Embassy Turns 5: Prepare for More
Tim Ross | September 13, 2020
“Do you honestly think that all this time that we’ve been away? It hasn’t been because God is preparing us for more. Do you honestly believe that we haven’t met in all these months? Because we were just idle? No, God is actually preparing us for more.”
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Transcription
Embassy City Church, happy anniversary. I am so grateful that we are experiencing this anniversary together. I know it's virtual, but the fact is you can still feel God's presence there in the same way we feel it here. I love you and hasn't it been great to reflect on the goodness of God over the last five years? Listen, whether you joined us five years ago, when we started at Singley Academy in Irving or whether you joined us five minutes ago because somebody sent you a link, we are so grateful that you decided to worship with us today. Listen, we've had great worship. We've had some incredible testimonies. They only gave me 10 minutes to talk and I'm not offended.
I'm so grateful for all the wonderful things that we have got to hear about how Embassy City has been a blessing to people locally and globally. I want to leave you with a thought because I just came off sabbatical in the month of August, just in time to get back here and to address you all today, and here's what I want to say. God is up to something. God is ready to do something in the life of Embassy City Church in a way that he has not done in the past. There's three words that I want to give you. There's some scripture that I want to wrap around that. I'm telling you, this is about to get prophetic for a lot of people that are listening right now for Embassy City Church. If you call this home, whether you are near or far, this is a prophetic word for you, to you, through you, okay?
Here's the three words. Write them down, prepare for more. That's what you need to write down. Prepare for more. The Holy Spirit woke me up today and that was the three words that he dropped in my spirit and it's not a word for me personally, it's a word for us. He wants us to prepare for more. Here's a scripture that I want to give you because I think you need this verse in this passage so that you can have a word to stand on as you believe God for more, it's found in Isaiah 54:2-3. I want to read them both to you, Isaiah 54:2-3. Here's what it says, "Enlarge your house. Build an addition, spread out your home, and spare no expense." There's an exclamation mark so I had to turn my voice up a little bit.
"For, you will soon," everybody say soon.
(Soon.)
Say soon.
(Soon.)
"For you will soon be bursting at the seams."
Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities." That was so good. I got to say it again. Take me back to verse number 10. I'm going to take my time on this. "Enlarge your house," I'm talking to you, "Enlarge your house." You're like, "I'm in a one-bedroom apartment, man. I can't enlarge this house." "Yes, you can. You can clear some room out. You can make some space." You can do something to make what looks small, bigger because you can get some things out of your life that is not necessary for the season that God's trying to take you into. Enlarge your house and for those who don't have a lot of space, built an addition. "I already got 5,000 square feet, man. I'm on two acres," build an addition because what God wants to do for you is prepare you for more peace. He is preparing us at Embassy City Church for more. Do you honestly think that all this time that we've been away it hasn't been because God is preparing us for more? Do you honestly believe that we haven't met in all these months because we were just idle? No. God is actually preparing us for more.
"Spread out your home," it says, spread it [chuckles] out and spare no expense. Can I talk to you right now? There's some of you right now that need to step out on faith and invest in some things that you don't even know where they go yet. You need to sow into some things that you don't even know where it's going to fit yet. I remember when we were about to prepare to move. We were looking for some new furniture and the furniture that we were going to get didn't fit the house that we were in, but it would fit the house that we were going into.
Even though it looked weird in the place that we were at the time, it was going to look just right in the place that we were going. Sometimes, God is telling you to do something right now that's going to be for something down the line. I remember in my many travels to Australia, I would always check the weather in the month of January. It's always hot in January in Australia because when it's winter here, it is summer there. Well, when I get on the plane to fly to Australia, I don't dress for where I am. I dress for where I'm going.
When I would get up that morning, it would be like 22 degrees in Dallas and I would put on a tee-shirt, shorts, and flip flops and drive and get dropped off at the DFW airport. Everybody in the airport is looking at me crazy and they're going, "You're not dressed for the right weather." I'm looking at them like, "I'm not crazy. I'm not staying here with you. I'm going somewhere and I'm dressed to prepare for where I'm going. Not where I am are." Are y'all feeling that?
I'm feeling that right now for somebody, God's trying to prepare you for where you're going, not where you are right now.
Here's what it says. It's a prophetic word for soon, "For you will soon be bursting at the seams." This is why you have to prepare for more because soon, you and I, will be bursting at the seams. That's not the same thing for everybody. For somebody, you might be bursting at the seams financially. God's just preparing you to be a good steward of what you have now for what he wants to bring in later. For some of you all, it might be emotional. It might already be physical or financial at all. God might be preparing you for more peace than you've ever had in your life.
All that anxiety that you have been bogged down with, God might be preparing you for peace so that you can step into a new season and actually enjoy it and not be stressed out about it. "For you will soon be bursting at the seams." I love the fact that he doesn't just leave this for us. "Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities." Listen, when I get a word like that and I hear 'your descendants', I'm thinking about Nathan and Noah and their kids and their kids and their kids, kids, kids, kids, kids, kids because God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never intends to bless one generation and leave the next one out. He is a perpetual blessing. "God, if he did it for my mama, he will do it for me and he will do it for my children. He will do it for my children's children."
Prepare for more, prepare for more. God wants to do something on the inside of you in this season that opens you up to believe him for more. He's going to break some, some of you all's poverty mentality. He's going to break some of you all's low self-esteem. He's going to break some of you all's negative attitude. "God has never done nothing for me, we've always been in this type of situation," God is about to break those old patterns of thinking in your life so that you can open up and believe him for more. In this fifth anniversary, my message to you is to prepare for more.
Don't be intimidated by what God wants to do in you, for you, and through you. Don't be intimidated and don't try to anticipate it. Just obey what he tells you to do today. Prepare for more. "Oh my goodness, what if, oh no. I guess he about to bring my husband."
Calm down, prepare for more. "I might win that publisher's clearing house sweepstakes," calm down. Just do what he said in the previous verse, enlarge what you can enlarge. Make space where you can make space and see if God won't open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you will have not room to receive. Embassy City Church, I have been honored to be your pastor for these past five years, and I'm looking forward to an incredible five more so happy, happy anniversary. We're about to get bigger so please make room because God's about to upset our worlds. I love you so much. Peace.
