Elevation with Steven Furtick - The Missing Blessing (Jonathan Josephs)

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

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This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to the Elevation Church podcast. Today, our Valentine campus pastor, Jonathan Josephs, has a message just for you entitled The Missing Blessing. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoy this message. What an awesome atmosphere of faith in the house of God today.

I feel it. I feel it. I have been so excited to be able to get up here and share what God has put on my heart for you today. and it's just been burning within me. And I'm so glad to see you here, Jerry, because I knew that no one else, I'm coming for you today, my man. I'm excited about this word, and I hope that on some level, I'm just been praying that it would resound within you the way that God has been using this scripture to really encourage me. Before we read our scripture and take a seat in just a moment, I do want to say what an honor it is to be able to preach the word of God to you today.

And I'm so grateful for our pastor for giving me the opportunity. to do that. I'll say this, though, well, I'm certainly grateful to be able to preach today. The real honor and privilege for me, the thing that I'm most grateful for is that every weekend, usually for all three services, that God would give me the opportunity to sit in that seat right there and listen to the word of God preached so powerfully. The reason that means so much to me is that this spot right here is one of the primary places that God speaks to me and moves in my life.

and I'm so grateful to be planted in this house where God is moving in such a mighty way. And I know you're trying to figure me out if we have anything in common, but I thought we'd at least agree on that, that what a privilege it is to be in the house of God. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. We're going to be looking at a scripture from Philippians chapter 3 today. I love this passage of scripture. My key verse is going to be verse 12, but for context, we need to start. in verse 10. This is the Apostle Paul writing. He says, I want to know Christ. I want to know Christ. So much power

in those five words right there. I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his suffering, becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind me and straining towards what's ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Back to verse 12, not that I have already obtained all this.

or have arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ, Jesus, took hold of me. My title for today is the missing blessing, the missing blessing. You can go ahead and be seated and thank you, worship team. And I don't know, choir, you might want to stay up here the whole time and just bat me up. When the Lord just began to speak to me through this passage just a couple weeks ago, it really did resonate with me on such a personal level that I was almost hesitant to share it. You know not everything God speaks to you is meant to be shared with everybody, but I felt really, really convicted that this would be a word of encouragement for somebody today. And I don't know, how many of you would consider yourself to be goal-oriented people?

Goal-oriented people, I know David is. That was an obvious one. Maybe you wouldn't call yourself, like maybe the most you do is, you know, New Year's resolutions, and maybe that's it. One thing I've found, though, is that, well, we don't all necessarily consider ourselves to have, you know, like a five-year plan and action steps. I think all of us, though, have these ideas, goals, expectations, objectives of what we thought we would have by now or where we thought we would be by now. Maybe it's in your relationships. Maybe it's in your finances. Sometimes we thought, maybe it's just like the relationship we had hoped we'd have with our kids, and now we're dropping him off at college and we're wondering, are they ever going to want to call us?

And I was talking to my dad earlier this week who was just sharing with me. I could tell he was a little bit discouraged. He was getting ready to have his annual meeting with his leadership team at his business. And I could tell he was discouraged because he was looking over objectives that they had set a couple years ago and just realizing that there were still some things that they haven't achieved yet. And it really resonated with me because I feel that way all the time. I feel like there are so many areas of my life.

that as I look at it, it just feels like I don't have it. It feels like I'm not there yet. And the reality is, I think for me, maybe the underlying insecurity of my life has been what I would have described as a feeling of inadequacy. I just don't have what it takes. I don't measure up. I've always been around such amazing leaders that it was so easy to compare myself to the way that God had gifted them and blessed them and grace them. That so often I found myself feeling like, I'm still missing something. Like, God had left something out of my life. Now more than maybe inadequacy,

the better word that I'm finding to describe it is this feeling of incompleteness. Like, I just don't have all the pieces. Like, that time we tried to put that IKEA wardrobe together, and we didn't realize there was two boxes we needed to grab off the shelf at IKEA. And it feels sometimes like I'm trying to put my life together, and I don't have all the pieces to work with.

For me, it's so easy to, take a look at where I'm at in life, and instead of recognizing how far I've come and all the blessings that God has given me and all the things that he's done, I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to put all my attention on what's still missing in my life, the places that haven't wrapped up in a pretty bow where I don't feel like I had it all together. Am I resonating with anybody today? So often it's like, God has been doing so much, and instead of actually thanking him for what he has done for me, I can get so fixated and thus so discouraged by what I don't have. And if I'm

honest with you, the reason this passage resonated with me so much is because this has been the place I've been in for about nine months now, just feeling discouraged, feeling like what Paul said, I'm not there yet, I haven't arrived, I don't have it. And the crazy thing is, is that life is good right now. Life is, I mean, we're in our 10th year of marriage. We've, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, If only you knew, that's good. We've managed to keep both our boys alive and fed. Praise God. Our youngest just turned two, and I finally just shed the baby weight that we put on from pregnancy.

And that's a lie. You know it's milkshake weight. And it took two years. I think I'm doing well at my job. I don't know, Wade. It's going good. Let's go. Things are so good.

And yet, despite all that, under the surface, I still feel like there's something missing in my life. I can still get so discouraged because I'm acutely aware of just how far I still have to go. And that can be such a dangerous place to live in when we fail to recognize all the blessings that God has given in our lives. And for me, gratitude has always been a value that I want to live by. And it's something that I've tried to practice. but if I'm not intentional, I can find myself so quickly slipping into this place where all my attention is going into what is still missing from my life rather than what I have. And so having been in this place for so long, Paul's words really resonated with me when he

talks about this goal that he had, this objective that he had. And he says, but I haven't already arrived at my goal, and I haven't already obtained it. I can sense the frustration in Paul's voice because it resonated so deeply within me. Now, here's the thing. Paul is not talking about some of the ambitions and goals that we all have in our life. Specifically in this passage, he's trying to point us to the most important goal or ambition of them all. He's talking about knowing Christ in this passage. For me, my relationship with God really matters. It really matters. And yet, I've been in this place where I feel farther away from God than I ever have before. Now, before you write Pastor Stephen in email, letting him know you're concerned about one of his campus pastors,

notice I said the word feel. I've been walking with God long enough to know that my faith is not a feeling. And so I might feel far away from God, but I know that God cannot be far away from me. And I know that God can't be far away from me because the Bible says that, as I draw near to him, he'll draw near to me. And I haven't stopped moving towards him. I haven't stopped seeking. I haven't stopped praying. So I might feel far away from God. But I know I'm closer. And so what Paul is saying, this is Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, when it comes to achieving our goals, this is Mr. Seven habits of highly effective people. Paul knew what it was like to achieve. How do we

know that? Because he had a way of always talking about it. It's a little annoying. In fact, earlier in Philippians 3, he's even talking about some of the things that he used to put confidence in, you know? How he had reached the top of the ladder in terms of his religious order and how he was born into the right tribe. And he even had some weird flexes in there, like how he was circumcised on the eight day. And, okay, Paul, cool, cool. And Paul is saying, despite all those things that so many of us spend our lives pursuing after and chasing after, he said, I came to realize, in fact, the word he uses, he says, that they're all meaningless, insignificant, in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

He's saying, I know what it's like to reach for all the wrong things, only to come up and realize that none of those things really mattered if I don't come into a deep, intimate, real connection with Jesus, the Christ. And so he's trying to align their hearts into what really matters in life. And for me, there can be so many things that I can get discouraged about, but I'm at this place where I'm saying, God, more than anything, I just want you. And so today, I don't even have a clever sermon and I don't have jokes planned out. And I'm not trying to talk about five ways to be a better leader, a better parent, or five ways to obtain peace. I just want Christ.

When Paul said those beautiful five words, I want to know Christ. He doesn't mean want in the way that you want your steak cooked medium well. This is not like, oh, I just want. One translation says it a little bit more accurately. It's saying, Paul is saying that I've determined, I've determined. My one determined purpose, my singular ambition, my only worthwhile pursuit is that I would know Christ. The scary thing is that this is the Apostle Paul, who by this point has been walking with Christ, for at least a few decades, who wrote, next to Luke, the majority of the New Testament scriptures,

laid out some of the most profound theological arguments of the nature of salvation by grace through faith. And here he is, at almost 60 years old, saying, I want to know Christ. And he's saying that he still has this desire to, I'm like, wait, what do you mean you want to know Christ? You don't know Christ? How many of you know there's a difference between knowing about Jesus and what Paul is talking about, an actual intimate connection and experience with Jesus? That's what he means when he says, I want to know Christ. I spent a lot of money sitting in classrooms learning about Christ. But some of the most profound revelations that I ever had about the nature of God and who he is didn't happen in a classroom, but in hospitals. or on my bedroom floor when I was crying out to him, there's a difference between knowing

about God and really having that connection with the Christ, the one that's best described as mystery, and having this relationship with him that Paul says is ongoing. You see, that's the nature about a relationship with God, is that he is so big and so holy and so majestic and so awesome that I could spend my entire life seeking his face and never come to the end of who he is. Now, what that means is that as we pursue God, the more we get close to him, the more we become aware of just how big he is. And the more we become aware of how great he is, the more we become aware of just how far we have to go. And now I realize why I feel like I'm far away from God, because I've never been at a place in my life. life where I had more questions than I did answers, more doubts than I had certainties.

Because the more I see of who he is and how he works and just how great he is, the more I realize just how far I have to go. And that's what's so encouraging about what Paul is saying in this passage. He's saying, I haven't arrived. I wonder this. Would God be worthy if he was that easy to wrap up in our man-made religion or human constructs or our own vocabulary of who he is and how he works. Would he still be worthy? But I know that he's worthy to be sought after with my whole heart and my entire life because no eye has seen and no ear has heard of any gods beside him. There is none like him. His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. And so I might feel farther, but I've never been hungrier for his presence. I've never desired more to know him.

Paul's saying, I want to know Christ. Sometimes that means suffering. Sometimes that means the power of his resurrection. They actually both go together. One thing I'm realizing is that when I pray for revival in my life, usually God first has to sense death in some area. Because there can't be revival until I let something die. And so sometimes where I feel like I'm in a place where things feel like they're buried,

like they're stagnant, it's actually, the answer to my very prayer because God is getting to revive something in me. Not that I've already obtained it or already arrived at my goal, but here is the key for me when Paul says, but I press on. I press on. I had allowed the enemy to be discouraging me by making me aware of all the things that I felt like were still missing in my life. And yet Paul, as I read this, It just hit me so quick, it like slapped me across the face. I realized that Paul was saying that I haven't arrived at my goal. I haven't already obtained it. But instead of using what was missing in his life to discourage him, he actually used it as motivation to keep moving forward. So what I'm beginning to realize in my own life and where this helped me, and I want to make sure I say this clearly because this is the crux of the revelation of this message for. me is that what's still missing in my life is actually the very blessing that God gives me, because God is not concerned with my perfection.

God is not looking for me to have it all together. God is not requiring my life to be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top. The measurement of my faith is not my perfection, but my perseverance. And God knows that if I had it all together, if everything was complete, if I had already arrived, if I'd already obtained it, then what reasoned what I have to keep going. What's missing in my life is the blessing that God gives me to cause me to not grow complacent, but to keep moving forward, to keep seeking his face, to grow in my desire, to keep chasing after him, to keep pouring out my heart, to know him. And so I was discouraged by what was missing in my life, but I'm realizing

that God is not looking for me to arrive. The measure of my faith is my perseverance. God wants me to press on. This is a word for somebody today who's been frustrated, who feels like they look at their life and feel like I've got so far to go. Good. God is trying to grow you right now. There's more he wants to show you. There's more he wants to do in your life. He's not finished yet. It's the blessing of what's still missing in my life. One thing I realize is that I've never seen someone grow complacent because of what was missing. The only thing that ever causes us to grow complacent is what we already have. And so what's missing in my life, what I've yet to obtain is the very fuel that God gives me to compel me to keep moving forward. But I press on. That's what

Paul said. But I press on. Paul, even this far into his journey with Christ, he just knew there was so much more to who this Jesus was that he had yet to see. Just a couple weeks ago, I was up in Asheville, North Carolina, with a few of our other campus pastors. Four of us had gone up to see the team up there. And on our way back, we decided to go along the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive up to Mount Mitchell. This is the highest, this point is the highest elevation in the continental United States east of the Mississippi River. Did I get that right? A lot of qualifiers. I'm the best staff member at Elevation Church who's from Canada, whose name is Jonathan, who's over six feet tall, and isn't a musician.

And you're like, yeah, yeah, I'll give you that. So we're driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we get to the top of Mount Mitchell, and it really is like, it's just, it's really beautiful, seeing all these different mountain ranges, and we're up. there. And it was really just a cool moment. We had been just sharing a lot about all that God had been doing in our life. And in our church right now, it was just kind of like a, it was a cool thing. But on the way up to the mountain, we passed this, like the spot where you could pull over to, you know, like this scenic stop where it's like, hey, pull your car over, take a look at this. When we drove by it, I immediately recognized it because just a couple years ago, when Anna and I were

driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway. I remember us stopping at this very point, and we looked out and we said, wow, this is really pretty. And we got back in our car and drove back the other way, not realizing that if we just went another 15 minutes, we would have been way at the peak of Mount Mitchell seeing something so much more awesome, so much more glorious, but we were content with how far we had come, and we were unaware of just how great what was ahead. So fast forward two years, instead of getting to see Mount Mitchell with beautiful Anna Joseph, I'm standing up there with ugly Terry Bruce and Greg Bosch blocking my view, ruining the beauty of God's creation. Terry's going to watch this and be mad at me.

Why? Because I stopped short, because I was unaware of what awaited me. If only we had pressed on just 15 more minutes. That's what Paul says. He says, I want to go heavenward to which God had called me. Now, it's important that I point out when I talk about pursuing Christ, this important phrase that Paul uses when he says, I press on to take hold of that which has already taken hold of me. Paul is not talking about man-made religion.

Paul is not talking about how somehow we need to strain and make our way to God. He's saying, God has already gripped my heart with his grace. God has already gripped my heart with his love and with his mercy. So my pursuit of him is not to get him to love me, but I chase after him because I want to take hold of that which has already taken hold of me. He's echoing the words of John who said that we love God because he first loved us. And the more I realize just how much God loves me, just how much he cared for me, just how much he was there for me. It inspires me. It moves me. It compels me. In Jesus' name, to chase out. After that, which is hard.

It's the missing blessing. Paul says, I'm not going to let it discourage me, but I'm going to press on. And he says, brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, I don't have three points today, just Paul's one point. He says, one thing I do. Touch your neighbor. Say one thing. One thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what's ahead.

I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me. heaven word in Christ Jesus. One thing I do, I press on. I press on. In the moments where I feel discouraged, in the moments where I realize just how broken I still am, in the moments where I realize just how much about God, I still don't really know. In the moments where I feel like I don't have my life all together, in the moments where I'm frustrated, there's one thing I do. I press on. and I might be limping and it might be slow and it might be staggering, but I press on. He says I press on, but there's two steps to that one thing. Notice how Paul's like, there's one thing I do, and then he's forgetting what's behind,

straining towards what's ahead. I press on. There's two steps to that one thing he does. When he says straining towards what's ahead, he's talking about just moving forward an eager expectation, unwavering hope. It's this conviction at the core of Paul's spirit that there has to be more, that we serve a God who does immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. We serve a God who is wholly set apart. There's none like there has to be more.

And so he says, I strain, I put my whole heart into this thing. With all that I am, I press on towards him. I'm straining ahead with eager expectation of what. Now remember, he's almost 60 years old at this point. So whether you're 15 or 50 years old, we have to live from this place of conviction where we're reminding ourselves that God is not finished with us yet. And the moment we feel like we've settled in to some kind of knowledge or awareness of who he is, that's the most stagnant place to be. God is calling you heavenward. There's a higher that he wants to take you. Don't stop short of where he's calling you, but we strain towards what's ahead. And he says, I strained towards what's ahead in forgetting what's behind.

My first instinct when I read that, forgetting what's behind, is that Paul must have been talking about maybe his life before Christ. Before he was Paul, he was called Saul. He was persecuting so many of the leaders of the early church, what at the time were known as followers of the way. Because God knows that the joy is in the journey. God is concerned with our perseverance that we never stopped moving forward. They were called members of the way, these followers of Christ. Paul was persecuting them, doing whatever it took to destroy the early church until Jesus met him on that road to Damascus and blinded him physically so that he could see spiritually. And at one point, Paul is writing another letter and he says he calls himself the chief of sinners.

So I thought when Paul says forgetting what's behind, maybe he's talking about the shackles of shame or the chains of condemnation where we feel so bound by our past that we feel like, how could God ever accept somebody like me? And we hesitate to even move towards him because we feel so guilty. We feel like God's grace could never reach us. But the devil is a liar. The devil is a liar. And what Paul wants us to know when he says that he's the chief of sinners is he's not being self-depriating. He's being realistic about his state before Christ.

But what he wants you to know is that if the grace of God could rescue the heart of somebody like him, then there is no person under the sound of my voice today that the grace of God cannot reach. But Paul wasn't talking about his life before Christ, and he wasn't necessarily talking about some of the other accomplishments that he now considers to be worthless distractions. It was interesting to me to realize that what Paul was talking about when he says, forget what's behind.

He's actually still talking about his relationship with God. He's saying that, I've got to get in the habit of not literally forget, because Paul says that a lot and you realize that he didn't actually forget because he wrote about a lot of them. What he's saying is, I've got to choose to disregard what's behind me. Even in his relationship with the Christ that he wants to, he's saying, I've got to forget what God has shown me thus far. I've got to disregard what he's already done because if I stay focused on what's behind me, I'll grow complacent. So I've got to constantly shift my attention. towards what I still eagerly hope for and await so that I can keep moving forward.

And so often for me, I can get stuck in a past revelation. I can get stuck in an old mindset of who God is and how he works. I can become satisfied with old provision or an old miracle. But the word of the Lord for somebody today who's been content with where you are is that God is saying, disregard what's behind you and press on towards what's ahead with. hope, with expectation, with faith, with trust, with confidence. I press on. I press on to win the prize to which God is calling me. So he says, the one thing I do is I press on, but what he wants us to see is that there's two steps. I forget what's behind me, and I strain towards what's

ahead. I forget what's behind me, and I strain towards what's ahead. I forget what's ahead. I forget what's behind me. And I strain towards what's ahead. I got to forget about the time that God healed me in that one area. And I got to strain towards what's ahead and believing that if he could heal me of that sickness, then he can deliver me from this addiction. So I press on towards what's ahead. I got to know that if God provided me for my past, provided for me in my past, I got to let that be the confidence that I have in my heart to know that he'll provide for me in this battle right now on a greater level. I refurb. used to let my greatest days of prayer be when I was in college for God's sake. But I'm going to

press on to know him with eager expectation, believing that my best revelations are ahead, that there's more he wants to show me. And I've got to believe that if he would do that miracle in my life then, that there's greater miracle. And I can't live in the sacrifices of 2012. But I want a sacrifice again, straining towards what's ahead, believing. So I might be staggering. And I might feel farther away from God, but I know I must be getting closer in Jesus name, because I never stop moving. I forget what's behind,

and I straight towards what's ahead, and I forget what's behind. I never stop moving. We can't stop. There's so much more that he has. So I got to thank him for what's still missing in my life. Those blessings, the blessing of what's

missing that compels me to never give up because the joy is in the journey. And the more I'm moving, The more I keep going forward, the more I see of who he is. And there is none like him. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the Christ, son of the living God. To know that I could spend my whole life seeking his face and never come to the end of the glory of who he is.

So I've got to thank God for what he has done in my life. I've got to get better at recognizing all the blessings he has given me. I've got to be grateful for how far I've come. I've got to be grateful for what he's already given me. But I'm at the point in my life now where I also want to be grateful for what he's yet to do. That's what Joe prayed when he said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. But blessed be his name, I'm going to bless him for what I have. I'm a blessing for what I don't have.

I know I was on assignment today to bring a word of encouragement to somebody who either grown complacent because of you've settled into what you already have or discouraged because you're very aware of how far you have to go. And the word of the Lord for you today is a simple message that Paul says there's one thing to do. Just press on. Just press on. God is not withholding from you, Jerry. He's not. He's not. There's just more he wants to do. And he knows that the real joy, the real joy of this thing we call faith, comes when we just take step after step towards them. It's not punishment. He's teaching us perseverance. That's the measure of our faith. So my prayer today, with everyone standing, is God, I want to thank you for what

you've already done for me. I want to thank you for how you protected me. I want to thank you for how you've provided for me. I want to thank you for the moments where you were there for me, and I didn't even know it. I want to thank you for the things that you've spoken to me in secret places. I want to thank you for the times that you've comforted me. I want to thank you for everything that you've done in my life thus far. If you never did another thing, you'd still be worthy. If you never did another thing, you'd still be worthy. But I know, but I know. I know what your word says. I know that there's more to who you are. I know I've only scratched the surface of how beautiful and matchless you are.

So not only do I want to thank you for what you've done, but right now, God, I thank you for what's still missing in my life. I thank you for the promises that have yet to be fulfilled. I thank you for the promises that have yet to be uttered into my spirit. God, I thank you for the ways that you're going to heal me, that you're going to provide for me, the ways that you're going to deliver me, the ways that you're going to save me. me. I thank you for what you want to speak to me, for what you want to show me, for what you want to do in my life, for what you want to do through my life. I thank you for the generations that will come after me, God, that you'll use my life to mark them in Jesus' name because I spend my life pursuing the only thing that matters. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. So, Lord, I bless your name for the blessings you've given me. And I bless your name for the blessings that have yet to come.

In Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch.org slash podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends.

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