Finding Purpose In His Presence

Hi. This is Dave Olson.

I'm the senior leader of Hartman church located in Ankeny Iowa.

I hope the following message, challenges and courage has and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

Last week, we were talking Ben reaches out, to me on Sunday

afternoon. He says, What's the title of

your message? Because I'm not one of those

guys that prepares Series in advance, you know, I know guys

that men, they know what they're going to preach in six months,

and they've got all their notes laid out a me that's, that's

never going to happen with me. Pastor Callaway my predecessor.

He was the past year, 21 years ago and he used to tell me he'd

say, Dave, you know, God can speak to you just as clearly

three weeks in advance, as he can Sunday morning and I'd say

yes sir, I know that just not the way we roll the in Jesus and

I read and study all the time, but I'm just trying to lean in

the closer. We get to Sunday morning God.

What do you have for us and it's easy.

Once you hit a series will then you just mind that out till

you're done. The real struggle is discovering

the new series. That's where I'm at.

And I don't want to launch into anything a new subject because

next week we're going to have this conference.

And so, last week, we were been reached out to me said, what do

you, what do you want to call your message?

Today I said, I don't know music.

From Israel. And so that's what we call it.

That's kind of a safe one because you can just kind of put

everything under that umbrella. But what I was really meditating

on the last few days and it was interesting.

One of the, one of the youth came up to me this morning

during worship, I think she's ran 12, 13 years old, and hold.

Eleven eleven years old and she came up and she said, pastor.

I know I'm young and this may not make much sense, but I feel

like the Lord was speaking to me about the picture on the back of

the screen. And she said, I feel like those

pics, those, those colors are alike.

We go into God's purpose, but some people fade out and they

don't reach God's purpose. And I told her, I said, well,

you know what, I'm preaching on this morning finding your

purpose. So and she was She was happy and

so was I, so, yeah, little kids. Don't get a junior.

Holy Ghost. Amen.

So that's what I want to talk about.

I kind of want to Spring off of something we touched on last

week when we were looking last week at the life of David, one

of the things we were talking about is that interesting little

verse in second Samuel chapter 5.

2 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

It says that David, the King James version puts it this way.

David perceived that the Lord had made him King.

For the people of Israel. Now some people read that think.

Wow, it just dawned on him knots.

Not what? He's saying it was he was

perceiving the purpose of his anointing.

He had. Ascended to a place of great

privileged as the king of Israel, David had great

privilege. But what he needed to do was

perceive why he had been brought to that position, and you can

be, you can be in the place of God's appointing, but not

understand why I'm not be able to leverage it.

And so we need to perceive the purpose of God's hand upon our

life. And so I want to, I want to

unpack that a little more this morning.

So let's pray. Father, we thank you this

morning for your Word. And Lord, I ask that you would

speak to us Lord that you would provoke us this morning.

Lord that God, that this message would be the launch codes to the

fire of God and people's hearts. Lord that you would ignite them.

You would unleash passion. In Jesus name, amen.

If you go on our website, we have our vision and our values

in our church structure, and all that.

And I encourage you to go on there sometime.

It also has our leadership, you know, the different elders.

And some of you have said, I don't even know who the elders

are. If you go to the website

Heartland Church online.com, just go under leadership and you

can see who the elders are and and the way, you know, the role

of different, the different leadership teams and so forth.

But amongst that, you'll see the The heart of Heartland, the core

values of Heartland culture and then you can click on there.

It says, the five values of Heartland culture, there's an

audio recording. I, we taught on this a number of

years ago when we really kind of distilled those things down.

And so I want to unpack some of those this morning, but really

focus on number two. And I'm just going to run

through them very quickly. And then I'm going to kind of

elaborate on them because they're all connected and this

is not This is not just, oh, that's a nice thing to place on

the website. Let me just put it this way.

That when people talk about core values often, they're not really

the core values of the organization.

That's true of churches. That's true of businesses.

A lot of times what we're really talking about.

When we talk about values is, we're talking about aspirational

values. They're saying these are the

things we aspire to these are the things we wish were true.

But they're not the things that are really true.

The things that are really true are going to be showing up in

the culture already. If they are core values, they're

already showing up. Now, the reason a lot of times

when people talk about values, they end up talking about

aspirational values rather than actual values is because actual

values are somewhat elusive. There's so much a part of who we

are and our Fabric and our drives in our passions so much.

So that at times we will minimize the value of those

things. And we assume that everybody

shares those values, it's kind of like talking to a fish about

water. The fish is like globe globe.

What's that? They and it's there.

So immersed in it. They have never really thought

about what water is and often. Our values are such a part of

who we are. We often don't really think.

Think about our values and so therefore, what we do is we end

up identifying with our weaknesses and adopt

aspirational values to solve the weaknesses rather than owning

our strengths and allowing that to be our passion.

Does that make sense? So here's the danger of that.

If you invest your life on your weaknesses, you will never reach

your potential. I would even propose to you that

there are some weaknesses. I'm not talking about moral

weaknesses, I'm talking about skill sets.

For instance let me use myself as an example.

God will never call me to be a mathematician, okay?

Ain't going to happen. I don't care how much they could

have sat me down as a little five-year-old David and said,

David, you can be whatever you want to be just dream big and

whatever you want to be. You can be it and it ain't gonna

happen because Little David stunk At math big David.

I just work around it. I'm not a math guy.

Okay, I was the language guy. I was when it came to math.

I was a solid D student, my whole life.

Okay. Now, part of that is I didn't

listen, I admit, okay. But even as a little boy, I

remember my salt might my report cards would come back and I was

never until I got to Bible school.

I didn't let's put it this way. I wasn't a, I didn't

overperform. Okay.

But when it would come to language, I remember, as a

fourth grader they gave we tick, Minnesota, basic skills, and it

came back, and it said that my vocabulary was 12th grade, and I

was fourth grade. It's because I was just made to

be a language. Got my kids are that way, my

kids are all writers and and they just their language people,

their moms like that. So we pray for my children, what

comes to math. Let's just pray right now,

father, because they didn't inherit that from either one of

their parents. Now, I could spend the next 40

years, really trying to to study math but I would propose to you

that my design determines my purpose that God designed me

with certain strengths. That match what I'm called to

Now, when we first start out in life, yeah, we were kind of

figuring things out and we need to strengthen some of those

weaknesses because I need to be able to do basic addition.

And well, now I got an iPhone. I didn't need to do that.

But, you know, there are certain things we need to learn, but in

actuality God calls us to shine in the air of our strengths.

There's the book called strength, finders who you are.

Anybody ever heard of that book? And the premise of that is

really they're saying what I just said that there's a fallacy

in the western culture. That tells people you can be

anything you're called, you want to be and it's not true.

We need to build on our strengths and not waste our

time. Always working on our

weaknesses. And again I'm not talking about

moral weaknesses, that's a different thing.

I'm talking about skill sets. And so God has given you certain

strengths and as you discover those strengths, They are an

indication of what God has called you to do.

So, let's look at our Five values of Hartnell culture

because these are values that show up in the culture.

It's not aspirational values. There are aspirational values.

We have adopted at times as a church, we said, you know what,

this is a aspirational values, are things.

You say these are things necessary for me to learn so

that I can accomplish what God has on my life.

Their weaknesses are not things. I'm a natural at, but we need to

go after that. There that's true of us as

individuals, and it's definitely true of us.

In organizations. So when we talk about culture,

you know we throw that term around what is culture, culture

is the sum total of your values lived out.

Or you could put it conversely values core values.

When people use that terminology in reality values, our culture

dissected, When we look at what, what is the flavor?

What is the social fabric? What, what do you run into when

you step into a church? Every church has its own

culture, every family has its own culture.

Every business has its own culture.

And part of what resonates with you when you walk into one

church and fails to resonate with you, in another church is

not so much even the doctrine, but it's the culture because

there's something within you that when you walk in there, you

feel this. And it's like, I don't know that

I can put this into words, but I just bumped into something that

I'm identifying with and then you hear them begin to talk and

you're saying, they're putting into words what my heart is

burned for four years. And what you're touching on is

what we call culture and the culture is it's the sum total of

the values. And so God puts certain passions

or certain values within us that we're hungry for and that's part

of the way that we find the tribe of people were to run

with. I think we talked about it last

week, it's been some time the last few weeks.

We talked about that, that whole idea, again of finding your

tribe, the promised land in the Old Testament.

I meant the promised land was given to Israel.

One Nation, but many tribes and their portion of the promised

land was allocated. According to their tribal

affiliation. And I think there's a real good

lesson there for you. And I that as we begin to

understand our tribal affiliation, what has God

already put within you that he wants to give expression to in

this hour of human history. Part of that is going to connect

you to other believers. And so it's very important that

we understand what are our values.

What is it that burns within us? It sit there are times where we

have desires that are burning within us but we've never

articulated them and it's good for us to become very conscious

about what those things are. Because those things begin to

really bring into Clarity what God has called us to do.

And so that's kind of behind what I'm talking about this

morning now. Our five core values and, of

course, I'm a teacher so they all start with P.

Okay. Number one presence, the

presence of God is our primary focus.

That we are a presence based church and we are hungry for the

presence of God and it's not just so that we can consume

God's presence. There is that element of, hey, I

enjoy the presence of God, but the presence of God is our

worship. Pastor Kara said at this

morning, she said, we are most fulfill or God is most glorified

when we are most satisfied in him.

God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with in with

him. And so the only place you're

really going to discover who you are is in the presence of God.

When you get in God's presence in God, you begin to encounter

your creator. You can do that through the

word. You can do that through his

presence coming upon you. You can do that in corporate

worship, but in those environments, you begin to

understand who you are. We've talked about this many,

many times, but you'll hear this again and again, because I

firmly believe the primary Foundation to life to Ministry

to emotional and spiritual health is two things.

Number one, your theology having a proper view of who God is.

And number two, your identity, having a proper view of Who You

Are. When you see God for who he is,

only then can you see yourself for who you are?

You'll never understand yourself outside of God. the tragedy of

the human race, is that we've been severed from our creator

through sin and we grope around trying to find meaning One of

the most tragic books in the Bible is the Book of

Ecclesiastes. There's three books that the

that King Solomon wrote The Song of Solomon, there are the song

of songs. It is the, it is an allegory of

a passionate love, between man and his God.

Between God and Christ in his church.

It's a beautiful. It's, there's also a literal

meaning you can teach on marriage from it and so forth,

but it is a passionate allegory, a metaphor of man's relationship

with God. There's also Proverbs Solomon

wrote much of the Proverbs, and it's a book of wisdom, because

when you begin to encounter God and intimacy, you begin to learn

things and wisdom, begins to be embedded in your life and

Solomon became the wisest man that ever lived.

And he came to that. That out of an encounter with

God, it was an event. Not a process with Solomon.

He went to bed, not the wisest man in the world and through a

dream encountered, God and asked for wisdom and woke up the

wisest man that ever lived. But the third book that Solomon

wrote was the Book of Ecclesiastes and it is a tragic

book. It's the story of a brilliant

man who lost touch with God. And so you see this phrase?

Again and again throughout the book and you'll never understand

the Book of Ecclesiastes, matter of fact, if you really read it,

you'll scratch your head. And wonder, why did God include

this in the Bible? It is depressing.

Anybody ever read? That thought it's depressing.

Everything is meaningless Under the Sun.

You work all your life to accumulate wealth, so your kids

can squander it in two years. Everything is I mean that's

depressing stuff. But the key phrases under the

sun. And it's what philosophical ah

Spurs call a closed system. In other words, you're trying to

find meaning in a closed system, you don't look above the sun.

You don't look outside of creation.

You look around creation and try to find meaning.

And the only way that we're going to infuse the mundane of

life with meaning, ultimate meaning is by looking beyond the

sun outside the system. Because only their do we find

purpose that is true as a of us as individuals and that's true

of the grander. Themes of humanity, were never

going to find meaning outside of God.

Everything is meaningless Under the Sun.

You've got to look beyond the sun to find meaning.

And so, the presence of God is our primary purpose and we

talked about both encounter and intimacy.

There's both an event and a process.

I'm a firm believer in encounters with God that God can

encounter you that the god of Heaven wishes to make himself

known. It's not just some distant deity

that we study about in a Dusty book.

And then we hope to one day meet him, God wants to reveal himself

to you in an intimate way. Here.

And now God wants to reveal himself, through encounters

through visions and dreams. And speaking to you, where you

feel his manifest presence where you hear his voice.

We're God's God, ministers to your spirit, that is the god of

the Bible, that, that type of communication.

And encounter is not something relegated to the book to

history. It's a present-day possibility

for you now. And the way you access those

encounters is through the key of hunger.

He who hungers and thirsts shall be filled God is too good, a

steward to invest that level of revelation of himself to those

who are not hungry for it. And so if you hunger and thirst

if you seek Him you shall find him and God longs to reveal

himself through encounter. But there's also this thing of

intimacy with God and that is a lot that is a lifelong process

that we develop with God. And that needs to be the

foundation of everything that is, that is the foundation stone

of the Christian Life. Jesus came to reconcile, you to

the father, not so that you can access the father someday when

you're dead. But so that you can access some

today that you can have a personal relationship with him

now. And so the presence of God is

our primary Pursuit out of those values comes practice.

If we really believe something it will determine our Behavior.

So the reason we worship for an extended amount of time is not

because we're really into music, you know, I'm a cheapskate I

don't by Muse, I hardly have any music on my phone have a lot of

books but very little music. It's not, I'm not, I'm not a

person that loves music so much that now, my little brother, he

has, I used to let him buy the music and then I would borrow

his CDs, you know. Cuz I'm a cheapskate and I'd let

him do that now, everything's digitized.

It's not that were into music. It's because we want his

presence and we realize that God inhabits the Praises of his

people worship is a means to an end and not a, not an end in

itself. And so the presence of God is

our primary Pursuit, the second value core value that we have is

purpose. So let me just run through these

presents purpose, passion, power and principle.

I want to unpack. That presence is encounter an

intimacy. Purpose is both an identity and

intentionality, we've got to discover who we are so that we

can live an intentional life. Number three is Passion or

wholeheartedness we just call it passion It starts with the p.

You could say it's wholeheartedness but it just

doesn't sound as good. And passion is has to do with

sacrifice and enjoyment. And both of those have to be a

reality in our life. Passion is not just about

enjoying him. I'm passionate about that.

When we say that, we mean we enjoy that thing.

But if you're really passionate about something, you will be

willing to sacrifice to cease that thing.

And there's there's a sacrificial element to the

Christian Life that perhaps we'll get into another time when

we unpack more of these values. Number four is power and that's

for both Effectiveness and empowerment.

There's an internal power for living the Christian Life and

Overcoming the our prior life. There's an empowerment but also

there's an external power for Effectiveness so that we can

give it away and both of those are valid and both of those need

to be part of the Christian Life.

There are movements that rent that really talk about power as

power to overcome sin. There's others that talk about

power for Ministry, which one's right?

Uh-huh. We need both and then number

four principle. We want to base everything in

the word of God. It's a dangerous thing to talk

about spiritual encounters and spiritual phenomena, without

rooting it in the book, we need to.

We need to be people of the book that you put it this way that

the word of God, is the language of the spirit, the more, you

know, the word, the more God can speak to you if you don't build

your vocabulary, then the level of constant level of

communication you'll have with God is Goochie Goochie goo You

can talk baby talk with God, but if you really want to grow in

your relationship with God, you need to know the language of the

book. The book is the vocabulary of

the spirit and the more, you know, of God's word, the more

you're going to know of his ways and when you understand God's

ways, you can cooperate with him.

And if you don't know, God's ways you can experience God.

But you'll stand wondering what see what he's about to do.

And God wants to bring us into his ways.

He wants us to cooperate with him.

Christianity is not just something that happens to us.

It's something we cooperate with we partner with heaven.

And so we need to be people of the book, we need to learn.

We need to learn the word of God.

And really there's, there's two ways that we come into.

The the principal is a God's word.

There is revelation and there's academic study.

Okay. Revelation is a valid principle

in the Bible. The Apostle Paul prayed this

prayer in Ephesians chapter 1. He prayed that we would have a

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him.

What's the difference between Revelation and study?

Revelation is God, breaks in and gives you Sudden awareness,

sudden insight to something you didn't previously, understand,

it's an event, God shows you something and then you back fill

that with the word, there are times that the Lord has spoken

to me. And I've told the Lord, I said

God, I know that was you but I can't preach on that until you

give me word to back that up. I'm not going to share that with

anybody else. Unless you show me this in your

word. And so I would go on a journey

of God, teaching me about the thing, he spoke to me about,

that's revelation. Ation and that's not isolated by

any means to people who preach the word.

God Longs, for all of us to come into a spirit of wisdom and

Revelation. That is our blood bought

Heritage. The spirit of God is a spirit of

wisdom and Revelation. And he wants, Jesus said, I'm

going to send the spirit one like unto myself, who will lead

you into all truth? And the two primary ways, the

spirit of God does that is through Revelation.

He It's with the truth and then unpacks it, or through study.

You begin to get into the word and you study yourself into

conclusions. Revelation, you start with a

conclusion and you backfill it study, you study yourself into

conclusions through interacting, with the word, and God will

never isolate you to one or the other.

Both are disciplines that we need to practice.

There's, we need to position our self for revelation.

There's things that we can do. So, that God will reveal himself

to us. Which is a whole nother Sunday.

But let me just throw out a couple little nuggets here.

Okay? One of the keys to revelation.

Is hunger. If you are not hungry for truth.

It will be a rare thing for God to give it to you.

Because it's too valuable. God longs to share his heart,

but he there has to be an internal value system that will

treasure those things. God longs to reveal himself, but

you have to have a value system so that you can Steward at once,

he gives it to you. So hunger is a key, they who

hunger and thirst shall be filled, you will seek me.

And you will find me when you seek for me with all of your

heart. He's talking about a hungry

pursuit of God. Number 2 purity of heart, there

are people that are hungry for God, but for the wrong reasons.

you have to have the right motives James says if any man

lacks wisdom let him ask and God will give them if you have any

will upbraideth not so God what longs to give us that if we ask

but then it says but if you ask with wrong motives don't expect

to receive So that we have to have a purity of heart.

There has to be the reason we're crying out for wisdom.

Has to be the right reason. And if our desire is so that we

can look smart, God will withhold it while he purifies

her heart, because he can't give it to us for the wrong reasons.

God's not going to endorse wrong motives.

Purity of heart is a huge issue. John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

Jesus was asked by the teachers of the law.

Where did you get such wisdom? And his answer was so

interesting. He said I came not to please

myself but the one who sent me and I'm sure when he they said

when he said that to them, they're thinking what Jesus,

we're not interested in your motives for learning, we want to

know your source and Jesus was saying you don't understand my

source. The Secret of my source is my

motives because I came to seek. I came to glorify the ones who

the one who sent me James rides in on that same principle and

puts it this way. The wisdom that comes from

Heaven is first of all, pure Purity in the New Testament is

not so much. It's not so much talking about.

We use that term today and the American Church usually when

someone's talking about purity, they're talking about sexual or

moral purity, The New Testament is more talking about the

motives of our heart. Do I want this?

So I can I can Push forward my own agenda.

And God will withhold that from us until we have purified our

heart. And so these things are very,

very important. And these are the foundations of

Heartland culture, but at the, I believe they're the foundations

of a healthy Christian Life. and so, when we talk about presence,

purpose, Pow presence, purpose, passion power and principle.

Each one of these progressively, build on one another.

The one I want to talk about this morning.

Oh my goodness. It's late.

I want to talk about purpose presents when we discover who

God is when we have encounters with him.

The one thing that's going to happen is God's going to begin

to edit your view of him. And we need that.

I was just talking to a group upstairs at the newcomers at

nine. And we were talking about some

of our backgrounds and and they were saying that they had come

from a legalistic church. And and a matter of fact, I was

talking to two different groups that were saying that and we're

talking about how, when you feel like God's condemning you, you

don't have a desire to be intimate with him.

It's like snuggling up to a porcupine who wants to do that.

You don't want to cuddle us porcupine and if God's attitude

towards you is disappointment, if God's always looking at you

and he's mildly irritated. If the father's up there on

clicking his fingers on the throne thinking, oh man, Jesus

went and bought him and now I'm stuck with them.

You know, Jesus bought Humanity by his death and tave was part

of the package deal. If that's really how you

perceive God's heart towards you, you are not going to be

drawn into his presence. Whether you're consciously aware

of it or not, you're going to avoid God's presence.

And so what we need is to be renewed in our minds to see God

for who he is. And I'm telling you the

Christian Life is a lifelong process of God, revealing his

nature to us, his great. Faithfulness to us so that we

can place our faith in his faithfulness.

Faith is not something that we conjure up.

It's not something that we white-knuckle and try to

produce. It comes out of a revelation of

who he really is. And so, we need to ask him, God,

show me you for who you are. Lord, renew my mind.

I need to see you. If we're who you really are,

because to know him is to love him.

When you see him for who he is, you I can't but help Surrender

Your Life to him. And the fact that every one of

us in this room have struggled at times with surrender, when

God gives us a new, some new thing, he's dealing with us on

and and we're hesitant to surrender that area.

That lack of surrender is always rooted in a false perception of

who he is. And so, any time we're

struggling, what we need to say is God Lord, I'm asking you to

renew my mind and give me a right perspective on who you are

because when we see him for who he is and I would propose you

just real quick here. Three elements of God's

character that number one. God is all-wise.

God knows what's best for you. And so, when we start to waive

her own man, Lord, I don't know if I surrender to you, I don't

know if you really know what's best.

What That's one of the things, the enemy attacks but God is all

wise, he knows what's best for you.

Number two, he's all-powerful, he's able to pull it off.

God is able to move Heaven and Earth to get you where you need

to go. But number three, God is all

loving God. Not only knows what's best has

the power to pull it off. God wants, what's best for you?

That is his utmost, desire. Matter of fact, God knows what's

best for you. God knows what you really want

even when you don't. I remember coming to that

realization as a young believer and so I would, when I would

struggle, I'd feel like the Lord was calling me to do something.

I'd say God Lord help me because I'm siding with you against me

because I know, you know what, I want more than I do.

I think I want that but you've already told me it's not, your

will either in your word or you've revealed that to me and

Lord, I must be deceived in some area because I think I want that

and let me just tell you, I proved it It a number of times

that God didn't know what I really wanted and when I thought

I wanted that thing and I got it against God's will, I didn't

want that thing. Then I'm crying out.

God delivery of this thing. I thought I wanted and I don't

want So God knows what you want. God knows your, that's why he

says that he can give you the desires of your heart.

Matter of fact, I would propose to you the desires.

The real desires of your heart, are an indication of your

calling. We haven't preached on this in

quite a while, but let me got a few minutes, okay.

You could put it this way. Temptation is Destiny wrapped in

a shortcut. We said again, desk temptation

is Destiny wrapped in a shortcut.

You look at what God Said or what the enemy, rather said to

Adam and Eve, if you eat of this fruit, you shall be like God,

you know, why that was tempting because what he was really doing

is speaking to their ultimate destiny.

That wasn't the Forbidden element of the fruit.

It was skipping the process to get there.

That was the Forbidden element. We were created in God's image.

We marred that image through sins.

So Jesus, Came and took on the took on the form of a man made

in God's image and he completed that image by fulfilling every

purpose that God had for men. He, he fulfilled the purpose of

God for man, and now the scripture says be conformed to

the image of Christ. Who would also says, is the perf

is the perfect representation of the godhead in bodily form.

You are called to be like God That is your calling you are

called to be transformed into his image that the Forbidden

element of that was trying to get it in a short cut.

Look at it with Jesus when when Jesus was being enticed by the

enemy. He said to the devil, the

serpent said to Jesus, if you worship me I will give you all

the kingdoms of this world. What does Jesus have today?

He's in the process of bringing everything under his feet and

every Kingdom of this world should be laid at his feet.

What the enemy was doing was speaking to his Destiny but he

was offering it to him in a shortcut.

And the reason that's dangerous is if you Seize Your Destiny

through a shortcut, you will not be the person qualified to

Stewart. It If you are, there's this

interesting verse in and Ephesians chapter 2 that God has

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

prepared Works in advance so that you can walk in them.

In other words, there's already there's already a job waiting

for you to do it in the future. There's a god-shaped hole in

human history or a u shaped hole rather in human history.

Waiting for you to arrive and the tragedy is that.

Sometimes we arrived at our future unqualified to be the

person to fulfill I feel that because we skip the process, And

so, it's through the process of God, dealing with us, that he

brings out who were called to be, so that we can fulfill the

purposes of God. And the greatest way for you to

glorify God is to manifest, the measure of who he is, that you

are called to manifest through your maturity.

When scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of

the glory of God, what it's talking about is you fallen

short of the manifestation that you are to carry of who he is to

the human race into human history.

Jonathan Edwards, anybody ever heard of him?

He was the first president of Princeton seminarian was the

leader arguably the primary leader of the first Great.

Awakening was a great philosopher as well as a great

deal Theologian. He said this he said Grace is

Glory begun. Glory is Grace, consummated or

completed? In other words, God gives us

Grace to begin on this journey. He deposits the glory within us,

but as we grow we're to glorify him and being and falling short

of the glory is falling short of the manifestation that were to

bring to the human race. There is an element of God's

nature and character and truth that he wants to bring through

your life. But we've got to cooperate with

that process. And what the enemy will do is he

will entice us to get into things that are actually God's

will, but prematurely, so, When somebody, when a single

individual is is tempted with sexual immorality, it's not

because God has said, it's never my will for you to be in have a

sexual relationship. It's just it's premature.

God wants you to have it within the context in which he

appointed it to you and your single years are in actuality

That season of your life that are to prepare you to be a

married individual and handle this.

Awesome powerful and dangerous. Thing called sexual intimacy.

And so, as we go through our single years, it's going to

Purdue. It's going to prepare us for

that relationship and marriage. But if you just jump to that,

this, this powerful potent thing called sexual intimacy will

actually destroy you It's been said that it's like fire.

You keep it. There's a context for that fire

the fireplace and it will keep you warm.

It's a nice thing. But And there's a context for

sexual intimacy, it's called marriage between two very

committed, individuals who are in it till death, do us part.

And when it's there, it's a beautiful thing and when it gets

outside of that, it's dangerous. And so it's part of God's design

and so when the enemy entices people, it's that he entices

them into getting there through a shortcut.

And so, we need to understand that when God calls us to

greater things, the enemy will come along and try to get you to

enter into what God has called you to through shortcuts.

And it will disqualify you from Stewart.

And you will be forced at best to come down to a lower level,

and not be able to Stuart at the level that God had for you.

So God has a purpose for our life and that purpose is

discovered in his presence. When we see God for who he is

the set, the the secondary thing.

We're going to begin to see him for who he is.

It's going to cause a surrender in our heart because when we see

him for who he is, we want to give our life to him, we would

be insane not to surrender our life to a God who knows what's

best wants? What's best and is able to pull

it off. The second thing we begin to see

is we begin to see ourselves accurately, and this is where

purpose comes in. When we are severed from God,

when we try to Define herself separate from God, we will come

up short, we will sell ourselves short.

This is one of the reasons why inner healing Freedom Ministries

dealing with our past is so crucial because what the enemy

is done for your entire life, he has strategize to wound you and

cause you to reject yourself. C.s.

Lewis talked about us walking alongside ourselves and what he

was talking about is that we stand on the outside.

We can't live from the center. We can't be who we are and live

life with passion. We stand on the outside and

we're our own worst critic, we're critiquing everything we

do. And when we do that, that

self-rejection will keep us from entering into our destiny, you

can't become who you're called to be until you own, who you're

called to be. And there's two portions that

there's their self-rejection but there's also ignorance that the

enemy has created. A definition of who we are.

That God wants to unravel. If there's two prayers that you

pray, you need to pray. God show me you for who you

really are and secondly Lord show me who me for who I really

am. Because that's the foundation of

everything else. And when you see who God is, all

of a sudden, purpose is ignited in your life.

You begin to get in touch with what you were made for.

And when you adopt another Persona out of self-rejection,

when you try to be something you're not called to be, or you

try to prematurely step into your destiny without going

through the process when that happens.

You end up forfeiting what God has for your life.

You can't be. Who you're called to be.

At best, you will be a frustrated individual.

You'll have these raging desires, but you don't know how

to fulfill it. And so we need God to Define who

we are and that's where we discover our purpose years ago.

I was watching Antiques. Roadshow anybody watch that?

It isn't that thing still on? I was watching the Antiques

Roadshow and and this guy comes on and you know how they have

the appraiser. He's sitting there in his chair

and also not pants to this guy and he has his sword sitting on

this little stand. And I said, tell me about your

sword. He said well when I was a little

kid, our neighbor had it hanging In his garage and he gave it to

us. He said, man, we used to play,

you know, pirates with it and he said what we used to do a lot

with it. As cut watermelons, we'd put

them on their walks, you know, cut the Watermelons and he said,

it's been in our family for years.

Matter of fact, it's been hanging in the garage and I was

going to sell it and in a rummage sale, a garage sale but

then I heard you guys are coming to town.

I thought, hey, I might as well have them look at it and the

appraiser just listen to them, talk about this sword and then

when he was done the appraiser, handed him a pair of gloves, he

said Touch the blade with your bare hands because the oil in

your skin, could cause it to deteriorate and that was the

first clue. The guy thought I probably

shouldn't be cutting watermelons.

Then the appraiser puts on his own little rubber gloves, and he

picks it up. And he begins to describe what

this sword really is. He said, this is a civil war-era

sword. It's a Confederate officer.

Sort said, matter of fact this would have never seen action

because this is a highly prized parade sort notice all the

filigree on here and all the carvings he said this was a

parade sword. That would have been worn on the

the side of a very high ranking. Military officer.

This is a very valuable sword. He said, in fact, I figure it's

probably worth today about 20 thousand dollars.

Now this was about 25 years ago, I don't know what it's worth

today. But you could see the look on

this guy's face. He's like, oh my goodness, I've

been kind of watermelons. He about sold it in a garage

sale and as I was watching that the Lord spoke to me, And he

said, that's how my children operate.

Because we don't realize our value.

We don't realize our purpose. We look at our design.

Well, you know, I got a blade. I guess I could cut watermelons.

Never realizing the lofty purpose for which he made us.

And when we don't realize why we're made, we end up using our

self for things. So beneath us, Parade.

Swords become watermelon cutters.

And I love that that picture of the appraiser.

I love that word. Think about that.

God is our appraiser. He knows our true value and he

is the one who defines us. And that watermelon cutter that

was carried in in the mind of that guy was probably worth 20

bucks. It was carried out as a valuable

parade sword because the appraiser had placed new value

upon it. And we need to be a people who

get into God's presence, not just to encounter him but

because we want to glorify him. We've got to discover who we are

in his presence and when we discover who he is and who we

are in relationship with him, it will ignite purpose which will

demand will create passion in your life when you really

understand your purpose. There's a passion ignited and

you say, I'm willing to sacrifice to get there.

R. I realized there's a sense of

Destiny on my life that I was created for such a time as this

in human history and then power is not optional suddenly we're

saying man I've got to have power on my life, not fulfilling

my destiny is not an option, there's this heart cry.

There's a hunger that begins to erupt within us to get in his

word. Lord, I want to partner with

Heaven. I've got to understand what

you're doing. so, I'm telling you that this Foundation Of

God's presence and seeing him for who he is.

And then understanding our purpose understanding who we

really are. Why did God make you the way he

made you? There are things about you that

are very, very unique. That God wants to unleash.

But some of you still struggle with self-rejection, some of you

minimize your strength because they come.

So naturally to you, you don't realize what a treasure they

are, and God wants to begin to speak over you.

You need to be asking the Lord Lord.

Who do you say that I am? Remember how Jesus said that to

Peter, that is the conversation you need to have with God.

It's the most important question you'll ever answer.

God. God says to you, who do you say

that? I am because your Eternal

Destiny hinges on your answer to that question.

The fruitfulness of your life hinges on your answer to that

question. But it's also the most important

question you'll ever ask and you get in God's face and say, God

and who do you say that? I Am Lord, I need you to Define

me and the Lord wants to speak over you and begin to tell you

who you really are. Because when you discover who

you really are, it will change how you live, much of the sin

problem. In many Believers lives is

because they're bored with life. They don't realize who they

really are, and so they're easily and tight.

With these minor. These side is distractions.

These piddly little things, but when you see God for who he

really is, and you begun to understand who God really made

you to be those things won't have a poll on you anymore,

because you'll want to fulfill the purpose for which you were

made. The last time Dean Briggs was

here. He told about a prophetic friend

of his, that was taken into Heaven by an Angel in a vision

or a dream. I don't know what it was.

And he said, he took him into the archive room of Heaven, it

was a huge room with Acres of volumes.

And the angel, took him over to a bookcase and he showed him

that were two volumes for every human soul.

There was a large volume in a thin one and his friend said to

the angel, why are there two volumes and the angel pulled off

the big volume he said this is what God invites every person to

believe for and then he pulled off the thin volume and he said

and this is what most end up believing for We need to see

ourselves for who we are. God is inviting us into bigger

things. But we need a revelation of him

and of ourself. And that's where a sense of

purpose. A sense of destiny that will

actually harness you, go ahead and stand.

So, you know, I'm going to quit. Proverbs says this without a

vision, the people, what parish, you know, what?

The NIV says, without a revelation, the people cast off

restraint, the restrained lifestyle of a disciple is the

result of having a vision for your life.

But it's not a vision that That you create.

It's a vision that you dismiss cover, you uncovered the

destiny, the purpose. What God has wired you to be?

And as you realize that there's this passion, that's ignited, a

passion. That is willing to heart be

harnessed and to deny itself for greater things.

There's some of you this morning that you you're struggling with

but setting sin, you find yourself being falling into the

same old. Let me just say it.

I love you stupid things. I've been there.

Okay, the same old stupid things.

Why? Because you don't have a bigger

vision for your life, you don't realize that you are a parade

sword to be paraded on the side of the Lord that he's going to

show you off and do great things with your life.

So you're out there. The watermelon cut Of sin.

Being used for much, lesser things.

When asked you to Bow your head father we thank you for your

word this morning. Holy Spirit.

I ask the right now that you just brewed over us and I'm

going to ask that every I be closed.

I want to give you an opportunity to respond to the

Lord. If you're here this morning and

you're saying pastor, I struggle with besetting sin.

There's some things in my life that it seems like it's just

cyclical. I keep falling into it.

And I recognize this morning that what you're talking about

is me. I'm not going to ask you to come

forward on this, but I want you to make that acknowledgement.

You're saying pastor. I know that's me and I want to

break this thing. I want you to raise your hand.

Yeah. All over the room.

Father, I thank you for these hands that have been raised.

Lord were asking for a fresh Revelation, not only of who you

are, but of Who We Are. Lord, we want to glorify, we

want to be the person you created us to be.

We don't want to rob you of Your Glory, by living beneath our

inheritance living beneath our purpose.

Father, we're asking that at the end of the age when we stand

before you and give an answer for our life that you pull out

the big volume and say, Well done thou good and faithful

servant. Hallelujah.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you

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So at Heartland Church, online.com give Hallelujah.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you

can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on

social media. If you'd like to support the

Ministries apartment church, you can do.

So at Heartland Church, online.com give