Chosen Vessels

Pick our bibles up, wave them around and make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

That's our custom around here.

And let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I'm intentionally tuning in tonight to live stream.

There's life in this stream for me.

The Word of God and the Holy Spirit are changing my life daily and I am an overcomer in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn in our bibles to Acts, the 9th chapter, and we're going to read from verses 10 through 20.

This is right after Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, verse 10,.

There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision, ananias.

And he said behold, I'm here, lord.

And the Lord said unto him arise and go into the street which is called Straight and inquire in the house of Judas for one call Saul of Tarsus.

For he, behold, he prayeth and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight.

And then Ananias answered Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to the saints at Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name.

But the Lord said unto him go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

And Ananias went his way and entered into the house and, putting his hands on him, said Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou cameest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.

And immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were, been scales and he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized.

And when he had received meat he was strengthened.

Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus, and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God.

Now let's look at verse 15 and notice what Jesus said about Saul or Paul.

He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name, and so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Chosen Vessels.

You know, it's our day to reach our generation, and I heard Pastor Osteen utter those words way back in 1990, and I'll see what year that was exactly 1998.

And it was his last large pastors conference that he held there at Lakewood.

There were over 6,000 pastors and leaders in attendance that day and he was going along about this idea that every generation has a message and God has given us this mandate to meet.

You know, he's given us the message, the mandate and the manifestation for this time.

It's up to each of us, not just the preachers, not just me, not just you know leaders, but it's up to every believer individually, and then every individual church corporately, to reach our generation today.

You know the message hasn't changed, but the methods many times does change.

We have to use different methods.

Today, this is a different generation.

We can't copy what happened yesterday.

Just think about the great men of God Finney and Wesley and Whitfield Lake, dowey, seymour, and then, if you wanna move into the last 20th century, we could add Osteen and Hagan and Roberts to that list.

They all had their generation that they reached.

But we can't copy, you know, their methods.

We have to have the message that God has given us, but we have to use the methods that work for today.

And so God has equipped us for this generation.

Really, that's the point of this whole message is for us to get fired up, because I believe this thing's about to wind up and I believe that it's our job to reap this final harvest and we're gonna have to get with the program Now.

Just look here God chose Saul of Tarsus, or later he became Paul, and he said to bear my name, to bear the name of Jesus.

I mean, he bore that name when it wasn't that popular.

He bore it before a people that had cried out crucify him.

They were still around when Paul got saved and started preaching.

There were plenty of people that had still survived a few years after that and they weren't any friendlier toward the name of Jesus than they were when Jesus was walking the shores of Galilee.

And Jesus did not say it would be easy.

In fact, on the contrary, he said I will show him what great things he will suffer for my namesake.

And so in 2 Corinthians 12, I want us to turn over there.

Paul is talking about that suffering.

He's talking about that trouble that he encountered after he got saved and he started preaching.

He started traveling, he started bearing the name of Jesus to the Gentiles, to the Jews.

And in 2 Corinthians 12, I said verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation.

There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

Now notice, it didn't say God gave him that thorn in the flesh.

It said it was given to him.

And then he tells you who gave it to him.

It was the messenger of Satan to buffet him.

It was the devil, it wasn't God.

And then people I've heard preachers even say well, the thorn in the flesh was his eyesight, or it was this, or it was that it was some physical sickness.

No, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, everywhere it mentions thorns in the flesh.

They'll become thorns in your sides and pricks in your eyes.

That's talking about people.

It's talking about persecution.

It's talking about people rising up against you, and they certainly did with Paul.

And so because of this thing, and then says you know, because of the abundance of the revelations, again, it wasn't God that persecuted him.

The devil was trying to get him to move off of preaching the revelation of in Christ.

And here, 2,000 years later, we're still preaching that revelation of who we are in Christ, and that came mainly from the apostle Paul.

And so for this thing, for what thing For this thorn in the flesh, for this persecution.

Paul said I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me, and he said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness".

And so we have missed.

I've heard preaching on this.

It was completely 180 degrees out of phase and the bottom line is that Jesus didn't say I'm not gonna help you.

Jesus said you've got all the equipment you need to turn this around.

You've got authority in my name.

You do something about it.

I've already done everything.

I'm gonna do about it.

You've got to do something about it.

My grace is sufficient for you.

You've already got a measure of faith.

You've got my grace.

That's all you need.

You've got supernatural equipment to overcome all persecution.

And so he says my strength is made perfect when you've reached the end of your human strength.

You know, sometimes we get tested to the limits of our endurance and that's when the grace of God will really start to kick in.

You know, god's never little, he's never late.

He's a little ass minute sometimes, but he's never late.

And so we can say my strength is made perfect when you reach the end of your human ability.

And I think we're getting closer to that.

We're not there yet, but we're getting closer and closer to the end of our human ability.

It's gonna take supernatural power to overcome, first of all, the persecution.

You know the church is living through some of the greatest persecution it's ever had on the earth worldwide right now.

You wouldn't know it cause they don't report it, but it's true.

I mean, christians are being killed, christians are being jailed, christians are being persecuted worldwide and really, for the first time in my lifetime Christians have been really the heat has turned up on Christians right here in America.

We're supposed to be one nation under God and we're one nation out from under God.

That's where we are right now as a nation, but thank God the church is still here, amen.

So you know the message is chosen vessels.

God has chosen you and I.

We are chosen vessels to bear His name right now.

And if we don't bear His name right now, well, who will you know?

In John 15, 16, jesus said you know you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you that you would go forth and bear fruit.

And so he has chosen us.

He chose us and he didn't Choose us because we were so great.

He didn't choose us because we were fully qualified.

Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter one.

I want you know, because some people they just think well, you know, if I was more qualified, god would use me.

Well, that's just the opposite of what the Bible says.

What Well, this here what the Bible says, because the Bible's always right.

Quit talking against the Bible.

Start agreeing with the word.

Don't fight against the word.

The word is right and any idea you might have that's against the word is just wrong.

1 Corinthians 126, here's Paul again, for you see, your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

And God has chosen the weak things.

Notice what he's choosing.

He's choosing what he's choosing foolish, he's choosing weak and he's choosing base things verse 28, base, base things of the world and things which are despised.

God chooses what men despise, he calls them.

He chooses them Not because they're qualified.

He doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies those who are called.

See, we get it all backwards.

God chooses the foolish things.

He did the base things, the.

You know the foolish ones, you know I was thinking about great men of God that God called.

I think about Oral Roberts was called when he was choking up blood.

He received his call when he was choking up blood from tuberculosis.

He was weak as water.

He had been an athlete, he had been a basketball player, he was, so he was a power.

He could have been an athlete, go to college on a full ride, scholarship, but he got tuberculosis in those days and I mean he was so weak, he was so, you know, devoid of anything of himself, and on the way to a healing meeting.

Some people had taken him to one of the healing evangelists of that day and in that car and he was choking and spitting up blood.

I've read his testimony.

I mean God called him in his weakest point.

I think about John Osteen.

God called him and he was just a short little guy, kind of a runt.

I hate to I don't use that an ugly way but he was not a very strong boy, he was a.

He had a big voice but otherwise weak.

He was weak physically and early in his life he stuck his hand in a fire, burned his hand so badly that he never could straighten out his left hand.

It was kind of arc like that, his fingers were curled, things like he had a defect.

And then Kenneth Hagan I mean his grandmother put him on a slab of wood in the back of the garage, thinking he was born dead, and she tended to his mother, cause she almost died giving birth to him, and then she went to check on him to get him ready to just bury him, cause she just knew he was dead.

And he took a breath and lived and then after that was paralyzed on a bed of sickness when he was in his early teenage years.

I mean, god calls the weak of this world.

It's not the other way around.

Not many wise men, not many strong men, not many rich men does God call.

He calls the unlikely ones.

That's why I guess I showed up here, praise God, pretty unlikely, and God didn't call me qualified.

He called me as what I was and then he qualified me, praise God.

He began to work on me and he began to work on the other men of God.

Listen, I believe he's working on you so that you can be a chosen vessel for this generation.

And, excuse me, so let's look at second Corinthians, chapter four.

If you don't get anything out of this message, just think about.

God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

Praise God, all right.

And then second Corinthians, chapter four.

I love these verses.

Oh, I'll tell you, chosen vessel.

Say that word out loud.

Chosen vessel.

Say to yourself God calls me a chosen vessel, yeah, he does, all right.

What's a vessel?

It's a container.

Praise God.

You know, I don't know if you like gravy, but in my mother's China, when she passed away, we wound up with her China and some of her silverware, and in her China she had this odd looking little thing and it was a vessel that had a saucer on the bottom of it and they were together, they were one piece.

And then there was a little ladle and I found out later it's called a gravy boat.

It's made out of fine china, it's a gravy boat, so it's a whole.

Purpose is to contain the gravy, and so we have used that at Thanksgiving time, christmas time, we'll put turkey gravy in it.

I look forward one of these days to breaking it out and putting cream gravy in it for chicken fried steak, because that'd be even better for me.

But anyway, you know what the thing is, that nobody really thinks about the gravy boat.

They're really wanting the gravy.

I mean, the gravy is what people are after.

So it's not so much about the vessel, as it is the gravy.

And you know what we've got the gravy he's the Holy Ghost.

It's not so big.

The vessel is not that big a deal.

It's the container of the Holy Ghost, is not the big deal.

It's the anointing that people need.

It's the anointing that people are after, whether they know it or not.

Amen, all right.

Did you find 2 Corinthians, chapter four, verse six?

Paul said again for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure, notice, he said we're gonna have.

He didn't say we might have, he said but we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

See, it's not about the vessel, it's about the excellency of the glory, it's about the excellency of the anointing, and we are the containers of that, we're the vessels of that.

Praise God, hallelujah.

So then he says we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We're perplexed, but we're not in despair.

Persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

Wow, what a powerful thought.

And so in Luke 16 is connected to that.

Let's look at Luke 16, talking about chosen vessels and a lot of times people, because their lives aren't lined up perfectly or maybe their circumstances aren't just perfect, maybe they're not in perfect health, maybe they're not, their finances are not perfect, maybe their household is not perfect.

Let me tell you something God is not paying that much attention to that.

He wants, he's wants, yielded vessels.

He wants vessels that will bear his name.

You know, you can still bear his name.

Praise God, all right.

Luke 16, verse 11.

Luke 16:11

If, therefore, you have not been faithful in the unrighteous man, see that's money.

If you're not faithful in money, who will commit to your trust?

The true riches.

So Jesus is talking about the true riches as opposed to money.

So there's something more valuable than money.

There's something more useful than money Money's power.

Listen, money.

I'm not saying money's not important, but it's not the most important.

He's talking about the true riches, verse 12,.

And if you have not been faithful.

See, he's talking about faithfulness.

You gotta be faithful over your money.

You gotta make your money work for the kingdom, and if you don't do that, you're not gonna have the true riches.

That's what Jesus said.

That's not what I'm saying.

And then he talks about being faithful in that which is another man's.

Who will give you that which is your own?

Who shall give you that which is your own?

Years ago, god gave me these verses as I was working for Brother Osteen.

I wanted to serve him.

I was working for Jesus, but I had to serve another man and I knew I was called.

I knew my time would come one day, but I wasn't in a hurry because I knew, as long as I was faithful to help another man in his ministry and do everything I could to fulfill his vision, that God would someday give me my own.

And he did.

And if I had not been faithful, he wouldn't have.

And if I had not been faithful over money and made my money work for God, then he wouldn't have given me what the true riches, which is the anointing.

It's, that it's the glory of God, it's the anointing of God, that's the true riches, hallelujah.

And so we have to become yielded vessels.

A yielded vessel is one that doesn't try to call all the shots.

A yielded one vessel is one that just does whatever this commanded them, and without hesitation.

That's yieldedness, that's being yielded.

You don't have your own way.

You know, in 26 years in the in this church is full-time in this, pastoring this church, I've had a lot of people come through here and they're looking for a place to do their thing.

They're looking for a place to launch their ministry and they think this church is gonna be the key If they can start doing something in this church, you know they're gonna get, you know, noticed and and and.

But see, that's the wrong attitude and I can smell it a mile away because I know it's a it's.

It's absolutely Poisonous, that attitude, and I can't use anybody like that.

I have to use people that will drop everything that they want to do and take up what I'm doing for God and help help fulfill that mission.

And I've seen people that did that and then God moved them on and God promoted them later.

I tell you, it works.

It works every time that somebody tries, because that's what Jesus said to do.

Praise God, chosen vessels.

So persecution, tribulation balls, accusation, hardship, disappointments, the trail All of these things and more Come with the territory.

It's just part of being a chosen vessel.

You're gonna have to go through all these things, just like Paul.

You might not ever suffer, you know, lashes on your back.

You might not ever be locked in jail, but you know you're gonna.

You're gonna have, you're gonna have people lie about you.

You're gonna have people, you know, try to take advantage of you.

You're gonna have people betray you and disappoint you, and all those things are gonna happen because of this life and because of the enemy.

He knows his time is short and so you ought to take the attitude that the Apostles did.

They, they, when they were beaten for preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus, they, they considered it an honor to suffer shame for his name.

You know it's almost a year ago since we took a stand Against Harris County in the state of Texas and we decided to open against.

You know it was most most all the churches were closed, most all the.

You know they were cowering and they're they're complying.

And we, we rose up and we opened back up on Palm Sunday.

It's coming.

Our one-year anniversary of that's coming up two weeks, and so I've been thinking about those those days, and there was persecution, there were death threats, there were bad ugly Facebook posts and there were there were bad, uncomplementary news articles.

New York Post called me a renegade pastor, and you know there's a lot of things that were negative.

But I look back on those days and I know that we pleased God.

I know that this was part of reaching this generation with this message that Jesus and the kingdom is More important than made up news, than fake science, then power hungry politicians that try to steal the rights God gave us.

You know, those rights don't come from man, they don't come from government, they don't come from the governor, the president or anybody else, and none of those people have the authority under God to take them away None of them.

And so, if nothing else, at least we stood up, and I congratulate all the members of glorious way that didn't stand up with us.

But we ought to be honored to suffer shame for his name.

I Do consider it an honor.

You know, it's better for us to hang together and it is to hang separately.

We are chosen vessels.

That's the name of this message for this time and For this generation.

It's the same message.

We have no different message.

It's Jesus Christ, christ in us, the hope of glory, all the things that Jesus preached and taught.

But we may have some different methods and we're willing to be open to reaching our generation.

We must reach them.

Let's yield ourselves to him so we can pour out the true riches.

Lift your hands, chosen vessels, praise God.

Thank you, lord, for making us all chosen vessels.

Thank you for giving us boldness, father, to reach our generation.

In the name of Jesus, amen, amen.

Well, I trust you got something out of this.

Let's be challenged and let's let's listen to the word and let's be Inspired to do more and more.

Coming up, I tell you there's lots of people out there that are still afraid, still frightened, and they believe lies.

Let's be witnesses of the truth, amen.

I.