Keion Henderson - Bad for Business

[spoiler]Today, let me tell you why all of hell has been fighting you: it is because your worship is bad for business. Your worship is bad for business, and anytime you disrupt someone 's economy, they will fight you with everything they have. But God told me to tell you that your worship is about to shake the very foundation of the thing that has your entire family held captive. If you believe it, before you sit down, high-five three people and tell them, «I promise you, you have freedom on the way.» You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.

You 've heard this story before: Paul and Silas in prison. What you may not know is that this story takes place during what is called Paul’s second missionary journey. Now, what is a missionary journey? A missionary journey is when a person goes to a foreign place to simply share the gospel-it’s a missionary trip. And, Lord, he sponsored it himself because Paul was a business owner; he was a tent maker. He made money on the side, so he wasn’t just a minister; he was a businessman. He was able to make enough money from making tents so that he could go and make disciples.

See, this is why you want to pray in this year of wealth and wisdom. It’s because if your money doesn’t help you reach your purpose, what’s the point? If you’re going to become wealthy and selfish, what’s the point? The purpose of wealth is to give you freedom to do what God has called you to do. Somebody shout, «I’m not clocking in this year! I’m not clocking in.»

Paul traveled on a foreign trip to share the gospel. Now this is crazy, because if you knew Paul in his former life, you wouldn’t think he was worthy to preach. Paul’s old job, other than tent making, was the persecution of Christians. He literally imprisoned and murdered people for believing in God, and now here he is in prison for the same thing he put people in prison for.

Now, let me just say this off the top: God is not petty like that. But nobody is going to do anything to you that God doesn 't make sure happens to them. No, God says, «I will repay evil for evil; vengeance is mine,» says the Lord. When we look at this, Paul is now a preacher of the gospel, and we can trace this back to Acts chapter 9, where this man was walking on the road to Damascus, a city to vex and persecute certain Christians. The Bible says he was breathing out threats and slaughter, and on his way to kill Christians, the Bible says suddenly he was arrested. He fell to the ground; his eyes were covered with scales, and God called him to preach while he was on his way to murder Christians.

Don 't you tell me that God can’t change people! There is somebody right now whom you think is so far gone that you say, «Ain 't nothing going to help him.» You might not be able to help him, but God can. Can I speak to that parent who has a son or a daughter that’s so wayward that you’re looking at them and saying, «I don’t even know what’s wrong with you! This is not how I raised you! I don’t know why you’re going in that direction»? Can I just speak to you right now? When God decides to get involved on their road to Damascus, He will blind them, and they will come up saying, «I once was blind, but now I see.»

After years of persecuting Christians, God says, «I have need of you,» and «I want you to undo what you did.» You have to understand that sometimes God gives certain people experiences in areas so that when He sends them back, they go with knowledge. Are y’all listening to me? If you’ve never been in prison, you don’t really know how to do prison ministry; you can speak at it, but you can’t speak to it. Come on, y’all! If you haven 't ever been broke, you can talk about faith, but if you’ve ever been broke, and God still found a way to keep the rent paid, the car in your possession, and food on the table when you 've really been through it, you can talk to it.

Somebody say, «I’ve been there before!» When your heart has been broken and you came to church and praised God through a divorce and through pain and through suicide and through all kinds of stuff, when you get into church and your worship is actually rooted in something you’ve been through, you have to understand that a worship rooted in something I’ve been through is different from a worship where I’m talking at something. When I’ve been through it, I know what it takes to get out of it.

I need you to identify yourself-has anybody been through anything in here? Do me a favor and tap your neighbor and say, «I’m cute, but I’ve been through something!» And don’t look at me like that; I can tell what you think about me! I’m cute, but I’ve been through something. You look at me raising these kids, talking about how I make it look so easy-oh, it might look easy, but baby, it was hard as hell. I have been through a lot; you don’t understand what I have been through! I felt like giving up; I felt like throwing in the towel. I threw my hands up; I did quit, but the Lord wouldn’t let me.[spoiler]