Hi. This is Dave Olson.
I'm the senior leader of Hartman church located in Ankeny Iowa.
I hope the following message, challenges and courage has and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
Last week, we were talking Ben reaches out, to me on Sunday
afternoon. He says, What's the title of
your message? Because I'm not one of those
guys that prepares Series in advance, you know, I know guys
that men, they know what they're going to preach in six months,
and they've got all their notes laid out a me that's, that's
never going to happen with me. Pastor Callaway my predecessor.
He was the past year, 21 years ago and he used to tell me he'd
say, Dave, you know, God can speak to you just as clearly
three weeks in advance, as he can Sunday morning and I'd say
yes sir, I know that just not the way we roll the in Jesus and
I read and study all the time, but I'm just trying to lean in
the closer. We get to Sunday morning God.
What do you have for us and it's easy.
Once you hit a series will then you just mind that out till
you're done. The real struggle is discovering
the new series. That's where I'm at.
And I don't want to launch into anything a new subject because
next week we're going to have this conference.
And so, last week, we were been reached out to me said, what do
you, what do you want to call your message?
Today I said, I don't know music.
From Israel. And so that's what we call it.
That's kind of a safe one because you can just kind of put
everything under that umbrella. But what I was really meditating
on the last few days and it was interesting.
One of the, one of the youth came up to me this morning
during worship, I think she's ran 12, 13 years old, and hold.
Eleven eleven years old and she came up and she said, pastor.
I know I'm young and this may not make much sense, but I feel
like the Lord was speaking to me about the picture on the back of
the screen. And she said, I feel like those
pics, those, those colors are alike.
We go into God's purpose, but some people fade out and they
don't reach God's purpose. And I told her, I said, well,
you know what, I'm preaching on this morning finding your
purpose. So and she was She was happy and
so was I, so, yeah, little kids. Don't get a junior.
Holy Ghost. Amen.
So that's what I want to talk about.
I kind of want to Spring off of something we touched on last
week when we were looking last week at the life of David, one
of the things we were talking about is that interesting little
verse in second Samuel chapter 5.
It says that David, the King James version puts it this way.
David perceived that the Lord had made him King.
For the people of Israel. Now some people read that think.
Wow, it just dawned on him knots.
Not what? He's saying it was he was
perceiving the purpose of his anointing.
He had. Ascended to a place of great
privileged as the king of Israel, David had great
privilege. But what he needed to do was
perceive why he had been brought to that position, and you can
be, you can be in the place of God's appointing, but not
understand why I'm not be able to leverage it.
And so we need to perceive the purpose of God's hand upon our
life. And so I want to, I want to
unpack that a little more this morning.
So let's pray. Father, we thank you this
morning for your Word. And Lord, I ask that you would
speak to us Lord that you would provoke us this morning.
Lord that God, that this message would be the launch codes to the
fire of God and people's hearts. Lord that you would ignite them.
You would unleash passion. In Jesus name, amen.
If you go on our website, we have our vision and our values
in our church structure, and all that.
And I encourage you to go on there sometime.
It also has our leadership, you know, the different elders.
And some of you have said, I don't even know who the elders
are. If you go to the website
Heartland Church online.com, just go under leadership and you
can see who the elders are and and the way, you know, the role
of different, the different leadership teams and so forth.
But amongst that, you'll see the The heart of Heartland, the core
values of Heartland culture and then you can click on there.
It says, the five values of Heartland culture, there's an
audio recording. I, we taught on this a number of
years ago when we really kind of distilled those things down.
And so I want to unpack some of those this morning, but really
focus on number two. And I'm just going to run
through them very quickly. And then I'm going to kind of
elaborate on them because they're all connected and this
is not This is not just, oh, that's a nice thing to place on
the website. Let me just put it this way.
That when people talk about core values often, they're not really
the core values of the organization.
That's true of churches. That's true of businesses.
A lot of times what we're really talking about.
When we talk about values is, we're talking about aspirational
values. They're saying these are the
things we aspire to these are the things we wish were true.
But they're not the things that are really true.
The things that are really true are going to be showing up in
the culture already. If they are core values, they're
already showing up. Now, the reason a lot of times
when people talk about values, they end up talking about
aspirational values rather than actual values is because actual
values are somewhat elusive. There's so much a part of who we
are and our Fabric and our drives in our passions so much.
So that at times we will minimize the value of those
things. And we assume that everybody
shares those values, it's kind of like talking to a fish about
water. The fish is like globe globe.
What's that? They and it's there.
So immersed in it. They have never really thought
about what water is and often. Our values are such a part of
who we are. We often don't really think.
Think about our values and so therefore, what we do is we end
up identifying with our weaknesses and adopt
aspirational values to solve the weaknesses rather than owning
our strengths and allowing that to be our passion.
Does that make sense? So here's the danger of that.
If you invest your life on your weaknesses, you will never reach
your potential. I would even propose to you that
there are some weaknesses. I'm not talking about moral
weaknesses, I'm talking about skill sets.
For instance let me use myself as an example.
God will never call me to be a mathematician, okay?
Ain't going to happen. I don't care how much they could
have sat me down as a little five-year-old David and said,
David, you can be whatever you want to be just dream big and
whatever you want to be. You can be it and it ain't gonna
happen because Little David stunk At math big David.
I just work around it. I'm not a math guy.
Okay, I was the language guy. I was when it came to math.
I was a solid D student, my whole life.
Okay. Now, part of that is I didn't
listen, I admit, okay. But even as a little boy, I
remember my salt might my report cards would come back and I was
never until I got to Bible school.
I didn't let's put it this way. I wasn't a, I didn't
overperform. Okay.
But when it would come to language, I remember, as a
fourth grader they gave we tick, Minnesota, basic skills, and it
came back, and it said that my vocabulary was 12th grade, and I
was fourth grade. It's because I was just made to
be a language. Got my kids are that way, my
kids are all writers and and they just their language people,
their moms like that. So we pray for my children, what
comes to math. Let's just pray right now,
father, because they didn't inherit that from either one of
their parents. Now, I could spend the next 40
years, really trying to to study math but I would propose to you
that my design determines my purpose that God designed me
with certain strengths. That match what I'm called to
Now, when we first start out in life, yeah, we were kind of
figuring things out and we need to strengthen some of those
weaknesses because I need to be able to do basic addition.
And well, now I got an iPhone. I didn't need to do that.
But, you know, there are certain things we need to learn, but in
actuality God calls us to shine in the air of our strengths.
There's the book called strength, finders who you are.
Anybody ever heard of that book? And the premise of that is
really they're saying what I just said that there's a fallacy
in the western culture. That tells people you can be
anything you're called, you want to be and it's not true.
We need to build on our strengths and not waste our
time. Always working on our
weaknesses. And again I'm not talking about
moral weaknesses, that's a different thing.
I'm talking about skill sets. And so God has given you certain
strengths and as you discover those strengths, They are an
indication of what God has called you to do.
So, let's look at our Five values of Hartnell culture
because these are values that show up in the culture.
It's not aspirational values. There are aspirational values.
We have adopted at times as a church, we said, you know what,
this is a aspirational values, are things.
You say these are things necessary for me to learn so
that I can accomplish what God has on my life.
Their weaknesses are not things. I'm a natural at, but we need to
go after that. There that's true of us as
individuals, and it's definitely true of us.
In organizations. So when we talk about culture,
you know we throw that term around what is culture, culture
is the sum total of your values lived out.
Or you could put it conversely values core values.
When people use that terminology in reality values, our culture
dissected, When we look at what, what is the flavor?
What is the social fabric? What, what do you run into when
you step into a church? Every church has its own
culture, every family has its own culture.
Every business has its own culture.
And part of what resonates with you when you walk into one
church and fails to resonate with you, in another church is
not so much even the doctrine, but it's the culture because
there's something within you that when you walk in there, you
feel this. And it's like, I don't know that
I can put this into words, but I just bumped into something that
I'm identifying with and then you hear them begin to talk and
you're saying, they're putting into words what my heart is
burned for four years. And what you're touching on is
what we call culture and the culture is it's the sum total of
the values. And so God puts certain passions
or certain values within us that we're hungry for and that's part
of the way that we find the tribe of people were to run
with. I think we talked about it last
week, it's been some time the last few weeks.
We talked about that, that whole idea, again of finding your
tribe, the promised land in the Old Testament.
I meant the promised land was given to Israel.
One Nation, but many tribes and their portion of the promised
land was allocated. According to their tribal
affiliation. And I think there's a real good
lesson there for you. And I that as we begin to
understand our tribal affiliation, what has God
already put within you that he wants to give expression to in
this hour of human history. Part of that is going to connect
you to other believers. And so it's very important that
we understand what are our values.
What is it that burns within us? It sit there are times where we
have desires that are burning within us but we've never
articulated them and it's good for us to become very conscious
about what those things are. Because those things begin to
really bring into Clarity what God has called us to do.
And so that's kind of behind what I'm talking about this
morning now. Our five core values and, of
course, I'm a teacher so they all start with P.
Okay. Number one presence, the
presence of God is our primary focus.
That we are a presence based church and we are hungry for the
presence of God and it's not just so that we can consume
God's presence. There is that element of, hey, I
enjoy the presence of God, but the presence of God is our
worship. Pastor Kara said at this
morning, she said, we are most fulfill or God is most glorified
when we are most satisfied in him.
God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with in with
him. And so the only place you're
really going to discover who you are is in the presence of God.
When you get in God's presence in God, you begin to encounter
your creator. You can do that through the
word. You can do that through his
presence coming upon you. You can do that in corporate
worship, but in those environments, you begin to
understand who you are. We've talked about this many,
many times, but you'll hear this again and again, because I
firmly believe the primary Foundation to life to Ministry
to emotional and spiritual health is two things.
Number one, your theology having a proper view of who God is.
And number two, your identity, having a proper view of Who You
Are. When you see God for who he is,
only then can you see yourself for who you are?
You'll never understand yourself outside of God. the tragedy of
the human race, is that we've been severed from our creator
through sin and we grope around trying to find meaning One of
the most tragic books in the Bible is the Book of
Ecclesiastes. There's three books that the
that King Solomon wrote The Song of Solomon, there are the song
of songs. It is the, it is an allegory of
a passionate love, between man and his God.
Between God and Christ in his church.
It's a beautiful. It's, there's also a literal
meaning you can teach on marriage from it and so forth,
but it is a passionate allegory, a metaphor of man's relationship
with God. There's also Proverbs Solomon
wrote much of the Proverbs, and it's a book of wisdom, because
when you begin to encounter God and intimacy, you begin to learn
things and wisdom, begins to be embedded in your life and
Solomon became the wisest man that ever lived.
And he came to that. That out of an encounter with
God, it was an event. Not a process with Solomon.
He went to bed, not the wisest man in the world and through a
dream encountered, God and asked for wisdom and woke up the
wisest man that ever lived. But the third book that Solomon
wrote was the Book of Ecclesiastes and it is a tragic
book. It's the story of a brilliant
man who lost touch with God. And so you see this phrase?
Again and again throughout the book and you'll never understand
the Book of Ecclesiastes, matter of fact, if you really read it,
you'll scratch your head. And wonder, why did God include
this in the Bible? It is depressing.
Anybody ever read? That thought it's depressing.
Everything is meaningless Under the Sun.
You work all your life to accumulate wealth, so your kids
can squander it in two years. Everything is I mean that's
depressing stuff. But the key phrases under the
sun. And it's what philosophical ah
Spurs call a closed system. In other words, you're trying to
find meaning in a closed system, you don't look above the sun.
You don't look outside of creation.
You look around creation and try to find meaning.
And the only way that we're going to infuse the mundane of
life with meaning, ultimate meaning is by looking beyond the
sun outside the system. Because only their do we find
purpose that is true as a of us as individuals and that's true
of the grander. Themes of humanity, were never
going to find meaning outside of God.
Everything is meaningless Under the Sun.
You've got to look beyond the sun to find meaning.
And so, the presence of God is our primary purpose and we
talked about both encounter and intimacy.
There's both an event and a process.
I'm a firm believer in encounters with God that God can
encounter you that the god of Heaven wishes to make himself
known. It's not just some distant deity
that we study about in a Dusty book.
And then we hope to one day meet him, God wants to reveal himself
to you in an intimate way. Here.
And now God wants to reveal himself, through encounters
through visions and dreams. And speaking to you, where you
feel his manifest presence where you hear his voice.
We're God's God, ministers to your spirit, that is the god of
the Bible, that, that type of communication.
And encounter is not something relegated to the book to
history. It's a present-day possibility
for you now. And the way you access those
encounters is through the key of hunger.
He who hungers and thirsts shall be filled God is too good, a
steward to invest that level of revelation of himself to those
who are not hungry for it. And so if you hunger and thirst
if you seek Him you shall find him and God longs to reveal
himself through encounter. But there's also this thing of
intimacy with God and that is a lot that is a lifelong process
that we develop with God. And that needs to be the
foundation of everything that is, that is the foundation stone
of the Christian Life. Jesus came to reconcile, you to
the father, not so that you can access the father someday when
you're dead. But so that you can access some
today that you can have a personal relationship with him
now. And so the presence of God is
our primary Pursuit out of those values comes practice.
If we really believe something it will determine our Behavior.
So the reason we worship for an extended amount of time is not
because we're really into music, you know, I'm a cheapskate I
don't by Muse, I hardly have any music on my phone have a lot of
books but very little music. It's not, I'm not, I'm not a
person that loves music so much that now, my little brother, he
has, I used to let him buy the music and then I would borrow
his CDs, you know. Cuz I'm a cheapskate and I'd let
him do that now, everything's digitized.
It's not that were into music. It's because we want his
presence and we realize that God inhabits the Praises of his
people worship is a means to an end and not a, not an end in
itself. And so the presence of God is
our primary Pursuit, the second value core value that we have is
purpose. So let me just run through these
presents purpose, passion, power and principle.
I want to unpack. That presence is encounter an
intimacy. Purpose is both an identity and
intentionality, we've got to discover who we are so that we
can live an intentional life. Number three is Passion or
wholeheartedness we just call it passion It starts with the p.
You could say it's wholeheartedness but it just
doesn't sound as good. And passion is has to do with
sacrifice and enjoyment. And both of those have to be a
reality in our life. Passion is not just about
enjoying him. I'm passionate about that.
When we say that, we mean we enjoy that thing.
But if you're really passionate about something, you will be
willing to sacrifice to cease that thing.
And there's there's a sacrificial element to the
Christian Life that perhaps we'll get into another time when
we unpack more of these values. Number four is power and that's
for both Effectiveness and empowerment.
There's an internal power for living the Christian Life and
Overcoming the our prior life. There's an empowerment but also
there's an external power for Effectiveness so that we can
give it away and both of those are valid and both of those need
to be part of the Christian Life.
There are movements that rent that really talk about power as
power to overcome sin. There's others that talk about
power for Ministry, which one's right?
Uh-huh. We need both and then number
four principle. We want to base everything in
the word of God. It's a dangerous thing to talk
about spiritual encounters and spiritual phenomena, without
rooting it in the book, we need to.
We need to be people of the book that you put it this way that
the word of God, is the language of the spirit, the more, you
know, the word, the more God can speak to you if you don't build
your vocabulary, then the level of constant level of
communication you'll have with God is Goochie Goochie goo You
can talk baby talk with God, but if you really want to grow in
your relationship with God, you need to know the language of the
book. The book is the vocabulary of
the spirit and the more, you know, of God's word, the more
you're going to know of his ways and when you understand God's
ways, you can cooperate with him.
And if you don't know, God's ways you can experience God.
But you'll stand wondering what see what he's about to do.
And God wants to bring us into his ways.
He wants us to cooperate with him.
Christianity is not just something that happens to us.
It's something we cooperate with we partner with heaven.
And so we need to be people of the book, we need to learn.
We need to learn the word of God.
And really there's, there's two ways that we come into.
The the principal is a God's word.
There is revelation and there's academic study.
Okay. Revelation is a valid principle
in the Bible. The Apostle Paul prayed this
prayer in Ephesians chapter 1. He prayed that we would have a
spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him.
What's the difference between Revelation and study?
Revelation is God, breaks in and gives you Sudden awareness,
sudden insight to something you didn't previously, understand,
it's an event, God shows you something and then you back fill
that with the word, there are times that the Lord has spoken
to me. And I've told the Lord, I said
God, I know that was you but I can't preach on that until you
give me word to back that up. I'm not going to share that with
anybody else. Unless you show me this in your
word. And so I would go on a journey
of God, teaching me about the thing, he spoke to me about,
that's revelation. Ation and that's not isolated by
any means to people who preach the word.
God Longs, for all of us to come into a spirit of wisdom and
Revelation. That is our blood bought
Heritage. The spirit of God is a spirit of
wisdom and Revelation. And he wants, Jesus said, I'm
going to send the spirit one like unto myself, who will lead
you into all truth? And the two primary ways, the
spirit of God does that is through Revelation.
He It's with the truth and then unpacks it, or through study.
You begin to get into the word and you study yourself into
conclusions. Revelation, you start with a
conclusion and you backfill it study, you study yourself into
conclusions through interacting, with the word, and God will
never isolate you to one or the other.
Both are disciplines that we need to practice.
There's, we need to position our self for revelation.
There's things that we can do. So, that God will reveal himself
to us. Which is a whole nother Sunday.
But let me just throw out a couple little nuggets here.
Okay? One of the keys to revelation.
Is hunger. If you are not hungry for truth.
It will be a rare thing for God to give it to you.
Because it's too valuable. God longs to share his heart,
but he there has to be an internal value system that will
treasure those things. God longs to reveal himself, but
you have to have a value system so that you can Steward at once,
he gives it to you. So hunger is a key, they who
hunger and thirst shall be filled, you will seek me.
And you will find me when you seek for me with all of your
heart. He's talking about a hungry
pursuit of God. Number 2 purity of heart, there
are people that are hungry for God, but for the wrong reasons.
you have to have the right motives James says if any man
lacks wisdom let him ask and God will give them if you have any
will upbraideth not so God what longs to give us that if we ask
but then it says but if you ask with wrong motives don't expect
to receive So that we have to have a purity of heart.
There has to be the reason we're crying out for wisdom.
Has to be the right reason. And if our desire is so that we
can look smart, God will withhold it while he purifies
her heart, because he can't give it to us for the wrong reasons.
God's not going to endorse wrong motives.
Purity of heart is a huge issue. John chapter 7.
Jesus was asked by the teachers of the law.
Where did you get such wisdom? And his answer was so
interesting. He said I came not to please
myself but the one who sent me and I'm sure when he they said
when he said that to them, they're thinking what Jesus,
we're not interested in your motives for learning, we want to
know your source and Jesus was saying you don't understand my
source. The Secret of my source is my
motives because I came to seek. I came to glorify the ones who
the one who sent me James rides in on that same principle and
puts it this way. The wisdom that comes from
Heaven is first of all, pure Purity in the New Testament is
not so much. It's not so much talking about.
We use that term today and the American Church usually when
someone's talking about purity, they're talking about sexual or
moral purity, The New Testament is more talking about the
motives of our heart. Do I want this?
So I can I can Push forward my own agenda.
And God will withhold that from us until we have purified our
heart. And so these things are very,
very important. And these are the foundations of
Heartland culture, but at the, I believe they're the foundations
of a healthy Christian Life. and so, when we talk about presence,
purpose, Pow presence, purpose, passion power and principle.
Each one of these progressively, build on one another.
The one I want to talk about this morning.
Oh my goodness. It's late.
I want to talk about purpose presents when we discover who
God is when we have encounters with him.
The one thing that's going to happen is God's going to begin
to edit your view of him. And we need that.
I was just talking to a group upstairs at the newcomers at
nine. And we were talking about some
of our backgrounds and and they were saying that they had come
from a legalistic church. And and a matter of fact, I was
talking to two different groups that were saying that and we're
talking about how, when you feel like God's condemning you, you
don't have a desire to be intimate with him.
It's like snuggling up to a porcupine who wants to do that.
You don't want to cuddle us porcupine and if God's attitude
towards you is disappointment, if God's always looking at you
and he's mildly irritated. If the father's up there on
clicking his fingers on the throne thinking, oh man, Jesus
went and bought him and now I'm stuck with them.
You know, Jesus bought Humanity by his death and tave was part
of the package deal. If that's really how you
perceive God's heart towards you, you are not going to be
drawn into his presence. Whether you're consciously aware
of it or not, you're going to avoid God's presence.
And so what we need is to be renewed in our minds to see God
for who he is. And I'm telling you the
Christian Life is a lifelong process of God, revealing his
nature to us, his great. Faithfulness to us so that we
can place our faith in his faithfulness.
Faith is not something that we conjure up.
It's not something that we white-knuckle and try to
produce. It comes out of a revelation of
who he really is. And so, we need to ask him, God,
show me you for who you are. Lord, renew my mind.
I need to see you. If we're who you really are,
because to know him is to love him.
When you see him for who he is, you I can't but help Surrender
Your Life to him. And the fact that every one of
us in this room have struggled at times with surrender, when
God gives us a new, some new thing, he's dealing with us on
and and we're hesitant to surrender that area.
That lack of surrender is always rooted in a false perception of
who he is. And so, any time we're
struggling, what we need to say is God Lord, I'm asking you to
renew my mind and give me a right perspective on who you are
because when we see him for who he is and I would propose you
just real quick here. Three elements of God's
character that number one. God is all-wise.
God knows what's best for you. And so, when we start to waive
her own man, Lord, I don't know if I surrender to you, I don't
know if you really know what's best.
What That's one of the things, the enemy attacks but God is all
wise, he knows what's best for you.
Number two, he's all-powerful, he's able to pull it off.
God is able to move Heaven and Earth to get you where you need
to go. But number three, God is all
loving God. Not only knows what's best has
the power to pull it off. God wants, what's best for you?
That is his utmost, desire. Matter of fact, God knows what's
best for you. God knows what you really want
even when you don't. I remember coming to that
realization as a young believer and so I would, when I would
struggle, I'd feel like the Lord was calling me to do something.
I'd say God Lord help me because I'm siding with you against me
because I know, you know what, I want more than I do.
I think I want that but you've already told me it's not, your
will either in your word or you've revealed that to me and
Lord, I must be deceived in some area because I think I want that
and let me just tell you, I proved it It a number of times
that God didn't know what I really wanted and when I thought
I wanted that thing and I got it against God's will, I didn't
want that thing. Then I'm crying out.
God delivery of this thing. I thought I wanted and I don't
want So God knows what you want. God knows your, that's why he
says that he can give you the desires of your heart.
Matter of fact, I would propose to you the desires.
The real desires of your heart, are an indication of your
calling. We haven't preached on this in
quite a while, but let me got a few minutes, okay.
You could put it this way. Temptation is Destiny wrapped in
a shortcut. We said again, desk temptation
is Destiny wrapped in a shortcut.
You look at what God Said or what the enemy, rather said to
Adam and Eve, if you eat of this fruit, you shall be like God,
you know, why that was tempting because what he was really doing
is speaking to their ultimate destiny.
That wasn't the Forbidden element of the fruit.
It was skipping the process to get there.
That was the Forbidden element. We were created in God's image.
We marred that image through sins.
So Jesus, Came and took on the took on the form of a man made
in God's image and he completed that image by fulfilling every
purpose that God had for men. He, he fulfilled the purpose of
God for man, and now the scripture says be conformed to
the image of Christ. Who would also says, is the perf
is the perfect representation of the godhead in bodily form.
You are called to be like God That is your calling you are
called to be transformed into his image that the Forbidden
element of that was trying to get it in a short cut.
Look at it with Jesus when when Jesus was being enticed by the
enemy. He said to the devil, the
serpent said to Jesus, if you worship me I will give you all
the kingdoms of this world. What does Jesus have today?
He's in the process of bringing everything under his feet and
every Kingdom of this world should be laid at his feet.
What the enemy was doing was speaking to his Destiny but he
was offering it to him in a shortcut.
And the reason that's dangerous is if you Seize Your Destiny
through a shortcut, you will not be the person qualified to
Stewart. It If you are, there's this
interesting verse in and Ephesians chapter 2 that God has
prepared Works in advance so that you can walk in them.
In other words, there's already there's already a job waiting
for you to do it in the future. There's a god-shaped hole in
human history or a u shaped hole rather in human history.
Waiting for you to arrive and the tragedy is that.
Sometimes we arrived at our future unqualified to be the
person to fulfill I feel that because we skip the process, And
so, it's through the process of God, dealing with us, that he
brings out who were called to be, so that we can fulfill the
purposes of God. And the greatest way for you to
glorify God is to manifest, the measure of who he is, that you
are called to manifest through your maturity.
When scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God, what it's talking about is you fallen
short of the manifestation that you are to carry of who he is to
the human race into human history.
Jonathan Edwards, anybody ever heard of him?
He was the first president of Princeton seminarian was the
leader arguably the primary leader of the first Great.
Awakening was a great philosopher as well as a great
deal Theologian. He said this he said Grace is
Glory begun. Glory is Grace, consummated or
completed? In other words, God gives us
Grace to begin on this journey. He deposits the glory within us,
but as we grow we're to glorify him and being and falling short
of the glory is falling short of the manifestation that were to
bring to the human race. There is an element of God's
nature and character and truth that he wants to bring through
your life. But we've got to cooperate with
that process. And what the enemy will do is he
will entice us to get into things that are actually God's
will, but prematurely, so, When somebody, when a single
individual is is tempted with sexual immorality, it's not
because God has said, it's never my will for you to be in have a
sexual relationship. It's just it's premature.
God wants you to have it within the context in which he
appointed it to you and your single years are in actuality
That season of your life that are to prepare you to be a
married individual and handle this.
Awesome powerful and dangerous. Thing called sexual intimacy.
And so, as we go through our single years, it's going to
Purdue. It's going to prepare us for
that relationship and marriage. But if you just jump to that,
this, this powerful potent thing called sexual intimacy will
actually destroy you It's been said that it's like fire.
You keep it. There's a context for that fire
the fireplace and it will keep you warm.
It's a nice thing. But And there's a context for
sexual intimacy, it's called marriage between two very
committed, individuals who are in it till death, do us part.
And when it's there, it's a beautiful thing and when it gets
outside of that, it's dangerous. And so it's part of God's design
and so when the enemy entices people, it's that he entices
them into getting there through a shortcut.
And so, we need to understand that when God calls us to
greater things, the enemy will come along and try to get you to
enter into what God has called you to through shortcuts.
And it will disqualify you from Stewart.
And you will be forced at best to come down to a lower level,
and not be able to Stuart at the level that God had for you.
So God has a purpose for our life and that purpose is
discovered in his presence. When we see God for who he is
the set, the the secondary thing.
We're going to begin to see him for who he is.
It's going to cause a surrender in our heart because when we see
him for who he is, we want to give our life to him, we would
be insane not to surrender our life to a God who knows what's
best wants? What's best and is able to pull
it off. The second thing we begin to see
is we begin to see ourselves accurately, and this is where
purpose comes in. When we are severed from God,
when we try to Define herself separate from God, we will come
up short, we will sell ourselves short.
This is one of the reasons why inner healing Freedom Ministries
dealing with our past is so crucial because what the enemy
is done for your entire life, he has strategize to wound you and
cause you to reject yourself. C.s.
Lewis talked about us walking alongside ourselves and what he
was talking about is that we stand on the outside.
We can't live from the center. We can't be who we are and live
life with passion. We stand on the outside and
we're our own worst critic, we're critiquing everything we
do. And when we do that, that
self-rejection will keep us from entering into our destiny, you
can't become who you're called to be until you own, who you're
called to be. And there's two portions that
there's their self-rejection but there's also ignorance that the
enemy has created. A definition of who we are.
That God wants to unravel. If there's two prayers that you
pray, you need to pray. God show me you for who you
really are and secondly Lord show me who me for who I really
am. Because that's the foundation of
everything else. And when you see who God is, all
of a sudden, purpose is ignited in your life.
You begin to get in touch with what you were made for.
And when you adopt another Persona out of self-rejection,
when you try to be something you're not called to be, or you
try to prematurely step into your destiny without going
through the process when that happens.
You end up forfeiting what God has for your life.
You can't be. Who you're called to be.
At best, you will be a frustrated individual.
You'll have these raging desires, but you don't know how
to fulfill it. And so we need God to Define who
we are and that's where we discover our purpose years ago.
I was watching Antiques. Roadshow anybody watch that?
It isn't that thing still on? I was watching the Antiques
Roadshow and and this guy comes on and you know how they have
the appraiser. He's sitting there in his chair
and also not pants to this guy and he has his sword sitting on
this little stand. And I said, tell me about your
sword. He said well when I was a little
kid, our neighbor had it hanging In his garage and he gave it to
us. He said, man, we used to play,
you know, pirates with it and he said what we used to do a lot
with it. As cut watermelons, we'd put
them on their walks, you know, cut the Watermelons and he said,
it's been in our family for years.
Matter of fact, it's been hanging in the garage and I was
going to sell it and in a rummage sale, a garage sale but
then I heard you guys are coming to town.
I thought, hey, I might as well have them look at it and the
appraiser just listen to them, talk about this sword and then
when he was done the appraiser, handed him a pair of gloves, he
said Touch the blade with your bare hands because the oil in
your skin, could cause it to deteriorate and that was the
first clue. The guy thought I probably
shouldn't be cutting watermelons.
Then the appraiser puts on his own little rubber gloves, and he
picks it up. And he begins to describe what
this sword really is. He said, this is a civil war-era
sword. It's a Confederate officer.
Sort said, matter of fact this would have never seen action
because this is a highly prized parade sort notice all the
filigree on here and all the carvings he said this was a
parade sword. That would have been worn on the
the side of a very high ranking. Military officer.
This is a very valuable sword. He said, in fact, I figure it's
probably worth today about 20 thousand dollars.
Now this was about 25 years ago, I don't know what it's worth
today. But you could see the look on
this guy's face. He's like, oh my goodness, I've
been kind of watermelons. He about sold it in a garage
sale and as I was watching that the Lord spoke to me, And he
said, that's how my children operate.
Because we don't realize our value.
We don't realize our purpose. We look at our design.
Well, you know, I got a blade. I guess I could cut watermelons.
Never realizing the lofty purpose for which he made us.
And when we don't realize why we're made, we end up using our
self for things. So beneath us, Parade.
Swords become watermelon cutters.
And I love that that picture of the appraiser.
I love that word. Think about that.
God is our appraiser. He knows our true value and he
is the one who defines us. And that watermelon cutter that
was carried in in the mind of that guy was probably worth 20
bucks. It was carried out as a valuable
parade sword because the appraiser had placed new value
upon it. And we need to be a people who
get into God's presence, not just to encounter him but
because we want to glorify him. We've got to discover who we are
in his presence and when we discover who he is and who we
are in relationship with him, it will ignite purpose which will
demand will create passion in your life when you really
understand your purpose. There's a passion ignited and
you say, I'm willing to sacrifice to get there.
R. I realized there's a sense of
Destiny on my life that I was created for such a time as this
in human history and then power is not optional suddenly we're
saying man I've got to have power on my life, not fulfilling
my destiny is not an option, there's this heart cry.
There's a hunger that begins to erupt within us to get in his
word. Lord, I want to partner with
Heaven. I've got to understand what
you're doing. so, I'm telling you that this Foundation Of
God's presence and seeing him for who he is.
And then understanding our purpose understanding who we
really are. Why did God make you the way he
made you? There are things about you that
are very, very unique. That God wants to unleash.
But some of you still struggle with self-rejection, some of you
minimize your strength because they come.
So naturally to you, you don't realize what a treasure they
are, and God wants to begin to speak over you.
You need to be asking the Lord Lord.
Who do you say that I am? Remember how Jesus said that to
Peter, that is the conversation you need to have with God.
It's the most important question you'll ever answer.
God. God says to you, who do you say
that? I am because your Eternal
Destiny hinges on your answer to that question.
The fruitfulness of your life hinges on your answer to that
question. But it's also the most important
question you'll ever ask and you get in God's face and say, God
and who do you say that? I Am Lord, I need you to Define
me and the Lord wants to speak over you and begin to tell you
who you really are. Because when you discover who
you really are, it will change how you live, much of the sin
problem. In many Believers lives is
because they're bored with life. They don't realize who they
really are, and so they're easily and tight.
With these minor. These side is distractions.
These piddly little things, but when you see God for who he
really is, and you begun to understand who God really made
you to be those things won't have a poll on you anymore,
because you'll want to fulfill the purpose for which you were
made. The last time Dean Briggs was
here. He told about a prophetic friend
of his, that was taken into Heaven by an Angel in a vision
or a dream. I don't know what it was.
And he said, he took him into the archive room of Heaven, it
was a huge room with Acres of volumes.
And the angel, took him over to a bookcase and he showed him
that were two volumes for every human soul.
There was a large volume in a thin one and his friend said to
the angel, why are there two volumes and the angel pulled off
the big volume he said this is what God invites every person to
believe for and then he pulled off the thin volume and he said
and this is what most end up believing for We need to see
ourselves for who we are. God is inviting us into bigger
things. But we need a revelation of him
and of ourself. And that's where a sense of
purpose. A sense of destiny that will
actually harness you, go ahead and stand.
So, you know, I'm going to quit. Proverbs says this without a
vision, the people, what parish, you know, what?
The NIV says, without a revelation, the people cast off
restraint, the restrained lifestyle of a disciple is the
result of having a vision for your life.
But it's not a vision that That you create.
It's a vision that you dismiss cover, you uncovered the
destiny, the purpose. What God has wired you to be?
And as you realize that there's this passion, that's ignited, a
passion. That is willing to heart be
harnessed and to deny itself for greater things.
There's some of you this morning that you you're struggling with
but setting sin, you find yourself being falling into the
same old. Let me just say it.
I love you stupid things. I've been there.
Okay, the same old stupid things.
Why? Because you don't have a bigger
vision for your life, you don't realize that you are a parade
sword to be paraded on the side of the Lord that he's going to
show you off and do great things with your life.
So you're out there. The watermelon cut Of sin.
Being used for much, lesser things.
When asked you to Bow your head father we thank you for your
word this morning. Holy Spirit.
I ask the right now that you just brewed over us and I'm
going to ask that every I be closed.
I want to give you an opportunity to respond to the
Lord. If you're here this morning and
you're saying pastor, I struggle with besetting sin.
There's some things in my life that it seems like it's just
cyclical. I keep falling into it.
And I recognize this morning that what you're talking about
is me. I'm not going to ask you to come
forward on this, but I want you to make that acknowledgement.
You're saying pastor. I know that's me and I want to
break this thing. I want you to raise your hand.
Yeah. All over the room.
Father, I thank you for these hands that have been raised.
Lord were asking for a fresh Revelation, not only of who you
are, but of Who We Are. Lord, we want to glorify, we
want to be the person you created us to be.
We don't want to rob you of Your Glory, by living beneath our
inheritance living beneath our purpose.
Father, we're asking that at the end of the age when we stand
before you and give an answer for our life that you pull out
the big volume and say, Well done thou good and faithful
servant. Hallelujah.
In Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you
can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on
social media. If you'd like to support the
Ministries apartment church, you can do.
So at Heartland Church, online.com give Hallelujah.
In Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you
can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on
social media. If you'd like to support the
Ministries apartment church, you can do.
So at Heartland Church, online.com give