Take the Word Like Medicine, Every Single Day

Sermon outline

Every believer has a calling, and you do not wait for a feeling to begin serving: take the word daily like medicine, let it fix the malformations in your thinking, and reach the people only you can reach.

1. Don't wait for the manifestation before you serve

   The gifts of the Spirit are given to every believer as the Spirit wills, not to an elect few. Many intend to serve but wait for a manifestation first, and drift into other things when it does not come. Business is tent-making that sustains us; the true calling is what we do for God, and it is often in willing service that the Spirit begins to manifest. The Spirit works through a prepared vessel.

   Illustration: Kathryn Kuhlman sometimes did not feel the Spirit of God until she walked onto the stage, and wondered whether it would ever work again. It did.

   “Some of us are waiting for the manifestation to happen before we start serving. And that's wrong.”

   • Jeremiah 29:11
   • 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
   • John 14:12

2. The word is medicine: take your daily dose

   God's words are life and health, which he renders as medicine, to all your flesh. Medicine does not always work at once; the doctor says be consistent. For a new believer this means healing, but for a mature believer it means perpetual health in every area. During Covid people took vitamins and zinc to keep their immune systems up; the word does the same for your spiritual immune system, so you stop questioning whether God loves you or is for you.

   Illustration: A boxer has a level of fitness, but only the most resilient get through the last rounds. That is where the devil works, weighing you down until you ask whether God is with you.

   “When we take that every day, that's the vitamin C, that's the zinc.”

   • Proverbs 4:20-22

3. Attend and incline: undivided attention to the word

   To attend means to put God's word first, before the doctor or your friends, and to give it undivided attention, because the double-minded man receives nothing. Many Christians, if a doctor could diagnose it, would be found spiritually malnourished. Listening to many preachers on YouTube is not the same as knowing what God is saying to you, because your calling is your own.

   “God can only work with an original. You are an original.”

   • James 1:7-8

4. Spiritual malformations

   A malformation is a structural defect from abnormal development, and a spiritual malformation is a distorted defect in a Christian's DNA. It can come from religious teaching we sincerely absorbed, or from trauma, violence, broken homes, abuse and poverty, which is essentially slavery. Israel saw fire, cloud, manna and the Red Sea and still questioned God, and a generation born in slavery had to pass before Israel entered the promised land.

   “A spiritual malformation is an abnormal distorted structural defect in the DNA of us as a Christian.”

5. Misnomers that keep us from ministry

   It is a misnomer that you must run to the pastor for everything: you are the priest of your home, with more power in your mouth than any president. It is a misnomer that the church is responsible for evangelism: leadership gives spiritual advice, teaching and direction, and every member speaks to those within their influence. Other malformations are the religious talk that God wants you sick to teach you a lesson, the "me time" that takes Sunday off from God, and the victim mentality. Like the circus elephant, we stay inside the chain's old circle.

   Illustration: Have you ever heard a sick person say God really taught them a lesson? Sickness brings out the worst in people.

   “I guarantee there's at least twenty people you know that I don't know.”

   • Hebrews 2:7
   • Psalm 8:4

6. Not whether God can, but whether you believe

   The disciples could not free the boy with the mute spirit, and Jesus told the father that all things are possible to him who believes. The Canaanite woman's faith brought healing to her daughter the same hour. Most of what Christians face is not a devil problem but a word problem. Do not let human reasoning defeat you; go and lay hands on the person you see in pain.

   Illustration: When you see someone at the shops with a crutch, rubbing a sore foot, go and ask what the story is and offer to pray.

   “It's not a question of whether God can, it's a question of whether you can believe.”

   • Mark 9:17-29
   • Matthew 15:21-28
   • Psalm 138:2

7. Listen, learn, grow, serve, go out and bring them in

   The church is the training centre, not the place you clock in for the pastor; it is not the pastor's job to phone you to prove he loves you. Diluting yourself with four different preachers leaves you confused. We cannot be emotional about the things of God, because that implies the book does not work. You have already believed for the greatest miracle, your salvation, so you have the faith for whatever you need.

   Illustration: He quotes Kenneth Copeland: the best counselling is in the house of God on a Sunday morning, when the pastor is preaching the word.

   “Listen, learn, grow, serve, go out and bring them in.”

   • Hebrews 10:25
   • Ephesians 2:1-7
   • Ephesians 3:14-19
   • Matthew 17:20

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