God's Not Done - Desert Survival (with Alfonzo Greene)

[Music] bye foreign [Music] [Applause] um [Music] i want to invite you to stand with me uh as we just read uh god's word today just in respect of the word of god we're looking at the book of luke the first chapter and i'm reading verses 67 through 80 out of the new international version of the bible and we're just thankful today that we are his song we are his song here's what the word of god says his father zachariah was filled with the holy spirit and prophesied praise be to the lord the god of israel because he has come and he has redeemed his people he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant david and as he said through his holy prophets of long ago salvation from our enemies from the hand of all who hate us to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant the oath he swore to our father abraham to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days and you my child you will be called a prophet of the most high for you will go on before the lord to prepare the way for him to give the people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our god by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace verse 80 and the child grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to israel i'ma repeat verse 80 again and the child grew and became strong in the spirit and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to israel with your prayers and god's help i want to preach under the subject today desert survival desert survival bible if you just buy your heads with me as we see god eternal father we just want to say thank you for who you are god we are your song today and my prayer god is that lord you would allow me to decrease that you would increase and that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be acceptable in your sight my lord my strength and my redeemer in the name of jesus we pray amen you may be seated in the house of the lord desert survival desert survival um so you all are getting to know me i'm getting to know you and uh one of the things i'll just share with you about myself is that i'm somewhat of a political junkie i i love politics i love uh following uh the different storylines within uh within politics and so i'll never forget of course when um president barack obama was running the first time i was plugged in i i knew every news article i was just a a political junkie um but one of the most interesting elections uh that had that came about in recent years was the 2016 presidential election i i'll never forget that thing because at the beginning of that particular election cycle everybody was crowning hillary clinton as the presumptive president of these united states if y'all remember she was the front-runner she was the chosen one she was anointed and appointed to take over for president barack hussein obama and so i remember just following that particular campaign and and then you know after the democrats had made their decision about who was going to be their nominee i'll never forget the republicans were still going back and forth at jeb bush and all these other big names but y'all remember man after all of the the tussling and the fighting that the name that emerged as their nominee was donald j trump and for so many uh so many folk that that that you know so many of the experts so many of those that that know something about this when they look at donald j trump with his hair and all the different things about him they were like oh this is set up perfectly for hillary like there is no way that hillary will lose to donald j trump and so i remember as i was just following this thing every pre-election uh poll was saying that hillary clinton had this thing in the bag and so i remember on election night man just looking at this election and and seeing that the six states that barack obama had won in 2012 went to donald trump in his camp and before the night was over donald trump had become our 45th president of the united states marking one of the biggest political upsets in american politics and look y'all if we could have just caught hillary off off off camera if we could have just talked to her just for a few moments between maybe a few cuss words that she may have shared with us if we could have just interviewed her i feel like she could have she would have probably said to us that man she would have thought that man this was going to be an easy road to the white house i was the front runner i was anointed i was the chosen one i thought it would have been much easier but but i'm sitting here having lost to donald trump and i i have to conclude that this doesn't make any sense because i was the number one seed because i was anointed because i was the chosen one this this this outcome doesn't make any sense and say to god as i reflected on that presidential election it it just brought to my mind the life of john the baptist because in the first chapter of the book of luke the bible describes john the baptist as one who was anointed he was the chosen one he was the number one seed from birth and the bible says that he was going to be the one that was going to prepare the way for the messiah to come and so the bible says that this guy john the baptist said he was going to be great in the sight of god he was anointed to be the next great prophet of israel but before the oil can dry on his head the bible says that in verse 80 and the child grew and became strong in the spirit and the bible says that he lived in the desert yo anointed from birth bible says this is how anointed john the baptist was john the vows was so anointed that the bible says that when he was in his mother's womb and came in contact with jesus the word of god says that he left in his mother's womb and had such a praise service that she was like what's going on there because he just sensed jesus was in the midst that's just how anointed he was and are there any worshipers in this place today that are just thankful for the presence of god in your life that you recognize that when you just get in his presence it brings joy it brings you peace it brings you hope his presence convicts you of when you've done wrong i'm just thankful today for the presence of god and so he he he's anointed from birth he's the chosen one he's the anointed one he has been tasked with preparing the way for the messiah but isn't it interesting stay with me saints that here john is having been anointed the next prophet in israel that at a very young age he would be assigned to a detour in the desert he goes from being the golden child who everyone expected to do great things to now spending his days in a dry dusty depressing desert he finds himself in this desert alone in his thoughts and he has to be looking around at this hot dusty dirty desert that he's been assigned to by god and has to be thinking back to the day that he was told that he was going to be the next great prophet in israel and as he looks around at what life has presented him he's got to be saying somewhere in his mind this doesn't make sense have you ever been there before saying to god where you've been in a situation where life has dealt you a bad hand maybe you've been faithful on the job all throughout this pandemic and man you've been on time for work every single day and all of a sudden you're the first person that's been laid off it doesn't make any sense you went to the doctor the other day for a checkup and you've been healthy you've been careful with your body you've been doing everything you've been supposed to do and now they've told you that you have a chronic illness it just doesn't make sense man you graduated from college you did everything you were supposed to do you're supposed to get a job right after school but now you find yourselves unemployed it just doesn't make sense man you enrolled your kids in church school you laid up all that money at the church school for your kids to be taught of god only for them to leave christianity it doesn't make sense man you got married and yeah your life wasn't it just wasn't better or worse but it went from better to worse it just doesn't make sense as saints of god how many know that you can go through situations in life where you've been faithful to god when god has given you a purpose where he's given you a promise and you find yourself in the midst of a situation where you're saying to yourself as faithful as i've been to god this doesn't make any sense can i just remind us just for a few moments this this afternoon that the favor of god does not give you a free pass from the challenges of life may i'll never forget uh one of my closest friends pastor snell and his wife i will never forget this i remember when he was pastoring in lexington um kentucky i was pastoring in tuscaloosa alabama and him and his wife they were trying to have children now look i've known his i've known his wife since high school always been a godly woman always been a woman of god pastor snell been somebody that just knows the lord jesus christ but i'll never forget the news when he when he shared with us that his wife had had another miscarriage and we're not talking just one we're not talking just two we're not talking just three multiple miscarriages and you say to yourself here's somebody serving god loves the lord with all of their heart and and to go through something like that it just doesn't make any sense and the truth of the matter is that we don't like to be told that purpose comes with problems and that anointing comes with challenges we don't like to be told that our elevation will always be a time of preparation where you have to manage your frustration when things don't go our way we quit we want greatness without humility spiritual maturity without sacrifice shortcuts without dedication we want convenient church not committed church so we have daily devotions we'll study the bible and we'll pray we'll sacrifice for the cause of god and when you start catching hell you're looking around at your desert and you're saying to yourself this doesn't make sense and the question that we got to answer saints of god is we are all in a desert right now not only literally but also figuratively we've just come out of one of the most trying times and we still look like we about to be in it again how do we when we've been all assigned to living in the desert how do we maintain faithfulness on our way to fulfilling assignment and the first thing that i believe the text teaches us y'all as we're just trying to understand the answer to that question is that first we cannot let our detour in the desert distract us from seeing the divide we cannot allow for our detour in the desert to distract us from seeing the divine notice that the bible says this about john the baptist the bible says that john lived in the desert let me say that again the bible says that john lived in the desert now i need you to consider this stay with me saints john the baptist lived in the desert for over 20 something years and yet he survived what would have killed most people if the fact that he was sustained in the desert was a miracle he got water every day he got food every day he got shelter every day what would have killed most people god sustained him through and are there any are there some folk in the building and online today that are under the sound of my voice who are doing your detour in the desert right now and the reality is that the enemy is attacking you on every corner but if you could just look back over your life you can lift up holy hands because you know that god has been sustaining you where others have been taken out is there anybody that's just thankful and that recognizes that man there's some folk that got covered but they live to tell the tale there's some folk that are broke but they did not foreclose they've been laid off but they got some interviews they've been divorced but they still got their sanity they're struggling but they're still making it work crying all day sleeping all night man don't let your detour in the desert distract you from seeing the divine i'll never forget 2014 was like not only this year but i mean 2014 for our family was just like the craziest year 2014 my wife and i we entered that detour into the desert my father-in-law he got lung cancer but never smoked a day in his life mother-in-law has a stroke in that same year transmission in the car goes out ac in the house it goes out transmission in the van it goes out the furnace in the house it goes out but while we were in that detour in the desert we were determined that we were going to bless god at all times that his praise was going to be continually in our mouths and i need to let you know that our god spared my father-in-law's life he spared my mother-in-law's life we still had a car to drive is there anybody who'll just take 10 seconds to put your hands together and give god a praise for the miracles in 2021 that you still have your health that you still have your home that you still got your right mind man don't let the detour in the desert distract you from seeing the divine and so john is there living in a space that would have killed everybody else second thing if we're going to be able to just survive our desert that we need to understand that we learn from the text is understand that your desert assignment doesn't derail your divine destination look at the promises god gave about john's future destination in verse 76 and 77 it says this talking about john the baptist and you my child will be called a prophet of the most high for you will go on before the lord to prepare the people prepare the way for the for the lord to give his people a knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins here's what here's what the bible lets us know john had to be taught have been told that he was preparing the way for the messiah and he has not reached the manifestation of that promise so if i'm not at the place of promise then where i am can't be my last stop see because god never comes short of his word and because he's faithful i've got to decide whether i'm going to believe the report of my reality or submit my reality to the promise of god's word i've got to decide whether i'm going to give in to what i'm going through or am i going to put faith and in the promise that god has made to me because where i am does not match sometimes with what god has said so that obviously means that can't be my last stop and so man i must do i must i must only be in this spot right now in this desert because there's something that god needs me to learn there's something he wants me to get out of this situation and so here's the thing john the baptist getting a promise from god that he's going to be the next great prophet in israel has not reached the fulfillment of that promise and so that's why when john was in the detour in the desert he wasn't afraid of the desert because he knew that he was the forerunner for the messiah and so if the desert destroyed him before he fulfilled the promise that means that god's word is not true and so that means whatever challenge john faced in the desert wouldn't face him because he knows he has not reached the promise that god has over his life and may i need somebody man to just know today that in your life there are some things that god has spoken over you there are some promises that he has made over your life and if you have not reached the fulfillment of that promise whatever you're going through right now is just a temporary detour on the way for god fulfilling his purpose and his plan in your life you just got to continue to remember what god has said to you you got to remember the difference between the facts and the truth you see the truth is what god said the facts are what i see and so here's john the fact is i'm in the desert right now the fact is that i'm all alone the fact is i feel like god has left me the fact is i don't feel like there's anybody on my side but the truth is that god told me i'm going to be the next prophet in israel and as long as god still sits on the throne as long as our god is king of kings and lord of lords that means his promises are always going to become true you got to learn saints of god the difference between the facts and the truth the fact is i ain't got no money but the truth is my god will supply all of my needs according to his riches in glory the fact is i got enemies all around me but the truth is no weapon that's formed against me is able to prosper the fact is that my family may have turned their back on me but the truth is when father and mother forsake me then the lord he bears me up the fact is that i may have sickness in my body but the truth is by his stripes i've been healed the fact is i've got friends stabbing me in the back but the truth is he'll be a bridge over my troubled water is there anybody today that's thankful that you may have got some facts but the reason why you're clapping and the reason why you're smiling behind your mask is because you're standing on god's truth [Applause] and so here's john he's coming out boldly because he knows that where he is doesn't match where god said he would be and so if where you are for whatever reason does it match where god said you will be stand on his truth third thing that we see in the text if we're going to survive our deserts is we got to understand that the desert is god's incubator the desert is god's incubator um i mean for most of us we're we're in kind of like a science town you know or nearby nearby not like a lot of biology medical biochem folk and medical professionals and stuff so most of us know what an incubator is but we know that for things to grow like chicks there's certain environmental factors that have got to take place for these little chicks that take place and what an incubator does is it basically imitates that experience it reproduces those conditions for that chick or that particular creature to grow and so what i'm talking about translation here is that incubators are basically they create environmental conditions for growth and so what god is doing is he's teaching john some lessons in the desert for his prophetic assignment he's been placed in a controlled environment for growth okay where is that in the text here's what the bible says verse 76 it says this of john you will be called it's two words will be that depict evolving he will be a prophet see john is named a prophet in verse 76 but in verse 80 the bible says and the child grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to israel john is named a prophet in verse 76 but now in verse 80 he's being made what he's already been named and so the reality is just because you have a name doesn't mean you're walking in the fulfillment of its potential saints you've got to become what you've already been named so look i'm in i'm in like i'm like in heaven right now in this regard i love lebron james wherever lebron goes i follow right so that hey [Applause] i should go to miami and you know that you know but no i'm i'm really happy right like my sons they are just like like the one thing like selling them to come to california they were just like dad all of our friends man we're just gonna be so far i was like yeah but you know they do have the lakers and lebron and they were like hey yo we we let's go we're ready and so one of the things about lebron man i mean i just i just have a lot of respect not only for his exploits on the court but i also got a lot of respect for what he does off the court and so if y'all remember like after lebron came out of high school he went directly from high school into the pros and as soon as lebron like got out like they were already naming lebron the king right yo he was already king james right when he came out of high school he had not dribbled one day in the pros he had not taken one shot in the pros they were already naming him the king but man how many know when you followed lebron's career that after years of playing in the league he finally became what he had been named and the way that that happened was he had to struggle a little bit he had to fail a little bit after learning and and struggling and and just becoming a better ball player and a better leader he finally became what he had been named and the truth of the matter is that all of us under the sound of my voice and online that all of us have to become what we have been named and your question may be today pastor what have we been named our bible declares that we are now called the sons and the daughters of god and if you're going to become what you have been named you're going to have to struggle you're going to have to be pruned you're going to have to be tried you're going to have to become what you've been names and so for many of us this pandemic it wasn't a blessing season it was a becoming season you're becoming husband and wife you're becoming a professional you're becoming the parents that god has called you to be you're becoming a man and a woman of god you're becoming a man after god's own heart we're becoming the church that god has called us to be we're in a becoming season and god will take you he will take us through some inconvenient detours to help you to be made what you've been previously named so some of us right now you're discouraged you're ready to throw in the towel because the place that you find yourself right now you're just like god i is i'm in this desert i need you to know today that where you find yourself may not necessarily be a sign of the weakness of your faith or the illegitimacy of your anointing god may have you where you are right now because you're in the becoming season you may not like it you may be ready to get out of it you may be ready to jump ship but if i could just encourage you to just hang in there that god will use where you are right now to help you to become what he's already named you yo i i don't be liking a shout in this season right now i it's not it's hard to shout in the becoming season you can shout after it but what god needs you to do is to just stay still don't move ahead of him and just trust that he's accomplishing his purposes in your life right now you're becoming in the desert see i love i love in this regard the desert because god does some of his best work in the desert yo emitting moses was trained 40 years in the desert before he became paul spent three years in the desert before he became a great apostle and so i need you to know if you're in a desert right now you're in a good place because it's the place where god does some of his best work i know you're struggling right now i know that you're going crazy right now but what it all it means is that you're becoming what god has called you to be and so in verse 80 as we get ready to close the bible says this and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to israel or in another translation until the day he was displayed to israel last point we're going to just survive the desert understand that your detour in the desert is god's way of preparing you to be put on display um one of the things that you know just i mean we we all just we like our interest well maybe we're not but i like nature stuff right yeah i look at the nature channel and stuff like that and so we all know the story about metamorphosis with caterpillars and so i remember i was walking just watching this particular documentary and it was it was a caterpillar you're just looking at this ugly slow creature that's crawling up on leaves and different things and so we know that metamorphosis is like this process of something at work on the inside showing up on the outside right and so the so one of the things that was interesting is that they were just highlighting that the only reason why a butterfly can fly is that the wings of the butterfly are strengthened by the work it takes to break out of the cocoon and so now this is what blew my mind they said that if a bystander were to come and to slit the cocoon prior to the butterfly breaking itself loose from the cocoon it would not be able to fly because its wings would have only can be developed through the struggle no struggle no flight no struggle not no going to the next level no struggle you stay grounded and i need you to know today that if you're in the middle of a struggle if you're sitting in the middle of the desert i need you to know right now that god is preparing you to be put on distress display i'm talking to somebody today who's right in the middle of their desert you still got your issue you still have your trouble and you're wondering how you're going to deal with it i've got here to tell you today don't complain your way out you got to learn how to bless god you got to learn how to give him a praise even if he doesn't heal you even if he doesn't give you your spouse even if you don't find the job you've got to learn how to magnify him even if it doesn't work out the way that you want it to work out you got to trust god in your detour in the desert and i'm so thankful today that our lord and savior spent 40 days in a desert wilderness and when he emerged the bible says in the book of luke that he came out of the desert with the power of the spirit and so jesus survived the desert and because he survived the desert we can survive the desert if jesus made it we can make it not because of any power of our own but because of the precious blood and because of the life of jesus we can make it and survive through any desert that comes our way [Music]

Channel: Mt. Rubidoux SDA

Views: 204

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Mt. Rubidoux, SDA, Seventh Day Adventist, Church, Riverside, California, Alfonzo Greene

Id: 3H1LJMwPXpw

Length: 37min 1sec (2221 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021