Journey of Desire Part 3: Destiny - Christmas

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Church, if you consider your destiny, have you considered that God has something bigger and greater and deeper and more magnificent than you've experienced up to now.

That God is calling you to something great.

He's calling you to experience something that you've never experienced before.

Your biography does not define your destiny.

Your past does not define your future.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Hope.

Hey, I want to talk about something today called destiny.

If you've been with us for the last several weeks, you can see by our ski sign here that on the first week I talked about desire.

Second week, last week, we talked about darkness.

And then today I want to talk about destiny.

And it's really, really captivating to me to read the gospel story again and again.

It could be from Matthew 1 and 2 or Luke 1 and 2.

All of those passages are beautiful and they all have a story to tell.

But this idea that there's a God-sized destiny for each one of you really captures my heart.

I remember when I first got saved, when I first came into a personal relationship with Christ, I wouldn't have said it that way, but that's what I felt.

There's a God-sized, not a Steve-sized, not a man-sized, not a not a gymnastics champion size, but a God-sized destiny that I was captured by.

And when I caught that, my heart was lit on fire.

And it's been on fire now for all these years.

Because God's vision for our lives, this abundant life, is real.

God has for every, I believe, for every created being, but only experienced by those who have been born again, is this God-sized destiny.

And I want you to look now from the perspective of a God-sized destiny at the Christmas story.

So look at Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

So if you have your Bible or your phone, I think they need to have a phone app that when you open it on your phone, you can hear pages turning.

Because that's still what I love.

I love to hear the pages turning.

But if you have your Bibles, if you don't, there's a Bible probably in front of you in the slot in the chair before you.

Jot this down if you're taking notes.

Expect the unexpected.

Expect the unexpected.

A God-sized destiny, a God-sized vision is always, listen, for those who expect the unexpected.

Because God is going to always surprise you.

In the coming year, God wants to surprise you.

And either you're going to be blown away and freak out that things aren't going your way, or you believe in a God-sized destiny and you're expecting the unexpected.

Most people do not expect the unexpected and they get blown away because life isn't turning out the way they thought.

Has anybody discovered that life doesn't turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out?

Or that marriage didn't turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out, or your friends didn't turn out to be the friends that you expected them to be.

Welcome to life.

So we're going to look at some people.

His wife was of the daughter of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

And they were both, and this is important, verse 6, you might circle this or underline this, they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.

So the first thing we might say is that to experience a God-sized vision or a God-sized destiny, it's important that we're lining ourselves up with God.

So in an Old Testament way, because this is pre-Messiah, this is pre-cross, this is pre-resurrection, Jesus is being prophesied about being born.

They are a couple that are blameless.

They're trying the best they can in the power that God gave at that time, a desire to live in the commandments of God.

But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and they were both well advanced in years.

Well advanced in years.

When you look at any commentary on that, it means sixty years or older.

Are any of you in this room, sixty years or older?

God's not done with you yet.

So it was.

Verse 8, that while he was serving as priest before God, the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

And when Zecharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard.

How many of you in this room have been praying for a long time for something that hasn't happened yet?

Amen.

Lots of us.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.

He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, who will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared by the Lord.

Now note this there's like two destinies here.

There's a nine-month destiny, and there's a 30-year destiny.

And I would say to us that we have a tendency to overestimate how important the next year will be, and to underestimate what God wants to do in the next decade.

That God has plans for you 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, he's actually prophesying that into Zacharias, who it appears your prayer being heard, verse 13, would indicate that I think, this is just a little bit of my summation of what we read here, that Zacharias and Elizabeth, being 60 years or above that, still believed that God was gonna give them a child.

They're still believing, even in their older age, that God had a destiny on their life.

And what God speaks through the angel to them is we've got a nine-month destiny for you.

Your wife is gonna birth a child.

But it's a child named John who's gonna actually be a forerunner to Jesus, gonna make an impact upon all of Israel.

That's a 30-year God-sized destiny.

Now skip down to verse 26.

Now we go from 60 plus years old to a 15, between probably 14 and 15-year-old young lady.

Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

The virgin's name was Mary.

And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one.

The Lord is with you.

Blessed are you among women.

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and consider what manner of greeting this was.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus, nine-month destiny.

He will be great, and he'll be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Then Mary said to the angel, How can this be?

Since I do not know a man.

And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

Now indeed Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who is called barren.

For with God nothing will be impossible.

Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

We have Mary receiving a God-sized destiny.

We have Zacharias receiving a God-sized destiny as they positioned themselves to hear from God.

It would appear from what we can understand about Zacharias and Elizabeth that they're both righteous before God.

They're walking in his commandments and ordinance of the Lord, and they're blameless.

What we do know of Mary is that the pronouncement given to her in verse 28 is that she's highly favored.

The Lord is with her.

She's blessed among women.

And even though in her spirit she can't even imagine or conceive of what is being said to her, the Lord says, the favor of God is upon you.

And we're going to use you.

We're going to do something impossible.

God is doing something impossible in both of our cases.

And I believe that's a principle that I want us to grasp a little bit today, that a God-sized destiny is impossible with a man-sized imagination.

If you only have a man-sized imagination, you can't experience a God-sized vision and destiny unless we open ourselves up to what God wants to do.

And what I love about what Mary says, look what she says in verse 38.

Behold a maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

Jeremiah, we read, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.

I'll be found by you, says the Lord.

I will bring you back from captivity.

And yet Israel didn't believe that.

They never believed in the destiny that God had for them.

And in Lamentations we read these words, speaking of Israel, her uncleanness is in her skirts.

She did not consider her destiny.

Therefore, her collapse was awesome.

She had no comforter.

Church, have you considered your destiny?

Have you considered that God has something bigger and greater and deeper and more magnificent than you've experienced up to now?

That God is calling you to something great.

Your biography does not define your destiny.

Your past does not define your future.

Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary never expected to meet an angel and hear these words.

Well, Mary's magnificat.

If you come out of a Catholic background or maybe a mainline church background, you know Mary's magnificat.

It's the first word in the Latin, in the Latin Bible, magnificat for magnificence.

Mary's response is beautiful here.

She gives us a prophetic model of experience a God-sized destiny, the song of Mary.

This is the longest song, actually, the longest monologue by any woman in the New Testament.

So I want to look at four aspects of what I believe are crucial to discovering a God-sized destiny in our lives.

Look at with me verses 37 and 38 again.

For with God nothing will be impossible.

The angel says that to her.

Her response, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

Now move down to verse 45.

Blessed is she.

So this is now Elizabeth speaking to Mary.

Blessed is she who believed.

For there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told to her from the Lord.

Number one, believe that God has a destiny on your life.

Men and women, that's where it all starts.

It's a belief that we have.

It's actually saying it.

God, I believe you have a God-sized destiny on my life.

I need you to speak to me.

This is my background.

This is the kind of parents I had.

This is the kind of background that I have.

And I am moving toward the future, and you are not big enough to break me out of what happened in the past.

Or you begin to say to the Lord, God, I believe you're bigger than that.

I believe you're bigger than what my mom and dad said about me.

You're bigger than what that coach said about.

You're bigger than that divorce or that orphanage that I came out of, or whatever the background might be, to say, God, I believe.

That's what Mary does.

And we know historically that Mary came from probably socioeconomically, a poor background.

We know that from so many instances in the New Testament.

She's going to consider herself humble.

You'll see that in the Magnificat.

I received an email this week from Terry Lee, member of our church.

You guys know Terry and Giselle.

He works a lot.

Terry and Giselle both work a lot with prisoners.

And this is what he said: so many hundreds of tough, hardened teens, gang kids desperately wanting to surrender their lives to Jesus and learn the Bible.

I just gave up trying to find evil people to fight and started using the Bible instead.

Life sent its black gang leaders now sending us Christmas letters in biblical Greek from prison.

How about that?

Former white supremacist gang leaders as friends and colleagues with theological doctorates and their own ministries, many of them still in prison.

Returning from the dead drug dealers, Satanists, Wiccans, etc., surrendering to the gospel.

All those years growing up in Judo and Shotokan and Kempo and Aki Do and Taekwondo wasted.

Nobody wanted to fight.

They simply wanted a God who loved them and his love letter the Bible.

So God's taking the worst in society and making them the best in his God-sized destiny.

Isn't that exciting?

God's got that for you.

Whatever your age, whatever your background, whatever mistakes you've made, there's a God-sized destiny.

Believe it.

Start to believe it.

Start to speak it out.

Secondly, secondly, praise God for the destiny on your life.

Praise God ahead of time for the God-sized destiny upon your life.

Look at this magnificat by Mary.

Mary said, verse 46, My soul magnifies the Lord.

Magnificat.

That's where we get that in Latin.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior, for he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.

For behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed.

Church, it hasn't happened yet.

It hasn't happened to Mary yet.

She's believing before it happened.

It's really important.

She's positioning herself to receive because she believes it before she receives it.

Could it be that receiving it has something to do with you believing it before you receive it?

And so she believes it.

God's going to do something in her humble state.

God's going to move.

And I love what's said here in verse 38 by Mary.

She says, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

Listen, folks, we can't say according to your word if we're not in the word.

How can you have a word from the Lord if you're not in the word?

A word from me?

Fine.

That's great.

It's generic.

But God wants to give each of us in this room revelation for you.

Revelation for your life.

That's why we do PB and J, Prayer, Bible, and Journal, and we have the list of the verses, the chapter and verse that you can go through.

The one we gave you for destiny right now.

Excuse me, for desire for the Christmas season.

Because as you're spending time reading God's word, he's going to have something come alive from God's Word directly for you.

I cannot believe how many Christians today don't spend any time in God's Word.

And they're all, I want to I don't know God's will.

I'm not sure what God's will is for my life.

God's will is written in God's word that God gave you two eyes to read from, and as you do, he'll speak to you.

But he's not gonna make you do it.

And for all of you that need marriage counseling, which is a lot of us, if you come to me, I'm gonna say the same thing that I say to everybody, 30-day experiment.

For the next 30 days, instead of complaining about your spouse, why don't you guys start reading the word and praying together?

Man, I am a PhD in counseling.

But it works.

It's amazing how often it works when we let the inerrant, infallible, sovereign, powerful Word of God begin to speak to us as a couple for our own individual lives as well as for that other person in our life that unites us with a God-sized destiny.

Isn't that exciting?

Isn't that exciting?

Say God-sized destiny comes from God's word.

I'm gonna believe God's word.

But I can't believe God's word unless I open it.

Amen.

So Mary, it appears.

Okay, you don't have to say anymore.

Okay.

It appears that Mary.

Must have been in God's Word.

Here's what's amazing when you read the Magnificat, which is 46 to 55.

This particular hymn is so chalked full of scripture.

It actually sounds like Hannah's prayer, when she found out she was going to have a child in 1 Samuel 2.

Matter of fact, I did a study just yesterday over Hannah's prayer and Mary's Magnificot, and there's like four different areas that are almost identical.

It makes me wonder if Mary, who probably was illiterate, because girls at that time weren't given the training that boys were, she had memorized Hannah's Magnificot, and then through the power of the Holy Spirit, she extemporaneously began to praise God, and this is what came forth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said of Mary's Magnificat, it is the most passionate, wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.

Especially by a woman.

I find it fascinating that God so powerfully uses Mary here to be a wake-up call to all of us of this God-sized destiny that she believes in.

First of all, she believes it.

Second, she's praising God for it.

And then thirdly, this is what's interesting.

She has this conviction that God can do might, mighty and greaty and mighty and greaty.

Mighty and great things through her.

Fifteen years old.

She's saying, God's gonna do great and mighty things.

Look at verse 49.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me.

It hasn't even happened yet, folks.

She's believing it.

What if for the rest of the year and into 2020 we started just preparing our hearts by remembering and reminding ourselves and then verbally declaring it, God, you who are mighty, you who have done great things, will do great things for me.

And holy is your name, and your mercy on those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm.

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones.

God does mighty and powerful things for the humble and the lowly of heart.

I think she's remembering what she heard from the angel.

Look back at verse 28.

And having come in, the angel said to her, Highly favored one, the Lord is with you.

Blessed are you among women.

Church, the Lord would say to you, You're highly favored.

You're blessed, you're beloved.

I love you.

I created you for a purpose.

There's a plan that the DNA that you have, the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual characteristics that are all a part of your life are for a unique plan that I have for you for a God-sized destiny.

Will you believe me?

Will you trust me for great and mighty things that I want to do through you?

Your background does not define your foreground.

Your biography does not define your destiny.

Fourthly, and this is the most important of everything that she does here, and everything that she says here, is she stays hungry for God.

She's hungry for God.

She's hungry for good things.

Verse 53.

And he has filled the hungry with good things.

And the rich he has sent away empty.

And he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers and to Abraham forever.

Church, stay hungry.

If you're not hungry for the Lord, you won't experience all that God has for you.

And you have to constantly work on that, don't we?

We have to all work on that, don't we?

I have to work on it all the time.

God, keep me hungry.

God, keep me hungry for more.

I want more of you.

I want to keep growing.

I want to keep experiencing more of you in my life.

I'm going to worship you.

I'm asking you today, keep me hungry.

Because when you're full, you're not hungry, you have no more needs.

And I believe that's why in many of the prisons today, and many of the young people that Esteban works with, and others in our church, so many of you are working with the homeless here in our church, different ministries happening in the road.

It's because you're working with hungry people.

Most of the time, those who've been broken know and understand the mistakes that they've made.

And with the right invitation and with the right challenge, they understand that there's a God who loves them and they become hungry for that.

And that's why we see so many exciting things happening in prisons today.

Because these guys are around each other and they're struggling together and they're hungry.

Church, I want to challenge you to come to prepare 2020.

To discover that God-sized destiny, we need to be hungry.

And it's really our choice.

It's up to us.

Deuteronomy 28 captures this, the blessings of obedience.

And I believe it's through the blessings of obedience that we discover a God-sized destiny.

In Deuteronomy 28, now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the country, blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.

Blessed shall you be your basket and your kneading bowl.

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face.

They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

The Lord will command the blessings on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.

Man, that's pretty good.

And that's the Old Testament.

And now on this side of Calvary, on this side of a resurrected Christ, how much more are we blessed?

But I can't leave it there.

Everybody, I can't leave it there.

Because he continues to say that if you walk in disobedience, you curse yourself.

Because I don't believe that God curses anybody.

You curse yourself.

Curses.

Verse 15.

But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and all his statutes, which I command you today, that all of these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall be in the country.

Cursed shall you be your basket and your kneading bowl.

Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.

Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, and all that you set your hand to do, until you're destroyed, and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me.

The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you're going to possess.

The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever and inflammation, with severe burning, fever with the sword, with scorching, with mildew.

They shall pursue you until you perish.

Now this is interesting.

Verse 23.

And your heavens which are over you, over your head, shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron.

He's saying that when we walk in disobedience, when we don't follow the commands of the Lord, your prayers can't be answered.

You've cast iron, you've cast bronze, and they're just bouncing back because you're not lined up with the blessings of God.

So it's a choice.

It's a choice for all of us in this room.

Do we believe in the destiny that God has for us, that it's blessed, that it's good, and that it's awesome?

Or do we want to go our own way?

Just do our own thing.

You invite cursings.

So in Deuteronomy 30, two chapters later, the choice is given.

Life and death are good and evil.

Life and death are good and evil.

Verse 15.

See, I have set before you today, life and good, death and evil.

In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live, listen to this, live and multiply.

And the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go in to possess.

Men and women, every one of you in this room have land to possess.

Every one of us in this room have something that God has put before you in the way of work, maybe marriage, if you're married, family, parenting, to possess the land.

God gives us a destiny to possess.

And if we'll obey Him, He showers blessings upon us.

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish.

You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.

I will call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.

Therefore choose life.

He's crying out to us.

It's an invitation, church.

Choose life.

Choose me.

Love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Your neighbor is yourself.

Choose that.

That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days.

So Jesus said it this way: The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

That's the Christmas message today.

That you have life.

And you can sit in your world and navel gaze until the cows come home.

Or you can look up and say, God, I and I am, I got a lot of problems.

I got a lot of issues with this or that or that or this.

Like God's like, oh, really?

I didn't know that.

You know?

But it's to say, God, but I but I give you my heart today.

I want a God-sized destiny.

I don't want my destiny.

I don't want my plan.

I want your plan.

And I'm going after you.

I'm going to learn how to love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and stream.

I'm going to start reading the word.

I'm going to come after you because I want those blessings.

And the biggest blessing is you.

I'm your life.

Because men and women, listen, if you don't get this, if we don't get this here at the road, your life will be destroyed.

Some of you are right on that precipice right now of being destroyed.

You're deep in depression.

You're deep into alcoholism.

You're deep into pornography.

You're deep into thinking about and considering an extramarital affair.

Some of you are single and you're involved in sexual immorality.

And it's not going to end up well for you.

Man, I want life.

How about you?

I want a God-sized destiny.

Choose Jesus.

Choose life.

Choose the destiny that God has for you this Christmas.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.

If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.

Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.

Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.