Why We Hate Hallways
by Ken Gurley
April 26, 2026 · Centerpointe Apostolic Church (Murfreesboro, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Genesis 16, Genesis 16:7-11, Jeremiah 17:10, Genesis 10:1, Genesis 21:17

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/ken-gurley--why-we-hate-hallways
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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I come to you on a mission today. I don't come to you with idle words. I don't come to you with something off the top of my head. I come to you with something that I believe is a life-changing encounter for each and every one of you. Whether you've been in this church all of 1 hour or you've been in here for a hundred years. I believe this is the moment. This is the time. This is the intersection of where God's grace is meeting your faith. Be it unto you today according to your faith. Can you say amen to that? I want to quote famed missionary William Carey. He said, "I don't fear failure. I fear succeeding at the things that don't matter." How true that rings even 200 years later. It's my prayer that you I don't want you to avoid failure. I don't even want you to succeed. I want you to succeed only in the things that really matter. And as real human beings, or better yet, I believe we're more human becomings than human beings. I've not seen the best version of me yet. You've not seen the best version of you yet. So, as human becomings, success is determined, I believe, by how we navigate these things called transitions in our lives. I grew fascinated in my 20 with the writing in my 20s of the writings of Gail Sheehy.

She wrote a classic book called Passages. How adults move through the transition points of their lives. Now, Sheehy said, "In the 20s, we do what we want. In our 30s, we do what others expect of us. And in our 40s, we regret everything we did up to that point." That's about it. But, is there a way to move through life without living in the land of wouldas and couldas and shouldas and shame and guilt and regret? And that's a journey I want to take you on today, if you're up for it. Are you up for it? Because it's in those passages, in the transitions, in those in-between times, that we really begin to grow. And we find God's goodness in our life. I want to point you to a passage of scripture that tells the story of God finding a woman named Hagar. I just got to stop and say, "Who would name a girl named Hagar?" I mean, of course she had issues with her parents. We know that, obviously. It's a story of God finding Hagar when she was running away from Sarah, Abraham's wife. And if you would let me make it plain, I want to do this in the modern English version. How many of you have your Bibles here today? You got your Bibles? Either here or on your phone. Or well, Brother Girley, I hid it in my heart.

I memorized the Bible last week. I've got it in my heart. You have your Bibles, turn with me to Genesis verse 16, chapter 16. Why don't we stand? Why don't we stand as we go to the word of the Lord. I'm going to read it from the translation that I read last year, the modern English version. In verse 7, it says, "The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. Let me just stop there and say the angel of the Lord is what we call a theophany. It's an appearance of the Lord God Almighty in scripture. So when you read the angel of the Lord, you could say God met her there. And that's the encounter I want for you today. God met me on April the 26th, 2026. Did I get my 26's right there? Wow. >> >> God met me here at CenterPoint. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. It was the spring on the way to Shur, and he said, "Hagar, Sarah's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" And she said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarah." And then the angel of the Lord said to her, "Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority." And the angel of the Lord also said to her, "I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they will be too many to count." What a promise.

This was, of course, the prophecy where Hagar would bear Ishmael. Hagar carried an unborn child, but in those days every child would become a nation, and God was preparing her for this transition. Figuratively, she entered a hallway, a transition, a passage. It's as if God said, "Hagar, these aren't going to be easy days, but they can be your best days if you handle the hallway correctly." Oh my, would you just close your Bible and open your hearts? I want to delve in this subject, why we hate hallways. Look at your neighbor and say, "I do hate hallways. I just hate them like a passion." Just hate them. God bless you, you may be seated. Walk into any building, any home, any office, and you can admire the entrance, you can admire the winding staircase, you can admire the observation deck. You can admire the office suites, the dining room, the guest area, the kitchen, the rec room, the kitchen, the fitness area, the kitchen. You can remind admire it all. But rare is the person that walks into a building and says, "I really admire this hallway." Hallways. Hallways are not there to be admired. They're utilitarian. They're purely functional. They connect you from one space to another. You can decorate them, you can hang paintings there, you can turn them into a colonnade, but when it's all said and done, if you're in a hallway, it's not where you intended to be.

And here's the obvious secret. We hate hallways. Now, there's three reasons for that from an architectural sense. Hallways are pretty much a waste of space. Ask any designer. They're usually the result of poor planning, a wrong door, a wrong decision. But in life, which means more to me than architecture, in life, hallways mean one thing. You're not there yet. You're not where you want to be. But the third reason we hate hallways, I think is the hardest, is that there are no signs telling us we're entering into a hallway of life. That life comes at us at the speed of light. One phone call, one text, one email, and suddenly we find ourselves in a transition. We get there fast. We get there without warning. So much of what we do in life is reactive and not proactive. And we react from fear and anger and hurt. That old amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain, they say, where it's fight and flight and fright. And we choose, we either freeze or we run, we hate hallways. But if you ever thought about it, the second, third, fourth, and fifth book of the Bible, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is nothing but a 40-year hallway. It is a long hallway of what it's going to take to get from the land of bondage to the land of promise, and you're going to be in it for 40 years.

So you say, "Well, Pastor, you have encouraged me so much today. I can leave here crawling out of this building. I've been so encouraged." We've all been there. Stuck in a doom loop, wondering how did I get here? In fact, that's sort of the that's sort of the symbolism of a hallway is question marks. How, why, who, what, when, where? Hallways are punctuated with question marks. I'm on this mission today to help you navigate some transitions. How many of you would just lift up a pinky finger and just say, "I may, possibly, could be thinking about, sort of, in a roundabout way, a hallway. I'm in a transition point." I want to give you three crucial words for this season, because they're going to serve to you as markers for this moment where you can pass through this season. These words aren't just crucial to those in hallways, but to everyone who's depending on you to get through that hallway. Vital words, not just for today, but tomorrow. Here they are. Crisis, process, and promise. When God decides to change you, he introduces a crisis in your life. You may say, "I don't like that." But understand, he's God, and he sort of gets to do what he wants to do. >> >> Jeremiah 17, he said, "I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds." Meaning that God knows you, and God knows the catalyst that's got to come into your life to bring about the fruit and the deeds that he's looking for in your life.

And so God chooses to do this by crisis. It's the crisis that shows us who we are. It's the crisis that reveals to us what we struggle with. Can I say the crisis that we read about in Genesis, it was not Hagar's fault. She wasn't to blame. Hagar had been insinuated into a convoluted story of someone else's childlessness. And when Sarah discovered her maid was expecting her own husband's child, it sounds soap operaish to me. Even though it was all Sarah's idea, she became in the girly translation, Sarah did, she became heat big 'em ticked off. >> >> And crisis came. And Sarah's treatment of Hagar got so bad that she ran away. And in the middle of the wilderness, the angel of the Lord finds her and asks her two questions. Where have you come from and where are you going? These are the two doors marking the beginning and the ending of your hallway. It was crisis that put Hagar in the hallway, but she was asked the question, "Where have you come from?" She said, "I know where I came from. I'm running from what I'm running away from Sarah." But where are you going? And Hagar didn't have an answer. And so heaven told her the end goal, that a promise of a nation is going to come if you can endure this hallway. So back to those three words, crisis, process, promise.

When God wants to lead you, change you, and develop and disciple you, when God wants to reveal who you are and how you need to change, he does it through that time-tested method. He leads us into a hallway through crisis. You and I are going to stay in that hallway, that's called the process, so that one day we come out on the other end where he wanted us to be holding on to a promise. Oh. You say, "Brother Gurley, is that Bible?" Well, it's sort of the whole Bible. It's pretty much what happened to Sarah. It's what happened to Lot. It's what happened to Abraham. It's what happened to Ishmael. It's what happened to Isaac. It's what happened to Mary, it's what happened to Joseph, it's what happened TO PAUL, AND GOD IS NO respecter of purpose. If you're going TO GET THE PROMISE THAT IS SUSPENDED OVER YOUR LIFE, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO ENDURE THE PROCESS AND GO THROUGH SOME STUFF. Look at your neighbor and say, "He said stuff." Folks, it's stuff. Have you ever heard the old adage, "Oh, I I'll tell you, the generation before me loved to say this." And they always said it with a pontificating voice. "For every closing door, or yeah, there is one that's going to open." That didn't help me much. It just didn't help me. What helps me is to know that God opens doors and God shuts doors.

And so for every closing door, you need to look to the hand of God. And for every opening door, the same God that shut that one door in your life is opening the next door in your life. So quit building an altar at the shut door and quit moaning and groaning and complaining about what was taken from your life and say, "God, you wouldn't have done that unless you had something better." Because you work all things together for good. And I've come to tell you, IF IT'S NOT GOOD, IT'S NOT YET OVER. SO QUIT MOANING AND SAYING, "BUT LOOK AT WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH." AND SAY, "I'M GOING TO RISE UP IN MY WILDERNESS BECAUSE THERE IS A PROMISE APPEARING IN THE PROCESS, >> >> AND GOD IS GOING." I WISH SOMEBODY WOULD praise him right now. >> >> Here's what I didn't appreciate until life came at me. For every shut door and opening door, no one told me that there was a hallway in between. I suspected when this door closed, I'm going to step through an open door. You will, but you're going to endure a hallway called process. And that hallway is not always comfortable. I'm about to use a word that may offend you, but I really can't think of another way to say what I'm about to say. So, would you buckle up, look at Myrtle and say, "Myrtle, he's going crazy." He just go Just so buckle up, here we go.

When one door closes, another door opens, but the hallway is a hellway. I'm not playing games here today. Can you figure this out? I'm talking about people in real life situations. Hagar, when you try to escape the hallway, you try to run from the process. When it's time for you to enter the process, the Lord is going to make sure you know exactly where you're going. Where you're going to end up on the other side. You can't just say, "I'm running from old mean Sarah." You've got to know that there is a process that is going to bring a promise in your life. Why am I going through this? Because the promise is coming. Why am I enduring pain? Because the promise is coming. Why am I losing false friends and people are stabbing me in the back? Because you are a child of destiny and there is a promise in front of you. And God is going to pull you away and HE'S GOING TO EXTRACT THINGS FROM YOUR LIFE. WHY AM I IN A MIXED-UP MESS? BECAUSE THERE'S A PROMISE AT THE END OF THIS HALLWAY. WHY AM I IN SO MUCH CONTROVERSY? WHY AM I SAYING GOODBYE TO MY COMFORT ZONE? WHY AM I STRUGGLING SO MUCH? Because Jesus will never drive you into your future. He will draw you into your promise. I'm telling you right now looking across this building, I see promises in the atmosphere hanging over each and every one of you and you need to achieve the promise, but to get there, you're going to go through the process.

You're going to have some difficult times. You're going to have some times when you feel all alone. It doesn't mean you're out of the will of God. It means you're in a hallway. You're going TO GO AND THAT HALLWAY'S NOT very wide. You can't go in there 10 at a time. It's sort of a one-person HALLWAY THAT YOU'RE GOING TO ENTER INTO THAT HALLWAY, BUT I CAN PROMISE YOU, IF you will just keep putting ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF ANOTHER, >> >> GOD IS CHANGING YOU. HE'S CHANGING YOUR CIRCUMSTANCE AND YOU ARE GOING TO SEE THAT IF YOU BELIEVE THAT, PUT your hands TOGETHER AND BEGIN TO SHOUT YES TO THE LORD RIGHT NOW. >> >> I was reading the Bible through last year and I got to Genesis 10, the table of nations in my mind. Table of nations, nothing here. But then I looked at this passage. Now, these are the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and sons were born to them. Everybody say, "After the flood. Eight souls got on that ark, Noah, his wife, three sons, their three wives, eight. No high chairs, no kids menus needed. No playpens, but after the flood, then came the promise. The crisis led to the process, the building of the ark, so that the promise of the future could be secured. And after the flood, then comes the promise.

You're not going to see the future without a hallway that resembles a hellway. But on the other side of the pain, let me just prophesy to you right now, is gain like you can't imagine. You could choose. You could choose the well-watered plains of Jordan. You could choose staying under the shade of a tree, but I promise you, if you will have the courage and the grit and the grace and the faith to go in that hallway of process, you're going to come out on the other side not resembling the person that entered that hallway. You're going to have faith TO SEE MOUNTAINS CAST into the sea. You're going to have gifts operating in your life that ARE BEYOND IMAGINATION. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE in your mind, and I know that I know THAT I KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT GOD IS GOING TO MAKE a way that the enemy can't throw ANYTHING AT ME, THAT HE IS NOT GOING TO BRING ABOUT AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. THE GREATER THE HELLFIRE, THE GREATER THE PROMISE. THE GREATER THE STRUGGLE, THE GREATER THE GAIN. IF YOU WILL GO INTO THAT HALLWAY IN CONFIDENCE. OH, praise God. Oh, praise God. Hagar, you ran away. You got to go back in the hallway. Endure the promise. Five chapters, 15 years later, Hagar left Sarah again. But this time she didn't run away, she was sent. And this time she was not alone, but Ishmael was by her side.

Abraham dispatched her with everything she needed to enter her land of promise. And this time IT WAS NOT HER PRAYER THAT GOT GOD'S ATTENTION. IT WAS THE PRAYER OF THE NEXT GENERATION BECAUSE GENESIS 21 SAYS GOD HEARD THE BOY'S VOICE. AND THEN THE ANGEL OF GOD CALLED TO HAGAR OUT OF HEAVEN and said, "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU, HAGAR? DON'T BE AFRAID. GOD HAS HEARD THE VOICE OF THE NEXT GENERATION. THE HELL WAY YOU'RE GOING THROUGH IS NOT ABOUT YOU. IT IS ABOUT THE FUTURE AND WHAT YOU ARE FIGHTING FOR." >> >> IT'S PERHAPS THE greatest sin of old King Hezekiah. >> >> He made a grave mistake and God pronounced judgment, but it would happen in the next generation. Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the Lord which is spoken is good." Because he thought there would be peace in my days. Three times we read about Hezekiah's sickness in the Bible. Isaiah told him to get his house in order he wasn't going to live. Three times we read Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed. He cried out to God and God turned Isaiah around. The same Isaiah has just told in the next generation is going to pay a price. He said, "Okay, at least I'll be okay." I wonder if God was testing Hezekiah. Said, "Why don't you try me? Why don't you fight for the future?" Why don't you fight for your future?

Why don't you not accept the enemy's lies? Why don't you not lay down? Whose report are you going to believe anyway? I'm going to believe the report of the Lord. When you're in the hallway of processing going through the fire, you can't run. You can't camp out. You need to cry out to God and say, "I am fighting for the future." I wish some fathers would stand all over this building right now and say, "I'm going to fight for my family's future." Would you just do that? Lift your fist in the air and say, "I'm going to fight." Where are the DAUGHTERS OF ZION THAT WILL STAND UP AND SAY, "I'M GOING TO FIGHT FOR MY FAMILY'S FUTURE. I'M NOT GOING TO ACCEPT ANY LESS. I'M GOING TO GO FOR THE BEST. I'M GOING TO SEE WHAT GOD IS GOING TO DO IN MY LIFE AND HE'S GOING TO OH, I FEEL THIS RIGHT NOW. I feel a little fire BEGINNING TO BURN SAYING, 'NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. WE'RE JUST IN A HALLWAY. THERE'S A PROMISE IN FRONT OF ME. I'M GOING TO KEEP GOING. I'M GOING TO KEEP PUSHING ON.'" Thank you, moms and dads. Thank you. I'm a better storyteller than preacher. Can I tell you a story? I mean, pull out the popcorn. Get your pink fuzzy slippers on. It's in a book called Raised to Stay. Natalie Runyan told the story of how her pastoral family was forcefully removed from the church they knew and loved.

She was at a pivotal moment in her life preparing for college. She was crushed. She didn't know who she was if she wasn't a PK, a pastor's kid. She was so hurt. She gave up a scholarship to a Christian college, went to a secular one instead. And for the first 6 months in her freshman year, she wrote her story. It was a story of hurt, rejection, disappointment, pain. She wrote in her manuscript, "This is the end. The end of an era, the end of a call, the end of a lifetime of ministry, the end of 18 years of people who said they cared walking away, the end of seeing my parents in pain, the end of being judged, the end of a church rejecting us, the end of gossip, the end of upkept promises, the end of religion." And finally, and dramatically, the last line of the book, "The end of Natalie." Phew. She bundled it up and sent it off to a Christian publisher. She waited the rest of the school year to hear back. Months passed, but thankfully, a merciful editor had read her words. >> >> And wrote something across the front page of the manuscript. So that when she got an alert something was in the mailroom for her, she ripped it open, saw her manuscript, knew it had been rejected. But right across the front of the manuscript, that editor had penned these words, "We are rejecting this for now because your story is not yet over." Wow.

I don't have time to tell you Natalie's story, but indeed it was not. God brought her through. I think that's one of the most magical words in all the Bible, through. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will bring you through. In years to come, Natalie would stand be standing by her father's hospital bed in the very town where they had pastored. Her dad had coded, looked like he was gone, flatline. The doctor stepped back from the bed. Natalie walked over and laid her hands on her dad's chest and said, "Jesus." And she said, out of nowhere, that heart started beating again. The doctors rushed her from the room, and when she got out into the hallway, outside the trauma room, before her tear-filled eyes, she saw dozens and dozens of people from her family past laying on the floor, standing faces against the wall, praying. People she thought hated her and despised her. They were all OUT IN THE HALLWAY PRAYING. AND AS SHE WALKED DOWN THAT HALLWAY, SHE FELT THE LORD melting her bitterness and restoring her joy. And it dawned on her, it hadn't been her hands saying the word Jesus and placing it IN HER DAD'S CHEST, IT was the prayers of all the people in her hallway that began TO BRING LIFE BACK. AND SHE LEARNED SOMETHING. FROM 18 ON, she had been IN A HALLWAY FOR MUCH OF HER ADULT LIFE.

BUT THAT HALLWAY, THAT HAD BECOME A HELLWAY, HAD NOW TURNED INTO A HEALWAY. THAT WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH IS MAKING YOU INTO SOMETHING YOU COULD HAVE NEVER BECOME. OH, SOMEBODY praise him right now. >> >> Hagar, you got a promise at the end of this. You got a promise. Just keep moving. We view salvation and it is sort of as a three-step repentance, be baptized in the only saving name of Jesus. And if you've never experienced that, what a day to receive that. And then be filled with the spirit. But you do understand that that's just the new birth experience. YOU'VE JUST BEEN BORN ANEW. YOU'VE NOT YET LIVED OUT your life. You've not had Christ completely formed in you. You've not yet arrived. You're not there yet. But God's going to lead you from one door to the next. You're going to pass one difficulty after another. You're going to step through an opening door. You're going to grieve over shutting doors. But every step you take, oh my, more and more and more Jesus is being formed in you. One great Scottish preacher, he said, "I was caught up into the heavens and I saw the day that the church of the living God entered the streets of glory. The redeemed and the ransomed throng walked down streets of gold. And he said, "I heard the angels whispering, don't you see it? CAN'T YOU SEE IT?

DO YOU SEE THE RESEMBLANCE? MY, HOW LIKE CHRIST THEY ARE. DON'T YOU KNOW YOU'RE LESS OF YOU AND MORE OF HIM EVERY DAY THAT YOU'RE LIVING. YOU'RE BECOMING MORE LIKE JESUS. YOU'RE HIS EMISSARY. YOU'RE HIS AMBASSADOR. HE'S MAKING A WAY FOR YOU RIGHT NOW. You're enduring. Remember the former days, the writer of Hebrews says, after you were enlightened, in which you endured a great struggle of afflictions. For you need patience after you have done the will of God, you'll receive the promise. Hold on. Hold on. Ma'am, hold on a little longer. That stuff that's coming up against you right now, that fiery trial you're enduring, it has a purpose and it's leading you to the promise. Sir, that difficulty on your job, in your career, you feel like you're at a watershed moment and you feel like you've been left dangling. Technologies have passed you by and you don't know what the future holds. Don't you understand that the way this thing works, it's the divine motif, it's the modus operandi of God revealed in the very first miracle at Cana of Galilee, that he saved the best wine for last, that the latter house is going to be greater than the former house, the latter rain is going to be greater than the former rain. And can I say it, the latter you is going to be better than the former you? That something is happening in your world.

Don't get discouraged. Don't get weary. Don't throw in the towel. Don't give in to the enemy. Just say, "I'm going to SET MY FACE LIKE A FLINT AND I'M GOING TO KEEP WALKING through this hallway BECAUSE EVENTUALLY THE STRUGGLE THAT I'M GOING THROUGH, I'M GOING TO BEGIN TO HEAL. I'M GOING TO GET OVER THIS. I'M GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS. THE PEOPLE THAT LET ME DOWN, THEIR TOXINS AND THEIR FANGS AND THEIR POISON AND THEIR BITTERNESS IS NOT GOING TO DESTROY MY SPIRIT. IT GETS SWEETER AS THE DAYS GO BY. I'M GOING TO KEEP MOVING. I'M GOING TO SEE WHAT GOD IS ALL OF YOU HAD and praise him right now. I feel the Holy Ghost in this building. Oh. >> >> Oh. Oh. Honey, don't decorate your hallway with self-pity. Don't adorn your process with complaints and accusations. Don't prolong that hallway by apathy or complacency. Find a space of grace and remain in the place of your calling. And you need to You need to say with Pilate, "I find no fault in him." You need to lay no charge foolishly at God's footsteps. You need to say, "God, you're good. >> >> And though I can't see it and then I don't have any idea what you're doing, you're doing something good in my life. This problem in my family is going to work for good. This problem that I'm going through in my body and physically is going to work for good.

I'm going to be better on the other side of this. I refuse to be bitter. I'm going to stay in the place of my calling and I'm going to see you work your miracles one more time." I don't know why I'm saying this. We had a walk into our church building, Brian and Laura from our church, they may remember this. She walked down the center aisle. She's a tall tall lady. Her skin was gray. She came down the aisle of the church to the railing, opened a manila envelope and laid what looks like x-rays across the platform. She placed her hands on that and thank God for a church that when something like that happens, they don't even view that as strange. >> >> Ladies got up and immediately converged around her realizing something was on that film that was causing her great pain. They didn't know who she was. I didn't know who she was. Found out later her name was Natasha. They began to pray >> >> and she got a measure of victory, picked up the films, walked out the door. Three weeks later, here comes a tall, statuesque, regal-looking lady. Her skin was no longer gray. She stepped into the back of that church like everybody was expecting her to be there. And she began to strut down that AISLE SAYING, "WON'T HE DO IT?" >> >> SHE'D WALK UP TO PEOPLE AND START SHAKING THEM SAYING, "HE'LL DO IT.

HE'LL DO IT. >> >> WON'T HE DO IT? OH, YES, HE WILL DO IT." WE FOUND OUT later she had had a tumor on her brain the size of an orange. But she had gone back for testing. Oh my. And the doctor came looking mystified and saying, "It's not there." >> >> Here it was here, but it's not there. Don't you know God is good at hide and seek? If he can hide your sins behind his back in the depths of the sea, so that not even the enemy can find those sins, don't you know he can lift whatever trouble you're going through? It may take a day. IT MAY TAKE A WEEK. IT MAY TAKE 3 WEEKS, BUT KEEP MARCHING BECAUSE PRETTY SOON YOU'RE GOING TO HIT THE EXIT DOOR AND SAY, "WON'T HE DO IT?" >> >> WOO! >> >> I LIKE WHAT JEFF GOINS SAID. Do you know why birds sing just before dawn? Scientists believe it's to tell their mates that they made it through the night. That the morning song is their way of saying, "I'm still here." Maybe that's why we sing, too. Maybe that's why we create art. It's just a way of saying, "I MADE IT." "I'M STILL HERE." I WISH SOMEBODY JUST SAY THAT, "I'M STILL HERE." WOO! >> >> WOO! Can you say BY FAITH, "I MADE IT." OH! IF YOU'LL SAY IT BY FAITH, YOU'RE GOING TO see it in reality.

That what you can claim in faith, you're going to step through that door someday. Musicians, come. I'm almost through. I just want to I want to I want to end with what that merciful editor wrote on an 18-year-old's manuscript. Your story is not finished. Natalie in her book described the day 25 years later she went back to that same church in Ohio where her family had been ejected, where she was a teen. Memories flooded her mind. The doors of the church were open. She'd been asked to lead worship that day because Natalie Runyon is well known in Christian music circles. She realized something. She thought that 25 years ago her family had been exiled. Hear me carefully. Somebody listen to me carefully. What we suppose is exile is God's Exodus. He's leading you someplace. And as she stepped on that old familiar carpet, stepped on that old familiar platform the bitterness was gone and she was healed and that editor had been right. Your story is not over. And as she led worship that day she saw people coming down those aisles and she realized something. Look, hear me carefully. That person that hurt you is probably not the same person today that they were back then. Because God has a way of leading everybody through hallways. Are we doing all right? She said, "I saw people old and wrinkled skin, watery eyes coming down.

Don't you ever doubt that while God is working to heal you, he's working on those who hurt you." >> >> "Natalie, is that you? Natalie, you look just like your daddy. What a beauty you are. Natalie, your dad was my favorite hunting buddy. WOULD YOU TELL YOUR MOM we miss your singing? And such that when it came time to lead worship, she no longer saw critics. She saw family. I like how Natalie says it. I quote her book. Every victory starts with a battle. Each win starts with a war. And the enemy has one goal, to take your voice, and to steal your song and your testimony. And if you ever give up, you'll never hear the whole song. You'll never know the melody of restoration. You'll never know how your story was meant to be finished. I feel the presence of the Lord right now. Would you stand all over this place? I pray. I pray in this room that someone >> >> someone would stir up the gift that is on the inside of you. That you would ignite a fire within. And let it burn seven times hotter than the fires you walk through. If you're in this room right now, >> >> and you're exiting a closing door, and you're stepping into a hallway that you just don't really know where this is going to end up. You haven't yet clearly identified the promise at it all.

Can I just tell you would you covenant with me today that whatever else happens, I'm going to finish this. I want to see how the story turns out. One day you will. You'll step through that door. Every head bowed, every eye closed all over this building. Father, I'm coming to you right now, God. I delivered the words that you bid me to say here today, God. I don't know what hallways each person is in right now, God, but I know they are cuz I can sense the gravity of it in this room right now. But Lord, I am asking you as surely as the angel of the Lord met with Hagar, would you come down in this place in these next few minutes, Lord? And anyone who courageously will start putting one foot after another, God, would you meet them in this altar area, Lord? And would you heal hurts? And would you draw toxins from their spirit, God? Would you lift a heavy load from their shoulders, oh Lord? And God, I'm not asking you to take them out of the hallway immediately. I'm just asking you to give them the hope and the strength and the peace that they're coming through your process and they're going to inherit the promise. Oh, I feel the Holy Ghost right now. I feel the Holy Ghost right now. I want that prayer team to come down here that came up earlier.

Just come and stand down the front, any altar workers. I'm just I'm feeling the Holy Ghost right now. Everyone under the sound of my voice, even those watching online. But if you're in this space right now, this sacred space, it is just as good as the wilderness of Beersheba where God met Hagar, that God is wanting to meet you here right now. If you would say, and if you could honestly say, >> >> "I'm sort of in a hallway. I I'm in the midst of decisions and >> >> I'm struggling in this one area, excelling in others, but this one area, >> >> I'm just running into a brick wall and I don't see the open door. I believe this is your day. >> >> I don't know how you do it, but we have a custom in our church. After the word is preached, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word, we just all respond. Whether we've been at it one day or a hundred years, we just respond. I'm going to ask you to do something by faith right now. Pretend you're in that hallway. I want you to start moving. I want you to say goodbye to your chair like it's a sinking ship right now. And I want you to walk authoritatively and expeditiously, as swift and as purposefully as you can, and start moving to this front. When you get down here, get as close to the rail as you can to make way for people behind you.

And I want you I want you to get your hands in the air and say, "I'm going to lift up my eyes to the hills from which cometh my help. I know my help is coming from you right now, God, and I know you're going to lead me into the path." This is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for taking a step of faith. This is the