Speaker 1: So I want to thank you, Lord. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they've been to the gym this year a lot yet,
Speaker 1: but I thank you that you brought them to church
Speaker 1: today and online and on YouTube and Facebook, and I
Speaker 1: thank you that someone's on a podcast right now hearing
Speaker 1: this word, and they are getting stronger. So, Lord, just
Speaker 1: like Dustin Stradley's biceps were so so much bigger than
Speaker 1: the last time I saw him, I want somebody to
Speaker 1: look at us and say, boy, your faith is bigger,
Speaker 1: your love is bigger. You're more expectant, your wisdom is growing.
Speaker 1: We came today to grow, and we thank you Lord
Speaker 1: for meeting us in this place. You're an excellent trainer.
Speaker 1: Have your way. Oh I just felt a series coming on. Sorry,
Speaker 1: y'all wait, training a sermon or a series? All right,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna talk about that a little bit today.
Speaker 1: Are you excited about the word? Oh, this is awesome.
Speaker 1: This doesn't even feel like a normal Sunday. This feels
Speaker 1: like a fut orange revived. The let's like a revival.
Speaker 1: You know what. I want to read my scripture. I
Speaker 1: want to get right to it. Any announcements that need
Speaker 1: to be made, somebody else make them I want. It's
Speaker 1: a preach stay standing, Stay standing, and you'll holler to
Speaker 1: the people online say stand up, tell them stand up
Speaker 1: for the word of God, show some respect. I had
Speaker 1: so many texts about last week's message about and all
Speaker 1: y'all remembered was the trash bags. I'm like, well, if
Speaker 1: I knew you were that easy, I would stop studying
Speaker 1: and just get a wheelbarrow next week or something. But
Speaker 1: I think it impacted us to talk about are you
Speaker 1: holding on to something that is hurting you? And we
Speaker 1: might revisit a little bit of that in a moment.
Speaker 1: But there's a passage, a story that I want to
Speaker 1: share with you from Acts chapter ten. Did you study
Speaker 1: it last night? Jason? Okay, I told a few of
Speaker 1: my guys this is where I'm gonna be if you
Speaker 1: want to get a head start. But you will never
Speaker 1: guess where God took me with this one. I don't
Speaker 1: care how many times you read it, because it just
Speaker 1: it's powerful. I gotta read twenty verses, so y'all listen
Speaker 1: fast Acts chapter ten, Verse one. At Cessarea, there was
Speaker 1: a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known
Speaker 1: as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were
Speaker 1: devout and God fearing. He gave generously to those in
Speaker 1: need and prayed to God regularly. One day, at about
Speaker 1: three in the afternoon, he had a vision. He distinctly
Speaker 1: saw an angel of God who came to him okay,
Speaker 1: and said Cornelius. Cornelius stared at him in fear. What
Speaker 1: is it, Lord, he asked. The angel answered, your prayers
Speaker 1: and gifts to the poor have come up as a
Speaker 1: memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to
Speaker 1: bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. Y'all,
Speaker 1: remember Jesus changed his names, right. You know he can
Speaker 1: change your name too. What you've called yourself all your life.
Speaker 1: You get one good encounter with God and he'll show
Speaker 1: you a side of you you've never seen before. Go
Speaker 1: to Joppa, get Peter. Now send men to Jappa to
Speaker 1: bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter.
Speaker 1: He is staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is
Speaker 1: by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him
Speaker 1: had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a
Speaker 1: devout soldier who was one of his attendants. He told
Speaker 1: them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa. Now,
Speaker 1: while all of that is happening in cesarea, listen what's
Speaker 1: happening in Joppa, and watch how God will hook stuff
Speaker 1: up that you didn't even know you needed to pray about.
Speaker 1: About noon the following day, as they were on their
Speaker 1: journey going to get Peter and approaching the city, Peter
Speaker 1: went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry
Speaker 1: and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was
Speaker 1: being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw Heaven opened.
Speaker 1: He saw Heaven open, woh wow, and something like a
Speaker 1: large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.
Speaker 1: It contained all kinds of four footed animals, as well
Speaker 1: as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him get up, Peter,
Speaker 1: kill and e all the carnivores. Say amen for the vegans.
Speaker 1: Surely not, Lord, Okay, surely not. Lord. I have never
Speaker 1: eaten anything impure or unclean. The voice spoke to him
Speaker 1: a second time. Do not call anything impure that God
Speaker 1: has made clean. This happened three times because Peter was
Speaker 1: hard headed, and immediately the sheet taken back to Heaven.
Speaker 1: While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision,
Speaker 1: the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house
Speaker 1: was and stopped at the gate. They called out, asking
Speaker 1: if Simon, who was known as Peter, was staying there.
Speaker 1: While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit
Speaker 1: said to him, Okay, you got what Peter was thinking
Speaker 1: and what the spirit was saying, and they were not
Speaker 1: the same. What was going on in his mind was
Speaker 1: not what was going on in God's thoughts, So that
Speaker 1: could be true of you two, just saying. While he
Speaker 1: was still thinking, the Spirit said, Simon, three men are
Speaker 1: looking for you. Okay, so get up and go downstairs.
Speaker 1: Do not hesitate to go with them. Do not hesitate
Speaker 1: to go with them, for I have sent them. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's focus on two verses. Let's look at verse fourteen.
Speaker 1: Surely not, Lord, I have never. Everybody say I have never.
Speaker 1: And then go to verse twenty where he said, do
Speaker 1: not hesitate, I have never, and the spirit said, do
Speaker 1: not hesitate. So this is the message. When never meets now,
Speaker 1: when never everybody say never needs now in your presence, Lord,
Speaker 1: is the fullness of joy, right hand, pleasures forevermore. Release
Speaker 1: the resource of heaven to your people through me. Today,
Speaker 1: I pray, I avail myself to you in Jesus' name. Amen,
Speaker 1: you may be seated. I'm so glad there was snow
Speaker 1: in the forecast. I didn't know. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say I never watched the news, but I could almost
Speaker 1: say I never watched the news. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say never, because you know, never saying ever, and
Speaker 1: since that's what I'm preaching on. I thought of all
Speaker 1: of the little cliches never say never now or never
Speaker 1: thought of all of them, never never, land, studying a
Speaker 1: lot of different sources. But I'm glad I didn't know
Speaker 1: that it was supposed to snow. Now those in the
Speaker 1: other parts of the world, you wouldn't really call it
Speaker 1: snow if you're in Michigan. But this is the South,
Speaker 1: more specifically the Southeastern United States, and we never relatively
Speaker 1: really get snow, so we don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with it when it might come. I mean, we are
Speaker 1: more scared of an inch of snow than a gallon
Speaker 1: of anthrax. It's a weird thing to watch Southerner's response
Speaker 1: to the snow. And Holly grew up in Miami where
Speaker 1: she really never saw snow. Anyway, I'm glad it snowed
Speaker 1: because I had this message on Monday and I didn't
Speaker 1: know how I'm awake to preach it on Sunday. And
Speaker 1: so when they said it might snow I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I could call the real Christians, the sanctified. So I'm
Speaker 1: here a little early, like I'm here little early just
Speaker 1: in case. We got generators, we got milk in the
Speaker 1: grocery store, but just in case. I said, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and preach it, because we can do that now. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm glad about that for two reasons. One is the
Speaker 1: people who come who just are so hungry that they
Speaker 1: skip runch and and I'm I'm skipping brunts for a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Ah see what I'm saying. The people online are like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so much more of the people are so excited today.
Speaker 1: It's the ones we filtered. It's not any of the
Speaker 1: ones that we don't want it. This is like the
Speaker 1: the premium Chris Unz. Anyway, no offense if you're not here.
Speaker 1: I'm just playing around. But I was excited because I
Speaker 1: was already ready, and I was like I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to preach it when God gave it to me.
Speaker 1: I was like can I preach it now? But you
Speaker 1: gotta wait, you gotta wait, and so that's when you wait,
Speaker 1: it gets hard to wait. And so you're sitting there wanting,
Speaker 1: wanting to wait. But it's like a it's like a
Speaker 1: weight w e ighd. It's like, as I have your message,
Speaker 1: and how can I hold this till I get there?
Speaker 1: So they were like a song. I was like, let's
Speaker 1: do it early, Let's do it early. Let's do it
Speaker 1: like Bill O'Reilly said one time, We'll do it live.
Speaker 1: Don't look that up on you, But all right. So
Speaker 1: the second reason, though, it's give me the perfect illustration
Speaker 1: for this idea of we never meets now. When we
Speaker 1: started this church, I stood up on the first snow
Speaker 1: day that we ever had, and I said, I was
Speaker 1: twenty six. I was wearing some probably some true religion
Speaker 1: jeans or something like that. Huh, probably some antique denims
Speaker 1: with some studs on them. And one day I walked
Speaker 1: in and this guy was like, I've never seen a
Speaker 1: preacher with stuff like that on his pockets. Why am
Speaker 1: I telling you this? Okay? I stood up and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were asking me, are we going
Speaker 1: to cancel church? And I just want you to know,
Speaker 1: as long as I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, I'm
Speaker 1: twenty six talking like I'm sixty two. I said, as
Speaker 1: long as I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, we will never.
Speaker 1: I've went into all these I don't care if it's
Speaker 1: eight inches of snow, I don't care if it And
Speaker 1: God's laughing. God's laughing, because what kind of fool would
Speaker 1: I be if now all the technology that has advanced
Speaker 1: for us to reach more people. I was still standing
Speaker 1: up in here with some Savorski crystals on my back
Speaker 1: pockets or something, talking about we will never never. You know,
Speaker 1: you said never about some things in the scripture when
Speaker 1: Peter said never, I have never. I went back and
Speaker 1: noticed that every time Peter said never, it closed him
Speaker 1: off from what God was trying to do. This isn't
Speaker 1: the first time. Remember when Jesus said, I've got to
Speaker 1: go to Jerusalem. There I will be killed handed over,
Speaker 1: But on the third day, I'll write, which was the
Speaker 1: whole reason he came to pay the price, the whole
Speaker 1: reason he came to redeem the world, the whole reason
Speaker 1: that he came. And Peter said, never, Lord, this will
Speaker 1: never happen to you. Everybody say never. Put it in
Speaker 1: a chat like in all caps, and think about what
Speaker 1: you said. Never about that? Now if we put your never,
Speaker 1: and you're now how it started, how it's going. Like
Speaker 1: I heard when guy say, I'll tell you what, I
Speaker 1: never fight with my kids. You know what I thought?
Speaker 1: This is what I thought, because I've got kids now, sixteen, fourteen, ten.
Speaker 1: I thought, then you never tell them no. You never
Speaker 1: tell them no, if you never fight with them, you
Speaker 1: never tell them no. That's the only thing that tells me, Oh,
Speaker 1: I never yell at my kids, and you're never around them.
Speaker 1: The only parents this is true. The only parents that
Speaker 1: don't complain about their kids are the ones who stay
Speaker 1: late at work so they don't have to deal with it,
Speaker 1: you know, you skip that time. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if you never fight with your kids, if there's never
Speaker 1: any conflict, that means there's never any confrontation and there's
Speaker 1: never any correction. And if there's never any confrontation in
Speaker 1: correction with your kids at any point in their natural life.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you have to say no all the time,
Speaker 1: but once in a while you're gonna have to not
Speaker 1: beat their friend beat their father. Hear this, Graham. Graham
Speaker 1: doesn't like this part of the sermon. He's totally out.
Speaker 1: He looks so Presbyterian right now on the front road.
Speaker 1: But it's true because if I never tell you no,
Speaker 1: if I never tell you no, you will never learn discipline.
Speaker 1: If you never learned discipline, you can never get a job.
Speaker 1: You never get a job, you can never leave my house.
Speaker 1: And I need you to lead. So I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you no. Some God's once in a while, Okay, parenting
Speaker 1: seminar over. I'll never cancel church for snow, I'll never
Speaker 1: I mean, how many of you were like at one point, say, oh,
Speaker 1: I never go to a church like Elevation. I'd never
Speaker 1: go to a big church. Okay, how many said that
Speaker 1: I never go. Then you're not going to heaven. It's
Speaker 1: every troth, every tongue, every nation. So there's only one
Speaker 1: other option that a big church. In the end. In
Speaker 1: the end, nothing against small churches. I'm just saying. Then,
Speaker 1: then what happened God spoke to you, or God spoke
Speaker 1: to your kid, or you hit a place you never
Speaker 1: first I thought you'd hit. You hit a need that
Speaker 1: made you rethink you're never, Whenever meets Now. As easy
Speaker 1: as it would be to pick on Peter, I've got
Speaker 1: to take a moment and defend this great disciple. Peter
Speaker 1: wasn't holding on to his preferences out of personal selfishness.
Speaker 1: If you want to understand Acts chapter ten, you have
Speaker 1: to understand a little bit about Acts chapter one through seven,
Speaker 1: where the gospel was following the course of Jesus promise
Speaker 1: in Acts one eight you will be my witnesses in
Speaker 1: Jerusalem where he died, Judea, the surrounding area Samaria, past
Speaker 1: the borders of where they felt comfortable going, and to
Speaker 1: the ends of the earth. Somebody say, no boundaries, no boundaries.
Speaker 1: Acts chapter ten is a spearhead moment for this mission
Speaker 1: to go forth beyond the confines of the Jewish world.
Speaker 1: But to really understand Acts chapter ten and why Peter
Speaker 1: was in a Tanner's house in the first place, you
Speaker 1: know that's a no. No Tanners work with dead animals.
Speaker 1: Even being close to some of these animals would have
Speaker 1: made him unclean. Now you understand how God has been
Speaker 1: moving Peter into progression, so he wouldn't be snobby about
Speaker 1: which certain people God could blessing us. Oh, This will
Speaker 1: not make the sermon, but let's just put it in
Speaker 1: the side note. You can tell you're making progress in
Speaker 1: your walk with God when you have less prejudice toward people.
Speaker 1: That's one of the first size. How do you know
Speaker 1: if you're growing spiritually if you memorize more scripture? The
Speaker 1: Pharisees had a lot of those scriptures memorized, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to kill Jesus. How do you know if you're
Speaker 1: getting closer to Jesus if you spend more time praying
Speaker 1: in the morning. If you listen to Christian radio, listen,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. I don't even keep my
Speaker 1: radio on Christian radio. I want to rock when I'm
Speaker 1: in the car. I don't think God might. What good
Speaker 1: is it listening to Christian radio If I'm cussing everybody
Speaker 1: out in traffic, that's cutting me off. So the real
Speaker 1: proof of progress in my walk with God, this Peter's
Speaker 1: to finding out, is that as the Gospel is going forth,
Speaker 1: and I follow this, as the Gospel is going Jerusalem, Judica, Sumaria,
Speaker 1: ends of the Earth, It's going to require not only
Speaker 1: a geographical but a psychological transformation. Geographical God, I want
Speaker 1: you to do more in my life. God, I want
Speaker 1: to buy a bigger house. God, I want to move
Speaker 1: to another city. God, I want to get past this stage. God,
Speaker 1: I want that's geographical. The psychological is Peter, who's a Jew.
Speaker 1: Not the most observant Jew, but observant. Y'all know, Peter
Speaker 1: was a little rough yet as he's praying and God
Speaker 1: shows him something. Remember how it said I won't have
Speaker 1: time to read the whole text again, you can read
Speaker 1: it later this week, Please do that. Something like a
Speaker 1: blanket came down from heaven as he was praying. Now,
Speaker 1: had he been scrolling or posting at this moment, he
Speaker 1: would have missed the chance to see what God would do.
Speaker 1: That's free. He was on the roof of the House
Speaker 1: of Simon the Tanner after raising, by the way, a
Speaker 1: woman from the dead in Joppa. That's what he was
Speaker 1: doing in Joppa, and he decided to stay a little
Speaker 1: while because I guess raising people from the dead takes
Speaker 1: a little bit out of you. And he's hungry, and
Speaker 1: he's on the roof and he's praying, and a blanket,
Speaker 1: something like a blanket comes down with animals on it,
Speaker 1: and some of the animals on the blanket were animals
Speaker 1: that he wasn't supposed to eat or touch. According to
Speaker 1: Leviticus eleven, if you want to understand Acts chapter ten,
Speaker 1: where Peter said never, you have to understand Leviticus eleven.
Speaker 1: Leviticus eleven is the dietary restrictions that God gave his
Speaker 1: people so that he could distinguish them from all the
Speaker 1: other people on the earth. It was never really about
Speaker 1: the diet. How many of you received that word. It's
Speaker 1: not about the diet. It's not about the diet. It's
Speaker 1: not about the diet. Come on, lift both hands, lift
Speaker 1: both hands. I impart the miracle of calorie cancelation, carbohydrate cancelation,
Speaker 1: fat burning, cell reduction, all of it. Okay, But it
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't about his food. It was about his
Speaker 1: faith and his frame of reference. That's what God was
Speaker 1: showing him because there was stuff on the sheet or
Speaker 1: on the blanket that he was not supposed to eat.
Speaker 1: There was stuff on the blanket that he was not
Speaker 1: supposed to eat. And if you really want to study,
Speaker 1: read Leviticus eleven this week. It will make the CDC
Speaker 1: guidelines look like a children's book. When you read the
Speaker 1: land Animals that the Jewish people couldn't eat. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to eat a land animal, it had
Speaker 1: to have hoofs and chew the cut. Both couldn't have
Speaker 1: split hoofs and not chew the cut, couldn't chew the
Speaker 1: cut and not. It had to be a specific way.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to eat sea animals, Leviticus eleven says this,
Speaker 1: it has to have scales and fins. No shrimp. I
Speaker 1: don't want to live in a world fried shrimp, boiled shrimp.
Speaker 1: How many of y'all can't hear shrimp without here and
Speaker 1: bubbah God, Okay, y'all are old. That's an old reference.
Speaker 1: And most of the Holly, the most restrictions were on
Speaker 1: the birds. The most protected were the birds, and then
Speaker 1: most of the flying insects that couldn't eat, welln't want
Speaker 1: to anyway. All that was on the blanket that came
Speaker 1: from heaven. How can something that I have been taught
Speaker 1: is not of God come from heaven? Never I had
Speaker 1: never eaten any of these things. Well, Holly never ate
Speaker 1: boiled peanuts till she met me. That's right. I converted her,
Speaker 1: corrupted her. Whatever she thought that tasted like dirt, She
Speaker 1: made them for me Monday night though, and she was
Speaker 1: eating them too. She said, never, I would never eat this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And what if it's not
Speaker 1: about the diet. What if it's not about the food.
Speaker 1: What the way we look at our life and the
Speaker 1: things that happen to us and the things that God allows,
Speaker 1: even the things that we're praying about, is on the
Speaker 1: completely wrong level. Because what if we think that the
Speaker 1: person we don't get along with is about that person
Speaker 1: and don't realize that that person is something that God
Speaker 1: is using in his project called you. When they annoy you,
Speaker 1: they become sandpaper. I'll keep going. It's taking you a
Speaker 1: while to warm up to the idea that Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this doesn't have whoop. Wait a minute, this doesn't have fins.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, this didn't chew the cud. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this can't be of God. And I call bs, y'all
Speaker 1: were't here last week. Belief system, belief system. Your belief
Speaker 1: system is formed by your personal experiences. And then, like
Speaker 1: I said last week, you call that truth. Oh, all women,
Speaker 1: all men, all millennials, all boomers, all gen Z, all churches,
Speaker 1: all Baptists, all black people, all white people all all all,
Speaker 1: and I call BS on all of it. I call
Speaker 1: you know. BS also could stand for watch this you're ready.
Speaker 1: Blanket statements like Peter made, I don't never eat anything
Speaker 1: like that. Never, Lord, never, well ie never. That's how
Speaker 1: you'd say it, that you were prim and proper well
Speaker 1: lie never. But what do you do when, like Peter
Speaker 1: never meets now and you realize that the way you
Speaker 1: saw God when you were eighteen was shaped by your experience,
Speaker 1: not his word or his spirit. What did you do
Speaker 1: when you find out that the Lord is my shepherd
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that he keeps everything bad from happening, but
Speaker 1: that he walks through the valley with you. So when
Speaker 1: we may blanket statements, I mean I remember hearing somebody
Speaker 1: say one time, I never doubt God's word. And incidentally,
Speaker 1: this was a preacher and he was out of the
Speaker 1: ministry three years later for an affair, And I wondered,
Speaker 1: is the reason you never doubt? Because you never did
Speaker 1: self inventory to see what was really in you? So
Speaker 1: it's easy to make a blanket statement. Right watches those
Speaker 1: of you who are here for the first time, watch
Speaker 1: how good they do with this? God is good and
Speaker 1: all the time. See, I love that. I'm not knocking
Speaker 1: that that's true. I believe that all things work together
Speaker 1: for the good. That doesn't mean all things are good.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it's all good. That's not what we mean.
Speaker 1: We say God is good. Do not call that evil
Speaker 1: which I have called good? Do not call that good
Speaker 1: which I have called evil. I need to calm down, y'all,
Speaker 1: because this blessed my life. Do you realize how many
Speaker 1: of the things that you are sitting in right now
Speaker 1: somebody said never about at one time. How many of
Speaker 1: you are sitting in a now that used to be
Speaker 1: a never in your life. How many of you never
Speaker 1: thought you would finish's let's start eighth grade. I was
Speaker 1: going to go to college, but I was like, we
Speaker 1: shall work our way up. How many of you never
Speaker 1: thought How many of you never thought you finished high school?
Speaker 1: How many you never thought you'd finish college? You went
Speaker 1: to college, y'all. I still have dreams sometimes that I
Speaker 1: didn't finish college. To this day. I finished college like
Speaker 1: seventy years ago, and I'm still dreaming about it. Like
Speaker 1: there were moments when you're in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: When I wrote my first book, my editor he'd been
Speaker 1: editing books. He edited the Prayer of Jabez, remember that.
Speaker 1: So he brought me a book on our first meeting
Speaker 1: and I was like, what's this. I didn't even really
Speaker 1: want the book. I didn't even really know who the
Speaker 1: author was, So what's this? He said, you just need
Speaker 1: this so that you can have a reminder that books
Speaker 1: do get finished. We hadn't started yet. He knew that
Speaker 1: I would hit points in the process where I would
Speaker 1: feel like I'm never going to finish this, so he said,
Speaker 1: put this up somewhere so you can see that books
Speaker 1: do get finished. And I think the Lord put me
Speaker 1: up here this week and Peter, to let you know
Speaker 1: that it does get better, that it does get better,
Speaker 1: that it does get better. I said it three times
Speaker 1: like the angel, because the devil says never over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, because the devil understands
Speaker 1: the power of repetition better than you do. Last week,
Speaker 1: I told you this is Jesus John chapter eight that
Speaker 1: the devil and we talked about the devil is a liar,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't sound like a liar. He sounds like you.
Speaker 1: His native language is lying, and one of his favorite
Speaker 1: words is never. Never. You know what depression is. Depression
Speaker 1: is when you finally give up hope that it will
Speaker 1: ever be any different than it is right now. The
Speaker 1: reasons behind it have medical roots and also have clinical treatments.
Speaker 1: That's not my point. My point is that the devil
Speaker 1: knows how to tell you and make you feel like
Speaker 1: you're never gonna be happy again, You're never gonna be
Speaker 1: loved again. Never. That's the language that he lies with. Never, never,
Speaker 1: and he tells you never, He tells you never. He
Speaker 1: tells you never about certain opportunities. You know, well, that's
Speaker 1: never gonna happen. Nobody ever notices you anyway. Have you
Speaker 1: ever noticed how they never notice this, how the devil talks?
Speaker 1: What's point in trying? They never notice. They never say
Speaker 1: thank you, They never appreciate you, never never never never
Speaker 1: never never never never never never never never, and me eventually,
Speaker 1: you just agree with the devil to get him to
Speaker 1: shut up. Okay, it's fine, the truth will set you free.
Speaker 1: But I left something out last week, Chapmen, I left
Speaker 1: this out last week, and I want to give it
Speaker 1: to you now. In eight thirty two, he says, the
Speaker 1: truth will set you free. But watch what did Jews say,
Speaker 1: when Jesus confronts them with the truth, he said, the
Speaker 1: truth will set you free. You got the verse quickly, quickly,
Speaker 1: verse thirty two. They answered him, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: left this out. All we are Averhim's descendants and have
Speaker 1: never been slaves of anyone who hun four hundred years
Speaker 1: in Egipt bring about there's never been a people that
Speaker 1: were in captivity more time than Israelites Assyria, Babylon, Egipt.
Speaker 1: Put it back up. We've never been slaves of anyone. Oh.
Speaker 1: I don't struggle with that. I'm a good Christian. Oh
Speaker 1: I don't really deal with that. I rused my curtain.
Speaker 1: I the fear of that position of the low. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's called a selective never it's when you reduce down
Speaker 1: the whole thing to the current person. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, they were under Roman oppression at the moment
Speaker 1: they said that denial, y'all. I've used therapy in my
Speaker 1: life on and off to be a good pastor without shame.
Speaker 1: For years. I talked to somebody in a heartbeat, I will, well,
Speaker 1: you should talk to the Lord. I talk to him
Speaker 1: and people because I can't see him. Thank you, pastor.
Speaker 1: You make us feel so much more because I thought
Speaker 1: you never struggled. No, I do. I struggle. I struggle
Speaker 1: a lot. That's how I get these little messages. I
Speaker 1: go down to Hell, I box the devil. Six days,
Speaker 1: I'm back and tell you here's something to try on him.
Speaker 1: All right, But my fear was I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I'm probably not gonna finish strong man. I mean,
Speaker 1: good grief. I struggle with this and I deal with that.
Speaker 1: Oh my. You know, most people, nine out of ten
Speaker 1: ministers I heard one time don't and the person said
Speaker 1: to me in a counseling session, you may not, but
Speaker 1: I actually think you will. Here's why I think you will,
Speaker 1: because you know you might not. Now, some people would
Speaker 1: call that being negative. When Peter said, never, Lord, I
Speaker 1: will never deny you. Isn't it funny how he was
Speaker 1: the first one that did. When you say never, you
Speaker 1: know I never, No, I mean, I would never deal
Speaker 1: with that. I think it's crazy. God will give people
Speaker 1: the word that they need for something they're about to
Speaker 1: go into, and they won't even write it down or
Speaker 1: listen to it, so they don't know they're gonna need it.
Speaker 1: Because God, God is giving you what you're going to
Speaker 1: need for where he knows you're going to be, and
Speaker 1: you can only you're so like right here, right now
Speaker 1: in this season. If it doesn't say exactly what I
Speaker 1: wanted to say right now. You might need this. You
Speaker 1: might need it Thursday. You might need it in three years.
Speaker 1: You might need it for somebody else. It might not
Speaker 1: even be for you. I don't know what Peter was
Speaker 1: praying about on the roof and extend, but I don't
Speaker 1: think he was praying for Corneli, just because he did't
Speaker 1: even know who he was. And yet God answered a
Speaker 1: prayer that Peter wasn't even praying by sending something to
Speaker 1: the Gate that Peter didn't even ask for. And so
Speaker 1: it left me wondering. As I preached today, listen to me, Epham,
Speaker 1: listen to me. Let me know where you're listening from.
Speaker 1: Let me know what city, what town, what Hamlet let
Speaker 1: me know what state, Let me know where where you're
Speaker 1: listening from. So I can say this, it's at the gate.
Speaker 1: This delegation put that in the chat? Would you put
Speaker 1: that in the chat? More people are watching online today
Speaker 1: than usual, So let's have a child and then you
Speaker 1: can touch somebody if you're in the room, say it's
Speaker 1: at the gate. It's at the gate. It's at the gate.
Speaker 1: It's at the gate. It's at the gate. It's at
Speaker 1: the gate. Now. Now Cornelius is thirty miles away from Joppa.
Speaker 1: He sends a delegation. It takes them almost a day
Speaker 1: to get there. One commentator said that Cornelius sent an
Speaker 1: extra beast for Peter to ride back on. I don't
Speaker 1: even know who Peter is, but he's going to need
Speaker 1: to get back in a hurry. We were you paying
Speaker 1: attention when I read? Or were you still kind of
Speaker 1: like drowsy. God told Cornelius where to get Peter, but
Speaker 1: he didn't tell him why. You know, the story ends
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I didn't get all the way there, but
Speaker 1: I'm not closing my sermon either, But let's skip to
Speaker 1: the in for a minute. He said, he said, go
Speaker 1: send for Peter. And when Peter got there to Cesareah,
Speaker 1: thirty miles away, there was a crowd waiting to hear
Speaker 1: the message of Jesus, and Peter preached I got to
Speaker 1: show you this verse. It's Acts ten thirty four. When
Speaker 1: he got there, he began to speak, and he said,
Speaker 1: I now ld hold him down. Will he can't handle it?
Speaker 1: I now realize in verse thirty four because I obeyed.
Speaker 1: In verse nineteen, I now realize how true. So you
Speaker 1: don't know the truth until you obey the word. Now, now, God,
Speaker 1: give me strength to preach this. God give me strength
Speaker 1: to preach this. God, you keep asking God to explain it,
Speaker 1: and He keeps telling you to trust it. You keep
Speaker 1: asking God to explain it, and he keeps telling you
Speaker 1: to obey it. You keep asking God to make sense
Speaker 1: of it, and He keeps calling you to walk in it.
Speaker 1: And everything that God did in my life, well, it
Speaker 1: was something that at one time I never thought possible.
Speaker 1: So I'm preaching to you. I'm not talking about Peter.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about Cornelius. I'm not talking about the
Speaker 1: fish with the scales. I'm not talking about the animals
Speaker 1: with the hoofs, talking about the gentile world, the Jewish world.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you right now on the roof seeking God,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what in the world is this
Speaker 1: coming into my life? What does this mean? Why am
Speaker 1: I here? What is this season? How can it be?
Speaker 1: What will it take? Can I do it? And the
Speaker 1: devil is saying never, and God is saying now, now
Speaker 1: who are three letters? But I feel it in my spirit? Now,
Speaker 1: inn ow devil. Now, surely the Lord is in this place?
Speaker 1: When now? How do you know it? By faith? Now?
Speaker 1: Faith is the substance of things hoped for. I can't
Speaker 1: see it, but I know it. I can't prove it,
Speaker 1: but I believe it. It's a promise. It's a promise.
Speaker 1: Never will I leave you, Never will I forsake you.
Speaker 1: That's what God said never about. That's what God said
Speaker 1: never about, Never take his presence from me. There will
Speaker 1: never be a day in my life. There will never
Speaker 1: be a moment in a day. There will never be
Speaker 1: a nanosecond that he won't be God. There will never
Speaker 1: be a valley that he won't walk me through. There
Speaker 1: will never be a shadow that he won't like the way.
Speaker 1: There will never be a mistake he won't redeem. There
Speaker 1: will never there will never, there will never, there will never,
Speaker 1: there will never, there will never. There will never be
Speaker 1: a sin he won't forgive. There will never be a
Speaker 1: chain he can't break. There will never be a mountain
Speaker 1: he can't move. That will never never, never, no, never, Okay,
Speaker 1: touch at least three people. I'll say never, never, never,
Speaker 1: a new never. But the whole thing, this is the
Speaker 1: part you won't like hinges on now because as Peter
Speaker 1: is sitting on the roof saying never, and I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure I break this down, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I broke it down good enough. He wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to get Peter ready for a barbecue downstairs. That's
Speaker 1: not how the verse is, yo. Holly is so carnal.
Speaker 1: All she thinks about is when is the next mule?
Speaker 1: Is that true? We'll be watching a show and it'll
Speaker 1: be like a shootout and there'll be bullets flying and
Speaker 1: people flying everywhere Christian gangster movies all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: and then there'd be all this chaos and she'll look
Speaker 1: at me and she'll go, when did they eat? And
Speaker 1: I'll be like, Holly, it is a heist. This is
Speaker 1: not That's the first thing she looks for. And know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna hate acts because it doesn't even say
Speaker 1: if Peter ever got his lunch. God had something more
Speaker 1: important at the gate, even than what he was praying for.
Speaker 1: Does he have something better for you? Has the devil
Speaker 1: been saying never? Have you been looking at a stack
Speaker 1: of bills, not the Buffalo bills, snow day humor, snow
Speaker 1: day humor, and then saying, well, I never pay this off,
Speaker 1: so quick. Principle to serve me, okay, for your leadership,
Speaker 1: for your company, for anything, your fitness, for your emotions,
Speaker 1: whatever one immediate action is worth a thousand good intentions.
Speaker 1: I wonder how long Peter would have stayed up on
Speaker 1: the roof smelling food in a trance, and the Lord said,
Speaker 1: you won't find out what I have for you on
Speaker 1: the roof. God showed him something while he prayed. He
Speaker 1: spoke something that contradicted what Peter thought. Now that's been
Speaker 1: happening inside of you lately, the devils saying never you're
Speaker 1: thinking it, okay, Well I never will, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to addictions. Y'all. When I talked about freedom last week,
Speaker 1: half the people couldn't even hear me because it's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I heard a sermon like this. I did
Speaker 1: rehab three times. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I tried this already.
Speaker 1: Cool man. I hope you get them while they're young,
Speaker 1: because once you've been in it this long. Never I
Speaker 1: hesitate to do this because he could you could take
Speaker 1: it and make it something I don't mean. But even
Speaker 1: some of you that thought like you will never have
Speaker 1: another relationship, you never You're bringing so much baggage from
Speaker 1: Leviticus eleven of how you think things have to be,
Speaker 1: and you're like, nope, they have scales, Nope, they have fins, Nope,
Speaker 1: they have hoofs, Nope, they chew the cud. And so
Speaker 1: then you make blanket statements about what God can and
Speaker 1: can't do in your life. One of the greatest things
Speaker 1: we're celebrating doctor King's legacy in the United States this weekend.
Speaker 1: This Monday, our outreach teams went out and did amazing things,
Speaker 1: probably by the time you see this message. But one
Speaker 1: day a man touched my heart because he said, I'm
Speaker 1: seventy two and I hated white people all my life
Speaker 1: until God brought you on my TV and gave me
Speaker 1: the word and we met and he said thank you,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, thank you. I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of my time wondering if people hear what you say,
Speaker 1: or if it matters, or if you're just giving people
Speaker 1: a little sermons to get through the week or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's hard for me to believe. But thank you for
Speaker 1: telling me, and then I talked to him a few minutes.
Speaker 1: He told me a lot of the story of why
Speaker 1: he felt the way he felt, and I got it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, do you still like me
Speaker 1: after meeting me? He's like, I like you better, he said,
Speaker 1: but you are shorter in person. But I never thought
Speaker 1: I would listen to a white preacher. I never. And
Speaker 1: that becomes the in the limitation, when the devil says never,
Speaker 1: then you just stopped looking good. Things never happen to
Speaker 1: you that happened to others. I never have any luck.
Speaker 1: I never get any breaks. It never stops. I never
Speaker 1: get ahead. That is the devil's language. He took God's
Speaker 1: word never will I leave you, and he co opt
Speaker 1: God's word for his purpose, like he did with Jesus
Speaker 1: when he was tempted. He took God's word, throw yourself
Speaker 1: off the angels, turn the bread into stones. He took
Speaker 1: God's word never, and now he's using it against you. Never.
Speaker 1: You're never going to finish, They're never going to notice,
Speaker 1: it's never going to change. It never makes a difference.
Speaker 1: And then then here's my face, Well you never can
Speaker 1: be sure, so why even try. And now we're living
Speaker 1: at a time where that's almost true, Like, why put
Speaker 1: anything into calendar anymore? Because if your second cousin gets sick,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be in the house for three weeks. Leviticus
Speaker 1: eleven has nothing on the year twenty twenty. I can't
Speaker 1: keep up with any of the rules. Okay, so now
Speaker 1: I feel like, well, why even try because I can't
Speaker 1: predict it. But don't you understand that it becomes even
Speaker 1: more important to be sensitive to the spirit of God
Speaker 1: when you can't depend on the circumstances. Give me verse five.
Speaker 1: Look what God was telling Cornelius when Peter was saying,
Speaker 1: never acts ten? Verse five of there they are now
Speaker 1: sin men say it? Say it? What did God say?
Speaker 1: What did Peter say? What happens when never meets now?
Speaker 1: What happens when the God who exists in eternity steps
Speaker 1: into the fullness of time in the presence of the
Speaker 1: Lord is I don't want you to see this as
Speaker 1: a Bible story. I want you to see it as
Speaker 1: a spiritual reality. When never meets now, When never meets now?
Speaker 1: When they told them that they would never go to
Speaker 1: the moon, now, I mean, I know people who are
Speaker 1: planning their vacation for twenty thirty two to Mars. Where
Speaker 1: you going, Myrtle Beach? Where you going Mars? And you're laughing,
Speaker 1: You're laughing, they laughed. I remember as a kid, I
Speaker 1: wanted to live at Walmart. I did. That was a
Speaker 1: I was a fantasy of mine when I was like
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen, because I wanted to live in the
Speaker 1: CD section. CDs were brand new, and when my mom
Speaker 1: would take me to Walmart, I would just spend all
Speaker 1: day as long as she would let me. She had
Speaker 1: to come drag me out truth and I'm be ut.
Speaker 1: There's the Lemonheads, and oh, there's the Rollins band, and
Speaker 1: there's I was into the deep cuts of punk rock,
Speaker 1: not the green day stuff. No way more subcultural than that. Wow,
Speaker 1: I wonder what that sounds like. I've heard of it.
Speaker 1: I wish I could listen to all of it. What
Speaker 1: if I had every CD in the world that was
Speaker 1: ever recorded? What was my fantasy is now on my phone.
Speaker 1: I don't appreciate it. I fuss at it when it
Speaker 1: takes three seconds to load. This text is never going
Speaker 1: to come through. It's been seven seconds. When the ninth
Speaker 1: President of the United States died, I read that it
Speaker 1: took one hundred and ten days for the message to
Speaker 1: get to Los Angeles. Yeah, talk about if this message
Speaker 1: is never coming through, we think we wait a long time.
Speaker 1: Oh how long was the wait at chick fil A?
Speaker 1: It was for adbur I named for ever hie. Wait?
Speaker 1: How long did he preach today? He preached for eber y'all,
Speaker 1: Paul preached so long. One time a boy named Unicus
Speaker 1: fell out the window. And you to cuss too if
Speaker 1: you fell out a window. As I'm saying this, the
Speaker 1: gospel is going out all over the world while I'm preaching.
Speaker 1: If you would have told twenty two thousand and six
Speaker 1: Elevation Church that we would not have to build campuses
Speaker 1: all over the world to reach people all over the world,
Speaker 1: we would have said. I told one guy that it
Speaker 1: was in my heart to have a diverse church, and
Speaker 1: he said, well, you better not do it in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: because you will build a diverse church in Charlotte. Now,
Speaker 1: I said, now, hi, y'all, I get now devil, Hi
Speaker 1: y'all like it. Now take a look got us? Now
Speaker 1: we're gone. We're all. We're rich, we're poor. We're coming
Speaker 1: from ANDREI contract with a praise had to day. So
Speaker 1: you can keep your blanket statements, you can keep your
Speaker 1: broken systems. You can keep the bs. Get me Jesus,
Speaker 1: get me the gospel, get me the work. The breath
Speaker 1: is thus spare now now now now, okay, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: clap my hands and praise God when I get over
Speaker 1: this little cold. You better praise Him with a running
Speaker 1: nose and a fever. You better weigh a tissue and
Speaker 1: prize him. Now now now, now, now, now, now, get
Speaker 1: in on it. Get in on it when you got
Speaker 1: a rich joice now now, why whoa Some people are
Speaker 1: waiting for heaven to give God PRIs when we all
Speaker 1: get to heaven, what a day that will be. But
Speaker 1: I read in my Bible this is the day that
Speaker 1: the Lord. They can't hear me Jesus, this is a day.
Speaker 1: Now now now, now, now, now, now now now. Remember
Speaker 1: when Martha sent for Jesus to come and heal Lazarus.
Speaker 1: Remember that story. I apprecied it a good twenty times
Speaker 1: in this pulpit. But if you never read it, you
Speaker 1: need to read it in John eleven. Because they sent
Speaker 1: for Jesus and he never came. Some of you feel
Speaker 1: like Martha, and you sent for Jesus, and he never came,
Speaker 1: and you prayed, and he never came, and you asked
Speaker 1: and it never changed. And you tried and it never works,
Speaker 1: and you did it and it never made sense. So
Speaker 1: I want you to do what Martha did. In John
Speaker 1: eleven twenty, it says she heard that Jesus was coming.
Speaker 1: Somebody say, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here,
Speaker 1: he's here. No, no, no no, the other person. Next year,
Speaker 1: he's here, he's here. He's here, he's here, he's here.
Speaker 1: Put it at the chat. He's here, he's here. He's
Speaker 1: not coming one day, he's here right now. He's at
Speaker 1: the gate. He's at the gate. He's at the gate.
Speaker 1: He's at the gate. He is the gate. He is
Speaker 1: the way, the truth, hand, the life. She went out
Speaker 1: to meet him. What happens when never meets now? So
Speaker 1: he didn't come when you wanted him, like you wanted him,
Speaker 1: how you wanted him. But he's here now, So it
Speaker 1: didn't happen like you wanted, when you wanted, how you wanted.
Speaker 1: So he didn't answer what you prayed, how you prayed,
Speaker 1: when you prayed, like you prayed. But he's here now,
Speaker 1: so you didn't do what you should have, what you
Speaker 1: could have, what you would have. So you wasted the
Speaker 1: last couple of years wandering around, so you're disoriented. So
Speaker 1: you did it, so you missed it, so you lost it,
Speaker 1: so you let it slip away. But you're here now, now, now, now,
Speaker 1: And she went, this is for somebody. I had to
Speaker 1: call Martha because if I just preached about Peter, this
Speaker 1: message would be for the men. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring Martha with Peter so they could both tell you
Speaker 1: the same thing, that it's at the gate. Now. Had
Speaker 1: a man tell me, I've never given to the church,
Speaker 1: but when I die, I'm gonna will ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And that's why I thought God has to kill you
Speaker 1: to get ten thousand dollars. How are you smart enough
Speaker 1: to have ten thousand dollars to give and stupid enough
Speaker 1: to say something like that? Now you better give it? Now,
Speaker 1: you better grab him, hug them, love them. Now am
Speaker 1: my preaching? And she heard Jesus was coming sent for
Speaker 1: him when last Verus was sick. He never came. And
Speaker 1: that's the first thing she told him. You never came.
Speaker 1: You never came, So you invite got into you never. Yeah, God,
Speaker 1: I I'll be honest, like, I don't even really feel
Speaker 1: like this is going to work for me. Started a
Speaker 1: lot of New Years like this on the nose shrimp diet.
Speaker 1: But you're here now. But you're here now. You could
Speaker 1: have died, you almost quit. You wouldn't have been at
Speaker 1: church tomorrow to hear this message. So God had me preacher. Now.
Speaker 1: Everything changes when never meets now. And I think this
Speaker 1: is more than a sermon. I think it's a meeting.
Speaker 1: I think it's a divine appointment for somebody who's been
Speaker 1: in neverland and it had happened, and you don't see
Speaker 1: how it's going to happen. So I could remind you
Speaker 1: that a lot of your now's used to be Nevers
Speaker 1: wrote a song years ago that said, you've never failed
Speaker 1: me yet. I've seen you move the mountains, and I
Speaker 1: believe you've never failed me yet. My buddy Robert mdou
Speaker 1: went to a church and he was the guest preacher
Speaker 1: and they were singing that song do it again, and
Speaker 1: they changed it. He said it was weird because the
Speaker 1: way we wrote it said, your promise still stands as
Speaker 1: great as your faithfulness. I'm still in your hands. This
Speaker 1: is my confidence. You've never failed me yet, he said.
Speaker 1: But when they got to that part, they didn't say yet.
Speaker 1: They just say you've never failed me. And he asked
Speaker 1: the pastor, and the pastor said, we don't like that
Speaker 1: part because when it says yet, it implies that he might.
Speaker 1: But see what I think the word yet put that
Speaker 1: in the chat to say yet, yeah, yeah, yeah, yet yeah.
Speaker 1: It implies that God's past faithfulness is the best predictor
Speaker 1: of his future performance. So it means that if he
Speaker 1: kept me breathing. Have you ever stood next to an
Speaker 1: answered prayer? Have you ever stood in the living proof
Speaker 1: of a moved mountain? Have you ever just fogged a
Speaker 1: mirror with your breath to annoy the devil that it
Speaker 1: didn't work when he tried to kill you? And I'm
Speaker 1: telling you you've never been here before. Be easy on yourself,
Speaker 1: Be patient with your process, Be open to what God
Speaker 1: is doing in this season. Be like Martha, get your
Speaker 1: disappointed butt down there to the gate and ask Jesus
Speaker 1: why he never came. Be like Peter, go downstairs and
Speaker 1: see about this thing God sent you. It's at the gate,
Speaker 1: it's standing there, God sent it. It might not look familiar.
Speaker 1: It might be weird, it might not be what you
Speaker 1: prayed for, it might not smell like ribs. But God
Speaker 1: sent it. God sent it, and hey, you can't hesitate.
Speaker 1: You have got to move now thirty miles. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Monks Corner, South Carolina. Tiny town, not too
Speaker 1: tiny now twenty thousand people, they said now, or something
Speaker 1: like that. It was much smaller when I was there.
Speaker 1: So when people would ask me where are you from,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell a Monk's Corner. I would have to
Speaker 1: say from a town that's thirty miles north of Charleston
Speaker 1: called Monk's Corner. Jappa was thirty miles from Caesarea. And
Speaker 1: when I lived that close to Charleston, I never went. Now,
Speaker 1: me and Holly spend our vacation days there. I never
Speaker 1: went when it was so close. Now I appreciate it more.
Speaker 1: I wonder what God has given you now that you
Speaker 1: never stopped to enjoy. I want you thinking about this
Speaker 1: message for a long time. I want you to ask
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, long after I shut up, what are
Speaker 1: the nevers, the nevers that I've accepted that I need
Speaker 1: to reject? What are the nevers that I need to
Speaker 1: accept now, like I'm y'all, the time for me to
Speaker 1: be in the NBA has come and gone. You understand,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a brain surgeon at this
Speaker 1: stage of my life. I'm good with that. I've accepted that.
Speaker 1: I'm a heart surgeon. I'm a soul surgeon. She said, Jesus,
Speaker 1: we sent for you, you never came. And she expressed
Speaker 1: her frustration. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful, she said,
Speaker 1: Lord John Elevin, if you would have been here, my
Speaker 1: brother would not have died. And this is where God
Speaker 1: told me to leave you at the gate. Peter, Martha,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving you at the gate here with this verse
Speaker 1: twenty two. But I know that even now God will
Speaker 1: give you whatever you asked. When she said now, she
Speaker 1: recognized the presence of God. When you recognize this presence,
Speaker 1: you are open to his power now. And Jesus looked
Speaker 1: back at her with a question, here it is your
Speaker 1: brother will rise again twenty four and Martha answered, I
Speaker 1: know he will rise again in the resurrection of the
Speaker 1: Last Day. And Jesus said, I am that's present tense.
Speaker 1: Present tense isn't going to happen one day it didn't
Speaker 1: happen one day, and now it's gone. Jesus said, I
Speaker 1: am here, I am powerful, I am able, I am faithful. Now, Ashley,
Speaker 1: my favorite scripture says, now to him who is able
Speaker 1: to do immeasurably more than we asked or imagined. Now,
Speaker 1: I never paid attention to that word. And when you're
Speaker 1: reading the Bible this week, because I know you read
Speaker 1: it for three hours a day, when you're reading the
Speaker 1: Bible praying on the roof and the sheep comes down
Speaker 1: this week, just look at every time you see the
Speaker 1: word now, and look at every time you see the
Speaker 1: word never, and ask the Lord, did did that never
Speaker 1: come from you? Did that never come from the devil?
Speaker 1: Did that never come from my biases? Is that never?
Speaker 1: Limited to a season of life? And listen, listen, some
Speaker 1: of us are chained to limitations that do not exist
Speaker 1: anymore in this season. It used to be true, and
Speaker 1: it's not anymore. It used to be true and it's
Speaker 1: not anymore. It used to be true that the Gentiles
Speaker 1: couldn't come to the God of Israel, but it's not
Speaker 1: anymore because he tore the veil and his presence, his
Speaker 1: presence has no lit this has no borders, Jesus said,
Speaker 1: the one who believes believes. Do you believe? Do you believe?
Speaker 1: You believe a little bit of faith? Must see faith?
Speaker 1: Stand up, Stand up. He who believes in Me will
Speaker 1: live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing
Speaker 1: in Me will what will? What will never die. It
Speaker 1: is not dead, It is not over, it is not finished.
Speaker 1: Your best days are not in a rear view mirror. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you are. You are to drag your never into the
Speaker 1: presence of your now. Spoiler alert, Lazarus got up even now,
Speaker 1: even now, even now, in the face of never. So
Speaker 1: I want to pray about your nevers, and I want
Speaker 1: to call you to your now. The devil's such a liar.
Speaker 1: He's so good at it. You would be too, if
Speaker 1: it's all you ever did. He's had a lot of practice,
Speaker 1: and you let him. You built him a practice court
Speaker 1: in your mind, just letting him dribble never up and
Speaker 1: down the court never never never never never never never
Speaker 1: never never never never. But now, in this present moment.
Speaker 1: Isn't it a clue that we call it the presence
Speaker 1: of God, not the pastess of God, not the future
Speaker 1: of God. When never meets. Now, I want to minister
Speaker 1: to somebody who's going through heartbreak you never saw coming,
Speaker 1: was going through transition, you never saw come in. He's
Speaker 1: learning a skill you never even thought you need. Who's
Speaker 1: walking through something that you heard about but never really
Speaker 1: dealt with. This word was for you, so you can
Speaker 1: drag it into the presence of the Great. I am
Speaker 1: so rich, I gotta stop. I'm going to pray one
Speaker 1: more thing. Remember God spoke to Peter while he was hungry,
Speaker 1: So if you're waiting for lunch, this might be a
Speaker 1: breakthrough moment. Okay, breathe in, breathe. A lot of us
Speaker 1: feel like things in our life were wasted because we
Speaker 1: gave and we tried, and we loved, and we cared,
Speaker 1: and we encouraged and we served. How many times did
Speaker 1: Cornelius pray and God didn't send anybody to help. How
Speaker 1: many alms did Cornelius give these god fearing gentiles they
Speaker 1: were attracted to Judaism but not accepted within it. How
Speaker 1: many times did he pray and felt nothing? How many
Speaker 1: times did he give and receive? Nothing happens to all
Speaker 1: of us. What's the point in that? Why even try
Speaker 1: three or four years ago. I was getting ready to
Speaker 1: come back and preach, had an eight week series plan.
Speaker 1: I was going to do it. I was going to
Speaker 1: do it big. Some of y'all are new to the church.
Speaker 1: We used to always have the series in advance, and
Speaker 1: then the world became so stupid that I stopped trying
Speaker 1: to plan. God and we'll go back to that one day.
Speaker 1: But I told all the creative team what the series
Speaker 1: should be called. I told all the campus pastors what
Speaker 1: the series would be called. You remember Special Zoom Call.
Speaker 1: Before zoom was a thing. I was an early adopter.
Speaker 1: I want to preach the first week of it, and
Speaker 1: and it wasn't. When I say, it just didn't feel
Speaker 1: like what God wanted me to preach. I said, I'll
Speaker 1: get it next week. And that happened again and again,
Speaker 1: and I preached, but I couldn't preach that. It just
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I was preach it. So I never
Speaker 1: preached it. They designed graphics. They had them loaded in
Speaker 1: the computers. I don't know what they do, but they
Speaker 1: do back there to make stuff come on the screens.
Speaker 1: But they did all of it. Amazing team. They just
Speaker 1: had it already, but we never used it. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that was a waste. I had page of notes, I
Speaker 1: had a sermon title for the first sermon, never used it,
Speaker 1: studied it, never preached it, prepared it, never served it.
Speaker 1: Thought I wasted everybody's time. And I I'm sharing this
Speaker 1: with you for a reason because I had an appointment,
Speaker 1: songwriting appointment, me and Christen Brandon and Tiffany meeting, and
Speaker 1: I said, there's this sermon that I never preached, Chris
Speaker 1: talking about it. Maybe it could be a song that
Speaker 1: was called Graves into Gardens. Now now, now, now, the
Speaker 1: series that I never preached became the biggest song that
Speaker 1: our church has ever released. It wasn't wasteful. You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Daniel's Son, all that waxing, all that painting,
Speaker 1: all of that God God, not mister Miagi, but the Master,
Speaker 1: the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Resurrection, the Saved, And when
Speaker 1: never meets now, you're gonna be so glad you didn't quit.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to read your testimony when you put
Speaker 1: it in the comments. I can't wait to hear what
Speaker 1: never you broke through because the power of the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit released in these moments that we share. But it
Speaker 1: might not be today. You now, might be in a
Speaker 1: year now, might not be till your children are grown. David,
Speaker 1: and build the temple so that you can see that
Speaker 1: your investment was not a waste. Father. Even now, no
Speaker 1: word from your mouth will return to your VOI. It
Speaker 1: will accomplish what you intend. I thank you for every seed.
Speaker 1: Lift your hands. I thank you for every seed. Lift
Speaker 1: them online, lift them, receive this word. Stop being so stubborn,
Speaker 1: Stop being in your own head and thinking things through.
Speaker 1: Worship God for a moment. Surrender to God for a moment.
Speaker 1: All that other stuff doesn't work. You control in stuff.
Speaker 1: Lift your hands to your father, who knows the plans
Speaker 1: he has for you. Even now, we will not worry
Speaker 1: about tomorrow, for it shall only wear us down today. Now,
Speaker 1: whatever standing at the gate in their life, Lord, whatever
Speaker 1: Cornelius they're meant to minister to, whatever their life is
Speaker 1: meant to preach, whatever purpose you've given them to fulfill,
Speaker 1: I declare gardens where there were graves. He who believes
Speaker 1: will never die, and even dying, shall they lift. You
Speaker 1: brought us here today to build our faith God, and
Speaker 1: it worked not because we just feel it, but because
Speaker 1: we know it to be true. You've never failed me yet.
Speaker 1: And just to finish the sentence so there's no confusion.
Speaker 1: You never will give God grace. Come on, give God
Speaker 1: and that's right. Praise well. If you enjoyed today's podcast,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also help us reach others by investing today
Speaker 1: at Elevationchurch dot org, slash give and thanks again for
Speaker 1: joining us on the Elevation Podcast.