3 People Sowed Their Time. All 3 Had Jobs by Evening

Sermon outline

Partnering with God means putting an action and a sacrifice to your faith, because faith is demonstrated by what you do with what is in your hand, not only by what you pray.

1. Where there is unity there is a blessing

   The fivefold ministry gifts are given to equip the saints and build up the body until all come to the unity of the faith. Unity in the home, the workplace and the church brings a blessing, and disunity brings a curse. There is also a war inside every believer between the fleshly man and the spiritual man, and seeing the blessing requires a decision to lean God's way rather than the world's.

   Illustration: In the morning you plan the oats, banana and cinnamon and pack almonds for work, but once you are with your colleagues you want a bunny chow. That is the warring, and you have to deny yourself.

   “Where there is unity, there is a blessing.”

   • Ephesians 4:11-16
   • Revelation 1:7

2. When your foundation is shaken, decide to do things God's way

   Everyone goes through seasons that make them question the integrity of God's word: a marriage that ends, a job that turns out to be miserable, an unbeliever getting the promotion or the contract. What secures a believer is a decision to keep living by faith in spite of what they see. If you do not partner with God, you will stand on the sideline looking for change only He can bring.

   Illustration: Joseph, the favourite son with the coat of many colours and the gift of dreams, was sold into slavery by his brothers and then put in jail. His father believed his favourite child was dead.

   “A man's faith is demonstrated by his actions, not just his prayer.”

   • Psalm 50:5

3. It is the quality of the sacrifice

   In 2 Kings 3 the unsaved king of Moab, surrounded by three armies, offered his own heir on the wall, and the battle turned. It was not about whether the man was saved but the quality of his sacrifice, so how much more should a believer's life, resources, skills and talents count. Too often people bring God the blemished and the leftovers and still expect His best. Tithes and offerings already belong to the Lord; this is about everything else.

   Illustration: When you buy a lamb and have it chopped up, the Lord asks for the four legs, the hindquarters and the forequarters: bring the best to Me and take the rest home. Abraham believed God, while Lot believed what he saw in Abraham, and so Lot only ever saw God move through someone else's hands.

   “If it doesn't cost you, then it was already man's ability, not God's ability.”

   • 2 Kings 3:26-27
   • Malachi 3:10

4. Faith is an action: what do you have in your hand?

   If all you have is your time, come and sow your time in the house of the Lord. Praying, reading and attending church without acting puts all the ingredients in the bowl but never puts the cake in the oven. You can even sow for joy by helping someone else. Gratification is short-lived and always wants more, but acting on your faith brings a satisfaction that does not need to be refilled.

   Illustration: In the last month three people with no work, some unable to work, came and simply sowed their time in the house of the Lord. Nobody laid hands on them, and on the same day God gave all three of them jobs.

   “I've only put all the ingredients into the bowl, but I've not put the cake into the oven.”

5. There is no curse without a cause

   An undeserved curse does not land, so a curse comes either from something done wrong or something we failed to do. Believers should live under the law of the Spirit of life, not the law of sin and death, and the action of no condemnation is to get up and serve, make disciples and tell people about Jesus. A callous heart, with the wrong motive and the wrong thought life, can be the reason the blessing does not come.

   “I refuse to have generational curses flowing in my bloodline because I failed to act.”

   • Proverbs 26:2
   • Romans 8:1-2

6. Partnering with God will make you uncomfortable

   As a boy he was brought to Durban with clogged lungs, and the family was living in his grandfather's house. One morning his mother woke them and said they had to move out that day, and in the same week they moved, his healing came. Sometimes the sacrifice is family, sometimes it is our own thinking or a habit, but when you move, God moves.

   Illustration: Christ is our culture: you may have your roots in Newlands or Greenwood Park, but you cannot dumb down your beliefs to avoid offending the family. For him, at one stage, a gratification had to leave his life in the form of smoking before the blessing began to flow.

   “Don't wait for God to move before you move. You move so then God will move.”

   • Mark 10:29-30
   • 2 Samuel 6:11-12

In this message