I Want to Be a “Shall Be”

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City come to the place of understanding that you have really nothing to offer God directly on the journey that needs to be taken before God can make you into what you need to be Carter, and thank you for joining us on this week's call to the nation program. God is not looking at you the way you look at yourself.

He sees you as what you will be one day that happens when you understand you are nothing and he is everything. Let's join Carter now with today's message titled, I want to be a Shelby, would you be surprised if I told you that you might just be right in the place where you need to be for God to actually use you and do a miracle in your life. Let me explain that from John chapter 1 verse 40 overheard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, not John the Baptist introducing Jesus Christ as the son of God, he first found his own brother Simon verse 41 and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which is translated, the Christ. In other words Andrew comes with brother Peter and says we found the one that's promised dross in the Scripture we found one is going to white boy.

All tears the one who's going to give us victory the one who's going to fight for us to win our battles when we been promised the Savior. This Messiah is going to come doesn't and under says to Simon, we found that he brought him to Jesus. Like I'm speaking to you to closer to Christ than you've ever been before.

I found the Christ that straw have. I know this is the Messiah. I heard his words. I've had an opportunity to meet him III know what he can do and alive because of of what he's done in my life so I'm speaking to you in reaching out through the Internet and drawn you to the Christ that I know what I'm telling you, I have found the one that you been looking for. I have found your deliverer. I have found your Messiah. I have found the one who gives every wounded and broken heart.

I found the one who wipes away every tear. I found one opens every prison door gives the treasurer strength of those who know that they are poor in spirit and can't afford. I found it I found and I'm inviting you to come to him now brought into Jesus and when he saw and when Jesus looked at him and said you are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated, a stone, so let me suggest this one thing to you when you come to Jesus. He knows what you are. Just as these people who put in these paragraphs, and I do know is your week you knows you don't have a good self-image. He knows you have failed. He knows what you are. He knows everything about you knows all your struggles, he knows all your trials and lose all your secrets and those are things about you that nobody else knows but God and you and he deals with you and I honestly says now this is what you are, but I'm going to talk to you now about what you shall be.

I thank God for that with all my heart and knows a lot of people feel that as we approach the son of God. All that is concerned about is what we are and and and a lot of them from the church that way feeling that the one one new every week. God just waits to point out one news and the like. This is what you are. This is what you are. Your failure you're an addict you're you profess to love me and you don't and your dysfunctional and and all these other things we hear and we feel that God actually confirms our feeling about ourselves which is not true, it doesn't call us what we are calls us what we shall be is not amazing. I want you to get that in your heart because it can be the pathway to an incredible victory in your life if you begin to realize that God is not looking at you the way you looking at yourself doesn't see was ugly, addicted, or failure. He sees what you shall be as you begin to walk with him. That means there's going to be a transformation happened in your life. Remember the Scripture says if anyone did Christ is a new creation the old things in his or her life pass away, which means they lose their power over you. They lose their hold your your past. No longer can dictate your future. Your future is now in the hands of God and all things not something all things become new. Thank God for that. Your new creation the old things in your life pass away and all things become new so you can hear what I'm saying to his God is speaking to you if you will allow your heart to hear it, not about what you are, but about what you shall be now in order to become what we shall be in in Peter's case he had to get over some things in his in his own life to get to the place. First of all, it was an impulsive man.

He was filled with ideas, and he had all kinds of ideas for God. I mean even in the garden of Gethsemane. He had an idea of how to win the victory so he pulls his knife on the cuts off. I free servants here is filled with ideas and is is led by his own impulses and and some of us in the early years tried to serve God like that. Maybe you tried that in the beginning you had good ideas.

I know I can do this. I know how I can advance the kingdom of God and that the reality is we set out to do it, we we cut off somebody's ear and that and the next thing we know is Jesus is telling us to put our weapon away and we we thought or idea was such a good idea than we, and it is just failed. It amounted to nothing and I I think of the numbers of people and talking about that when you first came to Christ, you, you had some good ideas. The new about how the kingdom of God could advance through your life and you set out to do it. It seemed like it failed seemed like God wasn't behind it. He actually put out his hand and said put your ideas away. I don't need your ideas. I don't want your ideas on doing something you don't fully understand. So in order to begin to become what we shall be, that means we have to put our ideas away and start listening to the voice of God, and start walking in the pathway that God has set before us and start moving in doing the things he is called us to do in the strength that he provides to do it now.

Peter was a man with an improper self-image and so he felt unsure he felt like he had to bring some kind of fumbling to walk with the Messiah. I have to make a declaration of of how loyal I am.

How strong I am.

What what would Braveheart I am and in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26 and verse 33 Peter said to Christ, even if all are made to stumble because of you I will never be made to stumble.

How difficult those early years when you sing those songs, though none go with you. Still I will follow only to fall flat on your face and realize that your profession of strength and loyalty is not us. As great as you once thought it was you begin discouraged you thought that's the way God sees you. You thought you thought you had to bring something to him of of of loyalty. You thought it was all about you professing your love and we all did it when we were young. I didn't and many of you online, didn't you know exactly what that's all about.

Only to find out while you're not as loyal as you thought you were number Peter said if even if everyone else stumbles. I will not be made to stumble but did he ever stumble before he became what Jesus said he will be is stumbled, he fell. It was a terrible fall in a sense, he denied and cursed with an oath that he never even knew the son of God is stumbled in his mind. This is whole sense of love and loyalty just went down the drain. In a moment of crisis when he felt God needed him the most. He just wasn't there a profess to bravery he didn't possess in the worst thing you could ever do is boast to God about your love and your loyalty only to find out is not as deep as you and I think it is better to admit you're a coward than to be found out that you are one. He said even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you, and that all of the other disciples in this and it was not even the was not even several hours later than these is actually fearing before just a little servant girl denied that even knew the Christ. And yet, such a profession of love and loyalty had come out of his mouth.

See the point is, God has to bring us down to the place where we understand that we we really have nothing without him. Yes, to reduce us in a sense, to nothing, and so if you've come to the place of understanding that you have really nothing to offer God directly on the journey that needs to be taken before God can make you into what you need to be. That's truly an amazing principle. We don't bring him our strength, our ideas are love our loyalty. We try, but we are deficient all the apostles that are this way.

I'm convinced that within me dwells no good thing like I did finally come to the place and I'm sure Paul just in the beginning gave it his best. David is is is strong is because it was naturally very zealous man, only to find out as Peter did that these are not the things that God requires of us and requires an admission in our hearts to the Lord. I have nothing without you I I I am not my my whole being is falling short of the glory of God. My my best ideas in my deepest bolts and all that all fall short of what you have for my life I can help you advance your kingdom because is nothing in me as a natural man that can do it. This is a kingdom it's beyond me like with the King David when the arrow was shot into the field and the servant of Jonathan said the arrow is beyond the David plan of God is beyond our strength is beyond your ability is beyond your natural line.

It's beyond your declarations of love and loyalty and in the best thing that can ever happen to you as you and I finally get to the place of God.

As I said that in chapter 6 of Isaiah's is God I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I drove in the midst of one of the people of unclean lips, David, the king said of the vessel God and you dealt with us according to our iniquities who would stand that the greatest people ever to be raised up in the kingdom of God oftentimes went down as low as you can go in your own estimation before God could raise you and I'll so he doesn't call you what you're calling yourself.

He doesn't call you ugly or addicted or suicidal or dysfunctional or beyond help. It doesn't call you any of these things, he starts to speak to you now, not about what you are, but about what you shall be and that's where the journey becomes supernatural. That's where is the Scripture says, as the spirit of God raised Christ from the dead.

Even so, by the same spirit we are raised into newness of life.

When we reckon ourselves. Paul said, as dad. That's when the spirit of God lifts us and we become a new creation and we start walking away that God has chosen for our lives through which his strength, not our strength but his strength begins to be made known. Paul said that this way when I am weak, then I am strong. You shall be you are. In other words, you are a man of the flesh, you are you are a natural man, Peter, but he said you shall be a stone. I'm going to do something in your life once you have come to nothing and you're willing to let my strength become yours in my life replace yours.

Once you've come to that. I am going to make you into a stone.

I'm going to give you, make you into a man or woman, as is the case with some that is entrenched in the strength of God unmovable transformed and sustained by the inward power of God, a man or woman who has just as Lazarus did you come out of that place of death. You've come out of that to you come out of that place of powerlessness for you. You recognize I can't do anything without the spirit of God, and you hear his voice calling you, you move towards the sound of his voice, and suddenly God himself through his son Jesus Christ begins to speak into your life about what he intends to do through you the strength that only he can give you.

Jesus himself said when the comforter is come when the spirit of God is gone it will take the victory that is mine that I one for you on the cross and he will show you things to come, things to come in your own life things that only God can do places that only God can take you. So you see I'm speaking to the week I'm speaking to the failures I'm speaking to those who feel unlovely and the site of a holy God.

I'm speaking to those who know now that you have nothing to offer God. But suddenly there's a faint whisper in your heart that says God is everything to offer me.

That's why he sent his son to Accra.

That's why he gave me his word.

That's why he gave me his Holy Spirit. That's why I feel him just like Lazarus calling me out of the grave and into this marvelous light and life that I have promised will be mine, through Jesus Christ Jesus said to Peter, I'm going to take you from being the man that you are in a sense, impulsive with a false self image and a false boast of love and loyalty and I'm going to make you into a solid man of God, I'm going to give you a life that can sit upon the foundation stone was Jesus Christ of the church that God is building in the earth. I'm going to take you and make you into a man through whom I couldn't build a spiritual house to another was under the give you a strength.

It's not your own is going to be mine it's established on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ and on your life. Others will find a place to be built to as well. Peter knew this incredible and great truth because he wrote about it in the book of first Peter chapter 2. Let me just read it to beginning at verse four. He talked about his season coming to him as a living stone. Remember what Jesus had said to him you are Peter you are Simon, son of Jonas with you shall be called Cephas, which means a stone is an upcoming to him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in the Scripture, behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Another was when you put your trust in Christ and not in yourself. When you put your trust in Christ loyalty to you and not your loyalty to him. When you let your life be built on his promise to you and not your promises to him. He said you will become one of these precious stones in the site and then the hand of God who sits upon the cornerstone Jesus Christ and he makes this incredible promise you will not be put to shame which really means you will not be overcome. You will not be put in the place where you given to human weakness, you will stand in the strength of God's Holy Spirit.

You won't find yourself, warming yourself by fire denying and cursing with an open sign.

I never knew the man you will be doing impulsive things that God is not asked you to do. You will be sitting on that foundation is a precious stone form fashioned by the hand of God and God's promise to you is you will not be overcome.

You will not be put to shame. You put your trust in God. You put your trust in Jesus Christ as the son of God revealed in your life and you said in your heart. God Almighty. You make me you fashioned me into the man of the woman the young person.

Whatever your situation is the Jew destined be debate I bring nothing to you as the old hymn says in my have no price I bring simply to the cross I cling I make no boast I have nothing to give you God.

You don't need my ideas you don't want my loyalty because it's efficient you don't want my love because it will fail you don't want anything I have.

But my heart is so I give you my heart and I give you my empty life and in return you promise that the power of an endless life will become mine, that you will invade this physical body as I trust in Jesus Christ for my salvation. You will lift me out of the power of death, and you will bring me into a place where instead of wavering are followed like water falling a crack in the road will suddenly become solid and stable in my life will be able to sit on the foundation of the church that Jesus Christ is building and upon my life and upon the testimony of my life.

Others will be built on that foundation, as well as God is building this wonderful immovable testimony and the earth called the church of Jesus Christ. The beauty of it all is that he builds up with the week and the foolish in the nobody's and the nothings in the despised in this world and things that not are not like in the sight of men.

Things look like they're nothing, so that no flesh can glory in the presence of a holy God. And so I thank God for you that are reaching out and you might feel like you're no more than a whisper of the doubt in the dust.

But God hears your voice and he will raise you up and give you strength and the testimony of your life will not be about the love and the loyalty in the plans and things you did for God, but the testimony will be about how you came to him in your nothingness and he did everything to bring glory to his name through you and so I don't call you.

I refuse to look at this tablet with hundreds and hundreds of burgers from all the world and I don't call you addicted.

I don't call you afflicted. I don't call you a loser. I don't call you ugly. I don't agree with your assessment of yourself. I call you mighty men and women of God. I call you the victorious Church of the risen Christ. I call you redeemed and delivered and empowered with a specific purpose in the earth that God has assigned uniquely for your life so that his name would be brought to glory by the warmth he choses to do through you. That's what I call you because that's what God says about you and it's time to stop agreeing with your assessment of yourself. It's time to stop agreeing with what others have said about your life if you sit in that place of agreement with what your heart says or what others have said about you. You'll never hear the voice of God.

Time to put away those voices. Peter went away and he wept bitterly, bitterly, and then one day not long after the voice came to him of a messenger the Christ himself told will get Peter and tell him to meet with me and when Jesus came into the room were Peter was in John chapter 21 need to set them peace, peace be at rest. The rest your personal failure had to be part of the journey.

Otherwise you would be relying on yourself for the rest of your days and you would be constantly failing out of the wood to what I want to be a Shelby, I don't want to be in our I want to be a Shelby I want to be everything Jesus wants me to be. I'm more excited about it now than I've ever been in my life. I don't know how many years I've got left ahead of me but I know this one thing I want to be a Shelby in those years. I want to be everything the goddesses and to be I want to go everywhere he calls me to go. I want to speak everything he calls me to speak.

I don't want to rely on him for every ounce of strength that I will need to finish the journey. Hallelujah, hallelujah, the greatest deliverance of ever had in my life is the realization that I don't have to do anything for God. I dislike him to do what he wants to do through me. That's the Shelby part I don't have to do it. I don't have to cut off somebody's ear. I don't have to profess my loyalty.

I don't have to declare my bravado. None of that stuff. I have to trust him for life breath for everything that my life will ever amount to see. I can tell you, like Andrew said to Simon Peter. I found him.

I found it come to him come to him come to you as you are. Don't make any boast about what you you will be in your own strength is you won't amount to anything in your own strength just come to him as you are. Let them speak plainly to you. In other words, he says to you, I know what you are, but let me tell you what you will be and when you start reading the word of God. When you start opening your heart to the truth of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit you leave the natural place and you enter into a supernatural place where the strength of God. Now becomes your strength.

This is a wonderful life won't let it be just this constant burden that never goes never takes away from me this amazement that meets me every morning when I get up wondering what God is going to do today through my life. Was he going to speak to where's he going to leave me. What is he going to show me in his word. What do Jim what new treasure what new what new part of my life is a God of fashion to help me sit squarely on the cornerstone called Jesus Christ. It is an amazing life and don't you let it become anything else in your life. Don't you ever because the promise of God is that if you are one of the stones is fashioned by the word in the presence of God you will sit on the cornerstone and you will never be ashamed. You will not be triumph over if you've never opened your heart to Jesus Christ before, just do it now to submit your sin this to admit that you need a Savior believe that Jesus Christ died in your place in this invite and confess with your mother saved just like I did in 1978, a pretty simple prayer I said Lord Jesus if this is true, what I've heard.

I open my heart and I invite you to commend and be my Lord and my Savior. That was my prayer. God heard it he received it and it took me for his own and that's what he would do for you. So if you've not ever received. Do it now in your heart to say, Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for me.

Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for giving me the promise of just do it right now, just where you set God sees you a different way than you see yourself, do not ugly on speed to the lady at their I don't care what anybody tells you not ugly. You are incredibly beautiful in the side of a holy God even loves you better fact he says in the song of Solomon.

You only had time to turn one eye towards him and he fell in love with us what he said that's how he sees you as precious as lovely as beautiful doesn't see was dysfunctional business. He was addicted sees you as the person that you will become when you turn towards thank you for joining us this week for a call to the nation with Carter, from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information log onto TSC.NYC TSC.NYC you can count on a powerful message each week on a call to the nation with Carter,