Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: So right now in the chat, just say thank God
Speaker 1: I'm here. Right, just look at somebody and say thank
Speaker 1: God you're here. Oh. I've been waiting to see someone
Speaker 1: like you all week, someone positive, uplifting, encouraging, well built, tall, sturdy.
Speaker 1: I trust that you smell good. I trust that you're blessed.
Speaker 1: The best rhythm section in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Vinnie
Speaker 1: and Shay. It's great to have Joel with us. Let's
Speaker 1: thank God for Joel. We started dancing the other night.
Speaker 1: We didn't even mean to. We've got this amazing collaboration
Speaker 1: with Elevation Worship in Maverick City. Come in your way,
Speaker 1: somebody say when soon soon? And U Joelle will have
Speaker 1: to have you come back and share the song that
Speaker 1: you carried. Uh. It's about miracles and your life is
Speaker 1: a miracle. And I can't wait for you to hear
Speaker 1: that song and all the other songs. It's great to
Speaker 1: have you, Tiffany, tell me about the leather. I'm a rocker. Now,
Speaker 1: she's a rocker. Now, John South, she's a rocker. Now, Jenny,
Speaker 1: do you believe that? Okay, upon this rock, I will
Speaker 1: build my church. How many? Thank God for it? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's good to see. How did you get off work?
Speaker 1: Good to see you. I miss you so much. Hey.
Speaker 1: By the way, let us know in the chat who
Speaker 1: you are and where you're where you're joining us from.
Speaker 1: It's a worldwide ministry, and we thank God for you.
Speaker 1: But we will know you're here if you don't tell us.
Speaker 1: So tell me right now. I'm here, and my name,
Speaker 1: and my favorite movie is, and my favorite food is,
Speaker 1: and my favorite Bible versus, and tell me everything you
Speaker 1: want to tell me about yourself. Okay, where is Cindy
Speaker 1: from Chewies? Hey, Cindy, good to see you. I told
Speaker 1: you I would find you. I told you. Now put
Speaker 1: your name too so we can know you're here, all right.
Speaker 1: Cindy told me she was coming, and she came. It's nice.
Speaker 1: She's the one works at Chewies, nicest hostess I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And we're all a hostess for the Holy Ghost. Today,
Speaker 1: y'all be seeing it. This is getting ridiculous. This is
Speaker 1: some very mediocre stand up. We better get to the
Speaker 1: Bible verse first Peter chapter two, and let's really take
Speaker 1: our time with this passage so we can taste it today.
Speaker 1: This is a delicious, delicious scripture, and I want us
Speaker 1: to chew our food one Peter Chapter two. I'll read it,
Speaker 1: then i'll break it down. Therefore, rid yourselves of all
Speaker 1: malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Basically,
Speaker 1: he's saying, delete all your social media accounts. Is how
Speaker 1: I read that. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slam. If you
Speaker 1: can't say amen, say ouch. I'll give you thirty seconds
Speaker 1: to delete some things before we move on. In description,
Speaker 1: he said, therefore rid yourselves. And that's what we've been
Speaker 1: talking about the first part of twenty twenty one. The Lord,
Speaker 1: all the years run together right now. The Lord was
Speaker 1: saying that we need to have room to receive right, So,
Speaker 1: how can I receive the love of God if my
Speaker 1: heart is full of malice? How can I receive the
Speaker 1: truth if my heart is full of deceit? How can
Speaker 1: I receive the real me, the revelation of the real me,
Speaker 1: if I'm living in hypocrisy so determined to look better
Speaker 1: than I really am. Hypocrisy isn't struggling with something that's
Speaker 1: pretending like you don't envy slander. Now, if you can
Speaker 1: do all of that, if you can get rid of
Speaker 1: all of that, with all of your social media accounts
Speaker 1: on your phone, you're just a better person than me. Okay,
Speaker 1: but most of us have to make some decisions about
Speaker 1: what we're going to allow to have access to us,
Speaker 1: So maybe write this down. The first step to getting
Speaker 1: ready is getting rid, get rid, get rid of these things.
Speaker 1: And none of the things that he talks about are
Speaker 1: direct behaviors, their attitudes. So you've got a whole list
Speaker 1: of what to do. Some of you logged on today. Lord,
Speaker 1: give me words, show me what to do, he just did. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've got plenty to do. You can turn me off
Speaker 1: now and just get busy getting rid of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy,
Speaker 1: and slander. I don't know what the Lord wants me
Speaker 1: to do. First, Peter two to one just told you.
Speaker 1: When you get those five, then come back and then
Speaker 1: ask me about the Book of Daniel in the Book
Speaker 1: of Revelations. So that's first one. We've got nine more,
Speaker 1: all right, get rid to get ready. It's like clearing
Speaker 1: out a space that you know God is going to
Speaker 1: fill with something better. Keep going ford Like newborn babies
Speaker 1: crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may
Speaker 1: grow up in your salvation. Now that you have tasted
Speaker 1: that the Lord is good, let's go slow through this
Speaker 1: as you come to him. Verse four, The living stone?
Speaker 1: Who is him? Not a trick question, It's totally Jesus.
Speaker 1: Let's run it back as you come to him. Who
Speaker 1: is him? Right right, right, good job. The living stone
Speaker 1: rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to him,
Speaker 1: and precious to him. You also, like living stones, are
Speaker 1: being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
Speaker 1: offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I
Speaker 1: love it for in scripture, you love when scripture. Quote scripture.
Speaker 1: In scripture, it says, see, I lay a stone in Zion,
Speaker 1: a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts
Speaker 1: in him will never be put to shame. Now to
Speaker 1: you who believe this stone is precious. But to those
Speaker 1: who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has
Speaker 1: become the cornerstone, and a stone that causes people to stumble,
Speaker 1: and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because
Speaker 1: they disobey the message, which is also what they were
Speaker 1: destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood,
Speaker 1: a holy nation, God's special possession. Not the beaters, the
Speaker 1: shoes on the top shelf, he doesn't just wear every day.
Speaker 1: That you may declare the praises of Him who called
Speaker 1: you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you
Speaker 1: were not a people, but now you are the people
Speaker 1: of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now
Speaker 1: you have received mercy. That's enough, let's stop Verse five.
Speaker 1: You also, like living stones, are being built into a
Speaker 1: spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices
Speaker 1: acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I want to use
Speaker 1: for a topic or a title, built different, built different.
Speaker 1: What you're getting here in one Peter is sort of
Speaker 1: a synopsis of a salvation experience, and it kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me of some of the time lapse videos that
Speaker 1: I see on YouTube where they'll show a man. I
Speaker 1: saw this series of videos and somebody told me they
Speaker 1: weren't real. I don't know if they're real. Where he
Speaker 1: was like building a swimming pool with a stick. Have
Speaker 1: you seen these? I thought about playing one, but I
Speaker 1: thought it might be copyright protected or something like that.
Speaker 1: Google might come shut the church down if I've showed it,
Speaker 1: or get demonetized or something like that. Unordained. I don't
Speaker 1: know what happens if you play somebody else's YouTube video,
Speaker 1: but they had all kinds. I kind of went in
Speaker 1: a time lapse wormhole preparing for this message. I was
Speaker 1: watching people build legos. I remember several years ago I
Speaker 1: wanted to do an illustration how God is doing things
Speaker 1: in our life that our purpose appears in pieces. So
Speaker 1: I brought up a box of legos and I really
Speaker 1: milked the illustration. I had the box and I pulled
Speaker 1: it out and I spilled all the pieces everywhere, and
Speaker 1: I said, oh no, it's broken. And my point was,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like it looks on the box until
Speaker 1: it's fully built, and kind of how we have this
Speaker 1: vision for our life, for our family, our relationships, and
Speaker 1: we want to take it back to God because it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like what was on the box. But it
Speaker 1: has to be built. It has to be built. That's
Speaker 1: the whole point of the legos you're paying. So there
Speaker 1: was this nine year old on YouTube, and I may
Speaker 1: show him if we can get the copyright cleared before
Speaker 1: we put this message on YouTube. Look into it. He
Speaker 1: built this lego whole Star Wars lego thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, but it was so big. But
Speaker 1: it only took me about ten minutes to watch him
Speaker 1: build it. It was crazy. And I noticed he changed
Speaker 1: outfits like six times in the video, so that makes
Speaker 1: me think it went on over several days. And I
Speaker 1: was watching that thinking about how when somebody tells you
Speaker 1: their testimony about their relationship with God, or or when
Speaker 1: they tell you their testimony of how they got set
Speaker 1: free from something in their life, it's usually a time
Speaker 1: lapse testimony it, which is what Peter's doing here, right.
Speaker 1: He says it so simply, and the way he says
Speaker 1: it it sounds so sudden, and I want to point
Speaker 1: that out to you again. He's like, get rid of
Speaker 1: all the bad things in your life and grow up
Speaker 1: in your salvation. That's the first two verses, but he
Speaker 1: uses the image of a baby to let me know
Speaker 1: that God's kingdom and the way that it is built
Speaker 1: will be different than the way the time lapse video
Speaker 1: works on YouTube. And so when you hear somebody say,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I gave my life to Christ and
Speaker 1: it was wonderful, and I used to live in the darkness,
Speaker 1: but now I live in the light. And you know,
Speaker 1: I used to be bound by sin, and I was
Speaker 1: served only the false gods of Babylon and myself. They
Speaker 1: still go see those gods sometimes, but they don't tell
Speaker 1: you about that in their testimony. Right. What they're doing
Speaker 1: is there fast forwarding past all the stumbles. Right, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: all of our kids just grew up to serve the Lord,
Speaker 1: and we just love the Lord. We taught them to
Speaker 1: pray when they were early, and we used to pray
Speaker 1: the blessing from number six of the Ironic Blessing. And
Speaker 1: I would they leave out? So much is so fast.
Speaker 1: You can barely watch the three years that their kid
Speaker 1: was on drugs. You barely saw the three years that
Speaker 1: they slept in separate beds. Oh, we've been happily married
Speaker 1: thirty two years. But you didn't know there were eight
Speaker 1: other years. That's called a time lapse testimony. It's not untrue.
Speaker 1: It's just you're hearing it so quick. And the hard
Speaker 1: part becomes when we compare our real life process to
Speaker 1: somebody else's time lapse testimony. Built different, It's something that
Speaker 1: I heard my kids say kind of ironically, you know,
Speaker 1: I make fun of their hair or something like that.
Speaker 1: I remember one of them was saying to somebody, you
Speaker 1: never cry, and the guy say, ah, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: just built different. Man. I was like, that's cool, that's
Speaker 1: something you'll say. This is why I do all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to crack the code of how to reach
Speaker 1: the youth, you know, sermon research. And I even said
Speaker 1: it the other day, Where's Buck? Is he back there somewhere?
Speaker 1: But y'all know Buck? But Buck He sent us a
Speaker 1: workout the other day, me and Elijah, and told us
Speaker 1: to put only here's how the workout goes, superset superset,
Speaker 1: superset superset, where you don't have any rest between Then
Speaker 1: he said, after doing four super sets and not resting,
Speaker 1: to only rest two minutes between sets. So I told
Speaker 1: Elijah what Buck wanted us to do. And I told
Speaker 1: him what we were gonna do. And I said, because
Speaker 1: Buck's built different. Some would call him a psychopath and
Speaker 1: some would call him an athlete. Here's a fine line.
Speaker 1: I just built different. He just built different. And if
Speaker 1: I try to do what Bug does, it's gonna end
Speaker 1: in vomit injury. She said, manslaughter. I'm not that bad.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't kill him. I went in through that. That's
Speaker 1: all you. What's what you would do? Said, She's built different,
Speaker 1: watch out for that one. Now. I was studying the
Speaker 1: scripture and I was reading how Peter said, uh, and
Speaker 1: as you come to him the living stone, rejected by humans,
Speaker 1: chosen by God, precious him. You also like living stones
Speaker 1: are being built. This is verse five. Police into a
Speaker 1: spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices
Speaker 1: acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Time lapse testimony, like
Speaker 1: it's just all one thing, Like it's just all one moment,
Speaker 1: like I have decided to follow. Jesus says it all,
Speaker 1: God said it. I believe that settles it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel you. But why did Jesus use the illustration of
Speaker 1: a mustard seed to describe how His Kingdom grows in
Speaker 1: our life if we expect salvation. Like when I gave
Speaker 1: my life to Christ. My mom had been planting seeds
Speaker 1: for years, right, She'd been planning, and so for me,
Speaker 1: I experienced that suddenly. But she had been sewing that
Speaker 1: from the time she was singing to me as a baby.
Speaker 1: So when I would share my testimony, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: on such and such date, when I was sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: That's how old I was when I kind of made
Speaker 1: my own decision to follow Christ and it was real.
Speaker 1: But for me to just skip to that and say,
Speaker 1: when I was sixteen, I went down forward at this
Speaker 1: Baptist church, first Baptist Church, Monk's Corner, gave my life
Speaker 1: to Christ. That's how I told my testimony for years,
Speaker 1: But that was the time. That was just when what
Speaker 1: she was sewing into me finally caught up with what
Speaker 1: God was doing all along. Right. That really blesses me
Speaker 1: as a parent now to know train up a child
Speaker 1: in the way they should go, and when they are old,
Speaker 1: they won't depart from it. So everybody wants to skip
Speaker 1: telling you about the stuff that doesn't make them look
Speaker 1: so spiritual. That really bothers me that little crackle in
Speaker 1: the microphone that isn't planned, So somebody needs to fix it.
Speaker 1: Come fix it, y'all are like he's doing an illustration.
Speaker 1: No I'm not. It's a malfunction. Now let's back up
Speaker 1: all the way and talk about how God built a nation.
Speaker 1: How God, when he decided to build a nation, he
Speaker 1: found a man with a wife who had a barren womb.
Speaker 1: We should have known from the very beginning that this
Speaker 1: nation is going to be built different, right, because you
Speaker 1: don't build a nation through a woman's barren womb, right,
Speaker 1: That's not how you do it. But God was sending
Speaker 1: us a signal from the very beginning that this nation
Speaker 1: will be built different. It will be built in the
Speaker 1: face of impossible odds, through even what seems to be
Speaker 1: a physical impossibility. So if that's you today and you
Speaker 1: have an impossible situation, that should be a great encouragement
Speaker 1: to you, right because God doesn't need God doesn't need
Speaker 1: to have the finished product in hand to fulfill his
Speaker 1: promise to you. I'm just trying to say that the
Speaker 1: way God works, he builds different than how people build it.
Speaker 1: Is there any way to get this fixed or just
Speaker 1: keep going with the hen help. Okay, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: this off. Somebody put in the chat while I'm stalling
Speaker 1: a little bit. I'm built different. I'm built different. I'm
Speaker 1: built different. So when Jesus chooses his disciples, right, you'll
Speaker 1: remember Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who wrote the Gospels. Well,
Speaker 1: there's James and John, the sons of Zebedee. There's Peter, Peter.
Speaker 1: We should have known from the moment that Jesus picked
Speaker 1: Peter that whatever team Jesus is building, I mean, Peter
Speaker 1: is so far off the scouting report for all the
Speaker 1: professional Christians. And he's not even in rabbi school. He's
Speaker 1: a fisherman. So if you're going to the if you're
Speaker 1: going to the fishing boat to pick your team to
Speaker 1: change the world, you must not be building according to
Speaker 1: the values and the systems of this world. Holly preached
Speaker 1: about Gideon last week. Did you hear it? How Gideon
Speaker 1: had too many men to fight the battle? She didn't
Speaker 1: get to that part. This is a sequel, how he
Speaker 1: got down to three hundred men to attack the Midian Ice.
Speaker 1: She just mentioned that part. But you know what's crazy
Speaker 1: about that? That is, if you're building an army and
Speaker 1: you go from thousands to hundreds. That's called building backwards.
Speaker 1: Has God been building backwards in your life over the
Speaker 1: past year so that sometimes He is stripping and subtracting
Speaker 1: more than he is adding and multiplying. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: the whole clue is built into the text that I
Speaker 1: read you before you can be ready for what God
Speaker 1: is building. You've got to get rid to make room.
Speaker 1: But what drew me to it more than anything, and
Speaker 1: I'd love to get your attention on this verse please,
Speaker 1: is one Peter two four. He says that this living stone, Jesus,
Speaker 1: who we worship, who is perfect, was rejected by humans
Speaker 1: but chosen by God. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: heard me say this before, but it seems to be true,
Speaker 1: whether you're talking about Moses or Peter or Mary who's
Speaker 1: a virgin, or whether you're talking about you know, pick
Speaker 1: your Bible character right, the overlook the unlikely, the little
Speaker 1: boy with the lunch that wasn't even included in the
Speaker 1: crowd count that God selects what man rejects. In this passage,
Speaker 1: we're given a picture of Jesus. He's what God put
Speaker 1: on the box to show you what your life can
Speaker 1: look like. And he's so kind, and he's so powerful,
Speaker 1: and he's so perfect. He's like big enough to do miracles.
Speaker 1: And then he's also a ten enough that when a
Speaker 1: child wants to come up and sit on his laugh,
Speaker 1: he makes time. He is, you might say, the new
Speaker 1: blueprint for humanity, God's second atom, the way to do
Speaker 1: it right. And he's using Jesus as an illustration to
Speaker 1: say that when God sent perfection into the world, people
Speaker 1: didn't recognize it. Let me give you a theology lesson
Speaker 1: on why people did not recognize perfection when it came.
Speaker 1: Because people are dumb, because people look at all the
Speaker 1: wrong stuff all the time. So we will find a
Speaker 1: celebrity to emulate and not even take into account that
Speaker 1: that celebrity is miserable, and we will model our life
Speaker 1: after somebody who is secretly miserable. Meanwhile, God puts people
Speaker 1: in our life that are actually good, you know, examples
Speaker 1: in our life that are actually good, and we call
Speaker 1: them old heads, and we don't like them because they
Speaker 1: don't wear the stuff that looks attractive. But it's okay,
Speaker 1: because here's here's a message. Jesus was rejected. Jesus was rejected.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that the eternal word of God, the pure, thoughtless,
Speaker 1: without blemish, lamb of God, Jesus, the Alpha, the Omega,
Speaker 1: and everything in between. Jesus was rejected. But that in
Speaker 1: the chat Jesus was rejected. He's talking about Jesus. He said,
Speaker 1: the stone that the foundation on Christ, the solid rock,
Speaker 1: eyes stand, the thing that everything was built on, the
Speaker 1: word that is eternal, that was spoken from the portals
Speaker 1: of eternity into the labor pangs of time. That Jesus
Speaker 1: was rejected. He came to his own, and his own
Speaker 1: received him not. He was despised and rejected. A man
Speaker 1: of sorrows and acquainted with greed. Jesus was rejected. What
Speaker 1: made you think you would never be He was despised.
Speaker 1: Why do we always think we're going to be so
Speaker 1: well liked? Hmm? Jesus was rejected. I don't think we
Speaker 1: get that message very much anymore. We get Jesus was resurrected.
Speaker 1: But before he was resurrected, the only reason that he
Speaker 1: needed to be was that he was rejected by the people.
Speaker 1: He came to say, And that's a very painful thing, y'all.
Speaker 1: There's not a person under the sound of my voice.
Speaker 1: Who hasn't experienced Maybe you don't call it being rejected.
Speaker 1: Maybe it just feels like being ignored. The popular term
Speaker 1: now is unseen. I need to feel seen, And it's
Speaker 1: like you change your hair color and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and nobody even cares about it much. And you know,
Speaker 1: you bought those shoes on a credit card you can't afford,
Speaker 1: and me paying them off till you're raising your grandchildren
Speaker 1: and nobody even cares about that. And so yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be seen. But really, if I come to
Speaker 1: the theological truth that's in the text, it's nothing new.
Speaker 1: Jesus was rejected. So I was sixteen when I gave
Speaker 1: my life to Christ. The language that we used was
Speaker 1: I accepted Jesus. I remember that's what the preacher said,
Speaker 1: if you would like to accept Christ as your I
Speaker 1: think he said your personal Lord and savior. And you're saying,
Speaker 1: make a decision, you know, put your faith in Christ,
Speaker 1: put your trust in him. And when I did that,
Speaker 1: I meant it. And I would say I've never looked back.
Speaker 1: I've looked back plenty, but I've tried to keep moving forward,
Speaker 1: or at least get back up when I fall down, right,
Speaker 1: So you know the time life testimony is, I gave
Speaker 1: my left to Christ when I'm sixteen, and here I
Speaker 1: am today preaching the word of God. Shout out in Nairobi.
Speaker 1: Shut out Buttswana, shout out ben Burke, South Carolina, keep
Speaker 1: saying things that start with A be unto your shot.
Speaker 1: Shout out Valentine. All right, but accepting Jesus was easy.
Speaker 1: What's not to accept? I mean, He's gonna pay for
Speaker 1: my sins, not my bill at Chewies, my sins, my wrongs.
Speaker 1: He's gonna take away my shame. He's gonna stand in
Speaker 1: the place where I deserve to stand. He's gonna die
Speaker 1: for me. He's gonna put his resurrection power of me.
Speaker 1: He's gonna pray for me to the Father. When I
Speaker 1: don't have the words to say, I'll take it. I'll
Speaker 1: take it. This is a good deal. I'm accepting Jesus.
Speaker 1: That happened when I was sixteen. This week I turned
Speaker 1: forty one years old. That's about It's about the right
Speaker 1: amount of applause, somewhere between pity and celebration. That's how
Speaker 1: I feel. That means it's been twenty five years since
Speaker 1: I accepted Jesus. That's a quarter of the century since
Speaker 1: I accepted Jesus. When I accepted Jesus, I bet it
Speaker 1: took me twenty five seconds to walk down the aisle
Speaker 1: Boom boom, boom, prayed this prayer. I accepted Jesus twenty
Speaker 1: five seconds. But what's taking me twenty five years is
Speaker 1: accepting Stephen. Oh, my Lord, that hasn't been as easy.
Speaker 1: He's not perfect, he's not always forgiving, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: all wisdom, he doesn't have a lot of things. He's
Speaker 1: five foot eight and a half. People say things when
Speaker 1: they meet him, like you look taller on the screen.
Speaker 1: That's appropriate. Accepting Jesus took a moment. Accepting me is
Speaker 1: taking a lifetime. And the longer I live with Stephen,
Speaker 1: the sicker of him I get. You know, every day
Speaker 1: with Jesus sweeter than the day before. There was a
Speaker 1: hymn that went like that. I changed the melody a
Speaker 1: little bit. Every day with Steven, I discover a new
Speaker 1: depth of the depravity. You know, there's good stuff too.
Speaker 1: I'm not up here just self flagelatd like, oh I'm
Speaker 1: so horrible. A lot of y'all suckers than I do.
Speaker 1: But the point I'm saying is, I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: good man. I love my family. That's not the point
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make here. And I do good things sometimes.
Speaker 1: But the point I'm trying to make is to accept
Speaker 1: Jesus and not accept Stephen is to miss the gift
Speaker 1: of salvation where it matters the most. Because Peter doesn't
Speaker 1: just say he's holy. He said that the same hymn
Speaker 1: that was holy is making you holy. Y'all shouldn't have
Speaker 1: handed me this mic. I preach harder when I hold
Speaker 1: the mic. I don't know what's wrong. He didn't just
Speaker 1: say that Jesusjesus was a stone. He said, look at
Speaker 1: verse five, Look at verse five, Verse Peter two five.
Speaker 1: He said, you also. So I read this scripture a
Speaker 1: million times. I thought, yeah, Jesus was rejected. Jesus was crucified.
Speaker 1: Jesus came and the Jewish people didn't receive him. So
Speaker 1: the gospel I had to go to the Gentiles. Jesus
Speaker 1: was hung up and they took took Barabbas instead of
Speaker 1: Jesus on the cross. Yeah, they rejected Jesus. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is a scripture about how the wisdom of men
Speaker 1: is always faulty, and the wisdom of God is only wisdom.
Speaker 1: Give me trusting. That's all right. There, I missed the
Speaker 1: hinge verse five. You also so like he's the stone
Speaker 1: that I build on. I'm the stone that he builds on.
Speaker 1: Yes you, yes you, yes you. Who better to hear
Speaker 1: this from than Peter Freaking Peter. Peter had problems. Peter
Speaker 1: was cussing what Jesus was going to the cross, but
Speaker 1: the promise was to Peter. And Jesus said that flesh
Speaker 1: and blood did not reveal this to you. But my
Speaker 1: father is in heaven. Watch this, and I say to
Speaker 1: you that you are Peter, and on this rock. Now,
Speaker 1: his faith would still be shaken. He would still at
Speaker 1: times in his life be belligerent, obnoxious. Am I talking
Speaker 1: about Peter? I'm I tell about Steven, I'm I talking
Speaker 1: about you. I don't I'm talking about I'm talking about
Speaker 1: what God builds on, bearing wounds, virgin girlseople who have
Speaker 1: no business being built on. The reason you don't know
Speaker 1: that is because you've only heard time lapse truth, so
Speaker 1: you only see it happen in like ten minutes, and
Speaker 1: then when it's been ten years for you, am I preaching? Okay,
Speaker 1: you don't realize that the same one who is sitting
Speaker 1: here saying in one Peter too, is the same Peter,
Speaker 1: the same Peter this saying you are chosen. When Jesus
Speaker 1: first said I want to use your boat, he said,
Speaker 1: go away from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man. I
Speaker 1: never caught that before. How far Peter has come to
Speaker 1: be able to go from saying not me, you can't
Speaker 1: use me to now God is using the same one
Speaker 1: who tried to push Jesus away, the stone that the
Speaker 1: builders rejected. It's the one who on the day of Pentecost,
Speaker 1: the one with the loud mouth, the one who lied
Speaker 1: about his affiliation with God, the one who couldn't seem
Speaker 1: you know, Peter was always the one who was jumping
Speaker 1: up at the wrong times and shrinking back at the wrongness.
Speaker 1: And God said, I'm gonna build on that. My kingdom
Speaker 1: will not be built on prestige and personas and images.
Speaker 1: My kingdom will not be built on perfect people. Now
Speaker 1: this kingdom will be built different. See, I'm gonna find
Speaker 1: somebody who's real, rock solid, who knows they need grace,
Speaker 1: and I'll build on that. So now throw both their
Speaker 1: hands up and say, thank you Lord for choosing me,
Speaker 1: thank you Lord for saving me, thank you Lord for
Speaker 1: seeing me. I was so so thankful that Jane was
Speaker 1: up here when I came to preach. You wrote me
Speaker 1: a letter ten years ago that I never forgot. I
Speaker 1: memorized that like it was Bible verses, the Book of
Speaker 1: Second Jane Jane Williams. We were celebrating some milestone for
Speaker 1: the ministry, I don't know, four years or something like that,
Speaker 1: and she said, I thank God for you, She said, respectfully,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you something. She said, what God
Speaker 1: is doing in you and through you is going to
Speaker 1: look different than any of the heroes that you have,
Speaker 1: and she listed them. She knew who my heroes were
Speaker 1: because I'm unashamedly you know, I look up to people
Speaker 1: in big ways. And she named my heroes and she said, respectfully,
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage you to just be open
Speaker 1: to what the Holy Spirit wants to do through you you.
Speaker 1: I never forgot that letter because when we started going
Speaker 1: away and writing songs together, none of my other pastor
Speaker 1: friends were writing music. And I would quote, you know,
Speaker 1: Third Jane two fourteen, it's gonna be different. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be different. Put that in the chat. It's gonna different,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be differ it's gona different. It's gonna be different.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be different. It's gonna be different. You're trying
Speaker 1: to build what's on somebody else's box with your pieces.
Speaker 1: You're trying to squat bucks weight bucks are built different.
Speaker 1: He's an alien, he's a freak. He is not a man.
Speaker 1: He is a machine. You get the point, built different
Speaker 1: and the more look he said, get rid of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy.
Speaker 1: Your life is gonna be built different. Your seeson is
Speaker 1: gonna look different, Your timing is gonna be different. Everything
Speaker 1: about it, How God uses you. You know the principle
Speaker 1: what God selects, men rejects. What men rejects God selects.
Speaker 1: I don't remember which order I said it in, but
Speaker 1: it's true the way you put it. That's true of you.
Speaker 1: Your life is true of David, who wasn't even in
Speaker 1: line to be looked at as a future king, but
Speaker 1: was still out in the field. Study it. God said,
Speaker 1: I have rejected Saul, who the people chose, and I
Speaker 1: chose David, who the people didn't even know was there now.
Speaker 1: In the same way that was true of Jesus the
Speaker 1: suffering servant. They wanted a king, not a carpenter, and
Speaker 1: he was both. We should have known that this kingdom
Speaker 1: was gonna look different when we crowned a carpenter as
Speaker 1: our savior. That means there's going to be cutting, sanding.
Speaker 1: That means that the raw materials don't look like the
Speaker 1: finished product. But you've got to stay entirely confident in
Speaker 1: the carpenter's process. Your belief is your blueprint and all
Speaker 1: the behaviors that we're trying to change to rebuild our life.
Speaker 1: If we don't first deal with the belief that caused
Speaker 1: the behavior, it will be short term in nature. The
Speaker 1: change will not stick. It will be a time lapse transformation.
Speaker 1: But real transformation takes time. It took Peter, if I
Speaker 1: have my dates correct, roughly twenty five years to go
Speaker 1: from saying Jesus, you are the chosen One to being
Speaker 1: able to say to the gentiles that he wrote this
Speaker 1: to you are the chosen one. You also, But people
Speaker 1: skip that stuff. They tell you, I'll admit I do it.
Speaker 1: I have a word I've heard from the Lord I'm
Speaker 1: excited to preach. When I woke up this morning, my
Speaker 1: stomach was so tor You know, I don't tell you
Speaker 1: that part. You don't need to know all that. See,
Speaker 1: it was even too much information right there, and I
Speaker 1: didn't even say the full sentence. That's how that you
Speaker 1: can't handle this all right, and you don't need to
Speaker 1: tell everybody everything. But my point of it is, don't
Speaker 1: judge your transformation by somebody else's time lapse. It's just
Speaker 1: like I said a million years ago. You know you're
Speaker 1: comparing you're behind the scenes to everybody else's highlight reel. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a matter, he said, you are being built.
Speaker 1: So when I walked in and heard Holly telling her
Speaker 1: friends about when we got to take a COVID test,
Speaker 1: this is a few weeks ago, and I heard her
Speaker 1: tell the story, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: You didn't tell them the part when the men stuck
Speaker 1: the cute tip in your nose? Can I please tell them?
Speaker 1: She is looking at me so evil, I might not
Speaker 1: get a kiss for a month. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this was worth this. I mean, when that man put
Speaker 1: that Q tip up her nose, this woman, this woman
Speaker 1: who was so tough, who has delivered three human beings,
Speaker 1: precious babies into the world. This woman who I have
Speaker 1: seen weather storms and controversies and criticisms of the church
Speaker 1: that were giving our life to Bill, this woman screamed
Speaker 1: in agony, like she was thrust into the flames of
Speaker 1: an eternal hell, like she had just survived a head
Speaker 1: on collision with a UFO. She screams at the top
Speaker 1: of her lungs, and the man says, I'm like kidding, ma'am.
Speaker 1: I'm not even in the nose yet. It was touching.
Speaker 1: The rich of her notes. Yes it's true. Yes, it's true.
Speaker 1: You didn't tell him that part. You didn't tell her
Speaker 1: that part. I got the mic this week, and all
Speaker 1: she told them. There were all these people around. She said,
Speaker 1: I got a COVID test I said, that's all you're
Speaker 1: gonna tell her, And that's all we do. I made it,
Speaker 1: by the grace of God. You barely made it. You
Speaker 1: still aren't sure you made it. Don't make me take
Speaker 1: my slater off the preaching. Everything we showed you for
Speaker 1: the fifteen year anniversary was a time lapse testimony. You
Speaker 1: don't get to see the deleted scenes, but I know
Speaker 1: them deep down and that's what gives me confidence for
Speaker 1: the grace of God to know that you again, it
Speaker 1: will be faithful to completed. I'm looking for a city
Speaker 1: whose builder and maker is God. And what's so weird
Speaker 1: about us is that knowing all this, that God is
Speaker 1: building us as stones, and that means we need each other.
Speaker 1: Because it's not a singular stone, we will isolate ourselves
Speaker 1: and think we have to be good at everything. No, No,
Speaker 1: this kingdom is going to be built different. The kingdoms
Speaker 1: of this world are built on self reliance and independence.
Speaker 1: The Kingdom of God is built on a coming together
Speaker 1: of imperfect people. Death built different. This kingdom is built different.
Speaker 1: It's enhanced by the imperfections. It enables grace, It enables
Speaker 1: us to fit with one another. That we're not perfect.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing thing. It's an absolutely amazing thing that
Speaker 1: I can accept Jesus and not accept me. And yet
Speaker 1: the scripture says that the process of maturity is offering
Speaker 1: to God a spiritual sacrifice that's my life acceptable through Jesus.
Speaker 1: So the real challenge of my faith will not be
Speaker 1: accepting Jesus. It will be accepting His process with me.
Speaker 1: And if that's sanding, and if that's cutting, and if
Speaker 1: that means that I've been looking at the wrong box
Speaker 1: and that God wants to build something completely different in
Speaker 1: my life than what I had in mind, then I'm
Speaker 1: good with it. Now. I don't have any clock. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long I've been preaching, But can I
Speaker 1: show you one more thing? Somebody say, built different, Built different.
Speaker 1: That's a statement of clarity, right. It helps you to know, hey, man,
Speaker 1: it's all right if my life doesn't look like your life,
Speaker 1: or if my gift doesn't look like your gift, or
Speaker 1: if my timeline doesn't look like your timeline. Who gave
Speaker 1: you your blueprint to begin with? Your beliefs are your blueprint,
Speaker 1: And for most of us, we never really checked out
Speaker 1: what model we're building accord to according to And what
Speaker 1: happens in a marriage is that you essentially repeat the
Speaker 1: same blueprint that was demonstrated in front of you without
Speaker 1: ever stopping to analyze. Is there a new blueprint that
Speaker 1: God wants to give our family? Nobody was supposed to
Speaker 1: have a church this diverse in Charlotte, North Carolina. But
Speaker 1: God had a blueprint that we were building according to
Speaker 1: before we knew what the blueprint was. So I love
Speaker 1: the picture and I think I'll make this the last
Speaker 1: thing that I share with you today. When Moses is
Speaker 1: building the Tabernacle where God's presence would dwell in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: remember it was mobile the tabernacle, you had to be
Speaker 1: able to follow, kind of like life is right now.
Speaker 1: You got to plan everything in pencil right now, right
Speaker 1: with a big fat eracer, just to know that everything's
Speaker 1: moving right, just to know that you know, the blueprint
Speaker 1: might not be what we think it is. There was
Speaker 1: a verse that always got my attention. I would use
Speaker 1: it to talk to leaders. And the verses after God
Speaker 1: has given Moses these very specific instructions about here's how
Speaker 1: you build the curtains for the tabernacle, here's how you
Speaker 1: build he goes into great detail about the lamp stands
Speaker 1: and the table of presents, where the showbread was, and
Speaker 1: he gives great instructions about where the Covenant was to
Speaker 1: be kept, all of these things in the holy, Holy,
Speaker 1: Holy of holies, the most holy place. And then there's
Speaker 1: a verse where it's like God is reminding Moses because
Speaker 1: he showed him all this on Mount Sinai, where he
Speaker 1: gave him the law, he gave him the instructions, he
Speaker 1: gave him the vision, he gave him the blueprint, he says,
Speaker 1: after telling him all of where the furniture should go
Speaker 1: in the tabernacle, he tells him in Exodus twenty five forty,
Speaker 1: please see that you make them according to the pattern
Speaker 1: shown you on the mountain. See to it that when
Speaker 1: you come down from this place where I'm giving you
Speaker 1: a revelation of what's real, and you have to go
Speaker 1: down into everyday life where people are. You have to
Speaker 1: go down into everyday life, where problems are. You have
Speaker 1: to go down into everyday life where confusion is. You
Speaker 1: have to go down to everyday life where things aren't
Speaker 1: so direct connection. See to it that the pattern you
Speaker 1: build according to is not the pattern that you see
Speaker 1: in the world, but the pattern that you see in
Speaker 1: my presence. And I think is so hard for us,
Speaker 1: because God gives us these great glimpses of the kind
Speaker 1: of person that we can be becoming. You see it
Speaker 1: through somebody else, you hear it in a moment, you
Speaker 1: glimpse it, You get a glimpse of it, and then
Speaker 1: you've got to carry that glimpse all the way down
Speaker 1: into the distractions of your real life. I mean, let's
Speaker 1: be honest now, because many are having church in home.
Speaker 1: You don't even get to just have church by yourself anymore.
Speaker 1: Even as I'm preaching this, there is a distraction. While
Speaker 1: I am giving you the details that God gave me
Speaker 1: to give to you for what He's building your life
Speaker 1: and designing your life according to There's stuff running around
Speaker 1: all over your house. Some you even have AirPods in
Speaker 1: because you're embarrassed to be listening to a sermon in
Speaker 1: front of your roommates because they know how you really
Speaker 1: live and you don't want to make fun of you.
Speaker 1: So now you got to take the faith that God
Speaker 1: birth while I was preaching in your ear and live
Speaker 1: it out loud in the face of people who might
Speaker 1: not respect or expect or accept you at all. But
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, because God selects what people reject.
Speaker 1: Don't you turn around and do the opposite. Don't reject
Speaker 1: what makes you special, don't downplay what makes you destined.
Speaker 1: Don't you take what God gave you on the mountain
Speaker 1: and the true you and build with an old blueprint.
Speaker 1: And I read that and thought, that's it right there.
Speaker 1: You got to take what God shows you on the
Speaker 1: mountain and build it in the valley. You got to
Speaker 1: take what you know to be true when you feel
Speaker 1: joy and apply it when you feel depressed. You've got
Speaker 1: to take the blueprint of what God showed you as
Speaker 1: supposed to look like and just build and him. You
Speaker 1: got to build an arc when you've never seen rain.
Speaker 1: You've got to build in the valley what God showed
Speaker 1: you on the mountain and not take a vote of
Speaker 1: a the Midi of cynics, who are going to tell
Speaker 1: you it can't be done. He told Moses, make sure
Speaker 1: that you put all the furniture where it goes in
Speaker 1: the tabernacle according to what I showed you on the mountain.
Speaker 1: And you know what's crazy, Chris, Moses had a pattern
Speaker 1: that was shown to him on Mount Sinai. But that's
Speaker 1: not the mountain that we get our pattern from. That's
Speaker 1: the mountain where God gave the law to his people.
Speaker 1: The kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate is built different.
Speaker 1: It's not built on Mount Sinai with rumbling thunder, flashing
Speaker 1: lightning and wrath. It was built on a hill far
Speaker 1: away stood an old rugged cross. See the mountain that
Speaker 1: I want to pattern my life after is not Sinai,
Speaker 1: where the Law lives. The mountain that I want to
Speaker 1: pattern my life after is called Calvary, where grace is
Speaker 1: greater than all my sin and shame. So what I
Speaker 1: think God is saying, more than anything else, is to
Speaker 1: make sure that you are building by grace, building by grace,
Speaker 1: so that when your faith runs out, Peter, and you
Speaker 1: run short, and when your faith runs out and your
Speaker 1: answers aren't there, and when your faith runs out and
Speaker 1: your explanations fall short, that you have a greater grace
Speaker 1: working in your life. See. God is not going to
Speaker 1: build the rest of your life based on what you deserve. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: It is built on a much truer foundation than that.
Speaker 1: This foundation cannot be shaken. If the rain blows, if
Speaker 1: the winds blow, if the streams rise, if it beats
Speaker 1: against your house, it will have its foundation on the
Speaker 1: rock and it will stand firm. And that's what you've
Speaker 1: been learning. In this season of your life. You face
Speaker 1: some rejection, Some doors have been shut, some things have
Speaker 1: gone wrong, some things have toppled, some truths have been
Speaker 1: tested ah, But it's not about the furniture. It's about
Speaker 1: the foundation. God can move it all around. But how
Speaker 1: great a foundation, how firm a foundation is Jesus our Lord,
Speaker 1: if you know you've got the right foundation, give God
Speaker 1: a shout of praise right now, hold it up. So Lord,
Speaker 1: I released this word in the spirit you gave it
Speaker 1: to me. You said to tell these people that if
Speaker 1: a thousand fall at their right or they're it will
Speaker 1: not comnigh them because they're built different. You told me
Speaker 1: to tell them that though the world may be dismayed
Speaker 1: and discouraged, not so with them, because we're built different.
Speaker 1: You told me to tell them that, in a divided
Speaker 1: time politically, that your church still stands together, united under
Speaker 1: the only name that matters, because we're built different. And
Speaker 1: upon this rock you have built your church, and upon
Speaker 1: this rock you are building our lives. And upon this
Speaker 1: rock of revelation, you are building an understanding that can
Speaker 1: never be shaken. And we praise you for it. In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift up a high phrase. If you receive it,
Speaker 1: if you believe it, that the stone the builders rejected,
Speaker 1: That the stone the builders rejected. It's the chief cornerstone.
Speaker 1: So Lord, here we are. We're not shifting sand. Our
Speaker 1: lives are built on you, the solid rock, the one
Speaker 1: who never walks away, the one who never gives out.
Speaker 1: I pray for people today who have been flapping back
Speaker 1: and forth. And maybe they've been more concerned with the
Speaker 1: furniture than the foundation. Maybe they've been more concerned with
Speaker 1: certain little items and things in their life and this
Speaker 1: going right and that going right. But none of that
Speaker 1: mattered when the storm came. Only what mattered was what
Speaker 1: is it built on? Lord? We want to build what
Speaker 1: we behold in your presence today you showed us some things.
Speaker 1: I could feel it. While I was preaching, you were
Speaker 1: showing us some things. All we ever see is what's
Speaker 1: wrong with us. Today you showed us what's right with you.
Speaker 1: And if I can accept Jesus and Jesus accepts Stephen,
Speaker 1: I got to accept me too. We joined with Peter's
Speaker 1: pronouncement today. He said it to people thousands of years ago,
Speaker 1: but he was saying it for us too. You are
Speaker 1: chosen people. Once you weren't. Now you are lift your
Speaker 1: hands like you're receiving on the mountain. God give me
Speaker 1: a new blueprint. This week, I've been looking at some
Speaker 1: of the wrong models. Give me a new blueprint for
Speaker 1: how to spend my day, for how to spend my week.
Speaker 1: Give me a new blueprint for how to handle temptation
Speaker 1: and pressure and stress. Give me a new blueprint for
Speaker 1: how to treat other people when they're unfair to me.
Speaker 1: Give me a new blueprint for what significance really is
Speaker 1: because I need it. Listen to me, I know who's four.
Speaker 1: I got to say it. What is built on determines
Speaker 1: what it can be destroyed by. So anything that isn't
Speaker 1: built on Jesus, who is eternal, can be destroyed by
Speaker 1: something that is temporal. But you are chosen people. Peter
Speaker 1: was chosen while he was cussing. He was chosen while
Speaker 1: he was preaching upon this rock, the living Stone, rejected
Speaker 1: by men, accepted by God. We thank you for it.
Speaker 1: Right now. Receive it. Just receive it. Say I receive it.
Speaker 1: I receive it. If you receive the word, make sure
Speaker 1: you not only receive the word, but apply it and
Speaker 1: share it. You know, you could take a moment right
Speaker 1: now if you watch the whole sermon and it bless you,
Speaker 1: share it, share it with somebody right now, God can
Speaker 1: use you as a witness and make sure you're subscribed.
Speaker 1: And I want to thank all of you who pray
Speaker 1: for me and Holly and our team here and those
Speaker 1: of you who give and so into the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: When we say that you're a chosen people. God has
Speaker 1: chosen us to make a difference in this time. So
Speaker 1: let us choose to do the things that God has
Speaker 1: called us to do, the work He's called us to
Speaker 1: do to build his kingdom. I'm so grateful for what
Speaker 1: he's doing. Give him all the glory. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next time. Pray for us for praying for you. We
Speaker 1: love it.