Purpose And A Double Portion

Can you do me a favor real quick? Give Jesus the best hand you can do better. Come on, you got to do better. It's my honor to be here and, what God won't do with some fried chicken, amen, everybody.

Like, what do you won't to do with some fried chicken?

I do want to just honor your pastor, pastor Matt, and Hannah. Hannah, thank you for just leading worship and being a part and just your impact here. Hannah, can I just take a moment? Can y'all go with me just for a moment, want to honor them?

Your impact is tremendous.

Your impact is tremendous. Proud of you. I'm honored to be an overseer and to serve as a part of the team here. And Matt, with God birth and that conversation was a beautiful thing and it's.

It's come on nine, 10 years.

We're going to keep on going. Amen, everybody. And, I'm celebrating, we're turning one. Everybody, come on, give God the best praise next weekend.

I'm going to get to the word of God in just a moment, but I just want to say your passion, your integrity, your commitment to the church is unmatched and right now, in a society where more churches are closing their doors than are being opened, do you realize?

In the last 10 years, over 50,000 churches in the United States have closed their doors permanently and we need a movement of men and women who are passionate, who are going to risk everything and say: we're going to plant a church. Right now, more people come to Jesus through one church plan than any other investment in missions in the world, and I want to just give you honor and praise for being willing to go on a journey and say we're going to do this. Pastor, Matt, Pastor, Hannah, team, come on, give it up for the team that makes it all happen, set up and take down. It's pretty amazing.

And our church from New Orleans one Hope Church, your crazy cinjun cousins from down south, they're so proud of you.

We're, we're excited. On my way in and in between service: , I'm from New Orleans, y'all. We just we like to have fun in church. Anybody like to have fun in church?

On my way in, in between Services, Taylor on the greeting team asked if I was related to Mike.

The Situation: everybody just got to say there is no relation. But I am Sicilian, I am Italian, I come from that here. I just wanted to pick on Taylor. That's all I wanted to do, right there.

Hey, I'm from New Orleans.

I've been preaching for 2, 7even years, married 22 years. This is my family. Come on, throw that picture up on the screen real quick for me. This is my lovely wife in the middle, my daughter Liv, who's 14- y'all pray for me- and my son, who's 16, who every time we take a picture now is up on his tippy toes- just a little bit.

He's trying to hide it because he wants to be taller than Dad.

You can take it down. I just wanted you to know that if you're ever in New Orleans, you've got family and you got people who love you. And, we may not do everything well, but we eat, eat well in south Louisiana. And the church said amen, we're going straight to the word of God.

Grab your Bible, grab something to write some notes with.

I'm a bit of a fast talker. I like to kind of get in the word of God and move quickly. We're going to pray together and Hannah's going to stop, but we let's read the word of God. Here's what it says.

Isaiah 61 says: the spirit of the Lord, God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring everybody.

Say with me, bring good news to The Afflicted he has sent me, to bind up the Brokenhearted, to Proclaim Liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And verse S goes on to say: instead of your shame you will have, say the next two words: you will have a double portion and instead of humiliation, they will shout for Joy over their portion. Therefore, they will possess a double portion in their land and everlasting Joy will be theirs. Would you pray with me, heavenly father, as we take a few moments to unpack this Scripture and to dive into your word.

I pray, God, that you would help me to get out of the way, that God, you would speak to us and, through me, God, that we would say that our minds are ready and our hearts are prepared for what you want to do.

Today, God, we thank you for the great move of God here in bucka. We ask that you would expand your kingdom, and tremendous ways. God, we thank you for it. Now it's in Jesus name we pray.

We all said amen together.

Amen. I don't know if you realize this, but God has a purpose and a portion for your life. That's the title of today's message. If you want to write it down: God has a purpose and I like that.

His first Scripture is a double portion, Jesus.

When he was beginning his ministry, 30 years of age, he walked into the synagogue. Can we imagine he came in to Orbit Church and he could have preached any text in the world- he could have read from anything in the Bible- and he grabs Isaiah 61 old school scroll, he unrolls it and he reads the passage of Scripture we just read: the spirit of God is on me to make sure you get what you're supposed to in your life. The spirit of God is on me today, as a pastor and as a leader, to help you to understand that God has a purpose and a portion for your life. And today I think God is more focused on our purpose than we realize.

I think we're trying to figure out what on Earth I'm here for.

Is there? Is there a Divine Destiny for my life? Today I want you to know there is in God's kingdom. There are no accidents and, whether you realize it or not, you are in God's kingdom.

Now I know the devil has lied to you for a long time and said you're some evolutionary accident.

But hey, everybody, both science and God, have said that you are intentional, that you are intelligent, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. I got one friend up here on the front row. I need to tell y'all about my background. Okay, my, my daddy, grew up Catholic.

Quiet Church.

Any Catholic background folks in here love, love my Catholic Family, come on. Quiet church, it's wonderful, it's beautiful but it's quiet. My dad, as he was, be you know, taking this Journey of Faith. He's been pastoring now over 40 years.

He got saved in a Pentecostal Church.

Anybody, anybody been to a Pentecostal Church, come on, raise both hands, Shake A Leg, do something like that. Okay, so I grew up in the tension between quiet church and when I say, Dad, you went from quiet to crazy all in one week when he gave his life to Jesus. So today let's just go with this, go with your crazy cousin from south Louisiana. All right, if you say Amen, keep on preaching.

I preach better and I preach shorter.

Amen, everybody. I'm still going to use all of my time, no matter what you say, but I just thought I would help you loosen up. The sarcasm is where we have fun. As Mary poppin says, the spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, so smile with me, go on the journey.

Jesus preaches his first message.

He walks in and says: I have something for you. Part of the reason you're a follower of Jesus Christ, or even beginning this journey, is because you believe there's something bigger and better in your future, that God has prepared a place for you. But if you're like me, you've shown up in a few places expecting something great but been disappointed. Anybody wave a hand.

You've been disappointed.

Come on, showed up to a restaurant. They promised a great meal. It wasn't what you expected. Some years ago, for my 20th anniversary, just two years back, my wife's like: we're going to this very fancy New Orleans.

Come on, we're Foodies.

We're going in for the restaurant and as I was going in, she said it's going to. It's going to be a tasting. I didn't know what a tasting was. She says five courses.

I like we're going to eat good.

20 years. Come on, we're celebrating. As I was walking into the restaurant, there was a gentleman by the edge of the door. When I say that he was sopping up his everything on the plate, like he was, he was almost like everything was G.

I'm like: oh, I started salivating.

Ises that happened to you. I walk into restaurants now, looking at people's tables like: is that a pork chop or is that a steak? Is that, is that a? I'm I'm salivating.

I'm looking at Yelp pictures.

Don't even read the menu. I want that pork chop. That's what I want. Anybody, anybody, do that.

Have you ever gone into a place like we did and you were expecting the big deal and what they brought out was less than you expected?

I ordered that pork shop and I thought it was going to be big. I thought I was going to be able to sop it from the plate and what came out looked like it was delivered from Costco. Everybody had high expectations and what I realized is the reason why that gentleman was soing his plate is because he was still hungry after he had eaten the full meal. I went and got a burger after a five course meal, cuz when they brought up the soup, it was two spoonfuls.

Got to the main course, it was four bites.

I had high expectations on life. How about you? I believe God's word when it says I've got purpose and Portion for you. I've got something there, but Something's Happened along the way that we've lost sight of that and we begin to accept the single portions.

We started accepting Less.

In our lives we've all had moments where we've been expecting one thing but got another. I think this is our lives right now. Adulting isn't what they said it was. I love that.

Jesus' first message was purpose and a double portion.

My question for you today: is there anyone here that's just tired of single portions? Are you tired of dreaming so big and finding that less is available? Today, I want to help you to discover your purpose and Portion in God, but I have come to realize that so many of us don't even really understand what that means. If you grew up in Jewish culture, you would be familiar with a double portion, because if you were born into a family with five children, when it came time to pass an inheritance down in Jewish culture, you would think: well, they're going to have, they're going to break it into five pieces.

No, no, no.

In Jewish culture they would take those five portions, they would add, they would go to six portions and the eldest son would get a double portion. Everybody say double portion. The eldest son would get a double portion because his responsibility would be to leave the family, so he would get twice as much. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the firstborn among many Brethren and sister.

And come on, everybody right, he's the firstborn among all of us.

And he walks in and, talking to a primarily Jewish culture, he says to them: hey, I'm the eldest, but I want you to have the same portion I have. That's why, when Jesus was walking this Earth, he said you and I would do even Greater Works than he did. Why? Because we have been given the same anointing that he had in his life.

Some of you aren't convinced yet.

See, they understood what Jesus was saying. He wants more for you. I'll say this, though: if you read Isaiah 61, you'll come to understand. It's hard to live a double portion life when you're still a prisoner who needs Freedom, or a captive who needs Liberty.

Many of us don't even realize that we're still bound.

It's just become normal life, and if you can't say no to something, then you're likely bound to it. When you read Isaiah 61, it sounds like he's saying the same thing twice. Aren't prisoners and captives the same thing? They're not.

A prisoner has physical chains and bars, but a captive has no physical chains and bars, and yet they're living under the Captivity, the rule of someone else.

Jewish people were being ruled by the Romans. They understood captivity. He said: I'm here to take people out of prison, but I'm also here to get the prison out of them. I want to help you to release yourself from captivity.

If you're familiar with prisons- and hopefully you're not everybody, okay, hopefully you're not- there's this thing they call recidivism rate, and that is the rate at which people who are released from prison go back to prison.

And if you had a good experience where they helped to re rehabilitate you, when you get out, you never go back. But the people who go back are the people that when, when they were delivered, they continue to live. After they got out the way, they contined to think as though they were still there. They were physically free, but inwardly bound.

They were physically free but inwardly bound.

I find that lots of people have a form of godl, but they've denied the real power of God to set them free. They, they, they're, they're free from the idea of sin, but they still live captivated by the world. And what I want you to know is that if you want a, a purpose and a portion that you've got to start leaning into the freedom that God has for you. In Colossians, chapter 2, the Apostle Paul says: see to it that no one takes you captive.

Why would he say that?

Why would he bring it up? Well, he understood what was going on in their culture, that lots of Jewish people had faith in a God, but couldn't follow that God and couldn't live the way that God wanted them to live because they had been taken captive. He names four things. You read it together.

He says: see to it that you, no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

Come on, grab your Note Paper. Let's unpack these four things. Let's let's define them. Philosophy is the first thing that captivates us.

Philosophy is good ideas that aren't Godly.

You ever had somebody say: oh, I think you ought to marry her, or I think you ought to marry him, but her or him are not following God. Can I tell you it sounds like a good idea, but it's not godly. Can I get a better amen from somebody out there? Right, listen, missionary, dating doesn't work.

Can I get a better amen?

Right there in New Orleans, I got to make it clear. You're going to find people in the church or the club and you far better finding them in the church. We have lots of philosophies in our world. We got we got leadership philosophies, like we got minute manager.

We've got empowering leaders.

We got we got marriage philosophies. We've got polygamy and monogamy. Can I just tell y'all I believe in God's plan. I think it's better, because here's what I've discovered in 22 years of marriage: I can't handle two wives.

One is enough.

We got parenting philosophies. I grew up in the South. We, we've got a different philosophy in the South. I didn't grow up with timeouts and Counting.

Anybody had.

Parents are like one, two. Well, what you're telling them is they can do it three more times before they really get in trouble. We don't do that. And- and my, the way I was raised, my father's a minister and he, he had a whooping philosophy.

Anybody know what a whooping is.

Now I don't believe in abuse- I'm not a spous abuse- but we walk differently after a whooping. See, it's a philosophy we have in our culture: to coddle rather than to challenge people to do what's right. Hey, Justin Timberlake years ago said he was bringing sexy back. I'm bringing whooping back.

All right, I think our culture would be better, don't you think if somebody had just a little bit of discipline, we've got philosophy, it's it's.

It's good ideas, but not godly. Second thing: empty deception. Empty deception are twisted truths, but they never fulfill. See, the word verse is a is a verse, it's a version, It's a truth.

The word perversion means to twist that truth and what we got in our culture is empty deception.

It's what, it's what the serpent did with Eve. Hey, if you eat this fruit, you'll be like God. Do y'all realize that? That was a Hal truth, because when she ate the fruit and Adam ate the fruit, they had the knowledge of Good and Evil, but they didn't become God.

This is what we're living with today.

We've got a lot of empty deception. We've got- we've got the enemy over promising all sorts of things and twisting us all up. We've got ideas that say you got to try them before you buy them. When it comes to marriage, can I just tell you that's not God's plan, it's a lie.

See, cheating on a test promises you'll pass that test but ultimately fails you in life.

And trying the shortcut doesn't get you where God wants you to be. What has taken us captive? Paul says it's philosophy. It's empty deception.

Number three: it's the traditions of men.

We find this a lot in Church. Tradition is following someone other than Christ. Tradition is someone else's relationship with God. And listen, Traditions aren't bad.

They actually help us.

Knowing we're going to have a few songs, we're going to receive communion, knowing that there's a liturgy and an order to service is helpful to connect you to God. But if you get too connected to the tradition and not to your God, then you don't have a relationship with your God. You've got a relationship with a religion. I feel like every once in a while- and this happens in the South with me too- that that I get really passionate and then we revert to that really quiet church that my dad grew up in.

Did I all preach you guys into Catholicism?

Right now? The Apostle Paul said that Traditions weren't bad, and one breath he would say: forget the Traditions you were taught. In the next breath he would say: keep the Traditions I taught you. The problem isn't with the tradition.

The problem is that our hearts too connected to the tradition than to God.

And I just got to say I'm proud of you guys because you're worshiping God in the gym- theorum- that's what I call this- a gymatorium. All right, because we can play basketball and we can worship God in here, right? It's pretty amazing. For eight years we set up and take down in New Orleans, just like you, in a gym.

The tour, him and the church grew every year for eight years, till God provided an old building.

And God will provide for you too. Amen, everybody, he will, he will. We restored an 80-year-old Presbyterian Church that Hurricane Katrina shut down. It was vacant all those years we restored it and we're worshiping God in this beautiful building.

God is in the business of Doing Great Things.

The fourth thing he mentions: can I keep on going? I'm going to do it. Here we go: the, he says, Elementary principles. These are immature thoughts and practices.

We want to, kind of stay immature in our thoughts and practices.

But if you want to double portion you, you got to grow. You can't keep doing what we've always done, expecting different results. We call that is the definition of insanity, right? You've got to be willing to grow and to try some new things.

We started a network.

We called it the grow Network because our goal was to help 1,000 churches to break 1,000 people in attendance, because we believe that God wanted to reach people. You say: well, you know, does a church supposed to be that big? Listen, as long as heaven and hell are realities, the church has to get bigger, cuz we're called to populate heaven. And I know, listen, I, I like going to church with, like, there's a certain size where the church is large enough to do big things, but small enough that I could fish a little bit more.

But as long as heaven and hell are realities, I'm going to work for those who aren't here.

Jesus said: I'm going to leave the 99 for how many? For the one. Every one of us were that one. But part of matur is realizing that you may have to give up some of your Elementary principles, some of your Traditions, some of the things that feel good, why they're captivating you and they're keeping you from God's best.

Listen to how the, the Pharisees, the legalists of Jesus day, described his disciples in Acts 4:13.

He says: some of the disciples were unschooled, ordinary men, and they were astonished and they took note- would you read it with me- that these men had been with Jesus. In the original language of the new testament, which is Greek, we've translated it to English for for our reading, you know, for our learning, the words unschooled and ordinary, the original word. There is the word idiotas. The way they looked at the people who followed Jesus they said they're.

They're Elementary, they're idiots, but they've been with Jesus.

Everybody, I don't care where your grade was in high school, I don't care what your Elementary look like. If you've been with Jesus, things change, your life gets better, it grows, there is a purpose and a portion for your life, but it we, we, we're. We're hungry for it, we're Desiring come on, praying for it, but we're living practically captivated to other things. If you're going to stay in that place, then you're going to have a form of God but have denied the power of God.

You're going to hear about miracles but never see any Miracles.

You're going to wonder what it's like and say you know, it looked cool. But this is what happened in our Christian American world, where we had ideas of God without actually following God. I'm a preacher's kid who hated church. I had to go to CH.

My dad planted a church when I was 10 years old.

I was at everything. I did everything and. At one point my dad was like: God's called you to be a minister. He used to use like Old Testament language: anybody read the Old Testament he would: yosua, God has called you to be a prophet to the Nations.

The only picture I had of prophets was like John the Baptist: goat hair, eating honey and Locust.

And then you turn on the television. People call themselves Prophet. They had purple hair and weird suits. I'm like I'm not doing this.

I told my dad is a teenager with words.

I cannot repeat today that I would never be a pastor. But if God has a purpose and a portion, you can run all you want, but God is on, he knows what he designed you to do. And at 20 years of age I was running hard from God and my mother's birthday was coming up and she said: said, Mom, what you want for your birthday? She said I, I'd like you to come to these Revival Services we're having.

I said: Mom, do you want anything else?

And all I can tell you. At 20 years of age, God arrested me in that room and everything changed. I became captivated by God rather than my pain. I became captivated by God rather than what other people.

I saw God through God's eyes rather than through people's eyes.

Some of your experiences with God are so religious that you see God through the pain that someone else tried to represent God, and that's not who God is. He's so much bigger and so much better. And so the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:8: he says there isfor. It says: when he ascended on high, he led captive, a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men and women.

What did Jesus show up to do?

He found a bunch of people who are technically free because of the, the blood of Jesus, because of his sacrifice, and he said: you need to be captivated by me again in order to live the life that I have for you. So, as we prepare to wrap this thing, I'm going to give you just just four practical things. I'm not going to preach them long, but just write them down with me. Here's: if we want to live with purpose and a portion, the first thing you need to do.

Number one is you need to let go of former captivations.

Hannah, if you're close, you can join me. You need to let go. Hey, can we be honest that some of us are are overwhelmed with fears. Some of us are overwhelmed with past sin.

Some of us are captivated by what somebody did to us when we were 16 or 17 or 30 or 25.

You pick your place. We're captivated by other things. Ephesians 4 goes on to say that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of Deceit. If you want purpose in a double portion, you're going to have to let go of your captivations and you're going to have to look to God.

The second thing you need to do is start following God's principles.

You need to get in the word of God. You need to start reading the Bible for yourself. You need to go old school, get a paper Bible. Come on, I love the digital stuff- it's amazing, do it all the time- but you need to get a old school paper Bible, one that when your kids disobey, you can hit them with.

Come on, my dad called a whooping going to hit you with the word of God.

Ephesians 22, verse 23, actually says that you should be renewed in the spirit, Spirit of your mind, and you should put on a new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and Holiness and truth. If you're going to take something off, we don't watch, want you walking around naked everybody. We need you to be clothed in Christ. Can I get a better.

Amen.

Some of yall, some of yall. I'm in south Louisiana. Okay, I got to talk about some of these things, you know, like I, I got to make sure that we understand why. Because every year we have an event that's called a naked bicycle ride.

It's terrible, it's nothing, nothing to see.

Y'all, if you're going to take something off, clothe yourself with Christ. Amen everybody. Number three: I need you to stay. Stay faithful with single portions.

God has already given you something right now.

You have time, you have talent, you have treasure right now, and if you aren't going to be faithful with a little, then you'll never be faithful with the much. Listen, I always say it this way. I tell my. My son was asking.

He wanted a different car than the car.

We had- an oh Honda for him. He wanted a different car. I said: listen, let's. Why don't you to take care of the one you have?

Why don't you take care of the one we're providing for?

The way we say it is in my house- is like if you're asking God for a new car but you're not keeping the one you got clean, then why would God give you more? Can I just tell you your pastor when he picked me up. That's one of the cleanest cars I've seen, because he knows he knows me y'all. I will judge you on the cleanliness of your car.

I won't condemn you to hell, I'll just judge your character.

That's all I'll do. Ephesians 510: it's one of the simplest verses. Go back before point4. Ephesians 510.

He says: find out what pleases the Lord.

That's what it says, simple verse, just hey, what should you do? Come on, read me every Voice. Come on, find out what pleases the Lord. Stay faithful with single portions.

Can I just meddle just for a moment?

See as God begins to bless you. It's exciting. He's watching to see what you're going to do with that blessing. And unfortunately in America, the more blessing one has, the less generous they become.

It's crazy.

The most generous by percentage are people who are the poorest Among Us. Can I just challenge you today? If you're never going to give God the first and best, then you should never expect for him to rebuke the devour of your life. The Bible calls this a tithe.

Give him your first, give him your B, be faithful with single portions and watch God give you immeasurably more.

Here's the last number four. If you do the first three, you let go of the captivations. You find Godly principles. You're faithful.

Number four, you pray for a double portion and at that point you have authority, as a child of the most high God, to say: God, you said God, you said.

Ephesians 3:20 says now to him who's able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power. That is at work, work within us. Immeasurable means you can measure how much God can pour into your life, how much God wants to give you a purpose and a portion. Today you're not here by accident, you're not breathing by accident, and the world is not too much for you.

You just need to be captivated by God again, amen, everybody.

You need to be captivated by his love and his mercy and his forgiveness and his grace and watch him expand your purpose and provide a supernatural portion. Today I'm believing that year one is just a drop in the bucket of what God is going to do in orbit. Church, amen. Can you give God praise?

Can you give?

Come on, if you believe it, celebrate it. Come on just a moment long. Would you bow with me in prayer with every head out and every eye closed? I want to pray with someone here who's far, far from God.

Maybe you've been kicking the tires on Jesus for a long time and you're unsure, but you're in service.

You're having what I call an emotional tug, OFW, and you don't know what's going on. That's God drawing you to a relationship with him. I won't embarrass you. I'm not going to ask you to stand or come to the front, every head bowed, every eye closed.

If you're far from God for any reason, this is your moment to get close.

This is your moment to discover free, freedom and to be captivated by him. If that's you, would you whisper these words? Come on, whisper this prayer. Say: Lord Jesus, I'm giving you my life and I'm asking you to be my Lord and my savior.

God, would you forgive me for my sin?

God, would you forgive me for trying to live this life my own way and God, would you give me the power to follow you all the days of my life in Jesus name. Just a moment longer. Stay focused on prayer. God, I pray that you would provide a double portion.

Come on, just open your hands as a sign of receiving from God right there in your lap.

God, I pray for a double portion over orbit, church, over every person, under the sound of my voice. God fill their hands with purpose and a double portion. God, we worship you, we honor you and