Faith Believes God is Sovereign

0 (3s): Holy spirit. What'd you just come now and just calm our hearts and minds to help us to just take captive. Every anxious thought this morning, we welcome you to your way. Thank you. You promise to be in our midst when we gather, and when we worship you, as we lift our hearts and our voices, all of our cares and concerns to you, God, would you meet us with your presence? Power change. Set us free. 0 (44s): Want to draw near, see you this morning and experience your holiness and goodness, your grace and your mercy. 0 (1m 4s): might be hard to believe what we're singing. 0 (11m 33s): Do you believe he's good today? Do you believe he's never going to let you down? Maybe some of you do feel like God let you down, you know, and that's okay. I love that. Actually, the Bible gives us that example on the song, this David songs, if you read one song to the next there's one song where like you're a good God and the next one he's like, Lord, I am in the pit. My enemies are surrounding me. Where are you? Right. So I don't think God's afraid of our doubts. I think he encourages us to bring our doubts to him, to be honest with them, about where we're at and the crowd to him from the pit and invite his rescue. 0 (12m 18s): And to believe that he is faithful and he will pull us out. I just want you to know that I have moments even today, where I struggle with a battle is happening in my own mind of do I believe he's good this morning? I believe he's never gonna let me down. I just want you to know you're not alone. And if you're in that space today and there's there's room for that here for you to say, God, I'm hurting this morning, I do feel like I need breakthrough in an area I've been crying out and praying and asking him begging for change. And I haven't seen it yet. He welcomes us to call it what happened to him? Good hearts seasoned near to the broken hearted and the crushed in spirit. 0 (13m 1s): So if you're crushed in spirit this morning, that's why these mirror to you. So lean in to him this morning. I'm leaning in with you even as my own soul, sometimes as doubts and questions. I trust that he is God. I trust that he is faithful. 0 (13m 46s): Try that again. 0 (13m 58s): that you love us. 0 (18m 7s): Lord. 1 (18m 10s): Thank you that you are thinking about us this very moment. Your love is very real, very present. I pray that every person would experience that maybe some for the first time, experiencing your love and a real profound and obvious way. Lord God, for those who are hurting today, we pray God that you would just show yourself faithful. Thank you that you do that, Lord God, we are humbled by your presence. I love it, Lord, that when we feel the least deserving, you show up with your great love. 1 (18m 54s): I think we see that throughout the scripture. This thinking about that woman with the issue of blood, just sick, her whole life and unclean feeling just outside and unwelcome and unloved. But yet if she, she knew that if she just could push through, press through and touch the hem of your garment, that something might happen and something did happen. The power of God that went out from Jesus' body that flooded her life, changed her forever. 1 (19m 36s): She experienced love from Jesus, grace, from Jesus power from Jesus and, and she was no longer an outcast, no longer unclean, no longer sick, but she was brand new in Jesus name. I pray for each of us. Lord that we'd be brand new in Jesus name, be brand new in Jesus name, Lord God, whatever it is that we're up against have been up against, have dealt with, have failed in Lord God. We are in you now. And that's what matters, Lord God. So if you're here today and you, you, you need Jesus. Just call out to him. 1 (20m 18s): He's as near as your next breath, your next word, you call him the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ. You shall be saved, welcomed into his family and loved unconditionally and wonderfully. So let Jesus know that you need him and that you want him and then walk them into your life. Maybe you need to welcome him into your life. A fresh today because circumstantially you've been distant him or even Cheryl Lynn talked about, maybe disappointed, disgruntled, welcome him in welcoming, back into your life. 1 (20m 59s): He promises never to leave you nor forsake you. He loves you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. We love you. Thank you for this time. Lord bless the word and we pray, blessed it to our spirits Lord and bless it to our minds and bless it to our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. You can be seated. Thanks team. Appreciate that. Very much. Very powerful word. We're continuing our study on faith today. So title of the message is faith believes God is sovereign. And so in light of those things, I'm going to talk about a couple of things in light of the fact that we believe as believers, as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, that he is sovereign, that God is sovereign. 1 (21m 46s): That simply means he's the Supreme ruler over all things. That means nothing is outside of his control. Nothing is outside of his realm to influence to direct. And so we're asking God to do a couple things today. We're, we'll be talking to you about our new space at one oh two west branch, one minute walk from here. It's the old something different building before that it was the wardrobe building before that it was bank of America back to 1952 when it was built. And so more in the process of kind of navigating some stuff with the city right now. So this is what I want you to pray about specifically. Remember I've said, Hey, can we pray every day? Like every day for this process, because things just come up and we need to pray through the process. 1 (22m 30s): And so the hurdle that we're up against now is a hurdle that I thought we had squared away. It was the parking hurdle because the city needs to make sure there's enough parking for that new space over there. They're saying, Hey, you need to come up with 60 parking spaces. And so we thought we had remedied with parking the parking lot across the street. But now they're saying that shared parking on Sunday morning. So anyway, I have gone back and forth with the city no less than like 20 times. And I'm a bit exasperated at this point. I don't know if you've ever been there. So I wrote an email to the city. 1 (23m 10s): I prayed about it first. I said, Lord, what do I do? Right? Like, what's next? Right? So I praying, I'm saying Lord, so this is me typing an email. So I said, Patrick, he's our planner, good guy, by the way, very good guy. This parking situation is getting ridiculous period. The truth is, I said, I'm still typing my email. I said, the truth is our people who will be attending Sunday morning services will be parking where they have been parking parking for the last 16 years at our spot at one 24 west branch, which is place here and at the village center village center has given us parking on Sunday mornings for free for the last 16 years. 1 (23m 52s): So I said, the truth is that's where our people will be parking. So there's not actually a real need for additional parking. So I'm asking that you guys would reconsider and think through your position because with a simple decision from the city, we can move past this and get moving with our project. So I said, sincerely, Steve. And so a few hours go by and I don't, I don't hear from Patrick. And then so like maybe I overstepped, but I prayed. So I'm thinking I'm okay. So, and I was gracious. I wasn't angry in the email. I wasn't, I was gracious. 1 (24m 32s): I was gracious. So he responds back, Steve, I totally understand you're there. You're frustrated with this situation. He said, I'm going to call a meeting with the city managers on Monday that's tomorrow, so that we can try to navigate this with you, for you so that you can, so we can move past this. And so with that, I want us to pray together today that God would open the door for that. One of our partner ministries ministry that we partner is coastal Christian school. They're also up against a situation with their facility and they're asking that people sign a petition. So this petition is actually available out there at the welcome center. It's a petition to approve an expansion of their conditional use permit, which allows them to put an, a gym on their property and multipurpose buildings and that sort of thing. 1 (25m 22s): So we're gonna pray for them. And I'm going to ask you to go out and sign there. They're looking for a thousand signatures from churches across the central coast, which I don't think it'll be a problem at all, but if you can sign the petition and then pray for them as well, that would be great. So with that, let's go ahead and stand up is what I'm going to ask of you. I'm going to ask that you would pray for CCS and pray for the parking meeting tomorrow for harvest shirt and, and ask that you would come up here and do it. So come up to Vox one 21. This is box one, by the way, box ones. 1 (26m 3s): There it is. So if you're in the campus somewhere else, like at the loft or in the, on the patio and you'd like to come pray, I'd like people to come and pray into the microphone, into the screen so that people at the rest of the campus can see what we're doing and see online and know what we're feeling know what's going on. Otherwise 2 (26m 22s): It's just kind of a dead noise and people can't hear what's going on. So I'm going to pray. And then I'm going to invite you guys to come up and fray into the microphone on the platform and nothing to be worried about 1 (26m 34s): The world wide 2 (26m 36s): Web, we'll be recording everything that you say, 1 (26m 39s): And everybody who's watching online 2 (26m 41s): Will be ridiculing and criticized or your prayers. Now I'm just kidding. 1 (26m 45s): They will be praying with you in agreement 2 (26m 48s): With your prayer. So as I pray, I want to invite you guys to come up forward, come forward and do the same thing. We're just going to take a few minutes to pray and just trust the Lord here. So Lord, we pray right now in Jesus name for his coastal Christian school, we pray that they would get their thousands of signatures on their petition and beyond that, that they would get their approval for their conditional use permit to add to their campus so that they can have the space that they need and be able to expand as their, their capacity. The number of students that they have, I think has doubled in the last year. And so they're in desperate need of more space. And so we pray that you'd bless 1 (27m 23s): Them with more space, with resources 2 (27m 26s): To build on their current property and blessings from the city and the county, Lord God. So take care of them. We pray Lord. And we pray for this meeting tomorrow with the city managers, whoever they may be. I, I don't know who is all going to be involved in the meeting, but for this me, this parking meeting tomorrow, we pray the God that you would remedy that for us in Jesus name, we pray that you would give us favor that you would go before us God, that you would open the doors and, and just, just pave the way for us to move forward with our project. Lord God. And as we have a new architect on the, on the project, Lord, we pray that you would bless him, that his company would be able to turn the plans around quickly. 2 (28m 6s): Lord, that would be able to get, get those into the city and that the city would give us our building permits. And we built be able to move forward with the plan, with the idea, the hope to be opened by Christmas Eve, Lord. So we just pray for your wisdom. We thank you for it, Lord. Thank you. Who else be bold? Come on up here. Don't make me wait. Just get up here. There we go. Gary Tucker. So here you got to stand right here up on the platform. Father. We just thank you, Lord, that your word tells us there is nothing too hard for you and you will do exceeding, abundantly above all that we could ask or imagine Lord, you are God almighty. As we sung this morning and we pray, you'd move the hearts of everybody involved Lord in this decision. 2 (28m 52s): And we trust God, you're going to allow us to move forward. Or parking is nothing for you. You own the whole world Lord. So we just pray father that you would work it out and have them agree that we're going to be able to still park where we haven't been parking more. And we're trusting you for the rest in Jesus name. 1 (29m 13s): Thanks Gary. Who else? Who else? Who else get up here? Don't make Berio come on up. You got a word for us too, David. All right. Speaking to that. 2 (29m 26s): Awesome. Cool. So Lord, we just cleaned to your word right now. God, because we know that your promises are true. And so in John 14, 11 through 14, God, you say, believe me, when I say I am in the father and the father's in me or at themselves, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I've been doing. And they will do even greater works than these because I'm going to the father and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. Father. We know that you say ask and you shall receive God seeking. You will find knock and the door will be open. God. We know that if we ask for a stone, you won't give us a serpent. God. So father right now is your children. 2 (30m 6s): God, we just petition have him saying, Lord, we know that you want to partner with us. God, we know you want to partner with us in the expansion of what you're doing here. God, because you know, this is kingdom business. God. So father, we just commit this project to you. We already know it's in your hands Lord that you are the God of the impossible Jesus father. We know that we've seen time and time again, where things seemed impossible that you came through, like after the destruction of Solomon's temple, Godwin was unable to be built again, Lord, with the few workers and the few materials you were the one who rebuilt it. God. So Jesus, we trust this with you. God, we say this is nothing like the last guy. This is nothing for you, father. We don't even break a sweat because we trust our father. 2 (30m 48s): So God we thank you for the grace and the meeting tomorrow. God, we thank you that you would just move their hearts with your holy spirit Jesus in Jesus name. Amen. 1 (30m 58s): Hey man. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. Who's next? Who's next? Come on. Up here. Right, Diego. Right there. There we go, 2 (31m 13s): Father. I just want to thank you for harvest campus. I want to thank you for coastal Christian and the work that you've already done at each campus. Lord and father, father expansion is coming. It's your expansion, Lord father. I thank you again for the work that you've done and father, I thank you ahead of time that this expansion will come. I think you ahead of time that your kingdom is coming, that your kingdom is expanding father. 2 (31m 56s): Thank you. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Come on up. Stand up here. 3 (32m 12s): Thank you father. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My heart is bubbling and full of joy because the city knows we're going to grow and they're worried about where are they going to put us? Praise you, father praise you, father, that you are letting this town know that you are on the move or God, I just praise you. I praise you. I praise you. I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. You're going to bring both here and to coastal Christian academy, praise your name, father 1 (32m 45s): More. Anybody else? Linda, come on. What'd you stand right up here. Here we go, 3 (33m 3s): Father, God, I am just so excited because maybe the world sees us as a problem. But this is an answer to prayer because we have been praying that the work of harvest would go forth through the city and it airs and it has, and we keep growing and growing because of your grace, Lord God. And so we're not looking at this as a trial, even Lord, because this is part of the joy that we are experiencing because of your growth. And we know that you have answered our prayer and desires to continue to let us grow Lord. And so we know that you're going to provide a way for us to expand. And so far this event, Lord. So we just stand in agreement together, everyone right now, who is praying, we stand in agreement against anything the enemy would try to do to prevent this from happening. 3 (33m 53s): Lord, we stand together and you have told us where two or more are gathered. There you are in our midst Lord and where we got a lot more than two or morally here, Lord. So we stand together. We praise you. We honor you. And we say, Lord, bring the blessings. We receive it in your name. 1 (34m 10s): Amen. Joy. Come on up. Thanks Sheila or Linda. Sheila's the other one. 3 (34m 20s): God, you're awesome. You're a mighty God. Your control. We praise your name and we thank you. We thank you for this opportunity. It's who cut to worship you and to grow our faith. God would you, would you deepen our faith and brute us in your love that our church would grow and be on fire for you? God that this, this is so this is so little as it, as it's been mentioned before it God, this is so nothing is just a drop in the bucket, but God, this is a way to grow our faith. And I pray that you would, you would grow us as a church. You would encourage us through this, that you would strengthen our pastors and our elders and deacons through this there, this trial, God that you you're in control God, you are unstoppable. 3 (35m 11s): This whole nuts top here where your word. So we praise your name now. 1 (35m 16s): Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Let's give the Lord anybody, anybody. All right. So my, my, my belief is that I'll come back next Sunday with a good report. So be seriously being praying all week long, but especially today and tomorrow, I'm not sure what time the meeting is, but be praying and the Lord do what he's going to do. Amen. And then yeah, you can be seated. There we go. You can be seated. God bless you guys. So as I mentioned in the prayer, we've got a new architect. The original architect was great. Christian loves Jesus, but so busy. So she said, Hey, I'm a couple of months out before I can even get to it. 1 (35m 57s): So then I met another architect last Saturday, just by accident, kind of happenstance, if there's any such thing. And he said, Hey, I can turn this project around quickly. And so he had a meeting with him and talked with the other architect and she said, yeah, if he can do it quicker, let him let him do it. And so he took it over and it's in the works now. So now we're hoping to get some plans here in the next couple of weeks versus a couple of months. And then those plans go to the city for plan approval and for permit issuing. And so we're hoping that doesn't take three months, like they're saying it could possibly take three months, but ultimately our plan is to be in the new kind of thought. 1 (36m 37s): It would be like Christmas Eve would be a great opportunity entity to have Christmas Eve service in there. So that's like six months away. It's already six months into this year. So time goes so incredibly fast. So in, in the beginning I was a little frustrated, but six months is quick. It's going to get there before we know it. So be praying for God's timing, but then also God's provision. So all along, we've just said, if you feel like you want to be a part of it, then here, here from the Lord and just be obedient. The price actually is, has gone up significantly. I don't know about you guys, but every time we do a remodel, the price goes from one number to another number we Jolene and I, we remodeled our house a couple of years ago, price doubled in the time of the remodel. 1 (37m 22s): When we remodeled this sanctuary 16 years ago, the price started out at like 35,000 and went up to like $85,000. So we're looking probably closer to $225,000 for that remodel. Originally it was like 125. Now it's probably closer to two 25 cost of materials. Everything is high right now. If you've done any kind of building right now, you know, everything is very, very expensive. Yeah. So, so, but we believe that God is faithful. Just like he was when we did this project, 16 years ago, we had 60 people on the jury 16 years ago and we did the project. Debt-free now we've got more than 10 times that, and we're believing for God to do the same thing. So if you'd like to join us and be a part of that, just, you know, be a part of what God is doing. 1 (38m 8s): God has been so faithful. I don't know if you guys realize God's faithfulness through your obedience. The church, when we planted the church, our budget, literally our budget every month was $1,500. Cause we rented a little school and I was working full time and we had a worship leader that we gave a stipend to, but it was really like 1500 bucks a whole month. Like it took him and we were like some months wondering if that was going happen, right? This, this year, we're watching God as he's been doing it every year for the last 16 years just increase what he provides for us this year. On average, we brought in $95,000 a month. 1 (38m 51s): So was like, you know, our old budget or original budget was 1500 for the month. Now it's bringing more than $3,000 every single day of the month. And so it's kind of interesting to see God's faithfulness. This last month was our, I think our biggest month ever, we brought in like $128,000. So, so God has response. I share that to say that God is responding to the need and there's a big need. So if you'd like to be a part of that, that then jump in, be a part of what, what God will do and watch what, how he blesses it. And anyway, with that, let's jump into Hebrews and continue to talk about faith. They amen. This'll be, we'll be wrapping up our faith study of Hebrews, be weaving it into the messages going forward. 1 (39m 31s): But Hebrews chapter 11 verses 35 through 40, as part of the examples of faith that we've been studying. We see one more story of God's faithfulness to his people of faith. So we pick it up in verse 35 and then we go into 36, 37, 38, 39 40 in those closing verses of chapter 11 are pretty difficult. In fact, I didn't want to preach this message today because like I said, Lord, I want to encourage the people with faith. And I don't want you to discourage them with the last part of Hebrews 11, but there's, there's a purpose in us communicating the whole counsel of God's word. 1 (40m 12s): And so we communicate the whole counsel of God's word because God uses the whole counsel of his word to instruct us and to grow us up in our most holy faith. And so as we get to the end of Hebrews 11, we're going to see examples of God's faithfulness to his people of faith that looks different than we might imagine. Like we so far we've been studying about God's profound impact in the world because people of faith have stepped up. We're going to actually see the people of God go under severe persecution for their faith. Many of them giving their lives for their faith. And in the midst of that, we see the faithfulness of God because we don't carry just a temporal earthly perspective. 1 (40m 56s): We carry this eternal perspective where we believe that this life in the earth is important, but also what we do for eternity matters. And so we're living not just for this life, but for the life eternal as well. And so when we have that kind of perspective, it changes things. So the long game is that we don't live for this life alone, but for the one to come also even more so, but we'll get there in a few minutes. Let's look at Hebrews 1135 as we wrap up this study of faith and God's faithfulness. So, so far we've talked about all kinds of people, right? We've talked about Abel Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses parents. 1 (41m 37s): We've talked about Moses. We've talked about the people of Israel, Ray Hab, Daniel Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We've talked about Gideon and we've talked about all of these people of faith. And now we'll spend some time on the story of this nameless widow in verse 35. Oh and Elijah. We'll talk about Elijah. In fact, we're going to talk a lot about Elijah as we get into this text. So Hebrews 1135 says, and again, this is after all of those other stories of faith, he says women received their loved ones back again from death. So let's take, take a look at one of those stories relating to this, this verse first Kings chapter 17. It says this now Elijah, who is from Tisha and Gilly ad told king Ahab. 1 (42m 23s): As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, listen to his competence, right? This was a man of faith. He understood that he heard from God and he was committed to obeying God. So he said, listen. As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be no Dew or rain the next few years until I give the word, no, do no rain for the next few years until I give the word. So we declares this to the king and stands firm. Why? Because he's heard, I heard from the Lord, number one, God directs the elements. 1 (43m 10s): We, we have to believe that God is sovereignly in charge of everything, or he's not sovereignly in charge of anything, right? We believe that God directs the elements he told. He told the prophet, it's not going to do. There's not going to be any Dew or rain for the next few years until you the word we, we, we have to expand our capacity to believe God for things that maybe we wouldn't have believed God for in the past, God directs the element. Remember Jesus calmed the storm, right? Because he directs the album. Remember when Jesus walked on the water because he controls the elements. 1 (43m 51s): So he's in charge of everything. He controls everything. Then the Lord said to Elijah, go to the east and hide by Karath Brook near where it enters the Jordan river, drink from the Brook and eat Raven, eat what you want the Ravens bring you for. I have commanded them to bring you food. That verse tells me that God directs the wildlife. He doesn't just direct the elements, but he directs the wildlife. So he's Elijah. Here's some, the Lord and God tells me to go by this body of water, this Brook and eat what the Ravens give you, because God's gonna provide for you through the Ravens and through this water. 1 (44m 35s): And so God directs the wildlife. How do we know this is true. Look at Noah's Ark. You ever wonder how all those animals got into the arc? I mean, how much work would it have had been if Noah had to go around and gather up all of the animals, right? But this is what it says in Genesis six 20 God told Noah pairs of every kind of bird and every kind of animal and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, we'll come to you. We'll come to you to be kept alive. God directs the elements and he directs wildlife. He can direct every aspect and element of your life. If you just let him, if you just trust him, he can direct and provide and take care of all of your needs. 1 (45m 16s): Back to first Kings verse five, five says, so we lied. Yah did, as the Lord told him it can't beside Kira Brook, Easton. Jordan. What happened you suppose is brought him bread and meat each morning and evening. So I think about the people of Israel wandering through the wilderness for how long, 40 years and every day they wake up and there's fresh manna on the ground. Why? Because God is faithful to do what he says. He's going to do. He's he's providing for this prophet through the Raven to bring bread and meat every day. And he drank from the Brook. But after a while, the Brook dried up, why did the Brook dry up? 1 (45m 59s): Because there was no more do and no more rain because God stopped the do. And he stopped the rain and it wasn't going to come back until Eliza spoke the word. And so everything that God says in his word is unfolding before our very eyes. And this is true. Whether we see it in our own personal lives or not, we can see the faithfulness of God unfold as we trust him and believe him doing what he asks us to do. But after a while, the Brook dried up for there was no rainfall call anywhere in the land. Number three, we're seeing how God is speaking to Elijah. Number three, in your notes, God directs people he's speaks to people. 1 (46m 43s): Then the Lord said to Elijah, verse eight, then the Lord said to Elijah, what has God been saying to you lately? What has he been speaking to you lately? What has he been communicating for your soul lately? I think God wants to speak to us. I think he wants to speak to you. Then the Lord said to Elijah, go and live in the village of Zerephath near the city of side-on. I have instructed a widow there to feed you. So now no longer is the bird of the Raven going to feed him. But this widow is going to feed him and it, and it doesn't even make sense that this widow would meet him because the winter doesn't have a resource to feed him. But this is what happened. So he went to zero path and see arrived at the gates of the village. 1 (47m 25s): He saw a widow because God was speaking to him. And so it wasn't coincidence that he saw a widow, God spoken, directed that widow to do what she was doing so that when the prophet showed up, Elijah sees the widow. See, he arrived at the gates of the, of the village. He saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, would you please bring me a little water in a cup? And she was going to, as she was going to get it, he called to her, bring me a bite of bread. But she said first, well, I swear by the Lord, your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. 1 (48m 9s): Okay. Why would God direct Elijah to this widow who didn't have any bread? If she was the one responsible to feed him while he was there, he's unfolding his plan. He's unfolding his plan. It's like the, the, the offerings of the, of the widow. She, she gave all that. She had, she, she provided the Lord everything that she had as an act of worship. And now this widow, woman's going to have the opportunity. We need to do the same thing. I swear by the Lord, your God, that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking wheel in the bottom of the jug. 1 (48m 53s): I was just gathering if you six to cook the last meal and then my son and I will die. But Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. You're you're out your external circumstances, your outward circumstances. Don't have to dictate how you deal with life. We need to who in those desperate moments, reach it, cry out to the Lord and say, okay, God, I'm in this desperate place, much like Carolyn was talking about I'm in this desperate place. What are you going to do now? And then just watch what the Lord will do and obey, listen and obey. Don't be afraid. Go ahead and do just what you said, but make a little bread for me first. 1 (49m 35s): How selfish is Elijah? Right? I know you're going to die. I know you only got a little bit, but make me a little bread, right? Do you think that was a lie, led you to being selfish? This was Alijah being used by the Lord to test her faith all throughout scripture in the old and the new Testament, we're called to give God our very best. The very first fruit of our offering. We're called to do what he's asked us to do with obedience and faith. Believing that he's going to come through in a supernatural way. He said, then use, what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says. 1 (50m 17s): There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again, there will always be all of oil and flour for how long, as long as the Lord wills. It said it wasn't gonna rain for a few years. And so God was going to take this meager bit of loyal and flour and multiply it because this is what he always does. And we always see that he's in charge of number four. God has power over in animate objects, lifeless objects. 1 (50m 59s): God has power. Even over those things. We see it. When he feeds the multitudes, he feeds the multitudes twice. One time, he feeds 5,000 plus women and children. The next time he feeds 4,000 plus women and children. Each time they gathered up baskets of leftovers. Yeah. Beers that they actually gathered up more at the end than they had in the beginning, because God has power over in adamant. Yes, we need to believe that he will provide supernaturally. When he asks us to do something, our tendency is like, Lord, I'm I'm down to the end of it. 1 (51m 39s): Like, this is all I've got. Whether it be money or time or whatever it is, Lord, I don't have the ability to give. And it's probably in that moment that he asks you to give. In fact, I love it. I'll just say, Lord, I don't want to be tested in this, but I do love when sometimes I say stuff and I get tested on it, like immediately. And so I'm putting a disclaimer, Lord, I don't want to be tested in this area, but I love it. Like when we're at the end of our resource, either as a church search or in our family and the Lord says, give what you have leftover, give it away and watch what I will do. 1 (52m 19s): So, number of years ago, we were trying to buy this property and we tried to raise money and we couldn't raise any money. I've shared this story before, but I'll share it again because it's fun. So we had worked hard. We tried to raise money. This is like two, $2 million property or whatever. And we're trying to raise money. We need at least 15 or 20% down or whatever. So that all of our money, we raised $15,000. Boy, they all of our money. That's all we get raised, right? Hardly anything. It doesn't put a dent in things, but CCS is also raising money for their facility. So we said, let's take our $15,000 and give it to CCS. Clearly we don't have enough money to do anything, but maybe it will help them. 1 (53m 3s): So we go down the road a little bit longer and, and this place, we were raising money for this place when it did come available, but it still wasn't available to us. But the house next door became available and we needed to raise, I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars or something like that to, to buy that house next door. Cause it was like $470,000 or whatever. So we needed to raise like, I dunno like 8,000, whatever the number was. It does. It doesn't matter. God provided that money. Like immediately. It's like there was no effort needed at all. We, we had, after we gave that money to CCS, we just started raising money again. And all of a sudden we had a hundred thousand dollars. We're like 98,000 bucks or something like that. So when we needed money, my coffee, when we needed money for that place, God provided it for us because we, we took our measly $15,000 that we had, which wasn't a much DAS, but it blessed them. 1 (53m 56s): And we gave it away and God provided and, and took care of the need for that. And then when a couple of years later, when this place became available, we needed it. We had remodeled that place and the value went up like, I don't know, 150 or $200,000. And so the value of increase, they're putting these properties together. We hardly had to raise any money at all. We raised a little bit of money that we did need to raise so that we could put the down payment on this property. So God love it, leverage that property. So we get out, buy this property. Now we owe, we own like $3 million in property in the beginning. Remember our budget was $1,500 every month, right? 1 (54m 37s): And, and then I'm going to camp out on this for a bit here. We, we wanted to rent this facility. It wasn't for sale. Yet. We wanted to rent this space and it was $3,000 a month, 3000 that's twice what our budget was 3000 bucks. And we were still renting the school because we needed a place to meet while we were renovating this place. So now we're at 4,500 bucks. About the same time we started renting other space. And at the same time that board said, Hey, we need you on full time to, to run the projects we're remodeling and building and painting and doing all that kind of stuff. So I came on full-time when the church has 60 people in it and the church was able to pay me plus pay this plus pay for everything else that we were doing. 1 (55m 24s): And we've never looked back. That was 16 years ago that we made the decisions to move here. And we've been able to renovate space and build space and all kinds of stuff. So God's been faithful because this is what God had done as period is faithful period. And he will call us to do unreasonable things so that he might do supernatural things. Let's go back to first Kings. I'm totally out of time here. It says a matter. And we're going to keep going. Let's order some pizza in, and then I'll just keep preaching until like three years, verse 15. 1 (56m 5s): So she did, as Elijah said, she, this is where it starts. Like, what is the Lord saying? This widow who was on her last meal, preparing to die. She did, as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and all of oil left in the containers. Just as the Lord had promised through Elijah, sometime later, the woman's son became sick. He grew worse and worse. And finally he died. Then she said to Elijah, oh man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son. But Elijah replied, give me your son. 1 (56m 45s): Then he took the child's body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying and laid the body on his bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, oh Lord, my God. Why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me causing her son to die. And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, oh Lord my God. Please let this child's life return to him. What happened? The Lord heard Elijah's prayer, right? The Lord heard Elijah's prayer and the life of the child returned. And he revived. Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. 1 (57m 24s): Look. He said, your son is alive. Have you ever been in the room when somebody died? And when somebody has expired, it's not awesome. The person is dead lifeless. The warmth of their body is leaving them. And they're becoming this cold lifeless shell. It's not fun. This is what happened to this woman, her son, she's a widow. She's already lost her home. He's dead. And then God shows up and got it. 1 (58m 5s): The stores him saying, man, it brings the back to him. And he said, look, your son is alive. I share that because God has the power over life and death. And I want to say physically, but also spiritually. And some of us need to hear that spiritually. He's got power over life and desk because some of you are feeling dead spiritually, and God wants to resurrect your, your spiritual life. God wants to resurrect your spiritual life so that you're feeling alive again. But this is how it's going to happen. It's going to happen as you step out in faith, in obedience to do whatever it is that God has asked you to do. So what I'm, I'm not even talking about the building. I don't care about the building. 1 (58m 45s): I know that God's going to take care of the building. What I'm saying is whatever God has asked you to do. The last thing he's asked you to do to go back to that thing and then watch as you will be gently do what he's asked you to do. Watch the spiritual life in you. Refresh. I talked with a guy yesterday, Friday, talked to the guy Friday and heard from a guy Friday. He was sharing kind of a story. And he had gone through a terrible divorce. His wife left him, took his sons, moved out of state. He had no custody. He had no ability to see his kids. And, and it went on like this for, for a decade. I think it was a decade. He was driving in his truck one day and he felt like the Lord said, you need to call your wife's husband and apologize to him for the way that you have treated him during this, this time. 1 (59m 33s): And oh, by the way, you need to apologize to your wife as well. And he's like, you have got to be kidding me. And he decided to do it. So he calls the son to get a stepdad's his son stepdad's phone number. And he said, Hey, God's done a work in my life. And I just want to call and apologize to you for the way that I've acted and the way that I've lived before you. And if it's all right with you, I'd like to call your wife, my ex-wife and apologize to her as well. And he did. And the Lord completely reconciled that family. You didn't get remarried to his wife, none of that. But they, they had a relationship. 1 (1h 0m 15s): He was able to be at his son's high school graduation, sitting at the family table. There was his son was able to forgive him. His son had been angry with him for a decade, I think is what he said for a decade, for the way that his father had been acting in God, through that obedience reconciled the whole family. What is God asking you to do? That seems impossible. That doesn't seem like it's going to bear any fruit. And it seems like something that you're not even interested in doing. If God is asking you to do it, go back to that. You might be feeling spiritually separated from God. Spiel is spiritually dry because you're just flat refusing to be obedience. God cannot bless disobedience. He will not bless disobedience. 1 (1h 0m 56s): God can resurrect your spiritual life. He's got power over life and death physically, spiritually Jesus raised gyrus daughter from the dead mark five raised a widow's son from the dead in Luke chapter seven, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and John chapter 11, Jesus himself was raised from the dead. And we see Elijah raising this widow woman's son from the dead. Then the woman told Elijah, I know for sure that you are a man of God and that the Lord surely speaks through you. So we've heard a lot of amazing stories of God's faithfulness, but the reality is number six, in your notes God's plan. Doesn't always unfold. As we expect God's plan. 1 (1h 1m 37s): Doesn't always unfold as we expect. So let's take a look at how, how his plan, and I'll say his plan unfolded in the, in the lives of these people. So now I'm not saying that God had caused what happened with he allowed it and he's been glorified through it. Others who didn't experience the victory, like we've been talking about others, tortured refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They place their hope and a better life. After the resurrection, somewhere jeered at and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons, some died by stonings and were sawed in half and others were killed with the somewhat about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute, and oppressed and mistreated. 1 (1h 2m 25s): They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground around just as a for instance, this is how the 12 apostles died. And I'm going to give you kind of the rundown here real quickly though. I hear so often I want a first century Christ experience like people like I want to do you really want a first century Christ experience because what you will get is what they got. Some of our hardest decisions as Christians is, do I go to the nine o'clock service or do I go to the 11 o'clock service? Right? Do I go to, you know, out to her Mexican food after order? 1 (1h 3m 7s): Or do I get pizza afterward? You know, what, what sporting event do I watch on the television afterward? You know, where, where do I, my wife and I go out to dinner. I mean, those are, these are the things that we wrestle with. This is not first century Christianity. This is first century Christianity. This is how the 12 apostles died. Ad. This is from the, the voice of the martyrs or excuse me, Fox's book of martyrs to book. Andrew was crucified, but he wasn't just, he was crucified in an X shaped cross and he wasn't nailed to the X shape cross. He was actually tied to the cross to, to extend the time that it would take for him to actually die because you're, you're hanging and it's causing you to suffocate and you have to push up to get a breath. 1 (1h 3m 58s): And then you're useless. He just suffocate. So while he was dying and it took days for him to die, what was he doing? He was preaching to passers by people who would go by watch and mock him. He was preaching the gospel. Andrew was crucified, Bartholomew beaten, then crucified, James son of Alphaeus was stoned to death. Others think that James son of Alphaeus was actually crucified in lower Egypt and then sod in pieces. So it wasn't good enough that they crucified him. They cut him in pieces. You really want to first century Christianity, this is what you're going to get here. 1 (1h 4m 42s): James son of Zebedee was beheaded, just like the apostle. Paul says Paul John exile for his faith died of an old age, but they did try to kill him. They put them in a VAT of oil, boiling oil, trying to kill him, but like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, nothing happened to him. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fiery furnaces. They didn't even smell like a barbecue, but they'd been in the furnace, right? John, the apostle John Kent comes out of the boiling oil. He's got no, no injuries. He will not die while he's in the Calder. And his historian said that while he was there, he was actually preaching the gospel. 1 (1h 5m 22s): They're like, get him out of there. Exile him to the island of Patmos, where he can't have anybody preach to you. So while he's there though, God's got a purpose for them. Jesus reveals that revelation to him. He writes revelation, the book of revelation and the rest is history out of an old age. But after living his whole life for Jesus Judas, not a scary. He was stoned to death. Matthew was speared to death. Peter crucified upside down, Phillip was crucified. Simon crucified, Thomas, a spirits of death and Matthias was stoned to death. So that's kind of, that's what happens. All these people earned a good reputation. 1 (1h 6m 2s): The scripture says verse 30 and all these people are in a good reputation because of their faith. Yet none of them received all that God had promised forgot. It's something better in mind for us so that they would not reach perfection without us remember back in Hebrews chapter 11, verses 13 through 16. I think we covered this week too, in our studies in Hebrew and Hebrews, it says, all these people died. Still believing what God is. I promised them they did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on the earth. And that that's the perspective of the first century church and needs to be our perspective of the 21st century church that we are. 1 (1h 6m 44s): This is not our home. We are foreigners and nomads were passing through with the sole purpose of glorifying God in our lives waves for the life to come for all eternity. They were foreigners and nomads here on the earth. Obviously, people who say such things are looking forward to a country. They called their own. If they had long for the country, they came from, they could have gone back, but they were looking for a better place, a heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for. He has repaired a city for them. So number six, God's planned. Isn't always what we expect it to be. Let me get there again. God's plan is not always, does not always unfold as we expect, but number seven in your notes, as we wrap this thing up, God's plan can always be trusted. 1 (1h 7m 34s): God's plan can always be trusted. So if you're at a crossroads in your life and you're just perplexed by God and what he has done or what he has allowed, go back to your big picture, long game plan and perspective and say, okay, God, clearly things are unfolding for me the way I think that they should unfold. What is your long game? I've been praying for the Methodist camp for 16 years. You guys have been praying with me for the Methodist camp that God would give us that Methodist. It's 29 acres back there for 16 years. And God hasn't seen fit to give it to us yet. Right? Things don't always unfold. The way that we hope that they would unfold difficult, have hit our family, things that we didn't expect or wouldn't welcome in, in a million years, but things have happened. 1 (1h 8m 22s): And we got to believe that God is in control. He is unfolding things. So don't lose heart before you see the answer. Don't lose heart. Before you see the answer. Did I read Hebrews 11, 13 through 16? Did I finish that? I didn't. Okay. They were looking for a better place at heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for. He has prepared a city for them. God is what has got up to in your life. I know what he's up to you. I think in the church and I'm trying to figure out what he's up to in my life as well. What does he have to in your life two weeks ago? 1 (1h 9m 4s): I said by faith, we will, by faith, I will. We asked you and challenge you to fill in the blank. And then we had people come up and talk about my faith. They will. What is it that by faith, God is taking you through and you will do, will you choose to be obedient? We choose to love him. We, she used to be faithful to him. Will you choose to do what he's asked you to do? Whatever that ask may be. I promise you this. If you do that, your spirit, your spirit spiritually, you will come alive again, where you've been struggling spiritually. You will, you will begin to come alive. Like you've never been alive before. Just simply confess your sin and say, Lord, I I've not done. What you asked me to do. 1 (1h 9m 45s): I'm going back to what you asked me to do. And I'm going to do that thing. And then moving forward, I'm going to do what you asked me to do was with that. Let's go and stand up because really that's what Christianity is all about. We follow Jesus. He says something. We obey it. That's Christianity. There's if it's, if your Christianity is something other than that, it's not Christianity. It's just not Christianity. So what is it that God is asking you to do? Speak it out? Anybody? What is it that God is asking you to do? Serve him. Good. Yeah. Specifically? What does that look like? Anything specifically? 1 (1h 10m 28s): Yeah. All right. Good. How about perfect. Perfect. Who else? There you go. All right. What else? Serving children. Good. Who else? Serving marriages. How long are you going to do that? Until I die? He says, what else? Healing. The sick. Awesome. What else? Preach the gospel. So real quick. David's the one that prayed for my knee. I'm running. I've been running ever since. So it's a win brother. Good for you. Good for God. 1 (1h 11m 8s): What else? Teaching Bible says, is there anything new that you like Lord's put on your heart? Anything new? Okay. All right. All right. Giving, giving more each week to what God is doing in the church. I repeat so that people online can hear and see people at other places. What else? All right. Awesome. Awesome. Just make yourself available for media skills, mediation. 1 (1h 11m 49s): Okay. Now. Okay. Good mediation. Well, thank you very much. What's your name? Donna. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. What else? Anybody else? It's gotta be something burning in you right now that you're afraid to say. You're afraid to say it, that's it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. A cattle helping people helping to be a catalyst that people might share the gospel downtown. Very good. Something else is burning in your soul that, you know, if you don't say it, you're not going to be obedient to it, helping with the coffee. 1 (1h 12m 32s): So that's wonderful. We need more of that by the way more, more coffee. Elbers anybody else on the platform? Anybody come on, there's gotta be one more like big thing that the Lord has said. One more, one more. Who is it? Great. Good, wonderful, good stuff, Laura. Thank you for what you're speaking to us. We want to say by faith, we're going to do that for eating those things that lie behind straining forward. The things that lie I had, Lord God. So we just pray Jesus, that you would help us by faith to step into those supernatural plans. 1 (1h 13m 15s): Lord use us mightily. We pray, help us smiley. We pray. Thank you for your grace in Jesus name amen. Hey man, let's worship. 1 (1h 13m 22s): 0 (1h 14m 25s): . 0 (1h 17m 45s): helping you this morning to lead us this week. 0 (1h 22m 10s): Take those steps towards those things are challenging us to be brave, to be bold, to make a difference, to be salt and light in the earth, to extend your love to those around us. We thank you for this time to reset her off hurts on you to be ready to ground it in your word. Spend time in your presence and with one another to each other's burdens and reminding each other the truth. So would you seal these things upon our heart? We love you. Thank you for this time when your precious.