 I want you to open with me to Matthew chapter 10 verses 11 through 13. And today I want to talk about Becoming Worthy of a Blessing. If you take a note which you should, you can write the title, Becoming Worthy of a Blessing. Becoming Worthy of a Blessing. Receiving blessing is a result of intentional positioning. Blessing doesn't come on everybody who desires it. Blessing doesn't come just sporadically randomly. It's a lottery that you win in life and it's like mini-mini-mo. You're blessed, you're not. You're blessed, you're not. Sorry, the portion in life has passed you. A blessed life is very intentional life. A blessed life requires you to position yourself in a place where blessings of God can flow into your life. Are you with me? Okay, Edward is with me. That's awesome. But are you with me, church? All right. I know it's morning, but we're gonna be talking today. So a blessed life requires us to position ourselves in a particular place where the blessing of God can flow freely in your life. Think of a faucet. If you are thirsty, you got a cup. The cup is your life. And if you want to be filled with water, you don't just wish for the water to appear where you are. You take the cup and you position it under the faucet where the water flows and you receive water. And so do all things in life, particularly in the kingdom of God. They work a similar way. Touch your neighbors, say, position yourself for your blessing. Touch your other neighbors, say, position yourself for your blessing. In Jesus' name. Amen, amen. So Matthew chapter 11 verse 11 through 13. Whenever you enter a city or a village, search for a worthy person and stay in his home until you leave town. When you enter home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be worthy home, let your blessing stand. If it is not, take back the blessing. So I want to talk about three different, we'll touch on three different positions that you can position yourself into receiving a blessing from God. As we see from the scripture that a person in a home has to be worthy, has to be worthy for the blessing to rest, to stay in that house. To stay on their life. So as people of the kingdom, we understand that God works by principles. And we don't just, like I said in the beginning, just wish that we are blessed. We must act on the principles of God for the blessing to rest and stay with our lives. Amen. So first thing that the context of the story before we get down to the business, the context of this story is that Jesus, he is preparing his disciples to go preach the gospel. He cautions them or he tells them not to take any coins with them, not to even take extra clothes with them, extra sandals with them. He says, go as you are and preach the gospel. Heal the sick, cast out demons. And then comes this verse, whenever you enter the city, find a worthy place to stay. And this was a particular instructions for his disciples, not that Jesus does not want us to not care for ourselves and not to have savings and not to live a life with no savings and not planning. This was a particular assignment for disciples in that moment and time to demonstrate the provision that gospel will bring as they go preach the gospel and to trust the words of Jesus. But there's a lot of principles that we can draw from this scripture for ourselves. First and foremost, I want you, point number one, write this down. A person that is worthy of a blessing are those that receive the gospel. Are those that receive the gospel. So Jesus has gone to the villages, search for a worthy person. What does he mean by that? Search for a person that will hear the gospel, the good news and will receive it first. When you receive the gospel of Jesus, you receive the good news. When you receive and embrace the gospel, with it comes blessings of God. When you embrace the cross and you receive the cross, what Jesus did for you on the cross, you embrace and receive the benefits of the cross, which is salvation, healing, deliverance and breakthrough. See Christianity in the kingdom of God is not another ideology and another theory that we embrace. Christianity in the kingdom of God is a covenant relationship. It's you entering into covenant with God. You enter into a marital covenant with Jesus. He is your bridegroom Bible says, and you are his bride. That's the analogy that scripture uses. And in the covenant relationship, when you enter into covenant relationship, whatever is yours becomes his and whatever's his becomes yours. There is no restrictions and no limits. When we come into the kingdom of God, we don't just come to embrace set of rules and a certain ideology. We come into a relationship with the king of kings. And when we receive the gospel, we receive everything that the gospel comes to bring. There comes a blessing in your life when you receive the gospel. And many of you here sitting have been blessed by the gospel. Some of you, the Lord has rescued you from addiction in your life. He has restored marriage in your life. He has brought marriage into your life. Some of you were desperate, anxious and suicidal. You've been lost in life. And when the gospel found you, it brought good news to you. It brought blessings into your life. It restored you. How many blessed people in this place we have now? How many we've been blessed by the gospel of Jesus? And so if you are here and you have not decided to follow Jesus, if you have not given your life to Jesus, if you have not made Jesus the Lord of your life, I want to invite you into this kingdom. I want to invite you into this relationship with God of the universe because by doing so, not only you gain eternal life with Him, which is the most important, but you also get to benefit in this life from the gospel by receiving it. The blessing of God can rest on your life. See, because when you are away from God, you are under the judgment from God. Because the Bible says we all fall short of the glory. We all have sinned. We were born as sinners. We have a sinful nature. We cannot but sin, even the best of us. We miss the mark compared to the holiness of God. And as a result being under the sin, we are under condemnation and under judgment. We are under the curse. That's why demons have access into our life to destroy our life, to bring torment into our life. But when we receive Jesus into our life, when we embrace the cross, the cross positions us for the blessing of God, for the provision of God, for the healing of God, for the freedom from nightmares, from torments, freedom from every fear and anxiety, freedom from demons, freedom from curses. So when you receive the gospel, you enter into the kingdom of God. God the Father becomes your king. You come under the domain of God, and his responsibility as a king to care for his constituents, for the people that are in his kingdom. You come under the blessing of God. In Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, it says this, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those that diligently seek him. God for some reason decided that there's two things that he wants you to believe. That he is, meaning that he exists. And number two, that he rewards. That when you come into relationship with him, you come into a blessed life. No, I'm not saying that if you get saved today that all your problems will go away. But what I'm saying is that your position in yourself for God's blessings to flow into your life. And God step by step begins to restore you. Step by step he begins to remove that fear, that anxiety, those suicidal thoughts. He begins to set you free. He begins to deliver you. He begins to position you for the life of blessing. Amen. So becoming worthy of a blessing by receiving the gospel. Say with me, receiving the gospel. If we actually look into the context and the meaning of the verse that we just read. And the blessing that rests on the house speaks of those that provide for the gospel. Provide for the gospel. Say with me, provide for the gospel. And in this context and in this scripture there's a special type of blessing that Jesus says that will rest upon a person or a house that opens itself up for the provision of the gospel. How does that look like practically? Literally in this scripture means that they open their house for those that preach the gospel to come and first of all they're hosting them and they're allowing their house to be used as a platform for the gospel. Translated that into current times into our church. How does that look like? That looks like for you to open up your house and host a group, host a home group. That looks like for you to open, go through life class, go through destiny training and become a leader that opens his or her own home group and opens their house to host people where there can be gospel preached and disciples made. Are you with me? This is literally the context of the scripture. It's when we open our house so that the gospel can reach others. So that in our houses people can be healed, people can be delivered and people can be saved. That's what the scripture means becoming worthy of a blessing to rest on the house. I want to challenge you church as we go on in 2024. Some of you have been coming to church for some time and there was a time where you needed just to receive, where you needed to grow but some of you have overstayed this season by decades. Some of you by years. It is time for you in 2024 to sign up to life class. Go through life class. Where is the life class? There's seven, eight classes where we go through basic foundation of Christianity. You go to encounter where the Lord begins to deal in your soul and things that may be a time to hold you back. And after that, sign up for destiny training that comes in three parts. This is where you're being equipped to begin to serve others, minister others and as a result when you finish to become a home group leader. I challenge you that this year, 2024, that you don't waste this year, another year just being a bystander, just being a cheerleader but get in the game. Begin to participate in the kingdom of God. Begin to make an effort. Begin to open yourself up for a possibility and open your home for discipleship and ministry. In Jesus' name, amen. Some of you are ready to be home group leaders. You've been walking with the Lord for some time and you've already been established in faith and this is your next step this year. Sign up, go to hungrygen.com and sign up for the classes and let's do this together. Let's see people saved in 2024. Some of you may be not quite there. You just need a little bit more time but you have a big beautiful home that you can offer to host maybe for those people, the home group that you're going to needs a bigger and better place to meet and you have that place. Go to your leader and ask them, say, listen, once in a while let's do it to my house. I have a good house where people can come and where people can be blessed and you can begin to offer your home for the gospel to be preached because as we read it says this, stay in that house until you leave. When you enter the home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand. Allow your house to be a blessing to others so that the blessing of the Lord can rest on your house. I remember when, me and my wife, we were already married for some years and she was having a home group, I was having a home group and we would have home groups in our apartment. First of all there was an apartment, as always there's not enough space for parking so there's always an issue with the parking and then we would have like 30 people in our two bedroom apartment, 10-15 people in her group, 10-15 people in my group, I'm in one room, she's in the living room, girls always got the better part and the kitchen and the living room but girls were always bringing things to the table and the guys were just sneaking up and partaking of the goodies and so there was a fair trade let's just say. But nonetheless we were hosting and serving and ministering to people and praying and sometimes we were living in the third floor, I remember this person after home group they would stay there, we were praying for this girl and she begins to manifest and she begins to just scream and yell and right next door to us we had a, right next place to us we had like a retired marine or maybe an active marine living on the other side of the wall and he just screams, you know, all kinds of things and I'm thinking like, oh my God, what is he gonna think? And so I was like, Lord, I want to minister to people this is not conducive for the ministry that you've called us to do and so I remember the next morning coming out and he's coming out as well both of us going to work and we meet in this awkward silence moment like, hi, hi, like I'm sure he wanted to ask is everything okay, was everything was good there last night, you know but I remember the point of the story is I remember I said, we were praying with my wife and said, Lord, we want a house, yes, we want a house just for ourselves but also Lord if you help us to get a house if you help us to get a house we promise that our house will be a house where people will gather to hear the gospel, where people will gather where we're gonna pray for healing where we're gonna pray for deliverance and where we're gonna bless your people, we're gonna minister through our house and Lord bless us with the house and so as we were praying the Lord brought an opportunity for us to get a house, honestly in that moment in time it looked impossible our credit history wasn't wasn't good we didn't have that kind of income that we needed to get a house and but in few years the Lord has blessed us with a very beautiful house the one I continue still to live in and we were blessed by the Lord but the hard desire was that we have a nice big beautiful home so that our home can serve as a platform for the gospel and I've seen many blessings of God many blessings of God rest on our house because we open our house so that people could be blessed in our house and till this day as I was preparing for this message literally last night we had people in our house we were praying for them praying deliverance over them and every week two to three times outside the home groups people come to our house where we minister healing deliverance and when we minister gospel to them in Jesus name so I want to challenge you church today make your house available for God position yourself where you're going to be used by God and your house will be used by God that your house might be worthy of God's blessing to rest on your house to rest on your house there's blessings that come and go but when you make your house open for the gospel that blessing would rest would remain with you and your children in Jesus name amen let's put our hands together for Jesus the other part to this is that to provide financially for the gospel in the context of the scripture it would be these people they would take disciples into the house they would give them a room to rest to sleep overnight and they would feed them they would provide for them and so another way that you can open your house your life for God's blessing to rest remain in your life as when you open your life your finances for providing for missionaries providing to those that are preaching the gospel sponsoring those that go out and preach the gospel on the streets becoming some sort of a support and benefactor to those that are preaching the gospel some of you might not have a place to invite people but God has blessed you with means of charity maybe sometimes bringing food to home group making some kind of a pastry cooking something bringing something to the table or financially sponsoring missionaries and other people that are doing the work of the gospel we have a couple of businessmen who have undertaken a payroll for leaders on the shame club they're not able to do themselves they're actually not even in the state they're not able to go to the schools and preach the gospel they're not able to do those things but their finances with their finances they have taken those people said I'm going to sponsor this leader I'm gonna take him on the payroll for a year so they can go and be only occupied with the kingdom of God and they can go into schools they can take care of all the things that are required so that they're completely and undividedly focused on preaching the gospel there's many ways that you can position yourself to be a provider a person that provides for the gospel amen and by doing this you become a person who is worthy of a blessing say with me the gospel amen amen and last one is becoming a person who preaches the gospel those that preach the gospel see purpose is universal desire yet not everyone discovers it many people search for meaning search for purpose in life but not everybody finds it first blessing that I see that God provides by us partnering with him in his kingdom in preaching the gospel is that we live we discover our purpose our purpose is to see soul saved and disciples made for Jesus that's what Jesus said when he left his disciples and now it's you and I when he was living he said go and preach the gospel and make disciples that's our assignment that's our purpose not that purpose could be accomplished in various different ways not everybody's gonna stand here with a microphone like me and preach not everybody's gonna have a platform not everybody's gonna be a youtuber and preach the gospel through social media but everywhere you are everywhere you go you can be a carrier of the gospel and the preacher of the kingdom of God anyway you go you could invite somebody you can share good news you can hear their story you can share your story with them and pray for them lead them to Jesus bring them to your home group bring them to church create an opportunity for them to hear the gospel and for them to be saved you will find purpose in your life when you answer the call of Jesus there was a story of a man there was a story of a man who was depressed and suicidal things were not going well in his life at all and he decided to go on the bridge and throw himself into the water to kill himself to commit suicide he already had a suicide note written and all that and as he was going to the bridge and as he was going to the bridge he saw somebody down below drowning in the water so instead of jumping into the water to kill himself he jumped into the water to rescue that person and when he rescued the person the whole commotion fire department came and all the emergency services and then the news media came in and he pulled out that person and he saved I believe was a woman he saved that woman and everybody hailed him as a hero and they asked him how were you how was it that you were at the right place at the right time how did you have this courage to go and rescue this woman and he said honestly it's not really me I actually came here to kill myself but then I saw this person and I just could not stop but to respond to it and rescue that person and the newspaper printed this article of this man and the title of it was purpose saved his life some of you your life feels dreadful some of you feel day to day you have no meaning in purpose you have no meaning in life you don't know what to do you have no direction to go I want to tell you if you are going to say yes to the gospel if you are going to respond to the mission that God has called you to do which is to preach the gospel and raise disciples for him you will find purpose when you are going to say yes to rescue you in the lost sheep when you are going to say yes to what God, what Jesus did on this earth you are going to find purpose you are going to find meaning in life your life is going to look different you will discover God's blessing that is attached to his purpose are you with me church we become co-labors with Christ when we say yes to his mission when we say yes to his purpose there was a parable in Matthew chapter 20 where Jesus went out to sorry it's a parable Jesus is saying about a master that went out to hire workers for his vineyard and in verse 4 he says this so he hired and telling them he would pay them what is right at the end of the day what is fair at the end of the day when we say yes to God to his purpose to his mission to spreading of the gospel there is a reward that comes into our life disciples said to Jesus we said yes to you we said yes to your purpose we left everything we left our houses we left our families we left our businesses what do we get in return I would think that Jesus would rebuke his disciples said well why are you still so carnal minded why do you still worry about these earthly things that's probably my response to the disciples but Jesus does not actually rebuke them he says in this life in Mark chapter 10 verses 28 to 30 he says in this life you will have 100 times as many houses brothers sisters mothers children property along with possession and in the world to come in eternity we storing up treasures in heaven we storing up things there where we are going to live far longer than we live here God will reward those that say yes to the call and so my purpose today with this is to encourage those that are working in God's vineyard that have committed themselves to the mission and purpose of God and maybe not all things are going good in your life sometimes you get discouraged God where are you why is my life still this way while other people don't do what I do other people are not concerned about kingdom business but they seem to be better off I want to encourage you today to be patient to focus on the purpose and the goal that God has called you the blessing of God will rest on your life the blessing of God will rest on your children and your children's children the reward is coming and the reward focus your eyes on the reward that you are receiving and collecting in eternity and I also want to inspire those that have not taken that step you have been just being disciple and you've been just receiving but it's time this year is the time for you to step out this year is the time for you to open a home group this year for you will be a year where you leave the bleachers and you get involved in the game that this year will be a year where you're going to step out and actually share your faith that this year would be the year where you share your testimony with somebody this year would be the year when you not only just gonna focus in your prayer and your needs before God but you're gonna take three or four names or five names of the people in your family that are not saved and you're gonna be interceding and every day you're gonna be praying say Lord I pray that you saved so and so, so and so Lord I pray that you saved my uncle my aunt, my mom, my dad I pray that you saved my brother, my sister Lord I pray that you're gonna save my co-worker the names that we write on this placard and sometimes when we pray for the names of people every morning they laid out here that you come and you pray every morning and say Lord I pray that these people will be saved that you actually get into the mission and the commission that God has in store for you in 1 Peter chapter 5 forces this and when the great shepherd appears you will receive the crown of never ending glory and honor and this Apostle Peter speaks to those that are in the ministry that are serving that there is a crown of never ending glory and honor that you receive when you say yes to Jesus and the last last part of this is I wanna speak to those that you have a particular call to full time ministry especially young people especially young people especially young people this is a decision that I had to make once in my life because when I looked at the ministry honestly the ministry wasn't really attractive right now the ministry looks a little bit more attractive and you kind of bigger stage more crowd when the Lord was calling me to the ministry, when the Lord was calling Pastor Vlad into the ministry we had 6 people and those were our family members and those were cousins our age wasn't easy but as Pastor Vlad as myself and those here we had to come to the place and we had to surrender to the call of Jesus and say Lord yes I trust you and I say yes to the call I say yes to full time ministry and I trust that you will provide and the context of the story Jesus telling his disciples don't take anything with you don't take extra silver, don't take gold don't take the bells, don't take extra clothing, not even sandals go and preach the gospel because it will be provided for you I want to speak to those people that you sense the call for ministry those of you that are watching online and those of you that are here you sense the call to ministry but maybe outside pressures no pressure in your head how am I going to make money how am I going to pay the bills how am I going to make it to me when I was growing up ministry and poverty was one and the same I knew that if I'm going to say yes to the Lord I was saying yes to always being poor and always being a beggar now that was my faulty mindset but even with that type of mindset I said yes Lord whatever it takes ministry I will serve you I trust that you will provide and you will take care of me and my family and I want to tell you people that Lord has provided Lord has blessed and there is a special blessing that is attached to those that preach the gospel here in this life and in eternity say yes to the call of God pursue him pursue the purpose and the call that he asks for you God is going to raise you to make a deliverer to this nation he is going to raise you to be a deliverer to your school he is going to raise you to be a deliverer to your generation just say yes to Jesus and you will see the blessing of God rest on you and your home in Jesus mighty name