Build An Addition

“Build An Addition...”
Sermon Notes – Ps. Jim White
Sunday 28th February 2010
• Last week I shared with you in worship, a scripture that I believe is a prophetic word for us. I am convinced that it is a word over this church – in a similar way that Zeph 2: 6,7 speaks prophetically about who we are as a people – part of the Seacoast.

• From the New Living Translation, Isa 54:2,3 says, “Enlarge your house; build an addition. Spread out your home, and spare no expense! For you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities.”

• Little did I know, that Venese was sitting here in the front row last Sunday morning, receiving this word for us regarding our own personal home...! We have a unit that we really love, but at times we feel a bit confined and restricted by its size. And we have talked about how awesome it would be to put on an extension out the back – because we back on to bush, and it would pick up the northern sun in winter, and give us heaps more room to move.

• She was getting all excited about the way this room would bless us and our growing family as they come and visit. So, I am coming into agreement, by faith, for God to help us enlarge our house and to build an addition – to spread out our home... just as this scripture says. We are receiving it as a personal prophetic word...

• But of course, this scripture is speaking of something far bigger than our normal place of residence in a natural sense. And even for Venese and I, this new addition to our unit would be a place where we meet with God – have our quiet time with Him – a kind of refuge...

• Heb 3:6 says (again, in the NLT) that, “Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.”

• We are the house of God – we, as in the church – and we, as in personally and individually – we are the house of God. And God is saying to us through His word, “Enlarge your house; build an addition. Spread out your home, and spare no expense!”

• The Message bible says, “Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep...”

• This church has changed and grown over the last few years because we have made a decision to make room for God. Making room has happened in the physical changes in the building, but I think even more importantly, in the changes within our own hearts and lives.

• We’ve built an expectation – of faith.. We’ve built an appreciation, a love and care for our families, our babies, our children, our young people. We’ve built an atmosphere of praise and worship. We’ve built an atmosphere of prayer... Just recently, we have been building an understanding and appreciation for the power of God – the power of His Word, the power of the Blood, of Praise, of the Holy Spirit... And as a church we have made room for others - and for the kingdom of God.

• What you make room for is what will then begin to occupy and dwell in your life.

• If you build negativity and criticism and judgment around your life, then that’s what will occupy you. But if you build an atmosphere of praise and worship and encouragement, then that is what your life will be filled with. You reap what you sow. You make room in your life for the things you build – for the additions that you create.

• I love the story of the woman who lived at a place called Shunem. In 2Kings 4, it says she would make meals for Elisha the prophet when he passed through her town. She served him with her gift of hospitality. But one day she decided to take things to a whole new level – and with her husband’s help, to make a special upper room for Elisha to stay in – with his own bed, table and chair, and lampstand.

• She literally did what this scripture in Isaiah says – she enlarged her house, built an addition, spread out her home, and spared no expense. And she did it all for the man of God, who of course represented God to her. In her eyes, she was making room for God in her house, by blessing the man of God.

• Back in those days, things were a bit different. Whereas now, all Christians are able to have the presence of God dwelling within them, and we are all part of the priesthood of believers, back in OT times, God anointed particular men and women to carry His presence to the people.

• It’s a funny thing that Isa 54:3 says, “For you will soon be bursting at the seams...” Because, the man of God blessed this faithful woman by prophesying over her and her elderly husband that they would conceive and have a child by the same time the following year – which is what came to pass. So her body was literally going to be bursting at the seams with a new life.

• This is God’s message to us, His church – and to you personally – that when you enlarge your house – build an addition – spare no expense – there will be a bursting forth of new life – you will conceive new things and birth them because you made room for them.

• You allowed yourself to be stretched – and challenged.

• I’m primarily talking about enlarging our capacity for God in our lives. If you are a born again, Spirit filled believer, then the bible says that the fullness of God dwells in you – and He wants to be unleashed through your life. This message is not primarily about you doing more – about your ability – or your performance. It’s primarily about your expandability.

• God is looking for people who live in expandable tents. Tents that are easily enlarged. Or people whose lives are like houses that can be easily added onto.

• And the thing about this is that it’s our choice as to how much room we make for God.

• He says to His people – you spread out and think big. You clear the ground for the tents – you make them large. You use plenty of rope, and you drive the tent pegs down deep.

• That last bit is really important, because as much as we are talking about enlarging and extending – there has to at the same time, a going deeper. Planting yourself deeper where you are – putting your roots down into more solid ground.

• This message is not about floating about with every new thing that tickles your ears. It’s not about running after this new thing and that new thing. It’s about grounding yourself in God right where you are – and at the same time enlarging that place, and being flexible enough to expand and to grow.

• It reminds me of the wine skins. Jesus Himself shared this parable which is recorded in the gospels, including Luke 5:37,38 (NKJV) – “...no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

• Old wineskins dry up and lose their elasticity – they can’t expand or grow and stretch in their capacity to hold new wine. We want to be new wineskins – holding the new wine of the Spirit – being carriers of the new things that God is doing on the earth.

• We want to conceive and birth the new things that God has for us – which means we have to increase our capacity and make room... The woman from Shunem increased the capacity of her house to hold the man of God – or more importantly – to hold the presence of God.

• I want to ask you this morning – what would an addition to your house look like? And what would it be filled with? What would it mean for you to spread out your home? In other words – to spread out your life....? God is calling us to live an enlarged life – and He wants us to think big!

• Maybe we should look at it from another angle. What is stopping you from enlarging your house or your life? What is stopping you from putting your tent pegs down even deeper?

• Is it fear? Fear of failure? Fear of commitment? Fear of the discomfort it might cause you?

• Where it says – spare no expense... – what kind of a reaction does that cause you to have? Oh no – it’s going to cost me something... Will it cost me time? Will it cost me some connections to the world around me? Will it cost me money?

• When I think about this addition to our unit – my first reaction is – where’s the money going to come from? Because I don’t know...

• But remember – this is not about striving in our own ability and resources – this is about being willing to expand – it’s about thinking big – believing that what God has spoken will come to pass.

• Do you remember Gary’s message from last week? God is for us... who can be against us? His message was probably more than anything about being at peace and finding rest in who God is.

• All we need to do is take one step at a time. The most important part of the process is what happens to us on the inside. The promised land was given to the people of God little by little. There were a few battles and a few challenges in the process. But as Gary said last week, the biggest battles that the people of God faced were on the inside.

• They battled unbelief and negativity and although they saw God’s miraculous provision time and time again, it was a long journey of experiences before they were able to fully receive the promise.

• One thing that I keep referring to, which the people of God struggled with also, was the tendency to want to go back to the old ways of bondage – and to be satisfied with that as their lot in life. Their life of slavery in Egypt was a terrible life – but at least it was familiar. In some kind of unhealthy way, what they saw as familiar brought them a kind of comfort – even though it was straight out slavery.

• We will never push through and build new additions to our life if every time things get a bit unpredictable – or become a bit of a stretch – all we want to do is go back to the old familiar comfortable ways. We can become imprisoned in our comfort – and even when that comfort is killing us on the inside, out of familiarity, we still want to default back there.

• Is there something in your own life that you know you need to be leaving behind – where you know you should be enlarging and expanding your life way beyond the limits of that thing – and yet its comfort and familiarity keeps holding you back?

• Is there a fear that is stopping you? Are you fearful of what it might mean to “spare no expense”? Because that is really a call to give your whole life – everything you are and have – to take new ground in your life for God.

• If we become complacent and self-satisfied – and we just stay in our comfort zone, and we protect ourselves from the challenges and the stretches that will always come with growth – then isn’t it like being what the bible describes as “lukewarm”?

• In Revelation 3: 15,16 – “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

• Lukewarm just doesn’t cut it with God. In fact, it makes Him sick. So why do we put up with it from our own lives?

• Do you ever find yourself thinking that you are just sick of yourself? You are just over yourself? Your nice comfortable, complacent life is boring? You don’t feel like you are making any real impact on the world?

• Ten years after you’re gone, will anyone ever be thinking about you – the person of faith that you were – the love of God you carried – the difference your salvation made to the world? Because lukewarm lives don’t really make a lasting impact.

• Maybe we should be like Jabez. Here’s a man that is mentioned in the bible amongst a whole list of genealogies as one who was honourable. And it says he had a prayer for his own life (1Chron 4:10, NKJV) – “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.”

• Jabez prayed for blessing and for enlargement. It’s interesting that in the KJV it says, enlarge my coast... That seems particularly relevant seeing we are the Seacoast...

• To enlarge my coast means – extend the limits and dimensions – extend to more purposes and uses. Enlarge the boundaries and borders of my life.

• That’s what we are doing in Mullumbimby. This is the church building an addition. Please make sure that you are part of it in some way. Preferably by going up there when it’s on – or helping with letter box drops – or praying that God will build His church in Mullumbimby.

• Jabez wanted to live a life that extended out beyond himself – a life that would be impacting and influential in ways that touched the world – not just His own personal world.

• In this church and our community, there are many opportunities to do things that will stretch us and enlarge us – but first of all it’s about increasing our capacity and making room for God Himself to move through our lives.

• Maybe the first thing you need to do is build an addition to your house, or your life, where God can come and meet with you. Maybe it could be like the upper room that the woman from Shunem built.

• Living a large life for God has got to begin with making room on the inside.

• What you do for God has got to come out of who you are.... out of the fullness of God that dwells within you... otherwise it’s just striving and performance based works – getting our sense of identity and acceptance from what we do.... But that will never cut it with God.

• Sometimes we just have to face our shortcomings and our insecurities and fears – and say – I can’t do it! Because it’s actually in our weakness that we are made strong – strong in God – in the power of His might....

• Increase your strength by enlarging your house – building an addition... making more room for God...

• Spread out and think big! As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Prov 23:7).

• Remember, God is not looking for your ability – but your expandability. He’s looking for new wineskins. Men and women who are willing to be stretched – willing to burst at the seams and to bring forth new life. Men and women who will spare no expense. Whatever it takes... for this house... to expand and enlarge.