Speaker 1: Welcome to the Elevation Church podcast. Today, our Balentine campus
Speaker 1: pastor Jonathan Joseph's has a message just for you entitled
Speaker 1: the Missing Blessing. Thank you for joining us. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this message. What an awesome atmosphere of faith
Speaker 1: in the House of God today. I feel it. I
Speaker 1: feel it, I feel it. I have been so excited
Speaker 1: to be able to get up here and share what
Speaker 1: God has put on my heart for you today, and
Speaker 1: it's just been burning within me. And I'm so glad
Speaker 1: to see you here, Jerry, because I knew that no
Speaker 1: one else I'm coming for you today, my man. I'm
Speaker 1: excited about this word, and I hope that on some
Speaker 1: level I've just been praying that it would resound within
Speaker 1: you the way that God has been using this scripture
Speaker 1: to really encourage me. Before we read our scripture and
Speaker 1: take a seat in just a moment, I do want
Speaker 1: to say what an honor it is to be able
Speaker 1: to preach the word of God to you today, and
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for our pastor for giving me the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do that. I'll say this though, well, I'm
Speaker 1: certainly grateful to be able to preach today. The real
Speaker 1: honor and privilege for me. The thing that I'm most
Speaker 1: grateful for is that every weekend, usually for all three services,
Speaker 1: that God would give me the opportunity to sit in
Speaker 1: that seat right there and listen to the word of
Speaker 1: God preached so powerfully. The reason that means so much
Speaker 1: to me is that this spot right here is one
Speaker 1: of the primary places that God speaks to me and
Speaker 1: moves in my life. And I'm so grateful to be
Speaker 1: planted in this house where God is moving in such
Speaker 1: a mighty way. And I know you're trying to figure
Speaker 1: me out if we have anything in common, but I
Speaker 1: thought we'd at least agree on that that what a
Speaker 1: privilege it is to be in the house of God.
Speaker 1: I was glad when they said, unto me, let us
Speaker 1: go into the house of the Lord. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: looking at a scripture from Philippians chapter three today. I
Speaker 1: love this passage of scripture. My key verse is gonna
Speaker 1: be verse twelve, but for context, we need to start
Speaker 1: in verse. This is the apostle Paul writing. He says,
Speaker 1: I want to know Christ. I want to know Christ.
Speaker 1: So much power in those five words right there. I
Speaker 1: want to know Christ yes, to know the power of
Speaker 1: his resurrection, and participation in his suffering, becoming like him
Speaker 1: and his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection
Speaker 1: from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all
Speaker 1: this or have already arrived at my goal. But I
Speaker 1: press on to take hold of that for which Christ
Speaker 1: Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do
Speaker 1: not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
Speaker 1: But one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind me
Speaker 1: and straining towards what's ahead, I press on toward the
Speaker 1: goal to win the prize for which God has called
Speaker 1: me heavenward in Christ Jesus back to verse twelve. Not
Speaker 1: that I have already obtained all this or have arrived
Speaker 1: at my goal, but I press on to take hold
Speaker 1: of that for which Christ Jesus to cold of me.
Speaker 1: My title for today is the missing Blessing. The missing Blessing.
Speaker 1: You can go ahead and be seated and thank you,
Speaker 1: worship team. And I don't know, Choir, you might want
Speaker 1: to stay up here the whole time and just bat
Speaker 1: me up. When the Lord just began to speak to
Speaker 1: me through this passage, just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: It really did resonate with me on such a personal
Speaker 1: level that I was almost hesitant to share it. You know,
Speaker 1: not everything God speaks to you is meant to be
Speaker 1: shared with everybody. But I felt really, really convicted that
Speaker 1: this would be a word of encouragement for somebody today.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how many of you would consider
Speaker 1: yourself to be goal oriented people, goal oriented people. I know,
Speaker 1: David is that was an obvious one. Maybe you wouldn't
Speaker 1: call yourself like maybe the most you do is, you know,
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions, and maybe that's it. One thing I've
Speaker 1: found though, is that, well, we don't all necessarily consider
Speaker 1: ourselves to have, you know, like a five year plan
Speaker 1: and action steps. I think all of us, though, have
Speaker 1: these ideas, goals, expectations, objectives of what we thought we
Speaker 1: would have by now, or where we thought we would
Speaker 1: be by now. Maybe it's in your relationships, maybe it's
Speaker 1: in your finances. Sometimes we thought maybe it's just like
Speaker 1: the relationship we had hoped we'd have with our kids,
Speaker 1: and now we're dropping them off at college and we're wondering,
Speaker 1: are they ever going to want to call? Us? And
Speaker 1: I was talking to my dad earlier this week, who
Speaker 1: was just sharing with me. I could tell he was
Speaker 1: a little bit discouraged. He was getting ready to have
Speaker 1: his annual meeting with his leadership team at his business,
Speaker 1: and I could tell he was discouraged because he was
Speaker 1: looking over objectives that they had set a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago and just realizing that there are still some
Speaker 1: things that they haven't achieved yet. And it really resonated
Speaker 1: with me because I feel that way all the time.
Speaker 1: I feel like there are so many areas of my
Speaker 1: life that as I look at it, it just feels
Speaker 1: like I don't have it. It feels like I'm not
Speaker 1: there yet. And the reality is I think for me,
Speaker 1: maybe the underlying insecurity of my life has been what
Speaker 1: I would have described as a feeling of inadequacy, like
Speaker 1: I just don't have what it takes. I don't measure up.
Speaker 1: I've always been around such amazing leaders that it was
Speaker 1: so easy to compare myself to the way that God
Speaker 1: had gifted them and blessed them and grace them. That's
Speaker 1: so often I found myself feeling like I'm still missing something,
Speaker 1: like God had left something out of my life. Now,
Speaker 1: more than maybe inadequacy, the better word that I'm finding
Speaker 1: to describe it as this feeling of incompleteness, like I
Speaker 1: just don't have all the pieces, Like that time we
Speaker 1: tried to put that Ikea wardrobe together and we didn't
Speaker 1: realize there was two boxes we needed to grab off
Speaker 1: the shelf at Ikea. And it feels sometimes like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to put my life together and I don't have
Speaker 1: all the pieces to work with. For me, it's so
Speaker 1: easy to take a look at where I'm at in life,
Speaker 1: and instead of recognizing how far I've come and all
Speaker 1: the blessings that God has given me and all the
Speaker 1: things that He's done. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: I have a tendency to put all my attention on
Speaker 1: what's still missing in my life, the places that haven't
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a pretty bow, where I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I had it all together? Am I resonating with
Speaker 1: anybody today? So often it's like God has been doing
Speaker 1: so much, and instead of actually thanking Him for what
Speaker 1: he has done for me, I can get so fixated
Speaker 1: and thus so discouraged by what I don't have. And
Speaker 1: if I'm honest with you, the reason this passage resonated
Speaker 1: with me so much is because this has been the
Speaker 1: place I've been in for about nine months now, just
Speaker 1: feeling discouraged, feeling like what Paul said, I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1: I haven't arrived. I don't have it. And the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is is that like, life is good right now,
Speaker 1: life is I mean, we're in our tenth year of marriage. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that if you only you knew, that's good. We've
Speaker 1: managed to keep both our boys alive and fed, Praise God.
Speaker 1: Our youngest just turned two, and I finally just shed
Speaker 1: the baby weight that we put on from pregnancy. And
Speaker 1: that's a lie, you know. It's milkshake weight, and it
Speaker 1: took two years. I think I'm doing well at my job.
Speaker 1: I don't know way it's going good. Yeah, that's gone.
Speaker 1: Things are so good, and yet despite all that, under
Speaker 1: the surface, I still feel like there's something missing in
Speaker 1: my life. I can still get so discouraged because I'm
Speaker 1: acutely aware of just how far I still have to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And that can be such a dangerous place
Speaker 1: to live in when we fail to recognize all the
Speaker 1: blessings that God has given us in our lives. And
Speaker 1: for me, gratitude has always been a value that I
Speaker 1: wanted to live, that I want to live by, and
Speaker 1: it's something that I try to practice. But if I'm
Speaker 1: not intentional, I can find myself so quickly slipping into
Speaker 1: this place where all my attention is going into what
Speaker 1: is still missing from my life rather than what I have.
Speaker 1: And so, having been in this place for so long,
Speaker 1: Paul's words really resonated with me when he talks about
Speaker 1: this goal that he had, this objective that he had,
Speaker 1: and he says, but I haven't already arrived at my
Speaker 1: goal and I haven't already obtained it. I can sense
Speaker 1: the frustration in Paul's voice because it resonated so deeply
Speaker 1: within me. Now here's the thing. Paul is not talking
Speaker 1: about some of the ambitions and goals that we all
Speaker 1: have in our lives. Specifically, in this passage, he's trying
Speaker 1: to point us to the most important goal or ambition
Speaker 1: of this of them all. He's talking about knowing Christ
Speaker 1: in this passage. For me, my relationship with God really matters.
Speaker 1: It really matters. And yet I've been in this place
Speaker 1: where I feel farther away from God than I ever
Speaker 1: have before. Now, before you write, pastor step in an
Speaker 1: email letting him know you're concerned about one of his
Speaker 1: campus pastors. Notice I said the word feel. I've been
Speaker 1: walking with God long enough to know that my faith
Speaker 1: is not a feeling, and so I might feel far
Speaker 1: away from God, but I know that God cannot be
Speaker 1: far away from me. And I know that God can't
Speaker 1: be far away from me, because the Bible says that
Speaker 1: as I draw near to Him, he'll draw near to me.
Speaker 1: And I haven't stopped moving towards him. I haven't stopped seeking,
Speaker 1: I haven't stopped praying. So I might feel far away
Speaker 1: from God, but I know I'm closer. And so what
Speaker 1: Paul is saying, this is Paul, Paul, Paul. When it
Speaker 1: comes to achieving our goals, this is mister seven habits
Speaker 1: of highly effective people. Paul knew what it was like
Speaker 1: to achieve. How do we know that because he had
Speaker 1: a way of always talking about it. It's a little annoying.
Speaker 1: In fact, earlier in Philippians three, he's even talking about
Speaker 1: some of the things that he used to confidence in.
Speaker 1: You know, how he had reached the top of the
Speaker 1: ladder in terms of his religious order, and how he
Speaker 1: was born into the right tribe and He even had
Speaker 1: some weird flexes in there, like how he was circumcised
Speaker 1: on the eighth day, and you're like, okay, Paul, cool cool,
Speaker 1: And Paul is saying, despite all those things that so
Speaker 1: many of us spend our lives pursuing after and chasing after,
Speaker 1: he said, I came to realize, in fact the word
Speaker 1: he uses, he says that they're all meaningless, insignificant in
Speaker 1: comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord.
Speaker 1: He's saying, I know what it's like to reach for
Speaker 1: all the wrong things only to come up and realize
Speaker 1: that none of those things really mattered if I don't
Speaker 1: come into a deep, intimate, real connection with Jesus the Christ.
Speaker 1: And so he's trying to align their hearts into what
Speaker 1: really matters in life. And for me, there can be
Speaker 1: so many things that I can get discouraged about, but
Speaker 1: I'm at this place where I'm saying, God, more than anything,
Speaker 1: I just want you. And so today I don't even
Speaker 1: have a clever sermon, and I don't have jokes planned out,
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to talk about five ways to
Speaker 1: be a better leader, a better paarent, or five ways
Speaker 1: to obtain peace. I just want Christ. When Paul said
Speaker 1: those beautiful five words I want to know Christ, he
Speaker 1: doesn't mean want in the way that you want your
Speaker 1: steak cooked medium. Well, this is not like, oh, I
Speaker 1: just want one. Translation says it a little bit more accurately.
Speaker 1: It's saying Paul is saying that I'm determined. I'm determined.
Speaker 1: My one determined purpose, my singular ambition, my only worthwhile pursuit,
Speaker 1: is that I would know Christ. Woh. The scary thing
Speaker 1: is that this is the apostle Paul, who by this
Speaker 1: point has been walking with Christ for at least a
Speaker 1: few decades, who wrote, next to Luke the majority of
Speaker 1: the New Testament Scriptures, laid out some of the most
Speaker 1: profound theological arguments of the nature of salvation by grace
Speaker 1: through faith. And here he is, at almost sixty years old,
Speaker 1: saying I want to know Christ. Eh. If that's Paul
Speaker 1: and he's saying that he still has this desire to
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, what do you mean you want to
Speaker 1: know Christ? You don't know Christ. How many of you know?
Speaker 1: There's a difference between knowing about Jesus and what Paul
Speaker 1: is talking about, an actual, intimate connection and experience with Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's what he means when he says I want to
Speaker 1: know Christ. I spent a lot of money just sitting
Speaker 1: in classrooms learning about Christ. But some of the most
Speaker 1: profound revelations that I ever had about the nature of
Speaker 1: God and who he is didn't happen in a classroom,
Speaker 1: but in hospital rooms or on my bedroom floor when
Speaker 1: I was crying out to him. There's a difference between
Speaker 1: knowing about God and really having that connection with the Christ,
Speaker 1: the one that's best described as mystery, and having this
Speaker 1: relationship with Him that Paul says is ongoing. You See,
Speaker 1: that's the nature about a relationship with God is that
Speaker 1: He is so big and so holy and so majestic
Speaker 1: and so awesome that I could spend my entire life
Speaker 1: seeking his face and never come to the end of
Speaker 1: who he is. Now, what that means is that as
Speaker 1: we pursue God, the more we get close to him,
Speaker 1: the more we become aware of just how big he is,
Speaker 1: and the more we become aware of how great He is,
Speaker 1: the more we become aware of just how far we
Speaker 1: have to go. And now I realize why I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm far away from God, because I've never been
Speaker 1: in a place in my life where I had more
Speaker 1: questions than I did answers, more doubts than I had certainties.
Speaker 1: Because the more I see of who he is and
Speaker 1: how he works and just how great he is, the
Speaker 1: more I realize just how far I have to go.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so encouraging about what Paul is saying
Speaker 1: in this passage. He's saying, I haven't a rid. I
Speaker 1: wonder this, would God be worthy? If he was that
Speaker 1: easy to wrap up in our man made religion or
Speaker 1: human constructs, or our own vocabulary of who he is
Speaker 1: and how he works? Would he still be worthy? But
Speaker 1: I know that He's worthy to be sought after with
Speaker 1: my whole heart and my entire life, because no eye
Speaker 1: has seen and no ear has heard of any gods
Speaker 1: beside him, there is none like him. His ways are
Speaker 1: not my ways, his thoughts are not my thoughts, And
Speaker 1: so I might feel farther, but I've never been hungrier
Speaker 1: for his presence. I've never desired more to know him,
Speaker 1: Paul saying, I want to know Christ. Sometimes that means suffering,
Speaker 1: Sometimes that means the power of his resurrection. They actually
Speaker 1: both go together one thing I'm realizing is that when
Speaker 1: I pray for revival in my life, usually God first
Speaker 1: has to sense death in some area, because there can't
Speaker 1: be revival until I let something die. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: where I feel like I'm in a place where things aren't,
Speaker 1: where things feel like they're buried, like they're stagnant, it's
Speaker 1: actually the answer to my very prayer because God is
Speaker 1: getting to revive something in me, not that I've already
Speaker 1: obtained it or already arrived at my goal. But here
Speaker 1: is the key for me. When Paul says, but I
Speaker 1: press on, but I press on, I had allowed the
Speaker 1: enemy to been discouraging me by making me aware of
Speaker 1: all the things that I felt like were still missing
Speaker 1: in my life. And yet Paul, as I read this,
Speaker 1: As I read this pass it, it just hit me
Speaker 1: so quick it like slapped me across the face. I
Speaker 1: realized that Paul was saying that I haven't arrived at
Speaker 1: my goal, I haven't already obtained it, but instead of
Speaker 1: using what was missing in his life to discourage him,
Speaker 1: he actually used it as motivation to keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: So what I'm beginning to realize in my own life
Speaker 1: and where this helped me and I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I say this clearly because this is the crux
Speaker 1: of the revelation of this message for me, is that
Speaker 1: what's still missing in my life is actually the very
Speaker 1: blessing that God gives me. Because God is not concerned
Speaker 1: with my perfection. God is not looking for me to
Speaker 1: have it all together. God is not requiring my life
Speaker 1: to be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top.
Speaker 1: The measurement of my faith is not my perfection, but
Speaker 1: my perseverance. And God knows that if I had it
Speaker 1: all together, if everything was complete, if I'd already arrived,
Speaker 1: if I'd already obtained it, then what reason would I
Speaker 1: have to keep going. What's missing in my life is
Speaker 1: the blessing that God gives me to cause me to
Speaker 1: not grow complacent, but to keep moving forward, to keep
Speaker 1: seeking His face, to grow in my desire, to keep
Speaker 1: chasing after Him, to keep pouring out my heart to
Speaker 1: know Him. And so I was discouraged by what was
Speaker 1: missing in my life, but I'm realizing that God is
Speaker 1: not looking for me to arrive. The measure of my
Speaker 1: faith is my perseverance. God wants me to press on.
Speaker 1: This is a word for somebody today who's been frustrated,
Speaker 1: who feels like they look at their life and feel
Speaker 1: like a God so far to go? Good. God is
Speaker 1: trying to grow you right now. There's more He wants
Speaker 1: to show you. There's more he wants to do in
Speaker 1: your life. He's not fitished yet. It's the blessing of
Speaker 1: what's still missing in my life. One thing I realized
Speaker 1: is that I've never seen someone grow complacent because of
Speaker 1: what was missing. The only thing that ever causes us
Speaker 1: to grow complacent is what we already have. And so
Speaker 1: what's missing in my life, what I've yet to obtain,
Speaker 1: is the very fuel that God gives me to compel
Speaker 1: me to keep moving forward. But I press on, That's
Speaker 1: what Paul said. But I press on. Paul, even this
Speaker 1: far into his journey with Christ, he just knew there
Speaker 1: was so much more to who this Jesus was that
Speaker 1: he had yet to see. Just a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I was up in Asheville, North Carolina with a few
Speaker 1: of our other campus pastors. Four of us had gone
Speaker 1: up to see the team up there, and on our
Speaker 1: way back, we decided to go along the Blue Ridge
Speaker 1: Parkway and drive up to Mount Mitchell. This is the
Speaker 1: highest This point is the highest elevation in the continental
Speaker 1: United States east of the Mississippi River. Do I get
Speaker 1: that right? A lot of qualifiers. That's like, I am
Speaker 1: the best staff member at Elevation Church who's from Canada,
Speaker 1: whose name is Jonathan, who's over six feet tall and
Speaker 1: isn't a musician. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I'll get
Speaker 1: I'll give you that. So we're we're driving up the
Speaker 1: Blue Ridge Parkway and we get to the top of
Speaker 1: Mount Mitchell and it really is like, it's just it's
Speaker 1: really beautiful seeing all these different mountain ranges and we're
Speaker 1: up there and and it was really just a cool moment.
Speaker 1: We had been just sharing a lot about all that
Speaker 1: God had been doing in our life and in our
Speaker 1: church right now. It was just kind of like a
Speaker 1: is a cool thing. But on the way up to
Speaker 1: the mountain, we passed this like the spot where you
Speaker 1: could pull over to, you know, like this scenic stop
Speaker 1: where it's like, hey, pull your car over, take a
Speaker 1: look at this. When we drove by it, I immediately
Speaker 1: recognized it because just a couple years ago, when Anna
Speaker 1: and I were driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway, remember
Speaker 1: us stopping at this very point, and we looked out
Speaker 1: and we said, wow, this is really pretty. And we
Speaker 1: got back in our car and drove back the other way,
Speaker 1: not realizing that if we just went another fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: we would have been way at the peak of Mount Mitchell,
Speaker 1: seeing something so much more awesome, so much more glorious.
Speaker 1: But we were content with how far we had come,
Speaker 1: and we were unaware of just how great what was ahead.
Speaker 1: So fast forward two years. Instead of getting to see
Speaker 1: Mount Mitchell with beautiful Ana joseihs, I'm standing up there
Speaker 1: with ugly Terry Bruce and Greg Bosh blocking my view,
Speaker 1: ruining the beauty of God's career. Terry's gonna watch this
Speaker 1: and be mad at me. Why Because I stopped short
Speaker 1: because I was unaware of what awaited me. If only
Speaker 1: we had pressed on just fifteen more minutes, That's what
Speaker 1: Paul says. He says, I want to go heavenward, to
Speaker 1: which God had called me. Now, it's important that I
Speaker 1: point out when I talk about pursuing Christ this important
Speaker 1: phrase that Paul uses when he says, I press on
Speaker 1: to take hold of that which has already taken hold
Speaker 1: of me. Paul is not talking about man made religion.
Speaker 1: Paul is not talking about how somehow we need to
Speaker 1: strain and make our way to God. He's saying God
Speaker 1: has already gripped my heart with his grace. God has
Speaker 1: already gripped my heart with his love and with his mercy.
Speaker 1: So my pursuit of him is not to get him
Speaker 1: to love me. But I chase after him because I
Speaker 1: want to take hold of that which has already taken
Speaker 1: hold of me. The words of John who said that
Speaker 1: we love God because He first loved us. And the
Speaker 1: more I realize just how much God loves me, just
Speaker 1: how much he cared for me, just how much he
Speaker 1: was there for me, it inspires me, It moves me,
Speaker 1: It compels me in Jesus' name, to chase after that
Speaker 1: which has arm. It's the missing blessing. Paul says, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna let it discourage me, but I'm gonna press on.
Speaker 1: And he says, Brothers and sisters, I do not consider
Speaker 1: myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one
Speaker 1: thing I do. I don't know three points today, just
Speaker 1: Paul's one point. He says, one thing I do. Touch
Speaker 1: Your neighbors say one thing. One thing I do forgetting
Speaker 1: what is behind and straining towards what's ahead. I press
Speaker 1: on towards the goal to win the prize for which
Speaker 1: God has called me heaven wording Christ Jesus. One thing
Speaker 1: I do, I press on. I press on in the
Speaker 1: moments where I feel discouraged, in the moments where I
Speaker 1: realize just how broken I still am, in the moments
Speaker 1: where I realize just how much about God I still
Speaker 1: don't really know, in the moments where I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't have my life altogether, in the moments where
Speaker 1: I'm frustrated. There's one thing I do. I press on.
Speaker 1: And I might be limping, and it might be slow,
Speaker 1: and it might be staggering, but I press on. He says,
Speaker 1: I press on. But there's two steps to that one thing.
Speaker 1: Knows how Paul's like, there's one thing I do, and
Speaker 1: then he forgetting what's behind, straining towards what's the head.
Speaker 1: I press on. There's two steps to that one thing
Speaker 1: he does. When he says straining towards what's ahead, he's
Speaker 1: talking about just moving forward in eager expectation, on wavering hope.
Speaker 1: It's this conviction at the core of Paul's spirit that
Speaker 1: there has to be more. That we serve a God
Speaker 1: who does immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.
Speaker 1: We serve a God who is holy set apart, there's
Speaker 1: none like there has to be more. And so he says,
Speaker 1: I strain. I put my whole heart into this thing.
Speaker 1: With all that I am, I press on towards him.
Speaker 1: I'm straining ahead with eager expectation of what Now. Remember
Speaker 1: he's almost sixty years old at this point, So whether
Speaker 1: you're fifteen or fifty years old, we have to live
Speaker 1: from this place of conviction where we're reminding ourselves that
Speaker 1: God has not finished with us yet. In the moment
Speaker 1: we feel like we've settled in to some kind of
Speaker 1: knowledge or awareness of who He is. That's the most
Speaker 1: stagnant place to be. God is calling you, Heaven word,
Speaker 1: there's a hire that he wants to take you. Don't
Speaker 1: stop short of where he's calling you. But we've strained
Speaker 1: towards what's ahead. And he says, I strained towards what's
Speaker 1: ahead and forgetting what's behind. My first instinct when I
Speaker 1: read that forgetting what's behind is that Paul must have
Speaker 1: been talking about maybe his life before Christ. He was Paul.
Speaker 1: He was called Saul. He was persecuting so many of
Speaker 1: the leaders of the Early Church what at the time
Speaker 1: were known as followers of the Way, because God knows
Speaker 1: that the joy is in the journey. God is concerned
Speaker 1: with our perseverance, that we never stopped moving forward. That
Speaker 1: they were called members of the Way, these followers of Christ.
Speaker 1: Paul was persecuting them, doing whatever it took to destroy
Speaker 1: the Early Church until Jesus met him on that road
Speaker 1: to Damascus and blinded him physically so that he could
Speaker 1: see spiritually. And at one point Paul is writing another
Speaker 1: letter and he says he calls himself the chief of sinners.
Speaker 1: So I thought, when Paul says forgetting what's behind, maybe
Speaker 1: he's talking about the shackles of shame or the chains
Speaker 1: of condemnation where we feel so bound by our past
Speaker 1: that we feel like, how could God ever accept somebody
Speaker 1: like me? And we hesitate to even move towards him
Speaker 1: because we feel so guilty. We feel like God's grace
Speaker 1: could never reach us. But the devil is a liar,
Speaker 1: a liar, And what Paul wants us to know when
Speaker 1: he says that he's the chief of sinners is he's
Speaker 1: not being self deprivating. He's being realistic about his state
Speaker 1: before Christ. But what he wants you to know is
Speaker 1: that if the grace of God could rescue the heart
Speaker 1: of somebody like him, then there is no person under
Speaker 1: the sound of my voice today that the grace of
Speaker 1: God cannot reach. But Paul wasn't talking about his life
Speaker 1: before Christ, and he wasn't necessarily talking about in some
Speaker 1: of the other accomplishments that he now considers to be
Speaker 1: worthless distractions. It was interesting to me to realize that
Speaker 1: what Paul was talking about when he says forget what's
Speaker 1: behind he's actually still talking about his relationship with God.
Speaker 1: He's saying that I've got to get in the habit
Speaker 1: of not literally forgetting, because Paul says that a lot
Speaker 1: and you realize that like he didn't actually forget, because
Speaker 1: he wrote about a lot of them. What he's saying is,
Speaker 1: I've got to choose to disregard what's behind me, even
Speaker 1: in his relationship with the Christ that he wants to.
Speaker 1: He's saying, I've got to forget what God has shown
Speaker 1: me thus far. I've got to disregard what he's already
Speaker 1: done because if I stay focused on what's behind me,
Speaker 1: I'll grow complacent. So I've got to constantly shift my
Speaker 1: attention towards what I still eagerly hope for and wait
Speaker 1: so that I can keep moving forward. And so often
Speaker 1: for me, I can get stuck in a past revelation.
Speaker 1: I can get stuck in an old mindset of who
Speaker 1: God is and how he works. I can become satisfied
Speaker 1: with old provision or an old miracle. But the word
Speaker 1: of the Lord for somebody today who's been content with
Speaker 1: where you are, is that God is saying, disregard what's
Speaker 1: behind you, and press on towards what's ahead. With hope,
Speaker 1: with expectation, with faith, with trust, with confidence. I press on.
Speaker 1: I press on to win the prize to which God
Speaker 1: is calling me. So he says, the one thing I
Speaker 1: do is I press on. But what he wants us
Speaker 1: to see is that there's two steps. I forget what's
Speaker 1: behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead. I forget
Speaker 1: what's behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead. I
Speaker 1: forget what's behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead.
Speaker 1: I gotta forget about the time that God healed me
Speaker 1: in that one area, and I gotta strain towards what's
Speaker 1: ahead and believing that if he could heal me of
Speaker 1: that sickness, then he can deliver me from this addiction.
Speaker 1: So I press on towards what's ahead. I gotta know
Speaker 1: that if God provided me for my past, provided for
Speaker 1: me in my past, I gotta let that be the
Speaker 1: confidence that I have in my heart to know that
Speaker 1: He'll provide for me in this battle right now on
Speaker 1: a greater level. I refuse to let my greatest days
Speaker 1: of prey be when I was in college, for God's sake,
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna press on to know Him with eager expectation,
Speaker 1: believing that my best revelations are ahead, that there's more
Speaker 1: He wants to show me. And I gotta believe that
Speaker 1: if you would do that miracle in my life, then
Speaker 1: that there's greater miracle. And I can't live in the
Speaker 1: sacrifices of twenty twelve, but I want to sacrifice again,
Speaker 1: straining towards what's ahead, believing. So I might be staggering,
Speaker 1: and I might feel farther away from God, but I
Speaker 1: know I must be getting closer in Jesus say, because
Speaker 1: I never stop moving. I forget what's behind, and I
Speaker 1: straight towards what's ahead, and I forget what's behind. It's
Speaker 1: shafe for me. I never stop moving. We can't stop.
Speaker 1: There's so much more that he has. So I got
Speaker 1: to thank him for what's still missing in my life.
Speaker 1: Those blessings, the blessing of what's missing. That compet tell
Speaker 1: me to never give up, because the joy is in
Speaker 1: the journey. And the more I move, the more I
Speaker 1: keep going forward, the more I see of who he is.
Speaker 1: And there is none like him, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the
Speaker 1: christ Son of the Living God. To know that I
Speaker 1: could spend my whole life seeking his face and never
Speaker 1: come to the end of the glory of who he is.
Speaker 1: So I've got to thank God for what he has
Speaker 1: done in my life. I got to get better at
Speaker 1: recognizing all the blessings he has given me I do.
Speaker 1: I've got to be grateful for how far I've come.
Speaker 1: I've got to be grateful for what He's already given me.
Speaker 1: But I'm at the point in my life now where
Speaker 1: I also want to be grateful for what he's yet
Speaker 1: to do. That's what Joe prayed when he said the
Speaker 1: Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but blessed be
Speaker 1: his name. I'm aa blest him for what I have.
Speaker 1: I'm a blest him for what I don't have. I
Speaker 1: know I was on assignment today to bring a word
Speaker 1: of encouragement to somebody who's either grown complacent because of
Speaker 1: you've settled into what you already have, or discouraged because
Speaker 1: you're very aware of how far you have to go.
Speaker 1: And the word of the Lord for you today is
Speaker 1: a simple message that Paul says, there's one thing to do,
Speaker 1: just press on. Just press on. God is not withholding
Speaker 1: from you, Jerry. He's not. He's not. There's just more
Speaker 1: he wants to do, and he knows that the real joy,
Speaker 1: the real joy of this thing we call faith, comes
Speaker 1: when we just take step after step towards him. It's
Speaker 1: not punishment. He's teaching us persevere. That's the measure of
Speaker 1: our faith. So my prayer today with everyone standing is God,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for what you've already done
Speaker 1: for me. I want to thank you for how you
Speaker 1: protected me. I want to thank you for how you've
Speaker 1: provided for me. I want to thank you for the
Speaker 1: moments where you were there for me and I didn't
Speaker 1: even know it. I want to thank you for the
Speaker 1: things that you've spoken to me in secret places. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for the times that you've comforted me.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for everything that you've done
Speaker 1: in my life thus far. If you never did another thing,
Speaker 1: you'd still be worthy. If you never did another thing,
Speaker 1: you still be worthy. But I know, but I know,
Speaker 1: I know what your word says. I know that there's
Speaker 1: more to who you are. I know I've only scratched
Speaker 1: the surface of how beautiful and matchless you are. So
Speaker 1: not only do I want to thank you for what
Speaker 1: you've done, but right now, God, I thank you for
Speaker 1: what's still missing in my life. I thank you for
Speaker 1: the promises that have yet to be fulfilled. I thank
Speaker 1: you for the promises that have yet to be uttered
Speaker 1: into my spirit. God, I thank you for the ways
Speaker 1: that you're gonna heal me, that you're gonna provide for me,
Speaker 1: the ways that you're gonna deliver me, the ways that
Speaker 1: you're gonna save me. I thank you for what you
Speaker 1: want to speak to me, for what you want to
Speaker 1: show me, for what you wanna do in my life,
Speaker 1: For what you want to do through my life. I
Speaker 1: thank you for the generations that will come after me, God,
Speaker 1: that you'll use my life to mark them in Jesus's name,
Speaker 1: because I spent my life pursuing the only thing that matters, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus.
Speaker 1: So Lord, I bless your name for the blessings you've
Speaker 1: given me, and I bless your name for the blessings
Speaker 1: that have yet to come in Jesus's name. In Jesus' name,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
Speaker 1: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 1: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch
Speaker 1: dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
Speaker 1: with your friends. You can click the share button, take
Speaker 1: a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
Speaker 1: tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 1: bless you