"I Want the Blessing" - Rev. David Malcolm McGruder

47:24 We can shout with a voice of triumph. We can declare that you are the God of our victory and that it is indeed turning around even for us right now. Thank you, oh God, that when we go to the doctor, it's going to be turned around. Thank you, Lord, that when we walk in the job tomorrow, it's going to be turned around. Thank you, Lord, that things in our house as we're in your house are turning around and turning in our favor. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your worship. Thank you for the opportunity to come into your house, to lift up holy hands, and to declare the wonders of God in our life, to sit next to our neighbor and to hear them praise and to worship, to affirm, oh God, that if you're blessing our neighbor, we can give you praise because your blessings are in our neighborhood.

48:21 now God rest upon this house let your spirit be present consecrate us again to your service Lord by the power of grace divine Lord your people are in need of a word so speak to us oh God for your servants are listening Lord if you don't speak we won't know what to do. So give us a word today that would save someone.

48:57 A word today that would heal someone. A word that would deliver someone. That would answer some question. A word that would confirm something. A word that would encourage us to hold on just a little while longer. to see what the end is indeed going to be. And we're not going to wait until the battle is over. We give you permission to work it out, to fix it, to turn it around. And we're going to shout and we're going to praise you and we're going to worship you. Before we have it in our hand, we'll give you praise because we fill it in our heart. We thank you today that we won't die in it, oh God, that we're going to live through what we thought we could not survive, that the hand of God will be on us, and that our declaration will be that we were blessed.

49:55 This is our prayer in the name of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, and according to your word. Let the people of God say, amen. Can we give God praise for our praise team? Come on, give God praise for our praise and worship ministry. for leading us so powerfully into the presence of God. We also honor the angel of this house. Can we celebrate Reverend Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III? In his absence, we give God praise for our pastor. We also give God praise for our first lady, Lady Deborah P. Haynes. God bless you. Thank God for you being with us on today. It is good for us, amen, to be in the presence of the Lord. Thank God for our pastoral staff, for Pastor Garner for leading us in worship, Dr. Ayers, Pastor Westbrook, and Dr. Grigsby is giving leadership to our children's ministry.

50:58 Our theologian in residence is here, Reverend Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas. God bless you. Always good to see you and have you in our presence and in our midst. and then I must, amen, give God praise for, of all of the bones that God took from Adam, he took a rib. Okay, y'all don't, see, I'm from Kansas City, so I get excited about barbecue when I think about rib. I'm so glad that God didn't give me a spare rib.

51:28 God gave me a prime rib. Lady Toya, God bless you. Thank God for you. thank God for you and for your prayers this morning I've been I see all in y'all football jerseys so I know what time it is thank God again for the privilege of this opportunity to share with you today I'm not going to I'm gonna try not to hold you long turn our attention to the book of Leviticus chapter 25 book of Leviticus chapter 25 beginning at verse 8 and then we'll read to verse 10 and then we'll pick up at verse 18 and read to verse 21. I'm going to read it in your hearing this morning from the new King James version of the Bible and whatever version of the scriptures you're reading from is appropriate. Verse eight says, and you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times, seven years.

52:38 And the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you 49 years. then you shall cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the 10th day of the seventh month on the day of atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all the land and you shall consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you and each of you shall return to his possession and each of you shall return to his or her family.

53:35 Go to verse 18. So you shall observe my statues and keep my commandments and perform them. And you will dwell in the land in safety. Then the land will yield its fruit and you will eat your fill and dwell there in safety. and if you say what shall we eat in the seventh year since we shall not sow or gather in our produce verse 21 is what I want to hang my hat on then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year and it will bring forth produce enough for three years you may be seated in the presence of the Lord, then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year and it will bring forth produce enough for three years. I want to preach from this text, this thought. I want the blessing. That's, that's what I want to talk about this morning. I want, I want the blessing. I want the blessing. I'm convinced that if y'all don't say amen, I'm a preach and we're going to go home, but I want the blessing.

55:06 I want the blessing. I want the blessing that God has for me. Now it's hard to preach about and talk about money in the black church. I thank God for my pastor, but I'm trying to figure out how I made it here in September in stewardship month. I'm trying to figure it out. A story is told of a greedy preacher who came down from the city to pastor a little church in the country. And he was trying to figure out how he was going to negotiate his salary with the trustees and the deacons and the mothers of the church. So being a slick fellow, he decided that he was going to work it out in front of the people. He told the congregation, you're going to give today. and as you give and if you give and sow into this offering you're gonna see a miracle in your midst mother start getting their dollars kids start getting their little pennies and their dimes and they nickels deacons was trying to figure out if they was gonna give or they was gonna kick him out and as the people were gathering their offering as the ushers was moving the preacher got down on the floor of the old wooden church and start drawing a tiny little circle on the floor in the church. Said to the people, all right, I'm going to pray when I say amen. We're going to throw the money up in the air. You're going to see a miracle. He said everything that falls in the circle belong to the church. Everything that fall in the ground belong to me. And if it stays in the air, God can have it.

56:45 I got to start like that because it's hard to talk about money in the church. Because for so long, some of our most trusted, our most prominent, our most visible leaders have used and exploited a gospel of prosperity for their personal benefit. they made one dimension of the gospel prosperity and abundance they made one dimension of the gospel the whole of the gospel to be clear God wants you to flourish God wants us to be abundant the apostolic writer declares in third John chapter one verse two beloved I wish above all things that you would indeed prosper and be in good health what even as your soul prospers the problem is that we have preached prosperity while neglecting the demands of justice while neglecting the biblical mandate that all of god's children should live in dignity with sufficiency and with abundance.

58:01 So it becomes difficult to talk about tithing and to talk about money and to talk to people about giving because our appetite for learning about the sacred relationship between our money and our maker has been diminished because the tithe really isn't about the tithe. The tithe is about trust. And because people have betrayed your trust, because the leaders have betrayed your trust you've been convinced you can't trust God with your money and that you sure can't trust the church.

58:36 The other side of the coin is that those who believe and those who trust God have embraced this error of a theology to such a degree that it has made church people lovers and chasers and pursuers of money. we reduce the scope of God's blessing to the size of our bank account and we pervert the faith into a desperate attempt to get money and to get fame and to get fortune and celebrity in Jesus name so people even church people will say anything for money they'll do anything for money they'll sell anybody out for money they'll compromise their morals for money they'll gamble with their character for money they'll surrender their convictions and abandon their calling for money why because we have conflated money with blessing we've confused beamers and benzes and bitleys and the bling bling and the benjamins for the blessing money money is a blessing money can be a blessing but not everybody with money is blessed okay and see you can't say amen to that because your relationship with god is predicated on the fact that you hope that one day god will give you money and that your money will be enough for you to declare yourself to be blessed.

1:00:12 Now, Christopher Wallace say, more money? Sometimes it comes with more problems. Look at Donald Trump. Look at Elon Musk. Look at the millionaires and billionaires who commit suicide with regularity because all people with money ain't blessed. God's intention, God's intention is not that we would merely have money. God's intention is that we would walk in blessing. Why? Because there are some things blessings can do that money can't do. There are some doors blessings can open that money can't open. Some ways that blessings will make that your money cannot make. I'm talking about when you go to the doctor and the blessing confounds the doctor and the oncologist and the radiologist and they got to scratch their head and say, we don't see what we thought we saw. I'm talking about blessings that your credit don't qualify for.

1:01:14 Blessings that your money can't afford. Blessings that, come on, talk to me here. Blessings that you can walk in and live in and drive in and bathe in and dress in that your money came by you. See, you can't shout about that until you know what it means to have peace of mind. To be able to get a good night's sleep. To be able to trust your partner. Come on. To be able to know that the people around you love you. And know and are working to do what's best for you. There are some blessings. Money came by. the blessing of being able to walk in purpose the blessing of a joy that is unspeakable the blessing of being able to know that i've got godly relationships and i've got godly connections money can be a tool and an instrument but it's not the only way that god can bless you and God's intention is that we walk in blessing.

1:02:19 The problem is that we chasing money, chasing dollars, chasing titles, chasing fortune, chasing fame. We're chasing the dollar when your God says I'll bless, I'll command the blessing to chase after you. so when we get to the book of leviticus chapter 25 verse 21 god's declaration to the people is that i will command the blessing on you leviticus is known as the book of the law it is a set of instructions that teach an emancipated people how to become faithful stewards of their liberation it is through the book of leviticus that god shapes israel into a holy nation into a covenant consecrated community capable of stewarding the freedom that god has given them. Genesis tells the story of beginnings. Exodus tells the story of liberation, but it is in Leviticus that God gives that liberation a structure. See, in Exodus, God calls Israel out of Egypt, but watch this, Pastor Garner, in Leviticus, God gets Egypt out of Israel. Yeah, In Genesis, God calls a people.

1:03:57 In Exodus, God delivers that people from oppression. But in Leviticus, God teaches them how to organize their worship, how to organize their liturgy, how to organize their sacrifices and to organize their priestly responsibility. In Leviticus, God gives Israel's rules for their relationships, for their economics, for the land, for debt, for labor, for immigrants, for the poor. He gives them instruction for a holy, justice-seeking communal life. Why? Because if they don't have structure, then oppression and injustice will reorganize itself, and they'll be back in the very thing that they thought that they was getting delivered from. See, in Leviticus, God is forming liberated people who can be faithful stewards of liberation because if you're not careful, the liberation that you got, you might lose.

1:04:58 God turns Israel into an institution through Leviticus. He makes them stewards in Leviticus. He helps them to understand that freedom has a cost, that it has a responsibility, that it has requirements that freedom comes with an instruction manual that freedom ain't freedom to just do what you want to do and live how you want to live and and be any kind of people no freedom demands and requires structure institution and i'm not hating on nobody i promise i'm not who says i don't come to church pastor because i'm spiritual and i'm not religious God bless you. God bless you. God bless you to do what it is that you do. But we ought to think critically about that kind of attitude among black people in the age of Trump. That the more we demonize our institutions, the more we dilute the strength of the black church as the only freestanding institution that black people have. We ain't got to take no money. We don't got a Brown knows we don't got to do what nobody say because the black church is the institution that we control.

1:06:13 You ought to be careful about demonizing black institutions in this age of revival of white supremacy. And I'm not saying that God is confined to an institution. I'm not saying that God is constrained by an institution. But I do believe God will use an institution. You better understand it was the black church as an institution that produced black banks and the mutual aid societies that gave birth to black insurance companies. It was the institution of the black church that helped people for whom it was illegal to read to build schools. It was the black church as an institution in the hush harbor that cultivated the justice-seeking theology of Harriet Tubman and Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser and Frederick Douglass who testified, before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free it was the black church that organized black people in the south to march in Selma and Montgomery and Birmingham and Jackson Mississippi and Baton Rouge Louisiana to break the back of Jim Crow segregation I'm talking about the Y'all don't have to shout. It's the black church.

1:07:37 A sexist, misogynist black church that lifted up a Fannie Lou Hamer who declared I'm going to organize people to vote all throughout Mississippi because I'm sick and tired. thank God for the institution of the black church you ought to tell the truth it was the black church that paid black people's bills it was the black church that helped to keep the lights on it was the black church that helped to keep food on the table and a roof over the head when the eviction notice was due thank God for the institution of the black church can I tell the truth it was a prophetic black church that gave America its first black president. Oh, I thank God. I said, I thank God for the institution of the black church. And institutions ain't perfect.

1:08:34 They're jacked up. They do crazy things. The leaders do crazy things that don't make no sense. But I'd rather have a jacked up institution yielded in the hands of God than a pristine institution welded in the hands of white supremacists, open enemies. say what you want about the black church offer your critiques but God has used this church and the church to be a blessing God has used the black church imperfect flawed sexist misogynistic homophobic classist God has used that institution to be a blessing.

1:09:39 That's why my testimony is I want the blessing. That's what God declares to his people in the 25th chapter of Leviticus. The blessing sits in the center of a chapter that is concerned with the sabbatical year called the year of Jubilee. the year of jubilee was israel's divinely mandated economic and social reset god says to the people after seven cycles of seven years totaling 49 years i want you to consecrate the 50th year. Okay, before that, let me mess you up even more. Then God said, before God says that, God says to Israel, I know you're an agrarian people, but I want you to trust me. And I want you to mark the seventh year, every seven years, I want you to mark that seventh year as a year of intentional Sabbath. I want you to sow your, I want you to sow and reap in six years.

1:10:52 I want you to plant your crops and I want you to harvest them for six years. But in the seventh year, I want you to consecrate yourself to me. I want you to not, I want you to not work. I want you to rest and I want you to trust me to provide for you in the seventh year. God says do that seven times. And in the 49th year, I want you to consecrate the 50th. and in consecrating the 50th, here's how you consecrate it. You don't just consecrate it through a prayer meeting. You don't just consecrate it through a shut-in and a musical and an anniversary tea. You don't consecrate it through a gala.

1:11:34 He said you're going to consecrate it by proclaiming liberty. throughout all the land to all its inhabitants see during the jubilee slaves were released and returned to their families jubilee was a year of emancipation during the jubilee the ancestral land that was taken was restored to the families to whom it was originally given to it was a year of reparation yeah the jubilee was a year where where laborers were paid a fair wage where property values were adjusted so that people could afford to pay their rent. The land was not cultivated and the people were called to a time of rest. And the Jubilee was based on this theological claim. The land and the people belong to God. Don't none of y'all own none of this.

1:12:29 All of this mine. All of you are mine. Jubilee was a call for a radical revolution of values. It was a call for a new way of thinking about the economy, about our neighbors, about immigrants, about the land, about the environment, about wealth and fair wages, about safety and security. But it begins with the recognition that everything belongs to God. And it is God's intention that all of his people would be free. So they had to release their slaves. They had to pay their workers fair wages. They had to let the land rest. They had to return what didn't belong to them. Because of God's demand that they understand that all of it belonged to him. You know what?

1:13:21 America needs to be careful about calling itself a Bible-believing, God-fearing Christian nation. Because, you know, we've never practiced a year of Jubilee. if white christian nationalists and the president who supports them read their bibles for real they wouldn't fear an economic reset if they love god the way they said that they do they wouldn't be afraid to make life affordable for poor and working people they wouldn't fear a living wage they wouldn't call universal health care socialism they call it what god calls it a jubilee Thank you. y'all not liking this if god if they love god like they say they do that in the 250th anniversary of america they'd be running to sign reparation checks instead of running to hold America's voters hostage with a measly $5,000 ransom check.

1:14:21 Y'all not liking me. Jubilee is the language of Jesus. I said Jubilee is the language of Jesus. Who says in Luke chapter 4, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. And he's anointed me. Not to sit in church and speak in tongues and lay hands and dance and have a funky good time. And go home in Jesus name. No, he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He's anointed me to set captives free and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord's favor. That's the language of jubilee. That's the language of freedom. That's the language of emancipation and liberation. How can we sing God bless America when we refuse to do what God says in order to be blessed?

1:15:22 it's because we want a blessing we don't want the blessing and that's my testimony i want the blessing i want the blessings of god because you you can chase money all you want god says his blessings will chase me I don't like it. I'm about to give you four points. We're going home. I want the blessing because I'm clear that the blessing has an owner. I know who the owner of the blessing is.

1:16:07 I know who the owner of the blessing is. Leviticus 25, 23, God says, the land is mine. and a matter of fact you belong to me too so just in case you get it twisted the land and you belong to me and if that means everything begins with god's ownership but god's ownership requires us to understand two things first of all just because god owns it doesn't mean that we can make god into a cosmic vending machine in order to get it. distorted teaching about prosperity and abundance and tithing has taught people that they give in order to purchase a blessing but we don't give to buy a blessing we give to be connected to what God is already blessing.

1:17:12 All right. See, our relationship with God is not merely transactional. It's covenantal. So this text is about sacrifice, but there is no shedding of blood. Pay attention to that. It's a text about sacrifice, but there are no killed lambs or bulls or rams. It's a text about sacrifice. It's a text about giving. It's a text about stewardship. And God says that the function and foundation of your stewardship is your relationship with me.

1:17:49 God is not a vending machine. Giving is not a transaction through which we purchase God's favor. But when I give, when I sacrifice, when I steward, when I tithe, I do that so I can be a participant in God's covenant economy of blessing.

1:18:12 Then God says, the land is mine. So sow in six years and rest in the seventh. And Israel was not surrendering the seventh year so that one or two or a few Israelites could get blessed. No, they were aligning themselves with the principle of Sabbath so that they could align themselves with God's ownership of the land, with God's concern for the whole community, with God's economy of sufficiency and the promise that he made that if you trust me, I'll provide for you. so when they surrendered that seventh year they were declaring the land don't belong to us the harvest don't belong to us the strength that we use to to sow and to reap the crops that don't even belong to us all this belongs to god here's the second lesson of stewardship as it's related to god's ownership it's this we are not owners deciding how much of our property we're going to give to god okay y'all didn't like that we are only stewards deciding how much of god's stuff we're gonna use according to his purpose the money in your pocket is god's let me just put it where you can get it the car you drive is god's that house you live in is god's your business is god's the opportunities that you have belong to god the gifts that you got belong to god the breath in your body belongs to God and so the stewardship question is not how much of me and how much of what I belong what I have and how much of what belongs to me am I willing to give to God the stewardship question is how does God want me to use what he's given me and what already belongs to him to achieve his purposes and so I can trust the blessing of God because I know who the owner he is all right all right here let me maybe this will get you uh i want the blessing because i

1:20:18 know the owner but i also want the blessing because the blessing has an order all right i know y'all not gonna like this okay never mind y'all the blessing has an order god god says to moses speak to the people of israel say to them when you enter the land that I'm giving you the land's going to observe a sabbath of the Lord so for six years you'll sow your field for six years you'll prune the vineyard and gather in the yield but in the seventh year sit down somewhere because the year is a sabbath to the lord and you won't sow and you won't prune but you'll reap from the after growth no you won't you you won't reap from the after growth but everything that comes in you'll have an opportunity to be able to have it bless you even though i told you not to touch it it's still going to be a blessing to you it's a function of the fact that god establishes and order he gives them a pattern of work and then rest of production and then sabbath of labor and of trust blessing is connected watch this to our alignment with god's order we see that principle of stewardship when god makes adam when god created adam he placed him in the garden and said cultivate it and keep it god made adam a steward over creation and god's intention was that as a steward he would exist in a continual existence of full prosperity and full abundance but because the fall the order was disrupted the ground was cursed abundance gives way to anxiety and fruitful labor becomes painful toil adam still worked but now he had to struggle to produce what the garden once supplied abundantly.

1:22:22 Because the blessing was connected to Adam's alignment with God's order. Okay. Then God tells Moses go get this people and I'm going to call them blessed. I'm going to call them my chosen people. They belong to me. I want you to lead them but they're going to be hard headed and out of order and out of line and your job Moses is to is to lead them even though they're out of order and a trip that was supposed to take four days took 40 years because they was out of order. God said, have no other gods before me, and they couldn't wait to turn all the bracelets and the rings into a golden calf. Out of order. They couldn't wait for God to give them ten commandments so they could break every last one of them.

1:23:19 Out of order. Can I tell you, sometimes we ask God to bless what's out of order. and people will do it but God won't we ask God to bless our disobedience to bless our greed bless my exploitation bless my manipulation bless our acts excess bless our mediocrity bless our half-heartedness we ask God to even bless our exhaustion and our frustration we ask God to bless our refusal to trust him. and maybe somebody came to church today because you need to make up in your mind i don't merely want god to add a blessing to my disorder but i want to put my life in order so that it is in alignment with the blessings that god has for me i want my priorities in order i want my relationships in order i want my finances in order i want my work in order i I want my worship in order.

1:24:23 I want my whole life aligned with the will of God. Because the blessing is connected to an order. All right. Here's the next one. The blessing. I want the blessing because the blessing has other people in it. now all the selfish people couldn't say amen because you think your blessings are just about you listen to what god says in verse six you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during sabbath this applies to you to the slaves to your hired workers to the temporary residents who live with you your livestock the wild animals in the land everybody gonna get to eat don't miss the reach of the blessing. When God blesses the land, here it is. The blessing does not stop with the landowner, but the blessing reaches to the servant. The blessing reaches to the worker. The blessing reaches to the immigrant. The blessing reaches to the livestock. Even the wild animals, everybody connected to the land got a chance to eat what God was providing. Everybody got to eat.

1:25:42 that means a blessing is not just measured by what comes to you if dr haynes would hear he said this way a blessing is measured by what god can get through you so what i call a blessing ends with me if it ends in my bank account if it ends at my stock portfolio it has not yet fulfilled god's purpose for it or for me but when i live connected to what god is blessing. Everything around me is going to get blessed. See, your neighbor should have just went to praising God because God will bless you and your neighbor. He'll bless your children. He'll bless your grandchildren. He'll bless your household and your co-workers and your friends and your church and your community. I don't want the blessing just so I can possess more, but I want the blessing so that through me, God can do more and restore more and release more and be a blessing to more people.

1:26:41 I want the kind of blessing that write checks that send kids to college. I want the kind of blessing that writes checks so that diseases can be cured and people can be healed. I want the kind of blessing that expands the ministry of the church that I love. I want the blessing. Let me leave you alone. if you don't forget nothing else if you don't remember nothing else i said here's the last one here's the last one here's the last one uh i want the blessing i want the blessing you you chase the money if you want to i want the blessing because because god will bless me with money and then some right i i want the blessing i want the blessing but the blessing requires obedience y'all don't shut down on me just yet God says to the people in Leviticus 25 sow the land for six years but then let it rest in the seventh now that's a strange command to a people who depend on the crops to survive they depend on the grain for their bread They depend on the olives for their oil.

1:28:12 They depend on the grapes for their wine. But God says so for six years and then sit down somewhere in the seventh. Trust me enough to rest in the seventh. And so they ask the question that's reasonable. It's logical. It makes sense. Somebody's asking it even right now. They say, God, if I sow in the sixth year and then rest in the seventh, what am I going to eat in the seventh? how am i gonna make it in the seventh how am i gonna survive in the seventh how am i gonna make it on the little bit that i have in the seventh and that's somebody's test of faith that's somebody's growing edge as it relates to your stewardship and to your tithe and to your offering you saying god i can't even make it on the hundred how can i give you 10 and live on 90 what am I gonna eat in the seventh and God's word to you is I can do more with ten and bless you more with ninety than you can do for yourself with a hundred then it's the issue of is there going to be enough?

1:29:29 That faith in God deals with the fear that is related to the idea of scarcity. We live in a culture that says there's not enough water, so we can't have it in Jackson or in Flint. There ain't enough food, so we got to figure out how to help white farmers and black farmers going to have to figure out how to do it on their own. We live in a society built on the myth of scarcity and our faith crushes the fear that there will not be enough. it also it also crushes watch this not just the fear that there won't be enough but it also crushes the fear that if i release control it'll result in my ruin and so many of us are holding on to what god wants to use as a blessing for other people because we believe that if we release it it'll ruin us that if i release it they'll ruin it so God says I'm gonna bless you not your friends not your family not the people you're in relationship with not the people you're connected to God says I'm gonna bless you that way you know you can't manipulate it you can't try to fix it you can't take credit for it you won't let other people give you credit for what I did in your life God says I'm gonna bless you but if I'm gonna bless you you gotta be obedient to me and that ought to be a word for somebody here that I want to be in alignment with God because I because obedience is necessary for me to be blessed I don't want to have to give to manipulate God into blessing me but I want to give because I want my money and I want my life and I want my future connected to what God has already determined that he wants to bless and I want to be in alignment with what God is blessing. I want the

1:31:36 money. Oh yeah, because I think money will help me pay my bills, but I've learned that there's bigger blessings than money and God said that I don't have to chase money, but he'll command blessings and make blessings come after me. I want to be so blessed that I'll be like that man that tree planted by the rivers of water that bring forth its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and whatever he does is going to prosper. God said the ungodly, the disobedient are not so. And so the people had to obey God. But the good news is God says you got to obey me because my blessings have to obey me too.

1:32:24 only the real believers will shout about this we can have church and go home in a little bit you got to obey me because my blessings are commanded to obey me too y'all don't like that what did he say i will command the blessing see the whole church should have went to shouting when we was reading that i will command the blessing on you see there's a difference between a command and a request. See, my father was, my late father, his birthday was just a few days ago. He was a chief petty officer in the United States Navy. And that meant that he had sailors who were required to obey his lawful command. And my daddy was the first one who taught me there's a different between a request and a command. See, a request is what you ask of me. You ask, can you go to McDonald's? You ask, can you go outside? You ask if you can go to the park. It's a request. It's a plea. And it's predicated on the belief that the one I'm asking loves me enough to give me what it is that I'm asking for. That's a request. There's a difference between a request and a command.

1:33:41 but see a command is an expectation a command there is no negotiation a command requires that you do what the commander says do and there are too many of us who are satisfied with making requests but God said if you get in line he won't even have to ask I'll command the blessing I can't get no help here I'll command the blessing to come after you see my daddy was able to give orders and the soldiers had to do what my daddy said. I got good news for you. There are blessings that got to do what your daddy says. If your daddy says bless them, then that blessing's got to get information. The blessing don't get to negotiate. The blessing don't get to share its opinion. The blessing don't get to determine if it want to come to your house or not. But when God says get to blessing that blessing got to get to stepping have i got a witness here who can give god a praise that the promise of the lord is that