Bounce Back

October 2026 Sermon Series

Part 2:

Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III

Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Nashville

October 11, 2026

Scripture: 1 Samuel 30:6 (NKJV)

Now David was greatly distressed,

for the people spoke of stoning him,

because the soul of all the people was grieved,

every man for his sons and his daughters.

But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

Prayer

God, we open up our hearts to receive Your word. Let Your words speak to us today. We need to hear from You. Do whatever You want to do in this place today, but we declare and decree that we shall leave better than we came. You know what we’ve dealt with all week, and God, I pray this word will speak right to us now. In Jesus’ name. Everybody said, Amen.

I. INTRODUCTION

Watch the full Sunday service: https://www.youtube.com/live/yaDC3bOLxXU?si=RbrFXpS2qWBvP6Re

Today I want to talk about “Strength for the Struggle.” You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Today I want you to hear this: there is a difference between surviving a struggle and being strengthened through the struggle. There are two fundamental things I want to lay as a foundation of this message today, and I want you to embrace it. I want you to hold true to it.

The first is, you are a leader regardless of your position or title. Please understand, there is a leader inside of you, emerging or one that has arrived. You’re not a follower; you are a leader. And with that comes a great deal of responsibility, which I will share with you shortly. But I need somebody to declare in this room, “I am a leader.”

Secondly, I want you to understand that whatever happens in your life, whatever you go through, you should grow through. Never go through a senseless season without gaining strength in that season. Something should come out of everything you have gone through:

• Greater wisdom
• Greater strength
• Greater discernment
• A deeper relationship with the Lord your God

Today I want you to understand why that is important, because all of us will have moments in our lives when we will encounter struggles we did not anticipate. And because we have mastered the art of looking like everything is well when in fact we are dealing with private issues, it is important to approach our struggles with a great deal of transparency and to be honest about where we are, so that God can take us where we need to be.

I’m talking today to the strong ones. I’m talking to the people who have been there for everybody else, who have prayed for everybody else, who had to be solid for everybody else. I told you, you are a leader. And yet, what happens when you experience something, but you are forced to function even while carrying your personal crisis yourself? What happens to the encourager when you are trying to encourage others but trying to find strength to encourage yourself? What happens to the person who prays for everybody else, but you’re trying to find strength to pray for yourself?

That’s where we are in the text today, and it is a compelling story of David. David, who had come back from battle with his troops, and they had a marvelous journey. They had just won a victory. And the Bible teaches us that when David and his troops returned to their homeland of Ziklag, they experienced a crisis. Here is one of the burdens of leadership: after your greatest victories sometimes will come your greatest challenges.

And right here the Bible declares that the Amalekites, their enemies, have come while they were absent and have kidnapped their wives and their children. They have burned their city, destroyed things that were sacred. And yet in the midst of all of that, the Bible declares that the men who had just won this battle, men of valor, men who were soldiers, men who were strong in battle, now looking at their current reality, the Bible says they began to weep until they had no more power to weep. Have you ever been there before, where you were so hurt that you felt like you had no more tears to cry? That’s where they were in the text.

And the Bible declares that even in their grief, it shifts from grief to bitterness, and bitterness to anger, as they direct it toward David. And yet in the midst of all of this, David has lost his house. David has lost his family. David is dealing with this personally himself. And yet the very men who have just benefited from David’s leadership, who have benefited from David’s vision, are now talking about stoning him. The same people I just got a victory with have now flipped the script, and now they’re ready to take me out.

And when I talk about stoning, I am not talking about throwing pebbles in order to make you uncomfortable. In biblical days, stoning was capital punishment. They were literally trying to cancel him. Not “cancel” like we talk about in culture today. No, they were trying to take David out.

Somebody today, I need you to understand, people of God, there are people that will try to take you out. They will try to stone you. And stoning doesn’t always happen with rocks. Sometimes stones can be a screenshot. It can be some gossip. It can be some lie. Whatever it is, you’ve got to be careful, because the moment you walk into leadership, the moment you walk into influence, you’ve got to take everything that comes with it.

But the Bible declares that David has the uncertainty of the emotions of the men who have fought battles with him hanging in the balance, and David looks at the rubble of what he has known to be his security, and his family has been kidnapped. The Bible declares what David does: David encourages himself in the Lord.

And the reason why I’m preaching this today is because some of you ain’t got nothing else to do but to learn the power of strengthening yourself in the Lord. Because if you don’t learn how to encourage yourself, what you’re dealing with is going to take you out. But God brought you here today. Yeah, I’m talking to the strong one. I’m talking to the one that’s always been the encourager. God told me to tell you: go get strength today, and you’re going to encourage yourself. Pull your stuff together. I know who you are to everybody else. You are God’s anointed. You are God’s leader. And guess what I came to tell you? Encourage yourself. Look at somebody and say, “Encourage yourself.”

II. DISTRESS WILL TEST YOUR LEADERSHIP

So today I want to talk to you. I want you to hear this, because the first thing that’s going to actually be the test of your leadership is the stress. The stress will test your leadership. Your leadership is never tested when things are well. Anybody can lead. Anybody can shout. Anybody can do well when the applause is happening. But what do you do when there is silence?

One of the things I wrote about in my book, Pursuit of Purpose, was that if their applause becomes your oxygen, you will suffocate in their silence. Because the reality is, people of God, real leadership is not just responding to high moments. You’ve got to learn what you’re made of. What happens when things fall apart, when things begin to happen adversely, that’s when we know where you really are as a true leader.

A. Don’t Catch What the Crowd Is Carrying

And let me help you go a little deeper here, people of God, because you cannot catch what the crowd is carrying. Let me break it down. Understand, as a leader, as who you are, David teaches us a powerful lesson. “What do you mean I can’t catch what they’re carrying? Everybody is devastated.” Watch this: what they’re carrying are their unregulated emotions.

• Fear
• Anxiety
• Hopelessness

But what you cannot do is take on the environment of the people around you. You have to recognize that you are different, because people are watching you. They watch what you post. They watch how you come to church and shout, and they’re trying to see if there’s anything to it. So if you are hopeless, they don’t have no hope. If you show up and you broke down, they’re going to be broke down. You have no idea. Some people may not ever tell you, but they are watching everything you do.

Let me see if I can make it make sense. When I fly on airplanes, one of the things I do going through turbulence, I always watch the flight attendant. And the flight attendant is sitting there unbothered. You know what I do? I know we’re gonna be alright, because she’s flown enough hours that she’s been through this before. So ain’t nothing to stress about, because it’s just a little turbulence.

And somebody today is looking at you, wondering why you are calm, cool, and collected. It is not because you are detached from your reality. It’s because you’ve been there and done that. You have seen God do it before. You have seen God make a way before. You have seen God turn it around before. And if God did it then, God can do it all over again. Am I talking to anybody here today?

So they’re watching you. They’re watching you. So let them be negative, but you can’t be that. So when they have their head down, you’ve got to look to the hills from whence cometh your help, because your help comes from the Lord. When they don’t have no hope, you’ve got to say, “But my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.” When they are crying all night long, you’ve got to declare, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. I see myself coming out now.” Let the weak say, “I’m strong.” Let the poor say, “I’m rich.” Let the sick say, “I am healed.” I refuse to take on the environment of the people around me. Wait a minute, don’t catch what they’re carrying.

B. Don’t Pick Up the Stones They Threw

But here’s the deal: don’t pick up the stones they threw. The Bible said that they thought of stoning David. Now, the text does not say that they actually stoned him, but the fact that they thought it… When people show you who they are, Maya Angelou says, you better believe them. You ain’t just thought to stone me today. You’ve been thinking about stoning me. You were just waiting on the right opportunity to stone me. Who am I talking to up in here today?

And what you’ve got to understand, people of God, is that even though people have rocks in their hand and contemplation, don’t you pick up the rocks and try to retaliate. Don’t you sit back and try to defend yourself and say, “I can’t believe y’all would think about that.” What you’ve got to learn to do is stop talking about it. “I’m not gonna deal with it, because I am not gonna judge you for what you are trying to do to me” What David does: he does not take up their emotional environment.

And I’m talking to somebody right now. The reason why I know you’re still carrying their stones is because they have dropped them, but you have picked them up, because you’re still talking about it. It happened ten years ago, but you’re still talking about it. You’ve been out of the relationship, but every time something happens, you keep on bringing it up. God told me to tell somebody to let it go.

• Let what they did to you go
• Let what they said about you go
• Let all the pain in the past go

The relationship been over; let it go. In the words of Prophetess Elsa, “Let it go.” Look at your neighbor and say, “Let it go.”

Listen to me, listen to me. There is something I want you to get. When you learn the power of not picking up the stones, you begin to realize that David could have picked them up. David could have just said, “I can’t believe y’all did this to me.” But you know what David realized? Somebody’s watching me.

Exodus 17: Israel Is Thirsty in the Wilderness

When Moses dealt with this in Exodus chapter 17, Israel was thirsty in the wilderness, and they turned on Moses. And Moses cried out to the Lord and said, “What should I do, God? The people want to stone me.”

So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying,

“What shall I do with this people?

They are almost ready to stone me!”

Exodus 17:4 (NKJV)

And know this: Moses took the pressure where it belonged. Moses did not take his pressure to Facebook. He did not take his pressure to the group chat. He took his pressure to God. Can I talk to somebody here today?

Acts 7: Stephen Is Stoned

When Stephen in Acts chapter 7 was actually being stoned, as the stones were flying, he saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father. And you know what he’s saying? “Lord, don’t hold this against them. Don’t let this be a punishment against them.”

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying,

“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice,

“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”

Acts 7:59–60 (NKJV)

And the Bible says while he was praising God, being stoned, Jesus stood up as if giving him a standing ovation. Because there comes a moment in your life when you’ve got to learn to be positive in the midst of a negative situation. You’ve got to learn that people are watching you. You are an example.

III. BEFORE YOU RECOVER WHAT WAS LOST, RECOVER YOURSELF

People of God, I want you to hear this clearly: before you recover what was lost, you’ve got to recover yourself. The natural inclination of every person who’s experienced loss is, “How do I go back and get my stuff?” But perhaps in this season, what God is trying to help you learn is the power of recovering you. You see, we don’t like talking about this much in church, because we’re good at looking at the external stuff. But what I want to challenge you on today is the inner work, the stuff on the inside.

See, watch what happens. Before he recovered his family, before he recovered his possessions, before he recovered all the things of the city, he recovered himself. Notice the order. It’s intentional, because he understands something we forget: if you recover the blessing without recovering the person, you’ll eventually lose the blessing again. God is not interested in just restoring new stuff in your hands; He’s trying to restore you. So before you say, “Lord, give it back to me,” maybe God is saying, “Let me build you.” You get so consumed with what you lost, you don’t realize what God is trying to help you gain.

Let me show you something. The enemy knows he can never destroy your destiny, but he can destroy your confidence. And if he destroys your confidence, you become discouraged, and you start living beneath what God promised for your life. And once you become discouraged… don’t forget that your joy is too precious to hand over to the enemy. So what you’ve got to realize is:

• Once your courage comes back, your vision comes back
• Once your vision comes back, your faith starts coming back
• When your faith starts coming back, your expectation starts coming back
• When my expectation comes back, my manifestation comes forth.

His greatest victory is overcoming the despair in his own heart, because sometimes we’re asking God to give something back when God is trying to give you something to prepare what happened to you, emotionally, spiritually, and practically. Come on, let me talk to you. Can we have a conversation? Just sit there. Let me talk to you.

A. Strengthen Your Spirit Before You Strategize Your Next Move

See, one of the worst things that could ever happen is that you receive what you prayed for when you don’t have the capacity to carry it. You keep asking God for more, but sometimes God has said, “You don’t need more yet. You need capacity.” I’m not trying to read your mail, but I really am.

So here you are: “Lord, send me another relationship.” But you haven’t been healed from the last one. Because if you haven’t, you’ll make the next person pay the bill the last one created.

“Lord, make me a leader.” But you’re inconsistent. You want people to follow you, but people can’t depend on you. You want the title of leadership without developing the discipline that leadership requires.

Then you say, “Lord, give me a job; a better job or a promotion, but ” But every correction for you becomes an emotional crisis. Every piece of feedback feels like rejection. Every disagreement becomes personal. You want greater responsibility, but you haven’t developed the emotional maturity required to carry greater responsibility.

“Lord, let them trust me more.” But then God says, “When they trusted you with little, you abused the system. You stretched the rules. You showed up when you wanted to show up. You disappeared when accountability came.” And why are you asking for influence when you haven’t demonstrated stewardship where you are right now?

“Lord, increase my salary.” Well, let’s talk about that, because has your work ethic increased? You want big money, but you’ve got small discipline. You want executive compensation, but you’ve got entry-level initiative. You want somebody to recognize your value, but you haven’t increased the value you bring to the table. “Preach, Bishop!” I’m doing the best I can.

“Lord, give me a platform.” But you can’t handle being overlooked. You want the influence, but you can’t handle the criticism. “Lord, give me a team.” But you mistreat the people that God got around you right now. If you can’t run with the footmen, how can you contend with horses? If you’re not faithful over a few things, how are you gonna be ruler over much?

Let me talk to you. In this season you ought to be praying:

• Lord, increase my capacity
• Increase my discipline
• Increase my emotional maturity
• Increase my consistency
• Increase my character

Wait a minute, because God is trying to get you back to you. So God has to strengthen your spirit before you strategize your next move. Before you try to move to the next thing, David just thought, “I’ve got to work on me.” David… you know how powerful this is? Before you try to run on to the next thing, you’ve got your vision board, you’ve got all this stuff down, but your prayer life is lacking. You’ve got all this stuff down, but you can’t tell Palms from Psalms. You live between the book of Job and a job. Can I talk to somebody up in here today?

I’m trying to help you understand: you’ve got to get grounded in God’s word, because God can only take you where you have the physical and spiritual capacity to handle. So you’ve got to say in this season, “Lord, build me up in Your word. Build me up in my worship. Build me up in my prayer life.” Because where God is trying to take you is going to require a level of stability. I’ll prove it to you.

B. Stop Waiting on External Encouragement. Learn How to Preach to Yourself

Watch this, because there comes a moment when you have to stop waiting on external encouragement and learn how to preach to yourself. One of the marks of maturity is learning how to encourage yourself. “Wait a minute, what do you mean?” Here it is, you don’t get to this point unless you’ve got a foundation.

See, because when life is lifing, when I’ve got loss, I’ve got uncertainty in relationships, and everything around me is unstable, my coping mechanisms come to the forefront. Now, for some of you it’s the next drink, and you think you can drown your troubles away, until somebody has to tell you, like Bishop Walker: your troubles know how to swim. And if you get high, trouble knows how to fly. Cause after you come off your high, after you come off of that drink, and after you come off of whatever you do with whoever you do it with, all this is still gonna be waiting on you, saying, “We were just waiting for you to come back. We still here.” Can I talk to somebody here today?

David did not have his family to encourage him. His army has flipped on him. But the Bible said David found the strength to encourage himself. There comes a moment when you’ve got to recognize that encouraging yourself comes out of remembrance. Maybe David started remembering the lion. Maybe he started remembering his victory over Goliath. There comes a moment when you start remembering what God has already done, and you start reflecting over what God has already done. And if God did it, then God can do it again. And so therefore you start encouraging yourself. Does that make sense now?

So when David penned Psalm 42, he’s talking to himself. But then he starts preaching: “But I’m gonna hope in God, who is the help of my countenance.”

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 42:11 (NKJV)

Jeremiah went through something like that. Jeremiah was wrestling with depression, but Jeremiah preached to himself:

This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:21–23 (NKJV)

There comes a moment in your life when you’ve got to learn how to square your shoulders, look in the mirror, and preach to yourself. You’ve got to say, “Self, we’re not about to break down through this, because all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Self, we are not about to give up just because we messed up on a test. I’m not about to quit school, because God knows the thoughts He thinks toward me, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give me a future and a hope. And I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Self, I am not about to let this diagnosis make me lose my faith, because He was wounded for my transgressions, He was bruised for my iniquities, and by His stripes we are already healed. Self, I’m not about to lose my mind, because He will keep me in perfect peace. My God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches in glory.”

You may not have a drumbeat. You may be by yourself in your apartment. Touch your neighbor and say, “Preach to yourself.” Preach to yourself. Preach to yourself. Preach yourself happy. Preach yourself down the hallway. Preach yourself to school. Preach yourself to the job. Who am I talking to up in here today?

IV. ENCOURAGEMENT IS A DISCIPLINE, NOT A FEELING

See, listen: David encouraged himself. And so then, here it is, here’s the summation of the matter: encouragement is a discipline, not a feeling. You look at people like this and say, “Oh, that’s so powerful. David would do that, Bishop, but that ain’t how I’m built.” Remember, I told you at the beginning of this message, you are a leader. You don’t know it yet, oh, but you’re a leader.

And watch this. You think that David, and people like David, are the strong ones who just show up like that. They call you when they need money. They call you to fix the family crisis. They call you when they need a word. They be like, “I ain’t got no word for you. Let me see this thing Bishop just preached”. You’re the rock for everybody else, and nobody knows you’re dealing with your own stuff too.

Everybody’s grieving, but nobody takes into consideration that David lost something too. David can’t even process his own loss, because he’s trying to figure out how to manage these people who lost something too. They look at David like, “What we gonna do?”  He David is like, “Tell me? I’m trying to figure this out myself.”

Let me talk to the real people. The real people are the ones that pull up in their driveway and just sit in your car, and people got to call them to remind them where they are. And they just be like “I’m just sitting in the car.” That’s the only place you’ve got peace. Let me talk to the real people who be driving and just don’t know where you’re going sometimes, because you just be driving. Let me talk to the real people. Let me talk to the people who pray for everybody else, but nobody’s praying for you. Let me talk to the people that’s carrying stuff nobody knows you’re carrying, but you keep showing up, and you keep smiling, and people think your life looks squeaky clean and all put together, because they see your wheels, they see the stuff you do. But they don’t know what we deal with.

This ain’t no feeling. This ain’t no feeling, y’all. This is rooted in a foundation. This is rooted in the fact that I can encourage myself, because my foundation is God’s word. John 15: “Without Me you can do nothing.” So the enemy tries to fight your encouragement, because he knows when you get discouraged, you will settle for anything. You’ll start withdrawing. But what I learned how to do: I learned how to keep praying even with tears in my eyes. I still worship even when I can’t figure out life. There are people that are still showing up and don’t have the answers, but they refuse to look like what the devil has them going through.

A. Move Before You Feel It

Let me help you understand something: faith, not feelings, is required to make decisions.

• Noah builds an ark before it ever rained
• Abraham left everything before he knew where he was going
• Peter stepped out of the boat before he even knew how it was going to turn out

Leadership, I’m gonna give you this if you will, cannot be effective if it leads from emotion. Now, I teach leadership in a lot of spaces, so I want you to understand something, the people that I pastor. You must understand this principle if nobody else gets it. Now, I’m not saying you can’t be an emotional person. Please hear how I’m saying this. In order to be an effective leader, people who do extraordinary things at different levels do not lead from their emotions. Your emotions cannot be trusted. Let me prove it to you. If you lead from your emotions, you will take on the emotions of the people you lead, and you will be governed by their feelings versus the faith that God is giving you.

Israel is at the Red Sea. Pharaoh is in hot pursuit, the Red Sea in front of them, and the people are saying, “He got us out here to die. At least we had graves. We should all go back to Egypt.” But Moses talks to God, and Moses says, “God, what would You have me to do?” And God says, “Tell the people to shut up, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. The Egyptians you see today, you won’t see them again no more forever. Stretch out your rod.”

Now, if Moses was emotional, he’d be like, “Well, I guess if y’all feel that way, I guess we ought to go back.” That’s the problem. That’s why some of you can’t progress: because you always regress. You’re always trying to go back. “At least I got my nails done. At least they didn’t hit me that hard. At least I had my rent paid.” The devil is a liar! When God’s trying to take you forward, you’ve got to learn how to go. “Bishop, I’m doing the best I can.”

David, you can’t lead from emotion, because these people are thinking about stoning you. Leadership doesn’t lead from emotion, because emotion can cause you to lose the victory. Emotions can blow it. Chip, one of my guys, has been driving me all day. He’s an Alabama fan, and I feel sorry for him today, because they should have won, but somebody’s emotions… one person’s emotion cost the whole game. And how many of you, when you look over your life at the stuff you lost, the stuff you blew because of unregulated emotion… Oh my God, can I talk to somebody up in here today?

I need you to hear this quite clearly, people of God. There comes David in the rubble, in the midst of the uncertainty of his friends, when he’s dealing with his own grief: “Lord, what do You… I can’t trust my emotions, because my emotions are gonna make me do something I shouldn’t do. So God, listen. I’m gonna lead like this: Lord, do You want us to accept this as our new reality? Our city is burned, our families are gone. Should we just stay here and rebuild? Or Lord, should we pursue?” And God says, in the midst of whether you feel like it or not, “Pursue, and you shall recover all.”

So David inquired of the LORD, saying,

“Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”

And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them

and without fail recover all.”

1 Samuel 30:8 (NKJV)

B. Now Go Get Your Stuff

I want you to look at somebody and tell them, “Now go get your stuff.” Wait, wait, now let me rinse this out, because what I’m getting ready to do, I’m getting ready to preach the CliffsNotes of this, and wherever it hits, I know that’s where praise is gonna fall. Watch it. God tells him, “Go get your stuff. You shall recover all.” Now, I know cognitively, in your mind, you’ve already crafted what “all” is. I’m getting ready to expand your “all,” because you don’t even know what “all” looks like until after you hear this word. I’m gonna break it down.

David tells his men, because he is measured, he’s a leader, he’s not led by emotion. He talks to God; he’s led by devotion. He got a word from God in the midst of his ashes, in the midst of his own personal grief. He turns to his leaders who have rocks in their hand and says, “God just told us to go and pursue and get our stuff back.” And I can see in my mind’s eye that some of his soldiers are like, “About time! Let’s go, turn up! Listen, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

And guess what? Six hundred men now get in line. Men who were just about to stone him now submit to him. You missed that. Men who were just about to stone him now submit to him. I’m gonna say it one more time: men who were just about to stone him now submit to him. Because strong leadership is decisive. You can’t be all over the place. You’ve got to go the way God tells you to go and you’ve got to do what God tells you to do.

Wait a minute, here it is. Six hundred men go back, and when they’re going back, they get all of the equipment. They take all the heavy stuff. I’m getting ready to preach now. Oh boy. They get the heavy stuff, they take all the heavy stuff, and they’re heading back to battle. Remember I taught you this some time ago: HALT. Be careful when you’re:

• Hungry
• Angry
• Lonely
• Tired

All four of these are happening with these soldiers. They’re hungry, they’re angry, they’re lonely, and they’re tired. They’re exhausted. Watch this: but they pick up the heavy stuff, because it doesn’t matter how tired you are; when you get a word from God, you get your second wind back. Am I talking to anybody here?

Now they get the stuff, and they get the heavy stuff, and they’re going back, and two hundred of them get by the brook and say, “Brother David, we can’t go on.” David does not rebuke them. Leadership. He doesn’t get emotional and say, “Y’all gotta pick it up; this ain’t right.” You know what David does? He looks at it as a divine moment: “If y’all can’t go, there must be a reason why.” So what David does as a leader is use this as a strategic moment.

David, here’s what I want to shout on. David says, “Then y’all stay right here, and we’re gonna leave the heavy stuff with y’all, and y’all stay by the stuff.” Which suggests that we thought we were gonna need all of this going into the battle, but God’s gonna let me go into battle lighter than I thought I would. He’s not gonna let me be emotionally heavy and physically heavy. So God fixed it so He let me unload some stuff to make room for what was getting ready to happen. You missed that. Touch your neighbor and say, “God had to let you make room for what you were getting ready to get.” You’re not getting it. I said, God had to let you make room for what He was getting ready to give, if your hands are filled with heavy stuff… So wait a minute, Wait, stay here by the stuff.

Two hundred of them stayed by the stuff. Now the four hundred go, not with all the heavy stuff, all the tactical stuff. We don’t have it; we just got a little bit, because God’s gonna fight this battle. And when they go, watch a leader. They see a young man. David and his men found an Amalekite, a young man in his early twenties. And David says, “Get, get back.” Because emotional people, when you see an enemy like that, you’re so emotional: “I’m gonna kill you! You took my family!” “No, no, no, no.” A leader says, “This must be a strategy. God left you here for a reason. What’s going on?”

“My master left me here. I was sick.” “Who are your masters?” “The Amalekites. We just left a place called Ziklag. We took their families. We took all their stuff.” “That was you? Huh. OK. And so you got sick, and they left you here?” “Yep.” “Tell you what: bring me some raisin cakes. Let’s feed him. Bring me something to give him to drink. Let’s build him up.”

Why won’t we kill him? Because we need him. And watch this: once we feed him, he’s gonna feed us. You missed that. Because God used that Amalekite soldier. That soldier said, “Now let me tell you where they are. They’re over there, around there.” Because God will make your enemy your footstool. Who am I talking to up in here today? That’s why you’ve got to know God will always look out for His children.

Wait, wait, here it is, here it is. I promise you, I’m done. The enemy gave them intel on where their stuff was. And the Bible says when David and his four hundred men went, they saw them partying with their stuff. The enemy out here partying with your stuff. The enemy out here on Facebook taking selfies with your stuff. But the Bible said David went down with his men and slew them from the evening to the morning.

Now here’s what I want you to get. The Bible says when David was in Ziklag asking God, “What should we do?” God gave David a prophetic word: “You shall recover all.” But see, your understanding of “all” is not God’s understanding of “all.” So let me help all of you understand what “all” means.

Wait, I’m done. Please see this, and I’m done. There is something… I’m a teacher, so you have to pardon me for a moment, because I don’t want you to miss this in the emotion of the moment. I opened up this message by telling you, you are a leader, and everything that happens in your life, you should grow through it. Right? You understand what has occurred? You understand that the greatest victory David got was not the victory against the Amalekites. It was overcoming despair in his heart. God did the inner work on him, because he was the leader. Even when the people around him may not have done the inner work, the leader had to do it.

So when he comes back with the stuff, all the stuff, thank God they had room to hold it. You were upset when God told you to release, but you didn’t realize what God was about to put in your hand. And when they run into the two hundred that were by the brook, because David was the leader, he didn’t lead from emotion. David says, “Gentlemen, we must divide the spoil, all of what we have, among all of us.”

And among the four hundred that went with David was somebody like your cousin and my cousin, who said, “Uh-uh, they didn’t go fight. How they going to get some?” See, if your heart is jaded, if your heart is bitter, then you try to govern who gets what and when, when you don’t realize it never belonged to you in the first place. Do you hear me? Can God trust you, when He blesses you, to distribute it like He wants it distributed?

David said, “As it was for those who went to the battle, so it shall be for those who stayed by the stuff.”

For who will heed you in this matter?

But as his part is who goes down to the battle,

so shall his part be who stays by the supplies;

they shall share alike.

1 Samuel 30:24 (NKJV)

You don’t get to regulate the blessing. God regulates the blessing. And therefore anybody connected to you is gonna be blessed. That’s why God works on our hearts. God worked on Joseph’s heart, and Joseph said, “What the devil meant for evil against me, God meant it for my good.

I want you to look at somebody and say, “There’s enough stuff for all of us.” Ain’t no need to hate nobody, cause there’s enough.

• There’s enough for everybody
• There’s enough blessing for everybody
• There’s enough scholarship for everybody

So stop hating on people and give God glory!

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

The crawling locust,

The consuming locust,

And the chewing locust,

My great army which I sent among you.

Joel 2:25 (NKJV)

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, in the name of Jesus, today I come, even now, for those who are watching online, those who are at this altar. God, I pray strength now. Your grace is sufficient; Your strength is made perfect in weakness. And God, I pray today against this pretentious spirit that says everything is alright. It’s OK for things not to be OK.

But listen, I hear the Lord say, even in this crowd, listen, even while you’re watching me, listen to me: your emotions around what has happened to you are legitimate, but your response must be spiritual. God says you are seen. Your emotions are legitimate. It isn’t right how those you have helped have stones in their mind about you. It isn’t right how all of the time, all your victories with them, have come down to this one moment, and you’ve been judged by this one moment and not by the years of victory you gave to them. But God says to you: you are a leader. They will give you resistance, and the same people sometimes will walk away with the spoil and won’t say thank you. But you’re not doing it for that. The reason why He worked on you on the inside is because your leadership cannot be dictated by the applause. It must be because you are doing it for “Well done.” And I speak it over your life today: if you keep doing it for the right reason, God will sustain you, God will keep you, and your best days are ahead of you.

May the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and may the Lord give you grace from this moment, that you will walk out this word and find strength in Him. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have a blessed new week with the Lord! ❤️