Frankie Mazzapica - God Is Capable of Doing So Much More
Thank you for tuning in today. My name's Frankie Mazzapica. The title of the message is "God Is Capable of Doing So Much More". He's capable. Just like you, I have dreams, I have hopes. We all have hopes. The common denominator between all of us is that we all are believing and hoping for a miracle. And I wanna tell you this, that as we unpack this message, we will find in scripture that what you are hoping for, what you are believing for, God is capable of doing so much more.
Now, all of this hinges on your prayer life, the abilities that God has to bless you is sparked by your prayer life. I'll say this, that if the Holy Spirit speaks to you and says there is a slot in your day, a slot before you go to work, maybe in the afternoon, maybe in the evening, there's a slot in your day that I would like that to be our standing appointment every day. I wanna tell you jump on that slot, and when you start praying, ask the Holy Spirit, help me pray, help me, bring things to my mind, and help me pray. He will do that for you. It's these appointments that cause your relationship to build momentum. It's these appointments where the Lord says, "I know what you need, I know what you're believing for, I know what's stressing you out, I know what's making you worry, but I promise you I am capable of doing so much more, just focus on me".
In Matthew chapter 6 verse 33, it says this, "Seek first the Kingdom of God". Live righteously, and I will add everything else, all things to you. I like that it says things, because things are things that we need now, but we're not gonna bring 'em to heaven with us. We need a job now, but we're not gonna work that job when we're in heaven. Thank you, Lord, thank you, Jesus. Lord, we love you. There's no bosses in heaven. There's no... You don't have to punch in and punch out. It's just, you need a car, you don't need a car in heaven. That's what he's saying is he's saying I will add these things to you if you just keep your eyes on me.
I like what Smith Wigglesworth said, "I don't always pray a half an hour, but I never let a half an hour go by without praying". This is the relationship, this is the cadence of the relationship that we need to have in order for God to prove to you that he is capable of doing so much more. I want to unpack the principles of this message, the biblical foundation of the message, by looking at Luke chapter 5. We're gonna kind of unpack verses 4, 5, and 6. Now, those are gonna be my major points, verse 4, verse 5, verse 6, and I'm gonna pull out a simple phrase out of the sentence.
For example, in point number one, I'm gonna pull out the words that Jesus said do it again. In point number two, verse 5, I'm gonna pull out the phrase where Peter says I'm going to do it because you asked me to. And then in the third point, verse number 6, I'm gonna talk about how Jesus says I'm calling you to fish for men. So let's just dive right into it straight away. In verse 4 Jesus, the setting is he's talking to a multitude of people. He's at the sea shore at the Sea of Galilee. A multitude of people means thousands of people. They're all gathered around, they're all listening, but just down the way, there's a couple of guys who aren't listening at all. One of 'em was a guy by the name of Peter.
The reason why they weren't listening, it wasn't because they didn't care, wasn't because they weren't interested, but they were weighed down by a major problem in their life. It's hard to pray when you're overwhelmed. It's hard to worship when there's this constant stress on your mind. Jesus looked down the shore, he saw Peter, as soon as he got done speaking he walked down to Peter and his friends, and he said this, he goes, "I want you", this is verse 4, "I want you to go back out to the sea. I want you to go all the way to the middle, and I want you to cast your nets once again into the deep for a catch".
Now, what he's saying is I know you've already done this, but I want you to do it again. What the word of the Lord is saying is I know that you may have already forgiven someone, but I want you to forgive 'em again. I know that you have had dreams of certain things, but just because they haven't happened yet, I want you to believe again. I know that you have been worshiping me, but I want you to do it again and again. The difference between a failure and a fighter is someone who backs up and says I have aimed to do well in this area, but I keep on stumbling, I keep on messing up, I'm terribly inconsistent, but I'm going to do it again. Success is reserved for those who choose to do it again and do it again and do it again.
I read a story, it's a true story. The book was written by a psychiatrist, and he was actually a psychologist, and he was counseling her because she went through a terrible divorce. Consequently, she gained a whole bunch of weight, she started smoking, she started drinking, her life was spiraling down a depression, so she was going to counseling. She went to weeks and even months of counseling, and finally she just quit. She said this hasn't been working. I'm in the same position I was the first time I met you, and so she stopped going. She was sitting in a park one day, and she started noticing that people were running around the park. She decided I'm gonna start running around the block, around the park as well.
So she started running and realized that she can't run but 10 steps. So she'd run 10 steps, then she'd walk 10 steps and then run and then walk. She wasn't running fast. It was not much faster than her walk, but as she kept doing it over and over, she kept doing it over and over again, she reached the point where she could take an entire lap around the park without having to walk. She met a lady while she was doing it who ran marathons, and she said, "Hey, why don't you run a marathon with me"? She started laughing. She's like, "This is not a marathon running person that you're looking at". And she said, "It's not for another year. We can train for the next year".
And so she kept running laps again and again, and she thought to herself, I'll bet you running around the park would be far easier if I stopped smoking. And so, she stopped smoking. Now, she would struggle with it, she'd start and stop, start and stop, but she just kept fighting over and over again, and eventually she stopped altogether. As she kept going, she thought if I would just stop drinking, this would be a lot easier. I'd probably run straight if I just stopped drinking. So she stopped drinking. She cleaned up her eating. She ended up running that marathon. It wasn't fast enough to win a gold medal, but it was fast enough for her to realize I can be successful at whatever I focus on.
She came back to the counselor, she scheduled a meeting, the counselor recognized her name on the schedule; however, when she walked through the door, he did not recognize her at all. She came in, and her arms were lean, and they were strong. Her face showed of being healthy, not just physically but emotionally. There was light in her eyes, and he couldn't even help but to start the session by saying, "What did you do to yourself"? How did you get from where you were a year ago to where you are now? And she's just simply said, "I just kept doing the right thing over and over again. I kept doing it when I was this discouraged".
Let me tell you this, you're gonna face discouragement just like everybody else. You're gonna face problems just like everyone else. When you look around this sanctuary, when you go to work and you look around, everybody is fighting a problem that you know nothing about. And let me tell you this, if you choose to do the right thing, and you will always know what the next right step is. If you choose to do that over and over again, even if you may trip, if you may fall, you just keep doing it over and over again, the Lord promises you, "I will be the wind underneath your wings, and I will help you get to where I have prepared for you to be". Come on.
Have you ever been listening to a preacher or listening to someone encourage you and tell you that God has a plan for you? And deep down inside you wanna believe it. You really do. And you say I know, I know, but even deeper, you wonder if it's even true. And so Peter looks at Jesus, and Jesus says go out to the middle of the sea, throw your nets again. I want you to do it again. I want you to do the next right thing again. Peter looks at him, and he says, "We have been working all night long, but because you're asking, we will do it again". Because you're asking us to, we will do it again. You know, there are times where you will think to yourself, I don't really believe that if I pray anything will happen.
In Psalms 56:9 it says this, "The very day you call for help, the tide of your battle shifts". And so you back up and you say to yourself, I don't feel like praying. My faith is low. I don't even know if anything will change if I do. But because you said so, because you promised me that things will happen, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm gonna worship anyway. I'm going to pray anyway. I'm going to devote my life to you anyway. It's overwhelming, it's discouraging, sometimes my faith is up, sometimes it's down, but I'm gonna worship you anyway. Is there anyone in this room that says I'll do it anyway?
I once heard a guy say this, don't weigh too much on emotions. Don't put too much stock in your emotions, because emotions are like visitors, they show up, and then they leave. You're happy in the morning, sad in the afternoon, happy before you wake up. It's like, oh my goodness. I feel so good. You open up your eyes, like I don't feel so good anymore. You're angry, you eat lunch, you're in a good mood. Am I the only one? None of you guys get angry when you haven't eaten? My entire family was together yesterday, and we skipped lunch. We knew not to even talk to each other.
First of all, we didn't want to talk to each other. Second of all, we knew that if we said anything and we were an arm's reach away, things weren't gonna go well. Now, I don't know why I said that, and I've totally lost my train of thought. Emotions are like visitors, but why did I even say that? What? Oh, and you do it anyway? Okay, there we go. Thank you. Somebody give me their phone so I can look in the Celebration Church app at my own notes. But you do it anyway. You worship anyway.
You know, I encountered a huge challenge earlier this week or last week. The Lord impressed upon me to send money to this guy who was in need. It was just a flash of a thought. That's usually how the Lord speaks to me. It's just a flash of a thought. You can almost miss it. It's like this thought that just kind of comes and goes. And I had this thought, send him money, he needs it. And so I'm in. I knew it was the Lord. He spoke to me. I knew it. I'm gonna send him some money.
The very next day I found out something that he did, and it infuriated me. I was so mad at him, I was disappointed in him, and so I said, well, now you get no money. You see how that works? You act like a dumb-dumb, you get no money. That was it, boom, boom. That was a quick decision. I was done with it. No emotion attached. I didn't even think about it again. Later on in the day I went into my office, I shut the door behind me, shut the lights out, and just started praying.
Again, I'm not even thinking about that guy. I just start praying. I start noticing that my prayer time is going horrible. It's going terrible. I feel like I would have been more effective if I would have just walked up to the wall and talked to the wall. It was going terrible. And typically when it's going terrible, I just ask the Holy Spirit is there something we need to talk about here? Is there something we need to discuss? But before I could even get there... and let me finish that thought.
When I say is there something we need to talk about? Most often I need to forgive someone. And until I do, until I do, that prayer time is horrible, and I need to say out loud I forgive 'em. And then I say, Holy Spirit, help me with the remainder of this moment. But in this particular moment, it was going horrible, and all of a sudden I had this fleeting thought, and I knew it was the Lord. It had to do with my decision not to send that guy money. And he spoke to me, and he said, "Who told you not to send him money"? I was like, ah! Ah! Rah! Just like that.
Now, I'm not gonna get a ruby in my crown for that, because I was mad about it, but I did it anyway. There's moments where you have to do it anyway. I don't have time for this illustration, but I gotta share it. An angel, this guy had a vision, and an angel showed up in the vision. He wasn't in his body, he was outside of his body, but it was real. It was like he was sleeping, and an angel showed up. And they were standing in front of a mountain, and there was a long tunnel that went from one side of the mountain to the other. And he looked down the tunnel, he saw flames of fire. He saw different things moving on the ground that he knew were just small animals, and he had a feeling if there's a small animal, there has to be some big animals.
And the angel said to him, "I want you to run through that tunnel and do not stop, do not look around. Run through that tunnel, and when you get to the other side of that tunnel, your savior will be standing there, and he's going to hug you, and it will be worth the run". And he said, "But before you do, I wanna tell you this, while you're running, you're gonna step on rocks, and some of those rocks are gonna be under the mud. And I'm telling you, I want you to reach down, and I want you to grab some of those rocks. I want you to grab as many rocks as you can. I want you to put 'em in your pouch, put 'em in your pockets, do whatever you gotta do, just make sure you pick up rocks along the way". He went into the tunnel, and he started running. He's running, he's scared, he's overwhelmed, and he's not even thinking about rocks.
All of a sudden he sees one, he says, "Well, I'll pick up one," and he picks up one. He sees a few more, he picks up a few more. The only thing that's on his mind is he wants out of that tunnel. He kept on stopping every once in a while, picking up rocks, but it wasn't a priority at all. The only thing that was a priority was saving his own life, taking care of his own life, getting out of that tunnel. So he did pick up rocks. It wasn't that many. He came out of the tunnel, his savior embraced him, and he said, "Well, how many rocks did you grab"? And he says, "Well, I grabbed about this many rocks". He says, "Well done".
Every single one of those rocks turned into diamonds and rubies just like that, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. He says, "And they're all yours. This is your reward". Obviously, the man said back, "Oh boy, I wish I would have picked up more rocks. I wish I would have looked around a little bit. I wish I would have". Can I tell you this? That when the Lord tells you to do something, do it anyway. When you look at somebody who has a heart of stone, when you look at them and you say I don't think there's any hope for you, I want you to keep believing in them. I want you to keep praying for them. Because you and I once had a heart of stone. You and I... and you are the Lord's crown.
Your friends will be your crown. They will be your reward. We don't feel like doing the right thing. We don't feel like inviting someone to church. We don't feel like doing the righteous thing or the holy thing. We don't feel like being consistent sometimes. I'm gonna tell you, just do it anyway. God is capable of doing so much more, but sometimes we gotta do the things that God wants us to do even though we don't want to, but we just choose to do 'em anyway. Do you believe that? Come on. Do you believe that?
My last and final point is when Jesus looks at Peter, and he says, "I'm calling you to be a fisher of people," a fisher of men. Now, I promised myself I wasn't gonna laugh about this, but I can't, I'm doing good. I believe that Peter looked at Jesus and either said it out loud or thought it, "What in the world are you talking about"? Do you want me to take this net and sneak up on somebody and throw the net around 'em, hog tie 'em in the net, and come running down the street and say I caught one? There's no way Peter had any clue what in the world Jesus was talking about. There's no way. There's no way. He looks at Jesus, he hears Jesus's voice, he knows he's telling the truth, he knows that there's something more that God has prepared for him than just doing what he's been doing, but he has no idea.
He can't even visualize what the Lord is calling him to do, but he did it anyway. He followed him anyway. And how did he follow him? He just talked to him. He stayed close to him. He kept his mind's attention and his heart's affection on him. In our world, he's playing worship music in the house. He's playing worship music in the car. Let me tell you, if you haven't started playing worship music in your house, start doing it today. You keep angels around and enjoying what's going on. Your house becomes a sanctuary of the Lord. And through this relationship, God begins to build your faith and gives you the insurance that I know what you need, but I'm capable of doing so much more, and I will. Does anyone love the Lord? Come on. And I will.