Stonger Than the Stigma | John 1:46

Yeah, there is an exegetical invitation I want to extend to you today. I pray that you accept. You've been invited to fellowship with me in the first chapter of the Johannine Gospel. That's 1 John chapter number 1. I'm sorry, St. John chapter number 1. O'Brien gets the member of the day award because he was the first day one to stand up. Everybody else acted all slow. St. John chapter number 1. I want to go down, plant my flag, verse number 46. The word of God reads, good come out of Nazareth. Nathanael asked him, come and see. Philip answered, you may be seated. Anything good come out of that? That's what Nathanael asked. Philip replied, how about you just come and see? For just a few moments on this first Sunday morning, I want to challenge our hearts from the thought: stronger than the stigma. Stronger than the stigma. G-O-O-G-O-L. Spells Google, spelled G-O-O-G-O-L, and it's actually a mathematical term that means 1 followed by 100 zeros. 1 million is 1 followed by 6 zeros, but a G-O-O-G-O-L G-O-O-G-L-E, Google. 1 followed by 100 zeros. It's a number that essentially no man really can honestly comprehend. It's a vast number. And when the founders of this web database Google wanted to describe its product or its search engine, its intent was to express the fact that it has one plus zero— one plus 100 zeros worth of information. However, when they registered the name, they made a mistake. His grad assistant did not register the name as G-O-O-G-O-L. He registered under the name G-O-O-G-L-E. Today, when you want to find out some information, you Google it. You G-O-O-G-L-E. But actually what we're doing is we're honoring a mistake. Google as we know it— I'm sure none of you knew that the proper term was G-O-O-G-O-L until I just told you, which proves that its magnitude is bigger— then a mistake. I'm having fun already. Today, no one understands that G-O-O-G-L-E is not the proper spelling of the intent, but since it had great impact despite erroneous information, We now don't even consider the mistake because of the magnitude. Sweet children, this morning, that's what God is doing in our life. We got some G-O-O-G-L-E-S in our life, but God takes the wrong spelling, he takes the wrong terms, he takes the wrong labels that have been placed upon you, and he denies that and gives you a new destiny. I came to serve notice this morning that if you're not careful, the enemy will try to encapsulate you by the wrong stigmas in your life. Too Black, too white, too country, too city, too sick, too poor, too small, too tall. All of these stigmas that people have placed on you, if you live to them, you will never reach your full potential. But God has come this morning and sent me on assignment to let us know that every stigma that the enemy has placed upon us, God has empowered us to live stronger than the stigma. Will you come fellowship with me this morning in St. John chapter 1? Jesus is in Galilee picking his disciples. Yeah, he's— it's recruiting season and he's picking disciples in Galilee.

He picked this man by the name—

he's already picked Peter and Andrew. Now he selected Philip. Philip is so excited and he just can't keep it to himself. He goes and tells this man by the name of Nathanael, who other New Testament scholars refer to him as Bartholomew. We believe that Bartholomew and Nathanael are the same person, just with different names. Nathanael must have been from around here. Because Philip tells Nathanael, hey man, we found this Messiah that we've been searching for. We found him. It's the man from Nazareth. Nathanael, which I believe is from around here, said, hold up, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Because we know little about Nazareth.

But what we've been hearing about is so big, so it can't come from a small, limited Nazareth. But Philip says something key: I understand all that, but come here and see.

And that's my word for somebody today. I know that life has filled you with doubt, but I know a man named Jesus who's done some marvelous things in my life. Come and see. I know who I used to be, and now I know who God has called me to be. Come and see. I know what you have said about me, but I know what he has said about me. Come and see. I know what you think about me, but I know also what he thinks about me. And come see the same man who has changed my life.

And Jesus teaches us something key in this letter. Jesus says that despite the stigma that's placed on my origin, if you just be patient with God and watch what God wants to do with me in spite of it, it's gonna blow your mind.

And somebody today from East Hodge, somebody today from Winfield, somebody today from Jonesboro needs to make up in their mind that despite my past, despite my situation, despite my origin, God has some big things in my future. Now I'm confused because I don't know why your face is still looking sour. And I just gave you all this good news to let you know that you're gonna live beyond your past, you're gonna live beyond your mistakes, you're gonna live beyond the information that has been labeled on your forehead, which means that despite what I've been through, there is somewhere that God is taking me to, that the best is indeed still yet to come. And I'm about to preach out of my glasses this morning because it makes me excited about tomorrow. Because you may think it's just an ordinary day, but God wants to do the extraordinary with your ordinary background. And I ain't got all day to waste time with y'all because y'all don't want to have fun with So I'm gonna take my ball and bat and go home.

Before I do that, here's what I want to tell you: that the giftedness— stay calm, Gavin Hamms— that is within you is stronger than the stigma attached to you. Preach by yourself, Gavin Hamms.

That the gift of God that's in you is stronger than the stigma that's been attached to you. Can I talk to a young adult in the house today? That you've been through some things in your life and society has given up on you. Society has put you in a category They look at you one type of way, but let me tell you that the gift that's in you is stronger than the label that's been put on you. Can I talk to a senior saint today who doctors have put labels on you? They've called you a diabetic, they called you with hypertension, they called you with this sickness and that sickness, but God says that label did not remove the gift. And so I wake up every day and say, God, can you do it? Even with the label, can you let the devil know that no matter what you try to place on my life, greater is he that is within me— I feel like it now— than he that is within the world?

I didn't raise my voice too early, but I get excited talking about this because when I look at the news, all I see is stigmas.

When I hear the talk that we say about each other, all I hear is stigmas. All I hear is negative labels, and all I hear about is what we are not. But we are the righteousness. Of God. We are redeemed by God. We are the head and not the tail. We are above and not beneath. We are the lender and not the borrower. So my credit score may be 200, but if I stay with God and see what God has for me, I will understand that he shall supply all of my needs.

I gotta preach again in a little minute, so let me get to these harmonical highlights. And God has put in my luggage this morning. I'm gonna unpack it and I'm gonna head down to 167.

Can I show you some things in this text that can help us be stronger than the stigma?

Y'all do care to hear, don't you? Text teaches us, Tony, that God has the desire to put us in a place of expanded parameters. Parameters, limits.

God wants to put you in a place of expanded parameters.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

This was a question asked by a man named Nathanael, or Bartholomew, from Bethsaida.

That's why y'all pay me the big— Nazareth is notated and known as an obscure place because it's not necessarily that what we know about Nazareth is all bad.

It's just that we don't have a lot of information about that.

Matter of fact, we struggle today to know real historical data about Nazareth.

But a man, Nathanael, from Bethsaida, doubts that the Messiah can come from Nazareth because we don't know much about Nazareth.

But he's from Bethsaida, this fishing place. But if we read scripture, Bethsaida does not have the best reputation itself. Matter of factly, Jesus at one point gave a woe statement or a curse statement to Bethsaida.

So, Nathaniel, if God can minister to you in Bethsaida, why can't God come from Nazareth?

Can I spend about 2 minutes offending you, and when I offend you for 2 minutes, I'm gonna make you happy again.

Bethsadians, be careful about your mouth being put on those for Nazareth when your label in Bethsaida is not too promising itself. I, I, I, I, I know you coming here today and you've had a good week and you've committed one less sin this week than what you did last week, but don't let your slight improvement negate what God can do in Nazareth. Yeah, somebody read the news and somebody has been looking all day and judging what's going on in Nazareth, and you fail to look in the mirror and look at your zip code and understand that I'm from Bethsaida myself. So instead of me condemning those from Nazareth, How about I pray for those from Nazareth? Because my story ain't that good and squeaky clean myself. I done told y'all, which I was sharing and screenshotting, self, to stop talking about Bethsaida. Because just like God can come from Bethsaida, he can come and move in Nazareth. Can I give you a secret?

We might want to evaluate to make sure that we aren't lying when we pray this prayer. Hurry up, Gavin. Hurry up, moving too slow. There you go.

Lord, let the sinner man come running.

Asking, what must I do to be saved? Lord, send them from the hedges and highways and byways.

And as soon as we come into contact with those from the hedges and highways and byways, we say bye and head your way. And we—

let me have a pastoral moment—

don't get so caught up in chasing stuff from Jerusalem when the deliverance that we need may come from Nazareth or Bethsaida. If someone's going to be saved, that means that their life must be lost right now. So that means that we have to get used to being acquainted with those who are lost because they are no different from us. We've just been found, and God is looking for them too.

I want to charge somebody today. Can someone please overcome what people have been saying about you?

Can someone please accept from this day forward that you can say whatever you want to say about me, you can know whatever you think you know about me, but just stay tuned to my story and watch what God does in the midst of your facts, because God has given me a faithful future Despite the flawed facts that are in my life.

I'll dare us from losing our commitment because we've listened to somebody else's stigma that's been placed on us.

Wobei nantu us to listen to what they have to say about us and not what God has to say about us. Somebody tonight has been up in the midnight hours, and it ain't been because you've been praying. You've been letting the devil tell you what you can't do all night long, and you've been subjecting yourself to that instead of submitting and saying, God, show me and the world what you can do with somebody with a Nazareth mentality.

'Cause all of us got some Nazareth in us. Because I was sinking deep in sin, I was far from the peaceful shore.

So if I was far from the peaceful shore, that mean I ain't always been all that, and I'm still not all that today. But love lifted me When nothing else could help, love lifted me. When they ask you, why are you so blessed? Say, I don't know, but I do know that love lifted me.

And God is calling us in this text to live a life beyond the expanded parameters that people and yourself would try to put on you. Y'all gonna learn to appreciate my preaching one of these old days, because here it is: Earth's address does not hinder Heaven's assignment. I told you, they gonna appreciate my preaching one of these days.

So let me say it again to make you appreciate it. God has allowed you to have an earthly address, not just with your locality but with your condition. But despite that, it does not stop what heaven's assignment is in your life. Preach if God called you to preach. Sing if God's called you to sing. Minister if God has called you to minister. And no matter where you are, you have an assignment that's in heaven.

Can I show it to you? Am I preaching too long? Here it is. I, I know many of you are guilty of this, but you're recipients of something that has an impact bigger than its placement. You all are. You all are. I know somebody for a fact in here who I know personally is, is a recipient of this testimony. Y'all ever heard of Jeff Bezos? He founded a company called Amazon.

Anybody got an Amazon package lately?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if you receive an Amazon package— I know somebody who receives several of them. I know somebody who I think, if she could, would purchase a whole life from Amazon. I ain't gonna call no name. I want there to be peace in the city. But here's the thing about Amazon. Bezos and his wife founded Amazon as a company just meant to sell books. It was not established in a major headquarters. Dr. Mason, Amazon was founded and established in a garage, but from that small garage, now the world is impacted.

Because God's word is because my location may be small, but my impact can be global. And is there anybody in the house today who receives the fact that if I let God have his way in my life, even though I have a local address, I can have global impact? Because what's inside of me can go beyond where I'm at. Is there anybody today who the next time you receive a package, you're gonna say, thank you, God, and use me in ways that's bigger than where I am right now? I may be sick now, but I can still have a major impact. I may be broke now, but I can still have a major impact. I may have to repeat a grade, I may have to repeat a course, but my story does not end right here. Because God has a future that's bigger than where I am right now.

Your earthly address does not impact heaven. I gotta close, but before I leave you, I gotta go preach again. God teaches us that sometimes He is going to move with entrenched particularities. Teaching you a new word. Take a picture of it up there and go learn it. Okay, that's why I give words like this on purpose. An entrenched, grounded Still, stationary, particularity, detail. So details, they won't move. You learned something, didn't you? Uh, go back and read verse 43. Uh, y'all churchy enough. To know. Do you know the man from Galilee? Y'all remember this song though? Bethsaida and Nazareth are in Galilee. Jesus from Nazareth, which means that Jesus is from Galilee. Verse 43 says something that shouted me on accident. Jesus went back through Galilee, which means if Jesus from Galilee went through Galilee Jesus never forgot where he came from.

Jesus could have changed his story, but Jesus teaches us that sometimes I can't change my story, but I can change the outcome from my story. And some of us in here today, you are from Galilee. Don't forget you're from Galilee, nor try to change the fact that you're from Galilee, but let God move in that fact to give you a faithful future.

Oh, okay. Y'all trying to hide the details of your past. You trying to forget the details of your past.

You wish you could wipe out the details of your past. But God says, if I have to wipe away the details of your past, that means that I'm not God. But since I am God, I can take your past and give you a future that can wipe your past away. Now y'all are acting very arrogant this morning, so let me talk proper. Is there anyone in the house who is not proud of everything you've done? I bet you won't lift up your hands and say, God, I can't erase it, but you can use that and elevate me in spite of it, because I know the nut I can be. I know the nut I have been, and I'm not all the way there yet, but I thank you for your sanctifying power, that you can take me and mold me and make me, and you don't have to erase it, you can work with it. That's why I stay with God now, because there are some stuff I need him to work on in me, and there's some stuff I need him to work for me.

Through me. You can't change it.

If you could, you would. But God says, trust me enough to let me work with your past. Trust me enough to let me work with your details. Trust me enough to let me work with your flaws. And watch how I can do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think. Even with your record, even with your resume, even though with your flaws, he can do it.

Jesus said, I knew what I was doing when I was in heaven.

In the beginning, I knew where I was going to come from, and I'm not going to try to change it. But I am God enough to take those details and use those details for development.

You can't give up now because you got, you got something God can work with. You got some facts God can work with.

Every bit of your story ain't pure, every bit of your story is not pleasant, but God got an outcome for you that if you keep your hand in his hand Keep your mind in his mind. Keep your life in his life. And watch how God can take that and turn that thing around.

He ain't always change the facts. Not only will he not always change the facts, sometimes the entrenched particularity will be problematic people.

I dare you to ask me to show it to you.

Nathanael says, anything good can come from Nazareth?

Can it come from Nazareth? Philip say, hey man, come and see.

Jesus has the audacity to accept the disciple that he didn't call. He wouldn't call Philip.

It was Philip who went and got Nathanael.

Really, Nathaniel, with his arrogant self, is really a tag-along. But God says, eeh, Lord, thank you, Holy Spirit, I'm not going to eliminate the problematic people.

I am going to put my spirit in them and elevate the problematic people. Is there a problematic person in Pilgrim Rest of East Hartford who can testify today that he didn't eliminate me, but he took me in and elevated me? That's why you can't shut me up. That's why I don't need a call to worship. All I need is breath in my body, and if I have breath, I'ma use that breath to praise my God.

Y'all gonna appreciate my preaching one day because God teaches us how somebody— you know, we live in this culture now. Oh my goodness, I know how to cut folks off. I cut them off. I cut folks off.

If everybody cut you off when you deserve to be cut off, you would have so many cutting scratch marks in your shoulder right now. Because that's our premier existence, deserves us to be cut off.

But here's what God says, here's what God said.

God says, I'm not going to remove them, I'm going to give them a seat on the front row. Nathaniel You don't know what can happen for someone who comes out of Nazareth, but I don't have to remove you from the story. I can let you stay right there. Matter of fact, I can make you a part of it, and by the time you see what I can do, you will find out that your experience with me will be better than your expectations from me. Don't cut nobody else off, but let your ex— let them experience you in a way that they will have no choice but to say, God must be inside of her, God must be inside of him. She should have cursed me out, but she prayed for me, and God messed around and answered her prayer. I might want to shut up and join that same God she got.

Because I heard David tugging on me right now.

He say, Ham, I want to be mentioned because you remember when I wrote the 23rd Psalm, when I told you that he prepares a table for me, not in the absence of my enemies, but in the presence of my enemies. That way the enemy gotta see God anoint my head with oil He gotta see God bless me. He gotta see God favor me. Stay right there and watch what God does.

I close. I'm past my time. I'm done. Fred Smith is his name. He's owner, founder, key figure in the ground transportation company called FedEx. Smith down in a dump because FedEx had a debt they could not pay. Fred Smith was told by people that you need to sell this company, you need to give up on this company, but Fred Smith couldn't change that fact. But here's what Fred Smith did. Forget this first part I'm about to tell you because y'all gonna tell me I'm a false prophet, and I don't want to fight nobody today, okay? Well, here's the true story. Fred Smith took $5,000, went to a casino, flipped it, and got $75,000. Forget that part.

I don't want y'all to tell me I'm a false prophet.

But not only did Smith go to the casino and flip that money for a pretty hefty return, Smith had some assets and he refinanced the company with what he had. I wish I could move. He couldn't change the fact, but what he could do, he could change how he operated with what he already had.

And since he had something already, he was able to take something that he already had and help eliminate the facts. Good night, and may the Lord God bless you real good. God's word to you today is that you can't always change the facts, but what you can change is how you use what you already have. And somebody today, good night, on my way down 167, I want you to change your prayer and say, God, if you're not gonna change the facts, show me what to do with what I already got. Because you already have the Spirit of God. Living on inside of you. You have the anointing of God. You have the value of God. You have the Spirit of God. You have the power of God. And if you got that, take that to your problem and watch how it goes away.

I wish I could hoop.

Because if I can hoop this thing out, Mims, you know what I would tell y'all?

I would tell you what Smith did. He couldn't eliminate the debt, but he refinanced the debt. If I could hoop, I would tell you that, because when you refinance the debt, you don't eliminate it.

You just change the way it was paid. One Friday on the hill called Calvary, we couldn't eliminate the debt that was owed, but we changed the way it was paid. It was paid with lambs, it was paid with goats, it was paid with doves. But that Friday on Calvary, it was changed the way it was paid. Who paid it, Gavin Hamms? Jesus paid it all. And all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, but Jesus washed it white as snow. Y'all better be glad I can't put this thing in E-flat, because the debt had to be paid.

We just refinanced it and changed the way it was paid.

I want to offer somebody today the opportunity to refinance your debt. It's been paid already.

You owed it, but the method of payment was different.

And that's why you come to him, because he will pay your debt and give you a new life. Where the stigmas that life has tried to put on you, it's already been paid for. When somebody bring up your past Tell them it's been paid for. When you think about what you did, tell yourself it's been paid for. Thanks be to God that it's paid for.

He's still refinancing. It's already been refinanced. Cause truth be told, when I look at my account, I ain't got it. I so don't. You wasting your time calling me because all I can tell you is I ain't got it. But Jesus heard that conversation. He said, I'm gonna come in and refinance and I'm gonna take the payment. And I want you to let— I want to let you know that you are stronger than the stick. He's paid it off. Don't you live by these labels. It's been paid. Remember that this week. He's empowered you to live beyond what you think of yourself, what people think of you. You're stronger than it. And if you're stronger than it, you should produce outcomes in spite of it. Let's give God praise today if he spoke in your life. Let's all stand. We special guest today at Pilgrim Rest at Winfield. Real clock.