Look Again - David Nasser (Full Experience)

Psalm 150 says praise the law, praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him according to his excellent greatness, praise him with sounding symbols, praise him with loud clashing symbols, let everything that has run, praise the law, and that's what we can do today, so come on hands in the air like this, let's come. Yeah, we praise you God, we thank you for your faithfulness. Yeah, you've been good, good for all my life, so nothing could ever change my mind. And you never break your promise, you're costing it all you do. Yours is the way, the truth, the life that I want you to know. Oh, I know that I know that you won't ever let me go. Every you love, every heart, you are faithful all the time. I'll taste it, I'll see, you've been so so good to me. Yeah, I know that I know, you're faithful all the time. Oh, you're faithful all the time. Oh, I know that I'm praying, say I want love to the left or I. Come on. But I will keep everything in my sight. They know I will not be shaken, and nothing is moving me. Here's why, 'cause I got a faith that's sure of things I cannot see. Oh, I know that I know, you won't ever let me go. Every you love, every heart, you are faithful all the time. I'll taste it, I'll see, you've been so so good to me. Yeah, I know that I know, you're faithful all the time. Oh, you're faithful all the time. Oh, you're faithful all the time. I won't shed all the words of men, 'cause I'll send all yours instead. All of my hope, all of my faith, all of it should be your name. And the world cannot deny all that you've done into my life. All of my praise, all of my praise, all of them genes. I won't stand all the words of men, 'cause I'll send all yours.

I won't stand all yours instead. All of my hope, all of my faith, all of it should be your name. And the world cannot deny all that you've done into my life. All of my days, all of my praise, all of it should be your name. And the world cannot deny all that you've done into your life. Oh, I know that I know, you won't ever let me go. Oh, you're faithful all the time. Oh, I know that I know, you won't ever let me go. Every load, every heart, you are faithful all the time. Oh, I'm taking a seat, I see, you've been so, so good to me. Can I go with that? Oh, you're faithful, you're faithful all the time. Oh, you're faithful all the time. Oh, sing it out, you're faithful all the time. Oh, I know that I know, you won't ever let me go. God who thought I'd find you at the lowest place who knew you'd feel me in the cross who knew you'd make it in my mistakes you're nothing like I thought you were you better would have got would have got would have got that's who you are would have got would have got oh you lift your voice and sing I thought you'd show a fiction cuz what a kind of God was for the life they say it's over for us in earth but you say no it's not ♪ I know it's not ♪ ♪ But you're saying ♪ ♪ No, it's not, no, it's not ♪ ♪ Would it God or would it God ♪ ♪ Would it God or would it God ♪ ♪ Oh, you're faithful Lord ♪ ♪ Would it God or would it God ♪ ♪ Would it God or would it God ♪ ♪ Would it God or would it God ♪

♪ Nothing else could do ♪ ♪ Just you, Jesus ♪ ♪ I searched and I found there's nothing better ♪ ♪ There's nothing more I want with you ♪ ♪ I'll sing this song ♪ ♪ And if the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ Then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ You will ever change my life ♪ ♪ Forever satisfied God ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ Sing it again ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ Everything's surrendered at your feet ♪ ♪ And if the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ Then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪

♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪

♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪

♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ If the highest place I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ Come on and give no praise in this room today ♪ ♪ Jesus, we thank you for everything you're doing in this room ♪ ♪ We applaud your name above it all and you let me pray ♪ ♪ And everybody shouting ♪ ♪ You've made me see you ♪ - Welcome to Fellowship Church, one church family in many locations. On behalf of pastors Ed and Lisa, we're so glad you're here. Whether you're exploring faith, looking for authentic community, searching for hope, or simply wondering who Jesus is, there is a place for you. - We'd love to help you take your next step. Through our Bible study classes, Connect Groups, Support and Recovery, our Veterans Bible Study and Breakfast, our serving teams here at the church and in the community, our young adults ministry equip or FC Sports, there's a place here for you to grow. To take your next step,

simply tap your seat or grab the Connect card in front of you and take a moment to fill it out. Our team will reach out first thing this week and if there's something on your heart you'd like prayer for, we'd be honored to pray with you. - Red flags matter, but can you spot them before it's too late? Can you see the yellow flags that tell you to slow down and what about the green flags that tell you this could be the one? How do you choose the right relationship? Prepare for marriage and navigate passion in a way that honors God, it's not easy, but you don't have to figure it out alone. That's why we're talking about RPM, a series beginning next Sunday at Fellowship Church with Pastor Ed Young. Everything gets easier once you get married. - Yeah, just put it in cruise control. - That's actually terrible advice. - Exactly, every marriage has a dashboard. Are the warning lights flashing? Is your marriage running on empty? - There is too much at stake. You don't have to figure out how to have a great marriage on your own. - Join us for RPM, beginning next Sunday. - Thank you for choosing to spend

part of your weekend with us. Never forget that Jesus sees you, loves you, and has a purpose for your life. The best is yet to come. - That is absolutely right. How's everybody doing today? Welcome to Fellowship Church. - Hi, my name's Derek Bono. I'm one of our leaders on staff here. Can we welcome all of our first time guests who are joining us? We're so glad and honored here and online. I'm so glad to have you. You know, we believe that we are all wired by God for community, and I have to believe this is the best community on the planet. How do I know that? Because we got people every Sunday that are driving like over an hour to get to church. Can we put our hands together for those people? Somebody get them a gas gift card this morning. Check this out. I was speaking with a gentleman this week who goes to our Frisco campus. He said they drive an hour and a half every Sunday morning. And he said, we didn't grow up going to church. Our marriage was struggling, and a friend invited us to fellowship, so we came, and we looked at each other and thought,

this is what's missing in our life. So get this, they start coming to church every Sunday, and back in May, their daughter, the mom, the dad, they all gave their lives to Jesus. All of them were baptized on the same day together. And his name's Blake, and I was talking to Blake this week, and he said, man, I'll just tell you right now, before coming to fellowship, before surrendering our lives to Jesus, felt like we were in a fight every day on our own. But now we got Jesus in the fight with us, and we are winning. So listen, we wanna help you find that kind of community and life change here at Fellowship Church. So please take a moment right now if you haven't, tap your seat or fill out our connect card. We'll follow up with you this week. Just drop it in the offering in just a moment. And because we wanna hear more stories like that one, we're going to receive our offering. We wanna thank you, church. You know, last week we're gonna celebrate, we hosted first responders and their families from around the community, showing them appreciation, showing them love, showing them honor, and not only here at church that we honor them, but we went out in the community, we took care packages to them, we had letters from FC kids, and we just showed these first responders,

how much they mean to us, we got to pray with them. So church, thank you for your generosity, making things like this possible. And another exciting thing is our brand new home for our children and students, young adults and families, the anchor center, construction is underway, friends. And we are believing Jesus to anchor so many lives to Himself, so thank you for making it possible. I'm gonna call our hosts forward. Let's put our hands together for all God's doing. Thank you, God. The best is yet to come. You're going to hear more about him in just a moment. We're so delighted and thrilled for you to hear this message. Get ready. It's super powerful. But before we do, I want to read something to you. This is from a devotional that we have in our source cafe. It's called New Morning Mercies. And hopefully we have some leftover because after last service, so many people bought them, we might be sold out, but we can sign you up for the next batch. But in regards to what we're here to do today, worship God. Everybody say worship, worship. We're all wired for worship. Cowboys kick off at three. There's going to be some unbelievable worship happening around three o'clock today. Great worship, though, wrong object. And this is why we come to church and gather. I want you to hear these words right here. It says, speaking of worship says, I carry all the seductions and attractions of life

in a fallen world into worship this morning. I need to have my values reoriented and my celebration recalibrated anybody. I need to become, once again, a thankful man. More specifically, I need to not just be thankful for the ease and comforts and accomplishments of life, but thankful for things of eternal value. As I sing along with my brothers and sisters, I take in each phrase and begin to remember the impossibility of my sin and the totality of the solution that is found only in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness seems like a minor thing, but it robs you of worship, identity, humility, courage and hope. So today, I remember Jesus and what he's done. And I thank God that he ordained for us to gather and remember anybody thankful for that this morning. So I'm going to invite you right now to stand to your feet. We're going to pray and we're going to sing and I challenge you. That's what this time is about, not the person to the left of you. The person to the right of you, the people on this stage. It's a moment for you to remember who he is, what he's done. Holy spirit. In this holy moment, we need a reset. Will you reorient? Will you recalibrate our hearts as you remind us who you are and what you've done. We do it all for you, Jesus. Let's worship together. ♪ ♪ Everything changed, it's getting hard in the wrecking lines ♪ ♪ That old person knows, before I encounter crimes ♪ ♪ No, I don't want what I got used to ♪ ♪ No, I don't talk like I used to ♪ ♪ So I've been washed from the inside ♪

♪ I've been washed from the inside ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Oh, the voice of God, oh, good, it won't be good ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ I don't know, no, it won't hurt us ♪ ♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ And I cannot explain it ♪ ♪ But nothing's more real than this ♪ ♪ In the presence of God ♪ ♪ Oh, with my own experience ♪ ♪ And when my shame hit the wayside ♪ ♪ And my sin hit the most high ♪ ♪ I was washed from the inside ♪ ♪ I was washed from the inside ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Oh, I know it won't be worse to play ♪ ♪ 'Cause you won't need me ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Say, "Hallelujah, hallelujah." ♪ ♪ Oh, I know it won't be worse to play ♪ Have you received? Have you trusted in the sacrifice of Jesus? Would you fix your eyes on Him today? And trust the word that is already completed? Never been it, oh, it's never without the rules of affection Or stir-eyed and full of sentences Let me tell you, it's only by the blood Do you believe it?

It's never been about to sue you Or anything, it's a gift He's already given it, so let me tell you It's only by the blood, receive it today Does anyone you want to be heard? Receive it, her eyes is receiving You are a fight, it's fun Let me tell you, it's cold Let me tell you, it's only by the blood Does anybody want to be heard in Him? It's a gift, it's only by the blood, receive it Let me tell you, it's only by the blood I'll do you, we stay, we stay See our legs, so let me tell you, thank you He paid the debt, oh, I know it was the fact It could have only been the fact See our enemies If we've got some grateful people in this church Let's declare this way See, it's never been about performance All the passion, what's driving for acceptance Let me tell you, oh, it's only by the blood And it's never been about to sue you Or anything, it's a gift Let me say, it's only by the blood, receive it Let me tell you, it's only by the blood, receive it today Does anybody want to be heard in Him? Let me tell you, it's only by the blood Does anybody want to be heard in Him? It's only by the blood, receive it

Let me tell you, oh, it's only by the blood Let's say, thank you, let's say, thank you I know it was the fact It could have only been the fact See our enemies Thank you, oh, it's only by the blood I know it was the fact It could have only been the blood Welcome, welcome, welcome to Fellowship Church for Mainstanding We have a very special guest today He's a dear friend of mine He is dooberly talented He's an author He's a communicator, teaching pastor at two churches In the Nashville area His wife is Jennifer His family fled Iran back in the day And he transitioned, he converted from Islam to Christianity He literally speaks around the world And I want us to give him a crazy rounded applause I'm talking about David Nasser ♪♪♪ Good morning Man, I gotta tell you, I am so grateful for Pastor Ed and Pastor Lisa Young And the day that God just gifted Jennifer and I, their relationship And just their investment into our life Was such an incredible moment And we are just better because of it And I know God gets the glory But I just want to honor you, Pastor Ed, and just say

So grateful for you Can we just thank him for your leadership, your servanthood It's good to be with you I want to, if I can today, talk to you about vision I think a lot of times people get vision partially right And what I mean by that is so often Somebody will think about vision Or they think about a visionary And in their mind, they're thinking about futuristic thinking They're thinking about when they talk about a visionary someone who sees a preferred way. when they think that way, they're just not complete. That's one third of the equation. And so today, I wanna kinda push against this definition of vision being just someone who is able to see it before it's built or is able to feel it before it's even felt. I wanna kinda come around and look at a biblical definition of it. And what I'd love to do is to look at the way that the Apostle Paul defined it. Now, when you talk about the Apostle Paul, you talk about a guy who certainly as a human being had his own affinities on how he communicated in his communication styles. If you, by the way, get around posture ed, you're gonna get a lot of basketball, you know? But people don't know about him, by the way, is that he was a D1, he played basketball for Florida State. I looked it up, by the way, I found it.

I actually found the program, I was out looking for it. 94 schools offered this man a full ride. He ended up at Florida State. And so when you hang with him, you get a lot of basketball. He doesn't really care about football. I told you he went to Florida State, I'm a Bama fan. We ate dinner last night during the Florida State Bama game. He didn't even know, 'cause he doesn't care about football. But if it was a basketball game, we would have not been eating dinner. He'd have been watching the team. So when you hang with Ed Young, you get a lot of basketball. When you hang, I teach at two churches in town. And one of them happens to be a baseball player pastor. And so you get a ton of baseball illustrations. He's also a fisherman. You get a ton of fishing illustrations. Another church I speak at, 12 times a year. The guy was a D1 level receiver on the football team. So you get a ton of receiver illustrations. When you hang out with me, you get a lot of tennis illustrations. It was the one sport, I'm decent at. I say tennis, and you start laughing. You're like, I thought pickleball killed it. It still exists, all right? Not all the courts have been transformed into pickleball courts. But I love tennis. And I say all that to say, when you get the apostle Paul, you get a lot of field and track.

The man was obsessed with field and track, actually with track. Seven times in the epistles that Paul was in the Pauline theology that Paul gives us, he talks about running a race. And that was certainly his sport. And today is no exception. He's going to give us field and track here in the sense that he wants us to know that life to him is not so much about a basketball game, where you got like the locker room culture, and the bench culture, or life today is not so much about tennis, where you got to ace it in life, and not double fault in life. Life he wants us to know is like a track. Where we go on the track, and there's a starting line, there's the track that we're running, and there's a finish line. And Paul's going to give us that kind of verbiage here today. And I really believe hidden in plain sight is this definition of vision that's tri-perspective, that I think will help us in life. Philippians three. Paul says, "I haven't obtained all of this." Or, "I haven't arrived at my goal." Like he's about to give us the definition, he's about to charge us on, but before he does, I love the footings he sets with humility. He's saying, "Hey, what I'm about to tell you, "I don't have fully figured out myself yet. "I want you to know I'm not bad in a thousand. "What I'm about to give you is more of a prescription,

"sometimes, than a description." Does that make sense? Like some of you need to hear that, because you've sat out on the run, on the race, 'cause you're just like, "I'm disqualified, "because I'm not bad in a thousand. "I want you to hear that one out of one people "that preach to you, including the Apostle Paul, "including David Nasser, including the guys right here, "in the bench in the front that are like your normal pastors "on any given Sunday here, they'll be the first to tell you. "We have a passionate, authentic pursuit "to deliver what we're preaching, but none of us, "bad a thousand, none of us have this figured out. "So often, you're gonna hear a sermon, "and when you're hearing a sermon, "it is a prescription, and not a description of only, "I'm getting to say this, 'cause I've nailed it "every single day, 24/7 in my life." And so, if you're here today, we're just a bunch of mess-ups. And Paul's saying, "I haven't figured this out yet, "but just because I haven't figured this out yet, "it doesn't mean that the enemy gets to whisper in my ear "and call me to disqualify, and so I'm gonna get in the game. "I'm not gonna sit it out." So he says, "I haven't figured this out yet. "I don't have it who I've arrived at my goal, "but one thing that I know is I press on, "and I take hold of that for which Christ Jesus

"has already taken a hold of me." And then he reminds us, this is a family conversation of brothers and sisters, this is a family talk. He says, "Brothers and sisters, I don't consider myself "yet to have taken a hold of it, but one thing that I do, "I forget what is behind, and I press on towards the goal. That's the three facets, the three sightlines of vision. I forget what is behind. I strain towards what is ahead, right? And I know that I'm pressing towards the goal. Now, what is the goal? He tells us right after that. The goal is to win, to win what? The prize, which God has called me heavenward in Christ. Jesus, all of us then, who are mature should take such a view of this. And if one some point you think differently, then that too, God will make clear. So three sightlines that we want to know about vision. Vision isn't just thinking of a picture of a preferred way. Vision is tri-perspective. Three sightlines, and the first one is this. In vision, we want to be refined by the past. When Paul says, I forget what is behind, he's not saying I've got the spiritual amnesia where I don't even remember what's happened. He's saying this, I'm remembering it, but I'm not reliving it. In life, we want to be refined by our past.

Now notice, if you're taking notes, I didn't say defined by our past, but refined by our past. We don't want to waste the past. We want to learn from all the things that have happened to us in the past. We want to be forged by it. We want, in one sense, be chiseled by it, but we don't want it to become everything. It's one thing to remember the past. It's a whole other thing to wake up every day and relive it, and relive it, and relive it. Somebody's hearing me say this in one of our campuses here at Fellowship, and as you're hearing this, you know what I mean when I say, every day you wake up and you're defined by your past. And I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry if he made a promise and he walked an aisle and he told you he was gonna be faithful and he wasn't faithful. I'm sorry if he broke your heart and I'm sorry that right now you are in your mid-40s and you're divorced, but I want you to know that you've maybe decided to let that be the primary label over you, but God is not seeing you primarily as divorced and done with. You can be refined by that past. You can let those tests become a testimony. You can let them become something

where you didn't waste the hurt and all of those things. You can be scarred but not smarter. You don't want to be defined by the past and the enemy loves to whisper in your ear you're always gonna be a porn addict. You're always not gonna let your temper get it. Did you see what you said? Did you see what the enemy loves to remind you of your past, but you're never gonna get to where you're going. If all you do is just stare at the rear view mirror. You gotta stop being defined by your past. It's not just by the way, don't be defined by all the hurt in the past. It's also like don't be defined by the victories of your past. Some of you, you live out what I call, you know, Bon Jovi theology, you know? It's always, you know, remember days of skipping school, racing cars and being cool with the six back and the radio. We didn't need no place to go. Never say goodbye. Yeah, you don't throw back. Or Brian Adams, you know, I got my first real six string, bought it at the five in time, played it till my fingers bled. It was the, yeah, it's not 69 anymore. You're 45 years old and you're selling aluminum siding, quit living in your high school years.

You're still in like Friday night lights. Like one day, me and the guys, we did this and we did this. You're retaining fluid in your knees, get over it. (audience laughing) And some of you all just live in your past. You live in your past. I heard Kirk Herp Street the other day say this. These guys were going in the locker room after they upset this team a couple of weeks ago. And Kirk Herp Street said, "I hope they have a good time. I hope they can get their phone out. I hope they can memorize. I can remember this moment. It will be the greatest moment of their life." And I thought, "Wow, I hope these guys that are 19 have a lot more living to do and to always have to remind someone. When I was 19, the corner of my finger blocked the ball (audience laughing) and it yielded in a moment of glory. Quit letting your past define you. By the way, if you let it define you, things go good and at best it yields pride. Things go horrible and at best it yields pity. But you gotta stop being defined by your past and be refined by your past. Now, beyond that, you don't just want vision to be, I'm refined by my past. You also want it to be where you're resilient

in the present, resilient in the present. You're resilient in the present because you've seen God's faithfulness in the past, amen? That's what mission you get up today. You're like, "I know because God was faithful in my yesterday's. God is faithful today. I don't know what today holds, but I know who's holding it. I know right now that this is gonna be all right because it's not on me. Why? Because we just sang it a minute ago. By the way, we're just singing that a little minute ago, that by the blood of Jesus, only hallelujah, hallelujah. It's only by the blood, it's only by the blood. Think about this, that your yesterday's were covered by the blood. So if you're right here now, looking back on your yesterday's, what you see is the blood of Jesus. Let's say you wanna peek in through the shower, curtain of blood, God's going, it's gone, it's paid for. So my resiliency, my endurance, my building and immune system for the circumstances around me and the moment that I'm in is that I'm clear, I'm clear headed and what's going on in the present. And I'm resilient, not based on my power, but based on the power that carried me through it all. There's something internally going on in the moment that's bigger than what's going on on the outside. I wanna remind you of something, we're reading Philippians. They call this the Epistle of Joy, 17 times. This man, this man is obsessed with joy in this Epistle. There's a letter that he's writing.

But you know, we know Paul's the author and we know he's writing to the church in Philippi, but the location of the letter is interesting. Paul is literally sitting in the mammer time prison. He's literally in Rome at the forum sitting there. He is in prison after having spent 10,000 miles on foot declaring the glory of God, after being shipwrecked, after having been beaten, after being misquoted, all of that stuff, how is that working out for him? He is literally in a prison cell chained to a centurion and he's writing and he's dripping with joy. He knows any minute they're gonna take me out. He knew, this wasn't like, well, this might happen. He knew, he knew at that moment that he's sitting in that prison cell, any moment they're gonna pull me out of this day, out of this prison cell, they're gonna take me outside the city walls. That's what they would do to a Roman citizen. They would afford a Roman citizen, a swift death. That was a gift and not a torturous one. He knew they're gonna take me outside the city walls. If you've ever been, there's literally a place right outside the city walls of Rome called Tre Fontana. Tre Fontana is a monastery where our Catholic friends say that that's where Paul was beheaded. And when he was beheaded, his head bows three times and three fountains is weird, but anyway, so if you go, Paul knows, he's sitting in the memory time prison.

He knows that any minute now, they're gonna take me outside the city walls. And when they take me outside the city walls, they're literally going to turn me upside down physically. They're going to behead me. All the blood is going to rush out of my body. And then they're gonna sew my head back on and put me in a catacomb. And he has resiliency in the moment because literally in that moment, you know what his response is? Bring it on. And literally says, he goes, "For I have already been poured out as a drink offering." He's like, "You trying to kill me?" I died on this place right here called the Damascus Road. I'm already, there's nothing you can do to me 'cause what is internal is driving what is external and not the other way around. Some of you have lost your resiliency because the outside is constituting the inside and not the other way around. A buddy of mine was telling me that he flew to this place to Cuba, to go see this church that they had planted, this work that they were doing. He said, "We get to Cuba." He goes, "I get picked up, we're driving to the place." It's about an hour and a half drive. He said, "The whole drive over, everybody's outside." And so I tell my guide, I ask my guide.

I said, "Man, why is everybody outside?" And they said, "Well, we haven't had electricity "for three, four days." They didn't know everybody's outside 'cause it's cooler than being in these buildings where it's so just hot. And he said, "In my mind, I thought, "when we get to the place we're going, "I've been asked to speak to over a thousand people, "there's not gonna be a sound system that's working "because there's no electricity." He goes, "We pull up, we go inside, "lights her on, air conditions going, sound systems going." He said, "Look at the guy." And I go, "Why do we have a sound?" I thought, "There's no power." He goes, "Oh no, your church spot for us. "Thank you very much a generator." He goes, "When there's power here, good. "When there's no power here, good. "We don't need them. "We don't rely on the government. "We have a generator. "Look at me. "You and I don't rely on the circumstances. "We have a generator." Now that illustration breaks down. It breaks down because that's back up. But in the upside down kingdom, in the kingdom of God,

our internal generator given to us by the power of the blood. Amen? The resurrection power is what drives us. And you need to build an immune system that has resiliency, not because you're awesome, but because he's awesome, not on your power, but his power. You can't let the circumstances drive everything. You can't say, "You know, when my wife got pregnant "and she had her first child, she stopped being attracted to me and everything. And that's why I'm having an affair with my assistant. Like, listen, I'm not telling you that she shouldn't get treatment. I'm not telling you that that doesn't matter. I'm just telling you, you made a covenant that was bigger and the circumstances. So quit letting the internal, quit constantly being a victim, not just of your past, but your present. Like, it's that perspective, your resiliency is like, there's something going on here. I was consulting the other day with two churches back to back. It was interesting, 'cause it's back to back. Zoom call, I'll sit with this pastor, and literally this one pastor of a church says to me, "Man, when COVID happened, we lost about 3,000 people." An hour later, an hour later, this other pastor says to me, "It was interesting when COVID happened, "we gained about 2,000 people." Same COVID.

For one, it was an obstacle. For the other one, it was an opportunity. The resiliency is, what's got up to you? What's going on? I might be bent, but I'm not broken. I have an internal generator that's driving my parenting, that's driving my marriage, that's driving my decision-making. Amen? It's not, if it's sunny outside, I'll go out and play. It's, I'm weatherproof. What can man do to me? So, I'm not telling you that you can't be oppressed by COVID, but you can't be possessed by COVID. You can't be possessed by the circumstances around you. So, we wanna be refined by our past. We wanna be resilient in the present. And here's the thing, if you're refined by your past and you're resilient in the present, guess what you're gonna be? You're gonna be arrested in your future. You're gonna be arrested in your future. You're gonna be resting every single day, perpetually in your future. Are you resting in your future? If you're a Christian in this room today, can I just say, you can rest in your future, you win. You win. Have you read the end of your Bible? We win.

We win. As a matter of fact, I want you to say this out loud with me. Say, "I am." Say, "I am." You get to say this, by the way, because the great "I am" is your "I am." Say, "I am." Oh, war. Already won. You already won. Have you read, have you read, we win. Paul is sitting there, refined by his past. Paul is sitting there and he's got vision for his future and he's like, "I'm gonna win the prize 'cause he knows the final score." He wins. He wins, not because Paul is awesome, but because his God is awesome. He wins by works, but not Paul's works, but Christ works on the cross. He wins. Anybody watched the game, not yesterday, but the game last weekend, and I say the game, because I'm talking, of course, about the game. You know which one is the game? When Kirk Herb Street decides, that's the one I'm gonna go call. And not this last Saturday, but last Saturday, Texas against Ohio State. The game, right?

Any Texas fans here? You know what I'm talking about? The game. I'm not a Texas fan, but I watch the game. I had a buddy of mine who's a big Texas fan and he's an artist and so a music artist and so I was just blowing up his phone during the game and he wasn't responding, so I figured he had a show. And so the next morning we finally caught up, we're driving, I'm driving to church. He calls me, he's like, "Dude, I gotta tell you." He goes, "I'm sitting on the tour bus last night." He goes, "I'm flipping around." He goes, "And Texas is just getting killed." It's 20 to three, when they came in my bus and said, "Hey, we need to get you to come on out." Like, they're ready for you. He goes, "So I turned the TV off "and I thought this game was over at 20 to three." Texas has three points. Ohio State's got, you know, 20 points. He goes, "I go do my show." He goes, "I get back on the bus." He goes, "As soon as I put the little code in, "the bus opened up." He goes, "I walk in the bus." And he goes, "This guy's sitting on the bus. "A friend of mine looks at me." And he goes, "All right, all right, all right." (audience laughs)

He got McConaughey. Do you know what I'm talking about? Matthew McConaughey, "All right, all right, all right." He goes, "I look." And he goes, "All right, all right, all right." He goes, "Nope, it's not all right. "We just got killed. "I wonder if they're gonna keep us in the top 10." He goes, "No, you don't know." He goes, "They came back, bro." He goes, "Your team came back." And then he said, "He tells me the final score." He said, "Then he leaves 'cause he's gotta go "start tearing down and everything." He said, "I'm sitting there. "I'm watching this game and I know the final score." He said, "There was so much excitement "that the word I would use here since we're looking "at Philippians, the epistle of joy. "Is there so much joy in watching a comeback "when you know the final score is we win?" (audience applauds) Do you believe this? Do you believe as a Christian, you can literally fumble the ball in your marriage. You can lose a lot of battles. You can lose a lot of battles. But if you have Jesus, you're a war already won. You can throw a lot of interceptions. You can fumble a lot of balls.

but if you know Jesus, say I am a war, already won. You win, you win. By the way, the other side of that's true too. You can win every battle in life. I win the battle on money. I knew exactly when to buy Nvidia stock before it even started. I went, you can win every battle in life, but if you don't know the Lord, you are a war right now lost. But at 180s, if you know him, you're a war already won. And so vision is three things. It's refined by the past. At the same time, resilient in the future, why? Because I'm resting in, I'm resilient in the present because I'm resting in the future. And this isn't just a leadership talk that belongs at the C3 conference or whatever. This is the reality of how life functions every single day. When you realize some of you right now are not everything you could be in the present or everything that you could be in the future because you just continue to get snagged, the sweater snacked on the past. You keep being defined by it. And God's going, I wanna heal that for you. Just to testify to it in my own life, I'll tell you like a few years ago, I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, and I was driving down to go to the beach to speak, the Panhandle of Florida.

I was driving to Destin, Florida to go speak at a conference. And I got in my car, and it was like a five hour drive, so I thought I'll just drive it instead of flying. It's easier, and so by myself in the car, and I'm going down this one highway, the highway's called 331. And as I'm going down this one highway, I was running late. I was like, I gotta get there 'cause they wanted me there by five o'clock for sound check or whatever. And so I'm in the car, and as I'm driving, all of a sudden I see this big sign that says detour. And I thought, well, that means I'm just gonna be even more late. And so it detours me down from this highway 331 down to 231, and I'm telling you that part because all of a sudden I'm being rerouted, and I end up in a city that I never go to anymore called Dothan, Alabama. Now Dothan, Alabama used to be about 30 minutes away from Enterprise, Alabama, which was a city that I used to live in when I was in middle school and when I was a freshman in high school and a junior in high school. And I remember I get to Dothan, I get to Dothan, and again, all I'm thinking about is like, how do I catch up on some time? I'm running late, and so I'm going fast, and I get to the south of town,

and as I'm on 231, trying to get there as fast as I can, rerouted and everything, I look up and I see this sign, and I look down and I realize it, the sign said, Olympia, swim, and tennis club. And then it dawned on me that like, wow, I've been there before. And I used to be on the tennis team in Enterprise, and it dawned on me that I had played tennis there at a tennis tournament for my high school one time. So I drive past it, and I thought, oh, I remember Olympia, that's cool. See, like, all these years later, it's still there, and I drive by it, and as I'm driving, and as I'm kind of in the car, all of a sudden my hands start shaking, and then all of a sudden, I just start weeping. And that's not normal for me. Like, I've never had a panic attack. I know people who do, but all of a sudden, I'm just like, what is happening to me? And I just start weeping, I'm just like ugly cry, you know? And I see a Wendy's, and I pull up in this Wendy's, I'm in the parking lot, I'm just like telling myself, what's happening, I'm just crying. And people are coming out of the Wendy's, like, I'm sure they're looking at me like, are the frosties that good? You know, it's just weird, I said, I get it. And so I'm just there, and while I'm there, all of a sudden, it hits me, it dawns on me

that I had blocked out what had happened to me for well over 20 years at the Olympia Swimming Tennis, when I was a junior in high school. So I'm sitting there, and then it just comes back to me that when I was a junior in high school, my tennis team, Enterprise's tennis team, had gone to a regional there, and we were playing Dothan. And while we were there, all of a sudden, this perfect storm had brewed up where literally three to three, three matches against three matches, there was a tie-break match, and my match had become the tie-break match. I was the sixth seed on my tennis team, and then all of a sudden, everybody was done with their match, and if I won this one tennis match, three to three tie, I'd have broken the tie for us, and we would have gone to state. And I'll never forget, nobody normally cared about what the sixth seed did, but everybody was there, my whole tennis team was there, and they were like, you can do it, Nasser, you're gonna take us to the final, it's gonna be amazing, and normally I was the nerd, nobody's like, I didn't get bullied by the bully, I got bullied by the kid, they got bullied by the bully, I was the one kid below him in the food chain. But all of a sudden, that was cool. The guys on my tennis team were like, come on, Nasser, and then all of a sudden, my dad showed up, my dad had never come to any tennis match. but he'd gone to Dothan to pick up some supplies

and my mom had said to him, "Hey, they're playing in Dothan, swing by and see it." So my dad, for the first time and only time, had come to this. And so you gotta understand, I'm Iranian military, Iranian, tough dad. He's sitting there. And then the girls' tennis team that were playing elsewhere had been finished early. They came over, they heard, they came over to support the guys. And this girl was there, this girl that I really liked. Please call it harassment, but I called it love. I'm just telling you, I love this girl. And she never noticed me, but now she's being faced, have to sit in the stands and watch me. And in my mind, I thought, man, I'm gonna take us to state. This girl's gonna like me, it's gonna be amazing. My team is gonna like me, my dad's here, the one time I get, this is awesome. We start the match and it's 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 4-0, 5-0, 6-0, the biblical term for that is buck whooping. And I'm on the receiving end, he beats me 6-0. My teammates are no longer saying you can beat 'em, they're like, you can get a game. So he's won the first set, it's best out of three sets, he's won the first set, 6-0. I'm at Bagel, he's at six, I get up between towel offs, we're about getting ready to go to the second set. And I stand up, everybody's there, my dad's there,

the girl is there, my teammates are there. I stand up and I'm just so insecure in that moment, right? So I reach for my bag and I get my tennis racket, I'd like four tennis rackets in the bag and as soon as I pulled out the tennis racket, I looked at the guy, that way I was playing my opponent and I said, hey man, you ever seen the inside of one of these rackets? And he looked confused, he goes like what? I said, you ever seen the inside of one of these rackets? And he goes no, and then I took the racket and I broke it. As if to say, you might be killing me, but I'm so cool, I can break $100 rackets. When you're insecure, you know what I'm saying? I just manifest itself in these weird ways, oozes. And I broke that racket, graphite, anybody can break it. And I said, this is what it looks like on the inside. And I flipped it and I threw it in the bag and I grabbed the other racket like, I'm so rich. And I walked over for the second set and as I'm walking over to the court, all of a sudden I hear David and I turned around and my dad had gotten out of the stands. He'd walked over, opened the gate, walked on the court. He's standing there by my tennis bag and he goes, come here. Now imagine, Iranian military father. I looked at him and I said, dad, I gotta match. He goes, you come now. And I walked over to my dad and as soon as I got to reach,

he just reared back and he just slapped me. I'll never forget the sound. It was giggles and gas but at the same time, it was 20 people in the stands going, 'cause my dad just slapped me. And I'm just telling Pastor Red, the side he didn't slap was redder than the side that he slapped because it just shaved. An embarrassment. I felt like, man, normally stuff like that happens, no one's seeing now. Everybody I care about is seeing my teammates. And then he looks at me and he goes, give me the racket. I'm standing there, I'm shaking. I remember I'm just so embarrassed. And he goes, give me the racket. I give him the racket. He puts the racket down. He grabs the one that I had broken out of my tennis bag. He hands it to me and he goes, play with this. I walk back to the place where I'm about to be ready and ready to receive the serve. The guy's looking at me like, dude, what do I do? I'm just like, bro, just finish me off. He was beating me so bad with a good racket. Now I had a broken racket. Took him like five minutes to finish me. Now 10 minutes to finish me off, 6-0-6-0. We got done. Nobody said anything that day.

We got in the vans. We went home a couple of days later, somebody went practice, broke his string, and they broke the barrier. They, hey, he broke his string. Give it to NASA. He plays with broken rackets and everybody giggled, and a couple more things happened. And fast forward 22 years later, and I've just driven by the place where so much shame and hurt and pain. I'm sitting in this windy's parking lot. I'm just weeping and I'm just like, man. I wasn't a Christian then. My dad wasn't a Christian then. But man. So I mustered up enough courage. (gentle music) So I thought, so what? And I got in the car and I went back up. I drove two miles back up to the Olympia Tennis Club. And I knew exactly where it was. I knew exactly where I had been scarred. I walked. I got out of the car. I walked right to that spot. And I sat in the very spot where my dad slapped me. And I just closed my eyes and I said, I forgive you. I forgive you. I'm no longer gonna let this moment

that happened 20-something years ago define my relationship with you. It has had its fangs in me. And I forgave my dad. Got in the car, went to the event. Didn't call my dad on the drive home to say, I forgive you 'cause he'd have been like, for what? By the time you hit me, which time? That'd have been, that's how they have. Because it wasn't for him, it was for me. And can I just tell you, I don't have the psychology around it, but I can just tell you right now, all of a sudden no longer defined by that moment, I had more resiliency in these moments. My dad passed away 10 months ago. And that relationship was so rich, why? Because vision is not getting amnesia, it's remembering, but not reliving. (gentle music) And forgiving, so many tears in this room, because for some of you, this went from like a leadership talk to like all of a sudden, you're thinking about your dad, and you're thinking about the boss that made you promises that he didn't play out, like your boss told you, you're immune to the economy, and then you were the first to be like, the fake lifters got to keep their job, the hardest working got like, I'm sorry that happened,

but I just want you to know, look at it, I want you to know that in this moment, God is saying, this is real, but don't let it rob you of who I've given you, the new identity that I've given you, the hope that it can be rested in the future. If you're weeping through this, I want to tell you that in these moments, the reality of it for you, I don't know what your tears are for, man, like looking at you right here, and you, man, looking, I want you to know, if you're in this moment, you can do this. I sat in that tennis court and I thought, what happened? Like literally, what happened? That day, he brought shame, he brought embarrassment. That day, he got to define the label over me with my tennis team, that I thought, this is what happened, then I thought, what did it cost? Can I say what it cost? It cost a bit of a governor on the way that I trusted people, not just my dad, but other people, the way that I parented my kids, so it's like, what happened, what did it cost? If this is you right now, this is for you, what happened, what did it cost, and now here's the deal. Now you know what it cost? Are you willing to give Jesus the bill? Oh, no, no, no. I want to give the person who hurt me the bill.

They don't care to pay it back, probably. You're thinking about them, they're not thinking about you. They can't even pay it back. But are you willing to give them the bill? And so vision is this idea that, like, I had the hope of the future because the healing is there. So can I get you just wherever you are, just to bow your heads with me? Some of you, this is for you, this is real for you. This isn't just a talk you're hearing. This isn't three songs and a TED talk this morning. This is, and God's word today is reminding me, the glory years and the glory years, whatever they are, they've defined me and I need to find resilience in the present and hope in the future because I need what's been snagging my sweater has been the woundings of the past. I wake up every day and I love Jesus and I hate the person who hurt me at the same time. I inhale love and I exhale hate and I'm just tired. I'm tired of it owning me, defining me. If that's you, wherever you are, we just lift your hand. This is for me today, okay? Anybody else? Do you believe that the power of Jesus, resurrection power is greater than the power of the wounded? Trust them in it. Some of you, today, what you needed to hear was that generator illustration, like the inside power of the gospel in you.

That's not your backup power. It's your primary power. It's bigger than the circumstances. Fight the good fight. Keep running the race. Press on. And man, the hope of heaven, amen? So good that we know we win. Or thank you for this moment. The same power that rose Christ from the grave is within me. I mean, never get over it. We pray this in your name. It's an honor to be with you, thanks for all of you. - Let's all thank David Nasser. What a great word, David. You know, David said something. Oh, he said many things, they were so, so profound, but I loved how he talked about Jesus taking the bill. And you know what Jesus has taken the bill of all of my sins and all of my phallops and all of your sins and all of your phallops. And I'm so grateful to God that I've applied that to my life and I want you to have an opportunity to apply that today. So you might be here, you could be in Dallas, you could be in Fort Worth, you could be in Frisco, you could be in Lasso, you could be online, you could be in the back seat of the balcony up there. And maybe you're like, you know what Ed?

I've never applied that, I've never made that decision. Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tell you how to do it and I want all of us to repeat what I'm gonna say. Now, I know many of us have said this before and we're believers, we're followers of Christ, but you will help others who've never made that confession to say the word. So just say these words with me. Just say, dear God, I admit to you that I'm a sinner. I turn from my sins and turn to you. I believe Jesus, that you died on the cross from my sins and paid the bill in full. And right now, I ask you to come into my life. I give you all that I am and all that I'll ever be. Thank you for saving me in Jesus' name. I believe many of you prayed that prayer for the first time. I'm gonna tell you something, that's the greatest thing, the best decision you'll ever make. And if you prayed that prayer for the first time, we would love to know about it. You'll see the tables here to my right, to my left. They're even in the balcony, they're in the back, they're at all of our different locations. After the service is done, we're almost done, just walk up to one of these folks and go, hey, I said that prayer with Ed, we have some things we want to give you.

Or maybe you're here and you're like, I need prayer. I mean, I've been living in kind of a rear view mirror state and I need help in this area. We wanna help you and serve you and pray with you. Maybe you're here and you have never made that decision to ask Christ into your life. I'm gonna promise you something. If you hang around here for about a month, God will change your life. Just give us a month. When I say, oh, I mean, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, just a month. And I promise you, God will indeed change your life. Next week, I am beginning, this might be my favorite series that I do. I've done it several times over the 35 years of fellowship church. It's called R P M R relationships. Life is about relationships, right? P passion and M marriage. Well, I've been married, it'll be 45 years. This June, and you thought I was 45. We have a lot of people who've been married for a long time. Some of you've been married just a few short months, a few short years. We have a bunch of people who are single, single adults, singles, maybe you're single again. This series is going to encapsulate and cover all of those. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to take out your cellular phone

just for a second. That's right, cell phone. Mine is, I thought I charged it last night. But here's what I'm gonna ask you to do right now. I'm gonna ask you, normally I would say don't, I'm gonna ask you to text in church. I want you to think about someone, the Holy Spirit is placing on your heart in mind right now. And I want you to text them an invitation to join you next Sunday at Fellowship Church. Well, Ed, I don't know anybody like that. Well, you know what? God will bring somebody into your life this week where you couldn't invite them. Because like 85% of people will come to church. Did you know that if you invite them? So I'm gonna give you just 15 seconds to text, to text some people. (whistling) (upbeat music) Don't show up. Man, we are texting, she's. See those thumbs, (mumbling) Okay. All right. You and I did, not that you care, but I'll tell you, you and I did this Friday. I've not done this this long. I went to a concert, a country music concert. You know this guy, Thomas Rhett?

Yeah, I went to that concert. You know, when you have your pictures with celebrities, that means you don't really know them. Have you ever thought about that? You look at someone's office. Oh, wow, there's you with Bon Jovi. Well, you don't know Bon Jovi. I thought I'd use him because David Nasser, was that a good imitation or what? That was really good. Anyway, okay, so we're done texting. Let's all stand because I have something else that we're gonna do. We wanna make a declaration together and we do this every Sunday. And let's say this. Are you ready? Here's Derek Bon Jovi. Derek, we need to get Thomas Rhett at our church. To do the declaration. Yeah. He could lead us in it. You go ahead and lead us, brother. Let's say it together, Jesus. Thank you that in you, I am loved, forgiven and blessed for you. I will reach out and worship, reach out to share my faith and reach in to become more like you. And because of you, I know.

We love you guys. We'll see you on next Sunday. ♪ Oh, I know that I know ♪ ♪ You won't ever let me go ♪