We All Will Have a Story to Tell

amen praise the lord you may be seated so good to be here in the house of the lord with you this morning man what a wonderful spirit that's in this house already so blessed by what i've already heard so far today you know what they're gonna go watch a sunday football game it doesn't start when the game starts they've been already been there four or five hours just enjoying the barbecue before they can't wait to get there i just want to get there early amen and they want it to last all day we're not here to make you try to last all day but there are some things that have been imparted to you already that is that's priceless you couldn't put up you can't put a price tag on what you've already heard this this weekend to my friend pastor chesser one of my best friends and all the world and the ministry staff that's doing such a great job with what's happening top making it top-notch the people you brought in the speakers brother brother whitley brother brother miller uh just uh beyond what we could comprehend i'm so thankful to be a part of that that my name would be associated with men like that i i so appreciate the the time that you put in to make this conference great to our leaders executive board bishop carpenter those that have allowed us to be at this wonderful church i honor you today to all my teammates on the missions america team i love you very much i enjoy not just working with you but i enjoy being your friend and i appreciate each and every one of you men of grace apostolic church love you gentlemen so much i am so blessed you have blessed me so much over the years and i'm so thankful i get to be called your pastor and i get to worship with you every week amen i am blessed true joy for me to have my father here today worshiping with me and also have my son with me this this weekend i i counted a great honor i'm very fortunate to be born into a family a lineage i i don't know if i it every time but when i pray i thank god all the time for my apostolic heritage everyone everyone is hoping to win a lottery ticket do you know that if you grow up in an apostolic home that's better than any lottery ticket that you could ever have to know the truth to be baptized in jesus name listen it's not something i want to get away from it's something i want to get deeper involved hallelujah thank you jesus amen i appreciate my my heritage my father my son and i i miss my wife today i don't go a whole lot of places and i don't take my wife with me i'm i have my wife i love i love the brotherhood bro i love the brotherhood but the brotherhood cannot replace what god gave me don't don't take don't take offense to this but my wife is is you you can't separate me from my wife in my ministry and i couldn't tell you where my wife ends and where i begin because we do this together she doesn't have her job and i have my we'd do this thing together and i have been kissing her for 26 years and that woman still lights my fire i can't wait to get home to here give her another kiss let me say something now this isn't what i'm gonna preach but let me tell you something we are wrestling a battle with a sick and perverted world they're going to try to tell you in every advertisement that two men kissing or two women kissing can be as much joyful as a man and a woman let me tell you something that's a lie from the devil i this this world can't produce anything that god has already made good god has already put in your life a woman that's beautiful no man can do it no women can do it what i have in a holy ghost apostolic woman is the greatest joy and she lights my fire i don't want i don't want my son to think after five years of marriage it gets old i don't want my daughter thinking once she's married for 15 years or so she just becomes an old woman or the old lady i'm telling you men you need to go home and rekindle that relationship you need to kiss your wife on the mouth and tell her how beautiful she is she's the woman that god has given you you need to cherish the woman that you're married to don't make your wife have to read a romance romance novel you go home and be her romance novel amen amen amen well this isn't marriage retreat but it's starting to get that way let's go to the word of the lord quickly here psalm chapter 90 psalm chapter 90. i so i do want to tell my wife dana she's watching i love you babe i've been i've been been together for 26 years longer than we haven't been together and that's a just a wonderful thing if you know us you know my family you know how well we work together again i thank all my friends i'm just among friends here today and i appreciate and love each and every one of you psalm chapter 90 starting with verse number one i do know that we have the man coming behind me here so i'm gonna just get right to the word of god psalm chapter 90 verse one lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting thou art god that turneth man to destruction and say us return you children of men for a thousand years and thy sight are but as yesterday when it's past and as a watch in the night thou carries them away as with a flood they are as asleep in the morning they are like grass which growth up in the morning it flourishes and growth up in the evening it is cut down with just just here and there it's gone it's you come up in the morning it's kind of like life of man you're just there today and you're cut down and that's how that's how it goes and though i said our iniquities before thee thou are secret sins in the light of thy countenance for all our days are passed away in thy wrath gentlemen when you want to know what the end of your life looks like this is what we find we spend our years as a tale that is told we spend our years it's just simply a story it's just something we tell it's it's over it's here and then it's gone and becomes a story of what we were and who we were and what we live for and i want to take your thoughts from that verse of scripture and talk to you for a little bit on the subject we all will have a story to tell you cannot get away from this men we all some point sometime will have a story that we're going to tell the lord i want to know what story are you going to tell him when you see him on the other side everyone say man reading word you may be seated the english language is kind of difficult so they say i don't think it's that difficult because i speak it so to me it's pretty easy but they say that the english language is hard for the fact that we can take several words and those words can be different things and they can be spelled in different ways and you just have to realize when you use it how you spell it now it's not my strong suit sometimes you spell i'm a man i'll spell however i want they can figure it out sometimes right so so you have one word and it can be like where where and where or there there and there you're like what in the world so i can imagine trying to understand different different ways of the english language and how to figure it out and and one of those words that that i'm talking about today is obviously the the word story story you know the word story is it's one word but it can mean several different things how you use it one one account of story is an account of events imaginary or real told for entertainment it's just a it's just a story telling me tell me a story or it can mean a piece of gossip a rumor something you heard what tell me the story what'd you hear on the street what's going on what's this it can be a false statement or a lie it can be true or it can be a lie but it's still a story one word can mean two different things it can mean a particular person's representation of the facts of a matter especially if given in self-defense if you're trying to you know let's let me tell you my st here i got a story that i want to tell you what's going on so self-defense and then and then of all that if you if that's all trying to figure all that then someone comes up with the meaning that it could means a floor in a building why choose that word to say it's 10 stories tall it's just call it a floor it's got 10 floors why does it have to be a star i just figured out how to use the word story now you're telling me it's a type of a building i i i don't understand all these things how we use it can be a very confusing thing when you're telling someone a story you don't know is it lie is it real is it prefabricated tell me the truth i got to know what's going on here in fact it was this preacher that would spend long hours at church but he always made sure he came home to his little daughter and his daughter always wanted her wanted him to tell her a story and finally one night she said daddy i want you to tell me a story and he'd had a particular long day but he sat down by her and began to tell her a story and said well baby has this happened this man walked through the woods and you know all these things and man it's getting so good he's impressing himself he's man this is a good story i'm gonna write this down somewhere and he's telling a story getting into it forgot he was she was even there in the room and she looked up at her daddy and says daddy is that a is that a true story or are you just preaching next time your pastor gets telling you pastor are you just preaching that a true story it can be very can very very confusing when you're telling a story the bible says that when all of our days are over our years will be as a tale that is told it's just going to be a story this is why at funerals we spend so much time when the bands in the casket telling stories because it was all said and done all you're going to be remembered by is by your memory what you did the times you went here and there and all we took this trip all you will be is a a room full of stories that's what your life comes down to and you will be remembered in a group of stories that once life is done and can i take that one step further and i want to ask you what story are you telling presently and what story will you stand and tell when it comes to eternity thank you dad appreciate you thank you love my dad because we're all going to have a story to tell romans chapter 14 verse 11 and 12 says as i live saith the lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall give me a story to god verse 12 so then every one of us shall give account of himself to god you look at your neighbor and say you're going to give an account someday look at your other neighbor ask them what will your story be gentlemen that ought to scare you to death you came in here you're not living right you're going to have to give a story someday i wouldn't leave this place knowing that i'm not telling god the right story i want to make sure that my story is pure and it's clean and it's good and ultimately it exalts the king of kings and lord of lords i want to give him a good story today when it comes to the invitation or answering the invitation of the kingdom either we accept it or we don't there is no middle ground gentlemen you can't just float down the river and just say well today i won't decide if you don't decide you already decided it's either going to be you're going to take it you're not the invitation the kingdom is do you want to go or don't you do you receive it or don't you and the story you tell will be given to explain your choice it's going to be your story that you tell luke chapter 14 records jesus telling a story of a man which made a great supper invited many to join him and all you had to do was show up all you had to do was come and take a seat and enjoy what the good master had made and that's all you had to do and the bible says in verse 18 of luke 14 and they all with one consent begin to make excuse one man said well i would go but i bought land and i have to go see it now anyone that ever bought property you don't do that oh here's a stack of money now what i get would i win go ahead sit right down be on the desolate piece of broken down land no one does it's an excuse it's next yeah it's all it is the other man will yeah i would come but i i bought some ox and i got to go prove them you don't buy oxen without seeing them first here's a stack of money let me just say there's broken down ox and get down there it's an excuse maybe the third man's got a better better excuse well i married a wife well if any man has a little bit of wiggle room on that one that's he didn't say i got to go see her he's got a married wife that's all i got to tell you i don't tell you anything else we get that man imagine imagine his story i can imagine the story in my mind honey you know i see that you made me pot real sad thank you but i won't be eating with you tonight because the good masters called me and the boys over for dinner and i just good master this ain't going to be a good night for me i just i mean i married a wife and that's all i got to say i can't make it to dinner and they begin to give excuses why they can't make it to the supper in verse 24 his response is none of those men which were bitten shall taste of my supper i wrote in my bible next to that verse excuses on earth will cause you to miss the great supper in heaven however on the flip side of our scriptures when we look into the ends of the age in revelation chapter 12 verse number 11 john sees a group of overcomers that had come had overcome satan by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony see when john looked up in a revelation he saw a group of people that they also had a story to tell these were those that may have had opportunity to have complained over what battles they had to fight or what things they had to go through but instead they simply just clung to the blood of the lamb and by the words of their testimony they did not give an excuse but rather they gave a testimony in spite of everything i faced in spite of every trial in spite of every issue i believe that my god is greater than my god is more powerful i cling to a testimony today everyone every one of you men will one day have a story to tell why you couldn't or why you could why they could serve god in a sinful world and why they couldn't serve god in a sinful world and nobody will be able to tell your story your pastor can't get in front of you say lord before you judge him just let me tell you he's a really good guy he just had a lot of issues and he just couldn't get over lord nobody's gonna be able to stand before god it's either gonna be one of two things gentlemen there's no three or four what you tell god is either going to be an excuse or it's going to be a testimony what you choose is up to you there is gonna be no well let me think about it for a while give me some purgatory to think about it for a while when you stand before god you're either gonna say god i just couldn't do it because life was too bad or someone just said lord life was bad but the cross was greater the blood of jesus is more powerful god i didn't think i could do it but because of your blood i overcame what i went through come on what are you telling god god i can't do it i don't know about you but i want to give god a testimony in my life that's why in matthew jesus said every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account for on judgment day for by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned it's only going to be one or the other there's going to be no just hanging out here for a while till you get it straight you can only give them one of two things some people face that great judgment day full of excuses blaming everyone else for why their life was so bad and so hard and because of that life being so hard they chose to serve serve the world not get right with god we we've learned the trick from the very beginning of time adam did the same thing i mean not talk about just throwing her under the bus he disassociated with her completely like he didn't even know her god did you eat of this the woman you he gave me go ahead and see if that works with your wife yeah that woman i've been fighting with who lives with me she just but if it wasn't for eve i wouldn't partake it lord it's your fault you made me say i do you made me go way down that aisle while she came walking down everybody told you you didn't shouldn't do it you shouldn't go there but you knew better but now that precious thing that god gave you now becomes a reason why you're angry and why you can't serve god i'm telling you better get your heart right you better go home and repent to your wife and say god you gave me the greatest thing that i could ever have let me tell you something it's not your wife it's not your children you need to look in the mirror and say god the only person that's going to cause me to be lost is the man in the mirror that i'm looking at today always want to blame somebody else always blame want to blame a father for why he wasn't there i always want to blame somebody else for the hard knocks and reason we couldn't serve god and so those things become our excuse but remember remember for every excuse given there will also be someone presenting their testimony as a story of a god that saved them it doesn't mean that life was easy it doesn't mean that after they prayed for their kids to get be healed their kids healed right away doesn't mean that life was easy in fact because it's called a testimony means there was a test romans chapter 8 paul addresses the possibilities of issues that the christians in rome would if not already faced would begin to face because their faith in jesus christ verse 35 of romans chapter 8 these are what are waiting for you if you join our club tribulation distress persecution famine nakedness peril if that doesn't get you you're going to be waiting for a sword and in fact because uh they followed jesus he said they were accounted as sheep for the slaughter now we're gonna start a club guys it's gonna be called the slaughtered sheep club you could die may not make it but praise god working to heaven someday come on let's get started to get this thing started can i be the first on the list now well these people had all that and they still counted their lives not dear but gave it over for the cause of jesus christ where are we in 2022 what have we become in 2022 as men of god full of the wait full of the holy ghost yeah we're full the whole where we get together powwow we're full of huges until someone cut you off in the highway and all sudden something comes out of you you've got rage you've got anger you've got something going man i got high i left church i was doing great until that lincoln poop got in front of me they drove and i i like i about lost it we we lose it over small things and we claim but we go to church every week but we let that anger get inside of our hearts or or we want to give up because we thought well i won't go to church because i fought my wife today listen you can be mad at your wife don't be mad at god but everything comes our way we can choose to use that as an excuse but remember when you stand before god you will be standing in judgment in the light of what other people gave their life over for you can make excuses and quit on god if you want to but you'll have to look at those in the face with a testimony and a story that it says in spite of all of that in spite of everything i went through i believe that nothing nothing nothing shall separate us from the love of god therefore i will still keep on praising god therefore i will still go to church therefore i will still worship god why because i've got a testimony i can't worship god you better start worshiping god now i'm telling you what you've got the best stuff on earth you've got every opportunity you've got to get right with god while you while you can we need to start rehearsing our story we have to get this right men you got to get your story right the ladies may not get this but we men understand when you get in trouble your friends you come together for a powwow yeah we're going to the principal's office yeah this this this got in trouble again we gotta get this story figured out here guys we you know johnny you were over there and joe you were there i i remember years ago it was not right i'm just gonna tell you it wasn't right i was a kid and we had a went to public school at a bus stop and in a neighbor's house next to the bus stop we were standing had a tire swinging so we'd get out the entire street until the bus would come and well we had this bright idea of taking that tire swing all the way up as high as you could go and that gives you a crazy amount of force going around so this little boy younger than i said hey i'll jump in sounds like a good idea at the time he gets in there i don't know if it's being my friend or whoever it wasn't and man it was like and someone noticed the bus was coming you know what it is when you say cry bus it's like get get here now and we all ran to the bus stop but he's still going and he also knows the bus is coming these guys ah he's screaming we're like getting in the bus and we drive away look out the window he's stuck and we look straight we just go to school not knowing that the gravity and the screaming caused his eyes to burst with blood and red dots over his face i told my church if i could meet myself then i would have spanked myself i would i would me and my buddy had to give you away when we we got to tell a story i don't know what this is but we got to get our story straight we better figure this out because they're not going to take us in together as a group let us look at each other and say how did it work they start taking it one by one what's your story what's your story what's your story we got to get this right that's the same thing that happened at the tomb of jesus when they could not stop the resurrection in matthew 28 they said listen we're going to give you some money this is what we want you to say get your story straight you better get your story straight you better figure it out why you're together because eventually you're going to be impart from each other but you better get the story straight and i love the fact that we're talking about the brotherhood i love the fact that we're talking about getting together as men but guess what eventually i'm going back to michigan brother brother chester's going to west virginia tennessee we're all going to separate but i say by the time we leave here we join up and figure out what our story is going to be i don't know about you but my story might be listed i was getting ready to give up i wasn't going to serve god any longer but i went down a men's conference and i got a hold of god and god transformed my life i'm telling you man we better get our story straight my story is i'm going to go home and i'm going to love my wife my story is i'm not going to sit like a bump in a log in church but i'm going to be a worshiper i'm going to amaze my pastor i'm going to amaze my wife that is my story i will serve god almost done my strength my strength is not how much weight you can lift in the weight room my strength is the fact that i can plead the blood of jesus and weep before my sons and my daughter and realized it wasn't for his blood i'd be lost and so every time maybe i had come in there with indifference or sometimes i come to the house of god maybe the word isn't so quickly to come out of my mouth i just have to remember the old story i have to remember the story of calvary and just hearing that story how to lift my hands and say thank you lord for what you've done for me thank you lord for supplying my needs thank you for giving me a beautiful wife and three beautiful children lord i don't deserve it i don't deserve it i'm the least of these but lord i thank you for the story that you've given me in spite of me he's blessed me in spite of the times you go off things stupid things we do as men he's blessed us and has forgiven us and has allowed you to come one more time to an ultimate awesome atmosphere that if you're broken by sin you don't have any hope guess what you don't have to leave here the same way you came in but you can sing a new story i have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb i am a new man in christ jesus your wife can say honey what got into you i'm telling you what god in me is jesus he took me he turned me around he made me a new man i will not be the man i used to be since i went to men's conference well last story will be done i uh i don't i i i do know i lied when i was a kid if i say that the little the father's not in me right so i know i lied as a kid so i want to be right i just want to clarify that right now i know i lied i don't think i lied a whole lot my dad can verify i don't know but so i do remember the gold coming home from school one day and uh pastor vazquez was saying about his daughter i learned a new word as well coming home walking down had a quite a long walk from the bus stop to where i got home and i i learned that word so well i can start saying in different ranges and melodies right i could say saying the same word you know you send your kid to school and they hear 22 000 words and they only come home with the one word you don't want them to know what is in the human nature minute and i was saying it so good so smooth i don't even know what it was and my dad was in the garage scrubbing the bottom of a boat and i walked past elsa and his head popped up and i was like whoa and i got a little bit of soap in my mouth for that one i i had a clean mouth after that praise god isaiah had nothing on me they had the seraphims i had a father that said hey here but one story in particular that i gave a really good lie on was the day that i shot my first bird with my bb gun every boy's got to have a bb gun this is men's conference get your son a bb gun all right he won't shoot his eye out i promise so got this bb gun and i was a good shot man you can only hit targets for so long you could you know it's in the bay my dad we flipped over a chair we're shooting target in the bait and this is so cool in my living room inside i'm shooting at a target my dad trusts me this much but you can only shoot inside for so long and then you start getting the itch as a young boy would and then there's all these moving things out there they're fast and you're stealthy and you're just kinda and i shot this robin and i told my friends guys you're not going to believe this i just shot a robin and one of the young men let me know you can't shoot robins in michigan why because that's the michigan state bird i don't know what the tennessee bird is but i'm sure it's protected right well little robin red breast in my sights was a dead bird and because i didn't know the ramifications of shooting or robin in michigan i had to come up with some story really quickly because i did not want to go to jail i was like third grade not just some nervous and so i came up with this great story it was beautiful i said guys let me tell you what happened i was shooting at a pile of rocks and what i didn't know is this robin had his back towards me i still remember this it was that good i still remember to this day and when i was shooting those rocks it didn't make a big pink no it made a soft poof noise and i said i didn't know what it was so i walked over there and it was a dead robin and i wept and i cried i can't believe i killed this precious animal of god and i don't know how i told my dad this you know parents know the truth and they just want to see what you're going to do that's the worst that's they know the truth they want to see you squirming well you know you know if i uh i knew it couldn't be looking at me because it has a red breast i would notice that so i was smart enough to know i can't see it from the front i gotta shoot from the back i told this story about how i shut this robin and these rocks but the truth is i hit right where i was aiming the truth is i was stealthy the truth is i was like a lion pr promised prancing on the the young gazelle i was yeah i was i was a good shot i sent that thing to heaven please god it's up there probably tweeting along you know probably got six wings now you know it's been transformed and thank you pastor track so all those years i've been i don't know but the truth is the truth is this the story was a complete make-up lie but it in my mind as a third-grader it sounded so good that every adult would say that must be true because my dad knows i'm an angel he wouldn't lie to me but it sounded so good i had it until i had to face my parents but truth is they knew the whole time it was a bad excuse for a lie gentlemen i have not come here to preach the third graders i've not come to young boys that are trying to make up a story i'm telling you god already knows where you've been he knows what you're going through he knows why you're not going to church he knows where you are on saturday do you really want to tell god a lie do you really want to give him an excuse or do you want to get right with god today and say god i want to pour it out to you how what if we just raise our hands right now come on a god that sees every heart come on if we confess our faults he is faithful and just to forgive us our come on you can't hide it from god come on he knows where you've been he knows what you're doing today's the day to get right with god here i am oh god the truth of the matter is this when i get to heaven i'm not going to compete with everyone else's testimonies i'm going to have to compete with a shadow of the cross that's my reference point that no matter what it was or how bad it got or how bad the wife was the husband whatever it was all these things whatever it was a savior with nail scar hands will simply point down at an old hill called calvary and say but but what do you have to say about the cross what do you say about what i did for you and you'll have no words good enough to explain lord i just couldn't serve you but i wonder sometime in the distant future there might be some voices of men there among the angels and the saints of old that will have a story to tell and they'll say i was done i was over but let me tell you my story i went down to tennessee didn't want to go they pulled my hands out of my pockets and my story is i was lost when i got there but i made a commitment i'm going to serve god the rest of my life can we give the lord a shout and praise unto god uh i love you lord oh your mercy never fails me all my days i've been held in your hands so from the moment that i wake up until i lay my head i will sing of the goodness of god we see all you have been so good of the goodness father i love your voice you have led me through the fire in the darkest nights you are close like no other god i've known you as a father i've known you as a got all my more than i deserve with every breather my it's your breath in my lungs thank you lord your goodness is running after it's running after me with my life laid down i'm surrendered now i give you everything it's chasing it up is you've been better than i deserve god with every breathe so when i'm old and grey and all my days are numbered on the earth let it be god in you alone like jesus thank you all my days are numbered on my choice oh my joy is thank you for your goodness why don't you tell your story or not tell your story of the goodness of god father this is my story father this is my song god you've been too good for me you've been too good to me god i praise my savior why don't we lift our hands all over this building come on it's in moments like this where our life has changed come on just stretch forth your hands every man that's in the room just stretched forth your hand god would you speak to me right now come on if the holy ghost is sitting on you i want you to allow that to come up out of you right now let the let the holy ghost flood this room right now from side to side from front to come on come on sir pray in the holy ghost for just a moment come on sir come on young man pray in the holy ghost for just a moment come on dad pray in the holy ghost for just a moment hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah come on i believe heaven is pleased right now when men lift up holy hands so that men would praise the lord hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah we love you jesus we love you jesus we love you jesus we love you jesus hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah i tell our church back home and i've said it many times before in matthew chapter six the three things that jesus identifies in giving and praying and fasting all the things that we like to brag about those are things we want to tell you know how much money we give we want to tell people for fasting we want to tell people for praying all three of those jesus said don't tell nobody he said don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing he said when you fast he said appear unto me and not to fast but my favorite is when jesus said when you pray not if you pray but when you pray he said go find a closet and get into that closet because when you get into that closet there are things you'll say in that secret place that you won't say out in front of everybody else amen and i kind of laugh about this whenever whenever somebody says hey we decided we're going to stop by your house man we are we are kicking things in the closet we open doors and kick things in the closet and when when people come over to our house we never say hey come look in our closet because that's where all the stuff is we don't want anybody to know about we hide those things and we open the door like oh my god look at all this i put in this closet and jesus said if i can get you in your personal closets and get you dealing with the things in secret that nobody else knows about that's what we've heard about in this place today i wonder if you would act as though nobody else is in the room with you right now for just about a moment we're going to move on but for just a minute would you lift up your hand toward heaven and would you invite god into the closet into that personal space what we have heard today what we have felt today god we want to be changed we want to be changed we want to be delivered we want to be set free god i want to be the man that you would have for me to be i want to be the father lord the example the leader all this junk that i need to deal with oh god let me get to a secret place a secret place with you god thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus this is what men's conference is all about