Shifting Focus: Experiencing God's Goodness Amidst Chaos

1) "Our flesh is drawn to focus on what's wrong, what's not happening, what's broken, what's chaotic, what's out of control. And it's broken. It's breeding an epidemic of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideology. It's breeding. An epidemic of hopelessness. But God is calling us. He's calling a generation to shift our perspective away from the backdrop to begin to focus on what's in front of it. And when you shift that focus, beloved, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, when you shift the focus, all of a sudden, the goodness of God begins to pop out. The goodness of God begins to highlight. And you see things that were there all the time, but you missed them." [02:38] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "How do you know the goodness of God unless you've been through something? How do you know? know how good he is unless you've been in a dark place, a difficult place. You see, Adam and Eve took his goodness for granted because there was no sin in the world. But as soon as sin entered the world, his goodness was on display. His goodness was highlighted. And then we read in Psalms 104, David's testimony of creation, that all you got to do is look outside your door. All you got to do is look at nature. And the one thing that really arrested my heart is when David spoke about the ocean, that God put a boundary around the ocean, around the seas, and told the ocean you cannot trespass." [05:32] (62 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "I want to establish today that those challenges are opportunities to encounter. To encounter the goodness of God personally. I shared a quote last week by a monk. a catholic monk and he talked in terms of the goodness of god being something that we experience personally not by hearsay it's our own testimony do you have a testimony of how good god is do you personally have a testimony of how good god is i want to share with you through the life of moses some revelation that really blessed my heart because moses was one where the goodness of god was chasing after him." [08:10] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "You see, you have to take a deeper look. Into what we're going through, what we're dealing with. You have to take a very close look. And if you do, you will begin to discover those glimpses of goodness I'm talking about. You'll begin to discover. You know, because if we don't focus on those glimpses of goodness, what happens? We walk around. I mean, this is... This is the phrase that we hear all the time, negative Nancy. Now, Elder Perry's wife is named Nancy, and that is no offense against you, because she is not negative. But you know, that's the phrase we hear, right? Negative Nancy. Negative Nathan, maybe. Is there any Nathans in the house? Sorry, Nathan. Am I right? We just carry a negative attitude. Negative attitude. Negative attitude. Any one little thing said to us, whew, it just blows up, and it just gets all negative." [15:01] (70 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "The point is, is that no matter what you go through in life, no matter where you find yourself, God's goodness, as the song says, is always running after you. He's always looking for you. We just have to have the eyes to see where God is. Where God is and what he's doing. Because he's constantly looking for us. And then Moses takes a charge and he begins this journey. And we know the story of him rescuing the children of Israel." [19:05] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "We need personal encounters with the goodness of God. You can't live on somebody else's testimony. And you can't rob others of their testimony. Listen, some people are suffering and we want to rescue them. But what we're doing is we're stealing their testimony. We're stealing their testimony because God is trying to create something in them that they can testify on their own behalf. He said, show me something, God. Show me something. And this is what I love. Then God said, I will make my what? My goodness." [24:05] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "When Moses encountered God and God's goodness passed before him or overshadowed him or covered him or clothed him, he came off the mountain and he came to the mountain looking a little different because he was wearing the glory of God. He was wearing the goodness of God. You see, God had answered his prayer. He says, look, I'm not going a step further. This is tough. The things that you're asking of me are tough. Don't you see what I'm going through? The things you're asking of me are tough. This is tough. I'm not going a step. I'm not going a step further until you show me your glory. And God says, okay, turn around. Wedge yourself in that rock. I'm going to show you my glory." [33:50] (64 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "You know, when you carry his goodness. Folks want to be around you. Really, they do. One of our pastors had the Lord just gave him this beautiful phrase. I believe it was a prophetic phrase. He said, Mount Olivet is going to be comfortable. I'm a solution center. That was powerful. When people come with questions of life, God will give answers. I believe he said that. i believe as we clothe ourself with his goodness we will attract all kind of folks and it won't be our ideas it won't be our answers it'll be god's ideas and god's answers and they'll meet them right where they are because we are clothed in his goodness goodness my greater prayer is that god will continue to shift our focus away from the backdrop." [36:19] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)