The Missing Blessing (Jonathan Josephs)

it's just been burning within me. And I'm so glad to see you here, Jerry, because I knew that no one else I'm coming for you today, my man. I'm excited about this word, and I hope that on some level I've just been praying that it would resound within you the way that God has been using this scripture

to really encourage me. Before we read our scripture and take a seat in just a moment, I do want to say what an honor it is to be able to preach the word of God to you today, and I'm so grateful for our pastor for giving me the opportunity to do that. I'll say this though, well, I'm certainly grateful to be able to preach today. The real

honor and privilege for me. The thing that I'm most grateful for is that every weekend, usually for all three services, that God would give me the opportunity to sit in that seat right there and listen to the word of God preached so powerfully. The reason that means so much to me is that this spot right here is one of the primary places that God speaks to me and moves in my life. And I'm so grateful to be planted in this house where God is moving in such

a mighty way. And I know you're trying to figure me out if we have anything in common, but I thought we'd at least agree on that that what a privilege it is to be in the house of God. I was glad when they said, unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. We're gonna be looking at a scripture from Philippians chapter three today. I love this passage of scripture. My key verse is gonna be verse twelve, but for context, we need to start in verse. This is the apostle Paul writing. He says,

I want to know Christ. I want to know Christ. So much power in those five words right there. I want to know Christ yes, to know the power of his resurrection, and participation in his suffering, becoming like him and his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal. But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ

Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind me and straining towards what's ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus back to verse twelve. Not that I have already obtained all this or have arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus to cold of me.

My title for today is the missing Blessing. The missing Blessing. You can go ahead and be seated and thank you, worship team. And I don't know, Choir, you might want to stay up here the whole time and just bat me up. When the Lord just began to speak to me through this passage, just a couple of weeks ago. It really did resonate with me on such a personal level that I was almost hesitant to share it. You know, not everything God speaks to you is meant to be

shared with everybody. But I felt really, really convicted that this would be a word of encouragement for somebody today. And I don't know how many of you would consider yourself to be goal oriented people, goal oriented people. I know, David is that was an obvious one. Maybe you wouldn't call yourself like maybe the most you do is, you know,

New Year's resolutions, and maybe that's it. One thing I've found though, is that, well, we don't all necessarily consider ourselves to have, you know, like a five year plan and action steps. I think all of us, though, have these ideas, goals, expectations, objectives of what we thought we would have by now, or where we thought we would be by now. Maybe it's in your relationships, maybe it's

in your finances. Sometimes we thought maybe it's just like the relationship we had hoped we'd have with our kids, and now we're dropping them off at college and we're wondering, are they ever going to want to call? Us? And I was talking to my dad earlier this week, who was just sharing with me. I could tell he was

a little bit discouraged. He was getting ready to have his annual meeting with his leadership team at his business, and I could tell he was discouraged because he was looking over objectives that they had set a couple of years ago and just realizing that there are still some things that they haven't achieved yet. And it really resonated with me because I feel that way all the time. I feel like there are so many areas of my life that as I look at it, it just feels

like I don't have it. It feels like I'm not there yet. And the reality is I think for me, maybe the underlying insecurity of my life has been what I would have described as a feeling of inadequacy, like I just don't have what it takes. I don't measure up. I've always been around such amazing leaders that it was so easy to compare myself to the way that God had gifted them and blessed them and grace them. That's so often I found myself feeling like I'm still missing something,

like God had left something out of my life. Now, more than maybe inadequacy, the better word that I'm finding to describe it as this feeling of incompleteness, like I just don't have all the pieces, Like that time we tried to put that Ikea wardrobe together and we didn't realize there was two boxes we needed to grab off the shelf at Ikea. And it feels sometimes like I'm trying to put my life together and I don't have

all the pieces to work with. For me, it's so easy to take a look at where I'm at in life, and instead of recognizing how far I've come and all the blessings that God has given me and all the things that He's done. I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to put all my attention on what's still missing in my life, the places that haven't wrapped up in a pretty bow, where I don't feel like I had it all together? Am I resonating with

anybody today? So often it's like God has been doing so much, and instead of actually thanking Him for what he has done for me, I can get so fixated and thus so discouraged by what I don't have. And if I'm honest with you, the reason this passage resonated with me so much is because this has been the place I've been in for about nine months now, just feeling discouraged, feeling like what Paul said, I'm not there yet.

I haven't arrived. I don't have it. And the crazy thing is is that like, life is good right now, life is I mean, we're in our tenth year of marriage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that if you only you knew, that's good. We've managed to keep both our boys alive and fed, Praise God. Our youngest just turned two, and I finally just shed the baby weight that we put on from pregnancy. And that's a lie, you know. It's milkshake weight, and it took two years. I think I'm doing well at my job.

I don't know way it's going good. Yeah, that's gone. Things are so good, and yet despite all that, under the surface, I still feel like there's something missing in my life. I can still get so discouraged because I'm acutely aware of just how far I still have to go. Yeah yeah, And that can be such a dangerous place to live in when we fail to recognize all the

blessings that God has given us in our lives. And for me, gratitude has always been a value that I wanted to live, that I want to live by, and it's something that I try to practice. But if I'm not intentional, I can find myself so quickly slipping into this place where all my attention is going into what is still missing from my life rather than what I have.

And so, having been in this place for so long, Paul's words really resonated with me when he talks about this goal that he had, this objective that he had, and he says, but I haven't already arrived at my goal and I haven't already obtained it. I can sense the frustration in Paul's voice because it resonated so deeply within me. Now here's the thing. Paul is not talking about some of the ambitions and goals that we all

have in our lives. Specifically, in this passage, he's trying to point us to the most important goal or ambition of this of them all. He's talking about knowing Christ in this passage. For me, my relationship with God really matters. It really matters. And yet I've been in this place where I feel farther away from God than I ever have before. Now, before you write, pastor step in an email letting him know you're concerned about one of his

campus pastors. Notice I said the word feel. I've been walking with God long enough to know that my faith is not a feeling, and so I might feel far away from God, but I know that God cannot be far away from me. And I know that God can't be far away from me, because the Bible says that as I draw near to Him, he'll draw near to me. And I haven't stopped moving towards him. I haven't stopped seeking, I haven't stopped praying. So I might feel far away from God, but I know I'm closer. And so what

Paul is saying, this is Paul, Paul, Paul. When it comes to achieving our goals, this is mister seven habits of highly effective people. Paul knew what it was like to achieve. How do we know that because he had a way of always talking about it. It's a little annoying. In fact, earlier in Philippians three, he's even talking about some of the things that he used to confidence in.

You know, how he had reached the top of the ladder in terms of his religious order, and how he was born into the right tribe and He even had some weird flexes in there, like how he was circumcised on the eighth day, and you're like, okay, Paul, cool cool, And Paul is saying, despite all those things that so many of us spend our lives pursuing after and chasing after, he said, I came to realize, in fact the word he uses, he says that they're all meaningless, insignificant in

comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord. He's saying, I know what it's like to reach for all the wrong things only to come up and realize that none of those things really mattered if I don't come into a deep, intimate, real connection with Jesus the Christ. And so he's trying to align their hearts into what really matters in life. And for me, there can be so many things that I can get discouraged about, but I'm at this place where I'm saying, God, more than anything,

I just want you. And so today I don't even have a clever sermon, and I don't have jokes planned out, and I'm not trying to talk about five ways to be a better leader, a better paarent, or five ways to obtain peace. I just want Christ. When Paul said those beautiful five words I want to know Christ, he doesn't mean want in the way that you want your steak cooked medium. Well, this is not like, oh, I just want one. Translation says it a little bit more accurately.

It's saying Paul is saying that I'm determined. I'm determined. My one determined purpose, my singular ambition, my only worthwhile pursuit, is that I would know Christ. Woh. The scary thing is that this is the apostle Paul, who by this point has been walking with Christ for at least a few decades, who wrote, next to Luke the majority of the New Testament Scriptures, laid out some of the most profound theological arguments of the nature of salvation by grace

through faith. And here he is, at almost sixty years old, saying I want to know Christ. Eh. If that's Paul and he's saying that he still has this desire to I'm like, wait, what do you mean you want to know Christ? You don't know Christ. How many of you know? There's a difference between knowing about Jesus and what Paul is talking about, an actual, intimate connection and experience with Jesus. That's what he means when he says I want to know Christ. I spent a lot of money just sitting

in classrooms learning about Christ. But some of the most profound revelations that I ever had about the nature of God and who he is didn't happen in a classroom, but in hospital rooms or on my bedroom floor when I was crying out to him. There's a difference between knowing about God and really having that connection with the Christ, the one that's best described as mystery, and having this

relationship with Him that Paul says is ongoing. You See, that's the nature about a relationship with God is that He is so big and so holy and so majestic and so awesome that I could spend my entire life seeking his face and never come to the end of who he is. Now, what that means is that as we pursue God, the more we get close to him, the more we become aware of just how big he is, and the more we become aware of how great He is, the more we become aware of just how far we

have to go. And now I realize why I feel like I'm far away from God, because I've never been in a place in my life where I had more questions than I did answers, more doubts than I had certainties. Because the more I see of who he is and how he works and just how great he is, the more I realize just how far I have to go. And that's what's so encouraging about what Paul is saying in this passage. He's saying, I haven't a rid. I

wonder this, would God be worthy? If he was that easy to wrap up in our man made religion or human constructs, or our own vocabulary of who he is and how he works? Would he still be worthy? But I know that He's worthy to be sought after with my whole heart and my entire life, because no eye has seen and no ear has heard of any gods beside him, there is none like him. His ways are not my ways, his thoughts are not my thoughts, And so I might feel farther, but I've never been hungrier

for his presence. I've never desired more to know him, Paul saying, I want to know Christ. Sometimes that means suffering, Sometimes that means the power of his resurrection. They actually both go together one thing I'm realizing is that when I pray for revival in my life, usually God first has to sense death in some area, because there can't

be revival until I let something die. And so sometimes where I feel like I'm in a place where things aren't, where things feel like they're buried, like they're stagnant, it's actually the answer to my very prayer because God is getting to revive something in me, not that I've already obtained it or already arrived at my goal. But here

is the key for me. When Paul says, but I press on, but I press on, I had allowed the enemy to been discouraging me by making me aware of all the things that I felt like were still missing in my life. And yet Paul, as I read this, As I read this pass it, it just hit me

so quick it like slapped me across the face. I realized that Paul was saying that I haven't arrived at my goal, I haven't already obtained it, but instead of using what was missing in his life to discourage him, he actually used it as motivation to keep moving forward.

So what I'm beginning to realize in my own life and where this helped me and I want to make sure I say this clearly because this is the crux of the revelation of this message for me, is that what's still missing in my life is actually the very blessing that God gives me. Because God is not concerned with my perfection. God is not looking for me to have it all together. God is not requiring my life to be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top. The measurement of my faith is not my perfection, but

my perseverance. And God knows that if I had it all together, if everything was complete, if I'd already arrived, if I'd already obtained it, then what reason would I have to keep going. What's missing in my life is the blessing that God gives me to cause me to not grow complacent, but to keep moving forward, to keep seeking His face, to grow in my desire, to keep chasing after Him, to keep pouring out my heart to

know Him. And so I was discouraged by what was missing in my life, but I'm realizing that God is not looking for me to arrive. The measure of my faith is my perseverance. God wants me to press on. This is a word for somebody today who's been frustrated, who feels like they look at their life and feel like a God so far to go? Good. God is trying to grow you right now. There's more He wants to show you. There's more he wants to do in your life. He's not fitished yet. It's the blessing of

what's still missing in my life. One thing I realized is that I've never seen someone grow complacent because of what was missing. The only thing that ever causes us to grow complacent is what we already have. And so what's missing in my life, what I've yet to obtain, is the very fuel that God gives me to compel me to keep moving forward. But I press on, That's

what Paul said. But I press on. Paul, even this far into his journey with Christ, he just knew there was so much more to who this Jesus was that he had yet to see. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was up in Asheville, North Carolina with a few of our other campus pastors. Four of us had gone up to see the team up there, and on our way back, we decided to go along the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive up to Mount Mitchell. This is the highest This point is the highest elevation in the continental

United States east of the Mississippi River. Do I get that right? A lot of qualifiers. That's like, I am the best staff member at Elevation Church who's from Canada, whose name is Jonathan, who's over six feet tall and isn't a musician. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I'll get

I'll give you that. So we're we're driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway and we get to the top of Mount Mitchell and it really is like, it's just it's really beautiful seeing all these different mountain ranges and we're up there and and it was really just a cool moment. We had been just sharing a lot about all that God had been doing in our life and in our church right now. It was just kind of like a

is a cool thing. But on the way up to the mountain, we passed this like the spot where you could pull over to, you know, like this scenic stop where it's like, hey, pull your car over, take a look at this. When we drove by it, I immediately recognized it because just a couple years ago, when Anna and I were driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway, remember us stopping at this very point, and we looked out

and we said, wow, this is really pretty. And we got back in our car and drove back the other way, not realizing that if we just went another fifteen minutes, we would have been way at the peak of Mount Mitchell, seeing something so much more awesome, so much more glorious. But we were content with how far we had come, and we were unaware of just how great what was ahead.

So fast forward two years. Instead of getting to see Mount Mitchell with beautiful Ana joseihs, I'm standing up there with ugly Terry Bruce and Greg Bosh blocking my view, ruining the beauty of God's career. Terry's gonna watch this and be mad at me. Why Because I stopped short because I was unaware of what awaited me. If only we had pressed on just fifteen more minutes, That's what Paul says. He says, I want to go heavenward, to

which God had called me. Now, it's important that I point out when I talk about pursuing Christ this important phrase that Paul uses when he says, I press on to take hold of that which has already taken hold of me. Paul is not talking about man made religion. Paul is not talking about how somehow we need to strain and make our way to God. He's saying God has already gripped my heart with his grace. God has already gripped my heart with his love and with his mercy.

So my pursuit of him is not to get him to love me. But I chase after him because I want to take hold of that which has already taken hold of me. The words of John who said that we love God because He first loved us. And the more I realize just how much God loves me, just how much he cared for me, just how much he was there for me, it inspires me, It moves me, It compels me in Jesus' name, to chase after that

which has arm. It's the missing blessing. Paul says, I'm not gonna let it discourage me, but I'm gonna press on. And he says, Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do. I don't know three points today, just Paul's one point. He says, one thing I do. Touch Your neighbors say one thing. One thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what's ahead. I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which

God has called me heaven wording Christ Jesus. One thing I do, I press on. I press on in the moments where I feel discouraged, in the moments where I realize just how broken I still am, in the moments where I realize just how much about God I still don't really know, in the moments where I feel like I don't have my life altogether, in the moments where I'm frustrated. There's one thing I do. I press on. And I might be limping, and it might be slow,

and it might be staggering, but I press on. He says, I press on. But there's two steps to that one thing. Knows how Paul's like, there's one thing I do, and then he forgetting what's behind, straining towards what's the head. I press on. There's two steps to that one thing he does. When he says straining towards what's ahead, he's talking about just moving forward in eager expectation, on wavering hope. It's this conviction at the core of Paul's spirit that

there has to be more. That we serve a God who does immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. We serve a God who is holy set apart, there's none like there has to be more. And so he says, I strain. I put my whole heart into this thing. With all that I am, I press on towards him.

I'm straining ahead with eager expectation of what Now. Remember he's almost sixty years old at this point, So whether you're fifteen or fifty years old, we have to live from this place of conviction where we're reminding ourselves that God has not finished with us yet. In the moment we feel like we've settled in to some kind of knowledge or awareness of who He is. That's the most stagnant place to be. God is calling you, Heaven word, there's a hire that he wants to take you. Don't

stop short of where he's calling you. But we've strained towards what's ahead. And he says, I strained towards what's ahead and forgetting what's behind. My first instinct when I read that forgetting what's behind is that Paul must have been talking about maybe his life before Christ. He was Paul. He was called Saul. He was persecuting so many of the leaders of the Early Church what at the time were known as followers of the Way, because God knows that the joy is in the journey. God is concerned

with our perseverance, that we never stopped moving forward. That they were called members of the Way, these followers of Christ. Paul was persecuting them, doing whatever it took to destroy the Early Church until Jesus met him on that road to Damascus and blinded him physically so that he could see spiritually. And at one point Paul is writing another letter and he says he calls himself the chief of sinners.

So I thought, when Paul says forgetting what's behind, maybe he's talking about the shackles of shame or the chains of condemnation where we feel so bound by our past that we feel like, how could God ever accept somebody like me? And we hesitate to even move towards him because we feel so guilty. We feel like God's grace could never reach us. But the devil is a liar, a liar, And what Paul wants us to know when he says that he's the chief of sinners is he's

not being self deprivating. He's being realistic about his state before Christ. But what he wants you to know is that if the grace of God could rescue the heart of somebody like him, then there is no person under the sound of my voice today that the grace of God cannot reach. But Paul wasn't talking about his life before Christ, and he wasn't necessarily talking about in some of the other accomplishments that he now considers to be

worthless distractions. It was interesting to me to realize that what Paul was talking about when he says forget what's behind he's actually still talking about his relationship with God. He's saying that I've got to get in the habit of not literally forgetting, because Paul says that a lot and you realize that like he didn't actually forget, because

he wrote about a lot of them. What he's saying is, I've got to choose to disregard what's behind me, even in his relationship with the Christ that he wants to. He's saying, I've got to forget what God has shown me thus far. I've got to disregard what he's already done because if I stay focused on what's behind me, I'll grow complacent. So I've got to constantly shift my attention towards what I still eagerly hope for and wait

so that I can keep moving forward. And so often for me, I can get stuck in a past revelation. I can get stuck in an old mindset of who God is and how he works. I can become satisfied with old provision or an old miracle. But the word of the Lord for somebody today who's been content with where you are, is that God is saying, disregard what's behind you, and press on towards what's ahead. With hope, with expectation, with faith, with trust, with confidence. I press on.

I press on to win the prize to which God is calling me. So he says, the one thing I do is I press on. But what he wants us to see is that there's two steps. I forget what's behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead. I forget what's behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead. I forget what's behind me, and I strained towards what's ahead.

I gotta forget about the time that God healed me in that one area, and I gotta strain towards what's ahead and believing that if he could heal me of that sickness, then he can deliver me from this addiction. So I press on towards what's ahead. I gotta know that if God provided me for my past, provided for me in my past, I gotta let that be the confidence that I have in my heart to know that He'll provide for me in this battle right now on

a greater level. I refuse to let my greatest days of prey be when I was in college, for God's sake, But I'm gonna press on to know Him with eager expectation, believing that my best revelations are ahead, that there's more He wants to show me. And I gotta believe that if you would do that miracle in my life, then that there's greater miracle. And I can't live in the sacrifices of twenty twelve, but I want to sacrifice again,

straining towards what's ahead, believing. So I might be staggering, and I might feel farther away from God, but I know I must be getting closer in Jesus say, because I never stop moving. I forget what's behind, and I straight towards what's ahead, and I forget what's behind. It's shafe for me. I never stop moving. We can't stop. There's so much more that he has. So I got to thank him for what's still missing in my life.

Those blessings, the blessing of what's missing. That compet tell me to never give up, because the joy is in the journey. And the more I move, the more I keep going forward, the more I see of who he is. And there is none like him, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the christ Son of the Living God. To know that I could spend my whole life seeking his face and never come to the end of the glory of who he is. So I've got to thank God for what he has

done in my life. I got to get better at recognizing all the blessings he has given me I do. I've got to be grateful for how far I've come. I've got to be grateful for what He's already given me. But I'm at the point in my life now where I also want to be grateful for what he's yet to do. That's what Joe prayed when he said the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but blessed be his name. I'm aa blest him for what I have.

I'm a blest him for what I don't have. I know I was on assignment today to bring a word of encouragement to somebody who's either grown complacent because of you've settled into what you already have, or discouraged because you're very aware of how far you have to go. And the word of the Lord for you today is a simple message that Paul says, there's one thing to do, just press on. Just press on. God is not withholding

from you, Jerry. He's not. He's not. There's just more he wants to do, and he knows that the real joy, the real joy of this thing we call faith, comes when we just take step after step towards him. It's not punishment. He's teaching us persevere. That's the measure of our faith. So my prayer today with everyone standing is God, I want to thank you for what you've already done for me. I want to thank you for how you protected me. I want to thank you for how you've

provided for me. I want to thank you for the moments where you were there for me and I didn't even know it. I want to thank you for the things that you've spoken to me in secret places. I want to thank you for the times that you've comforted me. I want to thank you for everything that you've done in my life thus far. If you never did another thing, you'd still be worthy. If you never did another thing, you still be worthy. But I know, but I know, I know what your word says. I know that there's

more to who you are. I know I've only scratched the surface of how beautiful and matchless you are. So not only do I want to thank you for what you've done, but right now, God, I thank you for what's still missing in my life. I thank you for the promises that have yet to be fulfilled. I thank you for the promises that have yet to be uttered

into my spirit. God, I thank you for the ways that you're gonna heal me, that you're gonna provide for me, the ways that you're gonna deliver me, the ways that you're gonna save me. I thank you for what you want to speak to me, for what you want to show me, for what you wanna do in my life, For what you want to do through my life. I thank you for the generations that will come after me, God, that you'll use my life to mark them in Jesus's name,

because I spent my life pursuing the only thing that matters, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. So Lord, I bless your name for the blessings you've given me, and I bless your name for the blessings that have yet to come in Jesus's name. In Jesus' name, thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of

you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you