Apostolic Mentoring

Faith Begins Where Familiar Ends ... English

Subscriber Episode • • Rev. Charles G. Robinette

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A vision of a ship calls us to leave the shore and trust Jesus in the deep, where His word turns failure into abundance. We share five lessons on faith, obedience, submission, and unity, and tell how a prophetic promise opened doors in Kenya and Pakistan.

• the vision of the ship and call to the deep
• Luke’s account of Jesus in Peter’s boat
• five lessons on launching beyond the shore
• naming failure without letting it define us
• faith as obedience to the King’s word
• submission in areas we think we know best
• the deep as the place of miraculous provision
• unity for an end-time harvest larger than one boat
• testimonies from Kenya and Pakistan
• invitation to respond with a nevertheless


We love to hear from our listeners! Thank you!


SPEAKER_00:

About a year ago, I was praying in my office and God gave me a vision. It was as close as I can get to that picture behind you on the screen. It was a huge ship that was going through the waters. I began to pray, and God began to show me that this ship was the church, and he was calling us out into the deep waters. As I was praying, God began to relate to me and tell me that he's calling us all individually but also collectively out into the deep waters of the Spirit. So I began to study in the Bible where God called or sent people out into the deep. And Luke tells us about when Jesus was teaching, and he saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and they were washing their nets. And so he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and he prayed that he would thrust out a little waste from the land. And he sat down and he taught them. I'm going to speak today on five things about launching out into the deep. Five things that God has taught me about launching out. Number one, when God wants you to launch out into the deep, he meets you where you are. Peter stops what he's doing. He listens to Jesus. Now he's inside the boat. Jesus wants to get inside of your circle. He wants to get involved in your life and become the center of our life. For God to get you out into the deep, he first has to get inside of your inner circle where you can hear him speak. Peter listens to Jesus speak while he's sitting on his own boat. It is impossible to invite Jesus into your boat and not hear his voice. When Jesus is done teaching on Peter's boat, now comes the real test. He tells Peter, launch out into the deep and let down your nets. This is number three when God calls you out into the deep. Peter explains his situation to God. He says, I'm washing my nets. I finished, I fished all night, I cut nothing. We failed miserably. We tried and nothing happened. We went and came back empty. God already knew that before he asked Peter to launch out. God already knows your imperfections and your failings, but he's still calling you. Your failings don't scare God. Your insufficiencies don't scare God. He's not concerned with your past mistakes or what happened before. It does not define what God is wanting to do now in this hour. Past fears and intimidation does not disqualify you from what God wants to do with you. Peter, I know you fished all night and you caught nothing, but I am giving you a word now. There is no talent or ability that can compare to a word from God. There may be no fish in the sea before, but when God gives a word, there's gonna be an abundance. There may be no way out, but when God gives a word, He's gonna make a way where there seems to be no way. So to get out of the out into the deep, you have to push away from the shore. The shore is familiarity, security, comfort. You don't really have to live by faith on the shore. You don't have to really live, have a prayer life when you're living on the shore. It's easy. But if you want to launch out into the deep, it's gonna take faith and trust because you have to look at your situation and know that no matter what has been or what failures I have had in the past, God is calling me to launch out into something new. Peter said it like this nevertheless, someone's at a nevertheless moment today. Nevertheless, here is where faith activates obedience. Faith will always have a part for us to play in our miracle through obedience. You see, at this time Jesus had already healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. He had heard of Jesus' teachings, so faith had no doubt begin to grow in Peter. So there was a measure of faith, but this was the real test of faith. He had to trust Jesus. See, launching out into the deep will test your faith in God because you cannot see what's out there. You don't know what lies ahead. So you have to trust in God and be led by the Spirit. Faith isn't always about understanding, it's about obedience. Even when Peter didn't fully understand why Jesus asked him to go deeper, he trusted in his word. Faith isn't always logical, but it's relational. It's about who's doing the talking and where the word is coming from. It's about trusting who Jesus is, not just seeing the situation in our own eyes. Ecclesiastes 8 4 says where the word of a king is. See, this isn't just any word, this is the word of a king. This is the word of my king. And when he says it, something will happen. Though Peter was a little reluctant, no doubt, he was willing to comply. Number four, launching out into the deep will test your submission. You have to take note that Peter was an experienced fisherman. He knew how to fish. It was his trade, it was his living. This was one area of Peter's life where he was very knowledgeable, yet he allowed a carpenter, a carpenter, to tell a fisherman where to fish. That's submission. When you allow God to tell you where to go, you'll allow God to take you to places that have seemed barren, to deserts that have seemed dry. That's submission when you say, Okay, I know I'm a fisherman, you're a carpenter, but if you're gonna tell me where to fish, I'll go. To launch out into the deep, we have to submit all the areas of our lives to God and decide that Jesus knows more about every area of our life than we do. Number five, the calling of the deep will never make sense to the flesh. The things of the spirit generally sound irrational. I've learned that in pastoring. My walk with God. When God gives me a word, it generally seems irrational. Because if your dream doesn't scare you, it's not big enough. If your vision doesn't scare you, it's not big enough. Because if you can do it, it's not a God vision. If you can do it by yourself, it's not a God vision. A God vision, you must put your faith and trust totally in Him. To go back out into the water and put down our nets again, maybe doesn't sound sensible to the human nature. But a prophetic word spoken by God doesn't have to make sense to the flesh. I just have stopped listening to people who aren't spiritual. They will tear down your dreams and shoot down your balloons of faith quicker than anybody. Other people don't have to know what God's told you. When I went to start a church 14 years ago, people told me, well, nothing will happen there, it's just a dry field. Well, it was a field of opportunity. But see what I've learned, I'm gonna close. Is in the deep is where the miraculous happens. If you never go to the deep and stay in the shallows, you'll never see the miraculous. That's why we're all here, right? When Peter obeyed and went into the deep, the results were beyond anything he could have ever imagined. The nets were so full that the fish, a fish they begin to break and they had to call for help from other boats. The deep represents the miraculous, but you have to be willing to trust and obey God and submit to experience it. God's blessings and provisions are often found where we least expect them, in the deep waters of faith and surrender. Often what God has for us is not in the shallow, familiar places, but in the deep, unknown waters where only faith can lead us. They called for other ships. Verse 7 says, they beckoned under their partners which were in the other ships that they should come help them. That they came and both the ships were filled, and they too began to sink. This end-time harvest in miracles in the deep is bigger than just us. It is bigger than just our church or just our state or just our our division or our section or our organization. This is bigger than what one particular ship can pull in the harvest. God is calling all those who are willing to go into the deep. God told me not to be afraid to unite with others. Don't be afraid to join with other people. If they're out in the deep, then you can help them and they can help you. Don't be afraid to join with other churches, other organizations, other cities, other countries, other nations who will join in this great corn. So I was preaching this message at my church, and I began to prophesy under the Holy Ghost. And I said, the harvest center is going, going to go globally. I didn't know what that meant. I said, We're gonna be in different countries, we're gonna be in different nations. I didn't know what that meant. I got went home and I told my wife, what did I say? When the Holy Ghost leaves, you come back to reality. I said, What did I say? She said, You said we're gonna be national that we're gonna be all over the nation. And I said, I don't know what that means. She said, I don't either. By the end of the week, we had two pastors contact us. Show one slide, if you will, Brother Wilson. This is the Harvest Center, Kenya. Next slide. This is the church we just built in Kenya. There was a man that was watching our services. He got a hold of us and he said, I'm looking for a pastor, looking for someone. They've already got the oneness revelation, they've already been baptized in Jesus' name. He said, We're looking for someone to lead us and to guide us. We now have a church in Kenya because we're not afraid to go out into the deep. By the end of the week, I was teaching a Bible study in Pakistan. If you'll put that next slide up, another pastor Adil from Pakistan, he contacted me and he has six services on Sunday in Pakistan. And he said, I'm looking for a pastor. Would you be my pastor? I said, I'll do my best. And so they said, after weeks and weeks and months and months, we've been pastoring them. They said, Can we take and change our name to the Harvest Center Pakistan? I said, It's up to you. They said, We're gonna have a big celebration. That was the celebration, that was the ceremony where their church became the Harvest Center Pakistan. I don't know what God's asking you to do. But I know that God's telling you today you're not going alone. That if you answer my call out into the deep, you will see what you've never seen before, you will experience what you've never experienced before. I'm just looking for someone willing and obedient to have faith to go, lift your hands and accept that call today.

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Charles G. Robinette

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