Last week we talked about this idea of looking beyond what is at the end of your nose and forward to purpose, to that which God has for you. Remember, Satan wants that struggle you’re facing to commandeer all your attention and keep you locked into the short sighted problem so you miss the thing beyond that God really wants you focused on. I asked last week: “If money were no issue and you were guaranteed success, what would you be doing?”

I hope you’ve had time this week to think about that, but I also hope that in your dreaming, that you’ve not made it simply about you, but that your dream is tied to the Kingdom. Dreams that reflect God’s dreams are never about you only. They are always about the Kingdom and its progress. You were not redeemed just to be redeemed but to join in the family business of redemption! Because you are a spirit, everything is spiritual, whether you are a staff pastor or a brick layer or a plant worker or a worship leader.
God has a Kingdom plan for the work of your hands.

Psalm 90:17
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us

Is there something beyond the issues right in front of you? Close your eyes and ask God this question with me:
“I know you have the resources I’ll need, and I know that, while it might be difficult, what you call me to you will cause to succeed. So what do you want me to do, not for myself, but for your Kingdom?”

I like watching this YouTube channel of this guy named Xander Budnick who goes into the wilderness and tries to survive for X amount of days. He is fun to watch, but I’ve never seen him be very successful when he is fishing. He often uses these barbless hooks, which I don’t understand.

Hooks have sharp points and barbs.
The sharp point is designed to hook the fish, but the barb is designed to keep the fish from getting unhooked. One part sets the hook and the other part keeps the hook from being unset.

All fishing is really is the process of closing the gap between here and there. The fish is there. We want it here. “I caught a fish,” can’t be said until there has become here.

A big part of this series is about that specifically. I am wanting to help you close the gap between you here and that purpose God has for you out there in the beyond.

I know you didn’t come for a fish hook lesson, but there’s a reason I am telling you all of this. Connecting the here and the there is what God is trying to do in us. This is what he’s been doing since the Garden, really. We messed up and bit that apple and the result was our separation. That’s what put space between God and us. But God, throughout humanity, has been trying to make there here. He has wanted to close that gap.

So, very similarly to fishing, he is trying to extend that hook so that we’ll bite. Now, every analogy breaks down at some point. For instance, God is not tricking us like we do with fish and bait. But he is wanting us to taste and see he is good, and while we are overwhelmed with his love that draws us to him, we find once we’re caught that his love is only a part of this unimaginable God.

So the fish takes the bite and the hook is set into the fish’s mouth. There’s something there in the fish that allows the hook to snag the fish.

I want to know if there’s anything in you the hook can snag onto. Is there something in you that the hook can grasp onto that can reel you in. If God’s purpose for you in the beyond threw its hook in your direction trying to catch and reel you in, would there be anything for that hook to sink into?

This is a weird way to ask that question, so let me give you some examples. When a child learns what a truck is, they have to attach it to something preexisting in their understanding. Vroom becomes car. Then they learn, “truck” because they are able to recognize a difference between how a car and truck look. But you have to start with car to get to truck,. or visa versa.

In 1999 when God called me to ministry, I knew I would some day plant a church. Yet, I had no clue how to do that, so over the next 20 years, this same process happened in me like it happens when a kid learns “truck.” And in 2018 when it seemed the sky was falling where I was actually in my final lesson before launching, there was enough inside of me that when God finally threw the call my way, there was enough in me to set the hook and make the there of my purpose become the here of my reality.

Let me use a Bible story to explain. Saul in the Bible was ruthless. We pick up his story just as Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned in the previous chapter.

Acts 8:1-3
Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning.) But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.

Who was this guy Saul?
Saul was born in Tarsus but raised in Jerusalem, where he received a rigorous Jewish education, including training in Hebrew and Jewish law under the renowned Rabbi Gamaliel. He was a Pharisee, a member of a strict Jewish sect known for its adherence to religious law. (Pharisees believed in the resurrection, Sadducees did not.)

Saul vehemently opposed the followers of Jesus, whom he saw as heretics and a danger to Jewish tradition. He actively sought out and persecuted Christians, even participating in the stoning of Stephen. He obtained authorization from the high priest to arrest Christians in Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. WHY? Saul’s persecution was driven by his deep conviction that Christianity was a false and dangerous movement. He believed he was acting in accordance with Jewish law and tradition by trying to suppress it. His zeal for Judaism and his adherence to its traditions were a central part of his identity before his conversion. This conviction was fed by his understanding of the law and prophets (Torah), and teachings of the Rabbis (Talmud).

Why am I highlighting all of this, and what does this have to do with fishing?
Saul had something inside of him the hook could sink into.

What do I mean? Saul was an EXPERT in the law. Taught by the best. Exceptionally learned. How well do you think Saul knew Isaiah 53? Isaiah 53:1-12
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

How well do you think Saul would be at recognizing the Messiah? And furthermore, how good of a job do you think a person who knew the Old Testament like Saul would be at explaining how perfectly Jesus fit the description of the over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament pertaining to the Messiah? This could be why Jesus chose blindness when he knocked Saul off his donkey on the road to Damascus. What a better way to convince Saul that he was spiritually blind than to make him physically blind for 3 days? 3 Days blind. Almost like Jesus spending 3 days in the grave. But remember, Saul was not only a biblical scholar, he knew the Talmud, which is the traditions of the rabbis, like the back of his hand. Look at one of the main principles out of the Talmud: “There is no death without sin and there is no suffering without iniquity.”

If there is no death without sin and no suffering without iniquity, then the only way Jesus could have been the true Messiah would be for Jesus to come back to life, conquering sin, death, suffering, and iniquity. Which he did…And so, based on the Talmudic standard, that must mean that Saul was a sinner, too, because he was struck with blindness.

I look at this and think, “Jesus was literally using all of that education, knowledge, insight, understanding to connect dots in Saul so that he would embrace the very person he was persecuting.”

I know I'm really going deep in the weeds here, but there is a really good reason. I'm trying to explain to you that there was something inside of Saul that was able to receive the hook that Jesus was throwing at him. That hook had something to cling to, and for Saul, it was this insane level of knowledge about the Scriptures, and his ability to unpack them in a way that people could understand. It's the very thing we saw in Saul, or the Greek version of his name, Paul, over the course of the rest of the New Testament as he wrote 2/3 of it. So much of Christian doctrine and theology is rooted in this genius Christian killer turned apostle’s wisdom through his writings.

There was a father in Abraham. There was a leader in Joseph. There was a deliverer in Moses. There was warrior in David. There was courage in Esther. There was faith in Mary. There was passion in Peter. There was an apostle in Saul. But none of them had those qualities in perfection at the beginning! But they had enough of those qualities in them to receive the hook that took them from there to here.

So in the context of you being able to embrace what God has for you beyond,

1. What is in you already God can use?
Yes, this series is about what is beyond, and I could spend time today talking about what you don’t have, but if you are going to embrace what is out there in the beyond, you’ve got to start with understanding that, Just like in Saul Paul, there is something in you right now that God wants to hook so that the out there becomes the right here.

So what is in you that God can use to close the gap between where you are now and the purpose he has for you?

Last week I read from Exodus about Moses. One of his protests was essentially, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh?” I made a joke, “Who else, bro? You were raised with that guy!” Moses’ history was a key to his future.

Too many of us allow the pain from our past destroy our future. Do you think Paul ever felt bad about the past?

Isaiah 53:3-4
3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!

When Saul read this before his Damascus Road experience, he couldn’t see what I see in it. I see the Jesus who laid down his life, who ransomed me. I see the “righteous servant who made it possible for me to be counted righteous.”

Yet Saul literally was the one who turned his back, who looked the other way. He despised Jesus and cared not. He saw Jesus’ troubles as punishment from God!

Don’t despise where you’ve come from and what you’ve done, even what was done to you. God has a habit of taking ashes and making beautiful things from them.

Isaiah 61:3
To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.

Even when the ashes were from you playing with fire, even when the mourning was from your own sin, even when you were just trying to grow like a great oak and it seemed everything and everyone was out to get you,

God uses your yesterdays to shape into you something in which his hook can sink.

Is there something in your past that God can use for his purpose in your future? Moses was an example of this. I bet you are, too.

Joseph was embraced by Pharaoh because of his insight and organizational skills. Daniel was embraced by the Babylonian king due to his brilliance and strategic mind. Saul had the perfect education for his purpose. Fun fact here: Gamiliel, his teacher, was famous for this dictum comparing his students to classes of fish:
- A ritually impure fish is one who has memorized everything by study, but has no understanding.
- A ritually pure fish is one who has learnt and understood everything.
- A fish from the Jordan River is one who has learnt everything, but doesn't know how to respond.
- A fish from the Mediterranean Sea is one who has learnt everything, and knows how to respond.
Anyone want to guess where the entirety of Paul’s mission work was conducted? The Mediterranean, from Jerusalem to Rome.

Sometimes we get so worried about what we don’t have in us to accomplish God’s purpose in our lives that we neglect to identify what we do have in us.

Genesis 1:11
11 Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened.

Whatever vegetation God wanted on the Earth he’d already put in the land.

Hear me now:
Whatever purpose God wants for you, he’s already put the seeds of it in you. Our task is to respond to his Word when he calls. That is the hook looking for a place to land in us.

This is good, but what about the struggles I am facing? What about the mess before me?

I mentioned Gamaliel a few times. Let’s talk about him for a moment. Who was Gamaliel? The highest authority in Judaism in Saul’s day. Grandson of Hillel, the foremost master of rabbinical tradition in their history.

Gamaliel holds a reputation in the Mishnah for being one of the greatest teachers in all the annals of Judaism: "Since Rabban Gamaliel the Elder died, there has been no more reverence for the law, and purity and piety died out at the same time.” He was incredibly tolerant and encouraged the religious leaders to show leniency to followers of Jesus.

Acts 5:38-39
38 “So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!”

This is the man that Saul of Tarsus studied under, yet, Saul vehemently opposed the followers of Jesus and actively tried to snuff out any trace of the church.

There is a clear distinction between the two, obvious opposites. And in Saul’s journey, we see a complete 180 as well.

What is my point?
Remember, I am trying to help you see that it isn’t always what you don’t have that is keeping you from what is beyond, but that it might be not recognizing what you do have that is. Think about the things you’ve struggled with the most, your top 5 negative hinge moments to use our DGroup language. A good example in my life is the orphan spirit.

So my point is this:

2. Your biggest struggle could be your greatest opportunity.
Saul was convinced Christians were heretics and needed to be silenced. Yet Paul was convinced Jesus was Lord and that Jews and Gentiles both needed to come to the saving knowledge of him. I only use his different names to establish a clear line of difference.

Satan often attacks us in the space directly opposite of our calling and purpose. It is an attempt to thwart what God wants to happen in our lives.
Look at the struggles so many Bible characters faced:
- Eve was simply asked to trust and obey, so how did satan attack? Did God really say…he’s hiding something from you…
- Job was called “blameless and upright” by God, so how did satan attack?
He sent 3 friends to bash his integrity and even his wife joined in.
- Simon was called “the Rock” by Jesus, so how did satan attack? He was as unstable as a reed in the wind, denying Jesus.
- Abram and Sarai were given a promise of a son, so how did satan attack? He made the hyper-fixate on Sarai’s barrenness.

What has been satan’s biggest or most common attack in your life?

Satan would have loved for Saul to stay in that mindset that demanded he silence Christians and snuff out the church. He would have loved for Saul’s zeal and fervor to stay pointed in the wrong direction.

And satan wants the same for you. He wants you so locked into the attack against you that you miss God’s work in and through you. He wants you questioning and doubting and frustrated and endlessly fighting.

Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Do you really believe that? And if you do, then what in the world could stop you from embracing what’s beyond?

That battle. That struggle. That past. That mistake. That fear. That insecurity. That pain. That’s what.

Earlier, I said this: “There was a father in Abraham. There was a leader in Joseph. There was a deliverer in Moses. There was warrior in David. There was courage in Esther. There was faith in Mary. There was passion in Peter. There was an apostle in Saul.”

- Abraham had no sons. It is probably why Lot went with him, the son he never had.
- Joseph was nearly murdered by his family and then sold into slavery and then sent to jail before he became second in Egypt.
- Moses couldn’t even lead his own emotions much less a people before he encountered the burning bush.
- David was rejected by his entire family before he faced Goliath.
- Esther was orphaned when her parents died and was raised by her uncle before being elevated by God to queen.
- Mary was a simple peasant girl living in Roman occupied rural Nazareth before giving birth to the Savior of the World.
- Peter was a brash and capricious uneducated fisherman before Jesus met him on that shoreline.
- Saul was a tyrannical persecuting zealot before his road to Damascus moment.

What’s stopping you? Your yesterday? Have more faith in God’s future for you than you do in your past mistakes.

What if the very thing that you’ve given as the reason why you can’t answer the call is the very reason why God says you can? You’ve said, “This is why not.” God says, “This is why come.”

The people I’ve mentioned today have all had at least one thing in common: they had a moment where God stepped in and made the difference.
All of those 8 people, God had a plan in spite of their past situations or current struggles. 6 of those had direct interactions with Jesus either in person or by theophany.

Why is this important?
Because an encounter with Jesus is what they needed to embrace what was beyond. I am convinced the same is true for you, too.

I’ve wondered if Paul ever had moments of grief over his past. I’ve wondered if Paul worked to hard to evangelize because he wanted to make up for his past. But then I read this by his own hand:

Philippians 3:5-14
5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! 12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

You’ve been encountering that struggle long enough. It is time to encounter Jesus.

I don’t know what you need to lay at the altar today, your past, your protests, your inadequacies, but I do know that Jesus wants to meet you here and change some things in you. For some it is letting go of the past. For others abandoning things like thought processes, sins, that are holding you back. For some, you need to hear Jesus give you direction today.

Whatever it is, the appropriate response is to obey. Let’s pray.

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

How does he want you to respond?