Here is the transcript of Priscilla Shirer’s sermon titled “You’re Right Where You Need to Be” which was delivered at Lakewood Church.
In this sermon, author and Christian media personality Priscilla Shirer shares stories of finding treasure in what we already possess throughout this episode of Praise on TBN. She advises that we need to manage our ministry well, trust God’s timing, and recognize that we already have the power and authority necessary to fulfill our calling.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
So Jerry and I, my husband and I, we’ve been married nearly 20 years now. I can’t believe that, and we have three sons that we are raising. They are giant. They are giant, y’all. My 15-year-old is six foot two inches tall. His 14-year-old brother is six foot two inches tall. Their nine-year-old brother is coming up right after them. They are some big boys, and one of the things I do for these boys, in fact, you should know that my full-time job is feeding the boys. That is my full-time job.
I am trying to figure out any which way I can differently to cook chicken for dinner every single night, just like y’all. That’s exactly what I’m doing. So we just do sports and everything with the boys. They’re growing up so quick. So one of the things that I have done since my oldest was five, I started when he was five, I went to Ross Dress for Less in the backhand corner, left-hand side.
There is one row that has books and journals and those sorts of things. I went and I grabbed three journals, hardback journals. They were just little — with the little spine, spiral spines, nothing real fancy. $4.99. I picked one for each boy. I’ve had it ever since my oldest was five, and at that age, I started to record a journal for them.
I do not write in it every week or every month, or even just on a regular basis. It’s just when something happens I don’t want to forget, or they say something that’s really interesting, or I see the hand, the handiwork, the fingerprints of God in their life in some way. I kind of write it down.
My goal is to have a collection of writings and thoughts and love letters, really to my boys, about their life that I hand over to them when they’re, you know, mature enough to appreciate. Or better yet, I might just hand it over to their wives and say, “Girl, this is what you’re getting yourself into right here.”
And because my oldest will be 16 next month, I was looking through his journal and came across a story from when he was five. I read it with fond memories because it was the little journal entry I put in there about him losing his first tooth. He’d wiggled that tooth and wiggled it. He couldn’t wait for it to come out.
And the reason he couldn’t wait for it to come out is that we had told him that when your tooth comes out, the tooth fairy will come. She will come and she will replace the tooth with a treasure. So he could not wait.
Finally, the tooth came out, and that is my boy still to this day that has never been eager to go to sleep. But that night, he dove into bed at bedtime. He could not wait. He put the tooth underneath the pillow, laid his head down, and he was trying to go to sleep, but every three to five seconds, he would look under the pillow to see if anything had happened.
Finally, he did fall asleep. We let some time pass and then about three o’clock in the morning or so, the six-foot-two, 250-pound tooth fairy that I sleep next to every night, he got up, went upstairs, and replaced the tooth for a treasure.
In the morning, I knew when Jackson, and at the time we just had Jackson and Jerry Jr., I knew when they got up, I knew I could hear it. I could hear the excitement, the squeals, I could hear the stomps on the floor. I could hear the eagerness and enthusiasm because the tooth fairy had come and left the treasure. They bounded down the stairs into the room. Jackson’s fists were both clenched closed. He ran up to me and said, “Mom, the tooth fairy came, she left me a treasure.”
I said, “Buddy, let me see what she left you.” Opened up one hand and it was a package of gummy bears, which was a big deal at the time because that was his favorite snack. He opened up the other hand and it was five dollars.
Now, I don’t know what happened when y’all were growing up, but I grew up in the days of dimes and nickels. Can the church say amen? So, you know, I’m trying to be excited for the boy. But really, I’m annoyed about this whole five-dollar situation. And my husband can see that I am troubled. And, you know, if mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.
After Jackson left the room, Jerry came over to me and he said, “Priscilla, don’t worry.” He said, “Do you remember that last month was Jackson’s fifth birthday?” He said, “Do you remember that we had all of the family over? Still to this day, we do that when one of the boys has a birthday, we invite the whole clan over grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. Everybody comes to celebrate.” He said, “Do you remember they all came? Most of them had cards and in those cards were five-dollar bills.”
He said, “Do you remember we took all those five-dollar bills and we put them in a birthday drawer in the kitchen?” He said, “This morning at three a.m., I went right inside that birthday drawer.” Dave Ramsey would be so proud of us.
That’s good financial stewardship right there is what that is.
So that morning, really what I had witnessed was my little boy getting excited about treasure that actually already belonged to him. Treasure that he already had. He just didn’t know it. I came to tell somebody that there is treasure hidden in these earthen vessels.
I came to tell you that by God’s Spirit, there is a gift and there is power that has been entrusted to you, that is available to you, available to me, daughters of the Most High King. You need to know that even if you do not believe what the scriptures declare to be true about your treasure, if you don’t believe that you’ve been forgiven or that you already have the victory, or that the enemy is already underneath your feet and that there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, or that you have been made competent by the Spirit of God. I came to tell you that even if you don’t believe it, the enemy does. He knows who you are.
What a shame it would be for him to know and us not to. So it’s time for us to open up the drawer and start pulling out the treasure, the treasure we’ve been ignoring, the treasure we’ve been calling insignificant. The thing that we’ve said is not enough, not valuable. “Lord, if I could just be like her, Lord, if I could just be like that, if I could just have a bit more of that, if I weren’t me, then, Lord, I’d be enough.” He says, “You have enough. You just have to open up the drawer, pull out the treasure.”
There is a story in scripture that is going to be very familiar to you. It’s the one that the Lord has been using in my own life to remind me about how He will compel me and He will compel us to open up the drawer and reach in and pull out the treasure and see what it’s like when He uses what He has already entrusted to us.
Luke chapter 9, verses 1 and 2 says this, “And He called,” that’s Jesus, He called, somebody say He called, He called the twelve together, and He gave, somebody say He gave, He gave them power and He gave them authority over all demons and to heal all diseases, verse 2, and then He sent, somebody say He sent, He sent them out.”
Verse 10 says, “And then when they returned to Him, they gave an account to Him of everything they had done, and taking them with Him, He withdrew by Himself to a hill called Bethsaida.” The multitudes were aware of this, verse 11 says, so they followed Jesus, because you know wherever Jesus went, a crowd was sure to follow.
They weren’t quite sure He was the Messiah, but what they did know was that when this Man showed up, blind people could see. What they knew is that when Jesus showed up, the lame could walk and the deaf could hear, the dead were being raised. So wherever Jesus was, they came.
The crowd followed, and welcoming the multitude, Jesus began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who were in need of healing, verse 12. So the day starts to come to a close, and the twelve come to Jesus and say, “Now Jesus, You’re going to have to send this multitude away. They’ve got to go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging. They’ve got to get something to eat, Jesus. Come on, now here, we’re in a desolate place.” Verse 13, Jesus said to them, “Uh-uh, you give them something to eat.”
They said, “Jesus, we have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps You let us go and buy food for all these people, because You know we’re not enough, as we are right now.”
There were about five thousand men. Scholars say the reason why Luke specifies men is because there were women and children too, so there were probably about fifteen thousand hungry people that day. Jesus said, “Have them reclined to eat in groups of about fifty each, so they did so. Had them all reclined, and then He took the five loaves and the two fish. And looking up to heaven, He blessed them. And then He broke them, and He kept giving them to the disciples to set before the multitude, and verse 17 says they all ate.”
They were all satisfied, and just so you know how satisfied they were, they went by and picked up all the leftovers, because there was overflow.
In this story, we meet a hungry multitude, a multitude that is placing a demand. They have a need. There is a lack that needs to be filled, and most of the time when this portion of the Scriptures is looked into, the multitude is who we concentrate on, the five loaves and the two fish and how they were satisfied with it.
But just for a few moments, tonight I want to talk to you about the twelve disciples, those who walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus, those who were in close communion with Jesus, those who would come out on a Friday night to be in the presence of Jesus amongst the people of Jesus. I want to talk to the disciples of Jesus.
The disciples on this occasion had been called to Jesus by Jesus. They were having a conversation with each other. Jesus entrusted them with power and authority, and then He sent them out. I love that this gospel is one of the synoptic gospels. The synoptic gospels are those that tell, there are three of them, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three tell some of the similar stories in a similar tone in a similar way so that we’re able to get more layers to the story. I love the gospels in that way.
They give us layers, just like if someone were to offer you a chocolate cake but they gave you options. You could have a one-layer chocolate cake or a seven-layer chocolate cake. Which one are you going to choose? Seven! Every single time because the more layers there are, the more rich and delectable the experience becomes.
Mark chapter 6 is a layer of chocolate cake for us. It tells us that this is the experience when Jesus called the disciples to Himself and then He sent them out in pairs. Do you remember? Two by two into the neighboring towns and communities. They were supposed to teach and preach and perform miracles that would authenticate the deity of Jesus Christ.
Mark chapter 6, our layer of chocolate cake, tells us that they expended themselves. Y’all, they were busy from sunup to sundown. They were about the task of doing what it was that Jesus had assigned to them. They wanted to be diligent about it, so much so that when they came back to Jesus, they gave an account to Him and Jesus recognized their exhaustion.
He saw that they were tired. In fact, Jesus Himself commented that they didn’t even have time to eat because they had been so busy. They were depleted and they were tired, and they came back to Jesus and they gave Him an account for how they’d handled the assignment that He had entrusted to them.
If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you got an assignment. And don’t let anybody tell you that your assignment isn’t ministry just because it happens to be in a corporate setting. Mother of small children who’s chosen to stay home with those kids, don’t let anybody tell you that ain’t ministry. Every single time you make that chicken for dinner and you set it on that table and you teach those kids a Bible verse before bedtime, don’t let anybody tell you that ain’t ministry.
Corporate woman, when you sit around that boardroom table and you’re the only one that has a set of ideals that lines up with the truth of Scripture at a table with those who are thinking and acting and planning in a way that is left of God’s Word, don’t let anybody tell you that you around that boardroom ain’t ministry. That’s ministry.
High school student, college student, you’re the only student that stands for truth when your professor says this is the way it is and you say no, that’s not the way it is. Don’t let anybody tell you as the light on that college campus that you are not in ministry. Every single one of us has an assignment, and the day is coming when we’re going to have to give an account.
And here’s the thing, you don’t know when that day is. My 38-year-old cousin, 38, four small children, the day is coming and you don’t know the day or the hour. Neither do I when we’re going to have to stand before Him and give an account for how we handled what He had entrusted to us.
I’m asking you tonight, how are you handling your assignments? Because young women, if you think that you’re young because of your age, listen to me, if you’re 20 but you only have until 30, you’re pretty old. If you’re 50 and you’re going to live until 100, then you’re pretty young.
Age is just a number, my friend, and you and I cannot qualify young or old based on our birth date. It’s based on our death date and since we don’t know when that day is, then I implore you sisters by the mercies of God to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which you have been called.
Because listen, I don’t know about y’all but when I see Him face to face, I’m looking for a well-done. I’m looking for well-done. When I see Him, He will not ask me how many Instagram followers I had. He will not wonder whether or not folks liked my post. He will not be interested in whether or not my selfies were perfectly lit. He will ask me, did I know His Son? And then I will give an account.
So the disciples, they come and they give an account to Jesus. I wondered if there was a recipe for effective ministry because if these guys were willing to come and look Jesus in His face and give an account, I figured there might be a recipe for us for effective ministry. I’m interested. Anybody interested?
There are three ingredients to the recipe. Luke chapter 9 verse 1, it says He called them. He called them and His calling superseded any personal ambition that they had. They laid down whatever they were going to do because they heard the call of God beckoning them to do something else.
The beautiful thing about that entire picture is that all of the glory of God the Father, all of the glory of heaven was packaged in human flesh. Jesus wanted so much. God the Father wanted so much to make sure that He could speak and so that humanity could hear that He left His throne in glory, put on flesh so that the disciples could hear His call.
And in the same way, He has given us the Holy Spirit so that each and every one of us have the privilege to hear the calling of God on our lives. The conviction, the unction, the pressing, the fire that is shut off in your bones, sending you in a particular direction, heed the call of God on your lives.
Then they were not just called. I love so much that before He skips to the third ingredient in the recipe, sending them, I love that before we get to the third one, there’s that second one, He did not just call but then He gave them power and authority. It means that what He was calling them to do, He was simultaneously equipping them with supernatural power to be able to pull it off.
So it’s good news for anybody in the room that you feel like you’ve got a dream that is way over your head. You’ve been called to do something you don’t have the money for, you don’t have the time for, you don’t have the patience for, you don’t have the gifting for, you don’t have the talent for, you don’t have the connections for. The good thing and the great thing about our God is that He does not call people who are already equipped. He calls you and then for the people that say yes, He equips them with what they need for the calling. He entrusted them with power and authority and can I tell you why this is important?
This is important because in order to accomplish supernatural tasks, you have to have supernatural capacity. In other words, you can be the most talented person in the world, but if you go in your own strength and power, you still won’t be able to accomplish the God-calling on your life. It requires what it is that only God Himself can give to you to accomplish the task.
Oh, the enemy hopes you will go in your own power. He hopes you will think you are flashy enough and savvy enough and talented enough and impressive enough so that you will no longer lean on God instead of leaning to your own understanding.
But it is not by power, and it is not by might, it is by the Spirit of God. And some trust in horses, other folks trust in chariots, but not us. We trust in the name of the Lord our God. So He called them, and then He entrusted them, He gave them some treasure, and then He sent them. He’s the one who did the sending.
Resist the urge to send yourself to do something that it is not yet time for. Because just as important as our calling is, that is equally as important as the timing is in which that calling is outworked in our lives. And if you go too soon, you might — if you give birth too soon to that which God is trying to produce through you, you might abort. What it is that He’s trying to accomplish in you, the spiritual backbone, the fortification that He was trying to establish in you so that you could handle the spotlight when it hits you because listen, that spotlight that you may be craving if it hits you and you have no character, it will burn you to a crisp.
So He called them, He entrusted them, He sent them out, and they returned to Him and gave an account. They were tired. The disciples had been giving everything they had, and I know there are some of you in the room and you would admit that you haven’t done it perfectly, but man, you’ve sure been purposeful. You’ve been intentional about this marriage. You’ve been giving it everything you’ve got. You’ve been intentional about that teenager. You’ve been giving that kid everything you’ve got.
This toddler that has this specific bent or this specific issue, that you’ve been doing everything you can, going to see every expert that you can, reading everything that you can, to be the best that you can. As a mother, single mother, you’ve been giving it everything that you’ve got, working the job that you’ve got to work to keep food on the table. You’ve been giving that business, that ministry, that endeavor everything that you have, and you, the disciples, are tired.
The good news about Jesus is that when the disciples come to Him tired, He does not say, “Go away from Me and get yourself together. Come back and then I can use you.” He says, “Come away with Me.” In other words, listen, the cure for your exhaustion is intimacy with Jesus. That’s the cure, y’all. I’m saying I agree. Take the holiday. Take the vacation. Tell them you need a little sabbatical. You got to step back for just a little bit.
You need a little margin in your life. Take the holiday, but don’t take a holiday from Jesus. Don’t take the sabbatical from your relationship with the Lord. Prayer shouldn’t exit your schedule because these are your rest days. You still need to be the deer that pants after the water. Your soul has still got to be replenished, and it can only be replenished when you have intimacy with Him.
And you’re trying to figure out, “Lord, You told me that I was going to be replenished. You told me that I was going to be refreshed. You told me that You had something that You wanted to give to me. Why would You take me here to this place where I’m being pressed down by a multitude of issues and concerns and frustrations? There’s something overwhelming me that is bigger than what I feel like I have the capacity to handle. Why would You bring me here?”
This tells us that the story of the feeding of the five thousand is not just about the five thousand. It’s also about the disciples. It’s not just about the multitude getting fed. It’s about the disciples being fed physically, spiritually, emotionally.
And it tells us that the five loaves and the two fish are the gift to the multitude. But it’s the multitude that’s the gift to the disciples. Because the multitude is what’s going to make them have to finally open up their drawer, pull out the treasure that they would have otherwise ignored, place it in the hands of a multiplying master who’s going to show them what it looks like when He takes their little bit and makes it a lot. There is no replenishing like watching God multiply your loaves and fish.
I came to tell somebody who’s got a multitude pressing on you in your marriage, or in your finances, or in your health, or in your parenting, or in your singleness, that thing is weighing down on you. That means that there is a drawer waiting to be opened. That means there’s some treasure waiting to be unveiled.
And when you take it out, finally, when you stop ignoring it, when you stop circumventing it, when you stop acting like God hasn’t given you everything you need, when you will finally recognize this little bit, this little gifting, this little talent, this little time, this little money, this little dream, this little vision, that this is all I need if I’ll just pull it out and entrust it to the hands of a multiplying master.
Can I just show you real quick what the disciples did? Just real quick because I think it’s interesting because it’s so us. They said to Jesus in verse 12, “Send the multitude away.” And here’s the thing, that’s so us. See, we don’t just say it, we pray it. We pray away what we don’t even recognize is the gift He has given us to press us into opening up our drawer.
So if you pray for your multitude to be taken away and in God’s sovereignty, He has left it in your life, that means there’s a drawer. There’s a drawer. Start looking for a drawer. If there’s a multitude, that means there’s loaves and fish somewhere in your life that is supposed to be entrusted into the hands of God. So we pray away.
Did you realize in verse 12, they are wishing away what in verse 11 Jesus welcomed? Jesus welcomed what they’re wishing away. So the disciples say, “Get this multitude away.” They don’t even know they’re praying away their miracle. Everybody wants to see the Red Sea divide, but nobody wants to be the one that comes face to face with a Red Sea. Everybody wants to see the walls of Jericho come tumbling down, but nobody wants to be the one who has to walk around those walls in obedience to God to trust Him, to shout prior to seeing one brick fall.
If there is a multitude, that means there is a miracle. So praise the multitude, or they ask for the multitude to go away and Jesus, He doesn’t go for that. So when He doesn’t — He doesn’t go for that, the disciples have another solution. This is us too. “Send the multitude away,” Jesus says no. And they say, “Well, send us away then.” You see it?
They said, “Send us to the surrounding towns and villages so that we can go and buy more, accumulate more, get more, because as we are, it’s not sufficient.” So send us somewhere else so we can get better and be better suited to this multitude, because as we are is not enough.
It has always been the tactic of the enemy to get us to think that we are not enough as we currently are, that what we currently have is not sufficient for the past that is before us. But if the Lord has allowed that multitude into your experience, that means that as you currently are with the entrusted treasure, the power, the authority that He has given to you, you’ve got everything you need if you just pull out what He already has entrusted to you.
In fact, in Mark chapter 6, our layer of chocolate cake, we find out that He says to the disciples, “Well, what do you have?” He asks them that question. He says, “What do you have?” And then He doesn’t even give them a chance to answer. He just immediately responds and says, “Go and look.” He said it like that. “Go and look.”
He said it like you would tell your kids if the month, I mean the week after Christmas, they came to you and said, “Mom, I’m bored.” You would say, “Well, what do you have?” And then before you gave them a chance to respond, because you could already tell that the response they were going to give you was going to get them in trouble, you didn’t even give them a chance. You would say to them, “Go and look.”
Because if you’ll just look, you’ll see that the thing you’re complaining about is something you already have access to. If you will go and look, Moses, you will see that everything you need to do what I’ve called you to do, it’s in your hand. It’s that rod, that common rod that has always been right beside you, but now I’m going to infuse it with My power. If I can just get you to go and look, Moses, pick the stick up. Put it over the Red Sea. You will see that it will make the Red Sea divide like a solid wall.
“Go and look, David. Yes, Goliath is right there, but if you’ll go look down by the stream, I’ve already provided five smooth stones that will be everything you need to take that giant down. Go and look.” Spend all of the energy that you’re spending complaining. Spend that energy going to look for what God has already given us access to.
So they pulled it out. “All right, Jesus, You going to do something with this?” They say, “Okay, here You go.” And they put it in His hand. Everything changes when you put your five and two in the hands of Jesus. Everything changes when you stop speaking negatively about it and just trust it into the hands of Jesus. When you just take that little dream that He has entrusted to you, and you give it back to Him, and you say, “It doesn’t look like much right now, but I’m putting it in Your hands.”
And the great thing about our God, verse 16 says, is that He took the meager gifts of man. He didn’t look at their little bit and say, “Come back when you’ve got more.” A holy, divine, Almighty, powerful God. A God who does not need us or our loaves and fish. When man gave it to Him, He received it. And looking up to heaven, He blessed it. Y’all, you don’t need more. You just need God’s blessing on what you’ve already got.
You don’t need more. You just need God’s blessing on your five and two, girl. That’s all you need. You know what His blessing is? It’s His favor. Y’all, favor is what makes the scales balance over in your favor. Favor is what makes things a little bit unfair on your behalf. Favor is what opens doors that nobody can shut. Favor is what puts you in positions that nobody can take away. Favor is what sets you before kings and queens. The favor of God is what you want on your life, on your five and two.
Looking up to heaven, He blessed it, then He broke it, and He kept giving it to the disciples. And it kept going, and it kept going, and the 12 didn’t understand how the little bit they had in the beginning had become so much. And their entire multitude, the whole burden, was satisfied. And when everybody was satisfied. Ooh, somebody say “satisfied.”
Ooh, Victoria, wish we had time tonight, girl. Satisfied. This is not some, you know, happy meal sort of situation here. This is not a number one on the Burger King drive-thru. This is Sunday afternoon. I’m talking about old school Sunday, where your mom started to cook on Saturday night and the yeast rolls were rising, and the macaroni and cheese was bubbling, and the sweet potatoes were all gooey on the stove, and the sweet tea was going, the roast, you know, she started the roast on 200 the night before and let it simmer all night long. Y’all are getting hungry, aren’t you? I know.
Listen, do you remember how when you came home from church the next day, you ate that, and the only thing you could do after that was that’s all you could do. That’s why Jesus said, “Go ahead and have the people recline. Have them get in a posture of expectation that I’m getting ready to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond anything that they can ask or think.”
Satisfied. Sunday afternoon kind of satisfied. That’s what He does. And they were so satisfied. Y’all, don’t even sit down, just stay standing. Listen, they were so satisfied. This is how you know how good the meal was. There were leftovers. They started going around, picking up the leftovers, y’all, and guess what? There were 12 baskets full. One basket for each disciple to take home as an overflow of the grace and the blessing of God.
I want to pray for any of you who are in this room and you’ve got a multitude weighing on you. You’ve got, I mean, that thing is burdening you down and you’ve never considered the fact that you’ve already got what you need. You’ve been thinking this is not enough gifting. This is not enough talent. It’s not enough money. It’s not enough. I don’t have enough. And Jesus is whispering in your ear tonight. You gotta do it. Just give it to Me. I’m going to multiply it. I’m going to blow your mind with what I’m going to do if you just trust it to Me.
Anybody got a specific multitude that you need prayer in regards to? Just go ahead and raise your hand. We’re going to pray right now in Jesus’ name. Victoria, will you come up with me, please? Just as a pastor in this house, would you just be present in this moment so we can pray over God’s people? Lord, right now we entrust every single woman who has her hand raised in particular. We entrust every single one under the sound of our voice, Lord, to Your love and care.
We thank You that you are sovereign over their lives, Father. We thank You that there is nothing that is in our experience right now that has not first passed through Your fingers. And since we know You are good and that You are kind and that Your mercy endures forever, then Father, we believe that if You’ve allowed this multitude, there’s something in this multitude we don’t want to miss.
And so Father, I pray right now that You would change our perspective so we can see in this multitude what You have for us. Don’t let us miss it for anything in the world, Lord. And then Father, I’m going to pray over our five and two. I ask right now in Jesus’ name, whatever the five loaves and the two fish are, that You have entrusted to every single woman. I pray that You would give a holy courage and a holy boldness that would compel us to open up the drawer and pull it out and entrust it to Your hands, Father.
God, I do pray that if this multitude has anything to do with the enemy, Lord, if the enemy has assigned an attack on any woman or her family, I pray that his attack would be canceled in Jesus’ name and by His blood that has been shed on Calvary. But Lord, if this multitude is of You, then right now in Jesus’ name, I thank You for it in our lives. Come on and thank Him for it. I thank You for it.
And then Father, we’re going to go ahead and get You in a posture of abundance. We’re going to start living and praying and acting like people who believe that You are the God of Ephesians 3:20 and 21. You can do above all that we ask in Jesus’ name.