(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

If you have your Bibles with you, I'm gonna invite you to open it up to Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis chapter 12.

And this is where God spoke to a man named Abram and told him, I'm getting ready to do some great things through you.

I think this is a timely message for us as a church family and also to you as an individual.

Let me speak life over you today.

If you'll have faith in God, God's getting ready to do great things through you, come on.

And I do believe that that's what God wants to do.

I believe God created you for a purpose.

I believe God created you with an assignment as a human being that assignment may have gotten off target through the years, but maybe through God's word today, that assignment is gonna get back on target and you're gonna live with a sense of purpose and destiny and you're gonna live with a sense of, you know what, you are here for a reason and you're gonna wake up every day fired up about what God wants to do in and through you.

Before we get to Genesis 12 today, where God called Abram to do great things, I want us to look at the Lord's prayer in Matthew chapter 6 because it's a remarkable prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

And oftentimes you hear this prayer in our culture, but I want you to kind of grab hold of this prayer today because I think this prayer has actually significant meaning in where God's calling us to in this message today.

The Bible says in Matthew chapter 6, as Jesus teaches those followers how to pray, he begins in verse nine and he says, our Father in heaven, he says, when you pray, he says, speak to your Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, set apart is your name.

Your name is above all other names.

In other words, he says, you pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May up there come down here.

Give us this day our daily bread.

In other words, you are gonna be our forever provider.

How many of you believe God is your provider today?

And forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Verse 13 says, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.

How many of you know today that that prayer has been answered through what Christ has done on the cross?

Deliver us from the evil one.

Jesus is our rescuer.

Jesus is our deliverer.

Jesus is God in the flesh and Jesus has come to earth to deliver humanity out of darkness from the hand of the evil one, give them a eternal connection to their creator so that they can begin to get a download of their purpose and live it out in spite of what's going on in the world.

He says, deliver us from the evil one.

God, deliver us.

God, develop us.

God, deploy us into greater things.

I wanna speak on that today.

God, deliver us.

God, develop our faith.

God, deploy us into greatness this very day.

God, deliver us from the hand of the evil one through Christ Jesus.

God, on the journey, develop our faith as we gather together as a church family.

And God, deploy us into this world so that we can make a difference for your name's sake.

May up there come down here through your church, through your people.

May we be a people of faith, walk in the blessing and expect the blessing.

Because that is what God calls his church today, is to be a people of faith and to begin to let that spirit that's deposited in you flow out of you in the world and make a difference for God's name's sake.

That's why God created you.

That's why God made you a woman and that's why God made you a man.

The Bible says God created us in his image, in his likeness.

And what we are to do is we're to permeate his presence throughout the earth.

We're to be fruitful and multiply and permeate his presence.

Though the wheels have come off of that plan because the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, instead of being image bearers in this earth, they begin to listen to the voice of the evil one.

The evil one deceived them, sin entered the earth.

And the Bible says humanity got off target.

What Jesus came to do is to reverse the curse.

Sin is a curse on humanity because they stepped away from God's plan.

But Jesus is God in the flesh and he came to forgive humanity of their sin, missing the mark of God's glorious standard.

And he became, so we could put our faith in him.

He's God in the flesh.

He came to us.

He's God with us.

He came to us so we could understand God's love and God's power and begin to be reconnected to our creator so the curse could be reversed and now we can live a life with great, great purpose.

And so today, let's talk about how to walk in the fullness of that, what God's calling us to, instead of where we've been with our life.

The Bible says it this way, as God speaks to this man named Abram in his present condition, and he says, Abram, I'm getting ready to do a great thing through you.

Let's listen to this agreement God made with Abram in Genesis 12.

The Lord had said to Abram, Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family and go to the land I will show you.

In other words, Abram, I need you to leave the familiar and go to the unfamiliar.

And if you're gonna leave the familiar, that means you gotta walk by faith because you're walking to a land I'm going to show you that's not something you have yet seen.

Abram, I'm getting ready to deliver you from where you are and take you to a place of blessing so that I can begin to work through you in the world.

I will make you into a great nation is what God tells him in verse two of Genesis 12.

I will bless you and make you famous and you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who treat you with contempt.

All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

In other words, Abram, this blessing I'm getting ready to bestow on you when you leave the familiar and you cleave to the unfamiliar, you begin to walk by faith, this blessing I'm getting ready to bestow on you is gonna flow in you and it's gonna flow through you to bless the nations of the earth.

Now we live on thousands and thousands of years on the other side of this agreement God made with Abraham.

And we know today based on the scripture in God's word that Jesus is the fulfillment of this blessing.

Jesus is a gift to humanity.

Jesus came so humanity could step away from sin and step towards God.

Jesus came to be God in the flesh, he's the perfect man and he did something not one of us could do.

He lived a perfect life, he gave his life on the cross, he defeated sin, he defeated death, he resurrected from a grave so we can begin to understand the love of our heavenly father and the power of our heavenly father and begin to step towards it and walk by faith all the days of our life.

The Bible says it's impossible to please God without faith.

It's impossible to please God without faith.

Now, just a few moments ago, I read to you the Lord's Prayer.

And the Lord's Prayer, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus says, pray that God would deliver you from the evil one.

What I've discovered in my life is a lot of times whenever the evil one is doing horrific things in my life, that's an easy prayer to pray.

God deliver me from these horrific things in my life because I got to believe that there's something better.

But it becomes a difficult prayer to pray sometimes, God deliver me from the evil one whenever there's some good things going on in my life.

In other words, sometimes the enemy will allow you to stay satisfied where you are to keep you from being delivered to where God is taking you to.

Lots of times, you know what?

The enemy will make you very familiar and comfortable where you are so that you stay where you are and you don't put your dependence on God in faith that God's gonna do better things or greater things through you.

You choose to become stagnant and stale and hoard the blessing of God instead of leverage the blessing of God to do greater things.

What's interesting about this agreement God made with this man named Abram was Abram was in a good place before God said, come out of that place and I'm gonna show you a greater place and I'm gonna do greater things through you.

In other words, Abram lived in a metropolis area.

He lived in, let's call it the big city life of today.

He had everything, he had a great family.

He had, if you study the culture around Abram, he had a wealthy family.

His relatives were wealthy.

He lived in a land that was very fertile, that was amazing.

It was incredible.

He had the good life.

And God says, Abram, I need you to leave the good life and begin to walk by faith towards the great life that I'm going to do in and through you.

You know, there's a book written called, Good to Great, it's a business book.

But it talks about good being the enemy of great.

In other words, sometimes you settle in the good and you don't experience the great because the good holds you hostage.

And sometimes, you know what?

The goodness of God's blessings in our life hold us hostage from experiencing the great things that God wants to do in us and through us.

It happened to the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel, they came out of Egypt, bondage, slavery, and they started on a journey and God's hand was on them.

And he says, I'm taking you to a land of promise, a land of provision, a place of incredible, incredible protection so you can begin to let me flow in and flow through me.

And on that journey, what happens is the nation of Israel, they like the familiar of where they were better than the unfamiliar of where they're going.

And many of those people missed it.

But once they got into that land, if you study the Old Testament over and over, God blessed this nation in a powerful way.

I'm talking about with tangible things.

I'm talking about he gave them good gifts, the tangible and the untangible things.

And what happens is this nation, they begin to forget what the blessing is for.

They begin to forget that God wanted to do greater things in them and through them.

The blessings was to flow in and flow out.

And what happens is they end up back in bondage.

So see, what God's trying to say here is sometimes he'll call you out of familiar things so that you can begin to operate by faith and he can do great things in you and through you.

And that's exactly what he does to Abram.

He wanted Abram to know who he was, who God was, and how God operates.

And he says, Abram, in order to do this, you're gonna have to leave the good life to experience the great life.

And whenever we put our faith in Jesus Christ, it's exactly what God's doing today.

He's saying, would you leave this life of sin, this life of familiarity, and would you begin to follow me by faith?

Because I'm gonna deposit my spirit in you.

I'm gonna give you gifts and talents to operate with.

And I'm gonna develop those gifts and talents.

I'm gonna deploy you into the earth with who I am so the nations of the world can know my goodness.

It's the calling on the church.

Jesus said, go into all the world and make disciples.

Now that you've been caught out of darkness into the wonderful light, you've received the blessing of God.

Let God develop your faith on the journey.

Keep your focus on being deployed by God and letting those blessings flow in and flow out.

In other words, you're to enjoy the blessing and you're to leverage the blessing for his name sake, for his glory.

That's what it means for the church to bring up there, down here.

The church, we are children of the kingdom, but the kingdom is not the church.

The church belongs to the kingdom, but the kingdom is going to arrive here on earth as it is in heaven.

As the church begins to spread the good news about the king, his name is Jesus, he will rule and reign, and he will rule and reign in the heavens and on the earth.

And we're to be beginning to basically pave a highway for the king to come into this earth.

He's come once as a suffering servant, Jesus.

He defeated death, rose from the grave, forgive humanity of their sin.

We've put our faith in that.

Now God's spirit comes in us, begins to flow through us into this world and begin to make a difference.

And God is always calling us to not settle for where we are, but to continually spread the goodness of his love out around the world.

People get comfortable, even in congregations.

Lots of times people say, I don't want the congregation to grow large because I like the way it feels when I know everybody and everybody knows me.

There's nothing wrong with having family and friends.

We're people of faith, right?

And we need to know you and you need to know us, but it's impossible for us to know everyone.

And sometimes whenever it gets beyond us and we're making him known, but we don't know everybody, we get uncomfortable.

In other words, it's like, no, no, no, I like it when everybody knows me and I know everybody, but that's not the goal of the church.

The goal of the church is not to know everybody.

The goal of the church is to make him known in all the earth.

Come on somebody, to show his glory, his love, his majesty and his power to all the earth.

But oftentimes you see it as things begin to grow, things begin to develop, things begin to progress forward.

Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me shrink back because I like it like it is.

And again, understand like it is without the next nation, the next person being reached with the goodness of Jesus Christ.

It's not how God desires it to be.

The Bible says that God wishes no one would perish.

No one would waste away, but all would come to know of his goodness and his love.

And so today let's talk about how to walk in that deliverance, how to walk in that deliverance Jesus calls in many of us, forgiving us of our sin because of his death, burial and resurrection on the cross.

And we put our trust and our belief in that because see, it's so much more than being delivered.

It's being developed and it's about being deployed.

And so I wrote it down this way.

We have to first and foremost discover who we belong to.

In other words, who do you really belong to?

Because that's what God spoke to Abram about.

He said, Abram, I know you're comfortable where you are.

You got family, you got relatives, you got a community.

He says, but here's what I want you to do.

Genesis 12, one.

The Lord had said to Abram, leave your native country what you're familiar with.

Leave your relatives what you're familiar with and your father's family what you're familiar with and go to the land I will show you.

In other words, Abram, are you gonna trust what you already have or are you gonna have faith in what I am doing in your life?

Abram, I know earthly you belong to this family, but Abram, you really belong to me.

And what I've created you for is greatness.

I've created you to do magnificent things.

But sometimes you're going to have to leave this familiar space, what you see, and you're gonna have to turn your heart and trust me, your heavenly father, to take you to the place of blessing, the place that I'm going to show you, the place I'm going to work through you in this world.

And see, it's no different in our life today.

Sometimes we have to cut the cord and we have to let our, we even, parents, we have to let our children begin to develop and we have to begin to let them go in God's direction.

I didn't say don't guide them.

I didn't say don't teach them about the goodness of God, but all human beings are required to act in faith towards their creator.

Everybody has to trust God as their creator.

Faith is something they have to learn to do individually.

Are you gonna trust the creator in his assignment for your life over what you're familiar with in this earth?

And we all sometimes, it's not saying you gotta leave your family in the morning.

I'm not saying any of that stuff.

But what I'm saying is when your family becomes what you trust over the God of your family, sometimes God will call you to say, look, I wanna kind of pull you away from this because I need you to develop trust in me, trust in my blessing, trust in I want to do something amazing through you.

It's the whole reason God sent Jesus to earth.

Jesus came to earth because he wanted us to get it.

Jesus became one of us.

He came to us because none of us could go to God.

In other words, we have sinned.

We have stepped away from God's glorious plan for humanity's life.

And the Bible says because we stepped away from that glorious plan, what happens is sin entered the world and we began to follow the voice of the evil one, stay satisfied, stay there, stay there.

God's not real, all those kinds of things.

But what God does is God sends Jesus on the scene to say, no, you know what?

I'm going to come to you to forgive you of that sin by paying a perfect price on a cross.

I'm gonna do it in a way you can understand my amazing love for you, even though you're living in your sin.

I'm gonna come and come to you, do something about the problem of sin.

I'm gonna defeat death.

I'm gonna resurrect from the grave with my power.

And that same power that resurrects me from a grave is available to you to walk in.

But see, you can't walk in that power until you begin to understand who you really belong to.

You belong to God.

That's why Jesus came, is to reinstate that you belong to the savior of the world.

But so many don't move forward in life because they trust the familiar over the unfamiliar.

And God's calling us to step out and begin to trust what he wants to do in and through us.

The next thing I wrote down about stepping out where God has taken us to, is not only do I sometimes need to step out in faith and go towards this gift that God wants to give to me, but I have to be humble in my heart.

I have to be humble in my heart.

In other words, I have to begin to understand who I belong to and what I'm created for.

But see, until you realize you belong to God and you're created by him for a purpose in this earth, you won't be humble towards that purpose.

You'll begin to kind of do things the way you think they should be done instead of the way he says they should be done.

But look at this, Genesis chapter 12, verse two.

He tells Abram, he says, look, I'm gonna do something through you.

He says, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you and I will make you famous.

In other words, Abram, you're gonna be famous because of what I'm gonna do in you and what I'm gonna do through you.

And we know today that Abram is famous.

His name got changed to Abraham, but he's father Abraham and he's father to many nations and many people because God did exactly what he said he's gonna do.

And we know that that blessing, his name is Jesus, he came through the line of Abraham and he resurrected from a grave so humanity could reconnect to God.

And so God did what he said he's gonna do.

He made Abram famous, but it was being famous for his namesake.

And I don't believe that God only wants to make Abram famous.

I think he wants to make you famous.

But the reason he wants to make you famous is the same reason he made Abram famous, for his namesake.

He wants to make his church famous in the world.

The church is his light.

The church is his people.

Let's put it this way, the church is the ones that have been called out of darkness into the wonderful light are being developed in their faith.

And they are God's display in this earth for other people to be drawn to God.

We're his hands, we're his feet, we're his people, we're his instrument.

In other words, God's working in his people, the local church to globalize his name.

In other words, he pulls us together with these various gifts, puts us together and I have to be humble with my gift and understand what my gift is for.

And it's simply to begin to help other people understand the greatness of God.

It's to put my gifts with other people's gifts and help the world understand the greatness of God.

This is the beauty of belonging to a local church.

It's because it's not all on us as an individual, it's on us as a community to reveal who God is to the world.

It's to reveal God's hand is at work in our life.

Look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12, verses one through seven.

The writer here says, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the spirit gives us, the spiritual gifts that God's spirit gives each one of us who are believers.

He says, I don't want you to misunderstand this.

You know that when you were still pagans, you were away from God, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols.

So I want you to know that no one speaking by the spirit of God will curse Jesus and no one can say Jesus is Lord except the Holy Spirit that's at work inside of you.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all.

There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

God works in different ways, but it's the same God who does the work in us all.

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

It's given to us so we can help each other function in this world by faith as God would have us to function and bring up there, down here.

It's to bring his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

And I love what the writer says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 as he continues this thought process.

He says, in a church meeting, he says, I would rather speak five understandable words to help others than 10,000 words in an unknown language.

In other words, he says, I would rather use my gift to make sense to other people about their gift so we could help each other with bringing the goodness of God into this world.

He says, I don't wanna just speak a bunch of words.

He says, I wanna speak words that people understand and begin to rally around and become who God created them to be.

He's like, I'm not just here to show off the gifts that God gave me.

I'm here to leverage the gift so that others can begin to use their gift and together we can begin to make God known to the world.

So it's very humbling to recognize that God gave you that gift.

And the way you're knowing if you're being humble with the gift or you're being prideful with the gift, are you putting the gift with other gifts in the local church to make God's name great in the world?

Or are you hoarding your gift?

Are you hoarding the blessing that God gave you?

Are you trying to build your kingdom?

Are you here trying to build his kingdom with other believers in Christ Jesus?

It's a very humbling thing to understand that the gift that God gave you is for his name's sake.

And I'm just a vessel here on this earth.

I'm just a conduit.

I'm here for just a little while.

I'm not going to get so familiar with things here on earth to begin to think that this is all there is.

I gotta believe the rewards are greater.

I gotta believe eternity is greater.

I got to believe in an eternal God.

If not, I'll waste away and I will perish right here with the gifts that God has given me.

I wonder how many people are perishing in life with the gifts God gave them because they refuse to operate by faith and put those gifts to work with God's people in the earth.

My friend, there is no other vehicle.

The church is the vehicle.

God is delivering his message to this earth about a risen savior.

His name is Jesus and he's coming back to restore his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

The church is the vehicle.

There is no other vehicle.

And if you want to participate with what God's doing in the world, it's with the local church.

It's with leveraging my gifts in the local church to make God known in the world.

It makes a big difference.

And so Abram, you know what?

Be humble with who I am making you to be.

I'm making you famous.

The church is to be famous, but not for our sake, for his name's sake.

The last thing I wrote down is this, is if I really want to move forward in my life, I have to be humble.

I have to know who I belong to, but then I have to be about multiplication.

Look what it says.

It says it this way.

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you.

I'll invest in you is what God says.

And I'll make you famous.

And you will be a blessing to others.

In other words, I will be, you'll begin to invest in others to help them understand who they belong to and how God wants to use them, multiplying the investment that I've deposited into you.

In other words, when God pours into us, he desires for that to develop and he desires for that to flow out of us in order to build up his family.

We're blessed to be a blessing, as he told Abram in Genesis chapter 12.

But again, think of it this way.

When God gives you a spiritual gift, God brings you out of darkness into the wonderful life.

The Bible calls it a gift.

But that gifting is an investment.

And what God expects is for what he's invested into you to operate by faith and he to get a return on his investment.

I'm just trying to put it in a term that you can grab hold of.

In other words, what God deposits in you, he expects it to develop and he expects it to flow out of you into this world.

In other words, what God invests into a human's life, his desire is for you to begin to take that and begin to put it to work in this world and he get a return on his investment.

So what is the return on God's investments?

His name becoming so great among the nations that they become, they know who he is and they begin to put their trust and their faith in him also.

And the cycle continues over and over and over again.

It's a liberating thought to begin to understand that God isn't just for me coming out of darkness, but he's for the next person too.

It's a liberating thought to begin to understand God's not just for me, though he is for me, he's not just for me and my family, but he's also for the next group of people too.

He's also for the next community too.

He's also for the next tribe too.

He's also for the next tongue too.

It's a liberating thought to understand that God brought me out of darkness to share with me so I wouldn't hoard the blessing, but I could begin to share the blessing with the world around us.

And it's the call on the church.

It's to be fruitful.

It's to multiply.

It's to make disciples in all of this earth.

It's to begin to show who God is to the world around us.

And when we do, God never stops pouring out his blessing because God doesn't run out of blessing.

Let me read to you a passage of Scripture out of Malachi where in the Old Testament, people forgot God as their provider and God spoke to them.

I wanna show it to you.

Malachi chapter three, verses nine and 10.

He tells, the prophet tells the people, you are under a curse.

Remember, Jesus came to reverse the curse.

But you're under a curse for the whole nation has been cheating me is what God speaks to the people about.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that it may be enough food in my temple.

If you do, listen to this, if you do, if you stop hoarding the blessing and you begin to trust me by faith, look what God says.

Says the Lord of heaven's army, I will open the windows of heaven for you.

I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in.

Look what he says.

He says, try it.

Put me to the test.

So this is an interesting thought out of Malachi.

And what Malachi is saying to the people is, you know what, you're saying you're trusting me as provider.

And again, this is to the nation of Israel.

He says, you say that you're trusting me as a provider, but you're not bringing the 10th back into the storehouse of what I blessed you with financially.

God says, stop robbing me.

And he says, and bring it in and see if I will continue to pour out the floodgates of heaven on you, open the windows of heaven on you.

And I'm not saying that today to you to say, you know what, when you stop giving your tithe to God's blessings, stop.

That's not what I'm here to say at all.

But what I am here to say is this, do you recognize the good gifts from your heavenly father?

Do you really recognize who God is?

Do you recognize the blessings he's bestowed on you?

Because if we don't recognize all of those things come from our great God to fulfill his purpose in this earth it's when we begin to put a stopper in the flow of God's blessing.

We begin to stop up the pot, pipe.

We begin to stop up the freshness of God in our life.

And so whatever area right now that you're not trusting God with, I wanna invite you to trust him because what God's wanting to do is move forward in life.

He's wanting to move you forward.

He's wanting to move his church forward.

He's wanting to move his family forward.

He's wanting to move his name forward.

But we have to make a decision to trust him by faith, to trust who he is and not only, only who we are and what we can do.

And so today, you know, as we prepare to move forward I wanna ask, do you recognize who you really belong to?

Do you have a humble spirit towards what God has gifted you with in order to participate with in this world in the local church?

And are you willing to take those gifts and begin to leverage them to multiply, to multiply around the world for his names sake?

Because what God's doing in the world he's doing through the local church.

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

And God, I thank you so much for every person here.

But God, as we began to move forward, as we began to make this transition to a new space, God, I know that there's some awesome, awesome memories right here in this space.

But God, as we hang on to those memories, may they propel us into the future about what you wanna do in our heart and in our life.

And God, if there's a person in here today that's never trusted who you are by faith, they've never trusted the gift of Jesus, I pray they would start the journey.

They would begin to understand who they are by first trusting by faith who you are.

Jesus, you are God in the flesh.

You came and lived a perfect life and showed amazing love on that cross because you desired for no one to perish but everybody to have everlasting life.

And my friend, if you've never trusted Christ today, you're not God today.

I admit I'm a sinner and I admit that I need to trust Christ with my life and begin to start the journey of faith.

And my friend, tell God you believe in the power of the resurrection and the same power that raised Jesus from the grave.

You want Him to exhibit that power in your life and I invite you to begin to walk in it because God's gonna do amazing things in and through you.

It's trusting Christ.

It's admitting Him as Lord and Saviour and believing on His name as God begins to bestow His blessings on your life.

And so today, if you trust Christ, just say, God, thank you so much for that gift.

And I thank you and I wanna move forward with my life.

I wanna move forward with a life of faith and I wanna do all you've designed me to do and be.

And I pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.