Sermon on hospitality

1. Sharing your loaf of sliced bread

2. Bible text: Philippians 4: 6
Have no anxiety about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your request be made known
to God.

3. PRAYER

4. Sharing your loaf of sliced bread

5.  Just before bedtime we kneel to pray and
offer thanks to God. We kneel also in the
morning, asking God to bless our day. Then we
rushed off too busy to spend time with Him,
almost too tired to listen to His answers.
 How much time do we spend with God within
the period of morning and before retiring to
sleep? This is an important question we all
need to answer individually.

6. • As I think about this, the Lord showed me a loaf
of sliced bread that I have been sharing with Him.
Somehow I have been giving Him the two ends of
the sliced bread keeping the rest for myself.
• He told me that the slices I have been sharing
with Him lately had been getting thinner and
thinner and He wondered if I might soon be
giving Him crumbs.

8. • The two ends slices of bread symbolically
represents the time I spend with the Lord
each day – the two ends of the bread
represent morning and evening.

9. • Giving the Lord the first and last part of the sliced
bread is good. But I kept wondering if these were
really quality slices. In the morning we are too
much in a hurry to leave for work, or you as a
student is in a hurry for your 7 clock class, in the
evening we are too tired to pay attention.
• To label our time with God as a “quiet time” is
something slightly ironic. There is nothing quiet
about our “quiet time”.

10. • In fact it is filled to the brim with noisy
distractions.
• Our world is a noisy place that is bombarded with
the sounds of cars, our neighbour’s noisy
generators, musical loudspeakers, sounds and
annoying ringtones from our phones (Hand Sets).
• Humans beings have learnt to adapt to the noise
as we have developed the skills of multitasking.
Skilfully reading maps while listening to the radio
and driving. But then is there such thing as
multitasking when it comes to listening to God?

11. • I love the story of Samuel as recorded in 1st
Samuel 3 1 - 10 and how God directly spoke to
the young boy.
• Samuel clearly heard God speak to him as he lay
in bed. I imagine in those days it was relatively
quiet when someone went to sleep.
• Maybe the sheep made a few noises, but there
were definitely no cars, television sets or iPods
phones of different makes to keep him awake.
Samuel heard God speak and, after double
checking with Eli, chose to listen to him. How are
you paying attention to hear God call or speak to
you.

12. • There are so many behaviours that we are
engage in and God has been calling us to do
away with those behaviours but we have not
been listening to his voice.

13. • Notice how God appeared to Samuel when he
was still and alone. He wasn’t occupied with the
day’s tasks and he wasn’t making a huge effort to
seek God. Yet God still chose that moment to talk
to him.
The search for God and our coming to understand
how God works in our lives over-rides any other
duty we think we must complete, any other
pleasure we want to satisfy. Our relationship with
God, our spiritual well-being, our daily
communication with God takes precedence over
all things.

14. What does this mean
to us?
• When we were constructing
our calendar this school year,
did we fill several slots in our
daily schedule with the words
GOD TIME, when there will be
no telephone, no distraction,
no noise. Just a time with you
and your God.

15. • Finding GOD’s TIME can be challenging; but
then that makes the adventure all the more
fun. I have said a thousand little Thank you
Jesus prayers as I prepare dinner, prepare
lectures, prepare to go to bed, prepare to get
up in the morning.
• We need to turn off our televisions, close our
books, switched off our phones tell friends
you are busy, put aside work and play when
we feel the need to call or communicate with
God.

16. • I have heard a lot of students and staff refer to the
Clifford university park as “love garden”. I said to
myself the purpose for the park is to have a relaxing
time with a friend and to pray and share things that
will benefit you, meditate while in the garden
though it might be love garden but not for intimate
relaxations during odd hours.
• At that park you can meet Christ
• At that park you can meet your wife,
• At that park you can meet your husband
• At that park you can meet your helper.
• At that park you can meet your best friend. etc.
• When you kneel in that garden/park to pray God will
answer your prayers.

17. • I am looking forward to when I will see
students or staff praying at various points of
the Clifford university.

18. • As a child of God, to facilitate a clearer
communication channel with God, you need to
develop the attributes of patience, faithfulness,
honesty, and submission, and shun other
attributes like envy, jealousy, pride, stealing,
bearing false witness against your neighbour, or
friends, cheating in exams and other forms of
cheatings.
• Any hardships that come your way can be seen
as stepping stones to growing your relationship
with God and sharing your love with others. The
point is this: our direct line to God functions best
when it is functions constantly.

19. Lunch time
• Though your job may seemingly rule your life for
eight hours or more per day, there is at least one
thing that belongs to you during your day: your
break time or lunch time.
• This is a great opportunity in the middle of your
day to recharge. This would be a great time to
read some Psalms or Proverbs or to listen to
encouraging music and talk to God about your
day. It not a time to go about gossiping about
your office, your boss, your lecturers, the visitor
that came to your office or about Clifford
University administration.

20. • If you have frustrating co-workers or a
supervisor or lecturers or students who takes
advantage of you, use this time to pray for them
and ask God how He would like you to react.
• If you have a lecturer that is trespassing into your
personal life in a way you do not like, use this
time to pray for him/her.
• If you have a major project or you are
experiencing stress in your workplace, in your
course of study, use this time to calm yourself
and to focus on your mental and spiritual health.
Relax because rest is good for your health.
Communicate with God; He wants to hear what
you have to say.

21. Kitchen time
• If you are a person who likes to cook dinner,
use those moments while you are in the
kitchen to pray or to sing to the Lord. Reflect
on your day. Think about opportunities that
you had to honour and glorify God.
• What could you do differently tomorrow?
• Ask God for His will for your life.
• Pray for any of your family, co-workers and
friends who need prayer (all of them).

22. • The men who have most fully illustrated Christ in
their character, and have most powerfully
affected the world for him, have been men who
spent so much time with God as to make it a
notable feature of their lives.
• Men like, Mr John Wesley spent two hours daily
in prayer. He began at four in the morning, one
who knew him well wrote: "He thought prayer to
be more his business than anything else, and I
have seen him come out of his closet with a
serenity of face next to shining."

23. • John Fletcher stained the walls of his room by the
breath of his prayers. Sometimes he would pray
all night; always, frequently, and with great
sincerity. His whole life was a life of prayer. "I
would not rise from my seat," he said, "without
lifting my heart to God." His greeting to a friend
was always: "Do I meet you praying?“
• Martin Luther said: "If I fail to spend two hours in
prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory
through the day. I have so much business I cannot
get on without spending three hours daily in
prayer." He had a motto: "He that has prayed well
has studied well."

24. • You need to take time to turn to God. Do not
pray only when you have set aside time to do so.
The busier you are, the more you must practice
turning to God.
• Beware of a bareness of a busy life. Matt 6:34
• If you wait until the time is convenient, there is
little doubt that you will end up not spending
little time with God.
• Try to come before God both in the morning and
the evening. Pray during and between all your
other jobs as much as you can.

25. • Praying to God all the time is not asking too
much, think about it as someone who gives
you N1,000 and is asking you to return only
N100, why will I be holding back all those
slices of bread for myself?
• Think about all those times you spent in short
Bible study and very short prayer all signify
the slices of bread you share with your Maker.

26. • One thing that is sure is that the power to
withstand temptation comes from a praying
heart.
• The devil will do anything to keep us from
sharing the middle part of our sliced bread
with God ( praying). He laughs at our
religious activities and mocks our human
wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.

27. • Appeal
• The Lord will bless you if you determine to take a
look at how you share your sliced loaf of bread.
Let us share the middle part of our slice bread
with God. Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and
opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup
with him, and he with me.”
• I have not found the Lord to be too selfish by
asking for a slice out of the middle of our sliced
bread. It has paid to be extravagant in sharing
some of the best time with Him.

28. Seven ways on how we can share our sliced loaf
of bread with God
• Value your relationship with him
• Practice continuous communication
• Invite his presences every minute of your life
• Clear your conscience
• Set daily appointments apart from your
morning and night time with God
• Embrace spontaneous conversation
• Cultivate true devotion

29. Promises from the bible for us to claim
as children of God.
Joshua 1:9
• "Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid
or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with
you wherever you go." Tell your neighbour. I
will be strong and courageous. I will not be
afraid or discourage for the lord is with me.
Amen

30. • Exodus 14:14
• "The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay
calm." Neigbour the lord will fight my battles
for me and so I will be calm.
• Amen.

31. • Is. 49:16
• See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My
hands. Because God has inscribe you in his
palms no weapon fashioned upon you,
• your husband,
• Your wife.
• Students , your parents your siblings your
guidance, yours sponsors shall prosper.

32. • Sometimes sharing the middle slices of your bread
maybe due to our past. Everybody has a past. However,
our pasts don’t predict our futures. We can look
forward to the future with great expectation,
confident that God has a purpose and plan for you and
me.
• So, come out from behind the shadows of the shame
and guilt of your past, accept God’s forgiveness, and
walk in the newness of life. You are blessed beyond
• measure!

33. As we claim these promises remember to share the middle
part of your sliced bread with God.
Above all when you sit at the feet of Jesus, he will get you
to the cross, from the cross to the tomb and from the
tomb to eternal life.
May this be our experience in Jesus Name.
Amen