Prepare for More Pt. III
Tim Ross | September 27, 2020
“You have to prepare for more. Because if He says He’s gonna bless you, and He says He’s gonna make you famous, I promise you will have to change some things about your life.”
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Transcription
Embassy City family what's up. I'm so excited to be with you all once again. I hope that you had an incredible week. I'm so grateful that you gathered literally from all around the world so that we could lift up the name of the Lord and get into God's word. As you know, we're so excited because God has given us a prophetic word for this season in three words, prepare for more. On our fifth anniversary, I talked about it from Isaiah 54. Last week I was in Genesis 12:1 talking about the steps that we have to take to prepare for more.
Today, can anybody guess? We're just going to verse number two because how do you follow up verse number one? You just go to verse number two. God is sequential, and so we should just stay with him. Genesis 12:2, if you're taking notes on this message, newsflash is prepare for more, but it's prepare for more part three, all right? We're just going to keep beating this up, breaking this down until you understand what's required of us in the preparation phase of more.
Can I just say this before I jump into anything from this message, the preparation is our responsibility. More is God's responsibility. Somebody needs to get that. The preparation is God's responsibility. I'm sorry, is our responsibility. More is God's responsibility. I'm going to say it one more time. Preparation belongs to who?
Us. We have to prepare. The more belongs to who?
God is in charge of more. You're not in charge of more. I just feel like I need to say this before we even jump into it. There are so many people that want more of God, but then they try to be God to get more. I'm going to take my time today. I fell this. There's a lot of people that want more of God, but they try to insert themselves into being God to obtain the more. No, you don't get to determine what the more looks like. You get to determine how to prepare. God determines what the more looks like. I want to talk to you about prepare for more part three, all right?
Bow your heads. Let's pray over the word and we'll jump right in, shall we? Holy Spirit prepare us for more. Amen. Genesis 12:2, here's what it says. This is God speaking to Abraham. "I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others." I'm going to read that again. It's just one verse. "I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others."
This is so good to me because there is something about the preparation that God was trying to get Abraham to understand. He does it by making Abraham a promise. Now, please understand this. This is very, very significant. I'll get into this a little bit more in-depth later, but Abraham is not asked to reciprocate anything God's promising him at this stage except to obey. The only thing Abraham needed to do to ensure that all of this would come to pass was obey whatever God was telling him to do.
If you want to know right now, if you want to write down one thing from this entire message, which means you can click off and not even listen to the rest of the points if you want to, I think you should listen to them though, but I'm just saying if you want a one-word, okay, Tim, I just need-- I got to go, okay? I'm watching you live but I got to go right after this and because I got to go to work, or I have a date, or I have brunch, whatever y'all do on Sundays because you ain't going to church. I don't know what you do. Tell me what I need to know right now so I can move on.
Obey God. You want to know what you're supposed to do right now? Obey God. It's not even a point. You just need to obey him. By faith, Abraham was accounted as righteous because he obeyed whatever God told him to do. It doesn't matter how crazy it seemed. It doesn't matter how outlandish it might have been because he obeyed. He got what God was telling him to do. You need to obey God. Obedience for some of us, it's difficult. Obedience for some of us does not come naturally. Anybody besides me, obedience was not your top five strengths? [laughs] We got some hands up. I love the honesty in the room.
You're like, "Listen, all right? Obey sounds like you're trying to tell me to do something. I like to arrive at my own conclusions. I'm a little independent. If you would've just left me alone for 20 more minutes, I would have figured it out. I don't need you to tell me what to do." Hey, it would be better if you do. "I know what I'm doing." Hey, I know you're trying to put that together. The instructions are right. "I know. I saw the picture on the package."
Obedience is better than sacrifice. You would do better just obeying what God told you to do instead of trying to do it your way and hoping that He will let it slide. I want to give you the three points to this message because this is just prepare for more part three, okay? Listen, y'all know I'm basic. In coach, your basic gets a knock. If you're basic, people don't want to mess with you. I'm super basic. I like stuff super simple because if it's difficult, you won't do it. The more simplistic it is, the better chances we have of people actually doing it.
Please remember that the God of the universe came and put on flesh. The way that He tried to describe who He was, was by picking up a mustard seed. The God of the universe who could have talked in scientific complexities that would have blown our minds says, if you have faith the size of this mustard seed, you can speak to that tree. Tell it to go into that lake. Let's go eat some fish. Simple. I want to give you some simplistic points, three points this weekend to this message that I hope today allows you to have an upset, a turnover, to be ready to receive what God has in store for you today.
Write this down, point number one, God can make something out of nothing. Point number one, you're preparing for more, please understand that no matter where you find yourself in life right now, no matter where you find yourself socioeconomically, no matter where you find yourself positionally, no matter where you find yourself geographically, God can make something out of nothing. Here's what it says in verse number two, "I will make you into a great nation."
Now, here's why point number one is God can make something out of nothing. When you're telling a man who's 75 years old and never had any children, "I will make you into a great nation," you are literally telling that man, "I can make something out of nothing." Here's what you have to understand about your God. God can take you and turn you into whoever He has desired for you to be before the foundations of the world.
He doesn't take into consideration any situation that you are in right now. He speaks things that were not as though they were because when He says it, it becomes whatever He says. Can I take my time and just talk to you about the power of God really quick? Do I have to remind you of Genesis 1? The fact that God spoke stuff into existence that did not exist before He said it, that when He said, "Let there be light," light was not a thing until He said it was. When He spoke the stars into existence, stars were not anywhere else at the time and moved over.
They were nothing until He spoke them into existence, and then they were something. Horses, He spoke horses and horses popped up. He spoke fish and fish popped up. He took the dust of the ground and formed a man and blew into him the breath of life and man became a living soul. He can turn dirt into righteousness with the word of his voice and the breath of his lungs.
Listen, whatever situation you might see yourself in right now, some of you all could be going through the worst possible scenarios right now. It could be COVID related. It could have been happening before COVID. It could have been situations that were far beyond your control. Here's what God says, "I can turn nothing into something. No matter where you find yourself right now, I can turn the worst thing into the best thing. I can turn a bad thing into a good thing. I can turn a horrible marriage into a blissful marriage.
I can turn poverty into prosperity. I can turn unemployment into employment. I can turn a bad job into a good job. I can turn a management position into a regional position. I can turn nothing into something because I say so." This is the power of his word.
Somebody needs to write that down, because I say so. Not you say so because He says so. There's some things that God's going to bring into your life not because you said something, but because He said something. Listen, I am the biggest witness to this right here because many of you all know my story. You know my testimony about where I came from, where I grew up, what I was involved in, and listen, I am the perfect example. They have these memes going around right now, if such and such was a person, if 2020 was a person, or if always running late was a person.
Well, if they can make a new meme right now, and if nothing turned into something was a person, Tim would be right there. I'd be right there because the path I was on before I gave my life to Jesus, never should have put me in front of a camera to talk to you right now. It never should've put me in a leadership position to be over a church right now. It never should've put me in a position to travel all around the world preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. He turned nothing into something because He said so.
I didn't say so. I didn't even volunteer for this. I was minding my own business on the back row of that church. I was not thinking about God. God was thinking about me. I gave my life to Him on the back row of that church. January 14th of 1996, my whole life got turned upside down, but here's the thing, I was just happy to be saved. There was nothing in my mind that said, "Use me God to shape the generation for Jesus."
That's what the kids at the youth group do in the front row. They're right down at the alter jumping up and down like, "Use me Lord." It's all the kids at the back that are like, "yes, use him Lord." I'm telling you I was not trying to be a preacher. Five weeks after I gave my life to Christ, I preached my first sermon. I've been preaching ever since. He literally turned nothing into something.
I just took my boys back to where I was born and raised in Inglewood, California. We actually flew to LA and rented an SUV and we actually drove back to Texas. It was such a great time I had with Nathan and Noah. We just bonded. We just got to really enjoy each other's company. I want to give my kids some credit. Nathan's 12 years old. Noah will be 10 in October. They didn't have any iPads. They didn't have any video games, and the SUV we rented didn't have a DVD player. They weren't watching movies.
I want you to think about it. I drove with two kids from LA to Texas with no entertainment outside of music for 20 hours and they were saying, I got some great kids. God just blessed me. Nathan, Noah, daddy loves you. Listen, when I went back to my hometown, when I went back to where I was born and raised, here's where I realized, there's nothing about where I came from that could have prepared me for where I am now. There's nothing about my upbringing from where I was, my parents were Godly people and they instilled God on the inside of me, but no one could have planned this except Him.
No one could get credit for this. Listen, I haven't been to Bible college. I haven't been to seminary. I speak at Bible colleges. I speak at seminars. I haven't been to one. He turned nothing into something. God's not a respected person. If He did it for me, He'll do it for you. All you have to do is believe in the promise He's making to you to prepare you for more.
Could it be that God wants to take something that you've never thought of and bring it to the light and say, "This is what I want you to do in this season"? Even though it doesn't look like anything you've ever done before, God says, "I want to do something different with you. I know you've been on this trajectory, and I know you've done this all your life, but I'm preparing you to do this in this season. Would you be open to it?"
Well, based on what I've done in the past, this doesn't look like the trajectory that you have me on. He goes, "You know I can turn nothing into something. You know I can take whatever you think is nothing and turn it into something that would be good and great." Point number two, please write this down. God is in charge of the blessings and the fame. I'm going to say that again. God is the one that's in charge of the blessings and the fame.
Here's what it says, "I will bless you and make you famous." I'm going to read that again. God says to Abraham, "I will bless you and make you famous." For all of my King James version people out there, "I will make your name great." New King James people, "I will make your name great." I will bless you and make you famous. In LT, let's ride. New King James, "I will bless you and make you famous." Now, this is a verse everyone would love to hear. How many people here want to be blessed? You want to be blessed.
You're like, "Bless me now. I'm already blessed. Bless me again. The God already love my life. Do something else with it." Okay, great, but here's the thing, God said, "I will bless you and I will make you famous." Now, there are some people in here that are open to God's blessings, but I know for a fact that there's people watching me that are not open to God's blessings. You feel uncomfortable with God's blessings. You're actually squirming right now that I'm talking about God's blessings.
I want to come after something in this point that hinders a lot of people from fully receiving what God may want to do in their life. I'm going to take my time right here. I need to come against a spirit of false humility. A spirit of false humility that would say, "Well, no, no, no, no God's already done enough for me. He doesn't have to do anything else. I'm happy with what I got," but you know you want a little bit more, but you would never say that you would want more because in saying that you want more, then you must be greedy.
In saying that you want more, there could be some lust attached to that. In saying that you want more, there might be a wayward desire that's attached to that. Listen, can I free you right now? If God says He wants to bless you, let Him bless you. When he blesses you, do not be afraid to say God is the one that blessed me with this. There're so many people that have taken a vow of poverty. No, I don't need anything. I don't want anything. I don't need anything nice. I need the bare minimum because if I have too much, I might get tempted.
Would God ever give you a blessing that would tempt you? Obviously, He's the one vetting your heart before He gives you the blessing. If you couldn't handle it, I doubt He'd give it to you, but if He does give it to you, that means that you can receive it, and step into it, and give the credit and the glory to the giver of the gift. We don't worship the blessing. We received the blessing. Who we worship is the blesser. He said, "I will bless you and make you famous."
This is so cool to me because Abraham was already blessed by every secular measure. Abraham was already blessed. He had a beautiful wife. Listen, Abram's wife was, in my head, she has to be as fine-- Sarah has to be as fine as Juliet because when I think about a beautiful woman, obviously, I'm thinking about Juliet, but here's what I know, Sarah was like 85 and Abraham had to lie about her to the public because Kings and other men in the kingdom were trying to get at Sarah. Do you know how fine you got to be?
If you an 85-year-old woman, your husband is like, "Listening, that's my half-sister. Okay? Just let us through city. Please don't fight over her." Sarah was a bad chick. I just got to give credit where credit is due. Abraham was a blessed man. He had a beautiful wife. He had wealth and possessions long before God showed up, but God said, "All that blessing wasn't attached to me. I will bless you."
You have some stuff that you can say was a blessing to you, but you still don't have peace. You have some stuff that you can say was a blessing to you, but you still don't have joy. You have stuff that you think is a blessing to you, but you still don't have that relationship that you need. I want to bless you in such a way that now you can get to attach it to the blesser of all things. Not just a blessing that you have in your hand, but a blesser that you have relationship with in your heart.
He says, "I will bless you and make you famous. I will make your name great." Now, when you say make somebody famous or make somebody's name great, when you live in a overcharged social media construct like America, it's hard to understand and appreciate what this fame is all about because you'll start thinking, "Well, if I had 100,000 more people on Instagram, then God would be making my name famous, or if I had more followers on Twitter, then God would be making me famous.
If I had enough YouTube subscriptions that Google could just pay me for the rest of my life, then I would know that I've become famous. God says, "I'll make your name great." There is no place-- I hope y'all going to appreciate this. That's deep, Tim. That's too spiritual. I want some fame here. I don't know of a better place that your name could be uttered than in the Lamb's book of life. I am just telling you right now. I don't mean that to be deep. Yes, I do. I'm not apologizing to you for being in the Bible. I'm not apologizing to you for being sound scripturally.
There is no other place. I would have want my name in the Lamb's book of life. You'll make my name great. There's no greater place that my name can be than in heaven with Jesus. There's no better place that my name can be than when Jesus says, "Well done, Timothy, my good and faithful servant.
Enter in. Have a seat. Go find your room in my dad's house. I've been waiting for you to get here. I died for you to be here." It's a greater place you can be. Listen, He knows how to magnify it on earth too. It might be great with your family. Maybe your name wasn't great with the fam.
He can make your name great with the family. He can make your name great with the community. I got to give y'all this story because this is funny.
Something happened with a transaction I made in one of my accounts. Before this money went through, something else came out. It was a weird configuration of things. It wasn't one thing that happened, but like this domino effect. I got hit with $280 worth of bank fees in 24 hours and I was heated. I was upset because I'm going, "Y'all hit me with eight $35 fees in 24. Have you seen this account? Have you seen what I put in this account? This way you're going to treat me?"
I was upset. Here's what happened. I called the bank and I started praying Lord, please give me favor with this bank because $280 worth of fees. I don't know if-- Maybe if they take off four-- It eight of them. I was down for anything. Just please give me some of my own money back, my own money. I called the bank and Francisco answered the phone. Francisco answered the phone. I said, "Francisco, Oh, here's what happened." I said, "I made a mistake and as a result of that mistake, I got hit with $280 in bank fees, sir. Help."
Francisco said, "I can." I said, "If it's not impossible, sir, could you please just help me?" He said, "Are you asking to see if we can eliminate some of these bank fees?" I said, "Yes, whatever you can do." He said, "Give me one moment." There was about three minutes of silence. All I heard for three minutes was click, click, click, click, click, click. After about three minutes of silence, he said, "Mr. Ross, I'm just happy to say that we were able to get rid of all eight of those late bank fees."
Now, that might seem little to you and you might be going, "Tim, you did something wrong with your account. You deserved whatever you got." $208 went away. I think that's because God blessed me. I'll take the blessing. You see, I don't want you to hear, "I will bless you and make you famous," and think that you're about to be on the cover of People Magazine. First of all, you ain't that cute.
You're never going to be the sexiest person alive, okay? Neither am I, but when He blesses you, He blesses you in ways that you can feel. He blesses you in ways that you can quantify. He blesses you in ways that you can mark and go, "God, I know that it has to be a favor in my life because that just doesn't happen." This is a big old bank. They could care less probably about charging me $280. The fact that I got the favor to get that taken away, I received that. What might He be doing in your life? If He says He's going to bless you and make you famous, will you accept that?
Thank you. One more story, thank you, Holy Spirit. Okay. I'll take my time. I'm trying to get to point three, but He keeps talking to me. I'm giving you my own accounts because this is the stuff that He's done for me. I want you to be open to what He might do for you. I have been an evangelist for several years preaching at different churches and here's what I loved about being an evangelist. I could go to somebody else's church out of my city or out of the state and be a blessing to them and come home and nobody knew who I was.
That was a huge blessing to me because I'm an introvert. I love people, but I recharge when I have time alone. When I got married to Juliette in 1999, by 2003 I was traveling full-time as an evangelist. I was going all over the place and I loved it because when I came home, nobody knew that I had preached anywhere. Then I can just come back home and relax and chill and hang out with my wife. I used to love going to Walmart. I would put on a tank top and some shorts and some flip flops in.
I love grocery shopping. I don't know about you, but grocery shopping is therapeutic to me. When I get to go on a grocery store, I can spend two hours in Walmart just going up and down the aisles getting groceries. It's relaxing to me. Anybody else? You feel that? Yes, I don't know what it is, but I loved, notice I'm using ed because the is story about the change right here, I loved going to the grocery store when I had my anonymity.
I loved going to the grocery store when I had my privacy, but then what had happened was I got hired in 2006, May to be exact. May of 2006, I got hired at the Potter's House of Dallas, Texas. I preached my first sermon, my first weekend message, at the church in June of 1996. Now, it's pretty large church. In 2006, there's like 25,000 people at this church. I'm looking at this big sea of people. I can't make out anybody's face, but on those big old jumbo screens, they saw my face really, really clear.
From the front row to the back row, they were like, "Oh, that's Tim." Guess what happened. The next time I went to Walmart, pastor Tim. I just want the therapy of pushing my squeaky cart around the Walmart in peace, but no. Five people, pastor Tim. I thought it might've been an aberration, a fluke, something that just happened right after the weekend I preached, but no. I went to the post office, pastor Tim. Then I went through the McDonald's drive-through because '06 is about the last time I ate McDonald's, so that sounds about right, pastor Tim.
I realized that the blessing will make you have to make some adjustments. Can you stand to be blessed? I will bless you and make you famous. Give it to me, Lord, but could you handle it if He gave it to you? Prepare for more. If you feel like you're already blessed, what if God blesses you in such a way? Thank you Holy spirit. What if you have a business and the thing you're selling at your business gets the Oprah Effect? could you handle it? What if your business quadrupled? Could you handle it? What if you had thousands of dollars and now you have hundreds of millions of dollars because some of y'all low keep playing the lottery. I don't know. Could you handle it?
I will bless you and make you famous. Is that something you could actually steward. You got to prepare for that. You can't just have a blessing come upon you, and fame come upon you, and you haven't been conditioned to handle that fame. This is why we see so many people who have obtained fame minus preparation go down in flames. I'm telling you, again, I know prepare for more is a prophetic word for this church. This is why I'm taking my time.
I'm telling you right now you have to prepare for more because if He says He's going to bless you, and He says He's going to make you famous, I promise you you will have to change some things about your life. I was depressed when I couldn't go grocery shopping no more. I started getting angry at the people that were saying hi to me.
God had to speak to me in my quiet time and go, "Hey, Tim. Buddy, I'm the one bless you. Don't start getting upset with them. You preach the message. It touched their heart. They wanted to share it with you, but I'm just telling you right now your anonymity is going away. Your privacy is being removed. I'm enlarging you. I'm making you famous. It's me, and so you can complain about it or you can thank me for it and make the adjustment. When I bless you and make you famous, things will change."
Hear me, when He blesses you and makes you famous, some things will change. Point number three, please write this down. God will bless others through you. God will bless others through you. Recap point number one, God can make something out of nothing. "I will make you into a great nation," that's what He said. Point number two, God is in charge of the blessings and the fame. I will bless you and make you famous. Point three, God will bless others through you.
Please write this down. This is what He says in the last part of verse number two, "You will be a blessing to others." You will be a blessing to others. Hear me, you will be a blessing to others. There's so many people that want to rejoice about God saying I will bless you and make you famous, not knowing that He'll never bless you and make you famous if it doesn't bless others. God will never bless you and make you famous if it's not going to overflow and spill over into someone else's life.
Listen, could you imagine what would happen to your family if you gave God permission to bless you? Could you imagine what God could get over to them if He could just get you to open up and go, "I receive what it is that you want to give me and I've prepared for the more that you want to bring in to my life. God, I am prepared to be a blessing to others."
I just told you about the trip that Nathan and Noah and myself took to California. I'm training my boys to bless people. I'm training them to be generous. Now, it's an expensive training period. I'm the one that's paying for it, but when we go out and eat now, I'll say to them, "Hey, how much do you want to bless the waiter with? Hey, how much do you want to bless the waitress with?" They'll give me dollar amounts. My boys, I think they've picked up on the fact that their daddy's blessed because these dollar amounts, I'm looking at them like, "Why did you start there? Could you have worked your way up, sir? It makes no sense?"
I will never forget. We were in California staying at this hotel. We got up in the morning to have breakfast and Phoenix was our server. Phoenix was a delightful young lady. She made sure that Nathan and Noah's breakfast was prepared in the way they needed it because my boys have a plethora of food allergies. After the meal was over, I said, "Okay guys, we got to figure out what we to give Phoenix for a tip." I think Noah said $200. I was like, "Okay, why? Where did that come from?" He gives his explanation, and then Nathan goes, "You know what? I want to give her $150."
I said, "Okay, you want to give her $150?" He gave me the explanation for that. I said, "Okay, we agree on $150? Noah agreed on the $150, thankfully. We agreed on the $150, but then I said, "Okay, when Phoenix comes, you two have to tell her why you wanted to bless her with this dollar amount." Nathan got a smile on his face and Noah got a smile on his face.
I said, do you guys have the reason why you want to give her this? They both said yes. Phoenix comes to the table and she goes, "Was everything okay?" I was like, "Yes." I was like, "Hey, we have a tip that we want to give you. Before I tell you what the tip is Nathan wants to give you his reason why he wanted to give you this tip." She goes, "Oh my goodness, I don't know what to do right now." We didn't even tell her yet. She was already flustered.
Nathan goes, "I wanted to give you this tip because you were so kind to me as you were preparing our order. She went, "Oh, thank you so much." Then Noah looks at butter with this big old grin and says, "I just want it to be a blessing to you today." She goes, "Oh my goodness." I started welling up with tears. Then I said, "Phoenix, we're giving you $150 today. My boys are the ones that came up with this tip," and she wept. She said, "This is my first day on the job. You all are my second table."
When you can be a blessing to others, God will be a blessing through you. Prepare for more because you may be Francisco, a person that was used to bless me, or you may be Phoenix, a person that God wants to use you to bless. Wherever you find yourself, prepare for more and with open hands and a open heart. Give God permission to bless you in the way He chooses and not the way you hope. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes. What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message? I hope He's saying a lot. I hope He has said a lot to you.
Listen, with every head bowed and every eye closed, I just want you to consider for a moment what the Holy Spirit might be saying to your heart about preparing for more. If you're watching this and you've never opened your heart to the possibility of allowing Jesus Christ to be savior and Lord, I pray that in this moment, you would allow that to happen, that you would declare with your mouth openly and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord and God raised him from the dead, that you turn away, literally, renounce and repent from your sins, the way you used to live, and decide to follow him.
If you've been far from God, I'm telling you you just got close. By giving your life to him, you just got close. For someone else who already has a relationship with Jesus, I'm telling you, you can be closer than you ever imagined. We welcome you into the body of Christ and we are so grateful for the opportunity that you gave us to be a part of this day.
Father God, I thank you so much for my brothers and sisters, your sons and daughters. I thank you that you are preparing us for more. God, thank you for using Abraham and his life to prepare us for what you want to do in ours. God, we open ourselves to the possibilities of everything that you want to do in and through us, but it will all be for your glory and none of our credit in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, I love you guys so much. I cannot wait to come back next week. Prepare for more. We're going to go deeper. I love you guys. Peace.
