Sunday, 22nd October 2017
Pastor Obed Sandie
We are created to be worshippers. It’s like tuning into a radio station, we need to be tuned into the right frequency to God. We cannot come to church focusing on our own problem, instead we should tune into the frequency that God is on, and that’s what worship does; it helps us to be tuned into the right frequency.
God puts us in Bread of Life South Auckland because this is the Centre where God wants us to operate. But we need to be on the same frequency as God so we can hear what God wants to say to us, He wants us to migrate from one level to a new level!
We are God’s legal agent of this world, God’s plan for this land and for South Auckland is inside of us and inside of our church, we are the house of God, and this nation can be changed by what we carried inside of us.
Pastor Obed shared with us the story of Joseph in Genesis 37:3-4, “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.”
Joseph was a teenager and his father Israel loved him so much he made him a robe. The more the father loves Joseph the more his brothers hated him. In the same way, a lot of times we will feel that the more our Heavenly Father loves us, the more the world hates us.
We are living in a society, where people are constantly searching for love. The social media is trying to portraying what is love, but we all know the greatest love comes from God. And worship takes us to where the presence of God is, therefore Pastor Obed reminded us that we need to make it as a ‘must’ to come to Sunday Service every week. When we are walking with the Father we will start to see the possibilities in our surroundings.
Love gives us revelations of God, when we are in His presence. Joseph started to see what his father has done and the heaven opened for him, therefore he dreamed dreams and saw visions. When we see the love of the Father, we see what He has prepared for us in His plan. For Joseph’s father. ‘Israel’ may be just a name, but Joseph’s dream made Israel go into Egypt as a family, and came out of it as a nation.
We are all here with dreams inside our hearts, there is a season of time for each dream, and we may have to wait. But do not be discouraged, because the dream we are carrying is about to be a nation. Pastor Obed shared that in order for a dream to become a nation, two things need to be happen.
- Joseph honoured his father.
Genesis 37:11 “His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.”
God does not forget our dreams. Turning our dreams to visions is not a problem, because it’s up to God. There is a time and a season for our dream to come true, but during the time of waiting, we need to honour our father, our biological father, our Heavenly Father, and of course, the father of the church, Rev Daniel and Pastor Kathy. When does the dream become a nightmare? When people turn away from their father.
Honouring our father is paying the price for your father, to see our father’s vision as our vision, to respect our father, and we can see our dreams also becoming visions and into reality.
- Joseph hosted his father.
Not only Joseph honoured his father but he also hosted his father, by migrating the whole family to Egypt. I believe if we want to see greater things, we need to honour our father, our pastors and be able to host them. We need to say, “yes, I am with you in everything!” Joseph allowed his father to live with him to see his dream become a reality.
Hosting is not only about providing a house, when we host the man of God we host God. In the Lord’s Prayer, it says “our Father in heaven”, before Jesus teach us about the Kingdom he teaches us about the family. This in an important principal, no matter how bad the environment is that Joseph went through, he honoured his father. Honouring is a lifetime commitment. Is this house in preparing for honouring? Because honouring is preparing a place in our heart, creating a room in our lives for our pastors.
- We are God’s Legal Agents
Genesis 49:29-50:1-3
Then he gave them these instructions: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.” When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
When Jacob died, the Jews mourned him for forty days, and the Egyptians mourned for seventy days, because they knew the inheritance was taken away from Egypt when Jacob died. That’s how Jacob affected Egypt, even though he only came to Egypt in his old age. How much of the Christ in us is affecting our environment? Are we affecting Egypt? Jacob was an old man but he was affecting Egypt, the man who built Joseph, a dreamer, who saved Egypt from famine.
Pastor Obed taught us not to worry if we don’t get encouragement from others, as long as we are affecting this world. No matter how long it’d take for our dream come true, we should stay and wait until our dream becomes our vision.
We should not let people see us as an “Amen Christian”, because if we are truly people who carry the presence of God, we should be able to affect the environment around us, our work, our society, even out government. When we see a problem, complaining is not what we should do, because everything God wants to do for this nation is trapped inside of us, we need to come out, to step out, and to say to God, “I am Your Legal Agent, anything You want me to do here, send me, show me, because I am the person to transform this land!”