Called & Going Nowhere | Shawn Johnson | Vantage point

[Applause] what's happening church you feel good i mean you guys look good can we make some noise for all the denver based locations what's up we love you so much brussels belgium we love you austin texas we love you and let's go crazy for the three best locations our three got behind bars campuses we love you so much we're so glad you're with us your family don't ever forget it welcome to red rocks church if you're in a building you can go ahead and have us see speaking of our god behind bars campuses the coolest thing just i mean i tell you guys all the time that i love being a part of this church family with you i mean it so much um i ordered chipotle the other day uh with ubereats all right and um the the i got the text that says your driver is approaching so i went out to the front porch and the guy's coming up and i he says here's your food and i say thank you he says have a good day and then he looks up and he goes whoa you're that preacher guy aren't you he said yeah yeah he goes bro let me get a picture and i was like all right [Music] and then i about started crying because right after he takes a picture of me and him he goes i just want you to know i found god in a red rocks church guide behind bars location and i'm out and i'm making good on my life and god has changed my life i go to the park meadows campus right now george what's up george i love you bro we just started a kids ministry a children's ministry for those with special needs at our lakewood campus come on you know how many lives that's going to change you know what a difference that's going to make in some families lives and some parents who have special needs children and their family that they can actually go to church and know that their kid who has just different needs than everybody else is being loved and taken care of it's going to change the game 400 people have given their life to jesus in the last two weeks come on church and let me just say this [Applause] i want you those of you who call this place home and your tithe and your offerings come to red rocks church i want you to see today there is an eternal return on your investment that is happening 400 people in the last two weeks that doesn't happen without your generosity a new special needs ministry doesn't happen without your generosity god behind bars doesn't happen without your generosity so church from the bottom of my heart thank you thank you so much man i love you hey no brace no brace i just got it off and it's so atrophied and weak that they're having me just start to do curls with the weight of my hand and my whole arm shakes when i do it so like this right here is a crazy workout so i'm gonna do this from time to time and it might start going like this and then i'll be like yup you're done man i'm so glad to be with you guys we're in this series called vantage point anybody liking that series we um we started this series with this verse um in in in uh revelation chapter 12. and it says there's two things that defeat the power of satan in somebody's life it's the blood that jesus shed on the cross when he was dying for our sins and it's the word of our say it with me it's the word of our that's it there's power in your testimony so all throughout this series me and doug and ronnie we've hit the road with the creative team and we're not just going to tell you stories from our life but we're going to show you the places and spaces where god has done absolutely god uh has has changed so much about our lives in these places that that we just can see it as we look back we're not the same because of it and listen as we share our stories i'm telling you guys going to speak to you about yours i need your story you need my story somebody at your school needs your story somebody at your office needs your story somebody in your family needs your story somebody on your team needs your story there's power in that right let's pray as we get into this and then we're going to let these guys go smoke in the back or whatever they do hi kid kinda god thank you so much that you're with us thank you so much that your presence is with us thank you that you let that you allowed your son jesus to die on a cross to pay the price for our sins so that we can have we can have eternal life we can live a different life in the here and now god would you speak to us today through your word and through some testimonies through some stories and i pray god that we would look back on this moment and go i'm changed because of that that's what we're believing so god speak to every single one of us whether we're in a building online in a house in a car bike hike whatever speak to us now in your name and everybody said amen all right love you guys i kid well scotty i don't know about you there's maybe hey today's message is called called and going nowhere oh that was a workout right there a left-handed drink called and going nowhere that sounds exciting doesn't it have you ever felt that if you're joining us and you don't know sometimes in church we talk about you know i want to be in the will of god i want to know the plans of god jeremiah 29 11 says i know the plans i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future we know that god has a plan a will and sometimes in church we call it a call we have a calling i can just sense it i've got i've got some god-ordained dreams somewhere in here and here but it doesn't play out very much out here i feel like i've got these dreams but i don't feel like i'm very close to them sometimes i don't even know how to get closer to them you ever felt that and it's frustrating i feel like i've got these god-given talents but i think i'm being under-utilized i don't think i'm actually walking in my calling i don't think i'm actually using these gifts and i should be and it's frustrating come on we know that feeling don't we we know what it feels like to feel like i got i'm called at the same time i feel like i'm going nowhere sometimes those go together don't they and and i think every one of us if you don't know that feeling i bet there will be a time when you will so that's what we're going to get into today i can't wait welcome back to week three of vantage point hey what's up everybody we are back at what is now city first church here in rockford illinois at the time it was rockford first assembly i think was the name this is the church where i came for the first time to a church service as an adult experienced the presence of god gave my life to god right here prayed my first prayer right down at that altar i mean this this building represents a whole lot of life change for me and uh it's interesting because i think part of the reason i'm filming this video today and get to be a part of the red rocks church family and am a pastor and the whole thing is because of something that happened right here they used to not have these really cool gray theater style seats it was these long pink bench like chairs called pews i don't know who named that but they needed talking to uh i was sitting right here in a pink pew i had got i'd come to a handful of services and thought you know i'm i'm cool now i'm going to sit in the back i'm gonna sit in the back of the room and so i'm sitting in the back of the room and they had a group come in it was i don't i don't know if there's still a thing these days to be honest but it was called shake the nations and it was this huge creative production um and and they would travel around and do conferences and go to big churches like this one and the the the production that they were doing this particular day is this is going to date how long ago this happened princess diana had recently died in a car crash in paris and it was obviously like groundbreaking news around the world well so maybe a year later these guys they go to the exact spot they they rent a car and they actually drive the exact route that princess diana's car had went on when she got in that accident and i don't remember really a whole lot of the production other than it was uber creative which really caught my attention and i think the message was something like you know you just never know when your life will end like we all kind of feel like we're going to live forever but the truth is we're not and the truth is for most of us we never know and so make sure you're living for jesus make sure you're trying to make a difference all that good stuff so i'm sitting here i'm i'm newly saved and i'm watching this thing and all of a sudden god drops this dream into my heart and it was like man i want to do that and i don't know what that means i never wanted to be a preacher i don't want to preach but like because i'd worked in the film business and i loved and appreciated creativity i thought well maybe i could do something like that but i remember sitting in this chair which again was a pew but sitting right here going god could i someday do something on a stage like that where this many people get to hear about you there's probably 1500 people in the room and i remember thinking like god just someday could i do something big like that and it was probably that same week that i was in this room praying still kind of a follow-up like hey guy do you remember i prayed i wanted to do some big things and like a week has gone by and i was reading the bible and he showed me this verse and i'm gonna read it to you first peter 5 6 humble yourselves therefore under god's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time and i knew exactly what god was saying to me if you want to do something big if you want to walk in your calling whatever that is it starts with not just big dreams and big aspirations it starts with will you humble yourself and actually be obedient to me right where you're at and i'm telling you church i knew in a nanosecond where i had to start there were three things in my life that i knew i need to humble myself and be obedient to god and it was my money it was my relationships and quite honestly it was just my focus in life and so sitting right here watching a traveling group of people doing their thing god spoke to me about kind of my calling for the rest of my life and he never gave me a big picture he never gave me like here's what you're going to do what he gave me was if you want to experience the kind of life i have for you i'm gonna need you to go all in and it starts with humbling yourself and being obedient and for me like i said three main areas my money my relationships and my focus and so i started and this is where it all happened this series is fun isn't it getting to actually see some spots let's reread first peter 5 6 i want to talk about this this verse today and i just want you to to be real honest like be open today let god speak to you god is there something you want to say to me i'm going to talk a little bit about those three areas that i needed to submit and i challenge you to ask god if there's any area where you need to submit because this is this this one applies to every single one of us humble yourselves therefore under god's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time that due time's the frustrator isn't it because it's not my time it's not your time it's due time and that's where we get frustrated that's where we have that feeling of i'm called and i have talents and i've been given a dream and i have gifts but i feel like i'm going nowhere and that's where the frustration sets in and i think more than ever in the last couple years i have had conversations with people and they all kind of go like this god's put a dream in my heart and it ought to be happening now isn't that true if he's put the dream in my heart it ought to be happening now if i have the talents for what i can see i ought to be utilizing them now and if i'm not there must be a problem and due time must not work and he must have forgotten and must not be paying attention and so i guess i better start finagling right and for me like i said it was those three areas and i just knew it because i wasn't i was new to god but i just wasn't yet and the first was my money and and i'll never forget again today's about stories i'll never forget i was sitting in a car with a youth pastor in the church parking lot right after service and it was actually the pastor's wife and she her name was jeannie and she played a very pivotal role in my life and she was helping me with my budget at that moment because i'd never had one i was 24 and a college graduate but didn't know how to do a budget and so she she started going through all this stuff and um she's like obviously you'll be tithing and i'm like i'm sorry she's like the first ten percent of everything you make it goes back to god knowing maybe yours does yo i'm broke you can read the numbers on that page they're little and i got way more debt than those numbers can handle i had so much credit card debt i had a whole bunch of school debt and very little income i said i can't afford to tithe and she looked back at me and she said you can't afford not to i said i'm sorry like none of this makes sense you're saying i can't afford to give away like this is upside down it makes zero sense and she read me this passage she goes let me just read something malachi 3 bring the whole tithe that word literally means tenth into the storehouse that's your local place of worship that there may be food in my house bring 10 back to where your local church is or your local place of worship because it's going to fund the things like what i talked to you about in the beginning it's going to fund things like god behind bars it's going to fund things like right that's what god's saying that there's going to be food in my house it's the only time she said sean this is the only time he's ever said this after a command he says test me put me to the test says the lord almighty and see if i will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing you won't have room enough to store it she she said you can't afford not to i said i'm broke she said listen if tithing unlocks the floodgates of heaven in your finances why would you wait till you're not broke for that to happen you can't afford not to shawn and it was so funny she started talking about stuff i hadn't even heard of she goes and and just so you know you're going to come back to me in about a month because you're going to talk to some christians around the church who who want who don't want to tithe and here's what you're going to hear and i'm just going to keep you from having to come back she's like you're going to hear that this is just an old testament law thing and we don't need to do it today she goes so let me just wrap that up so you don't even need to set up another meeting with me she's like read genesis 28 and i'm just gonna read you one verse she did not read this to me she goes go read genesis 28 and read matthew 23 and and watch what you're going to see it's not an old testament law thing and i want to share this with you because it helped me a lot because i had heard that genesis 28 22 this is several hundred years before there was even an old testament law this is jacob and this stone that i have set up as a pillar will be god's house and all that you give me i will give you a tenth that's hundreds and hundreds of years before the old testament law and go read matthew 23 jesus talks to he's talking to some people and he's talking about the tithe and says i want you to change the way you're seeing some things but don't stop tithing so it's talked about in the new testament it's way before the old testament law and it's in the part of a part of the old testament it's not just an old testament law thing but it comes down to she said sean you need to read the bible and you need to talk to god and you need to ask him i'm not trying to avoid it god what are you calling me to she goes to go have a moment with god and that's what i want to challenge you to do go have a moment with god and i came back to her and i said i don't want to do this halfway i'm in i'm all in and i don't have much she said well that's the good thing about god's system is 10 of not much is not much she said actually and this said i found this to be true she said the richer you become the harder it will be for you to obey because you'll start looking at to ten percent going well that doesn't quite make sense she said it never gets easier it's always the same exact it takes the same amount of faith to tithe no matter where you're at on the income scale and i said i'm in i said how do i start she said get it auto deducted from your paycheck every two weeks and i said well why should i do that she said so you don't have to make the emotional decision to tithe every two weeks for the rest of your life she's like if you want to make it part of your life and you're going to actually live this way then make a decision and go take care of it because two months from now two months from now you might have more or less and be less emotional or more emotional and you don't need to make this decision every two weeks if this is how you're going to live your life go make that call and let's go that's why we have the ability on our website and on our app for you guys to set up auto withdrawal because if you decide i want to live this way then let's not play games set it up let's move forward and let's go freaking change the world together that's what i want to do now i know money makes some people a little squeamish if you don't trust me or you don't trust this church keep coming to church keep using the child ministry services that we provide keep using the online platforms that we do that we provide keep using all the resources enjoy the worship team enjoy tithe somewhere else i do not care to have arguments with you about i'm not sure if i trust your motives or not fine tithe somewhere else watch what god starts to do i'm telling you this is a biblical principle that when i talk to my boys i don't say go have a moment with god i say this is what you're going to do because it's going to change your life but i can't say that to you so go have a moment with god and see what he wants you to do and let's go change the world second thing for me was relationships man i i needed to submit my relationships to him i was single and newly saved and hoping that i did not have the gift of singleness on my life for the rest of my life however i know some people do straight up like there are people that god will call to be single for their entire lives and he will give them the grace to do that and that's their plan and that's their call and i was just hoping that wasn't my call because i had real strong desires not to be single so i prayed what almost every new single christian prays bring me somebody hot who goes to church who loves jesus a tiny bit right and i had met this girl at church and she was cute and she was nice and she was newly saved and we started talking on the phone and there was i was i was tired of being lonely on the weekends and i was like man i'm just going to ask this girl out but i was like trying to give every part of my life to god and so i was like i'ma pray about it and so i i had this moment where i was all by myself and i was like god here's what i think i'm gonna do and this is man i'm just i think this might be the one and you know i mean she's saved that she's single so it's pretty much my criteria right now and uh it was the first time i ever felt like i heard the voice of god in my life it wasn't an audible voice but i was by myself and a phrase hit my head my heart my soul so strong and i know i wouldn't have ever come up with it on my own and it was it was clear as day it was you don't need a girl right now you just need me and i believe he showed me this verse matthew 6 33 seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well and that verse is going to be in most of your bibles in a section called do not worry don't worry about this don't worry about this don't worry about this don't worry about this if you'll just go back to when if you just spend time seeking me i'm going to take care of everything else i've got a plan i know i know i know it feels frustrating but i need you to trust me i need you to humble yourself in this moment submit this to me and let me do the god stuff and you just walk in faith right now and hang out with me stuff what i didn't know is that was going to change my life forever because it wasn't too long after that that i met a girl named jill in a small group at the church a small group that she came to with a boyfriend well it's true you did and i could tell from the jump i'm like um i didn't know i didn't know that we'd get married and have three unbelievable boys ethan austin and ashton i didn't know we'd some today partner with the brookmans and a team of people and start a church and pastor red rocks i didn't know any of it but god did so see all i saw was frustration because i'm single and it's the weekend and i'm lonely all i saw was frustration you know what god saw preparation i know you're i know you feel called and like you're going nowhere but i got a plan that you can't even see coming and so don't just feel frustration understand that this is about preparation cause i got a plan for your life and that's what it was the third area for me that that i knew i needed to submit was my focus man this was huge for me because um i'm i've got that like type a personality you know like i want to go and do and achieve and conquer and i want to win i want to win at everything like i need counseling over how bad i want to win and those the closest to me no i'll make anything a competition oh we're both leaving the restaurant well i'll take a picture of my driveway when i get home and i better get there before you do like i'll race i'll do anything everything's a competition but i'm always like the the shadow side of that is i'm i'm not content on autopilot i'm always what's next what's next what's next god what's big what's next huh let's go do something and i have a hard time being where i'm at and uh this has always been me and and now that i'm a christian it's still me i'm just a christian version of that and sometimes i have to fight against that and i was i had started interning at the church um and and interns make 50 bucks a week and i had gotten married so let me talk about feeling like a man who's providing for his new bride i was not i had big dreams of of what i wanted to do i actually didn't want to be a pastor i didn't know what i would do i thought it would be creating some creative things but i knew that i wanted to be on a on a stage because that's the only place i'd seen where a whole bunch of people would gather and let you talk about jesus and i just wanted to tell 1500 people plus about jesus that was my dream but i was frustrated and and so because now i'm an intern and now i'm like 26 27 28 start to work at the church i'm getting close to 30. i'm doing what we do every single day now we just didn't have social media to help us do it i'm looking at what other people are doing and how much better it looks than what i'm doing and that's what we do on a daily basis on the ig don't we so a friend comes to town his name is monty and we had a life altering conversation at a place that i don't know if it's from heaven or hell uh cracker barrel you decide um i ate like 12 biscuits and a whole jug of honey so i don't even know what happened after that um i'm talking to my friend and and and i just really looked up to him as a man of god and he's very type a go get him kind of guy and so i'm like he's going to feel my pain i said man i'm watching my peers speak at conferences work at giant churches be senior pastors be up on stages talk big things i'm like monty i'm the funny skit guy at our church see this was a whole different era of ministry and what we thought was really cool was the pastor would be speaking and then midway through the sermon he'd go huh and there some actors would come up on stage and do a little play so like andrew you're laughing but you were you know you were in church during all these and so so like he'd be like you know sometimes we have conflict resolution issues in our marriage and then all of a sudden a guy and a girl would come sit at a card table and they would have a pretend fight and they'd try to be funny and it'd be super cheesy and then the lights would go out and the lights come back on the pastor and he'd go kind of like that and we were like cutting edge ministries okay well when they decided they wanted to start doing that stuff they're like well who's going to write our funny skits and somebody on the leadership team was like that sean kid will do it he's from hollywood i've never written anything in my life my friends are putting on conferences speaking to thousands of people and i'm waiting till wednesday afternoon to get a call from the senior pastor to go can you write me a funny skit about and no one no one would be the guy on stage because it's so humiliating so i was also that guy almost every time so i'm telling monty i'm like bro my friends are changing the world i got a college degree student loans a wife i'm about 30 and i'm a funny skit guy and i thought he was going to give me some sympathy and be like bro i know some guys i know a guy i know some people will work some connections let's get you to something bigger i thought that's what he would do that's not what he did he goes sean you got it all wrong you're working in the kingdom of god now it's a different set of rules you don't promote yourself in this kingdom god does and he goes and you want you want to fast track your promotion because let me show you how to do it and you read me a verse matthew 25 23 it's not look at instagram it's not keep looking over the fence it's not keep wishing it's not trying to wiggle your way into something well done good and faithful servant this is the words of jesus you've been faithful with a few things skit guy i will now this is a sequence i will put you in charge of many things come and share your master's happiness he said let me the way the kingdom of god works is god puts you in places and spaces for certain amounts of time and your job is to walk in faith and to lock in where you are and be so faithful with a little that your heavenly father has to give you more to steward he said you're not locked in you're spending too much time with your head up looking at what might be next you need to put your head down and become the best funny skit guy this world has ever seen i walked out of cracker barrel different i used to set up a card table for the funny skit for the couple you know what i did the next time they asked for a couple i built a 16-foot wall with a window i found the actors interns i found the actors that were going to play the parents i went and had i went and had family pictures taken of them and then i framed the family pictures and i put those on the wall next to the plants and the full design set and i the ceiling was probably 50 feet in the air and i rappelled down a chandelier over the set i will be the best funny skit guy this place has ever seen and i started and i ran lights every week for the youth group for eight years i ran sound i set up youth retreats i tore down youth retreats and i wrote funny skits and i'm telling you there were so many days when i'm like i'm going to do this and i'm going to do it well and there are so many days when i'm doing it and going i hate my life i'm going to be faithful god because it's what you called me to do i'm gonna lock in where you got me and i just want you to ask yourself are you in a prison in a hospital in a family in a neighborhood in a job in a cubicle in a home and most of your energy is looking around like this and is it possible and i'm not saying this is you is it possible the god of the universe is saying i can't wait till you start to respect the place i have you right now and lock in like you've never locked in before because when you show me you can be faithful here it's not just a test i'm preparing you for what i got for you next so i just challenge you to ask yourself is it possible god's asking you to submit in some area of your life right where you're at let's go back to rockford and the last video of today's teaching so we started with this verse humble yourself under god's mighty hand and he will then right lift you up in due time and i told you that for me i knew i knew immediately the three things i needed i needed to start being obedient with my money my relationships and my focus and and here's the story that you want to hear i know this because it's the story i want to hear is that as soon as i started making those decisions and i said okay god i'm going to be obedient with my relationships i'm going to be obedient with my finances i'm going to put you first i'm going to seek you first in your kingdom and i'm going to trust you that you meant what you said that you'll take care of everything else and boom the next week my dreams start coming true that's the story we want that's just not my story i started doing those three things to the best of my ability and and truth is i can't tell you how much like god was stirring up this desire for me to be on one of these and again i didn't think i was going to be a preacher i thought i'd be making videos or doing something creative but i just knew i just i didn't know i guess but i thought that god was had put this desire in my heart that's what i thought and it was that i wanted to be here not because i was trying to be famous i just want to tell a bunch of people about jesus that's all i wanted to do and i just kind of thought this is where it has to happen and i wish my story was the next week he put me on a stage and i got to tell a bunch of people about jesus but that's not my story in fact i i spent the next eight years after that god moment in the auditorium in this room not up there i spent the next eight years running these bad boys every wednesday i would lower these trusses down and these are like intelligent lights we didn't have this fancy stuff back then we had these like 1000 watt park hands and if you wanted to change the color you didn't hit a button like you do with these you you literally put a different colored gel in front of the park hand so i would lower these every week and i'd figure out okay who's on the worship team this week where are they going to be where's the drums where's the guitars where's the keys who's preaching what's happening then i would come in here and i would adjust these lights and the system was a little antiquated right so i'd guess at where all the lights went and then i'd have to hoist it back up into the ceiling and then i'd go oh great that park hand needs to be adjusted and that one and i'd lower it back down i would spend all day getting the lights ready not for me to be on a stage because it just wasn't god's timing i spent i spent my weeks preparing this stage for other people to be on it and then up in the top of the room is a little tech booth and every wednesday night i would be up in that tech booth and i'd be running the light board and i'd be running the sound board for the people that were on stage year after year after year and in fact there came a time when i was like you know i can either keep being like i could get mad about this and like start being mad at god and questioning god and walk away from the whole thing and i don't know what it was probably somebody spoke into my life because i'm definitely not smart enough to come up with this on my own probably somebody encouraged me to do it but i just remember there being a time where i was like you know what all i can control from that verse that i felt like god gave me is me being humble and submitting to god i can't control what he deems due time right so i'm just gonna keep doing this because he's got me here and so i'm gonna keep fixing these lights and i'm gonna run the lights in the sound board up in that tech booth for the people down here on stage and that's what i'll do and i decided to make it my worship and i would be up there in that tech booth and as i was controlling the lights throughout a service this i would be i'd be reminding myself this is my worship this is my worship this is me worshiping it was just me trying to embrace where god had me because where i was physically didn't match up to where i wanted to be in here you know what i'm saying and and so i spent a lot of years in this room now i'm not saying for some of you it might be the opposite you might start submitting your ways to god and humbling yourself before him and trust me it'd make for a way better message it made for a way better response if i could go man i humbled myself and a week later god gave me my dreams it's just on my story i interned here for two years and we made fifty dollars a week and then i worked here for six years after that i made about 30 grand somewhere around there never got a raise then we got the idea to start this thing called red rocks church and me and some friends moved out to denver and we didn't not only get paychecks but didn't have health insurance for three years so so get this from the time i had what i felt like was god dropped a dream into my heart from the time i had the moment over in that sanctuary of i think i'm gonna do something on one of these stages and tell people about jesus it took 11 years before i actually got a paycheck to do what i felt like god was calling me to do so for me my story is for 11 years i got to live out that verse i'm going to humble myself i'm going to submit myself and i'm going to let you raise me up in due time and i can tell you this though church it's almost 25 years since that day almost 25 years ago i had that moment in that sanctuary where i felt like i said i'm going to use you from a stage and i don't know why to tell people about jesus and my at the at that time my dream was what if i got to tell 1500 people at the same time about jesus because that's about how many people were in that room what if i got to do that wouldn't that be amazing but see we serve this god who says what he means and he says in ephesians 3 20 that i'll do things in your life that'll absolutely blow you away things you couldn't even dream of or or imagine or hope for on your own i was dreaming of getting to be on a stage and telling 1500 people about jesus and the truth is red rocks church this church family that we're a part of right now not because of the leadership not because any of us definitely not because of me because of whatever god is doing through this church family just this message this weekend will go out to almost 150 countries we as a church family get to tell people literally around the world that we serve a really good god and he has really great plans in store for your life we don't get to control the timing on those plans and the timing on those dreams but what we can do is control if we will humble ourselves and submit to our god and say i'm gonna obey you in these areas that you're calling me to obey you in and i'm just gonna worship you where i'm at i'm gonna worship you where you have me through the opportunities you put in front of me knowing that whatever promotions you may or may not have in store for me whatever your ultimate plan is for me though that's going to happen in your timing god and i'm going to be okay with that and i'm telling you when we decide to make that choice there is a peace that starts to just overtake our mind and our soul and our hearts when we can go i'm not in control of the timeline i'm in control of my humility i'm in control of my submission to god he's in charge of the timeline that's the way i want to challenge you to live church and i believe it's the best possible life [Applause] when i went back to that room to film i remember i remember feeling what kind of frustration i dealt with in that room for eight years i served in that room and up in that tech booth and after a few years went by i got like once in a blue moon i would get this preach to the youth but the first time i did it i messed up a bible story it didn't go well so they weren't going to ask me back too quick i confused saul and solomon easy to do and uh yeah totally misled a bunch of students and um then i then at one point i got to do some stuff with young adults in that room but it was never the scale of the dreams that were in my heart there's a lot of frustration but as i stood in that room and i thought about my life today it hit me like like a ton of bricks all i could see some days was frustration and the whole time god's going just trust me son stay in here son because this is preparation bro cause i got stuff for you that you can't even see coming and i think about all those small groups and how i learned to read the bible and i learned to talk about jesus and i learned to disciple people one at a time i could spend here i could talk for hours about the lessons i learned all i saw was frustration but what god knew was no no no this is preparation and i thought about david many of you know the story and i'm just going to give you the real quick cliff notes because i'm going to wrap this up david theologians believe somewhere around 10 to 12 years old perhaps but young he was anointed by a prophet named samuel and told that he would be the next king of israel so you want to talk about some god dreams being dropped on your heart this is from god i'm almost sure of it i'm supposed to be king and you know what he did after that he went back out to his father's field and watched sheep the lowest of the low when it comes to jobs and then just to put salt in the wound the current king saul he kind of felt like there were times when he would get so sick that he thought maybe he was like being attacked by demons and he needed something to soothe him and somebody said well there's a there's a shepherd over here named david a young kid he could play the harp he goes bring him over so every time saul would get sick the king david has to go to the king the guy who has the job he wants and play music for him till his tummy stops hurting and then go back back and watch dad's sheep but there was a time and we know this because of what we learned later there was a time when david went i'm not going to be an average shepherd oh i got dreams of being a king in my heart but i'm a shepherd right now but i'm not going to be an average shepherd because what we learn is is lions and bears would at times attack the sheep [Music] if you are really bored you read up on this for yourself most shepherds aren't going to do anything about that attack i'm not going to risk my life that's a lion i'm a guy it's one sheep not worth it most shepherds aren't going to go fight that battle i'm going to let the lion take the sheep i'm going to let the bear take the sheep but david said uh uh i'm locked in oh this is not the dream in my heart but it's where god's got me i'm locked in i'll go fight a lion for one sheep i'll go fight a bear for one sheep and he killed him and i think this is the moment first samuel chapter 17 where he actually realized oh my gosh it wasn't just frustration it was preparation because you know what god was preparing him to do kill things bigger than him that scared most men now he's on a battlefield toe-to-toe with a giant man and he's so huge that he scares the entire nation of israel's army and he says to the king your servant has been keeping his father's sheep all i saw was frustration [Music] but now that i think about it i killed a lion if a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock i'm not the average shepherd that's why i'm telling you this is going to shock you i was dialed in i was locked in i went after it i struck it and i rescued the sheep from its mouth and when it turned on me i seized it by its hair struck it and killed it see your servant i've been through some stuff i've had some frustrating times in my life i've been through some stuff but i killed both lion and bear in those frustrating days this uncircumcised philistine he'll just be like one of them because he's defied the armies of the living god the lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paul of the bear will rescue me from the hands of this philistine i saw frustration god saw preparation and all of a sudden i find myself in a position today where i'm just not scared of giants because i've been through some stuff so this bring it on bro easy he was being prepared and all he could see was frustration see and that's us i'm telling you we're going to close worship team you can all come back up i'm gonna close with this i could bore you with story after story after story of how all my frustrating days were the best preparation that i could ever have i'll just give you one for 22 years jill and i have both believed we heard from god and we're supposed to tithe so in the real poor days and in the real good days the first 10 of whatever we make goes to wherever we're worshiping and then we hold the left we hold the 90 real loose and we've just always done this god the rest is yours i'm a steward i'm gonna save some money and i'm gonna have fun with some money and i'm gonna do what i can but if you want something say the word it's yours one time and we were poor we were brought face to face with a ministry that was helping children and we felt called to give [Music] we didn't we didn't have that we didn't have that kind of money in fact it was actually a big ministry it was helping a lot of a lot of people we felt called and and we felt this and this is just i'm not saying this is what any of you should ever do unless you feel god telling you but we felt this call that we're supposed to empty out the the bank account on this one and we i remember it i remember right where we were sitting sit in the car and prayed and yeah let's do it i said babe how much do we have to our names she said we have fifty dollars so we wrote a fifty dollar check sent it off [Music] see i know i know what it's like to feel called to a ministry thing and finances don't make any sense and to have nothing i know that pressure because i had some real frustrating days like that a lot of seasons like that for us i saw frustration see god saw preparation because he knew 2020 was coming and that i would be a senior pastor of one of the largest churches in the country and that there was going to be a worldwide pandemic that was going to shut down all the buildings and every single senior pastor was going to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders how in the world are we going to operate how in the world are we going to stay afloat how in the they took the buildings how are we going to keep our employees everything's falling apart we're going to lose everything you want to talk about some pressure and if you know me i'm sort of prone to anxiety so this is like the perfect storm for me to literally fall apart i'm not bragging on myself i promise i'm bragging on god through covid through the craziest financial pressures i've ever experienced in my life as a leader not one panic attack not one sleepless night [Music] he's prepared me he prepared me for this i just thought i was frustrated [Music] if i would have been put in the position i was in in 2020 two years after i dreamed that's what i want to do i would have quit and ran in a heartbeat it would have crushed me i wasn't ready but i didn't know it because i didn't know what he had planned for my life i'm telling you if you can say god i may not be where i want to be or maybe you are is there an area that you want me to be humble and submit and show some faith and show some obedience and let you take care of what's next in due time there's some peace in that and when we can actually live that way guys put up that very last verse psalms 1 18 24 this cannot just be a bible verse but a definition of how we live because i'm just locked into where i'm at and i trust god for what's next this is the day the lord has made and guess what i don't have to worry about what's going to happen next i'm just going to rejoice and be glad in it i can stand right where god has me and put my hands in the air and rejoice no matter what my dreams look like no matter what my future looks like no matter what my talents and abilities and how they're being utilized looks like because god's gonna take care of that stuff in due time i must seek him first and his righteousness and let him take care of everything else and so now i'll just chill and rejoice and be glad in this day amen that's what i want for you church god i thank you for today i thank you for your word i thank you for your spirit i thank you that you're speaking as we begin to worship with this unbelievable gift that you've given us of a worship team i pray god that we wouldn't just be singing words of a song but that we would actually be open to you speaking to us about our lives [Music] i thank you for what you're doing in every single one of our lives we love you so much in jesus name and everybody at every location said amen would you stand up with me and let's worship [Music]

Channel: Red Rocks Church

Views: 3,150

Rating: 4.9285712 out of 5

Keywords: redrockschurch, Red Rocks Church, RRC

Id: v2lVMd4PoHw

Length: 49min 11sec (2951 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021