LISTEN TO THE PODCAST:
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INTRODUCTION – Destiny is spoken over us by many
sources.
From our earliest days of life, we are filled with thoughts
about our Destiny. It starts with our parents speaking things over our lives…
you look like your mom/dad… you act like your older sibling… we notice a child
who can throw a ball – “wow, she’s gonna be an athlete!” …we notice a child who
can’t even run straight – “well, I hope he’s good at school.” Destiny is spoken
over our lives at the earliest of days.
Myself, I was told that I would be a scientist… specifically
a biologist/zoologist… or something along those lines. You see from an early
age, I could name every animal at the zoo without a need for the plaques on the
cages or aquariums… I memorized the names from Audubon books (I was reading
before I even went to school)… I was an avid watcher of Peter Beard’s nature
shows (and even recorded them on our VCR)… and my favorite thing to do was to
go through my GREEN LUNCHBOX looking thing that was filled with flashcards
about every animal under the sun… even my name is Adam – the namer of the
animals… LATIN WORDS… I was destined to work with animals… and my family/
friends knew it and spoke it over my life..
My generation, destiny crept its way into every corner of
our childhood:Star Wars clip
TENSION
Destiny is spoken over us from the earliest days of our
lives. And sometimes it’s NOT what we want to hear… sometimes the
Destiny spoken over our lives sounds like this:
·
You’re gonna turn out just like your father or
mother
·
If you don’t shape up, you’re gonna end up in
prison some day
·
I hope your kids are just as rebellious as you
are
Or worse, we begin to speak our
destiny over our own lives:
·
Well, my grandfather was an alcoholic… my
parents were… it’s in my blood
·
No one in my family has every made very much
money, so I guess I’m just destined to be poor.
·
I’ve never been super smart, so I’m destined to
get C’s.
·
Depression runs in my family…
Here’s the problem with every
aspect of the Destiny that has been spoken over our lives.
·
Darth Vader
·
Our Parents
·
Our Friends
·
Our Teachers
·
Ourselves
None of those voices are the one
that really matters… The
Voice of Our Creator is the only one that matters when it comes to our Destiny…
Tie it back to Putty’s message…
Let’s pray and then we’ll unpack
this idea together.
PRAYER
WORD
We’ve been looking at this idea
that the Gospel is way better news than we ever thought possible. We’ve been
“mining” out the GOLD through looking at how each part of the Trinity (Father,
Son, Spirit) has something to teach us. That not only is our God three in one,
but that the Good News he reveals to us is a 3in1 gospel… that there are
endless nuances to His news because He is endless!
Original CHART/SHIELD
So far, we’ve unpacked the
Relationship Story – servants to sons
AND the Identity Story – sinners
to saints
TODAY, we want to focus in on our
DESTINY STORY.
The Voice of Our Creator is the only one that matters
when it comes to our Destiny.
·
The Father is the one who calls us sons.
·
The Father is the one who calls us holy.
·
The Father is the one who calls us into our True
Destiny!
His Gospel changes our future…His
gospel changes our purpose… His gospel changes our destiny story
Where you come from (identity)
and what family you belong to (relationship) shift what you are not only
capable of, but what you are destined for!
Colossians
1:13-20
13 He has delivered
us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his
beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins.
Before we can understand our Destiny, we have to come to
grips with our position in this world! We have been given an upgrade friends!
We’ve been redeemed… We’ve been forgiven… we been delivered… YEAH… but it’s not
just what we’ve been transferred from (some of us get stuck here)…
We now have been positioned/transferred into God’s Kingdom!
We are citizens of heaven. We are seated in Heavenly Places. We are in the
family. Jesus did it! Wow.
15 He is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were
created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for
him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
And Jesus is amazing friends! He has power and authority… He
represents the Father… He is a part of us The Church… He is our big brother…
and we are now co-heirs with Him… so good to know that our identity is Sealed
in Him… HE LIVES IN US who believe.
·
The
voice of our creator tells us WE ARE FREE!
·
The
voice of our creator tells us JESUS’ AUTHORITY WAS ENOUGH!
·
And
it’s only from this place that we can move into our Destiny Story.
·
OUR
DESTINY is about the Kingdom of God: Tell
Story of me/teacher/preacher.
DESTINY
STORY
Now, here’s where many of us start to get confused… And I
think it happens in one or two different ways depending on your mentality:
1)
We
accept our relationship with the Father and that the Son lives inside of us,
BUT then we think the Holy Spirit’s role is just to “get us through” until Jesus’ return.
Or we work it out in this way:
2)
We
say yes to Papa God, we say yes to the Son, BUT then we go and create our own way of doing things OR our own calling and try and tell
Holy Spirit to go with us on the journey.
Either way, the approach is wrong. We weren’t called into a
relationship with the Father… we weren’t called into a new identity just, so we
could… get through OR to do what we want to do… Rather we were CRUCIFIED and
RISEN again for a purpose… Destiny.
And, The Voice of Our Creator is the only one that matters when it comes to
our Destiny.
Let me illustrate this way, we tend to think that WE are the
focus of our Destiny. The problem with that is that it just doesn’t work that
way. SELF will never lead us into the fulness of our Destiny in Jesus. Imagine a soldier in an army
trying to give himself orders instead of listening to his/her commanding
officer. There would be 100’s or 1,000’s of opinions on how they would prepare
for battle… 100’s or 1,000’s of opinions of how they would get to the battle…
tons of opinions on how they would supply the battle… tons on how they would
attack…. How they would win.
The Voice of Our Creator is the only one that matters
when it comes to our Destiny.
It’s a journey
of moving out of Self-Focus and into a Focus on what the Father is doing. Jesus understood that His
Destiny was doing the Father’s will. He understood that if He was a Son… and if
God really lived in Him… then, His Destiny was to fulfill the Father’s purposes
on the earth. Let’s finish the Colossians passage we tackled earlier:
19 For in him all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to
himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of
his cross.
Jesus understood that walking in
partnership with the Holy Spirit led to His destiny. He understood that it was
not about His performance for God. He understood that being rooted in the Love
of the Father… and rooted in how the Father sees Him… led to His partnership
with Holy Spirit….
And that is REALLY GOOD NEWS for
you and me… because we have the Love of the Father… we have a new identity as
righteous Sons… we have been made new! Which means that Holy Spirit thinks we
are great place to dwell!
And that is REALLY GOOD NEWS for
us! It means that we no longer have to perform for God… it means that we get to
hear His Voice for ourselves… It means that we get to move from Self-Focus to
His Focus… it means we
move from Performance to Partner.
WHAT
ABOUT US?
At the heart of this final verse in Colossians 1 is our
DESTINY STORY. In Jesus’ story is our story. In Jesus’ destiny is our destiny.
Let’s read that verse again:
19 For in him all the
fullness of God was pleased
to dwell,
The Father was happy to live in Jesus… all of the Father…
all of His Spirit… Holy Spirit LOVED to live inside of Jesus… He enjoyed it!
AND more than that, Holy Spirit LOVED to work through Jesus!
20 and through him to reconcile to
himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of
his cross.
This is where the GOSPEL cycle is important to move us into
our Kingdom Focus and change the world with Jesus.
1)
First
we BELONG, then we BE… Finally, we DO!
2)
Show
Satan’s Cyle Graph
(slide)
3)
Shift
to the Gospel Cycle
Graph (slide)
4) we
move from Self-Focus to His Focus… we move from Performance to Partner.
5)
We
are partners in the Kingdom of God… not observers… not cheerleaders
6)
We
are an intimate part of what Jesus was trying to accomplish
7)
Now,
many of us would say “it’s Jesus. That was His destiny.”
Let me give you a couple of verses that will help to clarify
things.
·
Colossians
1:27b
says…the riches of the glory
of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So, the fullness of God is pleased to live in Jesus… and the
fullness of Jesus is pleased to live in YOU… so your Destiny is His Destiny!
Still unsure? Try this one.
2 Corinthians 5: “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through
Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We
implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Isn’t that amazing!
·
We
are new, resurrected, reconciled to God… We are like Jesus on the earth.
·
We
have been entrusted with the ministry of Jesus!
·
We
are holy ambassadors reconciling the world unto God!
Do you understand what this means?!
·
It
means that it doesn’t matter what our parents said about us… our teachers… our
friends… our classmates.
·
It
means that it doesn’t matter where we come from… rich/poor… nationality… color
of our skin… gender… town… upbringing.
·
It
means that it doesn’t matter what mistakes we’ve made.
·
It
means that it doesn’t matter what we are good at…or bad at.
·
It
means that it doesn’t matter our education… our job… our profession… our skills
·
It
means that what matters is that Jesus’ destiny is our destiny!
·
In
our family… in our jobs… in our cities à The kingdom is near you now!
The Voice of Our
Creator is the only one that matters when it comes to our Destiny.
·
And
He’s calling us into the ministry of Jesus
·
To
love like He loved
·
To
heal like He healed
·
To
preach like He preached
·
To
RECONCILE the world back to the Father through the GOOD NEWS of the gospel of
God
The enemy has been whispering his destinies over you your
entire lives… EXPOUND
The enemy has been doing this over every person in our city.
This is our time to begin to take our city back.
·
We
are armed with more that we realize.
·
We
have access to every part of the love of the Father
·
We
have access to understanding every part of Jesus & share it with those who
are lost who they really are.
·
We
have access to all power and authority through the Holy Spirit.
You see there is not only a personal destiny understood
through the gospel.
There is a Corporate Destiny for us to transform our Cities
through the power of the gospel… AND it’s time to re-up for the Kingdom friends
J
·
To
be brave because we are LOVED
·
To
be brave because we are HOLY
·
To
be brave because we are POWEFUL in the Kingdom
·
HOLY
SPIRIT is with us friends… Let’s go change the world!
ACTION
·
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3
·
Pray for ONE every week
·
Invite TWO to church every week
·
Encourage THREE people every week
·
Some said also easy as PIE (Pray,
Invite, Encourage) lol
