Make Room

- Well, what's happening church? I'm so excited today to give you guys an update on what's happening through Kingdom Builders. I know at your locations, I know you're very well versed and explained on what the difference between a Kingdom Builder is and someone who gives their tithe, and I just wanna say thank you. You guys are incredibly generous. Listen to what we've done so far this year with Kingdom Builders. You guys have given 3.1 million dollars so far this year and that is a whole lot to celebrate. But it's not dollars I wanna celebrate. I want you to understand what that giving is helping us accomplish. One of the things that has been very important that we funded and completed this year is our North River Campus expansion. That campus is just so full and has no room for growth. So we funded an expansion and thank you for that. It's gonna help us to reach more people there in our North River area and pray with me and believe with me that this construction will be finished in time for us to have Easter services there this coming up year. So I need your prayers for that as well. The other thing that we do in through our Kingdom Builders impacting our local community is our Dream Center. We have an after school program at our Dream Center that's serving 40 families that all have kids

who attend two different Title I schools. And in these after school programs, we're providing all kinds of learning help for math and reading and all kinds of things for scholastic and learning in school. But then also we're giving them some Jesus and discipling them as well. So as a result, math scores are up. Reading scores are up. And you know what behavioral issues in school are down. Why? 'Cause we're not just helping these 40 families and their students learn how to do school, but we're giving them some Jesus. Thank you for your generosity on that. Another thing that we funded that I love celebrating is what we're doing in our next gen. And one of those areas is our 12 conference. And that is our youth conference for middle schoolers and high schoolers. We had over 3,500 people in attendance this year. Such an incredible impact that we're making. Literally dozens of churches from all over the country are bringing their students as well. And so it's through that, we're not just impacting our students. We're impacting students and youth groups really around the world. In fact, we're training 65 youth pastors at this conference on how to take some of these principles and values

about next gen and in teaching them and training them to go back to their communities and raise up leaders there in their own school. So not only that, one more thing that we funded so far this year is a new church plan in Zurich, Switzerland. Man, what God is doing in Europe is incredible. And this church right here that we planted is in a community where 95% of the people don't go to church. That's like an unreached people group. They launched their first service. Listen, they had 205 people in attendance in 11 salvation. That's incredible church. All of those things are some representation of the magnificent impact that you're making through Kingdom Builders. This year alone, we still have a gap, a funding gap. In fact, $3.4 million is our gap. And let me tell you about some of the things that we're waiting to fund. And as soon as we hit that gap, we're gonna fund them. Another one is our Fruitville campus expansion. That's another campus that really is out of room and can't grow. So by your giving, we're gonna fund the expansion of that campus as well. Then also, we're gonna launch a new campus. I told you guys about launching a Spanish campus as well.

Well, once the funding is in for that, we're gonna be able to launch that campus as well. I'm so excited. We have so many people in leadership and our Spanish ministry here. And when we launched that expression, that worship environment for them, I just cannot wait. So that's something else that we're gonna be funding as well. So here's what I'm asking you guys to do. Between now and the rest of the year, would you do me a favor? Would you join your faith with mine and believe with me for that $3.4 million so that we can fund the rest of these things? Also, I'm asking you to pray. I'm asking you to pray about, Lord, what should I give? And then let's come and let's give generously so we can fund that gap, launch these ministries, make it hard for people to go to hell, all over our city, our communities, our country, and literally around the world. Here's the promise of God as the New Testament church in the Book of Acts. It says that all the believers were together and they had everything in common. You know, the Bible speaks about unity is when we operate in unity like that. That's where God bestows His blessing. He said, so as a result, they were selling property in possessions.

So they were praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people, and listen, and the Lord added to their number daily, those who are being saved. You know churches, we live this kind of generosity. We walk in the favor of God, and the Lord adds to our lives to our church. Thank you for your generosity, and that's what I'm believing God and for the rest of this year. Thank you guys. (upbeat music) Amen, amen church. I want us all to stand to our feet. You're way too comfortable. You all had an extra hour sleep. No excuses. It's so good to be back with family, so good to be here in the Word with you. The presence of God is already so tangible in this room, and I feel completely set up by God in what he's put on my heart to share with you church. I feel it's a prophetic push this morning that God wants to give all of us as part of the Bayside family in every location, even if you're watching online. That God today is trying to set something up to push not just you forward, but the whole congregation and church forward. As Pastor Randy just began to share

all of those things that are already happening because of your yes and all of the things that are still to happen because of your yes. I feel God wants to speak to you about that. This is not a season to be shrinking back. This is not a season to be thinking small. This is not a season to be saying enough. I have enough. I got enough. This is a season I believe across the globe where God is challenging the church. How much more room will you make? So God, as we come to your word and we're standing in your presence, we're aware of your greatness, the God of the impossible, the creator of the universe, the one that puts breath in our lungs. God help us today as we come to your word, to not shrink you down to the God of the size of our own abilities or our own resources. God let us today lean in and understand who you are and therefore who's we are. God, I pray today that we would let you like the potter with the clay stretch us, change us, convict us. God, we do not want to live a small life when we serve such a big God. So God, in these next few moments, I pray you would have your way

and I would get out of the way. We give you the room, God, in Jesus' name. Amen and amen, you may take your seats. I really do feel set up by God and I'm so thankful for the entrustment to be part of this family, to be part of those that teach in this house and I really have lent in and felt God would have me push you forward. Like I said a few moments ago this morning with this whole concept of where can we make more room for God? That's what your kingdom builders projects are all about, making more room and I just want to testify before I get into the word today. I have been in that room at the 12th conference. I have seen the difference your giving is making. I have watched teenagers run to the altar. I have seen kids' lives be changed because of a room that you facilitated and can I also testify, my sister, my brother-in-law and my nieces live in Zurich, Switzerland and now you're putting a church in a place where there are very few churches. I'm testifying to the difference that you're making even on the small things I see. And I think when it comes to us making room, sometimes we don't realize there's so much more room yet for God to use our lives, move in our lives and this summer I was tested with this idea of making room. I knew when we emigrated a couple of years ago

over to the USA permanently, we were leaving family and friends and it was a big thing for everyone to understand why would you up and leave where you've always been to go to a place where we've never been. And so I felt God put on our hearts, myself and my husband's hearts, make it possible for your family to come and see what it is that you've left to come and be a part of. And so we called my family a little while ago and said, "Hey, this summer, if you could come, "we would love to make a way for you to come "and at least just see where it is that we are this summer for one week. I thought they might come for two weeks, but they didn't come for one. They didn't come for two. They didn't come for three. They didn't come for four. Guys, they came for six weeks. Six weeks of me trying to be my first duet in my kitchen. Six weeks of making breakfast for 12 people. Six weeks of hosting and laundry and sorting and organizing. Six weeks of me rearranging my schedule so I could be present when I needed to be present. It was chaotic and it was messy and it was definitely noisy. We were ordering beds from Amazon that you blow up and we were telling nieces and nephew, this is a bedroom when it was actually a closet because we didn't have enough bedrooms for 12 people. It was chaotic, but we made room. And what I didn't realize when I said yes to making room was that God had a plan that was not on my plan. It was about the third week into that six-week visit when my nieces and nephew came to me and said Auntie Charlotte, we have something to ask you. I said sure, what is it? They said when we've been talking and we just would like to ask you, would you and Uncle Steve baptizes all we've never been baptized? And in the middle of what I thought was just making room for my family to have a vacation. There was this divinely orchestrated holy moment where we put each one of my nieces and my nephew or all teenagers into the water, prayed over them, laid hands on them and God met them in that moment and I realized yet again you have no idea what God is wanting to place in the

places where you will make room. All throughout the Bible I find it interesting often the places where God asks people to make room and if you're not careful you could say no because the ask almost seems insensitive to where you're at. From a passage in 1 Kings 17 verse 9 where we read about a window with a son, she's the widow in Zerefest and in that place where she lived there was famine that was so severe that there was little chance of her surviving and the Bible says in that story that she had just enough to make one more meal for her and her son and then they had resided that they were just going to die. Enter the scene of all of that lack of profit sent by God. The prophet is sent by God not to pray for the woman, not to provide for the woman but actually to ask this woman who has only enough food for her and her son if before they eat she will feed him. I don't know about you but I think if I was that woman I would be informing that prophet you got the wrong household. We don't have enough for ourselves never mind someone else but she didn't understand that in that moment God was sending her an opportunity that looked like an inconvenience and if she would make room for the prophet not only would she have food for that night but every night following that night. Oh what about the woman in 2 Kings 4 that we know has just a little oil. I would think if you have just a little oil and God sends a prophet to your home his job would to be bringing you some more oil because you only have a little but the instruction that God gives that woman through the prophet is I want you to go to all of your neighbors and I want you to go and collect more empty vessels. I'd be like I think you got the instruction wrong don't you mean go to my neighbors and ask for oil because I just told you I have no oil no God said go collect emptiness and what she didn't understand but would soon realize was the amount of emptiness that she collected was the amount of outpouring she would receive. You collect one empty jar you'll get one filled jar you collect five empty jars I'll fill all five you collect a thousand empty jars I'll fill all the thousand that you collected because my outpouring requires emptiness and once your full it stops. So when you're listening to the video you just listen to when you're hearing about the vision that isn't even in the campus that you attend. When you're in about churches that aren't even in the same country or nation as you it's asking something others that at times doesn't feel like it's necessary to be asked others but it's all about is how many miracles he will fill. And so I want to take you to a story this morning. It's actually one of my favorite stories in the Bible

if you're allowed to have favorites. I've preached from it over the last three decades of preaching multiple times because within this one story are three miracles. In one story, this story has a woman and she's barren and in the story her barrenness turns to her carry in a child's water miracle. Then the child grows up but the child gets ill and dies and in the same story there's a resurrection of the boy that has died. Then later on in the same story, there is a famine and she loses everything but God makes sure her name comes to mind and everything she's lost is repaid plus interest. Three miracles in this one story and I have preached about every single one of them. But I felt God asked me to go back to the story recently and not preach about the miracles but actually go all the way back to the beginning of the story and show you what began the process of the miracles. There was something that happened at the beginning of this story that put all of the miracles into action and if I can show you what she did today, maybe you could understand you can do the same thing in your lives today. The story is in two kings for verse eight and it starts this way. One day Elisha went to Schumann

and a well to do woman was there who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. She said to her husband, you know what? I've been thinking, I noticed something. I know that this man of God who comes our way is a holy man of God. So you know what I think? Let's make a small room on the roof. Let's get down Ikea. Well, he says she's a well to do woman. So let's get down restoration hardware and let's get a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp. Then he can stay with us whenever he comes to us. I just have to pause a moment and take a little side errand with you. Don't you find it amazing what he's in the Bible? Like in the Bible, it lets us know, Jesus did so many miracles but not all of them are recorded in these pages. So there were some miracles that Jesus did that aren't even within this book. And yet in this book we get a list of her shopping. That blows my mind. And like really God, a miracle wouldn't be more important than telling me that she got a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp all individually listed. There's a reason why these things are in the Bible. Don't overlook what God includes versus what he excludes.

This is such a natural process. You could almost miss the supernatural that this process leads to. This woman notices something. The first place that this woman makes room is in her head. I'm coming after your head today. I'm coming after the way you think today because some of you think so small, you can never entertain God's thoughts because your mind has not expanded beyond your own needs. When our thinking is small, our living is small. In fact, it tells us that in Proverbs 23 verse seven, it says, "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he in his behavior." In other words, your thinking is deciding your behaving. It's not what you pretend to be. It's not what you say you're gonna be. It's how you think is how you be. So when you think small, you are small. When you think black, you are black. When you think anxiety, you act anxiety. When you think fear, you act fearful. How we think is shaping, how we be. And this woman we know, because the story goes on to tell us, she's barren. There's something she desperately wants and yet it's never happened, but we don't see her thinking about what she doesn't have. We see her thinking about what she does have. We don't see her thinking,

"Oh, if I could get the man of God to answer my prayers, then maybe I have my miracle." There's no record in here of her ever asking the man of God to have a child or to pray for her. That happens as a by-product of her making room. She's making room and in the making room, even her. Some of you are asking, but you're not acting in a way that makes room. See our lives are like this table. All of us have a table of our life and depends how many people are in your life, whether it's you or whether it's a husband and children, maybe grandchildren. It's not long before this table gets full. It's full of the people that we take care of, our jobs, our finances, things that we have to look after. And so our life becomes full. We spend all our lives setting the table, clearing the table, filling the table, starting the table, just of the things that we have 24/7 in our life. The problem with that is it's all consuming and it's full, but God doesn't feel full. (congregation laughing) And so we're busy doing, but we're not giving God any room for filling. And I need you all to see something through this illustration today

that I pray gets in your heart and in your mind today, God has wired every single one of us with one of these. Inside every single one of you is an extension leaf. That's why the Bible tells us in Corinthians that you have access to have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ is not this. The mind of Christ is when we think beyond ourselves, when we think beyond our full and when we keep giving God room to fill. This woman had needs, but it wasn't always on her mind, so she observed someone else's need and she realized maybe I can be a miracle to someone else instead of whining and whinging that I don't have a miracle for myself. Question, do you think more about your need or more about your seed? One will get you always mindful of what you don't have, the other will get you mindful of the possibility with the little or the lot that you do have. Do you think more about what you don't have or more about what you do have? Because there's a lot of people that didn't wake up this morning 'cause they didn't have breath in their lungs and you did. But we wake up and we forget what we do have. We forget the privilege of being alive for such a time as this. We forget the fact that God woke us up this morning and gave us breath this morning

and we take it for granted and then we fill the air with all the complaints and all the things we do not have and we forget about all the things we do have. Are you thinking, are you thinking in a way that pulls the extension leaf in your mind? Some of you, it's been a while. So it's gonna take a little bit of tug. God's trying to pull on your mind. You know, Jesus had the power to bring the dead to life, to speak to a body riddled with disease and the disease would leave. To speak to a demon and it would be cast out. But there was one place where he could not do any of those things and the issue was not, he wasn't willing. The issue was there, mindset was too small. Nazareth was Jesus's hometown. But in Nazareth, no one could think bigger about Jesus all they thought when they saw Jesus was you're just Joseph's boy. And because their thinking didn't make room for him to be healer, deliverer, resurrected, they could not have any of the miracles that had they fought differently. God could have given them through Jesus, his son. And yet Jesus has to move on because their mind won't make room. This is not just based on church. You're not just another person in the community. You're a son and a daughter of the Most High God and you have access to heaven

and you're supposed to bring it here on earth. You gotta think differently or you will be like Nazareth to Jesus. I'm gonna give you a secret this morning. This is one of the secrets of my personal relationship and time with Jesus. So you ought to be taking notes 'cause I don't give secrets away very often. She's why they're called secrets. This is a simple practice. Sit in a chair. I open the notes section in my phone or I get a journal and a pen. This is what I do. I say, "God, for the next ten minutes, who is on your mind that is not on mine." What is on your mind that is not on mine? Because here's what I've realized. My mind is always full. It's always something to do, someone to see, an email to respond to, somewhere to be, a plane to catch, a child to follow up with. There's always something on my table. So if I don't take those ten minutes, I'm only talking to God about what's on my table. So I realize I've got to create an extension leaf moment every day to say, "God, this is not about me. It's not about my family. It's not about my finance. It's not about my children. Who am I not thinking about right now that you are thinking about and you need someone else to think about?" I added up what that brought out of my life just the last seven days of doing it. Just in the last seven days, I had 16 people that I reached out to, that I would have never reached out to without that practice every day. 16 people that weren't even in my thinking, they weren't on my list of things to do, they weren't on my list of people to reach out to or even consider 16 people that God was waiting for someone to make room in their mind so he could drop a thought in that mind that would be a miracle in someone else's lives. Challenging us today. Don't be like, "I don't know anyone in Zurich. God doesn't need you to know anyone in Zurich. He just needs you to be open to the thought that maybe God could use you to reach someone in Zurich." Well, I don't have a young person that goes to 12. God doesn't need them to be on your list of people in your household. He's wondering, "Is there room in your heart and in your mind

to think and pray?" I had words this week for people I would have never had words for. I sent a prophecy to someone that I would have never been thinking. I needed to send a prophecy to. I sent finances to a family that I would have never even considered sending finances to because they weren't on my full table, but they were on guards waiting to be filled. Where do we need to make room if you wake up in a morning and all you think about is you? Your table? Your people? We have a problem. But if we'll pull the extension leaf, you'll walk in this building very different because now you're thinking of something way beyond yourself. Philippians 4 even goes as far to tell us what we're supposed to think about. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, would you think about that stuff? God knew. We would have a thinking issue. And so he's letting us know ahead of time, "Hey, if you're not sure how to make room in your thinking, just start with this list. It will get you off your need and it will get you into your seed. It will get you off your lack and it will get you into his impossibility realm. Where do we need to make room in our thinking?" She didn't just make room in the way she thought. She also made room in her heart. And before you sit there like the wonderful, bass-eyed community that you are and nod your head and say, "Pastor Charles, I got this one. I have so much room in my heart for Jesus. I have so much room in my heart for the Lord. I just showed you that in the worship. I have lots of room in my heart just before you tell me you got this. Let me remind you that God fit an X-ray machine to your heart." You might not like what I'm about to say next, but you have to take that up with God because it was his idea. God said, "I'm going to make sure I know what's in your heart because I'm going to create an X-ray machine called your mouth. Every time your mouth opens, it's letting me know what's in your heart." Matthew 12 tells us it this way, "For the mouth speaks what the heart has made room for." Luke 6 verse 45, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. Don't tell me you love the Lord and then you have a mean mouth." out of your mouth. Don't tell me, yeah, I believe, I believe in the worship, but when you get to the parking lot, you're already telling all the doubts to your friends and

to your family. Our mouth is constantly x-raying our heart and some of us need to make room in our heart so God can make room in our mouth to do a miracle. I was just this past week ministering at the college there at the church that I'm part of back in Alabama and I was ministering to the students. I'd gone to pour out into the students, but before I got to pour out into the students, there was a meeting that took place before the meeting. I get to the meeting and there's a bunch of students standing around in a circle and they're standing around the circle because some of the students want to pour into me before I pour into them. I stand there as one after the other steps forward and they begin to tell me stories of the way my words had created room in their life for a miracle to happen. The first boy that steps forward, a young man, I know him because he's a friend of our sons and I didn't even remember the incident he referred to. He says I was at your kitchen counter because he's a student and he's a friend of my sons and students that away from home come to people's homes for free food. So I'm just feeding students whoever they are that my son brings home and so I guess they were eating pizza by kitchen counter. As I'm walking past this group of boys that are having pizza at the kitchen counter, I overhear him talking to my son about an area where he's nervous and hesitant and as I'm walking past I feel myself backstepping doing the moonwalk and I look at the boy and I say hey and I begin to speak the words he began to remember in that moment. He said because of your words something inside me changed. I felt fear be silenced and suddenly I felt this faith and I got home that night and I made a decision to step into an opportunity that I've been putting off for so long because I didn't think I had the confidence but your words changed the way I thought and I realized in that moment I was simply walking past the kitchen counter but God was looking for someone who on their way to do what they needed to do would make room to say what needed to be said. The next girl steps forward and she's like I was at a coffee station in a room at a church and you were getting a coffee next to me and she said as you got the coffee you began to speak to me and you had no idea that I was trying to decide what to do with my future. You said some words to me and that day I made the decision I'm signing up for the college that I'm right here a part of right now and I realized it was just a coffee station. How many times do we have opportunities that because we're full of ourselves we have power. How many words have you already wasted today? Hello. How many words have you used today on stuff that does not matter? What do you need my words? Does someone need my words?

You know there's a disease that's rampant in the church and I'm calling it out because I have seen it too many times. It's in the world but I think it's worse in the church. It's the disease I call the disease of assumption. Everybody just assumes somebody else will say it. Everybody assumes somebody else will amen. Everybody assumes someone else will pray. Everyone assumes someone else will give and in our assumption we excuse ourselves. It was about two months ago I just finished preaching. I was walking from the platform to behind the stage to get ready for the next meeting and the woman grabbed me. You know I'm so glad I just got a couple of minutes of your time. She said two and a half years ago you preached a message and it changed my life. She said you know I was going to let you know but she goes I know you get thousands of emails telling you that stuff. I looked her and I said I do. I said I don't know whose mailbox they went to but they ain't in mine. I know I got an email telling me I'm the wrong gender to do this. I know I got an email telling me I should sit down and be quiet. I know I got an email saying we don't like it when you come. I know those emails found my mailbox but I don't know about the ones you're Two and a half years ago, unknown to anybody, I was thinking, "Not sure, I don't know God, like, like, I don't know, it's hard, it's still hard." And two and a half years ago, she had words in her mouth that would have changed my world. But she assumed someone else would tell me. Jesus had the same issue, and just so you know, Jesus was bothered by it. We read about it in Luke 17, because Jesus, on his way somewhere, makes room for 10 letters. They call out, and so he makes room, and he stops, and he pours out, and he touches and heals every single one of those men riddled with that disease. But then something shocking happens, because in verse 17, out of the 10 that are healed and touched and delivered from the affliction, only one comes back to Jesus. And Jesus is bothered by it. And Jesus acts in verse 17, "We're not all 10 cleansed, where are the other nine?" Like what was so important, that they forgot, "Hey, the least you could do is make room right now to come back and show your gratitude." And if it bothers Jesus, I think it's okay that it bothers us today, that there's a spirit of assumption that can get in the church, and get on God's people, and in that place of assumption, people quit, and people give up their God-given call when you were sat with

the words in your mouth, on your tongue, that would have made room for a miracle. I pray you don't assume your pastors are encouraged. I pray you blow up their email box this week, letting them know, "I've been in the church for years, and I've never told you." I assumed you would know. I assumed you would know, as you stand out there waving cars in, that I appreciate you being in the rain waving my car in. I assumed somebody would tell you, "I appreciate you watching for free my children on Sunday morning." I assumed, "I don't want to assume anything. I want to make room to say what needs to be said, because I have no idea what's at the other side of my words, but God does which He's why I'm trying to get you to say Him." Where are the other nine? Well, they just assumed you knew, "Jesus, I mean you're Jesus. You're not insecure are you, Jesus? I don't have to tell you, do I, Jesus?" It's not about someone's insecurity. This is about a godly principle, that we are not to assume, but we ought to be the ones that make room with our mouths. Time's gone, but if heaven is a picture of anything, guys, it's a picture of God saying, "Heaven's perfect." He doesn't need another thing, but we have to make room. And when he decided that, you know where his mind was? It was thinking about you, because had God's mind only been thinking about His only son, then there's no way He would have come up with the suggestion that He was about to come up with, which was that my son will die so that you would have access. And there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that God's asking us, His sons and daughters, could you make room? Could you think about being the answer to someone you may never make? Could you think about sowing into something you may never attend?

Could you think about using your mouth to encourage someone, even though you feel discouraged yourself? Just close your eyes right where you're at. God we know you're in this room, we sense your presence, and God forgive us. Where our minds and our hearts, therefore our mouths, have been so full of us, there's been no room for anything else. God let us not be those that assume you know how grateful we are. Let us not be the nine that just get back to our busy days after this service and forget our words matter, our mindset matters. May we enter the weeks and months ahead asking God, who is it? What is it that you would want me to make room for? God let us pull the trigger that sets the reaction of miracle after miracle after miracle because you find in other house that will always say yes to making room. Your eyes are closed all across the house in every location. I don't know where this finds you today but if you're not where you should be with God, this whole message is so that you would know he made room for you. He made room for you in the mess that you're in, in the sin that you're in, in the place of desperation you're in. He made room for you and today all you have to do is to say God I'm making room for you too. If today you need to put Christ at the centre of your life again or give him your life for the first time, make room for him today, all you need to do is eyes are closed all across his house just lift your hand right where you sat, that's me today. I know I need to make room God, I need to put you first again, I need forgiveness today, I make room for you God. God you see every hand raised you know exactly what this represents and I pray in every heart that's making room for you right now. God I pray that as they make room you would fill the room God, fill the hopelessness with your hope, fill the desperation with your peace, fill the lostness with a sense of belonging and home, fill the anxiety with peace, the passive understanding and fill the sinner's heart with the forgiveness and grace of you God. We thank you God today as lives make room you fill the room. We thank you for salvation today, for transformation today and God I pray today we would all leave this room determined to make more room for your kingdom to come.

In Jesus' name, amen.