Going To Jerusalem Series

This morning’s message is the introduction to a series entitled, “Divine Destiny”. I have never taught on this before. But if this new series is what I believe it will be, it could be the most irritating teaching some of you have ever heard. But don’t let that keep any of you from coming out.

Seriously, my hope is to put all of us on a more defined and determined track for where God is taking us.

I believe that the Lord would have us all on the “straight and narrow”. My goal with this teaching is not for us to “get smarter”, rather “get changed”.

Whether you realize it or not, each of us are heading in a direction that will take us somewhere.

Or perhaps anywhere. We are all heading from where we are to where the Lord would have us to be.

And…maybe by the end of this morning you and I might understand what I just said…???

Listen…some people have a life that they consider to be very meaningful.

While there may be others who would like for their life to become more meaningful.

Can we agree on that?

By now many of you know me a little better than you did a few months ago. And, you know that I am usually not the kind of guy that is willing to accept mediocrity.

I do not believe God wants mediocrity for this church.

I would suggest to you (this morning) that rather than any of us just going anywhere with our lives, that we first determine to point ourselves to where it is exactly that the Lord is calling us to. Let me try to explain.

I have a friend in Evansville named John. Let’s just say John is a little different. John is easily bored and has always been a very determined guy. John loves to challenge himself to keep from becoming bored.

John decided he was bored with life and he decided to learn how to fly. John is a lot of fun, but when he started to take flying lessons things changed.

His wife and family became concerned.

Oddly enough, John’s friends kept their distance.

You see, not many people wanted to fly with John.

I was one of them. I was concerned for his safety.

When John passed his first solo flight, everybody was happy for him. But from then on, all of John’s plane flights were solo flights. No one would go just anywhere with John. Nobody trusted him with his new hobby.

Anyways, John wanted me to know more about his new hobby. He showed me an instrument out of his plane that was a portable hand held GPS (global positioning) device.

This was an impressive instrument in that it could tell you the exact direction you were going in.

Later that day I thought about all of the traveling I do.

So I thought to myself:

“Wouldn’t it be great if I could always know exactly where I am, and where I was going?”

My friend, in the spiritual sense, I believe the Lord wants me to know that. The Lord wants me to be focused and directed to exactly where He is taking me.

I believe the Lord has a specific purpose and a specific destiny for my life and your life.

Hopefully, God has positioned you and I exactly where He wants us to be, and He now is pointing us exactly where He wants us to go. God is always precise.

Sound difficult to understand? Let me show you the perfect Biblical example of this in,

Text: Luke 9:51 thru 53

Prayer:

This is an interesting moment in the life of Jesus.

Think about it. Jesus is walking through this life healing people, teaching people, raising the dead, casting out demons and even ministering to little children.

Everything Jesus is doing is important. The Savior has a very busy schedule everyday and everywhere He goes. Jesus had places to go, people to meet and things to do. And then suddenly, something happens to Him.

Jesus, in just that moment, was called to Jerusalem.

Jesus lived every moment of His life knowing the specific purpose and the specific destiny for His life.

He knows there can be no other greater reason for His coming to earth, but to ultimately GO TO JERUSALEM.

When it came to accomplishing His Father’s will for His life, Jesus didn’t need (my friend’s) hand held GPS.

I want what Jesus had. I want to know where I am, where I need to be and where I am going.

We all need to:

· Be like Jesus.

· Know exactly where we are going in our life.

· “Steadfastly set our face towards Jerusalem.”

Jesus had a calling on His life and He was faithful and steadfast to that calling.