Touré Roberts - God Wants to Choose You

I see the Beloved of God. I see a people. I see a generation that God is absolutely in it. Love is almost too common a phrase, too common a word. Let me put it this way: there is a passage of Scripture where Jesus looked out and saw the multitudes. He was healing all sorts of people, opening blind eyes, and doing His thing. He looked out and saw the multitudes, and it said that He was moved with compassion. That word, translated as compassion, literally means that He loved them so much that He had a deep yearning on the inside. In other words, He loved them so much that it hurt Him. Have you ever loved someone so much that it hurt you, and you almost couldn’t even describe it? You just felt it deep down on the inside. I feel the love of God for you; I feel the love of God for each and every person in this room. I want you to give me permission to do something today. There are so many things that I can preach on: promises, experiences, and miracles. I can talk about destiny and get you super excited and happy about it. Your destiny is super exciting and it is super awesome! However, I want us to make an agreement here because here’s the thing: you have to be deep for destiny. There is a passage that says that many are called, but few are chosen, and let me tell you what that means. A lot of times, you can take that to mean that many people are called, but God has only predetermined that some be chosen. That’s not what it means. What it means is everybody’s called, but few people make themselves choosable. I just want to keep it real with you, and I know we’re on this series about prayer, and I don’t know, maybe we’ll touch on that, but I just feel, you know, as I was driving in this morning, I had a beautiful sermon prepared for part three. It’s beautiful, but I feel like God wants to take us deeper. When we go deeper and our roots are grounded deeper, those promises will not only be real, but they’ll also be sustainable. I don’t want to release something to you that you may not have the depth and the roots to walk out perpetually. Let me flow in that vein because here’s what I believe: I believe that God wants to choose some people today. Yes, I believe He wants to choose some people for their destiny. I believe that with all my heart, and I don’t think destiny is automatic. I believe destiny is something you have to fight for because so much is against it, and there are so many things that attempt to compete for your attention and your heart. I just want to take us a little deeper. Can I do that? Can we covenant in that? Then Wednesday night, I’ll do part three, is that cool? Please? As a pastor, as a leader who is walking in something from God, I didn’t do it. I just said yes, and I’m walking in something that continues to unfold powerfully before my eyes from level to level. But I would be lying to you if I said that it is not something that has to be seized. I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you the inner cost that produces the outer blessing. I would be lying to you and actually setting you up for failure and frustration, perhaps even turning away from the things of God altogether. The question is, how come it’s not working for me like that? I didn’t tell you who you have to be on the inside to access the promises of God consistently. Can I talk to you like this? I want to show you a passage of Scripture really quickly, and I’d like to take you on a journey today. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I know it will be awesome. Let’s go to Isaiah chapter 6 real quick. This is an amazing account of a child of God who had known God to a certain degree and who has this encounter with God that radically changes his life and sets him on a course for destiny. His name was Isaiah the prophet. It says, «In the year that King Uzziah died,» this is Isaiah writing, «I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.» I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. I wonder where we see God. Do we see Him sitting on a throne? Do we see Him enthroned as the creator of all things, or do we see Him as a genie in a bottle? I’m just pulling at the roots; just let me pull at the roots for a second. When we see God, do we see Him sitting on the throne, or do we see Him as maybe, or do we see Him as take it or leave it? Do we see Him as worthy of our worship, worthy of our honor, worthy of us even pausing and suspending what we are doing to make certain that what we are doing is consistent with what He’s asked of us?