Training Day

Pastor Keion Henderson is the lead pastor of The Lighthouse Church in Houston, Texas Lighthouse is an organization that serves the body of Christ through our 5 pillars. We always ANTICIPATE a move of God in every experience, so we constantly set a great ATMOSPHERE, and we ACCEPT everyone through love. We believe the best way to impact people is by being AUTHENTIC to who we are and by taking ACTION to move everyone towards greater.

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Autogenerated Transcript

Pastor Keion (00:03):
Lemme introduce to my father. I believe that we owe God a praise most anointed vessels. But today’s message as I get us started, it’s definitely applicable today. Would you all praise God for first lady of our church, Ms. Shawnee Henderson, she’s in the place today. Love you baby. Good to see you. To all the guests, to all the volunteers. It takes a lot to do this. They got to tape these wires down. They got to get here early, so can you shout for all of the volunteers and it’s just a hard thing, but we can do it. We’ve done it before and we can do it again. I want to read Acts chapter nine and 19. Normally we stand for the reading of the word of God, but I don’t want to overwork you in the culture, but next time you’re going to stand this time, I’m going to let you sit down verse 19 of Acts chapter nine and then we’re going to go to Galatians chapter one, verse 15, acts nine, verse 19 says, and when he had received meat, he was strengthened, then was saw certain days with the disciples, which were a Damascus and straight way.

(01:30):
Everybody says straight way. He preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the son of God. But all that heard him were amazed and said, listen, is this not the same dude that was killing people in the same place he’s preaching? Lemme tell you something, one of the hardest things in the world is to go back to the same place, a changed person.

(02:06):
Like when you get your life together and you go back change, then they start saying, are you acting funny and you changing and you different. The next time somebody says to you, you different. Look ’em right in the face and say, you think I worked this hard to stay the same? I did change and I changed intentionally. Paul went back to the same. People changed and they couldn’t accept it because most people can only handle you. Where they met you, they could take you single and broke. Now you got a little money and you got a boo, and now they acting funny. That might be a signal. You ain’t supposed to go back there.

(02:50):
They said, Paul, isn’t this the guy that was destroying people in Jerusalem and came for that intent that he might bound them again? But here’s what Paul did and his name is Saul now, but it will be Paul. He increased in strength and kept doing, lemme just put it in English and kept doing what he doing. Just touch your name, say keep doing what you’re doing. Alright, let’s go to Galatians one and 15. If you got it, say I got it. If you’re just going to let me read it, say go. You do it, you do it, I got it. Okay. Alright. Yes ma’am. Yes ma’am. She said, you do it. But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the heathens immediately. I ain’t asking nobody about it.

(03:55):
When he said I conferred not with the flesh and blood, he said, God told me to do it and I didn’t ask them anything, you better stop looking for people to validate you and just do what God told you to do. He says, neither were I up to Jerusalem to them, which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years, everybody say three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and I stayed there with him for 15 days. But the other apostles saw none. I didn’t see none of them except for James. And the James I’m talking about is Jesus’s brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold before God, I am not lying. Afterwards I came into the region of Syria and c Lucia and was unknown by face to the people who were in the church, but they had only heard of who I was and they heard that I was the one that persecuted that He which persecuted us in times past now preaches the gospel which he once destroyed and they glorified God in me.

(05:16):
How many of you’all will admit that in this stage of your life, people really don’t understand who you are touching. Say, I’m being misunderstood. I’m being misunderstood. I’m not who I was. I’m not who I’m going to be, but I’m not who I was. I want to use for a subject today, and it is a two word subject, not an exciting subject, but an exciting topic. I want to talk on this subject training day. Training day. And I’m not even going to mention a movie, so don’t even worry. I’m not about give a soliloquy about Denzel and the movie and the introduction, but I’m want to talk to you. Everybody say training day. Training day. So growing up, and I’m from the Midwest and from Gary, Indiana, but any Midwest people in here, man y’all look around. We coming where my theme music growing up in the Midwest, people take for granted here in Texas because y’all got so many things that the rest of the world doesn’t have.

(06:36):
Like jobs black people do Well in Houston, over 40% of the people in the town that I grew up in were unemployed. The steel mills had shut down and everybody left and the campus pastor for this campus. He and I were raised in that same place since the day we were born. My name is Keon, his name is Cion. My father was his father’s uncle, which makes us cousins. The story first cousins raised in a place that is literally a valley of dry bones and the only thing you could do when we were growing up is either be an athlete or a singer, handsome Michael Jackson in all of them. The other outlet was religious leadership. Literally a church on every corner.

(07:53):
I wanted to be a professional athlete. The Lord didn’t see the same. I was never going to be a lawyer. I didn’t want to go to school long enough, was never going to be a doctor. I can’t look at your blood. I can look at mine, but I can’t look at yours. Called to preach the gospel at the age of 14. There was one other option that I considered, but I didn’t consider it long and that was joining the military for about five minutes. It was a Thursday from five to 5 0 5. I was never going. And the reason why I was intrigued by going is because they recruited a lot of us at our high schools, middle schools and they tried to get us to go and because there was no way out, they talked about free education and they talked about how much money you could make in the,

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And we were poor and my mother was working at fast food restaurants and so were we. Then I thought making $40,000 a year. At that time I thought if I could just make $40,000 a year, I would be able to take care of my whole family. That’s how far down we come from. So I considered going to the military and I remember hearing all of these slogans. You remember the few, the proud the Marines, they tried to recruit you too. Okay. I remember hearing Born Ready, that was the Coast Guard. They tried to recruit us. I’ve been to all of these meetings. I remember hearing be all you can be. Which one was that? So y’all went to the meeting too.

(09:46):
But the branch that I was most intrigued by, not the Air Force, it was the Navy and the reason why I wanted to be go to the Navy, it wasn’t the Navy. It was been a Navy seal that I want the ones that got Osama bin Laden, the elite group. I want to come in off a helicopter and I want to drop in the night with night vision goggles on pop pop. Shoot you two times and be back home before you even know you. Dead seals is what’s up? If you meet somebody and you say, Hey man, what do you do for a living? I’m in the Army. You’re going to say thank you for your services. If you meet somebody, they say, I’m a Navy seal. You’re going to be like, what? Because the Navy Seal, it’s, it’s a specialized division. They just have the mystique of being just a little bit above the rest.

(10:47):
And I considered doing it until they told me what you have to do to become one. Oh man, the free danishes were amazing and the probability that I was going to receive a job and get a free education was tantalizing. It was good for my mind. But when I went to the meeting to find out what you had to do to become one, I immediately knew in the spirit that I was not going, and my mother will tell you this is a true story. I even found out two ways that I could actually employ to keep from being drafted. Number one, I was my mama’s only son.

(11:41):
Number two, the arch in my foot wasn’t big enough and they didn’t send people to war who had flat feet. So I haven’t wanted an arch ever since I’ve been little. I literally employed those two ideas and I considered being a Navy seal. And then the recruiter told me, he says, listen. He says that the training for a seal is not designed to get you in shape. You have to be in shape before they let you in training. Oh, this is good. This is good because there are some levels in life that if you’re going to do well in, you can’t practice on certain levels. You got to be ready before the level lets you in.

(12:34):
I asked him, I said, what is the training for becoming a Navy seal? He says, don’t ask me about the training. He says, let me tell you what you have to do in order to make it to training day number one, you have to be able to run a mile and a half in nine minutes and 30 seconds light work. No, that’s easy. No, back then running a mile in about five 50, that’s light work. That’s no problem. That’s no issue right now. I could run a mile in six and a half minutes. I wasn’t worried about nine 30, no problem. I said, all right, I’m good. Alright, 15 pull-ups, 75 sit-ups, 75 pushups. Good, I’m good. I can be a seal. I can do all of that right now. I can do it right now. Then he said swim 500 yards. All right, okay, alright. This is not for me. I don’t know about y’all. I can swim, but I’m tired by the time I get to the other end of the pool. Anybody hear this? Five football fields of a breaststroke in nine minutes and 30 seconds. And I knew then that it was not the father’s good pleasure that I’d be a seal because I’m a swimmer, but I’m a black swimmer. Now, come on black people.

(14:03):
No, y’all ain’t going to talk to me in here. See black people, number one. That’s the reason why we can’t swim because all of y’all who can’t swim, you swim with your head above the water and that ain’t swimming. Only thing you okay with is the back of your head getting it, but you’re trying to keep it from all of the edges. And when they told me I had to swim 500 yards, listen in 50 degree water. Now black people, do you know your temperatures water at 70 degrees is cold to us. If you ever got in water and you were comfortable, I guarantee you that water’s about 85 degrees plus because we don’t do well with cold water. So I can’t swim 500 yards. I definitely can’t do it in cold water. I definitely cannot do it in the ocean and I definitely cannot do it outside. And then I found out that I was not ready for this level because I couldn’t handle the training.

(15:17):
I was in love with the mystique of being a seal, but I never achieved it because I was discouraged by the process. Come here, don’t go nowhere. I was dispirited by the process. I was deflated by the process. And it is time that we recognize that training is actually the thing that God puts in the earth to separate the well-intentioned from the well-qualified. It’s why in order to be a doctor, you can’t just go to college, you have to go to medical school. It’s the reason why if you don’t pass the bar, you cannot call yourself a lawyer just because you took a couple of law classes in college, you actually have to pass the exam. Why? Because it is the training. Talk to me that separates the well-informed and the well intention from the well qualified. If it were not for training, we wouldn’t know who Muhammad Ali was.

(16:24):
He was not made in the boxer ring. He was made in training. It was Michael Jordan who could not make his high school team, but he went back and trained and became one of the greatest players to ever live. Anybody ever heard of a man called Michael Kittrich? Michael Kittrich is a man who went in his garage and melted crayons until he can find a way to create a candle. And every one of you all have bought a Yankee candle and now he’s worth $3 billion. Why? Because he went through the training. Somebody say training. Training. Listen, you cannot get to the top of anything without surviving the basic training. Training is the process that teaches you the language that’s necessary to achieve your destiny. And I don’t know who I’m talking to in this place today, but what you don’t recognize is you have misdiagnosed and misdefined what you’ve been going through. You call it trouble. God calls it training.

(17:24):
You call it stress. God calls it training. You called it a divorce. God called it training. You called it bankruptcy. God called it training. Touch your neighbor and say, I’m not struggling. I’m just in training. I’m not broke. I’m just a millionaire in training. I’m not single. I’m just a wife in training. Y’all not talking to me. I need everybody to slap somebody. Say I’m in training, I’m in. You think it’s stress. It is training. You think you’re stressed out. That’s called training. And the reason you do’s training because you want to quit. I didn’t get fired. I was training to be a C E O.

(18:24):
That wasn’t a breakup. It was training. Next time you get in a bad relationship and y’all break up, don’t go on Instagram and start talking about I’m getting all the toxic people out of my life. It is a breakup conversation. Everybody you can tell who just broke up with somebody about how they post. God told me to care more about myself. It’s me season. It’s me season. No, you just had a breakup. Now come on. The next time it happens to you, I want you to go on Instagram and say, I’m in training. Tell everybody on your role. I’m in training, I’m in training, I’m in training. I’m in training. God is training me. See, he’s training me. If I don’t get this training, I got a bad temper. I’m training. I’m training. See, he’s trying to tip me on this level or test me on this level so that I don’t blow it when I’m on this level. So you always have to train down here before you can win up here. Somebody say, I’m in training, I’m in training, I’m in training. Watch this. And the true test of training that you cannot tell right away that you’re making progress.

(19:32):
Oh, I can stay right there because if training worked right away, all of y’all would be in the gym. What if training went this way, went to the gym one bench press and walked out? Sw, how many of y’all will be in the gym right now, one lunch and your legs look like you want ’em to look One, sit up. I mean, how many of y’all be like after this sit up, I’m going to be fine. Just fine. It don’t work like that. Training requires you to trust it even when it doesn’t trust you. Training, if I could go to the gym and work out and see the muscles before I get home, I would do it all the time. But this is what separates the fit from those who are not. It is because when you are training, you have to be okay with delayed gratification. You have to be okay with knowing that you’re not going to look like you want to look just because you’re doing what it takes to look like

Pastor Keion (20:59):
That

Speaker 2 (21:00):
You’re going to have to wait and they that wait.

Pastor Keion (21:03):
Come here.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Training requires

Pastor Keion (21:09):
That you wait. And anybody in here who trains will tell you bodies are not built in the gym. They’re built in the kitchen because many of you,

Speaker 2 (21:24):
You do pray

Pastor Keion (21:25):
Hard or you stay around negative people

Speaker 2 (21:31):
And you do have a journal and you do have a devotional, but everything you consume is negative. And so now here you are burning calories but not gaining tenacity because you’re taking in more than you are letting out. I’m going to preach in a minute. Everybody say, I’m in training, I’m in training, I’m in training, I’m in training. And training requires patience. How many of you all have a

Pastor Keion (21:59):
Patience issue? You just have a hard time waiting. Lemme tell you, I don’t need this one. This hand right here, I say,

Speaker 2 (22:09):
You see where my hand was? I said, some of y’all move on. If you have a patience

Pastor Keion (22:15):
Issue, let me see your hands. The Bible specifically says they that wait on the Lord.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Do you

Pastor Keion (22:23):
Know how frustrating it is to God for you to have a problem waiting on him and

Speaker 2 (22:33):
He has

Pastor Keion (22:33):
Been all of your life

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Waiting.

Pastor Keion (22:40):
Oh,

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Don’t act like you ain’t never made him. Wait, I’m working on it. Jesus, give me some time. The Lord know my heart. But when you want God to act,

Pastor Keion (22:56):
Many of you will want the benefits of this sermon by the time you get home today. But God told me to tell you we’re in training. Somebody say training. Training history proves that Paul was the greatest missionary to ever live, but it wasn’t because

Speaker 2 (23:11):
He could preach

Pastor Keion (23:12):
And it wasn’t

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Because he could write.

Pastor Keion (23:14):
It was because he survived all of his

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Training days. He got

Pastor Keion (23:19):
Bit by a

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Snake that was training three times he was

Pastor Keion (23:24):
Shipwrecked.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
That was training you remember they beat him and left him for dead.

Pastor Keion (23:32):
They looked up. He was in the next city preaching. That

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Was training. What if I told you every thing you are going through is training for what God is going to take you to? And if you cannot survive this, you cannot have that training. And here’s the thing about training that you should know. Never forget this scripture as long as you live. First Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. The Bible says there have no temptation taken you but such as coming to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you or allow you. Watch this to suffer beyond that What you can take that word tempted means watch this. Suffer means to be exposed to. In other words, God listen to me, will never expose you to anything that doesn’t have an exit.

(24:50):
Everybody look in the back. You see those red letters above every door. What does it say? You know why it’s there? Having built a building, I know now that the law requires you to show people how to get out of things. They got in and God says, you think that I am less than the government. I have never allowed the devil to box you into anything without requiring him to engineer a exit. So that if you will call on my name, you can get out of it. I don’t know who I’m talking to, but let me give you the end before the beginning. Whatever you in you’re getting out of it. If you ain’t sitting next to nobody who’s shouting with you right now, you got the wrong neighbor. I want you to look at one of your neighbors. I’m talking about the one you like, the one that been smiling and the one that’s talking to you. Look ’em right in the face and tell ’em, God told me to tell you. You about to get out of this thing. If they didn’t say nothing, you got the wrong neighbor. You need somebody who got the Holy Ghost in they belly. Look and find somebody who ain’t acting stuck up and ain’t not talking to you because they don’t know you and just look at ’em and tell ’em, God told me to tell you, you are going to get out of this.

(26:11):
Did they move? Did they move? They didn’t move because they so used to being in, they wouldn’t know out if out. Call them on the phone. I just need all of the loose people in this place who will recognize that by this time next week, everything that the devil meant for evil, God is about to turn it around for my good. Touch. Your neighbor. Say, I’m in training, baby. I ain’t stressed out and I ain’t crying. These are tears of joy. I just recognize that all things work together for good of them that love the Lord. And the call, God says, God says this. He says, I’m going to give you insurance and assurance. What’s the difference? He says, insurance is just in case, but assurance is because, let me say it again. Insurance is just in case. Assurance is just because. So I’m going to bless you just in case and I’m going to bless you just because I’m going to give you some money just in case some things happen, but I’m going to give you some money just because I love you. I’m going to bring you out of some things just in case the devil tried to keep you in it. But I’m going to bring you out of some things just because you my child, I need somebody to give God a, just because worship somebody shout, I ain’t in pain. I’m in training. I’m not in depression. I’m in training. I wasn’t rejected. They were training me not to want people that don’t want me.

(28:00):
They didn’t break up with me. They were training me to stop settling for beneath my pr. Y’all make me. I will shout all over this place. Somebody shout, I’m in training. Somebody said there wasn’t no divorce that was training, that wasn’t a bankruptcy, that was training. That’s why David said it was good that I was afflicted, that I might learn the statues of God. Until you recognize that even when it’s bad, it’s all good. Can I tell you something? One thing I know about God, God never stops until all is well, which means if all ain’t well, God ain’t done all. You missed every word that just came out of my mouth. I said, if it ain’t all good in your life, it’s because God ain’t done in your life. Let the weak say, I’m strong. Let the poor say I am rich. Here’s one writer said, he says, I put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, which means that I’m going to worship until I see what I’ve been praying for.