Andy Stanley, Sr. Senior Pastor, North Point Church
Known Survivor Surviving Your Appetite
for Known
Catalyst is known for a lot of things.
Leadership, Powerful worship, incredible messages. skinny jeans and hipsters.
So it should come as no surprise, that Andy Stanley, Mr. Session One himself,
would throw all grammatical convention to the wind and use the word KNOWN as
every form of speech possible.
Everyone has an appetite for known.
If you feed your appetite for known it
grows. And no matter how much you feed it, you will never have enough
known. You never fully satisfy your appetite, no matter what.
You can overfeed your appetite for known,
and if you aren’t careful, the need will eventually tip you over.
There is no amount of known that will ever be
enough to satisfy your need to be known.
So How much known is enough?
You will never have enough known.
The Three Laws of Know
What’s applauded as exceptional the first time
will be expected the next time.
Your desire to be known will drive you to do
things you never ever thought you’d do until you get a little bit of
recognition. A little bit of known. And then it’s expected you’ll keep on
doing it.
Applause is intoxicating
Those most applauded will feel the most entitled
to it.
You think you should get something no body else
should get.
Applause is addictive
We start looking for it
We start manufacturing it
And if it gets out of hand, you become a victim
of known.
So here’s the tension:
To lead, you must be known. You have been
called to be known. The question is, how do we keep known
from ruining us?
The Answer Is In The Bible
Mark Chapter 4
The whole Judean countryside and all the people
of Jerusalem went out to hear John the Baptist (thousands and thousands of
people)
He goes from obscurity to everyone coming to see
him. Suddenly he is a phenomenon. He is known.
Everyone asks him if he is the Messiah or
Elijah. He repeatedly answers “no” and they ask him “WHO are you?”
He said, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, make straight the
way of the Lord.”
He was saying, "I am a directional sign. I’m just
here to point you in the right direction.”
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and
said, “Look. . . the lamb of God comes to take away the sins of the
world.”
It happened again the next day. And when
John’s two disciples heard him say, “look” they looked and followed
Jesus. His disciples left him and followed Jesus.
His other disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi
(talking to John the Baptist) that man (Jesus) who was with you yesterday, he’s
over there and he’s baptizing and everyone is going to him.”
Basically they were saying, “He’s totally
stealing your show.”
John’s disciples were worried that they were
losing followers.
But Here Was John’s Profound Answer because he
understood known.
“A person can receive only what is given him from
heaven.”
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
He was saying, “Do you think I am known for any
other reason than because God ordained that I would be known so that He can
be known?”
What is the Application for Us?
In our lives and our minds, as long as we are
growing, succeeding, doing well at work, have perfect kids, etc. it’s all for
the glory of God. But when things go downhill, we start going into
problem solving mode. We can’t lose our “known.”
But if we could remember that we receive “known”
because we can only receive from heaven what heaven decides to give.
Want to survive being known?
Remember who it’s from and who it’s for.
Your appetite for known will never be satisfied by a number.
All that to say, wouldn’t it be so great if we
could be so blessed by the amount of known that Jesus gave us and didn’t
get jacked up because of it . . . didn’t think we were something special
because of it? Then we’d never have to worry about losing it because we’d
know we’d done what we were supposed to with the amount of Known that God gave
us.
Never forget that the applause isn’t for you.
