I was 21 when I first stepped into this pulpit, convicted and on fire for Jesus, ready to take on anything the world threw at me.
I am 23 now, and I can tell you I have made a lot of mistakes since then. And it really is all part of the journey, we live, we learn, we fall, we get back up, we fail, and we try again.
Sometimes it feels like because of our circumstance or what we believe about ourselves that our journey is over.
Everyone has false ideas of themselves. Words that they call themselves that couldn't be farther from the truth.
● Ugly, stupid, fat, insecure, annoying, broken, loser, worthless, inferior, rejected, lost, foolish, burdensome, anxious, defeated, bitter, isolated, abandoned, condemned, helpless, powerless, insignificant, pathetic, weak, undesirable, and lots of these things got put into us as kids.
●I can honestly say that being under the weight of your own self criticism is crippling
●First I ask let us all take our worldview away from the natural and turn it towards the supernatural.
Colossians 3:1-2 CSB
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
●This is the Lord wanting us to look beyond the 3 dimensions that we are limited to see with our eyes, so we can begin to understand the truths of God.
●If we can understand the truths of God, we can understand the objective truths of our own reality, and spoiler alert! The reality is Me and You, my brother and my sister… are a child of the Most High. We are children of God!
Matthew 3:13-17
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” 15Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized. 16When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
●So in verse 14 John is confused, because Jesus is greater than him, Jesus does not need repentance.
●Then Jesus says allow it for now because this is the way to fulfill all righteousness.
●This is Jesus, “the son of God,” identifying himself with you, and stepping into the place of sinners.
●The Holy Spirit has now descended on the Son and Now Jesus is fully equipped and empowered for his public ministry.
●We know from Luke, the historian, that up until this point, he had not yet done any miracles or ministry; he was waiting until God told him to move as John the Baptist prepared the way.
● This is where people get confused, the trinity is confusing
●If Jesus is God, why does he need the spirit?
●God answers this question through Paul in a letter written to the church of philippi
Phillipians 2:5-8 CSB
5Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross.
●We know Jesus is God, but in that being God, the Lord Jesus completely set aside his deity and took the form of a human. He did this to identify himself with you, but also so that he could experience life as a Man; he did this so he could be a suffering God, and so anything you go through, he has experienced and can empathize, and give you rest.
● More so The evidence that he set aside his diety is clear, Jesus prayed to hear from God, he fasted to get closer with God, he ate and fellowshipped, he slept, he wept he was human.
● Jesus set aside his deity to show all of us the power of the 3rd person of the trinity - The Holy Spirit
●Jesus healed, walked on water, preached, teached, did many miracles, resisted temptation, did a wondrous work in his 3 years of ministry, but he did it as a man with the power of the HOLY SPIRIT.
●Jesus rose from the dead with the power of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:12 CSB Jesus says:
12 “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
●The scripture says we will do as a body even greater things then even Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit.
●This means having all power and dominion delegates to us the responsibility of the ministry and all authority has been given to us because now we you and me have the HOLY SPIRIT in us.
●The importance of the Holy Spirit is, in my opinion, right now the greatest thing beyond salvation that you can begin to learn and understand.
●Jesus makes this super clear as he does his entire ministry through the power of the Holy Spirit
Matthew 3:17 CSB
17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
●If Jesus is God, why did he need the Father's approval?
Because he made himself Man and identified himself with you.
●And because Jesus stepped into the place of sinners, and identified himself with you, when the Father God looks at you, he sees his Son Jesus
●So all those words that you identify with yourself - The Devil is A LIAR
●You can not out-sin the grace of GOD
●We haven’t failed our mission, we are not done yet, we are not disqualified
●The Lord was not confused when he saved you; he was not confused when he called you to... fill in the blank. He knew before putting you in a position to do that thing what you would do to mess it up.
●Because he's a good father, he's patient and doesn't dwell on the now; he knows what you will become.
●You are qualified because he says you are qualified.
● He already qualified you before you messed up.
●You were saved by Grace through Faith
●The Grace of God is your qualification
John 8:1-11 CSB
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. An Adulteress Forgiven 2At dawn he went to the temple again, and all the people were coming to him. He sat down and began to teach them. 3Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center. 4“Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? ” 6They asked this to trap him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse him. Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger. 7When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Then he stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. 9When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men. Only he was left, with the woman in the center. 10When Jesus stood up, he said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? ” 11“No one, Lord,” she answered. “Neither do I condemn you,” said Jesus. “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”
●Your qualification doesn’t come from what you have done, what you look like, or what neighborhood you came from, or who your parents are, or your past mistakes.
1 Corinthians 12:27 CSB
27Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.
●Look around the room, there are people of all different shapes, colors, and sizes, and God intended it to be that way. They all have different personalities and different skills, different giftings and different missions, but one thing remains the same: they are children of God qualified by Grace to do anything God calls them to do!
We all qualified in Jesus name!
