No Filter
Pt. 4 - Assignment
In an age where things that are not real are promoted as reality it would serve to reason that in church, we would tell you to live with no filter since we are taught by our Savior to live authentic and genuine lives. However, I want to tell you that filters are an important and essential part of life.
So, filters when used incorrectly can cause issues. The only think worse than using filters incorrectly is not having a filter at all! We have lost some essential filters in our life that were designed to catch impurities, to help us look and act more like Jesus and to protect us. We need to check our filters!
One of filters we need most is the Filter of Assignment!
This doesn't sound like that big of deal, but it is actually deadly! If you don't have the filter of assignment firmly in place in your life, then you will constantly be distracted and detoured and you will never fulfill the call of God on your life (and we all have one)!
So, the filter of assignment forces me to constantly ask myself some questions!
What is good for my goal?
What is a distraction and what is a destiny moment?
What furthers me and what fails me?
Without the filter of assignment in place you will become stopped by time eaters. You will be distracted by what others say is an emergency or essential. Some of you may be thinking "I don't know what my assignment is!" Let me help you with a couple of nuggets. Sometimes our deficiencies are our directions. Sometimes we miss our assignment because we’re so caught up on what we can’t do. Our "can't dos" help us steer away from things that are not our assignment. Deficiencies can become a distinctive. Don’t spend time there. Look at your strengths and you can follow them to your station! Let’s look at someone from Scripture that dropped the filter of assignment and it almost cost him.
Text: Jeremiah 1:4-10 (TLB)
The Lord said to me, “I knew you before you were formed within your mother’s womb; before you were born I sanctified you and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.” “O Lord God,” I said, “I can’t do that! I’m far too young! I’m only a youth!” “Don’t say that,” he replied, “for you will go wherever I send you and speak whatever I tell you to. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I, the Lord, will be with you and see you through.” Then he touched my mouth and said, “See, I have put my words in your mouth! Today your work begins, to warn the nations and the kingdoms of the world. In accord with my words spoken through your mouth I will tear down some and destroy them, and plant others, nurture them, and make them strong and great.”
So, this is one of the most quoted and adopted passages out of Jeremiah. Before you were born, I knew you. Sanctified and appointed! Chosen and anointed. We quote this as an assurance to ourselves that we are known. We are called. We are selected. Assigned! We want to be Jeremiah in Chapter 1!
Here is the issue. We are like Jeremiah! We are like him in Chapter 1 and then because we have dislodged or discard the filter, we end up just like Jeremiah in Chapter 20. Jeremiah . . . the called, the anointed, the appointed, the assigned one sounds much more like us.
Jeremiah 20:7-10 (TLB)
O Lord, you deceived me when you promised me your help. I have to give them your messages because you are stronger than I am, but now I am the laughingstock of the city, mocked by all. You have never once let me speak a word of kindness to them; always it is disaster and horror and destruction. No wonder they scoff and mock and make my name a household joke. And I can’t quit! For if I say I’ll never again mention the Lord—never more speak in his name—then his word in my heart is like fire that burns in my bones, and I can’t hold it in any longer. Yet on every side I hear their whispered threats and am afraid. “We will report,” they say. Even those who were my friends are watching me, waiting for a fatal slip. “He will trap himself,” they say, “and then we will get our revenge on him.”
God, you have deceived me! You lied to me. Because I am operating with no filter I have forgotten that I am assigned. With no filter of assignment, I now view my life and all I see is pain, hurt, trouble, difficulty. This isn't what I signed up for. This isn't easy. This is costing me. This is difficult. With his filer of assignment cast aside Jeremiah screams, "You lied to me God!"
Jeremiah Chapter 1 . . . formed, known, handpicked, anointed, favored then in Chapter 20, God, you deceived me! Jeremiah simply lost his filter of assignment because what he was going through in that moment did not look like what God said it would end up looking like. Some of us struggle because chapter 20 doesn’t look like what chapter 1 said it would. Without the filter of assignment, we will exit the story before the final chapter has been written.
Ever been there? I thought you said God. I thought you called me God. I thought you had a job for me God. But now life. Problems. Distractions. Decisions. Choices. Addictions. Brokenness. Tragedy. And I wake up one day and I have no longer connect the dots between what I am or have gone through to my assignment. So, now I am unable to filter what is happening to me through what You wanted me to do. So, I am out! I run. I quit. I throw in the towel. I settle for what is instead of holding on to what can be!
Let me help you today!
God often tells us what He wants us to do. We just don’t always know what we’re going to have to go through to get it done.
So, here is why this important . . . God may send on an assignment to help someone but what you don’t know is they may reject you and reject your help. God may assign you to preach. What you may not know is that they may not listen. God may assign you as a missionary on your job. What you may not know is they will ridicule you when you witness. If you do not filter things that you are going through and facing through the assignment on your life, then those setbacks will paralyze you and cause you to quit. Some of you have quit what God called you an assigned you to do simply because you forgotten that you were assigned in the first place. This is true in every area of life. This can happen in marriage. Before the wedding you can’t get enough of one another and you can barely keep your hands off each other. It is all roses and kisses and then after a few months of them throwing their clothes on the floor, running the coffee maker out of water, squeezing the toothpaste tube from the wrong end all of a sudden, without the filter of assignment, you’re ready to walk out on what God sent you. True for jobs too. You thought it was going to be all promotions and best employee awards you didn’t know you wouldn't want to get up and you would prefer to stay in bed. You didn't know you would get passed over time and time again. However, if you have the filter of assignment in place you will wipe the sleep from your eyes get dressed and show up day after day and week after week until you complete the assignment God has given you and you hear Him say well done now this is next. Remember I have taught you what my dad taught me . . . silence is never permission to quit. But silence will cause you to quit if you don't have the filter of assignment in place that causes you to keep working even when God is quiet!
Here is what we have forgotten and what causes us to fail to filter . . .
Assignments are always accompanied by agitation!
Jeremiah is like I know I am assigned but I didn't expect to be treated this way. I didn't expect to be laughed at and mocked. He almost missed his assignment because he got focused on the agitation and aggravation of what was happening to him enroute to completing his assignment. I think we are a lot like Jeremiah because we actually think if we can figure out what we are assigned to do, then everything will become easy! If I can just know God's will for my life, then it would be cake walks and ice cream cones. However, you need to know that every assignment comes with at least one of these three types of agitation and sometimes all three.
Every assignment will be accompanied by . . .
Storms
A storm is temporary. It will pass. However, the enemy will try to use a storm to get me to quit my assignment. If I am not careful my emotions will do what the storm cannot do. They will lead me into early exit and destroy me. I came to remind someone on assignment who is in a storm this morning . . . He said let's go to the other side. He is in the boat and He has prophesied that you will arrive safely on the other shore. Stay in the boat. Stay in the fight. Stay in the assignment. This too shall pass!
Thorns
Then there are thorns which are satanic attacks and messengers. Paul said he had a thorn that buffeted him. To buffet me means to strike repeatedly. It is something that doesn't kill me, it just bothers me repeatedly and tries to capture my attention so that I will abandon my assignment. I just came to encourage someone who is being struck over and over again. Don't give up. If the enemy is striking you over and over again, then it is just an indication that your assignment is so important that you have his attention! Dogs don't bark at parked cars! If the enemy is attacking, then you must be on the right path. Don't quit.
Crosses
Every calling will also have crosses. A cross is an inconvenience you choose to endure because you value your assignment more than you can concerned about your comfort. You are not in control of a storm or a thorn, but you do control a cross. You can lay it down and pick it up at any time. This is why the filter of assignment is so crucial because if you don't filter everything through your calling, then you will lay your cross down when it becomes heavy! Without the filter of assignment, you will try to unload the cross to get too next. When the truth is you can't get too next without the cross. The weight of cross will make you want to take short cuts. Crosses are necessary because God is trying to develop our character on the way to our finish line! He is not always trying to develop our gift. Some of us are gifted but He knows we need character development and so we must go through some things so that when we fulfill the assignment, we will handle the victory correctly and give the glory and the credit to the One it belongs to. By the way . . . God is committed to finishers - well done good and faithful servant. Well done to the one who finished what He was assigned to do.
Assignments are always accompanied!
You already told us. Assignments are accompanied by agitation. Yes, but Jeremiah gets the filter back in place and realizes something else . . . his assignment is accompanied not only accompanied by storms, thorns, and crosses. His assignment is accompanied by God Himself. Jeremiah finally figures this good news out in 20:11 - But the Lord stands beside me like a great warrior, and before him, the Mighty, Terrible One, they shall stumble. They cannot defeat me; they shall be shamed and thoroughly humiliated, and they shall have a stigma upon them forever." God is with Him. Yes, the path to assignment is accompanied by agitation, but it is also accompanied by God's presence! God never assigns us and then abandons us. As long as he is obedient to the call on his life, Jeremiah concludes God is with him and will fight for Him. Good news today . . . God responds to our obedience. Obedience produces to protection. He is with us! When we are obedient to the assignment. When we refuse to be distracted or detoured. When we refuse to exit the story before the last chapter is written. When we have the filter in place, we will recognize that in the storm, beat up with thorns or carrying our cross He is with us. He is fighting for us! We are able to endure and finish with His help. Miracles always show up on other side of obedience.
Our options are illusions!
When we drop the filter of assignment, we begin to think we have options. Some of you are starting to treat what God has called you to do as optional. You tossed aside the filter, so now you think you can do something else. You think you can follow your own plans. Listen . . . learn what Jeremiah learned . . . the call of God is without repentance. Once he put the filter of assignment back in place he comes to this realization. In 20:9, he declares, "I can’t quit! For if I say I’ll never again mention the Lord—never more speak in his name—then his word in my heart is like fire that burns in my bones, and I can’t hold it in any longer." In other words, Jeremiah realized that his options were illusions.
You won’t ever get away from your assignment. You may be successful in the detour, but you won’t enjoy it. Peter, you can go back to fishing, but you will hate every second of it because you have an assignment. Jonah run the other way if you want to, but you can't get away! All you did was waste time and endure more pain. Samson, chase the distractions and you will still end up in your last days crying out for God to help you to complete your assignment! Get the filter back in place. The options are nothing but illusions. You will never find satisfaction, never find fulfillment, never find peace in anything other than completing what He has assigned you to do! Well done good and faithful servant now enter your rest. That isn't just for heaven. That is for today. Fulfill your assignment, endure storms, overcome thorns, bear your cross and you will find rest! Any other path or option only leads to unrest!
Reestablish the filter. What have you called me to do? I will view all my aggravations through that filter. I won't let storms, thorns, or crosses keep me from finishing because I know I won't travel alone if I stay on assignment!
