Date: 18-Nov-2024
Name: Josh Aleri
Topic: ALPHA & OMEGA - THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
Content:
Part 3: Alpha and Omega: “Planning to be at the right place at the right time -walk in the spirit of the Lord”
1. Greetings and Pre-sermon declarations:
- Psalms 118:24
This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.
- Psalms 103:1 - 4
1 Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.
2. Opening prayer with thanksgiving, adoration, and hearts of gratitude.
3. Quotes on planning
ü If you don’t plan you plan to fail.
ü “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” ― Pablo Picasso, painter
ü “Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” ― Tom Landry, Hall of Fame football coach
ü “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” ― Thomas Edison, inventor
ü “You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.” ― Harry S. Truman, former U.S. President
ü “Just because you make a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.” ― Taylor Swift, singer and songwriter
ü “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” ― George S. Patton, former Officer in the U.S. Army
ü “Unless you have a definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you.” ― Zig Ziglar, author and motivational speaker
ü “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” ― Alexander Graham Bell, inventor
ü “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” ― Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor
ü “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” ― Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. President
4. Introduction
- Proverbs 16:9 – We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps.
- Jeremiah 29:11- 13
- 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.
- We all make decisions and there is a fine line between the right and the wrong decisions.
- Also being in the right place vs wrong place
- Some doors open and other close
5. Fire scriptures: The life of Jacob
Genesis 25:21 – 34
21Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.[d] 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.[e] Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.[f])
31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”
33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.
So Esau despised his birthright.21
Jacob gets Esau’s blessings
Genesis 27: 1 – 46
Genesis 28: 1 – 9
28 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. 2 Go at once to Paddan Aram,[a] to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 3 May God Almighty[b] bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. 4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.” 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.
6 Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. 8 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; 9 so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
- Genesis 28: 16 – 22
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it[c] stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.[d] 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel,[a] though the city used to be called Luz.
20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord[b] will be my God 22 and[c] this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Lessons
1. Jacob and Esau were twins but Esau was the elder one because he came out from their mother’s womb first.
2. Esau made a decision to give away his birthright to his younger brother Jacob.
3. Isacc made a decision to bless Jacob (his younger son)
4. Rebekah made a decision to tip Jacob to deceive his father to grab Esau’s blessings
5. Although Esau was at the right place to receive his father’s blessings
6. He took too long to come back
7. Although he prepared the meal he presented it too late
8. Isaac decided to curse Esau
9. Esau was angry
10. There was deception but who was at the right time at the right place?
11. Jacob made a decision to set out to a certain place
12. When he was tired he decided to stop at a certain place
13. In that particular place he dreamt
14. In that particular dream he realized the Lord was there in the spirit and in the physical
15. He made a decision to follow God
16. He made a decision to make a certain place a house of the Lord (time, location here)
6. The Holy Spirit is our helper
John 16: 6 – 15
’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Acts 2:17
“‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
1 Corinthians 2:9-11
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
5. Are we sensitive to what the holy spirit is saying?- There is a fine line between keeping our birth right vs not
- There is a fine line between keeping our blessings vs not
- Resisting the army vs not
- Making the right decision vs not
- Feeding the flesh vs walking in the spirit
- Taking the right job vs not
- Having the right friends vs not
7. Provoking being in the right place at the right time, making the right decision. Are we searching the deep thoughts of the spirit? Praying in the spirit on all occasions. Jude 1:20, Ephesians 6:18
Prayer Points:
Prayer points
1. Repair our decisions and surrender them to the LORD
2. Repair your locations and surrender them to the LORD
3. To be at the right place at the right time: Needs a sound mind. Needs wisdom from the spirit. Needs a helper.
4. To excel in that time and location: Is a principle of stature and favour: Knowledge and growth: Word, meditation and walking in the spirit. Be in the secret place for acceleration.
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