Speaker 1: Hey haul, Yes, let's do it again. Let's do it,
Speaker 1: Let's run it back. I can't wait. Elevation Nights. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. Been to the East Coast, West Coast, YEP.
Speaker 1: Now I think we need to come to Austin, Texas. Yes,
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. About Minneapolis, Yes, Kansas City, Missouri, Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, Missouri, for Wayne, Indiana, Toronto, Ontario. We got
Speaker 1: to see you there April eighteenth. April eighteenth through twenty seven.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be amazing. Yeah, we coordinated that awesome. But
Speaker 1: make sure you go get your tickets right now. Elevation
Speaker 1: Nights dot Com. These nights are seriously like the best,
Speaker 1: the best. Can't explain it. I wouldn't keep doing it
Speaker 1: if it wasn't amazing. You have to experience it. It'll
Speaker 1: be me you Elevation Worship and you we'll see at
Speaker 1: Elevation Nights. Elevation Nights dot Com. Get your tickets today,
Speaker 1: let me know if you're gonna be there. You all
Speaker 1: ready for the word sit down. I'm teaching today from
Speaker 1: Ephesians chapter four, fourteen through twenty four. I really will
Speaker 1: only talk about one verse but you got to hear
Speaker 1: all of them, or else it will sound like some
Speaker 1: kind of Pinterest thing or like some little cute little quote.
Speaker 1: But I'm not trying to do that today. I want
Speaker 1: to teach a little bit. I am excited when you
Speaker 1: come to church. You know you get here. I know
Speaker 1: you leave the house and have to fight and all that.
Speaker 1: I'm already here for five hours. So the main thing
Speaker 1: I have to do when I start my sermons is
Speaker 1: tell myself, ferdict, slow down, let the people wake up.
Speaker 1: So that's why I had Zeke sing a little bit
Speaker 1: so I could slow down and just get ready to
Speaker 1: preach to you what I have been studying for the
Speaker 1: last several months. Ephesians chapter four. This new series is
Speaker 1: called Do the New You. Ephesians chapter four. Do the
Speaker 1: New You. Oh, We're going to talk about that a
Speaker 1: whole lot in the month of January. Ephesians chapter four.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to see you. I'm happy you're here. Look
Speaker 1: at you getting in a good church rhythm at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year. You have perfect church attendance so
Speaker 1: far this year. Tell the devil that put a gold
Speaker 1: star in the devil's face and tell him I showed
Speaker 1: up for church. Ephesians, Chapter four, verse fourteen. The apostle
Speaker 1: Paul says, then we will no longer be infants, to
Speaker 1: lost back and forth by the waves and blown here
Speaker 1: and there by every wind of teaching, and by the
Speaker 1: cunning and craftiness of people. You got to watch out
Speaker 1: for people. Wouldn't life be wonderful if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: the people that get in the way. You could do
Speaker 1: everything God spoke to you. If it wasn't for people.
Speaker 1: It's really easy for me to obey God in church,
Speaker 1: and then I have to get out there and run
Speaker 1: what He showed me in the playbook. So Paul says
Speaker 1: here that we need to get to a point that
Speaker 1: we are grown past the opinions of people in their
Speaker 1: deceitful scheming, whether it's a marketer or a newscast, or
Speaker 1: a political group or any of that. Whether it's something
Speaker 1: you've been taught in church that's wrong, Paul says, I
Speaker 1: want you to grow past that into this watch verse fifteen,
Speaker 1: speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become
Speaker 1: in every respect the mature body of Him who is
Speaker 1: the head that is Christ, from him, the whole body,
Speaker 1: joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and
Speaker 1: builds itself up in love as each part does its work.
Speaker 1: So I tell you this and insist on it in
Speaker 1: the Lord, that you must no longer live as the
Speaker 1: gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are
Speaker 1: darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of
Speaker 1: God because of the ignorance that is in them, due
Speaker 1: to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity,
Speaker 1: they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to
Speaker 1: indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full
Speaker 1: of greed. Boy Pastor Stephen, you picked a cheerful scripture
Speaker 1: for the new Year's sermon. Listen to this. It's about
Speaker 1: to turn that, however, is not the way of life
Speaker 1: you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught
Speaker 1: in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
Speaker 1: You were taught, with regard to your former way of life,
Speaker 1: to put off your old self, which is being corrupted
Speaker 1: by its deceitful desires, and to be made new in
Speaker 1: the attitude of your minds, and to put on last
Speaker 1: verse the new self created to be like God in
Speaker 1: true righteousness and holiness. Clap your hands for the word
Speaker 1: of God. When people give you advice that isn't helpful,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Smile at him? Yeah, I pray
Speaker 1: about that. A dude was telling me the other day,
Speaker 1: I need to preach a series on bitcoin. I said,
Speaker 1: I pray about that. Thank you for the input, and
Speaker 1: then I went on about my business. But when somebody
Speaker 1: you respect, then it's different, even if you don't like
Speaker 1: what they say. And when my dad was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: ALS about ten years ago. He was diagnosed about twelve
Speaker 1: years ago, and he went to heaven about ten years ago.
Speaker 1: We went through a horrible period as a family, and
Speaker 1: some of it I can laugh about now, But man,
Speaker 1: we would get on the phone and try to talk
Speaker 1: to each other and we couldn't even speak. It would
Speaker 1: turn into a shouting match. And then I'd get up
Speaker 1: and preach Sunday and then getting a shouting match on
Speaker 1: the phone with my dad Tuesday, and feel like a
Speaker 1: hypocrite about it. But I couldn't figure out a way
Speaker 1: past it. I try and do all this and that
Speaker 1: and the other. But the point of the story is
Speaker 1: this pastor calls me and somebody that I really loved
Speaker 1: and respected and said, I heard about what you're going
Speaker 1: through with your dad, and I've been praying about it now.
Speaker 1: He only talked to my dad about it. He didn't
Speaker 1: talked to me about it. So he heard what he
Speaker 1: heard from who he heard it from. He said, I
Speaker 1: heard what happened with your dad, and I just called
Speaker 1: to ask you one question, Stephen, what would Jesus do?
Speaker 1: And you know what, I thought, Jesus would heal him.
Speaker 1: And I'm not Jesus. I might lay hands on him
Speaker 1: before it's all said and done, so you could take
Speaker 1: your little WWJD wisdom. I had the bracelet to when
Speaker 1: I was sixteen. But it's not that I don't know
Speaker 1: what I want in this relationship. I want reconciliation. I
Speaker 1: want to be by my dad's side. I want us
Speaker 1: to be able to take care of him. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the reason why we moved them to Charlotte is
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a part of that in any
Speaker 1: way I could. But it wasn't really knowing what to do.
Speaker 1: It was doing what I knew in the face of
Speaker 1: something in real time that was complicated. In the passage
Speaker 1: I just read you. I don't know how much the apostle.
Speaker 1: Paul sounds like that pastor that called me to you
Speaker 1: because he's telling you things to do. Then on the
Speaker 1: surface sounds so simple, and in the way he starts it,
Speaker 1: it's so Paul, is so Paul. Paul's like in verse seventeen,
Speaker 1: He's like, so I tell you this, give me verse
Speaker 1: seventeen and insist on it in the Lord. Well, now,
Speaker 1: what can I say back to you? Right? So I
Speaker 1: tell you this, Okay, tell me and I insist on it.
Speaker 1: Okay in the Lord, just say it. He says that
Speaker 1: the way that you have been living that has been
Speaker 1: limiting you is not a product of the person that
Speaker 1: God has called you to be. It is a product
Speaker 1: of the patterns of the world that you have copied
Speaker 1: unconsciously until now. But Paul says, I give you, in
Speaker 1: this moment of your life, to the Ephesian Church, and
Speaker 1: I believe he he says it to Elevation Church as well,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of a new year. A command, not
Speaker 1: a suggestion, on the authority of God's word, not the
Speaker 1: advice of somebody that you follow. This is not TikTok truth,
Speaker 1: This is not a tip. This is not nineteen ways
Speaker 1: to get it. This is something that God says from
Speaker 1: his own heart to you through the apostle, echoing through
Speaker 1: the eons, and right now this word stands in front
Speaker 1: of you. There comes a point in your life when
Speaker 1: doing you isn't working, and there becomes there comes a
Speaker 1: challenge to become what you've really been all along that
Speaker 1: has been buried. I believe this year is my year,
Speaker 1: in your year to see some things manifest in our
Speaker 1: lives that we don't even have the faith to for
Speaker 1: anymore because it's been one way so long. I believe
Speaker 1: this is your year in your life to see character
Speaker 1: development at a level like you thought was only possible
Speaker 1: for other people before. You're gonna become the kind of
Speaker 1: person that you've admired. This year, you're gonna become someone
Speaker 1: that you can trust in this year, You're gonna become
Speaker 1: someone who keeps commitments that they make in secret in
Speaker 1: public under pressure. This year. How do I know is possible?
Speaker 1: Because God would not command it, if he would not
Speaker 1: resource it. If God told me to do it, He'll
Speaker 1: show me how. All right, Feel good? Now I got
Speaker 1: my preach back. Now I've been a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: just in here by myself and hanging out with the
Speaker 1: family and been thinking about this. This thing that people say,
Speaker 1: do you It usually is a phrase that gives us
Speaker 1: permission to be different, even if what we're doing like this,
Speaker 1: like this, like oh you're gonna wear that? Well? Do
Speaker 1: you you like those? Oh? Yeah? Do you? It means
Speaker 1: I wouldn't Hey man, do you you wanna you wanna
Speaker 1: buy it? Buy it? Yeah? Man? Do you? Or or
Speaker 1: or or it could be kind of like, man, don't
Speaker 1: listen to them. Do you you have to do that
Speaker 1: what they're they're doing over there? Do you? And I
Speaker 1: wonder like, is that advice helpful? And when this is
Speaker 1: what we're gonna consider for the next four weeks, So
Speaker 1: I'm giving you fair warning should you decide to skip,
Speaker 1: we are going to evaluate the point at which check this.
Speaker 1: We use authenticity as an excuse for immay. Nobody in
Speaker 1: here wore a diaper to church unless they were carried
Speaker 1: and unless it's covered. I hope yet, at one time
Speaker 1: that's what you ran around the house in should you
Speaker 1: do you? Nobody in here that I'm aware of over
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen is going to eat their meal
Speaker 1: only with their hands today unless it's a sandwich and
Speaker 1: a bag of chips, But at one time you did
Speaker 1: should you do you? Nobody in here today over the
Speaker 1: age of twenty one is going to go home today
Speaker 1: unless there's a physical ailment. And I understand that. And
Speaker 1: there's exceptions to everything I say. Nobody is going to
Speaker 1: go in their lunch today and expect to be spoon
Speaker 1: fed something that's mashed up. But at one time you
Speaker 1: needed that should you do you? Should you? Because that's
Speaker 1: what I hear a lot now it's like, do you
Speaker 1: We almost have elevated authenticity to the level of ultimate
Speaker 1: authority in our lives to give ourselves permission not to
Speaker 1: make progress in areas of our life. I just went
Speaker 1: through several physical examples that were awkward on purpose that
Speaker 1: at one time you wore a diaper, at one time
Speaker 1: you couldn't chew your food. But yet people still come
Speaker 1: to church and they say, I want to be fed
Speaker 1: when I come to church. And that's fine because Jesus
Speaker 1: did tell Peter feed my sheep. But guess what you
Speaker 1: have to chew? I insist on it in the Lord.
Speaker 1: It's so funny how many people don't get strong from sermons.
Speaker 1: They hear because you get fed. I left that church
Speaker 1: because I wasn't getting fed. Maybe or maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: chew it. Maybe you didn't do it. The Bible says
Speaker 1: that he who comes to me and here's my words
Speaker 1: and doesn't put them into practice. It's like a foolish
Speaker 1: man who built his house on the sand. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: he heard the word. Shouldn't he be stronger from the
Speaker 1: word that he heard, not if he didn't do it.
Speaker 1: One country preacher said, the word of God is like
Speaker 1: a can of paint. The value is in the application.
Speaker 1: So I hear Paul all in Ephesians one through three,
Speaker 1: and Holly and Britain. The team did a study that
Speaker 1: you're gonna get January twenty second for the e groups
Speaker 1: where they go into Ephesians. And I didn't even tell
Speaker 1: her that the Lord gave me a sermon from Ephesians
Speaker 1: because I wanted to surprise her. So surprise here, I
Speaker 1: am all the way in Ephesians chapter four, wherein one
Speaker 1: through three Paul is telling them what God did through
Speaker 1: the Gospel, and then he makes a turn in chapter
Speaker 1: four where he starts talking about now that God did that,
Speaker 1: you do this because you can one of the things
Speaker 1: that he says in this passage were interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Look at verse fourteen. He says that when we grow
Speaker 1: up through the unity in our faith by committing ourselves
Speaker 1: to God's community in his process, that we will no
Speaker 1: longer be there it is infants. We will no longer
Speaker 1: expect to be fed without doing any chewing of our own.
Speaker 1: We will no longer be immature. But when I saw
Speaker 1: this connection, it kind of surprised me. He said that
Speaker 1: when you are stuck in spiritual infancy, check this out.
Speaker 1: You are tossed back and forth by the waves, and
Speaker 1: blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and
Speaker 1: by the cunniness, cunning, and craftiness of people in their
Speaker 1: deceitful excusing. So isn't that true? Haven't you found that
Speaker 1: to be true? That immaturity always manifests as instability. Can
Speaker 1: you notice that, like in your own life, when there
Speaker 1: is an area in your life where God is trying
Speaker 1: to grow you, or life is trying to grow you,
Speaker 1: or challenges are trying to move you, and you refuse
Speaker 1: to move past what God is trying to teach you
Speaker 1: to do, it will always result in instability. Now, notice
Speaker 1: that he talks about the waves and the wind, which
Speaker 1: are both external metaphors for the things that happen to
Speaker 1: us in our life. But what he says in the
Speaker 1: passage is not that our spiritual maturity guarantees the elimination
Speaker 1: of wind and waves. He says that your spiritual growth
Speaker 1: and maturity will guarantee that, because God is your strength,
Speaker 1: your source, and your firm foundation, that you will have
Speaker 1: a stable place in any storm. When I prophesy over
Speaker 1: your life that God is going to do great things
Speaker 1: this year, I am not prophesying the appsence of any
Speaker 1: external challenge, for that is above and beyond my pay grade.
Speaker 1: What I am prophesying in the name of Jesus is
Speaker 1: that there is a seed of the Word of God
Speaker 1: inside of you trying to come up out of the
Speaker 1: soil that will enable you to see life everywhere you
Speaker 1: look this year, and you will not be moved anymore
Speaker 1: by all of the happenings of life like you were
Speaker 1: in the past. So I want to ask a question
Speaker 1: for you to consider. How has your instability in life
Speaker 1: been caused by an area of immaturity in your life?
Speaker 1: What waves are you blaming for the way you are
Speaker 1: right now? When the real problem is within what wind?
Speaker 1: Are you cursing because you avoid dealing with the storms inside?
Speaker 1: And this is how the Lord led me to start
Speaker 1: the year to tell you that you get to choose
Speaker 1: this year whether to grow into what God has called
Speaker 1: you or continue to be stuck in the rut of
Speaker 1: what was because of what you saw, because of what
Speaker 1: you've been through, and because of what you've known. One
Speaker 1: reason I don't believe in the saying do you as
Speaker 1: a general piece of advice is because it assumes that
Speaker 1: you know you and you don't. Why are y'all making
Speaker 1: me break this down so much? Find one of these
Speaker 1: church people that's in here today lifting their hands praising God,
Speaker 1: follow them to their kids sporting event, and see if
Speaker 1: they are the same that they were on Sunday, Because see,
Speaker 1: I met some of y'all in other locations than church,
Speaker 1: and I was surprised what I saw. You were lifting
Speaker 1: your hands, your whole hands in here, and then you
Speaker 1: were lifting individual fingers when I saw you at your
Speaker 1: kids basketball game. So I can't figure out. So if
Speaker 1: I tell you do you, I don't know which one
Speaker 1: it's going to show up for the audition for the role.
Speaker 1: And maybe clear the room. That's bad advice. One time
Speaker 1: a preacher told me, hey, man, come preach for us.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, and he said, and just be you.
Speaker 1: I said, oh no, that's the last thing you want
Speaker 1: to tell me. I need to get with God. If
Speaker 1: I show up me without God, your church will split.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying I got multiple personalities, but I'm
Speaker 1: saying I'm a fan by things I'm affected by. I'm
Speaker 1: affected by moos oh for me in the morning. It's
Speaker 1: not to me I want to send into my week.
Speaker 1: Let me talk a little bit about this topic, how
Speaker 1: to defy your default setting. I'm just setting you all
Speaker 1: up this week. I hope you're gonna stick with me
Speaker 1: for January because a lot of us accept our default
Speaker 1: setting in a situation as our destiny. When I wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning, my first thought isn't great as
Speaker 1: I've hit from this o God. My father. One man said,
Speaker 1: I don't wake up in the morning and say good
Speaker 1: what he said, good morning Lord? I wake up and
Speaker 1: say good Lord, it's morning. That's me. That's mourning me.
Speaker 1: Not only is my breath bad in the morning, my
Speaker 1: beliefs are bad too. Y'all brush your teeth. I have
Speaker 1: to brush my beliefs in the morning. I have to.
Speaker 1: I promise you, I have to. If I don't do
Speaker 1: that in the morning, it's going to be a meltdown
Speaker 1: by ten am, maybe two in the best case scenario.
Speaker 1: But what I'm learning not only from my life, but
Speaker 1: from this passage as I study it, is that the
Speaker 1: awareness of how I start doesn't have to become indicative
Speaker 1: of where I end. And watch this. I cannot use
Speaker 1: authenticity as permission to sin. So I can't just wake
Speaker 1: up and think a certain way and act a certain
Speaker 1: way if I belong to God and just call it
Speaker 1: being real. He didn't say be real, he said be righteous.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Well, I'm just saying what I feel. Who
Speaker 1: told you to do that? I'm just speaking my mind.
Speaker 1: What a horrible book to be speaking from the book
Speaker 1: of your mind, the book of your brain, which has been,
Speaker 1: what the Scripture says, corrupted by deceitful desires. That's the problem.
Speaker 1: Do you which me, the me that wants to be
Speaker 1: happy right now at all costs, or the me that
Speaker 1: will thank me in ten years for the decisions I
Speaker 1: made right now? Which while? Do you which one the
Speaker 1: one that's gonna kick my butt if I keep acting
Speaker 1: like this for the next five years. The me that
Speaker 1: I don't want to see reproduced in my kids. That one.
Speaker 1: Just do that. Yeah, just do you? Just do me,
Speaker 1: just like my dad did him and he did him. No,
Speaker 1: I believe that there is a power in for you
Speaker 1: to decide that. I don't want to be like what
Speaker 1: I came from. I want to be like I was
Speaker 1: creative for saw. I wake up in the morning, I
Speaker 1: gotta get some of God's word. I can't start responding
Speaker 1: to the text first thing in the morning. I can't
Speaker 1: touch the screen and start telling people what I think
Speaker 1: and what I feel first thing in the morning. I
Speaker 1: gotta get to Douteronomy chapter seven and see what God says.
Speaker 1: Then maybe I can say something. I got a little
Speaker 1: gratitude journal. I gotta write some things down I'm thankful
Speaker 1: for in the morning, so I'll just start thinking about
Speaker 1: what I need today, because I'll start the whole day
Speaker 1: in the deaficit, all day down around, run around, thing
Speaker 1: like I don't have enough strength. I don't have enough
Speaker 1: energy unless I start somewhere else. Now, just do you.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that anymore. I did mean it almost
Speaker 1: killed me. I didn't me, but I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: I live. I didn't me. That's too small of an
Speaker 1: apartment for me to live in. That apartment has roaches,
Speaker 1: that apartment doesn't have any electricity. That thing is corrupted, corroded,
Speaker 1: and deceived by sin. So I came with the New
Speaker 1: Year series to tell you, not me, but in the Lord,
Speaker 1: that you are being called this year to do the
Speaker 1: new you. And you are not supposed to like new
Speaker 1: when you first start doing it, and you don't have
Speaker 1: to like it at first to do it. I went
Speaker 1: up bucking counted two thousand, one hundred and something workouts
Speaker 1: I did since we boot the Pound. That's the little
Speaker 1: workout room at my house. Two thousand, one hundred something workouts.
Speaker 1: When we met, I was so inconsistent in working out.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, man, I'm just really not
Speaker 1: one of these guys that comes in and works out consistently.
Speaker 1: I do it when I can get around to it.
Speaker 1: I told him that I was doing me. I told
Speaker 1: him how I would and wouldn't exercise. But you know what,
Speaker 1: they got in there and helped me, and it kept
Speaker 1: me accountable. And then I counted It's been eight years now,
Speaker 1: eight years that I've done my workouts like five times
Speaker 1: a week, and y'all don't even care. I'm not bragging. No,
Speaker 1: You're like, why are you bragging? If you work out, workout,
Speaker 1: don't come up here bragging about it. Preach the word. Man,
Speaker 1: i't need to hear all this. I'm telling you. I
Speaker 1: saw myself as a certain kind of person for all
Speaker 1: my life, And even the other day I was telling
Speaker 1: somebody I'm not one of these people who just likes
Speaker 1: to work out. I thought, yes, you are. I did
Speaker 1: the math. If I've been doing that for like eight years,
Speaker 1: and you're not supposed to really start working out until
Speaker 1: you're how old, Matt fourteen probably is about the earliest
Speaker 1: you want to lift weights. That is a good like
Speaker 1: thirty percent of my life that I've been doing it.
Speaker 1: So I am a person who likes to work out.
Speaker 1: Imagine that my default wasn't to do that. But my
Speaker 1: default is not my destiny. My decisions are. How about that?
Speaker 1: Paul says, to put off the old way of seeing
Speaker 1: yourself and put on what he calls the attitude of Christ.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? To put on the new self?
Speaker 1: I can't see it like a jacket. I can't see
Speaker 1: it like a hat. I can't see it like a raincoat.
Speaker 1: I can't see it like new balances. I can't see
Speaker 1: it like it's in my wardrobe. It lives within me.
Speaker 1: But I have the decision to make every day of
Speaker 1: my life which one I will choose? Every day, every hour,
Speaker 1: every moment. I am deciding, and you are deciding, which
Speaker 1: you will you do this year? Do you the one
Speaker 1: that was made new in the attitude of your mind?
Speaker 1: Put on the new self. Now we're going to do
Speaker 1: some study in the text here. In verse twenty four,
Speaker 1: he says that the new self was created to be
Speaker 1: like God, and then in verse twenty three he says
Speaker 1: that the old self is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.
Speaker 1: Let's really look at both of those verses. This is
Speaker 1: the nexus of Chris and practice in order to see
Speaker 1: ourselves as God sees us is not a matter of
Speaker 1: abstract ethereal and philosophical debate, as a matter of practice.
Speaker 1: So watch this. He said that the old self is
Speaker 1: being corrupted verse twenty three. Please give me that is
Speaker 1: being corrupted. Everybody say, corrupted by the deceitful desires. What
Speaker 1: you think you want, what you want right now, what
Speaker 1: the world tells you you should want. What people spend
Speaker 1: millions of dollars on ad campaigns to get you to think,
Speaker 1: if you had it, you would be happy. All of
Speaker 1: the images that you see of the life that you
Speaker 1: imagined that would actually make you happy. That is really
Speaker 1: empty at the bottom of it, if it doesn't have
Speaker 1: God in the middle of it. Right, So he says
Speaker 1: that that self is being corrupted. Everybody say corrupted, and
Speaker 1: to put on verse twenty four the new self which
Speaker 1: was created. Everybody say created. Oh, I like that They
Speaker 1: both start with the same letter. I can preach this
Speaker 1: one is being corrupted and one was created. So when
Speaker 1: you have an outburst of anger, or for when you
Speaker 1: reach for the pills because that's the only way you
Speaker 1: know how to escape your pain, or for when you
Speaker 1: manipulate situations, or for when you spend till three point
Speaker 1: thirty am looking at porn and then you can't connect
Speaker 1: in real life, or for when you find yourself holding
Speaker 1: on to grudges and trying to pay people back, or
Speaker 1: for when you do those things which are very common
Speaker 1: in the world, and you say that's just how I am.
Speaker 1: And then Paul says in Ephesians four twenty four that
Speaker 1: at the heart of the New Testament is the fact
Speaker 1: that you were created to be like God. And then
Speaker 1: verse twenty three that you are being excuse me, verse
Speaker 1: twenty two. Yeah, verse twenty two, that the old self,
Speaker 1: the former way of life, is being corrupted. That means
Speaker 1: my daily decision is corrupted me or created me. You
Speaker 1: got it. Now. Why this blesses me so much is
Speaker 1: that it lets me know that at my core I'm
Speaker 1: a child of God, that at my core, I'm a
Speaker 1: new creation at Christ, in Christ. If you cut me open,
Speaker 1: Christ would be there. If you ripped open this frame,
Speaker 1: if you ripped open this body, if you ripped open
Speaker 1: this physical appearance that you see at the core of
Speaker 1: that would be Christ. Because I was created twenty four,
Speaker 1: I was created, a new self, recreated. Give me twenty four. Please,
Speaker 1: y'all stay with me. These are my verses right here.
Speaker 1: Stay with me. Verse twenty four, Verse twenty four. Created
Speaker 1: to do what be like God in true righteousness, not
Speaker 1: self righteousness, not the appearance of righteousness. Created to be
Speaker 1: like God, not to be God. That's a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: That's what some of us have been trying to do
Speaker 1: that keeps us so stressed out. We keep trying to
Speaker 1: be God over our lives. We keep trying to decide
Speaker 1: what can I do, what should I do? And then
Speaker 1: when it doesn't work, and then when we're weary, we
Speaker 1: come running. But God said, you weren't created to be God.
Speaker 1: You were created to be conformed to the image of
Speaker 1: God who made you. You were created to be new.
Speaker 1: But you are being corrupted by the patterns of the world.
Speaker 1: And when your mind has been corrupted long enough with
Speaker 1: patterns of thinking and patterns of speaking, which Ephesians four
Speaker 1: addresses very clearly, you begin to identify with the issues
Speaker 1: you struggle with more than the image of the God
Speaker 1: that you were made in. So now when you act
Speaker 1: up in sin and miss it, you think that's just me.
Speaker 1: Now you are using self awareness as a permission slip
Speaker 1: to stay stuck in sin. And Paul gets right up
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, and he's like, I got
Speaker 1: one question, what would Jesus do? And I'm like, Paul,
Speaker 1: i am not Jesus. Jesus is the pure, spoltless lamb
Speaker 1: of God, alpha and Omega, the first and the last.
Speaker 1: I'm not even a letter in the alphabet. He's the
Speaker 1: first one, the last one, the Omnikron, He's all of it.
Speaker 1: I can't do it without Jesus. And He's like, exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's where I want you to go to get
Speaker 1: your truth, the truth that is in Jesus. I am
Speaker 1: sending it back to the pit of Hell. This phrase
Speaker 1: that got popular in our culture a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Live your truth to Hell with your truth, your truth,
Speaker 1: it said. The truth is in Jesus. He is the way,
Speaker 1: the truth, and the life. You can't come to the
Speaker 1: Father without him. You can't be right with God without him.
Speaker 1: You can't be clingsed without him. You can't make it
Speaker 1: without him. It is his breath in your lungs. It
Speaker 1: is his hand on your life. It is his grace
Speaker 1: that justifies. It is he that raises up one that
Speaker 1: brings down another. The truth is in Jesus. Stop me.
Speaker 1: I don't speak my mind. I speak Jesus. I'll speak
Speaker 1: my dear. I speak Jesus what I see. I live
Speaker 1: by faith in the Son of God. I am crucified
Speaker 1: with Christ. Nevertheless I live. So I'm doing me but
Speaker 1: it's not the me you see. It's to me that's
Speaker 1: kicking on the inside. It's to me that's coming up alive.
Speaker 1: It's to me that trauma couldn't kill. It's to me
Speaker 1: that drama can't distric It's to me that this world
Speaker 1: can corrupt. So do you the new you? Yeah? The
Speaker 1: new you, the one that apologizes when you're wrong. That one,
Speaker 1: not the one that takes three weeks to come around
Speaker 1: and see it either, the one that says in the
Speaker 1: middle of my sentence, Oh, I'm sorry. I don't talk
Speaker 1: like this. I'm sorry, y'all. That's not me. That's not
Speaker 1: to me I want to be. That's not what God's
Speaker 1: calling me into in twenty twenty three. It's a new
Speaker 1: me twenty twenty three. Yeah, rhymes, it's good. I'm a preaching,
Speaker 1: I'm flowing in it. This is your year to break
Speaker 1: away with everything you told her. What self? What's true? Guys?
Speaker 1: There is I knew you and guess what. The new
Speaker 1: you is the one that God knows. Imagine yourself free.
Speaker 1: God knows that you imagine yourself whole. God knows that
Speaker 1: you imagine yourself able to wait and be patient and
Speaker 1: not respond to every feeling that passes through your central
Speaker 1: nervous system. God knows that you. When I see myself
Speaker 1: how God sees me and come into alignment with the
Speaker 1: word that He spoke over me. It's new to me,
Speaker 1: but not to God. It's new to me, but not
Speaker 1: to him. One time he was calling this prophet named Jeremiah,
Speaker 1: and the prophet Jeremiah was full of excuses, just like you,
Speaker 1: just like me. I met this fellow last year on
Speaker 1: Elevation Nights named Brendan Burchard. He does a great group
Speaker 1: for growth online. Look him up, and he was saying
Speaker 1: these three things that we say to ourselves all the time,
Speaker 1: and I identified with every single one of them. You ready,
Speaker 1: this is the excuse that you use to do you
Speaker 1: at the lower level. One you say, I don't know how, Two,
Speaker 1: I don't have it. Three I'm not like them. Let's
Speaker 1: break it down. Number one, don't know how. How many
Speaker 1: of you had a challenge in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: you excused yourself from embracing it that God was calling
Speaker 1: you hire, but you didn't go because you didn't know how.
Speaker 1: Raise your hand. My hand was the first one up,
Speaker 1: and the rest of y'all are hypocrites because you either
Speaker 1: didn't listen or you just want to lie about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do that. I don't know how.
Speaker 1: Second one, I don't have that. Raise your hand. If
Speaker 1: you made that last year, I'll have that. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: could say that about money, time, energy, health, education, what else?
Speaker 1: Y'all probably got something that I hadn't thought of. Y'all
Speaker 1: are way more dysfunctional than me. Give me some material here, No,
Speaker 1: I promise you that's not true. That's a very sarcastic
Speaker 1: what is it? All? Right? So I don't know how
Speaker 1: to I don't know how to to resist it. I'll
Speaker 1: be consistent. I like to resist it better because that's
Speaker 1: what I think, right, Like greater is he that is
Speaker 1: in you than he that is in the world. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to fight this. When you've been given
Speaker 1: into something and you can just you can just nod
Speaker 1: like you don't know what I'm talking about. When you've
Speaker 1: been given into something since you were ten, it's really
Speaker 1: hard for you to really believe that you can overcome that.
Speaker 1: And listen. You don't have to admit that that struck
Speaker 1: a chord what I just said. Just do you pretend
Speaker 1: like you do. You don't struggle with that. You're such
Speaker 1: an angel, and I respect you and admire you. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to resist. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: be consistent. I don't know how well for me. When
Speaker 1: I started my workouts, I put a this is so corny.
Speaker 1: I put a chart on my wall where I could
Speaker 1: put stars every time I worked out, because I thought
Speaker 1: that would reinforce the behavior. I looked like I was
Speaker 1: seven years old down there. I'm a grown man with
Speaker 1: a beard putting stars on a chart, and I still
Speaker 1: do it. And I filled that sucker up this year.
Speaker 1: I ran out of blue stars and had to start
Speaker 1: using the gold ones this year. That's how good I
Speaker 1: did it. Because I'm changing. I'm changing. I'm changing. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm not one of these workout people. Well maybe I am.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can be one, Maybe I can get a chart.
Speaker 1: Maybe I am consistent. I'm consistent in this area. Why
Speaker 1: can't I be consistent in that area? I'm growing up
Speaker 1: in every respect. I control my tongue in this situation.
Speaker 1: Why can't I control it in that situation? I made
Speaker 1: a good decision Monday. Why can't I do it again Tuesday?
Speaker 1: Why can't I do it again Wednesday. Looks like you
Speaker 1: know how to be consistent. You're here at charts on
Speaker 1: the first Sunday of the year. How you do it?
Speaker 1: Not do it again? And do it again, and do it.
Speaker 1: I just talked to you a whole sevenar consistency. That
Speaker 1: wasn't true. You know how to be consistent, you know
Speaker 1: how to do it. It is not knowing what to do.
Speaker 1: It is doing what you knew that you didn't do
Speaker 1: last time. Not fussing at you, I'm just saying I
Speaker 1: don't know how to be consistent in some areas of
Speaker 1: my life either. I struggle with it, but by showing up,
Speaker 1: God's strength is released. I don't know how. I don't
Speaker 1: have it. I don't have that intellectual ability. I can't
Speaker 1: do that like that. Don't you think I felt like
Speaker 1: that trying to teach each of my kids about sports.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to teach you how to do this.
Speaker 1: I got to like the basic level in all the
Speaker 1: sports that I played, and nothing beyond that. So if
Speaker 1: you get good, I'm done. All right. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know how. Why know how to support you? Why not
Speaker 1: show up? I know how to demonstrate in my area
Speaker 1: of competency, what you need to demonstrate, the discipline you
Speaker 1: need to demonstrate in your area of competency and giftedness
Speaker 1: and calling. So I do know how, And if I
Speaker 1: don't know how and I need to do it, I'll learn.
Speaker 1: I'll look it up on YouTube. I could look up anything.
Speaker 1: I'll ask a friend. I've got a lot of smart friends.
Speaker 1: And then the biggest one of all, the biggest live
Speaker 1: of all. I'm not like them. Man. They have a
Speaker 1: good marriage because their parents had a good marriage. I
Speaker 1: can't do that my parents, my dad wasn't around. I'm
Speaker 1: not like those people who grew up there. They know
Speaker 1: how to deal with money because they grew up around money.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to deal with money. They know
Speaker 1: how to pray because they grew up in church. I
Speaker 1: don't know all these Bible stories. Some of you were
Speaker 1: here for the first Sunday of this year, and the
Speaker 1: whole time you've been feeling here, you've been feeling like
Speaker 1: I don't fit in. I don't know these words, I
Speaker 1: don't know these songs. Why are people standing up and
Speaker 1: sitting down and standing up and sitting down and standing
Speaker 1: up and sitting down, And how long does this sermon
Speaker 1: last anyway, I like these church people. Oh, we are
Speaker 1: all corrupted. Go with them in the parking lot. You
Speaker 1: might catch them cussing before they even get off the
Speaker 1: church property if I preached long enough and let the
Speaker 1: traffic get backed up. Don't let anybody intimidate you, make
Speaker 1: you insecure, because you just got to grow into what
Speaker 1: God gave you. We're all struggling. We'll talk about it
Speaker 1: sometime one time. I'll tell you all my stuff, and
Speaker 1: you can tell me all yours, and then we'll cry
Speaker 1: and get all over it, and then we will say, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's where we're starting. That's not where we're staying. So
Speaker 1: God wanted Jeremiah to go preach. And the Bible says
Speaker 1: in Jeremiah chapter one, verse four, that the word of
Speaker 1: the Lord came to me. The word of the Lord
Speaker 1: existed before the world existed. In the beginning, was the word,
Speaker 1: you know. The book of Genesis says, in the beginning God.
Speaker 1: The book of John says, in the beginning was the Word,
Speaker 1: and the word was with God, and the Word was God.
Speaker 1: So when Jeremiah says the Word of the Lord came
Speaker 1: to me, it wasn't just advice that he got. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just an instruction that he got. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: something he thought he would try for his new year's goal.
Speaker 1: It was God himself showing up and saying, Jeremiah, I've
Speaker 1: given you an assignment. There are invaders coming from the north,
Speaker 1: and I want you to preach to my people and
Speaker 1: warn them and instruct them, and do it through your tears.
Speaker 1: And there's going to be crying involved, and there's going
Speaker 1: to be challenges involved, and there's going to be self
Speaker 1: doubt involved. But he said, before you were born, before
Speaker 1: I formed you in the womb, I I knew you
Speaker 1: before this world got a hold of you, before depression
Speaker 1: set in and put you in the bed, before you
Speaker 1: got in this state, this emergency situation that you don't
Speaker 1: know how you're going to get out of. Before you
Speaker 1: were molested, before you were abused, before you were left,
Speaker 1: before any of that happened to you, before the mistake,
Speaker 1: before the failure, before the dumb idea, before the addiction
Speaker 1: gripped you. Put it back up. God said, I knew you,
Speaker 1: he knew you, he knew you'd be in trouble, he
Speaker 1: knew you'd be thirty six in single. He knew you'd
Speaker 1: be struggling. He knew you'd be sad, he knew you'd
Speaker 1: be melancholy. He knew you'd need a job. He know
Speaker 1: you'd be behind financially. He knew they'd walk away. He
Speaker 1: knew you. You didn't know it. God knew it. You
Speaker 1: didn't see it coming. He saw it coming. He said,
Speaker 1: I know the lands I have for you. Before any
Speaker 1: of the crap happened. God said, I had intimate knowledge
Speaker 1: of your intellect. I see your integrity, even when it falters.
Speaker 1: I see the man you're gonna be if you don't
Speaker 1: leave and walk away. I see if you submit to
Speaker 1: the process, how strong you're gonna be. I see the
Speaker 1: testimony you're gonna be telling your kids ten years from now,
Speaker 1: talking about here's what God did in our home, Here's
Speaker 1: what I almost did. A cod brought me back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and he brought me inserts to tell
Speaker 1: me do it. To do you. I knew you. I
Speaker 1: created you before you were corrupted. So I want you
Speaker 1: to take off what happened to you. Take off the
Speaker 1: way you've been thinking about it. Take off the story
Speaker 1: you've been telling yourself. Take off that guilt, Take off
Speaker 1: that shame, put it all at the foot of the cross,
Speaker 1: and cast it all on the back of the Christ
Speaker 1: who paid the price for your sins to be forgiven.
Speaker 1: It's under the blood. Now we're going forward. Now we're
Speaker 1: not talking about that for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: We're turning it into something miraculous. It's time to bring
Speaker 1: it out. The oven. Baby, it's ready. The eyes that
Speaker 1: flying rupts you. The elevation. I bring you up. Come up,
Speaker 1: Come up, Come up, Come up, Come up to do it.
Speaker 1: Come up in establish this, Come up and start it.
Speaker 1: Come up there, say say, come up, they break here,
Speaker 1: come up. Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it?
Speaker 1: Do it? Do it till us second nature. Do it.
Speaker 1: Tell us how you think. Do it till it naturally
Speaker 1: colomes out of your mouth. Do it till it's not
Speaker 1: so hard anymore. Do it awkward? Do it clumsy? Do
Speaker 1: it over? Do it over? Sorry I messed that up.
Speaker 1: Let me try again. Do it? Do it? Do the
Speaker 1: knew you, the one God knew, the one that people
Speaker 1: don't always see. You're a good person. You got a
Speaker 1: better heart than you've got habits, And what you've been
Speaker 1: calling your personality is just your patterns. If we change
Speaker 1: your patterns, God is about to release potential in your
Speaker 1: life this year that you didn't even think was possible.
Speaker 1: This is what the Lord said before you were born.
Speaker 1: Play softly helped me close before I formed you in
Speaker 1: the womb. I knew you. You think you know you. You
Speaker 1: You don't know you. God knows you. You know what
Speaker 1: you've experienced, You don't know you. How many of you
Speaker 1: don't know the person you're sitting next to. Raise your hand,
Speaker 1: every hand, better go up. You don't know what they
Speaker 1: would do. They don't know what they would do in
Speaker 1: a situation they haven't been through yet. You don't know
Speaker 1: what they could be. You've only ever seen them in
Speaker 1: the shackles of their past. You don't know them. God
Speaker 1: knows them. That's the one I want to do this year,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be hard for me because I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. I'm pretty opinionated about myself now. This
Speaker 1: is how I am. I don't do that. Somebody asked
Speaker 1: me for a meeting the other day. It was important,
Speaker 1: and they said I can only meet at six fifteen am.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not a morning But I never read
Speaker 1: in the Book of Ephesians about the morning people and
Speaker 1: the night people. All they read about the old self
Speaker 1: and the news south And I cut myself off mid sentence.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not a more. I see it's six fifteen,
Speaker 1: because it's important to me. I got up forty five
Speaker 1: minutes early, did a lot of coffee, and I did it.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you could just do that. You could just
Speaker 1: do that. It would be amazing, It would shock you. Now.
Speaker 1: The thing I got to get you to see is
Speaker 1: we're going to have to really work on this and
Speaker 1: work through this, because your first instinct is going to
Speaker 1: be always to hold tight to what feels the most familiar.
Speaker 1: So if that's anger, if that's complaining, if that's blaming,
Speaker 1: if that's diminishing yourself, if that's criticizing others, if that's
Speaker 1: how you always bond, then that's what you're gonna naturally
Speaker 1: think you should do. But what feels the most natural
Speaker 1: isn't the truest thing about you, what God has put
Speaker 1: within you and spoken over you, the truth that is
Speaker 1: in Jesus. That's you. And then when you find yourself
Speaker 1: outside of that, you go, oh, that's not me. That's
Speaker 1: not how I want to respond. Oh, I'm just a
Speaker 1: late person. No, you're not. You're a person who doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to calculate how long a task will actually
Speaker 1: take and tries to get too much done before you leave.
Speaker 1: You are actually a very efficient person who just hasn't
Speaker 1: learned to be realistic in their efficiency. Give God a
Speaker 1: praise all of the formerly laid people. That's all that is.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to break it down. But watch what
Speaker 1: Jeremiah said when the Lord said, I've called you, I've
Speaker 1: chosen you, I created you to do it. I got
Speaker 1: a job for you. Now watch Jeremiah's response. This is
Speaker 1: what we must move past. In verse six, he says,
Speaker 1: a last sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak.
Speaker 1: I am too young. He did all three of the
Speaker 1: things in one sentence. I don't know how. I don't
Speaker 1: have the experience, and I'm not like these people who
Speaker 1: have wisdom and can speak. And that's what's been going
Speaker 1: through your mind all of last year that kept your stuck.
Speaker 1: So his answer was in his excuse if he had
Speaker 1: stopped talking. Verse six, A las sovereign Lord. That word
Speaker 1: means he's in charge, not you. That word means he
Speaker 1: knows what's in you, you don't. That word means that
Speaker 1: his assignment is always accompanied by his enablement. Sovereign Lord,
Speaker 1: his plan, his purpose, Sovereign Lord. And then the Lord
Speaker 1: told Jeremiah verse seven, don't say I'm too young. You
Speaker 1: must go to everyone I send you and say whatever
Speaker 1: I command you for say. Do not be afraid of them.
Speaker 1: This is the word of the Lord. Receive it, for
Speaker 1: I am with you. That's what you need to know.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of this year. The truest thing about
Speaker 1: you is that God is with you. I am with you.
Speaker 1: And look at this. After he gave him the promise,
Speaker 1: he gave him the provision. This is so beautiful. Thank
Speaker 1: you Holy Spirit for showing me this. I am with you.
Speaker 1: I will rescue you, declares the Lord. Verse nine. Then
Speaker 1: the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth
Speaker 1: and said, I have put my words in your mouth.
Speaker 1: Now speak it it now to create. Now do it. Now,
Speaker 1: go for it, Now begin it. And God is going
Speaker 1: to give it to you as you go. He's going
Speaker 1: to show you how to do this. I know you
Speaker 1: don't know how. I know you don't have it. He
Speaker 1: touches your mouth after he gives you the command. It
Speaker 1: is in obedience that potential is realized. Right now, all
Speaker 1: over this room there are new beginnings trying to crack
Speaker 1: through the cement of layers and layers of corruption. What
Speaker 1: we want to do right now is set the atmosphere
Speaker 1: in our hearts and our homes for whatever God wants
Speaker 1: to do this year. I want you to join hands
Speaker 1: or make contact on the shoulder of the person on
Speaker 1: either side of you. I want you to spend the aisles.
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody untouched on either side unless you're
Speaker 1: at the end of the row. I want everybody joining up.
Speaker 1: Everybody joining up at every location. Now, look at me.
Speaker 1: Every location. Elevation, Matthews Elevation, Uptown, Blakeney, Riverwalk, University City, Gaston, Toronto,
Speaker 1: Concord Lake, Norman, Raleigh, Roanoke, Melbourne, so Random, Winston, Salem, Ashville, Morrisville, Columbia, Greenville, Durham, Orlando.
Speaker 1: Watch just Valentine Etham online all over the world where
Speaker 1: you're from. Look at that. Can I tell you something
Speaker 1: real quick? I want to close my sermon this way.
Speaker 1: I was going to open it this way, but for
Speaker 1: some reason the Lord wouldn't let me. And it must
Speaker 1: be because of now. I hope you like their hand
Speaker 1: because you're going to be holding it for about two
Speaker 1: more minutes. Hope their palms aren't too sweaty. Look at me,
Speaker 1: Look at me. Yesterday I went to watch Graham Russell
Speaker 1: at porter Ridge High School. That was our first second
Speaker 1: campus of Elevation Church. So we were meeting at Providence
Speaker 1: High School. It got full. A man came to meet
Speaker 1: with me named John Butler. John Butler was a Baptist minister,
Speaker 1: so I always called him John the Baptist and he
Speaker 1: thought that was funny. But he comes to me and
Speaker 1: says he was attending the church at the time. He
Speaker 1: was also employed by the Baptist Convention. He said, the
Speaker 1: church is full, that's amazing. And he said, but you
Speaker 1: need to keep growing. He said, you can't just contain it.
Speaker 1: And if you tell people invite their friends, but there's
Speaker 1: nowhere for their friends to sit, that's a problem. So
Speaker 1: you need to open another campus. I said, cool. He said,
Speaker 1: I've got three hundred thousand dollars in the Baptist Convention
Speaker 1: account that I will give you to start the campus.
Speaker 1: I said, great. I got a friend named Travis. I'll
Speaker 1: call him and tell him that you're looking for a
Speaker 1: church planter. He said, no you, I said, but I can't.
Speaker 1: Do you know I'm preaching at one, I can't preach
Speaker 1: at the other. He goes, I'm talking about you on
Speaker 1: video appreaching. I looked at him and said, that's not me. Elevation,
Speaker 1: Matthews Elevation, Uptown Elevation, Blatant Elevation, Riverwalk Elevation, University City Elevation,
Speaker 1: Gaston Elevation, Toronto Elevation, Concord Elevation, Lake Norman, Raleigh, Melbourne Elevation, Weston,
Speaker 1: Salem Elevation, Ashville Elevation, Morrisville, Columbia, Greenville, Durham, Orlando, Valentine.
Speaker 1: He found Argentina, Seattle, Arizona. I didn't know we could
Speaker 1: reach this many people. He knew, and then looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, Pastor, you can do this two ways.
Speaker 1: If you try to follow God and get ahead of him,
Speaker 1: he'll shut the door. If God says follow me and
Speaker 1: you won't, he'll pick somebody else. Do you want to
Speaker 1: do it? Do you want to break the curse in
Speaker 1: your family line? Do you want to be in a
Speaker 1: position five years from now where you can help somebody
Speaker 1: else through the same dang thing that's been torment in you.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Then, let's do it every week. God
Speaker 1: gives me strength. I'll be up here helping you drag
Speaker 1: your tired button here and slippers if you have to,
Speaker 1: and I'll preach to you log on when you're not here. Father,
Speaker 1: in the name of Jesus, I release the potential of
Speaker 1: your children in Jesus' name to become everything they were
Speaker 1: called to be, until we grow up, until we grow
Speaker 1: out of our guilt, till we grow out of our grief,
Speaker 1: till we grow past it and become vessels of honor
Speaker 1: fit for the Master's use. I thank you that addictions
Speaker 1: will be broken under the path of your word this year.
Speaker 1: I thank you that poverty will be eliminated from the
Speaker 1: cycle of families this year by your word. I think
Speaker 1: you've had lost children who aren't living for Jesus are
Speaker 1: coming home quote in scripture this Christmas in Jesus' name,
Speaker 1: I thank you no when no way will be possible
Speaker 1: to unstabilize and destabilize your children. I think you are
Speaker 1: churches growing into new communities, your kingdom expanding recession. You
Speaker 1: can do what you gotta do but to all the
Speaker 1: Shiah is looking over his children. We trusted in God,
Speaker 1: We trust in the Almighty. He is able to do
Speaker 1: im miserably more that we ask, or think or imagine.
Speaker 1: Get God. Twenty three seconds of great pray. Come on,
Speaker 1: that's not good enough, that's not good enough, lived up,
Speaker 1: a shout of He's right. Let's sign up right, let's
Speaker 1: sign up right. Well. If you enjoyed today's podcast, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of things I'd love for you to do.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You
Speaker 1: can also help us reach others by investing today at
Speaker 1: Elevationchurch dot org, slash give and thanks again for joining
Speaker 1: us on the Elevation Podcast