We Can't Stay Here - You Are One of God's Chosen People

[Music] God is tapping me on the shoulder [Music] I'm here for something more and I know it I feel I'm no longer willing to spectate it's no longer enough for me to just sit and listen he's calling me and I have to wonder [Music] is he calling you too [Music] all right welcome everybody once again to I town Church and part four of the series called we can't stay here go and grab your messages now so we gave you there inside of the worship guide or you can pull up the I town Church app and click on this weekend's message you'll find a fill-in-the-blank version of the notes and as you do that when I say hello to our online campus we love you guys so great to have you with us at church today and if you missed the last couple of weeks you're probably wondering what my little straitjacket is all about and I just had a CrossFit injury a few weeks ago that required surgery to repair my tendon in my back and I'm convinced that I am completely healed but I can't convince my doctor and so I'll have to wear this for a few more weeks we've been talking for the last several weeks about this spiritual journey that God has all of us on see we have this philosophy here at I town that the Christian life is not a one-time experience or a one-time decision and then a stagnant life of just attending church and going through Christian rituals that God actually has some very clear things for us to do clear steps for us to take in fact he has a plan for our lives we've been talking about that over the last several weeks we can see that plan laid out in the Great Commission and then repeated several times throughout the New Testament but what I love about God is that he also embedded it in the Old Testament because it's always been his plan for his people and so our theme verse for the series has actually been out of Exodus chapter 6 because as the nation of Israel finds themselves as slaves in Egypt God sends Moses as their rescuers their deliverer to them and he takes them he leads them on a journey to the promised land and in so many ways it represents the spiritual journey that God takes us on as he rescues us from the world and helps us to become the people he has called us to be and so as Moses arrives to the nation of Israel he delivers this very simple message in Exodus chapter 6 verses 6 and 7 it says they say to the Israelites I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians there's four I will statements here that really outline the four pill of the spiritual journey and these are the only four things that we focus on here at I tell so this first step is all about salvation I will bring you out God says I just want to rescue you I want to get you out of Egypt and the same thing is said to us when we are following the world when we are apart from God God says I just want to get you out of all that I want to rescue you this was week 1 of our series that's why we call it salvation because we have to be rescued we can't save ourselves and so we do that here at I town in our weekend services we leverage the weekend to help people who are far from God find life in Christ and then he says I will free you from being slave to them which sounds repetitive because he's already gotten him out but the reality is even though he got them out of Egypt then he had to get Egypt out of them because even though we come out of the world as Christians there's still some things written on our hearts that are unhealthy and toxic some behavior patterns the mentality of slavery that God has to help set us free from in other words we have to settle the issues of yesterday so we can be the people God's called us to be we call that deliverance and I know deliverance seems like a very strong word and something that we associate with things that seem scary or intimidating but deliverance just means that we're settling those issues those pains those wounds from our past that are dictating our behavior and unhealthy ways and the way that we do that in life we talked about in week 2 is through relationships God helps us find deliverance in spiritual community as we live in relationship with one another so here at iTime we do that through small groups and this is an awesome opportunity for you to jump into a small group because our small group semester for the summer has just started there's over a hundred groups all across the city and all the cities that we have campuses for you to be a part of and so you jump online or get on the I town Church app and find a group that works for you because spiritual community is where we settle the issues of yesterday and people rewrite what's written on our hearts so that we can reach our full potential in Christ and then he says I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment this was last week we talked about that third step which we call Redemption Redemption is the idea that you were never made to live for the devil or the children to visit were never made to be slaves in a mud pit in Egypt they were always made for something more that God wants to buy you back Redemption means to reset or to buy back - to bring you to your original purpose original calling and you have a redemptive calling and it's important for you to discover that that's why we have the grow plan we talk a lot about it around here not because we're trying to get you through some type of class structure but because you need to understand what makes you unique and today we're gonna touch again on why that's so very very important ultimately so that we can get to this fourth promise the fourth I will that I will take you as my own people and I'll be your God that's the place that we call fulfillment and true fulfillment we believe as Christians come when we are in spiritual community settling the issues of yesterday understanding our unique gifts and leveraging those gifts to make a difference in the lives of others that's where we find true fulfillment and satisfaction and so the question that we have wrestled with as Christians and the question that people wrestle with all over the world is what does that really look like what truly is a fulfilled life what is the highest level of living well in 1943 there's this psychologist named Abraham Maslow who began to study this what drives human behavior and he came up with five basic needs that he felt like every person had and then more psychologists got involved and they eventually expanded it to eight and I want to show them to you today because these needs have been embedded in us by God and as we see these needs met we graduates called the hierarchy of needs we graduate to the next level of need and it's gonna help you understand what drives your behavior and it's just simply spiritual principles so the first level is excuse me a list of your physical needs alright jot it down if you take notes physical needs and so these are there's four that are basically just kind of like your basic needs and it starts with physical needs in other words you're not worried about anything in life if you can't breathe come on somebody if you can't it like if I don't have water to drink and food to eat I really don't care who my friends are in fact it this impasse our international missions because they're not really all that concerned about their eternity if they don't have food in their belly but if we dig a well and provide them a fresh water and bring food and feed them then their hearts are open for the spiritual truth of the gospel and so every person has to have their physical needs met so that we can function and operate and then when those are met we begin to become concerned about our safety needs jot that down if you're taking notes we all have safety needs and so we desire to lock our doors at night we hire ADT to monitor our homes and we make sure that our cars are locked and that we have good strong passwords on our cellphones and on our bank accounts and for our bank cards and credit cards and things like that we like to have security it helps us be at a place of peace and rest incidentally we provide a very safe environment especially I tell kids we are really really focused on that for nursery preschool and kids Department can I just tell you a little secret that we want them to experience Jesus but because we know that it's important for you to know your children are taken care of so that you can hear the gospel preach our number one concern for your children is safety which might surprise you we're gonna give them Jesus Jesus is number two and it's the only time in the history of mankind that Jesus would ever be number two but we just need you moms and dads to know with little children that your kids are safe and we have taken the highest level of care to make sure that they are safe why because it's a need that all of us have and if your children aren't safe you won't be able to relax and pay attention you'll be concerned about them and no matter how much Jesus we give them so we have to make sure that they're safe and you have safety needs as well and then we all have love needs once our safety needs are met then we have these love needs in life like man I just want to give love and to receive love I want to be a part of something bigger than myself it's why we join groups and clubs in school it's why we join fraternities and sororities in college it's why we like to be a part of a place that gives us identity like a travel sports club or a local church or a small group we like to say I'm a part of them I live in there I'm a part of that group I'm giving love I'm receiving love it's important for us to have those connections and then when that's Matt we begin to become consumed with what we call esteem needs esteem needs says I have the need to be validated I need to be recognized I need to be complimented and everybody has this need in life and you can watch many people as this need drives them in life for other people to tell them that they are great or that they look good or that they've done a good job and it's why we brush our teeth when we get up in the morning before we leave the house it's why we look in the mirror to make sure that our hair is fixed correctly and that our outfit looks good it's why we ask questions like do I look skinny in this outfit because we want somebody to say yes you look not just skinny you look very skinny and incredibly beautiful and I am so proud of you and I think you're gorgeous because we want to hear those things it's important for us that we have these esteem needs met and one of the tricks of the enemy is that he is constantly attacking these different areas of our lives to make us feel unsafe to make us feel insecure to make us feel as though these needs are not being met that we're not a part of something that no one loves us that we are being rejected that we could never amount to anything because he knows that he can trap us at this lower level of living these are just basic entry-level needs that all humans have and our behaviors driven by those needs now the thing that's fascinating is the Bible says in Philippians chapter 4 19 that God will meet all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus so God's plan is that he can meet not just these four but every need that you would ever have in your life in fact we all have these physical needs jesus said so don't worry saying what are we gonna eat and what are we gonna drink and what are we gonna wear because guess what the pagans run after those things and your father knows that you need them already like your heavenly Father knows and so the Bible says if you'll just put God first then all those other things would be given to you as well God doesn't have any problem funding your life he doesn't have any problem helping you find opportunities that will create for chances and protection and physical resources God can do all that for you we just have to keep him first because in him we find that the Bible says in Psalm 91 that he will give his angels concerning you to take care of your safety needs to guard you in all of your ways they'll lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone and I can just tell you angels are real and I am living proof of the fact that there are guardian angels in the world today because I can tell you that I should be dead it's just a million times over I there's no reason why I should be standing on this platform alive today and I could tell you 50 different stories but I'll just tell you one because we're short on time there was a time in in high school that I was a sophomore in high school and my buddy was a senior and he had just gotten a brand-new Eagle Talon I donno if anybody remembers those cars the Eagle Talon was a little two-door sports car and it wasn't very big and it certainly wasn't big enough to hold four of us basketball players but we jumped in it because he had just got it didn't even have a license plate on it and we ran down to the gas station before the basketball game we were gonna catch the bus to go as a team to play our high school basketball game so we ran to the gas station to buy some protein bars and Gatorade or something and it was snowing really bad we're on our way back and we're a little bit late and I was like man that's a sports car you need to punch it and I don't know if you know this but friends give friends bad advice in high school and it was really really snowy that day and it's a sports car which is bad in the snow and we were coming around a blind corner in the back of Martin's supermarket so all these things are just dumb every one of them and so we're all going Florida Florida come on don't be a wimp let's go faster faster you know I'm like Ricky Bobby go fast go fast and so he floors it and we come around the corner and there's a delivery truck sitting right in our way that we can't stop and we slammed broadside into the delivery truck and hit the gas tank gas starts pouring all over the engine of the car I'm in the back seat with my friend and the two people I thought were my friends in the front seat jumped out of the car and just ran away and left us and those are the seats that you had to kind of do the the thing and then they go forward then they slide forward because my feet are trapped under the seat and I'm thinking this is it man I remember the slit you ever been in a wreck and it's like everything's in slow motion and I it was it all in slow motion I'm thinking this is it I'm gonna die right here in high school in this dumb Eagle Talon note to self if I survived never buy an Eagle Talon this is you know and so I remember actually breaking the seat to get myself out of the car you know the adrenaline is pumping and we ran away praise God the car never blew up I don't know that the fire department was baffled by it they came and it you know of course we were late to our basketball game I ended up losing a lot of bad things happen but praise God I'm still alive and I can tell you that I have fifty stories like that to the point that God can call me to any war zone to any neighborhood I will walk around without fear because I just live with this confidence that when it's my time to go I'm gonna go and if I'm supposed to stay there ain't nothing in this world that can kill me cuz God is gonna keep me alive because I'm convinced that when God hands out assignments each day to the Angels my angels are like come on really oh how dudes a mess man but there are angels protecting you and we don't have to live in fear of what the devil wants to do to us because the Bible says that you wouldn't even strike your foot against the stone first John chapter 4 says God will meet your love need not that we earned it by loving God but because he loved us first and he sent His Son making the first move is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and now we only have the capacity to love people and even to love God because He first loved us you see it's so fascinating how we spend our lives searching for things that we actually already have been given in Christ he wants to meet every one of our needs Matthew chapter 3 Jesus is coming up out of the water and the father looks down and affirms him and his esteem needs and says this is my son whom I love with him I am well pleased at this point in Jesus's life he had not healed a single person he had not preached a single message he hadn't even recruited a team member he was just being baptized by John the Baptist and yeah God the Father looks down and says love you and I'm proud of you I'm pleased with your life because I am in relationship with you and I'm pleased with you not because of how you live or what you do but because of who you are and that's how God sees his children and I want you to know any fees ins god sees you like Jesus because he decided in advance to adopt you just like his son into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ and this is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure God wanted you to be a part of the family God wanted you to be in the kingdom God wanted to affirm you and to esteem you to say you know I'm proud of you and I love you I may not approve of all the way that you live and all the decisions that you make but I'm proud of you yet still you're my daughter and you're my son you're a part of the family and that will never change because your father loves you I'm preaching 100 percent better than you're responding that's okay so then there's once you have the first four basic needs met then we move into what they call the growth needs where once we have these basic needs met then we start to strive we start to grow we start to trying to achieve things and it starts with cognitive needs we have a need a thirst for knowledge that's why we read books so I will read the news or watch the news it's why we watch documentaries it's why we love Shark Week because we want to know or should I swim to not die and how many people got eaten last year should I really go to the ocean cuz I love it but I don't want to die cognitive needs we like to grow it's why we like to take notes in church because God is taking us on a journey helping us grow and then we have what we call aesthetic needs where we begin to appreciate things that are beautiful and we like to make things beautiful and it's true that this really happens later in life this is a very mature place to find yourself because if you ever noticed people who are noticing nature and talking about birds or talking about the sunset or talking about the sky or the trees your reaction usually is and you're really old I'm not true we were driving down the street the other day and I said baby look at that and that's because the sky is so prettiest the Sun set and the clouds and the color of the sky and she wasn't like oh yeah that's she looked at me and goes and you were so old it's wrong with you you're so old and yet she's knocking me for a need that she has in her life - she's old - because the rehab don't tell her I said that because she likes things to be beautiful in fact let me tell you a little story I injured I ripped the tendon in my back sending that holds your lap muscle to your shoulder that's the injury that I actually had and I did it during CrossFit and it's a fairly rare injury I have found well I was just thinking that I had strained a muscle so I knew that I couldn't hang from a pull-up bar because there was piercing pain felt like somebody shot me in my shoulder which now I know why because my back wouldn't connect it anymore but that's not the point so I was still like a typical meathead I was still working out I could do like push-ups and dips and and you know I I couldn't I couldn't really pick the weight up all that great because it took my back to get it off the ground but then I could do power cleans and shoulder presses all kind of stuff so I'm still trying to work out just thinking man you got to quit being such a with this pain only to find out after I got my MRI that I had torn the tendon in my back so that process is pretty fast on Saturday I got my MRI back on Sunday the the surgeon actually called me and was like you need to be in my office tomorrow morning first thing I need to see you at 7:30 7:30 Monday morning I get into the office and he is telling me how we're gonna have to have surgery and it's gonna be weeks before he can move your arm and months before you get your strength back and Kate kind of anticipated that that might be the conversation and she said before I went to the appointment look if you're going into surgery pretty soon you better find out what you can and can't do because I don't need a patient I need a lawn boy I got some things to get done around here so I looked at the doctor and he's like rent to operate most people when they get this injury goes straight to the emergency room so it's kind of weird that you've been walking around for a week much less still working out I'm not sure what's wrong with you and I said hey that's cool at all I'll be here for surgery but what can I not do like tell me the limits between now and tomorrow and of words how bad could I mess this up he's like what do you mean and I was like well I got some lawn work to do when I get home I'm gonna be out for the summer man I gotta get some work done and he was like I don't think I would really advise that and I was like look I don't know if you understand I don't have an option here so I'm just asking you what can I not do and then I'm gonna back it off just a little bit that you say is like inoperable and I'm gonna go from there and he was like well I wouldn't pull things with your right arm eyes that can do so that day we ripped out about four feet of sod along the driveway because she wanted a flower bed all along this side of our driveway and she worked great and shout out to neighbor Mike who jumped in and ripped out sod too he said here am at Kate send me out there'll be a missionary wherever and so we ripped out all this sod and I had to go to the quarry and get rocks these big cobblestone rocks and unload those I loaded up like 42 pavers in the back of the truck from Lowe's and then went back and loaded myself 22 bags of mulch put in all this stuff on the ground why because my wife has aesthetic needs and I am married to her and I want her to be happy all summer long praise the Lord just got to do what you got to do aesthetic needs we got it done thank God for that 11 o'clock at night I put in the last Rock she was like approved I can't think of anything else I need you to do at this moment you may now go to bed and I said thank you then we reached what they used to think was the best and highest level of living called self-actualization self-actualization is a term that they would use for folks that would reach what they deemed to be your full potential in your unique area of giftedness so people that were growing people that had settled the first for needs and had grown in knowledge had grown to appreciate beautifying the world around them then turned internally to improve themselves and and we all have a need to discover why am I here what unique gifts do I have and how could I excel at those and the folks that reach this level of self-actualization find their unique giftedness and then have this need this desire to become the best they can possibly be in that particular field the the psychologist has studied this found through studies that only about 2% of the population ever reached this level of living 2% these are the people who say I don't want to just be on the team I want to excel I just want to be an accountant I want to be the best I want to be the boss I want to be in charge I don't want to just be uh Natalie I want to be the best that I can possibly be I want to max out my potential and take my gifts to the farthest extent and that's why we're passionate about the Gro plan here a tight end that we talked about last week because a lot of Christians even don't know their unique giftedness and calling and how they can reach their full potential in life and yet they kept setting this and saying there's got to be something else we keep saying that this is the highest need and yet these people who are at the top of their field and have this meet continue pushing they continue growing they continue striving like what is it that's driving these people there has to be something else and they realize that there's another level of living that they called transcendence level eight as a transcendence need and that's reserved for those who have taken this journey to discover all of these things reach their maximum capacity but then they say you know what at the end of the day it's empty and Hollow when it's all just for myself transcendent means to go beyond yourself it's to live a life that's beyond just meeting your own needs these folks have said not only am I going to reach my own capacity but then I'm gonna turn and figure out how to leverage all of what I know and all of what I can do to actually make a difference in the lives of others this is secular psychology these are not Christians who have discovered this even they say the highest level of living a person could achieve is when they understand their unique giftedness and leverage that gift to make a difference in the lives of others well they just stumbled upon a spiritual truth jesus said it this way thousands of years ago in mark chapter 8 if you try to keep your life for yourself if you try to amass wealth and get really good at your field all for your guess what at the end of the day you'll lose your life but if you give up your life for the sake of the gospel and the good news then you will find true life in other words it's only in leveraging what God has given you to bless the lives of others and impact them for eternity that you will find what is true life and everybody in the world is searching for it and if you're frustrated with your career if you become stagnant or complacent in your faith I am giving you right now the secret to life this is why God created us remember life's to be talked about you are born on purpose and for a purpose this is it it is to leverage what God has given you to touch the lives of people around you you and I are supposed to make a difference with our lives in fact jot it down this way if you're taking notes someone's eternity is waiting on the other side of your obedience someone else's eternity is waiting on the other side of you getting off the sidelines and getting into the game because for far too long Christians have sat idly by not participating in the body of Christ and you have a role to play you have something to offer we'll talk about that in just a second now I believe that there is a season for sitting and one of the things I love about I attend is that this is a place where doors open wide for broken people to find health in life in Christ and I'm praying that you find this as a place that you can sit and for a short season remain somewhat anonymous if that's what you need and to soak in God's presence and to heal from whatever you have come out of whether it's the world or in a bit abusive religious situation we welcome you to I town but I just want you to know if you are looking for a comfortable Christian existence where you can come and here are three points in a poem and go home for the rest of the day and act like and the rest of your life that God isn't real and just complacently participate from the sidelines of Christianity this is not the church for you because I will push you at some point to go from sitting to serving because God made you for more God didn't make you just to take up a seat on Sunday and if you're just gonna sit for the rest of your life I need you to leave because we need your seat for a lost person who will take the journey there are plenty of places that you can sit for the rest of your life we are passionate about helping not people just find life in Christ but to take the entire journey we're not not about this starting line of salvation what about getting you to the finish line because our goal is not just that everybody in our church is moving but that many of you a large portion of you are actually involved in the process of helping other people move and it's not until you get involved in that part of the process that you will say that was what I was created for that's the meaning to life that is true fulfillment I want to spend the last eight minutes we have together talking to you about what a transcendent life looks like what would you have to do to live a transcendent life number one if you take a now jot it down first thing you have to do is accept the fact that you belong accept the fact that you belong you belong to the body of Christ I love this verse in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 it says now all of you together are Christ's body now the thing that's fascinating about this is that if you have determined in your heart to follow Christ you automatically in belong you don't have to earn this one there's nothing you have to do you can already check this one off the list because Jesus gave His life on the cross and there's nothing you could ever do to earn salvation and because he died in your place you are automatically a part of the body of Christ and you're in the family whether you're serving giving or just sitting it doesn't matter everybody who calls on the name of Jesus is saved and a part of the body of Christ so you already get in now here's the part I want you to see each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it you are a separate and necessary part of it so that means that you have a unique function you have a unique role to play you're separate and you cannot function in the role that God created you to function in living a satisfied life as a Christian without being connected to the body because if I cut off my hand it ceases to be a hand it might be by definition a hand but it is useless to the world it cannot do anything if it is not connected to the body and there are too many Christians who are not grounded in a local church who are floating around and watching eight churches online never connected or submitted to any spiritual authority and they are of no value to the kingdom because you cannot function and the gifts that God has given you if you're not connected to the body you have to be of the understanding that you are separate and necessary part of it that's the other ditch people fall into is believing I don't have anything to offer I don't have anything to give I'm not special no I want you to know that you are necessary and number two if you're gonna take this journey and live a transcendent life you have to believe that except that you belong and then believe that you have a role to play because you do we live in a culture that elevates those that have microphones in their hands and stand on stages we call that in our culture the highest level of living but I'm here to tell you today that the people who will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven are the people whose names you and I have never heard they're the people who have paved the way through blood sweat and tears behind the scenes sacrifice paving the way for people who do what I get to do to even be seen by people to preach the gospel the reality is every single person who serves is a part of the body and an equal contributor to the goal in fact if you go back to that passage chapter 12 back up to verse 17 it says we have to be unique because if the whole body were an eye how would you here if the whole body were an ear how would you smell anything and how strange about it would be if it only had one part that I can never say to the hand I don't need you in the head can't say to the feet I don't need you the reality is we all need each other and we see that happen every weekend here at I tell another deaf would tell you that your role is insignificant and what you do doesn't matter you're just a person that parks cars you're just a person that greets your you're really not making that much of a difference you're just standing at the coffee station welcoming people you just re stuffing worship guides that's not as important as people who sing and that's not as important as people who preach but I'm just here to tell you today that all of us work together to make the difference that we make because everything about the experience here is strategic you know if you get offended in the parking lot your heart closes and people who are far from God who come as a last resort to a church are expecting to be judged and ridiculed and ostracized and we are already at a disadvantage because the lies of the enemy that we have to overcome and so when we offend people in the parking lot if the greeters are too consumed with catching up with one another to not greet and love people as they come through the doors that's offensive they come into the lobby nobody greets immer talks to them that feels offensive they feel ostracized we're not trying to do it but the devil's working overtime to make them believe that nobody loves them nobody cares about them that they're not welcome that people are judging them and then they go to drop off their kids and the process is horrible any miss most of worship and then the kids workers don't greet their children and they just have to send Johnny off to die and hope he's in the right classroom because nobody's gonna talk to him and nobody's gonna recognize the fact that they are there hello somebody I've had these experiences at church if you understand what I'm talking about then you understand it does not matter how good the pepete prep the it doesn't matter how good the pastor of the preaching is it doesn't matter how good the worship is nothing that happens in this room matters they're just sitting there biding their time waiting to never come back again but the thing I love about our church is that people have come and prayed over the seats and prepared the property at every campus and people are in the parking lot knowing that they're not parking cars they're ministering to people with the smiles on their faces and the goofy dances and the hats they wear and the things they do because it drops walls our greeters are not talking to one another and consumed in conversation they're making eye contact with people no matter what they look like no matter what they smell like no matter what they act like no matter how many tattoos they have all of their body or what clothes they chose to wear to church we say praise God you're here today it's wonderful to have you with a smile and a high five welcome to I Town Church it's an honor to have you here and a wall drops in people's hearts as someone comes up and engages people in conversation cuz guests always walk into a building like this because they don't know where they're going they're easy to spot and our church gets outside of its shell and says hey we're not here for ourselves we're here for you how are you today and we help them find their way through the kids area and we celebrate their children and we celebrate their life and we help them find a seed and we make sure that everything's prepared for them and we take intentional time to prepare everything about the experience from the start to the finish every role matters every team matters every person matters all of us together are making a difference and when you believe that then number three as we close you'll become the person that God's called you to be you'll step into that redemptive calling and you'll live a life of true fulfillment in making a difference in the lives of others I love first Peter chapter 2 it says you are a chosen people like God chose you to do this a royal priesthood a holy nation God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light listen everybody he's got you on a spiritual journey from where you are to where he has called you to be out of darkness and into light not so that you could just be a good Christian not so you could just be a good person and not just so that you will go to heaven instead of hell he has got you on that journey because on the other side of it he expects you to turn around and help other people take that same journey as you declare the praises of the one who did that in your life God wants you participating his plan for you is always that you would get in the game and make a difference because someone's eternity is waiting on the other side of your obedience as we close this series I can't help but think about the catalyst for the nation of Israel and their entire journey out of captivity to the promised land it was Moses Moses didn't have it all together he had desires and dreams like most of us as kids to do something special and to make a difference with his life I think God puts that in all of our hearts but just like many of us Moses made mistakes when he was 40 years old he killed somebody he gave up on his dream he ran from his destiny and hid in the wilderness still believing in God but hiding from his calling wonder how many of us find ourselves in that place today we've come to terms of the fact that you know what that idea being a deliverer of that idea of making a difference that's probably crazy it's probably not gonna happen it's probably just me being a kid and 80 years old God appears to Moses again and says Moses I still have a call in your life I still want to use you to be a deliverer but Moses it's not about you I'm not trying to restore your calling so that Moses can be a great leader I'm trying to restore your calling because there's an entire nation stuck in slavery and I want to use your life not for your sake but for the sake of the slaves of an entire nation that I have called and I have appointed to be a blessing to the entire earth but Moses their destiny rests in your hands I need you to step into your calling so they can get out of a place of slavery so they can reach their full potential so they can take the journey to the promised land and I just wonder how many people are wandering the streets of Indianapolis and they're homeless and they're addicted and they are far from God and their life is waiting for you to get off the sidelines of Christianity and understand that God has put a gift and a calling and an anointing in your life and maybe you have given up on your dream but God has never given up on you and he is calling you today to have not become complacent but to get in the game and say here am i God I'll discover my gifts and I will make a difference and I believe that someone's life will hang in the balance of me saying yes to God and because of that I'm here to tell you one last time Church we can't stay there is a world to reach and there is a gospel to preach and our church will never be the church that God has called it to be we will never step into the revival that God has called us to lead without you in the game and I don't want it for us I want it for you because this is the highest level of living with every head bowed in every eye closed I want to pray that God would touch your life in fact I wonder how many of you connect with that today that you would say you know what I have been complacent I've gotten stuck it's time for me to get in the game when nobody looking around I'm gonna do something unique I wonder how many here would be honest with me as no one's looking it's just between you me and God how many of you would say you know what Dave I'm a believer but I need to take a step I've been stuck I've been stagnant I know God's calling me to something else I know that I was made for more come on show of hands lift your hand all over this place say it's time for me to move I need God to help me and all over this place praise God for that put your hands down I'm gonna pray for you God I just ask that you would touch every person here who just lifted their hands God they know that they were made for more yet they've been settling for less God this week I pray that you would give them the courage and the faith by the power the Holy Spirit to step out and to leverage what you have given them to make a difference in the lives of others God we thank you it's in that place that we find true fulfillment it's what I pray that you had guide them that you would lead them by the power of the Holy Spirit so they can reach their full potential as you maintain an attitude of Prayer I wonder how many folks are here today who haven't taken that journey just simply because you don't know that you belong you believe live from religion that you have to get it all together in order to be accepted and yet I want you to know the reality is Jesus died while we were all a mess without any hope of us saying yes to him he's already paid the price for you to belong all you have to do is accept it if you're ready to open your heart to the person of Jesus Christ he'll take you on this journey that we're talking about to be all that he has called you to be so with every head bowed and every eye closed maybe you're here today and you're far from God and you would say you know what Dave I'm ready to pray I need to let Jesus into my life would you lift your hands all over this place right now say Dave would you count me in I need Jesus in my life great job yeah that's awesome all right you can put your hands down I'm gonna give you the words to pray you can pray it quietly in your heart you just need to mean it to say Lord Jesus please forgive me today I surrender to you thank you for dying on a cross in my place forgive me for all of my sin I invite you to be the Lord of my life and Jesus name I pray God was so thankful for all that you've done throughout this entire series god I pray that you would stir our hearts every person in this church to take a step we thank you that you are constantly helping us find salvation and deliverance redemption and fulfillment god I pray that you would help every one of us not only reach our full potential in our own lives but to leverage that to make a difference in the lives of others now we love you today with all of our hearts in Jesus name we pray and all God's people said amen come on you celebrate with those who just prayed that prayer today yeah thank you so much for joining us online today we hope you enjoyed the message if you're within driving distance of one of our physical campuses we would love to invite you to join us in person next weekend otherwise you can join us live online every Sunday morning at I town church calm until then we love you and we'll see you soon

Channel: ITOWN Church

Views: 82

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: itown, church, indiana, indianapolis, contemporary church, life giving message, worship, jesus, God, love, hurt, depression, anxiety, elevation church, steven, furtick, haste the day, drake, raptors, game 5, golden state, steph curry, KD, kevin durant

Id: ITPu8ROa3wk

Length: 42min 51sec (2571 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2019