Speaker 1: Hello Evams, especially our West Coast family. We have an
Speaker 1: announcement for you, Elevation Nights twenty twenty two West Coast.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? October twenty fifth through November third,
Speaker 1: We're coming your way so exciting. You can get your
Speaker 1: tickets right now at Elevation Nights dot Com. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be me Holly, Elevation Worship. It's going to be amazing,
Speaker 1: unbelievable these nights. Don't want to miss So if you're
Speaker 1: in Glendale, Arizona, Las Vegas, Sacramento, California, Eugene, Oregon, Seattle, Oakland, California,
Speaker 1: San Diego and La or anywhere near those areas, we
Speaker 1: want to see you. Elevation Nights dot com. Don't miss it.
Speaker 1: Elevation Nights dot com. Get your tickets Elevation Nights dot Com.
Speaker 1: See there, let's go to the message today. I want
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with you about a conversation that
Speaker 1: God had with Moses in Exodus chapter four. You know what,
Speaker 1: I just got to jump in right here. I was
Speaker 1: going to back up and catch a little bit of
Speaker 1: chapter three, but I want to be a little bit
Speaker 1: conscious of the time. I don't want to be obsessed
Speaker 1: with it, but there is parking issues at Valentine. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I got long winded during COVID and I never fixed it.
Speaker 1: So y'all can pray that the Lord would help me
Speaker 1: get back to these forty minute thirty minute messages. Okay,
Speaker 1: y'all are sweet, But for the sake of time, let's
Speaker 1: jump into Exodus four. Verse one, Moses answered, what if
Speaker 1: they do not believe me or listen to me and
Speaker 1: say the Lord did not appear to you. And then
Speaker 1: the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand?
Speaker 1: A staff? He replied. The Lord said, throw it on
Speaker 1: the ground. And Moses threw it on the ground, and
Speaker 1: it became a snake, and he ran from it, because
Speaker 1: that's what you do, no matter how much faith you have.
Speaker 1: Some stuff you should run from. Boom pull sermon, go home.
Speaker 1: See you be blessed. Some stuff you should run from.
Speaker 1: But then, in most encounterintuitive way, the Lord said, in
Speaker 1: verse four, reach out your hand, take it by the tail.
Speaker 1: So reach for what you were just running from. So
Speaker 1: Moses reached out, took hold of the snake, turned back
Speaker 1: into a staff in his hand. This said the Lord
Speaker 1: is so that they may believe that the Lord, the
Speaker 1: God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God
Speaker 1: of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.
Speaker 1: Give me my two key verses on this big screen
Speaker 1: real quick, and let's work on this for a moment.
Speaker 1: Versus one and two big screen. Moses answered, what if
Speaker 1: they do not believe me or listen to me and
Speaker 1: say the Lord did not appear to you? Verse two.
Speaker 1: Then the Lord said to him, what is that in
Speaker 1: your hand? A staff? He replied, We're gonna work on
Speaker 1: this a little bit today. Give me my next slide.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about from what if to what is.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go on a little journey today, from what
Speaker 1: if to what is? Spirit of God, have your way
Speaker 1: in Jesus' name, Amen, you may be seated. From what
Speaker 1: if to what is? The Lord said, We're gonna deal
Speaker 1: with this spirit of what if that has been making
Speaker 1: you an insomniac, that spirit of what if that has
Speaker 1: been running the show in your imagination. The Lord said,
Speaker 1: We're going to deal with it today. In the Word
Speaker 1: of God. I confess to you that I am a
Speaker 1: world class what if, a world class what ifer. In
Speaker 1: the beginning of this ministry, it worked for me to say, Man,
Speaker 1: what if we started a church in Charlotte. What if
Speaker 1: by faith we launched a worship ministry. What if we
Speaker 1: did a second campus, What if we did a third,
Speaker 1: What if we did a fourth. What if we dropped
Speaker 1: eggs out of a helicopter on Easter? What if? What
Speaker 1: if we baptize people and had bathing suits and toothbrushes
Speaker 1: and tooth paste and sports bras so they had no
Speaker 1: excuse and we called on them and said, get baptized
Speaker 1: right now, Not after seventeen weeks of class, not after
Speaker 1: you memorize Augustine and Spurgeon, and not after you can
Speaker 1: quote the Book of Romans, but right now, get up
Speaker 1: here and get baptised. What if what if you just
Speaker 1: did it? What if you just got up today and
Speaker 1: gave your life to Christ. What if you just raised
Speaker 1: your hand in the middle of the prayer that they
Speaker 1: pray at the end and said, I'm coming just as
Speaker 1: I am. What if it's kind of a recklessness that
Speaker 1: can serve you well in certain seasons before you know
Speaker 1: all the reasons to answer what if with a whole
Speaker 1: lot of why nots? And I now find that what
Speaker 1: if is a weapon that the devil uses to keep
Speaker 1: me from doing things that I know good and well
Speaker 1: in my spirit. God has called me to do so.
Speaker 1: For the five people who are like me in church today,
Speaker 1: and this what if thing has been really grinding in
Speaker 1: your mind, we are going to have a talk just
Speaker 1: me and the crazy people. The rest of you will
Speaker 1: have more Bible verses by which you can pray for
Speaker 1: us when we're finished with this twenty two minute sermon.
Speaker 1: But I went all the way back of the book
Speaker 1: to the Book of Exodus and introduced this character named
Speaker 1: Moses to talk about what to do with the what ifs,
Speaker 1: just so I can see if I heard from the
Speaker 1: Lord or if I was off track this week when
Speaker 1: I was praying, how many of y'all been wrestling with
Speaker 1: some what if scenarios that have been messing with you?
Speaker 1: And how many of you feel like it's getting worse
Speaker 1: the older you get. Because Moses said, watch this, He said,
Speaker 1: what if they don't believe me? And he had good
Speaker 1: reason to ask that, because chances are they won't because
Speaker 1: God just appeared to him in a bush and said,
Speaker 1: I want you to go tell the most powerful person
Speaker 1: on the face of the earth, the Pharaoh of Egypt
Speaker 1: to let my people going to release his entire slave labor,
Speaker 1: which will decimate his economy, and do it. Do it,
Speaker 1: by the way, while you while you're at it, do
Speaker 1: it at age eighty and most said, well, if it
Speaker 1: don't work, and I get it, because it probably won't.
Speaker 1: I mean, by human standards, right, this is not gonna work.
Speaker 1: So what if? What if? What if? Now? Holly, Holly
Speaker 1: is a great I'm gonna just say this, She's the
Speaker 1: best person I know, No, for real, She's just she's
Speaker 1: less petty than me, she has more energy than me,
Speaker 1: she's more definitely more optimistic than me. When we were
Speaker 1: going on our twenty year trip, we went to northern
Speaker 1: California and she was like, can we just make a
Speaker 1: rule before we go on this trip that whatever happens
Speaker 1: will just make it a part of the journey and
Speaker 1: you won't like freak out too much because our whole
Speaker 1: trip was to go, you know, drive to pch and
Speaker 1: get out there and see stuff. And she's like, and
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna get lost, and I need you to
Speaker 1: commit to me before we buy these plane tickets that
Speaker 1: that's gonna be okay, and we just be lost together,
Speaker 1: and that'll be part of the day, is that we
Speaker 1: got lost, and be part of the story later that
Speaker 1: we got lost. Yeah, but what if what if we
Speaker 1: get where there's no cell signal? What if we can't
Speaker 1: get unlost? What if we starve out there? Did you
Speaker 1: see that movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon where she got
Speaker 1: out there? What if my feet get banged up in
Speaker 1: my shoes? And what if I can't walk? And what
Speaker 1: if you got carried me out? And what if you're
Speaker 1: not able to do that? And what if you get
Speaker 1: a hernia trying to carry me out? And then we
Speaker 1: have to tell the whole church that you're the new pastor,
Speaker 1: but you have to pastor with a hernia? What if?
Speaker 1: And she's like, can we can? We just go and
Speaker 1: we'll figure that out, because horrible, because I can't even
Speaker 1: let my phone get below eighty percent. I have issues.
Speaker 1: I always pray before I preach, you, God, help me
Speaker 1: tell them enough where I can be relatable, but not
Speaker 1: so much that they've become distracted by how ridiculous I
Speaker 1: am and can't receive the word that I'm going to preach.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you read about Moses and you
Speaker 1: hear about the great things that he did. And I
Speaker 1: want to take this apart for just a moment today,
Speaker 1: because you know, God has been speaking to Moses for
Speaker 1: an entire chapter of scripture about all the awesome things
Speaker 1: that he will do. Not Moses, but God. He said,
Speaker 1: I have seen the misery of my people. I have
Speaker 1: heard their cries, and I will compel Pharaoh to let
Speaker 1: them go. If he doesn't let them go, I'll put
Speaker 1: a plague on him. If he still doesn't let them go,
Speaker 1: I'll put another plague on him. And if he still
Speaker 1: doesn't let him go, I have more plagues than Pharaoh
Speaker 1: has patience. I'll kill everything that matters to him until
Speaker 1: what matters to me he is accomplished. I will do it.
Speaker 1: So Moses is like, all right, well who are you?
Speaker 1: Because we hadn't heard about you much since Jacob and
Speaker 1: Joseph and since a pharaoh died. Who didn't you know
Speaker 1: who you were? And the pharaoh that rose now doesn't
Speaker 1: really understand who you are. And God said, I am
Speaker 1: that I am, that you are that I am. So
Speaker 1: this is an amazing conversation. You know, you got Moses,
Speaker 1: who's eighty hearing from a God who's eternal about something
Speaker 1: that God has seen, that he has promised to do,
Speaker 1: that he will do, not might do, not thinking about doing,
Speaker 1: not flipping coins. He's gonna do it. Somebody shout, He's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Shouted, like you're convinced about it. He's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Now. I'm not talking about somebody that
Speaker 1: you work with. I'm not talking about I'm talking about
Speaker 1: somebody who started this whole thing called the human experience,
Speaker 1: who speaks into what he starts to tell you what
Speaker 1: he intends to do. And Moses is like, cool, but
Speaker 1: what if? What if? And I want you to notice
Speaker 1: something very key. He doesn't really doubt God, he says
Speaker 1: Verse one. Moses answered, what if they do not believe
Speaker 1: me or listen to me? And what if they say
Speaker 1: the Lord did not appear to you? Oh this is
Speaker 1: so good because most didn't say what if you can't
Speaker 1: do it? What if you aren't great? What if you
Speaker 1: run out of plagues? What if you run out of strength? No,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not about Moses's doubt directed toward God.
Speaker 1: He said, what if they Now, as I was studying
Speaker 1: this text, it was very interesting to me that Moses
Speaker 1: is afraid of the Israelites, and he has called to
Speaker 1: deliver the Israelites. And he said, what if they? Who
Speaker 1: are they the Hebrews? Who is he afraid of the Hebrews.
Speaker 1: Who's he supposed to help the Hebrews? Who is he
Speaker 1: delivering the Hebrews? Who does he doubt the Hebrews. Isn't
Speaker 1: it interesting how the thing that you're most afraid of
Speaker 1: can be a clue to the thing that you're assigned
Speaker 1: to think about it the deepest insecurity in your life
Speaker 1: reveals something about the assignment that God has given you.
Speaker 1: The thing that the enemy resists most about you is
Speaker 1: often the greatest thing that God has put inside of you.
Speaker 1: I feel like preaching, but I need to teach a
Speaker 1: little bit so you can underst stand what I'm hollering about.
Speaker 1: He said, what if they? What if they? This is
Speaker 1: the crazy part about life. Not wondering about what if
Speaker 1: God can't or what if God won't, but what if
Speaker 1: they don't. What if the thing that you're speaking to
Speaker 1: me about doesn't want to hear what I have to say?
Speaker 1: What if the thing that you're calling me to? Now,
Speaker 1: this is something I've come to believe that when God
Speaker 1: calls you to something, he sees everything about it at
Speaker 1: the moment that he's speaking to you about it. So
Speaker 1: there is nothing that God did not see about you
Speaker 1: when he spoke to you. There is nothing that God
Speaker 1: does not know about you when he placed you where
Speaker 1: he put you to do what he called you to do.
Speaker 1: So when we doubt our capacity to do what God
Speaker 1: called us to do, it is not us we doubt,
Speaker 1: but it is God who made us and placed us
Speaker 1: that we doubt. But we don't want to say we
Speaker 1: doubt God, so we say what if? They? What if
Speaker 1: I can't do it? But it's not really me that
Speaker 1: I'm doubting, because I didn't manufacture me. And if I really,
Speaker 1: for one moment, believed that God made me how he
Speaker 1: wanted me, gave me what he wanted, did inside of
Speaker 1: me what he wanted to do inside of me, put
Speaker 1: me where I needed to be, planted me by what
Speaker 1: I needed to be planted by. If I believe that
Speaker 1: for one moment, it would kill my What if before
Speaker 1: it got out of my mouth? Any view of God's
Speaker 1: sovereignty that does not make room for your struggle is
Speaker 1: a false claim. Any view of God's will that is
Speaker 1: not wide enough to accommodate your mistakes. It's too narrow.
Speaker 1: Any any belief about God that you have that is
Speaker 1: not big enough to take into account all the flaws
Speaker 1: inside of yourself is too small. Certain times, asking what
Speaker 1: if can be productive, But then it gets past the
Speaker 1: point where you're making plans. I mean, there's good thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just breaking down real quick, like before I come out.
Speaker 1: I have a whole check all right. What if my
Speaker 1: zipper is down? Okay, let me check that. What you know,
Speaker 1: I got my undershirt, so I put my hands up.
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to be showing that's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be showing. You came here to see the Lord's glory,
Speaker 1: all right, not to see nothing else other than the Lord.
Speaker 1: So I gotta get this down. Okay. What if? What
Speaker 1: if my mic isn't on? Okay, Okay, I gotta turn
Speaker 1: it on. What if? But then it comes to a
Speaker 1: point where I stop solving problems and I still shrinking God,
Speaker 1: cause I get caught up in my what if. What
Speaker 1: if I get up to preach this and they don't
Speaker 1: like it. What if I get up to preach it
Speaker 1: and it doesn't go good? What if I get up
Speaker 1: there to preach it and I forget what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to say. It takes faith for me to preach. I
Speaker 1: preach because I don't look at notes. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I could. I don't think the Lord would strike
Speaker 1: me with anything if I looked at notes. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's bad to look at notes. But I want
Speaker 1: to be in the moment with you, and I want
Speaker 1: to see what God has to say. And it takes
Speaker 1: faith because what if I forget? What if I get
Speaker 1: to a point I can't even maarif I'm preaching on
Speaker 1: Moses or Abraham. What if I say something in this
Speaker 1: sermon and they clip it and they put it online
Speaker 1: and take it out of context to make me look
Speaker 1: like I said something I never said before. Oh, that
Speaker 1: would never happen. That doesn't happen. Now, I gotta get
Speaker 1: up here and think about not only what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1: It's not only what if I don't hear from God
Speaker 1: and say it to you? What is I hear from God?
Speaker 1: I say it, somebody takes what I said, puts it
Speaker 1: where I didn't say it, says something around it I
Speaker 1: didn't say it. It's enough to make you want to
Speaker 1: stay back there and suck your thumb and sing Waymaker
Speaker 1: by yourself. Then, But I gotta get through the what
Speaker 1: if so I can get to what is and what
Speaker 1: is today. Let me remind you if somebody is here
Speaker 1: who is going to hell if they don't give their
Speaker 1: life to Jesus. Somebody is in here who is living
Speaker 1: in hell and they have given their life to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Somebody is in here today who doesn't really feel like
Speaker 1: going on next week and their life might be on
Speaker 1: the line. So the big question isn't what if I
Speaker 1: got up here and preached and said something wrong? Is
Speaker 1: what if I didn't give you what God gave me
Speaker 1: and you didn't make it because I didn't show up? Well,
Speaker 1: what if I do it and fail? That's what God
Speaker 1: gave you grace for to begin with. That's not the
Speaker 1: real fear. See, the real fear is it what if
Speaker 1: I fail? It's what if I'm not enough to recover?
Speaker 1: What if they the moment Moses said they, he's in trouble.
Speaker 1: Because there are few things in life that you can't control.
Speaker 1: The weather is one, and just put your hand on
Speaker 1: the shoulder of the person next to you real quick
Speaker 1: would you do that. That's another one. Uh huh uh
Speaker 1: huh mm hmmm mm hmm. But you had faith to
Speaker 1: drive here. You had faith to drive here with all
Speaker 1: of the bad drivers that you passed on the way here. No,
Speaker 1: not you, the other drivers. That's what you tell your
Speaker 1: kids when they're learning to drive. It's not you I'm
Speaker 1: worried about. It's the other you know, good and well.
Speaker 1: It is them that you know. I have no business driving.
Speaker 1: But I want you to think with me, because what
Speaker 1: if is a game that you can't just play a
Speaker 1: little bit. Once you start playing the what if game,
Speaker 1: and I mean, you get in, you get in that
Speaker 1: you know, well, what if? Let me think of one
Speaker 1: from your life this week? Okay what if? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I got one. I got one. Uh. You text somebody.
Speaker 1: They start texting back, and you see bubbles. The bubbles
Speaker 1: go away. What happened? Aren't they mad at me? You
Speaker 1: go back and read the text. You start looking maybe
Speaker 1: I should have put hard after the text. I'm not
Speaker 1: going about that. Then you start sending a follow up
Speaker 1: text to make sure you start learning at lol. Haha.
Speaker 1: They hate me? I think they hate me. If they
Speaker 1: hate me, if they never text me back, but nobody
Speaker 1: ever texted me back. Well, if I die alone right
Speaker 1: here in this, in this, it's been three minutes, it's
Speaker 1: been five minutes. And the more you love something, the
Speaker 1: more opportunity the enemy has to get in it and
Speaker 1: make you afraid about it. This is why every parent
Speaker 1: wave at me. This is why at some point we
Speaker 1: got we got to give our kids to God. No, No,
Speaker 1: I know you got seven steps to raise in a
Speaker 1: world changer, and I want you to do all of it. Man,
Speaker 1: I promise you'd like. I think all the time about
Speaker 1: what experiences I want to give my kids, how I
Speaker 1: want them to be a parent, I mean, how I
Speaker 1: want them to be, how I want them to talk
Speaker 1: about me. Not when I'm dead, but when they're a
Speaker 1: little bit older. I'm dead, I don't care I'm gone.
Speaker 1: But I think about even more than what I want
Speaker 1: them to say about me, what I want them to
Speaker 1: see in me, What I want them to see in
Speaker 1: me that they can emulate later in their life when
Speaker 1: they have their own struggles. The other day, I was
Speaker 1: parenting one of them and the thought came to my mind,
Speaker 1: what if you're being too easy on them? You know
Speaker 1: you need to prepare them. The world is hard if
Speaker 1: you don't come down on them. A prison warden is
Speaker 1: going to one day like, is it really this serious
Speaker 1: a prison warden? Yeah, because my mind, I promise you.
Speaker 1: It's that quick too. It's that quick. My kid is
Speaker 1: not doing their homework. They're in prison all in the
Speaker 1: space of three seconds. It don't take long. And then
Speaker 1: so I went and then corrected him. I left, and
Speaker 1: the same voice that said to me, what if you're
Speaker 1: too easy, I'm said, what if you were just too
Speaker 1: hard on him? What if you just scarred them for life?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be emotionally available to their own
Speaker 1: children one day. The other day, Elijah was going fishing,
Speaker 1: and I was like, God, I saw I never taught
Speaker 1: him to fish. Now his friends are having to teach
Speaker 1: him to fish. What if because his dad didn't teach
Speaker 1: him to fish. What if he finds comfort in the
Speaker 1: wrong friends. You know, what if those same friends that
Speaker 1: introduced him to fishing introduced him to hard drugs, Like
Speaker 1: what happened just now that my kid went fishing. What
Speaker 1: if the same way that the hook was in that
Speaker 1: fish's mouth, what if there's a hook from the enemy
Speaker 1: and my child's knowing why he's fishing. He's happy. Pray
Speaker 1: for me, Pray for me. It happens that fast. What
Speaker 1: if what if you said too much in your sermon today?
Speaker 1: What if you didn't say enough? What if you mess
Speaker 1: it up? If you know what you go? What is?
Speaker 1: What is? What if? What if? What if? What if
Speaker 1: God is bigger than any of the things you just listened?
Speaker 1: What if Moses, the man who God called to deliver
Speaker 1: his people, is a murderer who's been a fugitive for
Speaker 1: forty years? What if God picks that? God? You know
Speaker 1: how you can tell if you have what it takes
Speaker 1: to do what God called you to do. If He
Speaker 1: called you to do it, you have what it thanks.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's kind of if he's not. If
Speaker 1: he nor if he God's not iffy. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you why God chose you. He had no other options. Yeah,
Speaker 1: God was scraping the bottom of the barrel. He said,
Speaker 1: who shall I send and whom shall go for us?
Speaker 1: I guess Eric will do? You are shrinking God to
Speaker 1: the size of the scenario that you can understand because
Speaker 1: because watch God, God, Watch God? What's God? God? God says?
Speaker 1: He says what if they will listen to me? And
Speaker 1: God says, what is that in your hand? Now, this
Speaker 1: is this is what got my attention. In the text,
Speaker 1: Moses says, what if God doesn't answer him because they're
Speaker 1: not gonna listen to him, right, because they're rebellious, because
Speaker 1: they're stubborn. Now here's what God will not do when
Speaker 1: you start worrying. He will not calm you down by saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: nothing bad is ever gonna happen. That's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Just just trust in me. Nothing bad is ever gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You're gonna You're gonna go to the right place, You're
Speaker 1: gonna meet the right people. You're never gonna get it wrong.
Speaker 1: You're never gonna make any bad decisions. There's always gonna
Speaker 1: be angels clearing out of parking space so that you
Speaker 1: will never have to walk even when you go to
Speaker 1: the gym to exercise. God is good. Instead, give me
Speaker 1: my two big verses again, because this is the lesson.
Speaker 1: Moses says, what if they don't believe me or listen
Speaker 1: to me? And then the Lord said to him, what
Speaker 1: is that in your hand? So here's what the Lord
Speaker 1: will do to help you break this cycle. If you
Speaker 1: will let him. If you want to stay in what if,
Speaker 1: you will wander in the wilderness. If you want to
Speaker 1: say what if? Hypothetical scenarios will have hypothetical baby scenarios,
Speaker 1: and you'll have hypothetical baby, grand baby, grand baby, grand baby,
Speaker 1: grandchildren scenarios. God moves Moses from what if? To what is?
Speaker 1: Is that good? Isn't that good? God gave it to
Speaker 1: me just that simple. This week, he said, I want
Speaker 1: to move you from what if to what is? None
Speaker 1: of your stress is in the present moment what if?
Speaker 1: Now Moses is having a conversation with God, and he's
Speaker 1: thinking about people. He's already playing out why this is
Speaker 1: not going to work. Some of you are in church
Speaker 1: already thinking about what comes after this today, and it's fine.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to rebuke you for that. I'd be
Speaker 1: doing the same thing I already told you. I'd be
Speaker 1: wondering is that his color? Does that really match your
Speaker 1: skin tone? I'd be thinking a thousand things if I
Speaker 1: were you. But you are not going to receive what
Speaker 1: you could receive if you will not be fully where
Speaker 1: you are. Moses is in Midian. He is in Midian
Speaker 1: because he made a mistake. He made a mistake by
Speaker 1: killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew. It was an
Speaker 1: honest mistake. He had a passion in his heart, he
Speaker 1: had a calling in his life, but he had to
Speaker 1: flee when he was found out. He's been hiding for
Speaker 1: forty years and God shows up one day and tells
Speaker 1: him you're gonna do something great. Now it's time. I
Speaker 1: want to use you. Now it's you. And Moses said
Speaker 1: what if? They and God said, what is that? I
Speaker 1: love it. It's two mentalities contrasted your mentality what if?
Speaker 1: And God's mentality? What is? God to bring you back
Speaker 1: to what is when you find yourself lost in what if?
Speaker 1: A couple months ago, my nephews and nieces came over
Speaker 1: and they taught me a game. We were swimming in
Speaker 1: the pool and they took a watermelon and they put
Speaker 1: vasoline all over the water melon, and they said, the
Speaker 1: object of the game is to get the watermelon with
Speaker 1: vasoline on it from one end of the pool to
Speaker 1: the other, and we're going to do it in the
Speaker 1: deep end, and everybody in the pool can try to
Speaker 1: stop you on the other team, and then you can
Speaker 1: pass it to your teammate. You know, that's about what
Speaker 1: it feels like to try to get a word from
Speaker 1: God about your life and then navigate the deep waters
Speaker 1: of your real life experience. You ever felt like you're
Speaker 1: holding onto something but slippery by design? And look, the
Speaker 1: watermelon was already heavy when I'm trying to swim with it.
Speaker 1: I don't need it to be heavy and slippery. And
Speaker 1: I certainly don't need people clawing and scratching and climbing
Speaker 1: on my back trying to drown me. This is not
Speaker 1: a game anymore. This is a lawsuit. I think like
Speaker 1: that too. I know they're my relatives, but I don't
Speaker 1: mean they won't sue me. I need you all to
Speaker 1: sign a waiver before we play. I mean, there's more
Speaker 1: to worry about now, especially with cancel culture, y'all. Especially.
Speaker 1: You know how much I think about when's gonna be
Speaker 1: the day I'm gonna say something in this pulpit and
Speaker 1: everybody's going like, all right, we're out. You shouldn't have
Speaker 1: said that. And yet at the same time, it is
Speaker 1: not you or them that I really need to fear.
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is, now, receive this for yourself,
Speaker 1: If God be for you who can be against you,
Speaker 1: if God be for you, if it really came from him,
Speaker 1: if this is really God speaking to Moses, that question
Speaker 1: is irrelevant. What does it matter what they say? When
Speaker 1: the Great I Am is the one speaking to you,
Speaker 1: What does it matter what they think about it? God said,
Speaker 1: that is not The important issue is what they say.
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna answer about what they say, because
Speaker 1: it is not about what they say. It's not a
Speaker 1: the problem that you're up against. It's not about the
Speaker 1: age or the stage of life. It's not about any
Speaker 1: of that. It's about what is that in your hand?
Speaker 1: What is the thing that God has given you right now?
Speaker 1: And will you trust that when you get to the
Speaker 1: next challenge of your life, it will be enough, because
Speaker 1: He is enough, it will. God said, I know you
Speaker 1: got some doubts, so let me do a little product demonstration.
Speaker 1: You have been seeing this stick as a staff to
Speaker 1: shepherd sheep, and that's what it has been up until now.
Speaker 1: But throw it down on the ground and watch it
Speaker 1: change into something else. The moment you let go of
Speaker 1: it is going to transform. The moment you release it,
Speaker 1: it's going to become something you've never seen before. The
Speaker 1: moment you take it out of your hand, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: turn it into something. God is doing a product demonstration,
Speaker 1: you see, Because Moses doesn't even know who he is yet.
Speaker 1: Moses doesn't even know what he can do yet. You
Speaker 1: hadn't even seen what God put inside of you yet.
Speaker 1: You haven't even met your gifted self yet. You haven't
Speaker 1: even met your free self yet. You haven't even met
Speaker 1: the leader inside of you yet, because you've been wandering
Speaker 1: in the wilderness of what if? What if they leave me?
Speaker 1: So now you won't love anybody because what if they
Speaker 1: leave me? So I'll withdraw my love from them before
Speaker 1: they can take their love from me. So I'm living
Speaker 1: in what if. And I'm lonely in what if. And
Speaker 1: I'm dying of thirst and what if? And I'd rather
Speaker 1: be in changed in what if because he as comfortable.
Speaker 1: As long as you're worrying, you're still the one controlling it.
Speaker 1: You think you can plan enough, and do enough and
Speaker 1: fix enough. But the real things that hit your life
Speaker 1: you won't even see coming. The moment, the moment that
Speaker 1: Moses focuses on what is in his hand, God starts
Speaker 1: dealing with what's not in his hands. Here's the word,
Speaker 1: Give it to God and he will give it to you.
Speaker 1: Give it to God. That situation, Give it to God,
Speaker 1: that issue. Give it to God and he will give
Speaker 1: it to you. The strength you need, the direction you need. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that next step that you're asking him about, Give it
Speaker 1: to God and he will give it to you. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you where you won't find your strength in the
Speaker 1: wilderness of what if but that staff man if Moses
Speaker 1: only knew that staff was something else. I want to
Speaker 1: appreciate this to you, but I want to prophesy it
Speaker 1: to you. So let me just say it. Your staff
Speaker 1: is something else. Yeah, your staff is something else, common object.
Speaker 1: But put it down and God will show you something else.
Speaker 1: And pick it up and God will show you something else.
Speaker 1: I almost wish God would have done it like they
Speaker 1: do when we bought the Rainbow vacuum cleaner, when we
Speaker 1: bought the knives that time, when we were buying it,
Speaker 1: they bring it in and show you everything it could do.
Speaker 1: This man came in my house to sell me some
Speaker 1: cook where he did a whole demonstration. He was cooking stuff.
Speaker 1: And God only showed Moses one thing his staff could do.
Speaker 1: God didn't even tell him about Oh, Yeah, once you
Speaker 1: get the people out of Egypt, they're going to have
Speaker 1: to cross the Red Sea. But what is that in
Speaker 1: your hand? See, when you need it to be something else,
Speaker 1: it'll be something else because I am that. I am,
Speaker 1: So when I need that staff to part water, it'll
Speaker 1: part water because I am that. I am. Moses said,
Speaker 1: what if they? What if it? What if I can't?
Speaker 1: What if? What if? God said? What is now? What
Speaker 1: it is right now is not all it's going to be.
Speaker 1: Stop measuring your future problems by your present strength. When
Speaker 1: you get to that stage, you'll have strength for it.
Speaker 1: When you get to that challenge, you'll have strength for it.
Speaker 1: God didn't make the staff part waters. Moses didn't need
Speaker 1: it to part waters yet. If it hadn't happened yet,
Speaker 1: it didn't have to happen yet. You gotta get out
Speaker 1: of the future and get into his presence and say, God,
Speaker 1: what is it my hand? This is the same stick
Speaker 1: that's gonna make water come from a rock. This is
Speaker 1: the same stick that's gonna hydrate in nation. This is
Speaker 1: the same stick that's gonna be something else. When you
Speaker 1: get to the next stage from what if to what is?
Speaker 1: And if all of that fails you. And what is
Speaker 1: isn't enough? Remember who is? Y'all want to have church
Speaker 1: for a moment, follow me all the way to the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Moses has led the people out of Egyptian slavery. They're
Speaker 1: coming upon a journey that's only supposed to take approximately
Speaker 1: two weeks, but they're gonna get stuck for forty years.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna show you why. And I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: you why you've been stuck in your own head. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you why you've been stuck in your
Speaker 1: last missa. And I'm gonna show you why you can't
Speaker 1: give God the last two years so you can't walk
Speaker 1: into the next two years. I'm gonna show you why
Speaker 1: you've been worrying about things that you have no control.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you why the devil keeps making you
Speaker 1: put a down payment on problems you're not even gonna face.
Speaker 1: Watch this. In the Book of Numbers, Moses sent out
Speaker 1: twelve spies to see about the land that God had
Speaker 1: called them into. You know this story. Ten of them
Speaker 1: come back talking trash, not about God, not about Moses,
Speaker 1: but about the people they have to defeat to take
Speaker 1: the land. That God promised. So they start talking. I
Speaker 1: want you to notice something about this speech. Give me numbers.
Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen or is it fourteen? They came back to
Speaker 1: Moses and Aaron, and the whole is their like community.
Speaker 1: You ready for this this thing. You've heard this before,
Speaker 1: But there's something you never noticed. They reported to them,
Speaker 1: and the whole assembly showed them the fruit of the land.
Speaker 1: They gave Moses this acount. We went into the land
Speaker 1: which you sent us, and it does flow with milk
Speaker 1: and honey. Here is this fruit. But the people who
Speaker 1: lived there powerful cities, are four to five, very large,
Speaker 1: and not a word of a lie. Nothing they said
Speaker 1: wasn't true. We even saw the sentence of anak there.
Speaker 1: The Amalekites living the Thegether, the Hittites Jepuzides, Amorites live
Speaker 1: in the hill country. The Canaanites lived near the sea
Speaker 1: along the Jordan. And Caleb silenced the people before Moses
Speaker 1: and said, we should go up and take it, for
Speaker 1: we could certainly do it. But the men who had
Speaker 1: gone up with them, so we can attack those people
Speaker 1: there stronger than we are. They turned a two week
Speaker 1: journey into a forty year wilderness. You know, Why because
Speaker 1: nobody in all of those verses that I just read
Speaker 1: you said one thing about God. Not one time was
Speaker 1: his name mentioned, not one time with his power considered,
Speaker 1: not one time with his arm invoked, Not one mention
Speaker 1: of God. I'll read you the whole thing again. Put
Speaker 1: the scripture back up. Let's go back through it. Make
Speaker 1: sure I didn't miss it. They came back, showed them
Speaker 1: the fruit. Next verse, we went into the land which
Speaker 1: you sent us it we you it milk, honey, fruit.
Speaker 1: But the people who live there and the cities are
Speaker 1: fortified and very large. We saw descendants of anac keep going,
Speaker 1: keep going, Malachis, hit ties, Jesusides, amrids, cellulites, canaanitis. And
Speaker 1: then even Caleb, look, man, he had great faith. He
Speaker 1: got to inherit the land. Caleb's a bad dude. But
Speaker 1: even he didn't have the good sense to say we
Speaker 1: should go up and take possession, for God is with us.
Speaker 1: He just said we, and that wasn't enough to convince
Speaker 1: him to go. Where is God in your What if?
Speaker 1: Where does God factor at? Where is the great I
Speaker 1: am in your? What if? You know? I understand all that?
Speaker 1: What if my kids meet the wrong friends. What if
Speaker 1: God loves your kids more than you do. How about that?
Speaker 1: What if I get up to me say I can't
Speaker 1: say it? What if God shows you what to say?
Speaker 1: What if God gave you the weakness to show his strength.
Speaker 1: What if God knows stuff you don't know. What if
Speaker 1: God sees something you don't see. What if God has
Speaker 1: something that you need but you don't need it yet.
Speaker 1: What if the staff is going to park the waters
Speaker 1: when you get there. What if the thing you're worrying
Speaker 1: about is already taken care of. Where is God in
Speaker 1: your What if so God said, we got to interrupt
Speaker 1: this thing today before it stops you from go I
Speaker 1: went into what he promised you. We got to interrupt
Speaker 1: this cycle today all this. What if at least Moses
Speaker 1: was having a conversation with God when he said, what
Speaker 1: if most of us have that conversation with ourself. And
Speaker 1: so now you're in the wilderness, the wilderness of what
Speaker 1: if or or the wilderness of what was? And God says,
Speaker 1: what is that in your hand? In other words, I
Speaker 1: gave you what you need for now. Oh that's not
Speaker 1: me free just now when I said it, because I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about what I'm gonna need for later. I
Speaker 1: keep thinking, I think it's going to take us. I
Speaker 1: don't know, the official staff one hundred and ten billion
Speaker 1: dollars to retire by the year twenty thirty. With the
Speaker 1: way inflation is going to go up, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to be the target retirement. But you're not retired yet.
Speaker 1: You're not retired yet, so now you're working on something
Speaker 1: out here or you're resenting something back there. And the
Speaker 1: Lord said, I want to take you from what if
Speaker 1: to what is? So when I was at I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say in the name of the person, but
Speaker 1: I was at their house and they had just they
Speaker 1: had just lost as There was a son who had
Speaker 1: just lost his father, a wife who had just lost
Speaker 1: her husband, and I wanted to give them some counsel
Speaker 1: to say how to get through this. And all that
Speaker 1: I could think to tell them is the only responsibility
Speaker 1: that you have right now is to take the next breath.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it. You don't have to make peace
Speaker 1: with what you lost, you don't have to feel okay
Speaker 1: about it. Just keep breathing. I left that day. I
Speaker 1: felt so inadequate. I said, God, they needed a word
Speaker 1: from you, and all I could tell them was keep breathing.
Speaker 1: How I failed them, God, How I wish I could
Speaker 1: have told them something. How I wish I had an
Speaker 1: experience I could have drawn from that would have been
Speaker 1: more helpful. And I saw him again two years later,
Speaker 1: and they said, remember when you told us just keep breathing.
Speaker 1: That got us through. I said it did. They said yeah,
Speaker 1: because it just kept bringing us back to We're still here.
Speaker 1: We're still here. When my dad was diagnosed with ALS,
Speaker 1: I thought he was going to kill himself. He got
Speaker 1: very angry with us. His medications were out of whack,
Speaker 1: was out of his mind. And I called a professional
Speaker 1: Christian counselor and I said, I think he's gonna kill himself,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I can stop him. I'm scared
Speaker 1: to death he's gonna kill himself and I'm not there,
Speaker 1: so I can't do anything about it. And he asked
Speaker 1: me a question that sounde callous. He said, what if
Speaker 1: he did? I said, I couldn't take it. To know
Speaker 1: that I couldn't stop him. I couldn't take it. And
Speaker 1: he started to tell me that even if the worst
Speaker 1: thing happened, God would be with me in that too,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do everything I can to stop it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do everything I can to change it. But see,
Speaker 1: even if it happens, I am it is still with
Speaker 1: me that look at me, look at Him. That is
Speaker 1: an unshakable faith. The enemy cannot defeat you when your
Speaker 1: faith is built on the foundation of nothing less than Jesus'
Speaker 1: blood and righteousness, that even in I, like Paul, Paul said,
Speaker 1: what shall separate us from the love of God that
Speaker 1: is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Shall height, shall death, shall,
Speaker 1: angels shall demons, shall the present, shall the future? Shall
Speaker 1: any other power? No, none of these things shall be
Speaker 1: able to separate us from the love of God that
Speaker 1: is in Christ Jesus. So I came to tell the
Speaker 1: enemy God can and he will. But even if he didn't,
Speaker 1: he still God. Even if they gets seven times hotter.
Speaker 1: He's in this furnest too. Give God the what if.
Speaker 1: He knows the future. You don't. Give God the what if.
Speaker 1: He'll show you where to partner and where to shut up.
Speaker 1: Give God the what if, and he'll show you what's
Speaker 1: in your hand and what's not in your control. So God,
Speaker 1: Everyone's standing God, whoever it is today, who needed to
Speaker 1: release something. I pray they won't wait another second to
Speaker 1: do it. Remind them that you've got this, Remind them
Speaker 1: that they got they got what they need on the inside,
Speaker 1: that you're going to bring them what they need on
Speaker 1: the outside. That they will never meet as see that
Speaker 1: your power won't be able to park. They will never
Speaker 1: meet a giant that your spirit can't bring down. And Father,
Speaker 1: I thank you today for the promise that we have
Speaker 1: in you to be with us even if. Now, Lord,
Speaker 1: by the power of your spirit, today and in the
Speaker 1: name of Jesus Christ, your Son, we declare that there
Speaker 1: will be freedom in the hearts of your people from
Speaker 1: everything that has been terrorizing and tormenting them and destroying
Speaker 1: their joy, and destroying their peace and making them wonder
Speaker 1: if they're going to make it. We declare that nothing
Speaker 1: will be able to separate them from the love of
Speaker 1: God that is in Christ. I want to pray a
Speaker 1: special prayer for those of you who have been wandering
Speaker 1: around into what if. And I want you to lift
Speaker 1: both of your hands. If that's you, Father, you see
Speaker 1: your kids, You see their stretched hands, you see their
Speaker 1: open hands, you see their uplifted arms. I thank you
Speaker 1: for a fresh feeling of your grace. As you lift
Speaker 1: your hands right now, just be giving it to God.
Speaker 1: Be giving it to God. Give it to him right now.
Speaker 1: Give it to him right now. If you made a
Speaker 1: bad decision, given that, ask him to redeem it. If
Speaker 1: you did a dumb thing, give it to him right now.
Speaker 1: If you fell back, you were walking forward and you
Speaker 1: fell back, give him your setback right now. Give it
Speaker 1: to him right now, and he will give it to you.
Speaker 1: I receive your strength, Lord, I receive your wisdom. I
Speaker 1: receive your power. I receive it by faith, not working
Speaker 1: for it, not striving for it. I receive it. Somebody say,
Speaker 1: I receive it right now in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's mine. It belongs to me. God gave it to me.
Speaker 1: It's a supernatural peace. Peace over your life right now.
Speaker 1: Peace over your mind right now, Peace over your business
Speaker 1: right now, Peace over your decisions right now. I speak peace,
Speaker 1: the peace of Almighty God, the presence of God the Great.
Speaker 1: I am Jehovah, Jirah, your provider, Jehovah sid Canoe, your righteousness,
Speaker 1: Jehovah Nissi, your banner, Jehovah Shalom the Lord give you peace, peace, peace, peace, peace,
Speaker 1: not panic peace, just breathe in the peace of God. Well,
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review this podcast. You can also help us reach
Speaker 1: others by investing today at Elevationchurch dot org, slash give
Speaker 1: and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast.