Unqualified Success | Graduation Sunday
Unqualified Success | Graduation Sunday
Unqualified Success means a total, absolute, and complete success with no reservations, exceptions, or doubts. It describes an outcome that is 100% successful, where all goals were met or exceeded without any "buts" or limitations.
Just because your moment isn’t now, or even where/when you want you moment to be, doesn’t mean you’re not destined for a moment.
Three Core Qualities of Unqualified Success
1. Availability.
2. Trust.
3. Worship.
Three Points of Persuasion
1. Our availability leads to unqualified success. Our un-qualities do not limit God’s power or calling.
2. God’s presence overcomes fear. God Trust, not self-confidence, is the goal.
3. The proper response to success is worship. Success points people to self. Worship points people to a savior.
Judges 2:10-16 (NIV) 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. 16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.
Judges 6:12-16 (NIV) 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Four Important Notes:
1) Mighty warriors don’t thresh wheat in wine presses, fearful people do.
2) God sees more in us than who we are in the moment.
3) God calls us out of our moment for His purposes!
4) It’s the Lord’s presence that makes us mighty.
Judges 6:13-16 13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” 16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
Three More Important Notes:
1) “If you are with me, where have you been?” Just because life doesn’t look the way we thought, doesn’t mean that God has been absent.
2) “Go in the strength that you have” is a double ring statement: A) God knows what’s inside because He put it there. B) God isn’t over-looking Gideon’s fear, He is doubling down on the strength of His presence.
3) Where God sends, God goes.
Our availability leads to unqualified success!
Our un-qualities do not limit God’s calling.
God isn’t looking for our self-confidence to grow, He is looking for our God confidence to grow!
Judges 7:2 (NIV) 2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’
Growing our self-confidence doesn’t lead to unqualified success, growing our God confidence does!
Judges 7:10 (NIV) “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
God’s presence overcomes fear.
God Trust, not self-confidence, is the goal.
The problem with turning a God victory into a personal victory is…
• God worship draws people to God. Personal worship draws people to us.
• Our personal wins, win no one. God wins win everyone!
• God’s wins last for all eternity. Our wins die with us.
Judges 8:33-35 33 No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god 34 and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. 35 They also failed to show any loyalty to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) in spite of all the good things he had done for them.
The proper response to success is worship.
Success points people to self. Worship points people to a savior.
Don’t be overly concerned about your success moment. Work towards being available, God-Confident and God Worshipping! Where are you hiding? God is calling. Where are you hesitant? God is present. Where are you self-focused? Turn it around so people find Jesus and not you.