Sermon 4/3/11 Reaching your God-given potential

So today I'm actually at home and not at church. I'm streaming the service on my phone... I love how God can use technology to reach people.

The praise has a really good reminder that God is in control and he is the one that you can depend on in any storm. Makes me think of the time that Jesus walked out on the water and the time when there was a storm and when the disciples paniced  Jesus calmed the wind and water. I think that He has been showing me this over the past couple of years. My life is testimony to how he is in control even when I am not. He has direction for my life even if I don't know what's going on. The song that is playing right now is a reminder that sometimes all you need to do is be still (i.e. stop trying to fix stuff on your own) and know that He is God (i.e. in control).

The sermon starts of talking about phones and how our technology has advanced. He mentions the idea: if he gave you a smart phone, what would he say to you if 4 weeks later he saw you again and all you said you had done with the phone was just recieve and make phone calls. What he would say is that you are missing the whole point of having a smart phone.

• He relates this to this question: "are you reaching your God-given potentional?"
• Potential = Having possibility, capability, or power; existing and ready for action but not yet active.
• God created each of us with TREMENDOUS potential - unlimited opportunities - Jerimiah 29:11-12
• Your potential has nothing to do with your personality.
• Your potential has nothing to do with your age.

We are looking at Joshua today. This is after the forty years that they wandered around in the wilderness because they did not believe that God would hand it over to them. They are now on the verge of going into the promise land. Joshua is 80 years old.
Joshua 1
Joshua was born into slavery in Egypt. While they wandered in the desert Joshua was the servant to Moses and basically his disciple.

• Reach your God-given potential = RGP

1. RGP - learn how to wait for God's timing.
• The danger is that we want to move ahead of God.
• You want to faithfully fulfill his calling whereever you are. That's your job until God moves you.
• If you are not actively serving you probably not reaching your God-given potential.
• Serving helps you mature so that you can reach your God-given potential because it helps to overcome the American/World attitude of "serve me!" Just like Jesus came to serve us not to be served
• When Joshua 1 starts, Moses is dead. While Moses is still alive, there begins a transfer of power. Moses asks God to set up a man above the people so they are not sheep without a shepherd. God tells Moses that he should publicly declare
2. RGP -If I am going to reach God's potential for me, I need to be ready to change
• I shouldn't be so comfortable that I am not willing to change.
• Numbers 27:18?
3. RGP - If we are going to reach God's potential then we need to learn to submit to THE SHEPHERD (God/Jesus) and then we need to learn to submit to his "Under-Shepherd."
• When God made us, he made us sheep. Sheep are funky: they wander, they follow, they need to be led.
• So he assigns them shepherds.
• What's the role of a shepherd: to guide, to teach, to lead.
• The word submit means to have an willing attitude that wants to grow and learn.
• The children of Isreal aren't going to go into the promise land all by themselves - they are going to do it when they are led in and when they go in as a team.
• Numbers 27:18 - 18 So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit of leadership,[a] and lay your hand on him.
4. RPG - you need to live the Spirit filled life
• Joshua was already filled with the spirit before Moses publicly acknowledged him.
• The disciples had to be filled with the spirit and wait for it to come to them before they could go out and change the world.
• Every single believe needs that spirit filled life to be able to do what needs to be done for God's kingdom.
• Egypt is an analogy for people that have not yet been saved. Moses was the image of the deliverer. To be able to leave they had to put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost. The rescue of the Isrealites from slavery is an analogy for how God saves those who do not know him.
• The Jewish people and Christians in the US are mostly just religious people and they don't really know the Lord.
• The promise land for us today is the spirit filled life where God controls our life - we have joy and peace. John 1:5
• The wilderness is the representation of the "carnal Chrisitan life." 1 Cor. 3. A Carnal Christian is a person that has one foot in the world and one foot in the spirit. They are unbalanced and never full of peace. They also will never reach their potential from God.
• Spirit Filled life sermon: Doing God's work God's way: MB 420 Aug 2010.
• The leader Joshua is already filled with the spirit he can accomplish what God wants. without the spirit you will always be in the wilderness, not knowing what's next, up one day and down the next.
5. RPG - I must believe all of God's promises. Joshua 1:3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
• the bible says that God cannot lie so that means that all his promises are true
• Joshua 1:5 ⁵ No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. ⁶ Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
6. RPG - I have to rely on God's divine power = certain victory.
• Ephesians 6:10  ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
• Eventually if you believe God's problems he will bring you through it. Sometimes we don't like the words bring you through it - we'd rather have a detour around it. But he sometimes takes us right throught he middle to show his power and while we go we flex our spiritual muscles because we HAVE to believe in what we cannot see.
• Philipians Ch 1:4-5 ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
• Peter - God took him back EVEN THOUGH HE DENIED THAT HE EVEN KNEW JESUS
7. PRG- be assured of God's continuing presence
• Hebrews 13:5-6   5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
  “Never will I leave you;
  never will I forsake you.”[a]
  6 So we say with confidence,
  “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
  What can mere mortals do to me?”[b]
• Nothing will separate you or me from the love of God.
• You are never alone.
• God is with you when you are:
• in a hospital room
• at home
• in an office
• at play
• making difficult decisions
• in a court room
• going to a funeral - this is where Joshua was when God lifted him into leadership
• in an accident
• having a new baby - he knew it would be before it was even concieved.
• depressed
• waiting for the next step
• You need to understand that His presense never leaves you. That's his character. You aren't doing life alone.
8. Joshua 1:6-9
• 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
  7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
• If you aren't terrified you probably aren't living for God. If you are walking on faith, then you are uncertain in anything other than the fact that God is with you so you probably will be terrified.
• I guess being scared is a good sign that you are not staying where it is comfortable and you are going where you can be used by God.
• Most of the world doesn't know what to do because they don't hear God speak and so they are a sheep without a shepherd. This means they don't know if they are suppose to go to the left or right.
9. RPG - you need to listen to and obey God's word
• make it the authority of your life.
• you can't skip what you don't like.
• It's God's mind to you and me and it's your directions for life.
• We know that God has potential for us because God's word says He does.
• God's potential for us is not about us, but about Him
10. We can live every day with: No lack, No fear, No excuses, No regrets = unlimited opportunities.
• God can even use the foolish things of this world to accomplish his good works
11. Romans 10:9   9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
1. It's not about being a church person. It's about being a Jesus person.
2. It's because you believe and confess and then God will save you.