Keion Henderson - Better Days Are Coming

This is what the Lord told me to tell you. Are you ready? Better days are coming! That 's what we’re going to talk about today. High five three people on the way down to their seats and say, «Better days are coming! Better days are coming! Better days are coming!» Oh my God, you may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Better days are coming. Um, how many of you feel like your life is like a roller coaster? It seems like as soon as you settle in and think everything is good, as my sister would say, here comes some tomfoolery. Now, just as soon as you find out this is the route I’m going to take, then God says, «Let me get that rug; we’re going in a different direction.» It is the nature of God to tell you to go somewhere and not tell you where. «Where is it, Sir?» I can prove it in the Bible. Abraham, go to a place called there. «God, where?» «I’ll tell you you’re there when you go.» Just start walking. What you don’t know about God is He doesn’t have to send you to a specific place to keep His promise; He can turn the place into a promise. If you just start walking in the direction God told you to go, He could literally make the miracle on the way, because He’s sovereign. That means He knows everything; He’s in control of everything and has dominion over everything. Even when things seem out of control, you better know that God is always in control. Joseph’s life is a roller coaster; I’m going to tell you right now, I wouldn’t have wanted to live it. He started off being his father’s favorite son, and you know what happens when somebody likes you: the opposite happens from people who are insecure. They don’t like you because somebody else likes you. No, they don’t like you because they don’t like themselves, and they need somebody else to like them for them to be comfortable with themselves. So, instead of becoming the kind of person you are, they hate the person you are, because it is easier to pull you down than to lift themselves up. So, let me just tell you right now, you might as well go ahead and be great, because if you don’t, they’re going to talk about you. If you do, they’re going to talk about you; so just slap three people and say, «Do you, baby! Just do you, do you, do you, do you, boo boo!» This story of Joseph is full of jealousy, full of betrayal, full of lust, and full of a lack of loyalty. It’s got some grief in there; it’s got some desperation in there, because in this life, you will have some trials and tribulations. Don 't think that it’s God because everything is always smooth. God is in the roller coaster. Yes, He 's in the new purchase, and He’s also in the foreclosure. He 's with you in the apartment; He’s with you when you own the house. What you have to stop doing is earmarking God to your great experiences and thinking that it’s the devil when everything isn’t going well. Sometimes you’re at the prepared table, like Tony said, but sometimes you have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Notice He prepares the table in the presence of the enemies, but He only promises to walk with you in the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes you miss God because you’re always trying to get to the table, and He’s waiting on you in the valley. God is in the tears; God is in the pain; God is in the betrayal; God is in the sickness. Every one of those opportunities provides Him a chance to show you who He is, and that’s what all of this is about. God wants to show you who He is; He wants you to be able to trust Him no matter what the circumstance may be. That 's why the old songwriter said, «God is good all the time, and all the time, come on y’all, God is good!» So now we’ve seen the life of Joseph, up and down. He’s his father’s favorite child; they put a coat on him. His brothers get jealous, throw him in a pit, dip the coat in blood, take it back to their father, and say an animal ate him. He 's taken out of the pit, sold into slavery to the Midianites. The Midianites somehow get him to Potiphar 's house. He gets to Potiphar 's house and is accused of sexual harassment by Potiphar 's wife. He goes from there to prison and then ends up being second in command, only second to the man over all of Egypt. He eventually says in the 50th chapter of Genesis to everybody who either threw him in the pit, accused him of something he didn’t do, or put him behind prison bars, «Let me tell you, I don’t hate you! What you meant for evil…» If I can get you to that point before this sermon is over, that even the people who did you wrong, you can still look at them and say, «Thank you! It was good that I was afflicted, that I might learn the statutes of God.» Stop getting upset with the people who threw you in the pit; if it were not for the pit, we wouldn’t know who you are.