You are listening to a live city church podcast and we hope you'll experience Jesus today. We are excited to have you join our extended online church family. If you would like further information or wish to access more content Please connect with us on our live city church Facebook page or visit us at live city church.com We're so glad that you're able to join us today and we're looking forward to hearing from you So let's get into the word today and turn with me to the book of Joshua and chapter 17 Joshua chapter 17 While you're turning there in this particular passage we see how the people of Israel have already conquered the promised land and Joshua had divided up the land among the tribes and each one is taking their inheritance except we find this little problem So join with me as we read together Joshua chapter 17 and verses 14 18 Then the children of Joseph spoke to Joshua saying why have you given us only one lot and one share to inherit? Since we are a great people in as much as the Lord has blessed us until now So Joshua answered then if you are a great people then go up to the forest country and clear a space for yourself There in the land of the parasites and the giants since the mountains of Ephraim are too confined for you But the children of Joseph said the mountain country is not enough for us and all the Canaanites who live in the land of the valley Have chariots of iron both those who are of Beth sheon and its towns and those who are the valley of just real and Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph to Ephraim and Manasseh saying you are a great people and have a great power You shall have only one lot but the mountain country shall be yours Although it is wooded you shall cut it down and as far this extent shall be yours for you shall drive out the Canaanites Though they have iron chariots and are strong the question I want to ask you today is this Have you ever felt like you don't have enough the title of my message today is?
When is enough enough? Father we ask right now for your presence to come and that you would release your spirit of wisdom and revelation that we would understand you and Know your ways father. I pray that you use me to minister to my brothers and sisters today And I pray Lord God you set hearts on fire in Jesus name if you agree with that say amen in the chat I remember the times as a pastor's kid when I used to go around with my parents We'd go around from here and they're all over Indonesia. I remember one particular time We were going to the central part of Indonesia We lived in North Sumatra working our way down all the way to Java where my uncle had his ministry there And one of these times that we stopped we stayed in a pastor's house It was a very small house But back in that day and for for himself in that area He was actually doing pretty well and so he was so kind and so gracious He and his wife and his family and they gave up their beds so that our family would have a place to sleep And we also had ministers with us traveling on the strip And so my sisters were able to get the kids beds my parents got the the pastor and his wife's bed And then the rest of us guys we just ought to make do with whatever we had well I decided I'm not gonna sleep on the format because there were bed bugs and lice on the format that we actually saw and so I decided I'm gonna try and sleep on this chair I did beg to go out and sleep in the car But my dad said no that's a disrespect and a dishonor for this people who are giving up their own home for us So you will sleep here So I found this chair It was tiny it had at least some sides to it and I tried to squish myself into this chair and then to add insult to injury I was given a blanket that was too short for me I know you find that impossible to bully but I'm actually told I was told back then for Indonesia But the blanket was too short for me and here I am I legs I hang it over the side of the chair trauma best to get comfortable I grabbed an old jacket tried to fluff it up like a pillow because they weren't enough pillows around and I'm just miserable in that place They could this is it long enough the blanket is a long enough the bed the chair isn't long enough And perhaps it's a little bit of what the people of ifry and am a NASA were also feeling when is enough enough enough They said this to Joshua.
Why have you given us only one lot only one share to inherit as we are a great people The tribes of ifry and am a NASA look like they were asking a legitimate question They're saying how come you haven't given us what we deserve you know in a day and age today What's all about you and what you deserve? It seems like a fair enough question my son is a growing boy He's eight years old next month. He's gonna be turning nine nine years old and as skinny as he is He's now starting to have those moments where he wants more on his plate So I make this awesome chicken pomish on him and daddy makes chicken pomish on him I son he wants two or three he'll try to put on his plate skinny little kid But I see him I realize that your eyes are bigger than your tummy doesn't what my mom used to say eyes are bigger than your tummy But he will try to how to that thing and sure enough this food left over is just too much for him to be able to handle Occasionally it has surprised me well if Raymond NASA felt hard done by they felt they deserved more They had already been given the hill country, but they didn't want it They thought they felt that what they were given was too small and so they're making this argument to Joshua trying to appeal to him Say look we're great. We're awesome.
They should look at all the people that we have Have you ever cried out to God and asked him God why don't I have more God? Why can't you give me more some of you can probably relate to this a shout out right now in the chat and as ifry And mms said we deserve more So I want to answer three things today in this particular message Why does God sometimes withhold more what is more to you? Maybe different to what is more to the person sitting next to you? But why does God sometimes withhold more?
I want to give you three reasons for these things and I pray that it will set you free when you start to understand the word of God and the heart and the intention and the love of God for you Here's the first reason why God will sometimes withhold more reason number one you can't handle it You are unable to manage what you've already been blessed with the Peter principle This is a known thing observed that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their level of incompetence Employees are promoted based on the success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent as skills in one job Don't necessarily translate to another so we promote to the level of incompetence But God will never do that because when you understand the heart of God God wants to set you up for success That you can become truly an overcomer in fact the Bible says you are more than overcomers So before God sets puts you in a battle He will set you up for success He ensures that you have all the skills required to beat that giant in battle and I want you to write this down God will not promote you if you're not ready for it The Bible tells us that when Israel first entered the promised land God said this thing here He's saying I'm not gonna give the whole land to you and you'll find this in Exodus 23 verse 29 and 30 He says I will not drive them out in a single year because he could and this is why because the land would become desolate and the Wild animals too numerous for you little by little I will drive them out before you until you have increased enough to take Position of the land so think about this for a moment God has more in store for you, but he cannot give you more than you capable of handling right now That should be a shot up raise God wants to bless you. It's not the opposite sometimes We'll pray. Oh God like just my prayer God come through for me and God saying I want to I want to bless you I've got it in my right hand ready to go, but until you're ready this blessing will destroy you God always knows the perfect moment to bless us Sometimes God with holes for a season when you've walked long enough with God You'll eventually realize that when the answer is not forthcoming wait when it feels like your prayer will not be answered Wait when the pressure is mounting and you feel like you're at your wit's end wait Because when you understand wait on the Lord his timing is always perfect. He's never late.
He always arrives on time Here's key number two. Why does a prayer some what is God sometimes withhold? Here's the second one because you don't appreciate What you already have look at the wording that the different the tribe of ifrin and manasa was saying the wording we are great They call themselves great and they felt that Joshua had not given them what they were actually entitled to But Joshua call them on it and he said okay if you are so great Then you can have the land of the Giants if you are so great Then you can take down the mountain territories because their response was not great when you try and compare it to the way Joshua and Caleb were when they first entered the land as spies 40 years earlier when they saw Giants Joshua and Caleb saw opportunity when they saw hardship and travail to be able to enter that land They saw prize worth suffering for some of you guys need to understand this There are prizes that are worth suffering for because it is so good nothing good and nothing expensive is obtained easily because it's quality That's where the worth lies in Luke chapter 12 verse 48 the second portion It says this from everyone who has been given much much will be demanded and from the one who has been entrusted with much Much more will be asked sometimes we think in the kingdom. We can just do whatever we want I've entered the kingdom.
I've made it through praise. Oh Lord. I'm saved. I'm saved I'll get to go to heaven But we don't preach the rest of it The fact is that God expects all of us to bear fruit in fact sometimes you'll hear Jesus you'll even hear John the Baptist would have said this Produced fruit in keeping with repentance.
There's an expectation of the kingdom that we are producing And so God will not give you more than you're capable of handling if you can handle what little you have well God will entrust you with more. There's a great story That was told by Russell H. Conwell back in 1915 He was raising money he had a vision to raise up a Christian university today. Sadly, it's not Christian temple university in Pennsylvania in the USA And he told his story of a man who once lived in the river in this area in ancient Persia By the name of Ali Hafet Ali owned a large farm.
He had orchards. He had grain fields He had gardens and he had money at an interest. He was wealthy. He was a contented man But one day a visitor came and told Ali about diamonds.
They were having this conversation He told Ali that the worth of these diamonds are so great that you could buy a whole township with one diamond In fact, you had a few of these diamonds which are available on the planet You can find these things you can put your children on thrones because of the influence that your wealth would bring Ali Hafet on hearing about diamonds And how much they were worth went to bed that night a poor man. Why he had not lost anything But he was poor because he was discontented. He said I want a mine of diamonds and he lay awake all night thinking and ruminating about this thing until eventually Ali sold his farm. He collected his money left his family in charge in charge of a neighbor and away He went in search of diamonds.
According to the story he went all around the earth globally traveling extensively on his search Until finally at last when all his money had been spent and he was in rags wretchedness and poverty He stood on the shore of a bay and this poor afflicted Suffering dying man could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide Meanwhile the man who purchased Ali Hafet's farm one day led his camel into the garden to drink and As a camel put its nose into the shallow water of that garden brook Ali Hafet's excessive noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light reflecting all the hues of the rainbow on the stone So he took that pebble into the house and put it in the mantle which covers the central fires and forgot all about it until one day A visitor in fact the same visitor that visited Ali Hafet saw the pebble on the mantle and asked the man Where did you find that? Do you know what this is and the man replied well? It was just some rock in the in the water that I found it's all over my field and and this man said do you understand what you have is A diamond you found a diamond in your own garden to his shock this new owner realized He was sitting on one of the most enormous diamond finds of that century and his fields were littered with acres of acres of rough diamonds Ali Hafet had sold everything he had become discontent with what he had when all along the thing he was searching for was already in his fields If Ramen Manasseh had not shown appreciation for the inheritance of land that had been given It was actually very very large and the envy with the other tribes were a lot of perhaps you're finding yourself today thinking about what other people have Perhaps it's a co-worker that's with you and you're thinking yourself How can they have so much how come they can afford these things perhaps might even be someone in church and some things are happening Them good things are going on there God is blessing them you say to yourself when he why isn't God blessing me? Some of you are wanting promotions, but how are you serving your company best in your current role?
Are you a blessing to them? Are you serving them with all your heart as a worship unto God? The third reason why God will sometimes withhold things from you is because you refuse to fight for it If freedom and the NASA complain the mountain country is not enough for us and all the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley have cherries of iron Both those who are best sheen and his towns and of the Valley of Jezreel They could not see the value of what they were given They expected everything to be easy There's an interesting story that took place on this happened in 1995 and what happened was the Yellowstone National Park was experiencing problems with defoliation with erosion and an unbalanced ecosystem But everything changed one day when they decided to decide hey look Let's restore the ecosystem Let's put the wolves back in because they decided to look back and see what is the common factor? What is the one thing that has changed that might be contributing to this and this is what they discovered?
They thought that wolves were too dangerous, so they got rid of the wolves from the park But here's what happened when they put the wolves back into the park Everything began to change you see when the wolves were removed it changed the ecosystem Deer and the elk populations increased substantially resulting in overgrazing particularly of willows and other vegetation important to soil and Riverbank structure leaving the landscape vulnerable to erosion without the wolves this entire ecosystem of the park suffered But here is what happened the phenomenon occurred in reverse So what what they call that is a traffic cascade by removing the wolves one thing Let's another let think let's another which caused the devastation of the park But here's what happened when they introduced wolves all of a sudden all the deer in the antelope they're running around and they're avoiding certain places Like valleys and gorges where they could be easily hunted by these predators and as a result those areas began to thrive again It regenerated and species such as birds and mice and bears began to return again plant life increased and thrived along the riverbanks erosion decreased Significantly and the stabilization of the riverbank actually made the rivers and streams change course the craziest thing simply because they introduced a predator into the works Sometimes God will allow the predators. I know this sounds crazy And if you're listening to this right now in this portion of the message it won't make sense listen to the other bit Sometimes God will allow the predators God will allow that hardship God will allow that overbearing boss or micromanaging boss God will allow that trouble in your home Because it is doing you good your ecosystem is healthier because of the challenges that are in your life The people of ifrium and the NASA were complaining about the land that they were given they said the land is too many forests We have to clear it up. It's too hard to clear. They complained about the giants They complained about the strong inhabitants they complained about the fact that they had iron cherries Which back then was modern technology because it's too hard to conquer But Joshua told ifram and manasa although it is wooded you shall cut it down and as far as six that shall be yours It's big for you shall drive out the Canaanites though.
They have iron chariots and are strong I want to ask you today when given an opportunity are you walking at the idea? Are you running for cover? Are you trying to bury your head in the sand or you're looking at this at this as an opportunity? When things are hard upon your life are you looking at what you're learning from the situation when things are hard in your life?
Are you on your knees praying contentes and God delivering me from this God? Give me a solution because these things draw us into the presence of God Are you expecting things to be handed to you in your lap? Or are you fighting for the things that are truly precious in your life? This morning I want to pray for those of you right now a message like this could be quite hard because you're thinking about Pastor I've been praying I've been praying I just can't seem to get this breakthrough I want to pray for you today, but I also want to encourage you today to take the time right now to begin to open your heart to Possibilities begin to open your heart and see the problems for what they are God has put them there for your good for your benefit because if he can trust you with this and he can come through He's going to give you more I wanted to clear upon you today promotion is on the other side of your trouble come and pray with me That's you right now father in the name of Jesus I lift up those whose hands are raised for some of them Lord They're not raising the hands of their home to embarrass their own the bed some of them are just weeping and crying father You know who they are and I come right now on behalf of the kingdom and we lift them up before you right now every brother every Sister listening to this podcast praying with me and in the name of Jesus we declare breakthrough upon you in the name of Jesus We declare the season of winter has ended upon your life But you declare spring has come spring has come father We pray that you would strengthen the shoulders of those who are going to trouble and bearing up with so much weight upon the shoulders father Strengthen encourage them father God and let them see that behind the other side of trouble Lord is their promotion I bless them.
I bless them in the name of Jesus father I pray you're filling with your spirit of joy today laugh in that overflow Perhaps today. This is the first time that you have understood the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and as I was preaching today Something was changing You know something has shifted in your heart and you're thinking differently now Maybe you never believed in God but today you think it man it feels so real That's the Holy Spirit speaking to you right now And I want to pray with you and lead you in this prayer because you got to do something with that if that's you This is your first time Maybe this is your tenth time it doesn't matter if the Lord is speaking to you today I want to lead you in this prayer Will you pray with me right now in your homes and let me lead you in that and please repeat this prayer right where you are dear heavenly father Thank you for loving me and thank you for taking my punishment by dying on the cross for my sins so I'm asking you now Jesus forgive me all my sins and remove all my guilt and Fill me with your spirit. Oh God that I can live for you today. I declare that I am a follower of Jesus In Jesus name Amen if you said that pray for the first time we just want to congratulate you You've made a wonderful decision today, and I want to encourage you to write to me I'll get it personally right to yes at live city church calm right to me perhaps even on the chat if you brave I'll let people know I made the decision today because we want to celebrate with you and I can't wait to lead you on the next steps of Your journey.
Thank you so much for tuning in today the Lord bless you and don't forget next week is Father's day And we got past a day smethas ready to bring an incredible message to bless your heart God bless you today Thank you for joining live city church and we hope that you were blessed and inspired by today's message If this ministry has made an impact on your life We'd love to hear from you. Please drop us a line and share your story at thanks at live city church calm or email us your prayer needs At prayer at live city church calm We'd love to connect with you and hear more about your story If you love the ministry of live city church You can make a financial gift to help us spread the good news of Jesus by going to live city church calm and clicking the giving tab We hope today's message has spoken into your life and look forward to your next visit