Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth
This message is a continuation of the message I shared with you a few weeks ago. Within that message I shared with you how Joseph’s pit was by divine design. Joseph needed the pit in order to obtain the palace, in turn our pits are meant to be a foundation for the promises God has for us. Sometimes we got to go through some things in order to be strong enough to hard up our blessings.
The greater scope of the pit was linked all the way back to Abraham and to this very text. In order to fulfill this promise God would design a plan that would stretch across generations; including the very pit Joseph was placed in too.
Now I am not saying that everything we go through is a Divine Design, some of life’s problems are just that, some things that happen to us are just part of living, hang nails are hang nails, … There was an old Disney cartoon where Donald blamed “fate” for all his mishaps, and it turned out “fate” was a real person and was tired of being blamed for everything. Not everything that happens to us is the result of the enemy or the result of God. Some things are just life! Jesus said In the world ye shall have tribulation:
The moments that are by design, are those that Jer 29:11 …to give you an expected end. Some situations, events, and even people have been placed by design. Pilate was where he was only to fulfill the plan of salvation. John 19:10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?(11) Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
What I am showing you from that message and today’s message is that God is in control and is ordering your footsteps…
I. Unlikely Choice.
A. God chooses an unlikely choice in the man Abram who was from Ur of the Chaldeans and He speaks to him promising to bless him and through him to bless the entire race of humanity. It is through this one man that God’s plan is set in motion for mankind’s restoration.
1. It is interesting to me that God would choose someone like Abram to play such an important role in the redemptive plan. The same one that made it into the “Hall of Faith”, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:” (Heb 11:8-9 AV)
2. I mean, I’ve often wondered why God would choose the son of a famous idolater, his wife can’t even have children; you would think that there would be a little more to him to back his legitimacy as the ‘father of the faith.’ God chooses someone who seems to have a lot of baggage coming with them. It does not make since, why not use some one that is established and has a reputation as a man of God. Conventional wisdom tells us to look for the one with the most qualifications. We would not place a drug addict, prostitute, and … (ex.) into the white house to lead this country so why would God use someone that does not fit the resume.
B. The reason why God does not check the resume and use the most qualified is because God wants to build up the one He chooses from the ground up. He chooses people who are already on the ground. Architects will tell you the higher the building is going to go; the lower they must dig. When you are on the ground floor you can’t get any lower it’s “up” from their baby.?
1. God seeks people who will never challenge His glory. He seeks to choose people who know that they are where they are not by anything that they have done, but because of what God has done for them. See He needs to get you to a place where you do not question His guidance, His hand, or His presence that directs you to your final destination.
2. God says to Abram (the one that is from the wrong side of the tracks, the one that does not come from a proper family, the husband of one who is barren) ‘I am going to bless you: I am going to use you.’ God was saying to Abram, “I know that there is nothing that you see in yourself that will be able to make this happen. I know there is nothing about you that would make you say, “I’m the right candidate”, but Abram that’s alright because I’m going to make it happen.”
II. Your Make UP
A. You need to understand something about your DNA, your make up. DNA determines everything about you from your hair to the hair on your toes… (ex.)
1. DNA is complex it is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints, like a recipe or a code.
a. Within this complex structure is all the information about us. It controls everything about our makeup from the good to the bad. Some of us can have duplicate, missing, or damaged information that can be both good and bad.
B. I am giving you this genetic lesson to help you understand that within this complex strand is a hidden gene that links you to God. Ge 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: when God made man He fashioned us together with His DNA, we all carry His likeness and attributes and genes. When Adam and Eve fell and sin was introduced into our DNA, causing a devastating restructuring that introduced all the junk we are dealing with and turning off the spiritual DNA code that caused it to go dormant.
1. Even though sin has separated us from God, man will search for a god, rather it is jobs, cars, money, or other material things. Placed within man is the need to serve and worship, sin pushes us to other things because it knows we were created to seek God so it tries to feel that void with idols.
2. God devised a plan that would jump start and reactivate His DNA in us. That plan came in the form of Christ dying for us it was that blood transfusion at the Cross that would reactivate my place as a son of God and a joint heir with Jesus.
3. No longer am I a son of the falling, but a son of the redeemed, an heir, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that (would) shew forth the praises of him who hath called (you and me) out of darkness into his marvellous light:
4. No longer am I an outsider but an insider, my path has changed, no longer am I in the dark, but in the light. I have an inheritance and all His promises apply to me. You could say that my DNA is now Destiny, Nature, and Authority in God. That’s another message for another time but let me say this…
a. That means I got a place and a position in the Kingdom as a King’s Kid. I may be a shepherd boy now but the throne is on my horizon. Just because I am in a pit now; I’m still on my way to the palace.
b. Don’t discount the days of small begins. You have a destiny, and the nature of God is a winning one. We are more than conquerors, we are over comers and are victors in Christ: No matter what the weapon is I want you to know that if I won’t doubt he’ll bring me out If I obey he’ll make a way If I believe I will receive Everything he promised me (I win) I win.
c. I have been given the keys to the Kingdom, and have the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. I have been authorized and deputized to use the name of Jesus, all hell has to bow at that name. When the Devil starts messing God starts blessing; he can’t mess with God’s blessed!
C. Let me help you understand that God blesses us and chooses to work through us even though we have so little to offer to Him. All He ever needs is just us because He plans to make something out of us. The word “make” in Hebrew is (bara) it is a word of creativity, it implies something being brought into being when nothing was available.
1. Creation implies that there is nothing available and then God reaches into the availability of nothing, puts His hand into nothing, grabs something out of nothing, and makes something out of the nothing that was available.
2. Nothing never gets puffed up with pride, Nothing never gets beside itself, Nothing doesn’t cut God out of the equation, Nothing has nothing but time to be used, Be careful what you conclude about what you think I can become based upon what you see. It may look like to others you don’t have much to offer, but you serve a God Who specializes in taking nothing and making something out of nothing.?
3. Now the reason why some of you should have shouted a little more than that is because you know you were nothing on your way nowhere doing nothing but hanging around nobody’s and then God reached into the nothingness of your life and fashioned something out of you; something that would show forth His Praises, something that would show He’s a healer, deliver, redeemer, a way maker, … (ex).
D. Do you know what this means? God has been working on you before you arrived on the scene. It didn’t happen by mistake, chance, or happenstance or accident. God has had a plan for your life… Isaiah 49:1 says …The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. Jeremiah 1:5 declares ‘before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.’ Ga 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called [me] by his grace.
E. How He let you come here, Who He let you come here through, and who you had to deal with to get where you got, was all ordered by God because, The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the LORD.??
1. I’m trying to help someone who has allowed governmental statistics and peoples oversized opinions of you that suggest that where you are born determines what you will become.?You need to know that where you are born and what you are born with has nothing to do with what God can make of you. God can take those of us that were born with plastic spoons in our mouths and make them silver.
2. Don’t worry about your past cause when you get to where He’s going to take you; you can look back at the circumstances you have been dealt and what you had to go through and declare ‘if it had not been for the Lord on my side’.
3. I’m trying to help somebody better understand that your yesterday that you keep trying to wish away, you don’t need to be ashamed of your background, because it is everything that you have been through that has qualified you for what God is making you.
F. He’s been making you a blessing; making your name great; God has been directing the drama of your life the entire time. How do you think you’ve come out of some of the things you have been through? Because just about the time that the Devil was going to take you out the Director of the Drama stood up and said “CUT”. That is why the situation didn’t kill you, because the Director said ‘cut’—it was a part of the making of process. That’s why the relationships, circumstances, and setbacks took something out of you but did not take you out, because the Director said ‘cut’. That is why no weapon that has been formed against you has prospered.??
1. That is why what was meant for your evil has been turned for your good. You’re going to go through some things because God is getting you ready for some greater things. And now that every time you’ve come across a rough situation, God is going to use it to give you strength to manage on the next level, everything that comes at you is a part of your destiny.
a. I know you are looking at others and wishing you had it made like them, but you don’t know all the hell they went through to get there. You see the finished product but you never saw the behind the scenes, when they were struggling like you.
b. Some of you are in “post production” that’s a term they use in movies. It’s when all the filming is done and now they are putting the finished product together. You do not know it yet but it is all about to come together, you’re just in post production right now.?
2. Yes, you had to cry when everybody else was partying, You had to work when everybody else was on vacation, you had to catch a ride when everybody else was driving by, you had to go to the movies by yourself when everybody else had a date, you had your lights cut off when everybody else had money to spare. But every time you struggle, I declare to you that another blessing was being made.
a. While everybody else was having a good time, you were learning how to call on God, lean on God, cry out to God, depend on God, labor for God, give to God. Your set backs are set ups for God to show up and show out. Ec 7:8 Better [is] the end of a thing than the beginning thereof:
b. Is there anybody in here who can say that ‘everything I’ve been through, God has been making me who I am? So that when I look back over my life I can say…I thank God for the mountains; I thank God for the valleys; I thank Him for the troubles that He brought me through, for if I never had a problem, I’d never know God could solve them, I’d never know what faith in God can do, so through it all I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God, through it all. God is making something out of ME.??
III. You are being placed and positioned for God’s provision.
A. In first Kings 17; God tells Elijah to go east and hide by the brook Cherith. Cherith means in the Hebrew a “cutting” or more literally a separation. Elijah is going to separate himself from Israel and hide under God’s protection.
1. Every day the ravens were commanded to bring him food and everyday he drank from the brook. Elijah had it made. His needs were being taken care of, he was hidden, he was fed, and he had water to drink while the rest of Israel was under the judgment of severe drought. But then things change and the brook dries up.
a. The same thing can happen to us; our brook may dry up. Things may not be the best, but our needs are being taken care of, but then suddenly, without warning, our brook dries up.
2. What we thought was going to continue, what we took for granted, suddenly is gone. The Bible says that this occurred because there was no rain in the land, but God was still in control. If God can command ravens, He could have commanded that brook to continue to flow, even during dry times. God gave water to a million Israelites and their flocks in the desert; surely He could have given water for one man for a period of time.
a. It was not God’s will for Elijah stay at Cherith, for there were still greater miracles to perform. Elijah doesn’t raise the dead at Cherith, he does where God is calling for him to go. There were greater miracles in store for Elijah and that was why God was moving him from Cherith to someplace else.
B. When your brook dries up, it is because God has some greater miracles in store for you, but in order to get you there, He has to dry some things up to help motivate you to move on and move forward.
1. I believe that God will speak to us if we will just listen. God will give us direction, if we will just listen. When our brook dries up, when things have changed and we don’t know the reason why, we are still expected to obey God when He speaks; if we will listen.
2. God did not give Elijah the total plan, He just sent His word and Elijah obeyed. We cannot wait around for God to tell us the next step, when we have not obeyed the first one. That’s what we like isn’t it? “God, I understand that You want me to do this, but what about next?”
a. God did not tell Elijah His entire plan, Elijah was just to obey. We are told that the just walk by faith. He chose obedience, though it meant severe hardship.
b. Right here, in the life of Elijah, comes one of those commands from God, that if ever would have caused Elijah to question God, this would have been it. God told him to arise and go to Zarephath. Zarephath was over a hundred miles away. From where Elijah was located, to get to Zarephath meant he had to go through the mountains of northern Israel to get there; especially in the middle of a drought. It wasn’t an easy place to get to from where Elijah was located. How guilty we are of always wanting God to lead us in the easiest way possible.
3. It’s like, God, I want You to work in my life, but don’t inconvenience me. One of the sign of our religious life in America is that of an easy, inconvenient lifestyle. We want God to operate, but only in our comfort zone. Elijah may have not have everything he wanted at Cherith, but he certainly was in a comfort zone.
a. He had meals on wings provided for him and he was comfortable. THAT is the biggest obstacle to having our needs met by God. Our own comfort level. We’d rather deal with the hassles of old problems than the challenge of new solutions. True our present situation isn’t all it should be…but at least it’s familiar and it is comfortable! Remember that God had bigger miracles in the life of Elijah, Elijah is going to raise the dead at Zarephath, not Cherith. But to get to that place of greater miracles, God may lead us in a way that we don’t necessary like. He may take us the most illogical way possible, He may take us the very way that we don’t want to go, but He has His purpose.
b. God doesn’t do things our way, He does them His way for He is God and faith recognizes that God is God. That’s what faith is, recognizing God is God and He knows what is best. So Elijah obeyed and walked by faith. Faith=obedience.
C. The brook drying up started Elijah on this journey, God has moved him out of his comfort zone. We wonder and question God when our brooks dry up. Maybe it’s a job that plays out unexpectedly, maybe its health problems that crop up unexpectedly, or maybe it’s a crisis that dries up the tranquility of our lives, but God is still in control. God provided for Elijah at the Brook Cherith for God was his source, and at Zarephath, God provides for Elijah for He is still his source.
1. If you want to see God’s provision in your drought… put Him first in every area of your life… physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially. When Elijah was at the brook God called the ravens to feed him; ravens are a type of sin/death/or the devil. When you are in your place God can make the devil bless you.
2. However you may feel about where you are I want to encourage you in the fact that you are “Placed and Positioned for provision”. God has put you in your place for a reason. It doesn’t look like much now, because you just see the preview the main attraction is about to play out. Don’t stay in the dry places waiting for the former to happen again, it served its propose, but now God is sending you to your next provision.
IV. God’s position requires that you step into your purpose.
A. My opening text is referred to as the Abrahamic Covenant; which we are entitled to because we are joint heirs and have been grafted in. When Christ was pierced and blood and water flowed out of His side that was symbolic of Jews and Gentiles being grafted to Christ for reconciliation. That means I am on His side. God lays a promise on Abram about what He’s going to do with his life. He lays a promise on Abram about his future. Heb 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
B. God was saying to him, “Now Abram I’m going to show you something, I’ve got blessings waiting on you. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. I’ve got a future prepared for you; greater than anything you’ve ever experienced. I’ve got a future designed for you more awesome than anything you’ve ever walked in. I’ve got a destiny waiting on you greater than anything you’ve ever been through’ But here is the piece to the puzzle: God makes the promise; but Abram must participate in the production. He has to “Walk it out”.
1. You see, God has carved out a future that is far greater than anything Abram has ever experienced. And you need to know today that God wants to by way of a covenant, use and bless you. Ga 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. He wants to enlarge your territory. He wants to give you favor and increase. He wants to do things for you you’ve never seen before. He has a future waiting on you greater than anything you’ve ever experienced. He’s got miracles and blessings waiting on you that will blow your mind.
2. God has some things waiting on you. He’s got some blessings and miracles; He’s got some healing, some deliverance; He’s got some joy, some anointing; He’s got a calling for you; you need to know that there’s a future waiting on you. But you can’t name it and claim this one; you can’t call it and haul it; you can’t blab it and grab it; you can’t throw money on the pulpit and get it; you can’t slap some oil on and receive it---with THIS one—You’ve got to step out…You’ve got to participate in bringing it to pass. There’s an old song that says, “It takes two to make a thing go right”.
C. There is something to be said of walking with God, you do not read of folks running with God. You ever tried talking to someone while you were running; you lose connection with that person because you are trying to keep up. God is not running from us, He is walking with us, taking the time to listen to hear from us.
1. In Jos 1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses, even though the land had been promised to Israel, they had to do something themselves; they were going to have to walk out their promise the entire length and breadth of it. In other words, they were going to have to take some action in order to enjoy their promise that meant if they wanted the entire inheritance they had to work for it, they were too walk it out!
a. We got to walk by faith. God’s request may not always make since at first. However, if we walk by faith, there will be times when we are going to scratch our heads and want to tell God, “God, are You out of Your mind? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
b. To obey by faith is not always going to be the most logical thing to do. I mean, it’s not logical to attack a city by marching around it 13 times, it’s not logical for a small shepherd boy to fight a giant, It does not make since to dip seven times or wash mud out of our eyes. These things don’t make a lot of sense to us, but to God they do. The foolish things of God will always confound the wise.
2. You’ve got to work with God in getting the blessing in your hand. Faith only works if you walk it out. The destiny will only come if you step out. The first step is leaving that which is familiar and heading into the unknown. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. God doesn’t tell us the end, He doesn’t show us everything in our destiny, He just asks us to walk and live by faith. If you read the Bible you will see that whenever God blesses there is partnership in productivity.
3. God ain’t going to just drop stuff in your lap—I’m sorry. We’ve been listening to some people who say just quote a little scripture, buy a handkerchief, etc. and in seven days you are going to get it. But in that seven days you better be doing your part. Is there anybody in here who is ready to step into your future/purpose/promise? Ready to walk by faith and not by sight. Ready to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh, to walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.
a. Is there anybody ready to be “Positioned for Purpose”; Ready to go into the unknown…your destiny… into a deeper level of God’s presence/anointing/blessings. Ready to walk away from distractions and hindrances, ready to leave your comfort zone and people that have been weighing you down. Ready to accept your DNA!
