Speaker 1: There is nothing quite like Elevation Nights.
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Speaker 5: Many of you you expected Pastor Stephen to walk up.
Speaker 5: And there was a collective side for some of the room,
Speaker 5: like it's okay, my name is Larry Bribe, but everybody
Speaker 5: calls me LB and my wife and I had the
Speaker 5: distinct privilege of being one of the original eight families
Speaker 5: that got a chance to sell our homes. He quit
Speaker 5: her jobs eighteen years ago to start Elevation Church and
Speaker 5: man like, I want to see what God has done
Speaker 5: eighteen years of servant.
Speaker 3: Baby, look what look around, Look what God has done?
Speaker 3: And thank you.
Speaker 5: Before we started this ministry, we got on our knees.
Speaker 5: There were no people, We had nothing, no money. We
Speaker 5: had a blank page, but not a blank check it
Speaker 5: was and we got on the knees and we just prayed,
Speaker 5: Lord like, bring to people. Yeah we didn't know you,
Speaker 5: we didn't, but God saw you. God saw you in Gaston,
Speaker 5: God saw you in Rono. God saw you, and He's
Speaker 5: set this moment on your calendar to be here today
Speaker 5: to hear a word, and I'm excited to deliver it.
Speaker 5: Here here's the verse I want to give you to
Speaker 5: set up what we're doing today. But before we get
Speaker 5: into that, I do need to say thank you Pastor Stephen.
Speaker 5: Thank you Pastor Stephen for faithfully leading this ministry, being
Speaker 5: my pastor for twenty years. Thank you for faithfully standing
Speaker 5: in the pulprit every week preaching the word of God.
Speaker 5: I remember Gosh byab A Budt seventeen years ago. He came,
Speaker 5: he said, LB, I need you to do this and
Speaker 5: I looked at him and said, I don't think I
Speaker 5: can do that. He said, well, I guess if you
Speaker 5: don't believe it, you'll have to have faith that I've
Speaker 5: got enough belief for both of us.
Speaker 3: I think you can do it, So go do it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for being that kind of leader who push
Speaker 5: us us out.
Speaker 3: Thank you, honor you love you, Pastor Stephen.
Speaker 5: First Amuel fourteen, chapter one, Just one verse to te
Speaker 5: off where we want to go with this. This is
Speaker 5: one day Jonathan, son of Saul, said to his young
Speaker 5: arm bear, come, let's go over to the Philistine outpost
Speaker 5: on the other side. But he did not tell his father.
Speaker 5: Here's the title for today's message. You can pick out
Speaker 5: your favorite person around you only get one, say I'm
Speaker 5: coming with. You can look to your second favor. Don't
Speaker 5: make him feel left out and rejected. Look at him,
Speaker 5: say I'm coming with. After you've given out at least
Speaker 5: six hugs, you can have a seat.
Speaker 3: Think you worship team. In this passage of scripture, you've
Speaker 3: got this.
Speaker 5: Young man named Jonathan. He is the son of Saul,
Speaker 5: who is the king of nation Israel. The king had
Speaker 5: made some bad choices that had some devastating consequences because
Speaker 5: of his disobedience.
Speaker 3: He was rejected as king. It would no longer be king.
Speaker 3: In this picture that we see in First.
Speaker 5: Samuel, he had woken the dog the Philistines, and he
Speaker 5: had abandoned the authority that God had given him as
Speaker 5: king over Israel. And he took six hundred the nation's
Speaker 5: best fighting men to hide underneath the pomegranate tree. Sir,
Speaker 5: here you got the king, the leader of Nation Israel,
Speaker 5: who has been rejected and has also abandoned his post.
Speaker 5: Those of us that want to lead, we need to
Speaker 5: understand that when we abdicate our authority, it's the people
Speaker 5: that are punished. And the consequences of this decision rippled
Speaker 5: into Jonathan's life because Jonathan was the prince, he.
Speaker 3: Was supposed to be the next king of Nation Israel.
Speaker 5: So he's looking at his father's rejection that also forced
Speaker 5: him to reject the rightful thing that he should have had.
Speaker 5: And some of you are looking at a situation that
Speaker 5: you had nothing to do with, and everything you thought
Speaker 5: would happen is forfeited because of somebody else's disobedience. So
Speaker 5: when we read this passage, we need to understand that
Speaker 5: Jonathan did not tell his father. He looks to his
Speaker 5: armbhar I said, let's go do something about it. He
Speaker 5: says to him, I'm coming with But he did not
Speaker 5: tell his father. There's something about the voice that a
Speaker 5: father carries in the life of a son or daughter
Speaker 5: that can make you go one direction or another. As
Speaker 5: a kid, my dad was my hero. I remember when
Speaker 5: I was a little boy. All I wanted to do.
Speaker 3: Is to be with my dad. If he's going somewhere,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, I'm coming with, grab my little hat, jumping.
Speaker 5: The pickup truck, and like, let's go wherever you're gonna go.
Speaker 5: I didn't care where we were gonna. I just wanted
Speaker 5: to be with my father. I'm coming with dad. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't I wouldn't notice all the times that we'd be
Speaker 5: coming home, he'd be swerving, and we thought it'd be
Speaker 5: kind of funny.
Speaker 3: And then finally one night.
Speaker 5: I grew up in Minnesota, where it's like really cold.
Speaker 5: It was like ten degrees outside. My dad was inside
Speaker 5: this place for a couple hours and I'm out the
Speaker 5: pickup truck and it is freezing. Finally, I sat there,
Speaker 5: I said, I wonder what he's doing in there. I
Speaker 5: remember sneaking out of the pickup truck walking to the side.
Speaker 3: Of the building. It was called the Delroy.
Speaker 5: It was a bar, so I sneak in the side
Speaker 5: door and I walk in and I see my dad
Speaker 5: sitting at the end of the bar, drunk, talking to
Speaker 5: a woman that is not my mother. And it's in
Speaker 5: that moment that I saw my dad's humanity and he
Speaker 5: was no longer my hero, and I felt rejected in
Speaker 5: that moment. I felt like I was abandoned in them
Speaker 5: when I felt like, that's the moment.
Speaker 3: That I lost my father.
Speaker 5: But if I look back, that was a defining moment
Speaker 5: for me where I felt like I became an orphan
Speaker 5: because if I'm honest in my honest moments, I felt
Speaker 5: like I wouldn't have been able to explain it as
Speaker 5: an eight year old, but a as a kid growing up.
Speaker 5: I felt like, if I could have just done it better,
Speaker 5: maybe he wouldn't have chose that, because it wasn't just
Speaker 5: that decision, it was all the ripple effects that just
Speaker 5: tore our family apart. And I want to talk about
Speaker 5: the orphan spirit today. Anybody who's ever lived with rejection
Speaker 5: or abandonment or maybe carried this orphan spirit. God has
Speaker 5: sent me on assignment to speak to you today. And
Speaker 5: if you think about the picture of an orphan, here's
Speaker 5: the classic picture of an orphan.
Speaker 3: You're at an orphanage.
Speaker 5: All right, kids, somebody is coming today, so put on
Speaker 5: your best clothes and be on your best behavior, and
Speaker 5: maybe you'll get picked.
Speaker 3: And you put on your.
Speaker 5: Best clothes, you're on your best behavior, and you don't
Speaker 5: get picked because you don't feel like.
Speaker 3: You're good enough.
Speaker 5: If I could have just been a little bit taller,
Speaker 5: if I had have won more trophies, if I would
Speaker 5: have been more pretty, maybe somebody would have loved me.
Speaker 5: Maybe somebody would have seen me, maybe they wouldn't have
Speaker 5: abandoned me. Because the orphan always feels like it's their fault.
Speaker 5: And I want to talk about the orphan spirit today
Speaker 5: because some if you are a grown man or a woman,
Speaker 5: yet you so identify as a child and as an orphan.
Speaker 5: Why Because I have walked with this orphan spirit all
Speaker 5: of my life.
Speaker 3: Did you know the first orphan is Satan. He wanted
Speaker 3: to be like God.
Speaker 5: He was jealous of his worship, so he tries to
Speaker 5: overthrow to steal some of God's glory, and God will
Speaker 5: not be He will not let his glory go to
Speaker 5: somebody else. And because of that, Satan was rejected and
Speaker 5: he was sent down.
Speaker 3: He was thrown down. It says this in Revelation chapter twelve,
Speaker 3: verse ten.
Speaker 5: It says, for the accuser Satan, for the accused of
Speaker 5: our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God
Speaker 5: day and night has been hurled down. So the very
Speaker 5: rejection that Satan experience is what he uses to attack you.
Speaker 5: I believe one of the primary assignments of the enemy
Speaker 5: is to use the bomb of rejection to make you
Speaker 5: feel it. Here's the story that's painted in Revelation chapter twelve, verseent.
Speaker 5: He is accusing you day and night before God. So
Speaker 5: with picture Satan staying before God, like.
Speaker 3: Did you see JJ? Did you see what he did?
Speaker 3: Did you see it?
Speaker 5: Did you hear him? Did you see the way he's looking?
Speaker 5: And he is hurling insults day and night.
Speaker 3: It is relentless in the attack of how he's accusing you.
Speaker 5: He's saying they're not worth loving. Did you see how
Speaker 5: they acted, They're not worth believing?
Speaker 3: Did you see what they did? Did you see what
Speaker 3: they go back?
Speaker 5: To they said they're a follower of Jesus, and then
Speaker 5: they did that last night.
Speaker 3: Come on, Jesus, come on, look it down. They're now
Speaker 3: worth it.
Speaker 5: That's what the accuser is doing day and night with you.
Speaker 5: And what does our God do with that accusation. He
Speaker 5: does to you what he did to his son. He
Speaker 5: said of Jesus, before he did any public ministry, this
Speaker 5: is my son in whom I am well pleased. Before
Speaker 5: he ever did anything, he affirmed the relationship.
Speaker 3: We have a God who looks at you and said,
Speaker 3: that's my son, that's my daughter. Shut your pie hole.
Speaker 3: That's the accuser.
Speaker 5: Relentlessly attacking your character, and he's got good evidence to
Speaker 5: win a case in court. Sometimes that does not matter,
Speaker 5: because when you are the Lord's son or daughter, no
Speaker 5: one can take you from his aunt.
Speaker 3: That's the message of the gospel. I remember when my son.
Speaker 5: Corbin, a couple of years ago, he had a bully
Speaker 5: at school on the bus. He was smacking people in
Speaker 5: the back of the head and throwing water bounds at him,
Speaker 5: starting fights on the bus. And Corbin told me about
Speaker 5: and I said, listen, never start a fight, but if
Speaker 5: you start to finish it, I said, don't go looking
Speaker 5: for a fight, but you don't let evil back you.
Speaker 3: Into a corner.
Speaker 5: And you always defend people who cannot defend themselves. And
Speaker 5: maybe not James Dobson approved, but it's what I got.
Speaker 5: And so my wife and I were at breakfast one
Speaker 5: morning we get a phone call from the principal. I
Speaker 5: knew exactly what it was, and the prince were like,
Speaker 5: your son, he's been in a fight. Get down to school.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, yes, I will. So I come into
Speaker 5: the school. I see my son through the glass and
Speaker 5: the principal's office and he's kind of.
Speaker 3: Like reading Dad, like how is Dad going to respond?
Speaker 3: You know that look?
Speaker 5: Some of you have that way where you look at
Speaker 5: God and I need to challenge your perception of how
Speaker 5: you see your heavenly father today. And some of you
Speaker 5: have gotten in such a mess and you're wondering, how
Speaker 5: does he see me?
Speaker 3: What does he think of me?
Speaker 5: I walked in, I looked at my son again, my
Speaker 5: thumbs up in a big smile, and I walked into
Speaker 5: the principal's office and the Pro's.
Speaker 3: Like, he's a fighter and he should never do this,
Speaker 3: and he's like I was.
Speaker 5: Like, sh that's my son. I don't care what he did.
Speaker 5: That's my son. And I said, if that punk ever
Speaker 5: does it again, I'll be back here celebrating him. I
Speaker 5: know that you are gonna have to suspend him. But
Speaker 5: after we walk out of the school, we're going to
Speaker 5: a movie and I'm buying him a pizza because that
Speaker 5: is my son, and I'm freaking proud of him, because
Speaker 5: the father always validates the relationship. I need you to
Speaker 5: understand that. But when you're an orphan, you feel abandoned.
Speaker 5: There's an absence of that voice. And what have you
Speaker 5: put in that blank space? All of your doubt, all
Speaker 5: of your insecurity, all of your decisions, all of your shame.
Speaker 5: And the devil doesn't have to be accusing you. He
Speaker 5: just gets that loop playing over and over and over
Speaker 5: and over again, because the enemy isn't just accusing before God,
Speaker 5: day and night, he's at your shoulders saying Jay Jane Anthony, yes,
Speaker 5: come on, man, I can't believe you did that, and.
Speaker 3: The devil will play you can first eighty. It's not
Speaker 3: that big of a deal.
Speaker 5: Nobody even notices, nobody even really cares. And then you
Speaker 5: do it and like, oh you dirty dog, you God
Speaker 5: hates you. What do we do with the accusation?
Speaker 3: We agree with it.
Speaker 5: We make it into a blanket, we wrap up, and
Speaker 5: we just take a nap in it. We are so
Speaker 5: familiar with living in the accusation. It becomes our identity.
Speaker 5: I wonder how many orphans are in this house and
Speaker 5: the devil has been speaking lies and you are just
Speaker 5: giving agreement to it.
Speaker 3: You're inviting them.
Speaker 5: In watching Netflix and making them a sandwich. Because we
Speaker 5: become so numb to the sound of the accusation.
Speaker 3: That's no longer his voice. It becomes our voice.
Speaker 5: That's why I want to talk about the orphaned spirit today.
Speaker 5: And when I think about the orphan spirit, there's a language,
Speaker 5: there's a vocabulary that comes with orphans. There's a way
Speaker 5: that you start to speak. And I want to look
Speaker 5: at the life of Moses. I think he's a poster
Speaker 5: child for the orphan spirit. And I want to zoom
Speaker 5: into one moment in his life, because when you see Moses,
Speaker 5: what do you see some of us see like Charlton Heston,
Speaker 5: parting the risk, see coming down with the ten commandments.
Speaker 5: I want to zoom into a different place. This is
Speaker 5: out of Exodus chapter three, he's eighty year old in
Speaker 5: this scene. But to rewind the story of Moses, he
Speaker 5: was an orphan.
Speaker 3: At a young age.
Speaker 5: His mother and father threw him into the river. Why
Speaker 5: it was a righteous thing. It was the only way
Speaker 5: to keep him alive. But to the kid who's been abandoned,
Speaker 5: the intention makes no difference. And some of you have
Speaker 5: been rejected. If we were to rewind the tape to
Speaker 5: see your mother and father, it's.
Speaker 3: The best they had.
Speaker 5: But the attention did not or matter to the consequences
Speaker 5: that were devastating. And he was an orphan, born a Jew,
Speaker 5: but then picked up by Egyptians, and he was raised
Speaker 5: in an Egyptian home. And he was so confused his
Speaker 5: whole life. Who am I?
Speaker 3: I don't know who I am.
Speaker 5: And then at age forty, sees two people fighting, or
Speaker 5: sees a man treating another man badly, and he jumps
Speaker 5: in and he kills the guy and buries him. Then
Speaker 5: the next day his scheme gets found out. Then he
Speaker 5: runs into the desert because at a young.
Speaker 3: Age he was abandoned.
Speaker 5: This immense pain that he went through as a child,
Speaker 5: Now at age forty, he wasn't the one that was abandoned.
Speaker 5: He abandoned what God had called him to, and he runs.
Speaker 5: And some of you have been abandoned, and some of
Speaker 5: you have been You have abandoned what God has.
Speaker 3: Called you to.
Speaker 5: I think it's the orphan spirit that's been driving Moses
Speaker 5: all along.
Speaker 3: And it's really hard to.
Speaker 5: Get to the right destination when I've got the voice
Speaker 5: of the orphan giving me.
Speaker 3: Turn by turned directions.
Speaker 5: I wonder why you're getting in a traffic gym because
Speaker 5: you're listening to the wrong voice. But I need you
Speaker 5: to be aware of the voice of the orphan who
Speaker 5: is echoing, chattering in your ear. And you've become so
Speaker 5: familiar with it, it's become white. It's just happening. And
Speaker 5: the devil doesn't have to stand on your shoulder accusing
Speaker 5: you anymore. You just hear repeat, He's left you, He's
Speaker 5: on to somebody else. You just keep repeating. Moses had
Speaker 5: been repeating this track, this soundtrack for forty years.
Speaker 3: He's eighty.
Speaker 5: Now God shows up in Exodus three. God's going to
Speaker 5: come to him and he says, I need you to
Speaker 5: do something and watch the cadence of the conversation between
Speaker 5: God and Moses. Now as you hear the voice of
Speaker 5: the orphan spirit speaking through Moses. I pray that you
Speaker 5: hear your voice, because you and I bring the same
Speaker 5: response to a holy God who's called us to something.
Speaker 5: And Moses is responding from a place.
Speaker 3: I think it's this orphan spirit.
Speaker 5: And in Exodus chapter three, verse nine, it starts with this,
Speaker 5: God's gonna come to him. And you'll see this back
Speaker 5: and forth five times. It's fascinating to watch this thing happening.
Speaker 5: In verse nine, he says, and now the crime the Israeli, says,
Speaker 5: reached me, and I've seen the way the Egyptians are
Speaker 5: oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to
Speaker 5: Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites out of Egypt.
Speaker 3: You figure, God said it, go do it? Amen?
Speaker 5: No, not the orphan spirit. How does Moses respond? He
Speaker 5: says this, He says, but Moses said to God, who
Speaker 5: am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring
Speaker 5: the Israelites out of Egypt. Here's what I think he's saying.
Speaker 5: When I hear that, here's the first sound. The response
Speaker 5: of the orphan spirit is I can't do that.
Speaker 3: I can't do that.
Speaker 5: And some of you have become really good at this response,
Speaker 5: and you blame God for your disobedience, Well.
Speaker 3: I feel is why I should pray about that.
Speaker 5: No, you were just interjecting some Christians to justify your disobedience.
Speaker 3: Insecurity is driving your.
Speaker 5: Decision and you're not even creating a space for God
Speaker 5: to speak.
Speaker 3: You have predetermined the answer. Now, what's the question. The
Speaker 3: answer is, I can't do it. What's your question? I
Speaker 3: can't do that. What's the question? Some it's the orphan
Speaker 3: spirit in you.
Speaker 5: When you're lived life driven by insecurity and doubt, you
Speaker 5: don't see any situation that would be favorable.
Speaker 3: To you winning. I can't do that. I can't do that. God.
Speaker 5: I have been praying that the words of the Orthan
Speaker 5: that we're going to talk about would become bitter in
Speaker 5: your mouth, so that as they become spoken, they would
Speaker 5: prompt you to say, Nope, you don't have to live
Speaker 5: that way. You do not have to live that way.
Speaker 5: That's part of the vocabulary of the orphan. I can't
Speaker 5: do that. And God is so gracious. I don't know
Speaker 5: how you picture God. And sometimes we'll paint a picture
Speaker 5: like the God of the Old Testament is the God
Speaker 5: of wrath.
Speaker 3: I don't see wrath.
Speaker 5: In this conversation with Moses, I see a loving God.
Speaker 5: I don't know what has shaped your picture of God,
Speaker 5: because the reality is the Father often gives a The
Speaker 5: earthly Father shapes how we see our heavenly Father.
Speaker 3: Some of you have a skewed picture of.
Speaker 5: Your heavenly Father because the earthly Father isn't what you
Speaker 5: would have wanted, or your own decisions brought you a
Speaker 5: place that you rejected it.
Speaker 3: But that God is.
Speaker 5: Gracious and he leans in, and God's gonna come back. Okay,
Speaker 5: Round two, that didn't work. Okay, here we go Moses,
Speaker 5: and God said, I will be with you, and this
Speaker 5: will be a sign to you that it is I
Speaker 5: who sent you. When you have brought the people out
Speaker 5: of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Here
Speaker 5: is Moses's second response, This is part.
Speaker 3: Of the vocabulary. I hope you're writing this down.
Speaker 5: I hope you're capturing in this in a way that
Speaker 5: you would start to examine yourself and let it be
Speaker 5: a filter that you start to let everything flow through.
Speaker 5: Am I responding with an orphan spirit or the spirit
Speaker 5: of a.
Speaker 3: Son or daughter.
Speaker 5: That's what we're gonna break down today. We're gonna get surgical.
Speaker 5: But they need you to understand the subtle sounds of
Speaker 5: the orphan that is causing you.
Speaker 3: To forfeit your destiny.
Speaker 5: You will forfeit more more territory than the devil will
Speaker 5: ever steal. And it's in these subtle places of the shadows,
Speaker 5: in the margins, where you don't believe God. So the
Speaker 5: second response, God says this, and this says Then Moses said.
Speaker 3: To God's second round.
Speaker 5: Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them,
Speaker 5: the God of your fathers has sent me to you,
Speaker 5: and they ask me what is his name?
Speaker 3: Then what should I tell them?
Speaker 5: Here's what I think his response is saying, is the
Speaker 5: second response of the orphan's fears.
Speaker 3: How will I look?
Speaker 5: He wasn't concerned how they saw God. He was looking
Speaker 5: out for himself. What if they don't believe me?
Speaker 3: What if they don't like me? He's so looking out
Speaker 3: for himself. Here's what orphans do.
Speaker 5: Orphans are always looking out for themselves because they can
Speaker 5: never be sure if anyone else is. Orphans are obsessed
Speaker 5: with how they look. What we do is projection. We
Speaker 5: project We.
Speaker 3: Think everybody sees us the way we see ourselves.
Speaker 5: We project I've got the worst name it's possible of
Speaker 5: how I see myself, and I think that's your starting point.
Speaker 5: How many of you are project Oh I am such
Speaker 5: a projector. My biggest fear in life is this, my
Speaker 5: wife would think about me what I feel about myself.
Speaker 5: Because if one thing, if I think it, is another
Speaker 5: thing that she felt it, if she thought it or failure,
Speaker 5: it'd be over. Why would I tell her something that
Speaker 5: I struggle with. That's the enemy, that's the voice of
Speaker 5: the orphan, because love covers, but orphans always cover it up.
Speaker 5: Here's what I want to teach you, the gift of
Speaker 5: self awareness. But I need you to teach you from
Speaker 5: the seat of the sun, not the orphan self aware,
Speaker 5: from the son or the daughter God. How do you
Speaker 5: see me? That's self aware? It is recognizing that I've
Speaker 5: got a father who sees me correct the way I
Speaker 5: see myself.
Speaker 3: I am self aware. How do you see me? Oh?
Speaker 3: That was wrong.
Speaker 5: I shouldn't have said that. But the orphan, Oh you're wrong,
Speaker 5: You're just an idiot. One is an identity.
Speaker 3: One is a behavior.
Speaker 5: You need to understand that God always validates the identity.
Speaker 5: Self aware, self conscious, here's how I think everybody else
Speaker 5: sees me, and here's how I see myself. Most of
Speaker 5: you are self conscious, and you're calling it self aware.
Speaker 5: But the orphan spirit will always make you feel self conscious.
Speaker 5: But the spirit of a son or a daughter, No, no, no,
Speaker 5: it'll make you self aware.
Speaker 3: You're right. I shouldn't have said that. God, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: Please forgive me versus. Oh, you're a horrible person. God
Speaker 3: is gracious.
Speaker 5: He's continuing this conversation because he wants to bring Moses
Speaker 5: along with this journey. He's not just giving him a
Speaker 5: one and done. Some of you feel like God's one
Speaker 5: and done with me. He gave you that chance.
Speaker 3: I'm on to the next.
Speaker 5: That's not our God, that's not what I just see
Speaker 5: displayed in the scriptures. I see a God who's in
Speaker 5: the conversation, who's with you, who's walking alongside of you. Yes,
Speaker 5: you bring him ninety nine excuses. He's gonna keep coming
Speaker 5: to you one hundred times, and so the conversation continues.
Speaker 5: In verse eighteen, he says this, Yes, he says, the
Speaker 5: elders of Israel will listen to you. God says to Moses,
Speaker 5: he says, then you and the elders are to go
Speaker 5: to the King of Egypt and say to him, the Lord,
Speaker 5: the God of.
Speaker 3: The Keepers, has met us.
Speaker 5: Let us take a three day journey into the willingness
Speaker 5: to offer sacrifices to the Lord, our God. But I
Speaker 5: know that the King of Egypt will not let you
Speaker 5: go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will
Speaker 5: stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all
Speaker 5: the wonders that I perform among them, and then he
Speaker 5: will let you go.
Speaker 3: Moses, do you see.
Speaker 5: That I'm going to provide for you? Do you see
Speaker 5: that I'm going to make every way for you? Do
Speaker 5: you see that I'm the one running this thing?
Speaker 3: Anyway?
Speaker 5: All you have to do is show up. Here's Moses's response,
Speaker 5: first one of chapter four, and Moses answer, what if
Speaker 5: they don't believe me? You're listen to me and they
Speaker 5: say the Lord did not appear to you. The third
Speaker 5: sound of the orphan spirit is they won't accept me.
Speaker 5: I think that's what Moses is saying here. There's a
Speaker 5: profound sense of rejection. Rejection. Here's the reality when you're
Speaker 5: comes into your life. Because we all start out. I
Speaker 5: think showing up with high expectations. I'm expecting, and then
Speaker 5: you get punched in the mouth and you get rejection.
Speaker 3: What happens to your expectations.
Speaker 5: You lower them to the level of your expirit so
Speaker 5: you no longer experience disappointment anymore. Some of you started
Speaker 5: out with an expectation that would make you rise up.
Speaker 5: Now it's fall into the place where you're tripping over it.
Speaker 5: Not because you don't love God. You fear rejection. We
Speaker 5: talked about projection. I want to talk about projection because
Speaker 5: those of us that are familiar with rejection, we project
Speaker 5: I am going to reject you before you reject me,
Speaker 5: because I don't want to go through that anymore. That's
Speaker 5: why you're on your third marriage. That's why you can't
Speaker 5: keep friends. That's why you keep popping from church to
Speaker 5: church to church, because you are protecting yourself. You're prejecting.
Speaker 5: I don't want experience that again. So rather than go
Speaker 5: through it, I will keep you at a distance, and
Speaker 5: I with it gets too close, I will reject you.
Speaker 3: Because I don't I don't know if that will be
Speaker 3: accept it.
Speaker 5: How many of us are orphans living in a place
Speaker 5: of such fear of rejection. It does not let us
Speaker 5: receive the love of the people that are around us.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: One person clapped. I appreciate that, And God continues in
Speaker 5: verse eight. Is this helping anybody?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 5: Verse eight of chapter four. Then the Lord said, look
Speaker 5: how gracious God is. He's putting up with all of
Speaker 5: his excuses.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah. I'd be like on with them
Speaker 3: enough already. But God is so gracious.
Speaker 5: And he says, if they don't believe you and pay
Speaker 5: attention to the first sign, they will maybe believe the second.
Speaker 5: But if they don't believe these two signs, or listen,
Speaker 5: do you take some water from the nile, pour down
Speaker 5: on the dry ground. The water you take from the
Speaker 5: river will become blood in the ground. Now, Moses says,
Speaker 5: verse ten, pardon your servant, Lord, I've never been eloquent,
Speaker 5: neither in the past nor since I've spoken.
Speaker 3: To your servant.
Speaker 5: I am slow and speech and tongue. Here's the sound
Speaker 5: of the orphan there. It's like, I'm not enough. Here's
Speaker 5: what scarcity does in our lives and rejection does. It
Speaker 5: starts with I don't have enough, it moves on to
Speaker 5: I'm not good enough. Then eventually it stands in the
Speaker 5: place of I'll never be enough. We grew up really poor,
Speaker 5: like free government cheese, poor as a kid, and so
Speaker 5: that mindset of an orphan who had no money.
Speaker 3: I might be able to buy new clothes right now,
Speaker 3: but I still feel like a third grader eating a
Speaker 3: cheese sandwich. I remember we were so poor.
Speaker 5: When I would go to the gas station, I will
Speaker 5: only put two dollars worth of gas in that a time,
Speaker 5: because that's all I could afford. I remember in college
Speaker 5: I got a credit card. Don't do that, don't give
Speaker 5: your kid a credit card. And I remember using my
Speaker 5: credit card for the very first time. I go to
Speaker 5: the gas station. I'm like, I'm putting ten dollars worth
Speaker 5: of gas in this car. I have lived in large
Speaker 5: today ten bucks in the car, baby, and I run
Speaker 5: the card and I'm staring at the thing. I've been
Speaker 5: waiting my whole life to say, not approved in every
Speaker 5: area of my life because the reality is, it wasn't
Speaker 5: my fear that my dad didn't love me. The deepest
Speaker 5: fear is I wasn't worth loving. And when that orphan
Speaker 5: spirit drowns you into the ground and beats you up,
Speaker 5: it makes you feel like you're not even worth loving
Speaker 5: because I'm not good enough. And then God still doesn't
Speaker 5: give up on him.
Speaker 3: Most as you're my boy, most as I got you.
Speaker 5: I picked you not because you're eloquent, not because you're good,
Speaker 5: because you're mind.
Speaker 3: I picked you because I'm sovereign and your mind.
Speaker 5: If I were looking for eloquence, I would have passed
Speaker 5: by you long ago. But the way God picks is
Speaker 5: not what you and I use. And so God comes
Speaker 5: to him another time, and he said, if God says
Speaker 5: this in verse eleven, he says, the Lord said to him,
Speaker 5: who gave human beings their mouths? God is like stepping
Speaker 5: the the game. Who gave them their mouths? Who made
Speaker 5: them deaf or mute? Who gives them sir or makes
Speaker 5: them blind?
Speaker 3: Is it not I? The Lord? Now go, I will
Speaker 3: help you speak and teach you what to say. God's
Speaker 3: like I got all your excuses covered. Verse thirteen. Moses
Speaker 3: has pardoned your servant, Lord, Please send someone else.
Speaker 5: I think the fifth sound of the orphan spirit, the
Speaker 5: orphan heart is I'm going to fail, and some of
Speaker 5: you will always play it safe because you never want
Speaker 5: to fail, because the reality is when you live life
Speaker 5: is an orphan It's one thing between failing and the
Speaker 5: whole other thing to be a fail year.
Speaker 3: That's what the orphan spirit does.
Speaker 5: And outside of Christ, we would close the book and
Speaker 5: we'd be done with a sermon, because that's all this
Speaker 5: available as orphan spirits. But the story does not end there,
Speaker 5: because we serve a great God, and there's a whole
Speaker 5: other side of the sermon. And I'm about to preach.
Speaker 5: I'm about to show you the God that we serve.
Speaker 5: I'm about to bring the God who loves you.
Speaker 3: For your life.
Speaker 5: Some of you so identify, and I get the moments
Speaker 5: of silence because I'm getting really close. Because the orphan
Speaker 5: spirit is an equal opportunity employer.
Speaker 3: The matter race age is going to try to enslave
Speaker 3: every single one of you.
Speaker 5: But here's the scripture I want to speak over you
Speaker 5: is in Romans chapter eight, verses fourteen to seventeen. This
Speaker 5: is the good News of the Gospel. Here it says,
Speaker 5: for those who are led by the Spirit of God
Speaker 5: are the children of God.
Speaker 3: Oh this makes me happy just reading this. The spirit
Speaker 3: you received does not make you slave, so that you
Speaker 3: live in fear again.
Speaker 5: You see what he's speaking there because the orphan spirit
Speaker 5: is what happens outside of Jesus. It can still be
Speaker 5: what you go to in Jesus because it makes you
Speaker 5: a slave, and it's driven by fear. That's the orphan spirit.
Speaker 5: That's the old spirit. That's the one that died. But
Speaker 5: he keeps popping his head back up. That's how you were.
Speaker 5: But this is not who you have to be. And
Speaker 5: he says, so that you live in fear. But the spirit, rather,
Speaker 5: the spirit you received, brought about your.
Speaker 3: Adoption to sonship. And by him we cry abba Father.
Speaker 5: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit though we are
Speaker 5: God's children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs,
Speaker 5: heirs of God and co heirs of Christ.
Speaker 3: That is good news. That means that all who have
Speaker 3: received the Holy Spirit have been adopted and we have
Speaker 3: the right to become children of God.
Speaker 5: Not because of your performance, because the orphan spirit is
Speaker 5: always trying to prove itself through the performance. If I
Speaker 5: could just do it a little bit better, if I
Speaker 5: could say it a little bit more articulate, maybe just
Speaker 5: maybe I'd get picked. That's not what it means to
Speaker 5: be adopted as son or daughter of the Most I
Speaker 5: got this, You're adopted into sonship. We do a lot
Speaker 5: of ship in church, fellowship, discipleship, leadership, but it all
Speaker 5: starts with sonship. That's the foundation for everything you'll build on.
Speaker 3: Is that.
Speaker 5: And I love the scripture that you've been adopted as
Speaker 5: sons and daughters of the Most High God, and it
Speaker 5: means that you are co heirs. Here's what that scripture
Speaker 5: really means. It means you got access and you got inheritance.
Speaker 5: You mean I am a co heir with Jesus. It
Speaker 5: means I got all the access Jesus.
Speaker 3: Have I have. You mean all the rights and benefits
Speaker 3: that Jesus got I got.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's the good news, son or daughter of the
Speaker 5: Most that God.
Speaker 3: You have that access and you have that inheritance.
Speaker 5: That's for all of us who have received Jesus as
Speaker 5: our lord and saver, being forgiven of our sins. We
Speaker 5: have been adopted as sons and daughters of the Most God.
Speaker 5: But here's what I realize is when I as a
Speaker 5: pastor in anybody who wants to leave, when I'm driven
Speaker 5: by the orphan spirit, I will build an orphanage and
Speaker 5: not a church. Here's the reality I wish I could
Speaker 5: say I have perfected this a week ago.
Speaker 3: I get on my son so hard and.
Speaker 5: It's completely me speaking from an orphan spirit, and I
Speaker 5: so hurt him. I had to go to him after
Speaker 5: and say, man, I'm so sorry, buddy, forgive me for that.
Speaker 3: I'm still in process.
Speaker 5: I'm still in motion that little orphan and pops her
Speaker 5: head up really often in my life. But what I
Speaker 5: have through the person of Jesus is the ability to
Speaker 5: take that thought captive, make it obedient to him and
Speaker 5: how do I want to operate? So I had to
Speaker 5: ask my son for forgiveness. I'm still working on it.
Speaker 5: But for those of us who call Elevation Church home,
Speaker 5: here's why you love this church so much. Because Pastor
Speaker 5: Steven has been my pastor for twenty years.
Speaker 3: But he's more than my pastor. He's my spiritual father.
Speaker 5: He's the one that made me feel seen and known,
Speaker 5: and he made me feel like I was home.
Speaker 3: He made me feel like I belonged. And for all
Speaker 3: of you that call Elevation Church home, aren't you glad
Speaker 3: that we've got a pastor who's a father, who's creating
Speaker 3: a house where you're gonna have to prove yourself in
Speaker 3: this place. Oh my goodness. Oh, but I want to
Speaker 3: take a second to say, how do you see God?
Speaker 3: How do you see him?
Speaker 5: Do you picture to him with a furrowed brow, arms crossed,
Speaker 5: waiting in disappointment, judging every one of your decisions based
Speaker 5: upon what's the image you see? Is it a face
Speaker 5: filled with kindness? Or is it a distant God who
Speaker 5: isn't personal to you? Because you'll never feel like you're
Speaker 5: a son when your father is distant. So when we
Speaker 5: use the term abba father, it's only used three times
Speaker 5: in the New Testament. It's the most tender term of God.
Speaker 5: It means father, it means dad, it means intimacy, It
Speaker 5: means he's close, and it means he loves you, and
Speaker 5: he means he's in this thing with you.
Speaker 3: How do you picture God? Because I cannot see myself
Speaker 3: as a son if I have a bad picture of
Speaker 3: my father. Oh, I got to start with how do
Speaker 3: I see God?
Speaker 5: And I want to go to a familiar passage, but
Speaker 5: I want to frame it through a way of helping
Speaker 5: you learn how to see God differently. It's gonna be
Speaker 5: the story of the prodigal son. Some of you you've
Speaker 5: heard it so many times. Cool, that's fine. I want
Speaker 5: to go through it in this way, and I want
Speaker 5: you to.
Speaker 3: See God a little bit different. Here's the review of
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 5: He's got two sons in this story of the prodigal Son.
Speaker 3: It's out of Luke chapter fifteen.
Speaker 5: The younger son is like, Dad, I wish you were dead,
Speaker 5: because if you were dead then I could have your inheritance.
Speaker 5: I don't want to wait until you're dead. So how
Speaker 5: about you give it to me now so I can
Speaker 5: go enjoy it. And here's the reality. God is good.
Speaker 3: And sometimes you'll be asking God for what you want,
Speaker 3: but it's not what you need. Oh, some of the
Speaker 3: worst things that happened in your life is you got
Speaker 3: what you wanted. Ah.
Speaker 5: And he got what he wanted, and he went to
Speaker 5: Vegas and he got naked and crazy.
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 5: In the passage he goes off and he squanders this
Speaker 5: living in wild living, squanders it and he wakes up
Speaker 5: in a pig pen one day. Now, remember this is
Speaker 5: the son who rejected his father. This is a good dad.
Speaker 5: But he woke up in a pigpen and he starts
Speaker 5: rehearsing his orphan speech. I'm no longer worthy to be
Speaker 5: called your son. Treat me like one of your hired slaves.
Speaker 3: Give me that, Give me that. Romans eighth fifteen passage again.
Speaker 5: Says he said, the spirit you're received does not make
Speaker 5: you slaves, so that you live in fear. Again, here's
Speaker 5: a son who was loved by his father. Because of
Speaker 5: his decisions, he woke up in a pig pen. I said,
Speaker 5: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat
Speaker 5: me like one of your hired slaves. And he starts
Speaker 5: out in this journey to come back to his father.
Speaker 5: Here's what I would want to speak over some of
Speaker 5: you today. You did not come to church coming home
Speaker 5: to the father. You are creating in the in image
Speaker 5: of God. There's an indelible mark that's been left on you.
Speaker 5: And though you are in a pig pen, there's something
Speaker 5: that says I'm created for more than this.
Speaker 3: That's the Holy Spirit prompting you, calling you back to
Speaker 3: your father. That's the God that we serve.
Speaker 5: Even in his lowest moment, he knew that if I
Speaker 5: could just get back to my dad, I'm not worthy
Speaker 5: to be called your son. But just if I can
Speaker 5: get there, and he sets out in this journey, walking
Speaker 5: this walk of shame, hands in his pocket, shuffling his feet,
Speaker 5: head down, shoulders slumped, the posture of an orphan who
Speaker 5: doesn't feel good enough to be picked. And in the passage,
Speaker 5: the father he always knew his son would come back home.
Speaker 5: And he says when he saw him at a distance,
Speaker 5: his heart was filled with compassion, not contempt, not condemnation,
Speaker 5: not criticism. You need to know that Abba, his heart
Speaker 5: is compassionate towards you.
Speaker 3: He sees you. And what did that compassion do? It
Speaker 3: made him run to his son.
Speaker 5: The son just move towards the dad, and the dad
Speaker 5: came running to him.
Speaker 3: That's Abba, father.
Speaker 5: If you just turn to him, you just look towards
Speaker 5: him and moved, he will come running towards you. That's Abba, father.
Speaker 5: What's the look on the dad's face? Tears because he
Speaker 5: was broken that his son had to walk through that.
Speaker 5: And the son starts giving his orphan speech, Dad, I'm.
Speaker 3: No longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me.
Speaker 3: He just said, Let's give him a name. Let's call
Speaker 3: him paul.
Speaker 5: Little Paulie would walk around the house when he was
Speaker 5: a little boy. He'd play with all of his daddy's
Speaker 5: things because he knew he was his dad's son. Paul
Speaker 5: and Paul went to the pig pin. Paul woke up
Speaker 5: one day and said, I need to go back to
Speaker 5: my father.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: The father, at a distance, sees his Paul. You see,
Speaker 5: sometimes we don't make God personal.
Speaker 3: He's so personal. He knows your name, Paul, that's my
Speaker 3: baby boy.
Speaker 5: And his heart was broken that his son had to
Speaker 5: experience that rejection. And he runs to him and he
Speaker 5: meets him and the son starts giving him a speech.
Speaker 3: He's like, it's like, my son who is dead is alive?
Speaker 1: I can.
Speaker 5: And then he puts a See, here's the thing, because
Speaker 5: co air means you've got access and you've got inheritance.
Speaker 5: In that culture, when the son disrespected his father like that,
Speaker 5: he would have never been allowed to come back into
Speaker 5: his father's presence.
Speaker 3: That's what religion always does.
Speaker 5: It says, based upon your behavior and your performance, you
Speaker 5: know no longer worthy, so go get right and then
Speaker 5: you can come back into his presence.
Speaker 3: That's religion. That's not a god. That's not the god
Speaker 3: that we serve.
Speaker 5: Because the town's elders would never have allowed that son
Speaker 5: to come back into his father's presence again. They would
Speaker 5: have met that boy on the road, taken him behind
Speaker 5: the woodshed and beaten him, because that's what his performance deserved.
Speaker 5: Why is the father running to get to the sun
Speaker 5: one because his heart is filled with compassion, and too.
Speaker 3: Is he needed to get there before the mob?
Speaker 5: Because no, no, you've got unlimited access to me because
Speaker 5: you're my son, not because of what you did, not
Speaker 5: because of who you know, but you are my son.
Speaker 3: This son of mine who was dead is alive again.
Speaker 5: And then he says, put a robe on him, it's
Speaker 5: his inheritance, because that's your kingship, his inheritance. Put a
Speaker 5: ring on his finger, it's the authority. You never lost
Speaker 5: the authority. It's always been yours all along. And then
Speaker 5: what's amazing is he put sandals on his feet. You
Speaker 5: know what the difference between a slave and his son was.
Speaker 5: Slaves didn't wear shoes, sons did. He's re establishing his
Speaker 5: sonship that he never lost.
Speaker 3: A'b a father. His heart is filled with compassion, and
Speaker 3: he came running to him.
Speaker 5: But as I was studying for this, I became fascinated
Speaker 5: because there's this other son. He was out working on
Speaker 5: the back forty He shows up.
Speaker 3: Because they're gonna have a party.
Speaker 5: The dad's like, hey, kill the fatted calf, throw the
Speaker 5: brisket on the trigger, let's eat, let's go. And so
Speaker 5: the son shows up and he starts smelling the aroma
Speaker 5: of meat, and he hears the party, and he's like,
Speaker 5: what's going on?
Speaker 3: They told me your son or your brother? He's back.
Speaker 5: Look how the sun responded the other son. So you
Speaker 5: got Paul the prodigal. This is Patrick. I'm gonna call
Speaker 5: him Patrick the prideful Luke fifteen, verse twenty says the
Speaker 5: older brother became angry and he refused to go win.
Speaker 3: The father went out and pleated with him.
Speaker 5: Look at the position of the posture of the father.
Speaker 5: He goes to him. He goes to both sons. One
Speaker 5: was a prodigal who smelled like last night, and the
Speaker 5: other one who's been working for a reward that was
Speaker 5: not his father's relationship.
Speaker 3: I wonder how many of us think that God owes
Speaker 3: us something.
Speaker 5: He was angry, refused to go and so he father
Speaker 5: went out and he pleaded with him. But he answered
Speaker 5: his father, look all these years i've been slaving. You
Speaker 5: mean the son who was in the house of himself
Speaker 5: as an orphan too, because he was working for the reward,
Speaker 5: not the relationship. He got two orphans in this home.
Speaker 5: And I've never disobeyed you. You never gave me even
Speaker 5: a young coach. So I can celebrate with my friends.
Speaker 5: But when this son of yours, he's not even claiming
Speaker 5: him as his brother, this son of yours, when this
Speaker 5: son of your squander your property with prostitutes, comes home,
Speaker 5: you kill a fatic cap for him. My son, the
Speaker 5: father said, you will always be with me. Access and
Speaker 5: everything I have is yours inheritance. But we had to
Speaker 5: celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours is dead,
Speaker 5: is alive again. He was lost and is found. So
Speaker 5: in my Bible I changed the label of that passage.
Speaker 5: It's the prodigal son, the prideful son.
Speaker 3: And abba Father. How do you see God?
Speaker 5: A God who's filled with compassion and kindness, or God
Speaker 5: who's got a scorecard just marking down the mistakes you make?
Speaker 3: How do you see God? And this whole thing is
Speaker 3: created because we have access to God.
Speaker 5: Through Jesus Christ. And what you need to understand is
Speaker 5: when Jesus went on the cross. God had to abandon
Speaker 5: his son in that moment because the wrath that was
Speaker 5: intended for you and me needed to be laid on
Speaker 5: his son Jesus. So in that moment, his son felt
Speaker 5: rejected and he was abandoned. Jesus was orphaned on the cross,
Speaker 5: and Jesus.
Speaker 3: Cries, up, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Speaker 3: The greatest pain in the cross was not the nails.
Speaker 5: It was the separation from the Father, and.
Speaker 3: It felt like rejection.
Speaker 5: And what we need to understand is we've got a
Speaker 5: savior who has been tempted in every way with you
Speaker 5: are as I am. He is one who has been orphaned,
Speaker 5: and he knows what it feels like to be separated.
Speaker 5: But three days later, Father looks back towards the sun
Speaker 5: and he feels his pleasure and he rises in victory.
Speaker 3: That's the God that we serve. We have access because
Speaker 3: of the finished work of Jesus. But Jesus was preparing
Speaker 3: his disciples for the cross.
Speaker 5: He knew his assignment. They didn't take his life, he
Speaker 5: gave it up. He knew the assignment he was preparing
Speaker 5: them for when he would go to the cross. It
Speaker 5: says this in John Chapter fourteen, Verse six team He says,
Speaker 5: and I will ask the Father and he will give
Speaker 5: you another advocate to help you, because he's preparing for
Speaker 5: them when they're going to feel like they're going to
Speaker 5: be rejected and they're going to be orphaned because the
Speaker 5: one that they had put all of their allegiance to
Speaker 5: for three years is now going to leave. And they
Speaker 5: didn't get it. But Jesus says, I've already prepared for
Speaker 5: that moment where you're going to feel orphaned. I've asked
Speaker 5: the Father, and he's going to send an advocate, the
Speaker 5: Holy Spirit, and to help you and be with you forever.
Speaker 5: Verse seventeen. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept
Speaker 5: him because another sees him or nor knows him, but
Speaker 5: you know him, for he lives in you and will
Speaker 5: be in you. Verse eighteen. He says, I will not
Speaker 5: leave you as orphans. Jesus knew that you and I
Speaker 5: will go through seasons where we will feel orphaned, where
Speaker 5: we will feel separated. But he sent the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 5: the Hell, the Guide, the pyrocle, the one to come
Speaker 5: and live.
Speaker 3: Inside of you.
Speaker 5: And because of that spirit, it gives us the right
Speaker 5: to cry out Abbah Father, because we've been adopted as
Speaker 5: sons and daughters of the Most High God.
Speaker 3: That's the God that we serve.
Speaker 5: And I was preparing for this sermon, I kept going
Speaker 5: back to that place of I just wanted to be
Speaker 5: with my Dad, the deepest cries in my heart, where
Speaker 5: I just want to be with you. I'm coming with
Speaker 5: But then I read the words of David who penned
Speaker 5: this as a boy, and I saw on one thirty
Speaker 5: nine verse sibiesis, but where can I go from your spirit?
Speaker 5: Where can I flee from your presence? Verse eight? If
Speaker 5: I go up to the heavens, you are there. If
Speaker 5: I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
Speaker 5: The deepest cry of my heart was to just be
Speaker 5: with my father. I'm coming with But in my heavenly Father,
Speaker 5: I found a God who says, I'm coming with you.
Speaker 3: If you go to the mountaintops, I'm coming with you.
Speaker 3: If you make your bed into depths, I'm coming with you.
Speaker 3: I'm not intimidated by your shame, I'm not put up
Speaker 3: by your mistakes. I'm a God who's coming.
Speaker 5: I'm coming with you.
Speaker 3: Stand your feet at all of our locations.
Speaker 5: The way to be adopted as a son or daughter
Speaker 5: of the Most High God, is they're confessing that you're
Speaker 5: a sinner, believing in your mouth that Jesus is your lord,
Speaker 5: and confessing that he died and rose again. And if
Speaker 5: you have never placed your faith in Jesus, if you've
Speaker 5: never been made a new creation.
Speaker 3: This is why God brought you here. He wants to
Speaker 3: forgive you of all of your sins. He wants to
Speaker 3: redeem you, and it wants to make you a s
Speaker 3: and a daughter.
Speaker 5: And what I want to speak over some of you men,
Speaker 5: I'm not your father, but I'm a father, and I
Speaker 5: would want you to hear from your heavenly father's voices,
Speaker 5: proud of you. You've been waiting your whole life to
Speaker 5: hear those words. He's proud of you, not what you did.
Speaker 5: He's proud of who you are. That's the God that
Speaker 5: we serve. And some of you have been keeping God
Speaker 5: at a distance because you feel like religion. I need
Speaker 5: to clean myself up before I come to him. That's
Speaker 5: the reason he died is because you couldn't do it. Maybe,
Speaker 5: just maybe this is the moment that God is breaking
Speaker 5: through all of that shame, all of that guilt, that
Speaker 5: has made you stand at a distance, and you keep
Speaker 5: defining yourself by your lowest moments. But God sees you
Speaker 5: according to your highest potential, and he loves you, and
Speaker 5: he brought this opportunity for you to be forgiven. And
Speaker 5: would you bow your heads, close your eyes, nobody moving.
Speaker 3: This is a holy moment.
Speaker 5: This is where sons and daughters are coming back to God.
Speaker 5: And if you have never placed your faith in Him,
Speaker 5: if you've never been forgiven of your sins, we are
Speaker 5: going to say a prayer together out loud for the
Speaker 5: benefit of somebody who's making this decision for the first
Speaker 5: time or coming back to him.
Speaker 3: Pray with me out loud, Church family. I believe that
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 5: Is the son of God who died in the cross
Speaker 5: and rose from the grave to forgive me of my sin.
Speaker 5: I give you my life, I give you my sin,
Speaker 5: I give you my shame. Forgive me, and I'll spend
Speaker 5: my life following you with your headst about in your
Speaker 5: eyes that closed. I'm going to count the three and
Speaker 5: when I get there, without hesitation, I need you to
Speaker 5: boldly shoot your hand in the air, declaring you are
Speaker 5: trusting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. On the count
Speaker 5: of three, one, two, three, should you hand up well,
Speaker 5: all across this auditorium, all across there auditorium.
Speaker 3: I'm all a's celebrate that sarch family. Let's celebrate that
Speaker 3: search family.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4: We pray that God has spoken to you in a
Speaker 4: unique and powerful way through the message.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: We are in our year in Offering season as a
Speaker 4: church where we get the opportunity to reflect back on
Speaker 4: all the ways that God has been faithful to our
Speaker 4: ministry this year, but also to look ahead at what
Speaker 4: we're believing God for in the upcoming year. And each
Speaker 4: year as a church, we get to come around a
Speaker 4: special offering and offering that contributes to both outreach efforts
Speaker 4: in local and global cities and as well as the
Speaker 4: expansion of our ministry continuing to reach people all over
Speaker 4: with the hope of the Gospel. And we'd invite you
Speaker 4: to take part and participate in our year end offering.
Speaker 4: To do so, you can go to Elevationchurch dot org.
Speaker 4: Just click the banner there at the top and then
Speaker 4: you'll be able to see everything that you need to
Speaker 4: be a part of our year end offering.
Speaker 2: You'll see two options. The first is to begin tithing.
Speaker 4: Maybe you've been wanting to prioritize God in your finances,
Speaker 4: but you haven't taken that step to make a commitment
Speaker 4: to doing so.
Speaker 2: This is a great place to begin.
Speaker 4: Or perhaps you've been giving consistently in this season, God
Speaker 4: may be challenging you to stretch above and beyond the
Speaker 4: tithe to give a sacrificial gift to our year end offering.
Speaker 4: If you're part of one of our physical locations, you
Speaker 4: can choose your campus there, or if you're part of
Speaker 4: our online ministry, of course you'll choose Epham or online
Speaker 4: and then enter the amount that you'd like to give.
Speaker 4: We are believing for all the ways that God is
Speaker 4: going to stretch our faith in this season through our
Speaker 4: year end offering, and we can't wait to see what
Speaker 4: God does through you.
Speaker 2: God bless and we'll see you soon.