Have You Been Robbed?

First giving honor to God the great head of our lives, to this very honorable Pastor, pulpit platform, to this very fine church, officers, members, visitors, and friends. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be in the house of the Lord one more time.

We don’t tend to hold you to long unless the Holy Ghost says otherwise. Ye who have your bibles, turn with us if you will to the Gospel according to John, John 10:10. And it reads as thus…

And from this passage of scripture we would like to use as a thought in form of a question, Have you been robbed?

As you know the book of John, the epistle of John (same book) to my understanding the key word of this book is believe. The key phrase of this book tells us that Christ is the divine son of God, now I’m talking about the book of John here y’all. John taught that Christ was the Son of God.

John also taught that in Him prophesies of the Old Testament were fulfilled. John taught that He, meaning Jesus, was the perfect teacher. And when I say perfect teacher that means he is teaching us how to walk, how to talk, how to live. Jesus was perfectly sinless. This can all be found in the book of John.

Everybody hates a thief, even thieves hate thieves. Most people inquire about the crime rate of a neighborhood before they move there. They realize that if the crime rate is high, there is a strong likelihood they will come home one day and everything of value will be gone.

Some of us b/c of financial situations can’t choose the neighborhoods of low crime rates. So one of the 1st things we do if we know that the crime rate is high is we begin to protect ourselves with burglar alarms, iron bars on the windows, iron gates at the doors, motion sensor light, a baseball bat on side of the bed, a hammer under the pillow, or maybe even a couple of pit bulls in the house.

But even after all of this, we are still vulnerable to the thief. However the thief comes, we realize that we have no hope of ever having or keeping anything worthwhile unless we find a way to protect ourselves. There is another kind of thief of the worst kind. This thief is not the one who climbs through your windows, he’s not the con man who knows how to win your trust, smile in your face, and rob you all at the same time.

We wish that all he would take is our cars, jewelry, and money, but he is taking so much more than that. This thief, the devil, is robbing people of their spiritual condition. It’s bad to see folks robbed and they don’t even know they’ve been robbed. It’s bad to see folk having so much taken and been robbed so many times that it has becomes a normal of life.

This thief is even working his way into the church. This thief has come into the church and stolen a lot of people’s praise, he has stolen a lot of people’s salvation, he has stolen a lot of people’s joy. And we wonder why our church services are dead and why we can’t feel anything, b/c the devil has worked his way in the church and robbed the saints.

For years I’ve sat back, watched, and came to the realization after receiving my salvation that it shouldn’t take someone telling you to clap your hands. It shouldn’t take someone telling you to sing along with us. It shouldn’t take someone telling you to stand to your feet and give God some praise and say halluejah. If God has done something for you on the inside it should just come natural to show on the outside.

One songwriter said if you love Jesus you ought to show us some sign. When you find out that praise is the key, you’ll praise him in advance, you’ll praise Him in spite of and you don’t need a church to tell you to praise God. Some people have messed up now, you wait till you get to church for somebody to light your fire. But when I get here, my fires already lit. When I get here, I just explode when I get in this place.

I gotta contain myself when I’m driving my car, I gotta contain myself while I’m on my job. But when I get in church I do like the Psalmist says I enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. I’m thankful unto and I’ll bless his name. And if you don’t want to praise him, I’ll praise him by myself. If you don’t feel like praising him just move on out of my way b/c I’ll praise him anyhow. B/c I’ve learned that joy is not predicated on what’s going on around you, joy is an inside job. Have you been robbed?