Stop Looking Up | Acts 1:9-11 Pastor Joshua Thomas, Sr. | Freedom Church ATL

Pentecost was gonna happen. The spirit was gonna fall. People were gonna be changed. They were gonna have power from on high. But they did not need that to be the moment where they were confident in moving forward. Yeah. Don't wait for god to do his part for you to do your part. Amen. Do your part first. Yes. So that when god does what he's going to do. Yeah. You don't have to go back and learn last week's lesson. Well, you don't have to say, well, I should've come to class this day. [01:11:21] (41 seconds)  #DoYourPartFirst

Because sometimes, the opportunity to move forward is all the indication we need that we are really ready because this is the key. Because god would never take never take us somewhere that we weren't prepared for. God would never put us in a situation that we weren't ready to handle. That's why when you are living your life by faith and allowing the Lord to lead and guide you, it doesn't matter where you stop or start. God has already prepared you for it. So even if you don't know what you need, when you get in the moment, god will start pulling stuff out of you that you didn't even know was there. [01:00:17] (42 seconds)  #AlreadyPreparedForThis

that one of the reasons you have not become all that God told you you would be is not because the doors were closed. That's right. It's not because the opportunity wasn't there. Yeah. But you questioned if you could do it. Yes. Amen. You wonder saying, am I as good as somebody else? Have has my edge does my education trick match up to somebody else's education? Does my background hold sack with somebody else's background? And we really believe that we need something else to prepare us for what we've already been prepared for. Yeah. [00:58:45] (40 seconds)  #StopComparingStartDoing

And one of the realities is whenever we get stuck looking up, we gotta learn that we transition from looking up to moving forward by remembering that we have everything we need to do what we gotta do. Amen. It's unique in this text. Jesus literally gave them the blueprint. He said, all y'all gotta do is stay in Jerusalem, and I'm gonna send power. Y'all don't have to go back home and get all your stuff. Y'all don't need to go down to the temple and memorize three of the scrolls. [00:57:36] (35 seconds)  #AlreadyEquipped

Many of you know there have been some times where you said, I'm not ready for this. I can't handle this. And you watched as God was pulling stuff out your spirit. You didn't know you remembered that thing from school. But right when you needed it most, it came back to your mind, and you stood up in that place, and people wondered how you did it, and you said it was nothing but the grace of God. [01:01:00] (23 seconds)  #GraceRevealsYourGifts

I started seeing some needs in the ministry that I was planted in. And I started stepping up just filling the needs. Went to my pastor, my father, and said, hey, there's a there's a hole over here. Can I help to cover it? There's a gap right there. Can I step up and try to make it so that the operation runs smooth? And he was like, go ahead. Do it. And then about couple months later, he called me into his office and said, I want you to serve as my number two. [01:06:15] (34 seconds)  #StepUpAndRise

God's already told you what you shall be. It's time to start acting like it. Yeah. Stop being scared that everybody else don't know it. Yeah. Stop questioning and doubting. Well, I'm not sure if I can do this. Yeah. And you just walk and watch as everything will fall in place. [01:09:14] (29 seconds)  #ActLikeYourCalling

God does not come to give you the next chapter when you still haven't done the previous chapter's work. You gotta move forward. Yes. And let god show you that you can trust him. [01:17:56] (15 seconds)  #DoTheChapterWork

And every now and then, god is calling us to move forward not for everybody else but so that we can see we are who god created us to be. We may not have been it before but we are now. [01:04:36] (16 seconds)  #MoveToBecome

Yes. I see that was somebody's deliverance. Let me try it again. We may have failure on our record. But we're still writing the story. And if we're still writing the story, there's still time for us to see what God is gonna do in and through us. [01:04:52] (19 seconds)  #StillWritingYourStory

I just need y'all to stay in Jerusalem and you gonna have everything that you need because you have been, hear this, already prepared for what you gotta do. You just gotta move forward and remember that you already been trained. And the place so many of us get hung up is not just that we don't see ourselves as going forward, but we don't really believe in our heart of hearts that we can do it. How many of you know, if you could be honest and deep down in your spirit, [00:58:10] (35 seconds)  #BelieveYoureReady

Thank you. All because he made a decision. Yes. He said, I'm going to stop looking up. This is your season, my brothers and sisters. Stop looking up. Stop saying I just need this one thing to move forward. Move forward. And you'll either get it or you won't. That's right. But it's the key. But you'll still be moving forward. Maybe answers you said, I need to understand why before I move on from this job, this relationship. You may get that in the future. But one thing for sure, if you don't move forward, you'll still be stuck. Yeah. And [01:12:28] (45 seconds)  #DecideToMove