Zechariah-Eight Thoughts on Vision Part 1

So last night my wife was looking through her laptop in the end. It had picked just going way back to when we first got married. So for those that don't know you're approaching eighty a man married next month again. So we were looking through pictures and just going all the way back and seen Younger. You amen and wedding pictures from when people got married Hospital. Pictures of babies that are getting ready to turn 5 and graduation from high school from college this. All types of pictures, they were pictures of my mother-in-law a man and this look totally different Hey man. Just and I just I remember, you know, I left and it was so much all I'm going somewhere with this. It was so much pictures of renovation was literally, like I was looking back over my life. And I was just said, I have had over to this point, a great, like Amy. And I have had a great life. Amen. And that I was looking at the pictures. When we got done this, the Lord said something to, he didn't just like this thought. Just was like, if you noticed, none of the none of the things in the picture matter, it was all about the feeling that the people in the picture. Daisy, regardless of how she was at regardless of what you was eating or what was going on around that time. It was the people that were bringing the Memories Back. And while the majority of those memories were positive, some of them, you know they they kind of been kind of made me grieve a little bit cuz some people, you know, you looking back over here, some people know how long do you do. People have walked away from the church. Some people have made decisions that have allowed things to happen to them so to happen to them. So, it was crazy. Seen this person with a smile on their face and then looking at 2022, and knowing what they going through right now and I was just saying, God, it didn't have to be like in it, it have to be like this because they were right here in 2013, like all they had to do, was make a decision or choice to serve you. And it didn't have to be, or turn out like how it turn out now. Amen. It'll be nice to see it until then I said, and it's going to be the same way to you in years from now. I'm going to look back 10 years from now at 2022 and I wonder who going to still be in the pictures. I'm still going to have a smile on my face, right? And we take that for granted because in 2013, my mother-in-law can remember with her and now she can't and we take that for granted. It's why you looking at the pictures that seem like man that was just yesterday, right? Looking at pictures of my son and in life in preschool on right now, he's in going to the seventh graders. Like that was just yesterday.

Right. Time. And it seems like we have so much of it, but we don't.

It's not a series that God has me getting ready to go to a going to. Is it going to be about vision? And I said, God, I say I need to use the book that I don't read too often I say cuz I need to fill up on the work myself and he took me to Zachariah. It's all going to be preaching out of this booking and I'm going to be talking about vision. And I know when we hit that word, a lot of time, you know, people start thinking about that vision boards and all the things that they want to do and where they want to go for God and what they want, God to give them, but it all. I don't specifically talking about when you look back over your life. Not, not, not all that surrounding stuff. Like I was explaining in that picture. Not what you want God to do, you know, people do them visible and they have they wedding dress up there and the type of house they want in the type of car. They were in a pictures of money or jobs or whatever that is like their vision is like they trying to paint this picture of what they want God to give them. But that's not what I'm talking about on today.

I'm talking about. Where do you want to be with the Lord? Where do you want to be with the Lord five ten years from now, even a month from now? Where do you want to be with the Lord? Where do you see yourself going on? Where do you see your family going, right? What are you praying over your children and hoping for right as these graduates this weekend go across the stage and, you know, everybody's feeling good. But how many y'all remember when y'all were high school? And you look back and you don't seem, you ain't seen none of them folks. No more. Some of them dead and gone some time in jail. So I'm on drug like right off that. Damn one day is just like a mayor that one day you happy, you spend that money everybody cheering and then two years later, you ain't married no more. Right. And all of that has to do with vision is like, what are you, what are you, hoping and trusting and looking to God for. So, you know, what you're striving toward, okay? So here we go, so Vision, the definition, the definition for vision, is the state of being able to see Is the ability to think or plan the future with wisdom. And that's what God is asking us to do today, right? He's not asking us to be a fortune teller, right? He's not as like I I don't know where I'm going to be in five years but he knows, he knows. So if I trust him, if I go to him he can help me plan out my steps, he can order my steps in his word, he can help me plan out my future, not just by what I look with wisdom. In the Bible, the word vision is often used as an encounter with God where he can part with me to give special Revelation intuitively. Meaning it's intuition, is that feeling like sometimes you say, you know, you would we go see somebody else. I don't know why I had to come see you today, but I just had this feeling like, I just needed to call and check on you. Is that intuition right? A lot of time we think about being and we think about that this Supernatural thing, but sometimes God is painting. Think about what a mental image is it is a vision. You see something, even though it's not right before your eyes, you see it in your head and God can give you that he can lead you to where you supposed to go. Somewhere in the Bible. The word vision is I can use as an encounter with God when he gives special Revelation often use intuition in dreams or in dark Saints. Write four in dark fate. It's always I talk about this today. I want you to understand that I'm using this, I'm using this word vision is not only about what's to happen in the future cuz a lot of times that's what we think about what we think about, what's going to happen in the future, but God can give you vision for today. He can he can give you, he can give you something to do today, right? You don't have to wait until tomorrow. You can do it tonight. He can speak to you today. He can show you something today. So I talked about not just vision for the future but for today, making choices today based on what God wants you to do. I saw the scripture that I was going to read before, but before I got into this, you know, like we normally do is Proverbs 29 and 18 and I and I have two different versions of it, right? The King James version says, where there is no vision. The people perish, but he, that keepeth the law. Happy is he right? And had and I like that Kings James version, cuz when you read it, it seems like personal to an individual right where there is no vision, the people perish, you can feel that like, whatever you can do it, you can look at y'all know, some people write happy but I have so much promise. You look at where they started and you look at them now and you lie you in the same spot. And so even though they are physically still alive, you can literally see them wasting away. Like how old are you? Look at. So, I look at some of my students that I talked when they were in high school and I'm trying to figure out why they look just as old as I look. Why, why are you in your twenties? And I'm in my forties and we look like we did same age. In a lot of that has to do with vision. Like when you don't have no Direction, what are you doing? You're wondering. So the good news translation says, a nation without God's got it is a nation without order it. So not only does this principle apply in our individualize it applies to church housing. It applies to City. It applies to State it applies to Country. When a nation does not have God's got it. It is without order, right but in spite of that the works his ass. Happy are those that keep God lost, but that means everything around us can be in chaos, but if we seek out God's Vision, we can have happiness. And so, I'm going to be reading to y'all Zakaria on Saturday. I'm going to be in the first chapter 27. 7th, to the 17th verse And if you know anything about the book of Zechariah, the book starts off with a vision that God give Zachariah, and you got to know the context of what's happening. So, Zachary, Ryan is a profit and he's prophesying doing a time that God's people are returning from Exile riding in the NFL at the moment that he's prophesying. It is not the very beginning of their return is kind of like to the middle of the end of their return. And so the prophet haggai. If you read that book, he was he was proud prophesying doing the beginning of their return from Exile. He was probably trying doing the beginning of their return from Exile and he was very hard on the people. He like y'all got to get to work. We got a lot of work to do to read was that suraiya comes along after that guy and he's prophesying and what he prophesize is a mix of tough love. What he's preaching is a mix of tough love and it's a mix of y'all. Hope for the future.

And that's what we need. And that's what a lot of churches, don't give anymore. They just, they just tell us stuff. The hope for the future and everything going to be. Alright, sugar coat it. Right, without the tough love. But that's not real Vision. To see the whole picture, you won't Freitas the reach the whole work, right? You got to have God has the full picture. If God has the full picture, why would he just tell you to focus on one party, right. So I think I'm picking up in Zechariah 12 7 through 17. I said, in the second year, that Darius was Emperor on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month. The lord gave me a message in a vision at night. And so the first thing I want to say is I want to say that scripture is specific, right? 24th May 11th, Monday night in the reason is because God saying certain things to us at certain seasons in our life at certain times. And if you ignore it you going to mess up that whole season. If you would move, if you ignore what he's showing you and 11th month on the 24 bathed, and then in that dream, that you have at 9 and you just put it on the back burner. Like, he's not talking to you, you're going, you're ignoring the vision, which means you going to be walking outside of his guidance? Which means you are wondering. God is saying, I'm showing you these things for a reason.

Play Percy's, I saw someone riding a red horse. You stop them on the Myrtle trees in the valley and behind him were other forces, Red Devil and white diamonds mix cuz I saw him, sir. What do these horses mean? He answered, I will show you what they mean. So that's my second point, if you ask God, what this means he will show you what it means, right, God speaks to you. He's not trying to keep a secret from you. If you want to keep a secret from you, he wanted spoke to you in the first place. So when he speaking to you he wants you to understand what he's saying. But a lot of times, what do we do? We don't respond. Anybody read the Bible about the divorce Samuel Wright, when he was having them green. He woke up and he's time. He woke up, he's like, I don't know what's going on and then eventually, it is romantic, all the lights. The Lord talk to you. Boy the next time is the next time you say

Zachariah answer me. He say what do these horses mean he answered, I will show you what that mean. The Lord sent them to go and inspect the Earth. They reported to the angel, we have been all over the world and found that the whole world lies, helpless and subdued. So that's my next move. Big guy is looking over the whole earth. He sees everything that's happened is he was happening in, Ukraine was happening in Russia. What happened? In the Middle East what's happening in midlow, Albany, what's happening in? Whatever? Your address is fill. In the blank,

Right to see that all. So you can't go you can't go in your little bubble and they don't nobody see what you doing and how you acting he sees it all.

Okay.

Cody's Angel's Bay, you know, God sent the search, the Earth, they've been over the whole earth. They have found the whole world that lies helpless and subdued. The angel said Almighty, Lord, you have been angry with Jerusalem in the city of Judah for 70 years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy? So let me explain to y'all was at so God's people have been in captivity for 70 years. God has been mad with them for 70 years. Why all I want everything is at so will Zack Araya with with Zakaria is saying or what the angel is saying is Lord, you are let everybody around your people. Be at peace. How long you going to keep treating people like this? A lot of times as Christians, what we need to understand is God sees things differently.

It might seem like all these people around you getting away with stuff as you suffer as you trying to run this race for God as you trying to get right? It may seem like all these things at all these other people that are at peace. But y'all got to understand that God sees the bigger picture. If you know anything about scripture, the reason that God allowed them to go into captivity in the first place, was to tear them from their idol worship.

How many Ian notice scripture says that if God doesn't chastise you, you a bastard. It was almost like you just let your child run wild and you never correct. If you don't correct let me you don't what you don't love them. Because you know eventually been just running around Rob off. I was just doing whatever they want to do. Eventually they going to hit a wall and they might kill himself or die. So it may seem like all of these other people are getting away with things while God is being hard on these people but it's Not What It Seems. Angel said, Lord, how long are you going to how long are you going to keep being tough on your people before you show them Mercy? The Lord answer the angel with comforting words in the angel told me to Proclaim. What the Lord Almighty said. I have a deep love and concern for Jerusalem. My holy city, and I am very angry with the nation. Then enjoy the quiet and peace. How many y'all know that God is close to the Brokenhearted? That God is flying. You right? He came for the sick and the lost. He came for the blind.

When you need to be scared for real, but when you are having difficulties in your life and you can't figure that thing out, God is trying to get your attention. But a lot of time we don't see the bigger picture. They are very angry with these nations that enjoy the peace and quiet. He stay for a while. I was holding back, my anger against my people, the old nation has made the sufferings of my people worth. So two things, even though they might seem like you going through something, or you don't get not where you want to be. It's still holding back. His ain't you still deserve worse? I want you to know that even when it's bad, you still deserve. Technically, you still deserve worse. But God and his love, hold certain things back from you.

I'm angry with these people, because like, it's almost like he's saying, like, I don't like other people trying to with my children, right? If they did something wrong, I don't need your rest. Sometimes, when I first met my daughter and into my son, try to turn me in life. We got, you don't have to put your two cents in and that's what's happening. That's what's happening right here. God is like yeah, I know I've been hard on my people, but I'm also extra mad at these people who trying to make it hard on, on my children, like God is concerned about you. 216-3684, I have come back to Jerusalem to show Mercy to the city. My temple will be restored in, the city will be revealed. He stopping to see if people don't, you know, God is talking to you today. And may look one way, but God is able to restore you. When he's able to rebuild you. Angel also told me to proclaim the Lord Almighty says that his cities will be prosperous again and that you once again, will help Jerusalem claim to see if he's on

In all of that God gave Zachariah all of that in a night vision. Why you tell us a cuz I want you to know sometimes when God is trying to show you something, it's not always clear. We we we we we can just say teacher, Tony, I need you to go here, do this in and then do that. And then everything going to be. Alright, just straightforward like straight to the point like that. But sometime most of the time, it's not like that. You going to send you a dream about four horses and you going to be like that when I'm talking about the horse has happened. Why? Because the reason for that is God wants you to speak after him, but we lazy. We did just tell her what to do so we can get blessed, but I want you to see you. He trying to correct some stuff in you so he got to make it kind of not it's not that he's trying to keep it a secret from. You want to see if you really want to know the answer or not. You want to see if you really want to know the answer. So God is speaking to his people in this crazy dream about some horses. But the point is he's willing to give the Revelation. Question is, are you willing to listen? Amy. So, here are my thoughts. Brennan's Beach. Is that the right things differently? And when I wrote this down and in the end I just gave my watches list Nikki. She said, I understand what you're saying.

I want y'all to know that. I just said, I said, I can stay true that. I love everybody. I'm talking specifically to these turds, y'all. Easy to love, but all of y'all ain't easy to lie.

Dolly easy to love.

Easy to love you. Regardless of what you doing, what you been through cuz I know God is able, I'm going somewhere with this. This is busy right now.

Remember how I told y'all that Zachariah, he's prophesied tough love and he's also prophesying. Hope for the future. Don't know if y'all saw the first lie but it had a tree. One side was full of leaves and other side with bear. Easy to love. But some of y'all, I heart the light in the reason that I love you is because I have a vision of what God wants to do with you as your pastor. I see what you supposed to be. And when I say, I don't like you is cuz I see you working consciously working against God vision for you. God is tugging on you said, come on. I got some for you and you like no, I don't want that.

And the reason I don't like it is because I love you. I see who you are. And then I got him. I know something. Somebody from the saying how you going to tell me who I am. My old fashioned used to say hi. I'm going to be your past and I don't know the sheet. What's the what's the purpose of a pastor that don't know the sheet. What's the purpose of serving? A God don't know everything. I'm not comparing myself to God but if we thought about God like that that was put in my mouth left, he just as clueless as us. What's the purpose of having a pastor? Is he going to choose me to serve these people? If I'm going to leave

I got to be a few steps ahead.

Because I seen you happy. Know what I know what your marriage supposed to look like. I know what you mean. You're supposed to do. I know what your key is supposed to look like. I know that I know the joy that you so I don't know what it look like when a person has Joy. Behar. I know what it looks like when it's peace in the home. I know it. It look like when a person is being truthful and when they lie, I know what it looks like when a person is being prideful vs. Humble. I see who you are because I seen you happy.

It's not like it if I was to look at if I was to look at past tense. For example, if I was to look at past tense White

So, I got to set my my my site in my vision.

if you can say, the same thing about me, even if we look at present tense, if we don't sit at home. So I don't know how much longer. I don't know how much longer. I don't know how much longer I can put up with these people on my job, but God has to give us a vision of what it's supposed to be. And then we have to go to work to help that thing come about.

I'm not a mind-reader. I'm not a fortune teller. I'm just a servant.

It was Zachariah is presenting is an image of Godly suffering and I want y'all to know that God is suffering and Glory, go hand-in-hand. But you got to have like you got to have Vision to bring it into focus and so I have somebody, I have some visuals that's going to come up on the screen and I'm going to almost be done. But I want y'all to know that this book is what Zacharias speeches to his people is a flashlight. So this book starts with seventy years of seeming felt like like failure. And it may seem like in your life. 20 years of failure, 30 years of failure, I know so many people who like to think I should be somewhere different by now. It may seem like all of these years of failure, right? And that's how this book starts off. It starts off with 70 years of failure in the nation. In the people that have Rock rejected. God, you made it, you have turned your back on. God, your mom was trying to get you to go to church. When you were little, you just ignored and whatever and you went left and then things aren't happening, you feel so far gone. It seems like you just can't make it. You don't have nowhere to go. Right in his book store, 70 years of failure, of people that have rejecting God, they were taken into captivity, God brings them back and then he starts to give them perspective.

Is that the right of contemporary meaning like his buddy? Somebody that was alive at the same. I live at the same time was haggai and I told you how the heck I was like he was just a straight-up preacher. He took y'all need to get to work rebuilding Temple. Zacharias like yeah. But I also want y'all to think about the future and what's coming and how God is going to restore it? How God's going to rebuild y'all somewhere? Right now. So I started thinking about being and I said God is just like Pastor Carter who was the former Pastor? I said she was my contemporary. She started this thing off, right? She started this thing off. She stoled into the ones. That was. What up under her before she passed. She sold into y'all, right Indian turned it over to me. I guess what's going to happen when I'm gone? God will turn it over to somebody else. And some of y'all going to say, I remember when pastor with Pastor Johnson was here and be in them, babies who wasn't born yet, they not do nothing by me, but not going to do nothing right past the car. They don't like they just don't know who are the past again, at that time. Y'all know what I'm saying? I'm saying. I'm saying this because God has the best friends and all these people and he got his big old man. And you think he don't know about you about you, and he got a plan for youuuu. He's got people in place for you.

Zachariah is a flashlight. It's a lot of times we need one thing, when we starting now, and then we need something else along the way. And then at the end of the way, like as I get older, I'm just realizing, either way you cut it where this Pastor Carter, where this me and whoever come back to me, it's still going to be about Jesus. It's still going to be about Jesus, whether the building change, whether the musicians change within the pastor change. The only thing at the end of the day is going to make his Jesus Freak.

Is Jesus being preached. In a lot of what we go through. A lot of what we go through is not godly suffer cuz I told y'all God is suffering and Glory go hand-in-hand, a lot of stuff that we go through.

All because of things that we did.

I was trying to grab a fish at me alone. I don't go there. Pay attention in school. Stop hanging with this crap. We'll take these, don't take that. Don't lay down. Don't open your legs, right? Trying to give me engine, what would I be engine people perish. Is it in his love? He still willing to restore and rebuild.

So in spite of it all God is good and this is what Vision comes from. Jesus makes things happen in spite of us, but a lot of times our vision is short-sighted. We need to see the cross or the crown.

We need to see the cross for a crown. Most of us just want to see the crime. We didn't want to see the black, so we want to see the end results. What Caesar said, pick up your cross. And follow me. Right.

Put those that see the cross. All they see is suffering and pain. So they say how can it be a god when that's all that there is. They just see all the bad stuff that's happening. If that's the guy that they serve, I don't want none of that, right? What? You got to put the two of them things together. Would allow Jesus to get the crown. It was the cross.

Please don't sit on the right hand of God without the cross.

You got to put the two together you ever thought about, he had a crown of thorn.

A crown of thorns, it was a crime of suffering.

And that's the demonstrate that, you know, without the cross this that there's no us getting up without him going to the cross. And getting up on the third day, is not, as long as no, other has no Dry, Bones getting up like on last Sunday. the cross addresses are failures in our short coming, but we hate the cross, we don't want to suffer now, We love it with our mouths. In that wee, wee little what I'm out. But we like know what? I'm so glad that you died for me for what you want me to say that he died for us.

I mean, you got to deal with your saying, we don't want to talk about that part. We just want the crown. We love the cross with our mouths, but not what I heard, we don't love the fact that he died for our sins, like, Lord, you made, you're you are the reason you make it possible for me to change. You make it possible for me to change.

So we either see goddess Pele, or he's winning when actually God never fake. We look around. We be like God where are you? You ain't coming through that mean you see him at Spelman? Like you ain't who you say you are. What we see him winning like when everything going. Good God, you good, we ready to pray, right? We singing songs. but the truth is, whether things are good or whether they bad God never fails

How many y'all want to be humiliated? You want to be divorced, you want to be bankrupt, you want to move back home with your parents? You want to be overweight to have health issues. You want to be fill in the blank? I want to be that way. That's the cross. That's the cross. That's the cross. That's all the things that he died for when you can't humiliate higashi, when you going through divorce, he got you. When you got financial problems, Jehovah Jireh, he's your provider that are all the stuff that he died for. So if you want to pretend like I don't want none of that. What the words say does person at the now that they are silly say the truth is not in you alive. That's the cross. You got to go through that to get to the crown.

These are the things that the cross handles and they make, right? So my final question is I come in and what do you see when you see a cross? Did you see humiliation or do you see Glory? What are you see when you going through?

Do you see. Feeling you or do you see him trying to produce a new you? Do you see him trying to get your attention? Do you see him trying to get you to surrender? Do you see him keeping you here in spite of everything that you've been through and trying to bring you to a new place, trying to get you a Visa, trying to give you that Jeremiah 29, trying to give you a hope and a future.

What do you see when you see the cross? What do you see? When you think about Jesus? Y'all realize, this was the king of King and he died of east of humiliation. So what make us fight? We ain't got to go through nothing to be blessed.

How many y'all walk outside of $500 bills on the ground all time? How many are walking outside of the penis on the ground?

Pasta.

We want stuff easy. Stop eating most famous some easy, it ain't worth having. The reason you feel like I need to pay the time to pick this up. Then leave it down there. Can you do $500 bill? Cuz somebody seen when they going to pick it up. They going to pick it up, they going to take the time to pick it up. We want stuff, easy. We won't stuff easy but God took them through all of this. And when I say he took them through, I'm not talking about he calls and I'm staying. He carried God carried you through.

To bring you to this day. What is your vision for this day? Are you going to walk out the door, the same way you came in and then say God, where are you about to talk to you for a whole 45 minutes?

To get you to think about me. now, if you don't listen That's on you. What did you think when you see the cross? Do you see qumili action or Glory? Isaac Lord. I was looking at those pictures on the computer and I'm just like, God, you are good. You are good.

The only way I know that I would be with without God's busy, I would be lost. I would be to stop.

I look at my mother-in-law and I'm looking at them pictures, right? Nnn, I could be sad. Do I want her to be to you? Yes, that's the desire of my heart, but big picture, I wouldn't be the man that I am today without her. Big picture when I came to the Lord? She was already rolling with a relationship with. So that gives me confidence and Faith and Hope that when she leaves. She going to be all right. And I'm going to see her again, and I won't have to worry about this disease. Picture small business play. God. Where are you? Why you won't hear you. I'm serving you. I'm your, I'm your, I'm your, I'm your past. I'm your answer. Why you won't hear you?

Small picture big picture, fake God got it. But we all want the cross.

I said oh you said you loved me. What's going on with you to take care of my daughter while she go through this building to prove to me that you love me, right. Can you make the sacrifice? Are you going to stick us one way? And don't check on?

Right. Can you make the sacrifice in your marriage to put somebody else first? You are, are you willing to raise somebody else's child? Like they yawn?

If y'all go home and say, you know, where the answers are the fans, and please, don't make me a vision board, don't put what you want. The people on there, put your, put your mom or your dad down there, and start praying on the floor. This is what I want for my mama. This is what I see for my mama, you write joy and peace. Under they name, right? Delivering Sunday night. Right? Right. Some like that under the desk. That's real b****. don't don't, don't don't just try to make it like your life into a fairy tail and call it be if that's not biblical, but God is able

to restore and rebuild.

And that's what you see when we think about Jesus. That's what we should see what we can see the cross. Amen. Amen. Come on and get the Lord at 8 a.m.