Occupy
Meaning: To take or fill up, to take or hold possession
Possession: the state of having, owning or controlling something. An item of property: something belonging to one.
When I see Occupy, it’s a verb, it’s an action. It’s not a spectator sport, you can’t be an armchair quarterback.
It’s being intentional, engaged, and doing.
It is taking ownership of what belongs to you.
The Bible is full of promises, but we often don’t Occupy them.
Promises of full health - “By His stripes we are healed” Isaiah 53:5 NLT
Promises of prosperity - “A Greedy man stirs up strife, but the one who trusts in the Lord will be enriched.” Proverbs 28:25 ESV
Promises to be with us always - “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” Matthew 28:20 NLT
Even after everything we still struggle with grasping that we must Occupy and take possession of all His promises.
We are good with the promise of salvation, and we Occupy that, by declaring Jesus Lord of our life.
But we seem to not hold tightly to the many others, why?
To jump in let’s look at Genesis 17:8 NLT. God gives a promise to Abraham. Doesn’t have any kids in his old age, but the Lord changes his name to Father of Nations.
Genesis 17:8 NLT “And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”
God speaks promises into our lives, but we still need to walk them out. We need to Occupy and take possession of those promises.
Although Abraham lived in the land promised, he never truly Occupied, he was a foreigner in the land promised to him. It wasn’t his possession; he was just staying there cohabitating with others.
If you came to live with me as a guest… you are living there, staying there, or renting space… but you do not Occupy because it is my house.
We think Occupying is simply being in a space, but as we saw for the definitions, it’s not, it’s taking ownership.
God wants us to Occupy, not be renters or bystanders in the promises He gives us
But Gods word is never void, He kept His promise to Abraham, but it was years and generations later.
The people that could claim the promises ended up wandering and waiting until a man named Joshua walked in and truly Occupied as God intended.
Moses is ready to Occupy the promises of God and sends 12 spies into the land that God promised to Abraham.
After 40 days the spies came back and gave a report.
It was favorable report, a land flowing with Milk and Honey…
There were 2 of the 12, with a positive report
Joshua and Caleb that knew when God says it is yours, it is yours, they were ready to go that moment.
Numbers 13:30 ESV “But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”
It’s yours, you just have to go and occupy, go and Posses it… You have to walk in the fullness that God has spoken in your life.
But we as people trust what our eyes see and not the word of God.
Then in the next breath there was a BUT….
How often do we let that BUT stop the power of God.
We get this vision for something , a great idea, a new job
BUT How can I afford it
BUT I am not smart enough
BUT it will take too much time
The other 10 in the group added their but, and put a stop to Caleb and Joshua’s faith and tells the community a bad report and paints a picture of impossibility.
They started to filter the situation with their head and not the promise that God had given them
The land was being given to them.
They then start to talk about how strong the people in the land were, how fortified the cities were. They will be destroyed if they enter.
Doubt sets in, fear takes over, and they operate in what their eyes see and not what God is saying.
Sound familiar… Back in the garden the serpent asked Eve, did God really say?
All he needs to do is get us to doubt God and he has us.
Another generation of people lost out on the promise God had given to Abraham, it could have been a 40 day journey, but the promise was held from them for 40 years, because they would not Occupy what God had spoken.
When God says it, you can take it to the bank… It’s settled….
Key words in the Bible. I am, I will, You are, I have given you…. All key indicators we have it, we got to Occupy it!
But it’s not going to fall into your lap, you got to step into it.
Even if it doesn’t look possible, you have to trust that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
The only roadblock that stops God and His promises in our lives is us, our unbelief, our inaction, our complacency
God has given us gifts and blessings to walk this out. Do we trust Him? Do we have faith in Him?
Even Jesus spoke of Occupying in His parables.
We have all these wonderful things given to us, we simply don’t occupy and walk in the fulness He has given us!
Parable of the Ten Servants:
A noble man leaves to be crowned king. Before he left, he divided 10 pounds of silver Among them and told them to invest it while he was gone.
Matthew 25:13 KJV - “And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.”
Matthew 25:13 NLT - “Before he left, he called together ten of his servants and divided among them ten pounds of silver, saying, ‘Invest this for me while I am gone.’”
When he returned, he brought them in to see what they did with the money.
The 1st one invested and made 10 times the amount
The king was pleased with this response and put him in charge of 10 cities
The 2nd one invested and made back 5 times the amount
The king was pleased with this response and put him in charge of 5 cities
The 3rd one hid the money and returned it in full but made no profit.
The king was not pleased with this, he ordered the money be taken from the third and give it to the one that made 10x the amount.
Let’s read Matthew 25:26 “Yes,’ the king replied, ‘and to those who use well what they are given, even more will be given. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.”
I kind of see it as 2 paths we walk down based on the decisions we make
Occupy and we take ownership and more will be given to us
Or be a foreigner and have a renter’s mentality, and things will be held from us
You know the old saying if God can get it through you, He will get it to you!
The king was not upset that 3rd servant for not making a profit. He was upset that he was given the money and did nothing with it. He buried it in the ground and ignored it.
Sounds familiar? God gives us gifts, opportunities, time, finances and often times we bury them in the ground and don’t use them for Him. Or we use them for our own benefit.
We are not meant to be here and coexist with the world. We are meant to bring change to it. We are meant to share Jesus and His love with those we come in contact with. We are meant to Occupy.
Romans 12:2 NLT “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
There are two areas we can be different.
Ways we can Occupy. God as Lord, God as provider. These are great places to build faith!
Let’s start with Occupying God as Lord?
When He is Lord, He has all of us not the leftovers
We give Him the first and best of our time and resources
We often don’t do this though we say, I am so busy, I don’t have the time
I get it we got to sleep, we got to work, we got the kids, we got this thing called life to do.
But could we afford another 15 minutes or another 1 hour a day to dedicate to our Lord?
Let’s take a look at how our time is spent in a week. PUT UP PIE GRAPH
In a week we have 168 hours to invest. It’s not all usable as we got to sleep and do other things... But let’s use 79 hours as what we have left to spend.
The list on the right are some items that we can fill the 79 hours up in a week.
In 2021 the average person spends 2.5 hours on social media a day… There goes 17.5 hours.
For TV this is 3.5 hours a day or 24.5 hours in a week
Just these 2 items cost us 42 hours of our time a week. But we don’t have to, we choose this…
So instead of saying I don’t have the time, we should start saying, I would, but it’s not that important to me.
I am not saying that to see God as Lord we need to cut all of the extras out.
Simply could we be honest with ourselves and how we choose to invest our time and give God a little more?
In the little more He refines us, and a little more becomes a little more, and that becomes a little more until you find yourself finding rest in Him and not all these others that really are not adding value to our lives.
You know it takes 72 hours to read the Bible from front to back? At 1 hour a day we could read the Bible 5 times in a year. TAKE DOWN PIE GRAPH
There is so many ways we can honor God, but do we give Him the time and energy?
What about Occupying God as Provider?
This area snags so many Christians up
Like the word money and giving are a 4-letter word
But often we miss the point of giving…
We think it’s to keep the church doors open, to support local ministries, to pay the preacher man.
All of those are byproducts of giving… Great byproducts… but what if God means it to be more?
I believe when you give or if you don’t give, we are expressing our faith of who our provider is.
Is God your provider, or are you?
God wants us to be cheerful givers and to see Him as provider and source of all.
See giving today has lost a little bit of its luster since it is $ now… PUT UP SPENDING GRAPH
But think about it from the days of the Bible… They had to give the first and best. Not only are they giving to God their first harvest, but anything that could have come from it also.
They truly trusted God that the other 90% would be far greater than the 100%
We often think if God blesses me, I will give then… If He would increase, I would start...
Notice something wrong with those statements, we are expecting God to move first, but He has, it’s our turn
Finances should be a resource, not and umbilical cord.
It should be a tool we pick up and use not something we put our full reliance in.
The Bible is full of promises, but we miss it by not Occupying and marching forward. TAKE DOWN PIE GRAPH
I love what Craig Groeschel said last week- If you want to be more generous when you have more, learn to be generous when you have less. – Craig Groeschel
Giving is not the action of writing a check, it’s the posture of our heart, and the faith that He is our provider and source.
None of what I have shared can be done without Faith
Without faith we are lost and succumb to our sinful ways.
We establish our will our ways, our plans, instead of the perfect and pleasing plan that God has.
Hebrews is a great place to camp out to build faith!
Hebrews 11:1 NKJV “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:6 NKJV “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”
Faith doesn’t just happen, it takes walking as close to God as possible, through His word, through pray… Simply spending time in His presence.
I look at faith like a muscle, we have to work it out to get stronger.
We have to get uncomfortable and stretch ourselves a bit.
In this growth happens, and when we grab on to these truths, no matter what is thrown at you, we stay locked in on Jesus and no storm will cause us to sink…
I have spoken a lot of personal promises, but there is also Corporate promises
As a corporate body we have promises that God has given to us.
1st our Purpose here is to Help people discover and develop their life in Christ. If we believe this and have faith that God will give us everything, we need to meet this purpose.
Guess what happens… God shows up, God delivers, but we cannot have our hands in our pockets, we got to putting in the work!
2nd our new building. Notice how I said our new building, not we may get a new building.
When God says it, it is a done deal.
It is ours; we just have to Occupy it.
We just have to take possession of it.
We need to walk into the lands God has promised us.
Maybe some of you are the finance for this new building…. But you need to Occupy it.
Maybe some of you are going to give time and expertise to it…. But you need to Occupy it.
Let’s not be like the 12 Spies with some that have huge faith and dragging everyone else, “come on you all…. IT IS AMAZING… LETS GO…..”
Or are you the renters, the neigh sayers, or negative Nancies to think of every obstacle to come in the way of the promise…
THERE WILL BE OBSTACLES.
There is a real enemy that doesn’t want us to Occupy, he wants us to be foreigners in the promises God has given us.
I am so glad we serve a God that is bigger than all that stuff.
All we need to do is be attentive, be obedient, and keep moving forward….
In this season we are going into… we need some faith giants to stand in the gap.
This season will be a journey, but let’s not neglect the now for the tomorrow.
Why are you putting in new carpet, because until the Lord tells us to move we will Occupy
Why are you updating the decor, because until the Lord tells us to move we will Occupy
Church will you Occupy the promises He has for us...
Will you stand boldly with the faith that God is at the helm and we are rowing in the same direction.
Let’s walk in the fullness he has for us and stop living as foreigners in what He has given to us.
Let’s occupy all he has for us and draw closer to Him.
