Sermon Note (The Zone)
Pastor Dan
Grace in the Grind
You are not a face in the crowd. Jesus loves you and He gave His life for you.
Rest in Him. Do you feel you are like Martha today? Worried and troubled about many things. Are you troubled about many things? But one thing is needed. Simply sit and rest in Me.
One moment in My presence i will turn everything around for you.
The Lord loves you. The Lord is beyond time and space.
Grace invade everyone every room. There is a pain in the grind. Sometimes the process is so painful and it wears you out. Even though there is pain in the grind there is grace in the grind.
We are the people of God and we have a Saviour who works with us and He intercept with His presence.
We talked about Psalm 23 last week. The shepherd will bring the sheep around the hill. This grinding process of being a student, the shepherd is leading the sheep on a gentle journey.
The christian life is not a race to the finishing line. The christian life is enjoying Jesus along the way. We feed along the way.
All the way the sheep will be munching until they go up to the finishing point.
Enjoy every steps of the way with Jesus. Not fixated on the finishing point.
Feed along the way.
Take time everyday. For the sheep they obey hunger. They don’t have a fixed time to feed.
The Lord wants us to obey the hunger. Hunger for the Lord. Have a ℓσνє break.
Take your favourite verses and munch on.
Have psalm 23 memorised. When you feel hungry, take out the verses to munch on.
You feel the hunger in the heart, go to the Lord.
You ℓσνє me, You are my Shepherd. See Him bring us to pasture full of grass.
Before we know it we are at the top.
The blessing of God is not us chasing after things.
Enjoy every step of the way and we are in the land of the plenty.
In the book of Ruth, the people are a picture of Gentiles.
Ruth 2:2
So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.”
And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
The word glean is mentioned first time there.
Him – Boaz
Jesus is our heavenly Boaz. Kinsmen redeemer.
For us and our Jesus there is a ℓσνє story involved.
Ruth 2:3
Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
Ruth 2:4-5
Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!”
And they answered him, “The LORD bless you!”
Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”
Similarly Jesus takes notice of us. He is very aware of us.
Ruth 2:6-7
So the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, “It is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house.”
Noticed- she gleaned from morning until now (evening)
Ruth 2:9-10
Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.”
So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
Ruth 2:11-17
And Boaz answered and said to her, “It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. The LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”
Then she said, “Let me find favor in your sight, my lord; for you have comforted me, and have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.”
Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, “Come here, and eat of the bread, and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed parched grain to her; and she ate and was satisfied, and kept some back. And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. Also let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her; leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”
So she gleaned in the field until evening, and beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.
There was affection in the heart of Boaz for Ruth
There is a lot of care. Isn’t so much like our Lord? He is considering and care about us.
A gleaner will go down on all four and take up the stocks of what the reaper has left behind.
Gleaning is a picture of taking little by little.
He will tell the reapers to intentionally drop nuggets so that Ruth can pick up.
Our Heavenly Father is asking holy spirit to drop nuggets of truth. Start gleaning and feed on Him.
With Ruth gleaning 1 ephah (18kg) worth of Barley! That is amazing!
It is like 2 big bags of rice!
Ruth gathered 18kg of barley that can feed a lot of people! It is really crazy! It is a lot of barley to feed people!
Enjoy the Lord as we glean. What we gather for ourselves will feed many people.
David did not just kill the lion and the bear, he blessed the entire nation when he killed the Goliath.
The grind that we are in, we will never know what is in the future that we will bless people!
God is setting you up to live up your destiny!
You find that you are picking up things and you don’t know where you will end up.
We may not be able to see what is happening in our lives right now.
The people of God also wandered this way. The children of God when they left Egypt they were supposed to enter the promise land.
The people of God finally possessed all that God promised.
You will surely possess all that God promise in your life!
In the meantime, this is what you do.
Joshua 6:1-3
The Destruction of Jericho
Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days.
The first thing God wants us to do in the grind of our life is to see. God wants us to see He has already given us what He has promised.
Joshua 6:4-5
And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”
God’s way for them to possess this city is not to fight. God’s way for them is to walk around the city 6 days! All this while they were carrying the ark and blow the shofa. On the 7th day It happened!
As you are walking and walking do you feel like grind?
Round after round.
Don’t worry about the grind. There is a grind even as the children of Israel went around Jericho
See the ark of the covenant that is going before you! There is grace in the grind!
God wants you to walk around and keep your eyes on the promises of God.
God says He is going to make amazing things in your life!
On the final day when they walked around it 7th time more. They had to blow the ram’s horn.
Every time they walked around it is not just seeing the ark, they are hearing the ram’s horn.
To get the ram’s horn, the ram must die. It is a picture of Jesus’ death.
Walking around the wall and seeing the wall stand against us and the promises of God, see the ark and listen to the ram’s horn.
See Jesus. Learn to glean and feel His ℓσνє. Glean and start feeling like Lord You are so good!
He will do for you what He did for the woman with the issue of blood.
He has so much in His heart to do for you.
Maybe you are taking many rounds around Jericho. Take the opportunity to see and hear Him afresh in your grind
Before you know it, the wall will come crashing down.
All these things you stand believing for, it will be yours.
Eat from vineyards you did not plant and live in house you did not build.
All the miracles He has done in scripture He will do again in your life in Jesus’ name, amen!
The first chamber is full of grain, wine and oil. Every single ones of this items have to go through the grind. Even Jesus. Like the grain He had to be beaten, crushed. This is exactly what Jesus went through.
The olive needed to be put through grind. Every single one of those things are picture of Jesus’ ℓσνє. He was put through the grind so that all the gifts that are in Him we can receive.
