The Miracle Is in the House, Part 1

Sometimes you need favor.

Sometimes you need him to make people say yes when their policy says to tell you no. Anybody ever got a house you weren't supposed to get? Anybody ever get a job you weren't supposed to get? Anybody ever had God just give you favor?

I need somebody to know. Favor is not fair. God's not even trying to be fair. He'll just bless you just because. He decided he was gonna bless you. The favor of God is what he does for you that you couldn't have done for yourself. Hello and welcome to Destin for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California.

Well sometimes God will bless you with something you don't deserve and other times he'll bless you by not giving you what you do deserve. That's his grace, mercy, and favor at work and the three often work together at the same time. Coming up next, a great reminder of what it looks like to have God's favor in our lives. Stay with us now or listen any recent message online on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net or subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.

Now with this message the miracle is in the house. Here's Pastor Paul. So a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cries out to Elisha who is now the successor to Elijah who's gone to be with the Lord and what does the woman say? Your servant my husband is dead you know that your servant feared the Lord yet the creditors are coming to take my sons to be as slaves. Before we get into the spiritual stuff in the rest of the passage let's talk about the way this man left his family.

He's a faithful man we know that. Feared the Lord faithful as a son of the prophets. He's in other words spiritually kingdom first love God honoring his his father the prophet who Elijah now has handed that off to Elisha. Now Elisha a spiritual fatherhood has nothing to do with age you can have a spiritual father who is chronologically younger than you. It's not about age it is about spiritual calling and so you know even in the in the Catholic church you know that that's true.

People sometimes who mistake me for being they know I'm a pastor or something they just assume I'm Catholic and very often I'll be someone they say father so and so and so and I'm like huh when it first started happening I like huh and then I get it oh yeah they see me and in that role and so I just say yes my son you know I just go ahead roll with it no need of trying to correct you now I am standing in the in the office of leadership that God gave me. So it doesn't bother you doesn't bother me but I'm not tripping I know who I am and so Elisha is the spiritual dad she comes to him and says your servant my husband is dead he served you and your predecessor well and he has been a faithful man of God who fears the Lord. Good that we are getting spiritual good that we are growing in our faith good that we're under the word of God I applaud all of that now I want to know about your money. Yeah see he done lost his anointing he up there talking about I didn't lose anointing the first it's still right here. It is a shame that this man wonderful son of the prophet functioning in ministry serving the Lord loving God did not prioritize taking good financial care of his family.

I want to ask all breadwinners which means I'm talking to not only men but women if you are in a family that depends at least in part on your money for that family to do well you need to get your financial act together. Amen thank you for those amens I didn't expect them but I appreciate them. I thought everybody gonna be mad at me thought somebody had been packing up their stuff right about now you used to see from a preacher's book you know there have been times I preach something hard and you see him right let me just get up and start can't get out quick enough from up here you see all kind of stuff so nobody has left yet thank you Jesus. Get your act together guess what you need to stop living like now is all there is. I know we're expecting to return to the Lord but the bible says no man knows the day nor the hour and so you need to prepare for your family to move forward for a lifetime even though you want to be also ready to go with the Lord any moment and if you leave and they were depending on your money and you don't have money in the bank and you don't have insurance that is not going to bode well and so I'm just trying to give you a chance to have a better track record than this man of God who was clearly a man of God he served the Lord he served the prophet he was a godly man feared the Lord served the prophet did so many good spiritual things but he was broke here's the problem in his day and in our day if your family was depending on you and especially true in that day because the wives were not working outside the home making income normally that was not normative at all and so for him to be broke and check out of here doesn't tell us why he died how old he was none of that you know why because that's not the issue it's not the issue with you either and so if your family's counting on your income and you don't have anything you need to get it together there is insurance you can buy i'm telling millennials because see i'm very legacy driven these days and i'm thinking i'm in the third oldest generation currently alive in america you've heard me talk about that there are four generations under me generation x y z and alpha all younger than me i won't tell them all x y who is the millennials z the millennials most of y'all are still in your 30s some perhaps early 40s but in your 30s this is the perfect time to get ready for the future even you x's your 40s and 50s you still you still need to get it together because you're going to check out of here insurance isn't as cheap for you as it used to be but you need to get some if somebody's counting on you you need to get what if you check out of here and you have insurance and they know that for the next 10 years or whatever it will be financially as if you were still there isn't that a wonderful blessing to leave your family for the next several years they know you got it covered you thought about us before you checked out and it's time to do it so and you young folk absolutely no excuse get it now you can get some term or if you decide to get whole life i'm not i'm not an insurance seller i can't tell you about the products i know about them but you talk to your people and find out what you won't get term or whole life but guess something that they know when you check out it see the goal is when you leave your loved ones ought to be crying because they love you and miss you not because they broke i'm telling you right now i feel it i've been preaching a long time there's some emails coming where folk are gonna rebuke me for not preaching the word and instead talking about this i'm not reading them i'm telling you now i'm not reading them i got a staff they look at one or two lines as soon as they see you whack they goes right in the trash i'm just trying to help folks just so y'all understand that's the way it rolls in my staff they know don't even send that to pastor there's more wicked whack stuff that came i never saw it and most cases they don't even tell me about every now and then they'll slip and miss you i remember when this and they go oh pastor's here because they know i don't put that garbage in my head you and your stuff see these especially these days of internet trolls and what have you people love being mean for no reason at all just come for you don't know you don't know nothing about you but just gonna come for you let me help y'all understand something pastor paul doesn't care i care about god the kingdom the flock i care about serving people helping people you and your foolishness i don't care about so waste your time if you wanna not gonna impact me i want y'all to leave your loved ones who are counting on your income well so that they can make it for years to come if i go early i'm planning i'm trying to go and try to hang around but if i go early earlier than expected and y'all see sister m crying promise you it's not because she broke she ain't gonna be crying about my home or pay this mortgage mortgage gonna be covered expenses living expenses gonna be covered amen she ain't gonna need no man barking around there oh let me help somebody no bro man gonna be coming around my house the devil is so a liar uh-uh ain't no big daddy walking around my house wearing a big old robe don't come nigh my dwelling she is covered she don't need anybody coming there help out with the bills dan's gonna be meeting like a mug that's the way we said it in my neighborhood growing up you're listening to destined for victory with pastor paul shepherd senior pastor at destiny christian fellowship in fremont california and the second half of today's message comes your way next be sure to listen to destined for victory wherever you go by downloading our free mobile app you can tune in to any of pastor paul's recent messages on demand you can order resources from our online store there and you can even take notes with a sermon right on the app search destined for victory in the app store and download it today when the lord blesses you in some way he isn't doing it to be fair he's doing it to be favorable here's pastor paul with the rest of today's destined for victory message the miracle is in the house this woman said i'm in trouble oh prophet man of god help me i'm in trouble and he says what shall i do for you and then he says tell me what do you have in the house what's in your house so we just we just took care of the housekeeping and getting insurance and and saving some money and stuff like that go to the financial ministries that will help you get all that together now let's talk about your your house when you are in need of whatever you're in need of here is a principle you gotta understand there are times when god blesses us by bringing a resource from outside to us many times god's done that for me he's done that for some of y'all when you were in need god just showed up you ever had god show up and you just said wow look at this god can make see y'all y'all just hear the songs in the old sayings for the old saints but they live that stuff when they said god can make a way out of no way see it's one thing for him to open a door that no man can shut but sometimes there is no door he just got to create a way there is no way he just goes in and creates oh anybody ever had god just create it doesn't even make sense how you're making it you don't know how you're making it but god showed up and made sure that the need was met whatever the need was financial or emotional whatever it was that you needed sometimes you need favor sometimes you need him to make people say yes when their policy says to tell you no anybody ever got a house you weren't supposed to get anybody ever get a job you weren't supposed to get anybody ever had god just give you favor i need somebody to know favor is not fair god's not even trying to be fair he'll just bless you just because he decided he was going to bless you everybody else who know you're mad because you got something you didn't deserve some of y'all need to you need to just advertise it get yourself a bumper sticker and just say i know it's not fair it's not fair i know i'm i'm living in blessings i have no business living in i'm living in an apartment or a house i had no business getting i'm driving a car i had no business getting i have my needs met god has been good to me he didn't do it by being being fair he did it by being favorable some of y'all know like me he'll just make a way where there is no way sometimes he'll touch somebody's heart they see your name somebody's giving out the job making the decision and they say just something about this i don't know this person's application i think this is the right one they don't know but god told them give her that job get that man that position the lord did it and i'm telling you you need to walk in favor just please the lord just do his will and just know that when needs pop up crises pop up difficult situations pop up like this god sees the difficulty and he's going to look out for you just like he looks out for this woman looks out for this woman through the prophet and the prophet said first thing you got to do is let's talk about what you already have because yes god can bless you from the outside like he's done for many of us but at other times here's the point of this particular part of the series god's gonna bless you by using the seed of something you already have the seed of what you already have so if your need is financial there's a seed that'll meet the need you say well the seed doesn't make any sense that's because the seed isn't to be eaten a seed is to be sown here's the problem with some of y'all you eat your seed oh i just said something you eat your seed instead of sowing your seed you sow it you say god i'm going to invest this i'm going to plant this into the ground of obedience and listening to you and doing within what you tell me to do and you gotta understand god has a way of doing the impossible out of what little bit you already have so i want somebody to begin looking before i develop this in the next message i want you to begin looking at the seed you already have look at what look at how god has blessed you say well look at what she said she said i don't have much in fact she said your maid servant has nothing in the house then she said but a jar of oil nothing but a jar of oil take the nothing out i have a jar of oil he said what do you have she should say oil here you go here's the jar you need it in other words this isn't going to meet my need as it is but since the man of god is asking me here's what i got what can i do what should i did what do what's the word of the lord to me about what i have some of you need to stop comparing yourself to other folk looking across the street looking at people who have what you wish you had do not get into in-game get into envy do not worry about what they have first of all you don't know what they have that's the first thing you see certain things you don't know the headaches they deal with you don't know the challenges they face don't envy other people listen to the psalmist in psalm 37 when he says fret not yourself especially because of evil doers when you see people who don't serve god and do the right thing living all big he said don't even worry about that because they're going to be cut down it's not going to stay that way they still got to answer to god don't fret yourself that's somebody's word do not fret yourself over what other people do or don't do have or don't have don't what get your eyes off of them get your eyes on the lord say god here's what i have here's my need and i want you to use what i already have because i'm gonna keep doing your will every day of my life i want somebody to look at what you have because very often the miracle is already in the house and you just don't know yes sometimes he'll bring it from outside but very often the miracle is in the house let me just mention his predecessor found that out when even in his own ministry time god fed him at a brook for a while you remember elijah by the brook in first king 17 fed him by drinking the brick and then supernaturally fed him by having ravens bring him food and you know raven is a scavenger bird it it gets for itself but those ravens were instructed y'all not gonna eat a thing till you give them my servant some food man you should saw those ravens flying in there dropping him off all kind of food then they look up to god you good that's good can i go eat now so bottom line is the day came when the ravens stopped flying in and the brook dried up lord wait now you've been feeding me that was this don't sweat it when your brook dries up because if you're serving the lord and doing his will all you got to do is tell him uh the brook dry you see y'all got to learn it y'all got to stop praying sanctimonious prayers i can't remember last time i prayed thou and there and all that i don't live a king james life i can't afford king james language i'm like lord you better help me right now when you're mad you need to pray i'm fitting to hurt somebody you gotta pray like you gotta pray and so the lord spoke up to elijah and said yes i'm changing your season go to zarephath there's a widow there watch this that i have commanded to feed you she's under orders just like them ravens were they couldn't eat till they took care of you he said i'm now doing it through a human and watch this because the same thing applies i want to bless her but i can only bless her if she takes what's already in her house and gives it to me and so he headed his predecessor elijah headed for zarephath and when he got there he saw her gathering sticks because she only had one more meal that she could prepare and she said to him my son and i are going to eat this and we're going to die ah what you think god sent the man for all you got to do is look at what you look at what you have don't call it your last meal this isn't no last supper this is an opportunity to take a seed and see god create a harvest that'll feed you for a long time and he'll do the same for you and me sometimes god will ask you to give what you cannot afford to give so that he can bless you with more than you had before you gave it he'll always show his faithfulness but first he may ask you to show your faith thanks so much for joining us for today's destined for victory message the miracle is in the house you know one of the greatest gifts we can give to others is the message of the gospel of jesus christ that's pastor paul shepherd's mission here at destined for victory and you can help for a monthly gift of only twenty dollars or more you can become a destined for victory partner joining pastor 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we ought to believe god to bless and prosper as people but don't go to extremes don't act like if you walk by faith you're not going to have trouble it's not true in fact faith is built for trouble and that's tomorrow when pastor paul shepherd shares his message the miracle is in the house until then remember he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in christ you are destined for victory