Pastor Sam Monk | Wake up, you're favoured | 26th September 2021

wow how amazing was that international update isn't it good to know that we're part of a movement that's changing the world so many amazing people doing incredible things and uh as a movement we're not just reaching the people in the movement in fact uh we took up our offering recently uh to minister into the need in afghanistan partnering with world vision and we've raised already over fifteen thousand dollars um and i wanna say there's still an opportunity to be a part of that you can go to our webpage and all the information is there but i love the fact that we're a church that looks outside of ourself and we want to see the world change we want to make a difference in our world and that's happening in many different places and one of the reasons i want to say it is happening is because our of our college where we're equipping people and we're equipping them so that they can make an impact in their world and as you know as you would have seen we've got a college experience happening this thursday night 7 30 on zoom and maybe you're considering being trained being equipped in your faith how about you go along to that experience i know it will bless your life and go check it out because you know we need to be equipped uh so that we can fulfill the mission of god in our world well if you've got your bible this morning let's go to isaiah chapter 52 isaiah 52 we're going to read from verse one it says wake up wake up right there just check if the person next to you is awake they're alive and awake wake up wake up osan clothe yourself with strength put on beautiful clothes a holy city of jerusalem for unclean and godless people will enter your gates no longer rise up from the dust o jerusalem sit in the place of honor remove the chains of slavery from your neck o captive daughter of zion what's isaiah saying here he says wake up you're favored and isaiah's prophesying to a group of people who are going to be taken captive they're not captive at that time but they're going to be taken captive and he's warning them in this prophecy but also he's encouraging them because there's going to come a time in a day where they'll come back to these words and they'll find strength from them knowing that god has not forsaken them how many know we can get easily get into a place where we think where are you god where are you have you forsaken me you know right now we're living in a place where we've got a whole lot of natural limitations around us i'm glad that we went into level three i know a whole lot of people have indulged in fast food in fact i don't know if you can call it fast food maybe it's just food because in a lot of places it wasn't fast the amount of time that people had to wait to get that mcdonald's that kfc was just crazy but we're in limitations right now and there's a lot of natural limitations around us but one thing we need to understand is that god's not limited by natural limitations in fact wherever there's been limitations and we can see this right throughout scripture is god has used those limitations to serve his purpose i want to suggest to you today that god wants to use the environment we find ourselves in right now to serve and to propel the his purpose forward god is in this and god wants to work for us in this season and in this passage what we find is we find some different instructions and we're going to break down these instructions because i believe we can actually appropriate we can use these instructions today because i've found when it comes to the promise of god if we want to take hold of the promise of god we're going to embrace the processes of god right now we're in process we're processing we're we're processed from level four to level three i hoping we're gonna process to level two and eventually to level one right now we're in process of many different things and the process is just there to prepare us so that we can inherit the promise in fact that the process is to position us and to prepare us and here isaiah gives some instructions and the first instruction today is wake up that's right wake up be alert and he doesn't just say this once he says it twice he says wake up wake up you know sometimes we need to hear that twice because after we hear it once our alarm goes off we hit the snooze button and we go back to bed we go back to sleep how many had one of those old school alarms you know those old school alarms and you hit the snooze button and then you have nine minutes today a lot of people use iphones as the alarm they use their phones as alarms it's not my minute nine minutes it's seven minutes in a lot of places we've been robbed of two minutes but a lot of people hit the snooze button and and they go back to sleep this is not a time for you and i to be asleep we need to be awake to what god is doing and here's a call for people who have been spiritually asleep to to wake up and and i love you know what isaiah's referencing he's he's referencing he's saying you're not going to ever see the presence of god in your life unless you are alert and unless you're awake and you've got to see that he's saying god is working all around you but you'll miss it if you're not awake and the first thing that we need to do to be awake is we need to open our eyes because i believe in the season god wants to show us his beauty but if you don't open your eyes you'll never see it and it'll be as if it never existed unless you're awake and here he says awake awake ozil i really believe god right now is looking for a group of people who are awake who are alert who are ready who say i'm here my heart is open my mind is attentive and receptive to all that god wants to do now a lot of us haven't traveled for a while but for those who have traveled and who have crossed time zones often you know you have to navigate jet lag and and crossing the time zone can be a challenge you know it can be morning and you're supposed to be awake but your body is saying something different in fact when you experience jet lag sometimes you're in a conversation but it's almost like you have an out of body experience you're listening but you're not really listening or you can be watching a tv program and and your body just wants to go to sleep how many have they had the nods before the nods it's like you're nodding off and then you catch yourself and you wake up and you give yourself a fright that's not a nice experience to be in but there's a whole lot of people with what's going on right now that they're lagged you know they're a little bit groggy this is a time not to be groggy come on let's not carry groggy attitudes let's wipe our eyes because god is wanting to do something god is wanting to reveal something to each and every one of our lives but if we are asleep we will miss it some of us have slept through some stuff in fact sleeping through yeah that's a good sign for a parent of a newborn baby when when the baby sleeps through it's like major victory right there they they slept through we've got a young puppy in our household i want to say it's not my dog it's my girl's dog but the puppy good news is is sleeping through now now there's good news but some of us are sleeping through good stuff you know sleeping through it's like we're missing the good stuff because we're asleep and god wants to wake us up sometimes we want to act almost like god didn't show up in our world but i wonder like isaiah says here is like god god's there he came but we missed it because we didn't perceive him we were asleep it was like he came he wanted to bless you he blessed you but you missed it he was directing you but you missed it how many days do we live in the spiritual haze and we're missing the presence of god and what god wants to do i want to say god will never leave us nor forsake us i love those words because he'll never leave us he's always there but he'll never forsake us so god isn't just present in what we're going through right now he'll never forsake us in that moment see somebody can physically leave you and and they're out of your world but somebody can be present but still forsake you to be forsaken doesn't mean just to remove somebody's physical presence it means to emotionally abandon someone and the promise of god is is god won't just be present physically but he'll never emotionally abandon you see in many marriages today you know people can be together in the same home but they can be emotionally distant but i want to say today that god's emotionally invested into your life he will never leave you and he will never forsake you but for us to realize that we're going to wake up how many times do i slumber and god's saying like i want to bless you i want to help you i i want to strengthen you i want to bring answers to your life but you're asleep and you missed it and you missed it because you're asleep come on it's time to wipe the sleepy dirt from our eyes it's time to be alert it's time to wake up if you sit next to somebody right now say wake up see some of us right now what we need is we need some spiritual smelling stop salt so yeah i'm awake we need that jolt we need to wake up what do we need to wake up we need to wake up our praise we need to awaken the dawn we need to wake our soul to everything that god wants to do in the season now sometimes when you read a scripture like this you can take a few verses and you can read them out of context and not fully understand the meaning of what's going on here now now the book of isaiah is a prophetic book and it's written in a poetic way a conversational way and what would happen is the people of god would bring a complaint to god and and then god would answer that complaint through a prophecy that isaiah would bring and so for us to really understand this verse we're going to back up into the the previous chapter into isaiah chapter 51. and if we back up into the previous chapter into isaiah 51 verse 9 we'll see that that that the people of god are saying wake up wake up o lord no notice who it's directed to it's directed to god wake up god wake up wake up oh god clothe yourself with strength flex your mighty right arm he's got a big right arm by the way rouse yourself as the days of old when you slew egypt the dragon of the nile that now now that's isaiah 51 i want you to compare that to isaiah 52 where it says listen to this wake up wake up oh zion clothe yourself or street and put on beautiful clothes here we have god's telling telling here we have god's children telling god to to wake up to get dressed and to do stuff now right now there's a lot of people in the world going god what are you doing wake up where are you what are you doing wake up get dressed do something flex that mighty right arm because our enemy's upon us but in that next chapter god's response is no why don't you wake up why don't you get dressed your enemies are upon you so the question we need to ask right there is who's asleep come on this is coming from a guy who never sleeps never slumbers never is on holiday never needs to take a sick day he doesn't have any annual leave and and he never leaves early and and what god is saying is god is saying i'm here i'm just waiting for somebody to wake up i'm trying to get something to you i'm trying to teach you but you're not engaged and you need to wake up and you need to be alert to what god's doing see what would happen if we just all increased our sensitivity to god's prince uh presence now when you go through our airport you go through those scanners and and different scanners have different sensitivity i found that on domestic travel it's not as sensitive as international travel sometimes some scanners it's like you've got to empty your whole bag because of the sensitivity of the scanner right now we live in a sensitive world that's sensitive to what's going around them but i wonder if god's saying right now hey i don't want you to be so sensitive to what's going around you as much as be sensitive to my presence i'm here i'm with you see a lot of us right now we're sensitive to all the alert levels and what's going on that we're easily hurt we're easily offended we can get negative we can get down but god doesn't want us to be sensitive to that in fact we're going to decrease our sensitivity to that stuff because that can discourage us we need to decrease and we need to increase our sensitivity to his presence and and that's where the wake up call comes you know let's see we're going to see in scripture it says weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning and i want to say morning doesn't happen when there's just a a.m in front of the clock now morning happens when you wake up in your spirit to what god's doing you wake up to god's goodness see that the moment you decide to wake up and look i bet you you'll see god in the middle of your circumstance you'll see god in the middle of your difficulty open your eyes right now maybe you need to just shake the person next to you and say wake up god is good and god is doing things god is moving in the season see see there was one time the disciples were mad at god we find it in mark chapter four they were mad because they were going through a storm and jesus wasn't responding how they thought he should and just like the israelites in isaiah chapter 51 they were waiting on god to do something it was like wake up god wake up god in fact we pick it up and mark chapter 4 verse 37 it says but soon a fair storm came the high waves were breaking into the boat that's not good news but it beca and it began to fill with water and jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion so so jesus was out he was snoozing and he was snoozing through a storm have you ever felt like that it's like where are you jesus jesus you must be asleep you know sometimes it can feel like he's out of view he's out of commission he's been overworked by everybody else it's almost like when it comes to your time where you've got a need it's like he's been too busy with everyone else he doesn't have time for you but let's look at what the disciples did the disciples woke him up shouting teacher don't you care that we're gonna drown when jesus woke up he rebuked the wind and said to the way of silence be still suddenly the wind stopped and there was great calm then he asked them why are you afraid do you still have no faith the disciples were absolutely terrified who is this man they asked each other even the wind and the waves obey him you know here's the thing the disciples were wanting jesus to wake up to what was going on but jesus is saying no no no no you need to wake up to who i am i want to move on to my next point but there's still a few people are a little bit sleepy you sleep through this you need to wake up right now to all the spiritual blessings that god's given you in your life you need to wake up to who he is we spend so much time alerting god to our problems god i have a problem over here i have this bill i have this unresolved issue i have these things going on in my family but we need to right now alert god alert our problems to who god is see sometimes we miss god and we don't realize that he's standing in the middle of our problem trying to alert us to his presence because he's our ever present help in our time of trouble and god's saying i'm here i'm right here you don't need to freak out this boat's not going to go down you may be taking on water but i am here and as long as i'm here you know i'm going to work this thing through see instead of starting your day trying to alert god to your problem why don't you start your day by waking up and alerting your spirit to his presence wake up wake up oh zion wake up come on wake up on the inside instead of spending all your energy trying to get god to act we i really believe we need to in the season alert our spirit to what god is already doing he's already acting on our behalf in fact in proverbs 10 i love this proverb where it says a wise youth harvest in summer but one who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace right now there's a whole lot of need around us there's a whole lot of people looking for answers and the danger is those that know god are asleep because they're trying to get god to come into their situation rather than being an answer to somebody else this is the greatest season i believe for the church and we need to wake up aspirate to what god is doing because he's wanting to meet those needs in your neighbor's life he's wanting to meet those needs in your community and we need to wake up somebody say in the chat wake up wake up wake up wake up every day we need to wake up because why there is a harvest around us a harvest of encouragement a harvest of joy don't sleep through it it will be to your shame see we need two alarm clocks in the morning one to physically wake us up when our feet hit the floor but we need a second alarm that says hey no i'm going to wake up my spirit because i'm gonna praise god today i'm gonna wake up and praise him let's not be caught by the good old days before the pandemic did you notice in isaiah chapter 51 he said they said rouse yourself as in the days of old when you slew egypt in other words the people were dreaming of the god back back there who did stuff in the past do you know you can miss god in the present because you're dreaming of how it used to be in the past but i want to say god is present now and god is saying to those people if you stop thinking and dreaming about what i used to do and and what you used to have and how things used to be you know i'll work in a miracle in your behalf right here and right now but you need to walk up your soul to the present and what god's doing so the first instruction is wake up but what's the second instruction found in isaiah 52 is wake up and put on your clothes put on your clothes i like how as i put it saying come on you need to get ready wake up wake up oh zion clothe yourself with strength clothing yourself with strength put on beautiful clothes what's he saying you need to wake up and you need to get dressed now there's been a challenge for some people during this pandemic some of us have just got the top half you know all clothe for those zooms but he's saying no wake up and get fully dressed you need to pick out your clothes for the day how you decide to how how do you decide what to wear on any given day i challenge you to say there's a difference between a lot of people some people you know anticipate what's going to go on the day is like is this functional and am i going to wear the right shoes you know is this going to cause me to sweat some of us when it comes to what we wear during the day is just like is it clean if it's clean okay it's good spiritually speaking i want to say what we need to do is we need to get in the season is we need to get dressed on purpose before we go into the world we need to decide what we're going to put on otherwise we're in danger getting hurt and what do we need to clothe ourselves with we need to clothe ourselves with strength with strength you have to make a decision to put on beautiful garments yeah you have to make otherwise you're just going to stay in your tracksuit yeah so i picture this you know after i wake up in the morning you know i alert myself to god's presence but then what i need to do i need to get dressed before i go out and i need to pick the right things to put on because notice it says put on beautiful clothes now what that implies is that some of our clothes aren't that beautiful that that means that there's some clothes in your closet that you need to get rid of this may be a word for some people i feel like some spouses are nudging their spouse right now it's it's like you can't wear that and that's the same spiritually it's like that no longer looks good on you yeah and if you had a real friend they'll tell you how many know they'll tell you when it doesn't look good a real friend will say that's not your best look a real friend will tell you yeah i'm sure at some time that looked good but you're a little bit too big for that now you know i i need to let you know that's a little bit tight come on a real friend will tell you when it's not your best look and you know you have somebody who's even closer than than a real life friend who's a real friend and that's the holy spirit because the holy spirit will look at your complaining attitude and you'll put a witness within you and say that's not your best look that doesn't fit you you need to get rid of that you need to put on something different some of you go well i don't have an option but when god's given you robes of righteousness and when he's given us the garment of praise how many know we've always got another option some of us right now we need to get rid of that stink attitude we've been wearing it for too long we need to get rid of bitterness and unforgiveness envy we need to get rid of judge a judgmental cynical attitude see the spirit of god loves us enough to tell us when we've outgrown something some of us right now we're hoarding stuff you know anyone in your family who's a good holder you know the premise of hoarding is you hold on to something because you think man i i might need that someday i just might need that someday you know i don't want to throw out those jeans i know i've lost the weight but i just want to hold on to it just in case i put it back on and i might need that someday i'll keep that t-shirt just in case i know it's passed as prime but i'm just going to keep it just in case and sometimes you know we have people in our world who clean out our closets put stuff in bags and we put it in the garage and and we meant to take it to a clothing bin but some of us you know we go into the closet where is it and we find that bag and we pull out stuff that was meant to be thrown away i want to say some of us in this pandemic have gone back to stuff that we got rid of stuff that we got rid of and we're trying to wear that again and it's almost like the holy spirit's saying didn't we get rid of that yeah why why are you going back and grabbing that that that bag was supposed to go in the bin yeah and he's saying i thought when you gave your life to me we got rid of some of those words you know how those words coming out of your mouth again that that's not your best look didn't we get rid of that anger come on didn't we get rid of that cynical attitude why are you wearing that again i've got new clothes for you i got tailor-made clothes made clothes that are made to measure i got something for you here and now why would you wear that when i've given you my son it's almost like in the new testament paul says this he says what i want you to do is i want you to put on christ that's right put on christ yeah you need to wake up in the morning and you need to get dressed on purpose and you need to say i'm going to put on christ i'm going to tell my mindset what it can wear today and i'm going to set my mind set my mind on things above i'm going to tell my tongue what it can say today i'm not just going to shoot off my mouth there's some stuff that i'm not allowed to wear anymore because why it doesn't look good on me come on i'm too big for gossip i'm too big for cinematicism i'm too big to wear worry what am i wearing i'm wearing him i've put on christ i'm clothed in him i'm covered in him and the best way to get dressed is is to get dressed on purpose and that means you need to lay out your clothes the night before think about it you lay them out and you make sure they're clean don't just go for whatever is available make a plan to praise god sometimes it can be comfortable to complain you know it's comfortable because you can feel sorry for yourself you know some people say well i'm just being real i'm just being real no you've been negative and you need to address it and you need to get rid just like you get rid of some of those jeans you know hey you don't look good in that and you need to as paul would say you need to walk worthy of your calling in essence what he's saying is he's saying make sure the team uniform looks good on you don't make it look cheap don't dress it down hey anger doesn't go with that that's the wrong color what are you wearing or even the more correct way of saying it is who are you wearing when it comes to the designers and the red carpet and that they'll often ask the questions oh who are you wearing you need to say what i'm wearing today is i'm wearing christ i'm wearing the garment of praise i'm rearing wearing the robe of righteousness i'm not i haven't got no hand-me-down attitude from some relative no no i haven't i i refuse to get dressed you know just by actually i'm gonna get dressed on purpose and that's why paul said and just to finish with paul said this in ephesians chapter 6 verse 11 he says put on all of god's armor not just the top half put on all of god's armor so that you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies all the strategies of the devil for we're not fighting against flesh and blood enemies but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world against mighty powers in this dark world against evil spirits in heavenly places here's the thing this isn't just a fashion statement this is a matter of life and death he says therefore put on every piece of god's armor so you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil then after the battle you will be standing firm stand your ground put on the belt of truth the the body armor of god's righteousness for shoes for your kicks put on peace that comes from the good news so that you'll be fully prepared in addition to all these hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the spirit which is the word of god god some of us got new physical shoes we need to put on our spiritual shoes the gospel of peace you know right now i believe god is wanting people to get ready to outwork their mission outwork their call outwork their destiny but to get ready you need to be dressed put on the belt of truth put on the bridge plate of righteousness put on the shoes of the good news of peace put on the helmet of salvation and what we need to be ready is we need to be ready in and out of season come on i want to say to you today are you awake yeah somebody's i'm awake no but are you spiritually awake if you're not wake up wake up and get dressed don't just put on any old clothes put on beautiful clothes because god wants to prepare you for his promise and i want to say he hasn't left you he hasn't forsaken you he's right with you right now so right now for everybody listening to this message come on this is not a time to be spiritually asleep this is a time to rise up and be all that god's caught us to be right now you may feel weak but i want to say his grace is available and in your weakness his strength is made perfect you may feel limited but right now let's take the limitations of our life and let's get them to serve god's purpose because god's working even when we don't see it and i want to encourage you in that today right now you may be listening to this and you may not know jesus is your personal lord and savior i want to say you're not a mistake you're not an accident you are his workmanship and you've been recreated in christ to do good works he's got a plan and purpose for your life but the only way that you can know that plan and purpose is by giving your life to jesus see many people try and figure out things by themselves they do life by themselves but god has designed us to know him and we can hold on to our life jesus said this if we hold on to our life we'll end up losing our life but if we lose our life if we give it over to jesus and we trust him as then and there will find life we'll find life what life is all about many people right now are living according to this circumstance but for those who know jesus you know they can know his peace and his promise be now at work no matter what's going around them so today i want to encourage you if you don't know jesus never put your trust in him the bible says if you just believe in your heart that jesus is lord and you confess with your mouth that god raised him from the dead the bible says you'll be saved and to be saved means i'm going to trust jesus with my whole life it means i'm going to trust that i'm forgiven that my past mistakes are not held against me because jesus died on the cross he took your yours in my place and he did it so that we might be reconciled to god friend if you don't have that confidence if you don't know the saving work of jesus in your life you can pray a prayer today that gets you right with god a simple prayer that goes jesus today i put my trust in you today i surrender my life i give it to you come live in me i ask for your forgiveness for my sin i recognize and acknowledge what you did on the cross for me and today i declare you are my lord and savior if you pray a prayer like that if you did in the comments section there's a link there if you click on that link we'd love to help but right now jesus is living on the inside of you and all of heaven celebrates the decision you've just made please let us know we'd love to help you out but right now right now if you've been feeling like you're under something and you haven't been as spiritually awake as you could be maybe you've been in the middle of this going through all this stuff a little bit groggy i really believe god wants to live some of those things that have come on top of people maybe you've been wearing wrong stuff wrong garments and you need to make a decision to get rid of those garments today i want to say if as you make those decisions to get rid of them and to intentionally put on garments of praise robes of righteousness i believe god's going to come and work a miracle in your life and i just want to pray for you quickly right now jesus i thank you lord you're moving you're working lord ev each and every day we're awake and alive lord you're you're wanting to show yourself off and show yourself strong i pray lord that people would know a strength that only comes that can only come from you and today that they'll live in everything that you've called them to lord let this be a time where we don't outwork our plan lord we don't just follow the plans of man but we are in step let us be in step with everything lord that you've purposed and everything that you're wanting to release lord i pray for your blessing and your favor upon every person but even though we're living in a place of limitation i thank you god that you're not limited and you want to work a miracle in our life in our lives and we pray this in your name and everyone said amen amen amen hey we love you we're praying for you we're going to finish the service off right now with a song so let's give our praise to jesus let's wake up and then enjoy our lunch together god bless you love to see you again sometime soon

Channel: Equippers Church

Views: 5,847

Keywords:

Id: VtuK66DVDjg

Length: 34min 57sec (2097 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021