Glorious Way Church

Profitable Word | Pastor John Greiner

• Pastor John Greiner

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In this midweek message, Pastor John Greiner explains what makes God’s Word “profitable”: it must be preached, truly received with understanding, and mixed with faith. He contrasts faith and unbelief through Israel’s wilderness failures and Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4, showing how fear and a hardened heart can keep believers from their “promised land” inheritance. Pastor John urges listeners to contend for God’s promises—especially in a milestone season—by resisting storms with faith-filled words, not blame or reasoning. He closes with a vivid reminder: even when you sleep, your faith keeps “paddling,” so stay in faith and keep speaking—your breakthrough is on the way.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh if you've got your Bibles, we'll just bring them out and let's lift them up and wave them around, like make Jesus glad, the devil mad. This is our custom around glorious way. And let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I'm so grateful for Wednesday night live stream. I'm grateful for the word of God. I'm grateful for my church. Glorious way church. Lord, I thank you that when the word goes forth, the power of God goes forth, revelation begins to build my faith, and I'll never be the same. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to Hebrews, Book of Hebrews, chapter 3, and uh start with verse 12. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, and yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Next verse, chapter five. Chapter three, chapter four. I'm sorry, chapter three, verse, chapter four. Let us therefore I read the wrong verses. I'm so sorry. Praise God. Let's start. I like those verses, but I jumped over too far. Okay, let's start over. Erase, that's the first mistake I've made in about 25 years. No, everybody said, boo, that's not true. All right. Let's start over. Chapter 3. I started with chapter 4. Sorry. Chapter 3, verse 12. Now that's better. Okay, now we know what we're doing. I vacillated between two different messages tonight, so that's what happened. Okay. Hebrews chapter 3, verse 12. Take heed, brethren, pay attention, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing for the living God, but exhort one another daily, which is called today, lest any of you be hardened to the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, for some, when they had heard, did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved? What who was God grieved with for forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Chapter 4, verse 1. Let us, therefore, fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. So we see here that in verse 2, the word preached did not profit them. It did not benefit them. Who's them? Well, it's it's the Israelites, it's the Jewish people. And so tonight I wanted to preach about the profitable word. The profitable word. You know, the profitable word we see here must be number one preached. Number two, it must be heard or it must be received. And really, more exactly, it must be understood. See, it's not about just hearing with these things on the side of your head. It's about uh revelation, knowledge, and your spirit. It's about understanding. So it must be preached, it must be heard, and then it must be mixed with faith. Otherwise, the hearer comes up short of the promise, and therefore the word does not benefit them the way that it should. So we have this uh drawn uh a sharp line using Israel. You know, the Bible says that that uh uh uh all these things, you told the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul told the Corinthian church, he said all these things about the Old Testament are examples that we don't repeat their mistakes. And so it's good to be uh understanding what uh the mistakes that Israel made, and and you see the difference between unbelief and faith. Unbelief kept them out of the promised land. And just so you know, it's not it's not really heaven is really not a the promised land is not talking about heaven. Promised land is talking about your inheritance, it's talking about everything that the baptism of the Holy Ghost opens up to you to receive. You receive your healing, you receive your financial supply, you receive your, you know, you you you you you're just blessed. And that is that's our that's our inheritance. And of course, um it takes faith to receive that. Unbelief keeps you out of it, faith brings you into it. Everybody say, I my faith is bringing me into my promised land. Amen. And what happened to the Israelites? Well, they hardened their heart or their spirit, they just got hardened. They got, you know, they got uh so uh difficult. They argued about everything. Uh they differed with Moses on just about every subject. They doubted him constantly, they questioned him constantly. And when they questioned Moses, they're questioning God. He was God's man, he was God's representative. And uh and so they just didn't, so they hardened their heart. The more they, the more they repeated that behavior, their heart got hardened. What does it mean to get hardened? It's just, it's it's like um uh uh Brother Hagin used to tell the story about as a young teenager, he he was about 18, 19, and he was pastoring his first church. And as a single young man, he lived with one of the families of the church, you know, that he preached in, community church. And uh that's a farming family, and uh everybody was out early before daylight, you know, to go feed the chickens and milk the cows and all the things that farmers do. But there was an old man that was that was kind of the patriarch of the family, and he would he would get up and have a boiling hot uh uh pot of coffee on an old wood stove, and Brother Hagin would get up and and later than them and and drink coffee with him. And he said he this man would just take that boiling hot coffee and just just pour it down his throat, never even sip it. I mean, he just poured that boiling hot coffee right off that wood stove down his throat. He said, you know, he didn't start off being able to do that, but over the period of time, you know, that that he that hot coffee cauterized his tongue and his and his throat and his mouth and everything to where it didn't feel it. It didn't, it was, it was no longer able to s to be sensitive to hot and cold any longer, and probably taste. I mean, he basically destroyed his ability to taste, his taste buds, and all of that. And that's what happens to our spirit, sin uh and unbelief will harden your heart and make it more uh hard. We're supposed to be tenderhearted. You know, we're supposed to be sensitive to God's ways. So unbelief angers God, but the Bible says in Hebrews 11:6, faith pleases God. So only, in fact, that's the only way to please God is to walk by faith. Unbelief always angers God. He got angry at the Israelites. He said, You know what? Since you are afraid to go in the promised land, I've got it for you. You're saying the giants are there, you're not able to overcome. I'm gonna let you die in the wilderness, and your children are gonna take your place. They're gonna go in and possess which belongs to you. And that's exactly what happened. So, everybody say the profitable word. So it's it's important, you know. We've had many words for this church. I mean, it seems like every year God gives me a prophetic word, you know, to stand on, to hang our hat on, so to speak, something to aim at, something to believe for. I just think about what an amazing word we had back. Actually, it came in September of 2019, about 2020, and and God said 2020 is going to be the greatest year yet. And we we celebrated that ahead of time, ahead of COVID. God made it had a had a place for us to believe God in the year when most people say that's the worst year of my life. Many people lost loved ones. Many people lost, you know, they were they were laid off, they had financial trouble, their kids couldn't go to school. I mean, it was a lot of trouble. Their churches closed. I mean, it was a lot of reason for people to believe that 2020 was our worst year yet, but God said, no, no, I it's gonna be your best year yet, greatest year yet. We we confessed that all the way through. And, you know, God, God, you know, God blessed us during the time. He really blessed us, and he increased our footprint. We became known all over the country because of our stand against uh being closed down for COVID and so forth and so on. And so in this year, we had a word about milestones. We're gonna celebrate our milestone testimonies coming up on December the 7th on a Sunday morning service. And so uh we have a lot of wonderful testimonies where God has done great things, not just normal things, but things that are unusual, things that are what we call a milestone. And uh, I don't know what his word is going to be for us next year, but when God gives us a word, uh, you know, it it can be a profitable word if we will mix faith with it. And that means we have to act like it's true. That means we have to believe it. So uh in Mark chapter 4, let's turn back there. Jesus gave the disciples a profitable word, and in Mark chapter 4, it was right after uh the day that he spent uh uh preaching from the boat, uh the sower sows the word, and then he sent the people all back, you know, and close the meeting. And in verse 35, the same day when evening was come, Jesus said unto them, let us pass over to the other side. So that was a profitable word. What did Jesus say? He said, Let's pass over to the other side. They're gonna go in a boat and they're gonna sail across the lake, uh uh, you know, the Sea of Galilee. And uh and so that was his word. Well, they they were, you know, they they had hardened hearts. They heard him say that. So when they had sent them away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. There were also other little ships with him, and there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat under the ship, so that it was now full. Full of what? Full of water. It's about to sink. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. I mean, he'd had a long day. He'd been preaching all day long, ministering. And uh he left it to his disciples to take care of things. He had given a word, let's pass over to the other side. Did he say, let's go out there to the middle of the lake and sink? Did he say, let's go have a shipwreck? No, he said, let's pass over to the other side. So what do they do? They they awake him, at least they awakened him, and they say unto him, Master, don't you care that we perish? And he arose and he rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. See, it was a megastorm and a mega calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? You're not happy. Unbelief angers God, angers Jesus. He never, he's never pleased. How is it that you have no faith after all day long? All day long, I preached about the sower-sows of the word. I gave you four kinds of dirt. Three kinds of dirt produce a crop failure. Only one kind of dirt produce any kind of a crop. You know, the first, the, and you know, he he had he had he had explained the parable to them. He didn't explain it to the ones he was preaching to, but he explained it to them. And he said, you know, the first one was when when you broadcast the seed out on uh out on the ground and the birds of the air come and eat up the the seed. The devil comes immediately when you have the word. He comes immediately to steal the word right out of your head, out of your heart. The word is in your heart. And if it's in your heart and the devil comes immediately to steal it, then you're gonna have a because there's no word left. You forget about the thing that was said. The second one was that it's sown into your heart, all right, but your heart is the stony ground and it doesn't have very much earth, and immediately it springs up. But when the heat of circumstances shows up, the sun shows up, the heat of circumstances, it becomes scorched, it becomes withered. See, so the first time it was a stolen word, the second time it was the scorched word, and it and and and then you don't have a crop. The third one was, well, you know, if the word of God is sown into your heart, and uh, but after a while, the the uh cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things entering in choketh the word, and it becometh unfruitful. That means it was fruitful for a while. I mean, you were having some results, maybe not maximum. Maybe the pain reduced, it wasn't all the way gone. Maybe the symptoms lessened, but they weren't all the way gone. Maybe the financial need wasn't as bad, it's still there, but not as bad. I mean, you know, you have partial results, but but those three things entering in, it chokes or strangles the word. See, you have the stolen word, the scorched word, now the strangle word, it becometh unfruitful, and you have no crop. And finally you have the the successful word where it's sown on fertile ground and it brings forth 30, 60, and 100fold. So uh pop quiz, which one of these three failed crop failures did did did they were they guilty of? Which one of the three do you figure it is? Is it number one, number two, or number three? I'll give you my opinion. Nobody wants to take my quizzes. I mean, you know, it's okay. I give you all an F minus for not even trying. Okay. It's it's number two, it's the stony ground. See, you can't say it's number one because the devil didn't steal the word out of their heart, or they never would have got out in the boat. They would have stayed on the shore. Fear would have been there all along. We're not gonna sail out there, that's too far. No, they had enough faith to get on the boat and get out there in the middle, and then the storm arose, and then so they had stony ground. They didn't have much earth, and when the heat of circumstance, when the water started coming in the boat, they started saying, Oh, we're gonna perish, master, master, wake up, wake up. So there's number two. See, the the scorched word. So, you know, they didn't mix faith with what they heard. If they had, they should have rebuked the wind. They've seen Jesus do all kinds of wonderful things. They've had a wonderful teacher. They've had someone who showed them the ropes. I mean, he's done all these things. They should have known how to take care of the, you know, the Lord told us to pass over to the other side. He didn't tell us to sink. We're not gonna sink. Let's rebuke this storm. I mean, you know, they just didn't even occur to them to do that. You know what they ask? They said, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey? They're asking the wrong questions. They should have been asking, why didn't we think of that? That's what they should have been asking. Oh, if I say the profitable word. I mean the word didn't, it didn't benefit them at all. And it's Jesus is speaking, and it didn't benefit them at all. So uh let's mix faith with this milestone year. I know we don't have, but just a few weeks left. What, five weeks left in this year, and it's fine, you know, we can have a milestone next year. I mean, we don't have to, it's not contained in just 2025, but it's gonna take mixing faith with these words. I mean, you know, God wants to bless you. He wants to let's look at 2 Thessalonians. I love this verse. 2 Thessalonians is what God wants to do. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. So here uh Paul is praying for that church, the Thessalonians. Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you or uh worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. Notice what he's praying. He's praying that God would fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness. The word fulfill there means to level up and cram full. He wants us to be leveled up and crammed full with the goodness of God. I mean, I mean, that sounds like a milestone year to me. I mean, that sounds like something that's so amazing and so notable and noteworthy. I mean, what is a milestone? Well, when you get married is a milestone, when you graduate college is a milestone, graduate high school. I mean, there's all kinds of milestones, natural milestones, but we have some milestones. How about when when you when you conquered sickness? How about when God came through with a financial blessing? I mean, praise God. I mean, God's got those for you. He wants you to be leveled up and crammed full of his goodness. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So this uh we have to contend is my point. We have to, everybody say, contend for that word. See, that means you have to resist. See, they didn't resist anything out there on that stormy water. They just immediately ran to Jesus and started whining and complaining. Why don't you even care? You know, some people don't know, you know, they they act like God's at fault, that their trouble is because of him. Well, no, it's never because of him, it's because of you. You might as well get that straight. It's never God's fault. And when you wait, when you blame God in any way, I've I've known people that that really are much much older in God than me. They've been Christians longer than I had, a good friend of mine. But he he didn't sit under the kind of teaching I did. And, you know, he would come out with these statements every now and then, and I'd always rebuke him. I knew him well enough to rebuke him. I'd say, you know, you're blaming God, what's wrong with you? I mean, you sound like the Pharisees. God's not at fault. He never makes any mistakes. He's he's got it, you've already been blessed. If you're not blessed, it's your fault, not his. He didn't like hearing it, but it was right anyway. So, no, you have to contend for this word. And you have to learn how to laugh at storms. You have to learn how to, you know, to uh, you know, rebuke pending doom and calamity. I mean, it can look bad. You say, I it doesn't look, it's not as bad as it looks. I rebuke this situation, Jesus' name. I've been saying that for several years, ever since you remember we had the freeze here a few years ago, everything froze up here in Houston. Never, never does that. We had snow. We had snow drifts in front of this church. I had pictures I have pictures of it somewhere on my phone. I mean, you know, when you get snow drifts on your church at the church here in Houston, that's kind of crazy. And it was three or four days of freezing weather, and you know, nothing's designed for that here in this part of the country, maybe in Omaha or Chicago or somewhere like that, but not Houston. And uh, but in at Brother Copeland's church, uh their their uh their alarm, their uh sprinkler alarm, that's what it was, their sprinkler system, uh froze and then broke. You know, you have to have uh, you can't turn off your sprinkler system without a permit. And how stupid is that? That's that's government run amok. And that happened to my uh Champions Golf Club. I'm a member of Champions Golf Club, I'm not a golfer, but I'm a social member, and I take people to eat there at the club. And that's what happened to them. They had they lost their entire clubhouse because they could not call. The nobody was would answer the phone during the during that time, and they couldn't get a they couldn't get a permission to turn off the spigot, and so it burst, and all that water flooded. And uh, and so uh the maintenance guy was on Victory Channel one night, and he said, you know, I walked in there and I said, you know, it's not as bad as it looks. And ever since I heard that, and it wasn't as bad as it looked, it wasn't, it looked terrible, but he was able to fix it. They were able to get it all repaired, everything turned out fine, it wasn't as bad as it looked. I've been seeing that ever since. I mean, every when people have a report from the doctor, when people have a bad, I whatever it is, I said, well, it's not as bad as it looks. You know, my my granddaughter had a had a car wreck a few years ago and life light was called, and I told Gladys, not as bad as it looks, and it wasn't as bad as it looked. Oh, let's contend and let's mix faith with what we have been told. And so I want to give you a couple of things just to remember that I picked up from Smith Wigglesworth. Anybody ever heard of Smith Wigglesworth? He's a great man to follow. He's had, I don't know how many, maybe 16 people raised from the dead. One was already in the casket, embalmed. I mean, you figure that one out. I mean, he's he's known as the apostle of faith. And one of his uh, in order to profit, I've given you two things. How many of you want to profit? See, I mean, you know, you want to you want to benefit from the word that's preached. So, in order to benefit from the word that's preached, number one, get out of the endeavor society and get into the faith society. See, endeavor is trying. See, trying is an effort, but faith is an act. Well, I'm I'm trying. No, don't try, believe. Believe and try have nothing to do with each other. Trying is just an experiment. You might succeed or you might not. I think I'll try that. No, you're not gonna try it. You're gonna believe it and you're gonna act like it's so, or you're not. See, the Endeavor Society is, you know, they're just that's all they can muster is, well, I'm I'm I that sounds so good. I believe I'll try that. It won't work. Just don't even bother because it won't work until you believe it enough to act like it's true. And so your faith operates 24-7. When you, you don't have to stay up all night long for your faith to operate. I mean, you just speak it forth before you go to bed. And uh, you know, one time I was in Galveston in one of my prayer times, and I saw this guy in a kayak and uh launching his kayak and on a real rough day, the wind was blowing real real hard out of the southeast. And that meant the surf was rough, and the waves were, it was all white all the way to the end of the jetties. And he's sitting down in this little kayak, and he's, I don't know if he had goggles on or what, I couldn't see his face, but I just know that those waves broke over the front end of his kayak and kept hitting him right in the face. And I know salt water, when it hits you like that in the face, I mean, it burns and it stings, and sometimes it gets in your nose, and that's no good either. And I mean, he really had a rough time, and he kept paddling, and I was watching, laughing at him, you know, just laughing. I thought, what in the world is he doing? Why is he a kayak belongs in the bay or it belongs on a lake or a pond. It doesn't belong in the Gulf, the Gulf of America. That's the Gulf of America. So anyway, uh so he's paddling. Finally gets out past the jetties, and now the waves are just going up. They're no longer white caps, but they're pretty deep. And he goes up like this and down like that to where I can't see him. And he's bobbing up and then down, and I can't see him, and then up and down. He just keeps paddling, and I'm laughing to myself. I'm saying, what's it, where's he gonna go? The Yucatan? Is he going to Cuba? Where's he where's he headed? I'm just laughing, just having a good time by myself and me and the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost said, That's your faith. That's a picture of your faith. When you go to sleep, that's what your faith is doing. It's paddling full steam, it never stops working for you. It's moving 24-7 to bring your confession to pass. Come on, lift your hands right now. I tell you what, if you don't quit, your faith won't quit. Praise God. Get out of the endeavor society and the faith society. And then the second one is get out of reason and get into faith. Reason, what do you mean, reason? Well, reason is the voice of the mind. Trying to figure God out. You'll never do it. You can't figure God out. There's no way. But faith is of the heart. Faith is not of the mind. Faith is of the heart. Let's look at Matthew 16 real quick. Matthew 16. Get out of reason. Into faith. A lot of Christians, they're just too mental. They too much, they do too much thinking and not enough drinking. Matthew 16. Verse 5, another one of these trips across the lake. And when his disciples, verse 5, when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It's because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because you brought no bread? Don't you remember, don't you yet understand? Remember the five loaves and five thousand, how many baskets you took up, neither the seven loaves of four thousand, how many baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then why did he speak it? He said he doesn't want that attitude. He does not want that doubtful, unbelieving attitude. He doesn't want them to be anything like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, religious, with no heart, all brain, all crania, you know, the craniotomy, you know, crane, cranial, mental about everything. No, get out of the reason, out of reason into faith. And uh and then uh in his book, he wrote this down that I I copied it down, Smith Wigglesworth. He said, Faith is an act, faith is a leap, faith jumps in, and faith claims. Faith has an author, and his name is Jesus. Isn't that good? So the profitable word mixed with faith brings you into your promised land. It brings you into your inheritance, it will bring you into your milestone year. The profitable word. Come on, let's lift our hands and receive. Praise God. Hallelujah. A little something to feed your faith on. Amen. Be encouraged. Your milestone might not have come yet, but it's on its way. You just keep on speaking. It's, you know, your faith is paddling all night tonight, all day tomorrow, even when you're not thinking about it. Your faith is working all the time. So let your speech line up with what your kayak is doing, your faith kayak. Hallelujah. Did you get anything out of this tonight?

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Praise.