Leave No Crumbs – Sarah Jakes Roberts

Its True! WE got trust issues! But sis, this is the season to unlock another level of vulnerability! Don’t miss out on God trying to transform you! Let go of that version of yourself that is afraid and experience ALL that He has for you! Release and leave no crumbs on the table!

Yeah, most of us want the anointing and the presenting to happen at the same time.
But isn’t it just like God to anoint us? But then still keep us hidden.
Sometimes people say they want the anointing. They don’t really want the anointing.
They want the presentation not recognizing that.
In order to stay in the position of the presentation, it takes more than someone just introducing you.
You’re gonna need some anointing to stay in that position at this point in the text, Samuel is about to introduce Saul to all of Israel as their first king.
And so he gathers all of the tribes and at this point in the text, he’s already done what I would call reading them for filth, ok?
He already let them know y’all didn’t need this king. God was there for you. He’s been faithful.
He saw you from the Red Sea. He made sure you crossed the Jordan.
You didn’t need a king, but God’s given you a king because God gives you what you asked for some time so that you can see that you didn’t really need it.
But since you all have begged for this king, you have them.
I’m reading the King James version and it says, and when Samuel had caused all the tribes of Israel to come near, the tribe of Benjamin was taken.
When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families, the family of was taken and saw the son of Kish was taken.
And when they sought him, he could not be found.
He can’t find the man who has been anointed king. This is his moment.
This is when he’s supposed to be stepping into it.
This is when everyone is about to see what God had given Him, what God had placed on him and yet he cannot be found.
Therefore, they inquired of the Lord further. If the man should yet come thither, maybe he’s not here.
And the Lord answered, behold, he had hid himself among the stuff and they ran and fetched tenants.
And when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.
And Samuel said to all the people, see Him, whom the Lord hath chosen that there is none like Him among all the people and all the people shouted and said, God, save the king.
Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom. They’ve never had a king before.
And so Samuel is giving them the details on what it means to have a kingdom.
And he wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord and Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.
And Saul also went home to and there went with him, a band of men whose hearts got it touched.
But the Children of said, how shall this man save us?
And they despised him and brought him no presence, but he held his peace.
Father, God, we need you simply put, there’s not a thing that we can do well without you, we can do it, but it won’t have grace, it won’t have anointing, it won’t have power.
And so Holy Spirit, I ask that you would fill this role, not just these walls, God, but every soul in this space.
Every soul watching online to fill that room in the areas where they need it.
The most holy Spirit fall as only you can do.
And as you fulfill God, I said, it would expand their capacity that it would change the way they see their circumstance that it would change the way they see you working on their behalf.
God. I’m asking for a transformational experience that can only happen if you breathe in this room.
So breathe in this room. Great God that you are let there be none of me, no excuses, no distractions, no shame, no pain, just an intimate conversation with you.
God do that thing that you do when you have decided it’s time for somebody to bust a move, open our hearts to receive open the channel that I may hear from you clearly.
And when it’s all said and done, may just one life. God be changed in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. Family. Hallelujah.
So gentleman by the name of Aaron Lee Ralston, who went to Carnegie Mellon and studied French and piano.
And at the time that he was studying at this school when he was studying French and piano and he studied something else.
I can’t remember it, but I remember distinctly that he had a minor in piano, which I thought was very interesting considering what else I learned about his story.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that I bet you had you come up to him when he was wandering the halls and the corridors of Carnegie Mellon that if you would have asked him if he would cut off his right wrist, he would have told you absolutely not.
He needs that right wrist.
He needs the hand connected to it in order to execute his ability to play the piano.
And yet had you asked this same man, this same question, will you cut off your right wrist?
He would have had an answer that was different in 2003 because in 2003, while he was out hiking, he found himself pinned between a boulder and a wall.
His right wrist was pinned between that boulder and that wall from a hiking trip.
And he thought to himself that he would be rescued.
And he, he spent five days pinned to this wall, pinned to this boulder before he made the decision that if he was going to live, he was gonna have to cut off his right wrist, self preservation in one stage of life looks different than self preservation in another stage of life.
If you ask someone in the midst of a struggle, whether or not they would do something, their answer may be differently when they’re in a space of peace.
I believe that what really determines whether or not it’s self preservation or destruction is what your ultimate mission is.
As the mission changes, the self preservation method may change as well.
I was thinking about this concept in the context of how we go about our day to day life, thinking about moments when the mission is for us to get rest because we’ve over exerted ourselves.
And so self preservation looks like taking a day off and finally having a moment to detach from our world.
That is self preservation. But when we’re trying to overcome depression, self preservation is getting out of that very same bed and trying to get some sunlight and trying to get out of this grief.
The methods that we use for self preservation continue to change and fluctuate because what is self preservation in one moment could become destructive in another moment.
It all depends on what the mission is.
If you don’t believe me, ask the caterpillar who gets in the cocoon so that the self preservation in that in that moment would allow for transformation.
But once that caterpillar becomes a butterfly, if it stays in the cocoon too long, now, the very thing that was once protecting them has now restricted them.
And if I stay in this method of self preservation, I might very well lose out on my destiny.
Been thinking a lot about the ways that we try to preserve ourselves from experiencing further trauma, from experiencing shame, from experiencing another heartbreak.
And though it is honorable in some moments, I want to reason with you today that that very method of self preservation could be responsible for why you feel stagnant in your life today.
That self preservation that tells you if you open up, you could lose.
But in a marriage that self preservation may mean that you preserve yourself and lose the marriage.
If we could have a real conversation in this room, we would have to be willing to ask ourselves, can I trust the version of myself?
I’m trying to preserve because not every version of you needs to be preserved.
And if you build up a system and a routine and a way of being that preserves that version of yourself, then you miss out on God’s ability to transform that very version of yourself you’re trying to preserve.
I wish I could say that the way I feel it in my head because I feel like there are moments where God wants access to our way of being.
He wants access to our thoughts. He wants access to our heart.
But we are so committed to preserving what is left over that we miss out on the opportunity to allow God to transform what is left over.
You wanna experience restoration, but you don’t want to open yourself up.
And so you’re mad at God that He won’t restore, but God said I could restore.
But you’re not giving me anything to work with because you’re so busy trying to preserve what you have left.
Self preservation has an expiration date.
If you don’t believe me, ask Moses who went to Midian after he killed and became a murderer in Egypt.
He goes to Midian for 40 years.
But after he’s in Midian for 40 years, the Lord makes himself known to him in Midian to let him know that what you did to preserve yourself in Midian was good for where you were.
But now it’s time for you to come out because I got more work for you to do.
You see self preservation is not the mission. Your self preservation is a method that you use as a vehicle.
God help me to say it, self preservation is a vehicle but it is not the destination.
So I practice preserving myself because I know that God has work for me to do.
But I don’t make my mission protecting myself because if I make my mission, protecting myself.
Then I will miss out on the very reason that I was created.
And so I have to learn to balance the reality that I do need to preserve myself.
And I do need to move with wisdom and I do need to have boundaries.
But I also need to know when none of that matters because it’s time for me to step into something that requires vulnerability.
It’s time for me to step into something that I’ve never seen before and I can’t do it and be comfortable at the same time.
So self get ready to get uncomfortable because we’re moving into mission mode.
You gotta know the, the difference between preservation mode and mission mode.
And I felt like God told me that there were just one or two people in this room who were about to move from preservation mode and into mission mode that they did what they had to do to preserve themselves.
They did what they had to do to preserve their peace.
They did what they had to do to preserve their mind, but they’ve been in preservation mode for so long that they feel like God is trying to move them somewhere, but they don’t know how to let them go.
When I’m telling you the only way that you move into mission mode is when you say God, I’ve got enough of me now, I’m ready for you.
God, I recognize that there’s still something left. But I don’t wanna be down to crumbs anymore.
I wanna know what you can do with leftovers.
If you don’t believe that you serve a God who can do something with leftovers, baby, you in the right church because the potter’s house is all about broken leftovers that the potter knew how to put back together.
If I had about five saints in this place, we would take a minute and tear the roof off this place because we know that we serve a God of leftovers.
You’re looking at me in overflow, but you didn’t know that overflow started with leftovers.
You’re jealous of what God is doing now.
But if you could have seen the overdraft, if you could have seen when I lost my mind, if you could have seen when I wanted to get out of here, if you could have seen when I thought I had no word you’re celebrating now.
But baby, when I tell you that now couldn’t have happened unless then.