Placed, Planted & Positioned

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

1. 0:09:00

   we praise you this morning once again, Father. And we just, I come before you one more time, Father, and I just ask that your spirit would work through your vessel, Father. I just present my body to you right now as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto you, which is my reasonable service. Father, we thank you and we bless you in Jesus' name. Amen, you may be seated. Praise the Lord for those who are watching us in television land and online. This is Pastor Troy with you this morning, not Pastor Dean. Got a call a little over two hours ago and basically he just said, tag, you're it. And so he asked me, could I bring the word today? And it's hard to tell Pastor Dean no. Y'all understand that, right? Amen. So I got off the phone with him after talking to him. He said he didn't have a voice this morning. He lost his voice overnight and faith is not doing well. They're gonna take her to the doctor this morning. So those that are out there, we've already prayed for him, but if you would be in prayer today for them as well. And pray for all of Fire and Grace Church and Next Level Ministries. This year has been extremely demonic. And I think you guys know what I'm talking about. I had a conversation with Nancy and Pastor Dee earlier this week, this past week. And we're just talking about this year was something different about the cold and flu season. It's just, they're putting more stuff in the sky. Y'all know that, right? And what they concocted this year is just really, really coming down hard on people. So we have to stay prayed up and do the things you need to do. Eat good food, eat very good meals and take supplements and make sure you're getting enough sleep. We have to do everything we can. And then of course, pray. And we do pray for each other as a ministry. So, but listen, as I got off the phone with Pastor Dean, I started scurrying and I started pulling out all old notes and I was like, okay, Lord, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna start going through old notes and nothing was, and then I was shuffling through some papers and all of a sudden, I heard the Lord speak to me. And so we're gonna do a message I just really did three weeks ago in our ministry. And the Lord just put it in my spirit again. He said, do it again. Now listen, many of you watch Next Level Ministries every week from this particular ministry, the Lord said there are hundreds, even thousands that watch Pastor Dean's ministry that don't watch ours. And he said, I wanted to get this message out to you. So the title today is Placed, Planted and Positioned. Placed, Planted and Positioned. And when the Lord gave this to me, I was writing the work one day. It's amazing how much the Lord speaks to me when you're quiet and he can speak to you. And he just, it was like a download in my spirit. It was Lord just begin to show me something. And so I've taught this at our ministry, but today we're gonna talk about

2. 0:12:00

   placed, planted and positioned, what God does. Sometimes you are placed, sometimes you are planted. And then we'll talk about being positioned. A lot of times in our lives, we wonder, God, why am I here? Or where are we going, Lord? Or how come I'm working this job? I hate this job. And you will be wondering, God, why is this? But God began to show me something. So let me pray real quick one more time. Father, I just pray that you, Lord, let this word go out. Let your speak to your people today, Father. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. So let's start with placed. When you are placed by God, this is when God puts you in a certain situation or environment. Often these situations are very tough situations. Sometimes you will meet persecution. Sometimes the situations may even be dire, but God has placed you there. Sometimes, like I said, God will place you in a situation on a job. You may not like the job. You guys, there's always going to be devils on every job. I started working when I was 15 or 16 years old. My first job was at a Burger King. And you guys, I'll be 62 in three months. And I'll tell you, every job I've ever worked, there's been a devil or two. Can I get an amen? Can I get an amen? There's always somebody. I've never worked a job that's been perfect. I've never had a job where it's been Nirvana, where there's 14 people and everybody is Christian and wanting to get along with everybody. Never have. There's always a devil there. There's always somebody there. But God will sometimes put you in a place and He has strategically put you there for a reason. And God will put you there sometimes just to be that strong example of being a believer in that particular situations. You'll find that when you walk and you are light in the midst of all that darkness, when people's lives go awry, guess who they come to? Troy. Can I talk to you for a minute? Man, I need prayer. My marriage is going up in smokes. Can you pray for me? Or people will come to you and want wisdom. You know, when I first did this message and was writing this out, I thought about Pastor Dee. She's been working at the VA for many, many years and it's been very frustrating for her over years. You know, being her husband, I hear the things, you know, there's not the level of excellence from most of the employees there that Pastor Dee has. A lot of people are really not there for the veterans. They're just there for a paycheck. You know what I mean? And I've heard many of her frustrations and there's even somebody at her job that has been a thorn in her side for 20 something years. I mean, a really bad thorn.

3. 0:15:00

   I'm not gonna go into any details. But I told Pastor Dee, I said, you know what? God has you placed there. God has you placed to be a godly example of what a godly woman looks like. Pastor Dee has been that example. And over the years, am I wrong? People have come to you for prayer. People have come for you to godly wisdom. There's times people come in and Dee's gonna do an ultrasound on them and by the time she finishes up, she done laid hands on them and prayed for them, gave them the word. Why? Because she was placed. She was placed there. And so sometimes we're frustrated and not understanding that God has us there for a reason. I look at Wanda here, for eight years, this woman went down to the abortion clinic in Montgomery, Alabama. The last two years, she went every single day that they were open. God placed her there. Trying to convince those women not to kill their babies. And I believe that by her going there and praying, she would also pray, be praying that God would end abortion in this state. And I believe that her prayers is one of the reasons why the Supreme Court ruled the way that it ruled. Amen? And why we don't have abortions going on in this state right now. Why? Because God took her from California. He said, guess what? I'm gonna place you in Montgomery, Alabama and I want you to pray and look at the result. She was placed. Do you understand that? So a lot of you may be wondering, God, why am I here? Why am I living in this little town? Why am I working this job? God has placed you there, right? That's your husband right there. You know you've been placed, right? All right, now I just want you to understand that. There's a reason why God brought you here, amen? So I want you guys to get that. Romans 8 and 28, I don't think I put that scripture down for you guys, but if you'll put up Romans 8 and 28, it's a very common scripture. It says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are the called according to his purpose. You know, that's a scripture that we like to quote a lot, right, we like to claim that scriptures, but there's some qualifiers in that scripture. It says, all things work to the good of those who love the Lord. How do you know if you love the Lord? Jesus said it very plainly. He said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. If you want things to work to your good, he said to those that love the Lord. See, that's the first qualifier. Then he said, those that are called according to his purpose.

4. 0:18:01

   See, the Bible says we are called out of darkness and into his marvelous light. You have to be a believer, because I don't believe anybody that's out there that's unsaved, they've not given their life to the Lord, things are not working to your good. Y'all, for those 22 years I was out there doing my own thing, trust me, things were not working to my good, amen? The Bible says the way of the transgressor is hard. That's what the word of God says. So that's the qualifier. Do you love the Lord? Are you a believer? Then all things will work together for your good, but I want you to understand that God is the master chess player. He knows the beginning from the end, and we're his pieces, we're on his end time chess board, and he's moving us and placing us where he wants us to be, amen? So let's talk a little bit, we talked about being placed, but what about being planted? Now, when you talk about being planted, planted is a little bit different. No, before we go into that, I want to talk about people in the word of God who God placed, let's do that first, and then we'll get into being planted. So let's look in the scriptures at some of the people that God, he placed. Let's look first at Esther, amen? So Esther was placed as the queen of Persia. She had a gift, you know what her gift was? Beauty. This woman won a beauty contest. She had outward beauty, she had inward beauty, which was godly virtue. So let's put up Esther four, we're gonna look at verses, let's put up verses 13 through 15, and I'll read this right off the board. It said, then Mordecai, this was her uncle, commanded to answer Esther, think not with thyself that thou shall escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time. Then their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed, and who knows whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Then Esther bathed them, return Mordecai this answer. And then verse 16, it talks about them fasting for three days and three nights, and then she goes on to say, if I perish, let me perish. So God had placed her there for such a time as this. That's the same thing with us. God has placed us in certain places for such a time as this. He's just moving pieces. He's moving us where he wants us to be.

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