Divine Appointments

Play Thanksgiving video. (Then offer up a Thanksgiving blessing to everyone!)

Remind everyone to silence their smartphones, tablets, watches, etc.

One of my favorite chapters in the Psalms, is the 37th chapter. This chapter reminds us of the contrast between the righteous and the wicked. “The righteous will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity, but the wicked will be cut off forever”, says the psalmist!

And one of the more well known and quoted passages from this psalm is verse 23, which reads, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.”

David goes on to say to us that, “When he (the godly man), falls, he will not be utterly cast down, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand. ”

The understanding here is that no one is truly holy and righteous except God alone and thus we, as His children, will stumble (we will yield to temptation and sin) in our lives and in our walk with the Lord and falter. BUT, God is faithful, even when we are faithless and He will not let us completely fall in desperation and shame from those sins!

He will uphold us with His righteous, mighty right arm!! He will preserve us and keep us from truly falling down and suffering harm. Much like a father will hold the hand of his child when they are learning to walk and though they will stumble, he will not let them fall and suffer harm!

Our heavenly Father loves us and wants us to learn and help us grow in our walk and our relationship with Him!

And because God loves His children so very much, He directs us and guides our steps along the way, so that we stay close to Him and His provision and His protection, and so that we carry out His perfect will for our lives while we are here on this earth!

“The steps of a good man/a good woman are ordered (directed) by the Lord and He delights in their way.” Do you believe the words that are written in this passage are true?

How many of you within the sound of my voice this morning would be willing to say that you trust the Lord God with your life, so much as to lead you and guide where He wants you to go?

Even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense where your’e headed and even when the road that you are being lead down isn’t clearly marked and it’s not a known territory to you.......will you still trust in holding His hand and letting Abba lead you where He desires for your life?!

That is the premise, or the grounds for our message this morning.

Letting God lead and guide us to new places and to do new things with our lives. And all for His glory and for accomplishing His will in our lives!

Even at the risk of great cost to ourselves and even at the possibility of losing our own lives for His name’s sake!

Will we remain faithful and follow His lead and go where He wants, to the places that He wants us to go and to the encounters that He has awaiting us?!!

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts 8.

And while you’re turning there, I’ll go ahead and fill you in and what has taken place up to this chapter, so that it makes more sense.

In Acts chapter 6, we find the new church, the newly born “body of Christ”, thriving and growing at a steady and rapid rate.

And within this growth, there arose a dilemma.

A group of Christians, known as the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jews who had returned to Jerusalem), began complaining that their widows were not be looked out for and cared for by the church, like the Jewish Christian widows from Jerusalem were.

You see, God’s commandments, going all the way back to Moses and coming forward in the Bible, were that the widows and the orphans, were to be cared for and taken care of.

Deuteronomy 10:18 tells us, “He (the Lord God), executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.”

And then in Deuteronomy 27:19 we read, “Cursed is anyone who denies justice due to the foreigners, orphans, or widows.”

James 1:27 re-affirms this to us in saying, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

So, God clearly expects His body to look out for those who are unable to take care of themselves, right?

And that’s the complaint being brought before the 12 disciples in Acts 6, that the Hellenist widows were not being cared for the same as the other widows.

So, the 12 disciples bring the people together and inform them that their prime job (the twelve disciples job), was to be preaching and teaching the Word of God to everyone and not taking their time to just wait tables.

And so that it would handled fairly and justly, the disciples had the people choose from amongst themselves seven men, who were Holy Spirit filled, well respected and wise, to oversee the food distribution for the Greek widows.

And the Bible gives us the names of all 7 of the men.

2 of which are more relevant to the message today. Those two men are: Stephen and Philip.

And then, after the seven were selected, the Bible says that these seven men were brought before the apostles who prayed about them and over them, to ensure that these men were the ones Holy Spirit wanted for the job, and then they laid hands upon them.

The laying on of hands was the symbol of sanctifying them and setting them apart for work of God in the body of Christ.

I want to make a point here about the selecting of these men and their having had hands laid upon them as confirmation of their callings.

This past Monday, myself and some other Christian brothers were talking about the issue of people leading in the body of Christ and then having to be removed due to sin and transgressions in their lives.

And we talked about how we see this pattern time and time again, both locally as well as nationally and internationally.

Now, I know that people are subject to sin and that no one is perfect, but as to body of Christ, we must be very diligent and prayerfully cautious about the men and women who we allow into leadership roles in the church body!

Paul gave clear criteria for the how to select men to serve as elders and deacons (leaders) of the body in his letters to Timothy and Titus, and these criteria were given to ensure that spiritually mature and Spirit filled men would be at the helm of the church.

They didn’t appoint someone as a preacher or a teacher to the body, just because that person said, “I believe that I am to preach” and they didn’t place someone in the role of a church leader, because someone had an impressive resume and recommendations!

That’s how the business world operates, but that’s not how Yeshua said to handle the kingdom of God and it’s operation!

We MUST make sure that we are using Godly, Holy Spirit lead wisdom as to who we set apart and place as leaders within His body!

Because the windfall effect of producing leaders in the body based upon popularity and man’s wants and desires and poor spiritual wisdom is horrific upon the church!

AMEN?!!!

Now, of those two men that I just mentioned, I want to share with you about how God used them, beyond what they were initially called to do.

Thew Bible tells that Stephen was a man full of the Spirit and full of wisdom!

It was Stephen who, according to the Bible, in grace and power, began performing great signs and miracles among the people(not one of the 12 elites, mind you. He was not an apostle, but just a man who diligently served the Lord) and who raised the attention of the religious zealots.

These religious fanatics began questioning Stephen and bringing false accusations against him because they couldn’t dispute him and they couldn’t control him. The Bible says that they could not “cope” with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking!

How many of you know and understand that the god of this world, our enemy, satan, cannot control, nor stifle the power and the wisdom of God’s Holy Spirit as He is active and moving through a faithful believer?!

The only thing that the enemy can do to try and contain, or hinder a Spirit filled believer is to bring lies and false accusations against them and make difficult the work they are doing for the Lord!

After all, he is the father of lies and his main mission is to steal, kill and destroy our walk with the Christ and our ministry while were here on this earth!

And so, it was Stephen who, in Acts chapter 7, gave an awesome, Holy Spirit filled defense of his faith and disputed the lies that the religious hypocrites formed against him. And in doing so, it incited rage from the crowds against him, because they didn’t/or couldn’t receive the TRUTH being told to them, because the god of this world had blinded many of their hearts and minds to the TRUTH of Yeshua!

And it was also Stephen who became the very first Christian who was martyred for Christ, because of his faith and belief in the Christ.

God used Stephen and his role as the first martyr in the New Testament, to serve as a catalyst to begin the diaspora of the believers into all the lands around Jerusalem!

Because of what happened to Stephen, the Bible says, “On that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.”

You see, the church at that time was growing like crazy, but only there in Jerusalem. (Kind of like churches now........in-house growth is the only metric that we tend to use to measure the health of the body of Christ, but not actually getting out and doing the work of God in the areas outside and around the building, which is what we’re supposed to be busy with!) The Great Commission given to the disciples in Matthew 28:19-20, was the spreading of the gospel to all nations, not just there in Jerusalem.....not just where they were meeting each and every week!

So, in order to prompt the people to get out and get going, God used persecution to drive them out of their comfort zones and get them busy with sharing His gospel message of salvation for all peoples!

And one person was used by the Lord to initiate this dispersion of the believers......Stephen!

Stephen, in being faithful to the Lord and listening to Him, had a “divine appointment” that he was being sent to that day, in order to further the plan of God for salvation to all peoples!

This “divine appointment” that Stephen had was very costly to himself, but it was also crucial to the will of God for the advancing of the kingdom of God to all of the world!

You see, Stephen’s “divine appointment” caused the dispersion of the believers in Jerusalem and initiated the spreading of the gospel to all nations, as well as bringing about another key player for the kingdom of God, who was there as a part of Stephen’s divine appointment that day.

The Bible tells that there was a young man standing there that day, whom the other men laid their coats at the feet of as they stoned Stephen and who witnessed the stoning with great approval.

This young man was filled with a great zeal to persecute the Christians and it set his life in motion from what he witnessed that day.

His name of course, was Saul the persecutor, who would later become the great Apostle Paul.

He also had a divine appointment that day, along with Stephen, as the Lord was already working behind scenes and using Saul and his religious zeal to move the body of Christ out of the city!

And it was that zeal, although misguided at the time, that would ultimately bring Saul into another great “divine appointment” with the Lord Yeshua on a road going to Damascus and forever change the course of his life!

And the Lord was there that day with Stephen to welcome him, as the Bible says that Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed (which means, that he fixed his eyes intently) into heaven and he saw the glory of God and Yeshua “standing” in the place of honor at God’s right hand!

How many of you know and understand that the more you grow in your relationship with Holy Spirit, the more your eyes also become fixed upon heaven and upon the Lord and where He is currently at and not on this earth, nor the things of this earth?

As the author of Hebrews would later go on to write in Hebrews 12:1-2,

Hebrews 12:1–2 (NASB95)

1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

And as the Apostle Paul would also write later to the church of Colossae, “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”

“Divine Appointments”, is the title of today’s message and it’s the thought that I want engrained into every one of our minds.

That is, that each and every one of us have “divine appointments”, already scheduled and that God wants us to engage in and be a part of for His glory and according to His will for our lives!

Those moments when you, whether knowingly, or unknowingly, feel prompted to go, to move and engage with someone and in a certain circumstance.

It’s in these moments, during these, “divine appointments”, that you and I become agents of the supernatural, as God works through us to affect the lives of others in ways that we see sometimes, as well as unbeknownst to us at others!

Stephen was miraculously used by the Lord that day, during that “divine encounter”, to set into motion two things: 1) the starting of the gospel being preached to the entire world, 2) setting into motion one of the greatest apostles who would ever live!

And Stephen never even knew that he was being used to do those things. (Or at least not on this side of life!)

He was simply being faithful and following Holy Spirit’s lead!

God only asks that we be faithful and move when He prompts us to move and speak when HE prompts us to speak!

And just like Yeshua said it would happen in Luke 12:11-12, so it was with Stephen on that day, that he just knew what to say to those who were accusing him and demanding answers from him.

Yeshua told us, “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Just answer the call of the “divine appointment” and the Lord takes care of the rest!

He only wants a willing vessel to work through, in order that His glory and power may be made manifest in the lives of others!

If you will look with me in Acts 8:4-8, we will go from there.

Acts 8:4–8 NLT

4 But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. 5 Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah. 6 Crowds listened intently to Philip because they were eager to hear his message and see the miraculous signs he did. 7 Many evil spirits were cast out, screaming as they left their victims. And many who had been paralyzed or lame were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.

Well, as we just talked about, Stephen’s “divine Appointment” brought about the gospel news spreading, which is what we see here with Stephen’s protege, Philip, going to the region of Samaria to preach the good news.

And this was important, because it served to repair and breach the gap that existed between the lives of the Samaritans and the Jews of Jerusalem.

The Jewish nation hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans felt the same about the Jews!

MENTION OF THE DEPORTATION OF THE JEWS IN THE NORTHERN KINGDOM DURING THE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY AND OF HOW THE JEWS INTERMARRIED WITH THE PAGANS PLACED THEIR DURING THAT TIME PERIOD.

The Jews hated the gentiles, but they hated the Samaritans worse, because they were “half-breeds”.

Longstanding tradition records the head of a Jewish household would start their day each morning with this prayer: Thank you, God, that I am not a Gentile, a woman, or a slave.

As bad as this prayer sounds, their despise for the Samaritans was worse than this!

Jesus made reference to this hatred that existed between these two nations, when He gave the parable of the “Good Samaritan”.

It was Jesus who had the “divine encounter” with the woman at the well, in John 4, who was also a Samaritan, thus showing that He loved the Samaritans as He did the Jews.

And it was with Jesus, that James and John learned about being a true disciple when He quietened them about wanting to send fire down on the Samaritans after they rejected Jesus passing through their region on His journey back to Jerusalem in Luke 9.

So, with the God sending Philip to the nation of Samaria ( which was another divine appointment), the body of Christ was being formed as the Jewish nation was being smelted with all other nations!

And healing was taking place throughout the land!

It was because of Philip answering the call of his “divine appointment” that the Peter and John got to witness the miraculous outpouring of Holy Spirit upon those they had hated their entire lives, as we see in Acts 8:14-17.

And it was then that they realized that the gift of salvation and the indwelling of Holy Spirit was not just for themselves!

Although Peter would need to be reminded of this very thing again later, as he answered his own “divine appointment” with Cornelius and his house in Acts 10.

Time and time again within the Word of God, we see men and women having “divine appointments” from God and the lasting impact that came from those appointments.

It was because of a series of divine appointments that Joseph was able to find favor and preserve the Jewish nation in Egypt during the famine.

It was because of a divine appointment at a burning bush, that Moses was set into motion to deliver that same nation of people out of Egyptian bondage and move them to the promised land of God!

It was from a divine appointment that Esther met a man called Boaz, and from that union came the lineage of King David and ultimately of the Lord Yeshua, Himself!

It was Oswald Chambers who said in his book, “My Upmost for His Highest”, "God is the Great Engineer, creating circumstances to bring about moments in our lives of divine importance, leading us to divine appointments."

And those “divine appointments” become the norm in the life of a “faithful” believer. We should daily be asking for and looking for those moments where Holy Spirit is leading and prompting us to step out in faith and behold as He supernaturally works behind the scenes in combining our faith with His power to affect and change the lives of others!

And just because you feel like you are where you are supposed to be and your seeing great results in your ministry and in your role as a witness for the Lord, do not forget that God can change your ministry in a heartbeat, as He is already planning your next “divine appointment”.

That is exactly what happened to Philip in Acts 8, as the gospel message was spreading like crazy within the region of Samaria.

In Acts 8:26-40, Philip is told by an angel of the Lord to leave Samaria and head south down a desert road heading to Gaza.

Now if most of us were Philip, we’d be thinking like, “Wait a minute God.......I am having amazing success here in Samaria sharing your message and having miracles and signs and wonders happening all over the place and you want me to leave and head out into the a dry and barren region? FOR WHAT? WHO AND WHAT IS EVEN OUT THERE?!”

Responding in faith, Philip leaves Samaria and encounters a large caravan going from Jerusalem and heading back to Ethiopia.

The person whom he ends up meeting is an Ethiopian eunuch who was the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia!

The Bible tells us that this eunuch had made the journey to Jerusalem to worship, meaning that he believed in God and was hungry for the truth.

And when Philip finds him, he is sitting in his chariot and reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. (Which shows that he must have had a lot of money, because copies of the law and the prophets were not accessible to just anyone, like we have today with the Bible!

It would have been especially more unlikely for a Jewish leader to sell a copy of the holy writings to a gentile.

And yet that is what happened in this Biblical account.

The Ethiopian leader had a scroll, and not just any scroll, but the great prophet Isaiah!

And he was not reading the beginning of the book when Philip had this “divine encounter”, for the Bible tells us that when Philip approached him, he was reading about the suffering servant, as found in Isaiah 53!

TALK ABOUT SETTING THE STAGE FOR PREACHING THE GOSPEL!!!

What more could you want than someone reading about the Christ and wanting to know who He was and is!!!!!!

So, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Philip ran over to the carriage and asked the man if he understood what he was reading about.

The Ethiopian said, “How can I understand, unless someone instructs me” and then he invited Philip into the carriage to share with him about the meaning of the book!

And as Philip explained about the passage referring to the Messiah, Yeshua the Son of God, the man believed and they stopped at some water that just happened to be found there in the barren region and Philip baptised him!

And the Bible said that as they came out of the water, Holy Spirit “snatched”Philip away and supernaturally took him to another region, because Yahweh had another “divine appointment” for him!

The Ethiopian man went in his way rejoicing and many believe that he became a disciple of the Christ in the region of Ethiopia!

You never know who you are dealing with, when you have these “divine encounters” and you never know what the impact of those encounters will be!

Much like when the preacher, Mordecai Ham, who held a revival meeting that lasted for several weeks in Charlotte, N.C. in 1934.

He had no idea that one of the young men who came to know Yeshua as Lord and Savior of his life during those meetings, would go on to fulfill a prayer request that had came out of that very town earlier in the year.

The Christian businessmen of Charlotte, NC, secured permission to hold an all-day prayer meeting at the Graham farm. On that day, a prayer was raised – that out of Charlotte the Lord would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

And in the fall of that year, a young man came to know Jesus at the Mr. Ham’s revival service, who would go on to fulfill that very prayer request that those men had been inspired to pray and ask God for!

That young man’s name was Billy Graham, and he would go on hold amazing services all over the world and who would see countless millions give their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ!

READ STORY OF BURNED MAN RECEIVING CHRIST!

Friends, I want to ask you today to begin praying, daily, and asking for Holy Spirit to lead you into “divine appointments” in your life!

He desires that we share the gospel message and He is waiting for many of us to, but ask Him, for guidance and where He would have us go!

You may never know who the person that you are witnessing to is, or what impact that person may have on the world, but one day you will! One day in heaven, you will hear the Lord, Himself, share with you the impact that your “divine appointments” had with others and within His kingdom!

The Bible tells us, “Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!”

And Yeshua tells us in Matthew 25, “I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you? “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

We never know where those “divine appointments” will lead us and with whom we will meet in attending them!