Sunday at Lake Grove Church - Memphis

All praises to God for his strength and insight for this past Sunday's message at Lake Grove Baptist Church in Memphis. Pastor Brian Bartlett is an awesome man of God and he has a wonderful congregation who knows how to give God the praise! I was battling a cold all week long...I even had laryngitis on Monday but as soon as the mic was in my hands it seems like another drive kicked in. I rarely get sick but this was a very troublesome cold. God gave me a powerful message to minister to the people and I could sense they were inspired and provoked. The message came from Luke 16:1-7 dealing with the story of Zacchaeus. It seems like my niche in preaching has always been to pull out and exposed hidden mysterious or principles embedded within narratives. I love to preach basic text writings but it just seems like I am in my zone in regards to narratives. The main prevailing theme that God shared was "The purpose of the Press". The press surrounded Jesus and impeded Zacchaeus from reaching his desire of seeing him as he is. Many of us have destinies, dreams, and desires in life but we are oftentimes sidetracked by the press that hovers around our blessing. The message spoke resoundly about PRESS.....PRESSURE....the influx and increase amount of pressure in our lives from all facets. I tried to make it as clear as possible by bringing in several illustrations on what pressure is and how God uses pressure for his good. I also spoke about in the introduction how many deal with self esteem issues which keep us from pursuing and going after. This man was label as a crook but he still pursued....and Jesus referred to him by his name and not his label. Here is a skeleton of the message; as soon as I receive the audio CD i will post it.

"Purpose of Pressure"

a) Pressure will cause you to change your ALTITUDE. The press ignited Zacchaeus to go over and above to get what he desired. It takes us sometimes changing our perspective about our life and ourselves. If you look at eye level at somethings it may be distorted but if you look from a higher standpoint then what appears to be large and insurmountable is not so large.

b) Pressure will develop your APTITUDE....those inate abilities and talents that lie dormant until they are forced to come out. This is the true you....unfortunately we dont know our true selves until our backs are against the wall. Once Zacchaeus was met with a pressure situation it caused him to go out of the norm and to try something different that he never tried before.

c) Pressure causes you to be cognitive of your LONGITUDE and LATITUDE (place and position). God is syncronized and everything is in divine order. Favor is not to a person but a place. God does not favor individuals as some suggest but he favors a place and position in him. Remember God is not a respector of persons. IN the NFL, the QB does not throw to a person but a designated place...The blessing for your life has already been released and it has been released to a place. I also spoke out the tree that linked Zacchaues to his promise...this tree called a sycamore....this place began with SYC (SICK) some of us won't move until we are SICK...we wont go higher until we get SICK.....once you reach a place of SYC THERE IS MORE AWAITING YOU.


d) I didn't make it to my 3rd point but it was once we receive our desire/dream and reach our destiny that we need to show some GRATITUDE. Zacchaues was humbled and it caused him to repent and change his course of action.

PRAISE GOD THAT 4 CAME TO GIVE THEIR LIFE TO GOD! Lake Grove is blessed with an awesome band of musicians who backed me up perfectly which is rare when you go out of town. My voice seemed to get better as I went on.