their own businesses and, and they've got employees, those who are ministers and they've got staffing. It's just so frustrating. You still, you still can't accomplish this task. Lord, would you tenderize our heart? And Lord, from that place of a [01:15:04] Speaker B: tender heart, maybe we could be a [01:15:05] Speaker C: better mentor in that area. Maybe we could see what we've been blinded because of our hardness of heart. That is the little key to turn that peace and see that adjustment in their life. Oh, Father, let us never minister from a place, from a place of disappointment or offendedness. Oh God, Lord, may we, may we. [01:15:28] Speaker B: May we wake up early in the [01:15:30] Speaker C: mornings with the joy of the Lord. Lord, in our times of corporate worship [01:15:34] Speaker B: and private worship, may it be so beautiful. And Lord, would you teach us, Lord, teach, teach us how to. How to begin to dialysize, to daily forgive, to daily walk in forgiveness, to forgive in advance. Knowing that we're going to walk into that scenario, they're going to do probably what they've already done. And in advance. I forgive you in advance. I keep my heart tender before the Lord in advance. I refuse to be disappointed. In advance. I refuse to be disappointed. Lord, may we be free. Those of us that are ministry leaders, may we be free from the thought that we have to police other people, people's flesh. They would be set free today. Oh God, that somehow, Lord God, it's our responsibility that they walk uprightly before you. That is your job. Holy Spirit, the Word says that you convict the world of sin, righteousness and [01:16:20] Speaker C: the judgment to come. [01:16:21] Speaker B: That you bring forth goodness in our [01:16:23] Speaker C: life, that you lead us and guide us. [01:16:26] Speaker B: So as ministers, may we just enjoy. Or for those Lord God, who've just been so busy and the moment we got to that one point, that point that it was so relevant to me, oh God, where we don't literally are challenged to ask and then listen. Lord, may there be a shift in their ministry tonight in Jesus name. May they find themselves literally saying, I have just sat with people and heard their stories like I've never heard before from a new light. And the goodness of God has been pouring out through miracles because. Because the love of God's flowing because my heart is no longer stopped up with hard spots. It's no longer clogged. God, may the love that you have for humanity flow through us. Lord. May literally Jesus, when you were on the cross, the love was still pouring out. You literally cried out, forgive them. They don't even know what they're doing. Forgive them. You are pouring out a tender heart for humanity in your last breaths. Oh God. [01:17:24] Speaker C: Oh God, Jesus, I want to be like you, Lord. I ask you, oh God, to bring to remembrance to each of us tonight those that we've carried disappointment towards, those [01:17:39] Speaker B: that, okay, maybe we're not bitter, maybe [01:17:41] Speaker C: it's not hatred, but we've lost relationship over that. That scenario that happened. [01:17:48] Speaker B: Lord, may you bring healing to that. [01:17:51] Speaker C: If for nothing else for our heart's [01:17:53] Speaker B: sake, Lord God, may there be no one in our mind that comes to [01:17:57] Speaker C: mind that we go, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know about them, though. Lord, may you heal that in us tonight that we may be good ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. [01:18:11] Speaker B: That Lord God, that there'll be found [01:18:13] Speaker C: in us no evil work that the enemy's able to capitalize on. May we neither give place to the devil because our hearts are so clean and so pure before the Lord. [01:18:25] Speaker B: Bring us back to that childlike faith. [01:18:28] Speaker C: That childlike faith. Would you do me a favor for the next couple moments? Would you reach over and just grab the hand of that person next to you and would you just pray over them? The tenderness of God, I declare over [01:18:40] Speaker B: you that you will not be able to go into worship without tears streaming [01:18:43] Speaker C: down your face, that you won't be [01:18:46] Speaker B: able to drive alone in your car thinking about the hurting, without tears streaming [01:18:52] Speaker C: from your eyes because of the tenderness [01:18:55] Speaker B: of the Lord, I declare over you tonight that the most wicked and embittered person that you know will begin to soften and have miracles because of the tenderness of your heart towards them. Lord, I ask you to give us tender hearts towards those that everyone else cannot stand. [01:19:15] Speaker C: Love is patient, love is kind, love is gentle. It's not self seeking, keeps no record of wrong. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Lord, I pray you would heal ministry marriages tonight supernaturally. The people that we're the closest to many times are the ones who hurt us the deepest because they know us and they know how to get down to that place of our insecurities and those words that were spoken in frustration. [01:19:43] Speaker C: Would you heal them? [01:19:45] Speaker B: Will you heal us of them? May we be able to walk in goodness towards those, oh God, that have offended us, Lord God, may by acts of selflessness, Lord God, may we see [01:19:58] Speaker C: restoration in Jesus name. [01:20:01] Speaker B: I declare that I'd pray over every marriage here tonight. Every ministry marriage, every. Every one of them. The protection of God. You will not break apart. You will not walk through separation and divorce. You will not live a loveless marriage, but your love will be tender towards one another. You will age with nothing more than great tenderness that your grandkids and great grandkids will say, I want a marriage like that. Look how tender his love is. Look how much she loves. Look how she still looks with him with adorning eyes. Look at how he serves her and watches after her. Look at while we sat at the table, all he did was watch out for her and went and got her a new plate of food when that. When that thing fell on her plate. Look at how he. Look at the tenderness. Look at the love that just pours out of him. Look how he loves his grandkids. Look how she loves her children. Look at the tenderness that she has for those people that are so mean and so rude. Look at the kindness it pours out of her. Where does that come from? The tender heart of the Lord beating in my chest. Take out the heart of stone in Jesus name. Heal us from years of ministry and difficulty and looking into eyes of people who are bitter and mean and frustrating. Heal us, oh God, from the things posted about us, the things said, even. Heal us, Lord, those that sit across the room from each other tonight, Lord. Heal us. Heal us of those of those places where, yeah, it had to happen and that was the right thing. But boy, that just didn't go down as good as it could have. Heal us of those places, O God, that we have tender hearts. May we be one in the spirit as the body of believers. May the Elam fellowship, Lord God, operate in such unity and such tenderness and such love. That literally people are drawn to the fellowship and say, I've never felt love like this. I've never had anyone put up with my mess long enough to help me get past it. I've never had anyone have this much patience with me. Oh, I am loved with that group of people. Their hearts are so kind and their love is so abounding. Oh, my goodness. Oh, God, let this be the testimony of the culture of Elam fellowship. Let it, the culture, be that of such kindness and such love and such tenderness. My God, My God. May they flock in by the thousands just to get loved on by these elders in the faith, these ministry leaders that have been in it a long time and know what it is, know what it is to be sacred. Stabbed in the back, stabbed in the front, stabbed up top and down below. Just to stab back and forth and still get up and say, I love you. [01:22:45] Speaker C: I love you. [01:22:47] Speaker B: There's nothing you can do to keep me from loving you. [01:22:49] Speaker C: Because. [01:22:50] Speaker B: Because the love of God abounds in [01:22:52] Speaker C: my heart in a supernatural way. [01:22:55] Speaker B: Oh, God, I keep getting strong, strong, strong. For somebody in the room, that daily [01:23:03] Speaker C: dialysis is a word for you. [01:23:06] Speaker B: You've got a toxic situation that you're in, and I just hear the Lord say before you go to bed at [01:23:11] Speaker C: night, release and forgive. [01:23:14] Speaker B: Speak life over that which is toxic and deadly. When you wake up early in the morning, speak life over that. Release your heart from taking on any frustration or bitterness or offense. [01:23:25] Speaker C: The Lord says literally, as your words [01:23:27] Speaker B: will take take on life, so speak life over that which speaks death over you. [01:23:33] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus. [01:23:35] Speaker B: Father, I thank you, Lord God, I thank you. I thank you. I thank you. [01:23:37] Speaker C: I thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your kindness. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's a. There's at least one minister in the room that has an ex wife, ex husband, and there has been recent upheaval [01:23:58] Speaker B: and drama and it's brought back all [01:24:02] Speaker C: of those old feelings and thoughts. I just hear the Lord saying, I'm [01:24:08] Speaker B: pointing you out because I'm healing your [01:24:09] Speaker C: heart tonight and you're going to be able to love an unlovable person. You're going to have grace where you've [01:24:19] Speaker B: not been extended grace. [01:24:20] Speaker C: You're going to be able to give grace. Grace. Lord says, trust me in it. Declare goodness over them. Let your words be seasoned with salt and goodness. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for your fire. [01:24:35] Speaker B: I believe even tonight that there's going [01:24:36] Speaker C: to be healing in your soul. [01:24:38] Speaker B: For some of you, if you've been [01:24:40] Speaker C: having night terrors, and trouble sleeping, would you throw your hand up? You've been having trouble sleeping, night terrors [01:24:45] Speaker B: or waking up up, maybe even with your breathing and things like that. [01:24:49] Speaker C: But you've had interrupted sleep. If someone besides you has their hand up, would you just go lay your hands on them for a moment? Come on, ministers, let's minister together tonight. Would you just lay your hands on them? In the name of Jesus, we thank you that peace will come over you. [01:25:03] Speaker B: Peace even tonight's message has a way [01:25:06] Speaker C: of bringing healing to your soul, your mind, will and emotions. We rebuke the Devourer in Jesus name. [01:25:13] Speaker B: I rebuke every those that are having [01:25:14] Speaker C: night terrors in Jesus name, waking up in cold sweats, those who literally had [01:25:19] Speaker B: sleep apnea and things like that, be healed right now. [01:25:21] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus, the presence of the Lord your God. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. [01:25:30] Speaker B: I felt like I heard from the spirit of the Lord that there's someone with a heart condition, either palmitations or irregular heartbeat or something like this. What a crazy message about the tenderizing of the heart. But there's a physical situation for you with your heart. [01:25:44] Speaker C: If that's you, would you throw your hand up? [01:25:45] Speaker B: We want to pray over you. [01:25:46] Speaker C: Okay, all right. [01:25:47] Speaker B: If you see somebody with their hand up over here, would you go lay [01:25:49] Speaker C: your hands on them real quick? [01:25:50] Speaker B: Come on. [01:25:50] Speaker C: Brothers and sisters in Christ, we're ministering [01:25:53] Speaker B: together, we're all ministers tonight. [01:25:54] Speaker C: You see a hand up, go lay your hands on. [01:25:56] Speaker B: Ask and make sure that's the heart piece and say, is it about your physical heart? And then I want you to pray the prayer of faith. I agree with you. In the name of Jesus. [01:26:03] Speaker C: The Word says if we, we agree [01:26:04] Speaker B: on anything, we come before the Father, it'll be done. That Symphonia, that Greek word for unison. So we come into unison, we come into agreement. [01:26:13] Speaker C: Be healed in the name of Jesus. [01:26:15] Speaker B: Command that rhythm to get lined up. [01:26:17] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus. [01:26:19] Speaker B: Command every bit of. If there be any blockage or anything, whatever that is with their heart, each one's a little different scenario. We pray the healing of God over them right now. In the mighty name of Jesus. [01:26:28] Speaker C: Call it so. [01:26:29] Speaker B: Rebuke the devour. [01:26:30] Speaker C: You got to go in Jesus name. [01:26:31] Speaker B: Father, I thank you, Lord God. Even their medication. Lord God. The doctors are going to say, hey, we got to change that medication because you don't need it like you did. Something's happening. There's strength to that heart. In the name of Jesus. Lord, even use this message. There's something spiritual connected to the physical. I keep hearing that for somebody with. Somebody with the heart condition, something spiritual is connected to the physical. And I think even healing tonight as you bring forth forgiveness towards someone who did you so wrong, even as you. You let the Lord heal that space, you say, well, I'm not bitter. I didn't say you were bitter. God's got to heal that space of the thing that happened to you. It's still there. There's still that wound that has affected you, and I think it's affected you physically. [01:27:07] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus, Father, I [01:27:08] Speaker B: thank you right now. I thank you right now. I've never seen the righteous forsaken. Never seen the righteous forsaken. You will not forsake us in our time of need. [01:27:17] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus, in the [01:27:18] Speaker B: name of Jesus, Father, I thank you right now. Thank you. Thank you, Lord God. Thank you, Lord God, I pray forgiveness between the generations in this fellowship. In Jesus name, Lord, I pray, Lord God, for tender hearts. Turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. I know that's their heart. I know they desire that. I know they do that. And turn the children's heart back, Lord God, to the. To the fathers and mothers, Lord God, in Jesus name, I pray, Lord God, that this fellowship, Lord God, would exemplify, Lord God, the generations working together in the name of Jesus, Lord God, I pray, Lord God, that you, Lord. I see that in the prayer, Lord God, I know that's been a point of prayer, a point of desire, but, Lord God, we ask you right now, Lord God, for seed, time and harvest. We ask you, Lord God, for it to begin to grow. We ask you, Lord God, for the manifestation, Lord God, of the generations working together in this fellowship and blowing all the other movements away. And they literally come and study. How do you have young adults, middle age and older folks all working together in this fellowship? How is this happening? And, Lord, literally, they'll come and be studied. They'll literally write pamphlets and do podcasts about the work of God in the generations in this fellowship. We call it so in Jesus name I birth it in the spirit I call forth for it to be come forth in the name of Jesus, to come out of the womb and come into fruition in Jesus name. Oh, in the name of Jesus. It's been a point of prayer for so many in this fellowship. So, Lord God, right now, bring it out, bring it back. Birth. Bring birth it. [01:28:39] Speaker C: In the name of Jesus. [01:28:40] Speaker B: Let it start even this week, Lord God, let it Start even this week, Lord God, with. With courageous conversations. [01:28:46] Speaker C: In Jesus name. In Jesus name. [01:28:50] Speaker B: Oh, Father. Oh, Father. I don't need you to raise your hand, but there's a number of you [01:28:54] Speaker C: that have been disappointed with the Lord. That's what I hear, the whisper of the Holy Spirit. [01:29:00] Speaker B: There was an expectation. Seven years ago, my wife was a [01:29:10] Speaker C: city councilwoman in our city. The Lord had told us to do it. [01:29:14] Speaker B: She literally stopped strip clubs, bars from [01:29:18] Speaker C: coming to our city in her position. She did it for a number of years. She was the winningest council person because every few years, she had to [01:29:31] Speaker B: re [01:29:31] Speaker C: up, if you will. We get this word. Cindy Jacobs turns to us. [01:29:38] Speaker B: One time, we were on a stage at a gathering, and she points to [01:29:41] Speaker C: my wife under the presence of the Holy Ghost and says, God says, you're [01:29:44] Speaker B: going to be the next mayor of [01:29:45] Speaker C: Cedar Hill, which is our city. And so we took that as a [01:29:50] Speaker B: word from the Lord. [01:29:51] Speaker C: It bore witness with us, but also, it was not a. [01:29:55] Speaker B: There was no ambition towards it, but we'll do it. [01:29:57] Speaker C: The Lord had need of it. [01:29:59] Speaker B: And so a couple years later, the [01:30:05] Speaker C: mayor that was the winningest mayor and [01:30:07] Speaker B: had no need to retire, everyone loved him, decided he was going to call it a quits. And it opened up for my wife [01:30:13] Speaker C: to run for the position, and another [01:30:16] Speaker B: candidate ran against her. This pre pandemic, just before the pandemic, right at the pandemic, and we had a word from the Lord. [01:30:25] Speaker C: She got multiple prophecies, and she ran and she did her best. She lost by less than 200 votes. It was almost scandalous how it transpired [01:30:40] Speaker B: her own party didn't get behind her [01:30:43] Speaker C: because there was a race thing happening there. [01:30:47] Speaker B: And [01:30:50] Speaker C: it broke her heart, [01:30:53] Speaker B: Lord, you [01:30:54] Speaker A: said, [01:30:58] Speaker C: and [01:31:00] Speaker B: I think it's fair to [01:31:01] Speaker C: say her identity was wrapped in it a little bit. So now who am I and what do I do? Now influence is over. What do I do? [01:31:17] Speaker B: We've been journeying that for the last five years. [01:31:19] Speaker C: She's a woman of faith. But to say she wasn't disappointed in the Lord, to say she wasn't disappointed in prophecy, I would imagine. And we've had long talks. [01:31:33] Speaker B: It's gonna take some time before she hears prophecy and goes, okay, her filter now is going to be not so sure. [01:31:41] Speaker C: We'll see. She's a woman of faith. She's a phenomenal woman. That disappointment is real. [01:31:50] Speaker B: And that disappointment, I would imagine she [01:31:52] Speaker C: would testify, that became a callous place on her heart. I don't know what disappointment you've experienced with the call of God, with the voice of God, with the prophecies. [01:32:05] Speaker B: But I'm here tonight because the Lord [01:32:07] Speaker C: very clearly told me there was a number of you that have been disappointed and that callous part of your heart is going to be healed tonight. I want you all across the room. Let us all throw up our hands the last few moments that I have with you. Father, in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. [01:32:22] Speaker B: Lord, like the disciples in the boat whose heart had become hardened because they were disappointed. Lord, we hear before you lay down every bit of our disappointment in you. And we say that we are your sons and your daughters. And that, Lord God, we're mature enough to admit and repent of it, Lord God, and we re engage with you with full trust. And, Lord, as you just would tenderize that part of our heart, Lord, would you cause us to see past the disappointment and know that you are a good, good, good father. And that, Lord God, everything that transpires, you work it together for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purposes. And Lord God, we re engage in that space of disappointment. And we say, Lord. Okay, we'll try again. Okay, you have my heart. Again, you have my yes. And Father, we here and now before Almighty God and for all of these witnesses, we say, you have my yeses. Again, you have my yes. And Lord God, we allow you to tenderize that place of disappointment with you. And we come and sit in your lap like little children and say, daddy, that was tough, but I love you. And wherever you have need of me, I will go. [01:33:37] Speaker C: And let these be the truths by which we live by. In the mighty name of Jesus. Come on. [01:33:42] Speaker B: Everybody said amen and amen. Hey, I love you. Thank you for letting me spend some time with you tonight. I pray that the strength of God be upon you. The grace of God, the goodness of God. Amen. Well, my time's done. [01:34:00] Speaker C: If I could have you guys come and close out. How'd you like? I will say this. Do not despise prophecy. For in due season, what he says will come to pass. May not be in the season you wanted it, but it will come to pass. I love you. [01:34:18] Speaker B: Keep your tender hearts. [01:34:19] Speaker C: God bless you. [01:34:20] Speaker A: Thank you for watching. We have so many more amazing episodes to share with you both upcoming and on our website. So make sure you check them out wherever you get your podcasts. For even more amazing content, go to elamfellowship.org and check out the Hub. Not only are all the well podcast there, but there is so much more content for you. And if this message was meaningful to you, please show your support by liking, subscribing and sharing this channel. And drop your thoughts down below. It really does make a big difference for us. So until next time, I'm Thomas, and we will see you around the well.