God's Not Done - Earl McClellan

Go with me to the book of Hebrews, if you have it. Book of Hebrews, Cumberland, come on, online family. Hebrews chapter, pick a chapter. Which one y'all want? Chapter four. Okay, chapter four, I love chapter four. We're gonna go to chapter 11, though. Chapter 10, chapter 10. Chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse number 36, it reads, you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay. And, this is verse 38, but my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. Verse 39, oh, I love this verse. This is one of my favorites right here. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed. No, that's not who we belong to. But to those who have faith and are saved. What a verse, what a verse. It's speaking to our identity. It's speaking to who God has called us to be. It's speaking to those of us who have put our faith and our trust in Jesus.

You're kind of getting your identity. This is who we are. This is what's going through, the blood that's flowing through our veins. We're not the ones that shrink back and are destroyed. We're the ones that have faith and are saved. I have a title for today's talk, and it's a really, really simple one, but it's what dropped in my heart for Passion City Church. And it's these three simple words. God's not done. God's not done. God's not done with your life. God's not done with your family. God's not done with your mental health. God's not even done with your physical body yet. God's not done with your future. God's not done, meaning he is still working and putting things together. Like his hand is still on your life. And I recognize at all of our different locations, people are walking in with all types of weights and pressures and concerns. We all have some things that we're navigating. For some of us, we barely made it to church today, and we're thinking, I'm not even sure. I'm glad I'm here. But I want you to know you're here on purpose, that God has something he's wanting to stir up on the inside of you to remind you who you are in him,

that he is not done with your life. And even though everybody else around you has written you off, and everybody else around you said it's finished, and everybody else around you has already had the funeral, God is in the business of resurrection life. That is the story that we celebrate in the gospel, that Jesus was in the tomb, but on the third day, he came out of that grave. And like he did that now, we have that same resurrection life flowing through our veins. So I want Passion City Church to remember who you are in Jesus. You're not somebody that shrinks back and is destroyed. You're somebody that stands with faith and is saved. You're a rock. You're an oak tree. You're a pillar in the house of God. You're called for such a time as this. God's hand is on your life. He is working things together for his glory and your good. This is who you are. But your circumstances will try to tell you something else. Life will try to tell you something else. Your past will try to tell you something else. Shoot, old Facebook photos will try to tell you something else. They'll try to tell you that you are, you're who you used to be.

You're your past, you're your brokenness, you're your mistakes, you're your shortcomings, you're all of these things. But then in Jesus, in his death, burial and resurrection, you and I receive a brand new identity. This is good news. Now, I'm sharing this and this is God's word, but just because it's God's word doesn't mean we don't deal with real life, right? I mean, we still have real things going on in our lives, real problems that we're navigating, real mountains that we need to climb. My wife and I, right now, I was telling you we've been married these 29 years, and her wonderful mother who was a single mom raised her. I mean, I'm so incredibly thankful for my mother-in-law because I wouldn't have my wife without her. But man, she's been going through some really, really difficult things. She's in the hospital, today's her birthday. She's actually in the hospital today. And right before this gathering, Onika just got a phone call from her mom in the hospital, and we're just trying to navigate some. Things that have been really difficult to navigate. She's had a lot of pain throughout the course of her life, emotional and physical. So there's been a lot of prescription medication that's kind of been mixed in with all of that. And it's just been hard to try to sometimes get a baseline

and to kind of get in a good rhythm and a good flow. I won't go into all the details. I just share all that to say, life be lifin'. It does for you, and it does for me. That there are very real body blows that we take in this life. There are some knives that we have in our back from family members and friends. There are some things that have been put on our social medias. People have made comments that have really wounded us. We've heard from our kids or from our parents or grandparents words that have marked us. And these things can try to take the wind out of our sails and we can just kind of get into a coasting mode. I'll just go to church. I'll just be a nice person. Yeah, I'll go to Love Atlanta. Maybe I'll participate, but I'll just kind of exist. Exist. The only problem with that is you and I weren't designed to live by our feelings. We are people that walk by faith and not by sight. We're individuals that have been called to something higher. And it's not that we don't, we pretend like the pain is not real, duh, it's real. We don't pretend that life is not happening. Of course it's happening. We're experiencing it. But just because what we're experiencing is so real

does not mean the word of God is not real. You and I, yeah, are now invited into a story that is greater and is bigger. And it's a story of God. And he is saying, yes, you're going to have all types of things come against you. Yes, you're gonna have all types of pains and problems that will come your way. But you're not someone that shrinks back and is destroyed. You're someone who has faith and is saved. I'm just here to remind you of who you already are in God. This is who you are through the finished work of Jesus Christ. And in order for you and I to walk into this, you and I have to first understand it, but then you and I also have to be willing to go, all right, God, I'm putting my faith back in you. I've had my faith in myself. I've had my faith in my spouse. I've had my faith in the economy. I've had my faith in politics. I put my faith a lot of places. But what I'm saying today, God, is I don't want my faith in any of these other places. My faith and my trust is ultimately and completely in you. And then let faith rise up on the inside of us to be the men and women that God has called us to be. And can I tell you this? Not only is God not done with you individually, he's not done with this church collectively.

I need you guys to start dreaming again. If you've been at this church for less than five years, we're so glad you're here. The beautiful thing is there were people that came before you that were willing to sacrifice and went all in so that you could have a seat. So now since God's not done with Passion City, now you're the one for the next batch of people that are going to be coming up. You're the one that's the door holder. You're the one that's the giver. You're the one that's a prayer. You're the one that's a worshiper. You're the one that helps all this come to fruition because God has a plan and a purpose for this church family. This is a city on a hill and I know it can get real easy just to kind of watch somebody preach or listen to the songs, but you weren't called to be a spectator. You're called to be a participator. You're called to be on the field. I have my kids, they're playing video games and I mean, they're at it, right? They're at it. I don't know what's the big video game now because you got Fortnite and is Fortnite still big? I don't know, what else? What else is out there? FIFA, yeah, FIFA's a big one, yeah. There's all these and my sons, they're out there,

they're playing their video games and they don't sweat when they're playing the video games. I hear them yelling a lot. The only thing that's working is their thumbs and that's a lot of what today is. It's a lot of work with just our thumbs. A lot of work with thumbs, but I just want you to know that it's okay to get a little sweat on your brow. It's okay to get a little dirt underneath your fingernails. It's okay for you to have some calluses on your knees because you've been praying. It's okay for you to have a little bit of back pain because you've been carrying somebody else. This is what you've been called into. So do not let society dumb it down that Christianity now is some spectator sport. We're not playing a video game here. Ones on the field saying Jesus use my life for your glory. This is what you want You've been wanting purpose You've been wanting strength. You've been wanting hope you've been wanting to be a part of something bigger than yourself Let me just tell you this you get to be a part of saving the world There you go Now it's not that you and I are saviors We already know that jesus is the only savior But now we get to be the ones to announce to a whole world that you were lost But now you're found in jesus christ Why because I was lost and i've been found because I was broken and god put me back together Because I did not know which way was up and god in the midst of all of my misery and my pain Found me in my brokenness and in my addiction and he said son daughter. You don't have to stay there forever

This is who you are And this is what you're invited into Keep on going with me here. Keep on going with me go down to uh, hebrews chapter 11 verse number one Okay, because we got chapter 10 verse 39 Now the bible was not written with all of the the the numbers and the letters It was uh, I mean the the numbers and the verses it was originally just one this one long letter each of these books So hebrews chapter 10 verse 39 We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed but to those who have faith and are saved then It gets to chapter 11 verse number one Now faith is Faith is everybody say faith is Faith is now faith is faith is faith Is faith is it is it's not like it's gonna be faith Is right now faith is Is I'm, not just waiting for the future faith is I I know it might be easy just to go Oh god, it's probably not gonna do it because i've been in this so long and i've been struggling with this for so long It can be easy to get into that It can be easy when it's been you know Five years of asking god for something or or 10 years or 20 years or 25 years of crying out to god Just go. Well, you know what? It's just gonna be uh like this but now faith Is it is it is I want to stir this up on the inside of you because this faith It's not some mystical magical potion. No, it is in a person It is trust and reliance in the character and the goodness of god that he can do what he said He's gonna do that. He's faithful that he's on your side that he's working behind the scenes This is what you and I are being invited into faith is

It is um I i'm gonna say I used to be a hooper. I still like playing basketball I still do though. I haven't played for a minute at the gym that I played at the lifetime in dallas Uh, they went and got rid of the basketball court could not believe it uh Mark, huban works out of this gym the owner Well the former owner of the mass he works out at the gym and a cool guy I mean, it's not like we're boys or anything, but I dapped him up a few times What's up mark? Yeah Uh want to buy a building no, just kidding. Uh so, uh, so so mark, uh plays basketball there sometimes, uh to and he even got on the petition to try to like get them to Not close the court and they still shut down the court. Okay, so I don't know who's in power here but If mark cuban wasn't making it happen, we didn't we we weren't going to make it happen So they got rid of the basketball court. So I haven't really played Much basketball what I have been playing a lot of is tennis Don't judge me Uh, this is not something that i'm wearing with pride until maybe here recently Uh, because nobody in my neighborhood played tennis growing up. We were like, hey, hey You're gonna play tennis that never happened. Not one time in my neighborhood growing up Okay, so i'd be a little bit ashamed to go back to my boys and be like, yeah y'all uh, uh, you got a racket I I don't i'm not doing that with that being said, uh, I I have uh over the years, uh, because I played so much basketball, um, You know, you know jumping and landing and I was never really somebody that could like, you know Jump from the free throw line or something like that But you know, I can get a 360 and you know, I mean I could I lived above the rim a little bit And uh, but not anymore now i'm just passing and rebounding Anyway, I had to get my knee scoped and I had to uh,

Go and get it scoped because it was just you know messed up over the years doctor goes in, uh gets in there In my knee cleans it up and then I have to go to physical therapy. I thought physical therapy was going to be quick Took longer than I thought and it was very painful. Okay, because you know, they want to make sure you're good So that you're poking and prodding and pushing and just kind of making sure all the cartilage and everything is getting right. And after I go to this for a few weeks, they finally say, hey, you can go play now. You can go play basketball again. And I just, I didn't trust it. I didn't trust my knee. Because I didn't trust it, I didn't put any weight on it. They told me it was ready to go, but I didn't trust it. So I didn't put weight on it. When we're talking about faith, you can, and I don't want to oversimplify, but are you willing to put, we'll take off the word faith, trust your weight on God? If you were to do an assessment of your life, who do you have your weight on? Is your weight on you? Not who do you want it to be on, who's it actually on? If we look at your behavior throughout the week and your spending habits and the time that you spend, is the weight on you? I would think for most of us, the weight's on ourselves. I'm like, I gotta make this happen. I gotta make this happen. I gotta make this happen. Listen, I'm glad you're a go-getter.

I'm glad you're working. I'm glad you're getting after it. Don't you dare stop. Don't be lazy, be like, hey, all right, I'm just waiting on the Lord, and you don't do anything. We're saying here is faith is not, I'm just like sitting around, not doing anything. Faith is saying, God, I am actively putting my weight on you saying you can carry this. You can carry my marriage. You can carry my career. You can carry my finances. You can carry my mother-in-law that's in the hospital. You can carry this addiction that I'm navigating. You can carry it. I could put that weight on you. And now faith is, it is right now. Look at this beautiful scripture in Gospel of Luke. Gospel of Luke chapter 22. Y'all still with me? Okay, Luke chapter 22, verse number 31. Turn there real quick. Jesus is speaking here, and he says, Simon, Simon, if you didn't bring your Bible, I'm gonna put the verses on the screen so you can follow along with us. But Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

Simon, Simon, I prayed for you, but I want you to know, Simon, Satan asked a question about all of y'all. He asked if he could sift all of you like wheat, and if I'm Simon, I'd be like, okay, Lord, did you tell him no? Can you go ahead and just have him sift somebody else like wheat, because I'm just trying to follow you, do the best I can, but Jesus doesn't say I told him no. Jesus prays for something very, in particular, Jesus prays for his faith. Fascinating, fascinating. This tells me that your faith is a gift, because this is you leaning into your relationship with God and keeping your weight on him in his character, in his goodness, in his faithfulness, and what the enemy is trying to do to me and to you is for you and I to shift our weight from God to self. He's trying to get us to shift our weight from God to a politician, from God to some other person, from God to fill in the blank, and there's all these things in life saying, don't trust God, go to church, but don't trust God. What I want you to do is trust you. I want you to trust your education. I want you to trust in your finances. I want you to trust your bank account. I want you to trust the stock market.

I want you to trust all these things, but don't trust God, but in order for us to be who God has called us to be, you're actually invited into another story that's saying I'm not going to be trusting me. I'm going to be trusting God, and the enemy is after your faith, because if he can get your faith, he can get your relationship. with God and he can choke it out and you'll be an ineffective follower of Jesus. You'll be on, you'll be on your way to heaven, but you won't be the powerful, spirit-filled, follower of God you've been called to be, letting the life of God flow through you. Instead it will just stop with you. I, uh, I like in this text, he says, Jesus says, I pray for your faith not to fail, but after you mess up, I want you to come back and I want you to strengthen your brothers. How beautiful that Jesus knows that Simon Peter is gonna mess up and he still prays for them. Don't you feel sometimes that like, you know, I don't know about y'all, but I know I mess up and make mistakes, and you know you do too, and then when we make these mistakes we think God has this assessment of us that goes, okay, they're trash, I'll just throw them away. But I want you to know that's not what God is doing with you. After you've turned back, strengthen your brothers. Um, y'all go thrift shopping here? They do thrifting here in Atlanta? Thrifting? Yeah, okay. Um, I'm not a big thrifter, um, but there is something when you, when you buy a shirt from a thrift, like you get a t-shirt from a thrift store, when you buy the, the t-shirt, um, what are you supposed to do with the shirt before you put it on? Wash it. That's right. Now some of y'all surprised by that, okay? Because you're nasty, okay? Okay? So we need, we need to teach you some etiquette, okay? If you're gonna buy a shirt from a thrift store, you wash it first, okay? You don't know who was wearing it beforehand, you don't know where, what was going on under that pile, so you got to wash it first. You got to wash it. This is a beautiful picture, I think, of what it means to follow, be a follower of Jesus. When you, when

you're purchased, when you're purchased, that's justification. You're purchased. Then, when you're washed, this is the process of sanctification. Sometimes we think, because I'm dirty, I have not been purchased. Not true. It's still yours, it just has to be clean. You belong to God, you just don't got to get clean. We're just washing and scrubbing. This is what the gathering does here. This is what connect groups do. This is what giving does. This is what being a door holder is. This is what us getting in our Word does for us. This is the process of us being scrubbed and washed so that we can be worn, if you will, and the people can know, wow, where did you come from? Shoot, you were in the thrift store with me. Yeah, I was, but I got, I got purchased, and I got cleaned up, and God's been doing this. You then become a billboard to the world to let the world know that they too can be purchased, they too can be washed, and they too can put their faith in Jesus Christ. This, again, is a story that you're being invited into. Go back with me to Hebrews. Go back with me to Hebrews. Go back with me. Okay. Let's keep on going here. I'm going to show you this verse real quick. I don't know if I have this on the screen. You can read it later. Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 6, and it says, without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Man, sit on that verse for a little while. Huh. Okay, but skip with me, skip with me to verse 32, verse 32. Okay. Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 32, and it says, and what more shall I say? Because he, the writer, we're not sure exactly who it was, but the writer goes through and shares so many powerful points and moments throughout this hall of faith chapter. By faith, Abraham, and by faith, Moses, and by faith, by faith, it's just beautiful. Then the writer gets here, and what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah, about David, and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength, and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.

Do you see the energy, and the passion, and the power that the writer is giving us here, telling us, faith, look at what all... All these people did by faith. This is mountaintop stuff, y'all. This is Instagram real worthy. Look at me, y'all. Should the mouths of the lions have been shut? Yeah, God is good. Yeah, try me, lions. This is being retweeted. This is being reposted over and over and over again. These are the mountaintops, and God is in the mountaintop kind of stuff. You've experienced some of these. Shoot, you're sitting in one. Cumberland and here, you're sitting in a mountaintop. A miracle, the 515 building, a church that looks like heaven, people from all different walks of life coming together under the name of Jesus. This is beautiful. It's mountaintop kind of stuff. Yeah, faith lives there. All faith lives there for sure, but faith doesn't only live there. Faith also lives in valleys. Faith also lives in tears. Faith also lives in pain. Faith also lives on the other side of funerals and in hospital rooms and in broken hearts

and in breakups and on the other side of divorce. Keep on going with me here. Verse 35, women received back their dead race to life again. That's mountaintop, but then the text goes, there were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning. They were sawed in two. They were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. Since God had something better, since God had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Yeah, he's in the victories, but he's also in I can't pay my bills. He's definitely in the mountaintops, but there's faith also available that we can put our weight on him when we're not sure which way is up. This is what we're a part of here, family. We're not ones who shrink back and are destroyed.

No, we're the ones that have faith and are saved. So after all this is being written, you keep, the writer keeps on going, and this is chapter 12, verse number one. Maybe if you've been in church for a little while, you've heard this verse. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance a race marked out for us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God. And I like that this text here puts it in context that you got a lot of people that are cheering you on. Yeah, you're part of a bigger family. And all these people cheering you on because of all they've gone through and the faith that they had, and now they've passed the baton on to us. He says, in light of that, your faith is not just some intellectual, it's not just something that you kind of process through personally and internally, and it stops there. No, it actually gets lived out, worked out. And one of those ways is you throw off the stuff that hinders and the thing that so easily entangles. I'll share the story, then we'll get ready to close.

The team can come out. I asked permission for this story because it's a little bit odd. Our oldest son, who's now married, but when he was a little kid after we did all the potty training stuff, He, you know, now is ready to walk around in his, you know, little underoos, and, you know, kind of be a big boy, and, you know, and he would never go to the bathroom, you know, in the potty. He'd just go on himself all the time. I told you this is weird. He'd go, and we're like, come on, Parker, stop doing that, you know, and so we'd kind of train him, so then, you know, he's three, four, five, six. So he was going to the bathroom on himself, okay, and we're like, is there a problem here? There was no problem. Your boy just did not want to go to the bathroom. He told me one time, he goes, dad, I remember, I was in kindergarten. I was at the top of the slide, and I thought to myself, I got to go to the bathroom. I should leave and go to the bathroom, and he thought, I'm not doing that. Just peed on himself right there, went down the slide, little slip and slide, went down that little slide, and gets up off the slide. The teacher's like, hey, Parker, did you go to the bathroom on yourself again? He's like, no, you know if your kid went to the bathroom on himself, so this is our son, and he's just going to the bathroom on himself over and over and over again, and so, I mean, he's about 18, this stops, and not kidding, it stops a lot younger, like 11, and he eventually figured out, why do I just keep wearing this stuff? My clothes are soiled, and he'd just be fine just walking around in them. It just, for whatever reason, didn't bother him all that much. And I think for some of us, we're at a place where we have some things that we're wearing, and it just doesn't really bother us. I sleep around, doesn't really bother me. I look at porn, doesn't really bother me. I don't mind looking at people on the other side of the aisle, thinking that they're all the spawn of Satan, doesn't really bother me. I don't mind, fill in the blank, having bitterness, unforgiveness, we just got used to it. Maybe we've been in it so long, we think I can't get free. So it's just, it is what it is. And for some of us, this is what's stopping you and holding you back from being able to take that next step and become all that God is calling you to be. But hey, you already took this many steps, pulled up to Cumberland or 515 or got online.

Since you've taken that step, why not let the one who purchased you wash you? Just so you know, his grace is more powerful than our sin. And his love is bigger than any of our weaknesses. We're not the ones who shrink back and are destroyed. That's not who we are. We're the ones who have faith and are saved. So today, the pastor already mentioned it earlier. Pastor Louis said it beautifully. The altars are going to be open. They're going to be open for all of us. A chance for us to get some prayer. Maybe it's time for us to take something off. Maybe it's an opportunity and a time for us actually to surrender our life to Jesus. And to say, I don't want to go my own way anymore. I want to go his way. I want to go his way.