Progressing In His Plan
Foundation Statement: What determines the
progression that takes place in a person’s life?
I.
Promotion (be lifted up)
and progression comes from the Lord; You don’t promote yourself-You don’t just decide
that you more and step into more on your own because more comes from him-More
assignment, more anointing comes from him-Psalm 75:6
II.
Faithfulness
(Trustworthy, Reliable, Shown yourself faithful in executing commands) is the
avenue by which 1 gets promoted to the next step
A. Faithfulness has to do
with, “Have you PROVEN YOURSELF WORTHY of my trust?” – Can God count on you to do what He said?
B. Trust is the one thing
the believer has to earn from the Lord by what they do; You earn it, you prove
yourself WORTHY of trust-God doesn’t give trust out by grace, He doesn’t ignore
what you do and trust you anyway
C. Few things God can say to
a believer more precious than “I trust you” Everybody hears “I love you” NOT
EVERYBODY hears, “I trust you”
D. 2 Timothy 2:1-2-Don’t
trust a man with precious things who isn’t faithful – Assignment and
anointing are precious and God will not entrust that to somebody who is not
trustworthy
III.
When faithfulness is not
demonstrated progression in God’s plan stops-Why would God add more to you when
you have proven you can’t be trusted with what you do have-Luke 16:10-12
A. You are telling God right
whether or not He should give you more by how you are treating what He’s given
to you-By not doing what God told you to do on this step you’ve proven you
can’t be trusted with the next
1.
Whenever
you stop proving yourself worthy to be trusted you will stop being trusted
– Why would God give you more when you have proven yourself untrustworthy
with less
2.
Even
though promotion does come from the Lord YOU determine whether or not you get
promoted
B. Do you want to be used more/greater? Wrong question; Do you want to go through the rigors of the
proving process? This process where
you PROVE yourself trust-worthy-Everybody says they want to be used more
but not everybody is willing to be faithful-Prov20:6
IV.
So much of discovering
the plan of God is found in your faithfulness with the step you are on; Why
would God need to reveal more steps to you when you are unwilling to be
faithful with the step in front of you-(2 Chronicle’s
20:15-17)
A. It’s not hard to hear the
plan of God for your life, but it does require faithfulness and many find it so
hard to discover the plan of God because they’re trying to discover it without
being faithful to take the step in front of them
1.
It’s
not hard, but it’s not all at once and you can’t ignore the step your on and
hear the next step
B. The discovering of God’s
plan does not come through just prayer & fasting it comes from being
faithful with what He’s given you to do
V.
Luke 19:12-Every
believer, no matter what stage of life, God has given you ability and
assignment most are doing nothing with the ability and assignment God gave
them, so there is no reason for God to give them anymore
A. 13-He gave them 10 pounds
– ABILITY; He said, Occupy till I come – ASSIGNMENT;
He gave them ability and assignment
1.
15-He
expected to do something with the ability & assignment He gave them
B. 15-He’s examining what
THEY DID with what HE GAVE them to DETERMINE who’s going to get PROMOTED
1.
He’s
going to get this kingdom and he’s going to have all this territory that needs
to be ruled over and he can’t do it all by himself so he’s going to give the
very little lest to 10 of servants to discover who he should give rulership of
these cities to by finding out who can be trusted – He’s got promotion on
his mind, but you don’t just promote anybody – Only the faithful
2.
What
did you do with what I put in your hand? (You showed up late, you weren’t
prepared, didn’t pray, attitude was bad)
C. 17-His faithfulness was
key to his promotion-He proved himself worthy to be trusted with more by how he
treated what was given to him
1.
BECAUSE
you have been faithful – Not because you’re the oldest or you’ve been
here the longest or you’re the most talented; God can add talent to you, He
can’t add faithfulness to you
D. 20-He had ability and
assignment and he did NOTHING with it-He proved himself to be untrustworthy,
unreliable, can’t be counted on-You don’t need more, won’t get more ability
& assignment when you do nothing with the ability & assignment God has
given you
1.
23-He’s
telling this guy the biggest mistake you made was that you did nothing; You
could have done something
2.
Some
are doing nothing with what God gave them because they are lazy (Mt25:26), afraid or because it’s very little
3.
24-Why
take his ability from him? You don’t need ability if you’re not interested in
assignment
VI.
What’s the key to
progression in the plan of God, to promotion? Do what God told you to do with
the step you are own prove yourself faithful, trustworthy, reliable and He will
entrust you with more, He will put more into your hands