Praise God! It's so good to see you all this morning. It's good to be in the House of the Lord, here to be able to share with you all. Let's give God another praise for that worship, that time we were able to share together, lifting high the name of Jesus Christ.
It is good to be here this morning. As was mentioned earlier, I'm Pastor David; of course, I'm not Pastor Cory. He's out this weekend, but I thank God for the opportunities to be able to share with you the messages that come from the Lord and how He continues to use different people here at Hope City Church to help change our lives and redirect us and guide us into what He's calling us into.
This morning, I believe this is another opportunity for us to continue to learn more about what God is doing here, amen? We are blessed to have pastors like Pastor Cory and Tamika here at Hope City Church, are we not?
Before I begin, I'll open up with just a quick word of prayer.
Father God, thank you for today. Thank you for every individual that is in this place. Lord, I ask that you would reveal yourself to us in a way that we have never seen you before, that you would speak new things to us, give us guidance and direction so that we can walk in the calling that you have called us to. In Jesus' name, amen.
As we're continuing to move forward, getting closer to Easter services and Easter time, I believe it's important for us to know who God has called us to be, amen, and the things that God desires to do in our lives and how He desires to move through us. There are so many amazing things that God has in store for each and every person here. It doesn't matter how old or how young you are; God has something that He has created you for. Do you believe that?
If you don't believe that, I hope that from today's message, you will realize and come to that understanding that God has called each and every one of us for a purpose and for a plan.
This morning, I'm going to speak to you all on the topic, "I Was Made for This." Won't you just find someone sitting next to you that you came with and say, "You were made for this"? Turn to that other person who you might not have chosen first and say, "You were made for this." Now I want you to say to yourself, "I was made for this."
I was made for this.
I want to come to you all. I'm going to read to you a scripture today that's from the book of Proverbs, chapter 29, verse 18. I'm going to read this to you from the Message Translation, and it says, "If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves. But when they attend to what He reveals, they are most blessed."
This morning, I hope that you become most blessed by the vision that God is sharing with us, amen.
I can remember being a child, and I'm sure some of you all do as well. You might have gone to the store with your parents; mom might have taken you to the store, grocery store, whatever it was, and you're walking through the aisles, and she says, "Boy, don't touch nothing! Don't touch nothing!" Right?
There is a purpose behind that. For me, like some of you all, I may have been that clumsy child. You touched something; you might have knocked something off the shelf and broke it. And what's the saying? "You break it, you buy it." You break it, you buy it, right?
In my childhood mind at that age, I might not have realized that if I broke it, my mama was going to have to pay for it. So what I would do is maybe, "Oh, I want this," or "I want that," right? And she would say, "Put that down, don't touch that."
For some of us, as we're going through life, we don't realize that there are some things that we're going to have to pay the consequences for if we touch something that is not destined for us. If we start moving down and pursuing maybe what we think is our purpose, but it's not our purpose.
I can remember as that clumsy child, if we would have maybe realized the vision that our moms or fathers had for us and the reason why they said, "Don't touch this" or "Don't touch that," then maybe we would have made some different decisions or choices, right? Because if we understood that if I broke something because I touched it in a clumsy way, my mom was going to have to pay for it, well then maybe she wouldn't have the money to buy something else that was greater or bigger or better in the future.
If I would have had a vision, an idea, an understanding of where she was going with this statement that she made, then I probably would have been less reluctant to follow the decisions and the choices that she told me to do.
I believe that God is showing some of us with and through His word the vision that He wants for our lives and the direction that He wants to lead us. It says that if we would follow these things that God is saying to us, then maybe we wouldn't stumble and trip all over ourselves. Maybe we would be able to walk on a path that was a lot clearer and a lot straighter, and we wouldn't be jumping through so many hoops and obstacles trying to get to the purpose that God has for each of us.
If we understood His vision, if we followed His vision, and through His word, He is sharing with us and telling us this morning that if we understand what God is doing, then we won't stumble on ourselves and that we will be blessed. God wants to do these amazing things for us, and if we would choose to follow down His path and listen to His vision, we can have and live the blessed life.
So the question is, what is next? What does that really look like? We know that God has a vision for our lives. He says it in His word that He does have a vision, and we can understand that vision whether it is given to us through what we read in His word or whether it is by prophetic revelation that He gives to a teacher to tell us about ourselves.
There is a way, it says in the scripture, that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. When we try to do things our own way, when we try to figure it out outside of the word of God, outside of moving in the direction that God is calling us to, we are presented with death.
We see this in the stories at the beginning of the Bible, in the Garden of Eden from the very beginning. Even though Eve was presented with something, she was told by the Father, "Don't touch." But she decided to take things into her own hands and listen to what the serpent told her. It said that from the day that they eat of that fruit, they should surely die.
Understanding and following after the plan that God is showing us and telling us will lead us into a blessed life. When we read the word of God, He's teaching us and He is training us in His ways, not in our own ways. He wants us to have the wonderful things that He has provided for us, just like I believe my mother and my father wanted us to have some wonderful things as we were children.
But we had to follow the plans. As many parents are in here in the room, your kids may want to do things their own way. But as a parent, we are guided and directed by the Father to provide some amazing things for our children, but they have to follow the plan.
In Psalm chapter 16, verse 11, from the New Living Translation, it says, "You will show me the way of life." This is David speaking here as he writes this psalm, "Granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever."
Again, "You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever." This here is a psalm of David, and David here is writing this psalm in the Bible, and it says there is something that is special about this particular psalm. It is called a myctum psalm of David.
So that you can understand what a myctum is, a myctum is something that is very precious. It is special. So if you had a piece of gold, but you had a piece of gold that was maybe refined a little bit more or had a little more precious value to it, right here in this psalm, we find out that this is a myctum, and that there are only six of the psalms that are written that are denoted as a myctum psalm.
There is something that David here wants us to understand about this psalm, that it is special and that we should take heed in particular to this one of those six psalms. He says here that if I am walking after the things that God has called me to, then I can experience the pleasures of living with the Father.
It is not just so much to hear what God says, but I must walk after. I must follow the yellow brick road to get to where I ultimately want to go, to get to where God is calling me to, so that I can have eternal rest in the end. I've got to follow the road that God is calling me to.
David wants us to understand that God is showing us how we should live, how we should walk, how we should talk, and then and only then can we experience the full pleasures that God is calling us to.
As we're preparing to come to this time for Easter and Resurrection Sunday, we're getting ready to go into a series called The Four Cups. Pastor has talked about this a little bit. The Four Cups is really showing us how the Hebrew, the Jews, when they were coming out of Egypt, they had the Passover. The Passover has four different cups at the table, and Pastor is going to share a little bit more about this in the future.
But we'll understand how even to this day they still utilize the Four Cups, and those Four Cups can tell us about what God desires to do in our lives and how He has purposed us to fulfill our destiny. It's important for us to know that Jesus Christ has become everything that we need.
So we can relate those Four Cups that Pastor is going to talk about to Jesus and everything He went through for us and how we are now in this room today because of what Jesus Christ did.
Simply put, the principles of God that He wants to show us are these four things.
First of all, He wants us to know God. One of the ways that we can know God is by our Sunday morning experiences. This is our opportunity to come together so that we can learn more about what God has to say to us, how He wants to move through us, and live in our lives. We can know God through what we do here on Sunday mornings.
There are people that come here every Sunday who don't know God. We are presenting them with an opportunity to learn who God is.
Secondly, we want them to find freedom. How do we find freedom? We find freedom through our small groups here at Hope City Church. These are opportunities where we can meet with one another, where we can learn what God has to say, where we can develop, where we can continue to build each other up and pray for and with each other. We do that in our small groups.
So knowing God is also part of getting Egypt, getting us out of Egypt. But then finding freedom, we are getting Egypt out of us. Sometimes we come out, we learn who God is, we learn about the things that God wants for us in our lives, and then we give our lives to Christ and we tap into a small group, and there are some things that are still in us that we must get out so that we can experience the fullness of who God is.
Thirdly, to discover your purpose. We are going to sit there in a little bit here and talk a little bit more about discovering your purpose and how to find out what God wants to do in and through you. But we discover your purpose here at Hope City through our growth track. This is a way that you can learn about the things that God has placed within you, the gifts that He wants to use in you, and how you can use those gifts in the local body of Jesus Christ right here.
We want you to discover your purpose.
The fourth thing is to make a difference in using those gifts right here at Hope City Church, wherever you may be serving. You may have the gift to sing. Well, you could sing on the worship team. You may have the gift to serve and work with children, working back with our Kids City.
These are different things that we learn about ourselves as we find out what our purpose is, and now we plug into the body of Christ and use them here for His purpose.
Being made for this, well, what is that "this"? That "this" is your purpose. This morning, you all said that you were made for this. You're made for whatever God has called you to, whatever God has placed in you, whatever gifts He has given you—that this is your purpose.
I want you to understand that Satan does not want you to operate in your purpose. The enemy does not want you to operate in your purpose, and he will put different things in your way and in your path to stop you from achieving your purpose, to keep you from walking on the straight and narrow path, to keep you off the yellow brick road.
So what are the enemies of your purpose? This morning, we're going to dive into some of those enemies so that you can understand how you should live. You can understand what obstacles you need to stay away from.
I want us to look here at Romans chapter 12, verse 2, talking about the enemies of purpose. It says, "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think."
Don't copy the customs and behaviors of this world, but let God transform you. It says then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
When we talk about those things that we are made for, we're made for this, we're referring to the direction of your purpose. Whether you believe it or not, the enemy is cool with you coming and joining us here in worship. Yeah, he's fine. He's like, "Go ahead, get up in the morning, go to church. Go on down there with those good folks at Hope City Church. Sing with them. Yeah, enjoy yourself."
But don't walk in your purpose. Don't fulfill what I've called you to do. He does not want you to fulfill your purpose. He's even okay with you knowing what your purpose is, but fulfilling and walking in what God has called you to is what he wants to keep you from, and he's going to put some different things in your way to keep you from that.
The first thing I want us to look at is comparison. Yeah, comparison. The enemy will put some things in your way, and you will be faced with comparison.
I think probably one of the most popular ways that we tend to compare ourselves is by looking at what people do on social media. Yeah, we see what happens on social media—who's going on this vacation and taking that trip and how wonderful their marriage looks, and everything is just going so wonderful. We begin to compare our situations with somebody else's situation, and we begin to think, "Why can't I have what they have?"
We try to keep up with the Joneses. "Why can't I do what they do?" We want their lifestyle, even though it may be fake, as opposed to walking it out and achieving it and attaining what God desires for us.
You see, last week Pastor Corey spoke about having that fake Coke or your bag of chips. Sometimes you can get the generic brand, the inauthentic brand, but what does it take to get the authentic thing? We don't want to have an inauthentic purpose, an inauthentic vision for what God is taking us to, an inauthentic calling for what God wants us to do.
I know that I love to cook, and some things take a little bit of time to get done, right? Right? Right?
Anybody here ever fried some chicken? I don't see no hands. There we go! I was about to say, you fried some chicken. The first few times you're trying to figure it out. You don't know how long it needs to cook. Is it done all the way?
There are a couple of different ways you can figure it out. You can get your thermometer, but everybody doesn't have a thermometer. You stick the fork in it, and if the juices come out clear, it's done. But sometimes there's some blood because it's undone.
Sometimes there are some things that seep out of it that let you know it's not fully cooked; it's not fully developed. What happens is if you happen to make your plate and you put a piece of chicken on the plate that's not fully cooked, and you cut into it, the blood will seep out. But the blood won't just seep out onto your chicken; it'll seep out onto everything else that's on that plate and begin to contaminate all those other foods on your plate.
Sometimes we want something that's not quite done. We want to achieve or obtain some blessings from God, but we haven't let them cook long enough. Not only does it seep out into that specific area, but it begins to affect everything around it.
I don't know about you, but I want a fully cooked purpose, a fully cooked vision to achieve and obtain whatever God is calling me to. I would rather wait on the Lord and receive everything that God has for me than just to receive a portion.
Comparison is the first enemy.
Confusion is number two. Many times, we are faced with confusion. The enemy will cause confusion in your life. Did he say to Eve, "You won't really die if you eat this"? He got her confused. One thing she was told by God: "Don't touch this; you will die." And then the enemy comes along to confuse her and to make her think that one thing is not the way that it is.
We will be faced with confusing situations in our life, and that confusion will many times mess us up from fully stepping into our purpose. Sometimes we dip our toe in because we're not quite certain, "Is this what God called me to?"
We are in an election year, and Lord knows there's a lot of confusion. One side saying one thing, one side saying another thing. But how many people know we are to stand with God on all things?
God is not the author of confusion. He is not. He will show us, and He will tell us the direction that we must go. We must stand with God.
Parents in here who are raising children and your children are in the school system, there are some things that your kids will experience at school that are quite confusing from the way that God has called us to raise our kids. It is important that we as parents are teaching our children godly principles so that they can then walk into the purpose that God has called them to walk into.
Confusion is something that will constantly try to creep into our life, our children, our families, and these are things that keep us from obtaining the purpose that God has called us to walk into.
So confusion is the second one. First was comparison, second was confusion.
Third is counterfeit. Yeah, yeah. Pastor talked about the cubic zirconium a few weeks ago, right? But God's blessings are authentic, and they bring joy. They are authentic, and they bring joy.
Many of you all know that I used to run track and field professionally, and one of the things that I had an opportunity to do many times was go to China. In China, one of the places, I remember the first time I went to China, the track meet I was competing in was in Shanghai. It's called Taobao City, and basically, it's like a shopping mall-type building. It has about four stories, and you just keep going up escalators.
Once you get into this place, you can just find anything you're looking for—anything you're looking for in this building. I remember walking in this building and just being so overwhelmed by all the purses and the shoes—the Gucci. I mean, everything!
But one thing you knew is that it wasn't authentic. You would walk into this place, and you'd see the Louis Vuitton purses and backpacks and suitcases. I even—my father-in-law, he loves to play ping pong. He even got him, because we're in Asia, ping pong is a huge sport there, got him the very, very, very nice ping pong paddles.
But they have all this wonderful stuff there, and it wasn't until you got close up on the item that you could tell something about it wasn't quite right. Something about it wasn't fully authentic. There might have been a mistake in the stitching, and maybe they made the product there, and something happened at the factory. But they said, "Well, we can't sell this to our normal public at the price we would sell it at, so go take it over here to this place. These people coming through, like me, might purchase this."
You would look at it, and you would see, "Okay, this is off, and this is off," right? But it was an understanding that there was something that wasn't quite right about this.
My wife, she sent me this other video this past week that she saw online. It was this guy, I guess his grandmother or something bought him some Jordans. Maybe some of y'all saw this video too, I don't know, but the Jordans, they were the MJ's, and you hit a button on them, and they started playing Michael Jackson music.
Someone said, "Well, I guess you could only get these in black or white." They were all inauthentic Jordans, and there was something that told you it was inauthentic by the way that you looked at it and by the things that you saw.
It says in Proverbs 10:22, "The blessings of the Lord bring wealth and without painful toil." God desires to bring blessings to you—things that will fill your life with joy and wonderfulness. It's not something that's going to be super hard that you're going to have to go after. If we follow along His precepts and His teachings, I want the real authentic blessings of the Lord. If it's not from Him, I don't want it because it's going to bring hardship; it's going to bring us turmoil.
I was in—one more quick thing. I was in New York this past week. My wonderful wife, she sent me there for an early birthday gift to go watch my favorite basketball player, Stephen Curry, play the New York Knicks. He beat them!
But I remember I was walking into the arena at Madison Square Garden, and they had all the street vendors out there selling all the clothes and the gear. You see, man, they got Knicks stuff; they got Warriors stuff out here. So I go on in, I come out after the game, and they're back out there again.
I remember walking by; I was there with my best friend, and I was walking by, and some guy, he holds up—he's like, "Hey, we got Knicks gear!" And he holds up a Nike hoodie, Knicks hoodie, right? You see the Nike sign on it, and he said, "$20."
I don't know about any of you all, but I haven't seen Nike gear for $20. I go around the corner, and there's some Warriors gear there—some hats, skull caps, etc. I look at the skull cap; I'm a big Warriors fan. I'm wearing my Warriors stuff, and I see some stitching that's a little crooked. I see some things that are off in there, right?
The original creator of this gear did not create what he was selling. There was something that was off; it was not made by the original manufacturer. Sometimes in our lives, we try to get some things and move and work some things that aren't originally manufactured by God—the one who has created us, who has ordained us, who has formed us to His image and His likeness.
Just like that fake gear I saw there, some of us are walking around trying to live out a fake purpose, trying to operate in a way that God doesn't desire for us to. I could have said, "Hey, I want some Warriors gear, so I'm just going to take this," but I don't want the fake stuff.
Sometimes, all the time, we need to be willing to pay full price for the blessings that God desires for us to have, to put the work and the effort in for what God desires to give us because when we do that, then we receive the full blessings, the full glory, the full everything that God has for us.
I guarantee you that won't fall apart. Yeah, the stitching on that won't go, won't mess up. But I tell you what, if you go to the original manufacturer, what will they do? They'll fix it for you. They'll say, "You know what? Bring it back to us; we'll make sure it's right. We'll put it together the way it's supposed to be put together, or we'll just give you a brand new one."
You can't get that off the street. Can't get your purpose off the street. Can't get your blessings off the street. Counterfeit—that's the third obstacle.
How does God reveal His purpose to you? How does God reveal our purpose? There are four things I want to share with you, and then we'll be done.
First, the call from birth. God has called us from birth. Before He formed you, He called you. It says in Jeremiah 1:4-8, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart and I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
"Alas, sovereign Lord," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I’m too young." But the Lord said to me, "Do not say I’m too young. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and I will rescue you," declares the Lord.
Biblical scholars believe that in this instance here, Jeremiah, he is speaking, and that he's approximately 20 years old at this time, that God has called him to be a prophet to the nations. It says in the scripture that God, before He even formed you, before He stitched you, He already knew everything about you. He was already in relationship; He was already figuring out the things that you would be already preordained and predestined you before you were even formed in your mother's womb.
Age doesn't matter to God. It does not matter how long you have been walking with God. It does not matter how many things you know. If God called you, then He has already provided you with the tools and the materials to get done and to begin walking in the path that He has created for you.
Paul says this in 1 Timothy 4:11, "Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. Do not let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way that you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity."
He's letting him know; he's assuring him that, hey, it doesn't matter if you're young or you're old. If God has called you, then He will provide you with the tools that you need to carry out what He is destined for you to do.
I can think about—I'm big in music, a big music guy, and I can remember thinking about some different prodigies. Think about prodigies—people that from a very, very young age, you just knew that there was something special about them. They had a gift in them, and you knew about this from a very, very young age.
Think about somebody like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who it says that at the age of four, this guy, he is playing the harpsichord, and then by age five, he is composing music—a prodigy. Someone who before God had already placed a gift in him, and then he was just beginning to cultivate that gift from a very, very early young age.
Somebody else who we may be a little more familiar with is Stevie Wonder. At a young age, despite being blind from birth and growing up in poverty, it says that he was able to write music, sing, play the piano, organ, harmonica, and the drums, and by age 12 began recording and performing music.
These are prodigies—people who had gifts from a very early age, a call from birth. You have been called from birth for your purpose. For whatever God has placed in you, He called you. Now it's time to get ready to walk in that calling and not let those obstacles that we talked about sway you from your calling, sway you from your purpose.
Number two: growing awareness. It says in Genesis—and this is the story of Joseph. He's standing before his brothers, and if you don't know anything about this story, Joseph received some amazing gifts, and he was very special in the eyes of his father. His brothers did not like him, and his brothers sold him off into slavery to Egypt.
He went through a hard life to get to this place now where he is second in command in all of Egypt. He ran into place outside of Pharaoh. As he's standing before his brothers because they've come now because they're dealing with some poverty and they're dealing with some hardship, he said that you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done—the saving of many lives.
Joseph came to an understanding after everything that he went through that God had a purpose and a plan for him, and that purpose is now coming out in standing in front of his brothers and being able to provide for them and to be able to save the land as he's ruling in Egypt.
There are some things here that you don't realize that God is setting up your life for. Some of you all, you may have been dealing with some hardships, some tough times, some rough times, but I want you to understand that God has put you here for a purpose, and some of those things that you've gone through are to set you up for where God is taking you to.
It's to set you up, and Joseph realized that.
I came here, my wife and I and our family, we came here about a year and a half ago, maybe a little over a year and a half ago. I was previously working at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and I was there for five years as a track and field coach. We were doing great; things were wonderful. We had one of the best programs in the NCAA.
In my last year, things started getting a little shaky, a little rocky. I didn't necessarily want to leave; we didn't necessarily want to leave. But they decided they were not going to retain the head coach, who was my boss. If you know anything about college athletics, most of the time, if they don't retain the head coach, they bring a new coach in, and they wipe it all clean.
As we're getting closer to the end of the year, I'm starting to say, "Hey God, what are you trying to do? I think I've been faithful; I've been trying to do this thing, right?" But all of that brought me here. All of that set me up to now being a head coach at a different university here in Georgia that God has provided me with an opportunity.
I have come to the realization and understanding that yes, there may have been some hardships of where I was, but all of this has set me up for where God wants to take me to, for the purpose that God has. Otherwise, I would not be standing here today sharing with you the messages of God.
Growing and understanding of where God has taken you from to where God has taken you to. Be aware of the places and the people that God has put in front of you. It is important that you understand those things because you will also be, thirdly, getting ready to walk through some doors.
There are some doors that God wants you to walk through, and there are some people that God has put in front of you so that you can walk through various doors. We see this in the story of Esther.
The story of Esther, chapter 4, verse 14 through 16, reads this: "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place." He's saying, "Hey, Esther, if you don't say nothing, somebody else is going to do it. Somebody else is going to step into that position that God has for you."
God has purposed you; He wants you to do this. But if you don't do it, He's going to find somebody else to do it. I don't know about you, but there's some things God's telling me, "Hey, I got this for you. I don't want nobody else to have it. I want to walk into what God's called me to walk into. I want to achieve everything that God has for me. I want every blessing, every assurance that God has called for me."
He's saying, "If you don't do it, somebody else will." But you know what? "Your father's family will perish, and who knows that if you have come to the royal position for such a time as this?"
She says, "I will go to the king, even though it's against the law, and if I perish, I perish." Esther here has a door that she can walk through, and she's saying in this moment, "You know what? I understand that this is the purpose that I have been placed here for, and even if it's tough, even if it's hard for me to wrap my mind around how this thing is going to take place, I'm going to walk into what God's called me to walk into because I know that there's a blessing on the other side."
If my God is faithful, and she believes her God was faithful, and this is the same God that we serve today—a God who is faithful, and He said He will be there for us. When He holds the door open, walk through it. When He opens the door for you, walk through that door.
There may be some situations in your own homes, some people that you need to speak to, some people that you need to talk to, that you need to go before just like Queen Esther did. You might need to tell some people about themselves. God might have put you in that position for such a time as this.
There might be some conversations, husbands and wives, that you need to have with each other so that you can get to where God has predestined you all to go, so that you as a couple can walk in the purpose that God has called you to. But if you stay quiet, you won't receive the blessings of fullness that God desires for you.
So husbands, don't be quiet. Speak up; have those conversations. Wives, just the same. I'm saying, get together and hear what God wants for you all to do. It doesn't mean nag each other, but it means to walk in the calling that God has so that you both can stand together and walk through the doors that God is opening for you.
But if you don't have those conversations, if you don't speak up, then you won't be able to walk where God wants you to walk.
You know, one of the things that my wife and I, we've decided to do—we started at the beginning of this year, and we hadn't done it before—is that we decided that we were going to have these weekly meetings at the beginning of each week and kind of talk about what dreams that God has placed in us and for us.
So how can we begin to move and make some different changes in our own household so that we can walk in the purpose that God has called us to walk in? But if—and she brought this up—if she didn't open her mouth, then we probably wouldn't be having these meetings, and there probably wouldn't be some changes made that need to be made in helping me get into some positions that I need to and thinking about some things that I need to think so that we can be better together.
That's what God has called us to.
Lastly, a God encounter. A God encounter. And look what it says here in Acts 9. It says, "Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, and he went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem."
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and he heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"
"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.
"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."
For some of you today, you might need a God encounter—an encounter that will rapidly change your life, that will rapidly redirect you from the path that you may have been going on.
This morning, we find out in this scripture that Saul was on his way to kill a few more Christians. He's looking for them, seeking them out. He thought he was doing the right thing. He thought he was operating in his purpose, but God knocked him on his butt, blinded him, and said, "No, you're not walking the right way. This is not the purpose I have for you. It's time for a change."
Saul, one of the greatest persecutors of Christians, this is the same guy who was standing there, and the people came and they said, "Hey, we're about to go stone Stephen." Stephen up there preaching the word of God, "We're going to stone Stephen. Hey, hold my coat. Let's go."
This is the same Saul who was later Paul. He has been changed because of a God encounter. This is what has to happen many times to us.
For some of you all, God might be using you to be the God encounter for someone else. You might have already had your encounter, but God is saying today, "I need you to help change someone else. I need you to speak up. I need you to be the light. I need you to share who I am with them. I need you to share how they can be changed because of how I've already changed you."
You can speak up. God created me on purpose for a purpose. He created each and every one of you on purpose for a purpose.
Maybe God is stopping somebody today. You are. Maybe you've been knocked on your butt. Maybe you have been trying to walk in a purpose that you thought you were called to. And today, God is completely rearranging your thoughts.
He's saying if we try to think like the world and operate like the world and be conformed to the world, He's saying, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
How do we renew our mind? We pray. We read God's word. We get into a relationship with Him. We find other believers who understand what the word of God says so that they can share with us what God is revealing to them and how it can continue to change us and move us so that we can be placed on the path that God has called us to.
Today may be your day. You may have been on your way to your city where you were going, seeking out to do more wrong. You came in today, and you already got plans set up for tomorrow to do more wrong. But God's knocking you down.
He's saying today, "If you hear my voice, the word says, 'Harden not your heart.'"
To hear from God, to see His word, and today now to walk in your purpose is what God desires for each and every one of us.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, as our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed, we come to you and we thank you that you have called us on purpose for a purpose. You knew that, God, even though we would go astray, that there was something that would bring us back to you—someone who is more powerful, whose name is higher than any other name. That name is Jesus.
We thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ to die for us. I ask that this message today has already begun to work on the hearts of people that are here today, that they may want to walk in their purpose that you have called them to in this place.
As our heads are continued to be bowed and our eyes are closed, you might be here today as someone who has been walking your own crooked road—one that's faced with counterfeits and comparisons and confusion. But today, God wants to help you, guide you into the purpose that He's called you to.
In just a moment, I'm going to ask for you to raise your hand if you desire to give your life to Christ and walk with Him, to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life—the one who can lead you and guide you, the one who can save you, the one who can heal you.
He can take away your depression, your anxiety, your heartache, the sin, the addiction—whatever it is that you may be dealing with. You don't have to come forward; you don't have to say anything. I'm just going to ask you to raise your hand so I know who to pray with and to include in this prayer if you want to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life today.
On the count of three, just ask that you raise your hand. One, two, three.
I see that hand. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
I ask you to raise your hand today, God. I admit that I am a sinner and that I need you. I ask you right now that you would come into my heart, that you would come into my life, and that you would guide me. Thank you for purpose. Thank you for your power, that you would lead me and guide me all the days of my life. In Jesus' name.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for every soul that has given their life today, God. We celebrate with all of heaven. We thank you for who you are and for what you've done here in this place, God. We bless you. We praise you. In Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Come on, let's put our hands together for what God has done in this place. Shake the mountains!
on Mar 04, 2024
