God Supplies All My Needs - Ps Luke Kennedy

Alright, gang.

Let's who's ready to jump into the scriptures?

One person.

Amazing.

Can I see the second?

See a second down the front here.

I see that hand.

God bless you, sir.

Um, hey everyone, welcome, Rachel.

She's gonna That's your small group shouting to you at right there.

Um could Rachel's gonna read the scripture for us.

We're gonna start in Matthew chapter six.

So would you give her a cheer as she reads?

All right, perfect.

So Matthew 6, 25 to 34.

Therefore I tell you, is it behind me?

I'll try to read it from here.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air.

They do not sow or reap or stow away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes?

See how the flowers of the field grow.

They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them.

But seek first his sing his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Amen.

Thank you, Rachel.

Amazing.

Okay, let's start with the good news.

Um the ABC on the 6th of October.

Recession talk has Australians on edge.

The Australian Associated Press on the 7th of October.

Consumer confidence plunges to the worst level since the 1990s.

The Guardian, October 3rd.

An onslaught of punches.

Is this week's cost of living the tipping point for many Australian households?

One farmer said, it's unsustainable.

Another single mum said, I feel hopeless about it.

And another person said, there's not much more to cut out of the budget.

Um the the moment we find ourselves in in Australia is the economic situation would have you feeling like a scarcity mindset in Australia is really setting in.

Buckle down, be careful, pull back, fear is fear of the unknown, fear of what is to come next.

You'll see if you're watching the news, you're gonna see a lot of this kind of talk, and you're gonna see it increasing.

Yet, in the middle of that scarcity mindset in Australia, the scriptures, the eternal words of God are Philippians 4 19, it says, My God will supply all of my needs, not according to the Australian economy, but according to his riches and glory.

That's our confidence.

I want to talk to you today about God supplying all of my needs.

God is the one who supplies all of my needs.

Um at the end of what I can do is the beginning of the miracles of God.

It's do you suppose we are going to see more miracles of God's provision in a time of abundance or in a time of scarcity?

Do you think we're gonna see a move of God's provision, miracles, God coming through for you when everything is amazing or when there is great need?

When there's great need.

It's true.

I believe for many of us, we're about to enter a season of testimony, a test, but also a testimony of God coming through for us when we couldn't come through for ourselves.

When the conditions were not right, that's when God came through for us.

And I want to talk to you about as a man in the scriptures, and we're gonna read from Genesis, as a man in the scriptures, his name is Isaac.

He's a child of promise, and they're in the middle of a famine, and I want to talk to you about some of the things that he did, and I believe some of the things that could be encouraging for us today.

We're ready to jump in.

Genesis chapter 26, verse 1.

Genesis 26:1

It says, Now a famine was in the land, beside the previous famine of Abraham's time, so famine was common, and Isaac went to the I'm gonna skip over some of these names because I'm gonna butcher them, okay?

Um Abelimek, king of the of the Philistines in Garer.

Gere.

The Lord appeared to Isaac and he said, Do not go down to Egypt.

Live in the land where I tell you to live.

In other words, don't run away when it gets difficult.

Pressure is not an excuse to quit with God.

Don't go down there and stay.

Stay in the land for a while, and I will be with you, and I will bless you.

Even though the land is not there, I will bless you.

For you and your descendants, I will give all things, these these, I will give these lands, and I will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham, and I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring, offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

This is the promise talking about Jesus is coming, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your family.

And this isn't this is the same promise that he gave to his father earlier.

And the very in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

So, in a moment of famine, here's my first encouragement to us here today, in this moment in Australia, is we need to remember God's promises.

We need to remember the promise of God for your life.

If you've had money in the stock market before, you'll know that the stock market kind of goes up and down.

And here's what generally happens if you're kind of new to the stock market.

When it goes down, the temptation is to take your money out as quick as you can, right?

Because you don't want to catch a falling knife.

And but the only way that you actually lose money, generally, in a stock market is when you take it out.

You lose money when you take it out.

If it's going down and you take it out, then you generally lose money.

And the thing is, what experienced people will tell you is you've just got to hold.

Hold on to it, because it's going to come back, but if you uh don't have the patience and you pull it out, that's when you'll lose.

This is a little bit like the promises of God.

When things get difficult, and you have to either you will sell the promises of God, say you will quit on the promise of God.

God, I know that you said this, but things are not looking good, so I'm gonna fall back to my full black fallback plan.

I'm going to do what the disciples did and said, I'm gonna go fishing, I'm gonna go back fishing.

Um, I'm going to sell up shop, I'm gonna pull back, I'm gonna stop believing, I'm gonna play it safe.

Or we can hold on to the promises of God and see God bring our testimony within a difficult situation.

Think about God's promise to your family right now.

God's promises to your family.

Do you have some promises from God for your family?

I hope that you do.

I hope that they're written down and they're almost like building blocks for your family household.

What has God said about your family that you will go to the bank with, that you will not quit on, no matter what you are believing for these promises for your family.

Do you have some of those?

It's very quiet.

I hope that you do.

And if you don't, don't take that as a criticism.

I it's an encouragement.

Now's a good time to dig into God and get some promises.

Hold on to some promises, don't let them go during a hard moment.

Um, this was the promise that that Isaac had.

I will make your descendants as numerous as stars in the sky, and I will give them these lands, and through your offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

What a promise.

His promise wasn't just about his family, his his promise was about all of the world being blessed through his family.

I hope that the promises of my life for my family are not just about us, they're about the kingdom of God.

Um, these are the kind of things we talk to about with our children often.

Don't quit your lifetime calling in the middle of your short-term condition change.

Don't quit on your life calling.

Hold on to your calling during a moment of change and challenge.

Maybe the risks that you took failed.

Maybe the person you invested in left, maybe the hope that you had disappointed you, or the money money you invested is gone.

But hold on to the promise of God.

I remember the first church that I um planted, I was 21 years old.

The first night I was in a city, an older pastor came and told me that young people here have black hearts and they'll never receive the gospel.

And I said, Thank you so much for your encouragement.

We start tomorrow.

We baptize two the next week.

Um, and I remember sewing into a bunch of young people, really investing hundreds of hours of personal investment into them.

It was scripture teaching them.

Very, very cool young people, very cool.

Um there was a cool church, amazing.

Um a lot of them were creatives, WAP is singing, and I remember some things happened that in their life that needed to be challenged to change.

Some pride, some ego.

Had to bring it back to the scriptures that needed to be challenged.

And I remember challenging them about their pride, coming back to humility.

And I remember in one week, all of the young people left the church.

They all left at once, all together.

Everything that I'd worked for, hundreds of hours in investments.

Maybe you were there, Frida, at that point.

I know Tim was there, were were they left in one week altogether.

And we were left.

I was I remember seeing so depressed that I was sitting in a in a restaurant with a Zoomy going, I I never would consider quitting.

It's just not that's not in my heart.

But I definitely thought about quitting that day.

So what am I doing?

We've invested so much and now we all have nothing.

And and just I remember thinking, I remember and a pastor telling me, the best thing you can do when you're disappointed is go to church.

Go to church and be around amazing people and let it encourage you.

Even as the pastor, one of the best things I can do when I'm when I'm disencouraged is come to church.

Because I'm with you and you're amazing, and you're encouraging to me.

And I remember going to church the next week, and there were three young people came in through an outreach.

Three Japanese young people.

They all came in together, they were all friends.

They all came in, sat up the back, and all three of them responded to receive Jesus at the end of the service.

All three of them.

And I was like, wow, amazing.

I've got a decision to make.

Am I gonna open my heart to people again or am I gonna stay in disappointment?

I went and I um shared with them, went and loved them.

We, of course, we opened our hearts to receive those young people in again.

Long story short, this is a very long story, but to make it very short, um, there was one boy who basically couldn't even speak, he couldn't even say his own name without stuttering.

He became um the first church planter that we sent out out of that group.

The second one was a guy who none of you would consider to be a cool or like a star player on the team.

He was another one who went out and planted the church and did amazing, married my um operations person, and then they went out together and planted a church in Kyoto.

Some of you probably have been to Kyoto.

There's a great church there.

And then the third one became my finance person on my staff in the church a couple of years later.

Three of them all became champions together.

Can I just tell you, when you go through a difficult moment and you feel like quitting, and everything seems like it's not working, God can do something to turn it around very, very quickly.

It may not be gradual getting better.

God could actually do something very dramatic.

And I've seen this happen over and over and over in the church.

You never know who's gonna walk through the door this next weekend, or maybe even here today, and God has brought something, someone into your life who may just be a solution to a problem you've been wrestling with for a long time.

That's why you should talk to new people, guys, and not just stay in your group, but go and meet people.

God is bringing people here, God is the one who is, God is your source, and many times the source is the substance of that source is God bringing people into your life.

Have courage.

The second thing I noticed is that he keeps on planting in the middle of a famine.

Verse 12 says, Isaac planted crops in that same year, he reaped a hundredfold because the Lord had blessed him.

Can you imagine?

In the middle of a famine, he's the only one sowing seeds in the famine.

Everyone else is hunkering down, maybe even eating the seeds that they have left over just so they can make it through.

But Isaac is sowing in the middle of a famine, and supernaturally, we don't know how, but somehow it produces the harvest even better than a year before when it was raining.

That's a miracle from God.

And I'm believing that for some of us here today, some of us in this church, is you're going to be even more blessed in a time of economic challenge in Australia with God's help, with God's blessing, than you would have otherwise, because your faith is actually going to go deeper in God.

Can you see that for your life?

That's what I'm praying over you.

Um is often an act of radical obedience to God.

And sewing often looks like foolishness until there's a miracle.

And then you look like, oh, of course, I always knew that was gonna happen.

But actually, you look like a fool sewing in when you didn't have much and things weren't going your way, and things happened.

There's if you've been in that front room, there's a there's an art piece on that front room.

There's a mural, okay.

Um, if you does anyone know what it is?

Have you have you seen it?

It's it is a Bible character.

I won't tell you, okay.

So you can you can go and figure it out.

Have a look at it later.

It's a it's an art piece by a local artist here.

Um we we we paid someone, how do you say that?

In we commissioned.

We commissioned someone to paint that painting for the opening of this building, okay.

You know how much that art piece costs?

Five thousand dollars.

Okay, five thousand dollars.

Now I raised that money from outside, it wasn't for who he was giving.

But I took a lot of flack for that painting.

People criticized me for wasting money on that painting, and I knew we needed to make a statement about what this place was gonna be.

This place was gonna be a place where people could come in here, and young people who were creatives could come and find a home.

And to me, that was like the final piece of that saying, we see you, we believe in you, and this place is gonna be a place of encountering God, especially if you're a young creative.

So I took that flag, okay?

I was like, fine.

Anyway, um, fast forward a little bit later, someone walked in off the street.

He's here in this room today, so I'm not going to um I'm not gonna say his name.

He can tell you the story later if he wants to.

There's a man who saw that painting and walked into the room and came and spoke to me.

I was in the I was in the kitchen and he came in and spoke to me because he saw the painting.

And he saw the painting that used to be like a front glass so you could see out the front.

He'd heard about the painting, he'd came and seen the painting, and then he came and saw, talked to me about, and we started talking about the painting, and we started talking about the outreaches that were happening in this church.

And the painting had brought him into the church, and he got a real heart for the kind of evangelism that we're doing through our open communities, through um Alpha, and we were about to launch Alpha at Scale for the first time, and really Alpha at Scale wasn't being done in Australia at that time, and I was also copying some flack from putting a lot of money into Alpha like that as well.

Okay, and he walks in, and after about a half an hour talk, he said to me, I really believe in what you're doing here.

How much is Alpha gonna cost?

And I said to him, uh I told him the number.

It was gonna cost us a lot of money.

And so he got out his phone and he sent me, not me, he sent me the church, he sent the church, check, and he turned it around and it said$5,000.

That's a good part of the story.

And and I was like, Are you sure?

You came in through the painting that cost$5,000, that I got criticized about sewing in when we didn't have much, to make a statement of faith about what this place would be, and then the person came in and gave us the money for the painting for the next big thing that we're about to try in faith, and then since then has continued to fund every alpha that we've done and many other outreaches that we've done as well.

I won't point him out because he's here.

Okay, and he he's humble.

But let me just tell you: stepping out in faith requires you sometimes to look a bit foolish until there's a miracle, and then everyone always knew it was always gonna work.

Yeah?

And encourage you in your life, in a moment of famine, don't stop sowing, don't stop believing, don't stop walking in faith, don't pull back.

God is with you, God is your source, God will bless you.

Stop looking to people, look to God.

He loves you so much and he's so trustworthy, and he will bring all these things together.

I have dear friends in our church that right now I won't tell you their names as well because it's their story to tell.

But dear friends in this church who have been through hell and back over the last 12 months.

Hell and back.

And some of the and and some of the pressure that I know that they've been under, sometimes I'm looking at their lives and thinking, gosh, they need some prayer.

How are they gonna make this through?

And in the middle of a recession, they've been through so much, and all that time I know that they kept giving into this church.

They faithfully kept on tithing into this church, even though they were going through, I know, so many hard things.

And I'm talking about them going, Are you sure you're okay?

And they continued to be faithful and gave into this church over and over.

Over and over in the middle of their famine, and this week they've just bought their dream house in the middle of this economy.

That's crazy.

I didn't know how that happened.

I have no idea how that happened, except for the Lord, the Lord sees you.

The Lord is my source.

God is my source.

But notice what happens next in this story.

Um, it doesn't all just suddenly now everything's amazing.

Verse 13, it says, the man became rich and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy in the middle of a famine because he was blessed a hundred times.

He had so many flocks and herds, and the servants of the Philistines envied them.

So all of the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.

Basically, they put sand in all of his wells.

And he said to Isaac, Move away from us, you've become too powerful.

Verse 13, he becomes increasingly prosperous.

Verse 14, the peep people become increasingly envious.

And verse 15, they block up his wells, trying to stop the blessing of God.

You know some people won't be happy when you get blessed.

Don't let someone else's scarcity shrink your expectation of God's supply for your life.

Keep your eyes on God.

He is the source of my life, not the people around me.

Not the critics around me, not the scarcity mindset of Australia.

My source is God.

Not everyone was happy for him.

For his obedience, for his harvest.

People were not cheering him on.

There was a tall poppy syndrome in the land.

Do you think you're better than us now?

Calm down, mate.

Two more times he moves from there, and so he dig, keeps digging new wells.

Two more times he moves to another place and digs new wells, and they are blessed, and people come and put sand in those wells as well.

Two more times.

He's still getting blessed, he's still digging wells, blessing the people around him, and then they come and put sand in them.

Tough.

And he doesn't fight, he just keeps going with confidence and keeps digging new wells.

Why?

Because he's a digger.

He has the blessing of God and he knows wherever I dig, we're gonna get water.

God's with me.

Have confidence.

Verse 22.

He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quite quarreled over it.

He named that place Rehoboth, saying, Now the Lord is giving us room and we will flourish in the land.

When God blesses you, no matter what anyone else does, or where people force you to go, or what they cover up, the wells that you dig, there will be water.

I want to have the well-digging blessing from God.

You want to have a well-digging blessing, meaning when I go, I'm gonna seek out opportunities, and the opportunities that I seek out are gonna be disproportionately blessed by God because of my obedience.

Because I'm following my eyes are on God, and if He says go, I'm going, and I'm gonna whatever I do is gonna be blessed because I'm gonna obey God.

This door closes, I'm gonna go dig another well.

People reject me, I'm gonna go dig another well.

Business failed, I'm gonna go dig another well.

Business partner sabotages me, I'm gonna go dig another well.

I was misunderstood because of my success, I'm gonna go dig another well.

And no one can take God's blessing from you.

It's from God, it is not from people.

No one can steal the blessing of God from your life.

It is from God.

Hold on to it.

Verse 23.

From there he went up to um Bathsheba.

That night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am I am the God of your father Abraham.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you.

I will bless you, and you will increase in the number of descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.

Verse 25.

Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord.

There he pitched his tents, and his servants, what do they always do?

He dug another well.

When he finally steps into the blessing of the promise of God for his life, he does three things.

Number one, he builds an altar.

It's about worship.

He worships God.

Don't forget to worship God.

You know, much of the Old Testament is a story about God blessing people, people getting blessed, and then forgetting God.

Totally bomb nosediving it.

Calling out to God.

Oh, I remember God now.

God save me, God saving them, and then the cycle repeating.

Remember who it is who has blessed you.

When you are successful, remember the Lord.

He is still the source of our blessing.

He worships God.

He pitches a tent, he keeps building his home.

Even in the middle of famine, he keeps building home.

And number three, he digs another well, keep digging.

He digs new opportunities because it's who he is.

Being a person of faith is not something I do sometimes.

It's who I am.

I want to be a person of faith.

Meaning, in every season, I'm trusting God, I'm believing for God for miracles.

Every season.

Whether it's good, whether it's challenging.

And you might say, Luke, that's amazing for Isaac.

What a great Bible character.

But what about me?

Colossians chapter 1, verse 12.

Colossians 1:12

This is for you, okay?

The Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Do you know today that you are a child of God?

And that God has an inheritance for your life.

Not that he's begrudgingly giving you if you're a good boy or a good girl.

It's his delight to bless his children.

It's his delight, it's his character.

It's not twisting God's arm, it's laying hold of God's greatest willingness.

He wants to bless your life so much.

An inheritance is something that is being held for you.

It's not something that you just have, you know.

Um, you know, if you have grandparents or it's not it, it's something that is held for you.

You have it, but it's being held for you.

Does that make sense?

It's yours, but it's being held for you.

That is like the promises of God.

They're held for you.

And I wonder today what the promises of God God is holding for you today, and he's encouraging you.

Keep having faith, remember his promises, keep sowing in the time of famine, keep digging new wells.

Don't fight with the people who are envious of you.

Keep digging new wells.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

He is the source of everything in your life.

And no one can take away the blessing of God from you.

Can I pray for you?

Are you encouraged?

Okay, let's pray together.

God, we pray.

I want to pray for Australia.

Um, as many people are going through difficult moments right now, and maybe will increasingly so.

God, I pray that you would come and show them how much you love them.

Help them to put their trust in you.

I pray that many would turn to you in your goodness and experience the source of God.

You being their source.

For us here today, us here who know you, who have seen your goodness in the past, God, and maybe we've bought into the fear of the world right now.

God help us to lift our eyes to the heavens and see where our help comes from.

You are the source of our lives.

You, God.

So we surrender all of our fears, our doubts, our uncertainty, which are real.

We don't know what's going to happen next month or next year.

But we do know one thing.

God, you are good.

You've always been good.

You will always be good.

You've never let us down.

You never will let us down.

So we put our trust fully in you.

For those people here who are maybe holding back right now.

I pray you'd fill our hearts with faith.

In the middle of a difficult moment for many God, that the people of God here would not be people who shrink back, but would be people who live with faith, who don't stop sowing, who don't stop seeking out new opportunities.

And I'm really praying, God, for whatever that hundredfold looks like, may not just be money, but it may be something very specific that you need God to do for you.

God, I pray for that hundredfold blessing, that that well-dealing blessing on the people of God here.

God, that we would sow in a time of famine and still be reaping when it should not be possible, when it should not be happening.

God, that you would come through.

And just let God speak to you for a moment.

Just for just for a couple of moments.

Not those people, it is God.

Put your trust in God, He will come through for you.

Holy Spirit, set people free from fear today.

God, draw them close to you today.

Open their hearts, give them the courage to say yes to you, to know you.

Come and fill them with your life today.

Forgive them, God, wash them clean of all the sin and the junk of the past, the weight that's on their shoulders right now.

Pray they give that to you.

Come and make them free today.

Make them children of God.

We trust you, though.

That also.

In Jesus' name.

I just want to pray over people here who um you want to buy a house, or you're trying to sell a house or buy a house, and you're looking at the market day after day after day, and you're just so discouraged.

And I just want to pray that God would just give you a word of faith that would just that you can hold on to.

Maybe it's a scripture, maybe it's a line or an impression from God, even right now, a picture in your mind.

Holy Spirit, come and speak to them.

That when the world is saying one thing, that God will give you something else to hold on to.

And don't let it go.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you, love you, you're amazing.