Let’s Talk About It – What Is God’s Will For My Life?

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Super glad you're with us today.

I want to start by looking right at the camera and welcoming our church family.

Access is one church that meets in three locations.

Right now we're joining our North Lakeland and our Bartow locations.

Come on, everyone, can you put your hands together and welcome our church fam today?

Also, shout out church online.

And my wife is in North Lakeland.

Hello, babe.

I'm in love with you.

It's gonna be a good day, everybody.

Let's get started.

Today we're in part four of a series of messages called Let's Talk About It.

And if you've missed any of it or you're new to our church, let me tell you what we've been doing.

Every Easter, I do a survey of our church where I invite our church to tell us what they want to hear messages about.

And every year I like to take a few weeks and talk about the stuff that really matters to you.

And so if you love this series, good work.

And if you don't love this series, it's your fault, everybody.

And so I want to talk about some stuff today.

To get us started, uh to this week was a big week in the life of my family.

My oldest son, Joey, turned 19, everybody.

That's a big deal.

And he's just the best.

But if you're a parent, you know how this works.

Whenever your kid turns a certain age, there's this tendency to start to reminisce.

You start to think back to things.

And I'll never forget the day Joey was born because it was one of the most beautiful, profound days in my life.

Now, when I say beautiful, here's what I mean: it was beautiful and holy and sacred.

But there's something that nobody tells you before you have a baby, and I just want to be the guy to tell you, okay?

If you don't have a child yet, listen to me.

It is beautiful, but it is one of the grossest days of your whole life.

It just is.

And nobody warns you for that.

And so I'm there, I'm excited, it's the day.

Liz is in labor.

I I made a mistake of not eating because you need to know this about me.

I get kind of queasy, and so I didn't want to like puke everywhere.

I didn't want to steal the spotlight, you know.

And so Liz is in the process of delivering the baby, and then I made a mistake.

Um learn from me.

I I made the mistake of looking, and when I saw what I saw, the last thing I remember is everything going fuzzy, my eyes rolled back in my head, and I fell backwards and passed out super hard.

They came later.

I guess I had a I had a bruise all the way up and down my back because I hit the stand where the computers were standing.

And it was such a weird moment for me, and um, it was kind of one of those moments where I was like, babe, we had a really hard day, didn't we?

And she said things that she probably shouldn't say to me, and she was mad at me too.

She's like, Jason, you passed out the day our son was born.

What is wrong with you?

She goes, When you passed out, the doctor cursed.

The first words our son heard when he was born was a curse word.

And I said, Well, technically, the first thing he heard was the word O, and then a curse word, but whatever.

Semantics.

Semantics.

So here's the thing.

When I finally came to, I go over to this little incubator.

If you don't know what that is, it looks like the thing they keep fried chicken warm in.

And and there in this little tray is my son.

And I had the same experience with all three of my kids when I went over to the little thing, there they were, and above them was a little sign.

And it said their name, said their height, and it said their weight, and that's all it said.

It said their name, told me their height, and told me their weight, but it didn't say what they would do with their life, didn't say what they would care about, didn't say how they would change the world, didn't give us any other information other than name, height, and weight.

And here's the funny thing.

This is true for them, it's true for me, and it's true for all of us.

We tend to spend the rest of our lives, from the moment we're born until the day we die, trying to figure out what is my life really about?

And what is next for me?

And and Christians, we we have this other piece of it where it's like, I want to do something with my life that matters, but I really want to honor God.

And so one of the questions I get maybe more than anything else as a pastor is this it's it's how do I know God's will for my life?

At our Easter survey, people would say things like this.

They would say, I feel stuck in a major life decision.

Other people say things like, I don't know what to do next.

And here's the thing if you're new to faith or if you're just young, you need to understand that these questions never really seem to go away.

Like when you're young and in high school you think, well, where am I going to go to college?

And you get to college and you think, okay, I've got to make some major decisions.

What am I gonna do with my life?

So, what I'm going to major in.

Then you get a little older and you start getting serious about dating.

You start to realize that dating is about finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

And so you you start to question everything.

Is this person God's will for me?

Am I settling for them?

You we ask questions like that, and then we get a little older in life and we get married, and it's like, is this the right person?

Then the question is, do I have kids and how will kids impact my life?

And then you get even older, and the questions never seem to go away.

It's what sort of career path should I go into?

Should I change paths for my career?

Here's another one that people struggle with.

I hear this all the time.

People will say, we're settled here, we love life here, our kids are in access kids, or our students are in access youth, and they love it.

My family is connected, we have friends for the first time in our life, but I got a job offer across the country.

And it'll pay more money and it's a good opportunity.

But what should I do?

And what we're really asking is what is the will of God?

Today I want to talk to you about how to discover the will of God for your life.

And here's what I need you to know: God is a relational God.

Need you to get this.

God is a relational God.

Jesus calls him our heavenly father.

And for me, that kind of helps me a little bit because I I love my kids.

I have three kids, I love them all so much.

I want the best for them, I will sacrifice for them, I will give them my advice, and all of my advice and any wisdom I give is only to better them because I love them so much.

And I think to myself, if I feel that way towards my kids, how much more does my perfect father in heaven love me?

He's a relational God.

And if you fall asleep during the message, here's the whole message in a nutshell.

I want you to see this.

If you get to know God's heart, you'll get to know his will.

If you get to know God's heart, you'll get to understand what he cares about.

And here's what I want you to understand: God has a will and a plan and purpose for us.

So today, I've got more of a teaching than really a preaching, but I've got a message for you that I really I hope will help you to clarify if you're in a season of transition or whatever, how to discover and determine what is the will of God.

I think as we look at the Bible, we can see that there's four aspects to discovering the will of God.

The first is what I call God's sovereign will.

What does that mean?

It means God's gonna do whatever God wants to do because he's God and I'm not and you're not.

The second one is what I call God's revealed will.

This is what God has shown us already his will is through the Bible.

The third is what I would call God's permissive will.

This is the stuff that God allows to happen.

This is the difficult one for us.

And the fourth one is the one that all of us want, which is God's personal will.

And if you find yourself either in a transitional season or if you find yourself questioning what the will of God is, this is for you today.

And also, if you don't, I want you to take good notes because this is gonna be the kind of message that you should put away in the medicine cabinet of your life and refresh someday because all of us are gonna have moments where we're saying, God, what do you want from me?

I want to start by talking about those four aspects of God's will because this will help us clarify.

The first one is what we call God's sovereign will.

Best way to describe it is it's God's unstoppable, unchangeable plan that uh that directs all things towards his purpose.

I'll explain it to you like this.

Because God is all-powerful, God is going to do whatever God wants to do.

He's gonna do whatever he jolly well pleases because he's God and that's what he does.

So in Genesis 1, verse 1, it says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

By the power of his voice, God speaks the world into existence.

This was God's sovereign will.

At the end of his creation, he creates humanity, man and woman, and he places them in this beautiful garden called the Garden of Eden to be with him.

This was God's sovereign will.

Well, then, because God is loving and he has what we call a permissive will, he gave humanity a free choice.

And Adam and Eve sin, and sin fractures or devastates the relationship with God.

And in God's sovereign will, he decided that it wasn't okay that for the rest of humanity we wouldn't have a way back into good standing or into right standing with him.

So in his sovereign will, God sends Jesus, he lives a perfect life, dies on the cross, rises again for the dead, all of it to pay the price for our sins.

In fact, if you're new to the Bible and you read the Old Testament to the New Testament, and if it seems like God is different, here's why.

I see what Jesus did for us at the cross as the prism of hope in the Bible.

The Old Testament reveals our depravity, our need for a savior, and Jesus comes as a part of God's sovereign will, gives his life, rises from the dead.

It's a miracle.

Scripture tells us that Jesus will come again someday and receive us unto himself.

All of this is God's sovereign will.

There's just some stuff that God can do because he is God and He's going to do it.

Let me show you a couple scriptures.

The book of Isaiah, God says, Only I can tell you the future before it even happens.

Everything I plan will come to pass.

How is this true?

Because God lives outside of the dimensions of our time.

Another verse in the book of Proverbs, Solomon says, Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

Essentially, what this means is you may make your calendar, you may make your schedule, but it's God who makes your plans.

You may come up with some ideas of what you want to do, but it is God who is going to direct your path.

And I think for a lot of us, if we could just be honest, especially if you were raised in like a youth group in the 90s or the 2000s, there is this fear that we're gonna somehow miss out on the will of God.

That if we take like one little misstep, that we're gonna somehow miss out on it.

And so what we tend to do is we tend to treat the will of God as fragile.

Best way I could describe it is this.

Um, anybody in the room old enough to remember the iPhone 1?

Like the very, very first iPhone, I got this, I thought I was the coolest person.

I thought I was Iron Man.

I had the technology, it was so cool.

But the thing about the iPhone 1 is it was the biggest screen I had ever had on a phone ever up till that point.

And they've made it so much better with all these generations, but the first one, the screen was so fragile that it felt like if you set it down too hard, it would break.

Anybody remember this?

I think I went through two or three or four screens on that first phone and I treated it with such care because I was afraid of cracking or damaging the screen.

I think a lot of us think that that's how the will of God is.

What we think is that we're one misstep, one mistake, one bad decision away from ruining and getting completely out of the will of God.

Can I give you a different way to think of the will of God?

I think it's not really fragile.

I think it's more like a GPS.

Now, something you need to know about me is I have filled up all the available space in my brain with Bible and Bible knowledge, Dallas Cowboys facts, and love for my family.

That's literally all I've got room up here for, and I have no room for directions in my brain at all.

I get lost in a parking lot, I'm I'm street smart, but I just don't know how to get places.

I'm thankful that God chose to make me alive in the era of GPS's because I can get anywhere as long as I have a GPS.

Some years ago, I was up in like Jacksonville or something, and I was with Pastor Ryan.

We were driving back from Jacksonville to home, and on the way we were just talking.

We were having a good conversation about something, and at one point I looked at the GPS and I was like, hold up.

We had driven 50 miles in the wrong direction.

You know how dumb you have to be to drive 50 miles in the wrong direction?

I don't know where we were, but you know what the GPS did?

It didn't go, good luck.

Every time I made a misstep, it just kept recalculating to get me to the place it needed me to go.

How would you rest differently if you realize that God's sovereign will is stronger than your missteps?

How would you dream differently?

How would you trust differently if you just believe that he was able to direct and order your steps?

I think you'd live a lot differently.

The second way that we understand the will of God is through what I would call God's revealed will.

God's revealed will is the Bible.

It's it's the timeless truth revealed in his word for how we live.

And here's the thing the Bible makes it really clear what his will is.

And I want to show it to you in one verse.

If some of you've been like, what is God's will for me?

Here it is, ready?

1 Thessalonians chapter 4.

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

God's will is, are you ready?

For you to be holy.

God's will is for you to become like Jesus.

This word holy is a fun word in Greek.

It's the word hagios.

Hagios means set apart, different, sacred, dedicated to God.

A way to say it is, if you're truly a follower of Jesus, the world around you should take note.

And here's why.

You're different.

You're set apart.

And I want you to get this.

You can't walk in God's will if you're disobeying his word.

You can't walk in God's will if you're disobeying his word.

So allow me a moment to step all up on a soapbox and step all up on your toes for just a moment.

One of my great frustrations as a pastor these days is people who will say, I want to know God's will, I want to know God's plan and his purpose for my life.

And I just want to be like, okay, well, how are you doing at the stuff you already know?

What what what do you what do you mean?

I think we've created a culture of American Christians who are overfed spiritually but not exercising what they know.

It's like a person who pulls up to the Golden Corral buffet every single day.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they crush it.

They eat till their back hurts every single day, but then they never exercise.

What would happen to a person's physical body if they did that?

They would get obese, out of shape, and it would eventually hurt them and devastate them.

I think if we're not careful, we'll live in an American church culture that says, feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me, but we don't do anything to exercise the faith that we've already been taught.

What does it mean?

Okay.

How are you doing at forgiving?

Like that person who's offended you, betrayed you, walked out on you, how are you doing at letting go and forgiving?

How are you doing with your thought life?

If you think to yourself, well, when I get married, I'll have an outlet for my sexuality and that'll be good.

How are you doing at your thought life?

Don't you dare ask God to give you something more when you haven't handled what he's giving you now.

How are you doing with generosity?

Do you think that everything you have belongs to you and so it's all for you, so you hoard it all for yourself?

Don't you dare go to God saying, God, would you give me more?

Bless me, bless me, bless me, when you haven't been obedient with what he's entrusted to you.

And if you gave me an hour, I could come up with a thousand different ways that many of us say, God, I want you to speak to me, help me, change me.

God, show me your plan and purpose, God, show me your will for my life, but but we're not living what we already know.

It's hard to find the will of God for tomorrow when you're not obeying the will of God that you know today.

I think a lot of Christians are way more educated than we are obedient.

Spiritual depth isn't about how much you know, it's about how much you're willing to obey.

Number three, the third part of the will of God, and this is the hard one, it's God's permissive will.

That is the freedom God gives us to make choices, even when they're not perfect.

And here's the thing we live in this weird tension where we want to do whatever we want to do, but we don't want the consequences of doing what we want to do.

So, God, in all of his infinite wisdom, he said, I'm creating you and I'm giving you free will.

Why would God do that?

Well, if he didn't, if he didn't give us free will, it just reduces us to robots that have to do whatever he says.

But also, love always requires a choice.

Like, like for us to truly love God, we have to have the choice to love him or not, otherwise it's forced, and there is no such thing as forced love.

So God gives us a choice, and here's the reality.

Because God gives us a choice, very often we make choices that have consequences and we live with the consequences.

Another way to say it is because we live in a world that has freedom to choose, often we as a culture and a humanity live with the brokenness and the results of the world because the world is making choices that are sometimes different than the things of God.

Can I just go back to the last point for a second and say this?

We live in a culture that is made truth subjective.

It's all about you and what you think and what you want to do.

And if you live that way, you're going to live with the consequences.

The thing I love about the Bible is the Bible is God's unchanging word.

That in every generation, in every culture, no matter how far we decay or move away from what is absolute truth, God's word always stays the same.

Now I'm gonna come back to this one.

God has a permissive will.

Have you ever thought to yourself, why do good things happen to bad people or bad things happen to good people?

You ever thought that question?

You ever found yourself wrestling with, well, God, I'm such a great person and I do so many good things for you.

Why would you allow me to walk through this difficulty or this trauma or this thing?

It's because we live in a world where God's permissive will allows us to do some stuff.

And here's what it means: it doesn't mean that God is approving of everything, it just means that God allows things to happen.

And if you trust his sovereign will, you can trust that he can even take those difficult, dark moments in your life and turn them around for the good.

The book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says this.

He says, You say I am allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.

When you start to think about God's permissive will, here's a question that I think maturity asks.

In light of my past, in light of my circumstances, in light of the vision or the hope that I have for my life, what is the wise thing to do in this situation?

Can I tell you how this applies to me?

I don't drink alcohol.

Ever.

It's just not for me.

I know a lot of people who do and they're fine with it, that they have permission.

God gives us a free will.

I don't know anything good that's ever come out of it.

It's not a sin issue, it's an issue of wisdom.

Number four.

This is the one everybody wants to deal with, right?

It's God's personal will.

This is the one we get hung up on.

This is the one we're like, okay, God, I need you to step in, I need you to help me.

And God's personal will is God's unique, specific calling for you.

One of the things I so believe is that before God made the world, he had you in mind.

Parents, let me talk to you for just a moment.

Our world is so messed up and jacked up.

There's all kinds of confusion that there's never been in the history of the world that is happening right now in our culture, in our government, in our schools.

And I need you to know that before God made the world, he would know that you would have the children you have that are living today, and he knew that you would be their parents.

Like God has equipped you for what he's called you to.

And I can show it to you in scripture.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 says this.

Ephesians 2:10

Paul says, For we are God's handiwork.

Other translations say masterpiece.

We're created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Now, the verses before this, Paul says, Listen, I want to be really clear.

You're not saved by doing good stuff, but you are saved to do some good stuff.

And he called us God's handiwork.

The Greek word for this is the word poema.

It's like the highest form of poetry, the highest form of God's creative artisanship.

And he's saying, when God made you, he put the best in you.

He wired some stuff in you.

And I need you to understand this.

You don't earn your salvation.

But when God has saved you, you should do something with it to serve other people.

A way to say it is we are saved from and for.

Watch this.

We are saved from our sins and for some good works.

We are saved from our sin, from our past, from our shame, from our guilt, from our condemnation by the grace of Jesus.

And we're not saved by doing good stuff, but we are saved for doing good stuff.

This is the reason as a church that we say we only do four things.

Like this is important for you to hear if you're new to our church.

We do four things and our we have four hopes for you.

The first one is we want you to really know God.

Like actually know him.

Not just to have a relationship with him because your mom and dad did.

We want you to know God.

Secondly, we want you to find freedom.

What does it mean?

It means all of us have hurts and hangups from our yesterdays.

We have some issues that we need to deal with.

We want you to find freedom from your issues so that you can do the third thing, which is to discover your purpose.

And so many Americans never get here that they never get to this discovering why God made them.

And the reason we want you to discover it is not so you can have more knowledge about yourself.

You can take an online personality assessment and know that.

I want you to know why God created you and how He created you, so you can do the fourth one, which is to make a difference with your life.

In fact, I'll say it very clearly as a pastor, my number one goal this is how I know I'm winning, this is how I know I'm succeeding, is when you cross the finish line of making Difference with your life where you're like, man, that's how you live a life.

That's how you make a difference.

That's how you live a day.

So let me give you one quick commercial.

This is the reason that every single month at our church we do something called a next steps class.

It's two steps.

It's literally on the first and second Sunday of the month, which means it's literally happening the next two Sundays at all of our locations.

Our next steps class one, it's about our church.

If you're trying to figure out is this the right church for me and am I going to grow spiritually here, the whole class is about our heart, vision, and values of our church.

Step two, which is the second week of every month, is about you.

It's about discovering your God-given giftings and talents and abilities so that you can use them in a way that makes a difference, not just in your paycheck, but makes a difference for eternity.

If you haven't done it, if you haven't joined our church, let me make it really easy.

I just want you to pull your phone out and go to access.tv slash next steps.

If you're in one of our rooms, you can literally tap the dark blue dot and sign up for it.

Why?

Because I don't want you to go another day living, not knowing why God created you and how he created you, because I don't want you to be frustrated.

I want you to live the unique calling and purpose God has for you.

In the book of Psalm, David says this.

David writes as God speaks, and I love this.

First of all, he says, I'm I'm gonna instruct you and teach you.

Jesus is called the good shepherd.

What does the shepherd do?

Leads and guides his sheep.

And then I love how he says, I will counsel you.

Who does the Bible say is our counselor?

The Holy Spirit.

He's gonna counsel us into the ways of God with my, look at this word, loving eye on you.

I don't know if you've ever stopped to think about God, but the adjective he chooses here, it's not a judgmental eye, not a condemning eye.

It's his loving eye is on us.

Because God loves us, he wants us to get to what he has for us.

This is the whole point of discovering why God made you.

Now I want to I want to make this personal for just a moment.

I'll tell you some of my story.

And to understand this, I need you to understand that when it comes to the will of God, we overcomplicate God's will and we underestimate God's goodness.

We we tend to overcomplicate this, we overthink and we we feel like if I just take one misstep, or if I if I try something, or if I walk through an open door, but it wasn't the perfect door for me, I'm going to ruin my life.

Remember, God's like a GPS who's gonna get you to what his divine purpose is if you'll have a heart that's open to him.

You realize that he's good.

So here's some of my story, and this affects all of you.

When I was born, I was born into a family that were full-time evangelists.

If you don't know what that word is, it just means that they traveled from church to church and they preached.

But who they preached to was kids and families.

And so I grew up in a home that loved reaching the next generation for Jesus.

If you're a part of our church and you've realized this, like if your kids come out of Access Kids like so excited, if your students go to Access Youth, if they don't, what is wrong with you, first of all?

But if your students go to Access Youth and they love it, can I tell you a reason why?

As I look back at my story, I grew up in a family that prioritized reaching the next generation for Jesus.

I had no idea the family I was born into would affect this will of God for my life.

When I was about eight years old, my family moved to South Florida.

And from eight to eighteen when I graduated high school, my parents were children's pastors at a big church.

So not only was I like getting to work with kids, but I had opportunity to stand on stages in front of people.

I developed a confidence in speaking that people get nervous over, and I also learned a skill set.

This is unique.

But because I worked with kids, I was able to take big, difficult, complicated topics like the Bible and explain it to kids in a way they understand.

One of my favorite compliments I get from people as a communicator is I understand it.

Like you make it so that I understand.

I feel like you're talking to me and I understand what you're talking about.

You know where that came from?

It came from teaching kids and putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so everybody can get them.

Then I got a little older and went to college.

And in college, the call of God to be in ministry solidified in my heart, but I had this picture of what it would look like.

I thought I would leave college and go be a youth pastor at a mega, mega church and then go to another bigger church and bigger church, and eventually I would take over the world as like the world's pastor.

That's what I was gonna do.

And so I jumped right into college and then a master's degree, married the most beautiful girl, the homecoming queen, everybody, because God's favor is on me, and uh got married, and I thought we had the world on a string between all of my traveling and speaking and some influential people getting behind me.

We had great opportunities to go places, and then there was a day.

I was speaking at a camp to kids about the love of Jesus.

My wife had flown out.

A week before this, she was doing her makeup and found like a bump on her leg that just didn't seem normal, but it just seemed like a bruise.

She went for a physical, and the doctor looked at it and goes, Whoo, we should look at this closer.

And they looked at it, did some tests, and I was with Liz.

I remember where I was.

I was outside of Waxahatchie, Texas, at a North Texas Assembly of God camp.

And I'm standing with her, and she gets a call from the doctor.

I'm standing right, her hands are like this, and my hands went under her elbows, and I heard the words, Liz, I'm so sorry, it's cancer.

And all of my plans came to a screeching halt.

For six months, she walked through chemo, six more months to recover.

Before that, my hope had been to leave and go somewhere else.

But we had some of the most formative moments in our relationship and with God.

By the way, if you ever have a moment with God where you're angry at him, he's a big boy.

You can talk to him about it.

I had times where I walked my neighborhood, my neighbors probably thought I was drunk and crazy because I was screaming at God.

So heartbroken, so angry.

I went to a counselor and he said, Jason, you know this, right?

Like everybody goes through pain, and pain carves out of you the capacity to be to know and trust God in a different kind of way.

God's going to use this in your story in ways you can't even understand.

I didn't have the space to hear or receive that in the moments.

And then I'll never forget a moment that is really the beginning of Access Church.

I had uh speaking at a camp, Liz had come back home and she was getting all the tests you get before you start chemo, and they rushed to put a pick line in her arm.

If you know much about chemo, usually they put a port in your chest, but they didn't have time, so they put a pick line.

And I get home to my tiny little apartment here in Lakeland, and Liz has a pick line, and it hurts so much that she doesn't want to move her arm.

And I'm not kidding when I say she was like like physically trembling, like so bad.

I grabbed him a bride and we went and sat down on our little couch in our little apartment and we prayed this prayer.

I said, God, if we ever get to lead people, may we never forget how we feel right now.

If you ever trust us to have influence over anybody, may we never forget this moment.

And here we are all these years later.

Our church will have 3,000 or more people at it today, not including thousands of people who join us every week at church online.

And with God as my witness, I can say that I feel like we haven't lost our why.

You need to pay attention to your why, because if you lose your why, you lose your way.

Our church, we've grown a lot, but every person who's in front of us, we just we just love them.

And I hope, even if I've never had the privilege of meeting you, I hope someone loved you.

I hope someone cared or showed up for you because it's in the DNA of our church.

And here's the thing as we were walking through all of those stages, and as I look back across my life, there's so many pieces of my story that in the moment didn't make sense at all, but you see that God is orchestrating the pieces of your life for his glory.

So here's the question for you.

When you're in the middle of your story, how do you discover God's personal will?

How do you discover what, why, and how he created you so you can live a life according to his plan and purpose for you?

I want to give you three quick things and then we're gonna be done.

Let's make it personal.

I believe that your unique calling will be found at the intersection of three things.

Number one is what I would call your affinity.

This is the stuff you're interested in.

What two questions?

What interests you?

But number two, what breaks your heart?

You ever notice something that you can be with somebody and you can see something entirely differently than them?

Like you could be in a car with three other friends, so there's four of you, and you pull up to a traffic light and there's a person begging for money, and and and one person might see this person and say, Well, we can't give them money.

They'll just they'll just blow it on drugs or alcohol or something.

Another person will say, No, no, no, no, and they'll pull out their wallet and they'll hand$10 out the window.

Another person sees it and doesn't give money, but they think we can do something about this, and so they start a nonprofit or an organization to help.

Another person in the same car can see that person and think to themselves, no, no, we gotta do something on a governmental level so that this problem doesn't keep reciprocating itself, but we need to help people get out of this problem altogether.

Four people can see the same moment through entirely different eyes.

God gave you a unique perspective, and it's not just for you.

What do you see that no one else sees and what breaks your heart?

What interests you?

Second thing is where is your ability.

You do realize that most people live with what I call the American Idol syndrome.

Have you seen the show?

You know the first few episodes where people audition, and there's like nobody in their life has told them they can't sing, right?

I think a lot of people want to do things with their life that they are not gifted to do.

Do you have anyone in your life who tells you the truth?

Tells you what you're good at and what you're not good at?

Ability is what God has made you naturally good at, or what have others affirmed as your strengths.

Do you have anyone in your life who will tell you the truth about you?

If you try doing stuff you're not gifted at, you'll just be frustrated for the rest of your life.

The third one is the third part of the intersection is what I call opportunity.

The question is what doors have already been opened for you, and where is the greatest need that you can help address?

When you start to understand these three things, these are the things that God brings together to bring to you your divine calling and purpose.

So here's my question for you What would it look like if you just took some time this week to say, God, I just I just want your best for me?

And when you do, as you pray this, I want to challenge you to say three or four things.

The first one is this God, when it comes to your will, we trust your sovereign will.

Like we trust that you are putting all the pieces together for my good.

Like Joseph in the Old Testament.

Did it did it make sense when he was thrown in prison?

No.

Did it make sense when he was thrown into slavery by his brothers?

No.

Did it make sense of multiple points in his journey?

No.

But God, you were orchestrating all of those pieces for his good to elevate him to save his nation.

Like I trust your sovereign will.

Here's another one.

I obey God's revealed will.

I'm gonna obey what God has already told me to do as you pray.

I I double dog dare you to ask yourself and ask God this question.

Where's the areas in my life where I have more knowledge than obedience?

Where's the areas in my life where it's like I know what God says, but I'm doing my own thing?

Choose to obey.

The third one is I accept God's permissive will.

There's just some stuff that's gonna happen that God allows to happen.

Doesn't mean that he chose that to happen.

I just trust them in the process.

That even if it feels like I'm getting off course, that God is the GPS who's gonna get me back to his plan and purpose.

And then here's the final one is that we walk in God's personal will.

And this is my prayer for you, church.

Like, I don't want you to live one more day in your own strength and your own ability.

I want you to wake up every single morning going, let's go, God.

I'm with you on this journey.

I want you to go to bed every night laying your head down, saying, Yes, that's how you live a day.

That's how you make a difference for your life with your life.

What would it look like if all of us just made this decision and say, God, I trust you.

I'm gonna obey, I'm gonna accept that you are ultimately in control, and I'm gonna walk in the calling you have for me.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes at all of our locations today?

God, would you give us courage?

Courage to really trust you.

God, if our church is anything like me, I can try to be controlling.

I can think that I somehow know better, but God, I just really do believe that your way is the best way.

So, God, may we have a supernatural dose of courage.

May we trust you with our whole lives.

And God, we're gonna be careful to give you all the praise and glory as you direct our steps.

God, I pray for dreams to be fulfilled.

I pray for people to feel a holy sense of contentment and fulfillment as we live out the dream and the plan and purpose you have for us.

We thank you for it, God.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed, maybe you came to church today and you just don't even know if you're right with God.

It's hard to follow God's plan for your life if you're not following Jesus.

It's hard to make a decision to say, Jesus, I want to do what you want from me, but you haven't even made a decision to follow him, which is the first step.

Maybe you came to church today and you're not following Jesus.

Maybe you've never made a decision to let him be your Lord and Savior, or maybe you're like a lot of people, parents brought you to church and you prayed a prayer as a kid, but you just have walked away.

In either case, if you need to start or restart following Jesus, this moment's for you at all locations.

Would you just raise your hand if you want to start or restart following Jesus?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wow, so cool.

Thank you.

I love this moment.

If this is you, I'm gonna ask you to do one more courageous thing.

I'm gonna pray and I want you to pray out loud and repeat after me.

Listen to me, praying a prayer, it'll change everything if you mean it with your heart.

So don't just say the words.

I want you to mean this with your heart, and I want you to do it out loud, but you're you're surrounded by lots of people who love you that have been in that same position before.

All of us needed Jesus to save us at one point.

Here's what we're gonna do to support you.

As you pray out loud, we're gonna pray out loud with you.

We're gonna lend our faith to you.

So I want to invite everybody at all locations.

Would you pray this out loud and let's mean this together?

Say, Jesus.

Come on, everybody, say Jesus, I give you my life.

Be my Lord and Savior.

Thank you for dying for me.

Thank you that you rose again from the dead because of your sacrifice.

My sins can be forgiven.

So, Jesus, today, I make this choice.

I give you my life for the rest of my life.

From this day on, I choose to follow you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, church, let's celebrate those who just made that decision.