Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3: My name is Lisa, and I can't even tell y'all
Speaker 3: how excited I am to be here, how overwhelmed I
Speaker 3: am to be here. You are family to me, whether
Speaker 3: you claim me or not. I claim y'all. I deeply, deeply,
Speaker 3: deeply love and respect Pastor Holly and Pastor Stephen, and
Speaker 3: I know full well you could have anybody from around
Speaker 3: the world and it would be an undeserved privilege for
Speaker 3: them to be in this house. And so I'm always
Speaker 3: surprised flying from Nashville to Charlotte that, yeah, I kind
Speaker 3: of feel like the girl and the math club and
Speaker 3: the quarterback aster to prom it is. I mean, not
Speaker 3: that there aren't amazing girls in math clubs. My apologies
Speaker 3: if you're in the math club, but.
Speaker 1: I just I'm always.
Speaker 3: Just kind of undone that I get to be with
Speaker 3: y'all because I love this house so much. Chunks and
Speaker 3: Amy Corbett. I would follow y'all off a cliff. I
Speaker 3: just think you hung the moon. And I'm feeling especially
Speaker 3: nostalgic this week, and so I'm glad I get to
Speaker 3: be with surrogate family because my little girl, some of
Speaker 3: you I've met, and some of you know I became
Speaker 3: a mom through the miracle of adoption, and the year
Speaker 3: I turned fifty.
Speaker 1: I don't have a baby daddy yet.
Speaker 3: So if you know somebody, I'm sixty one, If you
Speaker 3: know somebody between fifty five and death, I'll go younger
Speaker 3: who's employed and loves Jesus and doesn't live in his
Speaker 3: mother's basement.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's just Missy and me.
Speaker 3: And she's turned in sixteen a week from today, and
Speaker 3: so just all those all those mama feelings have been
Speaker 3: well enough over the last week, and I've been talking
Speaker 3: to her about all these memories I have from when
Speaker 3: I first brought her home from Haiti in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: and she had all these just precious habits, like one
Speaker 3: of them was she called me Pablo the entire time
Speaker 3: that I was adopting her from Haiti for two years,
Speaker 3: she called me Mama Blah White mama in Creole.
Speaker 1: And then the day I.
Speaker 3: Brought her to Haye, Haiti to Nashville from Haiti, she
Speaker 3: started calling me Pablo, and I thought that's just odd.
Speaker 1: She would switch to.
Speaker 3: Pablo and I'd go, no, no, baby, morialy mama, blah,
Speaker 3: my name is white mama, and she'd go, no, Pablo,
Speaker 3: And I thought, this is going to be just awkward
Speaker 3: when she gets married, because if y'all don't get on
Speaker 3: the stick and I don't have a husband, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be the one that the pastor says, who gives
Speaker 3: this woman, I'm going to go meet Pablo. And so
Speaker 3: I kept trying to dissuade her from calling me Pablo.
Speaker 3: She was insistent for about a month until we found
Speaker 3: out that the very last Sunday stool Sunday school curricula
Speaker 3: she had done in her orphanage, they don't make enough
Speaker 3: curricula to print them in Creole, and so they'll borrow
Speaker 3: from Spanish curricula because that's close enough to Creole that
Speaker 3: the kids can usually get it. And the very last
Speaker 3: little lesson she had done was on the missionary journeys
Speaker 3: of Paul Pablo, and when she asked one of the
Speaker 3: nannies at the orphanage. What does my mama blanc do,
Speaker 3: my white mama do? Does she sell mangos?
Speaker 1: Does she?
Speaker 3: So they said, well, she's kind of like a missionary.
Speaker 3: She travels around and talks about Jesus. And so my
Speaker 3: punkin conflated those two stories and decided I was apostle Paul,
Speaker 3: and so I could just imagine Paul and Glory going
Speaker 3: really Jesus, like, really, could we get a better doppelganger.
Speaker 1: So that was one of her habits.
Speaker 3: Another thing that I thought was precious that she got
Speaker 3: confused was her last name. Because I love teasing and
Speaker 3: given nicknames, and the whole time I was adopting her,
Speaker 3: I called her Scooter mctudor, And so the first couple
Speaker 3: of times people asked her what her last name was
Speaker 3: in Nashville, she'd go Missy Maketuda. I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's Harper, baby, It's Harper. Her last habit I told
Speaker 3: her about this last week that was priceless. It was
Speaker 3: a little alarming, but it was priceless was anytime we
Speaker 3: came near a wall, like if we were walking next
Speaker 3: to this or a fence, if I wasn't paying attention.
Speaker 3: Missy would run up on the wall or the fence,
Speaker 3: and then without any warning, she would just hurl herself
Speaker 3: off the water fence toward me because she just knew,
Speaker 3: like she knew her name, that I would catch her.
Speaker 3: And it was so precious and a little scary to
Speaker 3: just have this precious little little Haitian hurling herself off
Speaker 3: high things into my arms. She, after about maybe a month,
Speaker 3: dropped that habit. I was glad it might be hard
Speaker 3: to catch her now. But are you okay if I
Speaker 3: tell the hurling story?
Speaker 1: Okay? Will you put in your earbuds for this next
Speaker 1: little cart?
Speaker 3: Hurling is still a habit in the Harper household. It's
Speaker 3: not Missy though, it's me. I was driving her to
Speaker 3: school for the last week of school just a few
Speaker 3: weeks ago, the end of May, and we were going
Speaker 3: over her history final, going over notes for her history final,
Speaker 3: and we were driving to school and Missy had stayed
Speaker 3: up most of the night studying for her finals, so
Speaker 3: she wasn't in a good mood. Do you have them
Speaker 3: in another one? And she was, I'll let you know
Speaker 3: when you can pull them out. She did tell me
Speaker 3: I could tell this story. But she's turned sixteen, and
Speaker 3: I don't want to embarrass her unduly. When Missy, there's
Speaker 3: how many of y'all have teenage daughters, you know, there's
Speaker 3: just like three days a month that they swallow grimlins,
Speaker 3: And so only like three days a month that she
Speaker 3: Missy is normally the kindest. That's how you can tell
Speaker 3: she doesn't have my DNA. She is kind, deeply kind,
Speaker 3: But three days a week, she's a bear.
Speaker 1: So she had stayed.
Speaker 3: Up most of the night studying for her finals, and
Speaker 3: then she had swallowed PMS grimlins, And so we're driving
Speaker 3: to her Christian private school and she's just mad. And
Speaker 3: I'm I think I'm Jesus junior. You know, I'm driving,
Speaker 3: I've gotten her sausage biscuit from her favorite place. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm just very patiently going over electromagnetic fields and characteristics
Speaker 3: with her on the way to school so she'll pass
Speaker 3: her test. And I said something, I remember what I said,
Speaker 3: and Missy said something very sarcastic under her breath.
Speaker 1: Now, I can handle j.
Speaker 3: About anything as a mama, except for disrespect.
Speaker 1: Disrespect it's my achilles heel.
Speaker 3: And so I looked at this beautiful miracle child of
Speaker 3: mine who was tired and had PMS. But I have
Speaker 3: PMS two. It's called post menopausal demonic syndrome. And my
Speaker 3: grimlins are big and tatted. My grimlins have little tears
Speaker 3: on them, and they want to fight. And so when
Speaker 3: I'm around disrespect my PMS, grimlins come out in hordes,
Speaker 3: big angry hordes. And so I looked at Missy and
Speaker 3: I said, what did you say?
Speaker 1: And she said hmmmm.
Speaker 3: And I pulled the car over to the side of
Speaker 3: the road and I said, in this home, we at
Speaker 3: least have the integrity to speak disrespect out loud.
Speaker 1: We don't say it under our breath.
Speaker 3: So would you like to try again and say that
Speaker 3: out loud?
Speaker 1: Any of y'all have a mama like this?
Speaker 3: I mean, I should have been in time out myself.
Speaker 3: But Missy, because of that three day period, she gets
Speaker 3: braver than usual. She said it out loud, and you know,
Speaker 3: I was backed into a corner at that point. I
Speaker 3: had to do something, and so I didn't really know
Speaker 3: what to do, and so I just snatched her biscuit and.
Speaker 1: Threw it out in the window. It's her older biscuit
Speaker 1: out the window and.
Speaker 3: Missy just went and I was like, I know, I
Speaker 3: can't believe I her old true biscuit. I was so
Speaker 3: grateful that within like thirty seconds, humor and humility invaded
Speaker 3: our car, and some of my fruit of the spirit
Speaker 3: came back. Patients came lipping back, my pms. Grimlins had
Speaker 3: beaten patients. But it finally crawled back in the car
Speaker 3: and we laughed, and I gave her my breakfast biscuit
Speaker 3: so she wouldn't have a headache, dear in your history exam,
Speaker 3: and we laughed by the time we got to school.
Speaker 3: But I was like, man, it is different raising an
Speaker 3: almost sixteen year old than it was raising a four
Speaker 3: year old.
Speaker 1: When she was four.
Speaker 3: I put just I'm so sorry I scared your child, baby,
Speaker 3: your mama, Your mama will not throw your biscuit. I
Speaker 3: can cross. I'm the only hurler in the house this morning.
Speaker 3: When she was four, I put most of my attention,
Speaker 3: my affection into her, establishing roots so she would have deep,
Speaker 3: deep roots, that she would know that she was loved,
Speaker 3: that she was affirmed, that I wasn't going anywhere that
Speaker 3: unlike her first mama, who passed when she was a baby,
Speaker 3: I was going to do everything I could to stay here.
Speaker 3: So those formative years were all about roots. Now that
Speaker 3: Missy's growing up, it's all about wings. It's all about
Speaker 3: me learning how to get behind her and affirm her.
Speaker 1: I've given her the parameters. She knows the boundaries.
Speaker 3: Now it's about giving her the grace to fly and
Speaker 3: to become the woman God has created her to be.
Speaker 3: When she was little, our intimacy was all about her
Speaker 3: total dependency on me. Now that she's growing up, our
Speaker 3: intimacy it's no longer based on her being totally dependent
Speaker 3: on me. As a matter of fact, the more she matures,
Speaker 3: the less dependent she'll be on me if she's healthy.
Speaker 3: Now hang on and listen to me, Epham, do not
Speaker 3: mess with your an espresso machine right now.
Speaker 1: Hang on to this next truth.
Speaker 3: For human children, it's important as they grow up that
Speaker 3: they become more independent. For children of God, it's exactly
Speaker 3: the opposite. If you want to mature as a Christ follower,
Speaker 3: we should be increasingly dependent on our creator, Redeemer. It's
Speaker 3: counterintuitive in this world where plopped in you want to
Speaker 3: grow as a Christ follower, it means you become increasingly
Speaker 3: dependent on God. You don't cut the apron strings, they
Speaker 3: become steel cables.
Speaker 1: If you brought your.
Speaker 3: Bibles turned to John's Gospel, We're going to look at
Speaker 3: John chapter five today, very very very familiar story.
Speaker 1: You have heard this story before.
Speaker 3: If you grew up in a conservative church, you've seen
Speaker 3: at flannel graft. You may have taught it before. John
Speaker 3: Chapter five, verses one through nine. We're gonna look at
Speaker 3: my favorite healing in John's gospel account. John is different
Speaker 3: than the other three Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke. Those are
Speaker 3: called the Synoptic Gospels. That's just a fancy seminary word.
Speaker 3: That means those three are written in a similar literary format.
Speaker 3: They all have some type of a birth narrative. They
Speaker 3: all have parables. Those are the stories Jesus taught. That's
Speaker 3: half of his sermonic material. And they have a lot
Speaker 3: of healings forty healings. In the Synoptic Gospels. John's Gospel
Speaker 3: there are no parables. John is very different in the
Speaker 3: way he describes the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: He wrote it much later in his life.
Speaker 3: Theologians think he was probably in his sixties when he
Speaker 3: wrote the gospel.
Speaker 1: According to John, and he only has four healings, And.
Speaker 3: This is my favorite of the four John Chapter five,
Speaker 3: beginning with verse one, I'm reading from the ESV. After this,
Speaker 3: there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went
Speaker 3: up to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Now there is in jerus Us Islam by the sheep Gate, a.
Speaker 3: Pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
Speaker 3: In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lamb and paralyzed.
Speaker 3: One man was there who had been an invalid for
Speaker 3: thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and
Speaker 3: knew that he had already been there a long time,
Speaker 3: he said to him, do you want to be healed?
Speaker 3: How many of y'all have heard this story before? Do
Speaker 3: you want to be healed? One of my closest friends
Speaker 3: grew up really close to here in Concord, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Her name is Eva Whittington's self one.
Speaker 3: Of the godliest, most amazing friends I have, And when
Speaker 3: she was seventeen years old, she was in a hint
Speaker 3: and run accident on an icy road. Her car flipped
Speaker 3: into a ravine and her spine was severed, so she
Speaker 3: was paralyzed. When she was seventeen years old, has two
Speaker 3: steel rods to stabilize her spine. She's been pair lized
Speaker 3: from this level since she was seventeen. She's a little
Speaker 3: bit older than me in her early sixties, so she
Speaker 3: has not been ambulatory for over forty years. She walks
Speaker 3: in faith much more stable than I do. Has the
Speaker 3: most amazing life, most amazing story, has two kids, miraculously
Speaker 3: got pregnant and delivered her children, married to an amazing man,
Speaker 3: a judge in Kentucky by the name of Andrew's self.
Speaker 3: That I love Eva Whittington's self, and I love being
Speaker 3: with my friend at women's conferences because every time, if
Speaker 3: there's a ramp and I'm wheeling, even she's strong as
Speaker 3: can be, super independent, drives herself, does everything, is much
Speaker 3: more accomplished than I am.
Speaker 1: But if there's a ramp, I have to help.
Speaker 3: Wheel or wheelchair and I'll watch women and it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: college cheapers. I might as well have walked into a
Speaker 3: Kido convention with hot bread. I mean, it's just like
Speaker 3: I know somebody's going to come up and ask Eva
Speaker 3: if they can pray for her healing.
Speaker 1: It happens every time.
Speaker 3: Now, God absolutely could heal her spine if he wanted to,
Speaker 3: but her spine was severed when she was seventeen, severed.
Speaker 3: Medically speaking, it is impossible for her spine to come
Speaker 3: back together again if she had had that accent. Today,
Speaker 3: things have changed in the way they treat those type
Speaker 3: of victims. There's a chance in a couple of years,
Speaker 3: with what they're doing now, maybe maybe some stuff could
Speaker 3: be regenerated, but not when Eva was injured. And of course,
Speaker 3: thousands of people, including a lot of well known saints,
Speaker 3: have laid hands on Eva, on an auditor with oil,
Speaker 3: and in God's merciful sovereignty, He's chosen not to heal
Speaker 3: that facet of her life.
Speaker 1: But if you talk to.
Speaker 3: Eva, she'll say, I don't hate this cheer. God has
Speaker 3: used this chair to introduce me to my husband. God
Speaker 3: has used the chair is a canvas on which to
Speaker 3: paint what a good God he is. Her testimony includes
Speaker 3: this part of her story. Well, we were at a
Speaker 3: conference recently and I saw a woman and I thought
Speaker 3: she's going to come up and be insistent about praying
Speaker 3: for Eva.
Speaker 1: So sure enough she comes up and she said, I
Speaker 1: would like to pray for you, and Eva said that
Speaker 1: would be lovely.
Speaker 3: Now I'm holding her chair and I'm like, she said
Speaker 3: that would be lovely. I'd really appreciate if you would
Speaker 3: pray for my patience because I've been really short lately
Speaker 3: with my daughters and my husband, and I know when
Speaker 3: we get the through of the spirit, we have all
Speaker 3: the fruit. But my patience is it's just a little
Speaker 3: bitty green orb on my tree. And so would you
Speaker 3: pray for God to give me more patience? Y'all?
Speaker 1: This woman got so ticked because she had an agenda.
Speaker 3: She wanted to be the hero who prayed and Eva
Speaker 3: would stand up and walk. So when Eva said that,
Speaker 3: I watched this woman's face and it just kind of
Speaker 3: went you like she'd been sucking on lemons or her
Speaker 3: spanks were just too tight, and she went, don't you.
Speaker 1: Want to get out of that chair and walk? And
Speaker 1: I was like, do you want to call nine one
Speaker 1: one before I punch you in the threat?
Speaker 3: I'm so sure you have the arrogant audacity to ask
Speaker 3: my friend if she wants to get out of this
Speaker 3: chair and walk. You don't know what it was like,
Speaker 3: was she wanted to stand up and kiss Andrew when
Speaker 3: they got married. You don't know what it was like
Speaker 3: when her baby started crying and she had to transfer
Speaker 3: into your chair and roll down to the nursery. You
Speaker 3: don't know what that was like for young mamma, And
Speaker 3: yet you dare to question her. Oh I got so
Speaker 3: ungodly mad. I mean sorry, I'm in leather pants, have
Speaker 3: probably squeaked really terribly. But it made me so mad
Speaker 3: because it was so condescending. And yet, and yet, if
Speaker 3: we're on it, doesn't it almost sound like that's what
Speaker 3: Jesus is asking the sky. Thirty eight years, he's been
Speaker 3: going to the Pool of Bethesda. If you've studied the
Speaker 3: background of the story, you know that people have gone
Speaker 3: to this particular body of water for centuries because even
Speaker 3: the Pagans believe there's something supernatural there. Something happens when
Speaker 3: the water ripples and it has healing properties in it.
Speaker 3: The Pagans weren't sure what it was, and then the
Speaker 3: Jews came along. They believed it was the finger of Yahweh.
Speaker 3: It's actually underground springs, but they believe there's something in
Speaker 3: that pool that could bring about physical healing. This guy's
Speaker 3: been going there for thirty eight years, and the first
Speaker 3: question Jesus asked, is do you want to get well?
Speaker 3: I mean, humanly speaking, that's almost an eye roller. Well,
Speaker 3: of course, I've been dragging myself here for thirty eight years.
Speaker 3: And we don't actually get the poignancy of this question
Speaker 3: unless we get the sociohistorical context, because we think as
Speaker 3: first world modern believers, this is a first century culture based.
Speaker 1: On shame and honor.
Speaker 3: If you're a note taker, write down t z e
Speaker 3: d a k a h.
Speaker 1: Tz ed ak ah.
Speaker 3: It's a pronounced saduka, almost like the game math game
Speaker 3: you play in the airport, but not quite. It's a
Speaker 3: Hebrew word. Some say sideka saduka. You can just say
Speaker 3: it with authority in your small group and they'll think
Speaker 3: you're smart. It's a Hebrew word that describes alms giving, charity,
Speaker 3: or it's even translated righteousness in some of our English Bibles.
Speaker 3: Their culture hinges on sideka when it comes to invalids,
Speaker 3: when it comes to the blind, when it comes to
Speaker 3: the lame, because in this shame and honor culture, they
Speaker 3: were taught it is honorable to beg if you are
Speaker 3: legitimately sick. So if you're blind, if you're paralyzed, as
Speaker 3: this man was it is actually honorable for.
Speaker 1: You to beg and provide for your family.
Speaker 3: Several rabbis who are contemporaries of Jesus Christ actually taught
Speaker 3: that begging was positive for the community because it gave
Speaker 3: the community an opportunity to be generous. It was basically
Speaker 3: the cultural ancestor of humble brags on social media. What
Speaker 3: better way to prove you were a good person than
Speaker 3: to drop some coins in somebody's outstretched hand in the
Speaker 3: middle of a public place. So for this man to
Speaker 3: be able to provide for his family and it to
Speaker 3: be considered honorable for thirty eight years, I'm not suggesting
Speaker 3: that he enjoyed being a paralytic. I am saying he
Speaker 3: had grown comfortable in that he's able to do that
Speaker 3: and provide for his family. He's able to do that
Speaker 3: and actually be honored by culture, and Jesus says, do
Speaker 3: you want.
Speaker 1: To get well, because this is going to change everything
Speaker 1: for you. Son. For you to get.
Speaker 3: Deeply healed is going to cause some serious discomfort in
Speaker 3: your story. Here's an old movie called The Shawshank Redemption,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to encourage y'all to watch it.
Speaker 3: I see a lot of you have when you were
Speaker 3: struggling in your quiet times, but those you haven't watched
Speaker 3: some real questionable language in it.
Speaker 1: But there's this one scene.
Speaker 3: It's a movie that kind of centers around a prison
Speaker 3: and around this wise old convict played by Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 3: There's this one scene where Morgan is sitting next to
Speaker 3: a guy who's only recently been incarcerated for I think
Speaker 3: he embezzled. Tim Robbins is the actor who plays them
Speaker 3: so young convict and the Morgan Freeman's sitting there and
Speaker 3: Tim Robbins is just completely discompopulated because one of their
Speaker 3: friends had gotten out after years of being in prison.
Speaker 3: He had gotten out and he reoffended really quickly and
Speaker 3: was brought back on conditions of parole after only being
Speaker 3: out for like a week or two, and Tim is
Speaker 3: just undone.
Speaker 1: He's like, what a yay?
Speaker 3: Who I mean?
Speaker 4: He got out, He made it out of here, and
Speaker 4: then it seems like he almost purposely got arrested and
Speaker 4: go what info world?
Speaker 3: And Morgan Freeman is listening to him complain about why
Speaker 3: in the world would this guy give up his hard
Speaker 3: won liberty? And he waits for a minute and he says,
Speaker 3: you know, at first these walls, and he gestures to
Speaker 3: those prison walls with a barber wire on top.
Speaker 1: He said, at first these walls, you hate.
Speaker 3: Them, and then after a while you get used to him,
Speaker 3: and then if you're in here long enough, you realize
Speaker 3: you need them.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many of us have gotten so comfortable
Speaker 1: being sick that we've started decorating our prison cell so
Speaker 1: it'll feel more like a living room. How comfortable are
Speaker 1: you being sick? Do you want to get completely well?
Speaker 1: Because to be completely well it'll change everything. Do you
Speaker 1: want to be well?
Speaker 3: Stick a finger in Luke and head backwards to Mark's gospel,
Speaker 3: Mark chapter two, another very familiar encounter Jesus has with
Speaker 3: some up adeat Pharisees. He went out again beside the sea.
Speaker 3: This is Mark chapter two, beginning in verse fifteen. And
Speaker 3: all the crowd was coming to him, and he was
Speaker 3: teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi,
Speaker 3: the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth, and
Speaker 3: he said to him, follow me.
Speaker 1: And he rose and followed him.
Speaker 3: And as he reclined at table in his house, many
Speaker 3: tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciple,
Speaker 3: For there were many who followed him, the scribes of
Speaker 3: the Pharisees. When they saw that he was eating with
Speaker 3: sinners and tax collectors, said to be his disciples, they said,
Speaker 3: why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors. When
Speaker 3: Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are
Speaker 3: well have no need of a physician, but those who
Speaker 3: are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Speaker 3: Underneath that question, which is irony. Underneath that question, was
Speaker 3: what's more important to you? Healing or comfort? Okay, because
Speaker 3: oftentimes for a mature Christ follower who recognizes neediness as
Speaker 3: a spiritual necessity, deep healing does cause discomfort because it
Speaker 3: means we have to acknowledge I'm sick.
Speaker 1: I don't have it all together.
Speaker 3: I can't carry the weight of my whole life anymore.
Speaker 3: I became a christ Follower when I was five years old,
Speaker 3: and right after I became a Christian. Right before I
Speaker 3: became a Christian, my father had left us for another
Speaker 3: woman and her child. And right after I became a Christian,
Speaker 3: partly because I wanted a dad who wouldn't leave. That's
Speaker 3: what the pastor preached on when I walked an aisle
Speaker 3: and they sang just as I am seven hundred times
Speaker 3: because you used to. They'd sing it until somebody walked forward,
Speaker 3: and then you could finally go to lunch.
Speaker 1: But I put my hope in Jesus.
Speaker 3: I was just a peanut, and I understood at a
Speaker 3: very very very basic level that I was a sinner
Speaker 3: and God was the only one who had the deterchant
Speaker 3: to clean my heart. I understood at a very basic
Speaker 3: level that he was a heavenly father who doesn't abandon
Speaker 3: his children.
Speaker 1: That's all I understood. And after I gave.
Speaker 3: My heart to Jesus, some men came and went from
Speaker 3: our family who did things to.
Speaker 1: Me that no man should do to any woman, much
Speaker 1: less a little girl.
Speaker 3: And so from my earliest memory, I have felt dirty,
Speaker 3: And so I learned really early on I conflated a
Speaker 3: dirty heart with being just dirty because of what had
Speaker 3: been done to me, And so I conflated those two truths,
Speaker 3: and I just resolved, I'm just going to try to
Speaker 3: do better and be better. I'm just gonna try to
Speaker 3: be good. I'm gonna fill in all the Bible state plants.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to youth group. I'm gonna volunteer at
Speaker 3: youth group. I'm gonna stack chairs, I'm to go to
Speaker 3: youth camp. I'm just gonna do everything good that I
Speaker 3: can possibly do to make up for how bad I am,
Speaker 3: to somehow make.
Speaker 1: Up for how dirty I am.
Speaker 3: So I became a class a poser, just a poser.
Speaker 3: I love Jesus, and I believe this was true. I
Speaker 3: didn't think this was a rule book. I really did,
Speaker 3: at some level think it was a love story. I
Speaker 3: just couldn't understand how God like that could really love
Speaker 3: a girl like me.
Speaker 1: So I just tried to do better, be better, do better,
Speaker 1: be better, do better, be better. It's exhausting.
Speaker 3: It's so exhausting to pretend like you don't need more healing.
Speaker 3: How often in America do we pretend like atonement is
Speaker 3: one and done.
Speaker 1: I came to Christ, I got baptized. I'm good.
Speaker 3: I'm good. I'm sixty one in single. I have four
Speaker 3: chain sauce chain sauce. I mean, that's like an obsession.
Speaker 3: I just want to cut things up. The reason I
Speaker 3: have four chain saws is I live out in the
Speaker 3: Boonies and we have five acres, and whenever we have
Speaker 3: a storm that comes through, and these Charlatans who masquerade
Speaker 3: as tree service guys tell me it's going to be
Speaker 3: thirty five hundred dollars to cut up a tree that
Speaker 3: fell down.
Speaker 1: I'm like you, I can.
Speaker 3: Kiss my big two because I'm not paying you thirty
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars. Oh cut up my tree. So I
Speaker 3: bought a chainsaw, and then I couldn't figure out how
Speaker 3: to get the chain back on, so I'd buy another
Speaker 3: one not messed up, and so then But I am independent, baby,
Speaker 3: I mean, I grew up in an era where one
Speaker 3: of the famous advertisements I think I had to do
Speaker 3: with perfume, but the melody was I can bring home
Speaker 3: the bacon done on fried up in a pan, thank.
Speaker 1: You, and never ever let you forget you're a man.
Speaker 3: That part of miss because I'm a warm I just
Speaker 3: believe that hook line and sinker. Because I wasn't cared
Speaker 3: for when I was young, I decided it was a
Speaker 3: high value in my life to learn how to take
Speaker 3: care of myself. When I begin to hear me say
Speaker 3: say those things to my creator redeemer, I've got it.
Speaker 3: I'm fine, I've got it, I'm fine. I realized I'm
Speaker 3: not as healed as I thought I was because I
Speaker 3: can't admit I'm sick anymore. And he came for those
Speaker 3: who recognized they're sick. How well do you want to be?
Speaker 3: Do you want to be healed or do you want
Speaker 3: to be comfortable? Because those two are really congruent for
Speaker 3: a Christ follower. Fifteen years ago, God mercifully kicked my
Speaker 3: self reliant legs out from under my stool. I lost
Speaker 3: two primary relationships, and I was diagnosed with cancer that
Speaker 3: initially presented as brain cancer. And y'all, I just lost
Speaker 3: the capacity to be self reliant, and I was ashamed.
Speaker 3: I was so ashamed that I couldn't carry the weight
Speaker 3: of my own life anymore. And I remember being curled
Speaker 3: up and lived by myself little cottage south of Nashville.
Speaker 3: I remember being curled up on the floor and God
Speaker 3: spoke to me as clear as a belle. I've never
Speaker 3: heard an audible voice, because sometimes his voice is so loud.
Speaker 1: Do you ever hear him when you're wrestling? Does he
Speaker 1: ever whisper encouragement to you? Like you know? It's a lord?
Speaker 1: And it's different than your dad's voice, isn't it. It's
Speaker 1: just you know.
Speaker 3: John says that if you put your hope in Jesus,
Speaker 3: you recognize his voice. It's different than any other voice.
Speaker 3: And he said, and I'm so stupid. I'm shocked he
Speaker 3: comes back again and again and again. I can be
Speaker 3: so slow to learn and listen. But he said, Lisa,
Speaker 3: you've been running scared your whole life, and so I'm
Speaker 3: going to take you to the basement and I'm going
Speaker 3: to sit there with you in the dark until fear
Speaker 3: doesn't own you anymore. Great church father from the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: Saint John of the Cross, he called those seasons in
Speaker 3: our lives when we feel like we can't carry the
Speaker 3: weight of our own life and we feel like we're
Speaker 3: in a dark valley.
Speaker 1: He called that a dark night of the soul.
Speaker 3: My dark night of the soul lasted for six months.
Speaker 3: I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed.
Speaker 3: And I'm not being hyperbolic. I could not physically get
Speaker 3: out of bed without.
Speaker 1: Saying the name Jesus out loud.
Speaker 3: I just speak in the quietness of my little cottage, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Speaker 3: I'd get out of bed and go to the bathroom
Speaker 3: and I had scripture laminated next to my sink, and
Speaker 3: I just had to speak those promises out loud to
Speaker 3: remember them. I don't know about y'all, but sometimes my
Speaker 3: heart's a calender. I mean, I'm finishing a doctorate in seminary.
Speaker 3: I know enough Greek and Hebrew to bedous. My poor
Speaker 3: little crooked heart lags so far behind my head because
Speaker 3: I spent so long staying I'm fine, I'm fine When
Speaker 3: I wasn't. He so graciously carried me when I was weak,
Speaker 3: So gracious. I would go back to that valley again
Speaker 3: because it's in that weak place that I learned what.
Speaker 1: A kind, strong god he is.
Speaker 3: That's where I learned to peel off my emotional spanks
Speaker 3: and say, Lord.
Speaker 1: I need you.
Speaker 3: Oh, I need you every hour. I need you. Do
Speaker 3: you want to get well?
Speaker 1: How well do you want to get?
Speaker 3: Because he had to leave this place of comfort and honor,
Speaker 3: and I bet you he thought, how am I going
Speaker 3: to provide.
Speaker 1: For my kids? Now?
Speaker 3: For thirty eight years, I knew who I was. I
Speaker 3: got pretty comfortable using my arms in my brain. If
Speaker 3: I walk behind him, everything is changing.
Speaker 1: I want to ask y'all.
Speaker 3: A couple of questions if I can be so old bold.
Speaker 3: I was thinking old because I feel like I'm your nana.
Speaker 3: Do you trust Jesus enough to become solely dependent on him? Y'all?
Speaker 3: I have to answer these, but I want you to
Speaker 3: think about him. Is being his beloved more important to
Speaker 3: you than being a husband, a wife, your bestie's first call,
Speaker 3: your children's parent, your company's CEO or volunteer the year?
Speaker 3: Is Jesus a high life right in your story? Or
Speaker 3: is he the sole author? Which is more important to you?
Speaker 3: Comfort or healing. Intentional dependency is not an option for
Speaker 3: healthy christ followers. Deep intimacy with Jesus requires conscious neediness.
Speaker 3: As soon as this fella in John five said I
Speaker 3: can't heal myself, Jesus said, take up your mountain walk.
Speaker 1: He didn't have to go to the water.
Speaker 3: He had to acknowledge I'm sick and I can't heal myself.
Speaker 1: Y'all, let me tell you this from experience.
Speaker 3: Hands you can have stage four emotional cancer and come
Speaker 3: to church and raise your hands and sing the songs.
Speaker 1: And nobody knows you're sick because I did it.
Speaker 3: For a long time. I did it, and the questions
Speaker 3: in my head were.
Speaker 1: Is this all? Is this all there is? Is this
Speaker 1: all there is?
Speaker 3: And I knew I was posing, but I was scared
Speaker 3: to death. One of y'all would look under the hood
Speaker 3: of my life and say, she's sick. Yeah, apart from Jesus,
Speaker 3: I am the sickest one of the lot.
Speaker 1: Apart from Jesus, I have no hope.
Speaker 3: Apart from Jesus, I will hurl sausage biscuits every single morning.
Speaker 3: Apart from Jesus, I can't carry the weight of my
Speaker 3: own life. I want to be so increasingly dependent on
Speaker 3: Jesus that I can't get out of bed without saying
Speaker 3: his name. And you know what that does for my
Speaker 3: relationship with you? It lets you off the hook. Then
Speaker 3: I can just be your friend. Then I can be
Speaker 3: your mom. But I'm not looking to you from my identity.
Speaker 3: I'm looking to you as brothers and as sisters. But
Speaker 3: I've taken y'all off the cross. We've got to learn
Speaker 3: what it is to be interdependent with each other as family,
Speaker 3: as community, and solely dependent on Jesus. Chris and the
Speaker 3: worship team are to come back up and just usher
Speaker 3: us into the waiting arms of God. But if I
Speaker 3: can be. Is it okay if I just act like
Speaker 3: your old nana for another minute or two. The thing
Speaker 3: I love about being sixty one is man I can
Speaker 3: hug like a boss. And now I hug everybody and
Speaker 3: it's not sexual. Big old boys, little bitty girl. It's
Speaker 3: fun to be like a gorilla hugger. I'm going to
Speaker 3: ask y'all to stand up as a family. And again,
Speaker 3: I know, as a as an undeserved guest in this house,
Speaker 3: I have not earned the right to ask you such
Speaker 3: an honest question, and so thank you forgive me the
Speaker 3: grace to do so and bearing with me. But if
Speaker 3: you resonated maybe a little bit with me, maybe when
Speaker 3: you were a kid, you weren't cared for the way
Speaker 3: God designed you to be cared for, and so you
Speaker 3: learned to take care of yourself as a survival skill.
Speaker 1: That too, is God's gift.
Speaker 3: It's just when we carry it into adulthood, it can
Speaker 3: become armament that puts distance between us and others, and distance.
Speaker 1: Between us and God.
Speaker 3: If you consider yourself to be independent, self reliant, and
Speaker 3: the Holy Spirit is whispering right now, you've done a
Speaker 3: little bit too much of that with Jesus.
Speaker 1: You've got to learn how to be needy with Jesus.
Speaker 1: Would you just sit down wherever you are. Thank you
Speaker 1: Jesus for those of you.
Speaker 3: Who had to take care of yourselves because nobody else did.
Speaker 3: Maybe you had a dad who left, or a mom
Speaker 3: who didn't hug, or a spouse who hit. I'm so
Speaker 3: sorry that that was a reality for you. As a
Speaker 3: child of God. I want to remind you you don't
Speaker 3: have to be strong with him. Your weakness he actually
Speaker 3: transforms into strength. That doesn't mean victimhood. That means I
Speaker 3: don't have to be scared because He's already assured the victory.
Speaker 3: I don't have to pretend I'm something I'm not because
Speaker 3: he says I'm beautifully and wonderfully made. Perfection is overrated,
Speaker 3: he says, come as you are and I'll clean you up.
Speaker 3: Those of you who are standing, can I encourage you
Speaker 3: as they lead us in worship, and then we're going
Speaker 3: to have a closing prayer. Can I encourage you to
Speaker 3: just scoot over by one of those saints around you,
Speaker 3: one of those brothers or sisters in the faith, and
Speaker 3: lay hands on them. If this is your first time
Speaker 3: at elevation that might not be in your comfort zone.
Speaker 3: But again we're elevating heat, elevating healing over comfort. This morning,
Speaker 3: would you just reach over and put your hand on
Speaker 3: a saint and just pray for him. Pray that even
Speaker 3: in this moment of such beautiful honesty, they would recognize
Speaker 3: the nearness of God, that they'd recognize that His grace
Speaker 3: really is sufficient for us, That they'd have the same
Speaker 3: grace that this gentleman did in John's gospel when he said, I.
Speaker 1: I can't heal myself. I need you Jesus.
Speaker 3: That's all we have to confess, y'all. That is the
Speaker 3: gateway to intimacy with Jesus is to say I need you.
Speaker 3: I needed you for salvation and I still need you.
Speaker 1: Jesus. You are my breath.
Speaker 3: I can't breathe without you. You are my hope.
Speaker 1: I have no hope in my heart without you. You
Speaker 1: are my peace.
Speaker 3: Apart from you, Jesus, I have too much anxiety. I
Speaker 3: need you. Oh, I need you. I need you every hour.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
Speaker 2: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 2: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 2: link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
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Speaker 2: tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 2: bless you.