In “Get Ready For Something Better,” we’re reminded that what God says about us is more important than what the world says.

In John 11:35, Jesus is going to see these sisters
named Mary and Martha. Their brother died, and

Jesus didn’t show up when they thought he would
or when they thought he should. And he could,

and they thought he should, but he didn’t,
and they were crying. Now, Jesus did not say

to the sisters what your dad might have
said to you that my dad would say to me.

“If you don’t stop crying…” Finish it.
“…I will give you something to cry about.”

(Y’all look traumatized. I felt trauma. Your
shoulders got tense when you said that.)

He didn’t say that. He

wept with them. He weeps with me. He knows my
disappointments. They don’t have to stay hidden.

I can bring them right out
in the light of day, because

he knows the deeper disappointment behind the
disappointment that created the disappointment.

He knows the descendants of my disappointment.
He knows what disappointment led to what

disappointment. Jesus did an ancestry tree on all
of the things I’m frustrated about, and he sees

all of that. He knows the real template that’s
driving my behavior. He knows the same about you.

He knows why you push people
away who are trying to love you.

You don’t even know why you do
that yet. It’s a mystery to you.

You don’t even know why yet when things get good
in your life, you find some way to screw them up.

He knows why. It’s because you figure “Rather
than let somebody else take it away from me,

like happened last time, I’ll just take it away
from myself. I will take my ball and go home.

I will take my blessing and go home.”

Watch this. If your template is “Every
relationship ends in pain or betrayal,”

you will start creating the very thing that you
fear to avoid being surprised by it ever again.

The template of these people was
a temple that had so much gold

they had to start putting gold in
weird places, like the washbasin.

They made Solomon’s temple’s washbasin
gold, just because God is that glorious.

So, then they start building the new one.
“Ah, we’re going to build a temple.” “Oh,

we’re going to get our life together.” “Oh, we’re
going to lose 20 pounds.” Do you know what the

hard thing about keeping weight off is? Nobody
congratulates you for not putting it back on.

“Oh, you’ve lost weight.”

Nobody has ever said to
me, “You still look decent.

It has been six years and you haven’t fluctuated.
Your jeans look the same size. That’s awesome.

Good job.” Nobody compliments you
when the jeans stay the same size.

That’s what’s difficult. They’re not just

rebuilding a temple. God is
reinventing their template

and their identity. They’ve been in Babylon
so long they have forgotten the songs of Zion.

They’ve been on pandemic, on church online
so long they don’t even remember how to be

in a crowd without being scared of
catching their death around people.

Do you see why I have no patience with people
who say the Bible isn’t relevant to our day?

Is this not us? Not only have you been rebuilding
what was destroyed in the last two years, you’ve

had to reinvent. You have the same title, but
it’s a completely different template for your job.

I talked to the campus pastors when
they were calling church members,

and we couldn’t pray for people and lay hands on
them. I said, “This sucks for you, doesn’t it?

You signed up to do ministry with people, and now
you’re basically running a call center, because

you can’t touch, and touch was your template
for ministry.” It was so hard to reinvent.

It has been hard for me to
reinvent my identity as a pastor.

For years, my adult identity for my ego… In high
school it was “How much do you bench press?”

Then as a pastor it’s “How many people come to
your church?” I went from bench to attendance.

“Oh yeah. You have 10,000? I remember those
days. Small beginnings. That’s all right.

Don’t be discouraged. The Lord will give you 20.”
Can I get a 30? Can I get a 40? Can I get a 50?

Wait a minute. Now you’re talking about…
I was coming up in the church wondering

if anybody would come back.

I mean, after training behavior… I’m not fussing
at anybody who comes online, because really,

God has given us a template for ministry now that
we can reach you wherever you are. I praise God

for it. I mean, there are some places we can’t
put a building, but I can preach the Bible.

God can give you a breakthrough
where there is no church building.

Now God is expanding the territory of the
church. I hear from Zimbabwe and Sao Paulo,

Brazil, about this ministry. I hear
from everywhere. I hear from Kentucky.

God is good. Sometimes God says, “Your template
is too small for what I want to do.” This is not

a temple built by human hands. This is a temple
that his name in heaven is unknown to men,

but it is revealed to us. It is a shadow of Jesus
Christ. Wow! [Audio cuts off] It’s a text about

reinventing. It’s a text about
temples. It’s a text about templates.

It’s a text about trauma. It’s a text
about tears. There’s a time for tears.

If sadness was a sin, Jesus couldn’t
have died for yours, because he cried.

Disappointment doesn’t make you wrong. Anger
doesn’t make you wrong. There is just as much

of a danger of stuffing it and letting
it come out sideways than letting it out.

I hate to hear preachers say, “You don’t
need therapy and counseling. All you need

is the Holy Ghost.” The blood is on our hands
when we talk like that, because God uses all

of that in people’s lives. It’s all a part of
the process that he uses. As a matter of fact,

that’s so dumb. Let’s take that to the extreme.
“You don’t need airplanes. All you need is the

Holy Ghost.” I don’t see any preachers flying to
their preaching engagements with their own wings.

It’s so stupid. God uses stuff. Even in the
text I read, it said the word of the Lord came

through Haggai. Sometimes the help you need,
the healing you need, comes through people.

I treat my daughter differently than my sons,
and sometimes I have to catch myself, because

they’ll remind me. “You’re too easy on Abbey.
It wasn’t like that for us.” And they’re right.

For them it was “Dry it up.” For her it’s
like, “I’ll buy you one. Don’t worry about it.”

What’s wrong with me? It’s different raising
boys and girls. It’s like a different template.

It’s different. So, what God is trying
to get the people to do in Haggai 2

is not just to build what they had before
but to get ready for something better.

So, all this time you’re spending wishing it
would be like it was before is completely wasted,

because God is not going to
make it what it was before.

If he listened to you and made it what it
was before, he couldn’t make it better.

The Bible says we go from glory to glory
as we are being transformed by the image

of God. Not your image of what God is supposed
to be like. Not your template of what you were

told God was like when you were 7. Not your
template of what men have always been or

women have always been or church has always
been. God is not consulting your template.

It will be according to his truth. “God, what
is your truth?” That’s what I want to be my

blueprint. I have to get in the Word and find
out what God said about me before what people

said about me became a faulty template to keep
me trapped and buried in the rubble of yesterday.

It’s going to be better. Sometimes the
enemy of better is not bad; it’s before.