Next Level Loading | Pastor Earl McClellan

This is why I'm in my word. This is why I'm on my knees. This is why I'm in church. This is why I'm giving. This is why I'm serving. All these things are weapons and I'm fighting against the enemy of my soul that's trying to tell me, Earl, stay comfortable. Earl, it's all about you. Earl, your life is fine. Earl, you don't have to do any more. Earl, you're doing more than them, so you should just stay where you are. I got all these lies just like you have these lies, but I don't want to be content and stuck in some pain of the past or convenience of the present. I want to be all that God has called me to be, so Jesus, help me to conquer these demons that are trying to keep me bound. For those of you who like to take notes, for those of you who like to take notes, the title of today's message is this. You can jot it down. I'll put it on the screen for you as well. It is Next Level Loading. Next Level Loading. What I know about everyone who's under the sound of my voice today is you don't want to stay the same. I know that about you. You're not at church today in Dallas. At least it was raining today. I'm not sure what it's doing in Antigua, Guatemala. It's always beautiful down there, but it's raining here in Dallas, and some people turned around. They were like, I ain't going to church. That's all it took with some rain, and some of y'all thought about it, I'm sure. But for you to take the step, get yourself ready, kids ready if you need to. Maybe you were out last night and left a little bit early because you knew you had church the next day. Come on, we're glad you're here. Glad you're here. You want to grow. You want to mature. So I'm believing that today God's Word is going to really help us grow and develop and mature. We are in this series, if you will, called Summer Strong, where we are saying as a church family for the three months of summer, we're not taking steps backwards. We're not taking steps backwards spiritually, emotionally, relationally, financially, mentally, in any way. We want to make sure we're taking steps forward to become who God is calling us to be. So for the month of June, we're going through the book of Joshua. So I'm encouraging our entire church family to read one chapter from the book of Joshua every day. I am in this as well. I think a little bit ahead, which is good, but I'm asking everyone to read a chapter every single day. I want to talk to husbands and wives who maybe you drive in the car together. You might even work together. You work separate. I don't know, but you don't have any time together where you pray and read God's Word together. Let's do something different. For Summer Strong, let's say, hey, we're going to read our chapter of Joshua together. In the month of July, we're going to be going through the book of Acts, but

you can do that as a couple. Let me talk to those who might be dating somebody right now, and you spend all your time kissing. Hey, let's go ahead. Let's grab God's Word. This is actually where you're going to find out if this is the right person for you. That's good. It's when you're pausing, inviting God's presence, God's spirit into your relationship, saying, Jesus, we want you to be at the center, the crux, the cornerstone of this relationship. So maybe you start to do that this week. You start to pray together, and you start to begin to read one chapter of Joshua together, then you talk about the thing that God spoke to your heart that'll develop your relationship. Roommates, friends, I want all of us growing together. Let's be intentional this summer as we're looking at Summer Strong. Okay, so at all of our locations, we had the campus pastor read from Joshua chapter 24. That's the end of the book. Last week, Christine Kane was here speaking, and she, yeah, tore it up, and she talked about the beginning of the book, Joshua chapter 1. There's a whole bunch of stuff in between here, and that's what we're going to talk about today, some really large, overarching themes, but we're going to get to the meat of this book, of the Bible. I remember a few weeks ago when I told you all that our campus pastor here at Dallas, Eric Sewing, gave me a Chick-fil-A biscuit with no meat. I'm still upset about that. The man gave me a biscuit. The man gave me chapter 24 and chapter 1 with nothing in between. So today, today we're going to look at this stuff in between. And see if we can't have our hearts captured by the beauty and majesty of who Jesus is. Okay, here are some four big themes that popped into my mind that I see in the book of Joshua. Calling, first one. Next one is crossing. The next one is conquering. And the next one is compromise. Okay? First one, calling. What did I say the second one was? Crossing, that's right. Third one?

Conquering. Fourth? Compromise. Here are four big themes. Now, other theologians might put them in different sections, and I don't want to look at this book just totally allegorically. I think this is a very literal, historical context to the book of Joshua for sure. But as I was sitting back preparing for this message, these big themes jumped off the page of me. I don't know if it was four themes because it's four Sundays in the month of June. I don't know, but this is how they came to me. And as they came to me, these are the themes that are in Joshua, but I also saw these as themes in our life. These are some things that you and I are navigating through, that we're walking through. Now, it becomes really, really easy to me just because, you know, I did some Bible study and some things, and it might not jump off the page at some of us, but Joshua and Jesus, it's actually the same name just in different languages. One's Greek, one's Hebrew, but it's the same name. So, it's pretty easy to make the connection that our Joshua, who brings us into the promised land, is Jesus. That we have someone that we've been called to follow. We have someone that is taking us into our promised land. We have someone who is going ahead of us, and his name is Jesus. And I know in our day and age, Jesus can be thrown around a whole bunch, but I want to make it clear here at Shoreline City, Jesus, we don't think he's like a little add-on or a sticker or just something that you

would kind of put on your Instagram and be like, yeah, I'm cool with him. We believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that you don't get to God without him. But the good news is God came with skin on into the world, and every single man and woman, I don't care what nation you are from, I don't care what language you speak, I don't care how much money you have in your bank account, every one of us who call on the name of the Lord can and will be saved. Now, this is also for those who have made crazy mistakes. Those of us who feel ridiculously unqualified. Those of us who did bad things even on purpose. This is for those of us who are like, man, I'm looking at everybody else around me, and I feel like they have it all together, and I don't have it together, and what's wrong with me, and they must be better than me. You got to understand that the same grace that anybody you think that somebody else has is the same grace that's available to you. You do not have to earn this grace. You don't have to earn this love. You don't have to fight for it because Jesus fought for it for you. And it is readily available to every single man and woman. I know at all of our locations each week, and I love this, you're inviting your friends. You're bringing out people who are like, man, just come to church with me. Like, I haven't been to church in forever. Just come, man. Just come. Just come and hang out. I want you to know we're really, really glad you're here, and you're not on the outside looking in. You're already in.

You just don't know what Jesus Christ has done for you. You don't know the shed blood on that cross that's available to you. And today, you can go from lost to found and from dead to alive and from blind to seeing your soul can come alive in Christ. That can happen today for you. So in this text, though, you have the calling, and it's really clear in the beginning. Hey, Joshua, you and all these people, you're going into the promised land. There's someone that we're called to follow. His name is Jesus. And this following of... Go with me to Luke real quick, Luke chapter 9, Luke chapter 9. I don't know that I have this verse on the screen because I didn't send it to the team. But it popped into my head. Luke chapter 9, go with me to verse 23. I love hearing your Bibles turn too, by the way. It's a good thing. It's a good sound to have in church. Luke chapter 9, look at verse 23. Then he said to them all, this is Jesus speaking now, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross monthly. Take up their cross conveniently. Take up their cross when it just feels good. Take up their cross daily and follow me. Now, there's some really interesting things here about what Jesus says. Because we are not first century Jewish people, OK? We live in the day and age we live in. We live in the here and now.

So we tend to read the words of Jesus through the filter of our day and age. Makes sense, because this is where we are. The problem is Jesus uses the word cross and he uses the word follow. And we have those same words today, but they mean something different to Jesus than they mean to us. Follow. OK. We follow. Today, following for us is as easy as me grabbing my phone, seeing something I kind of like and going, boop, I'm following. No change to life, no adjustment of behavior, no seeing things differently. I follow you. Matter of fact, there's even a peer pressure in our day and age. If somebody follows you on Instagram, you feel like you got to kind of follow them back. You don't even have to like them. They're like, hey, hey, I followed you. Did you get my follow? Yeah. But you're kind of ratchet, so I didn't want to. I don't want that on my feed. See, maybe you follow them and then mute them. You ever block somebody? And then you did it without having a conversation with them, but you're blocking me like, yeah. Blocked.

You're kind of trying to say, we're not friends anymore. Blocked. I'm concerned that the way we handle our phones is the way we are currently handling our walk with Jesus. We think, and this is maybe no fault of our own. It might even be preacher's fault. I don't know. But we have so dumbed down the standard of what it means to be a follower of Jesus that people think if I just push a button, boop, I'm in. If it shows up in my algorithm, great. If it doesn't, I'm fine. I follow Jesus. That's not following like Jesus was talking about. And even the idea of cross, it's different for us today. Cross for us is like, ooh, it's cool. Ooh, tattoo. Let me get a cross here on my forearm. Let me get a cross on my thigh. Let me get a cross here behind my ear, a little cross. Real delicate, like, yeah. I'm down, I'm down, I'm down. Me and Jesus, yeah, yeah, yeah, me and Jesus. And I mean, if you want to get a tattoo behind your ear, do whatever you want to do, no problem at all. That's wonderful. But in our day, I mean, you've seen plenty of athletes, plenty of musicians that have crosses tattooed on them. But the cross is not, like, tattooed on them. So Jesus says, take up your cross daily and follow me. And we go, okay, I'll get a tattoo, I like him,

so I'll follow him, I'll push the button, but no change to my life whatsoever. I'll keep going down the same path I've always gone down, but I follow and I got a cross. Now, going back to the book of Joshua, remember we said the first part was calling, then the next part is crossing. So that means in the story of Joshua, if it can kind of mirror our lives a little bit, when we receive the call to follow Jesus, it is not a call to continue just down the same road we've always gone down. It will require us to cross from death into life. It requires us to go from who we were to who we are in him. It requires a change. It requires an adjustment. It requires something to die because anytime Jesus talked about a cross, he did not mean tattoo. Surely he did not mean tattoo. He actually was talking about this brutal Roman instrument of capital punishment that anytime a person went to the cross, they always died. No one ever came back. The cross always won. It always took the life of the one that hung upon it, including Jesus. Now, the glorious thing about Jesus is he did not stay on that cross, that he did go into the grave

and he came alive on that third day, inviting all of us into new life. But you and I only get the new life if we're willing to go through the cross. And we live in a day where people are trying to circumvent the cross and still get the life. You don't get the life without the death. If you want what Jesus has for you, you gotta be willing to cross over. So I'm not trying to turn us away. I'm trying to open our eyes up because some of our Christianity is so powerless. There's no power, no cross, no power. No cross, no power. No cross, no power. If we go, Jesus is a follow, like I just pushed it on my phone, that's not power there. Jesus is then like any, you can follow ESPN, you can follow your favorite artists, you can follow blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jesus is calling for a different follow. So in our day, this is tough. In our day, we have connected church attendance. That means I'm following. And I totally want you to be at church. I think it's a good thing for us. Even if I wasn't a pastor, I'd be in church, okay? And I'd come to this church, okay? And the reason I come, just so y'all know,

I don't ever want this church to be a church I wouldn't wanna go to, okay? Me personally. I'm like, because anybody can leave at any time. I gotta be here. So if I gotta be here, I wanna like it here. So I like the joy. I like the love. I like people serving. I like us all in this together. I like the prayer partners. I like that we have people and kids. I like that it looks like heaven on earth. I like so many things. I want to be here. If I wasn't a pastor, I would still be here. I want us coming to church, yes. But I'm not dare gonna dumb down your walk with Jesus to just church attendance. Because for years, especially in the church in the West, we thought, I went to church Sunday, I'm good. Living with little to no connection to the risen savior. No, Jesus wants your heart, your whole heart. Well, can he have half of it? Well, I mean, no, he wants the whole thing. And he's worthy of the whole thing, he is. This is actually where you come to life. This is actually where you find the most life. It's in a life-giving relationship with Jesus. So I want to help take off some of the, all the extras.

All the things that we maybe kind of made it about sometimes. And go, let's get back to, man I'm following Him. Like really following Him. The Hebrew idea of follow is I walk after. I walk after Him. Where you going? My dog does this to me. I guess it's because I rescued him and I kind of feed him all the time. So I can't get away from him. I go upstairs, Turks is right there. I go downstairs, Turks is right there. And everybody else in the house thinks he's cute. Oh, he loves you so much. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I cannot. Even on Saturdays, I try to, I forget so many times. I need to put him in his crate because I get up early on Sunday mornings. And once I wake up, once I'm up, he's up. So now I got to take him out to go to the bathroom. I got to give him his water. I got to give him his food. And he's all happy. But he's just right there. But sometimes I go, Turks, I wish I followed Jesus like you follow me. Where are we going today, Jesus? Feed me, Jesus. Hold me, Jesus. I wish I could take my walk with Christ to a whole nother level that I didn't just dumb it down to like, I kind of just take or leave him. No, man, he's my everything. There's a fire burning deep on the inside of me.

There's a passion, a desire for him that goes beyond any love or passion I have for anything else. Jesus, would you give me that type of connection with you? Would you become that real to me? Would you shake me from my apathy and me being just inconsistent or me even just being a little bit numb? Would you help me feel again? And I know I don't walk by my feelings, but I still want to feel you. I want to know that you and I have something real and deep here. I want your word to come alive to me when I read it. I want to jump off the page. I want my ear to be so tuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit that I cannot help but have my soul arrested. Anytime I get in your presence, I'm with your people. Jesus, do something deep on the inside of me. I'm crossing over. I'm going from where I was to something new, something fresh, something alive, something promised for all of us. So now when they get into the promised land, here's what's unique. In the promised land, and God has promised this land, so it's theirs and they still have to fight for it. So it's theirs, but they still have to fight for it. Here's the conquering piece. Taylor, can you hand me that gi right there, please? Thank you. Okay. This is a gi. This is from Kingdom Jiu-Jitsu. My man, Eddie and Christina. Some of y'all who are old enough, you might look at this and think karate kid. But this is not that type of place. This is a jiu-jitsu gym. So this is where, you know, you roll at this place. Now when I say roll, some of y'all are thinking something else. Yeah, I thought so.

So I'm not talking? I'm not talking that, okay? We don't do that. Okay? I'm talking you're on a mat with someone fighting, wrestling. This rolling is happening. I went to Kingdom Jiu-Jitsu one time. Been there once. Great place. Loved being there. I just happened to get my butt kicked, you know, when I went there. And I was rolling with Eddie, the owner. And I mean, I outweigh Eddie. I mean, I'm a big back. So I outweigh him. It's a significant weight differential. He's on his back. He starts on his back. He's like, come on. I'm about to get him, I'm from the hood, you don't know. So I get down, I'm on top of him, and I'm like, yeah, I'm sweating profusely, and he's just like. He's like doing nothing, and before I know it, he's got seven legs wrapped around my neck. You know, I'm tapping out. What, go with me, Ephesians, Ephesians real quick. Let me make sense of this, Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six, verse number 10. It says, finally, Ephesians chapter six, verse number 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle, some of your Bibles will say wrestle, for our wrestle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Okay, back to the gi, back to the jujitsu. When somebody enters into the octagon, or onto the football field, or onto wherever, they recognize that there's somebody else trying to stop me from victory. I have to defeat my opponent in order to gain the victory. In order for me to win the match, I'm gonna have to wrestle. I'm gonna have to fight. Why is it that we are so surprised that we are in a fight? Why are we surprised that some things are hard? Do you know in your marriage that their enemy wants to destroy it? Okay, he doesn't want it just to be average. He wants to kill it. He wants your marriage to die. A fast death or a slow death. He does not care, but he's trying to steal, kill, and destroy. This is what the devil does. This is what the enemy does. He has nothing in his life

where he's trying to bring you life. The enemy is trying to destroy your life. So if you have a marriage, and marriage is not just about a man and a woman liking each other, marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman that is actually a picture of Christ and the church, so now your marriage is a picture of God's love for the bride. Your marriage is a testimony to the world that Jesus is who he says he is and did what he said he did and loves how he says he loves, so your marriage is now a billboard. No wonder the devil's trying to put graffiti all over your marriage. Open up your eyes, family. There's a spiritual battle that's going on. No, I'm not saying every single thing that is coming at you is demonic. I don't believe that. Some things are bad habits. Okay? Some things are bad habits. Okay? So I don't think you can't counsel. I had heard a friend say you can't counsel a demon, but you can't cast out a bad habit. Okay, so both those things are true, but I do want to open up our eyes.

There's a promise God has for you. Opposition is part of it. So single people, you're like, I can't wait to get married. Then you're also saying, I can't wait to fight. Not just against your spouse. Come on, not just against your spouse. You and I, how many of us have some old habits and mindsets that we had with us when we were wandering around the desert and we were wandering for so many years, we got used to things a certain way. And now we're trying to come into our promised land. And now we have to fight against something that we let live in us for years and years and years. The good news is that the grace of God is available for every single one of us. The good news is victory is yours through Jesus Christ. That's the truth. The victory is yours, but you still got to fight. You still gotta fight, you still gotta fight, say I gotta fight. We're talking about next level loading, we're talking about us going from immature to mature, we're talking about our roots deepening, we're talking about us developing and growing. I'm not mad at any of us, I get lost in the sauce sometimes too and I just think what's going on in life is just happens to be life and nothing, and I gotta open my eyes sometimes to remember, put on your gi Earl, you are in a fight here, this is why I'm in my word, this is why I'm on my knees, this is why I'm in church, this is why I'm giving, this is why I'm serving, all these things are weapons and I'm fighting against the enemy of my soul that's trying to tell me, Earl, stay comfortable, Earl, it's all about you, Earl, your life is fine, Earl, you don't have to do anymore, Earl, you're doing more than them, so you should just stay where you are.

I got all these lives just like you have these lives, but I don't want to be content and stuck in some pain of the past or convenience of the present, I want to be all that God has called me to be, so Jesus, help me to conquer these demons that are trying to keep me bound. I don't want my past holding me back anymore. How long am I going to let me not having a dad be the reason I can't be a good dad? How long? How long am I going to let that person that did that thing back here and I stopped living there? I'm alive, but I stopped living, right there, because it hurts so much, because I turned 40 and I'm single, now I'm 44, I'm like, damn, I'll just wait until I die, it's done for me, no hope for me, no hope for me, and you don't have the life flowing through you, am I saying it's not hard? Yeah, it was hard. Let's let Jesus walk into those spaces right there. Some of us need to see Jesus walking backwards in our life, to the spot where we got stuck, and in that spot going, son, daughter, I love you, what I did on that cross is for you, I want you to get up from here, I want to heal you so you can come into your present. Compromise, let me get to this one, last one, last one, last one, last one, compromise. Because if I can't beat it, I might compromise with it. I go, well, this has been too difficult, I feel like I've lost so many times, let me just make a compromise, I'll make a compromise, okay, I won't keep pursuing God anymore if you devil stop bringing this up, deal? And anytime you shake hands with the enemy, and he says deal, just know, his proverbial fingers are crossed behind his back, and he's saying, yes, I'm coming for more. Because what happens for us is sin does not grow smaller with compromise, the evil just digs deeper, just digs deeper, just digs deeper, I got more of a hold, okay, God, I'll just look at pornography on Friday, it's Friday, because I've got to figure out a way, because it's been kicking my butt for so long, I'm just going to do Friday, that's not how it works, it doesn't stay smaller, compromise doesn't take it lower, no, no, it just digs

deeper. I wish I had the time to talk to you about the Munich Agreement, for those history buffs, this is years and years ago, Adolf Hitler, it was Britain and France made an agreement with Hitler, hey, you can have this part of the land, you can have, I think it was Czechoslovakia, you can have it, and they thought that'll keep them from another world war, Adolf Hitler just saw it as weakness, and came anyway. Some of us have given some parts of our lives. Parts of our family, some parts of our future, we go, okay, here, you can have that enemy. I just don't want a war. That's not the way it works. So compromise is killing us. It's sucking the life of God out of us. And what it's done is it's taken our eyes off of Jesus and put our eyes back on our feelings or how we're doing or our comfort or us feeling safe. But I want you to get your eyes back on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of your faith. Last verses and we're done here. Joshua chapter 24, let's go back there. Joshua 24, verse number 15. Man, let your grace flow, God. Joshua says to them in Joshua 24, 15, but if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods of your ancestors, which you used to do in the past, or the gods of the Amorites, maybe what your parents did, what your neighbors did, what culture is doing, in whose land you're living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Maybe you never read the next verses. You will this month, but some are strong. But verse 16 says, then the people answered, far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods. Verse 17, it was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt

from that land of slavery and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord because he is our God. I wonder what it would look like if we as a church family, individually and collectively, did a little inventory. We're like, man, God, you brought me from this to that, through this, through this, through this. You saved me. That was enough. You didn't have to do anything else. You forgave me of all my sins, and it was by grace through faith in Jesus. Oh my goodness, you've been so faithful to me. I'm looking at my family. I'm looking at how many times you've forgiven me. I'm looking at how many times you put me back on my feet. I'm looking at how many times I turned my back on you, but you kept on pursuing me. You have been so good to me for my entire life. Jesus, the only thing I can do is serve you with all of my heart. What would it look like, church family, if all of us said, yeah, Jesus, I'm in. Take me to the next level. I want it all. At every location, do me a favor, just bow your heads for just a moment. Don't want one bit of shame, one bit of guilt, but man, I sure want the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Is there a place in your life you're compromising right now? Sometimes it's because you're flirting with somebody who's not your spouse. That's possible. Or you're flirting with somebody who's somebody else's spouse, yeah, but sometimes the compromise is I'm holding on to unforgiveness.

Sometimes the compromise is, God, you can't have my money, but I'll give you my time. Sometimes the compromise is fill in the blank. Today's the day we get to repent. The good news is the grace of God is here online in the room to forgive. So God, let your grace and your love flow. Let your goodness and your glory flow. And Jesus, would you keep our eyes so fixed on you? As your heads are bowed, if you're under the sound of my voice and you've never given your heart and your life to Christ, you've never... You never made him first, you never made him number one. But you're saying, I don't want to go my own way anymore. I want to go the way of Jesus. I don't want to be first in my life. I want Jesus Christ to be first. If that's you, you've never given your heart to Christ or at one point in time you did and you slipped away. And today you're saying, I want to rededicate my life to serving Jesus. On the count of three, I want you to do something simple but bold. I just want you to throw your hand in the air and say, yes, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Christ. That's me. That's me. This is beautiful. Friends on the balcony, on the floor, online, you're saying, yep, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Christ. This is so beautiful and so powerful.

I ask everyone to do me a favor. Put your hand over your heart right now. I want all of us to repeat this prayer out loud after me. Say, dear Jesus, I ask you to forgive me of all my sins. I admit I made mistakes. And today I give you my heart. I give you my life. Give me the power to live for you. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.