What do you do to My house? by Bro Tobi Akintokun
Text: Jonah 1: 1-4
God is calling all of us to come and mind His business. Just like God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, God is speaking to each of us and leading us to do certain things for him.
To some it might be to stop doing some things. To some it might be to step up spiritually. To some it might be to actually serve in a capacity. To some it might you can do this forever you need to add … to what you are doing. God is inviting us to build his house.
Your Father has chosen you for this assignment, He said this is what I want you to do for me in My house, I want to you use this talent I have given to you to do exploits, win souls to my kingdom, you will need to do this with all your heart. This is your department section division.
What God wants you to do or What God is continually asking you to do counts first…
Everything else you do outside of this “for him” and His recognition of it at all… is dependent on God. What I mean here are the things we do and say to make ourselves sleep better at night. At least when I do that God should be happy now… I do this and that in church that is enough abeg.
2 Samuel 7: 1-29 – David wanted to build for God, Nathan said fantastic idea, who wouldn’t and God said to Nathan errm no who is David to build for me.
The first lesson I learnt from this story is that God qualifies you for what he is asking you to do, not you.
Even our highest, most noble ambitions and goals are blemished by sin. David’s desire to build a house for God is so lofty even Nathan is taken in by it. Who could fault David for wanting to build God a glorious house? God could and He did.
And the reason is that David’s motives and his ambitions fall far short of what God intended. David seems to have become a little too caught up by his recent successes, by his own position and power, and even by the luxury of his own palace. God’s response to David most certainly contains a rebuke to David’s arrogance: “Who are you to be building Me a house?”
No matter how spiritual my plans for God and His work appear to be, they fall far short of the purity of thought and motive God requires.
My point is even David on his own with this great gesture and idea was not even allowed to start.
There is nothing we can do for God in our own strength. It is God who must accomplish great things through us, this is why it is important to heed His call on the particular assignment he gives us.
Also and very often God does his work anyways in spite of us. Because another group of us are experts excusers
I read a book that coined a term Excusitis; it is tendency/Disease/Regular behaviour of making excuse for every poor performance.
I am talking about people that they don’t even know it any more it just come naturally to make an excuse.
Why am I not doing these things? … is this an excuse?
We even use God’s blessing as an excuse!!
Luke 14: 16-24
In verse 21 of Luke 16 then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
God’s work needs to be done if you are not willing he will use another person, in my experience it is usually some that will do it better because whilst you were wasting time the work has become bigger and it needs somebody more “skilled/ willing”
A lot of this things comes with perception, how do we see the house or work of God? If this is your Father’s house, you can’t have an audience mind set. If I say I serve a living God , I pray to Him , I love Him , He is my Father, This is His house, I can’t just sit and watch.
I can’t reemphasise this enough this is your father’s house. If this is my Fathers house, what am I doing to it?
Am I building or unbuilding, Apart from the audience perspective I am sure there are other ways people see their Father’s house, customer perspective (I won’t go into that).
It should be added there are rules to follow in the fathers house….some people don’t want to follow rules….If God is my father and he has placed authority in the church what is my excuse?
If this is my Father’s house, what am I doing to it?
Am I building or unbuilding? Whatever your perspective is whichever way you see Gods service,
God is saying I am not sure who this is for….The apple of my eyes cannot poke my eyes or cannot be poking my eyes.
In terms of actual practicality…
When we become excuse experts its obviously encroaches to other parts of what we do…Some people are forgotten about for promotion or progression because of excuses.
Delegation, team work, etc.
God had created a space for us to develop our skills but excuses has robbed us of it.
They don’t even ask us to take on more responsibility at work. We are saying God move me forward, but all the things we need to equip ourselves we are not taking advantage of.
In the frame of reference of anyone that could think of us for an opportunity, our name don’t even come up anymore because all the times it came up we had used excuses to put a downer on it.
Going back to our original text. Looking at verse 17 says the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah!!!
17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Some of us are currently in a great fish of some sort. A great fish situation is one that only the presence of God can deliver us from.
It is when people can find you that’s when they can help you. If people can work out the problem that’s when they can profer a solution? They either don’t see you in the problem, don’t see the problem or as it is in Jonah’s case it is in their best interest to leave you in it.
Some of us even know that the situation we are in is some sort of great fish. Every situation like this present today as we go to Gods presence he deliver us in Jesus name.
PRAYERS
Some people might not even be sure if God is their father and they want God to be their father.
You can tell Him in your own words or use this simple prayer: Lord Jesus, I ask You to forgive my sins and save me from eternal separation from God. By faith, I accept Your work and death on the cross as sufficient payment for my sins. Thank You for providing the way for me to know You and to have a relationship with my heavenly Father. Through faith in You, I have eternal life. Thank You also for hearing my prayers and loving me unconditionally. Please give me the strength, wisdom, and determination to walk in the center of Your will. In Jesus’ name, amen.
For the rest of us
Jonah Chapter 2 vs 1 said Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly,
Father have mercy on me, I want to improve my walk with you, father help me.
Jonah 2 vs 10: And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
Father as you spoke to the fish that swallowed Jonah and caused it to vomit him to dry land, speak to … this situation and cause it to spew me out un hurt unto my dry land in Jesus name.
Sermon delivered on August 17th, 2014 at the Youth Sunday