Listen to the sermon here: http://sermon.net/fumcoutofthebox/sermonid/1199990277
The Circle Maker Sermon 2 (Dream BIG)
Text: Numbers 11
Before the first raindrop fell, Honi had to feel a little foolish. Standing inside a circle and demanding rain is a risky proposition. Vowing that you won’t leave the circle until it rains is even riskier. Honi put himself in a place where there was no escape clause, no expiration date. Honi backed himself into a circle, and the only way out was a miracle.
Drawing prayer circles often looks like an exercise in foolishness. But that’s faith.
Faith is the willingness to look foolish.
Noah looked foolish building a boat in the middle of a desert.
The Israelite army looked foolish marching around Jericho blowing trumpets.
A shepherd boy named David looked foolish charging a giant with a slingshot.
The wise men looked foolish following a star to Timbuktu.
Peter looked foolish getting out of a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.
And Jesus looked foolish wearing a crown of thorns.
But the results speak for themselves. Noah was saved from the flood; the walls came tumbling down; David defeated Goliath; the wise men discovered the Messiah; Peter walked on water; and Jesus was crowned the King of Kings.
Drawing prayer circles often feels foolish. And the bigger the circle you draw, the more foolish you’ll feel.
But if you aren’t willing to step out of the boat, you’ll never walk on water.
If you aren’t willing to circle the city, the wall will never fall.
In order to experience a miracle, you have to take a risk.
Numbers 11-4-6
The people of Israel began to complain, “Oh, for some meat!” they exclaimed. “We remember all the fish we ate used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that we wanted. But now our appetites are gone, and day after day we have nothing to eat but this manna!”
The Israelites were complaining. They have been delivered from slavery. Yet they missed the meat on the menu? And isn’t it just a little ironic that the Israelites were complaining about one miracle while asking for another one?
Don’t we do the same thing?
When you start to ask God for a miracle, stop and count your blessings first.
Numbers 11: 18-20a
18 “God said, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you will have meat to eat. You were whining, and the Lord heard you when you cried, “Oh, for some meat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. 19 And it won’t be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty. 20 You will eat it for a whole month…
Moses Response
Numbers 11: 21-22
Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot and you say, “I will give you meat to eat for a whole month!” Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?
Moses is doing the math in his mind and it doesn’t add up.
He is trying to think of any conceivable way that God could fulfill this promise and he can’t think of a single scenario. He doesn’t see how God can fulfill His impossible promise for a day, let alone a month.
Have you ever been there?
You know God wants you to take the job that pays less, but it doesn’t add up.You know God wants you to go on the mission trip, but it doesn’t add up. You know God wants you get married, go to grad school, or adopt, but it doesn’t add up.
What is the “step of faith” that you need to take in pursuing your big dream?
Numbers 11: 31-32
Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them to up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers.
The Israelites are in the wilderness of Paran, a region about fifty miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea and fifty miles southwest of the Dead Sea.
The significance of that is this: quail tend to live by the water and they don’t fly long distances.
If it weren’t for a supernatural west wind, they would have never made it this far inland.
Based on the Hebrew system of measurement, a day’s walk was approximately fifteen miles in any direction.
So 15 miles in every direction the quail were piled three feet deep.
It was a like a bird blizzard. Quailmeggedon.
Once the quail stopped falling, the Israelites started gathering. Each Israelite gathered no less than ten homers. Ten homers multiplied by six hundred thousand men equals six million homers at a minimum. A homer equated to roughly 200 liters, and assuming that the quail were of an average size, it rained somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and five million quail.
Moses could have never anticipated this answer to prayer. It was unpredictable and unprecedented, but Moses had the guts to circle the promise anyway! And when you circle the promise, you never know how God will provide, but it’s always cloudy with a chance of quail.
Is there a promise you need to circle?
Maybe you need to circle a promise for your marriage or your children. Financial, Spiritual, Job……
God asked Moses, “Is there any limit to my power?”
The obvious answer to that question is no. God is omnipotent, which means by definition, there is nothing God cannot do. Yet many of us pray as if our problems are bigger than God. So let me remind you of this high-octane truth that should fuel your faith:
God is infinitely bigger than your biggest problem or biggest dream.
And while we’re on the topic, His grace is infinitely bigger than your biggest sin.
A. W. Tozer, believed that a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils, but a high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.
I believe your biggest problem is not the dilemma that you face, I believe your biggest problem is the size or the power of your God!
God says, Is there any limit to my power?
Have you answered the question? There are only two options: yes or no. Until you come to the conviction that God’s grace and power know no limits, you will draw small prayer circles. Once you embrace the omnipotence of God, you’ll draw ever-enlarging circles around your God-given, God-sized dreams.
How big is your God?
Moses was perplexed by the promise God had given him. How could God possibly provide meat for a month? It didn’t add up! But at that critical juncture, when Moses had to decide whether or not to circle the promise, God posed the question.
Is there any limit to my power?
Pastor Ronnie
