R620 When God Enlarges Out Tent

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton about when God enlarges our tent. Today Dr. Wilton takes us to 1 Chronicles and Luke 5 as we study this concept of how God grows us, how He enlarges our influence, our tent, all that's coming up on today's broadcast of The Encouraging Word. And while we study together, we invite you to join us online at www.tewonline.org.

It's a great place to get connected with what's happening during the week, the video presentations, the audio, the daily devotional. If you haven't signed up for it, you can do so right now on our website at www.tewonline.org. An insight from God's Word in your email box at 6 o'clock or so every morning from Dr. Wilton. That's online.

Sign up today at www.tewonline.org. Now, Dr. Wilton. And I'm going to ask you to turn to a Scripture for life that I'm going to tell you probably hundreds of thousands of people have read and studied over this past year. 1 Chronicles 4 and verse 10. This is known as the Prayer of Jay Bears. And I'm going to submit to you that it is possible that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have read and reread and studied 1 Chronicles 4 and verse 10 over these past months.

It is a singularly significant Scripture for life. I'm not really going to be preaching on that subject in terms of the Prayer of Jay Bears and yet I am. I'm going to be speaking on the subject when God enlarges our tent. Let me read to you what happened here and then we're going to go in a little while to Luke's Gospel in chapter 5, a little while from now. 1 Chronicles 4 and verse 10. Jay Bears cried out to the God of Israel, O that you would bless me and enlarge my territory, let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. Here it is, and God granted his request. May the Lord write that word upon our hearts before we go to Luke chapter 5. We often pray that prayer, at least I have, many times in my life. My beloved friends, I want you to look at me for just a moment because I want to say something to you.

Everyone who's worshipping today, thousands upon thousands by way of television and each one who are here in the house of God on Main Street in downtown Spartanburg. I want to say to you that I believe with all my heart that God is going to do something for you this morning that perhaps may be life changing for you. God this morning will speak to your heart at a point at which if you listen and if you do what God is telling you to do, I promise you not within Don Wilton because I don't have that capacity.

I don't have the authority, but God does. I promise you in behalf of the Word of God that God will bless you and God will do something for you that perhaps you never thought possible. God will take you and multiply your joy. He will encourage your heart. And it has to do with the essence of the prayer of Jay Bears. Now all of us at some time or another ask God to bless us. We've just prayed for a beautiful little boy, Jonathan Bradley. And really the essence of our prayer is, God, would you bless this little boy? Would you bless his mom and dad?

That's what we're praying. And it's very acceptable because God tells us to do that. So I'm going to ask a couple of rhetorical questions and they run quite deeply.

Here it is. First of all, has God blessed you? Now you don't need to answer me. This has nothing to do with me. Has God blessed you?

Yes or no? You answer that before the Lord. Well, if God has blessed you, here's the question we're asking of one another. What are you doing with those blessings? What are you doing with God's blessings? Well, let's narrow this down somewhat little this morning.

You remember when you were 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, whatever age. And you said, if you're a man, I'm just going to pick on the men for a little while. And you said, now, Lord, would you just bless me, that little girl over there? I tell you, she is something else and I cannot take my eyes off her.

She's the most beautiful person I've ever seen. Lord, won't you just bless me by giving this girl to me as my wife? And God did that. And he's blessed you.

Here's the question. What are you doing with your blessing? See, it's something to pray the blessing. It's something to receive the blessing.

But it's altogether something else to do something about the blessing. God has blessed you. He's given you a husband. He's given you a wife. And you said, Lord, would you do that for me?

And God did it. Well, then those of us who are married, we take it one step further and we say, well, Lord, would it be your will? And God does this for some and for others, he doesn't. He doesn't bless us anymore or any less. But for some couples, he gives to us children. He says, I'm going to bless you with a little one.

So here's the question. What are you doing with the blessing of your children? You're saying, well, look, pastor, they've grown, they've left the home. What are you doing with that blessing? I would say to all the young people here today, God has blessed you with parents.

You say, oh, that's ridiculous. No, it's not because there are people all over the world who would give anything to have parents. Having a mom and a dad, having a home is a blessing. What are you doing with your home?

Doesn't matter if it's small or big, a home is a blessing. What are you doing with it? I've met people all around the world. God has blessed you with the ability to make money. I believe that that's a gift. I believe that there are people worshipping here today, that God has given you a special gift when it comes to business matters.

You know who you are. God has blessed you in some way. God has given you a lot of money. God has given you the ability to make money. Here's the question. What are you doing with that blessing?

See, we could keep going. You know, I look at this choir, Steve. I can never, I can never tell you what a blessing this choir and orchestra are. You folks, have you got any idea what a blessing you are? Everywhere I go, people talk about this choir. Look, I'm going to look from the choir.

I'm not picking on anybody. I'm just going to look out here and I'm going to say, has God blessed you with the joy of singing, with the ability to sing or for the want to sing? Here's my question, what are you doing about it? What are you doing with the blessings that God has given to you? Jabez gets down upon his face before the Lord and he says, Oh God, that you would enlarge my tent and that you would bless me. God says, okay, I'll do it. What are you doing when God blesses you? What are you giving back to the Lord? The question is this, what are we willing to continue to do with God's blessings? Now this morning, I believe that God is calling this congregation to a higher level of commitment, to a higher level of service, to a higher level of obedience, to a higher level of spiritual living. I believe that God is reaching down and he is speaking to this congregation. He's never stopped speaking to us, but I believe that God is doing something in this congregation and he's looking into our hearts and lives and he is saying to us simply this, what are you willing to do with my blessings?

Now friend, listen carefully. You can go all around Spartanburg County. You can go down to Columbia. You can go to Asheville, North Carolina. You can go to Chicago.

You can go to California and Arizona. You can go all around the world and I will show you churches that God one time chose to bless. God's people never responded and today they are no longer being blessed.

Any questions? I preach around quite a bit. This past Monday, I was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, preaching at the North Carolina Baptist Convention Pastors Conference. I meet pastors from every walk of life.

When I do my work, joyful work with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and especially the schools of evangelism, I meet pastors from every kind of denomination. This year up in Toronto, Canada and down in Orlando, Florida and different places and they come from all over the place and all of them are saying, Oh God, would you enlarge my tent and would you bless me? There are many who are discouraged because there was one time when God blessed and the people did not respond and they did nothing with it. I believe that God is speaking to us as a people in this day and God is calling us to respond to Him. How has the Lord blessed us here in this church? Well, first of all, He has enlarged our tent and He has blessed us.

There's no doubt about it. I'm not going to spend time giving you statistics today but I'm going to tell you it doesn't take much to look around and see a packed house, to see what God is doing, to understand that God has enlarged our tent and over the decades, God just keeps doing it. God keeps pouring out His Spirit. We've gotten to the point in this congregation where we've reached saturation point, where we've got to make some choices, where we as God's people have got to get down upon our faces and we've got to say, Lord, we've asked you to enlarge our tent, you're doing it. God now is saying, what are you willing to do about it? God has enlarged our tent and He has blessed us. I want you to note in the second place that God has given us a vision for the future. God has given us a vision for the future.

Let me remind you about a couple of things that we know about already. Think about the prayer of Jabez. Many, many years ago, a small group of men got together and decided that God was speaking to them about the television ministry of First Baptist Church. Do you know that those men all contributed what seems to us a very small amount of money on a monthly basis?

They had no conceivable idea that in November 2001, that it would take, listen to this, do you know folks as I'm preaching today, do you know that there are literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of wonderful people just like you and me in homes, in prisons, in nursing homes, in places that maybe we have no idea, sitting in places we have no idea, people who are just as precious as you and me, who are just as much a part of this church and this congregation, literally hundreds of thousands of people worshiping with us right now. And we love every one of you with all of our hearts. You are a part of what God is doing here at First Baptist Church. You are us. We are one with you. Even though physically you're unable to be here. You live up in the mountains of North Carolina. You're unable to be here.

Maybe you're in a nursing home. But God is enabling us to be one together. Where did that start?

It started decades ago with a small group of people who said, Oh God, would you enlarge our tent and would you bless us? And God said, I'll do it. I'll do it. But I need you. I need you to step up. Do you know, my friends, do you know that it would take an entire year, 12 months of us meeting in this congregation to fit everybody who is worshiping with us right now in one service.

It would take a whole year to cover the number of people who are worshiping with us today. Where did it come from? It came from God through the vision of God's people and the obedience of God's people. Listen, friends, we're living in a day and age where there is unmitigated turmoil in the world. And right here in this tiny little place called Spartanburg, God is enlarging the tent. God is speaking.

We have that vision God has put in our hearts. But number three, he is calling us to serve. Now, friend, listen, God is calling you. And he's calling me just as much as he's called generations before us to serve him.

Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message when God enlarges our tent with Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. But Dr. Don insists that I remind you that this is not just a presentation.

It's a conversation every single day. We are overwhelmed by friends that want to email or call the ministry so that we can pray with you and perhaps answer some questions about how God is ready to encourage you through the Bible itself. God's encouraging word. If you'd like to call us, jot this number down.

Store it in your cell. 866-899-WORD is our phone number. That's 866-899-9673. You can also email. Dr. Don would love to hear from you. Love to hear how God is working in your lives.

Each and every day we receive stories of how God's using his word and these broadcasts to change lives. If you want to email Dr. Don, his email is simply donatewonline.org. Again, that's donatewonline.org. Dr. Don would love to hear your story, and he'd also love to pray with and for you.

Again, that's donatewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don of how God enlarges our tent. I want you to turn very quickly to Luke's gospel in chapter five.

Everybody turn there. One of the most incredible stories that you will ever read. I'm going to read it for you. Luke's gospel chapter five. Luke's gospel in chapter five.

Listen to what happened here. One day as Jesus was standing by the Sea of Galilee with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water's edge two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon Peter, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, Master, we worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.

But because you say so, I will let down the nets. When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and to help them. And they came and they filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and he said, Go away from me, Lord.

I am a sinful man. For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken. And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid.

From now on, you will catch men. So they pulled their boats up on shore and left everything and followed him. Now I want you to listen to the Word of God very carefully because there are a number of things that happened in this experience with the Lord Jesus that we need to know about. Number one, I want you to note the crowd that had gathered. I want you to note the Bible says here very clearly when Jesus was standing there by the Lake of Gennesaret, which is just another name for the Sea of Galilee, that a huge crowd gathered.

And Jesus was about the business that Jesus did everywhere he went, telling them he was preaching the Word, the Bible says. I want you to note that. We've noted the crowd, my friend. We have seen the people. Have you seen the people of Spartanburg? Have you seen the number of people in our community who even right now are fishing and playing golf and going to the malls of society without one single thought for the things of God? Have you noticed on the school campuses how many people don't give 30 seconds thought to the things of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you noted the crowds? Have you seen the people in our communities who are lost, who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you heard their cry?

Have you listened to them? Have you noted their hunger? Have you looked into their eyes? Do you understand the prayer of Jabez? Oh God, would you enlarge my tent and would you bless me? And God said, I'll do it.

Have you noted the crowd that has gathered? I want you to note in the second place the command that was given. Right there in verse 4, the command that was given.

It's threefold. Jesus said, first of all, put down. He said, put out. That was his first command. He said, put out. Now, it's interesting here in their context because Jesus was preaching on the bank, came to his disciples, he said, I want you to put out. You know what he's telling them?

He was telling them, I want you to go to where the cutting edge is. I want you to do something that defies your sense of comfortability. I want you to be prepared to paint outside the lines. I want you to go beyond the ordinary. I want you to become an extraordinary group of men because I've got an extraordinary job for you to do among a group of extraordinary people who desperately need to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that God has been reaching down to this congregation for decades and he is saying to us as a people, men and women of First Baptist Church, I want you to put out from the seashore. I want you to defy your sense of comfortability.

I want you to go beyond the realm of normalcy. There is a crowd out there. There are a people who are hungering and thirsting, who need to know about the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus. And I'm raising up a group of people from among the people and I'm going to enlarge your tent and I'm going to bless you. Let us hear the word of the Lord Jesus said, put out.

The second thing he said was let down. He said, you need to take some practice to your put out. You need to do something practically about it. You not only need to defy the law of gravity and of common sensibility, but you need to put some legs to it. You need to put some practice to it. You need to put some action to it.

You don't need to just talk about it. You need to do it. Put down your nets. And the third part of his command was that we should pull in.

We should pull in. Friend, listen to me, that's the challenge. You see, I want you to note first of all the crowd and the command, but I want you to note in the third place the challenge made. And there was a threefold challenge here that Jesus made to his disciples, especially to Peter.

First of all, it was a challenge to their energy level. Can you just see that? Peter said, what? What?

Excuse me? Are you telling us to, do you not understand Lord that we've been doing this all night? We're worn out.

Now friend, listen, listen. God is telling us to do what we need to do because God is saying so. God is going to anoint and bless.

God is going to pour out his Spirit upon the congregation because he's God. What was this challenge? It was a challenge to their energy level. It was a challenge to their time.

But third and most important was a challenge to their obedience. That's what discipleship is all about. Jesus was saying to Peter, listen, we'll take care of all those other things which are very important. Right now I want you to be obedient. You see folks, here's what we do most of the time. We say, Lord, I'm going to do whatever you want me to do.

I'm waiting for you. And the Lord says, well, this is what I want you to do. And so what we say is, well, Lord, you show me how it's all going to work out, then I'm going to step out and do it. God says, uh-uh, you step out, then I'll show you how it's going to work out. It's stepping out and stepping out in faith. God will show us the way as we leap, take that leap of faith.

You need to know you're not alone in that leap. We'd love to pray for you. As God is stirring your heart, give us a call. Our prayer team would love to speak to you right now at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673.

Or you can meet us online at tewonline.org. Before we get away, though, Dr. Don has perhaps the most important question to ask you next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you, and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life by faith. In Jesus' name I pray. If you prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. Welcome to the family of God.

I'm convinced that some of you were praying along with Dr. Wilton moments ago, and you gave your life to Jesus Christ, maybe for the first time, maybe rededicating your life. Either way, Dr. Wilton has resources he wants you to have absolutely free if you'll call us. 866-899-WORD is our phone number. That's available 24 hours a day, jot it down, store it in your cell. 866-899-9673 is the place to connect for those free resources and also the place to discover where you can sign up for everything from the daily encouraging word Bible guide to more opportunities to grow in your faith. If you want to meet us online, we'd love to connect with you on our website.

It's www.tewonline.org And when you're there, you'll find wonderful resources like this. Believers around the world are asking these questions. Is Jesus about to come back? Is this the end of the world? Join Dr. Wilton as he answers these questions straight from God's word in his message, Is This the End? Also, as a bonus, you will receive The King is Coming by Erwin Lutzer, renowned theologian and friend. Both of these ministry resources will greatly bless, motivate, and encourage you in anticipation of our Lord Jesus' return. Be assured, God has everything under control.

He is our living hope. Call us at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673 and request Is This the End? In the bonus book, The King is Coming for yourself or your friend today. Thank you for listening and thank you for supporting the encouraging word. Now it's time to spread the gospel. Again, you can discover more on our website, www.tewonline.org We are here because of the prayerful and financial support of many friends like you and we're very grateful. The Encouraging Word