It's Your Move | Pastor Ben Prescott

and what we're going to do is we're just going to acknowledge that that god is here and that his presence is here and that his grace is here and god we put our attention upon you we take we fix our attention we take our attention off perhaps what we're going through what we're walking through what we're dealing with things that the enemy has tried to do perhaps you know through our life even this week lord god we make a conscious decision to lift your name up higher god we don't wait until we feel like it because that's not living by faith that's living by feelings and god we know as we just heard quentin share and and really prophesy that you are the answer you're the answer to what we're walking through personally you're the answer to what's going on in your business you're the answer he's the answer to what's going on in in your family he's the answer for this nation and we have we have to the people of god is our it's our mandate upon the people of god to lift up the name of jesus it's not a mandate upon anybody else but the people of god they don't we know better we know better we know who he is we know what that name represents to others the bible says it's it's foolishness to those who don't believe but to us who believe we know i know and we will be held responsible or accountable for what we do as his people i know better i know better than to keep the name of jesus low i know better than that i know better than to allow my circumstances to reduce the level to which i lift up that name jesus i know better he's been better to me than that i've seen his his goodness you've seen his goodness enough in your life maybe not in every area just yet there are still things that is working for the good but you've seen his goodness and faithfulness enough to know better to know better than to allow the name of jesus to be reduced to a a lower level than what he's worthy of we know better as the people of god to to allow our situation to to to reduce or the things that we're going through to reduce the power of that name because his word says that if we would let god arise that his enemies would be scattered and if the people of god would get our attention upon the jesus that we know who is good who is faithful who is able and if we would just lift him up see faith faith is not a feeling faith is a focus it's a focus and lord right now as as a community as as a people of god we lift it up we declare your name jesus we declare your grace we declare your hope and we declare your healing power in your mighty mighty name if you know better i want you to give god praise right now come on if you know better than to let the name of jesus stay at a low level come on if you know better say i know better than to let jesus lay low i know better i'm going to lift up the name of jesus because i know better i've seen him do better i know he's doing better right now in my life even as i praise him he's good sometimes this is a good reminder i think for his people because we all go through those times those challenges where the enemy tries to convince us of stuff and and we've got to remind ourselves i think i know better i know better i know the truth and so i'm going to lift him up he's good isn't he you excited to be in church why don't you uh give someone an elbow or a a fist bump or a or a nod or a smile eyes over your little p35 or 45 or p p31 baby someone yelled at us i think we're making up numbers now how many of you have been caught going to the store without your mask you're walking to the store and have turned around to go back and get your mask those who don't have their hand up you're lying how many of you will admit that you have gone back to your car and there is no mask so you just grab an item of clothing that you found in the trunk of your car that has been there for one year and three months has stains all over it and so you then proceed to wrap your whole head in that t-shirt i went up to a security guard the other week i had to go into a store and that was me and i found a t-shirt and uh in the in the trunk of the car and i literally sort of wrapped it around my head and i had a little you know and i went up to security guard and i said is this going to work he just looks at me says no but uh it's the world in which we live in don't you like our new little tent set up isn't god good open uh open your bibles and we're gonna jump straight into this the uh if you were with us last week um i uh can i get some water i don't know what i do with my water someone could i'm gonna need it um if you're with us if you were with us last week thank you bro give it up for pastor jake um last week we started to to talk about um the uh the subject if you like or the title if your theme is probably better off purpose of us as the people of god walking in the purpose that god has for our life and we uh we sort of i i i sort of feel like we sort of stumble onto it as onto that as a topic because we just finished a little series that we did on perspective remember that the way in which we look at things that it's not what we see but that's the way we see it and we took that um we were looking at the story in second kings of elisha and how elisha prayed every sermon that servant that he would see but as we followed the story through those of you who will remember from last week as we followed it through and we saw the purpose of god or the victory begin to unfold for elisha and the servant we we were tracking that story and and we actually identified that the victory ended up coming about in the story but as odd as it sounds to say in church but if you can go back and look at it at 2nd kings chapter 6 you see that the victory didn't unfold because necessarily god stepped in but the victory unfolded because elisha stepped up that what was revealed to elisha in the spirit was shown to him that god was there but god didn't actually if you look at the story he didn't he didn't really intervene it was the rest of the story and the victory that came about was led because elisha began to operate in his purpose for that moment and so that sort of set us up as a church to begin looking at what it means for us as the people of god to walk in the purposes of god for our life that i think too often we can find ourselves as the people of god sitting back waiting for god to quote unquote meet our needs and we forget that we have a part to play that it is so important for us as the people of god to begin to operate in the purposes of god for our life and we looked at so then we pivoted a little bit and we began to look at god's purpose for his people that is outlined in genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3. and and last week we used that as a bit of a framework to identify what it means what's the point what's the point of purpose we talk about it in church so much but but what does it mean we often say i'm trying to find my purpose if you meet young people they want they want you to pray and and help guide them in how to find your purpose but we discussed last week about how the idea taken from genesis chapter 12 verse 1 to 3 where god spoke to abram regarding the purpose of god for his people that they would be a people that is that that were blessed that this was their purpose that these few verses in genesis are verses that the jewish people look at and identify as their purpose in life wrapped up in the promises of god in these few verses and we began to work our way through it as a little bit of an outline if you were in a small group this week you would have gone over it and begin to discuss it more in a little more detail but what we talked about how the purposes of god are actually and god's purpose upon our life is not something that we sort of stumble onto it's not something that we find it's not an occupation it's bigger than your gift is bigger than who you marry it's bigger than how many kids you have it's bigger than where you live that the purposes of god for your life are actually on you they're actually in you they are working for you and they're working through you and so what that does is that gives us a little introduction as to the depth of what it means to have a purpose from god for your life that in fact in jeremiah chapter 1 and verse 5 we know that he says that before you were even formed in the womb there was a purpose on your life that verse even right there says that maybe the purpose of god in the context of why the way i've been thinking of it maybe it's actually bigger than me just finding the right spouse or me just stumbling on to the right occupation and so i'm setting this up because we're going to begin going on a little bit of a road or a deeper dive in this week and in next week as well because i think this is right now so important for the people of god to understand the purpose of god for their life there are things there are things that god wants to do on this earth and he is not whole he's not going to just step in he's waiting for god's people to step up that's why when jesus said to the disciples in regard to how you pray he said pray like this he said pray my kingdom come my will be done another way you could you could describe that how do you pray he's talking about praying in his purpose now if his purpose is just going to happen why would he give the disciples instructions to pray it in it gives us an understanding that there's a mandate upon us as the people of god there's a responsibility i have a responsibility you have a responsibility regarding the purpose of god i want you to see something in this that really what we're talking about when it comes to purpose is purpose is not something that i find is actually something that i already have the reminder for us today and i want you to understand and hear this because this is what i'm going to speak from is surrounding this thought that god's purpose is something that i must activate in my life i already have it on me yes on me it's in me it's already been given to me jeremiah 1 5 says that it was given to me before i was born so how do i activate how do i activate this thing how do i click this thing into gear so i can start doing what god has called me to do not just what i want to do not just my dreams that's what happened when we get safe i surrendered my dreams for his purpose so so what is god what's the purpose that god has for my life i promise you church this is something that i believe such i have such an urgency in my heart and spirit for the people of god for this day for this time for this season there is an assignment of the enemy to stop the people of god operating in their purpose so we got to do it so i want you to see something in a story that i want to show you i'm going to start and first i'm going to use the first couple verses or the first couple words of this what we've been looking at in genesis chapter 12. well god says something to abram and it's interesting that god says this to abram before he begins to unfold the purpose that he has for his life that would then in in turn actually set up a bloodline through abram that's called the davidic bloodline that jesus christ the messiah would come through and god says something to abram that's really interesting that grabbed my attention before he begins to discuss his purpose as we talked about last week he actually says this he gives abram these instructions and he says get out of your country before he begins to talk to abram about his purpose he challenges abram on his position this is what i want to talk to us today about in regard to our purpose and i've sort of entitled that this as a little thought for my sermon and it's simply this it's your move it's your move because so often we're looking at god and we want god to do something but i believe god is looking at his people saying is your move i did my move over 2 000 years ago and it was a big one it was from heaven to earth to hang on a cross now it's time for your move that we have to understand that my position is so important when it comes to me activating my purpose that my position actually sets me up for the purpose that god has called me to walk in for the purpose that is upon my life that if i can get in the right position i'll activate my purpose let's look real quickly at a story in scripture in luke chapter 5 and verse 17. it says now it happened on a certain days he was teaching that there were pharisees and teachers of the law look at these two words sitting by teachers and pharisees of the law sitting by who had come out of every town of galilee judea and jerusalem and the power of god was present to heal them so let's stop here for a minute and i want you to see this picture because we skipped past this story this is the story for those of you who don't know we're about to read of where four men lower a paralyzed man through the roof but i want you to see this picture because i'm going to show you a two contrasting positions want you to first see this picture of where jesus is in a house and it says that there are people there but i want you to notice their physical posture it says that they were sitting by if you look at the interpretation of what that means it means that they were just to put it in in layman's terms they were just sort of hanging out they were just sort of sitting by they weren't they weren't necessarily leaning in they were a little disinterested but then what grabs my attention is the next thing that the story says and this is where it's astounding it says that the power of god was present to heal them so we think about this story as being the power of god was present to heal the man that's about to get lowered through the roof that's not true because he hasn't entered the scene yet so here we see an opportunity for some people in a room if the power of god is present to heal them it suggests that some of them are sick but because of their physical posture that i believe represents a state of their heart and a spiritual state that says we're just going to sit by we're not going to position ourselves they miss out on their purpose we don't hear of these men getting healed the people that we hear about getting healed we know the story and it goes on to say that four men were on their way to the house where they know jesus was and the house was packed out and they find a man on the side of the road and they pick him up and he needs to get healed and they climb onto the roof and they begin ripping tiles off the roof and they start to lower this man to where jesus is i want you to see the two contrasts in two different positions that the first group missed their purpose because of a wrong position but the second group activated their purpose their freedom their healing their breakthrough because they made a decision that they were going to position themselves a couple of years ago grass had messaged me i was at the office my wife chris and she messaged me and she said well you are will you stop by on the way home and pick me up some food and it was a it was a place nearby here a little burger shop that she likes and so i'm an obedient husband so i roll up to the burger place i park the car and i get out and and i go to walk up to the to the burger place and out the front door there's this huge line of people there's people standing out the line so i sort of go up and i'm like annoyed i'm gonna have to wait in line this place is popular it's buzzing it's the whole vibe right so i go up to the place and i stand in the line and i'm standing there and you know i'm standing there for like two minutes and three minutes and three minutes become five minutes five minutes becomes ten minutes and the line's getting a little bit by little bit it's slowly getting getting strong i'm a little bit as time is slowly going on i'm moving closer to the front but i'm still a ways away and as i'm standing there it gets too bad it must have been maybe 12 13 minutes and i'm standing there and and i'm looking out at the line and you know i'm just sort of standing there just chilling and i look up at the counter and above the counter in front of this line it says a sign and it says place order here now you've got to understand caressa when caressa rang me and chris said i want you to pick up food she gave me these specific instructions and she said i've actually already ordered the food and i rang ahead and all the food i've already paid for it i just need you to pick it up so here i am i'm standing in this line and i suddenly realized i have this epiphany that i am standing in a line and i'm actually wrongly positioned because as i look above the counter there's a sign that says place order here that wouldn't bother me so much if beside it there wasn't another sign that didn't have anybody standing in front of it the second sign said pickups only so now i've been standing in this line for like 12 minutes now i've got to do like the walk of shame because everybody's seen that i've been standing there for 12 minutes now i've got to get out of that line and walk to the other line silly me but i'm over in the wrong line getting frustrated but it wasn't the supplier's fault it had already been prepared it had already been paid for i was just wrongly positioned this is where some of us are so often when it comes to god's purpose for our life all i had to do was change my position to activate what it was that i wanted in fact it had already been done it had already been assigned to me but i had to change my position to activate what it was that i wanted to walk in this is my challenge to us as the people of god is where are you positioned right now because there is too many of us we have been caught sleeping i think covert caught the church asleep where we've been sleeping we've been settling for church on sunday we've been settling for just rocking a service doing our thing and we wonder covert hits the church gets scattered divided now we're bickering now we're at one another and the enemy's just sitting back watching this freak show called the church that's actually been wrongly positioned and now we're not walking in our purpose if we're if we're not careful to get positioned better we will miss the purpose god has for us so my challenge is what's your position are you are you like these men that were in the house that the bible says they were sitting by i don't want to get caught sitting by when i could be stepping up i don't want this church our community to get caught sitting by when we have a world right now that he's lost dying and broken and they desperately need an answer and the answer is jesus and it's going to come through the people of god but we have to be positioned correctly i want to show you in this story real quickly there's three positions that these men took that set them up for a breakthrough it's not difficult we complicate the gospel so much how do you get position better how do you get positioned better these men the first thing i want you to see is as being positioned in a position of faith in a position of faith it's not a feeling it's a focus that sets up your position when we talk about our purpose we sometimes get caught in this idea that the problems that you face are the biggest threat to the purpose that god has for you that's that's how we sort of think we think okay i have a purpose for my life but the enemy's attacking me and he's stopping my purpose to summarize that's where a lot of us get stuck but what i want you to see and i want to put to you is actually not the problem the problem isn't the threat against your purpose because there are so many verses throughout scripture that clearly state that no purpose of god is going to be influenced by some problem from your enemy you have we have to be we know that but but we have this idea that the problems that i come up against they're the things that are attacking my purpose it's actually not it's the positional shift that your problem causes you to take i want you to see it's almost like a little teaching thing here because if you if you think that walking in the purpose of god is going to mean that you're not going to have problems then you're missing it if you think that that the purpose of god is going to be affected by the problems that you face then your perspective of who your god is and who you are is too limited you have to understand the only way your problems that you face can hinder your purpose is when your problem causes you to step out of your position you have to hold a position of faith so when the problem comes and hits you and the bank account gets dried up or the family starts to fall apart or the kids start going crazy or the business goes bankrupt you have to maintain your position of faith and not allowed your problem to move you from faith to fear it's not the problem it's the position that will stop your purpose that's why we have to have a position of faith a position that says i believe that god is for me a position that says i believe god's gonna do it and you know what i'm gonna step out in it like these men that rolled up they made a position they took a position of faith that said come hella high water we're gonna get this joker healed if we have to climb onto the roof and pull the tiles down because i have that much faith in who god is that when we get there something's going to happen it's a position of faith we have to be reminded that scripture we talk so much about a spiritual fight but if we understand what it really is to fight in the spirit and we look at scripture and we look at how paul talks about fighting in the spirit he actually doesn't tell us to fight he tells us to stand he's taking a stand in faith that says i'm gonna stay positioned in a revelation of who my god is and listen to me and what he's told me to do because faith without what say it like you don't have a mask on faith without is dead i want you to i want you to i want to remind you of the story of a guy in scripture called jehoshaphat in second chronicles chapter 20 and verse 17. this dude listen you go read it later this dude had some battles he had some some things that were coming up against him but in 2 verse 17 it actually says this put it up on the screen you can read it there it's in front of you but he the lord speaks to jehoshaphat through the prophet regarding the battle that he's about to walk into and he says to jehoshaphat this is what i want you to do this is not just what i want you to believe this is what i want you to believe and step out in you're going to go into the battle you're going to walk right into the middle of it and the bible says the scripture sentence up on that screen it says that jehoshaphat is told by god that i want you to the word is position yourself he says if you will position yourself you will see the glory of god in this battle and if you know the story jehoshaphat he's got all of these guys coming against him they're coming in from this way coming at it from that way write that verse down i want you to read it later you look at that in small groups this week and jehoshaphat this joker he walks out onto the middle of the battlefield and you know what he does of all things to do he goes out there and he stands in the middle of the battlefield and he starts to worship his god it's a good story and we read it and we think man that's man that's a good bible story i want you to listen i want you to go there with me in a moment did you hear what i told you that he did these guys he's coming up against are killers this listen this is the dumbest strategy to win a battle that you have ever heard of in your life it doesn't make sense what is god this and this is what what what frustrates me and inspires me at the same time about god why did god always get people to do dumb things you ever think about that stop and think about think about some of these stories it's like he's it's like it's like god's messing with us jehoshaphat go out into the battle and start singing sunday school songs it's like god's up there with the angels saying what she's watch his dude i just i just told him to go sing well she's can't even sing wait for this wait for this you're out of tune bro you're out of tune bro it's like joshua you're gonna come up against battle called jericho what should we get him to do guys let's get him uh what do you think gabriel let's get him to do laps like run like yeah let's get him to do laps around the around the wall all right let's do that samson's coming up against a thousand philistines god says to the angels what shall we give him sword spear someone yells out give him a jawbone of a donkey god's like who was that well i mean let's do it let's try that gideon's going up into battle should we give him men yeah let's don't give him too many give him 300. the point i'm trying to make is it's not about the weapon the strategy it's not about how many men it's not about how bizarre the means of victory what the means of victory is going to come through where each one of those ideas is so brilliant and the crazier they are the more brilliant it is because it's not about the weapon it's about the faith it takes to step out in it it wouldn't listen it wouldn't take faith if samson was in the desert and a thousand philistines came and he walked around the corner and god supernaturally provided an army for him that wouldn't take faith to win that battle but it took faith for a dude to pick up a jawbone and look at her thinking i don't know how the heck this freaking thing's gonna happen but i'm just gonna start swinging haymakers and just see if one of these jokers drops it's the faith joshua they start marching around the wall once i would have bounced after two laps bro i would have been like jay what are we doing are you kidding me i'm a fight i'm not stinking athlete i'm puffed out bro joshua said let's keep going let's keep believing i'm trying to get you to see that it's a position of faith these men sent his faith without works these men said do you believe it four of them with a do you believe it yep the house is full how bad do you believe it bro one says to the other he says what are you thinking he says look at that roof i reckon we could climb up on this thing and we start ripping tiles off can you imagine the paralytic guy he overhears that conversation what it's like i can't even walk bro you're gonna load me through the roof they're like shut up just do what we're telling you it's the position of faith that's what the enemy wants you've got to hold your ground despite the problem you've got to keep believing it'll keep your position strong we're not called to fight we're called to stand some of you just thought doesn't the bible say we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers the key word is wrestle not fight when it says wrestle is talking about ancient greco-roman wrestling where they would draw a line a circle on the ground and two men would wrestle and the idea was to pull one man out of the circle to take him out of position you we've got to hold our ground as a position of faith i want you to see the other thing in this story the other thing in this story that these men is these men start to start to lower him down look look at what they depended upon they depended upon god's grace to heal in the moment paul was somebody in scripture if you look at ephesians and i'm going to finish soon i promise and we'll pick it up next week if you look at ephesians you see all the way through ephesians in fact right at the start of ephesians paul says this he actually begins the first 12 verses of ephesians where is i can't even find someone's root ephesians out of my here we go paul he speaks of our position as being in christ in fact he says that about eight times in the first 12 verses of ephesians he introduces himself he says paul an apostle of jesus christ you know paul knew what it was to walk in the grace of god we know that because we know that paul if you know your bible paul wasn't always paul paul used to be saul so this joker knows what it is to stand firm in the grace of god knowing that he didn't deserve to be there i think that's why he had this revelation of what it was to be in him in jesus in christ because paul knew if i try and do this in me i'm going to fall apart because i'm a screw-up but my god is not so he's reminding us all through ephesians you've got to stay in him in him in him blessed be the god and father of our jesus christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ just as he chose us where did he choose us in him before the foundation of the world verse 7 in him we have redemption through his blood verse 10 he might gather together in one all things in christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth where in him in him also we have or die obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him i'm trying to outline for you real quickly the importance of having a position of faith and a position of grace let me tell you this you don't deserve the purpose that god has for your life none of us do when i went to that that store to pick up that burger and i changed lines i realized i'm in the wrong line here i gotta i gotta i gotta get out of this line i gotta reposition myself so i went to where i was supposed to be i went to the line that said pickups only pickups only and i walked up to the front and i said to the lady i've got a i've got a pickup and she said what's the name and i said the name's ben and so she's behind the computer and so she starts typing she's like this do you ever feel like they're doing so much more work on the other side of the computer than they need to be doing i mean it's ben it's only three letters like just do b-e-n see what comes up could be me you know she's like this she looks up at me and she says i'm sorry i don't have an order under ben and i'm like oh dear lord i said please can you look again was very polite because you have to because i'm pastor i said can you look again she types again she says i don't have an order under ben and then suddenly it clicked i didn't put the order in so the order wouldn't be under my name it would be under the name of the person that paid the price for it so some of us are trying to access a purpose or activate a purpose on our life using our name using our right using our gift trying to earn it trying to strive for it trying you can't do it you cannot work walk in your purpose or activate your purpose based on your name because you never paid the price so that you could have that purpose you have to access it in the name that's higher than any other name the name of the jesus that went before you that paid a price that only god himself could pay to set you up through the blood and grace of jesus christ to walk in the purpose that he has for you [Music] he can't do it in your name i love thinking of paul writing ephesians and i'm gonna finish i love thinking of that because i like thinking i don't think he wrote it start to finish i think he kept stopping and just thanking god in a prison that he's paul and no longer saw i think that's why he kept writing over and over in him in him in him because if i get out of him and start to get in me i realize how messed up i am i feel like that's what paul was doing in him in him if you get outside of him you'll start feeling like you cannot do it in your own strength and that's great because you can't but you've got to stay in him to access the power of god that will activate the purpose of god for your life you have to stay in him by the blood and by the grace of the lord and savior jesus christ is in him is in him it's not and the last one i know where i'm gonna finish the last one i want you to write down real quickly is the position of faith the position of grace and lastly it's a position of surrender the biggest mistake you can make when it comes to trying to activate the purpose of god is to start to think that it's your purpose and not his how do i activate my purpose you don't it's not your purpose it's his purpose so we have to let it all go we spend our life scrambling trying to i got this dream and i got that dream and i wrote this storyboard and i've had this written above my bed and i believe that i pray for that you know what you've got to let it all go what did the men do when they lowered him down i'm going to finish they've got a row and it says they tie the rope and they stick this dude on the rope and they bust through the roof and then they start to just lower it down [Music] how do you lower it every time you lower it in order to get it closer to jesus you got to let it go and then what's so good about this is you don't just let it go once you let it go once you'll just stay where you are the more times you let it go the closer you are to activating your purpose so when i want to pick up things and make them about me i've got to let it go when i get a dream in my heart to do something i got to let it go when i go through challenges and i go through trials and i'm trying to walk them through in my own strength i've got to let it go when i feel like i'm being overwhelmed and are the enemies reminding me of all the mistakes i've made and how i can't do it in my own strength i've got to let it go we have to remember that is not our purpose and i'm going to close but is his ephesians 1 11 in him also we have obtained our inheritance being predestined which means decided beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of whose will his will say it out loud whose will he works all things according to his will not my will not my plans not my purpose his how do i activate the purpose of god for my life is i've got to position myself it's a position of faith a position of grace and a position of surrender next week we're going to look at a verse in romans about being transformed by the renewing of our mind and one of the things that it says on the tail end of that verse it says that you would be able to attest to the you know paraphrasing but to the plan and the purpose that god has for your life it it's only a renewed mind we'll be able to activate god's purpose and some of us are positioned right but our mind is not renewed remember what we talked about last week that the safe click we're going to turn it we're going to turn it and this week we turn a little bit next week we're going to turn it more and then it's going to click as our mind gets renewed we activate god's purpose right across this room so glad you watched this message and we pray that it encouraged you if it was your first time text fcoc to 313131 my name is john paul i'm a part of the youth department here if you want to get even more connected check out our instagram 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Channel: Free Chapel OC

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Keywords: inspirational stories about jesus christ, inspirational stories about jesus, stories about the holy Spirit, stories of hearing God's voice, inspirational stories about following jesus, people who have heard God speak, Live every day for God, Live a life of significance, voice of the Holy Spirit, how to hear God's voice, free chapel orange county live stream, free chapel orange county, free chapel in orange county, Free chapel oc live stream, ben prescott free chapel, free chapel

Id: OLzlBTYHTVA

Length: 48min 33sec (2913 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020