Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Male Singer): I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord, I love you more than anything. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord, I love you more than anything.

I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord, I love you more than anything. I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord, I love you more than anything.

I love you, Jesus. I worship and adore you. Just want to tell you, Lord, I love you more than anything. Lord, I love you more than anything. Lord, I love you more than anything. Lord, I love you more than anything. Lord, I love you more than anything.

Guest (Male): Father, we thank you for this privilege and opportunity that we have of worship. We thank you for bringing us through the year to this moment. We pray now as we come to your Word, that you would lift again your human-ness off of self. Fill us with the Holy Spirit.

Speak to us and through us in this moment of sharing. Give clarity of divine truth, and use your servant for your glory. Open the hearts of every hearer. Speak, Lord, your servants are listening. Bless now the words in our mouth, the meditation on our heart, that they may be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

With you, there is a Word. Without you, there is no Word. Bless now the words in our mouth, the meditation on our heart, that they may be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm having a little trouble here this morning, but I'm pushing, and we're going to make it. Turn with me this morning very briefly, and I won't be as the usual time, but it's something that the Lord just laid on my heart. John's Gospel, Chapter 10. John's Gospel, Chapter 10. I want to focus the sermonic spotlight on one verse, and that is the 10th verse of the 10th chapter.

And there the Word of God—as I want to tell you what we're doing, we're going to be eavesdropping in a conversation that Jesus is having with his disciples. And he says to them in that 10th verse, "The thief comes but to kill and to steal and to destroy. I am come that you might have life, and that you may have it more abundantly."

This is the Word of God for the people of God. I want to put a tag on this text, and I want to preach today from the subject, Settling Season Is Over. Settling season is over. We all know about changes in seasons. Football season, the regular season is pretty much over. You're in playoff championship rounds, but most of the teams have already gone home because that part is over.

On the 22nd of December, we moved officially from fall to winter season. Seasons change. Sometimes people are reluctant about changes in seasons, but season change can be a great thing if you think about it. What I want to submit to you this morning is that this message has the potential to help you take charge of your own life.

As we look ahead into the new year, as we close this one down, so many of us have settled for far less than what we could have and where we could be. Settling season is over can be interpreted in a multiple set of contexts, primarily relating to personal growth, relationships, and life choices.

Metaphorically, we can look at settling in a number of different ways. There are a whole lot of people who settle for being the way they are. Mental health is one of those areas. We just kind of push it off. "Oh, you know, she ain't right," or "He ain't right," and we just kind of settle rather than seeking to get person's help or even to get help ourselves.

How many have been in relationships that are going nowhere, but we've decided to settle and just be all right in that relationship, no matter what? There are people who are on jobs that are miserable, but they have chosen to settle, to go along to get along. That can be a crippling and handicapping experience for many people.

But I made up my mind that for me, settling is over. I'm after what the Lord intends for me to have. I want you to hear what Jesus has to say. What he says, in a nutshell, is by way of comparison. He's comparing himself to someone else. The someone else he is identifying as an enemy. He's calling him a thief.

He makes it very clear by way of contrast what the thief came to do. The thief comes but to kill and steal and destroy. Now notice that he uses three different terms here. Kill, because the thief wants to do that some of the time. But he doesn't always want to just kill. Sometimes he wants to steal, and sometimes he wants to destroy.

It's a metaphoric way of expressing what was real. He had announced in this 10th chapter that he is the door to the sheepfold, and that all who have come before him were thieves and robbers. He affirms that he is the true shepherd. He's speaking of relationship with himself and what he wants us to understand.

In those days, a thief understood that he wasn't just going to walk into the sheepfold and be able to walk back out with sheep under his arm. So they would get in, and what they would do is slit the throats of the sheep and throw them across the wall. Then they would go out and get the sheep, take the wool, and eat the meat.

But he says that's the thief. I promise you, a lot this year has happened. If somebody would be honest and take inventory of their life, there have been some things that the thief has stolen from you. Some people can't even enjoy being in social circles because something has been stolen.

Some people can't enjoy wholesome family gatherings and relationships because something has been destroyed. Certainly when it comes to the matters of faith and wholeness in life, there have been a lot of folks who have been killed. We've seen a lot of it in the street, but that's not the only kind of killing that's been happening.

People's names have been killed. People's reputations have been destroyed. People's whole personas have been belittled. So many girls can't hold their heads up. So many men are just ashamed of themselves. But I came to say to us this morning that settling season is over.

Jesus makes it clear. You can identify the work of who does what. The enemy, he says, comes but to do these three things: kill, steal, and destroy. It just blows my mind that there are still people who assign that kind of activity to God. God is not here to destroy you. Jesus says, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly."

I came to bless you. I came to help you be all that you can be. You don't even know who you can be. You haven't even scratched the surface. What you are now may be all right, but it's not all that I intend. You just gotta know, but you gotta be willing to get past this issue of settling for less.

When we look at the history of black people, when we look at the history of this nation, we have been conditioned to settle. That's why we don't believe much. We don't expect much. We don't think much of ourselves or the opportunities that have been given to us. Consequently, we can't get past certain plateaus in our life because they are self-imposed.

But I came with good news that settling season is over. Is there anybody here this morning who wants to make up their mind that there is more to me than what the world has seen yet? It's more to me than what my family even knows. It's more to me than even what I've let on to other people that I'm about.

The aspirations and desires and goals and objectives and opportunities that are yet in front of me that have not yet been released. But so many times we are apprehensive. Don't miss it. Jesus is intentional about his impact that he wants to make on the world, and that includes every one of us.

He's not going to rain down on the world; he's going to do it through you. But you've got to understand that you can't settle. You can't settle for less. You can't settle for being on the sideline. You've been on the sideline too long. You've been in the back of the bus for too long. It's time for us to own the bus now.

I remember when we had the first black bus drivers, and that was a wonderful accomplishment to have that uniform on and to be able to say, "I drive the bus." But now, we gotta own the bus. I used to tell my sons when they were growing up, "If you want to own airplanes, you have to hang around people who have space shuttles." You gotta be around people who are always one beyond where you are.

So Jesus here says the enemy comes but to kill, steal, and destroy. Now the enemy for him and for his disciples could have been the religious leaders of his day. They were the architects of Judaism. They were the architects of the religious system that kept people in a settled condition. They wouldn't go beyond a certain realm.

They understood that there were Sabbath laws because they had architecturally drawn Sabbath laws that prevented people from doing things. But Jesus wouldn't settle. He would go through the grain field on the Sabbath day and he'd pull the corn because he understood that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

He understood the power of God. He understood God's intention to give abundance to people. But so many people miss that, and we become willing and almost minimized and crushed into submission on certain standards. But Jesus said, "I want you to hear me. I want you to understand that I have come."

I love it. I have come. That's King James. But when you look at the English translation, the ESV, you'll see that he speaks as if it had already happened. "I came that you might have life." I've already shown up. I'm already here. It's already done. It's just waiting on you to recognize what you can potentially have and who you can potentially be.

I have come that you might have life. Oh God, what is that? That's the problem. We don't understand what we can have because we don't understand what he's offering. He's offering life. What I find ironic about it is he's offering life to people who are already alive.

He's talking to his disciples, and they're looking at him and they're listening to him. They're breathing and they understand that they are alive. They want to know, "Well, what you mean? You came to offer life? I already got that." But that wasn't what he was talking about. They had an empty existence, but they didn't have life.

There are a whole lot of people who got life and an empty existence, but they don't have life. They had Bios life, a physical existence, but what he was offering was Zoe. Zoe is another quality of life. It's a quality of life that they could not have apart from him. He's really talking about salvation.

He's talking about having joy in the midst of whatever your circumstance is. He's talking about having wisdom to be able to understand circumstances and not have circumstances define who you are. He's talking about having peace in the middle of your storm.

He's talking about having love, the ability to supernaturally love unlovable people. He's talking about having victory when the whole world is crying defeat. Anybody ever looked at the scoreboard late in the game and you shook your head and said, "It ain't no way"? But Jesus says, "Stop looking at the scoreboard. You're looking at the wrong measure. You need to be looking at me because I have the ability to snatch victory from sudden defeat."

I came to give you life. I came to give you meaning. I came to give you hope. I came to give you power. I came to give you what you don't have right now and what you can't have apart from me. But you know our problem, don't you? Our problem is we have settled. We have settled. Do you know why we've settled? Because we have been conditioned to settle.

Many of you come from some type of faith environment. You just couldn't be black in America and not have been exposed to some form of religion. We may not practice it, but we were exposed to it. Mama and them, grandma and them told you you ought to go to church. When you were little, they took you, but when you got old enough, you decided, "I ain't going no more."

How many know that we tell the Lord, "Lord, I hear what you're saying, but this what I'm gonna do"? And we settle. We settle for a whole lot less because we've been conditioned. No matter what faith tradition we've grown up in, in those faith environments, there's always a bend or limitation on what that faith tradition prioritizes as opposed to what Jesus says.

There are things that we made important in our religion that Jesus wasn't thinking about. With these religious leaders, with these Jews, they made carrying a burden a priority. They made picking up things on the Sabbath day a priority. That wasn't where he was. That wasn't important to him. Those were minor things, but he was more concerned about what they really were about.

In our world today, we would call that the letter of the law. You got a lot of people who are in churches who want to make sure that you hold to the letter of the law. But the Lord ain't concerned about some of those things. You gonna make me put on a turban and read you.

Let me talk, since I'm talking about faith tradition, to help you really understand. In the black Baptist tradition, we grow up understanding that there are certain behaviors that you don't do. Mama and them, grandma and them sent you to hell for playing cards, for dancing. Girls couldn't wear pants. You had to have hose on when you came out because they made that almost a religion.

If you violated it, you were the worst thing ever. In the church, they made alcohol consumption a problem. But you go over into another faith tradition, the Roman Catholic Church, and the priest is sitting at the table with four bottles and got two more under the table. But if your church member sees you at that table, oh look at there.

So we have settled on things that God doesn't be so concerned because what Jesus said is what you put in your mouth is not what defiles you, because what you put in your mouth is going to come out. But he said what's in your heart, out of the heart flows the issues of life.

Are y'all hearing me? So I'm just trying to help you understand that we've been conditioned to settle. Wives have been conditioned to settle. I like going down to Alabama games, I do. When they win, it's a wonderful environment. But let Alabama lose. Those wives, they don't say nothing to their husbands on the way out of that stadium because they have been conditioned.

"Don't say nothing to me. Don't say nothing to me. I'm mad, I'm angry because they didn't do what they were supposed to have done." We were conditioned in my household growing up. My dad would come home; he was a big man. When he hit that house, he sounded like the giant: "Fee-fi-fo-fum," and everybody in there got quiet.

We were conditioned. When it rained, we were conditioned. Turn that TV off. The Lord's at work. Turn that radio off. The Lord's at work. We were conditioned, and consequently, we settle. I'm just trying to say to us that the reason we don't enjoy the abundant life that the Lord came to give...

Listen, Jesus said, "I came to give you life. I came to give you all of that," but you settling for a vacation. I came to give you not only joy and peace and goodness and wholeness and success and wisdom to know how to make good decisions and wise things, not to ever have to be ashamed of yourself or to look back, but you have settled for far less than what you could have.

I've come to give you life itself, the core of everything, but you have settled. Let me give it to you another way. I see a couple of good cooks that I know can really bake cakes. If you're baking a cake, there are recipes and things that you traditionally put in a cake.

If I'm baking a cake and everybody's looking and I put some cake mix, you say, "Okay, that's good. He's going the right way." And I cracked an egg. "Oh yeah, okay, that's good." And I took some butter and whipped it around there. "Oh, he's going right." But if I reached over here and I say, "I'm gonna put some rice in this," and then if I put some black beans in this, and if I picked up some dirt...

Dirt ain't never hurt nobody. Dirt don't hurt, but it don't taste good. Individually, none of those items taste good. But if they were all put together and made—I don't know if you would want that cake or not. Some people say, "No, Pastor, no, I wouldn't want that." Why? Because you've been conditioned.

And when you've been conditioned, certain things don't fit your recipe for what you believe is germane to success. Consequently, because you have been conditioned, you have settled for circumstances and situations that do not lead you to the place that you're trying to go because it doesn't fit your recipe.

You know why? Because in our recipe, we take the Word of God and we look at the Word of God not as the absolute authority from God. We look at the Word of God as being some suggestions that God has given. Because the Word is not absolute, then we settle.

We decide, "Okay, I can take like the cake, I can take the butter and I can take the cake mix, but I don't want you to add these other things because that's not according to me." Not only do we take the Word of God as suggestions, but we take the will of God as being an alternative to our lifestyle.

Not the essential way that we must go in order to be who God wants us to be, but we take it as an alternative path. That's why church attendance in America has shifted. There was a time on Sunday morning churches were packed because black people understood you worked me all week long. I gotta go somewhere and get my praise on.

Langston Hughes said that white folk used to come around black people during slavery because they wanted to laugh, but they'd stay around long enough to cry. Because when those Negroes start singing those hymns and singing those slave songs, the tears would fall because they saw an authentic worship that was different from what they understood.

I submit unto us today that we settle for far too less than what God intends. I'm going into a new year. I'm going into a new season, and all I'm saying is settling season is over for me. I want what Jesus said I can have, and that is life and have it more abundantly.

Not just a little bit, maybe a little bit more than what is being. If that was a little change, if that was a little elevation, then maybe I would feel that I had reached the plateau. No, see, that's still settling. Getting a promotion, getting a ten-dollar raise, getting fifty cents more, getting another wife, getting another person or something else just to change the things because I refuse to enjoy what the Lord is doing, that's called settling.

Are y'all hearing me? I know I'm getting on somebody's nerve, but that's the whole point. Let me tell you why. Because God uses divine agitation to shake you loose from some of those areas that you've been settling in. So he has to aggravate you. He has to stir you up. He has to get you mad.

You don't make a change until holy discontentment set in. You don't make a change until holy discontentment set in. Let me go back to my childhood. When I was a kid, I used to like to watch Popeye the Sailor Man. Popeye the Sailor Man had a girlfriend, her name was Olive Oyl. And there was another character whose name was Bluto.

Bluto would sometimes kidnap Olive Oyl. He would take her off, and she'd start screaming, "Popeye! Save me! Popeye! Save me!" And then Popeye would reach that moment of holy discontentment. Listen at what he would say: "That's it! I can't stands it no more!"

And when he reached that point, then out would pop the spinach, muscles would pop everywhere, and something was going to change. Usually, it was going to be Bluto because he was going to bring it. God uses divine agitation to get you to that point of holy discontentment where you come to realize that that's it.

I can't stands it no more. I'm tired of settling. I'm through at this level. I'm going to the place that God wants me to be. That's all I'm trying to say to you today is I'm at that place. I'm at that point that I want what the Lord wants. I've learned that I don't have sense enough in my own to know what I really need.

I know what I like, but sometimes what I like and what God want are two different things. Oh come on now, y'all trying to be too holy in here. David went out on the balcony one morning and he looked out and he saw what he want. He saw Bathsheba. He said, "The Lord is my shepherd and I see what I want."

But that wasn't God's will because that messed him up. That turned his life in a whole different direction. You gotta get in line. You gotta get to the place that you want what God wants for you. When you want what God wants for you, then when settling is over, then you understand what Jesus came to offer.

He said, "I have come that you might have life in all of its fullness, and that you can have it more abundantly." So our problem is because we've been conditioned to settle. What I call that is Christianism. Just like what I would have called that cakeism.

It got some of the elements of a cake, but it wasn't fully a cake. So it was cakeism. And so that's what you be wanting to do. You be wanting to take some parts of Christianity, and that becomes your Christianism. So you can have enough to say that I'm still on the safe side, but it ain't what God wants you to be and what God wants you to have.

I need to close, but I need to say it to you that if settling season is over, then you want the abundant life that God has come to give. That life then must be manifest in you. If it's going to have the impact in the world, it has to be manifested in each individual in its fullest manifestation.

So if I got abundant life in me, then it's got to be in my character. I've got to be full of God in my character. It's got to be in my talk. It's got to be in my walk. There are people who got Christianism. They got an element of God. They're in church, but they still got hell in their hearts.

They say, "Oh, I've been delivered. Yeah, and I don't go to the club no more, and I don't do those things like that," and you got elements of, but the abundance is still missing. You don't have any grace for no one else. You don't want no one else to be at the same level spiritually that you are.

And you think that this is an isolated place just for you when God wants everybody. Jesus was talking to these boys. He says, "I'm the door of the sheep. Don't you worry. You come in this way. All that comes this way are going to be secured, going to have this abundant life."

And so he made the contrast that the thief only want to do these things: kill, steal, and destroy. But I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. So it's got to be not only in my character, not only in my walk, not only in my talk, it's got to also be in my finances.

Oh-oh, I know you're going to be quiet now. Because that's when the Christianism comes out. It's all right as long as you talking about some of these things. But you know, I don't want all of that. I can decide which ingredients I want in my cake. But those things that I don't want, no Lord.

Don't tell me about forgiving. Don't tell me about loving folk. Don't tell me about being kind and compassionate to people who've been giving me hell all year. But if you want the abundant life, then that abundant life has got to manifest itself in all aspects of your life.

And when it permeates you, then you'll know because your song would be, "Lord, I want to be a Christian." And you want to be a Christian not just when I'm in the service, but you want to be a Christian in your heart. You want to be like Jesus in your heart. You want to be more loving in your heart, in all of you.

My favorite poem, I'm close. That old poem said all those years ago that I learned: "I have to live with me, myself and so. I want to be fit for myself to know. I want to be able as the days go by to always look myself straight in eye. I don't want to stand with the setting sun and hate myself for the things I've done, or keep on closet shelf secrets about myself, and fool myself as I come and go into thinking that no one else will know the kind of person I really am."

"I don't want to dress myself up in sham. I want to go out with my head erect. I'd like to deserve all men's respect. But here in this struggle for fame and wealth, most of all, I want to be able to like myself."

But I can't like myself when I'm settling. I can't like myself when I'm giving less than my best. I can't like myself when I'm hiding and pretending and being less than who God has called me to be. So I want to be a Christian. I want to be a Christian. I want to have that abundant life. I want to be full of it, no matter where I am.

When I first came back to Birmingham, I used to hang around the bros, and they called me Wild Wild West. They said, "That boy crazy." Then the Lord start working. And as the Lord began to drill down, I'd go around and they say, "He ain't Wild Wild no more." They said, "He Mild Wild."

I kept coming and I kept praying and kept talking. Then some of the boys said, "Well, he ain't Wild Wild or Mild Mild no more. He Mild Mild" because the Lord had made a change. Is there anybody here this morning that the Lord has made a change? Is there anybody here who know that settling season is over?

That where you going in the new year, you're not going to be able to be where you've been this year. Gotta go to another level. Gotta go to another place. Gotta be a deeper walk, closer walk, more talk with God. That's what I want to be. And so I want to invite you now to join me as we bring this message to a close by affirming your faith, by declaring, "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart."

Doors of the church are open. Doors open. Come on, stand on your feet. We're going to sing it together. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.

Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart. Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart. Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart. Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart. Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart.

Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart. Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart. Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart. Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart.

Father, we thank you for this time in your presence. Lord, we repent. We repent of settling. Settling for far less than what you came into this world to die for. You offered yourself to give us the best, all of earth, all of heaven, all of eternity. And we're settling, trying to make our own ingredients.

And you're given us the recipe in your book called the Bible. Forgive us. Help us to become the men and women, boys and girls that you want us to be. Be with us as we go through the final days of this year. And as we evaluate closer and closer the activities of this past year, may we leave those things behind and determine that we're going to walk in a new way as we come into the new year.

Thank you for loving us. You brought us through sorrow. You brought us through sickness. You brought us through disappointment. You brought us through anger and hurt. You brought us through every trial. You brought us through financial difficulty. And yet, you made it where we can be here today. And for that, we're grateful.

And we pray that you would be with us as we go forward. Bless the remainder of this day and all that we may do. Bless the sick among us. Bless the bereaved families. Comfort those who need you. Pray for our national leaders. We pray for our men and women in the military. Pray for our president. Pray for the Congress. Pray for the Supreme Court and all those who make important decisions, that you would teach them better.

Now Lord, as we go our way, dismiss us from here, but never your holy presence. As we ask now that the grace of God, the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit, that you would rest, rule, and abide with each one of us, your children, until we meet again. God's people said amen. Amen. Amen. God bless you.