Highlands Fellowship You Can't Control the Future Transcript
Well, hey everybody and welcome to Highlands Fellowship. It always warms my heart to be able to gather together and to worship our Lord and Savior. And I'm excited to be able to share God's word with you today as we wrap up our series called Hard Truth. And what we're going to be talking about today is we're going to be talking about the future and this truth that is hard for us to believe but it's true. And that is you can't control the future.
You can't control the future. You know, when I look back at my life, I was born and raised in Richlands in Southwest Virginia growing up. I went to Richlands High School and I really enjoyed playing sports and I ended up going to play some small college baseball at Bluefield College at the time. Now it's Bluefield University, but my freshman year, it didn't look like I was going to get to play very much and we had some upperclassmen who had paid their dues and they made the starting lineup. But about four games into the season, the guy that was in front of me, he ended up just not coming to practice one day.
He just didn't show up. And one day turned into two and two days turned into four. And it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. But he just decided that he was done. He quit.
He was done. And so I ended up starting the rest of the season and I did fairly well and I was studying business management. I was really enjoying my classes. I'd always had this dream of wanting to start a business and to manage that and things were going really well. And then my sophomore year came and I really enjoyed my classes that I was in.
I did a little bit better in baseball than I did the year before. But after my sophomore year, I went on a mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. And I thought that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but God had another plan for my life and for my future. So, while I was in Tanzania, I was just sensing that the Lord was speaking to me. And he was speaking to me about this idea of going into full-time ministry to preach his word and to see people won over to the cause of Christ and for people to come to know Jesus.
And I didn't really have the same language then, but I really felt like I was supposed to help people experience life with Jesus. And so after praying about it, I committed my life to full-time ministry. And I remember talking to my dad, talking to my mom because I felt like God wanted me to go from where I was and to leave Bluefield College, it was a place that I loved, but to get away from the distractions of playing baseball because I knew if I was there, I would want to play. And I ended up going to Liberty University where I had the opportunity to hear some of the best evangelical speakers in the world and to continue growing and developing in my faith and in my belief in God. And it was a critical decision for my future.
This was going to either set my future up to do what God wanted me to do or I was going to miss out on the incredible future that God had for me. And look, there was no cloud. There was no smoke. There was no audible voice. But I did clearly hear God speak to my heart.
And he said, "Tim, I want you to go. I want you to leave where you are and go to where I want you to be." And I did that very thing. I left where I was to go to where God wanted me to be. And that leads me to this point. Living for God's kingdom will require you to go.
It will require you to go. And God wants to do something in you, really some great things in you and through you to impact his kingdom. God wants to use your life for his honor and for his glory. And I want you to listen to me. I believe with all of my heart, with every bit of me, that you have some wonderful days of kingdom impact ahead of you in your future.
And here's what you have to understand. Whenever God wants to use your life in great ways, it seems like he always says, "You've got to go. You've got to leave what's comfortable and you got to leave what's familiar." So, if you have your Bible or a Bible app, go ahead and open those up to Genesis 12. The key passage that we're going to be in today is found in that chapter, Genesis 12. And I'm going to start reading in verse one.
So we'll read Genesis 12:1-4. And this is what the word of God says. "The Lord said to Abram, who's also known as Abraham. I'll use those interchangeably today. But the Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation, and you will be blessed. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." In verse four, "So Abram went." I want you to notice that he went. He left. He had to go.
"So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran." So here's what you have to understand, okay? Living for God's kingdom will require you to go. The life of faith is always a life of going. And God is always trying to get us to go or to leave where we are so that God can take us where he wants us to go.
And this is going to be incredibly important for us to understand. It's not always geographically, okay? You see, some of you, God is speaking to you and he's speaking to your heart about going. And for you, it's spiritually. He may not make you move locations, but he may move you spiritually, right?
And some of you are so stuck spiritually right now. And God wants to move you from where you are so that he can take you to where he wants you to be. He wants you to use your life for his purposes and for his honor. And yet you find yourself just stuck spiritually. You're stuck.
And some of you, you need to get up and you need to go right now. You need to get plugged into serving in a ministry. You need to begin to grow spiritually. You need to get plugged into a small group. Or maybe you need to start leading a small group.
And God is speaking to some of you right now. You need to go. You've been somewhat involved maybe for six months, maybe a year and maybe you're sitting out there and you have the ability to impact somebody's life. You do have something to offer. I promise you.
And God is saying, go from where you are and do it now. And for some of you, this first step may mean beginning a relationship with Jesus. For some of you, it might mean taking that next step and going public with your faith and being baptized. But here's the reality. You have to understand that if you want to grow in your relationship with Jesus, you have to go or leave from where you are right now.
You have to move. So if you want your life to be transformed and you want to impact others, you will have to go. You'll have to leave where you are and step into what God has for you. Go and serve others in HF kids or in student ministry or greeting or in hospitality. Maybe it's going on a mission trip like we're planning on taking some mission trips this summer.
We hope to continue provide more opportunities in the future as well. There are so many ways that you can go and make disciples, love our communities, and change the world. And God wants to use your life, but you've got to be willing to go, to leave where you are right now. And for some of you, it's leaving the pain of the past. You've been hurt.
You've been damaged emotionally and God is speaking to your heart to go from where you are and to leave your past and to begin to embrace the wonderful future that God has in store for you. For some of you, it's a sin issue and you're living a life of sin. You're living a life of disobedience. And the Lord is speaking to your heart right now and he's saying, "Listen, you've got to go. You've got to leave that life of sin.
Go from where you are right now so that we can embrace what it is that God has for us, that abundant life that God has for us through his son, Jesus Christ." But you've got to go and leave where you are. For some of you, it's going to be by stepping out of your comfort zone. You've been a follower of Jesus Christ maybe for years and years and years, and you're comfortable, and you're not maximizing your potential. You're not doing all that God wants you to do with your life. And right now, you're comfortable in your walk with God.
It's lackluster, right? It's become mundane. Your walk with God is pretty much on cruise control. And God is speaking to you as your loving father. And this is what he's saying.
He's saying, "My child, there's more for your life that I have for you to do. But you've got to get up and you've got to go from where you are so that I can take you to where I want you to be." And the scripture says, "So Abram went as the Lord had told him." Do you know what your spiritual enemy wants to do? He wants to keep you from doing what God has created for you to do. God wants you to go. And your spiritual enemy is there whispering in your ear and says, "You can't do it.
You don't have what it takes. You're not good enough. You're going to mess things up if you go somewhere else." And I'll tell you this, our enemy is right about that in one sense, it will mess your life up, but it'll be in the best possible ways. And listen, our future is not in our own hands. Our future is in God's hands.
And when God says to go, we listen. He's got a great plan for our life. And we often don't listen to his voice. We need to listen to his voice and we need to go in faith when he calls us. And the question that I want us to answer is this.
Why don't people actually go when God wants to use our lives? Why don't we actually go? If God has an incredible future for us to bring honor and glory to his name, why don't we go when God calls us? Well, I want to give you three reasons why.
And the first reason is this. We want God to show us before we're willing to go. We want him to show us the whole picture. And it's really this idea of living by what we see more than living by faith in God. And Abraham is called the father of faith because he was willing to go. He was willing to live by faith and not by the things that he saw.
Notice our key scripture in Genesis 12:1. It says, "The Lord had said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father's household." Now, check this out. Notice this and pay attention to it. He says "to go to the land I will show you." In other words, Abram had to leave. He had to go and he had no clue at all where he was going.
Now, that is living by faith. I love how the writer of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews 11:8, says this, "By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place that he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." He had no clue, but he went anyway. And many of us would have said, "Lord, you're going to have to help me a little bit and show me where I'm going. Then I'll consider it." Right? I mean, "Lord, if you tell me where I'm going, then I might go." You see, Abraham was willing to go by faith before God even showed him where he was going.
And here's what most people say. Most people say, "God, you show me, then I'll go." And God says, "No, no, no, no. You go, and then I'll show you." We like to know all the answers before we take that first step. But faith requires stepping out on nothing but a word from God and trusting God for the results. Listen, the life of faith is not lived by a bunch of people who have all the answers.
The life of faith is lived by people who listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and they go and do what he says. They go from where God has them and he says, "I want you to go somewhere else." And then they go. And our spiritual enemy, he'll whisper in our ear, "You don't have what it takes. Why in the world would you try to live by faith? You've got to see it, right?
You've got to touch it. You've got to feel it. You're going to mess up your future if you just trust God that way without knowing the answers to the questions that you have." Listen, your future is not in your hands, but our future is in the hands of God. And we are called to be people of faith. And we can follow God in that way.
He will open the doors and he'll lead us into his wonderful plan for our future as we step out in faith. There's a second reason that people don't go. And number two is this. We allow the possibility of failure to keep us from obedience. Abraham had every reason to stay where he was.
If we're being honest, this looked like a failure getting ready to happen. It really did. And God says to Abraham, "I want you to leave your country, your people, your family, and I want you to go. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make you into a great nation." And Abraham is 75 years old at this time.
He's an older man. And his wife was an older lady. And her womb is barren. They haven't had any children. Lord, where is this nation that you're talking about going to come from?
Can you imagine going through what's going through Abraham's mind at the time? And the logical response is this. "Lord, if I go, we could look like a failure. We could mess up our futures and we could definitely mess up the life that we've already built for ourselves here. You want me to leave my family, my career, my comfort zone, my surroundings?
Lord, I could mess up my entire life. I could look stupid. I could look like an idiot." But yet, Abraham did not allow the possibility or the fear of failure to stop him from going, from leaving where he was to go to where God wanted him to be. And some of you, you are allowing the fear of failure to paralyze you. Some of you right now are paralyzed and you're not moving forward.
But God is calling you to go. He's calling you to do something great to impact his kingdom. And yet you're fearful. You're full of fear. And these thoughts are going through your mind, right?
"What if I look stupid? What if I start a small group and it fails? What if I go on the mission trip and it's not as successful as I think it should be?" And the enemy, he's so clever, right? He's so cunning and he's so deceptive. And in Genesis chapter 3, the Bible calls the enemy a serpent because he is clever.
And he whispers in your ear that same old saying. "You don't have what it takes. You aren't good enough. You're going to fail." And he's right, in a sense. We don't have what it takes.
We are not good enough. Our future is not in our hands, but our future is in the hands of our heavenly father. And when God speaks, our job is to leave where we are and to go to where God wants us to be. And then there's a third reason that people don't go. And number three is this.
We struggle to place our future fully in God's hands. People don't trust God with their future. And it's obvious that Abraham trusted God with his future. Think about this. How many of you know that when somebody leaves where they are to follow after God and they have no clue, right?
No clue where they're going and yet they still go, that's somebody who trusts God with their future. And Abraham had a real trust in his heavenly father. He knew that his future was in God's hands completely and not in his own. And God is speaking to some of you right now. You need to go from where you are and follow after what it is God has for you.
God says, "I want to use your life. There's more that I want to do in you and through you." And yet, right now, you have a fear of the future and of trusting God with your future. And you're thinking, "Look around. Don't you see what's happening in the world today? There's unrest and there's war.
There are bad people out there. Life has gotten really expensive. The future looks pretty dim." And many people, even Christ followers, if they're not careful, they're not trusting God. And they're trying to play it safe. And they're not doing all that God wants them to do because they're having a hard time actually trusting God with their future.
And I simply want to remind you of the words of Jesus. And so if you'll look with me in the book of Matthew chapter 6, we'll look at verses 25-33. What I want you to do is I want you to let these words sink into your heart. Let the Holy Spirit minister to you through the words of Jesus found in this text. The Bible says, "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life." And there are a lot of people worrying today.
A lot of people freaking out, a lot of panic. They're pulling out their hair. They're biting their fingernails. They're staying up late at night because they're worrying about their future and about their lives. Listen, as followers of Jesus Christ, "do not worry about your life.
What you will eat or drink or about your body or what you will wear." Notice the question that Jesus poses here. "Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?" Jesus simply says this. "Isn't your life more than the food that you eat? Isn't your life more than wearing the name brand clothes?" And some of you might say, "No, life is about what I eat. Life is about what I wear." And Jesus says, "You're missing it.
You're completely missing it." And he goes on to say in verse 26, "Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Jesus said, "Listen, your heavenly father is going to take care of you like he takes care of the birds and he'll take care of you. You can trust him with your future." Verse 27, "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" Jesus says worrying doesn't solve any problems.
You can't add an hour to your life. You can't solve any problems by worrying. It does you no good whatsoever. He goes on to say in verse 28, "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow?
They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? "You of little faith." So do not worry. Trust God with your future. Trust God with your life.
Saying, "What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things." The pagans are those who live and don't put their faith and trust in God. But surely as God's people, as Christ's followers, our faith and trust is in our loving heavenly father. Don't you believe that? He'll take care of you.
He'll provide for you. You can trust your heavenly father. And here's the kicker in verse 33. He says this, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Jesus said, "Listen, here's the key. You trust me.
You seek me first. You put me first. Trust me with your life. Trust me with your marriage. Trust me with your kids.
Trust me with your money. Trust me with your future. And if you'll put me first and if you'll seek me first, I'll take care of you. And all the things that you're worried about and trying to chase after, he says, I'll take care of those things. I'll provide your needs for you." You listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and you leave where you are and go to where God wants you to be and God will take care of you if you put him first.
There's another point that I want to bring out and bring to your attention today and it's this. Every call to go comes with a promise from God. He always gives you a promise. The way God encourages us to go is by giving us these assurances and these promises. And I want you to notice in Genesis 12:1-4 that God gave Abraham one command and seven promises.
Seven. You know what God was doing? He was encouraging and he was supporting Abraham to go. I want you to notice this in Genesis 12 verse 1. It says this.
"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.'" So that's the command. God says, "Go from your country, leave where you are, and go to the land that I will show you." So there's the command. And I want you to notice these seven promises following that one command. So in verse two it says, "I will make you into a great nation." So that's promise number one. "I will bless you." It's promise number two.
"I will make your name great." That's promise number three. "And you will be a blessing." That's promise number four. Verse three, "I will bless those who bless you." That's promise number five. "And whoever curses you, I will curse." That's six. "And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Seven.
Seven promises. "Abraham, hear my voice. Leave where you are and go." That's my command. "And I will bless you." Seven promises. And I love the very next verse, verse four, "So Abram went as the Lord had told him." He had no idea where he was going, but he knew God was faithful and he went.
He left where he was to go to where God wanted him to be. I want you to understand this. God always gives us these incentives to leave where we are to go to where he wants us to be. And some of you, the reason that you haven't gone, you fall into one of two categories. Number one is this.
You are not aware of the promises of God. Or the second one is this. The second reason that some of you haven't gone is you have forgotten God's promises to you. You're just playing it safe and you're not doing all that God wants you to do. God is speaking to your heart to go and to get plugged into ministry.
He's speaking to your heart to go and to lead a small group. He's speaking to your heart to get plugged into a small group. He's speaking to your heart to go on mission. He's speaking to you and you're looking around and you're thinking, "God, you're wanting to use my life in a great way, but God, I'm comfortable right now." And the reality is, "I don't want to go. I don't want to leave where I am.
I want to stay right here." And God says, "Listen, living for my kingdom will require you to go. It requires it. And I want to use your life to make a difference. But you've got to leave where you are to go to where I want you to be." That's what God tells us. And let me tell you this, every single time that God has done something great in and through my life, it has always required me to go.
And God is speaking to some of you right now. You've got to leave where you are to go to where it is God wants you to be. Don't listen to your spiritual enemy who says to you, "You don't have what it takes. You're going to mess things up. You're going to mess up your future." Well, listen, your future's not in your hands anyway.
Thankfully, your future is in the hands of our loving heavenly father. Would you pray with me today? "God, we thank you so much for your word and how you continue to reassure us each and every step of the way that you show us what it is you desire for us to do. And it seems like, God, we are always asking for the answers. We want to know exactly what it is we're going to do, exactly where it is that we're going.
And we don't want to take the first step until we know the answers to those questions. But the reality is when we do that, we are not trusting you with our future. We're not trusting you with the life that you've given to us. And I believe we miss out on so much of what you've called us to in this life. And it really is a wonderful adventure as we go.
I don't think I've met one single person who has stepped out in faith to do what God has called them to do who would say they regretted doing it. Yes, it might be hard. Yes, there are challenges. And you tell us, God, that they're going to continue to be those things. But you tell us that you are an overcomer and that with you, we are also overcomers.
We will overcome the obstacles that we come against. But not a single person would say that they've regretted following after you with their life because being in the center of your will is the best possible place that we can be. So help us to understand that we cannot control the future. It's true. But we can put our future in the hands of the one who can control it, who does control it, and who has plans to see us do well and to prosper us and to use our lives for something good and not evil.
So my prayer is that we would truly surrender our hearts and lives over to you to do what it is that you've called us to do, that we would go from where we are, leave the comfort and leave maybe the pain of the past and leave the regret and leave all the trash and the junk that we have right here, to get up and to leave it and to go to where it is you've called us to be because I believe that you're going to do a work in and through us that we could not even imagine or dream of. And for some of you, the first step to this life that God's called you to is to actually have a relationship with him. So if that's you today and you don't have a relationship with Jesus, but you understand, 'I can't control the future, but I want to be part of the one who does,' if that's you today, you want to give your heart and life over to Jesus, you can say, 'God, I admit to you that I'm a sinner and I fall short of your glorious standard. And I believe that you sent your son to this earth to live a perfect life, to die on the cross to be the sacrifice for my sins. And my life was bought with a price, and that was the shedding blood of Jesus Christ.
And it washes my sins away. And I'm not just changed, but I'm turned into a new creation. I become a new creature. The old nature has gone, and the new nature has come, and I want to follow after you with everything I've got, and I'm going to commit to following you with my life.' If that's you, welcome to the family of God. We want to see you get plugged in.
We want to see you connect to the body of Jesus Christ and we want to see your life just completely transformed and you're doing new things. You're doing fresh things, things that are going to make an impact for the kingdom of God. So God, we thank you. We love you and we praise you for all that you're doing in and through us and we want to continue to follow after you with everything we've got. Help us to surrender our hearts and lives over to you and follow you fully with trust and faith.
It's in Jesus name we pray." And everybody said, "Amen."