The last several weeks we have been talking about what it means to be under the lordship of Jesus. We will be continuing that this week so let's dive in.

Have you ever seen someone in life and it just seems like they are right exactly where God wants them? They just seem to be in the middle of His will, His pleasure, and His favor?
It provokes that feeling in us that we want to be there. We want to be in the middle of His will for our lives. Growing up in church, when I would see these people I would often ask the question, “How can I get there?” And I would get responses like:
“Just be obedient.”
“Pray more.”
“They read the Bible a lot.”

When I got these responses, it was like “gee, thanks so much for that sage wisdom there.” But this did give me a basic understanding of what to do, but it was like I was shooting at a target in the dark. I was running without aim. Until I understood that there are two primary goals of Jesus managing our life which we find in Matthew 22:37-40:

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Our life can be summed up into two actions:
Loving God with everythingLoving People with everything

Side note here, a part of loving people is loving yourself. You can’t spend time loving other creations of God yet you hate yourself. Spend some time in the word and find out who God says you are so you can defend your self against the attack of what the enemy says.

This is God’s will for your life. When we see a Christ follower “Winning” it's because they are doing these two things effectively. Now that doesn’t mean they aren’t without battle or stress. But it just seems like everything they do works out in the end. Why? Romans 8:28
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a] for those who are called according to his purpose.

I want everyone to understand right now that no matter how bad things seem, he is working it
together for your good. It seems like everything has blown up, you’re facing more attacks than ever before. This is the test of lordship, are you gonna continue to love God and love your neighbor? You and your spouse are fighting more now, or maybe you are taking that next step but you feel like you are failing every where else, or maybe you feel like you are just failing everywhere? The enemy isn’t going to let you grow closer with Christ without a fight. But this is the test of lordship, your ability to stay faithful even when it’s hard. There maybe some in here that are in the thick of it right now. And they are some in here that are on the other side of it seeing how God has brought you through. Just stay faithful in whatever situation you are in today. Paul said it best in Philippians

Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Stay faithful. Stay in pursuit. Stay in the walk. Stay in His lordship.

I would say that the majority of Christ followers want to be in the center of God’s will for their life. And as we have talked about over the last several weeks, in order to do that we have to let Jesus be lord over everything. Jesus isn’t a get out of hell free card but He rules and reigns over our lives. And when we do this we start to see God’s gifts stirred up in us, we start to see the impact we can have in peoples lives because of the testimony of what God has done in us, and He starts to work through us.

Isn’t this where we all want to live? A place where we are fully surrounded by God, walking with Him daily, and seeing Him work through us in the way that He designed us? Thats what being under Jesus’ lordship does. Everything He asks us to do is designed to get you walking in stride with God.

Once we start seeing God move in us and through us, the question isn’t “how can I get there?” It switches to “How can I stay here?” The problem with this though is it puts us on the defensive. We start trying to protect and control what God is doing through us. We start caring more about the position we are in, instead of who we are serving. And this is where the enemy comes in. He will take the confidence that the Holy Spirit has given us to walk in God purpose and turn it into a fear of potential failure or you will begin to doubt God’s purpose in you. These are the thoughts that will get us in a situation like King Saul.

The story is well known because this is what led to David becoming king. God had given Saul a command to go in and wipe out Amalekites. Saul went in and they destroyed all they had seen was worthless but held onto King Agag, the best sheep, oxen, and fattened calves. Lets pick the story up in:

1 Samuel 15:17-20

17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed your king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

Samuel addressed the issue with Saul right out of the gate, “Though you are little in your own eyes…” Saul feared losing the position because the people didn’t accept Him as King. He still thought of himself as the young man that went looking for his dad's lost donkeys. He was so stuck in who he was that he never felt like he fulfilled who God created him to be. He was so distracted with the accusations the enemy was throwing at Him that he forgot how far God had already brought Him to get Him where he was at.
This is where so many of us get stuck. We have had an encounter with God and been changed by God but the enemy is beating us down with the accusations of who we were. We have to remember that all of that was crucified with Christ. That is not who we are. How many of us have sacrificed the lordship and purpose of God because we believed the lie of the enemy over what God has said about us? We have given more credence to the lies of the enemies than we have the promises of God. All this does is lead us to a place of compromise.

“I'm always gonna be alone"
"I'm never gonna be good enough"
"no one cares about me.”

These are all lies that we are being told by the enemy. It's up to us if we are going to believe them or not. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “we are in new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come.” We can’t manage a new life in christ with an old mindset of death.

Saul allowed the insecurity to blur the lines of obedience and sacrifice. He took all the things that he thought held value and was going to use them for a sacrifice. We do this a lot. God has told us we need cut something out of our life but we find value in it, so we hold on to it a little while longer. But that isn't what God told him to do. He was taking what the people wanted him to do with more value than what God had told him to do. He was trying to establish himself as king rather than just walking in who God had already made him to be. He was the king. If he told them to stop and kill them they would have. This is like us trying to walk in our purpose today but allowing the things a parent, teacher, or other person of influence told us growing up to affect what God has said about us. Or maybe it was some other relationship but the longer we allow the lies of the enemy to rule our thoughts the more likely our purpose will be sabotaged.

When we know Christ, we know who we are. He was willing to come down to earth, be tempted by the same sin we face, endure the cross, and raise from the dead for us. Don’t you think you hold more value than what your fifth grade teacher said about you? Hebrews says “it was the joy set before him that he endured the cross.” What is that joy? YOU! You are that joy because before the foundations of the earth were created He had you in mind. He had a plan and purpose for you.

Jeremiah 1:4-5
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

A moment like this isn’t exclusive to Jeremiah. He is wanting to speak life like this over you, but you have to be willing to listen to the life he is speaking rather than the death and lies the enemy is yelling. This is why it's important to understand that we need relationship with Him. It isn’t just about have an encounter with Him. It's about walking with him everyday. You can do things for the kingdom without really knowing him. You can be kind to someone, you can tell someone about Jesus, you can pray with them, but the question is do you really know them? Maybe this is why we don’t tell people about Jesus. It's hard to describe someone you’ve never met. Many times we feel like we are walking in what God has told us to do but we have to be careful though that we don’t mistake our devotion to him as the relationship with him.

“I come to church every Sunday”
“I read my bible”
“I pray”

But do you know him? Do you know his voice to be able to decipher the lies?

Saul was devoted to the idea of God but he wasn’t devoted to God. The moment things got hard for him, he didn’t rely on what God had said, he put it back into his own hands. We can get so caught up in what we are meaning to do that we will become inactive in what God actually wants us to do. God sent Saul to destroy the Amalekites, God didn’t want Saul to simply devout them to destruction, He wanted him to destroy them. So why hold onto them? The people. He wanted the people approval. He was more devoted to what they thought than who God said he was. How many times have compromised the promises of God because we wanted the pat on the back from a parent, a friend, or someone we’ve deemed important?
Let me give you a hard quick truth, at some point you following Jesus is going to come at the cost of someone's approval.

Saul’s flaw from the beginning was that he was always worried that the people wouldn’t accept him. 1 Samuel 13 he commits an unlawful sacrifice because the people were scattering but God had grace. He corrected him and gave Saul the opportunity to learn. But Saul's undealt with insecurity led him to be right back in the same situation. When we begin to focus on staying in position rather walking in purpose we will justify the sacrifice rather than walk in simple obedience. What do I mean by that? It's exactly what we see Saul doing. He's trying to appease people that call him King instead of being obedient to the one that made him king.

What do you need to destroy that is keeping you from God’s purpose? What has gone undealt with that you need to destroy? Have you simply devoted it to destruction or have you actually destroyed it? We have to be careful that we don’t get tricked into trying to make obedience about our sacrifice. It’s not a sacrifice to follow Jesus. Jesus has done all the work for us. We just have to be obedient. Being obedient is putting to death all the things that keep us from Him.
Proverbs 12:15
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Being under the lordship of Jesus isn’t just about following some list of rules. It’s about understanding that He has put gifts, purpose, and plans in you for you to walk out. Our life is about more than working a pipeline or preaching in a pulpit. It's about living in the presence of God and working in the gifts he has given us so people can experience His goodness the way we have.

Saul had the position, power, and ability to walk out the purpose that God had built him for but he didn’t believe it. He didn’t operate the way he was designed too, not because he didn't couldn’t do it, but he didn't believe it. And ultimately that lead to him mismanaging the position God gave him.

How do we over come this? How do we not allow the past to impact the present? How do we make sure we aren’t mismanaging what God has given us?

Accountability
Without accountability there can’t be growth. Growth only happens when pain and intentionality meet. This is what being accountable is. It's us taking responsibility for our actions.

Going back to Saul we see that he is constantly trying to blame the people for the sacrifice but the issue is that HE was the king. What ever he said would’ve been done. Why was he trying to cast the blame? This goes back to something Pastor Jason said a few weeks ago, motivation. We have to allow the Lordship of Jesus to change us so our motivations change, but how do we stay there? Accountability.

Accountability is all about bringing people in around us to help us stay on the path God has set for us.

James 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you maybe healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Accountability in our lives comes from two areas, God and people. We are suppose to love God with everything and love people with everything. Why? God gives us his word and his spirit to guide us to identify what the issue is. People bring comfort and healing as we deal with this issue. Having someone in your corner that has dealt with the issue and has overcome it gives you the confidence you need to overcome it.
What is accountability? How many of you have the lane detectors in your vehicle? You can drive and if you swerve a little it will push you back into the lane. I know several people that love this feature and I know several people that hate this feature. But the goal of this is safety, not only for you but the other vehicles around you.

In life if we don’t have safe guards in place we might think that we are the only ones affected but what about our spouse, kids, and people that rely on us? All of these things factor into purpose. Our purpose that we walk out isn’t designed to bring us satisfaction, it's designed to bring glory to God so others can see his goodness and be changed by Him. If we lack accountability, we lack the ability to remain effective in our purpose.

Are you hurting? Struggling? Who are you talking to about it? If you aren’t talking to someone about it then I would argue that you are more comfortable with the sin than you are with lordship. If you are struggling in silence, why? We have people here that we will meet with you, walk you through it, and hold you accountable with getting through the situation. But thats the thing we want mercy and grace without correction. The thing about accountability is that we can get around it with a simple phrase: “I’m fine.” And give bits and pieces but you can’t have accountability without vulnerability. It’s only when we really know someone that we know they aren’t being honest with us.

But here is the thing, going back to the beginning of the message, if our purpose is to love God with everything, love people with everything, and love ourselves, then why aren’t we accountable to the word of God? We know what it says yet we still don’t obey.

Do you have anything you are stressed about right now? Any situation that you are anxious about right now? Can you fix it? If no, who are reaching out to? If yes, why haven’t you fixed yet? There is a simple truth: You are willing to be stressed about the problem but not willing to do anything about the problem.This is why accountability is important, accountability doesn't let you stay inactive.
There are so many stuck between potential and purpose because we have refused to take on accountability. We will never fulfill God’s best for us because we are so consumed with what others might think or the stress of stepping out that we never actually do anything. We are worried about the addiction, the anger, the lust, but then we run back to it like a comfort, instead of being ruled by Jesus lordship and just simply being obedient. Your response to the situation is everything. What do we want our response to be? The hope is faithfulness, but the reality without lordship is faithlessness.

If you want to be faithful to Jesus’ lordship then you need to respond to him when the pressure is on. Our present response in the midst of things going wrong is what matters. We have to choose faithfulness. In every situation we have two options running at us, life or death, faithfulness or sin, this is where the lordship of Jesus becomes tangible.

1 Peter 4:19
So if you're suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.
David made a terrible mistake with Bathsheba. He wasn’t where he was suppose to be, at war with the kings, then he saw Bathsheba bathing and took her into his chambers. And then covered the whole situation up by having her husband abandoned and killed on the front lines of the war. David then married her. He probably thought he had everything covered until one day the prophet Nathan dropped by.

2 Samuel 12:1-7

And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms,[a] and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” 7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man!

In verse 13 David repents and God forgives him but there were consequences to his actions. When we are under the lordship of Jesus we need to be held accountable and we can either make excuses like Saul or repent like David. Saul and David both had people that were trying to hold them accountable, only David was vulnerable enough to accept it. He cared more about his relationship with God than the perception people would have when they found out he sinned. But here is the thing, did David ever do something like that again? Not from what we see in scriptures. Did he mess up again, sure, but not like that, why? Because he was willing to be held accountable and repent. What if the thing between you and changing that habitual sin is your willingness to be vulnerable through accountability?
So who do you have in your life that is holding you accountable? You might just say “well I just need the word to hold me accountable” Well if thats the case why are you still struggling with the same thing after a decade? The only way to get through areas that we are having a hard time submitting to God is by shinning a light on it. Thats accountability.

Find your 3-5 people that have the 5. Know you and God, love you and God, and have your best interest in mind. If they don't have those, they won’t hold you accountable to God’s standard they will hold you accountable to a faulty one.

Use the Gifts God has given you
2 Timothy 1:6-7
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

To stay in His lordship we have to walk in what he designed us to do. He has given all of us gifts. Paul is directing Timothy to fan the flames of his gifting, how do we fan that flame? Well we need to know where the gifting comes from.
1 corinthians 12:4-11
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

The Holy Spirit gives us gifts. Once we are filled with the Holy Spirit these gifts become active in us. The moment we come to Christ, it's time to start taking steps in the role we are designed for. You have a part, you have a role to play, you are not here by mistake. We just need a baseline to start with.

Here is a practical tool to help: freedomdl.com/testOn this page you will find three tests you can take:

DISC Profile: This is to help you understand your personality type. How you respond under stress, how you are wired, and how that impacts your interactions in life.
Spiritual gifting assessment: this one you will answer some questions and learn about the spiritual gifting you naturally operate in.
Love language: this is great because it will help you define how you receive and give love to people.

Why are these important? You can’t be held accountable to what you don’t know. This is why serve teams here at the church are so great. They do two things for you:
1.) They give you built in community. You are going to connect with people and build relationships.
2.) They give you direct development in gifts that God has given you. They give you the opportunity to grow and learn and be challenged.

We all need an avenue to feel like we are being used by God. And maybe you just need to take a small first step towards something like this to submit to the lordship of Jesus. I can already hear the question, “how is being on a serve team submitting to the lordship of Jesus?”

Getting in the game and doing something with gifts God has given you is always better than sitting on the sideline in fear. Remember, Saul's fear of rejection and not being good enough is what lead to the position God built him for and gave him being ripped from him. The fear of failing is keeping you from experiencing more of God. Just try. No more sitting in the stands. When we sit in the stands all we are doing is wasting the potential God gave us.

Now I know that that is rough. But being under the lordship of Jesus isn’t just about the sinful things that we stop doing, but it's also about taking God’s presence where ever we go.
1 Peter 4:10-11
10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Let’s say you have a spiritual gift of encouragement, it's easy to encourage people when everything is going great for you. But what about when you are having a bad day, week, month, or year? What then? Do you still choose to submit to his lordship? Are you still an encourager? Maybe you are a natural evangelist, and you find yourself in a spot where you're having a rough go about it spiritually, and you run into somebody that you've been praying for to come to Jesus, an you have the opportunity to tell them, do you still tell them? Or do you allow your circumstances to dictate your purpose?

The Lordship of Jesus isn't just about what he's given you. It's all about how we manage what he's given us. This is why we say a lot it's not about if you have a nice house or not or a nice car or not it's about do those things have you more than God does?

Using your gifts despite your circumstance is one of the most practical ways for us to know that we are submitted to Jesus’ lordship. Our purpose and gifting don’t change because our emotions are fickle. So how do we make sure that we are sensitive to those moments?
Proverbs 11:25
Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

Choosing to water in those tough moments is what we need to do. We will find that our obedience to Christ’s Lordship will give us what we need. This was the issue with Saul, he was devoted to the idea of God but not to God. He was unwilling to walk out the purpose God had given him. This is why walking in our purpose is important, it's showing that we aren’t just devoted to the idea of who God is but we are devoted to Him. How will we ever fulfill the potential God has given us if we aren’t willing to be faithful to Him in his lordship.

Maybe you are here today and you find yourself in a spot a lot like Saul, where fear is driving your management today. I know we talked about this a few weeks ago, but I wanted to give you another opportunity to step out of that fear and step into purpose. Or maybe you're here and you're needing accountability, but you don't know where to start. You need people in the church around you, or for the first time in your life you're finding that there are people that there is no rug to be pulled out from underneath you. I know this is something that I struggled with, is this really real? Well it is. Today is your opportunity to come down and respond and find people that can help hold you accountable.

Or maybe you're in a spot where it's time to step into those gifting, God has given you and use them, but you're allowing the weight of life to dictate your actions more than the Lordship of Jesus. It's time for that to change. Let's pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?