Do you know who you are? | Pastor Steven Furtick

what was it about Nazareth that made them push away the one who came to set them free what was it about Nazareth well Nathaniel is gonna tell us Nathaniel doesn't get a lot of speaking parts in the Bible so let's pay close attention it's very uncommon that Nathaniel speaks but the Bible tells us one thing that he said that this whole text and our entire understanding of why God often cannot do what he wants to do in our lives it hinges on this because when Philip came to find Nathaniel he was excited about Jesus this is when Jesus was first assembling his squad this is before he sent them out to do any miracles and Philip comes running up to his friend Nathaniel he's called Nathaniel in John's Gospel other writers call him Bartholomew he had an alias here he's called Nathaniel and Philip comes to Nathaniel because sometimes the first thing you do when you really meet Jesus is drag people with you sometimes when God really gets ahold of your life you will bribe people into coming to church with you you'll buy a Starbucks to get them to sit with you in church because you know how messed up they are but you can't tell them that but if you drag them in this church and let me open the Bible God will tell them and together the Holy Spirit and you can get them fixed and so you say come with me to church and they say I don't like Church and you say well this isn't normal Church and they say I've been to church before I heard about that evolution Church I don't really uh know animation in the church yeah that's the church where you're coming with me now shut up and come and so philip found nathanael verse 45 john 1 and told him we have found the one somebody shot we found him this is the one Moses wrote about in the law and whom the prophets also wrote watch Jesus of Nazareth where's he from again Nazareth the son of Joseph and Nathaniel's reaction helped me to understand why the people of Nazareth resisted Jesus and missed his miracles and it helped me understand why I tend to push people away sometimes and it helped me understand why sometimes I reject the love people are trying to give me but really I'm rejecting something else because when Philip said we found the one Nathaniel was excited but when he said where he was from Jesus of Nazareth Philip say 46 as Earth let me do this in my best AI voice practice Nazareth NASA someone as ER watch what he says it hinges on this I thought they only rejected Jesus and took offense and were trapped scandal on to set a trap I thought they were offended by Jesus because they were so familiar with him but now I think the reason that they rejected Jesus is because they rejected themselves apparently Nazareth had a reputation because the first thing that Daniel said was Ezra can anything good come from there that's how I feel about myself sometimes you know because I know myself and when they took offense at him at first I was angry with them then I realized they weren't really rejecting him they had a reputation Nazareth is this a backwoods town Nazareth is on nobody's bucket list they talk funny in Nazareth it's not like Jerusalem it's not a very religious place Nazareth you mean the boy with a baby daddy who were not even short Nazareth he came from us it wasn't that they couldn't believe what he did they couldn't believe it came from them his miracles to them were remarkable but when they tried to reconcile the fact that he was one of them with what he was doing they they couldn't reconcile the fact that something good could come from us and when you have a view of yourself that has been shaped year after year even generation after generation by stereotypes or by generalizations or by failures it comes to a point where you really start to believe that nothing good can come from you and some of you are right there today trapped in Nazareth because you got some things in your past and some of them aren't even your fault but just because it wasn't your fault doesn't mean it's not your prison and in this room there is sexual molestation that happened twenty-three years ago and still dominates your perception of what your future can be and there are many in this room who are still imprisoned in a failed relationship the relationship failed five years ago but you are living in it in this very moment Nazareth can anything good come from someone like me he's just like us he's one of us and they were amazed at first and then they began to despise what they were first amazed at when they realized wait a minute he's one of us there's a part of us that is able to believe that God is great but when we try to reconcile the fact of his greatness with the reality of our brokenness we start to feel like these people and we push Jesus away and it's not that we can't believe that he's great it's just that we can't believe that anything good could come from our life because there's so much that I don't know and there's so much that I should have done it so much that I shouldn't have done and now I'm trapped in Nazareth because see I've made some mistakes and I know Jesus is a healer and I know he's amazing and I know he's a miracle worker it's not his miracle-working power that's in question here is me I'm trapped in Nazareth it's me and I'm a preach to all of your facade comes falling off because you come in this church and you look at me a certain way and you come with this sterile approach to God but he can't do what he really wants to do in your life because you're trapped in Nazareth so you listen to me preach you sing a few songs you say a few prayers but Jesus is limited in what he can do through your life because you are trapped in what you were Nazareth was so unknown and so disregarded that Nathaniel's first response was not Nazareth not Nazareth like the devil tells you not you you really think you can race those kids you never saw it done what makes you think you're gonna be any better than your dad was is what tells you you can't it's what can be in proximity of the power of God but not receive they were right there but they resisted and rejected and yet it wasn't Jesus they were rejecting it was that they had been rejected and people have said something about you long enough you start to believe this really true and I am convinced that the people of Nazareth that day we're not rejecting Jesus as much as they were rejecting themselves see you have to develop your view of who God is through the prism of who you think you are and if you believe the rest of your life that you are worthless it will be very hard for you to worship a God who thought you were worth dying for [Applause] as a matter of fact I want to helps set somebody free who has been disappointed because someone rejected you a lot of times they're not rejecting you a lot of times what they are rejecting is something that had nothing to do with you and sometimes they push you away because there's something pushing on the inside of them a lot of what we experience as rejection is really just projection it's people who have been disappointed who have been hurt and now you're thinking what's wrong with me why doesn't she appreciate me it's not you she doesn't appreciate it said she can't appreciate herself because she has not yet healed from something sometimes when people are pushing you away it's not even about you stop being so self-centered stop thinking that people are responding to you people have real hurts people have real issues sometimes they can't get over what happened to them to celebrate you will you love them anyway are you strong enough in God is your relationship with him strong enough to know that what they say about me doesn't change who I am [Applause] men's denial cannot block my destiny Jesus was still a prophet whether they knew it or not whether they celebrated him or not whether they rolled out a red carpet or ran him out of town he knew who he was do you know who you are or do you need people to tell you who you are because if you let people tell you who you are they'll say you're just a carpenter they'll say you're just a single mom they'll say you're just a teenager they'll say you're just a divorcee but if you know who God is you realize your life is not defined by an event Oh as a matter of fact it actually is that event happened on a hill called Calvary when He shed his blood for me when the precious Lamb of God look me through time and said I'll die for him so now I know that I am accepted by him hey thanks for watching if you enjoyed the message just do two simple things before you go click the logo to subscribe to this channel so you won't miss a video I promise I'll make it worth your while and second take a minute and share it with somebody who could use it or just leave a comment I love to hear how these videos are impacting you means a lot to me thanks again for watching [Music]

Channel: Official Steven Furtick

Views: 457,920

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Id: Mm1n8-_yqEQ

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Fri May 25 2018