Discipled to Serve Part 3
Discipled to Serve • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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What’s in Your Hand
What’s in Your Hand
WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND?
I. Know the right thing to do with what God has placed in your hand. You can have the right task but wrong tools. You can the right tools but not the right skill sets. You can have the right tools and skills but miss the right purpose that could impact your entire life.
And the men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’ ” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. And afterward David’s heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.
David had the battle skills and the sword in his hand. More than the sword in his hand, God had placed a divine opportunity in his hands. The voices around David interpreted it as God giving David the opportunity to take the life of Saul But David interpreted it as God presenting the opportunity to test his heart for a life and service than at that moment.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.
but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
With every assignment, gift, calling or move God does in your life it will always be preceded by a heart check. This was the case with Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Jacob and even Yeshua went through testing in a wilderness. It not so much that God does not know what is in your heart, it’s a chance for you to recognize it in light of His purpose and destiny upon your life. It is for you to know where you stand in or outside of God’s righteousness, integrity, virtue and valor.
II. Know the value of valor. The valor of one’s heart can effect the value of what God has placed in their hand. I Chronicles 12:21
They helped David against the band of raiders, for they were all mighty men of valor and were commanders in the army.
a. Sometimes God does not want you to do something because it may put you in a light that will inhibit or jeopardize your purpose and those God is trying to join with you. If David had killed Saul he would have gained a reputation but lost a tribe. He would have gained a victory but sacrificed a destiny.
b. There is a difference between faithfulness and loyalty. Faithfulness may mean showing up consistently or on time and being somewhat dependable. But loyalty says, “I am so persuaded of God’s purpose for you in my life that I will stay with you and commit all I have and all I am able to be and do for the furthering of God’s purpose. It goes beyond words or only doing what is required or delegated. It is recognizing that you are serving a higher purpose than a position description.
c. We need to move beyond our personal, congregational, and seasonal prophetic words and begin to seek a regional and global heavenly Kingdom purpose and direction from God.
III. David had a sling in one hand and a stone in the other. Both were given to him by God to accomplish a future for a people. But David had to do five things before God could advance David’s destiny and God’s plans:
a. He had to trust that God was with Him. He had to have lived a life of relationship with God that the favor of the Lord may be bestowed upon him at the right time, at the right place for the right opportunity.
b. He had to be courageous and bold enough to act on behalf of the authority of God. He had to be prepared in his spirit and soul (mind, will, emotions). He had to know it was God placing him in front of the giant. He had to know it was God putting Saul’s life in his hands to take or show honor and mercy. These tests would determine what type of King leader he would be, one after the heart of Saul or one after the heart of God.
c. He had to act under the assumed authority of the delegated authority God had put him under. He had to act in the sovereign authority of God but under the delegated authority of the king that was under God’s authority.
d. He had to integrate the weapons system. He had to put the stone in the sling and with developed, discipled skill as a shepherd, effectively utilize the power of that which was placed in his hand to do God’s bidding. By his willingness to serve in honor to God, God positioned and postured David in the right place, at the right time, with the right tools, and the right skills to take the right initiative under the right authority to do the right thing to accomplish the right task for God that would ultimately cost him but lead him not only to his destiny but a divine sovereign purpose of God that has impacted our lives to this day.
e. Finally, he had to release the stone at the right time, in the right direction, with the right amount of faith and force. Timing is a big part of obedience to God. God is outside of our time and space but He fulfills His purposes within ours.
IV. Too many times in the Body of Christ we have those who see the need, have been told the need but refuse to do anything accept observe those who are doing the work of the gospel. Then there are those who have a desire and seek opportunity but refuse to be trained and accept the Biblical divine governmental standard that they be released through the ordained authority of the house to fulfill God’s purpose in their life and in the Body of Christ.
V. Do you know what to do with what God has placed in your hand? What do we do with what God has placed in our hands that we may be fruitful and effective instead of just spiritually busy but productively idle.
a. God is looking for hands to which He may assign purpose. Most people do more with their mouth than with their hands. Jesus illustrates this in Matthew 22:34-40.
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
b. We do not want to just be a blessing ministry but a building ministry. We want to help people be healed and restored but stronger in their faith and fulfilling their Kingdom purpose.
c. Each member must seek to make functional in this house what you experienced as dysfunctional in others. Don’t just bring your dysfunctional baggage in and compare it to what you perceive lacking in the house but be a part of the solution to bring increased health, fruit and effectiveness to the house of divine placement. Become for God in this house what you never were or had in any other. Remember that it is not about you but about God’s purposes. Do not settle for being a “Consumer Christian”, or a “Spiritual Spectator”.
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
You want to show me your “Faith”, don’t show me the emblem on your car or the size of your bank account or home, show me the size of your serving others and the Body of Christ. What you doing reflects who you are. So, who you are and what you do reveals the depth of your conviction or “faith” in who Christ is an what He has done.
VI. The Holy Spirit balances you. You don’t balance yourself. Four types of righteousness. John 16:7-8
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
a. Ritual righteousness: I did this, this, and that God. Why did this happen or not happen?
b. Dead Righteousness: If I do this God will be pleased with me; Love me more and consider me a follower of Christ.
c. Self-Righteousness: If this doesn’t happen to me or through me then it is lesser and not God.
d. Blood Righteousness: Nothing to glory in except the blood of Christ.
Servants of the Lord find strength in serving instead of obligation or duty. When your focus is on just serving people for hope of gain, people will not always appreciate your services. But when your focus is on serving the Lord, no matter what, you find strength in your service to God as worship to the Lord.
VII. David encouraged himself in the Lord while in Ziglag. I Samuel 30:6
And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
a. Too many stay in spiritual elementary, Junior, or even Senior high School but never experience spiritual graduation day and step into that which will usher then into the understanding of their greater purpose.
b. Too many are spiritual orphans because they will not become sons and daughters. Some will not be fathers or mothers because they are happy just being spiritual orphans. Then there are those like the generation of Israelites who God delivered from Egypt that they may serve the Lord but they preferred to go back and serve a Pharoah.
i. Many times, Jesus and the devil go to the same meetings. The Sower sows the seed and immediately, Jesus said, the enemy seeks to steal it from their hearts.
Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.”
There are four types of leaven in the church: Matthew 16:6-7
1. Pharisees: Religious passivity; Just love with loop holes.
2. Sadducees: Religious legalism and bondage.
3. Zealots: Religious zealousness that tries to force God’s hand to their own will.
4. Heroics’: Religious compromise, political correctness and alliances.
ii. Remember and understand the five loaves for the five thousand. (Remember the five stones.)
Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.”
As long as David honored God with his whole heart and life, God made holy what God put in David’s hand. God put holy things in David’s hands because God knew David would do holy things with them. The was a connection between God and David and between what was in his heart and what was in his hand.
Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
1. Grow in sound doctrine of the faith in Jesus Christ.
Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
2. Resolve who Christ is in your life.
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
3. Take your life out of your own hands and put the cross of Christ in its place.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
c. What do you want to be when you grow up? What will you do about it? God has given you in your bag, sling and hand what you need to graduate into your destiny.
VIII. Recognize and take hold of what has given you. Titus 1:5
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—
a. Identify what is lacking. Where is there a need? What can you do to help? What are you willing to give? What will it cost you and what are you willing to pay? Are you an observer, consumer, or producer in the Kingdom of God? Recognize the needs in the Body of Christ. Find out the standard to walk in the authority to make a positive difference. Many want to do something but avoid the process.
I wanted to be a soldier but it required a process. When I was a new enlisted soldier I was excited to get back to my reserve unit from boot camp and begin to grow in my skills and development as a soldier. Upon my return I found that most of the leadership just wanted to get through a drill weekend while doing as little as possible. But I recognized that the officers had the authority to effect the training schedule. So, I found out what was required to become an officer so that I could change this issue for soldiers in the future, for the good of the unit, and for the destiny and purpose of my future military career. It took years of hard training, increased education, a lot of sweat and sleepless nights and sacrifices. But once I became a Lieutenant I purposed to influence what I could. Then I became a Company Grade Office, a Captain and was responsible for making the training for my soldiers of the highest caliber, effective, meaningful, and productive to help them prepare to survive and succeed on the battlefield. Then I became a Field Grade Officer and got to actually influence and develop policy and directives that impacted the entire organization within my state. Now I work at the National Guard Bureau level and get to influence the entire organization nationwide.
b. Put things in order. Have a vision, a plan, and recognize what steps need be made to make effective change rather than doing things the same way hoping for a different outcome. Follow up and follow through with your commitments and responsibilities. Make no assumptions but go above and beyond. Be diligent and do not leave for someone else what you could complete yourself. When done, assess yourself and what you have done and how you can serve better.
c. Develop and appoint governmental leaders. Find those who have the will, desire, and motivation to not settle for the way things are and will take initiative and make self-sacrifice void of personal agenda, to bring increase to the vision God has given.
IX. Five things God placed in David’s hand:
a. A Stone: The stone may have been the first thing God placed in David’s hand but it was the tool in which God began to develop David’s character, courage, faith, and heart of leadership.
b. A Sling: The sling was a tool of authority and ability to make the stone which God had placed in his hand effective for the purposes of God. It represented what he carried and what he valued.
c. A Sword: The sword was the authority to establish and make complete what God had set in motion and secure the victory for the days to come. David had been anointed but the sword established the appointing upon David, in the eyes of the people, as the divine governmental authority of God to reign in days to come.
d. A Scepter: The scepter is the final test of the heart, character, and actions of those whom God has placed in leadership. It is the delegated authority and responsibility to fulfill a sovereign call of God. The scepter was not for David but was for the people and the Lord’s purposes.
e. An Opportunity: each of these, the stone, the sling, the sword and the scepter presented David continually with opportunities to test and prove his heart, character, service, and obedience to the Lord. Each opportunity defined him either as a Man after Man’s Heart or a Man after God’s heart. Which one are you?
CONCLUSION
What has God put in your bag, your sling, and your hand? What will you do with it? What are you waiting on? What excuses are you making? What does God require of you to be effective for His glory with what He has given you? What are the obstacles, giants, and things that need to change in you to be the David God has called you to be?