Put the Lord in Your Bitter Waters: Favour and the Uncommon Seed

Sermon outline

Put the Lord in your bitter waters: the cross takes the sting out of life, favour lets you take giant leaps, and the seed you sow is God's tool for creating your future.

1. Put the Lord in your bitter waters

   After three days in the desert without water, Israel found the water at Marah bitter; Moses cried out to God, threw in the piece of wood the Lord showed him, and the water became sweet. That tree is a picture of the cross, where Jesus took all the bitterness and stings of life on himself. In trials, betrayals and backstabbing, Jesus is there to bear the sting.

   “When Jesus was crucified on the cross, He took all the bitterness, He took all the stings of life on Himself so that we can be free of it.”

   • Exodus 15:22-25

2. The Word makes you God-conscious

   Miracles are not only for yesterday but for today. When you study the Bible knowing the Lord is with you, the Word becomes precious, connects you to his presence and his name, and makes you God-conscious. Once you know Jesus is reading with you, it stops being a chore and becomes intimacy.

   Illustration: Hours pass unnoticed while he studies, and on days he misses or is travelling he finds himself thirsting for the Word.

   “I've read many books, but the Bible is the best book that I have read.”

3. There is still hope

   To those who have given up and thrown in the towel, he insists there is still hope. However hard it gets, God is in the boat with you. As you fellowship with the Lord, he will make your bitter waters sweet and your life sweeter and sweeter.

   Illustration: Visiting Niagara Falls near Buffalo in the US, a friend told him that people sometimes take their lives there, and he reflected that they must have come to the end of themselves and felt there was no hope.

   “He will and He is going to make your bitter waters sweet.”

4. Favour and the righteousness of God

   God made Daniel find favour and compassion with the chief of the eunuchs. He repeats his definition of favour so it becomes part of our consciousness: kind regard, goodwill, endorsement when others put you down, and special advantages and privileges. Through the blood we are the righteousness of God, a nature imparted at the new birth rather than the result of right living, and it gives us a blood-bought right to a hearing in God's presence.

   “There is a difference between right living and the righteousness of God.”

   • Daniel 1:9
   • 2 Corinthians 5:21

5. Favour will cause you to take giant leaps

   Favour is not an accident but a reward for small acts of obedience, and it is necessary for uncommon success. It accelerates your promotion: what would take seven years you can accomplish in one, as when Joseph went from prison to prime minister in 24 hours and the repentant Jonah made a three-day trip in one. Start today with expectation, change your language, and before every transaction or meeting say that the favour of God is working for you.

   Illustration: In high school he did long jump, high jump and track, and represented his province at the South African Games; in long jump the biggest leap wins. In mid-2020 the Lord made Psalm 37:4 leap out of his spirit, and he printed it and pasted it on his wall to look at as he prayed each morning.

   “When the current of favor flows, you can achieve in a day what will take you years.”

   • Isaiah 1:19
   • Psalm 127:1
   • Deuteronomy 16:15
   • Psalm 37:4
   • Jonah 3:3-4

6. Few understand the power and principles of favour

   Favour is a current that grows thirty, sixty, a hundred and a thousandfold, and Jesus grew in favour with God and man. It can make you wealthy in a day like Ruth, a household name in 24 hours, bring you into the palace like Esther, and double your worth as it did for Job, so don't give up. God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, so don't assume what the Bible says; he also briefly recalls last week's teaching on when favour stops.

   “Don't be told what the Bible says. You, take your Bible, and you study it for yourself.”

   • Matthew 13:8
   • Luke 2:52
   • Ruth 4:13
   • Esther 2:16
   • Job 42:10
   • Hosea 4:6

7. An uncommon seed always creates an uncommon harvest

   Whatever a man sows he reaps, and your seed is anything God has given you: money, time, love, patience or kindness. Your seed is the tool God gave you to create your future, as David's insignificant sling brought down Goliath; giving is the cure for greed, and every seed carries an invisible instruction to produce after its kind. When God speaks to you about a seed, he has a harvest on his mind.

   Illustration: Two days earlier God kept dropping a preacher's name in his spirit and told him to bless the man with a sum of money, so he tracked down his phone number to get his banking details. He adds that a pumpkin seed carries the instruction to produce more pumpkins.

   “Giving is the only cure for greed.”

   • Galatians 6:7
   • 1 Samuel 17:49-50