The Seed is What We Need! ft. Pastor Glen Yankowski | The Great Awareness Church

Thank you for helping us to fight our battles, Lord. I don't know what we do without you. I don't know what I do without you. So many of us, Father, have fallen but gotten back up because of you.

You've lifted us up, Lord, when we fell. Thank you, Lord, for that. And I pray that you will inspire me and everyone in this room today to have a greater relationship with you, to increase our faith, Lord, to help us be better people, to help others, to find you, and to spread the message of good news everywhere we go. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. >> Amen. So, [clears throat] >> you may have never gone to a church service where the preacher start off with a quote from a rock and roll band, >> but today is your day for that quote. The Rolling Stones had a song in my generation that had some words in it that have a lot of value in it.

You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you'll find you get what you need. Amen. >> So about a year ago, they asked me to come preach at Recovery Church, >> excuse me, for Good Landing. And so I was honored to do that.

I got ready, got in my truck. I said, "Hey, let me stop by Publix and get that prescription that I need before I go." So I stopped by Publix and I got out of the truck. I looked up and the sky was ominous, but I said, "If I just run in and run out, I'll be okay.

No problem, right? I'll get right to it and I'll go up there." Well, I ran in and I don't know how you are when you go to the grocery store, but got that prescription. But then I thought, well, long as I'm here, I'll just get one or two more things, right?

So, I did. I got those one or two more things. And I went up to the counter and my god, the woman in front of me had a month's supply of alcohol right there on the counter. And it was that that alone was a bad omen.

But then they had to bag it into certain bags so that it didn't break, that the the bottles didn't break. And that took a long time. And I thought to myself, surely I'm going to go outside and I'm going to get drenched. And that's exactly what happened.

I went outside and the skies opened up. I got drenched. My hair got all messed up. You know how I am about my hair, right?

My hair got all messed up. And I went out to my truck and I looked and there were cars on either side of my truck blocking me in with their lights on and it's pouring and I'm waving my hands. Y'all move some. And now they I'm sure they can't hear me, but I tried to wave my hands and finally the woman on the right raised her phone up like, "Oh, I'm been on my phone."

Well, that's that's really good. Thank you. backed up and I got in my truck and I said, "Well, I'm more than halfway there." So, let me go across the bridge and go towel off and dry my hair and I'll be good, right?

So, I get to the building here and uh I towel off and I go into the restroom with my toilet kit. You know, the men carry a toilet kit. Everybody know what that is? And it's got all our stuff in it that we use all the time.

So, I unzip it and open it up. No brushes in there. And my hair is standing straight up in the air. So I said, "Okay, I'll go to the uh women's closet.

They must have a brush or comb in there. No brush or comb." So I go to the uh middle closet, the the backup closet. No brush or comb.

So then I go to the men's closet. No brush or comb. And I sit back at my desk running my hair hands through my hair thinking, "Okay, well, I'll come up with a new a new uh hairdo, you know, and I said, "Well, I don't think I think that'll freak them out if I do that." Then I look over and there's a bag sitting there, you know, and the bag has some donations in it.

And I reached my hand in the bag and I pulled out a dinner kit and I looked at it and I pondered it and I looked at it and I decided to open it up and I said, you know, I wonder I wonder, oh my god, I think I found my answer. And I comb my hair just perfectly with this fork. Sometimes you may not get what you want, but if you keep trying, he will provide what you need. Amen.

>> That's a good way to start it off, right? Amen to that. So I will never forget that fork. So the title today of the message is the seed is what we need.

In Luke 17:5, the apostle said, "Show us how to increase our faith." I believe that there are four pillars that we can build to increase our faith. Just like building a house with pillars on it, we build our house of faith. So, let's talk this morning about how we can do that.

Okay? And there's four pillars. a humble faith, a persevering faith, an obedient faith, a growing faith. I'm not going to go into detail about each one of these scriptures.

I'm just going to pull out what we need for this morning. Okay? But I urge you to please go and read these because I think they will help you to increase your faith. All right?

So, I'm going to start with the story of the woman with the issue of blood. If you want to go there, I'll write this down in uh Mark 5:es 21-34. Mark 5:es 21-34. When Jesus had again crossed over by the boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.

Then one of the synagogue rulers named Gyrus came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying, please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years.

She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had. Yet instead of getting better, she got worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched this cloak because she thought, "If I just touch this cloak, I will be healed." Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt felt in her body that she had been freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" You you see people crowding against you," his disciples answered. "And yet you can ask, who touched me?"

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. So go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

Amen. This woman was desperate. She went to great lengths to embarrass and humble herself. She had heard of the healer's reputation, and after trying everything else, that only made it worse right?

But she tried Jesus. We're like that, aren't we? We try to fix everything by ourselves and our own intellect. and we asked him to bless what we are doing when all along we just had to cling to his cloak and hang on until we were blessed.

This woman wasn't concerned about what everybody thought about her. She just knew where the power to heal would come from and she went to it. We say in the promises of a 12step program, what you need will happen sometimes quickly, some sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up." So, we want to have a humble faith. That is our first pillar, a humble faith. Because fa help is on the way.

Amen. The next one is a persevering faith. The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:es 21-28. Matthew 15 21-28.

[snorts] I'm sorry. Uh, did I give you the wrong one? Let me do that again. Okay.

Matthew 15:21-28. I'm sorry. at the wrong page here. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyra and Sid.

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him crying out, "Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession." Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me," she said. He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

Wow, that's pretty rough, isn't it? How'd you like to go to Jesus and he says get lost? That's not where it ends though, is it? That's not where it ends because that's not what Jesus does.

He replied, it's not right. Again, I'm going repeat that. To take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs. Yes, Lord, she said, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.

Then Jesus answered, you have great faith. your request is granted and her daughter was healed from that very hour. Beautiful story, isn't it? Like I said, urge you to read that during the week and study that.

There's more points that I'm going to make today. But you know what? That woman was a pest. That woman was a pest.

She would not stop until she got what she wanted. She wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted. He wasn't supposed to be talking to her, but he did. He wasn't supposed to heal her kind, a gentile, but he did.

God does doesn't do a lot of things that we think he's not supposed to be to do, but he does. He does because he's God and we're not. We don't know exactly what he's going to do. We are all important to him regardless of our gender, okay?

regardless of our our uh race, regardless of what we've done in the past, how bad we've been, how good we've been, we're all important to him. And this is one of the biggest problems in faith. We don't believe that we deserve it. So our faith falters and we start believing in things other than the real God.

Amen. Okay? We are all important. And that persevering faith keeps knocking at the door.

It keeps asking. It keeps looking until it finds an answer. Don't quit before your miracle happens. Don't quit.

You may only get crumbs today, but soon you'll be eating filet minion. Amen. Like I said, I'm only making one point out of each one of these. So have a persevering faith.

Don't ever give up. Not ever under any conditions because God will come through for you. It may not be exactly the way you thought he would. You may be looking for a brush and he gives you a fork, but whatever he gives you, you can use to handle your situation.

Amen. >> So now I'm going to the third pillar, and that's the obedient faith. And this is one of my favorite stories. This is in first kings chapter 17 verses 1-6.

It's a story of Elijah and the ravens. Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishb in Gilead said to Ahab, "As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither due nor rain in the next few years except at my word." Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, "Leave here, turn eastward, and hide in the Kth ravine, east of a Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there."

So he did what the Lord told him, for he went to the Carth ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens bought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. An odd story, right? an odd story.

There's a backstory about Elijah and how he fearlessly proclaimed God's word to an evil king and to hundreds of so-called pagan prophets. But my focus today is on this particular situation and his reaction to what God does what God told him. In Leviticus 11:13-15, it says this. God says, "These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are detestable."

The eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, and any kind of black kite and any kind of raven. Don't Don't The ravens had a bad reputation right? If you look up the raven, there's a lot of mixed descriptions about some say it's witchcraft, some say it's a blessing. I don't know.

But this particular situation, they were definitely used by God. >> So God tells Elijah, "You must tell the evil king that there'll be a drought unless Elijah says there won't be." Imagine going to the king and telling that, "King, there's going to be a drought unless I tell you there won't be." And the king is evil.

So I'm sure he was thinking something bad. Then God tells Elijah to hide from that king, but I will take care of you by sending you detestable birds to meet your needs. And right about now, Elijah might have been thinking, you know, Lord, I love you, but this is weird. What are you asking me to do here?

Get fed by a bunch of detestable birds? Hide from the king that I just spoke to? What are you asking me to do? So what did Elijah do?

He obeyed God. Even though it was weird, even though it seemed strange, Elijah said, "I'm going to do it. I've got an obedient faith." You see, God blesses our obedient faith.

Even when he tells us to do something, we think it's weird, risky, and impossible. So you're sitting in a building that's weird, risky, and impossible. Let me tell you the story for a minute. Across the bridge was developed at Campus Church in Norcross in 2009.

We upgraded from a previous ministry we were doing because the preacher preached a sermon on on spiritual entrepreneurship. And prior to that, while we were doing our other thing before across the bridge, I had had a dream about a building. And a woman came up to me in a meeting and said, "Glenn, I had a dream about a building." I said, "Wait a minute.

That's a confirmation from God. It's a little weird because we don't, this is our building right now, but you got another building." So then I go into the preacher and the two elders and present a business plan for Across the Bridge because he preached on spiritual entrepreneurship. And I had people pray for uh 12 people pray for a couple of months about doing this and also what the name would be.

And so God spoke to my heart one day and he said, "Glenn, I don't care what you name it. Just make sure there's a cross in thus the name across the bridge." That's how we came up with that because God spoke to my heart. I became obedient to what he said.

Okay. So I went in there and I presented this business plan and the preacher looks at me. He says, "Are you telling me you want us to buy you a building?" I said, "Wait a minute.

That's the third person that confirmed the building." So, uh, a little while later after we grew and grew and grew. That was in 2009 to 2018, we got a new executive minister and he and I didn't weren't necessarily on the same page, you know, which is okay. >> He was still a good man.

we just we weren't on the same page. And I sat down with him and I said, "Look, is there any room for us to grow in the church here?" And he said, "No, because you know the school now owns the building we're in. So, you know, we can't give you any more room."

And I said, "Well, what do you think?" He said, "You'd probably be better off without the jurisdiction of a church." So, I said, "Okay, that's my that's my sign. Go get the building."

>> And so, for six months, I went to an outfit called Score. that trained me how to run a nonprofit, how to develop a nonprofit. These are retired people or professional people that teach you how to do such things. And then in 2018, the end of 2018, I went looking for a building and I came here to this building and the building name, the owner's name is Jim.

He's got stage four cancer right now. We're praying for him. He's in the hospital today. So, thank you for that prayer.

Please keep him in your prayers. >> But I sat down with Jim and I said, "Jim, I'm probably going to bring some people in here that some people may consider to be detestable. Some heroin addicts right off the street. Some meth addicts that still tweak around all the time.

You know, act weird, right? I'm going to bring in some alcoholics, but you know, they're good people. They just went the wrong way. And we're going to bring in some great people, too.

But we're going to use this building for good and to help people. So, a couple weeks later, Jim calls me up. He said, "You got the building, Clint." >> That was good news, right?

Except I had no money. [laughter] Had no money except what I had and my credit cards. And so, I went to several people. He said, "When are you moving in?"

I said, "Give me a couple days and I'll call you." >> Because there was a church here that needed to move out. >> And I said, "Uh, okay. Uh, let me see what I can and I raised $11,000 to get in pretty quick to ra get into this building.

People that had a, you know, knew what we were doing and backed us up. I love those people. They're still with us today. And uh we got in the building in January of 2019.

When we got in the building, we're reaching about 1500 people a month. This year, we're going to reach 5,000 people a month. You see, God blesses obedient faith. Since we've been here, over 280,000 people have come through these doors.

280,000 in seven years. That's obedience to what God tells you. So, the third pillar is obedient faith. And you see, is there something in your life right now that God is urging you to do, but you're not doing it because you think it's weird, strange, incredibly difficult?

If God lays it on your heart, he did it for a reason. He means do it. be obedient to what he's trying to tell you. Obedient faith prepares us for even greater moments.

Obedient faith prepares us for even greater moments. The final pillar is a growing faith. And for that, we're going to Matthew 17 verses 14- 21. Matthew 17.

I had to mark this off and I still have a difficult time finding the page here. So bear with me a second. It's called the healing of a boy with a demon. Okay.

His final pillar. >> I'm sorry. It's not the final pillar. [laughter] Let me back up here.

Okay. >> I messed up here. I apologize. Well, it is the final pillar is a growing faith.

>> Okay. >> When it came to the crowd, you can tell I'm not preaching every Sunday, right? >> So, I only do this every now and now. [laughter] But I'm fired up for the Lord, man.

I'm fired up always. Marcus knows that. He's fired up. I'm fired up.

We're always telling people about the Lord every day, man. We're like Clyde, right, brother? He's every day. When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.

Lord, have mercy on my son. He said, "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I bought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.

They could not heal." "Oh, unbelieving at the first generation," Jesus replied, "How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? bring the boy here to me.

Jesus rebuked the demon and he came out of the boy and he was healed from that moment. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked why couldn't we drive it out? He replied, he replied, "Oh, you because you have so little faith." I tell you the truth.

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Funny that it was in the songs that we sang this morning right? >> It was in there, right?

>> It's It's a growing faith. Faith must begin with a seed, often very small, that grows into a mountain. Each trial we face, each moment or failure must teach us that Jesus came to deliver us from failures like his disciples had in this particular situation by bridging the gap between the seed that is planted and the one that grows into a life full of an ever growing faith. It must mature.

Our faith has to grow. Our faith has to grow for us to be effective. And with that humble, persevering, obedient, and growing faith, you can withstand any storm. You can climb any mountain.

You can walk confidently in life knowing that if you keep trying, what you need will manifest itself every day of your life because you have him. Amen to that. Every day, these four pillars. And when we give our life to Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit.

That's the seed that gets planted inside of us. The seed is what you need. And God left it. Jesus left it for us.

Okay? He left it for us. And with that, we have everything that we need. So my question is, has in seed been planted in you?

Have you received it? And if you have not, I'm inviting you up here today to come and we'll pray for you and we'll show you how to plant that seed right in your heart. Or if you just need prayer, come up here that we call it the stage and we call it the altar, whatever you want to call it. And we'll pray for you.

All of us involved in here will pray for you no matter what your needs are. And if you want to give your life to the Lord, this might be a good time to do it. Amen. Thank you for letting me come here today.