I Am a Product of Someone: Honouring Forty Three Years

Sermon outline

Nobody arrives in ministry overnight, so honour those who carried the cost before you; and live in the victory you already have in Christ by thinking right and speaking right, refusing every negotiation the devil offers over your covenant blessings.

1. I am a product of someone

   Pastor Wesley says he did not wake up one day a pastor, gifted overnight. His parents came out of Hinduism and Islam, and met Christ only months before he was born, when God spoke audibly to his father as he sat studying at home and told him to go and find a pastor to lead him to the Lord; that same evening they both gave their hearts to Christ. He honours his father's move from more than twenty years in the police into full-time ministry at an age when most enter an easier phase.

   Illustration: He washes his parents' feet in front of the church, as his father once washed the feet of the whole congregation.

   “I'm a product of someone. It was not something that happened overnight.”

   • John 13:1-17

2. This walk is not about being liked

   He honours a stand his father took for righteousness that cost the ministry most of its people overnight, and the criticism and hurtful words that followed, only some of which were ever apologised for. Those criticised in Christ's name have a reward in heaven and grace on the earth. Many believers hold back from serving fully because they want to be liked and do not want to be hurt. He promises that the leadership will carry the church forward and that the picture his father once pinned to the pulpit, a large auditorium captioned "These are those that came", will be their story.

   “This walk with the Lord is not about being liked. It's about fulfilling a call of God on your life.”

   • Matthew 5:11-12

3. Bring up your children in the way of the Lord

   His parents corrected him as a child and even as a grown man. Bringing up children in the Lord is not just letting them know you are Christians: it is bringing them to church when there is sport on Sunday or a party the night before, and bringing them to prayer in their matric year instead of leaving them at home supposedly studying. Parents sacrifice half an hour of sleep to get a child to school by seven; the house of the Lord deserves the same.

   “If you want change, you do something differently. You don't follow the norm.”

   • Proverbs 22:6

4. The honour principle: do not block a blessing

   He presents a gift from the church to his parents and then apologises to the congregation: when members wanted to honour the family on birthdays, they kept declining out of concern for people's struggles, and by saying no they blocked a blessing. If you are led in your heart to give, do it without asking permission, and the favour of the honour principle rushes towards your life.

   “Really speaking, by saying no, what we did was we blocked that blessing.”

5. Let God's word be final authority

   Pastor Thamie Bhengu continues the series. What you deposit in your spirit is what comes out under pressure, so the word must be final authority. Loving God means obeying His commandments, and they are not hard: He is not asking you to climb Everest. Every child of God overcomes the world by faith, which is a spiritual law like gravity or sowing and reaping. We are not going to be victorious; we already live in a place of victory.

   “We win the victory over the world by the means of our faith.”

   • 1 John 5:1-4

6. The law of thinking right and the law of speaking right

   Be careful how you think, because your life is shaped by your thoughts, and put crooked speech far from you. Life does not happen to you; it projects out of you, like light from what is inside. From the fruit of your own mouth, not your pastor's or your spouse's, your life is satisfied. Inoperative words that speak death are as bad as swearing, so weigh every word.

   Illustration: When he was newly born again, he and a friend agreed to hold each other accountable for their words, asking each time something negative was said, "Do you want that to happen?"

   “Life doesn't come on you, life projects from you.”

   • Proverbs 4:23-24
   • Proverbs 18:20-21

7. The evil report

   Twelve leaders spied out the land for forty days and all saw the same fruit, but ten said "but" and spread an evil report, while Caleb said they could certainly take it. A congregation that never saw a giant took the report as truth, made a death confession, and wanted another leader to take them back to bondage. God called it an evil report because they treated His word with contempt, and gave them what they said. They refused to believe the evidence in their hands; they saw themselves as grasshoppers; and you cannot move further than the vision you have of yourself. Their children, who left Egypt wearing silver and gold, went in with Joshua.

   Illustration: If your whole workplace is declaring that the company is going down and everyone will be made redundant, shut yourself in a corner and declare the word of the Lord.

   “How you see yourself will determine how you will live.”

   • Numbers 13:27-33
   • Numbers 14:1-9
   • Numbers 14:11
   • Numbers 14:24
   • Isaiah 55:11
   • 1 Peter 3:10
   • Joel 3:10

8. Not a hoof left behind

   Salvation has benefits, and Satan will try to negotiate you out of them. Pharaoh told Moses to go and worship and take the women and children but leave the flocks and herds. That is the devil's offer: get saved but stay broke, get saved but keep the panic attacks. Moses refused, because the livestock was what they would worship with. Money is a weapon for the kingdom, so when the devil negotiates over your health, peace or money, the answer is no deal.

   Illustration: Walking out of a takeaway shop, he checked his packet, found the salad he had paid for was missing, and went back to the till for it. Salvation's benefits have been paid for; do not forget them.

   “Get saved, but stay broke. Get saved, but let your marriage be in trouble.”

   • Psalm 103:2-5
   • Exodus 10:24-26

In this message