A Hand Is Not a Hand With Four Fingers

Sermon outline

Incline your ear to God's word, which is medicine for every area of life, refuse the conditioning that robs you, and give God your whole life, because for a Christian service and leadership are not optional.

1. The charge at the dedication

   A baby dedication is believing parents and families committing before the Lord to raise a child in God's ways. Children are a heritage and Jesus said to let them come to Him. It needs no sacrifice like Hannah's, but it is a sober commitment. Parents carry the primary responsibility: impress God's commandments on the child at home, on the road, in the car, at bedtime and on rising. The extended family is charged to love, support, pray and spiritually train the child, and the whole church to be an example. Parents answer "I do" to bringing their child up in the fear of the Lord, and the children are anointed and blessed.

   Illustration: Afterwards he jokes that a hand needs five fingers, so parents with one child have four to go, and prophesies at least three over his own home with his wife sitting in front.

   “The primary responsibility for the care of the child, of course, rests in your hands.”

   • Psalm 127:3-5
   • Matthew 19:13-15
   • Mark 10:14
   • Proverbs 3:1-18
   • Proverbs 22:6
   • Deuteronomy 6:6-7

2. Attend to my words: the word is medicine

   Proverbs 4 says God's words are life and health to all your flesh, and he gives that word as medicine: a daily dose with no harmful side effects, only by-products of joy, peace and the fruit of the Spirit. God wants health in your body, mind, family and undertakings. If an earthly father will not give his son a stone for bread, how much more will your Father give good things? Inclining your ear means attending to what God says about you, not what YouTube says.

   Illustration: He quotes Smith Wigglesworth: get acquainted with the word, because that is how you get acquainted with Jesus.

   “This one medicine, the word of God, is something that we should be taking each and every day.”

   • Proverbs 4:20-22
   • Matthew 7:9-11
   • Psalm 119:130

3. Don't let human reasoning rob you: the tithe

   The world believes in saving, which is good, but the word says to give the Lord a tenth of all your increase; the tithe is your protection. When money seems to leak through holes in your pocket, it is because it has not been blessed. Israel left Egypt with the wealth the Egyptians pressed on them, and gave from it. Your job is your tent-making, but your prosperity, health and longevity come from the Lord.

   Illustration: With his first pay check he told his father he wanted the new cell phones that had just come out. His father, not yet a pastor, pointed to the door and said he would not let even his own child rob him of the blessing of the Lord.

   “Don't let human reasoning rob you of the blessing of the Lord.”

   • Exodus 12:35-36

4. Spiritual malformations and conditioning

   Last week he spoke of spiritual malformations, distortions in a believer's DNA, which the new creation removes. A circus elephant chained as a baby never leaves even when the chain is gone, and poverty conditions us the same way: a person with a poverty mentality given a fortune spends it on survival. Ask, seek and knock; healing, including in finances, is the children's bread, and insurmountable debts have been wiped out for those who believed.

   “The whole point of debt and credit is to keep you in bondage.”

   • 2 Corinthians 5:17
   • Matthew 7:7-11

5. Every good gift: there is nothing God cannot fix

   Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, and Jesus went about healing all who were oppressed. If sickness were God's lesson, we would not spend medical aid and savings in hospital trying to get out of His will. A diseased business, family or way of thinking can change if you incline your ear. The Canaanite woman, called a dog, answered with faith rather than offence, and her daughter was healed that hour; what matters is our response.

   “There is nothing in your life that God cannot fix, nothing, absolutely nothing.”

   • James 1:17
   • Acts 10:38
   • Psalm 103:1-2
   • Matthew 15:21-28

6. Leadership is mandatory: David's response

   David took another man's wife and had him killed, and Nathan told him, "You are the man." David fasted and lay on the ground for seven days for the child, and when the child died he washed, ate and went to worship the same God. That response is why he remained a man after God's heart. Whatever is in your past, for a Christian leadership is not optional: bring people to church, serve in the ministry and lead by example, not running around the foyer during the service.

   “For a Christian, leadership is not optional. Leadership is mandatory.”

   • 2 Samuel 12:1-23
   • Acts 13:22

7. The time of excuses is over

   Our service, our skills and our seed in the kingdom are mandatory; God requires all of you. Everything you have done has been remitted, blotted out, so nothing disqualifies you from serving. In the parable of the great feast the invited guests made excuses and the master filled his table with others. Covid can no longer be the excuse. Do not let God raise up stones in your place.

   Illustration: Some people wake up and go straight to the Instagram feed; some only read the Bible on the toilet.

   “The time of excuses is over.”

   • Luke 14:16-24
   • Matthew 3:9

In this message