Blessed where you are

Keith Pittman

Chronicles of a King • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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You can be blessed where you are, if you have surrendered your heart

Notes

Transcript

Welcome

Hey family. Welcome to the Pittman home. We are so glad that you would join us in our home and allow us to join you in yours. It is my most sincere desire to ensure that you know that you are in our prayers. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks have turned into month(s), no matter the time that passes, God isn’t passing you by. Your church family is with you. Stay connected. Stay encouraged. Stay engaged. We have virtual communities, prayer requests, praise reports, social media, resources to strengthen you. Don’t let this season go to waste. I believe He can and will make beauty from ashes if we press in.

Chronicles of a King

Today we continue in our series, Chronicles of a King. Over the next few weeks, we are going to continue to examine powerful moments in the life and ministry of Jesus. Get caught up on the series because I believe each pericope, each section is rich in encouragement. Our foundational passage is...

Luke 4:16–20 ESV

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

Wild Standard

Luke 6:20 ESV

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Scripture(s)

Mark 6:30–44 ESV

30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

Differences to Highlight

Philip said they could not meet the needs (logic)

They tried to make Jesus king by force (John 6:15)

Today I want to talk for a moments about God’s desire to meet you where you are, as long as we can meet Him where He is. Today’s message is entitled, Blessed where you are.

Prayer

Lord, we thank you for being with us. We ask for open eyes, open hears, open hearts, the name of Jesus.

Setting up the thought

Have you ever thought, if I can get these things lined up, then life will be good. Kind of like an if/then proposition. Most of it follows a logical trail that is based on facts. If I pay off my credit cards, then I will be out of debt. Makes perfect sense, but I submit to you that that line of thinking can cause us to have a finish line approach to life and miss out on that fact that God wants to do something now. I am looking at the bible differently nowadays. I used to think about the perfection of heaven and overlook the fact that we can bring heaven to earth. I used to think about the promised land and lose sight of the blessing in the wilderness. I used to think blessed was solely expressed in abundance when it is also preservation. Here is my point, stop believing your season has to be over in order to be blessed when God wants to bless you now! The Israelites were blessed in their wilderness and you are blessed in yours. You can be blessed where you are, if you have surrendered in your heart.

Background/Context

It is a busy season for Jesus. He is wrapping up His 2nd year of ministry and His popularity is surging. It’s around Passover and His cousin John the Baptist has been killed and His disciples just returned from the mission field filled with excitement. Jesus tells His team, lets go on a retreat. There has been a lot of output so let’s go to a desolate place…the wilderness. Scripture tells us that His followers were desperate for Him, that they pursued Jesus even in the wilderness. They were used to seeing Him in the community, in the villages, but they pursued Jesus in the wilderness. Their desire for Jesus was stronger then their desire for convenience; and sometimes obedience is inconvenient and uncomfortable: giving, serving, engaging community, the Word, etc…with this community we see people that had a desire for Jesus that was stronger than their desire for comfort.

They pursued Him in the wilderness. The wilderness has always been thought to be a barren place. However, miracles happen in the wilderness. Water from rocks, manna from heaven. God knows exactly how to bless you where you are. You may be in the wilderness but as long as you are pursuing Jesus, favor is pursuing you. Jesus sees them and has compassion on them; meaning moved to act. He preaches the good news to the poor and heals them all day. God is not too busy for His people.

Observations

Don’t send the people away

It was getting late so the disciples stepped into leadership mode and sprung into action. Jesus, send the people away so that they can eat and rest. They came back from the mission field, full of zeal but Jesus knew if they left Him, they had nothing. How often when we see the needs of people logic begins to dismiss them? Jesus said, don’t send them away, you feed them. If you see the problem, maybe you are part of the solution. Maybe instead of using our logic to be dismissive of where people are, God is inviting us to be a part of helping them get to where they are supposed to go?

What do you have

Again, the disciples take inventory of the situation and tell Jesus, we only have 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Even after everything they saw, they still could not see Jesus for who He is. The disciples knew what they had, but didn’t understand WHO they had. We can be so obsessed with being practical that we miss the miracle. When Jesus turned water into wine, He told the servants to pour it into the glass. All they knew was water was in the pots but somewhere along the line, it turned to wine. We don’t know when. All we know is when they obeyed, they saw the miracle.

Sometimes our logic can paralyze a move of God because we don’t move with God.

Blessed

Jesus instructs to take what they have and give it to Him. Miracles happen when we take what we have and put it in the hands of Jesus. Jesus tells His disciples to have the people sit down in groups of 50 and 100. This was probably pretty chaotic, but necessary to bring order for the distribution of the blessing. God brings order to chaos so that His blessings can be distributed. He had the people to sit down…on green grass. Sounds a lot like Psalm 23, He makes me lie down in green pastures. Perhaps the God is slowing us down so that we can receive what He has for us. Sometimes the busyness in our lives can cause us to miss what God wants to do in our lives. Jesus looks to heaven, speaks a blessing and distributes to the people. They are in the wilderness and provision shows up; sounds like Exodus. They are on a mountain, sounds like where Moses met with God…the mountain which is where Jesus pulls it all together with the sermon on the mount. He speaks a blessing, Numbers 6. If we want to see on earth as it is in heaven, at some point we have to start looking to heaven. I believe if we do what the Bible says, we get the Bibles results. There is no expiration date on truth!

Closing

The passage says everyone was satisfied and there was left overs. (Taste and see that the Lord is good). God will leave a reminder from a previous season to get you through a new one. I love how the person who wasn’t counted is the one that had the ingredients for the miracle. Don’t despise small beginnings…he can take not enough and make it more than enough.

This not a message about giving, but it is about surrender...

Points

Surrender your comfort

They pursued Jesus in an uncomfortable place

Surrender your possessions

If Jesus doesn’t have it, it has you

Surrender your will

Instead of forcing Jesus to be what we want, we need to surrender to who He is calling us to be

You are blessed where stand, if you have surrendered your heart

Deuteronomy 28:2–6 ESV

2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

Blessing isn’t about proximity, it is about posture

Additional Scriptures Referenced:

· Matthew 14:13-21

· Luke 9:10-17

· John 6:1-15

· Psalm 23:1-6

· Zechariah 4:10

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