https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue1RbPH6cwQ&feature=youtu.be

“Can you hear me now”

I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to you all and I want to be sure God is glorified and not myself. I’m very grateful to be speaking to you all this evening. And I have to admit, I’m a little nervous, but whatever God calls us to do we must do it…Amen? Now that I’m standing here, It makes me think of a few months back, pastor Matt shared in a sermon “Do it afraid”...So here I am.

Let me share how I got to this point. I think it was March right around the men’s advance. I was doing a bible study with my wife, and God spoke to me…He said, you will preach my word! My first thought was, ok, amen, whatever you want Lord, then I thought well how much time do I have? Then he says 11/19/19, then I’m like, ugh, ok, I will prepare for this Lord. Let’s do this. So fast forward a few weeks at Monday night prayer, God tells me to ask Pastor Steve about mentoring and educating me about preaching. General stuff! so I ask him and (Impersonate Pastor Steve wooo wi, hallelujah, amen brotha). This must be from God. Get this, Not even a week later, I haven’t met pastor Steve or text him. Pastor Jay contacts me on FB messenger, with a question. Hey Marcus, if the opportunity presents itself, would you like to preach on a Wednesday? So his next questions is…will you do this summer? I’m like its basically already summer we are 1 month away, So I’m blown away at this point, and all I hear in my head is, Rafiki voice saying…. “It is time”. So, here I am August 21, 2019 giving my first sermon! Praise God

Why do I share that story? Let me tell you why … when God tells you something, if you stay obedient to his word, following his process….it will happen. Don’t wait to get stuck in a while for 3 days before you decide to do what he says.

---Let’s Pray---

Today’s message is titled (Can you hear me now?), it took me a few days to come up with this title. because I had to change it last week, because Many don’t know, I was supposed to present last week and guess what my title was going to be….. yes, you guessed it, “Are you listening?”. True story. Praise God, But pastor Butcher gave an amazing word last week. Amen.

We’re going to be in Matthew 22:1-14, the parable of the wedding feast and I truly pray that this message will speak to someone tonight. There is so much in the Gospels, I love them, because it lays down the eyewitness account of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. It gives us details of His life, explains His work, miracles, why He came, His obedience to the Father and Him fulfilling all prophecies of the Old testament. It explains the New covenant that is provided to us through His life, death and resurrection. And the gift God provides us, in exchange for His life, the gift of the Holy spirit, who is our Helper. 

Here we Read the parable of the wedding feast, Matthew 22:1-14 I want to give you the back story to explain Christ’s teachings and why the parable was given.We know Jesus traveled many places by foot and by boat, teaching, preaching, touching lives and healing many people. He did this in many places, Capernaum, Jerusalem, Jericho, all round the sea Galilee and in many other villages and cities.Christ teachings were powerful and spoke directly to the hearts, minds & souls of men.Before the parable is given, He’s teaching inside a temple in Jerusalem and is questioned by the Chiefs priest and Elders of the people.Jesus was questioned because He, like always, was teaching Truth with authority, and what God permitted him to teach.We don’t know exactly what he was teaching during this time…But whatever it was, we know it was the TRUTH. We could image,