Transcription
Next on the potter's touch. Until you can be thankful for something that is not enough, then what you have cannot be multiplied into what is more than enough. But when you can take it and say, Lord, I know this is not the job I wanted. I know this is not the house I wanted. I know this is not the marriage I expected. I know this child is not living up to my expectation. But I still lift it up and I thank you for it.
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Reaching from heaven. The part is touch showing compassion.
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The pot. Welcome to the potter's touch. I'm your host for today, Sarah Henson. I've got an incredible message for you. It's called Save the Scraps. No matter what you're thinking it's about, you're wrong. You have to watch this message for yourself. Be blessed and take a look.
Understand that Jesus, most of his ministry, all of his ministry is comprised between the age of 30 and about 33. Three years of ministry. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are written about those three years of ministry. Jesus Christ, who is neither famous nor significant, born uh with with mediocre surroundings, beggarly almost if you please, the son of a carpenter, does not step into notoriety. He is not esteemed. He is not noticed. He is not initially appreciated or respected. He is born to commoners. He is born in a segment in a particular realm of the community that is not particularly appreciated. The Roman Empire has taken over all of Jerusalem, all of Israel. The Jews are in a position of subsidiary standards and power. And Jesus is born in the family of people that are not considered particularly aristocracy. He has no uh natural leverage that would cause him to reach prominence. And yet at the age of 30, he embarks upon the task of ministry. That ministry is drawn to and extrapolated out of a divine assignment given him by the father to be about his father's business. Are you following what I'm saying?
And so without the benefit of technology, Jesus begins a ministry that starts at the marriage of Kaa. And we talked about that a few weeks ago. And he moves from the marriage of Kaa to Nicodemus, stopping by, slipping by, sneaking in by night to ask him some questions because Nicodemus comes from the Sanhedrin court, a Pharisee. They were uh religious, deeply uh judicious people who respected the laws of Moses and were absolute in the fulfillment of the integrities of that law. And Nicodemus was up under pressure to reject Christ, but came to Christ by night to say, "I perceive something about you that is distinctive and set apart from other people."
Jesus continues his ministry and stops by the well and sits down by the well and waits all day at the well for a woman who comes up at an unusual time. She does not come down to the well at the normal hour of watering when women came early in the morning. She is not one of those women who benefited from being accepted by other women. There are some women that women just uh don't like. Such was the case with this woman. In an attempt to avoid the sociological pressure of being rejected by other women, born and raised in a misogenic society that does not appreciate the establishment of women. She slips to the well uh in the afternoon and Jesus is sitting at the well waiting on her to come and he begins to minister to her at the well. A conversation ensues that is very similar to that that he has had with Nicodemus. It is similar from the perspective as I begin to study the two of them is that neither of them really understood what Jesus was talking about. Nicodemus misses it when Jesus says to him, "You must be born again." Nicodemus thinking natural in the face of a spiritual Christ tries to put a natural application to a spiritual word and says how can a man when he is old enter back into his mother's womb. In the same struggle to understand where Jesus is coming from, the woman at the well thinks she really has water that Christ needs. She understands in her natural mind that her water quenches thirst. Jesus begins to make her understand, woman, if you drink of the water that you have, you will thirst again. But if you drink of the water that I have, you will never thirst again. He's trying to do a comparative analysis between that that is natural and that that is spiritual. His struggle is is to begin to infiltrate a culture and a society that that thinks so superficially that they cannot grasp the magnitude of what he has come to see because Jesus operates on another level on another plane and another dimensions. His thoughts above our thoughts, his ways above our ways, so beyond us that they cannot comprehend the magnitude of what he is saying.
He is beginning his ministry. He has been baptized in the Jordan River. John has more prestige than Jesus. John is more notable and more recognized than Jesus. But the moment that John baptizes Jesus, he begins to decrease that Christ might increase. Most of his miracles have occurred within a vacuum as it were within a small matrix in a house on the side of the road with one or two people. But even though he starts in a very uh mundane environment, he begins to increase to such magnitude that he has drawn a following. Now the Bible says 5,000 men, not to mention the women and children have gathered to hear Jesus speak. 5,000 men suggest that there were perhaps at least 15,000 people there. They didn't count the women or the children, only the men. But 5,000 men gathered around uh the desert place to hear Jesus. And he spoke with so much power that the hours had slipped away and the time had slipped away and the people were so hungry they were about to faint. But they could not resist hearing Jesus. Might I pause in the prelude of what I'm saying to you to to say how amazed I am by this? Because Jesus has amassed a crowd of incomprehensible proportion beyond human imagination in a society that really doesn't have a lot of people. We have increased in the world today from in the last 100 years from 4 billion uh people to about 7 billion people in the world today. We're growing in leaps and bounds. That in the days of Christ, the world was not that strongly inhabited in this particular part with even less. To amass 5,000 men, not to mention women and children, is quite a feat. Consider with me that Jesus never had a business card, that he had no website, he had no radio ministry, he had no television ministry, he did not stream over the internet, he did not preach with a microphone. And yet 5,000 men, not to mention women and children, have gathered down to hear a man speak without a microphone. So engrossed and so overwhelmed by what he said, they stayed all day to hear him speak. With 5,000 people, you you if you were in the back, you couldn't hardly catch a word. But his words were so potent. They were so lifegiving. They were so earthshaking. They were so so transitional thinking that people had gathered and come away from their backgrounds and their religious ideologies and their concepts and their preconceived concepts just to come in hopes of that the wind might carry his voice to the back of the crowd to hear what the spirit of the Lord was saying to the church. And before they would leave him, they would rather faint of hunger than to miss a word that proceeded out of his mouth. Yes. For the Bible is quite clear that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So given a choice between the bread and the word, they chose the word.
The young disciples, his executive board has gathered around him and says, "Pastor, we have a situation." Oh yeah? What's the problem? He said, "You're you're long-winded, pastor. Uh the the people are about to faint of hunger and we have no food. We should send them away." And Jesus says they need not depart. Using this as a teaching moment, he begins to say, "What do you have?" Miracles always begin with the recognition of what you have. If you don't recognize what you have, you can never multiply what you have not recognized. What do you have? And you know the story as well as I do that there is a little boy there with two fish and five loaves of bread. What was ironic to me as I thought about it is that they didn't even count the women or the children. And yet the one who wasn't counted was the one who had the miracle. Isn't it amazing that God uses people that other people don't count?
Still on the potter's touch. That that refuses to be broken refuses to be blessed. It is the breaking of life that produces the blessing of life. Now, I know a lot of you don't understand that because you yourselves have not been broken. But I have noticed in my life that the most blessed people I have ever met in my life have gone through something that broke them. The best miracles in your life take time. Discover your blessing is right around the corner with Bishop Jake's series in between miracles. Sometimes you've got to get yourself structured and in order so that you are ready to receive the magnitude of what God has for you. If the enemy took your stocks and he took your bonds and he took your benefits and he took your insurance and he took your job and he took your house and he took your car, as long as he didn't take your expectation, you can still get a breakthrough. There's no cute way to be pushed. You going to have to go through some tight places. But when it's all said and done, God is going to birth you into another level that you have never been on before. Don't get discouraged by your circumstances. God has a plan to bless you. Order this life-changing series today when you write to us, visit our website, or call 1-800-Bishop-2.
There are men rebuilding their lives, and everybody in their life is pulling at them. If everything is making a withdrawal and nothing's making a deposit, after a while, you become bankrupt. When a man becomes bankrupt, he becomes dangerous. We want to head off that bankruptcy of the soul and and give the men a place where they can get a deposit. You cannot do it if everything is going out and nothing is coming in. Manpower where men talk. I believe we need to talk.
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They were so busy counting who they thought was significant that they didn't count the very one that God had moved into a position to release a blessing that was of such paramount importance that he says go back and see what you have. It's not in anything you counted. God will always use something that was not counted to produce the miracle. You you you know the story how the little boy brings his lunch. No doubt something his mother had packed for him. Two fish and five loaves of bread. And and Jesus takes the two fish and five loaves of bread. Commanding the disciples to have the crowd sit down into groups of 50. Groups of 50. This took some time for hungry people. 5,000 men, not to mention women and children, an estimate maybe 15,000 people have to be coordinated into groups of 50, organized, implemented, and placed in the seats and told to sit down. And they're already about to faint. But the best miracles in your life, take time. Cannot be driven by hunger or need or necessity. Sometimes you've got to get yourself structured and in order so that you are ready to receive the magnitude of what God has for you. Just because you have a driving need does not mean that you can disperse with the order and the time and the structure that is necessary to hold the weight of what God is going to do. Some people are so busy trying to get what God has that they don't provide the structure that is necessary to sustain what they have been given. Oh, you don't hear what I'm saying? But the preponderance of time is spent preparing them for what God is about to do. And when they were all seated and in place and had all been counted, went from not counted to counted. Then the miracle begins to occur and he took it and he blessed it. I I I like to talk about that because he's blessing something that is not enough. Until you can be thankful for something that is not enough, then what you have cannot be multiplied into what is more than enough. But when you can take it and say, Lord, I know this is not the job I wanted. I know this is not the house I wanted. I know this is not the marriage I expected. I know this child is not living up to my expectation. But I still lift it up and I thank you for it. You'll never get the multiplication as long as you're ungrateful. But when you become thankful for what he has done rather than waiting on what he is going to do, you know the story and he took it and he blessed it. And when he took it and he blessed it, we know it was two fish and five loaves of bread. We have a correct inventory. We are certain that he had two fish and five loaves of bread when he blessed it. As he broke it, that's where we lose count. You understand then that the blessing is in the breaking. That that refuses to be broken refuses to be blessed. It is the breaking of life that produces the blessing of life. Now I know a lot of you don't understand that because you yourselves have not been broken. But I have noticed in my life that the most blessed people I have ever met in my life have gone through something that broke them. Look at your neighbor and say, "Have you ever been broken?"
The the blessing, [Applause] the blessing is in the breaking. And the more he broke it, the more it multiplied. And we can't keep count of it because every time he broke it, it multiplied in his hands. Every time I Can I take a moment and thank God for every breaking in my life? Every every every little time he snapped me and broke me and twisted me and tore me. I thought he was killing me. He wasn't killing me. He was blessing me. Every time he broke me, every time you left me, every time they forsook me, every time they betrayed me, every time they alienated me, they thought they were cursing me, but they were wrong. God was blessing me. And so, and so it goes. Look at your neighbor and say, "Have you ever been broken?" Have you ever Have you ever been broken? Home broken, heart broken, dreams broken, imaginations broken, hopes broken. The greatest blessings come in the hardest breakings of your life. He fed the multitude through the breaking process until all of them had been served. This is the method whereby he uses. Jesus does not feed them directly. He breaks it, gives it to the disciples and then the disciples feed the people. You have to learn how to eat God's blessing even if he brings it at somebody else's hand. Imagine sitting there with your arms full talking about, "I'm not going to see nobody but Jesus. If if Jesus doesn't bring it, I'm not eating it. It's got to be the Lord." You would have starved to death. He could have stopped saying he knew what they had. He knew where it was. He knew how many it was. He could have stopped breaking it at the point the 5,000 were fed. But the real power of the text is not in what they ate. The real power of the text is in what they had left. He purposely designed it so that there would be leftovers. Now, a real good chef, I'm not talking about grandma. A real good chef can get a count of the guests and prepare the food in proportion to the people. Right? God never misses. If he wanted to be precise, he could have been precise. He chose for them to have overflow. Don't let people tell you that God just wants to give you enough. His name El Shaddai means more than enough. Why would a God whose name means more than enough stop at enough? Why would David say, "My cup runneth over?" Unless you got a blind waitress. The waitress can see when the cup is full and stops pouring in proportion to the size of the cup. But God says, "When I pour you out a blessing, I am not limited to your capacity to receive what I have. I intend for you to have overflow so that your children and your children's children and your children's children." I cooked a banana pudding the other day. I didn't want to do it, but up under duress and coercion, I had to pull my apron out of storage and and and fix the banana pudding. I told them, "Banana puddings have nothing to do with Thanksgiving." I said, "That's a summer dessert with ribs and baked beans and potato salad." They said, "Well, it must be summer cuz we want you to fix." And and and and I learned something or the children know something that I learned years ago. It's good on the first day. [Applause] But if you want it to really be right, it's all about those leftovers on that second day when all of those seasonings have become so intertwined that you can't tell what's what, what one from the other, where the you can't the wafers have gotten together with the bananas and mixed all up. [Applause]
So Jesus says, "Here, here's my dilemma. Here's here's my whole case this morning." Jesus says to them, "When the whole event is over and everybody's about to leave, Jesus speaks to the disciples and says, 'Gather up the scraps.'" And the Bible is careful to give us inventory of how much they had left. 12 baskets full left. Now that's overcooking. When you got 12 baskets full left, you didn't count right. 12 baskets full were left and and they loaded them on the boat to leave. Now, here's my dilemma. Why did he have them gather the scraps? And I would like to think in my mind that maybe he thought they would get hungry again. But my problem with that is if they were scraps, fishbones, half-eaten pieces crushed off the bread. It doesn't seem very appetizing that gathered leftovers stored in baskets could be preserved for a future meal in the presence of a God who created something out of nothing. Why do we need to make these kinds of provisions for the next meal when we didn't provide the first meal? I'm trying just just help me. I'm trying to understand the logic of of saving the scraps.
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I have to cut the message off right there. But you've just gotten a little bit of a taste. You'll have to join us next time. Before you go, we have a few messages for you to listen to. The best miracles in your life take time. Discover your blessing is right around the corner with Bishop Jake's series in between miracles. Sometimes you've got to get yourself structured and in order so that you are ready to receive the magnitude of what God has for you. If the enemy took your stocks and he took your bonds and he took your benefits and he took your insurance and he took your job and he took your house and he took your car, as long as he didn't take your expectation, you can still get a breakthrough. There's no cute way to be pushed. You going to have to go through some tight places, but when it's all said and done, God is going to birth you into another level that you have never been on before. Don't get discouraged by your circumstances. God has a plan to bless you. Order this life-changing series today when you write to us, visit our website, or call 1-800-Bishop-2. Your mama's love, your daddy's favor. Whatever you didn't get, that's what you're hungry for. And it's a struggle. Possibility, power, and potential for change. Look up. You're not praising God cuz you got a cute man. You're praising God you didn't lose your mind. Some of you have a pathology of conflict. Everything that ever tried to help you, you fought it. Even God, you're embarrassed about the choices that you made, but you're wiser now and you're smarter now. For your best gift in helping us reach others, we'd like to give you Bishop Jake's two-part series, Look Up, on DVD. And when your gift is $125 or more, we'd like to add Ten Commandments of Working in a Hostile Environment, two messages on DVD, as well as our Victorial Holy Land book, In the Steps of Jesus. Just visit our website or call 1-800-BISPIP2.
There are men rebuilding their lives and everybody in their life is pulling at them. If everything is making a withdrawal and nothing's making a deposit, after a while, you become bankrupt. When a man becomes bankrupt, he becomes dangerous. Answer the call in Dallas, Texas. August 9th through the 11th with Bishop TD Jakes, Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, Pastor Marvin Sapp, Bishop Michael Pitts, Money Coach Chris Hogan, and Pastor Chris Hill. Sometimes we don't know what to do. Men a lot of times won't talk to other men. I put up walls. Always my prayer for you that you remember the God of your scraps. Sometimes we can start to believe that we made it to places by ourselves that it was our hard work and our dedication that allowed us to accomplish so many things. The truth is, save God, we would be nothing. I am so thankful that God leaves us a reminder that no matter how big or how low we may go, that he is with us always. Remember to save those scraps. Take them with you when you're in trouble. Take them with you when you're excelling. Take them with you always and be encouraged. I hope that you enjoyed this message, Save the Scraps, and I will see you next time.