Advancing with Purpose

I was listening to Pastor Mike's message from last week, and he said something that was so good, and I it actually led us directly into what I want to talk about today. When he talked about advancing with the heart cry of God. Do you guys remember that he talked about Braveheart? Did anybody watch that this week? Was anybody like, I'm going to watch, I see, I'm going to watch Braveheart like that is such a good movie, okay? Patriot, another good one. Okay? All those genre movies right, where they're moving forward with the heart cry, right? And he, he really talked about the heart cry of God, and that's the goal, is to understand God's heart in such a way that we live on purpose reflecting God's heart, and we champion the things that God cares about. So that's our goal as believers, right? I want to champion what God cares about. I want my life to care and to matter because it matters to God like I don't want to do things with my life as a believer that don't matter to God. They don't really I don't want to get to the end of the time and be like, And God's like, hey, that didn't really matter to me. And I'm like, I wasted my whole life on things that didn't matter, right? Like in our world, many of our lives, they have various heart cries, like, sometimes our heart cries for influence, right? Our heart cries for attention, right? Like our heart cries to be noticed. Our heart cries for success. We want success in life. We want vacation. I have a heart cry for vacation, right? Like I have a heart cry for sleep. I have a heart cry for rest, like I have a heart cry for stuff, for more stuff, like I have a heart cry for love, acceptance, respect, money, you name it, right, like our heart desires, okay, what our heart longs for, that's what we're talking about. And the things that our heart is passionate about often only serve one purpose, and that purpose is ourselves. Right? They are. Your heart cry. My heart cries for myself, right? Like, like, a lot of times and and that's how we start out. That's natural, that's our nature. That's how we're wired. We aren't wired to care about what God cares about. That's a choice that we make. Like, we don't start out just naturally caring about what God cares about. We naturally what a little kids want. They want, what they want, if they say, that's mine, that's mine, right? Hopefully we grow out of that. I know you're thinking of people right now who have not think about yourselves? Okay, that's the goal today, is to think about yourselves. I want us to recognize that what God did with his people in the book of Joshua is two fold. The people advanced when God gave them together an assignment that aligned to his heart cry, and then each of their individual assignments came from the assignment he gave them. So he gave all of them an assignment based on his heart and then individually, he gave them each an assignment based on the assignment he gave them. We're going to go into more of that next week. We're next week. The community advanced together around the heart cry of God. That's the whole Old Testament. God said, This is my heart for you. Let's go that. That's what we were doing, right? When they tried to do their own thing, there was trouble. We're going to see that here in just a minute. What? What is the heart cry of God? And here's the amazing thing about the Bible, it is so simple, because the heart cry of God has never changed. His heart is you. His heart is your heart cry. It's you, it, but it, it's relationship with you. His heart desires, relationship with you. The heart cry of God is people. He wants people to connect with him personally. He wants people to connect in community, not in isolation. He places us in families and in communities together so that we can advance together in purpose. I love Psalm 68, six. This is one of my favorite verses. It said, God places the lonely in families. He sets the prisoners free, and he gives them joy. We we a lot of times will stop here after this. God places the lonely in families. That's awesome, but God's like, that's. Enough, though. He also, when he places you in a family, what happens? He sets prisoners free, and then he gives them joy. He's saying, when you get in the family, there's freedom. When you get connected in the family, there's joy. There's freedom and joy. That sounds pretty good. But when does that happen when you go from being alone to being a part of a family? So if you don't know your purpose, if you don't know why you're on Earth, if you don't know why God has designed each of us with a purpose to fulfill his heart here on this earth. You've probably heard about it. The Bible talks about it all through the Gospels. It says, Go and make disciples. It says, Go preach the gospel. Why? So that you can take the lonely and place them in the family. That's the That's the vision, that's the purpose, that each of us individually has an assignment on how we do that it's unique to us, so that's the big goal, but how I do that looks different. Does that make sense? All of us are called to preach the gospel, but how we do that is unique to each of us, each of us using our unique giftedness, special and unique gifts that God's assigned to each one of us to accomplish the same purpose, God's purpose. Okay, I want to demonstrate this. Okay, so Cedric and Cooper, can you guys come here real quick? These guys are the start of my illustration. Thank you. They're also going to help me with words today. Okay, good. Okay, so in our context, as a church, in our as a community, our purpose together, how we do this, to advance the heart cry of God, is to connect people to God's heart and to God's house. That's our vision. So our our connection. This is going to be God's house. See how big it is. And this is going to be God's heart. This is a big heart, right? Okay, so, okay, I need my friends, my other friends, to come up. So if I'm a part of, I'm a part of this vision. Okay, so I see my friend Lacey, comes to church today, and I'm like, okay, Lacey, my goal for today is to get Lacey connected, because I know that once Lacey's connected, there's freedom, and once Lacey's connected there's joy. So I my heart for Lacey is freedom. My heart for Lacey is joy. And Lacey might be like, I don't know about this God thing, but you know what? I really love babies, and so I really want to start serving in the house. So I'm going to connect to the house, and I'm going to start serving in the nursery, because I really love babies, so she's going to serve in there, and she's going to start to get connected there. Okay, stay right there. And then the next week, I meet Aubrey, and I'm like, Hey girl. And I feel like Aubrey needs some joy. And I'm like, you know, I know how you get joy, because when you're alone, God says that he's going to place you in a family, and when you get in that family, you're going to find joy. And Aubrey, I want to introduce you to Jesus. And so I'm going to introduce her to Jesus, and as I introduce her to the heart of God, as she begins to connect to the heart of God. Guess what? She's going to be in this family, and she's going to connect not just with the heart of God, but she's also going to connect with the family of God. And then all of a sudden, we're advancing together. Don't go too far. Yeah, that's good. They're advancing together. And now we're a family on purpose, and the family just gets bigger. And when, when we're a family, we celebrate together, right? And when things are hard, maybe, maybe she's having a hard day, and so she's feeling low, like we're gonna support each other. That's good support, good job. So like, we're gonna be together and we're gonna advance together. Like, culturally, we advance alone, right? We do whatever we gotta do to get ahead, and we do it by ourselves, and we get there fast. But that's not Kingdom advancement. Kingdom advancement says we do it together, and we and we partner together, and we don't walk on people, but we move as one in unity. We advance together. That's Kingdom advancement. We connect people to God's heart and to his house. We connect them in a family, and we find freedom and we find joy. That's the purpose of God's heart. Cry for us how we advance together. Thank you guys. Good job. Good job. Aren't they good illustrators. Okay, so last week we finished up in Joshua six the walls of Jericho came a tumbling down, and the people take the land, right? And it's amazing. Then they're on cloud now and they're celebrating, and they're like, yes, but guys, guess what happens? Joshua, seven, verse one the next day, Israel violated the instructions about the things set apart for the Lord the next. Guys, a man named Akin, everybody say Achan. Everybody say Achan. He had stolen some of these things dedicated to the Lord, and the Lord was very angry with the Israelites. They could not make it one day, right? God did this amazing thing. But somebody had their own heart cry, and they decided that they wanted to fulfill their own things. And here's the thing that we have to know if we're going to advance the kingdom, there are some expectations we have to be aware of. There are some things that are going to happen, that are required, that are expectations for us. So we have to expect certain things. So we're going to remember Aiken here, okay, but, but we want to go to this number for number one. First thing is we gotta expect a challenge. We've gotta get the sin out of the camp, as a part of a community, all the people were affected by Aiken's sin. Let's go back to this real quick. It says Israel violated the instructions. But who did it? Just Aiken. But remember, it was, it affected all of them. It affected everybody, and so God has to challenge Joshua. He says, Hey, I need you to do something about this, because even though it was just one guy that stole something, the entire community was affected. They went on to lose the battle. They went in. There was some struggle that began to happen. And I love what God says to Joshua. He says, Get up. Why are you lying on your face like this? Isn't God sweet, so merciful, He says, Israel has sinned and broken my covenant. They have stolen some of the things that I commanded must be set apart for me, and they have not only stolen them, but they've lied about it and hidden them among their own belongings. That is why the Israelites are running from their enemies in defeat. For now, Israel itself has been set apart for destruction. I will not remain with you any longer, unless you destroy the things among you that were set apart for destruction. Destroy. Okay, that's pretty intense. Get up again. He says, command the people to purify themselves in preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, hidden among you, oh Israel, are things set apart for the Lord, you will never defeat your enemies until you remove those things from among you. God was not in the mood for Joshua to be down and out. He said, get up. We're going to keep moving, but I've gotta challenge you. I've gotta challenge you on a couple things, and we've gotta get some sin out of the camp. Okay, it's time to advance. It's time to move forward. But if we're gonna move forward, some of this stuff can't come with us. If we're going to move forward, we have to do it in holiness. If we're going to move forward, we have to do it in righteousness. If we're going to do move forward, we're going to raise the standard of the life that we're living. Kingdom advancement requires us to move forward and leave some of the old stuff behind. You can't advance in Kingdom things and take all your old mess with you. Remember, when you become a part of the family, there's freedom. What's their freedom? Thumb, the old mess. You can't bring it with you. You can't bring that old junk with you, and you don't want to, right? There's a new standard of purity. There's a new standard, as we take on this promised life. There are things that are sacred, that are set apart for the Lord. And this is individual, each of us in our own lives. God is calling some things sacred for you, it's individual. It's individual, right? Like he's going to he's going to show you, this is personal. What does God asking you to set apart for Him? What is God asking you how to honor him in a new way? Maybe it's your giftedness, maybe it's your purity. Maybe it's your tongue, the way that you talk, your finances. Maybe it's your time. You need to ask God. You need to ask him to search your heart. If I am going to advance. I want to move forward. I don't want to keep circling. I want to move forward in the places that you've called me to. What do I need to leave behind? What are the things that can't come with me? Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's something that you've been dragging along with you for years and years, and it's heavy and it's weighing you down, and God's saying, let it go today. Let it go today. There is not sin allowed in the camp. You aren't experiencing victory because you keep bringing that thing with you and God saying, let it go. That's the challenge. That's from God, not me. I'm just saying. What God's saying, right? Right? Guys, yeah, okay. Number two, expect relationships. We saw this already, but noone goes alone. No one goes alone. Joshua, eight, verse one, it says, Then the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid or discouraged. I love it that he continues that word. Remember he started Joshua with that, do not be afraid or discouraged. Take all your fighting men. Everybody say all they all go together. They all go together. They do not have to fight alone and attack AI, For I have given you the king of AI, his people and his town and his land. Whenever we advance, there may be a battle, but it's never a battle we have to fight on our own. Isn't that good to know when you're when you are in a family, when you are in a community, you don't have to fight a battle alone unless you choose to God does not do alone. He doesn't do solitary. He doesn't set us up for isolation. He surrounds us with people who will fight alongside us. And you may never have experienced that before. You may never have been a in a place where people love you enough to go through hell with you, but you are in that place, the highs and the lows, the good and the bad and the ugly. We've seen it all. We're still here that that's what we commit to as the people of God, there's a battle, and it says, get all your fighting men together. We're going to go do this together. You don't have to fight those battles alone. I love this Proverbs, 1824, this was one of the first verses I ever memorized, because it's short. It says, A man who has friends must himself be friendly. Just ponder that a man who has friends men Brotherhood's coming up, a man who has friends must himself be friendly. To me, this means if I'm going to have friends, I've got to be friendly. That is the biblical interpretation. You're welcome, okay? And for a long time, I have wondered, you know, why don't I have friends? But then I would get invitations, and I would choose not to go, or I would hear things announced at church, and I wouldn't even consider being a part that's a tough one. I allowed fear and insecurity to keep me locked out of opportunities to build a community of people around me who would fight with me and go to battle with me. It was my own fear and insecurity, my own lack of confidence, that kept me out of relationships. I had to make a choice to put myself out there, knowing I might be embarrassed. Without fail, I say something embarrassing every time I get in the car and I'm like, Why did I say that? I over shared, you know, every time, every single time. But you know what? I keep trying to get. I keep trying again. We will not advance to the promised land that God has for us, if we refuse to build relationships with the people that God is sending us there, and God is sending us into a land, and remember that land is a life. God is sending us into a promised life, and he's not sending you there alone, who wants to live life alone. That sounds so lame, even you introverted people who are like, I hate people, you still like someone, you still want someone, right like you still need someone. He's planting you in a community. And if you're having a hard time getting in a community, can I ask you, have you been friendly? What group are you attending? Who Have you invited to coffee. What? What team are you a part of? Have you introduced yourself to anybody? Like, start with the Connections team. Like they, they want you to introduce yourself to like, that's, they're here to meet you. That's easy. That's like, a it's a slow pitch. They're gonna be nice to you, I promise, if they're not, let me know, like, like that. That's like, we set you up for success here. If you're like, if you leave this place and you're like, I had a hard time getting connected at Mercy city, that is not our fault. I'm just telling you, is not on us. Okay, we will aggressively try to get you connected here. Okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna back up off you and I'm gonna go back to the Bible. Okay, when everybody still like me, okay, good, alright, when we advance in the. Kingdom we can and I love this one. We can expect the unexpected. We can expect the unexpected. Why? Because God has got our back. God has got our back. This is the coolest thing in Joshua, in every battle, when the people fought together and they began to live this pure, purified life, and they were like, moving together in unity. They had the coolest things happen. There was this unexpected ways that that God brought to defeat the enemy, and, and God was kept pushing them forward to advance, and, and there was a there was this knowledge that the people of God were to be feared. It was like, Ooh, we're nervous about them. There's a real enemy that we face, and he uses people, and he uses circumstances. He uses fear, he uses intimidation, he uses sickness, he uses all sorts of things to keep us from advancing. But here's what I know, because I can see it in Scripture. All throughout Scripture, is God gives the people strategy to defeat the enemy. If we look through these books in these chapters, I encourage you to go and read these chapters, these battle chapters. But God gives Joshua and the Israelites strategy created strategy to ambush the enemy, like the sneak attack. I love this. Okay, AI is defeated in chapter 10. He causes the sun to stand still. How does that happen? I don't know, but it happened. And it even says, like, this happened. It's, it's in this other book too. Like, that's what the Bible says he's like, You don't believe me. Check it out here. Like God gives creative strategies to defeat these armies, the sneak attack, the unexpected things God does it, like, when someone's mean to you and you operate in forgiveness, that's the sneak attack. Like when, when you have lack and you give that's the sneak attack like it's the opposite of what's expected. It's the opposite of what the enemy's bringing. God will do the miraculous through your life when someone's talking against you and you continue to choose silence instead of retaliation with your mouth and your words, it's the sneak attack. God will give you strategy on how to defeat the enemy. He will give you strategy so that you can advance, so that you're not stuck in the same place, circling around the same mountain. It's we want to advance. How do we advance? We need the strategy of God so that we can discern the attack of the enemy. And ask him, How do I get out of this cycle? How do I get out of this cycle? I'm hurt. I can see the enemies attacking me. What do I need to do? God will give you a strategy. And here's the good news. With God, we always win. With God, we always we always win. So what's the strategy that you need? You've been trying it your own way, right? I've been trying to force things. I've been trying to do this. I've been trying to work harder. I've been trying. I've been trying. I've been trying. It's just not working out. Have you asked God for a strategy? Have you slowed down to say, Lord, what do you want me to do in this situation? I would encourage you to do that this week. Some of us have situations that we are frustrated with. We don't know what to even, even your health. I just feel this in this room. You've even been frustrated with your health, with sickness, with things you're like, I we your household. Even, like, Okay, Lord, what's going on here? My god's a healer, Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. We can rely. God's faithful to be who he is. That's not something he does. It's who he is. And so God, if that's who you are, and I'm not seeing that. What's your strategy for my healing? And then wait till he responds. Right? You can hear God's voice for yourself, for yourself, for yourself. God will speak to you. Remember God's heart cry. What was it? Relationship with you. Relationship with you doesn't mean that he talks through me to talk to you. It means that he talks to you. And so when you set aside time to meet with him, he will speak to you and give you a strategy for whatever's going on in your world. And finally, this is the good news. When we are in alignment with him, we can expect victory. God's promises will come to pass. Why? Because he's faithful. We get all the way to Joshua 11, verse 23 and it says So Joshua took control of the entire. Land. Everybody say, entire land, the whole thing, just as the Lord had instructed Moses, God told Moses and Joshua saw it through. God was faithful, and he gave it to the people of Israel as their special possession, dividing the land among the tribes, tribes. So the land finally had rest. The goal, the promised life. This was the plan all along. Was victory. It was always possession of the land. Possession of the land. Victory is always God's plan for us. Rest in Him. This isn't rest like so you can lay on the couch and watch Netflix. This is talking about now you can rest in Me. Now you don't have to keep fighting. You can rest in Me. What are we advancing towards? What is what are we even talking about? This is what we're talking about. We're advancing towards a life of purpose, a life of significant the heartbeat of our father, living a life that matters. So we're not just going through each day and at the end of the day wondering, did what I did today matter? Did what I do today make a difference? Would anybody notice if I didn't do what I did? I want to get to the end of my day and know, man, my life mattered today for that person, my life mattered to. I was able to bring encouragement, I was able to bring connection. I was able to pray with somebody. I was able to bring an eternal impact in someone's life. Today, God used me today. I was able to give today. I was able to sow a significant seed today I was able to be used to advance the Kingdom God's heart was manifested through my life today. What if we could say that at the end of every day? And that doesn't look like preaching on a stage, but maybe I encouraged one of my if I'm a teacher, maybe I encourage one of my students today who was having a hard time, and I was able to be a voice of encouragement for them. I was able to be Jesus for them. That's the assignment of our life here on this earth. Remember, each of us has a unique and specific giftedness and goal and purpose in the greater purpose many of us will never get to walk in that purposeful assignment, because we stop short in the process of advancement. We allow sin to disqualify us. We try to go alone. We don't allow God's waiting. We don't wait for God's battle strategy. We allow that battle to just hammer down on us, and we keep trying to do it on our own, instead of asking God for a strategy, or we stop short of the victory, we never actually advance in purpose, because these things disqualify us. They take us out. But God has called us to be people who advance, who move forward with purpose, and he wants to reveal that purpose to us so that we can move forward and so what? What's the amazing thing about this is God will reveal His purpose for you individually, when we slow down and we ask him, would you guys stand on your feet with me today? Many of us, many many, many, many, many of us in the room are feeling stuck, going around the same mountain, going through the motions. You know, honestly, I think even some of us just the time of year that it is, we get stuck. We get, you know, lethargic. We stop pushing, advancing, moving forward. You know, we fasted, and we were getting up early and we were praying every day and and that started, oh, I've gotta sleep in now. No, we don't we gotta keep advancing. We've gotta keep moving forward. The enemy is using his tactics to keep you from advancing. Or some of us have sabotaged our own advancement. Some of us, we blamed the enemy, but
it's really just ourselves, either way. Here's the good news, Today's a new day. Today's a day of advancement, where we move forward with purpose, where we stop getting stuck, going around, doing the same things we've always done, and and maybe it's as easy as getting connected. Maybe it's as easy as saying, Okay, I'm going to stop being isolated. I'm I'm going to be friendly today. I'm going to take a step and I'm going to connect to the house of God. I'm going to take a step and I'm going to connect to the heart of God, and I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to just see what. It, because what if? What if there's freedom on the other side of that? What if there's joy on the other side of that? That's what the Bible says. And if the Bible says it, then it's true. We've gotta believe all of it, or we don't believe any of it, right? Like the enemy is coming at you to try to keep you from advancing, but God is giving you a strategy of connection, of saying, God, I'm going to try it your way. I've tried it my way. I've done things the way that I can, the way that I want. But I want to advance into the Promised Land, into the life that you have for me, into the purpose and the destiny that is for my life. I want my life to make a difference. And I believe God wants to use our lives together in unity to move his kingdom, to advance his kingdom, all of us together. That's why you're here. He's planted us here to link arms, to advance the kingdom with purpose. So I want to pray for us today. If you'd say, You know what, I need to get out of this cycle, and I need to advance. I There are some things that have caused me to be stuck and I need to advance. Would you just raise your hand? I'm going to pray for us. If you need more purpose, if you need more Vision. Thank you guys, thank you. I need more clarity on the purpose that God has for me. I need I need to advance. I need friendships. I need relationship. Whatever it is I believe God wants to help us advance, Father, I just pray that today, as we acknowledge this Lord, we want to advance together with purpose. God, I pray that You would give us divine strategy, that you would give us insight, Lord, things that we need to leave behind, sin, that we've held onto, that we need to leave behind, that we need to let go. I pray that you would show us the people and the relationships that you're placing in front of us, God. I pray that you would reveal victory, God, that you would reveal your truth, that you would show us God, that we are not alone, but you are with us, and that you are planting us in a house God on purpose to move the kingdom of God forward. I pray that our lives would be significant, that we would advance your word together. God, I know that you want to use us, each and every person in this room. God, those who think that I cannot hear your voice, I do not have a purpose. You do not have a plan for me. God, I just come against those lies right now, and I thank you Holy Spirit. I thank you Holy Spirit, that you want to speak the truth to us, even right now that you're beginning to reveal your truth in a way like we've never heard it. Vision and strategy and direction give us vision and pictures for the life that you have for us. Do something significant this week, today, right now, to help us move forward in Jesus. Name Amen.